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International Labor and the World Social Forum: Report No. 2 |
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by Peter Waterman
Email: waterman (nospam) antenna.nl (unverified!) |
26 Jan 2002
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With less than one week before the World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil, different tendencies in the international labour movement are responding - differently - to the challenge the new internationalist movement presents to the old. |
WSF II Report 2
Date: 26.1.02
Labour Reformists, Vanguardists and Radicals Respond to the Challenge of Porto Alegre
There is less than one week to go before the World Social Forum (the WSF, or Foro) meets, Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 30-February 2, 2002. But a flurry of activity - mostly on the web - finally suggests a significant response from the international labor movement. Whilst we do not yet know how many labor movement activists will be present, nor what kind of impact labor will have on the Foro, some major labor and union traditions have already showed their hands.
The reformists
Most dramatic is the announcement that almost 20 leading figures from the 'family' of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (Brussels), will be attending. These include International and Regional officers of the ICFTU (and associated industry or functional bodies). But also present on the delegation will be three leaders of more-radical Southern unions such as Yoon Youngmo (KCTU Korea), Kjeld Jakobsen (CUT Brazil), and Willie Madisha, President of COSATU (South Africa). All three organizations are recent affiliates and their presence suggests movement within the ICFTU.
The extensive participation, significantly, will be 'balanced off' by an equally weighty presence at the World Economic Forum in New York, January 31-February 4, 2002. (Perhaps this should be put the other way round, since the ICFTU has traditionally attended the WEF). The WEF will be confronted by the customary lobbying of the ICFTU inside, and the anti-globalisation movement on the streets. But it will also be confronted, at long distance, by the WSF in Porto Alegre. Just how the ICFTU is going to present a single message to these dramatically-opposed events will be interesting to observe.
It is also not yet clear what the ICFTU Family's 'World Forum on Labour and Trade Unionism', at the Foro, on January 31 - which includes an 'optional' demonstration in the afternoon - is itself intended to demonstrate. Nor how it will be articulated with other labour events during the FSM. However, the proposed participation suggests an initial understanding between the ICFTU Family, the (post-Catholic) World Confederation of Labour, the Organising Committee of the Foro (Candido Grzybowski of Brazil) and the International Labor Organization (Juan Somavía of Chile). The nature of such a possible alliance, and its relationship to the global justice movement more generally, also remains to be seen.
The Vanguardists
At another pole of the international labour movement can be found the International Liaison Committee (ILC), a Trotskyist party that has national affiliates all over the world, and that has been actively trying to coordinate and lead the increasing labor protest against globalization. Its Brazilian affiliate, represented within the leadership of the CUT, has announced that it wants to dialog with others about the Foro…but that it is also boycotting it! The motivation for the boycott is, in large part, the Foro's adoption of 'civil society' discourse:
'The very concept of 'civil society', which is so popular of late, erases the borders between social classes that exist in society. How, for example, is it possible to include in the same category of 'civil society' both the exploited and the exploiters, the bosses and workers, the oppressors and oppressed -- not to mention the churches, NGOs, and government and UN representatives?' (Turra et. al. 2002).
This class-determinist rejection is supported by an extensive critique of the Foro, of its leading sponsors and strategies, of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and their state/corporate funding, and even of the 'participatory budgeting' strategy of the Left-governed host city (Cristobal 2002). All these are clearly seen as detracting from the class struggle and socialist revolution. Whilst the critique may be telling, and certainly raises important questions about the nature of the Foro and the broader global justice movement, the reluctance of the ILC to join in the Porto Alegre dialog suggests other factors at play. These may lie not so much in the ILC's ideological differences with the Foro (where other militant socialists, including Trotskyists, will no doubt be present), as with its preference for international labor or union dialogs which it itself sponsors and therefore controls (Waterman 2001:17-19). Given the forceful challenge the ILC makes to the Foro, its absence may be nonetheless regretted.
The Radicals
A third union position, if national, may nonetheless impact on the Foro, since it comes from the Brazilian CUT (Freire 2002). With one foot firmly in the ICFTU and another just as firmly in the Foro, The CUT is clearly trying to articulate the old labor internationalism with the new radical-democratic one. The international orientation of the CUT is familiar to the world of international unionism (e.g. Jakobsen 2001), and influential amongst Latin American and Southern unions more generally. Freire's article appreciates the new generation, new collective subjects and new organisational mode of the movements 'against neoliberal globalization', and evidently welcomes them. Whilst recognizing the diverse nature of the movement, and the tension between the 'fixers' and the 'nixers' (my language) with respect to the international financial institutions, he considers that the settlement of this difference will be determined not by fiat but by the future development of the movement itself. He clearly also appreciates the opportunities the Foro has provided for the CUT to ally itself with others, nationally and internationally. He notes its success in attracting other unions to Foro II, and the possibility of further developing some kind of 'global social alliance' at Porto Alegre. Finally, he stresses the apportunity the Foro provides for further discussion and specification of its 2001 slogan 'Another World Is Possible'.
The new world anti-globalization order: an orientation
In so far as the organizations, issues and even the language above may be unfamiliar, even to labour movement activists internationally, a general orientation toward such, while itself inevitably personal, may not be out of place.
These three labour movement tendencies - and known or unknown others attending the Foro - are trying to orient themselves toward a movement that does not yet actually have a name. 'Global civil society', 'anti-globalization', 'anti-corporate', 'anti-neoliberal', 'anti-capitalist' and 'global justice' represent as much projects as descriptions, analyses or an agreed name. And 'global civil society' is a term which even academic specialists are nervous about prematurely defining (Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor 2000)!
'Global civil society' is a highly-disputed discourse, however the terrain is defined. The concept has its origins in anti-authoritarian struggles in Latin America and Eastern Europe, but it is now being recycled by corporate neo-liberalism, funded by inter-state agencies, and - most seriously? - reduced to 'civil society babble' by many involved in the Foro itself. What has, however, been offered to the concept, by the anti-globalization movement, is, precisely, the naming of the enemy as corporate capitalism (Starr 2000). Under such an understanding, global civil society is as much in tension with corporate capitalism as with neo-liberal globalization and the inter/state institutions that underlie or advance this.
The WSF, moreover, does not encapsulate the global justice movement (as I am have been calling it). Although there is much interpenetration and mutual influence, another tendency is represented by People's Global Action (PGA). This is a major force behind, or inspiration for, the direct-action demonstrations that have made the movement a focus of media, corporate and inter/state concern - not to speak of fear or loathing.
If the Foro has been largely supported by the more-militant international NGOs, left parties and unions, the PGA and related initiatives have been more inspired by ecological, anarchist and libertarian thinking and practice (Juris 2002). The Foro has rejected both 1) old left analyses and vanguardist strategies (insisting precisely on the value of a site for exchange, negotiation and alliance-formation) and 2) a lobbying role vis-à-vis the international financial institutions. Yet it has proven itself open to the presence of inter/state institutions and politicians. These may be themselves hoping to benefit from the new ideas and political energy of the Foro whilst preserving - possibly modified - the basic dynamic and institutions of capitalist society).
Thus, the international labor movement, which stands on the rapidly-moving conveyor belt of globalization (moving backward as well as forward, and shaking workers off in whichever direction) is confronted with the rapidly-changing characters and scenes of a play, with many authors and names, that is being written as it progresses. The labour movement, moreover, has to be considered a part of the global justice drama, whether it sees itself as inside or outside the play, independent from it or autonomous within it!
What is shaping up here is 'not your father's international labour movement'. But, then, it is also not your mother's capitalist world order.
Just how different the international labour movement might look, as a result of participating in the Foro obviously remains to be seen. Just as we still have to see what kind of global justice movement might come out of a closer articulation with international labour organisations with maybe 200 million members. Even bearing in mind that this will be largely an encounter of inter/national labour leaders with inter/national NGO ones, the prospect is promising.
[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 material 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
Bibliography
Cristobal, Miguel. 2002. 'ATTAC, the "Tobin Tax," And the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre (Brazil): Is this a Way Forward to Fight Global Capitalism?'. Email from International Liaison Committee for a Workers International (ILC). theorganizer (at) igc.org, 23.1.02.
Freire Neto, Rafael. 2002. 'O sindicalismo e os movimentos de luta contra a globalização neoliberal' (On Unionism and the Movements against Neo-Liberal Globalization), Ponto a Ponto Cadernos (São Paulo), No. 4, January.
Jakobsen, Kjeld. 2001. 'Rethinking the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and its Inter-American Regional Organization', in Peter Waterman and Jane Wills (eds.), Place, Space and the New Labor Internationalisms. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp. 59-79.
Juris, Jeffrey. 2002. 'Research Project: The Movement for Global Resistance in Barcelona' (Draft). On GloSoDia Group/List.
Starr, Amory. 2000. Naming the Enemy: Anti-Corporate Movements Confront Globalisation. London: Zed. 268 pp.
Turra, Julio et. al. 2002. 'Open Letter to the Trade Unionists and Activists Participating in the World Social Forum 2002 in Porto Alegre, Brazil: Is it possible to put a human face on globalization and war?'. Email from International Liaison Committee for a Workers International (ILC). theorganizer (at) igc.org, 23.1.02.
Waterman, Peter. 2001. 'Trade Union Internationalism in the Age of Seattle', in Peter
Waterman and Jane Wills (eds), Place, Space and the New Labour Internationalisms. Oxford: Blackwells.
Internet Resources
Global Solidarity Dialogue Group/List
http://groups/yahoo.com/group/GloSoDia
Global Solidarity Dialogue Website
http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman
Global Unions: World Social Forum and World Economic Forum 2001 http://www.global-unions.org/wef-wsf.asp
ICFTU: Pages on World Social Forum and World Economic Forum 2001 http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991214591&Language=EN
IndyMedia (USA)
http://www.indymedia.org/
Labour News Network
[See link on LabourStart below]
LabourStart
http://www.labourstart.org/
OneWorld
http://www.oneworld.org/
World Social Forum 2nd International Information Exchange
http://www.ciranda.net/
World Social Forum Website
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/eng/index.asp
http://groups/yahoo.com/group/GloSoDia
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See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=124396&group=webcast
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