The 2017 French elections and labour: Interview with Bernard Thibault

Bernard Thibault

An interview by Nicolas Pons-Vignon, co-editor of the Global Labour Column (Translated from French by Clara Dallaire-Fortier).

The Socialist Party, in power since 2012, has forced the adoption of a new labour law (Loi Travail) in spite of resistance from some unions (especially from the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France’s largest union), and implemented austerity budgets that are unprecedented since the Second World War. What are the stakes, in the 2017 legislative and presidential elections, for the union movement and more broadly for the working class?

Bernard Thibault: The President of the Republic and his government, like many before them, only recognise that they have failed workers during election time. They have disappointed not only by failing to keep their promises, but by implementing reforms that contradict the principles historically defended by the left, for instance in the case of the so-called labour law. The challenge of these elections – which does not get much attention in a political context dominated by scandals about elected officials and candidates – is to ensure that there is a focus on social issues.

Macron, the leading candidate according to survey results, presents a programme that is reminiscent of Tony Blair’s New Left: a mix of economic neoliberalism with progressive views on social issues. What does this idea of ‘going beyond the left-right divide’ inspire in you?

The Return of Commercial Prison Labour

Anil Shah

Christoph Scherrer

Prisons are seldom mentioned under the rubric of labour market institutions such as temporary work contracts or collective bargaining agreements. Yet, prisons not only employ labour but also cast a shadow on the labour force in or out of work. The early labour movement considered the then prevalent use of prison labour for commercial purposes as unfair competition. By the 1930s, the US labour movement was strong enough to have work for commercial purposes prohibited in prisons. In the decades following, the number of prisoners decreased to a historic minimum. But with cutbacks in the welfare state, the prison population exploded from about 200 000 in 1975 to 2 300 000 in 2013 (Scherrer and Shah, 2017: 37) and prison labour for commercial purposes became legal again. Today, about 15% of the inmates in federal and state prisons perform work for companies such as Boeing, Starbucks and Victoria’s Secret. Migrants detained for violating immigration laws are one of the fastest growing segments of prison labour. Under the Trump administration, their numbers are most likely to increase.

Using the example of the US, we will discuss drivers of the return of commercial prison labour.

Capital, Labour and the Politics of Inequality in Global Public Health

Bridget O'Laughlin

The impasse: what to do about global health inequalities?
Inequalities of health are recognised as one of the most problematic aspects of the sharpening global divide between rich and poor (Deaton, 2013). There are, however, major differences as to what the causes of health inequalities are and hence on what can and should be done to address them. Some argue for the expansion of commercial healthcare and a greater role for private capital in public health provisioning as a direct investor, as a partner of the state and non-governmental organisations or as a philanthropic funder of business-like interventions. Others argue that redressing global health inequalities is a redistributive project incompatible with commercial logic and private profit. They privilege the role of the state as regulator of public health, as provider of health services and as taxer of wealth.

The expanded role for capital in global public health
In the World Development Report of 1993, Investing in Health, the World Bank both legitimised increased development assistance for international health and extended its critique of the intrusive developmental state to the area of health. This move was significant since even in neo-classical terms, health has long been recognised as a domain of imperfect markets. Institutionalist economists have argued that capitalist enterprises typically do not cover the social costs of their production, either the health of their labour force or the non-commodified environmental resources they consumed unless they were forced to do so through aggressive state regulation.