[WSF-Discuss] The Present and Future of the Labour and Globalisation Network in the WSF
Peter Waterman
p.waterman at inter.nl.net
Mon Dec 22 15:12:30 UCT 2008
L&GWSF-B4Belem191208
THE LABOUR AND GLOBALISATION NETWORK IN THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM:
RE-ORIENTATION NEEDED
1.With a month or so to go before Belem, I would like to see a revival
of discussion on the 'Labour and Globalisation' network(s) within the
WSF. This is because I am suffering a certain dis-orientation.
2.This may be due in part to difficulties with the List, reported by
Marco recently. It certainly is in part due to my being off-list for a
month or more, and to being now in Lima but on a strange machine (Asus
EEE, with Linux and a spare Spanish keyboard that produces
US/International characters). It may have something to do with the
existence of the two lists, an ESF and WSF one, or of two overlapping
*networks*, one for each forum focus. It may, finally, be due primarily
to expressed differences on the list about the nature of one or both of
these networks.
3.In any of these cases, I think that *simplification* and
*clarification* are called for. Otherwise, it seems to me, confusion and
cross-purposes will continue and, alongside such, an inability to
address a broader public. This will leave the activities and discussion
in the hands of the few most highly motivated and, even amongst these,
of those with the funding to attend the most forums/consultations/meetings.
4.By *simplification* I guess I mean the need one common project
(evidently operating at different levels or in different regions, and
striking different notes) and one online list – which could hopefully
allow for or develop different foci or discussion threads.
5.By *clarification* I mean the necessity to report and comment on
meetings. A report does not require one official set of agreed minutes -
as in a formal organisaton – since there might be several such. What it
implies is an account of what happened, addressed to a possibly
interested public, but one which was not present. As for *comment*, this
would imply that interested participants would provide the rest of us
with their understanding of what was and/or should be going on. Some of
this has emerged in the exchange over Malmo. But this is, to my
recollection, the first such. And the nature of the mis/understanding
raises the next issue.
6.This issue is that of the purpose and process of the L&G network(s).
This remains quite vague to me and it is possible that this vagueness
might have led to the misunderstanding expressed on the list. It may be
that some participants wish it to be a labour equivalent of the WSF
itself, meaning a site of dialogue, producing no policies. Some may see
it more like a conference, producing policies or proposals for action,
in which different organisations are represented and can have a veto -
or that there might be majorities and minorities rather than consensus.
7.My own position may have been suggested by my document on a Global
Labour Charter Project/Campaign. I have spoken to this at one or two L&G
events and, I think, have posted it on one or other of the lists. What
this document was intended to imply is the necessity for an emancipatory
labour initiative, meaning one that is post-capitalist in orientation,
autonomous from existing political, union or ideological bodies,
networked, action-oriented and dialogical. I also consider that the
existing network urgently needs a more distinctive (from everything and
everyone else using the same descriptive title!) name. I have proposed
one or two, including 'The Emancipation of Labour' or 'Labour and Global
Social Emancipation'.
8.The above is anyway the kind of body I think is necessary. It does not
matter too much whether the present WSF labour network(s) are or are not
open to such an orientation or at least to discussion on such. If they
are not, I will be obliged to either abandon my orientation, postpone
it, or take it elsewhere, within, around or somewhere else in the
broader global justice movement.
9.However, I do take encouragement from various other bodies within or
around the WSF. These include Via Campesina, the World March of Women,
the Feminist Dialogues and, most recently, The Belem Ecosocialist
Declaration http://links.org.au/node/803. All of these seem to me, in
their admitedly rather different ways, to represent more of a chalenge,
or provide more of a leadership, to the community within which they
exist as well as to the global justice movement more generally.
10.I note, further, that much of the new thinking or discussion on
labour and social movements - or labour as a social movement - takes
place anywhere except on our list or in our occasional meetings. I will
mention here only one
Mimmo Porcarro, 'Labour and Life',
http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache:03PthwiHMkAJ:www.transform.it/socialismo-xxi/work-and-life+mimmo+porcaro&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2
This item, which is not strategy oriented, nonetheless raises major
questions about the present nature and future of our movement. And,
therefore, of a network that intends to lead or transform such.
11.I attach, for information, my GLC proposal. This is not because it
represents in my mind anything more than a personal one (tho it has been
and is being reproduced across the web, mostly on social-movement sites
that are not labour-specific). It is attached here not as a challenge to
the trade-union movement in general but to the L&G network in
particular. It may also contain some challenging references! I am
simultaneously circulating it to a number of other groups or individuals
who might be interested in it, or prepared to express an opinion on it.
12.Responses, however critical, would be welcome. As would, of course,
any alternative views on the present and future of L&G
Peter Waterman
Lima
221208
GLCMMalmoEd/Words: 2,640/Updated: 070908
NEEDED: A GLOBAL LABOUR CHARTER MOVEMENT
A Work in Progress
(For the European Social Forum, Malmo, September 2008)
Peter Watermaniii
p.waterman at inter.nl.net
[T]he material basis for international working-class solidarity is
greater than at any point since the development of capitalism.
Nevertheless, the existence of a material basis does not ensure success.
Movement from the general recognition that international solidarity is a
good to its realisation will require changes in ideological orientations
as well as practical programmatic steps.[…]To bring social justice
unionism into existence, we must change not only the leadership of
existing organised labour but also the relationship between the existing
trade union movement and other progressive social forces.
(Bill Fletcher Jr and Fernando Gapasin 2008)
Like any movement under attack, labour generally resists as disloyal
critical thinking that challenges established tenets and practices. But
today that won’t do. Now more than ever we need a free and open debate
about the future of labour, a debate that respects a full range of
opinions and perspectives. Launching such a debate would be a good first
step in labour’s revival.
(Global Labour Strategies 2008)
The disappearance of utopia brings about a static state of affairs in
which man himself becomes no more than a thing. We would then be faced
with the greatest paradox imaginable…After a long, torturous, but heroic
development, just at the highest stage of awareness, when history is
ceasing to be blind fate, and is becoming more and more man's own
creation, with the relinquishment of utopia, man would lose his will to
shape history and therewith his ability to understand it. iv
(Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, 1929-31)
Preamble
The idea of a Global Labour Charter Movement comes out of both
desperation and hope. The desperation is due to seeing the labour
movement, in North, South, East or West, still on the defensive due to
(despite?) the severe, multiple and continuing attacks delivered by
contemporary capitalism. Not only has the union movement largely
forgotten its early emancipatory inspiration and utopian hopes. Even the
old adage that ‘the best means of defence is attack’ seems unfamiliar to
labour’s international leadership.
The desperation is due – more specifically - to the international
unions’ continued attempt to get back to a mythologised utopia of social
harmony (the reality of which is surely responsible for labour’s current
predicament). This backward-looking utopianism is represented in the
current ‘Decent Work’ campaign http://www.decentwork.org/. DW promotes
the archaic West-European paradise of ‘social partnership’ between
Labour, Capital and State. It has simply hoisted this to the global
level. DW is no sense a union or labour movement project: it has been
adopted, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, from the Geneva-based
International Labour Organisation. And this is an inter-state body
(castigated by a former insider (Standing 2008) for its multiple
incapacities in the face of globalisation!). DW, finally, reproduces a
traditional imperial relationship, since it is being promoted by the
West to the Rest. Its sponsors and funders are West European
social-reformist unions and NGOs…plus the neo-liberal European Union!
Hope comes from seeing new energy and vision within the global justice
and solidarity movement (GJ&SM), for example in the international rural
labour movement, Via Campesina. Despite all the imaginable difficulties
confronting the self-organisation of rural labour, this body has
developed a holistic vision of its social position, of its enemies, of
an alternative future. It has demonstrated assertive global strategies
and sophisticated relational practices (internal and external) that have
made it a leading actor in the GJ&SM and led to widespread public
recognition and support (Desmarais 2007, Waterman 2008a). Hope also
comes from signs of assertion and innovation closer to the traditional
labour movement, and from new thinking within and about such (Fletcher
Jr and Gapasin 2008, Gallin 2003, Huws 2008, Ince 2007, Waterman 2007,
Research Committee 44 2008, Bieler, Lindberg and Pillay 2008). As well
as from efforts to specify a necessary and desirable post-capitalist
utopia – and how it might be reached. (Networked Politics 2008,
Adamovsky 2005, 2007, Dwyer-Witheford 2007, Sousa Santos 2006-7, Spannos
2008).
Propositions
1.The idea of a GLCM is to develop a charter, declaration or manifesto
on labour, relevant to all working people, under the conditions of a
radically transformed and highly aggressive capitalism, neo-liberalised,
networked and globalised.
2.The proposing of such a charter has, however, been provoked by a
couple of other international labour declarations (Bamako Appeal 2006,
Labour Platform for the Americas 2006). A common limitation of these
otherwise very different documents is that they were initially produced
and issued for acceptance or endorsement, by union leaderships or
intellectual elites, without previous discussion by union members,
shopfloor or community activists themselves. The GLC project is,
however, also inspired by a women’s one, the Women’s Global Charter for
Humanity (2004), produced after worldwide discussion by one of the
newest mobilising social movements. (Verdière 2006, Conway 2007).
3. In so far as the GLC project is addressed to the emancipation of
life from work (work here meaning labour for capital and state, empire
and patriarchy), it implies articulating (both joining and expressing)
labour struggles with those of other oppressed and exploited social
categories, people and peoples – particularly those previously
unrecognised workers, women and peasants/farmers. The existence of the
GJ&SM, best known through the World Social Forum (WSF) process, makes
such articulation increasingly possible.
4. Its title could be the ‘Global Labour Charter Movement’ (or GLCM21).
'Charter' reminds us of one of the earliest radical-democratic
labour-popular movements of industrial capitalism, the British Chartists
(Thompson 1984) ‘Movement’ reminds us that the development of such a
declaration is a process and requires the self-mobilisation of workers.
5. Such a process needs to reveal its origins and debts. These are not
only to early labour history. They are also to the new forms of labour
self-organisation (by, within and beyond unions), to the shopfloor,
urban and rural labour networks (local, national, international), to the
pro-labour NGOs (labour service organisations), and to a growing wave of
labour education, to (electronic) communication and to research
responding to the global crisis of the labour movement (Waterman 2007).
6. The novel principle of such a charter should be its conception as a
‘virtuous spiral’ - that it be thought of not as a single, correct,
final declaration, which workers, peoples and other people simply
endorse (though endorsement could be part of the process), as for its
processal, dialogical and developing nature. This notion would allow for
it to be begun, paused and joined at any point. Such a process would
require at least the following elements: information/communication,
education, dialogue, (re-) formulation, action, evaluation, information.
7. It is the existence of cyberspace (the internet, the web, online
audio-visuals) that makes such a Global Labour Charter for the first
time conceivable. We have here not simply a new communications
technology but the possibility for developing non-hierarchical,
dialogical, equal relations worldwide. The process will be
computer-based because of the web’s built-in characteristics of
feedback, its worldwide reach, its low and decreasing cost. An
increasing number of workers and activists are in computerised work, are
familiar with information and communication technology and have web
skills. Given, however, uneven worker computer access, such a process
must also be intensely local, imply and empower outreach, using the
communication methods appropriate to particular kinds of labour and each
specific locale. (See: Networked Politics).
8. Networking can and must ensure that any initiators or coordinators
do not become permanent leaders or controllers. There is a growing
international body of fulltime organisers and volunteer activists, both
within and beyond the traditional inter/national unions, experienced in
the GJ&SM, who could provide the initial nodes in such a network.
Networking also, however, allows for there to be various such labour
charters, in dialogue with each other. Such dialogue should be
considered a normal and even necessary part of the process and avoid the
authority, dependency or passivity associated with traditional
manifestos. (See, again, Networked Politics).
9. If this proposal assumes the crisis of the traditional trade unions,
it should be clear that it simultaneously represents an opportunity for
them. This is for a reinvention of the form of labour self-articulation,
as has occurred more than once in the history of capitalism (from guilds
to craft unions, from craft to inter/national industrial unions). By
abandoning what is an increasingly imaginary power, centrality or
privilege, unions could simultaneously reinvent themselves and become a
necessary and significant part of a movement for social emancipation
worldwide. The form or forms of such a reinvention will emerge precisely
out of a continuing dialogue, the dialectic between organisational and
networking activities.
10.Starting with the first edition(s) of any GLC, there could develop
globally-agreed demands and campaigns, with these having emancipatory
(arguably subversive, empowering, socially transformatory) implications
for those involved. Rather than increasing their dependence on capital,
state, patriarchy, empire, any GLC must increase their solidarity with
other popular and radically-democratic sectors/movements.
11.Any such campaigns must, however, be seen as not carved in stone but
as collective experiments, to be collectively evaluated. They should
therefore be dependent on collective self-activity, implying global
solidarity, as with the international 19th century campaign (never
universally implemented) for the eight-hour day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day. There is a wide range of
imaginable issues (of which the following are hypothetical examples, in
no necessary order of priority):
A Six-Hour Day, A Five-Day Week, A 48-Week Year, thus distributing
available work more widely, reducing overwork (see http://www.swt.org/).
Global Labour Rights, including the right to strike and inter/national
solidarity action, but first consulting workers - including migrants,
precarious workers, unpaid carers (‘housewives’), the self-employed, the
unemployed - on their priorities; and secondly by prioritising
collective struggles and creative activity over leadership lobbying.
http://laborrightsblog.typepad.com/ international_
labor_right/2006/11/about_this_blog.html.
A Global Basic Income Grant, independent of any obligation to work, and
asserting the right to life over the obligation to work
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html.
A Centennial Reinvention of the ILO in 2019, raising labour
representation from 25 to 50 percent, and simultaneously sharing the
raised percentage with non-unionised workers (Standing 2008);
A Global Campaign for Useful Work, reaching beyond conditions of, or at
work (‘Decent Work’) to deal with useful production,
socially-responsible consumption, environmental
sustainability/restoration (Morris 2008,
http://libcom.org/history/1976-the-fight-for-useful-work-at-lucas-aerospace.
All in Common, a campaign for the defence and extension of forms of
common ownership and control (thus challenging both the privatisation
process and capitalist ownership in general), Waterman 2004,
http://turbulence.org.uk/ turbulence-1/commonism/, ;
A reinvention of Mayday as a Global Labour and Social Movements
Solidarity Day (consider the innovations introduced by precarious
workers in Europe and by immigrant labour in the USA)
http://www.euromayday.org/about.php, http://www.mayday2007.org/;
Support to the principle of Solidarity Economics and the practice of the
Solidarity Economy, i.e. production, distribution, exchange that
surpasses the competitive, divisory, hierarchical, growth-fixated,
wasteful, polluting, destructive principles of capitalism. (Miller 2006,
Mance 2007)
A Global Emancipation of Labour Forum, as part of, or complementing, the
World Social Forum, an assembly open to all working people,
organizations, intellectuals/artists and movements, organised
autonomously from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the
Global Unions. If not in a geographical place then in cyberspace. (Reese
and Chase-Dunn 2008, Waterman 2001, 2008).
A website/portal coordinating information and ideas oriented toward the
emancipation of labour, covering research, education, audio-visuals, and
other resources; to have such a title as ‘The Global Labour Charter’,
‘The Global Emancipation of Labour’, ‘Moving Labour Globally’; to be
open to sponsorship but autonomous of all organisations and ideologies;
open on equal footing to all; to have a preferential option for globally
marginalised workers and regions; to have a transformatory purpose and
be open in governance and operation. (Compare here: Choike, Global
Labour Strategies, New Unionism, Union Ideas Network, E-Library for
Social Transformation, Union Renewal, Rebelión, etc).
[Fill at will]
12.This proposal is clearly marked by its origin, in terms of its
author’s ‘subject position’, place of birth/residence, age, language,
etc. It is, however, issued under the principle of CopyLeft. It can
therefore be adapted, replaced, challenged, rejected and, obviously,
ignored. Its only requirement (or hope) is that it be discussed.
References/resources:
Adamovsky, Ezequiel. 2005. ‘Diez diferencias entre la Izquierda
tradicional y el nuevo anticapitalismo’ (Ten Differences between the
Traditional Left and the New Anti-capitalism), in Anticapitalismo para
principiantes: La nueva generación de movimientos emancipatorios. Buenos
Aires: Era Naciente.
Adamovsky, Ezequiel. 2007. ‘Zehn Unterschiede zwischen der
traditionellen Linke under dem neuen Antkapitalismus’ (Ten Differences
between the Traditional Left and the New Anti-capitalism), in
Antikapitalismus fuer Alle, fuer Alle…Die neue Generation
emanzipatorischer Bewegungen. Berlin: Karl Dietz Verlag.
Bamako Appeal. 2006. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bamako.html
Bieler, Andreas, Ingemar Lindberg and Devan Pillay (eds). 2008. Labour
and the Challenges of Globalization : What Prospects for International
Solidarity. London: Pluto.
Choike – Global Labour Rights:
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1872.html
Conway, Janet. 2007. ‘Transnational Feminisms and the World Social
Forum: Encounters and Transformations in Anti-Globalisation Spaces’.
Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 8 No. 3. Pp. ????.
Desmarais, Annette. 2007. La Via Campesina: Globalisation and the Power
of Peasants. London: Pluto Press.
http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-read_article.
php?articleId=440, http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/files/Waterman% 20
international %20labour.pdf.
Dwyer-Witheford, Nick. 2007. ‘Commonism’, Turbulence: Ideas for
Movement, No. 1. http://turbulence.org.uk/turb_june2007.html
E-Library for Social Transformation: http://www.openelibrary.info/main.php
Fletcher, Bill Jr. and Fernando Gapasin. 2008. Solidarity Divided: The
Crisis in Organised Labour and a New Path Toward Social Justice.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gallin, Dan. 2003. ‘Note on the International Sex Workers’ Movement’.
http://www.
globallabour.info/en/2007/09/note_on_the_international_sex.html.
Global Labour Strategies. 2008. ‘Labour's Dead: Long Live Labour!
http://labor
strategies.blogs.com/global_labor_strategies/2008/08/it-has-been-dec.html#more.
Global Labour Strategies: http://laborstrategies.blogs.com/
Huws, Ursula (ed). 2008. Break or Weld? Trade Union Responses to Global
Value Chain Restructuring. London: Merlin Press.
Ince, Anthony. 2007. ‘Beyond ‘Social Movement Unionism’? Understanding
and Assessing New Wave Labour Movement Organising’, http://uin.org.uk/
content/view/244/125/
Labour’s Platform for the Americas. 2006. http://www.gpn.org/research/
orit2005/index.html.
Mance, Euclides André. 2007. ‘Solidarity Economics’.
http://turbulence.org. uk/turbulence-1/solidarity-economics/.
Miller, Ethan. 2006. ‘Other Economies are Possible!’,
http://www.zmag.org/znet/view Article/3239
Networked Politics. 2008. ‘A Contribution to the WSF Strategy
Consultation from the Discussions of ‘Networked Politics. Review on the
Networked Politics Discussions in the Light of the reflection on the WSF
strategy. Contribution to the Debate on WSF Future at the International
Council of the WSF (March 2008).
http://www.networked-politics.info/where-we-are/.
New Unionism: http://www.newunionism.net/
Rebelión: http://www.rebelion.org/
Reese, Ellen. and Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 2008. ‘Labor Activists and
the World Social Forum: Challenging Neoliberalism, Building
International Labor Solidarity, and Strengthening Labor-Community
Alliances’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISA's 49th
Annual Convention, Bridging Multiple Divides, Hilton San Francisco, San
Francisco, CA, USA, http://www.allacademic.com/ meta/p251059_index.html.
Research Committee 44. 2008. ‘First ISA Forum of Sociology, Sociological
Research and Public Debate, Barcelona, Spain, September 5-8, 2008,
Programme of Research Committee 44: Labour Movements. Theme:
Re-Empowering the Labour Movement’. (Email received August 31).
Sousa Santos, Boaventura de. (Ed). 2006-7. Reinventing Social
Emancipation: Towards New Manifestoes. London: Verso. 4 Voumes.
http://www.versobooks.com/books/ cdef/d-titles/de_sousa_production.shtml
Spannos, Chris (Ed). 2008. Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the
21st Century. Chicago: AK Press.
Standing, Guy. ‘The ILO: An Agency for Globalisation?’, Development and
Change, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 355-84.
Thompson, Dorothy. 1984. The Chartists: Popular Politics in the
Industrial Revolution. New York: Pantheon.
Union Ideas Network: http://www.uin.org.uk/
Union Renewal: http://unionrenewal.blogspot.com/
Verdière, Brigitte. 2006. ‘Elaboration of the Charter’ (Personal
Communication, May 15).
Waterman, Peter. 2001. ‘Nine Reflections on a Communications
Internationalism in the Age of Seattle’.
http://www.choike.org/documentos/waterman2008/011 globalisation.pdf
Waterman, Peter. 2003. ‘All in Common: A New/Old Slogan for Labour
Internationalism’, http://www.commoner.org.uk/waterman06.pdf.
Waterman, Peter. 2006. ‘Hacia un movimiento para una carta laboral
global’, Revista Cultura y Trabajo (Medellín), No. 69, October.
http://www.ens.org.co/ articulos.htm?x=20150756&cmd[111]=c-1-69
Waterman, Peter. 2007. ‘International Labour Studies (UK) in the Light
of Social Justice and Solidarity (Globally)’ (Draft).
Waterman, Peter. 2008a. ‘What a 21st Century Labour International Looks
Like?’ (in draft).
Waterman, Peter. 2008b. 'Is the World Social Forum the Privileged Space
for Reinventing Labour as a Global Social Movement?' in Judith Blau, and
Marina Karides (eds.) The World and US Social Forums: A Better World Is
Possible and Necessary.
http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=29086
Women’s Global Charter for Humanity. 2004. http://www.worldmarch
ofwomen.org/qui_nous_sommes/charte/en
Preamble
The idea of a Global Labour Charter Movement comes out of both
desperation and hope. The desperation is due to seeing the labour
movement, in North, South, East or West, still on the defensive due to
(despite?) the severe, multiple and continuing attacks delivered by
contemporary capitalism. Not only has the union movement largely
forgotten its early emancipatory inspiration and utopian hopes. Even the
old adage that ‘the best means of defence is attack’ seems unfamiliar to
labour’s international leadership.
The desperation is due – more specifically - to the international
unions’ continued attempt to get back to a mythologised utopia of social
harmony (the reality of which is surely responsible for labour’s current
predicament). This backward-looking utopianism is represented in the
current ‘Decent Work’ campaign http://www.decentwork.org/. DW promotes
the archaic West-European paradise of ‘social partnership’ between
Labour, Capital and State. It has simply hoisted this to the global
level. DW is no sense a union or labour movement project: it has been
adopted, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, from the Geneva-based
International Labour Organisation. And this is an inter-state body
(castigated by a former insider (Standing 2008) for its multiple
incapacities in the face of globalisation!). DW, finally, reproduces a
traditional imperial relationship, since it is being promoted by the
West to the Rest. Its sponsors and funders are West European
social-reformist unions and NGOs…plus the neo-liberal European Union!
Hope comes from seeing new energy and vision within the global justice
and solidarity movement (GJ&SM), for example in the international rural
labour movement, Via Campesina. Despite all the imaginable difficulties
confronting the self-organisation of rural labour, this body has
developed a holistic vision of its social position, of its enemies, of
an alternative future. It has demonstrated assertive global strategies
and sophisticated relational practices (internal and external) that have
made it a leading actor in the GJ&SM and led to widespread public
recognition and support (Desmarais 2007, Waterman 2008a). Hope also
comes from signs of assertion and innovation closer to the traditional
labour movement, and from new thinking within and about such (Fletcher
Jr and Gapasin 2008, Gallin 2003, Huws 2008, Ince 2007, Waterman 2007,
Research Committee 44 2008, Bieler, Lindberg and Pillay 2008). As well
as from efforts to specify a necessary and desirable post-capitalist
utopia – and how it might be reached. (Networked Politics 2008,
Adamovsky 2005, 2007, Dwyer-Witheford 2007, Sousa Santos 2006-7, Spannos
2008).
Propositions
13.The idea of a GLCM is to develop a charter, declaration or manifesto
on labour, relevant to all working people, under the conditions of a
radically transformed and highly aggressive capitalism, neo-liberalised,
networked and globalised.
14.The proposing of such a charter has, however, been provoked by a
couple of other international labour declarations (Bamako Appeal 2006,
Labour Platform for the Americas 2006). A common limitation of these
otherwise very different documents is that they were initially produced
and issued for acceptance or endorsement, by union leaderships or
intellectual elites, without previous discussion by union members,
shopfloor or community activists themselves. The GLC project is,
however, also inspired by a women’s one, the Women’s Global Charter for
Humanity (2004), produced after worldwide discussion by one of the
newest mobilising social movements. (Verdière 2006, Conway 2007).
15. In so far as the GLC project is addressed to the emancipation of
life from work (work here meaning labour for capital and state, empire
and patriarchy), it implies articulating (both joining and expressing)
labour struggles with those of other oppressed and exploited social
categories, people and peoples – particularly those previously
unrecognised workers, women and peasants/farmers. The existence of the
GJ&SM, best known through the World Social Forum (WSF) process, makes
such articulation increasingly possible.
16. Its title could be the ‘Global Labour Charter Movement’ (or
GLCM21). 'Charter' reminds us of one of the earliest radical-democratic
labour-popular movements of industrial capitalism, the British Chartists
(Thompson 1984) ‘Movement’ reminds us that the development of such a
declaration is a process and requires the self-mobilisation of workers.
17. Such a process needs to reveal its origins and debts. These are not
only to early labour history. They are also to the new forms of labour
self-organisation (by, within and beyond unions), to the shopfloor,
urban and rural labour networks (local, national, international), to the
pro-labour NGOs (labour service organisations), and to a growing wave of
labour education, to (electronic) communication and to research
responding to the global crisis of the labour movement (Waterman 2007).
18. The novel principle of such a charter should be its conception as a
‘virtuous spiral’ - that it be thought of not as a single, correct,
final declaration, which workers, peoples and other people simply
endorse (though endorsement could be part of the process), as for its
processal, dialogical and developing nature. This notion would allow for
it to be begun, paused and joined at any point. Such a process would
require at least the following elements: information/communication,
education, dialogue, (re-) formulation, action, evaluation, information.
19. It is the existence of cyberspace (the internet, the web, online
audio-visuals) that makes such a Global Labour Charter for the first
time conceivable. We have here not simply a new communications
technology but the possibility for developing non-hierarchical,
dialogical, equal relations worldwide. The process will be
computer-based because of the web’s built-in characteristics of
feedback, its worldwide reach, its low and decreasing cost. An
increasing number of workers and activists are in computerised work, are
familiar with information and communication technology and have web
skills. Given, however, uneven worker computer access, such a process
must also be intensely local, imply and empower outreach, using the
communication methods appropriate to particular kinds of labour and each
specific locale. (See: Networked Politics).
20. Networking can and must ensure that any initiators or coordinators
do not become permanent leaders or controllers. There is a growing
international body of fulltime organisers and volunteer activists, both
within and beyond the traditional inter/national unions, experienced in
the GJ&SM, who could provide the initial nodes in such a network.
Networking also, however, allows for there to be various such labour
charters, in dialogue with each other. Such dialogue should be
considered a normal and even necessary part of the process and avoid the
authority, dependency or passivity associated with traditional
manifestos. (See, again, Networked Politics).
21. If this proposal assumes the crisis of the traditional trade
unions, it should be clear that it simultaneously represents an
opportunity for them. This is for a reinvention of the form of labour
self-articulation, as has occurred more than once in the history of
capitalism (from guilds to craft unions, from craft to inter/national
industrial unions). By abandoning what is an increasingly imaginary
power, centrality or privilege, unions could simultaneously reinvent
themselves and become a necessary and significant part of a movement for
social emancipation worldwide. The form or forms of such a reinvention
will emerge precisely out of a continuing dialogue, the dialectic
between organisational and networking activities.
22.Starting with the first edition(s) of any GLC, there could develop
globally-agreed demands and campaigns, with these having emancipatory
(arguably subversive, empowering, socially transformatory) implications
for those involved. Rather than increasing their dependence on capital,
state, patriarchy, empire, any GLC must increase their solidarity with
other popular and radically-democratic sectors/movements.
23.Any such campaigns must, however, be seen as not carved in stone but
as collective experiments, to be collectively evaluated. They should
therefore be dependent on collective self-activity, implying global
solidarity, as with the international 19th century campaign (never
universally implemented) for the eight-hour day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day. There is a wide range of
imaginable issues (of which the following are hypothetical examples, in
no necessary order of priority):
A Six-Hour Day, A Five-Day Week, A 48-Week Year, thus distributing
available work more widely, reducing overwork (see http://www.swt.org/).
Global Labour Rights, including the right to strike and inter/national
solidarity action, but first consulting workers - including migrants,
precarious workers, unpaid carers (‘housewives’), the self-employed, the
unemployed - on their priorities; and secondly by prioritising
collective struggles and creative activity over leadership lobbying.
http://laborrightsblog.typepad.com/ international_
labor_right/2006/11/about_this_blog.html.
A Global Basic Income Grant, independent of any obligation to work, and
asserting the right to life over the obligation to work
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html.
A Centennial Reinvention of the ILO in 2019, raising labour
representation from 25 to 50 percent, and simultaneously sharing the
raised percentage with non-unionised workers (Standing 2008);
A Global Campaign for Useful Work, reaching beyond conditions of, or at
work (‘Decent Work’) to deal with useful production,
socially-responsible consumption, environmental
sustainability/restoration (Morris 2008,
http://libcom.org/history/1976-the-fight-for-useful-work-at-lucas-aerospace.
All in Common, a campaign for the defence and extension of forms of
common ownership and control (thus challenging both the privatisation
process and capitalist ownership in general), Waterman 2004,
http://turbulence.org.uk/ turbulence-1/commonism/, ;
A reinvention of Mayday as a Global Labour and Social Movements
Solidarity Day (consider the innovations introduced by precarious
workers in Europe and by immigrant labour in the USA)
http://www.euromayday.org/about.php, http://www.mayday2007.org/;
Support to the principle of Solidarity Economics and the practice of the
Solidarity Economy, i.e. production, distribution, exchange that
surpasses the competitive, divisory, hierarchical, growth-fixated,
wasteful, polluting, destructive principles of capitalism. (Miller 2006,
Mance 2007)
A Global Emancipation of Labour Forum, as part of, or complementing, the
World Social Forum, an assembly open to all working people,
organizations, intellectuals/artists and movements, organised
autonomously from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the
Global Unions. If not in a geographical place then in cyberspace. (Reese
and Chase-Dunn 2008, Waterman 2001, 2008).
A website/portal coordinating information and ideas oriented toward the
emancipation of labour, covering research, education, audio-visuals, and
other resources; to have such a title as ‘The Global Labour Charter’,
‘The Global Emancipation of Labour’, ‘Moving Labour Globally’; to be
open to sponsorship but autonomous of all organisations and ideologies;
open on equal footing to all; to have a preferential option for globally
marginalised workers and regions; to have a transformatory purpose and
be open in governance and operation. (Compare here: Choike, Global
Labour Strategies, New Unionism, Union Ideas Network, E-Library for
Social Transformation, Union Renewal, Rebelión, etc).
[Fill at will]
24.This proposal is clearly marked by its origin, in terms of its
author’s ‘subject position’, place of birth/residence, age, language,
etc. It is, however, issued under the principle of CopyLeft. It can
therefore be adapted, replaced, challenged, rejected and, obviously,
ignored. Its only requirement (or hope) is that it be discussed.
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