Abstract
First suggested in the Netherlands, in the late-1980s, the notion of Social Movement Unionism was ?rst applied in South Africa, where it had both political and academic impact. The South-African formulation combined the class and the popular: a response to this combined class and new social movement theory/practice. The Class/Popular understanding was, however, more widely adopted, and applied (to and/or in Brazil, the Philippines, the USA, internationally), receiving its most in?uential formulation in the work of Kim Moody (USA). A Class/New Social Movement response to this was restated in terms of the New Social Unionism. The continuing impact of globalization and neo-liberalism has had a disorienting e?ect on even the unions supposed by the South African/USschool to best exemplify SMU, whilst simultaneously increasing trade union need for some kind of such an alternative model. Use and discussion of the notion continues. The development of the global justice and solidarity movement (symbolized by Seattle, 1999), and in particular the World Social Forum process, since 2001, may be putting the matter on the international trade-union agenda. But is this matter a Class/Popular alliance, a Class/New Social Movement alliance? Or both? Or something else? And are there other ways of recreating an international/ist labour movement with emancipatory intentions and e?ect? What is the future of emancipatory or utopian labour strategy in the epoch of a globalized networked capitalism, and the challenge of the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement?
Highlights
TO A DIALOGUEFirst suggested by myself, in the Netherlands, in the late-1980s, the notion of Social Movement Unionism (SMU) was first applied by Rob Lambert[1] and Eddie Webster, in South Africa where it had considerable political and academic impact
The Class/Popular-Community understanding was more widely adopted in, and/or applied to, Brazil, the Philippines, the USA, Sri Lanka and at international level. It received its most influential formulation in the work of Kim Moody (USA): In social movement unionism...[u]nions take an active lead in the streets, as well as in politics. They ally with other social movements, but provide a class vision and content that make for a stronger glue than that which usually holds electoral or temporary coalitions together
Was it used in the 1980s–90s of the new radical and militant unions in South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines
Summary
In the Netherlands, in the late-1980s, the notion of Social Movement Unionism (SMU) was first applied by Rob Lambert[1] and Eddie Webster, in South Africa where it had considerable political and academic impact. Was it used in the 1980s–90s of the new radical and militant unions in South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines When it was used more internationally, critically or futurologically, this was still in Labour/Popular-Community form, and with the vanguard clearly represented by the Fordist working class and Left, Socialist or even Communist trade unions—and related parties. It has to be said that those most-energetically promoting SMU, and most-closely working with trade unions, failed to define or redefine the concept, leaving it with the most general (and unconceptualised) characteristics: “democratic”, “shopfloor”, “non-party”, “allied to other popular movements.” These limitations have, I recognize, enabled it to continue and even spread amongst -existing inter/national unions. That they are not critical, in the sense of not applying a critique of the dominant social order to the unions or networks that they are describing—and promoting.[5]
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