The King and Us - Why Thailand’s lèse majesté law matters to unions and the world

Ian Graham 

Somyot Prueksakasemsuk

“Union rights are human rights.” That has been said loud and often. But it bears repeating. Labour rights are specialised extensions of the principles set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests,” the declaration insists. Nobody reading this column is likely to disagree (except, perhaps, with the “his”). Philosophically, core human rights such as freedom of association have always underpinned core labour rights.

Building Progressive Alliances

Asbjørn Wahl

The social conflict in Europe has intensified strongly over the past couple of years, in the wake of the financial crisis. The labour and trade union movement has been on the defensive ever since the neoliberal offensive started around 1980. The balance of power in our societies has thus shifted enormously over the past 30 years - from labour to capital, from democracy to market forces. Time is ripe, therefore, to fight back, to build broad social alliances and to reassess our strategies and tactics.

In this article I will take a closer look at the current situation, address the question of alliance building and particularly summarise some of the experiences we have had in building alliances in Norway. My point of departure is that social development is a question of power, social power, and strength. If we are not able to mobilise sufficient social power behind our many excellent demands, they will only end up as wishful thinking.

The current situation

The situation in Europe is going from bad to worse. Subsequent to the financial crisis, we are now facing a crisis of state financing, which is gradually turning into a deep social and political crisis. Add to this the environmental and climate crisis, and the future looks rather dramatic.

Perhaps we should have expected the financial crisis to be followed by strict regulation of financial capital and an end to the neoliberal experiments which contributed so strongly to it. However, quite the opposite has happened, neoliberals are still running the business, both politically and financially. They have even been able to win hegemony for their interpretation of the crisis. It is no longer the capitalist crisis which has led to the mess, but ordinary people who have been living beyond their means. Workers and pensioners have to foot the bill, after the financial institutions and speculators were rescued by governments. This has led to reactionary and anti-social austerity policies across Europe, including fierce attacks on trade unions as well as on wages, pensions and welfare services.

One of the reasons for this development is the weak resistance from trade unions and social forces in Europe. As long as we are not able to shift the balance of forces in society, the neoliberals will continue their silent revolution (as EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso has characterised the current attempts to further de-democratise and take control over economic government in the EU). Already in eight of the EU member states public sector wages have been cut and collective agreements set aside through political decrees – without negotiations with trade unions concerned. While employers and governments are thus breaking completely with post-war consensus policies, many trade unions are still clinging to the illusion of a working social partnership, in which reasonable employers will be convinced by our arguments. However, this consensus was based on a particular balance of power which has shifted enormously during the neoliberal era of the past 30 years. What is going on now is therefore a fierce interest-based struggle, and every sign tells us that the confrontations will increase in strength. We are under attack, and it is a matter of urgency to fight back.

Build alliances
In order to confront the attacks, we have to reorient our unions, and to build broad social alliances to increase our strength. This is a struggle for power, and the struggle has to be political (not party political, but political in terms of addressing social development in the broad sense). The aim is to widen the social basis of our struggle. To that end, we will have to broaden the perspective of our policies and demands.

Alliances can change according to the situation and the aim of our struggle. In the current situation, in which the very foundation of our social achievements is being attacked, it is the broad social alliances which are decisive. In other words, we have to identify common interests with other groups in society. Thus, our alliance policy has to be built on class analyses and practice, not on empty rhetoric and lip service.

Firstly, we have to strengthen our unity within the trade union movement, i.e. in the working class itself, across the divides between public and private, blue collar and white collar, skilled and unskilled, workers and professionals, employed and unemployed, male and female, immigrants and domestically based, as well as formal and informal workers. Secondly, we should build alliances between social classes and strata, like with important parts of the middle class, of peasants, of youth and of women who can be mobilised in favour of social protection and progress. Thirdly, progressive academics and researchers, NGOs and organisations and campaigns which have an understanding of the broader social context are important social allies. Fourthly, and finally, due to the alarming climate crisis, we should seek alliances with those parts of the environmental movement which have an understanding of the social conflict and social justice.

Norwegian experiences
In Norway we have been building alliances between trade unions and other organisations and movements for many years. The one I have been in charge of, the Campaign for the Welfare State, was initiated in 1999, by six trade unions in the public sector. Gradually we grew, firstly inside the trade union movement, but then also among other organisations, such as of retired people, peasants, socially excluded people, users of welfare services, women and students. All in all we gathered organisations with more than one million members, which is not bad in a country with only approximately five million inhabitants. Of course there are different levels of participation among these organisations, but even the support from the more passive ones has given us a lot in terms of legitimacy in the social struggle.

During the general election in 2005 this alliance, in cooperation with other organisations and the broad trade union movement, succeeded in changing the political situation in Norway. It was a favourable climate for change because the existing centre-right government was highly unpopular due to its policies of privatisation and deregulation. Further, the Labour Party had been strongly punished by the voters four years earlier, when it achieved the lowest support in an election since 1924, because of its move to the right. This gave us an opportunity to push the Labour Party to the left and into a coalition with the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party. Due to this pressure, all the three parties campaigned on an anti-privatisation platform, won the election, and formed a government based on the most progressive political platform in Europe.

More independent – more political

We can identify four main pillars which contributed to this success:

• Focus on alternative analyses – a system critical view of current developments.
• The building of new, broad and untraditional alliances.
• The development of concrete alternatives to privatisation and marketisation.
• The development of trade unions as independent political actors.

These steps contributed to polarising the struggle between the Right and the Left, something which gave people clear political alternatives and helped mobilise them for progressive change.

The 2005 red-green government in Norway started off by carrying through a number of progressive policies. However, as time went by, and the pressure from the movement declined, the government began to slide back to old political positions. Even if great parts of the trade union movement politically had become more independent from the Labour Party, other parts were still too loyal to oppose and to keep up the pressure when welfare provisions were weakened and undermined by ‘their own’ government. It is exactly the move to the right of the traditional Social Democratic/Socialist Parties which has made it necessary for trade unions in the current situation to become more independent politically and to take on a wider political responsibility and, not least, to keep up the pressure on the government after it has won the election and taken power.

So far we have only seen the beginning of the social and political crisis in Europe. In other words, it is time for trade unions which are old-fashioned, afraid of new alliances, afraid of losing control, more or less married to social democratic/socialist parties and locked in by an uninhibited belief in social partnership, to reassess their position. Social resistance to the austerity policies is increasing across Europe, but there is a lack of European coordination and leadership. We have to support those who struggle and follow their example. We have to turn the defensive into an offensive. It is all about power, not only addressing power, but taking power, if we are to stop the current development towards an ever more authoritarian and anti-social Europe.

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Asbjørn Wahl is Director of the broad Campaign for the Welfare State in Norway and Adviser to the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees. He is also Vice Chair of the Road Transport Workers’ Section of the International Transport Workers’ Federation.

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Bringing Politics Back In

Nicolas Pons-Vignon

Many progressive economists and trade unionists have sought to engage in dialogue and negotiations with capital and governments during the global financial crisis, hoping they could achieve the adoption of reasonable and balanced policies. They may have done so because such an approach used to work in the past, especially in social-democratic contexts, or because, in the early days of the crisis, they were listened to as respectfully as during the high time of the “Keynesian compromise” in economics. They may be convinced that governments should “see” what is happening and want to adopt more inclusive policies. But as the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Sharan Burrow puts it in a Global Labour Column, “If during the crisis workers’ organizations could have anticipated that a new era of dialogue had begun, the moment has clearly passed”. Governments are indeed not seeing anything; in fact, the way in which they have responded to the crisis indicates that relying on strong arguments is insufficient. Are neoliberal policies, and the huge increases in inequality they have caused, responsible for the crisis? Well, the policies adopted in the wake of the crisis amount to more of the same – from the absence of any meaningful regulation (or rather, curtailment) of financial “innovation”, to the public bailing out of banks by states who then in turn reduce their spending, thus passing the costs of the crisis on to ordinary workers and unemployed people. Trade unions have been using their organizational and institutional power to resist relentless attacks on social and labour rights. Nevertheless, after decades of retreat, the financial crisis is rapidly weakening further their traditional pillars of power and influence. What is to be done?

Labour faces the urgent need to overcome the dilemma that it cannot let its influence slip further, while a more oppositional strategy carries the risk of further marginalization if it fails. This may be what will happen in France, even if, despite its failure to thwart the pension reform, the strength of the movement which took place in autumn 2010 breeds optimism. Trade unions have recognized the need to fight precarious employment, to build new alliances (for instance to defend the rights of domestic workers), to make efforts to organize workers, and to regain democratic control over markets. But achieving a meaningful reduction in inequality (and in the power of finance) will require both the formulation of convincing policy alternatives and a determination to fight for them. This requires more than good ideas and determined cadres, however, it demands imagination, will and the confidence of people in the possibility of change.

While it is important to recognise the positive dimensions of recent mobilizations, it is also apparent that on balance they lack political inspiration and momentum. There are four areas where the fight against neoliberalism must be waged in order to be successful – and to allow a coherent project to emerge. These four areas are, in increasing order of importance, academia, ideology, policy and politics.

On the academic front, the dominance of neoclassical economics ought to be contested vigorously – at least as vigorously as it has contested the right to exist of any so-called “heterodoxy” in its heart while “colonizing” other social sciences (Fine and Milonakis, 2009). It can hardly be doubted that today’s policy-makers’ inability to take decisive action to leverage state power in order to protect workers is linked to the hegemonic neoclassical discourse of the last decades. If one sees labour as a mere cost and unemployment as voluntary, it would be hard to believe that higher wages would improve a derelict situation. The struggle for plurality in economics will first have to be national – and initiatives such as the newly formed French association of political economy (AFEP, see www.assoeconomiepolitique.org) are to be commended – but will also have to draw its strength from international alliances. Indeed, only a concerted international initiative will succeed in affecting the self-reproducing hierarchy of economics journals – none of which, in most classifications, include a single non-exclusively neoclassical review in the highest category!

On the ideological front, the time has come to contest the hegemony of the market. Simplistic notions such as “the private sector is more efficient” must be boldly challenged in the public debate, along with calls for the systematic inclusion of the private sector in public investment, as in public-private partnerships, or for the commercialization of the operation of state functions, whether utilities or other areas such as healthcare. The arguments used to support such claims are often grounded in lies (as in the case for pension reform in France), or in collections of one-sided anecdotes, such as the article on industrial policy published by The Economist in August 2010[1] which lists the failures of publically supported companies – as if all private companies were successful! Biased use of words is also at the heart of neoliberal ideology, as for example in the case of “liberalization”: it is not “liberty” which is at stake here, but increased involvement of (and profits for) private capital. At the heart of this agenda lie institutions such as the European Commission, which is persistently pushing for the “opening to competition” of sometimes very well-run public entities. In countries such as the United Kingdom, and in many of the transition countries subjected to “shock therapy”, the drawbacks of privatization and liberalization are crystal-clear. As for the workers and unions, the defence of their rights (except when it is narrowly defined) should make them proud rather than ashamed. I remember seeing a Trades Union Congress (TUC) leader almost apologizing to a BBC journalist for contesting the massive public sector cuts the Government was proposing. The journalist was scornfully saying that “Irish workers are proving much more responsible (sic) and willing to share the costs”. Workers’ rights are not at odds with economic growth, or with a country’s national interests, despite Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne’s relentless claims to the contrary in Italy. At the heart of the ideological fight back, a decisive policy to curb the influence of corporate-funded lobbies is necessary.

On the policy front, the one where most Global Labour Column discussions have focused, it is time to call for bold policies which will thoroughly break with the financial and privatizing frenzy of the last 30 years. Macroeconomic policies should be refocused to support employment creation, to play a counter-cyclical role and to support real stability – an objective hardly compatible, for many countries, with full-blown liberalization. Microeconomic policies, in particular industrial and competition policies, should be rehabilitated, as they are the key instrument that governments can use to stimulate and orient growth. In developing countries in particular, the possibility of using trade policy to support development objectives is absolutely essential. In a world where climate change is becoming an ever-more looming threat, strong policies aimed at processing minerals (creating local employment and reducing transport costs), developing alternative energy sources and ensuring minimal consumption in industry, transport networks and private and commercial dwellings would be hardly possible without state intervention. Competition policies aimed at regulating the private sector are, in a world of increasing corporate power, one of the tools most necessary for countering the influence of companies on consumers and workers alike. Likewise, the governance of corporations cannot be conceived narrowly as the accountability of managers to shareholders; workers and their representatives must be at the heart of our understanding of corporate governance.

But none of the above fields of struggle is as important as the political one – which is itself highly dependent on the previous three. The most impressive achievement of neoliberalism has undoubtedly been its dramatic weakening of the political power of workers, unions and the parties aligned with them. In many cases, the politics of the latter have been dramatically altered, with many “labour” parties now having programmes that could hardly be distinguished from their right-wing counterparts. Unions have lost many workers, especially outside the public sector, and the growing “precariat” described by Guy Standing (2011) is often either disillusioned with unions or afraid to join them because of explicit or implicit threats by employers. Restoring the power of workers and unions, starting with the workplace, is more than ever a priority: a strong and mobilized base is the necessary blood of any successful political movement. It is very encouraging to see strikes in the public (for instance in South Africa) as well as in the private sector that are increasingly articulating broader political demands. In the United States, the recent movement against the curtailment of public sector workers’ collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin (and the threat of similar campaigns in other US states) may signal both the political awakening of unions and the end of “Reagan’s spell”, under which many working- and middle-class Americans supported policies that harmed them[2]. Linking workplace and other progressive movements in order to promote a new political project, however, will require overcoming the “third way” impasse which so many parties have embraced in order to secure electoral success.

The Global Labour Column has established itself as a forum of debate on the nature of the crisis and on the policies which should be adopted to defend the interests of workers worldwide. In so doing, it serves as an intellectual and policy toolbox which does not shy away from asking tough questions, such as: Why did a policy change not happen despite the failure of the current economic regime? How should unions change, and what must they change in order to weigh in more strongly on the policy choices that confront the working class? After issuing a (largely unheeded) call not to “waste the crisis” in the first Global Labour Column anthology, the second yearbook, There Is An Alternative: Economic Policies and Labour Strategies Beyond the Mainstream (Geneva: ILO, 2011), confronts the policies that have been implemented in the wake of this great depression – as well the resistance they have met. As one of the continents hit hardest by the crisis, Europe is extensively discussed, with an unambiguous call to reinvent it to avoid its collapse. The neoliberal Europe, focused on defending the interests of large corporations, must give way to a progressive entity that seeks to reduce inequality between and within its Member States. The impact of neoliberal globalization on development policy is also discussed, together with possible alternatives. The increased openness and fiscal “discipline” imposed on developing countries following the debt crisis of the 1980s contrasts with the readiness to extend new borrowing facilities to the banks and financial operators that brought the global economy to the brink of collapse[3]. The massive drop in demand by rich countries has shown the crucial importance of building domestic demand (isn’t development about this?) rather than focusing solely on cutting labour and other costs in the hope of being competitive in export markets. The book also addresses the central issue of inequality, which was at the root of the current crisis and serves to reveal the class interests which have been the engine of neoliberalism. Finally, the defence of workers’ rights and wages is shown to be absolutely necessary to ensure sustainable growth in the world, with ILO Director-General Juan Somavia calling for “decent work for all everywhere”. It is an ambitious programme, as it will imply reversing deep trends such as the exclusion of many workers from wage negotiations or growing casualization and wage inequality. But such ambition is necessary if we want to believe that there is an alternative; it will require a broad and vigorous mobilization to succeed. It is high time to bring politics back in.

[1] ”The global revival of industrial policy. Picking winners, saving losers”, The Economist, 5 August 2010, http://www.economist.com/node/16741043. Interestingly, the online debate on The Economist’s website yielded an  overwhelmingly “pro” industrial policy result, with 72 per cent of voters disagreeing with the motion that “industrial policy always fails”.
[2] On Wisconsin, see C. Feingold, ”The march to protect workers’ rights and the  middle class”, Global Labour Column, 28 March 2011, as well as R. Fantasia, ”Could Wisconsin break Reagan’s spell?”, Le Monde diplomatique, April 2011.
[3] On financialization, see as Frédéric Lordon’s brilliant essay (in French) on the financial crisis (2008), as well as the publications of the London-based ‘Research on Money and Finance’ group – www.researchonmoneyandfinance.org/.

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Nicolas Pons-Vignon is the editor of the Global Labour Column and a Senior Research Fellow with the Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development (CSID) research programme, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is also the founder and director of the African Programme for Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE).

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References:

Fine, B.; Milonakis, D. (2009), From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics: The Shifting Boundaries Between Economics and Other Social Sciences, London and New York: Routledge.

Lordon, F. (2008), Jusqu'à quand ? Pour en finir avec les crises financières, Paris: Raisons d’agir.

Standing, G. (2011), The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

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A modern Italian Story

Alessandra Mecozzi

The 28th of January 2011 was a beautiful day for Italian metalworkers: 70% participated in the national strike and in 17 demonstrations called by FIOM (the metalworkers union affiliated to CGIL, Italy’s largest union confederation). This was a response to the aggressive strategy adopted by Fiat in several of its factories.
Only a few years ago, Sergio Marchionne, Fiat’s CEO, declared that as labour cost accounted only for 7% of the company’s total costs, there should be no reason to squeeze workers and put pressure on working conditions (interview in La Repubblica, 21/9/2006). He used the context of the global crisis to launch a direct attack on workers’ rights and conditions, with the aim of dismantling the Italian labour relations system.

From Pomigliano to Mirafiori: fear as the strategy of choice for Fiat

In April 2010, Fiat presented its strategic plan for 2010-2014, Fabbrica Italia (“Factory Italy”), which aimed to increase vehicle production in Italy from 650,000 units in 2010 to 1.4 million by 2014. During the following summer, Marchionne announced that in order to implement the plan, he would consider investing €700 million in the Pomigliano plant (where 4600 workers are employed) and relocating the production of the Panda, currently manufactured in Poland. All trade unions had to sign an agreement entailing worsened working conditions and limiting the (constitutional) right to strike. FIOM declared itself open to negotiating on labour flexibility, but “negotiation” was not the flavour of the day. The agreement was designed unilaterally by Fiat and the unions were given no choice, meaning that if the agreement was not accepted, the investment would not take place.

However, this so-called agreement was signed by the other unions (Fim, Uilm and Fismic) and presented to the workers for a referendum. FIOM declared the referendum illegal because it was taking place under blackmail. Fiat’s management and media commentators expected the referendum result to be an overwhelming YES; however, 37% of workers, overcoming their fear of jeopardizing a key investment that could save the factory, refused to sacrifice their rights for the promised investment. A young and educated new generation of workers said NO to blackmail, thus asserting their dignity and political consciousness.

In retaliation against FIOM, Fiat showed an iron fist in other plants: on the 14th of July, three FIOM delegates were dismissed in Melfi (Basilicata) because they were on strike; in the same week, a white collar employee in Mirafiori (in Turin, the largest Fiat plant in Italy) was suspended and accused of spreading propaganda because he was using a computer at the office to inform his colleagues about Fiat’s strategy against workers.

Signatory trade unions, editorialists, right-wing politicians and even part of the left and some CGIL officials misread the consequences of what was happening in Pomigliano. Many considered, with a hint of racism, that Pomigliano was a manifestation of the “southern illness”, characterized by laziness, high absenteeism, and so on. They accepted that Marchionne would “correct” this exception.

A large-scale response took place on the 16th of October 2010, when a national demonstration of metalworkers (organised by FIOM) and other social actors, including students, precarious workers, and civic associations, brought together hundreds of thousands of people in the centre of Rome.

On the side of capital, Marchionne's initiative encouraged Federmeccanica, the metal sector employers’ association, to inflict a direct blow to the national employment contract. The employers’ association signed, with the unions who had endorsed the Pomigliano agreement, a national agreement allowing for derogations to the national contract.

Fiat’s onslaught on workers’ rights quickly moved north, to Mirafiori, its historical plant. Fiat announced that some of its production would be transferred to Serbia, thanks to financial assistance the company had been offered by the Serbian government. Uncertainty and fear were spreading among workers. What would their future be? What was Fiat’s industrial plan? Where and how would the trumpeted €20 billions of “Fabbrica Italia” be invested? Marchionne always refused to give details about his projects while the government remained silent, openly leaving the market to decide on the future of the workers.

On December 23rd, a new agreement was requested by Fiat from the Mirafiori workforce (5500 workers) as a condition for the allocation of a €1 billion investment for the production of jeeps destined mostly to the American market. Again, no real negotiation took place, and the same terms as in Pomigliano were proposed: worsened working conditions and increased working time, as well as an attack on freedom of association. Workers would thus lose the right to elect their shop stewards, who would instead be appointed by the union leadership. Moreover, any union refusing to sign the agreement would be excluded from the plant. The agreement trampled on FIOM’s right to represent its members.

The result of the referendum was positive, but by a very tight margin - 47% of workers voted NO. The majority of blue-collar workers voted NO, particularly those on the assembly lines where the impact of the agreement would be stronger. The YES of the 400 supervisors and white-collar workers was decisive for the lean 53% majority.

It was a surprising victory for the union, considering the referendum, once more, took place under blackmail. The substance of the referendum was: “either you accept to curtail and/or give up your rights, or you will lose your job”. In the meantime, Marchionne was applauded across the political spectrum.

On the ground, different segments of civil society were expressing their support to FIOM. Students, precarious workers, researchers, school teachers, and progressive economists stood beside FIOM at the strike on January 28 2011, which was accompanied by demonstrations in many different cities.

The new points of the Mirafiori agreement (like the exclusion of FIOM from union representation in the plant) were added to the Pomigliano one and a new Fiat contract was designed as an alternative to the national contract. This demonstrates that Pomigliano was not an exception but the start of a strategy aiming at the destruction of the three pillars of the Italian labour relations system: labour law, the Constitution and the national collective contract.

US influence

Marchionne's strategy, which emulates the US labour relations system, is very popular among Italian commentators. His supporters should however know that the US never ratified the ILO Conventions on freedom of association and collective bargaining. Labour relations are largely dependent on the US Administration – as opposed to the Italian or European ones, which are based on laws and national collective contracts. In the US, the unionisation rate is at its lowest ever. On the whole, the lack of a real collective bargaining system has produced lower wages and longer working times.

United Auto Workers (UAW) had one and half million members during the 1970s; it has barely 400,000 today. UAW is launching a strong unionisation campaign and its president, Bob King, recently stressed that “no democracy on earth can thrive and prosper without democratic unions” (speech to the Center for Automotive Research Conference, “A UAW for the 21st century”, 2 Aug. 2010).

The powerful International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT, which has 1.4 million members among truck drivers) has fully understood what is at stake in Italy. The car haulers (part of IBT), one of the few sectors in which a national contract was signed in the US, have been fighting Marchionne’s restructuring plan for Fiat/Chrysler, which would terminate the collective contract and destroy thousands of jobs. FIOM supported their struggle and received their support for the January strike.

Fiat’s case is unique in Europe and even the European metalworkers federation is worried about the possible extension of this “model”.[1] It represents a dramatic attack on workers, union rights and on the entire labour relations system, which is an important part of the European social model. This leads FIOM to the conclusion that, unless we are able to build strong European and international unions, the race to the bottom is likely to continue. We have to confront it with all of our energy if we want to save worker unions and avoid the rise of market oriented company unions!

Accusations against FIOM

• “FIOM does not behave as a labour union but as a political actor”, Minister of Labour Sacconi told the media to discredit FIOM’s dedication to the struggle of workers. The reality is that Italy is facing a growing political and cultural regression that starts with the prime minister himself, and the cultural and moral model that he spreads through his media. This is exacerbated by the weakness and division of the political opposition to the government, which is unable to formulate any coherent economic or industrial policy. FIOM’s determination to stand up in defence of worker and union rights has become a point of reference for a large part of civil society. In so doing, FIOM occupies a political vacuum, as there is no political force in Parliament which represents workers.
• “FIOM’s positions lead to isolation,” say many on the political left and also some from CGIL. Is it so? Worker assemblies were in fact overcrowded, while the streets on the day of the strike were filled with metalworkers and other social actors! What does ‘isolation’ mean, then? The establishment tried to isolate FIOM. But, in the end, even the mainstream media had to cover the conflict in Mirafiori, and to show the solidarity coming from different segments of civil society. We could rather say that the political opposition is isolated because it stands so far from the people that it is supposed to represent!
• “FIOM is old-fashioned and does not understand the modernity of globalisation”. Yet, in a time of deep financial and economic crisis when the failure of neoliberal globalisation has become obvious, the modern and just attitude towards globalisation may well be the one of those standing up for their rights.

[1] See for instance the press release of the Fiat trade union coordination group, 4th of February 2011:
http://www.emf-fem.org/Areas-of-work/Company-Policy/News/Declaration-of-the-Fiat-trade-union-coordination-group

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Alessandra Mecozzi has been the International Director of FIOM (the Italian Federation of Metalworkers) since 1996. She graduated from Rome's La Sapienza University with a thesis on the history of CGIL, the largest Italian union confederation. Alessandra has been working for FIOM since 1971.

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