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International Trade Unionism in aGlobalizing World: A Case Study of New

Labour Internationalism

Pablo GhiglianiDe Montfort University

In recent years, scholars and activists have identified the development

of an emerging new labour internationalism (NLI), and pointed to its

impact upon the structures and practices of international trade

unionism (ITU). This article addresses this issue through a case study

of an international action opposing the labour practices of

McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food retailer. The evidence

reveals a complex picture. Even though many of the features of the

allegedly new labour internationalism are present, they seem to be

more a matter of form than substance.

Keywords: globalization, international campaigning, international trade unionism,

labour internationalism, McDonald’s, trade unions

Introduction

At the beginning of the 20th century, international trade unionism

(ITU) was appearing to thrive. Today, this is no longer the case.

The whole idea of internationalism faces a period of uncertainty

and restructuring (Hyman, 2002). Lee has suggested that ‘ironically,

trade union internationalism flourished when multinational capital-

ism was in its infancy’, whereas now that multinational companies

(MNCs) have effectively come to dominate the global economy,

there is a lack of ‘a vigorous international trade union movement

capable of confronting corporate power’ (Lee, 1997: 3).

In spite of the general recognition of the decline of labour during

the 1990s, several scholars as well as activists point to the seeds of

an emerging new labour internationalism (NLI) with significant

Economic and Industrial Democracy & 2005 (SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks andNew Delhi), Vol. 26(3): 359–382.DOI: 10.1177/0143831X05054740



consequences for the structures and strategies of traditional inter-

national trade union activity (Breitenfellner, 1997; Gallin, 2000;

Jakobsen, 2001; Lambert and Webster, 2001; Lee, 1997; Moody,

1997; Munck, 2002; Waterman, 2001a).

This article critically addresses this claim by analysing the

dynamics, limits and contradictions of an international action, a

meeting held by a group of trade unions opposing the labour prac-

tices of McDonald’s. It is important to emphasize that the article is

an exploration of NLI, not a case study on McDonald’s; therefore,

I refer to the particularities of the corporation only as necessary for

this purpose.

To achieve this goal, I first outline the basic features of the old and

new labour/union internationalism. Second, I briefly discuss the

relevance of ‘labour geography’ (Herod, 1997) in connection with

labour/union internationalism scholarship. The third section pre-

sents the methodology applied. The fourth and main section outlines

the international action under study and identifies a set of tensions

that affected its development. To conclude, some final remarks are

made regarding the emerging NLI and the interplay of the local,

regional and global scale in ITU’s strategic definitions.

Old and New Labour/Union Internationalism

Although the history of ITU overlaps with that of labour inter-

nationalism, strictly speaking the latter includes the former, which

began with the creation of the International Trade Secretariats

(ITS) by affiliating national unions operating in a particular sector

(Logue, 1980; Lorwin, 1953; Windmuller, 1980). While internation-

alist in rhetoric, and occasionally also in practice as in the struggle

for union rights and the eight-hour working day, the struggle for

social reforms was soon confined to national level (Hyman, 2002)

and ITU ‘came to mean the interrelation of national trade unions

bodies, whether this combination was to serve reformist, revolution-

ary, practical or moral goals’ (Waterman and Wills, 2001: 306).

After the Second World War, the Keynesian policies contributed

to deepening, at the national level, the relationship between trade

unions and the state in the West. At the same time, the ethos of

the Cold War brought about at the international level what has

been called trade union imperialism by which ‘internationalism

became a rhetorical cover for a politicised trade union foreign

360 Economic and Industrial Democracy 26(3)



policy on behalf of Western powers and of the Soviet Union’

(Munck, 2002: 144). Nevertheless, ITU from the 1960s onwards,

particularly the ITSs, made efforts to counter the power of inter-

national capital and to launch the first steps towards multinational

collective bargaining (MNCB). Levinson (1972) established then

the classical case for this strategy by arguing for ITU and MNCB

as the only ways to confront the power of MNCs.

In sum, according to Ramsay (1997: 520), ‘networking, informa-

tion gathering and provision have been the traditional core of inter-

national union links in practice, at all levels of union organization’.

Concurrently, he also argues, MNCB became ‘the grail for the inter-

national labour movement’ (Ramsay, 1997: 520). And finally, this

author suggests, the growing role of political lobbying activity in

the European scene has arisen as another defining feature of ITU

in recent years. It is worthwhile to add that this lobbying activity

has gone far beyond Europe, for the International Confederation

of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has lobbied to build a mechanism

of social regulation into the framework of the emerging global

governance structures since the 1980s.

Regarding NLI, there is not yet general agreement among

scholars about its boundaries, features and potentialities; however,

broadly speaking it would be characterized by networking and

information-sharing communication, new recruiting targets and

new concerns for gender and consumer issues, the environment

and human rights (Barchiesi, 2001; Bezuidenhout, 1999; Hyman,

2002; Lambert and Webster, 2001; Lee, 1997; Moody, 1997;

Munck, 1999, 2000, 2002;Waterman, 1999, 2001a, 2001b). Basically,

it would be characterized by an opening attitude towards social

movements and community groups and, consequently, by the

increasing role of the politics of alliances and coalitions. Then, it

is argued, this NLI has ‘moved beyond a conception of transnational

collective bargaining, involving a more ‘‘social movement’’ union-

ism’ (Munck, 2002: 154). In this sense, it would comprise a complex

interaction of local, national, regional and global responses by

breaking with the traditional understanding of unions going global

to match the internationalization of capital and its globalizing

strategies (Herod, 2001; Munck, 2002). Such changes would be

linked as well with a greater concern for rank-and-file needs,

bottom-up organization building and the extension of grassroots

activity (Lambert and Webster, 2001; Moody, 1997; Munck, 1999;

Waterman, 1999, 2001b). Lastly, the seeds of NLI take a diversity

Ghigliani: New Labour Internationalism 361



of forms; some of themwell beyond international labour institutions.

But they also express themselves at all levels of union organization

from federal and sectoral bodies – such as the ICFTU and ITSs –

to national and local unions, and even company-based shop

stewards’ contacts and grassroots groups (Munck, 2002; Ramsay,

1997).

In short, while enhancing traditional core activities of ITU by the

use of new information technologies; the emerging NLI brings new

concerns and practices, transcends the conventional wisdom of

MNCB by pursuing a complex interaction between local, national,

regional and global actions, establishes narrower relationships

with other social movements, and goes beyond the conventional,

diplomatic and ritualistic interchanges of the past.

The next section considers the ‘new labour geography’, which has

a consonant orientation with NLI. Labour geography highlights the

spatial aspects of labour activity at all scales and levels and across

institutional, cultural and political dimensions.

The Relevance of a ‘Labour Geography’ for the Study of Labour/

Union Internationalism

If the preceding picture is accurate, NLI might be challenging the

traditional limits to ITU defined in the literature as mainly focusing

on the prospects for MNCB (Ramsay, 1997, 1999). Ramsay (1997:

508) has identified the main problems faced by MNCB as the

‘incompatible interests of different labour movements, especially

between the developed and less developed countries; the lack of con-

sonant legal frameworks and collective bargaining practice between

countries, making coordination extremely difficult; and absence of

more than token membership interest in international solidarity’.

If it is useful to recall these factors to evaluate whether or not they

remain problematic for the emerging NLI, it is useful to consider as

well their conceptual implications for the study of labour/union

internationalism. Herod (2003a: 501–2) stresses that any inter-

national solidarity campaign represents ‘an explicitly spatial response

to the changing geography of global capitalism within which

workers find themselves. . . . the practice of labor solidarity is, in

fact, an inherently geographical one . . . that is not only political,

social, and cultural but also spatial in nature’. The factors listed

by Ramsay make this point clear; therefore, ‘if theorizing is about




identifying the fundamental processes at work, then geography has

theoretical significance’ (Castree et al., 2004: 63).

This theoretical relevance is enhanced even more by the process

of globalization, which is rescaling workers’ lives in complex and

contradictory ways by changing the spatial and temporal relation-

ships between places (Castree et al., 2004; Herod, 2001, 2003a).

Concepts such as place, space and geographical scales have been

reworked by geographers to better address not only the current

reality of labour but also its future prospect.

For instance, while the Marxist literature in economic geography

was crucial to emphasize the ‘social production of space’ and

research the structural causes of the uneven development of the

geography of capitalism (Harvey, 1982; Smith, 1984), it tended to

overlook the active role of labour in these processes (Herod,

1997). Thus, by emphasizing the spatial dimension of workers’ activ-

ities, ‘labour geography’ corrects the old notion of space as the arena

of social interaction and the scant attention paid byMarxists to how

workers seek to shape space in accordance with their own needs

(Herod, 1997). Likewise, the scales at which social life is organized

can be understood as a result of struggle and compromise (Herod,

2003b). How and why workers organize different scales of operation

become key questions for labour/union internationalism scholar-

ship, for these different modes and scales of labour organization

have an impact on the geography of workers’ solidarity across space.

‘Labour geography’ has also pointed to the potential conflict

within the realm of labour internationalism between class and

spatial interests due to the uneven development of capitalism.

Johns (1998: 255) has seen this as the main factor that ‘makes build-

ing a truly global movement problematic’.

In short, ‘labour geography’ provides useful conceptual tools for

the study of labour/union internationalism by locating NLI as the

‘shift from a spatially hierarchical model of organising internation-

alism to one focused upon much flatter spatial networks’ (Herod,

2003a: 518).

The Case Study and Research Methodology

The research involved an analysis of a five-day ‘meeting’ against

McDonald’s labour practices. This meeting comprised several

features that are often identified as characteristics of the emerging




NLI. The event brought together different levels of union hierarchy,

had human rights and environmental concerns, involved other social

movements and aimed at building a long-lasting network of unions,

non-governmental organizations (NGOs), anti-global movements

and researchers. Besides, the McDonald’s workforce is a typical

example of the new recruiting targets of trade unions.

The meeting was organized by FNVMondiaal (The International

Department of the Dutch Trade Union Confederation) and FNV/

Horecabond (Dutch Hotel and Catering Workers’ Union), in co-

operation with the International Union of Food, Agricultural,

Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associa-

tions (IUF) and the ICFTU. It took place in October 2002, in the

Netherlands and Belgium, and included workshops to share differ-

ent local experiences of struggle against McDonald’s, preparation

of press statements and leaflets, planning of future actions, a

public demonstration in front of the busiest McDonald’s restaurant

in Brussels, and a meeting in the European Parliament with the

president of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.

Organizations from 11 countries participated in the activities.

They were Argentina, Hong Kong, Scotland, England, Germany,

Italy, the Philippines, Russia, the US, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Originally, the meeting was promoted by a small group of

Catholic members of the FNV concerned with the exploitation of

child labour in a toy supplier of McDonald’s in Shenzhen, China.

This original initiative converged later with the intention of FNV

Mondiaal to make public that the good relations between

McDonald’s and the Dutch unions were not the rule worldwide.

In order to offer a balanced picture of the international situation,

FNV/Horecabond asked assistance of the IUF, which suggested

inviting representatives from Russia, Italy, the Philippines and

Argentina. A definitively international meeting, FNV as member

of the ICFTU, invited the latter to participate and coordinate the

activities together with the IUF.

The data collection rested upon participant-observation, qualita-

tive interviews and the documentation produced by trade unions.

The benefit of participant-observation was that it provided access

to an unremarkable event in ITU life in order to infer from its

dynamic the prospects for NLI. Moreover, the empirical approach

to this strategy with its emphasis on systematic observation and

recording of social interactions proved to be useful for in-depth

study of the meeting. The downside is the small scale of the study,




which makes generalization difficult. Another aspect was that the

social distance between the researcher and the interviewees certainly

narrowed due to the researcher’s involvement in the activities.

Eight interviews were carried out, all of them throughout the

meeting except one, which was carried out before at the head-

quarters of the IUF in Geneva. The interviewees were chosen

according to the purpose of the research and the incidents observed

during the meeting.

New Labour Internationalism: Some Revealing Findings

Findings have been organized according to two sets of interrelated

tensions that emerged during the meeting: tensions between organi-

zations and between different strategies. They are summarized in

Figure 1. Each is briefly analysed in the following subsections.

Tensions between Organizations

ICFTU and IUF. Both the ICFTU and the IUF consider

McDonald’s a global threat to union rights, collective bargaining

and, in the case of Europe, for works council institutions. But

strategic differences in their geographical scales of operation compli-

cate their relationship.

As early as 1953, a few years after the re-establishment (1946–8) of

the ITSs, Lorwin wrote:


FIGURE 1

Tensions between organizations

ICFTU >< IUF

international >< national unions

trade unions >< social movements

Tensions between strategies

resources >< priorities

lobbying >< mobilization

European Works Councils >< non-European unions’ needs

producer identities >< consumer identities



. . . the ICFTU recognises the right of the Trade Secretariats to maintain their

independence, to have autonomy in their internal affairs, and to have full

jurisdiction in trade and industrial matters. The Secretariats, in turn, recognise

the ICFTU as the representative of international organisations of labor which

formulates and executes general policies. (Lorwin, 1953: 310–11)

Nowadays, the IUF seems to have lost confidence in this division

of labour; whereas the ICFTU tries to keep it untouched.

IUF officials define their strategy as going from the local to the

global scale. Thus, their tactical aim is to work together with local

and national unions that are in conflict with MNCs to transform

local grievances into global demands by pursuing what they defined

as Global Agreements (IUF, 2001a, 2002a). As one IUF official put

it, ‘local trade unions deal with their members and IUF with the

headquarters of MNCs’.

Consequently, companies like McDonald’s are not a priority for

the IUF because they are not priorities for its members. McDonald’s

is always on the agenda of the annual international meetings of the

IUF (IUF, 2000, 2001b, 2002b), but it has been postponed for par-

ticular and extended campaigns given that ‘all of them [national

trade unions] see McDonald’s as a major front but not as a priority’

(IUF official).

On the other hand, the very structure of the ICFTU makes it un-

likely that its starting point will be local. During the five-day action,

ICFTU officials underlined time and again that the only two ways to

protect workers’ rights are better application of the law and workers’

self-organization for collective bargaining. As these traditional

dimensions are still mainly national and local realities, the ICFTU’s

approach can be summarized as one of lobbying globally to

strengthen unions’ position at the local and national scales. Accord-

ingly, the ICFTU has been pursuing mechanisms of global social

regulation since the 1980s, which have been translated into several

initiatives under the labels of Social Clause, Global Compact,

Core Labour Standards and even Codes of Conduct (French,

1997; ICFTU, 1996, 1998, 2002b; Munck, 2002; United Nations,

2002).

Small incidents during the meeting manifested this tension. For

instance, the IUF decided not to participate in the closure of the

activities in the ICFTU’s office in Brussels. Explaining this decision,

an IUF official commented: ‘it was not thought at the beginning as

an international meeting . . . ICFTU has not any role to play, and




not only in this particular case, but also in the process of building

global agreements’.

While IUF representatives did not set out any specific objectives

during the meeting, press activities seemed to be the main concern

of the ICFTU. This organization produced a report on the media

coverage of the public demonstration, drafted the final document,

and publicized widely the events in its web page. The IUF was not

involved in any of these activities and never said a word about the

meeting in its web page, despite long discussions on the crucial

role of the internet for publicizing trade unions’ activities.

Although these small frictions did not preclude collaboration

between the ICFTU and IUF, they seemed to reinforce the old ritua-

listic practices of ITU outlined earlier.

IUF and national trade unions. Another traditional limit to labour/

union internationalism, the lack of enthusiasm of national unions,

was in evidence during the meeting as a tension between the IUF

and its national roots. The usual explanation is well known: diverse

national conditions and interests influence trade unions’ disposition

to engage in international solidarity, thus reducing the potential for

international activity.

IUF officials repeatedly referred to this problem during the inter-

views. As one described it: ‘there is not yet a big awareness at

national level about the importance of global agreements. Some-

times trade unions recognise such importance as well, but they see

this as too far away. It is not an immediate feeling.’

They also pointed to the broad requirements that are needed to be

a member of the IUF – similar to those required by the ICFTU. For

them, these minimum standards result in strong political differences,

very conservative officials and heavy bureaucratic structures of

national trade unions, which end up playing a negative role for

campaigning.

The case study seems to suggest a more complex situation. First,

national unions played a highly ambiguous role. The FNV/Horeca-

bond, the Dutch union, is the case in point, for it was this union

together with the FNVMondiaal that promoted and partly financed

the international action under study. Second, findings also give

credit to the classic picture of national unions playing a conservative

role. In particular, this became clear, as we see in the next section,

when representatives of the McLibel Support Campaign (MSC)

and McDonald’s Workers’ Resistance (MWR) called for active




support for the day-action against McDonald’s. However, to reduce

the problem to the backwardness of conservative national officials

would be misleading because they were not the only ones to express

such reluctance. On the contrary, it seems necessary to approach the

enquiry the other way round. Gallin (2000) – former president of the

IUF – has stressed that ITS officials have real room for manoeuvre

to take into account real needs of members to articulate inter-

national policies and solidarity.1 Briefly, that not only organiza-

tional constraints but also political decisions matter. In our case,

instead, the IUF refused to use this room for manoeuvre and

inclined towards procedural arguments. Facing the request of the

MSC and MWR, the IUF representative eschewed any political or

tactical debate by arguing in favour of the need to consult members.

On the contrary, some national representatives did not seem to con-

sider explicit support a danger for their national duties; instead, a

few were quite enthusiastic about this proposal. After all, national

representatives can always discharge responsibilities in front of

local management to remote decisions, whereas the IUF, hoping

to deal with McDonald’s headquarters, must assume responsibility

for any international action. But this episode leads us to the next

level of tensions.

Trade unions and social movements. The relationship between trade

unions and social movements was of a more difficult sort, particu-

larly when anti-global movements exposed their methodology. The

most divisive topic was the 18th Worldwide Anti-McDonald’s

Day called by the MSC and MWR for the following week. The

MSC was set up in late 1990 to generate solidarity and financial sup-

port for two London Greenpeace activists, Helen Steel and Dave

Morris, who defended themselves against McDonald’s accusations

of libel in the longest judicial case in English history (Vidal, 1997).

It became a true anti-global movement and the MSC is now the

main network holding the annual Worldwide Anti-McDonald’s

Day. MWR is a clandestine network established in 2000, when a

group of workers decided to counter McDonald’s anti-unionism at

the workplace by organizing a global network using email and inter-

net. For the first time, the MSC and MWR did a joint call for action

against McDonald’s.

Both organizations were invited by FNV to the meeting. The very

attendance of these groups testifies to the opening of trade unions

to social movements as argued by NLI’s thesis. Nevertheless, the




clear division between trade unions’ approach and the strategies

supported by these groups seemed to be untouched. IUF representa-

tives were clear: ‘we think that [it] is very difficult to get involved

with the anti-globalisation movement . . . there is a big gap between

trade unions and these kinds of groups’.

MWR and the MSC tried to open the debate about the Anti-

McDonald’s Day, when composing the leaflet for the demon-

stration, but both the ICFTU and IUF refused to engage in any

discussion concerning this action. Thus, the MSC and MWR sug-

gested making an announcement in the leaflet that this action

would take place; once more the IUF and ICFTU rejected this.

The national organizations that were more inclined towards explicit

support – NUWHRAIN (Philippines), HERE (USA) and FNV/

Horecabond – left the decision to the international bodies.

Finally, the leaflet did not mention this action and while the web-

site of the MSC appeared in it, that of MWR – an essential tool

given its network organization – did not (‘Not So Happy Meals’,

2002). This fact has a strong symbolism because all its members

work at McDonald’s. On the contrary, the delegate from the

Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee (HKCIC) was strongly

sympathetic towards these two organizations. Lastly, the MSC as

well as MWR left the meeting soon after setting out their respective

positions.

Tensions between Strategies

The contradictory matter of resources and priorities. In the face of

limited resources, local and national trade unions often prioritize

targets other than McDonald’s. Limited resources constantly

restricted the ability of local and national unions to campaign on

the issues generated by McDonald’s. The workforce of this MNC

is difficult to organize due not only to ‘the nature’ of its work –

small units, part-time and high turnover – but also to McDonald’s

strong anti-unionism. Royle has shown in detailed studies how

these factors conspire against workers’ solidarity and unions’ orga-

nizational capacity (Royle, 2000, 2002a, 2002b).

However, these same officials began to perceive in McDonald’s a

threat that goes beyond its premises. As the Conclusions of the meet-

ing states: ‘the growth of employment in the service sectors and the

role that McDonald’s has provided as a model for service sector




business organisation made the issue of respect for workers rights by

McDonald’s management of increasing concern internationally. . . .

It is not only the impact of the company on wages and working con-

ditions in its sector but also the impact of McDonald’s activities on

the broader industrial relations and social environment that should

be of concern to the communities in which it operates’ (ISLPM,

2002: 2).

Thus, ITU approachesMcDonald’s as a global undermining force

of the traditional industrial relations paradigm, and, therefore, of

collective bargaining and trade union rights. The anti-unionism of

the corporation especially is of key importance in understanding

the reasons underlying this international action.

When launching the initiative, FNV Mondiaal referred to this

issue quite clearly. The action aimed to show the ‘obvious anti-

trade union strategies this multinational applies . . . how funda-

mental labour standards are deliberately violated (particularly trade

union rights and the right to collective bargaining), and what the

situation is with regard to collective agreements and legislation’

(FNV Mondiaal, 2002: 2).

Consequently, the tension between resources and priorities was

behind the scene from the beginning. Unions concurred with the

unanimous sense of sympathy being expressed and seemed ready

to join initiatives, at least at the level of discussion and debate.

But the resource implications of long-term actions on local struc-

tures stopped them time after time. As we see in the next section,

this dynamic strengthened the wisdom of political international

lobbying and discouraged any attempt to look for workers’ organi-

zation and mobilization.

Lobbying and mobilization under the ideological umbrella of social

dialogue. If the nature of the work, the anti-unionism of the

corporation and the lack of resources prevent unions from attempt-

ing to organize McDonald’s workers, the ideological umbrella of

social dialogue reinforces lobbying against mobilization. In fact,

the latter was manifest in a quite successful demonstration – in

terms of media coverage and public attention – in front of the busiest

McDonald’s in Brussels, where the leaflets were handed out. How-

ever, neither the trade unions from Belgium nor the ICFTU based

in Brussels made serious efforts to organize the demonstration,

which seemed to be just a token gesture towards publicity and




marked by passiveness. There was no real coordination among the

organizations involved to ensure a broader participation.

Instead, there were several initiatives aimed at establishing appro-

priate channels to exercise political lobbying, often using the lan-

guage of social dialogue. The visit to the McDonald’s training

centre in Amsterdam, the idea of meeting international management

(finally refused by them) and the closure of the activities with mem-

bers of the European Parliament were the most evident expressions

of this will.

Hyman (2000) has identified four different usages of the notion of

social dialogue. It can be just another term for industrial relations, a

process of exchanging information and viewpoints, a particular

institutional configuration designed to encourage consensus, or a

prescription for social partnership and the avoidance of conflict.

Our findings seem to support two of these meanings.

First, the notion of social dialogue was repeatedly used as a

replacement for industrial relations, collective bargaining and

other means of pursuing agreement between employers and trade

unions. The most noticeable feature of the Conclusions (ISLPM,

2002), the draft of which was written by ICFTU representatives,

was the concern about unions rights and collective bargaining as

the basis for building a genuine social dialogue. Consequently, the

document stressed both the need for building a social dialogue

with national trade unions allowing workforce organization and

the need to establish international relations between McDonald’s

and the IUF. Five out of the nine paragraphs of this document

(apart from its formal opening and closure) were devoted to this

argument.

Second, throughout the meeting, the ICFTU often associated the

notion of social dialogue with the rhetoric of social partnership and

dismissed more confrontational approaches at the global scale.

As with social dialogue, the notion of social partnership also has

different usages. According to Hyman, some usages of this notion

seem to suggest that the interest of capital and labour is potentially

harmonious, whereas others do not preclude a conflictive approach

but imply a pragmatic accommodation between labour and capital

in the interest of mutual survival. In many cases, social partners is

just another label for industrial collective actors; and in its weakest

sense, social partnership would be ‘little more than a positive evalua-

tion of pragmatic give-and-take in industrial relations’ (Hyman,

2001a: 50). Nevertheless, it can be argued that all these perspectives




tend to downgrade the antagonism between labour and capital in

favour of the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Hyman has also under-

lined that in the concrete experience of European countries since the

1950s, the growing wisdom of social partnership ‘also involved a

shift in the methods and resources of unions themselves: from the

mobilisation of economic pressure to the organisation of political

influence’ (Hyman, 2001a: 51). Likewise, the ICFTU explicitly

states as its fundamental aim to achieve international political influ-

ence (ICFTU, 1998, 2002a, 2002b).

In summary, for the ICFTU, the ideological umbrella of social

dialogue seems to comprise the strengthening of collective bargain-

ing, the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the exercise of inter-

national political influence. But in the absence of rank-and-file

grassroots and, particularly, of an international framework of

industrial relations, this ideological wisdom confines the ICFTU’s

strategy to political lobbying. In the case under study, this orienta-

tion was strengthened by the difficulties in organizing and mobiliz-

ing fast-food workers at a local or national scale. Then, in this

context, the predominance of political lobbying for collective bar-

gaining and union rights under the label of social dialogue comes

to be the international translation of the originally national rhetoric

of social partnership. In practice, this tactic mainly implies pledging

international bodies to recognize trade unions from national to

global scales. This explains the optimistic conclusion of ICFTU

officials when stating that ‘where McDonald’s has engaged in

social dialogue with trade unions . . . it was noted that McDonald’s

was able to operate successfully while behaving as a responsible

social partner’ (ISLPM, 2002). But even within this narrow under-

standing, it is difficult to find examples of this responsible behaviour

(Royle, 2000, 2002a, 2002b).

A European matter: the Works Council Directive. This issue was a

clear dividing line during the meeting. Despite being exclusively a

European question, the topic occupied deep and long discussions.

While this situation was partly an arithmetical affair (for half the

delegations were from Europe), it also showed the troubles of co-

ordinating international actions between Europe and those outside

Europe. The European Union (EU) has reinforced a regional per-

spective giving material and institutional basis for collaboration.

In this line, European Works Councils (EWCs) appear as a concrete

opportunity to consolidate interchanges, strengthen the ITSs and




overcome, or at least increase the flexibility of national structures.

As Wills (2001: 189) has put it: ‘the development of EWCs has pro-

pelled Europe to the forefront of discussions about trade union

organisation in the global economy’. The same view is held among

European trade unionists: ‘Europe promises to become the chief

laboratory for the experiments in global unionism’ (Breitenfellner,

1997: 545).

At the same time, these common perspectives seem to have

increased the perception of the periphery as a threat for the regional

building agenda of the European trade unions due to the attractive-

ness of its labour costs and the impact of the immigration flows upon

the European Welfare State and the labour market.

As a result, ‘though the European Union is far from constituting a

supranational state, or indeed a supranational industrial relations

arena’ (Hyman, 2001b: 173), its institutions offer an appropriate

place for developing common policies and exercising political lobby-

ing. While it is difficult to find such room at the global level beyond

the devalued ILO, the European Parliament offers a concrete insti-

tutional complement to the national sphere. It was there where the

five-day action against McDonald’s ended. While European unions

argued their cases with enthusiasm in the European Parliament,

trade unions from the Philippines, Russia and Argentina gave a

cool reception to the initiative. So did they when witnessing the

repeated irruption of long discussions around EWCs, which led

the union official from the Philippines to exclaim: ‘we have no

such kind of animal in our country!’ It is clear that the EU has

opened the door to regional solidarity, but it might become a

major obstacle to developing a true global solidarity.

In sum, though regional integration has encouraged global union-

ism and cooperation, it appears to be a troublesome process, for it

might also strengthen new boundaries, or even worse, cement old

ones between Europe and developing countries, as this case suggests.

Trade unions’ targets: producers or consumers? In the face of their

own decline, lack of resources and MNCs’ global expansion, some

trade unions rediscovered the potential importance of the consump-

tion sphere and the growing power of the mass media upon society.

In the mid-1990s, a rather successful series of consumer boycotts,

built on the basis of thoughtful publicity, arose as a promising

global response to extremely adverse labour conditions. It was a

complex phenomenon that took place, mainly in the USA, against




firms such as Levi-Strauss, Reebok, Nike and other high-profile

companies. Since that time consumer campaigns have been incor-

porated into the labour repertoire (Munck, 2002).

To begin with, campaigns were launched to deal with MNCs’ sup-

pliers and subcontractors in the midst of decreasing possibilities of

taking industrial action, and as an indirect way of putting pressure

on the big corporations. Generally, these consumer campaigns are

organized from within developed countries, targeting the violation

of workers’ rights by employers operating in peripheral countries.

Initially, they aimed at labour conditions and the lack of freedom

of association, moving then to environmental issues as well.

In 2000, McDonald’s itself was the focus of a big campaign

against the use of child labour by its toy suppliers, organized by

the HKCIC together with the Confederation of Trade Unions of

Hong Kong and Greenpeace (Wong, 2002). According to Munck,

all these kinds of events against MNCs ‘were paradigmatic of the

new labour internationalism’ and opened new possibilities for

labour solidarity by means of cutting across ‘the boundaries of

national/international,production/consumption, labour/community

and so on’ (Munck, 2002: 163).

But these consumer campaigns have also shown limitations. They

have not been complemented by organizing campaigns; therefore,

they so far have not had any impact on workforce unionization.

Besides this, they have often tended to collapse labour rights into

human rights. This universalization leads to a blurring of class

boundaries and naturalizes the wage system, for ideologies around

labour fade away and citizens or just people discursively replace

wage workers. It might be argued that this helps to balance, in a

positive manner, a former lack of attention to struggles and identi-

ties other than those of workers. But this universalistic approach

seems to exchange old flaws for new ones, since in this manner

each campaign appears as a singular response to a singular case of

an isolated injustice. Once within this logic, it does not matter any-

more how many cases have been found. The powerful notion that

capitalism is built upon a basic injustice and exploitative relation-

ship is gone.

But there is something else. MNCs chose to answer consumer

campaigns at the same level with publicity and public relations,

and this decision ushered in new strategic interactions.

First, these responses brought the mass media to the fore, opening

a battlefield in which power relations depended almost exclusively




on money. But second, MNCs realized that the rhetoric of fair prac-

tices and social responsibility might be another road to successful

competition. Then, the MNCs’ codes of conduct and socially

responsible advertising exploded; McDonald’s itself has its code of

conduct and a Corporate Social Responsibility Report (McDonald’s,

2002). This complex strategic evolution played a crucial role in the

meeting but one that most participants were unaware of.

Once again, damagingMcDonald’s public image seemed to be the

only strategic resource in trade unions’ hands. The leaflet handed

out in the demonstration was completely devoted to this objective;

indeed, it was fully built around a critique of McDonald’s self-

presentation. This was not an isolated fact, for similar inputs were

added to the Conclusions (ISLPM, 2002). There was no intention

to communicate with workers. Not only in these documents and

actions but also during the debates, workers hardly appeared as a

target of communication.

While this shows the changing dynamic of consumer campaigns as

we mentioned earlier, it expresses something more. As MNCs

answered to public attacks through media strategies, in this case

campaigning seemed to move from denouncing MNCs for concrete

and specific facts to combating the image that the company puts into

public circulation.

A short anecdote illustrates this point. During the meeting, the use

of child labour by McDonald’s toys suppliers became a fixation.

Given the emotional impact of this issue, it was initially incor-

porated in the draft of the leaflet. However, the delegate from the

HKCIC recommended deleting this statement because this NGO

had no evidence that child labour was being used currently by

McDonald’s suppliers. But instead of accepting this suggestion,

the original statement about child labour metamorphosed into the

following: ‘some happy meals toys are known to be made under

dangerous and abusive conditions by suppliers in China’ (‘Not So

Happy Meals’, 2002).

We might wonder about the rationality of this sentence, in which

there is no trace of the original intention of publicizing the use of

child labour. Why not the hard conditions in which potatoes for

McDonald’s are produced in Argentina? Or the high rate of

labour accidents in slaughterhouses linked to McDonald’s in the

US? Or the repression of McDonald’s workers in Indonesia? Or

the surveillance undergone by workers of McComplex in Russia?




Part of the explanation is the obsession for publicity. Behind

‘dangerous and abusive conditions’ trade unions officials were still

reading ‘child labour’. It is unclear whether the public read the

same when they received the leaflet in the street.

This story reveals another fixation too. The prudent advice of the

HKCIC representative was the outcome of repeated warnings

against adding information to the pamphlet that put them in

danger of being sued by McDonald’s. This final remark could be

seen as a trivial aspect of the dynamics opened up by consumer/

producer dichotomy. However, it is another crucial outcome of

public confrontation under the rules of mass media and publicity.

During the meeting, neither the advantages nor disadvantages of

consumer campaigns were evaluated at all, with the exception of the

Italian and the German officials. But those were partial exceptions

because neither of them underlined the current gap between the

public campaign and workforce organization nor did they try to

suggest a way out of this situation through looking for strategic

connections.

Lastly, the participation in the meeting of theMSC provided good

insight into the relationship between consumer campaigns and

workforce organization. The MSC has carried out in the UK the

most successful and permanent consumer and press campaign

against McDonald’s, and probably the longest anyMNC has experi-

enced.

Thus, it is a revealing case due to the contrasting situation

between the strength of the MSC campaign and the absence of

any attempt to unionize the McDonald’s workforce in the UK.

Obviously, the latter is not the objective of the MSC. But the lack

of repercussions of this successful consumer campaign for workers’

organization and mobilization cannot be dismissed by trade unions.

Nevertheless, the potential lessons that trade unions could learn

from this experience were ignored.

Conclusion

To conclude, some remarks will be drawn with regard to the inter-

play of local, regional and global scales in trade unions’ strategic

definitions.

First, findings have shown that there is not a linear relationship

between national and international organizations. To begin with,




it was a national trade union and its international branch – the FNV

– that was the key actor in calling for an international activity.

Moreover, while national interests and constraints still obstructed

international solidarity, ITU also took conservative advantage of

this situation by a ritualistic reference to the needs of consulting

with their national members on proposals that went beyond routine

politics.

Second, we have seen that trade unions perceive McDonald’s as a

global threat, although McDonald’s is not a priority at the local

level. This aspect underlines an interesting dynamic.

As the IUF defines its strategy as going from the local to the

global scale, the reality that McDonald’s is not a local priority

means its global threat is hardly addressed by this international

union. The lack of local resources and force conspires to build a

global strategy of opposition. The ICFTU focused on reinforcing

labour laws and workers’ self-organization for collective bargaining.

Since these are still national and local realities, the ICFTU ends up

lobbying globally to build strength locally.

Both approaches seem to fail in dealing with McDonald’s as a

global threat. Thus, this failure reinforces the orientation towards

consumer campaigns, although they have rather lost their original

appeal. Despite their success in exercising pressure over some

MNCs in the short-term, they have not strengthened workers’

rights, trade unions’ rights or collective bargaining. Moreover, we

have seen how, in this case, campaigning moved from denouncing

McDonald’s for particular and concrete reasons to combating the

image that McDonald’s puts into public circulation. While some

national trade unions have begun to identify the limits of these

actions, the majority still approach the issue uncritically.

Third, the insistence of European trade unions upon the issue of

the EWCs is illuminating in regard to another dimension of the

interplay between local and global. This very concrete process of

regionalization encourages cross-border concerns and, therefore,

internationalization. Yet the same process appears as troublesome

for global solidarity, giving support to early warnings against the

‘attempt to find a superficial economic basis for the necessity and

possibility of international trade-union politics’ (Olle and Schoeller,

1977: 70). The article neither argues the opposite case, that is, the

structural incompatibility of interests between the labour move-

ments of developed and peripheral countries. It just points to the

empirical recognition of how institutional and economic conditions




ease some international relationships and not others. Ultimately, it

is a problem related to the dynamic of the globalization process:

whether we understand the EU as only a step towards greater

world integration; or on the contrary, the EU’s rescaling entails a

consolidation of new, long-lasting borders that demarcate the

inside/outside of developed capitalism, in which case, trade unions

might face new potential limitations in international politics due

to the uneven development and spread of capital through space

(Harvey, 1982; Johns, 1998; Smith, 1984).

Fourth, then, it could be argued that these constraints are more

acute in the midst of the diminishing attractiveness of labour ideol-

ogies and utopias, for international solidarity is not only an outcome

of objective conditions and organizational strength but also of ideo-

logical commitment. To rebuild utopias and emancipatory ideolo-

gies is crucial for ITU’s ability to engage in transforming the

current worldwide reality of growing marginalization and poverty.

Otherwise, ITU risks becoming the complaining, powerless partner

of any tripartite agenda and any multilateral international body.

In this sense, neither the rhetoric of social dialogue nor the con-

tractual tone of social responsibility seems to offer a way out to

counter workers’ demobilization. This bankruptcy of labour ideolo-

gies appeared to be deepened by trade unions’ focus on consumers

and the universalistic rhetoric of human rights.

Finally, we wondered whether or not the case study supports the

case for an emerging NLI. The participation of NGOs and anti-

global movements give credit to the alleged opening of unions to

civil society. However, the gap between trade unions and these

other organizations in this case remained unchanged. McDonald’s

might be seen as a typical case of new targeting concerning union

recruitment, but there was no real discussion about how to gain

members amongMcDonald’sworkers.Moreover, consumers instead

of workers were the targets of communication strategies. The role of

the internet for networking and trade unions strategies was dis-

cussed, but the internet was used more for spreading unilateral infor-

mation and propaganda than for communicating and establishing

links among the participants in the international action. Therefore,

while the case study reveals some features of an NLI, a closer

analysis shows that on many occasions this might be more a matter

of form than substance.




Notes

I would like to express my gratitude to Susan McGrath-Champ, Peter Waterman and

Trevor Colling for their help.

1. For instance, Dan Gallin appeared as witness for the defence of activists accused

by McDonald’s of libel; and the IUF office in Moscow strongly supported workers

persecuted by McDonald’s for their union activities (Borisova, 2000).

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Pablo Ghiglianiis Professor of Social History at the

Department of Sociology, Faculty of

Humanities, and member of the iLAB, a

research centre on labour issues, Escuela

Superior de Trabajo Social, both at the

Universidad de La Plata, Argentina.

Together with Maurizio Atzeni, he is




currently co-coordinating LabourAgain, a

research network on labour and social

mobilization in Latin America, hosted by the

International Institute of Social Studies, the

Netherlands. He is undertaking his PhD at

De Montfort University, UK.




Documents

Comercio in.international Trade Unionism in a Globalizing World a Case Study of New Labour Internationalism-libre