Introduction

The topic for discussion during November 1999 was "Trade unions and the challenge of globalization". The main issues were derived from the points raised by Juan Somavía, Director-General, ILO, and Bill Jordan, Secretary-General, ICFTU in their opening keynote contributions to the conference in September 1999.

The debate was opened by Howard, who presented a broad overview of trade union responses to globalization and other related issues. Morrison, Svendsen and Marges shared their views on the Australian dock dispute that took place in April 1998; this case can be regarded as an example of international solidarity between national and international union groups. Carley, Keller and O'Donovan reviewed the development of transnational industrial relations in Europe. Carley described current trends in unionism; O'Donovan argued that the move towards the single currency within the European Union would present additional challenges to workers and their representatives; and Keller concluded that, at sectoral level, transnational industrial relations in Europe were developing in a patchy manner. Murray pointed out that there were important differences between sectors. Abate and Trebilcock highlighted the most significant aspects of the ILO Declaration on Multinational Enterprises and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

This summary presents the key aspects of the discussion in three thematic sections. The first deals with the new shape that industrial relations are taking as a consequence of the expansion of the global economy. Participants paid special attention to the importance of core labour standards in both developed and developing countries, and the role of multinational enterprises and international financial institutions in ensuring respect for these instruments. The following section focuses on trade union cooperation and solidarity, concluding that obstacles to effective coordinated action still persist in spite of some positive signs and successful experiences. The last section examines the problems of union structure and organization.

International financial institutions, multinational enterprises and core labour standards

The role of multinational enterprises, international financial institutions and governments, as well as the scope for action by trade unions in globalizing markets were all discussed. A central concern manifested by many participants was the respect for core labour standards.

In his address Somavía drew attention to the central role of trade unions in the promotion of core labour standards. Although the political mandate to embrace the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998)

should come from the heads of states, Prime Ministers and finance ministers of individual countries, down to the UN system and to the multilateral institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, trade unions should position themselves to put political power behind the universal labour standards, and thereby influence the policies and programmes of multilateral institutions.

Howard stated that the ICFTU defended the implementation of core labour standards because they represented

the minimum which successive United Nations conferences have been able to agree upon. Those standards are universally agreed to be in no way exclusive to industrialized countries, but instead applicable to every country in the world, regardless of its level of development.

However, Herrmann claimed that the first step might be to define the labour standards which industrialized countries were expected to fulfil, as well as those that developing countries should respect. Thus, "different countries should emphasize identical core labour standards, but they should remain flexible regarding 'higher' labour standards".

A fundamental problem with core labour standards, as discussants remarked, was the feasibility of implementing them effectively. The protection of workers' rights remained "the province of moral authority - leaving the ILO, with the most effective supervisory machinery of the entire UN system, with shame as its ultimate weapon" (Jordan). For this reason Howard considered that action at global level by the WTO in conjunction with the ILO was required to counter the increasing exploitation of workers in traded sectors. This would be the surest way to transfer the benefits of trade liberalization to ordinary people in developing countries. He believed this was the reason why trade unions from the developing world had supported the proposal made at the WTO meeting to tackle core labour standards. They saw the daily worsening effects of international competition in the lack of respect for core labour standards. As an example, he presented the case of the carpet sector in India in which the workers who were most negatively affected by the country's failure to address child labour were the exporters in Nepal who were striving to make carpets under good working conditions. Tan urged unions to help workers who lose their job as a consequence of strict observance of the social clause. He called for labour, capital and government to take responsibility for training and protecting these workers.

In order to reverse the negative effects of globalization, ICFTU considered it was imperative to integrate social values and principles into the activities of the major institutions of globalization: the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO (Howard, Jordan). However, the violation of workers' rights should not be attributed only to these organizations. The action or inaction of governments and the private sector, especially multinational enterprises, were also important. Howard pointed out that free trade had resulted in unscrupulous companies or governments gaining short-term competitive advantage at the expense of fundamental workers' rights. Moreover, some governments had deliberately kept labour standards low to reduce export costs and win a head start over their competitors on international markets. For Jordan, one clear responsibility of governments was to "ensure that human rights, including workers' rights, were fully respected". The fact that multinational enterprises played a larger role than in the past, "should not be an excuse for any government to fail to protect the basic rights of its citizens and residents".

Multinational enterprises were considered by some to have aggravated the harmful effects of globalization by creating greater differences between unions in developing and developed countries over the implementation of core labour standards (Jonsson, Mahendra). Rejano considered that the progressive decline of organized labour in the Philippines was basically caused by multinational enterprises relocating to other countries in search of cheaper labour. Also, in the name of globalization, companies had "arbitrarily and hastily shut down or reduced manpower".

Directly related to the conduct of multinational enterprises are export processing zones (EPZs). Jordan remarked that the incentives for multinationals to locate in EPZs included exemption from national labour laws which made it next to impossible to organize the workers. In addition to the unfavourable legal conditions, union representatives were usually denied access to the premises, and, in some circumstances, workers were not allowed to talk to one another. In the Philippines, for example, new investors were attracted to special government-run EPZs since the atmosphere was "very conducive for investment: curtailed unionism, cheap labour and minimal government intervention" (Rejano).

One instrument designed to counteract these emerging problems is the ILO Declaration on Multinational Enterprises. The Tripartite Declaration

challenges governments to strike a balance between what would be economically and politically acceptable and socially tolerable, between the need for investments and the obligations to introduce and maintain an equitable and progressive social policy (Abate).

Trade union cooperation

In the context of globalization, cooperation between trade unions was considered a necessary condition for strengthening their position. Many discussants questioned the viability of traditional approaches to cooperation and pointed out the difficulties in reaching consensus on crucial issues and ceding power to international bodies. Mazey considered that unions had to put aside their competitiveness and merge, following the example of multinational enterprises, across industrial lines and national boundaries, to achieve the political and fiscal clout needed to shut down transnational industries, not only a local plant. Instead of this some trade unions, at least in North America, were fighting among themselves to increase their share of worker representation rather than working together to promote workers' interests.

In his initial contribution, Jordan explained how the ICFTU and its regional organizations, together with most International Trade Secretariats (ITS), offered programmes to improve the capacity of trade unions to organize at national level. One such approach was the space for organizing and bargaining which had been opened up by framework agreements between ITSs and multinational enterprises. Other opportunities for cooperation in organizing and influencing corporate behaviour could be found in the use of global leverage and union solidarity - supplemented with education and training. However, one obstacle to this kind of international action, mentioned by Subramanian, was the fact that national trade union centres had their own industrial federations which were equivalent to ITSs. Since the industrial federations were controlled by the national centres, they had very little freedom to coordinate local action for international solidarity at the call of the ITS.

Wills suggested that in order to reach "global unionism", unions had to go further than simply forging new alliances; she proposed the use of existing organizations to build tripartite social partnership at international level. To make this more effective, ITSs and ICFTU should be given more responsibility and a more active role at international level, for instance, in signing agreements with multinational enterprises, organizing strikes and action campaigns. Spinrad added that as labour markets became more open as a result of immigration and the easy movement of capital, the traditional strike and other forms of union pressure became less effective. The central problem was to speed up the response of national unions to internationalization. As Lukman pointed out, trade unions need to understand the new context in which they have to work, particularly because "the new reality challenges the old ways of work and demands new forms of commitment and solidarity".

Developments in Europe

Discussion centred on the different attempts made by European trade unions to coordinate their actions regionally in the current process of "Europeanization". The European Union is the only regional economic organization that has developed a sophisticated system of supranational labour regulation. EU labour laws, usually called Directives, are legally binding on the member States. This means that they must be implemented and that workers may push for their European entitlements through the courts in their home state and through the European Court of Justice. Regionalism in Europe thus runs counter to the commonly held view of globalization - that the lifting of economic relations to a plane higher than the individual country will entail a loss of workers' rights. For all its unusual features, the EU provided a point of comparison for other regional organizations and their treatment of labour matters (Murray).

In Carley's opinion, Europeanization had taken three main forms: dialogue; European Works Councils and collective bargaining. Firstly, dialogue and negotiation between European-level trade union and employer organizations were becoming more widespread and substantial. The social dialogue, usually sponsored by the European Commission, had led to EU-wide agreements between the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and employers' organizations (UNICE and CEEP) on parental leave, part-time work and fixed-term contracts.

Secondly, European Works Councils (EWCs) had been set up in more than 500 multinational companies operating in Western Europe (though based all over the world), with a further 700-800 liable to establish them in the future under the terms of an EU Directive. EWCs are forums for companies to inform and consult employees at European level through their representatives, and the evidence suggested that they were successfully increasing understanding and cooperation between representatives from different countries. Wills added that EWCs provided a concrete opportunity for unions to organize on a new transnational scale. In the early days, the European Industry Federations - in conjunction with national trade unions in Europe - had EC funding to host meetings and establish networks in order to set up EWCs. However, her research had shown that in the firms where EWCs were established there was no consultation with worker representatives; they were simply informed of management decisions. Moreover, the trade unionists involved did not have the support they needed to set up networks for more informal communication and information exchange between the meetings. The EWCs could not cope with the speed of economic change (mergers and take-overs, closures, relocation and restructuring were constantly taking place in the firms studied) and they were isolated from other industrial relations structures.

Thirdly, collective bargaining within EU member states was increasingly influenced by developments elsewhere in Europe and trade unions had been seeking closer cross-border coordination in bargaining. Greater bargaining cooperation and coordination across borders has been developing within certain sectors - notably in private services, computer graphics, textiles and metalworking. O'Donovan remarked on the difficulties in cooperating at the level of collective bargaining. She explained that the section of the ETUC resolution Towards a European system of industrial relations (Helsinki, 1999) which attracted most attention was related to the coordinated collective bargaining policy. There were significant differences between delegates on how best to move forward on collective bargaining at European level. All European trade unions understood and accepted the wider European dimension to collective bargaining. However, pay bargaining was still regarded as the most important instrument at their disposal - making them reluctant to cede this power to international bodies.

Furthermore, monetary union would inevitably erode the national macroeconomic conditions which largely determined current approaches to pay bargaining. The impact of the single currency on collective bargaining patterns across the European Union was difficult to foresee at present, but clearly there would be growing pressure on unions to respond to the competitive pressures created by the single currency and the need for greater wage flexibility.

A homogeneous and coherent model of industrial relations in Europe was unlikely to become a reality. The fragmented structure of national systems was not only reflected, but even aggravated at the supranational level. National systems were unequally affected by degrees of Europeanization (Keller, Carley). It was also necessary to consider the counter-effects of employer hostility and of competitive pressures promoting a more "nationalistic" approach among unions (Carley). Three different outcomes seemed to be possible in the foreseeable future. First, social dialogue will not gain importance and in some sectors it might even diminish due to lack of content. Second, in some sectors the scope for social dialogue would be limited by the lack of consensual topics. Third, core issues of national industrial relations would be discussed in only a few sectors (such as construction and transport). At most, "a patchwork of an incremental nature was the most likely scenario". In the short term, lobbying would remain the main activity of the social partners; only in the medium term might social dialogue "serve as an instrument of European social policy and industrial relations in some sectors" (Keller).

In conclusion, securing the European social model in the face of economic globalization which seeks to build competitive edge on low wages and low standards was a major challenge for trade unions in Europe. Enlargement was part of this debate and trade unions in the European Union would have a critical role in ensuring that workers in the new member States from Central and Eastern Europe would benefit from the code of minimum social standards which had been painstakingly built up over the last 25 years (O'Donovan).

Trade union solidarity: An example

The action taken by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) in April 1998 was presented as a positive example of trade union cooperation at national and international level. According to Murray, the dispute was relevant to the themes of the conference because the concept of globalization was at the heart of political debate on dock reform. The conservative federal government and private groups argued that in order to compete in freer international markets, Australian dock labour should be deregulated and removed from the influence of the powerful MUA. Part of the success of the Australian dock workers was due to international solidarity. The dispute also showed that broadly based direct action was a powerful social and political force. Although the legal action was not described in detail, another theme which emerged was that unions without the money to fund sophisticated legal strategies might still be defeated in the courts.

Morrison described the events as the consequence of concerted action against the MUA by right-wing political parties, groups and private companies. Their aim was the dismissal of all unionized workers employed by the key stevedoring companies and their replacement with non-unionized workers who would be trained in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The MUA informed the International Transport Federation (ITF) which later notified UAE officials that the port of Dubai would be blockaded if the 'industrial mercenaries' were trained. As UAE officials cancelled the training, the plan to replace unionized workers collapsed. In the meantime, the company involved, which was one of the Patrick's group restructured, itself, setting rigid conditions upon which labour would be supplied to its other companies. Patrick companies then terminated workforce contracts. In response to this, the general public and trade unions in other sectors set up mass picket lines at Patrick ports. Eventually, complex legal procedures led to a court order for the reinstatement of the sacked dockers. Marges attributed the quick response from the ITF to the worldwide conference held by the Federation in 1997, during which the dockers' section unanimously signed the International Solidarity Contract. The unions which signed were morally obliged (but not legally bound) to support any call for international solidarity from the ITF Secretariat.

Although the MUA dispute was a success for the trade union movement, caution was necessary in applying such tactics to local situations. Lukman considered that an important factor was the organizational structure of the MUA, in which inter- and intra-union contest was minimal as it was probably the only union in the maritime sector in Australia. In many countries, maritime workers were split between two or three unions, and maybe only one of them was affiliated to the ITF. This situation would challenge the feasibility of international solidarity.

As a concluding remark, Marges stated:

One should understand that international solidarity cannot replace industrial, legal or other action to be organized by a union itself. In general, solidarity means support for a union or for workers who have started their own action. If there is no action, there cannot be support of that action. International trade union bodies like the ITF cannot replace national unions, they can only support dock workers in delaying privatization.

Trade unions structure and organization

In his opening statement, Somavía drew attention to the need for change in trade unions' approach, structure and organization. He considered that for trade unions to "revive", they had to "equip themselves to be seen as spokespersons of the broader concerns of society". They also needed to build the necessary organizational base and political support for influencing outcomes at national and international level. He claimed that unions were no longer the spokespersons of mere sectoral groups. They needed to transcend the boundaries of sectors and industries, embrace the broader concerns of society and perform new roles that went beyond their traditional functions within enterprises.

Subramanian regarded present trade union structures, both nationally and internationally, as "grossly inadequate to meet the challenges of global capitalism". Wills maintained that it was "certainly clear that the existing structures of trade unionism were often a barrier to successful organization". While employers were increasingly transnational in their organizations, unions were still organized along industrial or geographical lines. She advocated the development of non-hierarchical structures which promoted direct contact between members and communities.

Unions should build their organizations on a strong knowledge base. Somavía specifically stated that:

knowledge concerning their strengths and capabilities, their potential contributions to improvement of markets, products and processes, shared values and social capital, and their experience with partnership in development and institution building should become part of the repertoire of trade unions for dissemination across the world.

Furthermore, labour organizations should also provide union leadership - leaders with the necessary education and preparation to face the challenges of globalization (Moreno, Subramanian).

Final remarks

The main topics of discussion related to core labour standards, the possibilities for effective implementation and the role that labour, capital and government, as well as international financial institutions, should play in ensuring respect for key instruments. Trade union cooperation in the context of globalization and the need for unions to restructure in order to adapt to the new situation were also discussed. Participants agreed that trade unions had to change both their traditional ways of cooperation and their internal structures so as to tackle the many challenges that globalization imposes. If trade unions were to succeed in counteracting the effects of a rapidly globalized economy, they had to build solidarity across sectors and borders. However, many discussants questioned the feasibility of international cooperation for trade unions.

In his conclusions Howard stated that trade unions' ability to organize, to mobilize effectively and to combine the force of their argument with the argument of their force would be critical for building social and economic justice.

Participants
Abate Abebe, ILO
Anderson Linda
Carley Mark
Dobbins Peggy
Gabriel Janette, USA
Grunheber Alfons
Herrmann Michael
Howard James, ICFTU
Jonsson Bo
Jordan Bill, Secretary-General, ICFTU
Keller Berndt, Universitat Konstanz, Germany
Lukman Salihu, Nigeria
Mahendra K.V.
Marges Kees
Mazey Edward, Canada
Moreno Alvaro
Morrison Tony, Maritime Union, Australia
Murray Jillian, University of Melbourne, Australia
O'Donovan Patricia , Union official, Ireland
Rejano Leo, Institute for Development Education and Services, Philippines
Spinrad Alex, Labour Advocate, Israel
Somavía Juan, Director-General, ILO
Subramanian L.V., President, Indian Managerial & Professional Employees Centre, India
Svendsen Helga
Tan Ern-Ser, Singapore
Trebilcock Anne, ILO
Wills Jane , Queen Mary & Westfield College, UK