Abstract

International trade unionism is facing a serious challenge from what is commonly called globalisation. Trade unions feel the need to ‘scale up’ their activities beyond their, once paramount, national terrain and to challenge capital's untrammelled forward march internationalising and commodifying everything in its path. This article examines the new forms of labour internationalism and the way in which trade unions have been creating incipient counter-hegemonic strategies. The only certainty in this globalised and complex situation is that a continuation of national era trade union strategies is not a viable path. A possible ‘transformationalist’ alternative is posed in this paper, arguing that labour needs a multi-layered and flexible response to the new global capitalist order.

Highlights

  • International trade unionism is facing a serious challenge from what is commonly called globalisation

  • While the first wave of capitalist globalisation (1875 – 1914) saw the labour movement as the incipient driver of that contestation, the current wave of globalisation (1989 - ?) coincides with what most observers see as the terminal decline of the labour movement, and other social actors are seen as the main agents of contestation

  • What if the labour movement is entering a new cycle of activism and militancy, precisely through the contestation of neo-liberal globalisation? Is it inconceivable that a global contest between labour and capital might emerge as Marx predicted? Be that as it may, we should certainly move beyond the verdict of Manuel Castells who argued a decade ago, when globalisation seemed to sweep away all obstacles in its path, that ‘the labour movement seems to be historically superseded’ (Castells, 1997:360)

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Summary

Introduction

International trade unionism is facing a serious challenge from what is commonly called globalisation. While it is clear that local pressure points may be effective in challenging a TNC, a dilemma is still posed for workers worldwide who might accept that ‘another world is possible’ in principle but do not see a global vision that is achievable coming from the traditional labour organisations.

Results
Conclusion

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