Unions and Global Democracy
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Two interconnected things are happening globally. First, democracy is under attack from right-wing forces. Second, unions are under attack from the same right-wing forces plus a lot of neoliberal centrist types who don’t value them. Unions are absolutely vital for a functioning democracy. As the only organizations that have represented workers’ desires with a capitalist economy, they are absolutely critical. We know that in the U.S. for instance, unions are the biggest thing that can get white working class voters to turn their back on racism and work for a multiracial democracy, for example. No, not all unions are perfect, but what in society is perfect?
Expanding on these points is Karen Nussbaum, who has a critically important Nation article summarizing her interviews with 20 global labor leaders about these issues. Here’s an excerpt:
The successful election of leftist presidential candidate Gustavo Petro was days away when I talked to Fabio Arias Giraldo, a national officer with Colombia’s Central Union of Workers (CUT). He had a long-term perspective on the role of the labor movement and their decades-long struggle against authoritarianism: “CUT led popular opinion on issues—labor, social, political or economic. And the first thing the government would do is attack and stigmatize the labor movement. That means accusing us of being corrupt, linking us with assassinations.”
In 2019 and 2021, CUT called for national actions and formed the National Strike Committee, which included 30 civil society organizations. “There was a lot of pent-up demand to express rejection of policies coming out of the government,” Arias Giraldo said “We were able to coalesce these disparate organizations because we have the credibility of taking positions in favor of working-class people—and we were also one of the greatest victims of the violence coming from the right. People see that. We may be weak in numbers, but [we are] strong as a historic reference for nonviolent political struggle.” Giraldo credits the National Strike Committee with defining the debate for the election.
In Nigeria, unions aligned with youth protesting police and with other civil society organizations on the need for accountable government, while resisting ethnic and religious divisions. “Politicians divide the citizens as a tool,” Ayuba Philibus Wabba, president of the Nigerian Labour Congress explained. “I try to educate our people to the fact that all of us are citizens and we should not be divided along ethnic lines.” In Honduras, Iris Yolanda Minguia Figeuroa is the secretary of women’s affairs at the Federation of Trade Unions of Agricultural Workers. “We have a close relationship with a group called the Center for Women’s Rights, one of many women’s organizations in the country, with strong, empowered women,” she said. The labor movement in the Philippines has built a broad social movement coalition. “The women’s network, the youth movement, the biggest urban poor groups, they banded together with trade unions and formed a Union of Social Movements,” according to Mata of SENTRO.“
Because of the capacity of the unions, we had been the pillars of the democratic movement, especially for mass mobilizations and rallies,” Ming Lam told me. A leader in the Hong Kong labor movement, Lam is now the managing director of the Hong Kong Labor Rights Monitor, and is exiled in England. “The labor movement in Hong Kong worked hand-in-hand with the rest of civil society in what we called Social Movement Unionism: women’s rights organizations coming to support teachers, for example. It transcends a strike between the workers and their respective employers, becoming a fight between classes; inequality within society.”
Check out the whole thing.