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Abstract
Free trade is entrenched and sustained by the political and economic power of global corporations. Adaption and accommodation to this reality is a widespread response of the trade union movement, both nationally and internationally. This article analyses a counter trend where democratic unions in the Global South are united in their opposition to the neoliberal model. In this they are mobilizing new forms of power in their struggle against corporations and states which represent the market model as the sole option.
تترسخ التجارة الحرة وتستمر بفعل النفوذ السياسي والاقتصادي للشركات العالمية. ويُعد التكيِّف والتعايش مع هذا الواقع من المواقف المنتشرة على نطاق واسع في حركة النقابات العمالية، سواء على المستوى الوطني أو الدولي. وتحلل هذه المقالة اتجاهاً مضاداً يتمثل في توحد الاتحادات النقابية الديمقراطية في بلدان الجنوب في معارضتها لنموذج النيوليبرالية. وفي هذا السياق، تكتسب هذه الاتحادات أشكالاً جديدة من النفوذ في نضالها ضد الشركات والدول التي تقدم نموذج السوق باعتباره الخيار الوحيد.
요약문
자유무역은 초국적 기업의 정치적, 경제적 권력에 의해서 확고해지고 또한 유지된다. 이러한 현실에 순응하는 것은 국가적으로 또한 국제적으로 광범위한 노동운동의 대응이었다. 이 글은 신자유주의 모델에 대항하여 글로벌 남반구에서 민주 노조들이 뭉치는 대안적인 추세를 분석한다. 여기에서 민주 노조들은 시장 모형을 유일한 선택이라고 대변하는 기업과 국가에 대항하여 투쟁하는데 새로운 형태의 권력을 동원하고 있다.
RESUMEN
El libre comercio se ha afianzado y sostenido por el poder económico de las corporaciones mundiales. La adaptación y el ajuste a esta realidad, es una amplia respuesta del movimiento sindical, tanto nacional como internacional. Este artículo analiza una contratendencia, donde los sindicatos democráticos del hemisferio sur están unidos en su oposición al modelo neoliberal. En esto, ellos están movilizando nuevas formas de poder en su lucha contra las corporaciones y estados que representan el modelo de mercado como la única opción.
Notes
1 One of the focuses of my academic work is longitudinal research based on five-year cycles, utilizing surveys and qualitative interviews, to capture the lived experience of insecurity flowing from market restructuring. See Lambert Citation2005, 2007, Citation2010.
2 Throughout this article, I use the term free trade as a shorthand for the overarching neoliberal model of self-regulating trade, investment finance.
3 Lambert and Webster analyse SIGTUR's development in a series of articles. See select references (Citation2001, 2003, Citation2004, 2006, 2008). Over the past 20 years SIGTUR has expanded from this modest beginning to a current membership of democratic federations in 36 countries across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
4 Commodity relations under capitalist development builds upon the experience of race during the colonial period captured poignantly by Conrad in Heart of Darkness (Citation1902 [1981], p. 27) when Marlow reflecting on the company's chief accountant, who in the midst of the suffering of blacks brought from ‘all the recesses of the coast’ worked ‘bent over his books, making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions; and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the still tree tops of the grove of death’.
5 Congresses have been organized in Australia (3), India (2), South Africa, Korea, Thailand, and Brazil.
6 Keynote speech given at the State Conference of the MUA, 22nd February 2011.
7 Leslie Dwyer, ‘Reprimand for Reebok’. Extract from an email, 25 March 2002.
8 Arokia Dass, interview, 8 November 2001, Seoul, South Korea.
9 The Faulkner quote is taken from the front page of Carey (2000).
Additional information
Rob Lambert is a Winthrop Professor of Employment Relations at the University of Western Australia's Business School. He is also a founder and current coordinator of the Southern movement SIGTUR (Southern Initiative on Globalization & Trade Union Rights). He is one of the authors of the award winning book, Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity (Blackwell, 2008).