The pro-government Egyptian Trade Union Federation has issued a statement

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Garver on February 9, 2011 at 23:47

According to a story in today's New York Times Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors are increasingly demonstrating and striking.  When workers are in real motion, the pro-Mubarak ETUF leadership will be totally bypassed and the question of creating a genuine labor federation from the bottom up (perhaps based on the slender beginnings of the GTUWF) will arise.

See http://www.truth-out.org/protest-egypt-takes-a-turn-workers-go-stri...

At least some affiliates of the Tunisian UGTT, which was affiliated to the ITUC, positioned themselves within the framework of the democratic revolt and won substantative victories in the process.  See the IUFs coverage of the victory of the foodworkers' federation at Coke Tunisia over abusive sub-contracting to labor agencies at http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/724

 

 

Permalink Reply by peter waterman on February 10, 2011 at 0:07

Paul:

 

There is surely here another story, that of the relationship of the AFL-CIO to a US state that has been not only totally identified with the Egyptian dictatorship over several decades but also providing the weapons used to kill and mutilate the workers and other citizens over these same decades.

The AFL-CIO is actually a client of the US state insofar as it receives maybe 90 percent of its funding from this source. Its Solidarity Centre has been operating in Egypt for some years (previously maybe under an earlier name). What it seems to me to have been doing here recently is encouraging Egypt and Egyptian unions to establish the kind of unions and industrial relations existing in the industrialised capitalist West. And, unless you can provide contrary evidence (which I would be fascinated to see), failing to attack the US state that has approved of, praised, funded and armed a now nearly naked king.

Encouraging unions and states in the global south to established a liberal-democratic capitalist institutionality and ideology ('social partnership', 'decent work') would seem to me to impose on them a model which is either failing or dying in the Northwest of the world. This seems to me the height of Western arrogance and self-righteousness that, willy-nilly, can today be only functional to the core states and corporations of the capitalist world.

I would not myself today accuse the US unions of 'trade union imperialism' since what they seem to have been practicing, through the state-dependent client Solidarity Centre is the traditional West European model of Eurocentred and paternalistic liberalism (for which see the recent book on the ITUC's forerunner, the ICFTU, entitled 'Liberal Workers of the World, Unite?').

The heroic uprising of the Egyptian people, workers, peasants and the democratic part of its middle class, should be not only the occasion of immediate and effective support for them but for a rethinking of the concept of international labour solidarity and of a global labour movement fit for (and against) a 21st century capitalism - whether US, European, Chinese or Brazilian.

Or not?

 

 

Paul Garver said:

According to a story in today's New York Times Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors are increasingly demonstrating and striking.  When workers are in real motion, the pro-Mubarak ETUF leadership will be totally bypassed and the question of creating a genuine labor federation from the bottom up (perhaps based on the slender beginnings of the GTUWF) will arise.

See http://www.truth-out.org/protest-egypt-takes-a-turn-workers-go-stri...

At least some affiliates of the Tunisian UGTT, which was affiliated to the ITUC, positioned themselves within the framework of the democratic revolt and won substantative victories in the process.  See the IUFs coverage of the victory of the foodworkers' federation at Coke Tunisia over abusive sub-contracting to labor agencies at http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/724

 

 

Permalink Reply by Paul Garver on February 10, 2011 at 1:39

Hello Peter,

1. Is the AFL-CIO a client of the US state that receives 90% of its funding from that source?

 

Of course it does not received 90% of its funding from state sources.  Its income is derived overwhelmingly from the affiliation fees of its member unions. (There are in fact many so-called labor federations in the world that do receive almost all of their income from the state).

 

What is true is that almost all of the funding for the Solidarity Center comes from the tax-funded National Endowment for Democracy.  Roughly equal percentages of U.S. tax money go to institutes controlled by the Democratic Party, Republican Party and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  This is not too different from the ways that German tax money is apportioned to foundations controlled by the various political parties.

The AFL-CIO is no more or less a client of the US state than the Norwegian, Swedish, German, Dutch, Danish labor federations are of their respective governments.  The percentage of international labor development work that is funded by tax-based sources is somewhat lower in the Nordic states, Belgium, Germany and Ireland for various historical reasons, and relative access to other sources of funding.  This is a good thing, which means that there is always some funding for more confrontational anti-capitalist programs.  The IUF, for which I worked for 15 years, has been able to secure enough funding from LO Norway, the Swedish and Danish union controlled funds, the FNV, etc. to fund organizing programs in transnational companies.  In principle and practice it did not seek  funding from the Solidarity Center's predecessor organizations, which were indeed too linked to the Cold War and to US foreign policy goals.

 

But the current work of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center is run by different people on different principles.  There is in fact only minimal interference from the U.S.  government in selecting personnel or developing programs. So far as I can tell, all current Solidarity Center programs are committed to encouraging the development of autonomous worker-controlled labor unions.  Egypt and Tunisia are no exceptions.   In this respect the Solidairty Center today operates along lines that are approximately those of the international union development work of the major European federations.  The AFL-CIO is no longer the rogue maverick that it was rightly criticized for well into the 1990s.

 

Of course your real quarrel may be with the generally social democratic and reformist current that dominates the AFL-CIO as well as most of the affiliates of the ITUC and of most of the Global Union Federations.  But you should consider the fact that many major social movement unions that were the hope of the world left (COSATU. CUT. the Korean KTUC, etc.) have chosen to work within the overall framework of the Global Unions. 

I mmself was rather impressed that the ITUC video calling for the day of solidarity with Egyptian workers included not only the American, Japanese and European unions, but speakers from COSATU and other legitimate federations from the developing world,along with the Palestinian and Moroccan federations.  We might hope that our unions had more effective means of mobilizing their memberships for international solidarity.  But Peter, these are no longer the 1980s.  We are far from globalized worker solidarity, but  most of our labor movements are now trying to move in the right direction.  I also love to invoke revoloutionary transformation, but let us welcome small steps.

 

peter waterman said:

Paul:

 

There is surely here another story, that of the relationship of the AFL-CIO to a US state that has been not only totally identified with the Egyptian dictatorship over several decades but also providing the weapons used to kill and mutilate the workers and other citizens over these same decades.

The AFL-CIO is actually a client of the US state insofar as it receives maybe 90 percent of its funding from this source. Its Solidarity Centre has been operating in Egypt for some years (previously maybe under an earlier name). What it seems to me to have been doing here recently is encouraging Egypt and Egyptian unions to establish the kind of unions and industrial relations existing in the industrialised capitalist West. And, unless you can provide contrary evidence (which I would be fascinated to see), failing to attack the US state that has approved of, praised, funded and armed a now nearly naked king.

Encouraging unions and states in the global south to established a liberal-democratic capitalist institutionality and ideology ('social partnership', 'decent work') would seem to me to impose on them a model which is either failing or dying in the Northwest of the world. This seems to me the height of Western arrogance and self-righteousness that, willy-nilly, can today be only functional to the core states and corporations of the capitalist world.

I would not myself today accuse the US unions of 'trade union imperialism' since what they seem to have been practicing, through the state-dependent client Solidarity Centre is the traditional West European model of Eurocentred and paternalistic liberalism (for which see the recent book on the ITUC's forerunner, the ICFTU, entitled 'Liberal Workers of the World, Unite?').

The heroic uprising of the Egyptian people, workers, peasants and the democratic part of its middle class, should be not only the occasion of immediate and effective support for them but for a rethinking of the concept of international labour solidarity and of a global labour movement fit for (and against) a 21st century capitalism - whether US, European, Chinese or Brazilian.

Or not?

 

 

Paul Garver said:

According to a story in today's New York Times Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors are increasingly demonstrating and striking.  When workers are in real motion, the pro-Mubarak ETUF leadership will be totally bypassed and the question of creating a genuine labor federation from the bottom up (perhaps based on the slender beginnings of the GTUWF) will arise.

See http://www.truth-out.org/protest-egypt-takes-a-turn-workers-go-stri...

At least some affiliates of the Tunisian UGTT, which was affiliated to the ITUC, positioned themselves within the framework of the democratic revolt and won substantative victories in the process.  See the IUFs coverage of the victory of the foodworkers' federation at Coke Tunisia over abusive sub-contracting to labor agencies at http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/724

 

 

Permalink Reply by peter waterman on February 10, 2011 at 13:50

Paul Garver said:

Hello Peter,

1. Is the AFL-CIO a client of the US state that receives 90% of its funding from that source?

 

Of course it does not received 90% of its funding from state sources.  Its income is derived overwhelmingly from the affiliation fees of its member unions. (There are in fact many so-called labor federations in the world that do receive almost all of their income from the state).

 

What is true is that almost all of the funding for the Solidarity Center comes from the tax-funded National Endowment for Democracy.  Roughly equal percentages of U.S. tax money go to institutes controlled by the Democratic Party, Republican Party and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  This is not too different from the ways that German tax money is apportioned to foundations controlled by the various political parties.

The AFL-CIO is no more or less a client of the US state than the Norwegian, Swedish, German, Dutch, Danish labor federations are of their respective governments.  The percentage of international labor development work that is funded by tax-based sources is somewhat lower in the Nordic states, Belgium, Germany and Ireland for various historical reasons, and relative access to other sources of funding.  This is a good thing, which means that there is always some funding for more confrontational anti-capitalist programs.  The IUF, for which I worked for 15 years, has been able to secure enough funding from LO Norway, the Swedish and Danish union controlled funds, the FNV, etc. to fund organizing programs in transnational companies.  In principle and practice it did not seek  funding from the Solidarity Center's predecessor organizations, which were indeed too linked to the Cold War and to US foreign policy goals.

 

But the current work of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center is run by different people on different principles.  There is in fact only minimal interference from the U.S.  government in selecting personnel or developing programs. So far as I can tell, all current Solidarity Center programs are committed to encouraging the development of autonomous worker-controlled labor unions.  Egypt and Tunisia are no exceptions.   In this respect the Solidairty Center today operates along lines that are approximately those of the international union development work of the major European federations.  The AFL-CIO is no longer the rogue maverick that it was rightly criticized for well into the 1990s.

 

Of course your real quarrel may be with the generally social democratic and reformist current that dominates the AFL-CIO as well as most of the affiliates of the ITUC and of most of the Global Union Federations.  But you should consider the fact that many major social movement unions that were the hope of the world left (COSATU. CUT. the Korean KTUC, etc.) have chosen to work within the overall framework of the Global Unions. 

I mmself was rather impressed that the ITUC video calling for the day of solidarity with Egyptian workers included not only the American, Japanese and European unions, but speakers from COSATU and other legitimate federations from the developing world,along with the Palestinian and Moroccan federations.  We might hope that our unions had more effective means of mobilizing their memberships for international solidarity.  But Peter, these are no longer the 1980s.  We are far from globalized worker solidarity, but  most of our labor movements are now trying to move in the right direction.  I also love to invoke revoloutionary transformation, but let us welcome small steps.

 

peter waterman said:

Paul:

 

There is surely here another story, that of the relationship of the AFL-CIO to a US state that has been not only totally identified with the Egyptian dictatorship over several decades but also providing the weapons used to kill and mutilate the workers and other citizens over these same decades.

The AFL-CIO is actually a client of the US state insofar as it receives maybe 90 percent of its funding from this source. Its Solidarity Centre has been operating in Egypt for some years (previously maybe under an earlier name). What it seems to me to have been doing here recently is encouraging Egypt and Egyptian unions to establish the kind of unions and industrial relations existing in the industrialised capitalist West. And, unless you can provide contrary evidence (which I would be fascinated to see), failing to attack the US state that has approved of, praised, funded and armed a now nearly naked king.

Encouraging unions and states in the global south to established a liberal-democratic capitalist institutionality and ideology ('social partnership', 'decent work') would seem to me to impose on them a model which is either failing or dying in the Northwest of the world. This seems to me the height of Western arrogance and self-righteousness that, willy-nilly, can today be only functional to the core states and corporations of the capitalist world.

I would not myself today accuse the US unions of 'trade union imperialism' since what they seem to have been practicing, through the state-dependent client Solidarity Centre is the traditional West European model of Eurocentred and paternalistic liberalism (for which see the recent book on the ITUC's forerunner, the ICFTU, entitled 'Liberal Workers of the World, Unite?').

The heroic uprising of the Egyptian people, workers, peasants and the democratic part of its middle class, should be not only the occasion of immediate and effective support for them but for a rethinking of the concept of international labour solidarity and of a global labour movement fit for (and against) a 21st century capitalism - whether US, European, Chinese or Brazilian.

Or not?

 

 

Paul Garver said:

According to a story in today's New York Times Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors are increasingly demonstrating and striking.  When workers are in real motion, the pro-Mubarak ETUF leadership will be totally bypassed and the question of creating a genuine labor federation from the bottom up (perhaps based on the slender beginnings of the GTUWF) will arise.

See http://www.truth-out.org/protest-egypt-takes-a-turn-workers-go-stri...

At least some affiliates of the Tunisian UGTT, which was affiliated to the ITUC, positioned themselves within the framework of the democratic revolt and won substantative victories in the process.  See the IUFs coverage of the victory of the foodworkers' federation at Coke Tunisia over abusive sub-contracting to labor agencies at http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/724

 

 

Permalink Reply by peter waterman on February 10, 2011 at 15:04

Paul:

Thank you for your civil response, bearing in mind my bloomer at the beginning of my piece. I had, of course, meant to talk of the AFL-CIO's international activities - something the bulk of my note and your response concentrate on.

As for what you do substantially argue concerning the Solidarity Centre (ACILS):

1. If the ACILS now operates on new principles, these do not include either a public break with a 'maverick' past nor operation with the full openness that surely should follow its past collaboration with the US security apparatus in the destruction of independent unions and overthrow of elected governments. Thus for the 90% state funding one has to look not at the ACILS website but the accounts of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)! The ACILS might have adopted the Eurocentred union practice of union development cooperation, but is surprising coy in providing information about even these presumably virtuous activities. Thus, in Peru right now, I hear of extensive ACILS union education and other operations but can find nothing about these on the ACILS website, in the Peruvian media or, for that matter, by a search on Google in Spanish. Indeed, I cannot even find a phone number or address for such. So I consider the argument that ACILS now operates on the European social-democratic union model in its international activities somewhat disingenuous.

2. Yes, obviously I am also openly criticising the Eurocentric model of trade unionism, particularly though not only in its export to the Global South. Indeed, I find the exchange of models between Western Europe and North America (the 'organisational model' from West to East, the 'union development cooperation model' from East to West) an indication of shared weaknesses, rather than a common surpassing of models that have witnessed a historical crisis of the common pattern in the face of a capitalism that has traded in 'social partnership' for crude class warfare.

3. I am not sure whether you should bury 'a global social movement unionism' before it is dead. Or before it has moved from the periphery of unionism to its centre. The notion of an alliance of common interest, common ideals, common demands, based on relations of dialogue and equality between trade unions and radical-democratic social movements raises its head in crisis situations locally, nationally and globally. I could provide examples from Toronto in Canada, from the World Social Forum (taking place with the significant presence of the ITUC in Dakar as I write) and...from the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt! On the other hand, the abandonment of such in the Brazilian CUT or South African Cosatu cases, although not predicted by myself in 1998 (my 'Globalisation, Social Movements and the New Internationalisms' was at least in some sense warned against in my chapter 'Beyond Westocentrism: New World, New Unions, New Labour Internationalisms?'. Whatever I may myself have written, however, 'social movement unionism' or the 'new social unionism' continues to be a matter of global dialogue and of political practice. (125,000 googles at present, of which not more than half can possibly be mine...or yours?).

3. Did I engage in revolutionary rhetoric in my piece? I hope not. Although I have great respect for this as it comes out of worker movements, labour support centres and unions, as in the Tunisian and Egyptian at this moment, I argue for the surpassing of the rhetoric and practice of both Revolution and Reform (and the setting up of these sclerotic 19th-20th century twins as a Manichean opposition and as occupying all space for labour movement choice). I favour thinking in terms of Emancipation - a rather old social/ist movement ideal - which now needs to be extended from Slaves, Colonials, Workers or Women, to humankind as a whole. Given the increasingly catastrophic nature of capitalism, for all of these, for nature and even the biosphere, it does seem to me we are condemned either to being utopian or to fiddling (a very junior social partnership with capital, state and the ILO, decent work for decent capitalists under a decent capitalism) while the world burns.

Finally, Paul, I do welcome your presence in this equal and open space, in which it is possible for labour activists globally to reflect on the implications of such matters as the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. And I wait to see what these unpredicted uprisings will teach the Eurocentred ITUC/Global Unions and the US-centred AFL-CIO and its so-called Solidarity Centre. Because, after all, we can have no meaninful global solidarity if the lessons only flow on the North-South axis and a North-South direction.

Hoping I have not here committed the errors of omission or comission that might have been in my previous piece.

 

peter waterman said:

Paul Garver said:

Hello Peter,

1. Is the AFL-CIO a client of the US state that receives 90% of its funding from that source?

 

Of course it does not received 90% of its funding from state sources.  Its income is derived overwhelmingly from the affiliation fees of its member unions. (There are in fact many so-called labor federations in the world that do receive almost all of their income from the state).

 

What is true is that almost all of the funding for the Solidarity Center comes from the tax-funded National Endowment for Democracy.  Roughly equal percentages of U.S. tax money go to institutes controlled by the Democratic Party, Republican Party and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  This is not too different from the ways that German tax money is apportioned to foundations controlled by the various political parties.

The AFL-CIO is no more or less a client of the US state than the Norwegian, Swedish, German, Dutch, Danish labor federations are of their respective governments.  The percentage of international labor development work that is funded by tax-based sources is somewhat lower in the Nordic states, Belgium, Germany and Ireland for various historical reasons, and relative access to other sources of funding.  This is a good thing, which means that there is always some funding for more confrontational anti-capitalist programs.  The IUF, for which I worked for 15 years, has been able to secure enough funding from LO Norway, the Swedish and Danish union controlled funds, the FNV, etc. to fund organizing programs in transnational companies.  In principle and practice it did not seek  funding from the Solidarity Center's predecessor organizations, which were indeed too linked to the Cold War and to US foreign policy goals.

 

But the current work of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center is run by different people on different principles.  There is in fact only minimal interference from the U.S.  government in selecting personnel or developing programs. So far as I can tell, all current Solidarity Center programs are committed to encouraging the development of autonomous worker-controlled labor unions.  Egypt and Tunisia are no exceptions.   In this respect the Solidairty Center today operates along lines that are approximately those of the international union development work of the major European federations.  The AFL-CIO is no longer the rogue maverick that it was rightly criticized for well into the 1990s.

 

Of course your real quarrel may be with the generally social democratic and reformist current that dominates the AFL-CIO as well as most of the affiliates of the ITUC and of most of the Global Union Federations.  But you should consider the fact that many major social movement unions that were the hope of the world left (COSATU. CUT. the Korean KTUC, etc.) have chosen to work within the overall framework of the Global Unions. 

I mmself was rather impressed that the ITUC video calling for the day of solidarity with Egyptian workers included not only the American, Japanese and European unions, but speakers from COSATU and other legitimate federations from the developing world,along with the Palestinian and Moroccan federations.  We might hope that our unions had more effective means of mobilizing their memberships for international solidarity.  But Peter, these are no longer the 1980s.  We are far from globalized worker solidarity, but  most of our labor movements are now trying to move in the right direction.  I also love to invoke revoloutionary transformation, but let us welcome small steps.

 

peter waterman said:

Paul:

 

There is surely here another story, that of the relationship of the AFL-CIO to a US state that has been not only totally identified with the Egyptian dictatorship over several decades but also providing the weapons used to kill and mutilate the workers and other citizens over these same decades.

The AFL-CIO is actually a client of the US state insofar as it receives maybe 90 percent of its funding from this source. Its Solidarity Centre has been operating in Egypt for some years (previously maybe under an earlier name). What it seems to me to have been doing here recently is encouraging Egypt and Egyptian unions to establish the kind of unions and industrial relations existing in the industrialised capitalist West. And, unless you can provide contrary evidence (which I would be fascinated to see), failing to attack the US state that has approved of, praised, funded and armed a now nearly naked king.

Encouraging unions and states in the global south to established a liberal-democratic capitalist institutionality and ideology ('social partnership', 'decent work') would seem to me to impose on them a model which is either failing or dying in the Northwest of the world. This seems to me the height of Western arrogance and self-righteousness that, willy-nilly, can today be only functional to the core states and corporations of the capitalist world.

I would not myself today accuse the US unions of 'trade union imperialism' since what they seem to have been practicing, through the state-dependent client Solidarity Centre is the traditional West European model of Eurocentred and paternalistic liberalism (for which see the recent book on the ITUC's forerunner, the ICFTU, entitled 'Liberal Workers of the World, Unite?').

The heroic uprising of the Egyptian people, workers, peasants and the democratic part of its middle class, should be not only the occasion of immediate and effective support for them but for a rethinking of the concept of international labour solidarity and of a global labour movement fit for (and against) a 21st century capitalism - whether US, European, Chinese or Brazilian.

Or not?

 

 

Paul Garver said:

According to a story in today's New York Times Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors are increasingly demonstrating and striking.  When workers are in real motion, the pro-Mubarak ETUF leadership will be totally bypassed and the question of creating a genuine labor federation from the bottom up (perhaps based on the slender beginnings of the GTUWF) will arise.

See http://www.truth-out.org/protest-egypt-takes-a-turn-workers-go-stri...

At least some affiliates of the Tunisian UGTT, which was affiliated to the ITUC, positioned themselves within the framework of the democratic revolt and won substantative victories in the process.  See the IUFs coverage of the victory of the foodworkers' federation at Coke Tunisia over abusive sub-contracting to labor agencies at http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/724

 

 

Permalink Reply by Paul Garver on February 10, 2011 at 16:14

Hello Peter,

 

To begin with Peru, I know as little as you do.  But a quick look at the ACILS website showed me an excellent report on the denial of worker rights in Peru (at http://www.solidaritycenter.org/files/policybrief_peru.pdf) and the news item that on 12 May 2010 the ACILS signed a three year agreement with US AID for funding a program to strengthen unions in Peru.  It would be a bit unusual to read detailed reports on a program that has just begun.

On your fundamental point about information, I fully agree.  The ACILS is required to file periodic reports to its funding organizations that are not routinely made available to other interested persons.  Not that these are likely to provide exciting revelations if made public (any more than the IUFs reports to its donor organizations in Europe would!).  I see no fundamental reason why these reports should not be in the public domain.  The biggest drawback I see is that right-wing opponents of unions in developing countries might want to use the information to target trade union leaders.  However I understand that the ACILS reports to the NED, etc. do not include sensitive information that could be abused for that purpose (or for that matter by hostile elements in the US government, pace Kim Scipes.

 

On the other fundamental issue of funding, it is indeed a problem that almost all ACILS funding comes from the US government.  You will note on the ACILS website that it solicits contributions, but this does not raise much independent money.  Nor is it likely that cash-starved US unions will voluntarily raise their AFL-CIO dues to lessen dependence on US government funds for international labor work.  I like the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) model of negotiating for solidarity funds in collective bargaining agreenments.  Unfortunately we do not have the Hans-Boeckler option of recieving funding from fees paid to works council directors of companies in Germany).

 

But I will return to this issue.

pete waterman said:

Paul:

Thank you for your civil response, bearing in mind my bloomer at the beginning of my piece. I had, of course, meant to talk of the AFL-CIO's international activities - something the bulk of my note and your response concentrate on.

As for what you do substantially argue concerning the Solidarity Centre (ACILS):

1. If the ACILS now operates on new principles, these do not include either a public break with a 'maverick' past nor operation with the full openness that surely should follow its past collaboration with the US security apparatus in the destruction of independent unions and overthrow of elected governments. Thus for the 90% state funding one has to look not at the ACILS website but the accounts of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)! The ACILS might have adopted the Eurocentred union practice of union development cooperation, but is surprising coy in providing information about even these presumably virtuous activities. Thus, in Peru right now, I hear of extensive ACILS union education and other operations but can find nothing about these on the ACILS website, in the Peruvian media or, for that matter, by a search on Google in Spanish. Indeed, I cannot even find a phone number or address for such. So I consider the argument that ACILS now operates on the European social-democratic union model in its international activities somewhat disingenuous.

2. Yes, obviously I am also openly criticising the Eurocentric model of trade unionism, particularly though not only in its export to the Global South. Indeed, I find the exchange of models between Western Europe and North America (the 'organisational model' from West to East, the 'union development cooperation model' from East to West) an indication of shared weaknesses, rather than a common surpassing of models that have witnessed a historical crisis of the common pattern in the face of a capitalism that has traded in 'social partnership' for crude class warfare.

3. I am not sure whether you should bury 'a global social movement unionism' before it is dead. Or before it has moved from the periphery of unionism to its centre. The notion of an alliance of common interest, common ideals, common demands, based on relations of dialogue and equality between trade unions and radical-democratic social movements raises its head in crisis situations locally, nationally and globally. I could provide examples from Toronto in Canada, from the World Social Forum (taking place with the significant presence of the ITUC in Dakar as I write) and...from the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt! On the other hand, the abandonment of such in the Brazilian CUT or South African Cosatu cases, although not predicted by myself in 1998 (my 'Globalisation, Social Movements and the New Internationalisms' was at least in some sense warned against in my chapter 'Beyond Westocentrism: New World, New Unions, New Labour Internationalisms?'. Whatever I may myself have written, however, 'social movement unionism' or the 'new social unionism' continues to be a matter of global dialogue and of political practice. (125,000 googles at present, of which not more than half can possibly be mine...or yours?).

3. Did I engage in revolutionary rhetoric in my piece? I hope not. Although I have great respect for this as it comes out of worker movements, labour support centres and unions, as in the Tunisian and Egyptian at this moment, I argue for the surpassing of the rhetoric and practice of both Revolution and Reform (and the setting up of these sclerotic 19th-20th century twins as a Manichean opposition and as occupying all space for labour movement choice). I favour thinking in terms of Emancipation - a rather old social/ist movement ideal - which now needs to be extended from Slaves, Colonials, Workers or Women, to humankind as a whole. Given the increasingly catastrophic nature of capitalism, for all of these, for nature and even the biosphere, it does seem to me we are condemned either to being utopian or to fiddling (a very junior social partnership with capital, state and the ILO, decent work for decent capitalists under a decent capitalism) while the world burns.

Finally, Paul, I do welcome your presence in this equal and open space, in which it is possible for labour activists globally to reflect on the implications of such matters as the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. And I wait to see what these unpredicted uprisings will teach the Eurocentred ITUC/Global Unions and the US-centred AFL-CIO and its so-called Solidarity Centre. Because, after all, we can have no meaninful global solidarity if the lessons only flow on the North-South axis and a North-South direction.

Hoping I have not here committed the errors of omission or comission that might have been in my previous piece.

 

peter waterman said:

Paul Garver said:

Hello Peter,

1. Is the AFL-CIO a client of the US state that receives 90% of its funding from that source?

 

Of course it does not received 90% of its funding from state sources.  Its income is derived overwhelmingly from the affiliation fees of its member unions. (There are in fact many so-called labor federations in the world that do receive almost all of their income from the state).

 

What is true is that almost all of the funding for the Solidarity Center comes from the tax-funded National Endowment for Democracy.  Roughly equal percentages of U.S. tax money go to institutes controlled by the Democratic Party, Republican Party and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  This is not too different from the ways that German tax money is apportioned to foundations controlled by the various political parties.

The AFL-CIO is no more or less a client of the US state than the Norwegian, Swedish, German, Dutch, Danish labor federations are of their respective governments.  The percentage of international labor development work that is funded by tax-based sources is somewhat lower in the Nordic states, Belgium, Germany and Ireland for various historical reasons, and relative access to other sources of funding.  This is a good thing, which means that there is always some funding for more confrontational anti-capitalist programs.  The IUF, for which I worked for 15 years, has been able to secure enough funding from LO Norway, the Swedish and Danish union controlled funds, the FNV, etc. to fund organizing programs in transnational companies.  In principle and practice it did not seek  funding from the Solidarity Center's predecessor organizations, which were indeed too linked to the Cold War and to US foreign policy goals.

 

But the current work of the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center is run by different people on different principles.  There is in fact only minimal interference from the U.S.  government in selecting personnel or developing programs. So far as I can tell, all current Solidarity Center programs are committed to encouraging the development of autonomous worker-controlled labor unions.  Egypt and Tunisia are no exceptions.   In this respect the Solidairty Center today operates along lines that are approximately those of the international union development work of the major European federations.  The AFL-CIO is no longer the rogue maverick that it was rightly criticized for well into the 1990s.

 

Of course your real quarrel may be with the generally social democratic and reformist current that dominates the AFL-CIO as well as most of the affiliates of the ITUC and of most of the Global Union Federations.  But you should consider the fact that many major social movement unions that were the hope of the world left (COSATU. CUT. the Korean KTUC, etc.) have chosen to work within the overall framework of the Global Unions. 

I mmself was rather impressed that the ITUC video calling for the day of solidarity with Egyptian workers included not only the American, Japanese and European unions, but speakers from COSATU and other legitimate federations from the developing world,along with the Palestinian and Moroccan federations.  We might hope that our unions had more effective means of mobilizing their memberships for international solidarity.  But Peter, these are no longer the 1980s.  We are far from globalized worker solidarity, but  most of our labor movements are now trying to move in the right direction.  I also love to invoke revoloutionary transformation, but let us welcome small steps.

 

peter waterman said:

Paul:

 

There is surely here another story, that of the relationship of the AFL-CIO to a US state that has been not only totally identified with the Egyptian dictatorship over several decades but also providing the weapons used to kill and mutilate the workers and other citizens over these same decades.

The AFL-CIO is actually a client of the US state insofar as it receives maybe 90 percent of its funding from this source. Its Solidarity Centre has been operating in Egypt for some years (previously maybe under an earlier name). What it seems to me to have been doing here recently is encouraging Egypt and Egyptian unions to establish the kind of unions and industrial relations existing in the industrialised capitalist West. And, unless you can provide contrary evidence (which I would be fascinated to see), failing to attack the US state that has approved of, praised, funded and armed a now nearly naked king.

Encouraging unions and states in the global south to established a liberal-democratic capitalist institutionality and ideology ('social partnership', 'decent work') would seem to me to impose on them a model which is either failing or dying in the Northwest of the world. This seems to me the height of Western arrogance and self-righteousness that, willy-nilly, can today be only functional to the core states and corporations of the capitalist world.

I would not myself today accuse the US unions of 'trade union imperialism' since what they seem to have been practicing, through the state-dependent client Solidarity Centre is the traditional West European model of Eurocentred and paternalistic liberalism (for which see the recent book on the ITUC's forerunner, the ICFTU, entitled 'Liberal Workers of the World, Unite?').

The heroic uprising of the Egyptian people, workers, peasants and the democratic part of its middle class, should be not only the occasion of immediate and effective support for them but for a rethinking of the concept of international labour solidarity and of a global labour movement fit for (and against) a 21st century capitalism - whether US, European, Chinese or Brazilian.

Or not?

 

 

Paul Garver said:

According to a story in today's New York Times Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors are increasingly demonstrating and striking.  When workers are in real motion, the pro-Mubarak ETUF leadership will be totally bypassed and the question of creating a genuine labor federation from the bottom up (perhaps based on the slender beginnings of the GTUWF) will arise.

See http://www.truth-out.org/protest-egypt-takes-a-turn-workers-go-stri...

At least some affiliates of the Tunisian UGTT, which was affiliated to the ITUC, positioned themselves within the framework of the democratic revolt and won substantative victories in the process.  See the IUFs coverage of the victory of the foodworkers' federation at Coke Tunisia over abusive sub-contracting to labor agencies at http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/724

 

 

Permalink Reply by AMSTERDAM COK on March 4, 2011 at 7:28

Statement
Egyptian trade union federation
ETUF executive members and presidents of general trade unions

ETUF board members praise the Armed Forces Council to maintain the Nation security , stability and managing its affairs, moreover, the board salutes the 25th Jan. Youth revolution.

ETUF and its general trade unions declare their support of constitution amendments which the current stage requires concerning some articles and confirm the need of a new constitution after the presidential elections.
ETUF affirms the need to postpone the parliamentary councils elections during the transitional stage till after the presidential elections along with canceling all the restrictions concerning setting up parties , professional unions and workers unions so that the opportunity is seized for all sections of the people regardless their belongings , youth participation and re-arranging the polling stations. ETUF confirms considering the proportional list system in addition to the independents to be a real representation away from fanaticism and capital and seize the opportunity for all parties and independents so the outcome is two parliament councils representing the will of the nation under total supervision of Egyptian Jurisdiction. As for the transitional period do not allow to run a referendum, parliamentary elections, presidential elections and union organizations elections during the same period. Therefore,

The 100 year old Trade union organization believes in trade union freedom and respecting ILO conventions ( 87- 98 ) in addition to activating and applying trade unions freedom of association conventions since we are a direct , free and legally elected Federation. Joining or quitting trade union organization is free for workers without any restrictions.

ETUF denounces and condemns the attack on ETUF headquarter from the so called Trade union services center or the independent tax payers union. We announce to the public opinion , international trade union organizations, The ILO and all organizations whose financing those union centers pretended concern on workers situation in Egypt, they are showing off by protesting and insulting the Arabic and internationally recognized legal trade union organization ETUF . T.V satellite channels are lagging behind them and they talk about workers issues that are our concern in all work fields. The trade union freedom does not mean barbarism and attacking the trade union institutions. We also believe in the social dialogue of international conventions , a cooperation between ETUF and ILO through cooperation agreements enhancing collective bargaining and social dialogue, We are not against establishing any unions as we are not the authority that restricts this issue. We call for the trade union freedom that ensures independency of trade union movement by amending the trade union law and abolishing any interference from state-management. We amended this law through the adopted regulations in ETUF's congress at the beginning of this session.

Let be there a pluralism whatever it could comply with trade union freedom and ILO conventions, we have lots of facts , we refuse any interference from any side – maintaining our legacy- as we are civil society organization.

We call for all media to be accurate concerning the miss leading announcements which are not based on facts as this will forge facts and assault the struggle of honest trade union leaders members of legal trade union organization. We will not be driven to forging, insulting and attacking campaigns against trade union organization. The field of work and struggle is open to all the freedom of association to all parties, professional or workers unions are available for all. We call and confirm that we are attached to trade union freedom and establishing trade unions.

The polling stations will witness who will win the public trust as our workers are aware of and will not be deceived by forged claims, this confirms the development of trade union membership year after year.

ETUF calls for the necessity to accelerate setting up a fair minimum wages rate and salaries and bonuses ceiling which cope with work nature due to the wide gap between wages that caused wages structures disorder specially governmental sector, public sector , general public sector , public authorities and different government ministries.

ETUF, its general trade unions and trade union committees on all work fields which representing more than five million free-will organized workers, these workers are represented by more than 2300 trade union committees struggling day and night to defend workers interests . Since the establishment of trade unions, Productive and services work fields have been witnessing protest attitudes within a frame work of legacy and respect of law. But those who want to use the youth revolution have no grass roots and claim having the problems submitted by trade union organizations in making propaganda, we refuse and do not use to maintain the stability of the production process.

Everybody knows that the problem of Tax payers union and their legitimate claims were achieved through ETUF. We have gone through lots of dialogues, we achieved all the demands of Tax payers workers and the union was submitted to the finance ministry.

Now there is an existing union for workers in tax payers, public tax, sales, finance and customs with a membership of more than 80, 000 members and a headquarter was set up for them.
The trade union membership in Egypt is 5 million members forming 2300 trade union committees all over work fields and is represented by 24000 free elected trade union leaders including 1200 women, 50% youth who practice trade union activity for the first time in recent session. There are 24 General Trade unions according to trade union classification and ETUF is the trade union Federation.
On the other hand , the counterpart unions is only one union separatist from the general trade union of workers in banks , insurance and finance, moreover, there are some attempts of separation in the general trade union of workers in Education and Health services union both of which are governmental trade unions supported by Trade union services center.

ETUF has all the studies related to workers problems on the level of services and production sectors in the country these five year studies were submitted to the ex government . ETUF calls for a meeting with the interim government to submit and find solutions for these problems we have lots of solutions to these problems due to the fact that all workers problems are known and transferred from years some deal with partial solutions as result the problems increased. A radical handling of these problems are required through clear decisions to calm workers as their problems resulted from fatal mistakes of implementation and disregarding lots of them over the last years.
The trade union organization "ETUF" always declares in all events and on the levels of its congresses the trade union organization independency.
Any member of the trade unions is free to join any political party and the membership of union organization includes all parties and political trends.

We call our honest youth who wrote with their blood 25th Jan epic the attempt of some to trade in Egyptian workers suffering under any name.

We call our honest workers in all field of to work and increase production to compensate the stoppage during the last period that affected the national economy and not to be driven towards some poles that seek chaos during this period to hold back economy wheel.

Long live free and secure Egypt

Egyptian Trade union Federation
And its general trade unions presidents





This statement was issued on 3rd feb, Please compare the two statements of ETUF and read between the lines, there, we will be sure what kind of organization it is, and if it deserves to be among the global honest trade union movement or not.

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