Between Decent Work and the Emancipation of Labour
Labour at the World Social Forum, Nairobi, January 18-25, 2007
Peter Waterman
contact: p.waterman@inter.nl.net
Introduction: The Becoming Visible 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.
My qualifications for writing this piece are simply a continuing interest in the relationship between labour (as human activity, as social category, as social movement, as institutionalised), on the one hand, and the WSF and global justice and solidarity movement, on the other. Part of this interest is reflected in the Resources below.
Given the comparative scarcity of other resources on labour and this particular WSF, these notes are bound to be speculative. And, given my commitment to ‘the emancipation of labour internationalism’ (Waterman 2004b, 2006), it is bound to be utopian. But, then, speculation is surely more stimulating than silence. And utopia means both ‘nowhere existing’ and ‘good place’. Confronted by a realism that accepts the dominant appearance of things, and a pragmatism that confines itself to the limits of such appearances, it is surely necessary for labour activists to have one foot in utopia.
My feeling is that at the Nairobi WSF labour is beginning to gain the same profile as women. Bearing in mind the initial (self-?) marginalisation of labour (Waterman 2002), this would be an achievement. Possibly such a profile will not be reached. But, in this case, Nairobi should at least provide an opportunity for both the traditional unions, alternative labour movements and pro-labour groups, to strategise, preferably together, for the kind of recognition that – thanks to feminist mobilization – women have already achieved.
It goes without saying that the projects listed below are only a fraction of the labour or labour-related ones at the forum. Others can be found at http://www.wsf2007.org, or http://www.wsfprocess.net. Note that on the latter, the index page has over 130 registrations against labour, but separately lists immigrants, class struggle, children’s rights, farmers/peasants, precarity and unemployment, public services, slum-dwellers, workers, trafficking, etc. The same goes for other lists on the index page. Moreover, the value of the WSFProcess site is limited, at least so far, by its slow operation. Just as this note was being proof-read, however, there appeared the first detailed list of registered activities by day: http://wsf2007.org/program. This not only gives an overview of the WSF daily programme, but provides page by page spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel), thus potentially allowing groups to find each other.
For Decent Work (For and Under Capital and State)!
The new International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) certainly has its act together, if we are to judge from Appendix B. The old trade union internationals have previously had a presence at the WSF, as within its International Council (Waterman 2005a). This presence has, however, tended to be marginal, in so far as it has implied, at Porto Alegre, a pre-WSF meeting and then a distinct tent or area. Within the one IC meeting I have attended, the union representatives seemed to play, separately, the role of good citizens rather than representatives of a particular interest or social category.
With the preparations for Nairobi, the situation appears to be changing quite dramatically. We can see this both in the systematic preparation suggested by Appendix B but also in the promotion of one specific political project, ‘Decent Work’ (DW). DW has made its appearance within union activities at previous WSFs but it begins increasingly to appear as if the unions want this to be not simplytheir project but that of the WSF as such (Appendices B and F). They have even managed to get the concept into one of the six major WSF themes, if without capitals. Thus, the WSF Nairobi programme reads:
The WSF territory in Nairobi will relate to…9 terrains; therefore, when you register an activity, you will be asked to choose one the following nine objectives for actions:
[…]
6. Guaranteeing economic, social and cultural rights, especially the rights to food, healthcare, education, housing, employment and decent work [stress mine – PW]
The WSF does not, of course, declare or adopt specific policies. This may explain why there has been some problem about DW within WSF preparatory proceedings (my source is an unpublished working document):
In regards to ‘decent work’ this objective was projected to be controversial, as the question arises: what exactly is ‘decent work’?
Nonetheless, the concept has been incorporated into Objective 6 and this has been claimed as an achievement in the ITUC document attached. And bearing in mind the energy being put into it by the trade union internationals and allied bodies, it seems to me quite likely that the ITUC will later be able to claim that the WSF is ‘associated with’, or ‘supports’, or even ‘endorses’ the notion of Decent Work (capitalised).
If the WSF was to be identified with a single labour policy, slogan or ideology, I would consider this anyway a step forward from the WSF giving only marginal attention to labour. Coming out of the world of NGOs, new social movements and the Global Civil Society of the 1980s-90s, the WSF has previously reproduced their hostility toward, or ignorance of, or indifference concerning the ‘old’ ideologies and institutions of labour. The problematic exception here has been the WSF’s open door to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) under its dynamic Director, Juan Somavia (himself a veteran of the UN conference decade and the world of NGOs).
If, moreover, this slogan gains primacy within the WSF, this must be understood as also the responsibility of the Assembly of Social Movements and of other labour movement activists (including myself), for having themselves failed to struggle for an emancipatory discourse on work and a broad appeal to labouring people globally.
But why should not such newer, other, autonomous and activist labour movements simply follow Streetnet (Appendix D) in enthusiastically endorsing Decent Work? I have earlier argued (Waterman 2005b) that
‘Decent work’ is a well-funded programme of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a liberal-democratic body that has been marginalised by the paleo-liberal international financial institutions (IFIs) in the process of capitalist globalisation. The ILO is trying, both energetically and pathetically, to re-establish the significance it had during the passing epoch of National-Industrial Capitalism. In this effort, it is seeking to appeal to the more liberal-democratic capitalists and states, to the broadly social-reformist unions…and to the radically-democratic World Social Forum!
[...] The message being broadcast (or received) attempts to simultaneously adjust itself to capitalist globalisation (and language) and to propose a global neo-Keynesian inflection of such. ‘Decent Work’ has been enthusiastically adopted by the inter/national union organisations that are in a posture of subordinate partnership (i.e. political or ideological dependence on) capital and/or state. What 'decent work' looks like…is the kind of job that workers in industrialised capitalist countries had – or were convinced by society that they had – before neo-liberal globalisation.
[…] ‘Decent Work’ is a Big Issue at World Social Forums. This does not mean it should be simply ignored, dismissed or condemned (as I may appear to have done). ‘Decent Work’ could have considerable appeal not only to an inter/national labour movement lacking an ideology or strategy of its own. It could, if widely promoted, have considerable appeal to those in work degraded by globalisation, to the overworked, the casually-employed, the subcontractee and to the unemployed.
Whether, of course, the inter/national unions have any intention of turning this into a worldwide international solidarity protest, on the model of the Eight-Hour Day movement of the late-19th century, is another matter. ‘Decent Work’ may function for most inter/national union officers as yet another gambit within the game of international union diplomacy, with no more likely success than that of the 15-year-long and now-abandoned strategy of winning international labour rights through the WTO!”
It appears, finally, from the various appendices already cited, that this policy is not being presented to the WSF, or other labour movements, for discussion but for endorsement.
Toward the Emancipation of Labour from Capital and State (and of Inter-state Institutions)?
I am myself associated with the projects listed in Appendices A and D below, just two of the ‘alternative’ labour groups. These two are already negotiating with each other. There can be no doubt that this will be the case with other labour groups or movements, either during the preparatory period or at the WSF itself. But what do these two proposals actually have to offer?
‘Towards Transnational Solidarity? The Reorganisation of the Global Working Class’ (Appendix A) offers us, firstly, the new language suggested by its very title. To reverse the order of presentation, it confronts us with the restructuring of the world’s working class, and raises global solidarity as an aim to be achieved in the light of this. It is also a proposal that is associated with the controversial ‘Thirdworldist’ Samir Amin (for debate on his Bamako Appeal, see http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-index.php?page= Bamakoappeal; for his latest view of the world, see Amin 2006). However, this is an independent project, which will hear many other voices. So what it mostly offers (that the Decent Work project apparently fails to offer) is an opportunity for an international dialogue. This possibility is in any case more or less guaranteed when one considers the range of background papers on the site associated with this project
‘Labour In Movement – Facing The Challenge Of Globalisation’ (Appendix C) offers a similar opportunity for dialogue – which would explain why these two independent initiatives seem to be finding each other in the WSF preparatory period. The background to this proposal is rather different than the previous one, coming out of the Italian tradition of union radicalism, itself recently associated with other ‘base movements’ in Italy and more widely. But one of the two issues it focuses on is rather more specific:
2. How can the process of the World Social Forum be used for giving greater visibility and effectiveness to the problems, to the themes, to the struggles of…labour in…globalization? Which alliances, which actors, what methods and tools can be proposed?
However, even two swallows do not a make a summer. In the first place, we can not yet know whether or to what extent these two international labour initiatives (out of dozens? hundreds?) will collaborate. Nor whether these two, or others, will present more than ‘noises off’ a stage on which Decent Work will publicily perform. Nor do we know, of course, to what extent the old and the new - the institutions and the movements/NGOs; those favouring incremental-change-within; those seeking transformatory-change-beyond - might themselves either find common agreement or publicly dialogue.
What we would seem to have here could be compared with the tension between the ‘verticals’ and the ‘horizontals’ – language popularised at the European Social Forum, London, 2004. This tension – however formulated - between the bigger, older, better-funded, more-institutionalised, on the one hand, the smaller, newer, less-funded, more-networked, on the other, has been a major one throughout the short history of the WSFs. In the London case, it was a mixed bag of Verticals that dominated and controlled the forum. Due less to the organising capacity and experience of the Horizontals than to the public noise they made, the Verticals nonetheless tolerated (rather than enthusiastically welcomed) their critics. The latter – themselves a differentiated species – organised 4-5 peripheral and/or autonomous sites or spaces around London (Anonymous Comrade 2004).
Toward a Global Labour Charter Movement (GLCM)?
I do, of course, have my own particular project for the reinvention and revival of a global labour movement under the conditions of a globalised and networked capitalism. This is spelled out in Appendix Z (thus allowing for lots of appendices in any updates of this piece). I do not intend to summarise this since the document is short enough. I would, however, like to stress Point 9, in so far as this argues its relevance for the institutionalised trade unions themselves:
If this proposal assumes the crisis of the traditional trade unions, it should be clear that it simultaneously represents an opportunity for them. This is for a reinvention of the form of labour self-articulation (again: organization and expression), as has occurred more than once in the history of capitalism (from guilds to craft unions, from craft to inter/national industrial unions). By abandoning what is an increasingly imaginary power, centrality or privilege, unions could simultaneously reinvent themselves and become a necessary and significant part of a movement for social emancipation worldwide. The form or forms of such a reinvention will emerge precisely out of a continuing dialogue, the dialectic between organisational and networking activities.
I will be presenting this proposal as seems appropriate in Nairobi. I have no more expectations about this than earlier proposals of my own for ‘Social Movement Unionism’ or a ‘New Social Unionism’ (Waterman 2004a). However, these concepts or related ones have entered the discourse of labour academics, independent activists and sometimes of the unions themselves (a narrow Google search finds over 27,000 entries).
The particular potential of the GLCM lies, I would like to think, with its invitation to others to do what they want with it (they did so with SMU, even without encouragement, so I might as well invite them to do so!). Bearing in mind, however, 1) the failure of the international unions to propose any kind of revival of Mayday as International Labour Day, and 2) the Boston proposal (Appendix E) that for 2007 this concentrate on migrant labour, we could possibly agree on this element of the GLC, as one both modest and radical.
It cannot, of course, be assumed that any challenge to, far less any alternative orientation to Decent Work, will emerge at Nairobi. There are liable to be more problems of (alternative labour) communication before and during Nairobi than in the Porto Alegre events I attended in 2002-3. As far as print is concerned, we could make an effort to get one piece in the InterPress Service paper, TerraViva, http://www.ipsterraviva.net/archives.asp. But it seems even less likely than it was in POA to have mobile phone contact. And whilst the WSF Site itself (12km from the City Centre and most hotels/hostels?) may have computers, few of us will be in accommodation with any kind of connection. Possibly we could at least send messages and documents to a website that is prepared to offer us a space under some such title as Labour@WSF2007 or LabourAtNairobiWSF2007. Here I would suggest an approach to the Open Space Forum/CACIM since they have provided the best discussion site for the Bamako Appeal . This would then be available even during the forum for those with an internet connection.
Since we cannot rely on such means, we might need to think in terms of ‘locally appropriate’ rather than of ‘alternative computerised’ communication. I would suggest meetings (lunchtime at the WSF main site?) for interested groups/networks. Additionally, I would suggest bringing with us thick felt-tipped markers and heavy sticky tape, seeking poster or wrapping paper in Nairobi so that we can put up notices as possible and necessary. Appropriate slogans, visuals and logos would help. But perhaps these can only come out of the Nairobi process?
RESOURCES
Anonymous Comrade. 2004. ‘Call for Autonomous Spaces During the European Social Forum, London, October 14–17, 2004’.
Amin, Samir. 2006. ‘Beyond Liberal Globalisation: A Better or Worse World?’,
Waterman, Peter. 2002. ‘The Still Unconsummated Marriage of International Unionism and The Global Justice Movement: A Labour Report on The World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 31-February 5, 2002.
Waterman, Peter. 2004b. ‘Emancipating Labour Internationalism’, Centre for Global, International and Regional Studies, University of California Santa Cruz.
Waterman, Peter. 2004a. ‘Adventures of Emancipatory Labour Strategy as the New Global Movement Challenges International Unionism’, Journal of World-Systems Research, Vol. 10, No. 1.
Waterman, Peter. 2005b. ‘From “Decent Work” to “The Liberation of Time from Work”: Reflections on Work, Emancipation, Utopia and the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement’. Inter Activist Info Exchange. .
Waterman, Peter. 2005a. ‘Making the Road Whilst Walking: Communication, Culture and the World Social Forum’, Network Institute for Global Democratisation. .
Waterman, Peter. 2006. ‘Emancipating Labour Internationalism’, in Boaventura de Sousa Santos (ed). Another Production is Possible: Beyond the Capitalist Canon. London: Verso.
APPENDICES
Appendix A
TOWARDS TRANSNATIONAL SOLIDARITY?
THE REORGANISATION OF THE GLOBAL WORKING CLASS
Part one:
CHALLENGES FACING THE GLOBAL WORKING CLASS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AND REGIONS
Individual country reports on labor and the challenge of globalization
Part two:
RESPONSES FROM UNIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Country reports and sector reports responses to globalization from unions and social movements
Final part:
FUTURE STRATEGIES TOWARDS TRANSNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
Future strategies for reorganizing the global working class
Participants:
Samir Amin (Third World Forum, Dakar)
Ingemar Lindberg (Agora, part of The Arena Group)
Andreas Bieler (University of Nottingham, UK)
Devan Pillay (University of the Witwatersrand)
Wen Tiejun (Renmin University of China)
Lao Kin Chi (Arena Council of Fellows, Hong Kong)
Isabel Rauber (Havana)
Praveen Kumar Jah (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Mac Urata (The International Transport Workers´ Federation, ITF)
Peter Waterman (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague)
Time: tbc
Venue: tbc
Organized by:
Agora think-tank, part of The Arena Group (Sweden), World Forum for Alternatives, The Union of Service and Communication Employees, Sweden (SEKO), and the Olof Palme International Center
http://www.arenagruppen.se/
fredrik.sjoberg@arenagruppen.se
Devan Pillay et.al. Reader on the Global Working Class:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/gwcproject/index.php
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Appendix B
ITUC INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION
ITUC INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION CSI CONFÉDÉRATION SYNDICALE INTERNATIONALE
CSI CONFEDERACIÓN SINDICAL INTERNACIONAL IGB INTERNATIONALER GEWERKSCHAFTSBUND
Bd du Roi Albert II 5, Bte 1, B – 1210 Bruxelles Belgique
Tel. +32 (0) 2224 0211 Fax +32 (0) 2201 5815 E-mail info@ituc-csi.org http://www.ituc-csi.org
SHARAN BURROW In reply please quote:
PRESIDENT
PRÉSIDENTE Circular N° 3(2006)
PRÄSIDENTIN
PRESIDENTA
GUY RYDER To all affiliated organisations
GENERAL SECRETARY To Regional Organisations
SECRÉTAIRE GÉNÉRAL
GENERALSEKRETÄR To all Global Union Federations and TUAC
SECRETARIO GENERAL To certain other trade union organisations
ELS/CC/ 30 November 2006
Preparation of the World Social Forum (WSF)
(Nairobi – 20 to 25 January 2007)
Dear colleagues and friends,
The 7th edition of the World Social Forum will be held in Nairobi in January 2007. We are therefore sending you this circular for information and to help ensure a good preparation of this important event.
Dates and venue:
The WSF will be held from 20 to 25 January 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. Most of the events will be held at the Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani, about 10 km north-east of the Nairobi business district. Regular buses will run to the stadium. The opening ceremony (on 20 January) and the closing event (on 25 January) will be held in Uhuru Park in the city centre.
We are carefully monitoring trade union involvement in the Forum. In addition to the many meetings of the WSF International Council and other meetings of our own organisations with the Council’s members, an AFRO-DOAWTU-OATUU delegation met representatives of the WSF in Nairobi in early September 2006 so as to ensure there was a good discussion between trade union organisations and the other civil society organisations involved in organising the WSF.
Activities:
The priority areas for the Forum activities were determined at a meeting of the WSF Methodology and Content commissions (in Nairobi, early September) and were endorsed in October in Parma (Italy) at a meeting of the WSF International Council. Nine priority areas for the work – also referred to as “objectives for actions” - were set:
1. Building a world of peace, justice, ethics and respect for diverse spiritualities
2. Liberating the world from the domination of multinational and financial capital
3. Ensuring universal and sustainable access to the common goods of humanity
4. Democratising knowledge and information
5. Ensuring dignity, defending diversity, guaranteeing gender equality and eliminating all forms of discrimination
6. Guaranteeing economic, social and cultural rights, especially the rights to food, healthcare, education, housing, employment and decent work
7. Building a world order based on sovereignty, self-determination and rights of the peoples
8. Constructing a people-centred and sustainable economy
9. Building real democratic political structures and institutions with people’s participation on decisions and control of public affairs and resources
You will notice that decent work has been included in the priority areas, thanks to effective lobbying by our regional organisations and the other trade union organisations that replied to the consultation launched by the WSF a few months ago.
There will be a large number of “self organised” activities at the forum, i.e. activities organised by any registered organisations wishing to do so. In addition, as at the first editions of the WSF, there will be various activities organised by the WSF itself. The latter will focus on the situation in Africa. On 24 January the focus will be on existing campaigns and on trying to establish synergies between them and between the civil society actors involved. That day will have a key impact on the planning of activities to be held in the course of 2007.
Trade union participation:
The ITUC will participate at the Nairobi Forum under the banner of the ”Decent Work, Decent Life” campaign that we are running in partnership with the European Trade Union Confederation, Solidar, Social Alert and the Global Progressive Forum (GPF).
We will therefore be starting off 21 January with the launch of that campaign. That initial activity will be followed directly by a Trade Union Forum that will discuss progress in the campaign for decent work in Africa and the rest of the world.
So if you would like to attend the Trade Union Forum on Sunday 21 January we would advise you not to organise any other activities on that day.
We would also inform you that the ITUC will be holding 2 workshops with its other partners in the “Decent Work, Decent Life” alliance, the first on Monday 22 on “Decent work, migration and development”, and the second on Tuesday 23 on “Decent work and multinationals”.
Lastly, as regards our contribution to the WSF, we think that while it is important to give visibility to our work and our trade union message it is just as important to enhance our synergies with other civil society organisations and to be involved in all nine of the priority areas of the Nairobi Forum. So we would recommend that you try to balance your participation in the activities organised by the unions with attending the other Forum workshops, so as to avoid getting too “cut off”.
Registration for activities:
So far several trade union organisations have told us about their plans. You need to register for the activities directly on the WSF website (www.wsf2007.org) and it is vital that you send us copies of your plans so that we can try to ensure that the organisers keep us in the same place (or not too far apart) and that we can avoid our activities being organized simultaneously.
Subject to confirmation, voluntary interpreters provided by the Forum organisers should be available at each workshop.
I look forward to seeing you in Nairobi in January,
Best regards,
General Secretary
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Appendix C
LABOUR IN MOVEMENT – FACING THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBALISATION
Promoted by:
TRANSFORM! ITALIA
FIOM-CGIL
FUNZIONE PUBBLICA-CGIL
RETE CAMERE DEL LAVORO-CGIL
FONDAZIONE DI VITTORIO-CGIL
Together with:
ALLIANCA SOCIAL CONTINENTAL (America)
WORL MARCH OF WOMEN
CUT (Brazil)
VIA CAMPESINA
FOCUS ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH (Asia)
AGORA (Sweden)
Other invited and participants:
FISM (Metal workers International Union)
COSATU (South Africa)
SEWA (Asia – India)
CAMPAIGN FOR THE WELFARE (Norway)
PETER WATERMAN
IG METALL (to be confirmed)
G10 SOLIDAIRES (to be confirmed)
All the participants will be asked to answer on two questions:
1. An evaluation of the most recent experiences of alliance between social movements and labour unions in new forms of transnational action: what have they taught, which limits have they shown, what they can represent on the strategic plan?
2. How can the process of the World Social Forum be used for giving greater visibility and effectiveness to the problems, to the themes, to the struggles of the labour in the globalization? Which alliances, which actors, what methods and tools can be proposed?
Versions in Italian and Spanish available.
Contact: Marco Berlinguer at marco.berlinguer@transform.it
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Appendix D
StreetNet's programme for the January 2007 Kenya Forum
StreetNet International Council agreed at the meeting held in Nairobi in August 2006 on the following programme with the objective of building alliances and a concrete programme of action globally within the WSF.
·To hold four panel discussions;
·To hold a Street Vendors Rally;
·To join and participate in the events and activities of the 'Decent Work for a Decent Life' Alliance at the WSF.
The StreetNet programme will highlight and focus on the cross-cutting issues of RECOGNITION, REGULATION, SOCIAL PROTECTION AND REPRESENTATION for informal street and market traders.
StreetNet Panels:
Women street vendors and informal market vendors
Planned panelists
·informal workers from StreetNet affiliates;
· municipal workers;
·councillors from the city of Nairobi;
·women's social movements.
Child labour in street and market vending
Planned panelists
·representatives of organisations of child workers (ENDA);
·StreetNet representative;
·representatives from organisations in Asia, Latin America and East Europe.
Migrant workers in street vending and informal trade
Planned panelists
·refugees;
· cross-border traders;
Disabled street vendors and informal market vendors
Planned panelists still being decided.
Street Vendors' Rally:
Theme: "No to poverty and inequality"
Programme - speeches, performances, cultural events.
Decent Work for a Decent Life is a joint campaign led by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Global Progressive Forum, the World Confederation of Labour (WCL), the Global Progressive Forum and SOLIDAR which aims to:
Inform about decent work;
Show the link between decent work, poverty alleviation and social cohesion;
Bring decent work at the core of development, economic, trade and social policies.
The Afro-ICFTU is leading the Decent Work campaign in Africa.
The thematic concerns of the Campaign at the WSF include informal workers, cross-border traders, social protection and precarious and vulnerable workers.
StreetNet is applying to join the alliance and if accepted will formulate plans for the WSF in consultation with the alliance's member organisations. Joint activities will be announced once these have been agreed upon.
http://www.globalprogressiveforum.org/index.cfm?Content_ID=6532251
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Appendix E
Boston Proposes Struggle for Migrant Workers Rights in the World
Boston Delegation to the World Social Forum 2007 in Nairobi Kenya Proposes Intercontinental Unity in the Struggle for Migrant Workers Rights in the World
This activity seeks to demonstrate the need to join forces in the world to confront the injustices of a condition created by contemporary capitalism: large masses of migrant workers desperately seeking work to survive. In that process they are abused, victimized, exploited and discriminated.
The U.S. has large masses of exploited undocumented workers, nearly 12 millions in all. Yet, the "immigrant rights" movement in the U.S. has not joined in with the rest of the world but it must. We propose that May Day 2007 be a point of departure from that erroneous tactic and ask people of the world to join in a campaign where International Workers Day is dedicated to the rights of migrant workers of the world. Meanwhile, in the US a strike and boycott as the one implemeted this year should also be attempted.
During his last visit to the Boston Area L.A. immigrant rights leader Jesse Diaz was asked to join this effort and he accepted. Four other local activists will form the delegation to Nairobi: Dorotea Manuela, Jeanne Koopman, Thomas Ponniah and Sergio Reyes.
The World Social Forum will take place from January 20, 2007 to January 25, 2007. Additional funds to support delegation expenses are needed. Please consider a donation. Checks should be made payable to: CAEF/WSF07, PO BOX 381279, CAMBRIDGE, MA 02238-1279.
http://www.lfsc.org/wsf/
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Appendix F
Social Movements Set to Assert Their Presence at WSF Nairobi 2007, Onyango Oloo (2006-12-21)
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Appendix Z
TOWARDS A GLOBAL LABOUR CHARTER MOVEMENT -
Starting With the World Social Forum 2007[i]
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, floundering under the multiple attacks delivered by contemporary capitalism, and by labour’s lack of any such socially unifying and mobilising vision as inspired it in the past. The hope comes from seeing such energy and vision within the so-called global justice and solidarity movement (GJ&SM).
1. The idea of a GLCM is to develop a charter, declaration or manifesto on labour, relevant to all working people, under the conditions of a radically transformed and highly aggressive capitalism, neo-liberalised and globalised.
2. The idea of such a charter has been provoked by a couple of recent international labour declarations (Bamako Appeal 2006, Labour Platform for the Americas 2006). A common limitation of these otherwise very different documents is that each was produced and issued for acceptance or endorsement, by union leaderships or intellectual elites, without discussion by union members, shopfloor or community activists themselves. The GLC notion is, however, also inspired by a recent women’s one, the Women’s Global Charter for Humanity (2004), produced after worldwide discussion by a new mobilising social movement.
3. In so far as this project is addressed to the emancipation of life from work (meaning labour for capital and state, empire and patriarchy), it implies articulating (both joining and expressing) labour struggles with those of other oppressed and exploited social categories, people and peoples – particularly that majority of workers, women. The existence of a growing global justice and solidarity movement (GJ&SM), best known through the World Social Forum (WSF) process, makes such articulation increasingly possible.
4. Its title could be the ‘Global Labour Charter Movement’ (GLCM21). 'Charter' reminds us of one of the earliest radical-democratic labour-popular movements of industrial capitalism, the British Chartists. ‘Movement’ reminds us that the development of such a declaration requires a process and the self-mobilisation of workers.
5. Such a process needs to reveal its origins and debts. These are to the new forms of labour self-organisation (within and beyond unions), to the shopfloor, urban and rural labour networks (local, national, international), to the labour NGOs (labour service organisations), and to a growing wave of labour education, communication and research responding to the crisis of the labour movement.
6. The novel principle of such a charter should be its conception as a ‘virtuous spiral’ - that it be conceived not as a single, correct, final declaration, which workers, peoples and other people simply endorse (though endorsement could be part of the process), as for its processal, dialogical and developing nature. This notion would allow for it to be begun, paused and joined at any point. Such a process would require at least the following elements: information/communication, education, dialogue, (re-) formulation, action, evaluation, information...
7. It is the existence of cyberspace (the internet, the web, computerised audio-visuals) that makes such a Global Labour Charter for the first time conceivable. We have here not simply a new communications technology but the possibility for developing non-hierarchical, dialogical, equal relations worldwide. The process will be computer-based because of the web’s built-in characteristics of feedback, its worldwide reach, its low and decreasing cost. An increasing number of workers and activists are in computerized work, are familiar with information and communication technology and have web skills. Given, however, uneven worker computer access, such a process must also be intensely local, imply and empower outreach, using the communication methods appropriate to particular kinds of labour and each specific locale.
8. Networking can and must ensure that any initiators or coordinators do not become permanent leaders or controllers. There is a growing international body of fulltime organisers and volunteer activists, both within and beyond the traditional inter/national unions, experienced in the GJ&SM, who could provide the initial nodes in such a network. Networking also, however, allows for there to be various such charters, in dialogue with each other. Such dialogue should be considered a normal and even necessary part of the process and avoid the authority, dependency or passivity associated with traditional manifestos.
9. If this proposal assumes the crisis of the traditional trade unions, it should be clear that it simultaneously represents an opportunity for them. This is for a reinvention of the form of labour self-articulation (again: organization and expression), as has occurred more than once in the history of capitalism (from guilds to craft unions, from craft to inter/national industrial unions). By abandoning what is an increasingly imaginary power, centrality or privilege, unions could simultaneously reinvent themselves and become a necessary and significant part of a movement for social emancipation worldwide. The form or forms of such a reinvention will emerge precisely out of a continuing dialogue, the dialectic between organizational and networking activities.
10. Starting with the first edition(s) of any GLC, there could be a list of globally-agreed demands and campaigns, with these having emancipatory (demonstrably socially-transformatory, empowering) implications for those involved. Rather than increasing their dependence on capital, state, patriarchy, empire, any GLC must increase their solidarity with other popular and radically-democratic sectors/movements.
11. Any such campaigns must, however, be seen as not carved in stone but as collective experiments, to be collectively evaluated. They should therefore be dependent on collective self-activity, implying global solidarity, as with the 200-year-old (but never completed) campaign for the eight-hour day. There is a wide range of imaginable issues (of which the following are hypothetical examples, in no necessary order of priority):
A Six Hour Day, A Five Day Week, A 48 Week Year, thus distributing available work more widely, reducing overwork;
Global Labour Rights, including the right to strike and inter/national solidarity action, but first consulting workers - including migrants, precarious workers, unpaid carers (‘housewives’), the unemployed - on their priorities; and secondly by prioritising collective struggles and creative activity over leadership lobbying;
A Global Basic Income Grant, in the interests of women, of the unemployed, etc ;
A Centennial Reinvention of the ILO in 1919, raising labour representation from 25 to 50 percent, and simultaneously sharing the raised percentage with non-unionised workers;
A Global Campaign for Useful Work, reaching beyond conditions of, or at work (‘Decent Work’) to deal with useful production, socially-responsible consumption, environmental sustainability;
All in Common, a campaign for the defence and extension of forms of common ownership and control (thus challenging both the privatisation process and capitalist ownership in general);
A reinvention of Mayday as a Global Labour and Social Movements Solidarity Day (as being done by precarious workers in Europe and by immigrant labour in the USA);
Support to the principle of Solidarity Economics and the practice of the Solidarity Economy, i.e. production, distribution, exchange that surpasses the competitive, divisory, hierarchical, growth-fixated, wasteful, polluting, destructive principles of capitalism.
A Global Labour Forum, as part of, or complementing, the World Social Forum, an assembly organized autonomously from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the Global Unions, whilst open to all);
12. This proposal is clearly marked by its origin, in terms of its author, place and language. It is, however, issued under the principle of CopyLeft. It can therefore be adapted, replaced, challenged, rejected and, obviously, ignored. Its only requirement or hope is that it be discussed.
References/resources:
Bamako Appeal. 2006.
Labour’s Platform for the Americas. 2006. .
Waterman, Peter. 2006. ‘Hacia un movimiento para una carta laboral global’, Revista Cultura y Trabajo (Medellín), No. 69, October.
Women’s Global Charter for Humanity. 2004.
