Compilation of articles and analysis on the World Social Forum phenomenon and organised unionism by Peter Waterman (*).

• Work and/or Life?
  Within the framework of the European Social Forum 2008, Peter Waterman analyzed the iniciatives put forward by trade unions and the labour agenda. In a special document, he develops critical opinions on the international union hegemons. Furthermore, he submitted his proposal "a global charter movement" to develop a declaration or manifesto on labour, relevant to all working people, under the conditions of a radically transformed and highly aggressive capitalism, neo-liberalised, networked and globalised. Labour@ESF Malmo, September 2008, pdf format


• A Global Labour Charter Movement
  "The idea of a Global Labour Charter Movement comes out of both desperation and hope. The desperation is due to seeing the labour movement, in North, South, East or West, still on the defensive due to (despite?) the severe, multiple and continuing attacks delivered by contemporary capitalism. Not only has the union movement largely forgotten its early emancipatory inspiration and utopian hopes. Even the old adage that ‘the best means of defence is attack’ seems unfamiliar to labour’s international leadership". For the European Social Forum, Malmo, September 2008.


• Recovering internationalism, creating the new global solidarity
  Labour, Social Movements and Emancipation in the 21st Century - Lima/The Hague, January-March 2008.


• The networked internationalism of labour's others
  This is a proposal for research into the new and developing internationalisms of the 'peasants, artisans and others, enrolled amongst the sons of toil'. These internationalisms are so commonly articulated in network form (so difficult to understand without network theory?) that it is difficult to discuss the one without the other. By Peter Waterman, December 2007, pdf format.



• Trade Unions, labour and the World Social Forum
  Source: IPS News
  Following the World Social Forum (WSF) 2002, Peter Waterman wrote a piece on "The Still Unconsummated Marriage of International Unionism and the Global Justice Movement". If the preparations for the Nairobi WSF, 2007, are anything to go by, "it looks as if we might be able to talk at least about an engagement. There are two striking features about these preparations; the first is that the newly-merged International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is coming in forcefully, under the banner of 'Decent Work'. The second is the at least marginal presence of autonomous labour groups with an orientation toward what might just be conceived as the 'Emancipation of Labour'. January 2007.



• Union organisations, social movements and the augean stables of global governance
  The traditional international union organisations are currently engaged in a series of "social partnership" initiatives at global level. Prominent amongst these is that addressed to "global governance". This project comes from outside and above the unions, is addressed to the existing hegemonic interstate instances, and is carried out primarily by lobbying. This orientation is increasingly challenged by a "global justice and solidarity movement", more concerned with the democratisation of the global, and more oriented to consciousness-raising and mobilising than lobbying. The new movement, moreover, operates in places and spaces, with forms and understandings, that relate rather to a contemporary globalised-informatised capitalism than to the old national-industrial-colonial one which gave rise and shape to the international unions. Trade unions will have to abandon the discourse of global governance for that of global democracy, and to operate on the terrains of this new movement, if they are to effectively defend and advance worker rights and power under the new global dispensation. April 2006, pdf format.



• Labour at the World Social Forum
  Between Decent Work and the Emancipation of Labour. This note is meant to be both a resource for and a reflection on labour at the World Social Forum (WSF), to take place in Nairobi a couple of weeks from now. It has been written in haste and may be therefore somewhat icoherent, but I wanted to get it out today, before the end of 2006.



• The Bamako Appeal: a post-modern Janus?
  Since its launch the Bamako Appeal has been reproduced, often without commentary, in newspapers, magazines, on websites and lists, in Europe, the USA, Latin America, South Africa and India. Further information about the BA, its participants/endorsers and funding has had to be gleaned from one of its initiators, or provided unsystematically by some of those involved. There is so far no formal report on the event either by its sponsors, nor an extensive analysis from independent or critical sources. April 2006, pdf format.



• Toward a global labour charter for the 21th Century
  The Labour Chapter in the Bamako Appeal may represent the most radical public statement on the contemporary global labour question to be found so far. Considering the present nature of work and workers worldwide, it recognises the limitations of the trade unions -traditionally considered to be either the sole or the central form of worker self-organisation. But it nonetheless suggests a significant role for labour within the new global justice and solidarity movement, thus re-articulating labour with the general social movement of our epoch. April 2006.



• Making the road whilst walking: communication, culture and the World Social Forum
  The World Social Forum has grown exponentially since its first edition, January 2001. It has travelled to Mumbai, India, 2004. It has taken on regional, national and local form. And at Porto Alegre, January 2005, some 150,000 people were present. Despite repeated complaints of organisational confusion and political incoherence, the WSF is the most organised expression of what the Call of Social Movements has called the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement. This paper is not intended to evaluate or to theorise the communications and culture of the World Social Forum (WSF), but rather to draw attention to these and to make available some relevant information and sources. By Peter Waterman, May 24, 2005, pdf format.



• Union organisations, social movements and the augean stables of global governance
  The traditional international union organisations are currently engaged in a series of "social partnership" initiatives at global level. Prominent amongst these is that addressed to "global governance". This project comes from outside and above the unions, is addressed to the existing hegemonic interstate instances, and is carried out primarily by lobbying. This orientation is increasingly challenged by a "global justice and solidarity movement", more concerned with the democratisation of the global, and more oriented to consciousness-raising and mobilising than lobbying. The new movement, moreover, operates in places and spaces, with forms and understandings, that relate rather to a contemporary globalised-informatised capitalism than to the old national-industrial-colonial one which gave rise and shape to the international unions. Trade unions will have to abandon the discourse of global governance for that of global democracy, and to operate on the terrains of this new movement, if they are to effectively defend and advance worker rights and power under the new global dispensation. April 2006, pdf format.



• Developing a crucial social movement triangle
  The triangular relationship between trade unions, the global justice and solidarity movement and academia seems to provide a space within which it is possible not only to reflect, at some critical distance, on the movements themselves but also one within which there can be some serious dialogue on the relations between the three. Although the new movements have little trouble looking critically at themselves and each other, trade unions and political parties do have a problem here. August 2005.



• International social movements and hegemony under a globalised networked capitalism: The role of research, documentation
  We include this Waterman's paper because we consider it useful in the framework of the WSF: "The old, established and traditional social movement (developed under a national industrial capitalism, institutionalised, Westocentric, incorporated into old understandings about and with capital, state and ‘development’) needs to take congnisance of its relative power and privilege. And it then needs to make space for something that might be relatively marginal and weak but that nonetheless comes out of a globalised and networked capitalism. The ‘movement of movements’ proposes new understandings of the world; it identifies new arenas of dispute with the hegemonic forces; and it suggests new forms of dialogue between social movements". September 2005.



• Trade Union internationalism and a global civil society in the making
  Two events, held in January 2004, suggest major ways in which the international trade union movement is trying to respond to the shock of globalisation. The question is whether union participation at these two very different events, one at the Fourth World Social Forum (WSF4) in Mumbai, India, and the other at the Internacional Labour Organisation's (ILO) Training Centre in Turin, Italy, represents competing or complementary ways of expressing internationalism in the era of globalisation. This chapter of the book "Global Civil Society 2004/5" has been concerned with a quite specific, yet rather complex, matter: the past and present relationship of the international labour movement to demoratisation of the social. By Peter Waterman and Jill Timms, pdf format.



• Trade Unions, NGOs and Global Social Justice: Another Tale to Tell
  The relationship between trade unions and NGOs is more crucial than most involved may realise. In a comprehensive article Peter Waterman reviews a collection from the journal “Development in Practice” on this issue. According to the author, the collection represents “an exceptionally rich resource book but one that does not possess the language for, or even the intention of, looking at these phenomena from the outside nor the specific forest in which they stand” (pdf format). 2004.



• Place, space and the reinvention of social emancipation on a global scale
  The Third World Social Forum, held in January 2003, was marked by a questioning of the extent to which the Forum itself -now an increasingly globalized phenomenon- embodies what it is preaching to others. A Peter Waterman paper analyzing the complexities of the WSF and its future challenges. April 2003.



• The World Social Forum: challenging empires
  A committed but critical anthology of essays on the theory and practice of the Forum, with essays by wo/men from many parts of the world, with many different points of view. 2003.



• The Still Unconsummated Marriage of International Unionism and the Global Justice Movement
  A Labor Report on the World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 31-February 5, 2002