construction

The dirty tricks of the Shrewsbury trials expose the dark heart of the radical 1970s - Paul Mason

Article by economist Paul Mason about the 1972 UK builders' strike that led to the Shrewsbury conspiracy trial. Reproduced here not as an endorsement of Mason's politics, but an interesting insight into worker radicalism in the UK in the 1970s.

Building a community: construction workers in Stevenage 1950-1970

Submitted by Anonymous on Jan 12 2016 13:53

Interesting pamphlet about the workers who built the new town of Stevenage, commissioned by the government in 1946. Constructed from interviews with the workers themselves, they discuss their disputes with the employers and their building of a community.

Battles on the Barbican: the struggle for trade unionism in the British building industry, 1965–7 - Charlie McGuire, Linda Clarke and Christine Wall

Submitted by Steven. on Jan 12 2016 12:34

Construction workers at the Barbican. Photograph by John Steeden.

History of the industrial disputes and workers' struggles on the Barbican construction site 1965-1967.

Building the Barbican 1962-1982: taking the industry out of the dark ages

Submitted by Anonymous on Jan 12 2016 12:25

Fantastic pamphlet on the workers' struggles during the construction of the brutalist masterpiece the Barbican in central London. Told largely in the words of the workers themselves.

Reflecting on injury and stolen wages at work - Megan Kinch

An account by Megan Kinch about working in the non-union construction industry in Toronto.

Talking to architects - Colin Ward

Ten lectures delivered to professional audiences by Colin Ward gathered over a period of 20 years. The talks explore trends and concepts within the architectural world and discuss attempts by both non-professionals and those within the architectural industries to challenge dominant narratives of the built environment.

Building the infrastructure state: plans, anti-politics and sullen refusal

Submitted by With Sober Senses on Sep 21 2014 11:45

The text of my paper that I presented at Historical Materialism Australasia 2014. I haven’t had much time to generate much new research so this paper serves two roles: it is a summation of the argument made in Roads to Nowhere – Capital’s Plan A and it introduces a new problem. This problem is that despite an existing and clear strategy for stimulating capital accumulation, a plan shared by many of the thinkers and political forces of capital, the state has not been able to effectively realise it.