September 11th—14th, 2003
Labour and New Social Movements in a Globalizing World
System
"Labour and New Social Movements in a Globalizing
World System" was the item of this years‘ (39th) Linz conference,
September 11th to 14th 2003. The ITH had chosen this highly topical theme
in order to discuss it in a historical perspective.
Which phases allow themselves to be made out in the relationship between
political movement and free movement of capital? How is the workers‘
movement situated with regard to these economic trends of national ties
and international orientation? What is - from the perspective of the workers‘
movement - really qualitatively new about the ‘globalisation’
of our time? In addition to the ‘old’ organizations of labour,
new organizations have developed on a global level, which want to form a
political counterweight against ‘globalisation’ as a process
of the escape of capital from social and political barriers. Many of these
organizations, described with the somehow vague term ‘Non-Governmental
Organizations’ (NGOs), have constituted themselves as trans-national
networks. Which relations to the ‘old’ Labour movement?
The conference assembled historians (in the minority this time), sociologists,
researchers in International Political Economy, and Geographers to outline
some answers in their papers. Introductory papers on the dynamics of ‘Labor,
Globalization and World Politics’ (Beverly Silver) and on changes
of the Gender order in the process of Globalization (Ilse Lenz) were followed
by panels on Labour in newly industrialized countries, on forms of Labour
representation and on NGOs as counterpart to transnational corporations.
Diagnoses differed considerably: Jeffrey Harrod analyzed ‘Globalization’
as a disguise of corporate power not corresponding to a comparable social
reality. He denied a qualitatively new intensity of worldwide economic entanglement,
Foreign Direct Investment flows for instance having declined since the 1980ies.
In Beverly Silver‘s approach on the other hand, ‘globalization’
is a tendency inherent to the capitalist world system.
Globalization of capital, of trade and production corresponds with increasing
collision of interest between the representations of Labour in different
world regions. Is there any basis for common action left that would allow
us to speak of the Labour movement as a world-wide actor? On the evening
of the first conference day a panel discussion tried to outline answers
to this question: ‘Is world-wide solidarity possible? Political answers
to economic globalization’. Chaired by Berthold Unfried, Vienna, participants
in the discussion were Eva Belabed (Chamber of Labour, Linz), Willy Buschak
(European Foundation for the Improvement of Life- and Labour Conditions,
Dublin), Ilse Lenz (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Marcel van der Linden
(International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam), Karl-Heinz Roth
(Foundation for Social History of the 20th Century, Bremen) and Ulrich Schöler
(bureau of the German Parliament, Berlin). The panel discussion was conceived
as a complementary forum to discuss the topics of the conference in a broader
perspective.
The papers of the conference shall be edited by Marcel van der Linden and
Berthold Unfried until the next conference.