Labour, Agency and Resistance in an Era of Global Capital

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Labour, Agency and Resistance in an Era of Global
Capital

• Andy Cumbers
• Geography Department and Centre for Public Policy
  for Regions, University of Glasgow
• Paper presented at Global Production Networks
  Seminar, University of Manchester
• 25-26th January 2007

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• "We too have worked with a concept that puts
  capitalist development first, and workers second.
  This is a mistake. And now we have to turn the
  problem on its head, reverse the polarity and
  start again from the beginning and the beginning
  is the class struggle." (Tronti, M. 1979 Lenin in
  England. In Red Notes Working Class Autonomy and
  the Crisis. )

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Introduction I

• Labour under-theorised in accounts of global
  capitalism and GPNs
• Resurgent labour geographies emphasis upon
  empirics and policy orientation
• Theoretical gap key omissions
• Labour ontologically taken as a given category
• Deeper theorisation of trade unions in relation
  to abstract labour
• Paper engages with Autonomous Marxist literature
  to develop critical thinking about labour and
  trade unions

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Introduction II

• Part of broader ESRC project on Global Justice
  Movement sustainability of international
  solidarity networks
• Trade union case study ICEM and affiliates
  (France, Norway, Germany, UK)
• Conceptually, engagement with Anti-Capitalist
  discourses (Hardt and Negri, Holloway)
• Rethinking revolutionary and class politics
• Rooted firmly in Marxist tradition of autonomism
  placing labour and class struggle at centre of
  understanding of capitalist dynamics

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Introduction III

• Paper outline
• Capitalism through the lens of capital
• Using AM to develop a more critical sense of
  labour agency
• Interpreting global union action through an AM
  perspective
• Focus on ICEM and its global strategies and what
  these reveal about contemporary relations and
  tensions within labour movement
• Conclusions

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Capitalism through the lens of capital

• Dominant accounts of economic globalisation
  capital or state-centric
• Struggles between capital and state actors across
  multiple scales
• Assumed hegemony of capital
• Labour problem localised control regimes
• Marxist accounts mainstream and neo-Marxists
  also privilege capital and state
• Surplus value, circulation of capital, relations
  between production and money capital, spatial
  fixes
• Role of state in regulating and sustaining
  capital accumulation
• Harvey New Imperialism

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• Class struggle under-theorised, emergent global
  justice networks seen as disconnected movements
• "The effect of all these movements has been to
  shift the terrain of political organization away
  from traditional political parties and labour
  organizing into a less focused political dynamic
  of social action across the whole spectrum of
  civil society. .....It drew its strength from
  embeddedness in the nitty-gritty of daily life
  and struggle, but in so doing often found it hard
  to extract itself from the local and the
  particular to understand the macro-politics of
  what neoliberal accumulation by dispossession was
  and is all about. The variety of struggles was
  and is simply stunning. It is hard to even
  imagine connections between them." (Harvey 2006,
  156).
• 1990s upsurge of resistance to global capital
  pleasant but unexpected surprise for many on the
  Left
• spontaneous class rebellions resistance to
  capital going beyond traditional industrial
  working class (e.g. indig. peoples, peasants,
  environments)
• eliding over agency of labour and processes
  through which class struggles happen

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• "The defining feature of Marxist economics is
  the idea that capitalism can be understood in
  terms of certain regularities laws of motion.
  These .. refer to the regular (but
  contradictory) pattern of the reproduction of
  capital .... and Marxist economics focuses on
  the study of capital and its contradictory
  reproduction. ..... Class struggle does not
  play any direct part in the analysis of
  capitalism. It is generally assumed that the role
  of Marxist economics is to explain the framework
  within which struggle takes place. Class struggle
  is interstitial it fills in the gaps left by
  economic analysis, does not not determine the
  reproduction or crisis of capitalism, but affects
  the conditions under which the reproduction and
  crisis take place." (Holloway 2005, 134).
• Irony of many accounts capitalist reproduction
  assumes primacy over class struggle
• Politically as well as conceptually problematic
  class struggle relegated to the future (ibid,
  137)

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Autonomous Marxism, class struggle and the
problem of labour

• AM inverts traditional approach
• Understanding capital in relation to labour
• Labour is source of value, not capital
• Capital restructuring rooted in class struggle
• Resistance and labour starting point
• "We begin with counter-insurgency for the same
  reason that Marx gives, in the preface to the
  first volume of Capital, for discussing wealth
  before discussing labor, its source. His book
  opens with capital and the world of commodities
  this is the logical entry point because this is
  how we first experience capitalist society. From
  here Marx develops the dynamics of capitalist
  production and labor, even though capital and
  commodities are the results of labor - both
  materially since they are the products of labour,
  and politically, since capital must constantly
  respond to the threats and developments of
  labor." (emphasis added) (Hardt and Negri 2006,
  64).

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• Neoliberalism as class struggle
• counterinsurgency against growing resistance of,
  and gains made by, labour in post-war era
• Post-1980 flight from labour
• 1990s new revolts against neoliberalism and
  globalising capital
• Key point capital can never fully escape labour
• "Capital is dependent on labour in a way in
  which labour is not dependent upon capital.
  Capital without labour, ceases to exist labour,
  without capital, becomes practical creativity,
  creative practice, humanity" (Holloway 2005,
  182).
• Multinational companies can escape one group of
  workers
• and relocate elsewhere but will need to subjugate
  another
• group of workers.

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• Key to understanding labour not just about
  exploitation, but alienation and dehumanising
  separation of labour from doing
• Resistance to capital subjugation labour in
  broad sense all social life subjected to
  commodification under global capitalism
• spawns diverse range of resistance
• resistance is omnipresent
• Multitude (HN) evokes diverse resistances to
  commodification and unifies sense of struggle
  while maintaining social identity

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• Important insight for theorising class and
  labour
• We do not struggle as working class, we
  struggle against being working class . Our
  struggle is not the struggle of labour it is the
  struggle against labour. It is .. the unity of
  capital accumulation that gives unity to our
  struggle, not our unity as members of a common
  class. Thus for example it is the significance of
  the Zapatista struggle against capitalist
  accumulation that gives it importance for class
  struggle, not the question of whether they are
  members of the working class. Struggle arises not
  from the fact that we are working class but from
  the fact that we-are-and-are-not working class
  that they try to order and command us but we do
  not want to be ordered and commanded, that they
  try to separate us from our product and our
  producing and our humanity and our selves and we
  do not want to be separated from all that. .
  working class identity should be seen as a
  non-identity the communion of struggle to be not
  working class. (Holloway 2005, 144).

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• Class more fluid concept than traditional left
  position
• Emerges out of changing conditions of production
• Labour and capital intertwined, not external to
  each other internal dialectic
• Entangled relations of domination and resistance
  (Sharp et al 2000)
• we take part in class struggle on both sides
  .. "We exist against-in-and-beyond capital, and
  against-in-and-beyond ourselves. Humanity, as it
  exists, is schizoid, volcanic everyone is torn
  apart by the class antagonism." (Holloway 2005,
  144, 145)

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Labour, agency and trade union relations with
global capital

• Differentiation between abstract labour and
  trade unions
• Trade unions particular and contingent
  organisational form internal to capitalism
• Conventional understandings tied to industrial
  working class late 19th C/early 20th
  US/European industrial capitalism
• Different forms of trade unionism emerging in
  global south social movements (e.g. Brazil,
  South Africa)

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• Trade unions as contested forms of labour
  organisation
• site of internal antagonisms, schizoid
  relations at all scales
• varied relations with state and capital
• actors who both reinforce accumulation and offer
  possibilities for resistance
• Example of Norwegian LO and affiliates
• Arguing for/lobbying for privatisation of
  Statoil to allow it to compete globally
• Active promotion of independent trans-national
  workplace networks
• Sponsoring independent local union movements in
  Global South

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• Unions still powerful actors and at multiple
  scales
• entangled in key relations with state and capital
  rather than separate from
• Links to national SD/Labour Parties
• Continuing national collective bargaining
• Representation on company boards
• Become involved/ co-opted? in global governance
  agendas part response to global resistance
• Global Compact, WTO, WEF
• Embeddedness within MNCs
• increasing number of Global Frame Agreements (42
  by end of 2006)
• growth of trans-national works councils
• independent union networks within MNCs

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ICEM (International Chemical Energy, Mine and
General Workers Federation) as a site of
contestation and struggle

• Global Union Federation represents 400 unions and
  20 million members in 125 countries
• Verticalist organisational structure with power
  held in national affiliates hq in Brussels
• Dates to 1907 but current organisation result of
  1995 merger ICEF and MIF
• Key fault-lines between social democratic (German
  ) politics and internationalist/syndicalist
  politics
• Since merger, tensions in global strategy between
  dialogue-partnership v independent workplace
  centred approach
• Reflect different tactical positions in dealing
  with capital and state

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New Left leadership in 1990s

• Gen. Sec. Vic Thorpe
• International Socialist background
• Involved in movement for workers control/producer
  cooperatives in 1970s
• Shift from top-down strategy towards an
  international solidarity network of decentralised
  decision-making and locally owned labour
  action (ICEM 1996, 56).
• Enunciating a more oppositional politics to deal
  with MNCs
• Forging independent trans-national labour
  networks centred on workplace
• Rescaling of global union organisation away from
  national and state-centric politics

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• For me the issue has always been to try to get
  the international more widely
• networked, to break away from the dominance of
  the major unions. To
• bring together people at plant level operating in
  different companies. The
• difficulty was, they always had somebody from
  national office a minder
• sitting alongside them.
• .the union movement is not actually structured
  to deal with multinational
• issues. It is too wed to its own national
  politics and relationships and hasnt
• followed the economic logic over the last thirty
  years as it should have done
• and therefore its losing out
• Key strategy increase membership levy for
  international company networks,
• to
• escape from the resource squeeze of the
  international and spend time and
• our efforts in developing these plant level
  global networks as pools of
• power in their own right, but every time the idea
  of the levy was raised there
• was a scream because people knew exactly what was
  going on. The national
• officers knew that we were trying to float these
  things away from their

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• Its the very fact of close political liaison.
  In the UK, approaching election time, you would
  always have some trade union idiot standing up
  and saying the only way to solve our problems
  is to re-elect a real socialist Labour
  Government. And, weve heard that argument time
  and time again, and the unions put their back in
  to electing a Labour Government and every time
  they have been sold down the river so my view has
  been largely forget about the politics and get
  on with the industrial logic and the politics
  will take care of itself. Because the politics
  follows power and power at the moment is entirely
  in the hands of the multinational bankers and
  economists and thats why whatever government is
  in power, it cant deliver. And unless
  organised labour can find a means of
  confronting and dealing with power at the real
  level of its operation theres no way it will
  really survive in the long term. Or at least,
  wont be able to do the things it wants to do.
  So, thats the argument.
• (Interview, VT, 2005)

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Exporting social democracy or internationalism-lit
e?

• New leadership post 1999 Thorpe resigned,
  undermined by German affiliates
• Focus shifted to building global partnerships
  with employers
• Codes of practice (e.g. labour standards, Global
  Compact)
• Central strategy pursuing Global Frame
  Agreements agree baseline employment standards
  within MNCs (10 signed by 2005, covering 580,000
  workers)

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Global Frame Agreements signed by ICEM and
affiliates
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• Common criticisms of GFAs
• Voluntary codes - difficult to enforce across
  global operations
• Reliance on company patronage, employer networks,
  tourist visits
• Difficulties of sustaining trans-local labour
  networks (EWC experience)
• Reflects dominance of European social partnership
  model effectiveness in other global regions?
• Alternatively, space of opportunity and struggle
  for independent labour action
• Contingent on process through which GUF operates
  and power relations running through it
• Whether grassroots taking ownership of GFAs?

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• Emerging tensions between ICEM leadership and
  more progressive affiliates
• "We asked about the Norske Skog agreement
  through the research in Brazil and the local
  unionists were a bit frustrated... not the fact
  that they didn't have the agreement ...because
  they love it, but they were frustrated that they
  were not drawn in on the consultation when they
  were making the Global Agreement. When I asked
  the shop steward in Norway, "why didn't you
  involve them?" He said "To be honest, I wasn't
  very involved either. The project was between Mr
  Fred Higgs General Secretary and the company
  with some representation from the union in
  Norway. But it was very much a Brussels based
  deal.
• International Officer, LO, Norway, Interview
  August 2005

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• Subsequently, new agreement established
  by-passing ICEM, using existing Norwegian based
  works council
• "the global works council agreement was
  different because that was actually worked out
  between the shop stewards in Norway and the
  company.....and Higgs came in later....and they
  felt more happy about that. It was their
  deal..and when I was in a meeting in Bonn last
  year and I met one of the comrades from ICEM and
  I told everybody about the new Agreement with
  Norske Skog, she was very upset, because she
  said, "That's not the principle of the ICEM, we
  shouldn't have global agreements through works
  councils, we don't believe in that. So, how can
  you sign something like that. In the end she
  calmed down because the comrades from Norske Skog
  here said "Well, we will just resign. We don't
  want to be part of ICEM anymore if that's a
  problem for them. So it was sorted out in the
  end. But, there is a problem around the process
  of Global Agreements.
• International Officer, LO, Norway, Interview
  August 2005

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• Additionally, growing realisation that GFAs can
  only be policed effectively through shop stewards
  and workplace networks
• We dont have the resources to go around to
  every factory in every country that is operating
  from Norway. Were totally dependent on our local
  shop stewards who are able to carry out overseas
  visits on company time. (Vice President,
  Norwegian affiliate, commenting on their GFA,
  interview August 2005)
• Imperative to devolve power and autonomy to lower
  levels
• emerging but running against established
  hierarchies and power
• bases at national and global levels

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Conclusions

• What do emerging tensions tell us about trade
  union politics and broader issues of labour
  resistance?
• What is the value of an AM perspective in
  providing new insights?
• Tensions within GUFs reflect variations in how
• class antagonism traverses us, differences in
  the degree to which it is possible for us to
  suppress that antagonism. For those who benefit
  materially from the process of accumulation it is
  relatively easy to repress anything that points
  beyond commodity fetishism. It is those who are
  most brutally subjugated whether through the
  endless repetition in meaningless jobs or through
  poverty that excludes anything but the fight for
  survival in whom the tension is most tightly
  coiled.. (Holloway 2005, 145)

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• Schizoid tensions running through unions in
  seeking global partnership and sustaining
  accumulation and developing workplace
  renewal/independent labour networks
• Global strength and renewal needs to emanate from
  a politics of production and knowledge of labour
  process in workplace relating to experiences of
  alienation and dehumanisation
• Alternative workplace networks of labour action
  beginning to emerge within and outside mainstream
  unions to confront capital
• Decline of a particular and contingent form of
  unionism wedded to social democracy and
  partnership as nature of class struggle changes
  through neoliberalism and globalisation of
  capital?