Why unions must become truly global

Australia might well be an island at the end of the world but our unions are well and truly active participants in a global labour movement, says Dave Oliver

THE spread of global capitalism and neo-liberal, free market fundamentalism means unions in every nation must see themselves as part of a global network, and seek out how we can work together across borders.

We have seen that alongside the globalisation of capital has been a globalisation of corporate power.

Decisions made in boardrooms in London or New York or Frankfurt impact on the lives of workers in Bangladesh, Bangkok or Nairobi.

And the ripple effects are felt by other workers throughout the world, both developing and developed.

Globalisation has also seen the internationalisation of the free-market ideology of privatisation, deregulation and the reduction of workplace rights.

The assault on public sector workers that began in the United States has spread rapidly to Europe and to Australia.

And it is also flowing the other way: Rupert Murdoch’s Australian born media empire has for decades been exporting severe neo-liberal propaganda to the rest of the world.

A truly global movement

Unions are confronting these attacks in their own countries, but we also need to improve how we respond as a global movement.

Capital knows no boundaries, and so we must also be a globalised movement.

As Sharan Burrow has said:

The fallout from the Global Financial Crisis has led to a global slump in wages and growing inequality. Employers have used the economic crisis and the global threat on jobs as an excuse to step up their anti-union attacks.

The export of the American corporate model, represented by the American Chamber of Commerce, is driving an exploitative model of profit at any cost — and it must be stopped.

We need to start thinking as a global movement and fighting global campaigns — we need to recognise that what happens to labour rights in China or Qatar is important because capital is mobile and we need to ensure that workers throughout the world have the right to decent work, freedom of association, right to organise/right to bargain and right to strike.

Globally, our challenges are not only on the wages, conditions, safety, and rights of workers, but the very existence of organised labour.

Big business and free market ideologues around the world are doing all they can to constrain the ability of unions to do their jobs, to outlaw much of our core activities, and to destroy our reputation and legitimacy in our communities.

We must resist these attacks, because without strong unions the relentless advance of globalisation will continue without check.

The most recent phase of the war against economic fundamentalism has already been running for more than 30 years, since Reaganomics and Thatcherism swept the English-speaking world in the eighties and underwrote the rise to dominance of neo-liberalism.

Australia has not been immune from this.

Neo-liberalism champions individualism. It is inherently hostile to collective action. In the name of individual freedom and liberty its rallying cry is small government and deregulation.

But the world we are all born into is one of vast inequality, of power, wealth, income, and opportunity. This is true within and between countries. Without intervention these inequalities rise inexorably.

And the fact is that concentrations of wealth and power — concentrations of capital — can only be constrained through collective endeavour — through unions in the sphere of work, through community organisations in neighbourhoods and regions, and ultimately through governments in democratic nation states.

We need to build alliances and maintain solidarity

Yes, there is a role for markets. Yes, freedom and liberty are prime attributes of a fair and democratic society. But the power of collective action is the essential countervailing force to the inexorable concentration of capital.

As champions of collective endeavour, the global union movement must resist the policies that seek to constrain and shut down the collective rights of working people and the common interests of community.

The war has a long way to run. The global crisis exposed the flaws of this policy suite and they are clear for all to see — unemployment and misery at large.

There will be innumerable battles to come — small and local, large and national, huge and global. We need to build alliances and maintain solidarity.

This is an edited version of the keynote address given by Dave Oliver to the LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference in Berlin on 23 May.

Dave Oliver was ACTU Secretary from 2012 to 2017

First published on 26 May 2014.