Proposal/invitation to sponsor an international labour event at the 4^th World Social Forum, India, 2004

Does a Globalised Capitalism Require a ‘New International Social Movement Unionism’?

Introduction

This is a public proposal for a one- or two-day event on ‘international social movement unionism’ (ISMU), to be held at the Fourth World Social Forum, Mumbai, India, January 16-24, 2004. The proposal is open to discussion and action by anyone who receives it.

Whilst this event could be sponsored by any national or international union body, or international labour network, it would be best so proposed by a network of such, including unionists, researchers, labour support groups (NGOs, publications). The closing date for such proposals to the Indian Organising Committee is September 25, 2003 http://www.wsfindia.org/event2004/

The idea

The idea is to stimulate discussion on a transformation of unionism that goes wider and deeper than the current transformation of capitalism itself. And which, as such, simultaneously looks for an alternative to capitalist globalisation and provides a base and point of reference for effective defensive strategies.

The notion of ‘Social Movement Unionism’ was first applied in South Africa in the 1980s, where it had both political and research impact. It was then adopted and applied by researchers to unionism in Brazil, the Philippines, the USA and internationally. It received its best-known formulation in a piece by Kim Moody (1997), in an extract from a book, entitled ‘Towards an International Social Movement Unionism’. This was, however, before the word ‘globalisation’ had really entered the union vocabulary. Whilst, therefore, some unions might have been influenced by such ideas, the notion remained largely of interest to union-oriented researchers.

The precise meaning of ISMU cannot be specified here. Suffice to say that there are two major tendencies, one which tends to stress alliance between the union and community or popular movements, another which tends to stress an intimate articulation between unions and other ‘new social movements’ movements more generally. Yet another approach has been to see unions as ‘citizenship movements’. The possible meanings of the term are precisely what needs discussion. For some participants, computer communication, networking and cyberspace are central to ISMU, for others not. Some participants stress the continued centrality of the workplace, the local or the national arena, others stress the global – and the unavoidable articulation between this and the local, national, regional.

The rising impact of globalisation and neo-liberalism around the millennium has had a disorienting, if not devastating, impact on work, workers and unionism internationally. This impact was felt, however, equally by those national union movements previously considered to have exemplified social movement unionism! Globalisation seems, on the one hand, to have driven the international union movement into largely defensive positions. Recently, however, it seems to have provoked – sometimes simultaneously - a search for counter-assertion, for a reaching out beyond traditional workplaces, unions, the traditionally unionised, and to be seeking alliances with citizens and civil society more generally.

The development of what has come to call itself ‘global justice and solidarity movement’, symbolised by the ‘Battle of Seattle’, 1999, and the World Social Forum process since 2001, is now putting such matters dramatically on the national and international trade-union agenda. Increasing numbers of international union bodies are addressing themselves to ‘social movements’, to democratically-inclined and labour-friendly NGOs, and to ideas of ‘civil society’ - locally, nationally, regionally, globally. ‘International social movement unionism’, and related ideas, are being increasingly discussed amongst labour-oriented researchers.

This is, surely, an appropriate time, and the WSF the appropriate place, in which to discuss the possible meanings of ISMU.

Is this a matter of a new policy within otherwise unchanged national and international union structures? Does it mean a new relationship between unionised and non-unionised workers? Is it a matter of alliance, or of a more intimate articulation, between unions and social movements/NGOs? Does it require a breach with traditions of ‘social partnership’ and practices of collective bargaining? Does it mean inventing another ‘new model’ unionism, nationally and internationally? What relationship does it imply between the ‘organisation’ and the ‘network’? Does it raise all these matters? Or quite other questions and answers? (See Hyman 2002, Waterman 2003).

Sponsors

• Peter Waterman, The Hague, Netherlands. waterman@antenna.nl.

Originator of this note. A retired academic, an initiator of the discussion on social movement unionism, a longtime specialist on labour and social movement internationalism, and on communications and culture in relation to such. Since 2002 he has concentrated on the World Social Forum, particularly in relation to labour.

Selected bibliogray