Southern Unionism and the New Labour Internationalism

Abstract

The paper traces the genesis of SIGTUR, a new network/organization of southern unions that has been built over the past decade, which brings together democratic unions from Latin America, Southern Africa, Asia and Australasia. The impact of neoliberal globalisation has spurred this action, and Australian unions-with their rich tradition of labour internationalism-have been at the forefront. The paper shows how the initial hostility of the established trade union internationals has been transformed into strategic alliances as the internationals have come to value SIGTUR's campaign orientation. The paper argues that SIGTUR has continued to expand because of its strong emphasis on internal democracy. The new southern alliance is one instance of a search for a new form of unionism-global social movement unionism-that may offer greater scope for a more effective resistance to the logic of globalisation. In the new millennium, this search is critical if unions are to rekindle the vision and the confidence that drove the early movement. Millennium Movements, Ideological Crisis and the End of HistoryFor the past 200 years, private corporations have spearheaded global capitalist expansionism. These profit-driven companies transcended national boundaries in an endless drive for new markets. Various forms of government support, including a willingness to intervene militarily in certain instances and advances in communications and transportation systems, facilitated the global reach of capitalist corporations. The success of this drive to organise globally was matched by the relative failure of emerging union movements to internationalise as effectively as companies. Certainly, there were glimmers of labour internationalism, brief moments when unions did indeed turn outwards as a form of defence. These flourishes were without exception short-lived. There appeared to be a certain inevitable cycle, as fleeting moments inexorably gave way to the national. National organisation was viewed as a lever to force compromise.

Electrolux in Australia: Deregulation, Industry Restructuring and the Dynamics of Bargaining

“…However, the obstacles to redressing the consolidation of global corporate power are considerable. Notwithstanding the tentative beginnings of a new labour internationalism, a weak, bureaucratic form still pervades, limiting and constraining the opportunities for a more radical campaign-orientated strategy (Lambert & Webster 2001). Furthermore, labour movements remain shaped by national industrial relations systems, histories and cultures in a way that renders internationalism an appendage.…”

South–South Labor Internationalism: SIGTUR and the Challenges to the Status Quo

“…SIGTUR was created formally in 1999 but has been informally ongoing since the late 1980s (Lambert and Webster ; Munck ; Webster, Lambert, and Bezuidenhout ). SIGTUR is initially a coordination organized by the close links between Australian and South African trade unions, as well as the relationships of the first one with Southeast Asian unions.…”

“…SIGTUR is initially a coordination organized by the close links between Australian and South African trade unions, as well as the relationships of the first one with Southeast Asian unions. In that sense, the network has benefited from the input of the Australian working class traditions and the recently emerging—in the late 1970s anti‐apartheid struggle—South African trade unions (Lambert and Webster , 342). As the current international coordinator signals, SIGTUR does not consider the “Southern” characteristic geographically, but rather politically , as in “an initiative to bring together some of the most exploited working classes all over the world, where union rights are negated or constrained, and political situations restricted” (Lambert and Webster , 342).…”

Places of Work, Scales of Organising: A Review of Labour Geography

“…If internationalism represents the extension of political scale for labour, then community-oriented unionism (like place-based inter-class coalitions) might be said to represent the intensification or solidification of scale -as unions and workers involve themselves actively in civil society. Labour 'going social' -as opposed to (or, rather, in addition to) 'going global' -is often associated with the terms social movement unionism and community unionism (Lambert and Webster 2001;Moody 1997;Munck 2002;von Holdt 2003;Waterman and Wills 2001). Community-oriented unionism is here understood as the range of ways workers and unions mobilize politically in concert with other civil society actors on the basis of social disempowerment and overlapping political interests.…”