Mobilisation as organising under outsourcing and subcontracting: Collective capacity,solidarity and power in fragmented labour markets

Abstract

The fragmentation of employment relations through outsourcing and subcontracting has weakened the institutional foundations that historically sustained collective worker organisation. In this context, mobilisation increasingly functions not only as a means of making claims, but as a mechanism through which collective organisation itself is produced. This article advances a sociological reconceptualisation of mobilisation as an organising process, rather than as an episodic tactic or a derivative of pre-existing organisational capacity. Drawing on qualitative interview data from two contrasting cases in Spain (Las Kellys, an association of outsourced hotel chambermaids, and the anti-outsourcing mobilisation of subcontracted technicians in the Telefónica (Movistar) supply chain), the article examines how mobilisation generates collective identity, organisational capacity and power resources under conditions of labour fragmentation. The findings show that solidarity is forged through struggle rather than preceding it, and that associational, symbolic and structural power are assembled through mobilisation. By situating these dynamics within an organising ecosystem that cuts across formal and informal actors, the article contributes to debates on labour, power and collective action under contemporary capitalism.