The Future of Globalisation? - Part 2

The Prime Minister tells us, in words of wisdom from his icy ivory tower in Davos, that protectionism must be avoided. The participants at Davos tell us how de-globalisation is not an option, that we must not start to dismantle the system they created, that made them so rich, so powerful.

And you know what? They're right.

Well, in so far as they go.

The rise of globalisation has been met with mistrust in many countries of the world, by many sections of society. In the UK, the gap between rich and poor has steadily grown. Relative poverty has increased. Some of us have felt uneasy that the prosperity of our country, that our own increased purchasing power, that the cheap prices of the shiny goods we want, have all been built on the backs of workers in China, India, around the world. In the back of our mind, we know they are likely to have been exploited, exploited for our benefit.

Yes, these workers in foriegn climes may even be happier with their lot than with their alternatives. Hordes of Chinese continue to abandon the fields, the crushing peasant lives they had been living in the country, to try and find a better life in the cities and factories. And in their eyes, it may indeed be better. But is that really all we can hope for? That things get a little better for the people we exploit? That they get a little better, slowly, while things get a lot better, quickly, for the people at the top?

Globalisation has produced an uneasy feeling in many people. But while prosperity was rising, we silenced that little voice of our conscience, and got on with spending. Now, however, prosperity is deserting us, and the tensions and distaste over globalisation are starting to come to the boil across Europe.

But we can't go back and change the system we now have. Demanding British jobs for British workers gives rise to protectionism, an ugly nationalistic kind of protectionism. It is a protectionism that seeks to protect British workers at the expense of everyone else, and ultimately it will be at our expense too.

There is no doubt in my mind, however, that something needs to be done. Globalisation has benefitted capital. World trade has made those rich enough to take advantage of it richer, while those unable to move as easily as the flows of digital capital have suffered. Companies wishing to take advantage of this now appear to be shipping workers wholesale from one country to another, to work on a temporary contract, at lower rates than the resident population.

Regardless of the economics of it, treating workers like cattle to be shuttled from building site to building site, from country to country, is just wrong. It degrades them. It degrades us.

But globalisation is an invincible tide, we are told. We cannot turn back the clock. To fight against it is futile.

Which is why I am suggesting embracing globalisation instead.

But it isn't the globalisation of capital, the one system of international co-operation that those at Davos want us to believe is possible. They call for reform of the IMF, the World Banks, anything to prop up the system they built. But now is the time for us to start building our own system, our own organisations to deal with the world as it is.

The case of the Portuguese and Italian workers is not an argument to block companies bringing in foreign workers to work on British sites. No, as I said, we depend on providing incentives and disincentives in this system. But instead of focusing on how to disincentivise workers taking action, it is time to focus on how to disincentivise companies taking advantage.

The globalisation I am calling for is a globalisation of working rights, of unions, of wage negotiations. In late 2007, two European Court rulings effectively allowed companies to undermine existing collective agreements in countries where they work. Both cases said that trade union action against overseas companies that had refused to apply pay and conditions of a host country had infringed the freedom of the company to operate freely under European Union law.

The protectionist way to deal with this would be to try and get the European Union to accept a change in the rules that stopped foreign firms being able to do this.

The new globalisation way to deal with this is to organise with unions in all European countries to negotiate coordinated agreements with companies.

Companies and capital are now global. Labour is becoming increasingly global. Now is the time to make our labour organisations global as well. And this means moving beyond the fraternal organisations that exist, the chummy little talking shops for union leaders. No, now is the time to build a truly international union, committed to protecting the rights of workers in each company, not in each country.

So yes, we need to build a union that can have workers striking across the continent, across the globe, if a company tries to take advantage of workers in one of the countries they operate in. Yes, we need to build a union that is willing, no, that demands to negotiate wages for workers throughout a company, not just those in a certain country.

Labour is becoming globalised. Unions need to do so too. Because now companies are seeking to play workers from one country off against workers in another, not from one factory against another. Because capital seeks to migrate to where it can take advantage of workers, regardless of the land they end up in.

And most importantly, because we need to be united against a new global capital that has more power than ever before to exploit us around the globe. We are stronger together, in a global union, regardless of the language we speak. And that, my friends, is acting in our own economic self-interest, that is playing the capitalists' game in a way they won't like.