unionism and organising and based around the book 'Global Unions, Local Power' by Jamie McCallum. The book takes an extended look at the nuts and bolts of what it calls the most successful global campaign so far, conducted against the security firm G4S. In it McCallum brings together detailed field research and a new view of labour internationalism. Looking at the major unions involved America's Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Union Network International (UNI) and its South African and Indian affiliates the book tracks the achievement and implementation of a global framework agreement (GFA) across different societies. This set of processes involved crucial changes internal to the union bodies too, which is summed up as a shift to a focus upon organising.....
We begin with context. In the era
of globalised production, McCallum argues that unions are having to rethink their traditional focus upon workers rights, acting instead to contest the rules under which TNCs operate, through 'governance struggles'. In this contest, unions try to change the TNC rule base to gain an organising foothold, aware that state powers and international law are today too weak to secure workers legal rights. In pinpointing these 'rules of engagement' as a new site of struggle, unions have tried three avenues of advance social clauses, codes of conduct and GFAs.
The organising story begins in USA
where the SEIU was looking to repeat the organising success of Justice for Janitors in a rapidly changing private security industry. Tackling the US sector meant dealing with Europeanowned companies and a reorientation of the campaign onto a global footing.
SEIU also found it had to build the
organising capacity of its allies and The last of these is the most partners before they could be promising, leading to direct bargaining effective campaigners. The between unions and TNCs on labour globalisation of its 'organising model' standards throughout global supply - uniting direct action with detailed chains. A GFA directly challenges corporate research was the way this company power in the absence of change came about. workers rights - they construct new rules and regulations that reorder the Different industrial relations labour-capital relationship creating traditions loomed large here, creating a framework for global union some dissonance and obstacles e.g. campaigns and long-term industrial the more consensual industrial strategies to build power across a relations found between the UK's sector or region. GMB and G4S were threatened by the McCallum pays particular attention confrontational American approach. to the implementation of the G4S In other settings things moved more GFA, examining how it was used in smoothly, Australia's LMHU eagerly different states in different ways, adopting the new organising model to including its spur to new organising revive their fortunes. across Africa, USA, Brazil and Australia.
Most important here were the links
SEIU forged with the UNI global union federation, establishing a global partnership that proved vital in its battles with the Swedish security firm Securitas and G4S. This involved funding for UNI projects where GFAs could not be easily established, supplying training for reps and advice on running corporate campaigns.
In the G4S case SEIU brought their
corporate campaigning techniques centre stage. The strategy targets an employer's financial interdependencies, political linkages and their reputation through hard-hitting negative publicity. This 'air war' precedes the 'ground war' of organising workplaces - a two-stage process that effectively excludes rank and file input from a strategy designed from above, as McCallum recognises. In its early battles with Securitas, SEIU worked with Swedish partners STWF to gain a neutrality agreement that allowed it access to workplaces.
In the US it came up against far
stronger opposition from the Wackenhut corporation, forerunner of G4S. When industry merger created the second largest private firm in the world in 2004, SEIU's response was to commit to organising G4S on a global scale. They began with a struggle against the casualisation of 15,000 guards in Indonesia. By 2006 SEIU and the UNI had established the G4S Alliance to push forward their campaign, especially within the Global South.
The signing of the GFA in 2008
led to far deeper global involvement when South Africa and India were chosen as the first sites to push the GFA forwards. The Alliance had relied on negative publicity, around the equation of workers rights as human rights, to pressure the employer into signing the GFA. This focus continued in the implementation phase. In terms of its depth and scope the agreement is the best achieved so far in the arena of global organising.
It contained grievance and dispute
resolution mechanisms, higher standards for workers and a neutrality agreement allowing unions access to organise G4S sites. Organising advances around the globe UK, Poland, Uganda, Malawi, Nepal and DR Congo - were to follow.
drifted into a service union mentality.
The campaign here was as much about reviving SATAWU as organising G4S sites in fact the latter depended upon the former. After a damaging strike in 2006, marred by violence, SATAWU moved closer to the UNI and laid down an organising plan with its financial support. New committees of activists were established at key sites, major cities now became the focus of the campaign. Despite this, prior to the introduction of the GFA, SATAWU had made little progress.
McCallum then turns to a detailed
analysis of the GFA's progress in South Africa and India. It is evident immediately that different industrial relations systems play an important role in this process: global does not equal universal. Instead the outcomes The situation then began to change register a plea for historical and the union slowly gained a foothold specificity, in theory and practice. on G4S sites. Internal changes within SATAWU were central to this success story, a shift to a mode of organising activity that paid off in terms of membership and participation. As McCallum notes this change was powered both from above and below, and from the outside by UNI. Local and global forces are acting interdependently here.
In South Africa, the private
security sector had grown enormously in recent years, helping turn G4S into the largest employer in the whole continent. SEIU UNI worked with the SATAWU union, an outfit that had made unsuccessful efforts to organise G4S in the past, and then
Over in India the story was very
different, the campaign passing through the fracturing prisms of local industrial relations and political affiliation. UNI SEIU worked with two separate unions divided by geography and political traditions, via an umbrella coalition. The outcomes were strikingly different. In Bangalore, the PSUG partner followed the organising model quite closely, although the employer refused to abide by the neutrality agreement and continued to retaliate against reps and activists. Over in Kolkata, the CITU partner resisted the UNI plan. Instead it relied on its historic role as labour broker for a vast informal workforce to recruit members and political lobbying of the Communist state government for industrial relations reforms. It even refused to prioritise G4S as an organising site ahead of other employers. The continued noncompliance of G4S with the GFA made the political lobbying route even more important. This shows, says McCallum, that different actors can use the GFA for different kinds of gain. In India the massive scale of the security sector and a fractured industrial relations context mean that the organising and mobilising of its workforce remains a huge challenge today.
In the final chapter of the book
McCallum draws out the theoretical implications of his research. The G4S campaign signals a new kind of labour politics: the potential for workers to flex their associational power in 'governance struggles' despite operating in a context where their structural power and legal rights are weak. Challenging the rules and winning the GFA gave the unions involved a way forwards both in respect of the immediate employer and over the wider industry. As an instrument of union power, the GFA works best, says the author, when it is part of a wider industrial strategy than as a stand alone procedure. The impact of the GFA in the US demonstrates this well. Though SEIU only recruited 1000 new members, it was vital to get a foothold within G4S, in order to make organising other major employers and the rest of the US private security industry easier, which in turn duly happened.
The interplay of global and local
factors is a second feature of the G4S case. They combine in different ways, translating global-level gains into national contexts. The local context can however determine the specific strategy used by global unions as the Indian example showed us. And institutional and organisational innovation within unions themselves at both levels is a vital part of the process. McCallum argues it is a precondition to effective campaigning, as the alliances SEIU forged here show. Most surprising among the lessons of G4S is that has not proved an easy model to emulate. The cost and complexity of global organising a la G4S have been too daunting and SEIU itself has taken a step back from the global stage.
...So plenty material to
reflect on there. We decided to take things a step further and ask Jamie McCallum a few questions about his work......... 1 There are plenty critics of SEIU, but you are not entirely of that view. Given their role in conducting and funding the most successful transnational labour campaign so far, why did they then 'move away' from global organising? Were they right to do so?
I dont think they have completely
moved away from it. I think that some people within the union thought that some of the campaigns were long shots that wasted scarce The case is controversial for another resources. reason. Corporate campaigning and Im not an insider and I dont have governance struggles are top-down access to all the debates that take initiatives, putting a premium on place. But my understanding is that effective leadership and control a many within SEIU feel that global loose group of autonomous bodies organizing is the future of their could not have organised this mega union. TNC. Such a conclusion is massively I think that UNI has maintained out of step with the current focus on many of their commitments to rank-and-file organising. As McCallum winning global framework sums it up: agreements. Other unions have victory is not as simple as winning; it backed away in more demonstrable is about building the power to fight in ways than SEIU. the first place.
2 Is top-down, centralised control
the only way to wage war effectively against TNCs today? What about the work of other unions who have developed smaller bilateral projects that seem successful e.g. U E FAT, or the UK's GMB alliance with its Latin American partners under the Bananalink banner? No, its not the only way. But I am less sanguine about a completely uber-democratic (bottom-up) movement against transnational capital. Scholars are far more likely to challenge me on this point than unionists because unionists understand that centralization and consolidation of resources can prepare them to fight in a better way.
I think a lot of critics of the topdown model underestimate the
logistics and complexity of managing and sustaining a global campaign, or even one involving just two or three countries. The necessity to keep all the players on the same page is critical and so far I havent seen it work without a fair amount of centralization. 3 Targeting TNC investors seems an unlikely route for unions to build workers power. Are you convinced that these 'corporate campaigns' deliver the goods, with the investment community playing the role of our surprising allies?
Great question. I agree that
corporate campaigns are unlikely to build worker power. They can, And to be clear, I dont know of many wars against TNCs. There are however, create conditions more campaigns, many of which are fairly favorable for workers to take action. No one really thinks that corporate tame and tepid. Youre right, those campaigns are going to save labor. alliances you mention seem successful, but I dont have much data to suggest that they are. Theres a group I am starting to do some work with called ReAct in France. It has had some success with smaller bilateral campaigns in French-speaking Africa.
But what are the goods, as you put
it? The goods, in my opinion, is a strategy that allows workers to take action. I think corporate campaigns have the potential to do that. This is what I mean when I say governance struggles. It allows unions to exercise a degree of control over what employers can do and this is very important.
4 To the uninitiated the sketch of
Indian trade unions and industrial relations seems almost too fantastic for words - 66,000 registered trade unions!! Were you surprised by the scale and complexity of this stony organising terrain?
The global-local dynamic is a major
issue, yes. I was primarily interested in the influence of UNI and SEIU, and that was pretty clear. Most unions in India that worked with them trusted them and did transform to some degree. One was more or less opposed to SEIU on Yes, very surprised. Like many some quasi-ideological grounds. But a young(ish) scholars from the states, fair amount of change happened I went to India a little nave, even within SEIU too. As we talked about though Id read a lot and talked with above, these campaigns put pressure a handful of organizers before going. on the internal machination of the The number of unions in India is union. possibly more like 100,000 actually. But it wasnt just in India. UNI and Its just unfathomable. SEIU helped to build an organizing Some people in India were disappointed with UNIs role there, program at multiple unions in Europe, with SEIUs role. They thought they the UK, Australia, South Africa, should have accomplished more. But Poland. It was fairly committed to a strategy of local union restructuring. many of their in-country partners This could be seen as bullying but I were hamstrung by a lack of think that would be a simplistic way resources or state repression or their own ideological blinders. Given of looking at it. SEIU clearly had the circumstances, Im surprised as valuable experience, personnel, and strategy to offer. The degree to much happened as it did. which SEIU, and some parts of UNI, 5 In the interplay of global and local are considered to be the dynamics that is a key finding from organizers in Europe is a testament your research, it often seems as if it to how attractive or useful its model was. is the global players who call the shots. In the Indian example, who changed most CITU or the UNI?