Filling the Half Empty or Half Full Glass and Redirecting the Debate about Labor Transnationalism

Abstract

Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing. By Jamie K. McCallum Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013. 210 pp., paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-7862-8). There tend to be two types of labor scholars who study transnationalism: the glass half empty and the glass half full varieties. The former bemoans the optimism of the latter, while the latter defends their optimism. This polarization extends to the assessments of various forms of international labor rights mechanisms, from labor rights protections in free trade agreements, to social clauses in global governance institutions, to codes of conduct, and global framework agreements. The “half empties” argue that these mechanisms lack teeth and have translated into few organizing victories or little improvement to workers' living and working conditions. The “half fulls” generally concede these limitations but assert (full disclosure, I am in this camp) that these new transnational mechanisms can provide new opportunities for transnational relationship and movement building, organizing and mobilization, and alliance building across issue areas (see Kay 2005, 2011a,b; Evans and Kay 2008). In his groundbreaking book, Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing , Jamie K. McCallum attempts to bridge the ideological divide. His measured and skeptical assessment of the efficacy of global mechanisms—in this case global framework agreements—will placate the half empties. But his insightful dissection of how they can stimulate local union mobilization and revitalization will satisfy the half fulls. His most significant accomplishment, however, is to demonstrate that perpetuating this dichotomy is the wrong way to think about union politics and success in an era of globalization. He ends his book with a concluding sentence that should have been its first: “Struggles such as these remind us that victory is not as simple as winning; it is about building the power to fight in the first place” (p. 159). Nevertheless, by that final page, it is clear that McCallum has redirected the debate about …