Peter Waterman 

‘Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer’

(William Shakespeare, Richard III)

There will be several events worldwide during the third quarter of 2007, all, it occurs to me, concerned with the new edge of labour internationalism. This new edge is where it touches on or overlaps with the new emancipatory social movement thinking and action. I hope to later report back on these -  including the one I won’t be present at! Detailed information about these activities, where available, is appended. This note may encourage others to attend or follow, or sensitise others to what may develop into a new wave of global labour solidarity (compare Waterman 2007). But, in any case, the note will help me organise my own mind for the events.

The first will be the 30th anniversary of the Asia Monitor Resource Centre, Hong Kong, late-August, 2007. The AMRC is an NGO that has been providing information and support to workers and labour movement in the most rapidly-industrialising area of the world. In the 1980s it had a high profile as one of the bearers of the ‘new labour internationalism’, or the ‘new shopfloor internationalism’. It has evidently managed to survive the decline of this project in following decades. Its anniversary event is entitled ‘Labour Resurgence Under Globalization’ (Appendix 1) As someone who has followed the work of the AMRC since the later-1970s, and visited it in 1989, I have committed myself to speak there on the progress of such ideas of the 1980s as Social Movement Unionism, the New Labour Internationalism(s), and International Labour Communication by Computer. I will be trying to both make these relevant to Asia and to learn from the many Asian activists invited.

The second invitation is from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and is for several union/social forum events. The KCTU was considered an exemplar of the new 'social movement unionism' in the 1980s-90s (Gray 2007), but it is today in some disarray and undergoing - I understand - a process of self-reflection. Thus, at a conference of the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR), 2005, the KCTU President said that the trade union movement must

enter a phase of experimentation.  We need to fundamentally transform ourselves....If unions fail in this endeavor to re-organise then we have no future. http://www.sigtur.com/index.php?option=com_content&task= view&id=1&Itemid=74.

This is stronger language than we are used to from union leaders anywhere. I expect to be addressing similar topics to those at the AMRC. And, obviously, finding out more about the relations of the KCTU with other worker and social movements locally and internationally.

The third event is the 43rd Annual International Labour and Social History Conference (ITH in German), Linz, Austria, mid-September, on ‘Transnational Networks of Labour’ (Appendix 2a,b).  The ITH, in many ways a typically academic history body, has, over the last decade or so, repeatedly addressed itself to both historical and contemporary labour issues, with an eye to the newest social theory and movements. My paper here will be on ‘the internationalism of labour’s others’ – in other words on the international relations of new worker movements, often structured in network forms.

The one event I will - regrettably - not be present at is the ‘Global Dialogue for a Fair Globalisation’, organized by the somewhat anonymously-named ‘Global Network’, Lima, Peru, September 21-24 (Appendix 3). This is an intriguing event, because I cannot, at the moment of writing, find anything more about it on the web, even on the mother site of the Global Network, that of Solidar in Brussels (but keep an eye on the Red Global site listed below).   One has to assume that it has been organized in something of a rush. Yet this is a major and innovative event, with many major international union and labour and social movement figures invited, from such bodies as Streetnet, Via Campesina, Focus on the Global South and the Maquila Solidarity Network. Another puzzle is why it is being sited in Peru, hardly a major site of Latin America’s current wave of labour and social protest - consider Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil (Latin American Perspectives Forthcoming, Chavez, Gavarito and Barrett Forthcoming). Perhaps it is being held here because of the local existence of a well-established labour NGO, PLADES.  PLADES, which has grown during the decades of labour retreat or defence, is well-incorporated into the traditional European-based social-reformist institutions of union solidarity and development.  However, these institutions have been themselves increasingly impacted by the new non-unionized (or non-unionisable) labour networks, often associated with the World Social Forum and the wider global justice and solidarity movement. And the international unions have been meeting with the latter since at least a Bangkok roundtable in 2001 (Waterman 2005). PLADES has also previously hosted such international events, one of which I attended (Waterman 2006). And I would like to hope that the holding of this seminar here might itself stimulate the growth and coordination of the many but disparate and local social protests which are occurring in Peru. Its outcome should provide a stimulus to the Global Network (which is really in need of a more specific name), and give an indication of how far the European-based internationals have traveled since Bangkok 2001.

Bibliography

Chavez, Daniel, César Rodríguez Garavito and Patrick Barrett. Forthcoming. ‘Utopia Reborn? Introduction to the Study of the New Latin American Left’, (Introduction to) Utopia Reborn: The Promises and Dilemmas of the New Latin American Left. London: Pluto.

Grey, Kevin.2007 ‘Chapter Four: Social Movement Unionism and the Korean Labour Movement’, in Korean Workers and Neoliberal Globalization. London: Routledge.

Waterman, Peter. 2005. ‘Talking across Difference in an Interconnected World of Labour’, in Joe Bandy and Jackie Smith (eds), Coalitions across Borders: Transnational Protest and the Neoliberal Order. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Pp. 141-62.

Waterman, Peter. 2006. ‘Peregrinations of an (ex-) Pariah. www.nigd.org/nan/nan-doc-store/10-2006/peregrinations-of-an-ex-pariah

Waterman, Peter. 2007. ‘International Labour Studies (UK) in the Light of Social Justice and Solidarity (Globally)’ (Draft).

Latin American Perspectives. Forthcoming. ‘Globalizing Resistance: The New Politics of Social Movements in Latin America’, Latin American Perspectives.

Websites 

Asia Monitor Resource Centre. http://www.amrc.org.hk/

Global Network/Red Global. http://www.redglobal.plades.org.pe/socios.htm 

Solidar. http://www.solidar.org/

International Conference of Labour and Social History (ITH).

http://www.ith.or.at /ith_e/i_index_e.htm

Plades (Programa Laboral de Desarollo). http://www.plades.org.pe/index.php

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. http://www.kctu.org/