International Labor Solidarity Research Articles

International solidarity and foreign interventionism: Brazilian and American labor relations during the dictatorship in Brazil (1960s and 70s)

This article aims to analyze the role of American trade unionism during the Brazilian dictatorship examining the activities of American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD). It will pay particular attention to the political repression and anti-labor policy conducted by the dictator Emílio Garrastazu Médici (1969–74). The examination of the U.S. labor policy in Brazil during the heydays of the cold war in Latin America is an interesting case study of the contradictions and paradoxes of the AFL-CIO and American international relations during that period, as well as a stimulating example of transnational trade union and international solidarity relations during this period. The paper investigates how AIFLD reacted to human rights violations perpetrated by the Médici regime, highlighting the fine line between American international labor solidarity and foreign intervention during the cold war period. As a final point, the paper analyzes the workers’ resistance to the dictatorial regime, as well as the U.S. interpretation of the Brazilian labor movement in this context of repression and human rights violations.

The Global Labour University: A New Laboratory of Learning for International Labor Solidarity?

The Global Labour University (GLU), now 10 years old, is a network of interdisciplinary faculties that offer master level courses and other training programs for trade unionists from around the world. The main purpose of these programs is to enable trade unionists to develop policy expertise for the challenges of globalization. In this article we offer a critical assessment of the activities of the GLU. To what extent does the GLU achieve its objective of building capacity for a critical engagement with policy issues arising from globalization? And to what extent does the international composition of the Masters programs and the ensuing alumni work actually strengthen solidarity among trade unionists across national borders? What we find is that the GLU provides one important approach for addressing these challenges. By helping prepare labor unions of the future with the theoretical understandings and analytical and research skills they need, the GLU contributes to the global labor movement a new generation of labor activists. Our answers to these questions are based on participatory observations, interviews with a wide range of stakeholders and several external evaluation reports.

Building Global Labor Solidarity Today: Learning from the KMU of the Philippines

New labor movements are currently emerging across the Global South. This is happening in countries as disparate as China, Egypt, and Iran. New developments are taking place within labor movements in places such as Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan and Venezuela. Activists and leaders in these labor movements are seeking information from workers and unions around the world. However, many labor activists today know little or nothing about the last period of intense efforts to build international labor solidarity, the years 1978-2007. One of the key labor movements of this period, and which continues today, is the KMU Labor Center of the Philippines. It is this author’s contention that there is a lot unknown about the KMU that would help advance global labor solidarity today. This paper focuses specifically on the KMU’s development, and shares five things that have emerged from this author’s study of the KMU: a new type of trade unionism, new union organizations, an emphasis on rank and file education, building relations with sectoral organizations, and the need to build international labor solidarity.

Workers Confront Apartheid: Comparing Canadian Labor Solidarity Campaigns against South African and Israeli Apartheid

This article explores the challenges of building international labor solidarity by comparing two campaigns that developed inside the Canadian labor movement. I critically compare and assess the campaign against South African apartheid in the 1980s and the more recent efforts to oppose Israeli apartheid. Both campaigns are examples of grassroots international labor solidarity, where organizers sought to build international solidarity through member mobilization and a focus on the power of workers to engage in solidarity actions. I examine how these union activists organized within their unions, and how their organizational differences and the ideological and political contexts they organized within shaped their successes and limitations. Drawing from the work of Antonio Gramsci, I argue that these campaigns were sites of counter‐hegemonic practice both because of the analysis and critiques they offered but also because of the nature of their organizing.

Theoretical Reflections on the Emergence of Global Labor Solidarity

This article recognizes that there is no theory of global labor solidarity and tries to lay some groundwork specifically toward developing such. It begins with an examination of “labor imperialism,” which has recently been theoretically grounded, and rejects that. It then discusses previous efforts to theoretically develop the concept of “new labor internationalism,” particularly highlighting the thinking of Peter Waterman. It joins this with Kim Scipes’ three levels of labor internationalism. Following, it replaces the concept of international labor solidarity with global labor solidarity so as to recognize new developments by workers in multiple sites around the globe: workers around the world are no longer waiting for “Northern” labor movements’ resources or even ideas, but are trying to build real labor solidarity across the globe, acting in solidarity with their brothers and sisters from across the world.

Introduction: Globalization and International Labor Solidarity. Introduction to a Theme

Is cross-national trade union cooperation and labor solidarity a forgotten item on Nordic working life researchers’ agenda? And if so, why? Is not the matter more crucial today than ever, considering the challenges from globalization? True, there have not been too many studies in the field by Nordic scholars, and also true, the field is in great need of research considering the great labor market changes both nationally and globally over the last few decades. In order to find a remedy for this lack, a special workshop was dedicated to the subject at the Nordic Working Life Conference in Elsinore, April 2012. The response among the Nordic academics was not exactly overwhelming, but there were several highly interesting papers, bringing up new aspects or shedding new light on old ones. Some of the papers are now compiled in this special issue of Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies . All of them are individual texts and can be read separately. This introduction is just an attempt to put the articles into their common context, that is, to outline the framework within which they belong by highlighting some items they share (...)

Woody Guthrie, American Radical

Woody Guthrie, American Radical

Between Fragmentation and Globalization

Labor leaders and theorists in the United States have called for greater international labor cooperation and solidarity in the face of economic globalization and the declining fortunes of many private sector unions. However, these calls have not adequately analyzed the important role U.S. public sector unions play in the national labor movement and their efforts to confront the threat of the privatization of public services through international labor cooperation. In this exploratory article, the author offers an analysis of U.S. public sector unions, their recent international programs and experiences, and the obstacles and opportunities for coordinating efforts to engage, and possibly transform, international labor cooperation. The author argues that the rising fortunes of most public sector unions are accompanied by increasing interunion contestation and fragmentation, leaving affiliation with the global union federations as the primary, albeit external, source of national coordination.

Movement Theory and International Labor Solidarity

As international labor solidarity becomes an important counterweight to corporate globalization, practitioners can benefit from guidance that social movement theory provides. This study applies three strands of movement theory to actual and potential cross-border strategies in the Americas. It explores the structural relevance of political opportuni ties, the mobilization of networks as a resource, and the emphasis by New Social Movement theory on framing and reflexive identity. It discovers that each strand offers important insights, one clarifying limitations, a second demarcating and cultivating supporters, and a third motivating participation. Taken together, the strands comprise a dynamic basis for solidarity that enriches organizing strategies and gains measurable victories.

Movement Theory and International Labor Solidarity

Movement Theory and International Labor Solidarity

Transnational Hegemony and US Labor Foreign Policy: Towards a Gramscian International Labor Geography

In this paper I explore the use of Gramsci's notion of hegemony in analyzing the relationships between US labor unions, the US foreign policy establishment, and workers in the global South. The hegemonic position of US capitalists, in relation to both US workers and states in the global South, heavily conditioned the development of American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations foreign policy during the cold war, with path-dependent effects that have carried over into the post-cold-war era of ‘globalization’. Although recent changes in the relationships between US capitalists and US labor unions have undermined the US ‘labor accord’ that reigned during the cold war, the new, ascendant transnational neoliberal hegemony has not as yet completely transformed the relationships of labor unions in the United States to those elsewhere in the world, which poses ongoing challenges for international labor solidarity, even in a context of new possibilities.

State >Legitimacy and the (In)significance of Democracy in Post‐Communist Russia

A few apocalyptic predictions of a post‐communist ‘maelstrom’ notwithstanding,1 the break‐up of the USSR was initially greeted by optimistic assessments of the prospects for democracy in the ‘new R...

Students and the Anti‐Sweatshop Movement

The anti-sweatshop movement and related contemporary international labor solidarity efforts confront fast-moving uneven production geographies (Waterman and Wills 2001; Herod 1998, 2001a, 2001b). Global economic volatility is further exacerbated in industries like apparel production, the quintessential sweatshop sector, because of low investment thresholds (Hale and Shaw 2001; Gereffi 1999; Figueroa 1996). A predominantly female workforce in these same industries—and the complex gender and social reproduction dynamics involved—presents additional challenges to effective solidarity strategies (Hale and Shaw 2001; Bonacich et al 1994). In the recent past, international labor solidarity has been coordinated through the channels of organized labor with international confederations and international trade secretariats (ITSs) identifying pressure points through research on company assets and investors; contributing to strike funds; and pressuring officials in support of particular demands (Herod 1995; Moody 1997; Scher 1997). However, the global expansion of exportoriented industrialization, the end of the Cold War, and the increased promotion of free trade practices propelled a search for innovative strategies to achieve union goals (Alexander and Gilmore 1994; Cook 1997; Frundt 1996; Levenson-Estrada and Frundt 1995). Cultivating relationships with college students is one aspect of this wider labor strategy. The anti-sweatshop and broader global justice movements inspire me with hope for the future. In particular, I take heart in the way that student anti-sweatshop activists in the United States have forged alliances with organized labor and others in ‘‘mixed coalitions’’ with the potential to foster workplace democracy. Students on college campuses have the energy, passion, dedication, and resources to act

Geographies of Labor Internationalism

Globalization is transforming the spatial organization of the world economy. In particular, it is leading to the “shrinking globe” phenomenon and the speeding up of social interaction between places across the planet. Given that international labor solidarity is a process of coming together across space, I argue that the spatial reorganization of global capitalism has important consequences for practices of solidarity. Specifically, I suggest that the spatial context within which they find themselves is likely to impact the types of political praxis in which workers engage. Thus, whereas globalization may encourage some workers to engage in traditional international solidarity campaigns it might also, paradoxically, lead others to focus on highly local campaigns, the consequences of which can quickly be spread far and wide as a result of the growing spatial interconnectivity of the planet that globalization has augured. Likewise, the spatial context within which they find themselves may lead some workers to defend their class interests while others defend their spatial interests. Equally, while some unions are focusing upon organizing what I call the spaces of production, others are organizing around the spaces of consumption. Given that workers’ spatial context impacts their spatial goals and political praxis, I argue that it is important to conceptualize international labor solidarity in explicitly spatial terms if we are to understand why different groups of workers may pursue radically different types of political praxis in different places and at different times.

Place, Space, and the New Labour Internationalisms

Place, Space and the New Labour Internationalisms. Introduction: Place, Space and the New Labour Internationalisms: Beyond the Fragments? Peter Waterman and Jane Wills. 1. New Developments in Trade Union Internationalism:. Trade Union Internationalism in the Age of Seattle: Peter Waterman. Southern Unionism and the New Labour Internationalism: Rob Lambert and Eddie Webster. Rethinking the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and its Inter-American Regional Organization: Kjeld Jakobsen. Transnational Capital, Urban Globalisation and Cross-Border Solidarity: The Case of the South African Municipal Workers: Franco Barchiesi. Labor Internationalism and the Contradictions of Globalization: Or, Why the Local is Sometimes Still Important in a Global Economy: Andrew Herod. 2. New Issues for Labour Internationalism:. World Trade and Worker's Rights: In Search of an Internationalist Position: Rohini Hensman. NAFTA's Labor Side Agreement and International Labor Solidarity: Lance Compa. European Integration and Industrial Relations: A Case of Variable Geometry? Richard Hyman. Uneven Geographies of Capital and Labour: The Lessons of European Works Councils: Jane Wills. Women Workers and the Promise of Ethical Trade in the Globalised Garment Industry: A Serious Beginning? Angela Hale and Linda Shaw. Propositions on Trade Unions and Informal Employment in Times of Globalisation, Dan Gallin. A Manifesto Against Femicide: Melissa Wright. Union Responses to Mass Immigration: The Case of Miami, USA: Bruce Nissen and Guillermo Grenier. Index.

Labor geographies: workers and the landscapes of capitalism

Preface. Introduction: Labor and Landscapes. Toward a Labor Geography. Challenging the Global Locally: Labor in a Postindustrial Global City. Spatial Sabotage: Containerization, Union Work Rules, and the Geography of Waterfront Work. Scales of Struggle: Labor's Rescaling of Contract Bargaining in the U.S. East Coast Longshoring Industry, 1953-1989. Labor as an Agent of Globalization and as a Global Agent. Engineering Spaces of Anti-Communism: Connecting Cold War Global Strategy to Local Everyday Life. Thinking Locally, Acting Globally? The Practice of International Labor Solidarity and the Geography of the Global Economy. International Labor Union Activity and the Landscapes of Transition in Central and Eastern Europe.

NAFTA's Labor Side Agreement and International Labor Solidarity

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its supplemental labor pact, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) reflect the uneven advances of labor rights advocacy in connection with international trade. NAFTA provides extensive rights and protections for multinational firms and investors in such areas as intellectual property rights and investment guarantees. The NAALC only partially addresses labor rights and labor conditions, but within its limits it has shown itself to be a viable tool for cross‐border solidarity among key actors in the trade union, human rights, and allied movements. The NAALC's principles and complaint mechanisms create new space for advocates to build coalitions and take concrete action to articulate challenges to the status quo and advance workers' interests. Cooperation, consultation, and collaboration among social actors have brought a qualitative change to transnational labor rights networks in North America.

Organizing the Scale of Labor Regulation in the United States: Service-Sector Activism in the City

Geographical scholarship on the localization of labor regulation, militant particularism in class struggle, and labor-union activity has highlighted the need for workers to contest the scales over which their working lives are produced. Because these analyses have focused on the role of spatial competition and capital mobility in defeating labor struggle, and on the production of scale by manufacturing firms and workers, prescriptions for activism have tended to privilege interregional and international labor solidarity and regulatory mechanisms that might allow labor to operate at the same scale as capital. With a case study of service-sector activism in the US city of Baltimore, I argue for attention to the metropolitan scale of pro-worker labor-market regulation and organizing. By removing local labor activism from a juxtaposition against mobile capital, I add to existing geographies of labor regulation and resistance a theoretical and empirical focus on the importance of ‘spatial fixes' for workers at the local scale, and highlight the processes through which local struggles can be articulated both with each other and with overarching regulation.

Bridging the Gap between Class and Space: U.S. Worker Solidarity with Guatemala

In recent decades organized labor in the United States has responded to restructuring of the global economy by increasing its commitment to international solidarity, providing moral and material support for the organizing efforts of workers abroad. The international labor solidarity strategy appears to be designed to lessen the competition among places over investment, plant location, and jobs by uniting workers in different countries on the basis of their shared class interests. Yet international solidarity programs may serve to benefit one geographically distinct group of workers over another without challenging capitalism’s allocative mechanisms. I develop criteria for differentiating between the latter kind of solidarity campaigns, which I call accommodationist, and transformatory solidarity, which attempts to prevent capital from using space to weaken workers’ organizations, thereby altering the labor-capital relationship in fundamental ways. I then examine the work of an organization of union members and workers in the United States committed to forming relationships of solidarity with workers in Guatemala. I look at the history, philosophy, and activities of the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project (US/GLEP), which provides an informative case study of the opportunities and dangers of international solidarity. The limitations of international solidarity campaigns are identified, and I suggest ways to overcome these barriers.

Contradictions of Labor Solidarity

The articles above bring welcome attention to a key issue - possibly the key issue facing us today: left political responses to "globalization." Bonacich, Armbruster, and Nash each advance our understanding and indicate directions for future work. What strikes me, however, is how far we have to go, both as a movement and as theorists. In material terms capital is eons ahead of labor in establishing international ties. As a Marxist I believe that theory develops in symbiosis with practice; predictably, therefore, our limited material practice is associated with underdeveloped theory . As these pieces demonstrate, we have specific sharp insights, case studies, and examples of ideas that need to be part of a general theory, but such a theory doesn't exist even for us, academic members of a section that provides the most promising theoretical base for developing a theory of international labor solidarity. It certainly does not exist in the consciousness of rank and file workers.