BY DICK NICHOLS
In discussions about globalisation, working-class internationalism is often put forward as the only serious counter to the crimes of the likes of Shell, Bill Gates and the International Monetary Fund. Easy to say, but how can unions and unionists who support this principle turn it from a nice sentiment into a real social and political factor?
To put the same question informally, how can internationalist-minded unionists in this country help workers realise that they have more in common with Indonesian workers than they do with Dick Smith, our little Aussie millionaire saviour of Vegemite and Sao biscuits? A couple of decades of fights for internationalism in the rather nationalistic and racist Australian union movement leads me to suggest the following nine rules of thumb.
1. Stop regarding the Australian economy as "ours".
Every time union officials slip into talk about "our economy" and offer the individual boss, employers' association or Senate committee wise proposals on how to run it better, they further entrench the deeply rooted idea that workers here have some stake in the efficiency of "their" firm or industry, or in the economy as a whole.
In today's world of cutthroat global competition, that means having no comeback when the employer tells you "we" are losing out to the competition "overseas". It also means unions that are supposed to represent our collective interests necessarily succumb to the law of competition, as when state branches get down to catfights over where the next investment from some transnational enterprise is going to be. (For example, will Victoria or South Australia score the next General Motors plant?)
2. Stop blaming job loss on "foreign competition" and demanding protection for "our" industries.
For trade union officials in advanced capitalist countries like Australia, it's as easy as falling of a log to blame job loss in Australian industries on, according to Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) national secretary Doug Cameron, overseas workers receiving 60 cents an hour.
True, low wages are often the basis of the competitiveness of foreign imports, but that's not the fault of "foreign" workers, who are more often than not employed in free-trade zones by transnational, including Australian, firms. Cameron's demand for a "social tariff" that bans or penalises goods produced under such exploitative conditions, irrespective of the wishes of the workers involved and their unions, makes a mockery of the call to globalise workers' solidarity.
It's also hypocritical and racist, being always directed against impoverished Third World countries by unions based in the rich countries. (Given that Peter Reith's industrial relations law infringes International Labour Organisation standards, why don't we hear Cameron and his ilk calling for a ban on Australian exports?)
3. Start laying the blame for job loss where it belongs — with Australian employers and governments. Cuts in the level of protection have not been the main cause of job losses in sectors such as manufacturing. While some were lost immediately after the Gough Whitlam Labor government made a 25% across the board cut to protection in 1974, the greatest causes of job loss have been industry rationalisation and speed-ups (in some cases undertaken behind temporary tariff or non-tariff barriers). The resulting increase in productivity has meant that output per worker has soared, with the lion's share of the gain going to profits.
Also, the fact that for 20 years there was no campaign for a shorter working week in the manufacturing industry meant that the unions involved, principally the AMWU, connived in the job loss that they are now blaming on "unfair trade".
4. Stop pretending that the defence of the past gains of Australian unions are a defence of "Aussie" standards.
In industries where there is a stark difference and direct confrontation between Australian wages and conditions and those in other countries, union officials nearly always think it's smart to defend these gains by playing the card of Aussie patriotism.
The practical proposals often involve banning "foreign" workers from particular trades, such as in the Maritime Union of Australia's defence of cabotage (reserving the Australian coastal trade to Australian crews). This stance is particularly ironic given the MUA's capitulation to the employers over the core of cabotage, the seafarers' roster; the shipowners can now pick and choose the crews that suit them best.
The MUA should have defended the roster and cabotage on the grounds that what has been won by workers should not to be given away, and combined this with a serious, ongoing fight for decent conditions to apply to all seafarers working Australian ports. The same principal applies for the backpackers and "illegal" migrants who do much of Australia's fruit-picking. The union response can only be to fight for decent standards for these highly exploited workers, not to demand their deportation or internment in refugee detention centres.
5. Start explaining how the private profit system really works.
More than ever, the private profit system is one of global competition dominated by increasingly few giant transnationals. It's also marked in many branches of industry by a huge excess capacity (to produce far more than can be profitably sold). This condition generates the "race to the bottom", pressing down on workers' wages and conditions everywhere.
It is still possible for one or other firm, industry or national economy to carve out a bigger slice of the cake through higher exploitation of the workers or newer, more productive equipment. However, what's ruled out is the fantasy of a "rising tide lifting all boats". And that's true both within and between nations, as United Nations statistics reveal every year.
6. Widen the mental horizons of unionists. Most union officials shift nervously from foot to foot when the words international solidarity are mentioned. They immediately think: "Shit, how's that going to go down with the members?".
The attitude is that "international work" is the preserve of officials and their close friends, and this is rationalised (honestly or not) with comments to the effect that the members aren't interested in "things overseas". It is one more example of the almost universal trend for union officials to blame ordinary unionists for their leadership's faults.
A union that was sincere about developing solidarity across national borders would start from a simple old principle: that of breaking down human barriers.
Within nations, unionism can only be spread from union to non-union sites by bringing non-unionists into contact with unionised workers. So too, the principle of international solidarity can only seriously be advanced by getting as many Australian workers as possible to meet, understand and share experiences with workers from other countries. That means a big increase in "exposure tours" and international and regional rank and file conferences.
7. Actively support campaigns for the wages, conditions and rights of Third World workers, especially in regions where we can make a difference. The very best thing Australian unions can do to boost conditions for workers in other countries (and reduce "unfair competition") is to provide active, material support to the building of democratic, militant unionism in countries like Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines.
In practical terms that means: much higher union budgets for international work; adopting union development projects which are driven not only in union journals but also through tours of workplaces; "twinning" arrangements between Australian union branches and their counterparts in other countries; and consistent raising of international issues by unions in Australia, as started in the case of the international union campaign against the corporate crook Rio Tinto.
Once union members become aware of that their union really is serious about such campaigns, they will come up with scores of good proposals themselves.
8. Keep eyes peeled for opportunities for international action. As necessary and important as all the efforts listed above are, they can't substitute for internationally coordinated working-class action. Any Australian union that is serious about building working-class internationalism will try to find the ways to link campaigns around wages, jobs and conditions between countries.
No-one can pretend this is an easy task given differing union strengths and national industrial laws, but examples are not lacking. To take one, several car multinationals have already felt the impact of coordinated action across plants in different countries. This is surely what is required to counter the "subtle pressure" coming from the TV monitors above one of Volkwagen's German assembly lines showing the supposedly laggard German workers how much more quickly their Brazilian counterparts are inserting the same widgets!
But solidarity is not just about union issues. Unions also need to coordinate international action against all examples of oppression, as in the case of the bans on the Indonesian airline Garuda at the time of the massacres in East Timor last September.
9. Never forget that the best contribution we can make to fighting global capital is to fight its local friends and agents — Liberal, Labor and Democrat.
[Dick Nichols is a member of the national executive of the Democratic Socialist Party.]