Globalization & Trade Unions By Jeff Thomas

Billy Hayes General Secretary of the CWU has spoken at great length about the need to appreciate that Globalization is changing the labour marketplace and how it will affect all of us regardless of country or economic region of the world.  In this article I would like to explain to members the ramifications of Globalization and the need to build a wider trade union accord.

The IT Revolution has brought great benefits to working people in the UK as well as massive change.  IT skills are now an essential in the workplace, not a luxury or the realm of geeks and nurds.  From Secretarial Staff to Storeman and from the Postal System to Supermarkets, technology has changed the way we work.  There is greater change to follow as now the IT infrastructures around the world are becoming far more integrated and flexible.  Business leaders have smelt a quick profit in this new age of technology and its service industry, and they are now just starting to reap the rewards of that inter connection.

Work that was formerly concentrated in the developed world is now being redirected to third world countries where workers suffer inferior terms and conditions and much lower wages.  At the flick of a switch the workload of a Call Centre can be transferred to Deli or Vietnam, Zaire or Uganda.  Property Cost will drop for the owner of the business, wages are lower and there will be no shortage of willing jobseekers in underdeveloped countries willing to work at a rate unheard of in the western world.  Manufacturing jobs also are moving abroad as we see big business closing workplaces in Europe and reopening them in other countries.  They are quite literally taking the work elsewhere as a means to lower costs and increase profit.

What can the union movement do to quell the tide of job losses and the exploitation of workers in other parts of the world?  We can for starters start the job of fighting back.  We need cross border agreements and super unions that can tackle such methods.  Take postal work as an example.  We must set a union rate between our colleagues in other countries such as Detche Post or La Poste, USPS and Canada Post : that we as trade unions demand for the work. We must set Global Rates of Pay and negotiate Global Agreements. This will take a lot of trust and the breaking down of old barriers.  Trade Unionist are protectionist by nature and it will be a leap of trust to forge such alliances.  If we succeed there would be no point in closing a workplace in the UK to migrate the work elsewhere as we controlled the labour rate of pay wherever the work is sent.  This would not only benefit the Western World economies but also drag the wages of third world workers up to a better standard.

September 11th 2001 will be remembered as a sad day for the world.  As well as the awful loss of human life, another point that may have gone unnoticed was that the growing campaign within the labour movement against globalization lost its momentum.  When one tries to think of why the atrocity took place, the grass roots inequality around the world and the unbalanced and unfair distribution of wealth has created young men and women who are prepared to die to address this unbalance.  I know that this has been circumvented by religious fanaticism but the wages of poverty are breeding an army of disaffected youth prepared to die for a cause.  Strangely, the very act of terrorism that took place damaged the Anti Globalization movement in that it lost its inertia which was well under way post the attack in New York.  Instead of the global war on poverty gaining ground it lost it to be faced with a determined USA that wants revenge, understandably, on those it feels are responsible.  The USA has not asked itself why many youths in the Arab Nations are filled with such hatred for it, instead it is crusading against those who have tapped into this willing volatile bedrock of dissafected youth.

Many Trade Unionist feel that Globalization and such High Falootin notions are a million miles away from Industrial Issues i.e. Bread and Butter issues that they feel are far more important.  The upshot of all this is that if we allow big businesses to utilize technology and easy movement of labour without challenge, eventually the work we are seeking to protect will simply put not be here to argue about. Yes, industrial issues are key to trade union representation. Without them we will see declining membership as inevitable. However to complement our work at national level we need an international agenda. We must enter into dialogue with fellow trade unions across the globe to use our strength in numbers and formulate cross border agreements to restrict the choices fat cat business men are now enjoying. By having such dialogue we can start to improve all workers terms and conditions and really see the benefit of the Trade Union movement in action.

In conclusion: we need to be proactive not reactive as we meet this new challenge head on.  We can no longer wait for change and then scramble for an answer. We must as a movement use the expertise we have to be "Ahead of the Game"! The way to achieve this is to have a strategy at national level to address these concerns.  Other Trade Unions are already grasping the nettle and forming alliances that just a short time ago where un heard of.  As a Communication and Postal union we must join forces with our brothers and sisters in all countries to put trade unionism high on the social agenda or face further erosion of terms and conditions of our members and continued exploitation of other workers at the whim of conglomerates and faceless big business.

Jeff Thomas
Branch Secretary