Transnational Labour Solidarity Research Articles

Militant minority at work: a successful case of unionisation of garment workers in Istanbul

ABSTRACT This article explores a successful unionisation struggle among garment workers in Istanbul. In the last four decades, Turkey has become a global showcase of authoritarian anti-labour neoliberalism and one of the world’s top garment and textile exporters. The latter has come at the cost of worker exploitation and precarity. Such conditions led a group of knitting workers to unionise at the beginning of the 2010s. After five years of struggle, they signed a collective bargaining agreement covering nearly 400 workers. This very rare success rested on two key factors: the efforts of a militant minority and transnational labour solidarity.

Transnational labour solidarity and the question of agency: A social dialectical approach to the field

ABSTRACT The study of labour transnationalism remains theoretically underdeveloped. Taking this as a starting point, I focus specifically on the need to develop a critical theoretical framework for understanding different forms of transnational labour practices. This type of framework is necessary if we want, as Peter Waterman suggests, to recentre the emancipatory dimensions of transnational labour solidarities. This, I argue, means grappling with the complexities and contradictions shaping how solidarities are built and unmade. I suggest that we can elaborate on the critical paradigm proposed by Rebecca Johns that contrasts different forms of transnational solidarities and labour imperialism. Focusing on the problem of labour imperialism, I show how a dialectical materialist analysis, with attention to the social dimensions of class, can provide insights into how different forms of transnational solidarities develop.

Transnational Labour Solidarity as Transformative Practice: Reframing the Role of Labour Transnationalism

In the 1980s and 1990s, a significant number of rank-and-file trade union activists in Canada became actively engaged in various forms of international labour solidarity. This activity, the end of the Cold War and the increasing impacts of neo-liberal globalisation combined to spark hopes for greatly expanding practices of labour transnationalism. This vision of transnationalising trade union organisation has not materialised and, in fact, inside Canadian unions there has been declining faith in the possibilities of building transnational solidarity. Starting with an analysis of the dominant dichotomies underlying the literature on labour transnationalism, I suggest that stepping outside these dichotomies can provide a different way of assessing the role of transnational labour solidarity within broader struggles for workers’ justice. In this article, drawing upon the case of transnational political solidarities built by workers inside Canadian unions in the 1980s and 1990s, I argue that assessing transnational practices with a longer view to class formation and the goals of workers’ emancipation can help to expand conceptions of what constitutes successful transnational practice. Such a reassessment of the role of labour transnationalism is particularly timely in the current context of right-wing populism.

Patterns of Labour Solidarity Towards Precarious Workers and the Unemployed in Critical Times in Greece, Poland, and the UK

The purpose of this article is to examine whether and by what means traditional unions and other labour-oriented organisations engage in solidarity activities in favour of precarious workers and the unemployed. Our findings derive from qualitative data analysed from 10 in-depth interviews per country conducted as part of a large collaborative project with participants sampled from trade unions and other labour-oriented solidarity organisations based in three European national contexts: Greece, Poland, and the UK. Our aim here is to discern common features and differences in the strategies and answers given, within the three national contexts. To this end, we examine the actors engaged in labour solidarity; the value frames upon which these actions draw; the beneficiaries of their solidarity actions; the type of activities adopted mainly in favour of precarious workers and the unemployed; and their engagement in transnational labour solidarity activities.

Constructing Transnational Solidarity: The Role of Campaign Governance

AbstractOur inductive study of two transnational labour solidarity efforts focuses on the role of campaign governance. Specifically, we study contrasting campaign strategies, tactics and coalition structures in campaigns by two global union federations, UNI Global Union and the IUF, contextualized in terms of how these campaigns unfolded in India. Our contribution consists of two arguments. The first is that a degree of internal consistency amongst different campaign elements is important for success, and the second is that a mode of articulation that allows for local concerns in affiliate countries to find voice in global campaigns is more likely to result in concrete gains at the local level.

Kann Solidarität „von unten“ in globalen Zuliefererketten organisiert werden? Der Fall ExChains

Global supply chains in the garment industry are marked by labour standard violations in factories as well as retail stores. Against this background it is important to strengthen the bargaining power of workers along the supply chain. Establishing direct relationships among workers along the supply chain could be one way to achieve this aim. This paper builds on extant literature on transnational solidarity and highlights the specific challenges of understanding solidarity in a transnational social space by looking at the empirical context of global garment supply chains. It hereby seeks to go beyond treating “solidarity” as a mere metaphor for any form of transnational union or worker cooperation, and instead engages with the cultural-normative dimensions of the concept as referring to mutual bonds among groups of workers. By looking at the case of the ExChains network, this paper examines some of the opportunities and challenges involved in establishing and maintaining transnational worker solidarity. The paper concludes by discussing the transformative potential, but also the limits of transnational labour solidarity regarding substandard working conditions in global supply chains.

Is a new paradigm needed? A commentary on the analysis by Sławomir Adamczyk

In this commentary, we support the core thesis of Sławomir Adamczyk that there exist ‘two trade union worlds’ within the European Trade Union Confederation, but our emphasis is somewhat different. The East–West divide can be explained both in terms of structural differences and of contrasting expectations about the role of European integration, rooted in the diverse histories and experiences of national affiliates. In the context of recurring particularistic logics which privilege national or regional interests over transnational labour solidarity, the need to create a new paradigm of trade union cooperation based on the recognition, articulation and, if possible, reconciliation of diverse workers’ interests can be legitimately seen as a major challenge to European trade union institutions.

Revolutionary Ireland and Transnational Labour Solidarity on the Victorian Railways: The Case of Alex Morrison and Tom Wilson, 1921–22

In 1921, the Victorian railways became a site of contested loyalties surrounding the response of the Australian labour movement to the Irish revolution. This paper will examine the case of Alex Morrison and Tom Wilson, two non-Irish shop stewards of the Victorian Branch of the Australian Railways Union (ARU) victimised by the Lawson Government in March 1921 for publicly sympathising with Irish railway workers killed by the “Black and Tans” in Cork during the Anglo-Irish War. The controversy, which coincided with the birth of the Self-Determination for Ireland League, became a focus for both an Empire loyalist backlash and a labour movement defence campaign in the lead up to the 1921 State Election. It marked a moment at which the Irish crisis of 1916-23 catalysed organised campaign activity in the industrial wing, in addition to the political wing, of the Australian labour movement. Framed within the paradigm of international labour solidarity instead of Irish diaspora, the stance of Morrison and Wilson reflected the mutual entanglement of Irish-Australian and labour internationalist allegiances in the wake of both the Australian conscription plebiscites and the Russian Revolution. A “view from below” of the “Irish Question” in the Victorian railways presents an alternative, if parallel, form of transnational politicisation around Ireland to that of “long-distance nationalism.”

Enhancing transnational labour solidarity: the unfulfilled promise of the Internet and social media

AbstractThis article examines the activities of Union Solidarity International (USI), a new UK‐based organisation in the international union arena. USI seeks to encourage and support international solidarity between trade unions and other worker movements around the world by harnessing the dynamism of the Internet and social media. Drawing on a combination of in‐depth semi‐structured interviews, documentary analysis, Google Analytics and social media data, the findings of this case study suggest that USI is successfully developing an international audience in the United States, the UK and Ireland. However, USI's ability to reach beyond English‐speaking countries and mobilise people to engage in collective action appears limited. The article makes an important contribution to the growing literature on social media in industrial relations through analysing the extent to which digital technologies can contribute to effective transnational labour solidarity.

The EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements with Africa: ‘Decent Work’ and the challenge of trade union solidarity

The European Union (EU) has in recent years adopted the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Agenda in its external trade and development policy. It is portrayed as a way to mitigate any negative impacts on labour. However, African trade unions have campaigned against the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). It is argued that their stance highlights the limitations of incorporating the Decent Work Agenda into trade agreements, which, instead, are seen as central to the process of entrenching economic liberalisation. As a result, the article considers the prospects for transnational labour solidarity to resist EPAs.

Transnational Labour Solidarity in (the) Crisis

The global financial crisis as part of globalisation has put labour movements under pressure around the world. This poses yet again the question of transnational solidarity. As a result of uneven and combined development, individual labour movements find themselves in rather different positions with contradictory interests. The purpose of this article is to assess conceptually possible labour strategies towards transnational solidarity against the background of the structuring conditions within the global economy.The article is organised into two parts. First, the structuring conditions of capitalism will be charted including processes of uneven and combined development. This will provide the basis for the second step of conceptualising the potential agency of labour and its possibilities to establish relationships of transnational solidarity despite the unevenness of global development. In this discussion the definition of ‘labour’ itself will be problematized and concepts of ‘labour aristocracy’ and ‘false consciousness’ critically examined.

South–South Labor Internationalism: SIGTUR and the Challenges to the Status Quo

Labor internationalism and solidarity has been dominated historically by the European trade union movement. The 2008 economic crisis and the rise of emerging economies have led to a gradual reorientation of labor relations, increasing the capacity of a group of southern trade unions to influence transnational labor solidarity. This article reviews the increasing connectivity between southern trade unions, with a focus on the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR), which groups confederations from the Global South, with leading unions from Brazil, Argentina, Korea, South Africa, and Australia, among others. The leading argument is that despite shortcomings, SIGTUR has the potential to revitalize labor internationalism through extending the network into articulated global actions that challenge dominant neoliberal globalization.

Building transnational labor solidarity: an interview with Neil Martin

Building transnational labor solidarity: an interview with Neil Martin

Trade Liberalization and Organized Labour in the Asia-Pacific Region: Barriers to Labour Internationalism

This article examines the impact of international power politics on trade liberalization and organized labour. Using regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) in the Asia-Pacific region as a case study, it discusses how China's economic rise and the ensuing interstate rivalry in the region have contributed to the proliferation of FTAs. In examining the politics of nation-states and organized labour in the Asia-Pacific with regard to FTAs, it identifies economic nationalism as a barrier to transnational labour solidarity. With a critical examination of alternative trade policies, this article explores alternative venues for global social justice and labour solidarity.

Canadian and European Unions and the Canada—EU CETA Negotiations

Within the context of a deadlocked multilateral trade environment and a global economic crisis, the governments of Canada and the European Union announced in 2009 the beginning of negotiations towards a free trade agreement. It was not until January 2013 that the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) issued a joint statement on the proposed free trade agreement. Why did it take so long for two central labour bodies to complete a relatively simple task of transnational solidarity, and how were they able to overcome their differences in the end? I argue that it was not the economic, but the political tensions between the two central labour bodies that took time to resolve, and that this was accomplished only as a result of the meaningful expressions of transnational labour solidarity by public sector unions affiliated to the ETUC and the CLC.

The EU, Global Europe, and processes of uneven and combined development: the problem of transnational labour solidarity

AbstractIn 2006, the European Union launched its new free trade strategy Global Europe with the explicit goal of increasing European competitiveness. This article explores the positions of trade unions and other social movements on Global Europe. Importantly, while Northern social movements and trade unions from the Global South reject Global Europe due to its impact of deindustrialisation on developing countries, European trade unions support it in so far as it opens up new markets for the export of European manufactured goods. It will be argued that this has to be understood against the background of the dynamics underlying the global economy and here in particular uneven and combined development. Due to the uneven integration of different parts of the world into the global economy, workers in developed countries may actually benefit from free trade, while workers in the Global South are more likely to lose out. It will, however, also be argued that while these different positions within the social relations of production are shaping the position of trade unions, they do not determine them. Over time, through direct engagement, trade unions in the North and South may be able to establish relations of transnational solidarity.

Transnational Labour Solidarity and Social Movement Unionism: Insights from and beyond a Women Workers' Strike in Turkey

AbstractThrough an analysis of solidarity across borders and social groups in connection with and beyond a strike on the part primarily of women workers at a foreign‐owned factory in Turkey's Antalya Free Zone, this article contributes to the debate on the two union renewal strategies of transnational labour solidarity and coalition building with social movements. In the case at hand, the extensive strike‐related support on the part of external unions and the women's movement illustrates the positive difference that solidarity practices can make. However, looking beyond the strike itself, the case points to significant challenges related to the development of deeper and more proactive solidarity across borders and social groups.

Transnational Labour Solidarity: Mechanisms of Commitment to Cooperation within the European Trade Union Movement – By Katarzyna Gajewska

Transnational Labour Solidarity: Mechanisms of Commitment to Cooperation within the European Trade Union Movement – By Katarzyna Gajewska

U.S. AND CHINESE LABOR AT A CHANGING MOMENT IN THE GLOBAL NEOLIBERAL ECONOMY

For the past sixty years, Cold War ideology kept the U.S. labor movement totally disengaged from the All‐China Federation of Trade Unions. Even as vast and relevant changes took place, which should have altered the stalemate (including the introduction of capitalized markets in China, the relocation of much U.S.‐based production to China, the interpenetration of U.S.‐Chinese economies through trade, financial, diplomatic, commercial, and cultural relations), little thaw has come. This article begins by examining elements of the U.S. and Chinese labor movements during defining periods of the 1950s–1970s, the 1980s–1990s, and the current decade, drawing some frequently unrecognized parallels. The pattern of systematic labor degradation created by the global regime of neoliberalism will be seen to have brought crisis to labor movements in both countries. We end on the question of trade union reform, and the almost unimaginable possibility of transnational labor solidarity emerging.

Towards Effective Transnational Labor Solidarity between NAFTA North and NAFTA South

U.S. political scientist Dale Hathaway’s article originated in his decision in the mid1990s to tackle the internationalist tasks integral to radical politics in the post-NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) era. Like his book Allies across the Border (2000), it breathes a spirit of militancy and heart-felt commitment to the struggles of working and middle class peoples in today’s world. As bee ts the new Labor History’s forum format, the piece eschews cautiously balanced judgments anchored in an impregnable structure of academic argument. Instead, Hathaway offers bold if schematic political ree ections about a pressing issue of general importance—the unionization of “runaway” shops in Mexico—and a straightforward partisan advocacy for one voice, the Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT), within Mexico’s massive and heterogeneous labor movement.