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| Jan Theron |
When considering President Donald Trump’s attempts to keep foreign migrants out of the US, remember who put him in power. It was by all accounts working class people in areas decimated by neo-liberal policies. Remember also that Trump is trying to secure the support of US trade unions for his reconfiguration of these policies. One commentator has described this as ‘eat[ing] the American left’s lunch’ (Harris, 2017).
It should come as no surprise to South Africans that trade unions can support a racist, right wing government. That was how it was in 1976. The South African government of the time was also trying to keep out migrants who were not white, and the established union movement was more or less complicit. Those unions that did not actively support the bars to non-racial organisation imposed by apartheid did nothing to undermine them. In practice, their commitment to solidarity extended only to organised workers.
That year, I became general-secretary of a trade union (‘the union’). The union came from a tradition in which solidarity meant making common cause with unorganised workers everywhere. However, little evidence of this tradition remained by 1976. It had been corrupted organisationally, and there were leaders ‘eating the money’.
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| Stephan Lessenich |
The ‘openness’ of liberal democracy is part and parcel of the Western world’s self-description. However, this openness has always been functionally dependent on building effective shields against the outer world. While the rising prosperity of the advanced capitalist societies rested on, among other things, the establishment of a free trade regime systematically biased towards their own economic interests, the institutionalisation of ‘social peace’ in the relations between capital and labour was actually an effect of exporting social unrest to the peripheries of the capitalist world system. And democracy itself was effectively stabilised by redistributing substantial parts of a hitherto unknown dynamic of economic growth – a dynamic resulting from the steady rise in productivity of a capitalist economy which was structurally able to externalise large parts of the social and ecological costs of its mode of production onto third parties, specifically the labouring classes and the natural environments of the so-called developing countries.
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| Christoph Scherrer |
President Donald Trump has been portrayed as a protectionist. His immediate cancellation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) upon assuming the presidency, as well as his support for the border adjustment tax proposed by the Republican leadership in Congress, seems to confirm this portrayal of his foreign economic policy leanings. However, a different conclusion emerges from a closer reading of Donald Trump’s business interests, of his trade agenda as published in the 2016 Annual Report on the Trade Agreements Program by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), and of American trade negotiation history. Trump will use large trade deficits to pressure trading partners to open up their markets. Companies which are successful in exporting to the US market from those countries will be scared by protectionist announcements and will therefore most likely pressure their governments to give in to the demands of the Trump administration.
In other words, the Trump administration will further the liberalisation of cross-border economic activities. From the perspective of development economics, one could call it protectionism, because it is about protecting the interests of the most advanced US corporations which operate on the basis of intellectual property rights and access to large-scale data.
Donald Trump is not engaged in businesses that face import competition. His real estate business in the US is quite dependent on the flow of foreign finance. He has made ample use of foreign banks to finance his projects. His business abroad is based mostly on fees for branding, that is fees for using his name in different projects. His lawyers are, therefore, trying to secure trademark protection for his name in as many countries around the world as possible. Therefore one can assume that the free flow of capital and the protection of brand names are important for him as a businessman.
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| Sue Ledwith |
Ruskin College, Oxford, UK has long been a home and heart of education for trade unionists worldwide. But no longer.
Just as organised labour is under siege from globalisation everywhere, with the rise in precarious work and falling membership, so Ruskin is under assault. This is a call for solidarity in support of the tutors who have been made redundant as their degree courses for international trade unionists were cancelled.
A petition has been signed by more than 1 000 supporters from the UK, from across the global north and from the global south, expressing shock and anger and urging a management rethink. Some want the unions, TUC, Labour Party and other affiliates and allied organisations to challenge the College’s actions: ‘Let’s have some action NOW,’ wrote one signatory.
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| Wolfgang Däubler |
An interview with Professor Wolfgang Däubler, conducted by Ciaran Cross, researcher for the International Centre for Trade Union Rights (ICTUR).
Professor Däubler, could you first explain a little about the situation faced by the Greek economy after the 2008 financial crisis?
The crisis made the problems already existing in Greece even more urgent. And, due to the competition between the different countries in the Eurozone, Greece had limited options. When Greece had its own currency, the drachma, there was a possibility of devaluation – one could devaluate the currency if the country was unable to face the competition. But this possibility no longer exists if you are a member of the Eurozone. And therefore Greece had to look for another form of devaluation – internal devaluation. That means they were economically forced to reduce wage costs.
This was done in a very brutal way. Of course, Greece did not choose this of its own will, but under the influence of the so-called Troika [the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank]. By 2012, they had demolished the whole system of collective bargaining and reduced the minimum wage. Today wages are at 75% of the level before 2010, and unemployment is around 24% to 25%. Among young people under the age of 25, unemployment is 50%. That's a catastrophe.
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| Anamitra Roychowdhury |
On 2 September 2016, ten out of eleven national trade union centers in India went on strike. Only Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) – widely recognised as the trade union wing of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party at the Centre – abstained. Another all-India strike had been organised on exactly the same day in 2015, with the participation of the same ten trade union centers and the notable exception of BMS. It is not only the repetition of the labour protest that is striking, but also that the twelve demands identified by trade unions in 2016 are an exact reiteration of the issues raised in 2015.
In the face of the 2015 strike, central government appointed a group of ministers, headed by the finance minister, to discuss the twelve-point charter of demands raised by trade unions. The ministerial panel convened meetings with the unions on 26 and 27 August 2015 and gave written assurances of regular consultation and to look positively at the demands. The government did not keep its promises and after August 2015 it did not convene a single meeting with all trade unions – only BMS was called for discussion on 16 and 22 August 2016[1] – nor did it fruitfully address any of the demands raised by them. Instead government introduced myriad labour law reforms that go against the demands raised by workers, such as allowing firms to prepare self-compliance/certification reports and encouraging use of contract labour. In light of government’s failure to immediately and concretely address the issues, the ten unions went ahead with the strike. It is in this context that we must see the 2016 strike.
