Rob Lambert, Eddie Webster

This chapter analyses the emergence of a new labour internationalism, a "politics from below," which is, in our view, central to social emancipation. The analysis sheds light on the struggle for social emancipation in this era of globalisation through considering a new advance in labour internationalism that contrasts markedly in certain respects with traditional, established forms of international labour organization. This development is the emergence of what we define as a network organisation of democratic unions in the South that has evolved over the past decade. This initiative presents a fresh perspective on this arena of struggle and the role such a movement may play in challenging the competitive market logic of neoliberal globalisation. The growth of this new formation known as SIGTUR (Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights) represents a significant shift beyond the structures and practice of past labour internationalisms, offering scope for coalitions of counter-power to emerge, thereby contributing towards a movement of social emancipation. This chapter will seek to substantiate this assertion.

In one sense, social emancipation is inextricably shaped by differing conceptions of the nature of the human person. Our starting point is the notion of persons as essentially social beings (Marx, 1970: 138) in contrast to the liberal market conception of the person as an economic being—a priced, calculating, saleable commodity being, fiercely competing against all other persons, where there is no nexus, no moral relations between persons except naked self-interest. With regard to the latter, the particular form of human emancipation that is implied in the liberal economic model may be summarized thus. Human emancipation is realized when markets are liberated within nations through limiting the role of the state and when free trade is facilitated. This stimulus to competition promotes both economic and human growth. Each person has the opportunity to realise emancipation because these conditions provide the best possible conditions for each to fulfil their individual aspirations. This occurs because market-driven economies reward individualism. The enterprising person is born. A market culture of innovation, intense work and merit secure material and psychological emancipation. Under these conditions there is no need for a social emancipation, since society and social relations fade before the dynamic of economically connected, competing individuals excelling through market freedom and the open horizon of opportunity this orientation affords.

At the dawn of the new millennium, the very notion of a social emancipation has been marginalized by this market vision. Discourse on the nature of freedom, equality and community has all but dissolved before this new efficiency discourse. For Francis Fukuyama, this "unabashed victory" of economic liberalism signals "the end of history." Competitive individualism, the unifying spirit of the age as described above, has displaced political struggle that "called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism." Instead of engaging in a struggle for social emancipation, individuals stretch body, mind and spirit, accepting any sacrifice to secure a new ideal—the noble cause of being first in the world, the prize of meeting given global benchmarks.

However, in the decades that followed, this promising birth of labour internationalism failed to gain momentum and consolidate. When English building workers took strike action against the employers’ attempt to reduce wages and increase working hours, they recognised that international support from continental workers in France, Germany and Belgium was "a matter of life or death." Employers’ threats to import strike-breakers swiftly imposed an international awareness (Olle and Schoeller, 1984: 142). However, sectoral struggles against employers intensified the struggle for national trade union rights, which were secured in England earlier than in Continental Europe. Olle and Schoeller argue that the disintegration of the First International was not primarily due to political divisions such as arguments over support for the Paris Commune. The national recognition and consolidation of unions were of far greater import. This constitution of unions as national entities appeared to diminish rather than strengthen the need for internationalism. When legal recognition was won and as national bargaining systems emerged, the view that problems could be fought and resolved at national level without reference to the international context dominated.

In the context of this bleak history, analysts have concluded that globalisation’s new international division of labour has deepened the nationally-based conflict of material interests in a divided international movement (Haworth and Ramsay, 1986; Ramsay, 1999; Olle and Schoeller, 1977; Thompson and Larson, 1978; Press, 1989). The movement of jobs from developed to developing nations where labour was cheap overrode any sense of solidarity, with the workers suffering under these regimes (Olle and Schoeller, 1977). Haworth and Ramsay (1986) noted that "jobs and work lost in one may benefit workers in another." Hence, there was "no natural affinity between union movements across the developed world/third world divide." In such circumstances, workers would see workers in other countries as their main enemy, rather than uniting to challenge the common source of oppression.

Ramsay (1999: 193) contends that in the early 1970s, fear of MNC strategy led to renewed debate on trade union internationalism. Unions in North America and Europe were concerned over the capacity of MNCs to move investment and jobs to areas where labour was weaker and cheaper. These corporations had the economic power to "influence governments, withstand labour action and otherwise manipulate their environment" (Ramsay, 1999: 193). This image reinvigorated union attempts to internationalise their dealings with MNCs through multinational collective bargaining (MNCB).

Levinson (1971, 1972, 1974), then General Secretary of the International Federation of Chemical and General Workers’ Unions, argued that the economic and social damage of MNCs had to be countered by the growth of MNCB to preserve a democratic balance. Such a strategy would develop unions as "a truly international force" essential for their survival (1972: 141). Levinson’s strategy continued to reflect the deep-seated divide between the economic and political spheres. He eschewed the political dimension in favour of an emphasis on the practical economic need for international solidarity identified as the development of MNCB. Levinson’s "evolutionary optimism" (Ramsay,1999: 195) was Eurocentric, drawn from a vision of the evolution of industrial democracy and its extension to the international sphere. In practice, MNCB never made a great deal of headway, apart from some attempts to establish World Works Councils by the International Metal Federation (IMF).

However, despite this somewhat bleak history of failed initiatives, neoliberal globalisation and the advent of information age capitalism has ironically created the opportunity to transcend past constraints. Cold War divisions have all but dissipated. Cyberspace communication systems provide the opportunity to coordinate global campaigns and integrate organization across national boundaries. These changes in objective conditions have created promising ground for a new labour internationalism, which may develop the capacity to reassert social as against individual emancipation, and social being in contrast to an instrumental economic being. SIGTUR has seized the opportunity presented by this rapidly changing global reality. This new southern alliance is founded upon a generation of labour leaders who contradict market individualism. Most have paid a high personal price for their commitment to social emancipation, suffering terms of imprisonment and other forms of victimization. These socially engaged leaders do indeed show energy and daring, contrary to Fukuyama’s bold proclamation. They reflect Fromm’s (1961: 34) notion of the productive in contrast to the market personality, as persons who are "in the process of grasping the world productively," striving to make and transform history through the contribution of their own "creative vitality." Social engagement produces self-realization, a fulfillment of essential social being as these leaders transform a "sense of oppression" within and the negation that this carries into a powerful drive for social emancipation (Plamenatz, 1975: 323).

2. Political vision

This drive for social emancipation begs an obvious question: precisely what does this mean in the context of workers’ movements at this bleak historical moment? In his book The Worker Movement, Alain Touraine observes that movements emerge only when a strong future vision exists, which inevitably spawns emancipatory hope—a sense that the future can be different. In Europe, Marxism shaped this vision and created this sense of social transformation. Sassoon (1996: 6) shows how the works of Kautsky and Bebel popularised Marxism, attracting the leaders of the working-class movement and the activists who followed them. Theory was condensed into three simple propositions. Firstly, the capitalist system is unfair. Juridical equality between parties disguises a real inequality: the capitalists ‘cheat’ workers by appropriating far more than they pay in wages and other necessary production costs. This appropriation is the source of the disproportionate wealth, power and influence of this class. Secondly, history proceeds through stages. The present stage is transient. Thirdly, workers are a fundamentally homogeneous class, despite the obvious differences that exist. All workers are united by the struggle to improve their conditions and achieve real, rather than mere formal, equality. To realise this, workers need to organise into political parties and unions that seek to attain these goals.

These propositions proved to be a dynamic and effective mobilizing ideology. They embody a statement about the present—"the existing social order is unfair"; a statement about the future—"the existing social order can be changed"; and finally, a strategic statement about the transition from the present to the realisation of a future vision. Belief in these propositions created a social movement committed to changing the status quo. What gave the socialist movement in Europe its winning edge over rivals within the working-class movement was the powerful ideas it developed regarding the third proposition—"what is to be done?" The socialist movement came to the fore through the intuitive recognition that the working class represented a social subject "with tremendous political potentialities." Sassoon (1996: 7) argues that "[b]y thinking of the working class as a political class, ascribing to it a specific politics and rejecting the vaguer categories (‘the poor’) of earlier reformers, the pioneers of socialism thus virtually invented the working class." He then makes a vital point:

Building such a movement was challenging because the proletariat at this time was certainly no homogeneous mass, divided as it was by occupations, skills, territories, nationalism and religion. What was significant was the way in which the socialist movement gave ideological cohesion and an organisational unity to these fragments. "Class consciousness was constructed by political activists, just as nationalism was constructed by nationalists, feminism by feminists, racism by racists" (Sassoon, 1996: 8).

The crisis of the contemporary labour movement is a crisis of future vision. The flowering of an independent, critical Marxism of the 1960s and 1970s appears to have lost momentum before the powerful transformations of globalisation and the final collapse of what has been termed "actually existing socialism" in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The three propositions that were the source of the early movement’s dynamism have been substantially modified. Critiques of the present system are ad hoc and piecemeal, lacking in focus. Injustice is no longer related to capitalism as an economic system. Whilst certain union movements have begun to attack the effects of globalisation, the underlying logic of this expansionary dynamic is not analysed. In short, statements about the present lack power and rigor. They have failed to have any significant impact or attract citizens into their ranks to do serious battle against economic and social change.

This ideological crisis of labour is most apparent when the second and third statements are considered. The notion that "the existing social order can be changed" has given way to a pervasive pessimism that the social order cannot be changed in any fundamental sense. Whilst unions remain committed to defending worker rights and conditions, the linkage between these immediate struggles and a longer-term vision that might energize and give coherence and meaning to these short-term goals is absent. The third proposition ("what is to be done?") has given way to the bleak notion that "nothing can be done." Globalisation, materialised through tariff reduction, financial deregulation and workplace restructuring that has created deep insecurity and personal suffering, is generally viewed as inevitable—as a facet of the economic landscape that cannot be altered. Whilst national federations have in varying degrees begun to organise and support acts of resistance against these changes and whilst international union organisation has begun to debate new approaches, a coherent alternative strategy, grounded in ideology, has yet to be devised. The helplessness of citizens before these forces of change is matched by the absence of an independent labour movement response.

SIGTUR had to struggle to establish itself in the early 1990s, and established interests that wished to isolate the initiative often caricatured its position. However, the new formation was ideally positioned to take advantage of the new opportunities that had emerged, thereby rebuilding vision and hope. SIGTUR’s southern constituency, which is located in nations long subordinated within global economic relations, has begun to develop and sustain such a vision in order to create a movement against authoritarian regimes and rapacious corporations. This is best captured in Brazil, South Africa, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines, with the Australian unions being forced into the new mode of operation through the severity of the conservative attack on their right to exist during the 1990s.

Globalisation (financial and economic deregulation) is consolidating the power of large corporations and accelerating a process of radical rationalisation through endless takeovers and mergers. This is accompanied by a restructuring of work relations within companies and within the state sector. This lean production restructuring (Global Japanization of work relations) has intensified labour and created a culture of insecurity as the core of full-time workers is shrunk and casualisation expanded. Restructuring has included closures and relocation of companies from regions where unions are active to authoritarian states where union rights are constrained. Radical rationalisation, relocation and lean production have contributed significantly to strengthening the reserve army of the unemployed, further deepening the pervasive sense of insecurity felt by employed workers. The free trade drive now more firmly institutionalised through the World Trade Organisation smooths the way for these transformations. All of these changes undermine the power of organised labour, as members are lost in the restructuring and as unions appear impotent before these apparently intractable forces. Logically, hope would appear to be in short supply within this bleak context.

The extraordinary challenge the labour movement faces is how to engage with this logic. How can these interlocking and mutually reinforcing transformations that have consolidated corporate power to an unparalleled degree be resisted? At this point in history, when the power inequalities are so magnified, it is difficult to provide a clear-cut, confident answer to these cardinal questions. At this stage, SIGTUR is attempting to formulate a minimalist program as the first building block in a struggle for social emancipation. This program will attempt clear alternatives with defined strategies in the following spheres:

As this chapter will show, clarity of an alternative vision in these immediate spheres is only one aspect of the challenge. The other is developing a new form of unionism—global social movement unionism, empowered by network society capitalism, that will have the capacity to challenge this logic.

What we are arguing here is that social emancipation in the age of globalisation has to address what is happening to men and women in the sphere of work relations that labours a minority to the point of exhaustion whilst simultaneously excluding substantial numbers of citizens from access to paid labour. All citizens have the right to a secure means of sustenance and to a sense of meaning and fulfilment through engaging in some form of productive labour. Meaningful participation in economic relations, balanced by time for other cultural and sporting pursuits, is a foundation stone of social emancipation. That is why alternatives to the work restructuring produced by globalisation is being vigorously opposed. The reclaiming of lost ground in this sphere will provide the confidence to assert maximalist demands for the development of participatory democracy—a new state form with the capacity to regulate corporations and open the way to socialising control. Both minimalist and maximalist conceptions of social emancipation will remain but a pipe dream unless powerful global labour movements emerge that are allied with other social movements in a continuing struggle to realise these changes.

What are the present conditions that shape the building of this new movement? There is no straightforward answer to this question, as the exact nature of global change is the subject of widely varying interpretations, where each position has implications for the way the prospects of a new labour internationalism are viewed.

Globalisation perspectives that have dominated the debate thus far offer little scope to imagine and theorize the emergence of a new labour internationalism that could well play a key role in the coalescence of "a cosmopolitanism from below" (Santos, 1995: ch. 4). Giddens’s 1999 BBC Reith Lectures on globalisation and its effects, entitled "The Runaway World," identified two responses to globalisation. The ‘skeptics’ argue that globalisation is more ideology than reality. The world is not that different from earlier periods. The nation-state is still a powerful political entity, hence social and economic issues can still be resolved within these boundaries. The state still has power to construct a democratic industrial relations system that recognizes and concedes rights to trade unions. What is lacking is "the political will" to "gain extra leverage" in these spheres (Hirst and Thompson, 1996: 17). The clear implication of this perspective is that the current difficulties workers face can essentially be resolved nationally. Hence, there is no real need for a new labour internationalism. The second position that Giddens identifies also cuts across arguments for a new orientation by contending that the labour movement itself is being superseded. This second position, labeled "radical," contends that globalisation is not just ideology but represents very real transformations in the world economy and in societies’ basic institutions. Burawoy (2000: 343) observes that, "[w]hereas skeptics argue that there is nothing fundamentally new, the radicals find novelty around every corner." Nowhere is this more evident than in a major implication of Castells’s argument—globalisation crystallizes a new essence. We have indeed entered an entirely new phase of capitalist development where labour internationalism will neither be necessary nor possible. Castells calls this new phase informational capitalism:

This has created what he calls the network society:

However, in Castells’s view, the evolution towards a network society does not imply the demise of capitalism. For Castells, unlike Marx, the globalisation of the capitalist system does not open up the possibility of a labour-led emancipatory project. In his view, the network society results in labour becoming localized, disaggregated, fragmented, diversified and divided in its collective identity:

He concludes that

Peter Waterman (1999), in an insightful review of Castells’s work, highlights a vital conclusion, charged with political consequences. Labour continues to exist, but the labour movement has no transformatory or emancipatory capacity. And for this reason the labour movement has no chapter, or, indeed, existence in Volume II. For Castells,

We would concur with Waterman’s (1999: 367) conclusion: "Castells writes off the old labor movement too easily." In our view, there is potential for a creative synergy between the old and the new. Indeed, a counterposing of the old and the new embedded in Castells’s work is, in our view, likely to undermine social emancipation. We would agree with the proposition that, in and of itself, the new information technology generally individualises and isolates—so you have nodes that intersect, but they don’t necessarily translate into a collective project of social solidarity. SIGTUR provides a way forward because the initiative combines traditional union organization with informational age networking. This needs to be explicated.

A - CUT

B - Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU.

C - Center of Indian Trade Unions, CITU; All India Trade Union Center, AITUC.

D - Transport and General Workers Union, Sri Lanka.

E - All Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions, APFTU.

F - Center for Indonesian Workers Struggle, FNPBI.

G - Center for Labour Information, Study and Training, CLIST.

H - Malaysian Congress of Trade Unions, MTUC (certain unions only).

I - Korean Council of Trade Unions, KCTU.

J - KMU Philippines

K - New Zealand Unions

As clearly evident from the above map, SIGTUR is an initiative that is grounded in traditional union organization. The new regional structure grew out of an initiative of the Western Australian trade unions (Unions WA), supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). The initiative was a product of neoliberal globalisation. Australian unions were concerned that economic deregulation in a global context where union rights were denied was likely to seriously undermine the prospects for trade unionism more generally. Instead of turning inwards and searching for national protectionist solutions, the Australian unions committed to an internationalized response. They linked with active, democratic unions in Asia, Southern Africa and more recently Latin America, to establish SIGTUR as a campaign-orientated network of democratic unions in the South, committed to resisting the ravages of globalisation and to constructing an alternative paradigm of global economic relations.

This establishes a novel combination of the old and the new. On the one hand, SIGTUR is grounded in, and accountable to, traditional established trade union organizations listed above. In Castells’s view, all these organizations "seem to be historically superseded," as they are "dwindling down in much of the world" (1997: 360). They are movements that, in Castells’s assessment, do not "seem fit (...) to rebuild social institutions in the Information Age" (1997: 360). Certainly, these organizations reflect many of the problems Castells alludes to. For some, like the ACTU, membership has declined dramatically with the advent of globalisation. Others, such as COSATU and the KCTU, are still increasing their base, whilst others, particularly in Southeast Asia, are struggling to establish a new base in a hostile environment. However, notwithstanding these challenges and in fact because of globalisation pressures, all are committed to SIGTUR.

SIGTUR is built upon the new cyberpace technology. Traditional union organizations in the South are bonded and integrated into the dynamism of networking. All are internet connected, establishing intersecting nodes as the map indicates. Furthermore, SIGTUR is generating cyberspace campaigning and organization (not just networking) that connects the old and the new in a transformative project of social emancipation. Thus, one the oldest, most traditional of industries—mining—is the focus of SIGTUR’s cyberspace campaign for union and environmental rights. Another long-established traditional sector—maritime transport—is the base for forging a global union, highly dependent on internet linkage. Both these initiatives will be detailed in the final section of this paper. The point being made here is that the new Information Capitalism that Castells analyses is gradually transforming traditional union organization through the creation of an emancipation focused, new labour internationalism. In the absence of the new communications systems, this new direction, whilst possible, would certainly not be as effective. Hence, when the new systems are grounded in labour organization, new potentials emerge. On the other hand, disembodied, individualized networking that abandons labour organization limits the emancipatory potential of cyberspace communication systems.

What is often lost in the infatuation with the new information systems is the question of power dynamics—how established, interconnected social, economic and political power structures can be challenged in reality. In our view, social movements, grounded in production organization (unionism) and spanning other civil society movements embracing gender, environment and other critical social issues, are vital to this counterhegemonic venture of social emancipation. There is enormous scope for the new information systems to stimulate, promote and coordinate an action-orientated social movement around key issues. In turn, the rise of social movements has the potential to transform traditional unionism into social movement unionism that aims at establishing an alternative power center. However, a distancing from existing organizations, such as trade unionism, cuts down this prospect.

New informational networking has obvious strengths. In the absence of hierarchy, structure and control, debate is open, action decentralized, flexible and participative.

Its weaknesses stem from its socially disembodied character. Networking may generate protest politics as happened in Seattle. However, to translate these significant and possibly defining moments of protest into effective power politics requires a grounding in established unions and civil society organizations. This linkage is the only way in which a network will be sustained. Formal organizations that are democratic, accountable, committed to social emancipation and open to change, allow for a socially embedded networking. These organizations also provide a firm financial base to build a new global movement that integrates these two organizational forms—social organization and networking—into a coherent whole that draws on the respective strengths of both.

Such linkage cancels the weakness and builds upon the obvious strengths, as organizations assume network-like features. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the transformation of traditional labour internationalism as captured in Table One.

This still embryonic, new labour internationalism reflects the stirrings of labour movements reinventing themselves. In our view, Waterman does not adequately capture these early signs of an entirely new beginning in labour movement history. Indeed, what is missing from Waterman’s critique of Castells’s pronouncement of demise is a conception of the contradictions that the historical transformations of work has generated and the opportunities as well as the difficulties these created. Just as the destruction of craft work by machine-based production threatened the old craft worker and craft unionism, so too did it create the basis for a new form of worker organization—industrial unionism—that grew in strength through much of the past century. Globalised information age capitalism has now created a similar crisis for industrial unionism, as the global restructuring of work threatens the traditional union organization of the North. Yet the crisis is opening up the possibility for a new form of union organization—global social movement unionism, committed to social emancipation and the demise of globalisation’s narrow individualism. SIGTUR is one such instance of this phenomenon, albeit in an early phase of development.

For this reason, we prefer Burawoy’s notion of grounded globalisation as more illuminating than the well-worn debate between the skeptics and the radicals. For Burawoy (2000: 341), grounded globalisation is an antidote to skeptics without context and radicals without history. This approach sets out to capture "globalisation from below"—the real experiences of those impacted by global change and the ways in which new responses develop. This orientation recognizes that ideology is a central terrain of struggle in this process of resistance. Neoliberalism is now so powerfully rooted in economic and political life that mobilizing against globalisation will require a Herculean effort to construct a counter-ideology and crystallize a collective political will for emancipation. We now turn to a more detailed consideration of SIGTUR to explore the degree to which such an immense challenge has been embraced by union movements searching for a new strategy.

As alluded to in the previous section, Western Australian union leaders were concerned about the impact that globalisation, in particular tariff reductions, would have on union rights in Australia. There was a sense that a new initiative in the international sphere was a necessary response. Initially, this was poorly formulated as the unions searched for an appropriate strategy. In 1988, the Assistant General Secretary of the Western Australian Trades and Labour Council (WATLC) set up a meeting with the three Universities in Western Australia—the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University—to involve them in developing an appropriate strategy. A sub-committee of academics was formed that met regularly over a two-year period. They planned a large-scale conference of union leaders in the Indian Ocean Region and applied to the ILO for funding. An academic conference agenda was formulated to the point where keynote speakers were even approached. However, ILO funding was not forthcoming and so the conference idea remained dormant.

In late 1988, Rob Lambert, who had been actively involved with the reemergence of a democratic labour movement in South Africa, arrived in Perth, Western Australia. Lambert was approached by Western Australian union leaders and asked if he would assist with this initiative. Drawing on his experience of the innovative and leading role that the labour movement and COSATU in particular had played in the political struggle against the apartheid regime, Lambert suggested that the WATLC jettison the idea of an academic conference. He argued that there was a need for a clear strategy that addressed the problems that were likely to emerge as a result of economic deregulation, the most obvious being the impact of Asia’s cheap, non-union labour on Australian union rights. In Lambert’s view, the priority should be to establish contact and relationships with genuine, democratic unions in the Asian region that were struggling for recognition. Lambert visited countries in the region during 1989 and 1990 and made contact with these organizations. He found them to be in similar circumstances to those that had pertained during the South African union’s long and difficult struggle for recognition during the 1970s and 1980s. The forms of repression were similar. Lambert suggested that the WATLC commit to organizing a small workshop of these unions to explore whether or not there was a possibility of working together on a common strategy against neoliberal globalisation.

This organizing strategy in contrast to the earlier academic approach fell on fertile ground. Firstly, the left unions in Australia had had a long and rich history of an international engagement that was often highly political in character. For example, immediately after the Second World War, dockworkers refused to handle Dutch ships carrying soldiers to reestablish colonial rule in Indonesia. Unions were intensely engaged in the struggle against apartheid, which also involved disrupting shipping schedules. Secondly, Lambert retained contact with a close friend, Jay Naidoo, then General Secretary of COSATU. This was fortuitous, because Naidoo argued that an internationally non-aligned COSATU should develop a southern alliance of democratic unions so as to more effectively challenge globalisation’s logic. This meant that COSATU became a strong ally in the venture from the outset, contributing their rich vein of experience to unionists who were facing precisely the same issues that the aspirant South African unions had faced twenty years earlier. To organize and mobilize workers in a situation where no rights exist and where both state and employers are extremely hostile was the cardinal question.

The first small workshop was held in Perth in May 1991. There were twenty-four delegates, evenly divided between Australian participants and those from the region. The latter included leaders from the KMU in the Philippines, the newly established Solidarity trade unions in Indonesia, independent union activists from Malaysia (including Arokia Dass, recently released from prison), and from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea. COSATU sent a strong delegation of four senior leaders. Even at this early stage in the process, South African leaders played a key role in sharing experiences of how to build democratic unionism in a hostile environment. They emphasized the importance of developing collective power in the workplace, before engaging in any form of resistance. Their leaders stressed the need to think and act strategically in identifying organizational space and contradictions that could be exploited. Assessment of organizational strength was critical before organizing strikes or demonstrations. Caution and discipline were deemed essential. This position led to a vigorous debate, as Solidarity indicated that they planned to take mass protest action demanding union rights outside the ILO offices in Jakarta, scheduled for only weeks after the workshop. COSATU and the KMU delegates probed Solidarity’s assessment of their organizational strength and the balance of forces in relation to the military regime. The protests went ahead and were predictably followed by widespread repression by the military. Fledgling factory leaders were particularly hard hit. In a sense, this first meeting set a new labour internationalism agenda that aimed at building strong unionism, committed to social emancipation, under repressive conditions.

This first tentative step was immediately challenged on two interconnected fronts. Despite the Berlin wall crumbling in 1989, cold war politics lingered. A right-wing national organization in Australia with strong Catholic Church links, the National Civic Council (NCC), which is active in the right wing of the Labor Party and the Australian trade union movement, launched a scathing attack on the initiative in their national magazine, Social Action. The NCC made an extraordinary claim in its Autumn 1990 edition:

Immediately following the first conference, the NCC reiterated its view that the WFTU was the force driving the initiative. They went on to criticize the meeting as "unrepresentative": "The delegates did not necessarily represent recognized trade unions in their respective countries" (Social Action, May 1991: 11). This was the focus of the attack on the initiative. Martin Ferguson, then President of the ACTU, also criticized the delegates at the Perth meeting for being unrepresentative. When Ferguson left the meeting, he was vigorously attacked by certain Asian delegates for being, in their view, condescending and racist.

The logic of this position was that the initiative should have aligned with the established unions in the region. However, these unions were all products of American intervention in the region following World War II. The establishment of a Communist regime in China led the US to work actively to encourage the construction of either employer-dominated company unions, as was the case in the Philippines, or unions under state control. These unions were far from representative of the working class in their countries, instead reflecting the interests of authoritarian statism, local economic elites and the multinational corporations. The initiative had little option but to search out those in the forefront of the struggle to establish independent and democratic unions that often stood in opposition to the established client unions. In nations such as Indonesia, where military repression against any form of independent unionism was severe, the initiative had no option but to link in with NGOs that were organizing in the factories by stealth. A similar situation pertains in China today, and indeed the rebirth of non-racial democratic unionism in the 1970s in South Africa was based in part on the intervention of university students who set up Wages Commissions as a mechanism to organize factories. Democratic unionism cannot simply be invented by the wave of a wand. These new formations are always the product of struggle, hence the criticism that the network was unrepresentative was in fact a call for an abandonment of this commitment to democratic unionism and acceptance of the status quo—weak, ineffectual unionism throughout the region, representing employer and state interests, not the interests of Asia’s severely exploited working class. Despite these attacks—launched at a time when the initiative was fragile and struggling for the right to exist—the determination to work with any independent and democratic union, regardless of political orientation, remained at the center of the endeavor. This orientation was later formulated into a Principles for Participation statement that attempted to flesh out the criteria set out by ILO Conventions 87 and 98.

The reason that there was such a fundamental, principled commitment to democratic unionism from the very outset is the Australian unions’ seriousness in working towards challenging globalisation logic. This would require new forms of international solidarity action. Clearly, such action would never be forthcoming from state-sponsored, or employer-dominated, weak, subordinated unionism created as a Cold War stratagem. The notion that the network itself was part of the Cold War logic was a fantasy flight. As the founding documents show, from the very outset, the goal was to respond creatively and positively to the challenge of globalisation:

The successful launch of the Indian Ocean initiative led to a much larger conference attended by 140 delegates in Perth in November 1992. The base of the network was expanded to include Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and India. The Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) had a large delegation who contributed significantly to the debates. Cosatu was again strongly represented by nine delegates, led by Zwelinzima Vavi, who was later to become General Secretary of COSATU. At COSATU’s instigation, the first formal structures were established at this meeting. They proposed the establishment of a Regional Coordinating Committee (RCC) that was to meet once a year. The denial of trade union rights in the Asian region in particular and strategies to highlight and struggle for these was the focus of debate at this meeting. Company Codes of Conduct were considered as a possible lever to focus international attention on the plight of Asian workers.

A third meeting of 140 delegates was held in Perth in November 1994. This meeting was dominated in part by the Indonesian question and the fact that ACTU policy on this issue was driven by Ferguson, who led the attempt to engage Indonesia’s military unions in the belief that they could be reformed. Ten delegates from Indonesia’s struggling democratic unions, spawned and supported by NGOs, were openly hostile to the Australian government’s policy of constructive engagement. This conflict almost sunk the initiative as Ferguson threatened to destroy it. He was prevented from this course of action by the ACTU national affiliates who had been involved from the outset.

1995 marked a turning point for the network when the recently elected government in Western Australia intensified its anti-union stance by undermining freedom of association in the workplace through amendments to the Industrial Relations Act. This radicalized the Western Australian union movement and under the new and dynamic leadership of Secretary Tony Cooke, a militant campaign involving a protest march of over 20,000 workers was launched. Drawing on the network, the WATLC invited COSATU to speak at this rally. Significantly the COSATU leader, drawing on the solidarity shown by the Fremantle dockers during the anti-apartheid struggle, threatened to reciprocate with boycott action if the laws went ahead. COSATU Senior Vice President, George Nkadimeng, presented views that had been developed with COSATU’s National Office bearers. He was mandated to commit COSATU not merely to words of encouragement and support. COSATU’s engagement would be marked by solidarity action, aimed at damaging the Western Australian State:

COSATU’s boycott threats were backed by a similar commitment from CITU in India. Unions participating in the network organized protest action outside Australian Embassies throughout the region. Here was solidarity of historical import, for it was possibly the first time ever that severely exploited workers from developing nations led mass protest action in solidarity with workers’ struggles in a developed industrialized nation. Unions in the Philippines spoke of the "parliament of the streets." The statement read at the mass rally in Perth, in August 1995, urged the Australian unions to adopt a new approach to the denial of rights:

These remarkable responses of SIGTUR unions in the region were not lost on the mainstream financial press. The Far Eastern Economic Review carried an article headlined "Role Reversal: State attracts Asian criticism on workers’ rights." Rees, the author, commented:

The article took note of the fact that the President of CITU, M.K. Pande, branded the proposed legislation a "ruthless attack on worker rights." In a protest note to the Australian High Commission in New Delhi, Pande stated: "It is to our astonishment that the state government is going all out in its bid to disrupt industrial relations. This will tarnish the image of Australia."

These pressures reinforced the militant local campaign leading to the Western Australian government’s withdrawal of the legislation. This provided a model of the new internationalism wherein the local and the global fuse in a new, more powerful dynamic of resistance that has yet to be fully developed and fully tested. Tony Cooke, leader of the negotiating team, concluded that this linked international action was the key factor in defeating the proposed laws.

These events were of enormous import for the future of this new, fragile network of democratic unions. Key elements of the established international trade union movement, which had been extremely wary and even hostile to the initiative, shifted their position quite dramatically. They had come to realize that the initiative was not about "replaying the cold war politics of international trade unionism" as the NCC had contended. They recognized that the network, fragile as it was, heralded new forms of resistance against the logic of neoliberal globalisation that had no place for the collectivism of unions. They recognized that the orientation was to building global solidarity, regardless of politics, the only criteria being commitment on the part of participating organizations to ILO Conventions.

Dan Gallin, then General Secretary of the International Union of Food Workers (IUF), who had previously been openly hostile to the network, flew to Perth to discuss ‘coalition building’ between the network and the ITS. This was a real breakthrough. Subsequently, Gallin played a constructive role in developing links between the network and many of the established ITS. These included the International Metal Federation (IMF), the International Chemical, Energy and Mining Federation (ICEM), the Public Sector International (PSI), the International Union of Food Workers (IUF), and the International Transport Federation (ITF). Significantly, these organizations have participated in the RCC.

There were 121 delegates to the Johannesburg meeting. Trade union delegates were drawn from the following ten countries: South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Korea, New Zealand and Australia. Two NGOs from Hong Kong that were involved with labour in China participated as observers. There were also representatives of some of the key ITS. These included the IMF, ICEM, ITF and the PSI. Labour researchers from a number of countries (Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, South Africa and Australia) also participated as observers. Not surprisingly, the largest delegation came from the host country, South Africa, followed by Australia, India and Korea.

A pilot survey based on a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was conducted. This was distributed to all trade union delegates (104) at the beginning of the conference. Forty-two returned the questionnaire—a 40% response rate. The response rate was roughly proportional to the size of the individual country delegations. The survey results will now be analysed in the context of this chapter’s argument on the new internationalism and the prospects for social emancipation.

The ongoing worldwide demonstrations against globalisation and the WTO have had a strong youth constituency. Attracting young people to the struggle for social emancipation is intricately bound to the issue of whether or not unions can regain a sense of vision of an attractive alternative to the present restructuring. As the KCTU has demonstrated, youthful idealism is a key component of serious and sustained resistance. A second weakness in SIGTUR’s profile is the movement’s failure to engage women to a greater degree.

The Congress reflected a wide range of home languages—there were sixteen in all. These included Afrikaans, Bengali, Bahasa, English, Hindi, Kannada, Korean, Malayalam, Marathi, North Sotho, Sinhala, South Sotho, Tagalog, Tamil, Tswana, Xhosa. 24% of those interviewed had English as their home language, although 98% had a working knowledge of English. This reflects the trend of English becoming the global language, thereby facilitating new opportunities for transnational discourse, which considerably lightens the task of global movement building. This fact is reflected in the following table.

However, the diversity of languages in the South should also alert SIGTUR’s leadership to the need to recognize this facet. Until now, all the movement’s Congresses have been conducted in predominantly English-speaking countries. The test will come at the next Congress in Korea, the first in a non-English-speaking country. Here the contradiction is that SIGTUR is essentially a poor people’s movement with minimal financial resources. Holding a Congress in a non-English-speaking country requires simultaneous translation facilities, which are costly. These are indeed the dilemmas of building a global movement in the South. Another critical facet of global movement building is access to and use of the internet, for as we have argued in the previous section, "SIGTUR is built upon the new cyberpace technology. Traditional union organizations in the South are bonded and integrated into the dynamism of networking."

The above statement highlights a core characteristic of SIGTUR, revealing the innovation SIGTUR brings to labour internationalism—cyberspace connection between traditional union organizations, which facilitates global action, thereby empowering traditional union organization. As we have argued, this phenomenon contradicts Castells’s assessment that unionism has been "historically superseded," lacking the capacity to "build the new social institutions of the Information Age" (1997: 360).

74% of the delegates used email with a total of 50% of the sample using it at least once a week. Only 26% had never used email. This may reflect a division between senior full-time officials and the ordinary members of the delegations.

67% of those who used email said that they were able to respond to email messages quickly. 62% are able to download and send attachments and have access to the world wide web.

This survey data demonstrates that a transformation has taken place. The relatively high usage of the new communications technology has the effect of globalising nationbound organizations by increasing the level and dynamic of global communications and global action. The new cyberspace communications create this opportunity for it is a core change in objective conditions. However, such a transformation does not automatically lead to new movements emerging. Movements have to be built. SIGTUR is an instance of the political will to build a new global social movement. Whilst the balance of forces is heavily weighted against any form of empowerment and social emancipation from below as we have shown in an earlier section of this chapter ("Political vision"), the new technologies at least create an opportunity for the marginalized and the powerless to fight back on a scale essential to success—the scale of the global.

This leads us to a consideration of the second part of the survey, which scrutinizes the delegates’ perceptions of SIGTUR. This provides a valuable indication of the degree to which this new formation is taking hold within its constituent national unions and the local leaderships’ views of the role of such a southern structure.

A crucial element in the attempt to build a new labour internationalism is leadership continuity. A core of union leaders from a range of countries has participated in every SIGTUR Congress since its inception. They have taken the knocks and ridden out the times where everything seemed to be pitted against the survival of the new formation. These leaders drew on their experience of resistance politics at a national level. Hence they were able to contribute the organizational skills and the determination to build something new. These leaders recognized that there was no easy road, no benefactors, no outside recognition that would point to an easier pathway, only new challenges and new obstacles.

A small core could not sustain this effort unless the call to organize and act in new way resonated. Here is where the survey results are interesting. One third of the delegates at the Johannesburg Congress had attended previous Congresses either in 1991, 1992, 1994 or 1997. 43% of the delegates in Johannesburg had heard of SIGTUR before 1996. 22% heard about it in 1997 - these would mostly have been from India. The results reveal that the small leadership core is connected to a wider layer of participation in SIGTUR. This connection has provided a degree of stability essential to the organisation’s survival during this early formative phase.

Another distinguishing feature of SIGTUR that is captured in the survey is the manner in which these delegates are grounded in, and accountable to, the union organizations that they represent.

All respondents stated that they reported back to the different levels of the trade union movement, either verbally or in writing. One delegation used a digital camera, which gave them the capacity to develop power point presentations on the meeting. Organisations such as COSATU have a strong culture of accountability and report back. This takes the form of written reports.

This process of report back means that the action plan has the potential to be integrated into local union strategy. SIGTUR is attempting to strengthen this through the establishment of local regional committees that will monitor and assess this process of integration. The new formation does not limit this integration to the national federation level only, but is committed to using the new local committees to engage sectoral unions within the federations.

In 1996, SIGTUR began to emphasize the strategic importance of a sectoral focus and has since been working to strengthen this dimension. Hence, the degree of sectoral representation is one indicator of the potential future strength of the network organization for it is the sectors that will drive the campaigns.

The survey revealed that delegates were drawn from a wide range of economic sectors. A significant number were from the public sector and from manufacturing unions such as metals and electronics, with representation from telecommunications, construction, transport and food, as well as the professional sector (technical workers and teachers). Despite the achievement of drawing a range of sectors into the process, resourcing still remains a significant problem. SIGTUR does not have the financial capacity to ensure an adequate and balanced representation of all the key sectors, especially in Southeast Asia where the democratic union movement is weak and dependent on outside funding to ensure participation. Sectoral representation has been strong where the unions are well established, for example, in South Africa, Korea, India and Australia.

Throughout this chapter, we have highlighted and analysed the emerging role of SIGTUR in the struggle against neoliberal restructuring. Globalisation itself shaped the delegates’ views on what SIGTUR should be doing and how individual sectors should respond. Whilst the powerful advocates of globalisation assert the benefits of free trade and economic restructuring, the views of SIGTUR delegates of these processes were stark indeed. In responding to the following survey question, delegates presented a list of negative impacts. None could see any benefits to working people.

All the respondents saw the effects of globalistion in these negative terms.

Given these impacts, "what is to be done?" In the earlier part of the chapter titled "Political vision" we observed that the labour movement had appeared to lose a sense of future vision. Confidence and belief that the existing order could be changed had given way to a profound pessimism—nothing could be changed. Pessimism is also related to the decline of Marxism as a tool of analysis of the present and of future possibilities.

Is this pessimism and ideological decline reflected in delegates responses to the following question:

Delegates viewed SIGTUR as a network that facilitates, consolidates and advances the goals of their organization through learning from other countries; gaining information about similar struggles; developing links with other activists and ideas about how to critique and challenge globalisation; and building international solidarity. These were the principle hopes of delegates.

Participants were searching for ways of developing "concrete action against globalisation" (South African food worker delegate); sharing information on organizing and mobilizing methods and ways to rethink how to strengthen union organization. SIGTUR was viewed as a means of building strong local organization and fostering the capacity to resist global restructuring, which was seen to be devastating workers’ security and conditions throughout the region.

There was a closely related question in the survey.

The following were the most common responses to this question. SIGTUR helps: the fight against neoliberalism; the coordination of our strategies; challenge MNCs; update workers’ struggles, share information; the unions evaluate organizing; the fight against privatization; build solidarity; the realization that other countries face the same threats (quite fundamental); formulate a common approach to global issues.

The responses to these two questions reveal that the SIGTUR constituency has not been reduced to inaction through a dark pessimism. The will to organize and resist is present. The logical view that a global attack on labour necessitates a global response is a positive new vision. However, the responses are limited to a search for more effective ways to resist globalisation. In 1999, SIGTUR had not reached the point of clearly articulating the need to work through a complex process, which not only develops resistance but also searches for alternatives to the present form of globalisation. That is, SIGTUR is viewed as a forum for resistance. The network organization is not yet viewed as a forum for debating and formulating alternatives to globalisation. In the developing struggle against globalisation, the source of information is a critical factor. Delegates were asked:

Information is gleaned from a range of sources. These include local and international TV such as CNN; local and international radio such as BBC, newspapers and journals. Significantly, many delegates mentioned that they gained information from workshops, union discussions, informal discussions, and the email. This seems to suggest that there is an alternative source of information on international activities in those countries where there is a developed labour movement. It is interesting to note that CNN and BBC were significant sources of information in those developing nations where repression was severe.

Finally, the survey explored delegates views on the action plan decisions.

The survey revealed overwhelming support for the campaign against the mining MNC Rio Tinto. The responses suggest that SIGTUR is building a group of leaders committed to specific action campaigns. The responses were as follows:

25 expressed strong support (60%).

15 expressed some support (36%).

No support, 0.

No response, 2.

Delegates saw this as an example of the future direction of labour struggles and wanted more information.

27 expressed strong support (64%).

11 expressed some support (26%).

3 expressed no support.

No response from one.

38 expressed strong support (91%).

4 expressed some support (9%).

15 expressed strong support (36%).

17 expressed some support (41%).

5 expressed no support (12%).

5 no response (12%).

The outcomes of the meeting were significant in that they reflected a consolidation of a campaign-orientated labour internationalism.

The survey results are indicative of strong support for a particular style of internationalism—one that is action-orientated. As the above list indicates, workers’ experience of neoliberal globalisation has been negative. Hence, there was an expressed desire for "concrete action against globalisation." SIGTUR is viewed as a means to promote this struggle, "build solidarity," "formulate a common approach to global issues," thereby strengthening local organization. As the survey shows, there was a high degree of support for the global campaigns that SIGTUR proposed. There was, however, a degree of confusion as to what precisely was meant by "global unionism," hence the lower degree of strong support for this strategy.

At the meeting SIGTUR delegates committed to:

The relative success of these campaigns, even at this early stage, is indicative of the immense potential of linking cyberspace communications systems to democratic organization. These signs of the new labour internationalism contradict Castells’s notion that the labour movement has been "historically superseded." The labour movement is now in the midst of a difficult and challenging transition from nationally-based to globally-integrated unionism, a transition now made more feasible by the new communications systems. The transition is dynamised by leaders committed to human emancipation, leaders who still have the capacity to imagine an alternative to the bleak scenario of neoliberal global change. This campaign-orientated labour internationalism will now be briefly explored.

"I have never seen a company create new jobs by restructuring.’’

Delegates were committed to working towards a common May Day throughout the South. This would be trailed in the year 2000 with a view to a more extensive event in 2001. May Day was viewed as an opportunity to highlight the devastation neoliberal globalisation has wreaked on job security and conditions. Participant countries that mobilized on this common issue were South Africa, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea and Western Australia. South Africa, India and Korea organized a general strike. These actions highlight significant facets of the new labour internationalism. Networks such as SIGTUR do not organize action at the local national level. These decisions are taken by national unions. Appropriately, COSATU, CITU and KCTU were all solely responsible for the general strike decision to highlight the crisis. SIGTUR’s role was to utilize cyberspace communication to ensure that all participant unions learnt of the actions and recommunicated them to their memberships.

The mass actions were for job security and humane conditions and against the effects of economic globalisation. This is indicative of a new ideological position being forged in the process of struggle. Again, SIGTUR’s role is to capture this shift and to communicate effectively so that individual national movements are not left isolated to face their own power elites challenging their loyalty to the nation’s well-being. The elites assert that such actions damage the nation’s competitive interests, placing investment-driven job creation at risk. Future jobs are at stake as a consequence of these reckless strikes. Grounded cyberspace communications allows a dialogue of common emancipatory interests that dissolves this national perspective. This is an essential counterbalance to the intense elite-defined nationalism.

Four million workers responded to the general strike call in South Africa, 2 million in India, and 100,000 in Korea. What is distinctive in these mass actions is that, firstly, organised labour is hesitantly evolving an independent ideological stance; secondly, far from being a spent force"‘in the new transformative social dynamics," organized labour is in fact proving to be a leading force (Castells, 1997: 360); and thirdly, the labour movement is prepared to take direct action to pressure for an end to the liberal economic policies being pursued by political parties in power.

COSATU President Willie Madisha captures these features in a statement on the day of the general strike:

COSATU made the following demands on the ANC government:

Erica Kessie, a Cape Town textile worker, commented: "We don’t accept job losses. We are prepared to do this every month if necessary. If we are not going to fight, then who is going to fight for us?" Placards read: "Slash Profits not jobs"; "Bosses stop taking money overseas"; "Imported goods destroy jobs."

The strike had wide appeal within South Africa and was non-racial. Afrikaans workers marched chanting "Ons is gatvol" (We have had a guts full). A COSATU Deputy Chair for the Pretoria region said in a speech to workers:

Another leader at the same rally said:

COSATU committed itself to opposing all restructuring that creates job loss. The general strike was followed by an occupation of government offices.

The CITU-led general strike of over two million workers in India was equally dramatic and defining. CITU issued a statement: "The strike is aimed against the surrender of the country’s economic sovereignty before the WTO and the IMF." In West Bengal, air and rail links were disrupted as protesting workers squatted on rail tracks. In New Delhi, strikers held up traffic at a major arterial crossing near the major business district, until they were arrested. The strike was total in the states of Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Tripura, Kerela and Andra Pradesh, and was partially successful in other states. The mass action affected a wide range of key economic sectors, including steel plants, coal mines, state government offices, banking and insurance and was characterised by strong support from the women’s movement and the student movements in these states. The demands in Korea were for a five-day working week; an end to the planned sell-off of Daewoo; and finally, the legal protection for workers in atypical jobs

This campaign demonstrates another vital dimension of post-cold war labour internationalism—broad-based coalition building. ICEM is the driving force and has taken the initiative against Rio in probably one of the most effectively organized international campaigns yet. SIGTUR’s role is to fully commit to the ICEM program, thereby striving to contribute to the defeat of Rio’s anti-union, anti-environment practices. Success in this instance may well provide a template for action against other MNCs.

These are the local struggles that led the CFMEU, through ICEM to go global. The ICEM strategy centered on cyberspace communications. The Rio Global Union Network (RGUN) was formed and is being coordinated out of California. The internet is being used to promote the campaign, instantaneously communicate union actions and keep track of the corporation’s responses. ICEM has demanded of Rio:

The strategy confirms our arguments on the effectivity of grounded networking. RGUN’s first task was to embody the network within organization. Two forms were distributed via the internet. One was directed to unions on Rio sites, and the other to community organizations and individuals willing to commit to the Rio global campaign. These documents are listed in the appendix. With regard to the former, individuals are chosen by the union to be the Rio Tinto Global Campaign work-site organizer. In taking on this position, they accept

With regard to the involvement of community organizations and individuals, the email document entitled "Pledge of Solidarity" asks organizations and individuals

This new organizational structure, within a global network is in the process of being set up. However, the campaign is not delayed whilst organization is developed and refined. Protest action against Rio has been global, intense and sustained. The shareholders of Rio were one target. Union leaders from around the world attended Rio’s Annual General Meeting in London on May 10, 2000, having formed the "Coalition of Rio Tinto Shareholders." This was the first time that trade unions had organized a shareholder campaign that was global in scope. The Coalition put forward two resolutions, which called on the company to establish one single Deputy Chairperson to implement core ILO Conventions. At the meeting union leaders warned that, in the new global economy where cyberspace communications allow for instantaneous communication across the globe, "Everything the company does is increasingly subject to public scrutiny—not just in the local community, but across the world. Rio Tinto’s performance in Indonesia may well affect its right to operate in Canada or the USA."

Not unexpectedly, Rio’s Chairperson, Robert Wilson, dismissed the resolutions as "irrelevant to corporate governance." However, skillful union organizing is likely to maintain the pressure on the Board. The alliance of unions won support for the resolutions from some major institutional shareholders with over sixty-five billion pounds sterling in assets. Apart from this pressure, the alliance led by ICEM began to organize protest actions around the globe, in an effort to pressurize Rio into signing a global agreement. Whilst these are still at an early stage, there is potential for a campaign of rolling protest actions across the globe until the company agrees to negotiate a global agreement.

SIGTUR is committed to mobilizing unions in the South against Rio. Pakistan workers have marched through central Islamabad. They tried to reach the British Embassy to protest but were blocked by military police. The All Pakistan Federation of Trade Unions was joined by the Working Women’s Organisation, mobilizing men and women workers from a range of sectors, including telecommunications, water and power, the garment industry, railway, food, leather, as well as nurses, teachers and pharmaceutical workers. Leaders spoke of the international solidarity that the campaign expressed and called on Rio to meet ICEM’s demands. They demanded an end to the violence against workers in Brazil. In California, chemical workers demonstrated against Rio, and in Indonesia workers occupied the mine site, asserting their rights. The emancipatory potential of cyberspace networking linked to organizations is already apparent in these early actions. The commitment of workers beyond their immediate interests belies competitive individualism and the determinism of much of the analysis arguing that there is an irreconcilable conflict of interests between workers in developed and developing nations.

Building global unionism

In Johannesburg, the MUA and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) signed a declaration of intent to create a global union. Such a union would link the ports of Fremantle in Western Australia with South Africa’s east-coast port of Durban. Such a linkage is symbolic. History resonates. During the apartheid years, Fremantle waterfront workers often delayed South African shipping in protest against the regime. Ship owners were forced to refurbish the cabins of black seamen before the ships were offloaded. More recently, the South African transport unions came out in solidarity with Australian workers fighting against the imposition of anti-union laws. In 1995, the unions threatened a boycott of Australian shipping on route from Fremantle to Durban unless the Western Australian laws were withdrawn. The Western Australian government retreated on the understanding that the boycotts would be cancelled. When a new version of the laws was reintroduced in 1997, dockworkers in all South Africa’s major ports withdrew their labour for a day and marched to the city centers in protest against the renewed attack on Australian unions. Large numbers participated in the Durban marches, holding aloft banners proclaiming their commitment to Australian workers who had stood by them in their fight against apartheid. During the 1998 maritime dispute, shipping was actually boycotted. In early May, Australian ships were stranded with unloaded cargo.

Significant lessons were drawn from this experience. Global integration and the trade dependence of nations renders governments vulnerable to militant, global union action. In 1995, the Western Australian government was determined to press ahead with its anti-union agenda, yet they eventually retreated before these pressures. A sensible strategy therefore requires that the global unionism experiment should first be applied to this strategic sector. Hence the statement of intent:

Since the SIGTUR Congress implementing this agreement has progressed. The statement of intent was endorsed at the November 1999 National Conference of the MUA, which is the union’s policy-making body. A MUA delegate attended a SATAWU meeting in May.

SIGTUR is at the crossroads. It is a remarkable achievement to have survived for a decade, given the initial hostility and scarcity of resources. The initiative provides a starting point for debate on the new labour internationalism because it is innovative, having grasped the potential of electronic networking in the age of globalisation. SIGTUR challenges Castells’s argument that the new network stage of capitalism presages the demise of unionism and solidarity, as social relations are individualized. The SIGTUR experiences reveal that social commitment has not been eroded by competitive individualism. In fact, quite the opposite is occurring. The lives of working people have been so damaged that they are willing to act collectively. SIGTUR’s campaigns are testimony to this as are the new protest movements that emerged in Seattle, Washington and Melbourne. Castells’s argument requires significant qualification. SIGTUR also demonstrates the critical need to link networks to organization.

Despite these advances, SIGTUR remains very fragile and dependent on the commitment of a few individuals. In the long run this is not sustainable. SIGTUR has to move from its present network form to a new modality that more effectively combines the strengths of a network with the strengths of organization, which can assure accountability and a secure financial base. There are two fundamental reasons why SIGTUR has endured. Firstly, the initiative has survived a decade because of the sheer political will of the unions involved. Secondly, the experience of harsh and repressive regimes in the South has created a need for such a structure.

SIGTUR faces four central challenges:

The revitalization of labour internationalism is a common goal shared with progressive labour movements all over the globe. The task is to continue to build SIGTUR as an enduring force. The initiative is still a fragile structure that has been sustained for a decade by sheer political will and determination. The successes achieved in this decade would not have been possible had this will not been nurtured in the fertile soil of resistance, generated by neoliberal globalisation. To remain sustainable it will have to meet the four challenges identified in this chapter. This will demand a high level of innovation. The fact that so much has been achieved within a short space of time gives cause for cautious optimism as far as the future is concerned.

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