Youth and new expressions of trade unionism in Chile: the case of fast food

Abstract

This article describes modes of political participation of fast-food workers' unions and their forms of expression in social networks. Through a netnography considering the Instagram social network accounts of eight unions, we analyze their communicational activism in a scenario of social and economic crisis resulting from the October social revolt (2019) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021). Results show that the socialization form of the 'new unionisms' can be categorized as follows: a) we are not only workers, we are citizens; b) young workers to be exploited; c) bodies and dissidences. Taking the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a reference, we discuss how these categories account for forms of agency and activism where young people define visions of society from new political subjectivities based on a gender perspective.