Labour Internationalism

From 1947 to 1965, members of the communist-linked trade union federation SOBSI (Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia, All-Indonesian Trade Unions Centre) were actively involved in global Cold War politics through participation in international labour groupings and campaigns. Based predominantly on archival research, this paper argues that SOBSI's internationalism had several main aims: to support the Indonesian state, particularly in the foreign policy realm, to further the goals of the Left domestically in Indonesia, particularly in facing off their political rivals, and to educate its membership about global working-class politics and the relevance of socialism and communism as political models in Indonesia. This article discusses the views and activities of Indonesian trade unionists on international issues of the 1950s and 60s, chiefly peace and disarmament issues, Western intervention and decolonisation struggles underway in Asia and Africa. It argues that the pressures of the Cold War, the Sino-Soviet split and political circumstances in Indonesia combined to narrow SOBSI's internationalism and resulted in its utter devastation in the face of the 1965–66 Army-led anti-communist repression. Over the course of almost two decades, members of the communist-linked SOBSI (Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia, All-Indonesian Trade Unions Centre) were actively involved in Cold War global politics through participation in international labour groupings and campaigns. Indonesian unionists were exposed to the experiences of travel and international union organising through their involvement in SOBSI and in the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). Through involvement in the WFTU and other networks, they saw themselves as part of an international group of activists, not just unionists, who campaigned on various causes such as peace and anti-imperialism. From 1947 to 1965, Indonesia's largest trade union confederation SOBSI through its activities on international issues also carved out a space in these networks in which to campaign on issues considered vital to Indonesian state interests. At the same time, SOBSI unionists sought to advance leftist politics in Indonesia and therefore drew on and constructed highly idealised images about the socialist countries to demonstrate the desirability of such political models for Indonesia. They balanced the needs of supporting Indonesian state policy goals as well as the interests of the Left at the same time. Based predominantly on archival research, this article argues that SOBSI's internationalism had several main aims: to support the Indonesian state, particularly in the foreign policy realm, to further the goals of the Left domestically in Indonesia, particularly in facing off their political rivals, and to educate its membership about

In this article, the Social Structures of Accumulation (SSA) theory is used to situate Transnational Labor Regulation (TLR) in a historically accurate and socially relevant context, account for global labor market segmentation, developments in trade relations, patterns of consumption, and-significantly-aversion to any form of labor regulation. Total subsumption of labor under capital is a feature of the current SSA, wherein facets of human existence are increasingly commodified. Within this context, regulation is marginalized and replaced by "labor governance" and stakeholder approaches, with a prospect of regimes where labor standards and workplace protections would no longer be a legal right but absorbed into corporate governance processes and managed as technical standards. Could the International Labor Organization (ILO) assist such an endeavor and called upon to draft corporate governance rules for supply chain management? Furthermore, theoretical, methodological and policy propositions are explored in this paper. Theoretically, macro-level SSA analyses can be complemented at the micro-level by the intersectionality discourse, to scatter the monistic level of analysis "worker." Methodologically, various approaches for doing research "from below" are reviewed. Our policy proposition centers on examining how labor regulation clauses could be incorporated to English (private) common law that governs supply chain relations.

This report aims to document and evaluate the outcomes of the regional workshop on “Syrian Refugees and Integration of Syrians” held in İstanbul in February 2017. The workshop was organized by the Global Labour University (GLU) Alumni Network in Turkey in collaboration with International Centre for Development and Decent Work (ICDD), the University of Kassel, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), International Labour Organization (ILO), Global Labour University (GLU), Boğaziçi University Centre for Educational Policy Studies (BEPAM) and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Turkey Office, with particular focus on the composition and narratives of the Syrian refugees through the “fishbowl session”.
The report finds that Syrian refugees have a very difficult life in Turkey in terms of working conditions, living conditions, discrimination, bureaucracy, lack of enough regulation, child education, language barriers etc. One of the most important concerns for Syrian refugees is child labour. Owing to unemployment of Syrian adults, most parents are forced to send their kids to work. With ineffective state control on employment and labour market, employers prefer to recruit children who are paid low wages, thereby enabling them to make higher profits. The other problems Syrian refugees face in the labour markets are low wages, long working hours, employment without social insurance, late payment or non-payment of the wages, discrimination at the workplace, etc. Regarding accommodation, majority of the Syrian refugees live in a populous household, paying higher rents for lower quality houses in comparison with domestic people. In addition, the situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey has a strong gender dimension. The Syrian females work as precarious workers at the workplace. They are the most affected and vulnerable workers. In addition, Syrian female refugees also take the responsibility of the education of the children who face different types of discrimination at school, with which again Syrian female refugees have to struggle.
These problems have created barriers for Syrian refugees in exercising their rights at the workplace and in taking services from public institutions including healthcare and education. Besides, as findings show, the Syrian refugees are placed in the lowest strata of the labour markets of Turkey.

After the Second World War, capitalist system was reconstructed under the conditions of existence of the Soviet Union, the independence of former colonies, the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, the destructive effects of the war and the increase of socialist parties in Western Europe. Through the introduction of the Marshall Plan, labour organizations were also articulated to this reconstruction. The framework for this reconstruction relied heavily upon the idea of ‘modernization’ together with the concepts of ‘productivity’, ‘economic growth’ and ‘responsible trade unionism’. In the paper, it is argued that the influence of the reconstruction of international labour movement in the post war period upon the ground mentioned above has been extended to contemporary world in the form of ‘social dialogue’ and this has played a significant role in official international labour movement’s failure in challenging the globalization.

The outbreak of the 15M or indignado movement in Spain in 2011 was the
biggest episode of social unrest since the end of the Transition in the 1970s. Its
emergence caught the political parties, media, trade unions and the most
important community-based organisations and pre-existing social movements
off guard. It targeted those who were identified as responsible for the recession
and how it was handled – politicians and bankers – , and represented a global
criticism of the existing political system and institutional framework. The 15M
was not a youth movement, but a general movement criticising the current
economic model, though it did have a large youth component in its initial stages.
It was plural and diverse, and a wide broad spectrum of criticism and degrees of
radicality and political awareness coexisted in the squares and camps. In general
terms, the links between the indignados and the labour movement were weak
and marked by mutual mistrust. The 15M movement was a milestone in the
political trajectory of Spain and opened up a regime crisis that would deepen
thereafter.

The international socialist conference of Zimmerwald 1915 is still often presented as a step towards the historical split in the international labour movement. Based on an extensive study of the sources and the relevant litterature, this talk argues, that the large majority of "Zimmerwalders" had the aim to re-unite and not to divide the international labour movement.

The impact of neoliberal globalization on workers and on their communities has become well-known. From the off-shoring of manufacturing jobs in the Global North, to degraded working conditions in the Global South, the restructuring of global value chains has led to a race to the bottom harmful to all workers. The crisis of 2007-2009 has shown the extent of the damage financialized capitalism can do to the economy and to the working class. However, efforts to " regulate capitalism " remain rhetorical at best and no real progress has been made to challenge capital globally. This has also led to increased competition between workers for fewer jobs as these processes of dispossession continue to intensify and where workers now compete across a landscape where the disparity of wages between the Global North and South are estimated at 70:1 (Bellamy Foster, McChesney and Jonna 2011, 16). In this context of heightened global competition between workers, the need for labour internationalism is stronger than ever. However, many challenges exist. These include business unionism and the predominately local or national orientation of many trade unions, both of which lend themselves to competition among different groups of workers, racism and sexism which divide workers, and also the legacies of labour imperialism that mark the histories of some national labour federations in the North as well as that of the major international institutions of trade unions. Despite these challenges, many initiatives of international labour solidarity exist, both inside and outside formally organized labour. Canada has a rich history of labour internationalism. The distinct identity of Québec trade unions as well as the ideological diversity within Canadian labour has created a broad array of configurations of international solidarity, both in terms of goals and framing, and in terms of practices. This conference, organized by a committee of trade union activists and academics, aims to take stock of the state of labour internationalism in Canada today by bringing together rank and file activists in unions, union staff and leadership, as well as other activists and academics involved in workers' justice more generally. Our goal is to critically analyze and assess practices of labour internationalism in an effort to think about what international workers' solidarity means in Canada today. We aim to identify the challenges and obstacles to building stronger international ties and transnational coordinated action and to come up with ideas and proposals as to how to move forward.

Vom 5. bis 8. September 1915 trafen sich mitten im Ersten Weltkrieg Sozialistinnen und Sozialisten aus diversen europäischen Ländern in
Zimmerwald. Nach teilweise kontroversen Diskussionen verabschiedeten sie einstimmig ein Manifest, das zum Kampf für den Frieden ohne Annexionen aufrief

The international financial crisis unleashed in 2008 has given renewed prominence to the Group of 20 (G20) as the main forum of governance in the world economy. The main challenge of G20 is to articulate a political dialogue that can generate a basic consensus for a new paradigm of globalization that not only can overcome the current crisis, but also ensure social and environmental sustainability of a new growth model in a context post-neoliberal. Unlike other international crises, the G20 acknowledges that employment and social security are imperative agendas for sustainable economic recovery. The incorporation of this agenda results from the joint leadership of Brazil and Argentina in coalition with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the international labor movement. The article discusses the content and scope of the labor agenda in response to changes in the international political context marked by a restoration of neoliberal globalization.

Introduction - Matthew S. Adams and Ruth Kinna

Part I: The interventionist debate

1 Saving the future: the roots of Malatesta's anti-militarism - Davide Turcato

2 The Manifesto of the Sixteen: Kropotkin's rejection of anti-war anarchism and his critique of the politics of peace - Peter Ryley

3 Malatesta and the war interventionist debate 1914-17: from the 'Red Week' to the Russian Revolutions - Carl Levy

Part II: Debates and divisions

4 Beyond the 'People's Community': the anarchist movement from fin de siècle to the First World War in Germany - Lucas Keller

5 'No man and no penny': F. Domela Nieuwenhuis, anti-militarism and the opportunities of World War One - Bert Altena

6 'The bomb plot of Zürich': Indian nationalism, Italian anarchism and the First World War - Ole Birk Laursen

7 The French anarchist movement and the First World War - Constance Bantman and
David Berry

8 At war with Empire: the anti-colonial roots of American anarchist debates during World War I - Kenyon Zimmer

Part III: The art of war: anti-militarism and revolution

9 The anarchist anti-conscription movement in the U.S. - Kathy E. Ferguson

10 Aestheticising revolution - Allan Antliff

11Mutualism in the trenches: anarchism, militarism and the lessons of the First World War - Matthew S. Adams
Index

Should Dutch trade union members concern themselves with the fate of people in the global South? This contribution takes stock of the wide range of initiatives to promote solidarity with the global South which converged around Dutch trade unions from the 1950s through to the 1970s. Initiatives to promote global solidarity were often welcomed by workers and employees. However, this global solidarity had its limits. Although union members acknowledged a responsibility to come to the aid of the Third World, a majority refused to regard this responsibility as similar to the obligations among national union members. Understanding globalization as histoire croisée explains the paradoxical stance of many union members: their recognition of an obligation to people in the Third World underlines the remarkable prevalence of a global frame of reference during the postwar years. Their refusal to grant this global allegiance priority over local and national frameworks points out how these had become entangled instead of replacing one another. To understand globalization we should not ask which frame of reference prevailed, but how different frames of reference were balanced against each other. In the light of these findings, I argue that transnational history transforms perspectives on national and local history. In turn, transnational history has to systematically account for the local and national frameworks.

Contents list:

Contents list

1 Around a life
2 Syndicalism, internationalism and the furnishing trades

3 Roads to freedom in the 1920s

4 Labour’s Russian delegations

5 ‘Swimming against a flood’: Emma Goldman in London

6 Americanism and the other future

7 The General Strike

8 Internationalist swansong

"Nastovski, K. 2015. “Problematizing International Labour Solidarity as Development Aid.”  In "Last Call for Solidarity: Opportunities and Limits of Transnational Solidarity of Trade Unions and Social Movements, edited by Shuwen Bian, Sarah Bormann, Martina Hartung, Jenny Jungehülsing, and Florian Schubert. Hamburg: VSA Verlag" (Publication is currently only available in German)