Author: Alex Wood

This was the message which emerged from plenary ‘What should the political vision and strategy of the international trade union movement be?‘ at the GLI International Summer School

The irony of globalisation, argued Sam Gindin of York University, is that the nation-state is now more important than ever. Without coordination by nation-sates at the international level, the global economic order would collapse into chaos. Strong national movements are therefore a prerequisite for an effective international labour movement.

Sam also highlighted how weak national unions often lead to ineffective internationalism, which can be detrimental to national labour movements. Peter Rossman from the International Union of Food Workers provided one example: a labour internationalism focused purely around attempts at lobbying international institutions. Such a strategy is a drain on scarce resources, destined for failure and legitimises international capital.

The role of the international labour movement, therefore, must be to support the strengthening of national unions and cross-national political solidarity of workers. It is crucial for unions to  explicitly commit to engaging in nation-state-level political struggle. Collective bargaining is by its nature limited in scope and cannot address many major issues facing workers. For example, in many countries a pressing struggle is the need to increase the level of employment.  The state is needed  to implement economic policies which benefit labour at the expense of capital, and unions must therefore engage in wider political struggle.

At the international level unions must also commit to spreading political struggle in order to build international solidarity. For example, the inspiring Greek resistance requires the support and solidarity of the German working class to successfully overcome the attacks of the EU Commission, IMF and European Central Bank.

Peter also explained how unlike the 1970s the current crisis is not one of profitability. Companies have made huge profits throughout the crisis and are now sitting on record surpluses. Yet rather than invest in production, which would help reduce unemployment, capital is instead attempting to squeeze more and more profit out of labour through the assertion of property rights over communal goods (for example, water) and the privatisation of public services. This is what David Harvey refers to as ‘accumulation by dispossession’

The reality of this situation is that capitalism will not solve the ongoing social crisis, and therefore the ‘radical is now the practical’. But to achieve radical change, Sam argued, the left needs to reawaken the spirit of the  Great Depression where we collectively questioned the old ways of doing things and attempted to find new ways to organise. We must question what sorts of organisations are needed in order to build working class strength, in order for workers to become the social force necessary to achieve the radical transformation of society that we so urgently need.

Alex Wood is a guest blogger for the Global Labour Institute’s third International Summer School for trade unionists at Northern College this week. The views expressed in this article are therefore solely those of the author in his personal capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of GLI.

You can follow all of the conference online on the GLI site, through Union Solidarity International, and on Twitter: #ISS14.

This article draws on the plenary ‘Organising Informal & Precarious Workers’ at the GLI International Summer School.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen a decline of labour movements in the global north which few would have predicted. Not only has trade union membership in many countries declined but so too has collective bargaining and importantly strike action. Moreover, globalisation coupled with neo-liberalism has led to an ever increasing internationalisation of finance, product markets and corporate ownership. Production now takes place through global production networks. Whilst the integration of the former Eastern Bloc and China into the capitalist world economy coupled with advances in communication and transport technology have massively expanded the global labour supply. These process have combined to reduce the bargaining position of traditional unions in the global north and south alike.

Simultaneously, right-wing (and ostensibly “left-wing”) governments have shredded employment protections and crushed labour movement resistance. These developments have forced millions of workers around the globe into informal and precarious employment. Yet this depressing situation is not inevitable and during the session on “Organising Informal & Precarious Workers”, Jin Sook from Building and Woodworkers International (BWI),  Yoana Georgieva from the Bulgaria Home-Based Workers’ Association and Kendall Fells from the US Fast Food Campaign debated how the global labour movement can organise informal and precarious workers in a globalised age.

Although each organisation represented on the panel organises in a very different context, each speaker explained how their organisation was using innovative structures and tactics to reach workers who have traditionally proved difficult for unions to organise. For example, BWI is organising migrant World Cup workers in Qatar through a multi-pronged approach. On-the-ground organising is complimented by missions to the Qatar government and attempts at getting construction companies to agree to a global framework agreement on labour rights for migrant workers. However, Jin explained that success can’t me measured in terms of workers joining unions, rather success should be understood in terms of improving the living conditions of migrant workers and ensuring that they have basic rights.

The Bulgaria Home-Based Workers’ Association has taken a different but equally novel approach.  As home-based workers are invisible in the economy, Yoana explained that the first step towards making them visible is to map them. The association then provides shop space which members can use to sell their products. In this way they are able to bring 40,000 home-based workers together in order to support each other and build the solidarity which is necessary to make the association effective.

Finally, the Fast Food Campaign in the US has focused on iconic names such as McDonalds which resonate with the public in order to build awareness of the widespread exploitation of workers by household name companies. This awareness has been spread by social media coverage of strikes as well as other creative actions. The building of labour and community coalitions enabled the workers to multiply their power in order to counter retaliation by employers. For example, after one worker was fired following a strike action in November 2012, a solidarity protest was organised inside the said workers’ restaurant, which essentially shut it down. Other actions have disrupted the stores in other creative ways. For example, activists have slowly paid for burgers with pennies causing serve delays and massive ques. Social media has also enabled interested workers to connect with organisers and has thus provided a route into workplaces where the campaign was previously not present.

Kendall Fell’s concluding remark summed up the thrust of the discussion: “We have to start questioning everything, why are we doing things like this, because the old way isn’t working and the world is changing rapidly so we need to put our heads together and come up with new ideas.”

Alex Wood is a guest blogger at the Global Labour Institute’s third International Summer School for trade unionists at Northern College, 7th – 11th July 2014. The views expressed in this article are therefore solely those of the author in his personal capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of GLI.

You can follow all of the conference online on the GLI site, through Union Solidarity International, and on Twitter: #ISS14.

This article draws on the plenary ‘The Long March of Chinese Labour’ at the GLI International Summer School.

You won’t hear much about it in the Western media but since 2010 a transformation of China’s labour relations has been gathering pace. After decades of oppression by the state and its puppet the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) – the only legal ‘trade union’ – the first winds of change are being felt by Chinese workers. Workers are organising independently of the ACFTU, taking successful collective action, entering into formal collective bargaining with employers and even making some inroads into reforming the ACFTU into a genuine independent trade union.

This new climate of worker self-organisation has seen a massive wave of strike action grip China with at least 1,171 strikes and protests taking place between June 2011 and January 2014. The strikes have been most concentrated in manufacturing, but there have also been large numbers of strikes in transport and services.

During the plenary session “The Long March of Chinese Labour”, Zhang Lingji of China Labour Bulletin drew upon some major case studies in order to illustrate the transformation gripping labour relations in China. The first case study was that of the June 2010 strike by thousands of Honda workers at a car parts factory. The strike was sparked by outrage at salaries which were so low that many workers were scarcely scarping a living whilst working for a multi-billion dollar company.  Two weeks after the start of the strike, the workers faced the traditional barrier to independent worker organisation, the ACFTU, which sent its strike breakers to attack the striking workers. However, despite this attack, the workers remained on strike. In an important precedent Beijing did not order a heavier clamp-down on the workers, despite the strike costing Honda around ¥3 billion. Instead the Communist Party remained eerily silent, leaving the local authorities, the ACFTU and the employer to find a resolution to the dispute with the workers. The workers eventually received a 35% pay rise.

Following the success at Honda, around a thousand workers went on strike at the Citizen Watch factory in Shenzhenin during October 2011. One of the major grievances was that workers had been forced to endure 40 minutes unpaid overtime each day since 2005. The workers, helped by a law-firm, forced management to enter into formal collective bargaining. This allowed them to win pay-deal for 7% of their overtime. However, most importantly, this constituted the first ever case of real formal collective bargaining. Zhang Lingji argued that this dispute raised major questions around the role of trade unions in such disputes.

The question of the role of the official trade union was again raised, and this time partially answered, by events at Hitachi Metals factory in Guangzhou. Workplace leader, Zhu Xiaomei, attempted to set up and be elected as leader of an official union. Although Zhu was fired before she could be elected, some reps were elected to the union committee and there is hope that this will be the first step towards the official state-sanctioned union becoming a real union. In fact, when Walmart attempted to close a store in Changde, managers were shocked to be confronted by an organisation which arguably constituted a ‘real’ union. This union had a president who actually led the workers in dramatic protests for fair compensation for workers who had had their contracts terminated.

Although workers still lack the political space with which to set up independent trade unions, Zhang Lingji argued that the workers’ ability to transform ACFTU into a real union represents a realistic way forward. However the question is this: what is fuelling the changing approach of the state towards trade union organisation? Much like the social movements which have gripped much of the globe since 2009, social media seems to have played a crucial role. Whilst Facebook is banned in China, the Chinese social media outlets of Weibo and WeChat have been of central importance in enabling workers to massively increase their levels of communication. This has allowed greater coordination and dissemination of collective actions. The sheer scale of this social media facilitated labour strife has made it hard for the state to use repressive tactics without causing major disruption to the economy. One might also argue that being tolerant of collective bargaining is actually in the Communist Party’s own interest as this would lead to higher wages and thus boost consumption levels within the domestic market. Such an explanation coheres with the Chinese government’s aim of reducing China’s reliance on poorly performing export markets.

Alex Wood is a guest blogger for the Global Labour Institute’s third International Summer School for trade unionists at Northern College this week. The views expressed in this article are therefore solely those of the author in his personal capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of GLI.

You can follow all of the conference online on the GLI site, through Union Solidarity International, and on Twitter: #ISS14.