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Op/Ed: Time for Labor Unions to Go Global
Time for Labor Unions to Go Global
Op/Ed as printed in the Chicago-Sun Times
August 25, 2005
A global economy requires global unions. When companies were local, unions had local agreements. When companies were national, unions had national agreements. Now, in the global economy, where giant corporations dictate the rules, global agreements on wages, working conditions and environmental standards are desperately needed.
The global capital market means that corporations will continue to shift jobs from country to country, chasing cheap wages and weak labor laws.
Consider some examples:
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Wackenhut is responsible for security at 30 U.S. nuclear power plants and 18 military bases. Wackenhut is not an American company, but a subsidiary of Group 4 Securicor, a British multinational that finds it more profitable to operate in the United States, where pay and benefits are generally lower than in Europe.
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Wal-Mart has forced hundreds of U.S. suppliers to shift operations to China, where manufacturers are able to squeeze wages down to 25 cents an hour.
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Thousands of call center and information technology professionals have lost their jobs to outsourcing. Their employers found that they could pay Indians a fraction of American or European wages. Now, those Indian workers worry about the same jobs being further outsourced to countries where pay rates are even lower.
Traditionally, unions have ensured that loyal, productive workers were valued and rewarded with good pay, decent benefits and safe working conditions. In order to fulfill that mission, unions must have the vision to go global too. Coordinated global union action is the only way to confront global corporations.
No one can stop the process of globalization. In the future, unions must unite workers across borders in the same industry and same corporations to win agreements that raise living standards everywhere. In doing so, unions must help unite working people, environmental advocates, religious leaders, consumer groups, civil rights and women's organizations, and other community stakeholders in all the affected countries behind principles that global corporations should live up to.
First steps have been taken by Union Network International, a global union of 900 service worker organizations in 150 countries. UNI has successfully begun to develop global agreements that commit companies to adhere to higher standards for working conditions and environmental protection in all countries in which they operate.
For example, global agreements with Carrefour and Metro Group (French and German multinationals, respectively) spell out their intentions to work with UNI to enforce the International Labor Organization conventions regarding the right of employees to join a union, the right to collective bargaining and the right to protection from discrimination. Working together with UNI, Carrefour has also condemned child and forced labor and intends to take active steps to ensure that ILO principles are respected by its suppliers. UNI has pioneered the signing of global agreements with several other companies, including H&M.
At the UNI Global Union's World Congress this month in Chicago, more than 1,500 delegates from six continents will discuss how to strengthen these agreements and their enforcement. These joint efforts will not be easy nor yield overnight results, but they reflect a growing understanding that no workers' jobs or living standards are secure as long as global corporations are able to pit one country's workers against another's in a never-ending race to the bottom.
Philip Jennings, general secretary,
Union Network International,
Joe Hansen, president,
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
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