Work In Progress

Work in Progress

This newsletter is produced by the New Unionism Network to promote organizing, workplace democracy, internationalism and creative thinking in the union movement. To find out more see www.newunionism.net October 2009

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Bureaucratism: Labour's Enemy Within

Where does bureaucratism in the union movement come from? More to the point, how do we get rid of it? In an attempt to answer these two questions we spoke to Dan Gallin, Chair of the Global Labour Institute. His answers took in more than a century, and most of the globe. Union democracy has had to contend with the Comintern's "21 conditions", Stalinism, antisemitism, WWII, the Cold War, CIA manipulation, media empires and finally, a totally misplaced business sense. Gallin has a stunning ability to reach into history for relevant lessons, without for one moment taking his eye off the future. After a lifetime of service in the labour movement, he reckons the way forward lies in the innate preference working people have for radical democracy. Here is the solution to bureaucratism, all the way from the workplace - the "point of production" - down to union HQ. More...

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http://www.newunionism.net/library/organizing/Interview%20-%20Dan%20Gallin%20-%202009.htm

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Beyond capitalism

Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" goes global today. OK, so tearing strips off capitalism is money for jam, especially after last year's showing. What's great about this movie is that it gets beyond his trademark fun and outrage, and proposes real solutions. Democracy in the workplace. Democracy in economics. "Just because we get to vote every now and then, we can call this a democracy, when the economy is anything but? ...There’s not democracy in the workplace. I mean, through most of our daily lives, the idea of democracy is fairly nonexistent." As he often says: 'Democracy is not a spectator sport!' Ultimately, the only force that's going to democratise your workplace is you. Plural. More... http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/

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Happier measures

EU nations generally top the tables in economic indicators. These countries also tend to have high union membership, which may or may not be a coincidence. Measuring 'happiness', however, is more elusive. GDP tells us almost nothing useful. A recent study points our attention beyond the usual suspects. The highest score in the 'Happy Planet Index' (which brings together measurements of life expectancy, life satisfaction, and ecological footprint) is that of Costa Rica. Its citizens have the highest life satisfaction and 2nd-highest life expectancy of the New World. All this with a low ecological footprint! Of the next ten countries, all but one is Latin American. Take that - neoliberalism! The highestplaced 'Western' nation is the Netherlands, at 43rd out of 143. The UK appears midway down the table – 74th, behind Germany, Italy and France. This is higher than Japan and Ireland. And the USA comes in at 114th. That's right: the countries that usually represent successful development are some of the worst-performing in terms of sustainable well-being. Clearly, business as usual will not help us achieve happy lives. Or, if it does, it will cost the Earth. Download the report here..

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http://www.happyplanetindex.org/learn/download-report.html

Escape from virtual reality

New Unionism Network members have been discussing the idea of setting up an international NGO. About 20 members have volunteered to become involved, and member/ lawyer/ professor Eric M. Fink is now working on an outline for establishing a tax-exempt non-profit. We'll keep members informed here... http://www.newunionism.net/index.html#members

One big union in Denmark?

“The best strategy for the trade union movement would be to concentrate our energies into one single union.” With these words Poul Christensen, general secretary of Denmark’s largest union, recently launched a radical proposal for union reform. “Let us start a debate on the development of the trade union movement. It is my vision that we, in the coming years, should work towards amalgamating the Danish LO-affiliated unions into one large single union…” Thanks to network member Michael Keil for this translation of Christensen’s article in the Danish newspaper “Politiken”. More.. http://newunionism.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/one-big-union-in-denmark/

Reimagining Society

ZNet is hosting a brilliant alt.world project called Reimagining Society. Among the left luminaries in attendance are Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, John Pilger, Susan George, George Monbiot and Walden Bello. Among the 7 New Unionism Network members invited to participate are Michael Hardt (Politics of the Common), Mark Evans (Popular Vision and Vanguardism and Reimagining Revolutionary Left Organising) and Conor Cradden (Workplace Democracy and Markets). More.. http://www.zmag.org/zparecon/reimaginingsociety.htm

No regulation without representation

To what extent does the struggle for workplace democracy overlap with the struggle for human rights? In this interview we speak with network member Roy Adams, one of the world's leading figures in the field of labour rights, founding member and chair of the Society for the Promotion of Human Rights in Employment, and member of the International Labour Rights Commission. From the standpoint of international law, Adams sees collective bargaining as a human right. "Industrial autocracy, whether benignly accepted or forcefully imposed, has no place in democratic, human rights respecting society. From a rights perspective, employers cannot legitimately dictate conditions. If they want to promulgate measures that have serious effects on employees, they must negotiate". More.. http://newunionism.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/no-regulation-without-representation/

Writing wrongs

Two important books hit the shelves recently. The first, 'Solidarity Divided', takes the 2005 split in the US union movement as its starting point. It then works backwards to expose the split’s fundamental structural and ideological roots. This suggests a new way forward, “ a different theory and practice of trade unionism”, which the authors call ‘social justice unionism’. Member Richard Leitch reviews the book here. He then turns his attention to Paul Mason's 'Meltdown'. In analysing the current economic crisis, Mason argues that this is the end of the neo-liberal framework that has dominated economics for the last three decades. After tracing the roots and history of the crisis, he considers alternatives which many unionists would support. More.. http://newunionism.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/meltdown-the-end-of-the-age-of-greed/

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Feedback

This newsletter comes out bi-monthly (give or take). We welcome your feedback, no matter how blunt the language. Contact [email protected]. If you'd like to subscribe, just forward this email to [email protected] with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

=============== Peter Hall-Jones http://www.newunionism.net skype peter.hall-jones Tel: +64 (0)27 819-1999