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International Labor and the World Social Forum |
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by Peter Waterman
Email: waterman (nospam) antenna.nl (unverified!) |
22 Jan 2002
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The international union organisations have ambiguous feelings about the so-called global justice movement. The World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Jan 30-Feb 5, provides an opportunity to witness whether this major international movement of the 19th-20th Centuries is interested in articulation with the major one of the21st. |
WSF II Report 1 Words: 1,300 22.1.02
International Labor and the World Social Forum: Love at Second Sight?
Peter Waterman
waterman (at) antenna.nl
The major organizations of labor internationally may be making more of an impact on the World Social Forum Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 31-February 5, this year than they did in 2001. It is too early to talk about marriage, or even a love affair, but the prospect of an increasing articulation between the world's largest mass organizations and the world's most influential movement network is of more than passing interest.
The WSF, or Foro, became an instant symbol of the 'anti-globalisation', 'anti-capitalist' or 'global justice' movement, when it took place in this Left-governed city last year. The event was deliberately timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum, meeting behind the now customary razor-wire, in Davos, Switzerland. Although the Foro is actually the more constructive face of the global justice movement, it is, nonetheless, way to the left of the union internationals. As such it is seen by the international labour movement - the major democratic social movement of the 19th-20th century? - with considerable ambiguity.
The Foro is energetically supported by the Central Śnica de Trabalhadores (CUT) of Brazil, which is itself a new member of the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU). The CUT is also a major force within the ICFTU's regional organization for the Western hemisphere, known internationally as the ORIT. Whilst two other Left ICFTU affiliates from the South (Korea and South Africa) might have been present at Porto Alegre in 2001, (alongside radical unionists from the North), there was little presence or impact here of the major international unions or confederations.
The reason is that the ICFTU and its 'family' (industry-specific internationals, regional organizations, specialized agencies, media) have long invested heavily in lobbying the very inter-state institutions against which the Foro was publicly protesting and proposing alternatives to, and in the face of which the Foro was asserting that 'another world is possible'. Indeed, the major inter/national union leaders were in Davos, shaking hands with the world's corporate and political elites, whilst the Foro was taking place, in the South, thousands of kilometers away. The old international institutions, moreover, have been either hostile, skeptical or cautious about the global justice movement - a 'movement of movements' much wider than the Foro - that is not only new and challenging but also seemingly uncontrolled and unstructured.
Whereas the typical international union conference is a ritual affair, with major decisions taken beforehand or in corridors (and provoking zero media interest), the Foro is more like a teach-in, a happening, a festival, and is more concerned with stimulating networking and alliances than with resolutions. And the Foro is also a media event, both for the corporate international media and for the increasingly professional alternative international communicators.
The institutionalized international labour movement (which includes parties as well as unions) has also had difficulty with the 'unrepresentative' nature of the global justice movement. The ICFTU, for example, 'represents' some 157 million workers worldwide. But, with exceptions, these workers are unaware of who represents them at international level, how they are represented by these and what effect their representations might have. In so far as workers are becoming active against neo-liberal globalization, they may be increasingly drawn toward or influenced by this consciousness-raising, catalyzing and mobilizing - if unrepresentative - movement. It also has an attractive and universalistic ethical message, something the 'heavy dancers' of institutionalized labor have long traded in for sectoral 'influence'. Such an attraction may be even more the case for the growing majority of 'atypical workers', un- and under-employed, in the world labour force.
After 2001, a year in which the ICFTU Family alternately danced toward and away from the global justice movement (away particularly when the former identified itself with the US-led 'War On Terrorism'), it looks as if at least parts of the institutionalized international union movement (which is anyway wider than the Family) may be taking a more positive and assertive position at Foro II. Signs, as faint as footsteps in the sand, are the following:
· The CUT, together with the South African COSATU (plus the Korean KTUC and others, representing the radical South or Left within the ICFTU), is responsible for the labor theme within the Foro. (The CUT itself is proposing seminars on unions and the unorganized and relations between trade unions and the anti-globalization movement! · The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is apparently proposing a programme of seminars at the Foro, in the the presence, or anyway in the spirit of, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and dependent on the latter's discourse of 'decent work'; · Even the now-marginal leftover of the once regionally-significant World Federation of Trade Unions (which has shared the decline of its Communist state backers) is proposing a pre-Foro meeting of 'class-oriented unions' to decide the position it will take there against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.
These may be - to change metaphors - simply straws in the wind. And any impact will be anyway hard to identify and measure in the presence of 20-30,000 participants, dozens of Conferences and Seminars (more formal) and literally hundreds of Workshops (less so).
Moreover, whilst the Foro might be labor-friendly, it is not particularly union oriented. Furthermore, 'labor' at the Foro, will be neither confined to the unionized nor controlled by unions. Even at the level of sub-themes, labor questions will appear under such rubrics as Trade, Transnationals, Solidarity Economics, Migration and Human Rights. And we can expect the energetic presence of social movements and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) speaking on or for women workers and women's work, child labour, rural labour. The less-formal Workshops, moreover, already list dozens of labor topics, sponsored by national or local unions, by social workers, academics, and socialist parties or groups.
It may even be difficult for interested labour movements and activists, outside Brazil, to find information on labor organizations and issues at the Foro. The major international union websites (including that of the ICFTU, of Global Unions and the ETUC), whether in English or Spanish, show little or zero interest in, or awareness of, the Foro. The international press agencies, and even the 'alternative' news media, are likely to be more interested in the most dramatic and colorful events, and in speculating on the growth of, or divisions within, and the future of the Foro and the global justice movement more generally.
There may be labor coverage in Le Monde (which has been energetically supporting the Foro) and part of the left-liberal press internationally. And also on the alternative international news websites. Left labor and socialist print media may, again, however, be more interested in the nature of the event as a whole, and in the global justice movement it has come to stand for, than in any specific union presence/absence, orientation or impact. Time will tell. Alternatively, as they ought to say,
Watch this cyberspace.
[Peter Waterman will be in Porto Alegre as a correspondent for the magazine Transnational Associations (Brussels), will concentrate on labor organizations and activities there, and is sponsoring a Workshop on 'Globalisation, Internationalism, Networking and Solidarity'. He is also uploading relevant material on the Foro to the Global Solidiarity Dialogue Group at http://groups/yahoo.com/groups/GloSoDia. Those who register for the group can find this by clicking Files and then Porto Alegre Forum. Much of the material on which this article is based can be found on this site. The author hopes to continue reporting to Labour News Network and other Left lists from Porto Alegre.]
Resources
Global Solidarity Dialogue Group/List
http://groups/yahoo.com/group/GloSoDia
Global Solidarity Dialogue Website
http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman
Labour News Network
[See link on LabourStart below]
LabourStart
http://www.labourstart.org/
2nd International Information Exchange
http://www.ciranda.net/
World Social Forum Website
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/eng/index.asp
Indymedia
http://www.indymedia.org/publish.php3
OneWorld
http://www.oneworld.org/
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See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=122260&group=webcast
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