New Forms of Organisation: Trade Union Forms and Organising in the Period of Globalisation
The 2009 Annual Rosa Luxemburg Cape Partners Seminar

Community House, Salt River, Cape Town
3 and 4 April 2009
Hosted by ILRIG

For a number of years now, particularly in the period of globalisation, trade unions have been faced with major challenges which call for strategic responses. These challenges include building trade union internationalism in the period of mobile capital, assessing relations with left political parties as these have been dragged towards the political centre, tensions between collective bargaining and defensive struggles and strategic, revolutionary unionism and so on. These challenges will of course be heightened in the period of the current international capitalist crisis.

Differences in strategic responses over the last 30 years of globalisation have seen sections of the labour movement seek forms of global trade unionism by championing trade union unity through the ICFTU and tactics of pressurising for reforms through the ILO and the WTO; whilst nationally, many unions have maintained long-standing alliances with labour and social democratic parties seeking to defend worker living standards. Then again in large parts of the world, notably China, there is no tradition of strong independent unions and instead there are struggles to build such a tradition underway.

But globalisation was above all a strategy on the part of capital to respond to the crisis of over-production and over-accumulation which threatened profitability from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Much has been made of the features of this form of capital accumulation – mobile finance capital, accumulation by dispossession, new roles for the state etc. Many of these features are being sharply illustrated by the current global crisis. But the restructuring of social relations that is globalisation also included quite fundamental changes to the labour process itself: from millions of workers being driven out of the labour process itself (into unemployment), to a variety of forms of externalisation and labour flexibility, part-time work, home work, casualisation and outsourcing. These changes have also seen work become increasingly feminised and more vulnerable sections of the working class – immigrants and refugees for instance – being particularly susceptible to the most extreme forms of labour flexibility.

These changes raise questions of the appropriateness of the current FORMS of trade unions and their METHODS OF ORGANISING.

Many trade unions were formed in an entirely different period of accumulation characterised by higher degrees of permanent, industrial employment. In South Africa for instance we have a model of national industrial unions defined along sectoral lines, which successfully served to build a high degree of worker unity in the 1980s. Our labour laws after 1994 explicitly championed this model and trade union organisers are well-versed in methods of organising based on signing membership via stop orders on company payrolls, sticking closely to the notion of one-industry-one-union, and decision-making processes which work through vertical national structures.

But how appropriate is this FORM for the levels of mass unemployment we have, for the near 40% of the working class who are informalised? For those who work for labour brokers and those who combine occasional work with various forms of survivalism? For women workers, especially, and for those who are the most informalised? And what challenges do these changes represent for the current METHODS of organising?

This, the first of a new series of Annual Conferences, hosted by ILRIG and other partners, is an opportunities for activists and analysts - trade unionists as well as those involved in social movement campaigns - in South Africa to debate experiences of organising in South Africa, and elsewhere, whilst hearing of other forms of trade unionism in South Africa and elsewhere.

Themes of the Conference:

The themes of the Conference are to coincide with the objectives of developing a body of work which can help revive traditions of strong, militant, workers’ controlled trade unions that are appropriate for the current historical period.

1. To explore and review the history of the emergence of the current forms of trade unionism and organising in South Africa today, in the light of the current conjuncture

2. To explore theoretical debates and case studies of the capitalist labour process, whether writ large, or in specific industries, and the challenges these pose for trade union forms and methods of organising today

3. To explore different case studies of non-industrial unionism in South Africa and internationally so as to broaden the scope of debate and offer concrete instances for evaluation.

To this end ILRIG and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation are inviting papers from any interested person.
• Expressions of Interest should be submitted by 16 February 2009
• Abstracts of papers should be submitted by 23 February 2009
• Final papers (after selection) must be submitted by 31 March 2009

Where possible, ILRIG will provide travel and accommodation for successful candidates

All communication must be directed to [email][email protected]

Provisional Programme

Day 1: Friday 3 April:

Morning: 10.00 – 13.00hrs

Welcome and overview of aims of conference:

Plenary

• The rise of current forms

Parallel sessions

• Experiences of organising and challenges of current forms

Afternoon: 14.00 – 17.00hrs

• Overview of SA social formation at the level of the labour market

• The changing composition of the working class: Labour process changes, labour markets, gender and nationality

Day 2: Saturday 4 April

Morning: 10.00 – 13.00hrs

Plenary:

• New Forms of organising? Engaging debates

Parallel Sessions:

• Case studies in South Africa today

Afternoon: 14.00 – 17.00 hrs

• International case studies: