International Trade Union Confederation—ITUC

This article analyses the origins, development and organisation of cross-union, company-based trade union networks in transnational corporations in the metal and chemical industries in Brazil. Collectively developed by local, national, foreign and international trade union organisations, this kind of union action was introduced in the country in the early 2000s as a way to connect local labour representatives organising workers in different locations within the same company. Networks strengthen local labour power and stimulate transnational connections. Promoting solidarity among workers across multiple factories, they offer the perspective for a global unionism connected to shop-floor organisation. Despite these achievements, networks face important challenges. Power imbalances, the reliance on restrictive social dialogue arrangements and the compromise with traditional structures limit the reach of the strategy. KEY WORDS: globalisation; trade unions; new labour transnationalism; trade union networks; Brazil

Download Full-text

Globalisation and the dilemmas of international trade unionism

Transfer European Review of Labour and Research ◽

10.1177/102425890000600105 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 29-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick

Keyword(s):

International Trade ◽

Multinational Corporations ◽

Trade Union ◽

Trade Unions ◽

Global Economy ◽

Trade Union Movement ◽

Labour Movement ◽

Trade Unionism ◽

Union Movement ◽

Economic Developments

This article presents the author's reflections on the possibilities of a restructuring of the international trade union movement, on the basis of a collective research project to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which seeks to open a debate within the movement over the lessons to be learned from its history as a guide for its future action. The most important question facing the trade union movement today is what is generally called 'globalisation', a phenomenon that goes back many years, both in terms of economic developments and labour struggles. From this perspective, the paper examines the basis for the existing divisions of the international labour movement, before going over the work of the ICFTU and of the International Trade Secretariats (ITSs) to achieve the regulation of the multinational corporations and of the international economy, and concluding on the prospects for unity of action in the unions' work around the global economy.

Download Full-text

The Marshall Plan and the Split in the International Trade Union Movement

Manipulating Hegemony ◽

10.1057/9780333981818_7 ◽

2000 ◽

pp. 92-111

Author(s):

Rhiannon Vickers

Keyword(s):

International Trade ◽

Trade Union ◽

Marshall Plan ◽

Trade Union Movement ◽

Union Movement

Download Full-text

Framing Black Communist Labour Union Activism in the Atlantic World: James W. Ford and the Establishment of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, 1928–1931

International Review of Social History ◽

10.1017/s002085901900035x ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 64 (2) ◽

pp. 249-278 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Holger Weiss

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

International Trade ◽

Trade Union ◽

Early Phase ◽

Atlantic World ◽

Black Atlantic ◽

Black Workers ◽

Labour Unions ◽

Union Committee ◽

Union Activism

AbstractThe International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW) was a radical trans-Atlantic network for the propagation of black proletarian internationalism, established by the Red International of Labour Unions in 1928. Its key mastermind was James W. Ford, an African American communist labour union activist who was in charge of the organization and its operations until the autumn of 1931. This article critically highlights Ford's ambitions as well as the early phase of the organization. Both in terms of its agenda and objective as well as in its outreach among black workers in the Black Atlantic, the ITUCNW and its main propagators stressed the “class-before-race” argument of the Comintern rather than the pan-Africanist “race-before-class” approach. This is not surprising as the ITUCNW was one of the organizations that had been established when the Comintern and the RILU had started to apply the “class-against-class” doctrine, which left no room for cooperation between communists and radical pan-Africanists.

Download Full-text