Labour in the making of the international relations of oil: resource nationalism and trade unions

Abstract

The role of labour in shaping the international relations of oil has received scant scholarly attention. This chapter uses two case studies to shows how oil workers have played a significant role in shaping the international relations of the 20th century through petro-nationalism and international labour unions. The case study of Iran in the first half of the 20th century illustrates that petro-nationalism wasn't only advocated by state and intellectual elites, but that it was made into a political force by oil workers as well. On the one hand, state elites advocated petro-nationalism in their conflict with the Anglo-Persian/Iranian Oil Company and explicitly linked it to the improvement of labour conditions of Iranian oil workers as an attempt incorporate them in the nation-state building project. On the other hand, oil workers raised nationalist demands directly in their own confrontation with the oil company, exerting pressures on both state and company elites, and fuelling the growth of a popular movement that culminated in the oil nationalization of 1951. The second case study concerns the International Federation of Petroleum and Chemical Workers during the Cold War. It shows how American officials' concern with the growing influence of petro-nationalism and communism among oil workers in the Global South after the Second World War led them to intervene in the operations of this international labour union. This chapter argues that both the intervention of American state agencies and the anti-communist commitment of its leadership defined this union's relationship with oil workers in the Global South.