Global Unionism: The ‘One Big Union’ Model

The best map in the world will not get you anywhere. Only going will get you there.
- Anonymous

In 1918 Helen Keller described the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as “…probably the most hated and most loved organization in existence. Certainly… the least understood and the most persistently misrepresented.”(1)  Arguably, the IWW’s “One Big Union” project is the most ambitious scheme ever undertaken within the labour movement. The organization’s founders set out to build industrial democracy worldwide, from the bottom up. However, although the IWW still exists, nobody would argue that things have gone according to plan. Is “one big union” just secular “pie in the sky”? Firstly, let’s take a look at the roots of the model. Then let’s have a look around at the scene today and see if anybody else fits the bill, or might be made to fit.

In 1904 six labour activists met to discuss how the U.S. labour movement might be radicalized (2). They resolved to bring together a larger group to form a new type of union, and in 1905 about 200 radical unionists met in Chicago. Together, this group formed the IWW (also known as the Wobblies). The Reverend Friar Thomas Haggerty was a central figure at both meetings. Among other things, he wrote the famous Preamble to the Constitution:

“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.”

…and ends:

“By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.”

Clearly, the IWW’s vision is not a defensive one (eg unity in face of adversity). It’s about taking control of the workplace, economics, and the world.

 

Global Unionism: The Peer-to-Peer Model

The transnationalisation of production, along with the rise of global supply chains, informalisation, financialisation, and connecting of world markets through informationalisation have all hit hard on workers. It seems to have become impossible to overcome the resulting divisions among working classes, who have been so radically abused by capital. These new structural forces have created an immense need for connected self-organisations of workers, built from the bottom up, and operating simultaneously at local, national and international levels. This article argues for a new global unionism that goes beyond the IWW experience and allows workers to connect local, national, regional and international struggles by aligning with other struggles in life.

 

Global Unionism: The Social Network Model

The network is the vanguard.
Dan Gallin, Chair of the Global Labour Institute

The union movement and FaceBook are about the same size, as of October 2012. That’s about one billion members, or one seventh of the world’s population[1]. It’s a milestone that has attracted very little attention because, frankly, the comparison ends there.

But why?

In this discussion the author argues for a new type of social networking as a necessary complement to our organized structures. This new networking needs to protect the user while promoting openness. Adding such a layer to our existing model of unionism would create a horizontal axis, and bring tremendous new strength to existing vertical structures.

 

All the Wrong Questions

American novelist Thomas Pynchon once wrote: “If you can get people to ask the wrong questions, you don’t have to worry about the answers they come up with.”

So… (cue violins…) how do we stop the decline of unions? It’s a question that has launched a thousand conferences. And, of course, it’s an issue that must be faced. Yes, unions in many rich countries have declined since the early 1980s. I say “of course” because the social pact between labour and the State that followed WWII in these countries was always going to be a temporary phenomenon. The level of union membership that we achieved from 1945 through to the rise of neo-liberalism (with Reagan and Thatcher etc) was an historical anomaly. In fact, something rather similar could be said about level of unionisation in the former Soviet bloc. Of course, yes yes.

If we want to ask the right questions, we really need to think more critically than this. For starters, we need to establish what has been happening to the labour movement as economics went global. That is, what has been happening this century?

 

Employment relations quality assurance

It’s not enough to produce widgets, we must produce quality widgets that can be sold for a profit. This expectation applies across the board — to the service industries as well as commodity production. However, “quality” is a notoriously elusive concept[i]. For this reason blue collar workers (and an increasing share of white collar workers) have grown accustomed to the checklists and graphs that come with quality assurance. Here’s an interesting idea: what if we extended quality assurance processes to employment relations?

 

Unions and job satisfaction

What makes a good job? And is it in management’s interests, as well as the union’s, to try and make jobs better?

Job satisfaction was once a hot topic in academia. From the 1960’s through till the late 1980’s, management theorists looked at the question from every angle, trying to find ways to create a contented labour force. By this, they meant: “one less concerned with money rewards and less inclined to  unionise[i]”. Researchers expected to find a strong correlation between job satisfaction and productivity. However, when this proved elusive, research funding dried up. More recently, a bunch of new research has helped the democratic labour movement better understand what workers want, and how we can deliver it.

 

Prioritizing union values

As unionists, we pretty much know what we’re against, but what are we for? What values should the union movement be prioritizing, representing and promoting? The New Unionism Network ran an online survey from January 2007 to January 2012* (it is now closed). In it, we asked people to select a “Top 10″ among 42 values. Below are  the results, with the subsequent 5 included as well. There is a very clear message in here for those who believe “business unionism” is the way forward. Most members do NOT wish to identify with a simple, self-interested approach. If your union prioritizes wage increases above all else, you might need to do some deeper research into what members actually want.

What values should unions prioritize?

 

Aye – Occupy!

Along with so many unions and groups within the wider labour movement, the New Unionism Network has voted overwhelmingly to support the Occupy movement*. As a contribution, we are producing a series of leaflets by network members who have fully developed alternatives to the current system. (David Schweickart’s model here; Michael Albert’s model here).

Among the hundreds of unions and federations that have endorsed the movement and offered support are:

• ITUC – the International Trade Union Confederation (the world’s leading international union body) (details);
• WFTU – World Federation of Trade Unions (the second largest international body) (details);
• EI – Education International – largest of the sector-based “global union federations” (details);
• UNI global union – another of the global union federations (details);
• ITF – the International Transport Workers’ Federation (details);
  (We are still trying to find out about the other global union federations)
• AFL-CIO – the largest union federation in the U.S.A. (details);
• SEIU – largest union in Change to Win – the second largest federation in the U.S.A. (details);
• AFT – the American Federation of Teachers – largest union in the U.S.A. but independent from both of the federations above (details);

(Other U.S. unions…)

The movement went global in October. More than 2,500 Occupy groups are currently listed on the global hub, Occupy Together. However, OccupyWallStreet – the group who catalysed the movement in the U.S.A. – has since been evicted. Similar actions have closed sites across many other cities. There have been 1200 arrests in New York alone. With 2012 approaching, we are about to find out if this is a movement or just a moment.

 

Is a new unionism developing in Israel?

The social and democratic revolutions that have been sweeping the Middle East have redrawn the political map and rewritten the regional rules, writes Assaf Adiv*, National Coordinator of WAC-Maan. Antagonisms between Israel, the Arab world and the Palestinians have taken on a new dimension, in light of the movement for change in Arab states. Revolutionaries in Tunisia and Egypt have brought down the regimes of Ben Ali and Mubarak, shifting the center of power back to the street. The order that has prevailed in the region for more than 30 years is being shaken to the core.

 

Reviving the strike

Here’s an interview with Joe Burns, union negotiator, U.S. attorney and author of  “Reviving the Strike: How working people can regain power and transform America” (IG Publishing, 2011).

We contacted Joe after reading this book, which looks primarily at the situation in the U.S.A., and asked him what lessons other countries might take from his research. In short, he believes that we need to build a new unionism — one which is based on global solidarity and is willing and able to contest management decisions and, if necessary, stop production.