It has become a truism to say that employers have been much better at linking up across national boundaries than have workers and unions. The Liverpool dockers, however, have taken the issue of internationalism to a new level. They have toured the world and built solidarity with their struggle on several continents. Dockers from as far apart as Australia and Greece have taken action in their support. They have seen their struggle as an international one against multinational corporations and in the context of the global economy. This an important contribution, given the traditionally insular nature of the working class in Britain.
In a world of increasingly internationalised and global capital, and in an economy like that of Britain, dominated by multinational companies, trade union activity cannot be effective when limited to one country.
This militant internationalism has not been reflected at the level of the official unions and the TUC. They put their faith in Europe-wide links, orchestrated by the European Union. European Union directives on matters like health and safety and equal pay, the 'Social Chapter' of the Maastricht Treaty, provisions for European works councils in the largest companies: all these are seen as the way forward by union leaders. There is no doubt that on some occasions such measures can bring important benefits: for example, European court judgments about employment protection for part-time and temporary workers and on limitations to the working week. However, this form of internationalism is by no means enough to rejuvenate the unions, and in crucial respects it points in just the wrong direction.
The central problem with reliance on 'Europe' as a means to save the trade unions is that the European Union does not stand outside the competitive world economy. Consequently, as we have seen above, the process of European integration, as embodied in the Maastricht Treaty, is designed not to protect workers' rights but to ensure success in economic battles with North America and the Far East. It involves both an attack on the welfare state and also drastic anti-inflationary policies, to be backed up by an independent central bank, which
would lead to mass unemployment in perpetuity. The provisions of the Social Chapter' will quickly be rendered ineffective by such developments. In addition, while European works councils can on occasion provide useful information about what is going on in companies, they also represent a way of bypassing trade unions in favour of structures which are integrated into a "partnership' with the employers. In this way they parallel on a European scale the new management techniques which we have already seen implemented in Britain. Against the conception of internationalism favoured by union leaders we support an internationalism based on solidarity at the grass roots and on using that solidarity to pressure the leaders into genuinely international action. This solidarity can take a number of forms. Here we look at three examples. First, there is international support for workers taking action. Many of the new management techniques introduced by the employers, such as 'just-in-time' production, with its emphasis on reducing stocks, actually make them more vulnerable to strikes and disputes as shown by the GM example above. (This also applies to the international linkages of companies. An example here is the unofficial strike of 600 mechanical maintenance craft workers at Ford Halewood in January 1990. By early February this had led to the closure of three assembly plants, at Halewood, Southampton and at Genk in Belgium with 10,000 workers laid off at Genk. The Financial Times of February 6 1990 reported that the temporary closure shows the vulnerability of Ford's European production network which is highly integrated). An important example of this kind of solidarity is the action taken overseas in support of the Merseyside dockers. Here we have seen international support expressed in a whole range of forms including sympathetic action (c.g. Greece), the threat of boycott used to pressure foreign companies away from using the Liverpool port (e.g. in the USA), international fundraising, and attendance at a conference of international supporters of the dispute.
Second, there is an urgent need for international co-operation between workers in the same industry or company, to share experiences and discuss strategies in the longer term. This is especially important in fighting back against the new management techniques. Here there is a wealth of experience which we can draw on from the USA, much of which has been collected by the journal Labour Notes. In Europe, meetings of workers from different countries have been organised by the Transnationals Information Exchange. There have been conferences of car workers and telecommunications workers. This kind of ongoing collaboration will become ever more important.
The third kind of solidarity has a more political dimension. One aspect would be international trade union campaigns around political issues. We have already mentioned the need for the defence of the welfare state to be taken up in this way. A similar international initiative is needed against unemployment and for a
shorter working week, at least on a Europe-wide scale. Anti-racist campaigns by trade unions, particularly those focusing on the rights of migrant workers in , also necessarily have an international dimension. Another 'fortress Europe'
aspect of the way in which trade union internationalism can take on a political dimension is through solidarity with movements or struggles. In recent years the most important example of this has been the record of International Workers Aid in co-ordinating both material relief and political solidarity for those fighting for a multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina. The role of trade unions, particularly in Scandinavia, has been crucial in this, and as a result important links have been made with independent unions in ex-Yugoslavia.
Given the massive growth of global production the international links of unions cannot be confined to Europe or the OECD countries. The last twenty years have seen the growth of vibrant trade union movements in many African, Asian and Latin American countries, for example in South Africa, Brazil and South Korea. In some countries in these regions entrenched trade union bureaucracies have increasingly come under challenge, as with, for example, the long-running bus workers strike in Mexico. In other countries, such as India, long-established union movements have continued to undertake militant activity. It is important for British trade unions to strengthen links with all of these along the three dimensions referred to above, but also recognising the additional question of opposition to imperialism. This is especially significant in the context of the rise of regional bloes such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), which are increasingly aiming to incorporate dependent economies, for example in Latin America and Eastern Europe, using particularly the weapon of reliance on debt. The privatisation, inequality and attacks on workers generated by this process, graphically demonstrated by the Mexican case, are an important issue of international solidarity for unions in Britain.
Solidarity with unions in Asia, Africa and Latin America also requires attention to the other movements in these countries, whose struggles are integrally linked to those of unions. A particularly important issue here is that of environmental movements, for example in Brazil, India and Nigeria.