Globalization of unions

[Die Neue Zeit]

I've got a couple of articles on the globalization of unions:

Unions for a Global Economy (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042502409.html)


The United Steelworkers -- that venerable, Depression-era creation of John L. Lewis and New Deal labor policy -- entered into merger negotiations with two of Britain's largest unions (which are merging with each other next month) to create not only the first transatlantic but the first genuinely multinational trade union.

...

The story here, however, isn't the number of members but the adaptation of labor to the globalization of capital. The Ottawa declaration broke new ground, but the transnational coordination of unions has been building for more than a decade.

IBM Union’s Protest in Second Life Could Be a Trend Setting Event (http://www.localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/opinion/blogpost/1867324/)


The virtual strike in “Second Life” against IBM by the RSU union representing 9,000 workers in Italy is underway. And union officials see the avatar picks as setting a trend for the future.

However, what is believed to be the first virtual strike is more than workers’ avatars wearing strike T-shirts and carrying signs. The RSU and Union Network International have lined up support from other international unions, and IBM workers in 18 countries are expected to take part in today’s action.

And a couple of blogs, too:

Unions of the World, Unite! (http://errterr.blogspot.com/2007/01/unions-of-world-unite.html)


It seems only logical that unions would begin to expand globally; they're already pretty far behind the corporations.

Tech Workers Of The World Unite! Or Not (http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/05/it_workers_of_t.html)


Britain's Trade Union Congress--the country's umbrella labor group--wants to extend its reach to IT and call center workers in India. Its thinking: If business is going global, then unions also have to become multinational if they're to remain relevant and have a place in a Friedmanesque "flat world."

Friday Teleconference Questions for SEIU President Andy Stern (http://bigbrassblog.com/index.php?blogid=1&archive=2007-12-12)


Consistent with my own suspicion of sweeping, comprehensive solutions, especially ones that involve a government that can turn on a dime from beneficent to brutish, it seems to me that the internationalization of unions, especially an internationalization into countries with younger labor forces that could make healthcare plans actuarially very sound, would be a powerful tool for union recruiting in the United States, as well as a way to make labor standards in other countries, particularly those in developing nations, far better than they are now. Offering Americans a more sound, more secure healthcare coverage basis (with, perhaps, an umbrella provided by the federal government) would attract dues-paying workers here at home; bringing higher labor standards to other countries would afford workers there a better life; and globalization of labor unions would make them politically more robust to the particulars of any given government in any given country and could, in fact, become a bulwark against tyranny. As grand as all of that sounds, I would submit that, unless unions in the United States are willing to reach out, take control of the labor side of globalization, and use it to their advantage for their members, then that globalization is going to remain in the exclusive control of corporate interests and the governments bought and paid for by those anti-worker interests.



Anyhow, what is the potential for the globalization of the labour movement, in and of itself, as well for the purpose of raising class consciousness (probably through a highly organized international communist party proper)?



[To left-communists: I haven't seen any ICC commentaries on this phenomenon.]

[RebelDog]

I think global unions should be the proletariat response to capitalist globalisation. We should 'globalise' our movement. I would imagine the bourgeoisie would be more determined than usual to stop this trend as it would make the whole more powerful than the sum of its parts. Imagine if we had a CNT style global union that was as strong worldwide than the CNT was back in 1930's Spain. We would be counting the days until the destruction of capitalism. They cannot resist that strength. Global unions are the way forward but I would stress that the workers must run them democratically.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ On that last remark, how? There may still be national obstacles present, and for all we know they could have a structure similar to that of the rather undemocratic (by bourgeois standards, too) European Union.

[Alf]

jacob: most left communists would respond to your question by saying that the 'globalisation' of unions can only represent capitalism's need to have an internationally coordinated apparatus of control that can prevent workers' struggles from breaking across national boundaries. For example: the unions at Airbus in Europe coordinated their strategy with regard to the spontaneous strikes of workers protesting against a Europe-wide redudancy plan. But the aim of this strategy was to prevent the struggle spreading out of their control.

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/303/airbus

But however much the unions develop international links and even mergers, capitalism remains fundamentally national in its mode of organisation, and the trade unions will always remain loyal to the national economy and the national capital.

[RedAnarchist]

One problem with global unions, in my opinion, is that trade unions will come across varying problems. For example, a trade union in Britain will probably be quite different to one in Peru or Bangladesh. These differences include cultural, economic, legal etc. I'm sure most of these problems won't be too big to get rid of, but wouldn't there be some problems that would just be too big for a global union to face?

[Enragé]

global unions would be good, as long as they are decentralised (for the reason pointed out by Red Anarchist) and democratic, problem is, right now there isnt a large union which even comes close to this. Still, if the unions went global, so would the possibilities of those radicals inside the unions (which is a place where every revolutionary should be, in the absence of a revolutionary union) of linking up with revolutionaries in other countries.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Now, what about the consolidation of trade union federations, like the International Trade Union Confederation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Trade_Union_Confederation)?

[RNK]

First, are unions really "our movement"? The majority of unions today are putrid beauraucratic quagmires which juggle a policy of worker's interests, union leaders' collection of dues and cowing to upper management.

But I suppose if its the best we can do... increased globalization of unions would be a good thing, particuarly if this spreads to the third world -- the effect of creating real links with the working classes of the first and third worlds would be interesting. Would western workers strike to help their much poorer brethren? Or is this affair to be a "whites only" club?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I have said before and again that unions need to be transcended. The "One Big Union" statement of the revolutionary Marxist James Connolly should be reinterpreted to refer to some future mass workers' organization encompassing the whole country (if not the whole world, for the sake of the emergence of an international socialist party proper).

However, like you've probably said again and again, outright rejection of trade unions is an exhibition of someone having an "infantile disorder."

[gilhyle]

Yeah I think it is - unless workers can counter the arbitrage of different labour markets that capital is currently engaged in, there is no way to push capitalism into a corner. It will always be able to impose the cost of each of its economic and political crises onto workers unless/until they can unite to refuse to be divided internationally. There just is no other answer.

Of course it is difficult. In particular the working class of the main imperialist countries will come face to face with the hard task of choosing to fight with their fellow workers from imperialised countries against capital rather than against their fellow workers in defence of social democratic priviledge and protectionism.