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| TOC -- Preface | Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | |
Part 4: Concluding Observations
Section 11-- Challenges Facing Trade Unions
Table of Contents
Asia
Latin America
Africa
Issues and Challenges
Notes
References
Part 4: Section TABLES
Henk Thomas
The six case studies in this book have shown the precarious situation in which trade unions find themselves in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The case studies are presented against the background of broad, interdisciplinary continental overviews which provide an analytical framework within which the predicaments facing trade unions in most of the Third World can be better understood. The finding that stands out is the loss of power, in economic, social, and political terms, of the trade union movement during the last decades. In particular, broad societal problems of access to, and quality of, employment pose challenges which the trade unions generally have not been able to address.
The challenges faced by the trade union movement in many parts of the world call for new approaches that may imply institutional renovations, new tasks, and even new ways of cooperation with other societal institutions.
New roles for the trade union movement are naturally related to the old traditions of protecting workers and better equipping people for work, and of struggling for wider emancipation and democratization. However, given the fast and dramatic structural changes taking place in national and international labour markets, it appears that so far the trade union movement has been unable to assert itself with respect to both employment conditions and worsening power relations.
While it is almost self-evident that trade unions should be a key actor in the search for a new role, the findings of the preceding studies do not hold out much hope for a speedy breakthrough in such a direction. Even allowing for the numerous problems experienced by trade union movements, including those of leadership and internal democratic functioning, it is clear that the overriding causes of their weakness lie in the changes that have occurred in the broader political and economic environment.
The three continental overviews cannot but leave the reader with the perplexing impression that the trade union movement in these continents is not only in crisis as a national actor, but also in large parts of the world has already stopped playing a prominent role as a national institution or is being prevented from developing in such a direction. The specifics of this situation vary in different parts of the world. This chapter reviews the findings in each of the three continents and then presents some thoughts on four crucial issues which call for research, dialogue and action from the perspective of labour organization.
The most disturbing finding is probably that in East And Southeast Asia rapid industrialization and economic development have been successfully pursued and partially achieved by governments, economic institutions, owners of capital and management of enterprises, while allowing only a heavily controlled, if not severely oppressed, trade union movement.
Labour and work formed, and still form, strategic variables as inputs in the various economic sectors. The cheapness of labour was of strategic importance in the early stages; at the present stage its human capital formation calls for close state monitoring. The rights of workers and the level of their earnings are strictly dictated by macro-economic policy making in which there is little scope for organized labour but to play a ceremonial role at the national level. At the enterprise level, management—labour relations are tightly defined by the dictates of competitiveness rather than direct social concern and responsibility for equity and workers’ rights. At best, this is an unstable situation politically in the long run.
The Malaysian case study not only reflects all these tendencies, but adds further problems because of particular national characteristics related to deep ethnic divisions, and the prominent role played by the electronics sector, with its large female workforce.
In South Asia, the trade union movement has been formed as part of a largely colonial heritage of industrial relations legislation. Given the relative lack of economic success in this part of the world, and the abundant labour-markets, the trade union movement has a weak presence in enterprises as well as outdated institutions at the national level. In the absence of new strategies, dismal labour market conditions and gradual exclusion from national political involvement compel the trade union movement to cling to past achievements. Thus the unions tend to defend their tenured membership in enterprises that increasingly also hire workers on temporary arrangements; to oppose privatization of public enterprises since they cannot provide a safety-net arrangement for those who will lose their jobs as a result; and ignore child labour other than by opposing the low wages paid to children since those undercut even further the weak bargaining position of the unions.
Tragically, such situations offer hardly any scope for the institutional overhaul needed so badly by the trade union movement. The bridging of gaps between national trade union institutions and workers’ organization at shop floor and enterprise levels especially calls for urgent attention.
The Pakistan case, with its very weak labour market, feeble political system and deep ethnic divisions, typically represents adversities for which a trade union movement that is to function within precisely defined industrial relations systems is simply not equipped. Support structures such as can be provided by institutions that are independent of but sympathetically linked with the trade union movement and above all the appearance of a new generation of trade union leaders provide, in the words of the author of the Pakistan study, a silver lining; the international labour movement may have to take on the heavy responsibility of co-designing new strategies and even participating in their implementation.
Here long-term political and economic trends, and waves of history, have had deep impacts which are traceable in almost all countries. Undoubtedly, the history of the trade union movement forms an important part of political and economic developments in Latin America since the early part of this century, and so has been part of these long-term processes.
During the first decades of this century, the numerous links with labour movements in European countries ensured that the issues and debates of those movements were taken up in Latin America. The import substitution strategy (ISI) that was implemented in relatively large markets allowed trade unions to achieve major gains. As long as macro-economic balances could be sustained, this model was sufficiently flexible to permit transition from easy to dynamic import substitution and transformations in the labour market, such as the substitution of higher skill levels for unskilled work in strategic economic branches. Most importantly, relatively high wages ensured strong consumer demand in national protected markets.
The trade union movement was judged to be sufficiently important to be a partner in corporatist nation-state development or to form a strategic component in populist alliances. In this way, it became a partner in creating the well-known dualism that forms one of the central aspects of Latin American social development.
However, in the economic as well as political and ideological senses, the trade union movement gradually acquired a prominence which was no longer tolerated by the dominant societal groups. This explains the violent anti-democratic developments in the 1960s and 1970s during which human and labour rights were violated on a large scale and many leaders lost their lives.
The manifestation of the debt crisis in the early 1980s dramatically exposed the vulnerability of the industrialization and development strategy that had been implemented for so many decades. The resulting changes in the economic and social fields confronted the trade union movement with developments for which it was ill prepared even though it had been deeply involved in alliances with all groups that aimed at restoring democracy.
Abrupt changes from import substitution to liberalization of markets, the introduction of new technologies and new, flexible labour-relations practices put the entire trade union movement conceptually on the defence. The more so since large categories of work in small and micro enterprises, and in home work, were emerging to which the trade union movement had no attachment; on the contrary, grass-root movements, NGOs and even new ideologies of the type advocated by de Soto (1) seemed to have no place for a trade union movement.
The Chilean trade union movement suffered most dramatically under the military regime, yet with great courage it has played one of the leading roles in the struggle for democracy up to the present. However, now, in the process of regaining its old national status through agreements of concertation, it is discovering that economic conditions have changed. Informalization of the labour market with social dualities, and new management patterns in open international competition, leave no scope to gain any benefits for its members at the macro level. The state is preoccupied with gradual, controlled but steady reduction of poverty at the price of wage restraints and in no way intends to reinstitute its old role of prime interlocutor for the labour movement. At the same time, the business community does not lose any opportunity to weaken the labour movement and develop direct enterprise—worker loyalties.
The Venezuelan case is an example of extreme and corrupting incorporation from which the dominant trade union movement failed to recover when economic realities changed completely during the 1980s. Although the trade union movement had not suffered major setbacks in the political domain as bad been the case in most of Latin America, it had no answer to the dramatic social dualities and erosion of the political and economic system that took place in the 1980s. As a result, grass-roots movements and alternative organizations appear to be the only institutions with which the poor classes can identify.
These two cases are clear illustrations of the overall Latin American political, economic and social history. Although recent political events were different in the two countries, the developments in labour markets and business attitudes indicate that the strength of the trade union movement can never be reconstituted merely through a new political and more independent role. It is hard to see how a long-term future can be secured without a complete redesigning of objectives, institutions, membership and capabilities founded in these new economic and social realities. Yet a base of historical strength survives to take on these new challenges.
An inflated image of the role that can be played by trade unions in the continent has been conveyed by recent events such as the destruction of apartheid in South Africa and the struggle for democracy in Nigeria. While much credit goes to trade unions in a small number of countries for their autonomous struggle to democratize the political process, regrettably in most countries authoritarian regimes have the upper hand. Their heavy control of the trade unions is due mostly to the absence of successful industrialization as well as to the heavy concentration of trade union membership in the public sector.
The long-standing lack of recognition in the political field has now been supplemented with more devastating trends in labour markets. There is no part of the world where labour markets offer a gloomier outlook to those seeking work and incomes. Dramatic falls in earnings, sharper even for wage earners than the average national reductions in income, massive retrenchment in public-sector employment and the absence of job creation in medium- and large-scale enterprises have destroyed any possibility of the trade union movement’s acting as a stable institution in labour-market development and transformation.
The migratory flows of various kinds and enormous expansion of informal-sector activities are clear symptoms of structural economic weaknesses that need to be overcome. A complete overhaul of economic strategies is called for, with human resources development and promotion of technological innovations in small and micro-enterprises, in particular, figuring prominently. All these developments are heavily at odds with the experience, membership and institutional frameworks of the trade union movement. A new concept of strategic unionism has been coined to indicate possible new directions; but also to indicate that alliances with other social partners should be built and strengthened in order to ensure some effectiveness.
The case of Zambia shows an historically strong labour movement with a relatively sound economic base, the copper mines. For many years it succeeded in opposing attempts by the authoritarian regime to incorporate it. Indeed, it was a leading actor in bringing down the Kaunda regime and establishing a democratically elected government. The challenge then was to adjust to this new political situation. Here one observes a typical example of a movement in search of its mission under a changed environment.
The developments in Zimbabwe provide grounds for more optimism. Here a young trade movement has gradually succeeded in loosening the controls of the corporatist state machinery. The economic base, while shaken by structural adjustment, is still in good enough shape to ensure some stability in trade union membership. Also, programmes of international cooperation have been designed to further enhance institution building. Again it should be noted, however, that labour-market developments such as the growing prominence of small and informal production and the complex situation of women workers pose many fundamental challenges.
This review has raised four themes that pose new challenges to the trade union movement: reconstitution of labour markets, informalization of labour relations, women and the trade union movement, and a reformulation of the content of trade unionism.
Local, national and regional labour markets
An approach towards trade union studies, or for that matter employment and labour studies,
which takes wide geographical regions as a point of departure, offers some major
advantages over alternative methods. Aspects of labour, work and employment should be
defined in larger contexts than those that are defined by national borders, given the
globalization of economic forces, of patterns of industrialization and technological
developments, and of capital-market developments. In spite of this, however, national
definition continues to be the common approach towards trade union studies and labour
relations patterns.
The inherent limited mobility of people and the ingrained tendency of power coalitions to create labour-market segmentation and fragmentation imply that local, national and regional, rather than global, labour markets should form the bases for organization of all kinds of workers in trade unions.
Three areas where action is needed have been identified in this study:
• Labour relations need to be defined more precisely in individual firms and enterprises. The century-old traditions of adversarial strategies will become less and less effective as trade unions are increasingly confronted with new patterns of Japanese industrial organization that make use of sophisticated systems of networking with small-scale production; such networks extend geographically as well as sectorally.
• At national level trade unions will need to address issues of macro-economic policy formulation if they wish to exercise any decisive influence on the functioning of labour markets, creation of employment and distribution of earnings and incomes.
• At a regional level there is a need for institutions that address issues such as regional industrialization and technology development, and their impact on migratory patterns and regional labour-market consequences.
It looks, therefore, as if trade union studies, and for that matter research into employment, labour and working conditions, should focus on three areas: enterprise and sectoral dimensions, national-level issues and regional developments.
Informalization of labour relations
Extensive informalization of labour relations, whether in formal or informal sectors, has
become a major characteristic of the labour and work situation in many countries. This
process has not yet crystallized into predictable patterns. In East Asia, for instance,
the informal sector has been much reduced and yet new informal work patterns are being
initiated through casualization of work. In parts of Africa, the structural shocks of
macro-economic management have been so deep that, for example, it will be some years
before new balances emerge between urban and rural labour markets and new mobility
patterns become apparent. In Latin America it remains to be seen how the conditions of
sizeable urban masses whose earnings do not allow a crossing of minimum survival lines can
be improved.
These processes have been analysed in depth for more than a decade. An important finding in some cases has been that fluctuations in one part of the informal economy coincide with fluctuations in the macro economy, whereas another part displays exactly countercyclical behaviour.
Also, the differentiation between dynamic small enterprises, surviving micro-enterprises and household work undertaken under conditions of direst poverty hold important implications for patterns of labour relations and policy interventions. Again, major differences have been observed between countries and regions. (2)
Relevant informal-sector phenomena such as labour organization, working conditions and access to employment, many of which are poverty related, have not been given a high policy priority so far by the trade union movement.
If the trade union movements, especially the national ones, do not change course and take up informal-sector work as their key policy concern, it is hard to see how they can continue to exist as more than skeleton institutions which lack social legitimacy.
It will take much institutional energy to become familiar with the enormous complexities of social relations of production in these spheres, namely enterprises, households, multiple jobs, mobility patterns and social-security systems, yet it is hard to see how this challenge can be avoided.
Women and trade unions
The discrimination against women in labour markets and the pro-male bias in development
policies have been analysed extensively in recent years. For instance, the strategic role
that women as a low-cost production factor have played in Free Production Zones as part of
a Third World industrialization strategy is well documented. Also, more generally,
discrimination in earnings and working conditions — in our study the evidence from
East Asian labour markets is telling —constitutes an issue that has received much
attention. Furthermore, the over-representation of women in vulnerable working conditions
in the informal sector forms a central theme in numerous gender-oriented studies. (3)
The issue of multiple identities of women in the context of trade unions deserves more attention than it has received so far. These identities relate to family, community, workplace and state (Chhacchi and Pittin forthcoming).
The ambivalence of the traditional trade union movement towards these issues and female labour leadership is well known. Unless women are allowed and assume leadership and articulate the interests of their constituencies, the trade union movement will continue to be seen as defending narrow, male interests only. Debates and research over the past decade have shown that fundamental issues are at stake.
A central theme concerns autonomy, whether in the sense of separate organizations or separate departments within existing trade union structures. Thus, should women strive after feminization of the existing trade union movement or should they organize independently and associate closely with extensive networks of new social movements? One example of the latter strategy has been the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India which has received widespread attention. Whether this can be duplicated in South Asia and other parts of the world is as yet unclear. (4)
Another articulation of autonomy is the promotion of women’s departments in trade union organizational systems. The union movement all over the world has allocated such institutional space for women~ s issues of work and employment, yet it seems obvious that much more needs to be done before women workers and female leadership will view the trade union as representing their interests. To put it more bluntly, it is often observed that women’s departments form isolated units which are placed outside the mainstream of trade union activities. (5)
It should be noted, however, that because the gaps in culture, analysis and approach towards women’s work between trade unions and women’s movements and organizations are very wide, these strategies will probably have major impacts only in the long run. In the short and medium terms, the most feasible strategy is to extend wide the dialogue and cooperation on an equal footing between women’s social movements and trade unions.
Trade unionism and employment
With the onslaught of the global debt crisis it has become extremely difficult for the
trade union movement to define its role beyond, or as a replacement for, well-established
patterns such as of collective bargaining and adversarial behaviour towards management.
However, given the enormous problems faced by workers —inequalities of power, violation of working rights, and vulnerabihties of different kinds — which are made more complex by global aspects of environmental sustainability, one wonders whether the time has not come to design totally new goals and action programmes that would address these issues and give new meaning and ideals to trade unionism. The fundamental points of departure for this would be the creation of productive employment and the nature of working conditions in local, national and regional labour markets.
Partial approaches cannot give hope of access to work and decent income for men and women in widely differing labour markets. Multi-pronged strategies will be required which will call for a high degree of political determination.
In the wake of more than a decade during which the international stage was dominated by structural adjustment, balance of payments problems and debt burdens, with neglect of social issues and worsening of employment opportunities, it has been encouraging to note that the 1995 UNDP Global Social Summit adopted the global employment situation as one of its lead themes, along with poverty and social disintegration. This gives the trade union movement an opportunity to participate in defining the problems and searching for solutions.
Apparently concern has arisen that most serious imbalances prevail in gaining access to productive employment for unacceptably high numbers of people in large parts of the world. In another 20 years’ time the global labour force will have risen by another billion people to a total of three billion, a low estimate if we assume that many more women would join if opportunities were available. (6)
Phenomena such as national and international migration, child labour, social clauses — whether or not attached to international trade agreements — vulnerable and exploitative conditions of work in the informal sector and absence of safety nets provide only the beginning of any serious agenda to overcome huge problems which men, women and, too often, also children experience in the daily struggle to survive.
A list of policies would minimally include attention to appropriate macro-economic measures, human resource development, technology enhancement in informal production systems, labour-market initiatives and a strengthening of male and female entrepreneurship in small and micro enterprises.
Regrettably it took a long time for the labour relations dimensions of structural adjustment to be analysed. While it would be unfair to blame only the trade union movement for this, it is legitimate to expect from it a solidly professional approach in the search for solutions. The forming of networks with NGOs, relevant experts and interested research groups may well provide a feasible road to address these complex new challenges.
Somewhat ambitiously one might call such strategy the beginning of a new approach towards economic democracy. Only time will tell whether or not there will be scope to provide a viable new orientation to concepts such as industrial democracy and participatory work relations. Trade unions in development are confronted with challenges as great as, if not greater than, the labour movement has faced since the early days of the industrial revolution.
1. De Soto has become known globally for his thesis that the legal institutions which are associated with the formal sector of medium- and large-scale enterprises should be broken down. Such a policy supposedly will free the full potential which is available in the informal economy as it places the small enterprises in that sector on an equal competitive footing with larger firms.
2. For extensive literature on small-scale and informal production and labour relations, see the bibliographical information in Chapters 1,2,5 and 8.
3. See, for example, Elson (1991); Chhacchi and Pittin (forthcoming), and Psacharopoulos and Tzannatos (1992).
4. For recent sources on women’s mobilization and information on SEWA in particular, see Rowbotham and Mitter (1994) and Rose (1992). A classic source on these themes is the Report on Self-Employed Women and Women in, the Informal Sector in India (National Commission 1988).
5. A recent programme evaluation report on the development of women’s departments in a number of Southeast Asian countries yields very interesting information (Kurian, Aurland and Kamalan 1994).
6. Aspects of employment have been extensively discussed in the ‘continental overviews’ in Chapters 2, 5 and 8. For a recent statement on global developments, see Turnham (1994) and Khan (1994). Lipton (1994) provides a much-needed analysis of the relationship between poverty and labour issues.
Chhacchi, A. and R. Pittin (eds) (forthcoming) Confronting State, Capital and Patriarchy Women Organizing in the Process of lndustrialisation. MacMillan.
de Soto, H. (1989) The Oilier Path (The Invisible Revolution in the Third World). Harper & Row Publishers, New York.
Elson, D. (ed.) (1991) Male Bias in Macro—Economics; the Case of Structural Adjustment. Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Khan, A.R. (1994) ‘A Global Agenda for the Expansion of Productive Employment’, Discussion Paper. UNDP Stockholm Roundtable. Stockholm.
Kurian, R., E. Aurland and P. Kamalan (1994) ‘South East Asia: Integration of Women into Trade Union Organisation’, Evaluation Report. ICFTU, Brussels.
Lipton, M. (1994) ‘Growing Points in Poverty Research: Labour Issues’, Discussion Paper. International Institute of Labour Studies, Geneva.
National Commission on Self-Employed Women and Women in the Informal Sector (19B8) ‘Report of the Commission’. New Delhi.
Psacharopoulos, G. and Z. Tzannatos (1992) Women ‘s Unemployment and Pay in Latin America (Overview and Methodology). World Bank, Washington DC.
Rees, T. (1992) Women and the Labour Market. Routledge, London.
Rose, K. (1992) Where Women Are Leaders (The SEWA Movement in India). Zed Books, London.
Rowbotham, S. and S. Mitter (eds) (1994) Dignity and Daity Bread (New Forms of Economic Organising Among Poor Women in the Third World and the First). Routledge, London.
Tumham, D. (1994) ‘Employment Creation and Development’, Discussion Paper. UNDP Stockholm Roundtable, Stockholm.
Part 4: Section TABLES
| TOC -- Preface | Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | |
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