‘Communities of resistance’ and the use of newspaper discussion boards: Polish workers in Japanese foreign investments

• Author: Jane Hardy,Maciej Bancarzewski
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12091
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017

160 New Technology, Work and Employment © 2017 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and

John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

New Technology, Work and Employment 32:2

ISSN 1468-005X

‘Communities of resistance’ and the use

of newspaper discussion boards: Polish

workers in Japanese foreign investments

Maciej Bancarzewski and Jane Hardy

This article examines the content of 200 posts on newspaper dis-

cussion boards by workers in a cluster of Japanese foreign in-

vestments in Poland. The conclusions are first, that the material

experiences of workers generate a set of themes in relation to the

labour process with regard to wages and working conditions,

bullying and monitoring that exhibit similarities across coun-

tries. Second, we argue that an analysis of the discourse used is

shaped by political and institutional conditions, which reveal

national differences in how workers perceive and locate their ex-

ploitation. Finally, in relation to debates about workers’ resis-

tance and the use of the Internet we argue that the interaction of

themes related to the material experience of work are intertwined

with institutionally embedded understandings of exploitation,

which not only enable a shared framework for venting, but also

provide the basis for a community of resistance.

Keywords: Poland, Internet, discussion boards, discourse, in-

stitutions and structures, foreign direct investment.

Introduction

There is a growing body of literature that addresses issues related to the organisation

and resistance of workers through the internet. One strand relates to the potential of

the Internet in trade union organisation (Fitzgerald et al., 2012; Upchurch and Grassman,

2015) and the important role that it has played in campaigning against employers

(Collinson and Ackroyd, 2005). Some have argued that Internet campaigning should

be accorded the same status as informal or unofficial trade union activity (Carter et al.,

2003; Saundry et al., 2007) and that it can stimulate more democratic discussion through

‘distributed power’ (Hogan et al., 2010). The most salient strand of enquiry, however,

focuses on how far the Internet should be considered to be a form of accommodation

or resistance to poor workplace practices and conditions of employment. Drawing on

the concept of communities of coping (Korczynski, 2003), Cohen and Richards (2015)

characterise Facebook activity as a self- organised coping practice. In other situations it

has been suggested that the use of satire and humour, and the growth of Internet mis-

behaviour more generally (Richards, 2007, 2008, 2012), constitute a form of resistance

Maciej Bancarzewski, (m.bancarzewski@herts.ac.uk), is a Lecturer in Economics and an Early Career

Researcher, University of Hertfordshire, Business School. His current research interest concern the la-

bour process in transforming economies and foreign direct investment and Jane Hardy is Professor of

Political Economy at the University of Hertfordshire Business School. Her research interests are the

transformation of the Polish economy and Polish labour in particular. More recently, her research has

focused on the cross mobility of labour in an enlarged Europe and the challenges that this poses for

organised labour and trade unions in creating soildarity across borders.