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Globalization, union style
With a "union of unions",
workers seek a global role
In a world fixated on company mergers and acquisitions, a marriage of workers' organizations often goes quietly unnoticed. Not so with the recent merger of five separate German trade unions to form a 3 million member "union of unions". Trade union expert Werner Thoennessen explains why the new giant "VERDI" union in Germany is drawing so much attention, and examines other similar mergers.
BERLIN - For years the economic press has been filled with reports of company mergers and acquisitions typical of the new trans-frontier stage of the growth of capitalism. No longer is it always a matter of big-eat-small, as used to be the case in an earlier phase. Often the amalgamation takes place between more or less equally strong partners who, faced with tough global competition, decide to forego their independent status and come forward together as a "global player".
In the past, similar processes involving trade unions used to arouse less notice, especially because their scale was generally more modest. This cannot be said of the giant merger which took place in March 2001, when five separate German trade unions - the public services, transport and communications trades union (OeTV), the trade union of German white-collar workers (DAG), the union of commerce, banking and insurance personnel (HBV), the German postal trades union (DPG) and the trade union of media staffs - amalgamated to form the Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft (Union of Service Trades Unions), known by the acronym VERDI.
An instrument for membership recruitment
The chief goal of VERDI, the new giant trade union, is to attract new members in the growing service industries to make up for the membership losses of the past few years. The total membership of the trade unions involved in the merger - 3.43 million in 1996 - was only 2.99 million in 2000.
That VERDI with its membership of some 3 million is now the world's largest single trade union should not obscure the fact that several trade union amalgamations had already taken place in Germany before 2001. While this entailed a drop in the number of members of the German Trade Unions League, it also meant a considerable increase in the membership and efficacy of the amalgamated trade unions, even though the total number of trade union members in Germany is smaller today than five years ago.
Thus, IG Construction - Stones-Earth, IG Mining, and IG Chemicals, Paper and Ceramics had already amalgamated, and the "minor" TG Wood and TG Textiles trade unions had been absorbed by IG Metals. In addition, there had been instances of project-oriented cooperation among several independent trade unions; e.g., with regard to membership recruitment in the information technology industry.
These processes of amalgamation and concentration which took place in workers' organizations over the past 10 or 15 years are, however, only the latest links in a long chain of mergers which go back as far as the latter half of the nineteenth century, the heyday of industry capitalism. At that time their object was to put a stop to the fragmentation of trade unions, to do away with the craft-based system dating back to the guilds era which preceded the industrial revolution - a laborious but eventually successful process of adapting the representation of workers' interests to new forms of economy.
An international comparison shows that the process of amalgamation and concentration has taken different forms in different countries. The "guild factor" has not been the only problem; there are also political, ideological and religious differences standing in the way of amalgamation at both the national and the international levels.
Another difficulty is the social distinction between blue-collar and white-collar workers. The latter have often preferred to create professional associations of their own, some of which (the association of civil servants, various journalists' associations, the "Hartmann League" in the medical profession, the magistrates' league, the locomotive drivers' union, etc.) still exist in Germany as something of a leftover from the past.
Germany's precursor role
Why is Germany a leader in terms of trade union organization? The answer lies in the destruction of the country's trade unions prior to World War II. After Germany's unconditional surrender in May 1945, the necessary elbow room was created - narrow at first, then growing little by little - for the complete reconstruction of the country's trade unions independent of religious and political overtones, employers and the Government, and based on the principle of one trade union per industry.
This was in contrast to the reality in other countries, where workers' organizations based on ideology and professional or corporate status are by no means a marginal phenomenon, but in some countries are still the rule. The Greek trade union movement, for example, is still the most fragmented, including as it does over a hundred separate organizations. Only a few are financially independent and consequently able to conduct a strike, because the rest are financed by the Government or by employers.
Of course, it is not always in the interest of employers - or of Governments either - that trade unions become stronger as a result of mergers or amalgamations. Many former colonies of the British Empire still have a "Registrar of Trade Unions" responsible for authorizing trade unions and delimiting their activities.
While international comparisons do reveal that trade union amalgamations in Germany are further advanced than elsewhere, still, similar trends can be observed in most countries. In Scandinavia, only white-collar workers still have several separate trade unions, while in Italy, the German model of one trade union per industry has been adopted on a wide scale. In France, on the other hand, marked traces of political and denominational divisions can still be found, though they are increasingly being bridged by cooperative arrangements.
In the United Kingdom, the Transport and General Workers Union has developed into a giant organization with members in all branches of the economy as well as in the service sector.
According to an IMF report dated 9 April 2001, two major British metal workers' unions, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, and theManufacturing, Science and Finance Union have merged. In Japan and the United States, on the other hand, there are still several large trade unions, for instance, in the engineering industry. Although all of these belong to the same federation (Rengo in Japan, AFL-CIO in the United States), a merger between them still appears to be a long way off.
However, given the current trend towards globalization and transnationalism, it can be expected that these "stragglers" of the trade union movement will, within the foreseeable future, be put under such economic pressure that the appeals of international trade union associations for greater efficiency and more mergers will not go unheard. Only then can the movement claim to have found a form of organization capable of matching the power of transnational capital.
The restructuring of the workers' side is, of course, only the structural precondition for a successful representation of workers' interests - a necessary, but not in itself a sufficient condition for successful trade union representation. It must be joined by a scientifically well-founded political strategy corresponding to the new social and economic situation, and dedicated to the old ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.
- Werner Thoennesen