GLOBAL CORPORATIONS, GLOBAL UNIONS CONTEXT • 2006: Group of Latino immigrant janitors won strike in Houston doubling their income, gaining health benefits, and securing a union contract for 5300 workers with SEIU • Exposed a global economy addicted to cheap labor. • Immigrant workers challenged a system that paid them $20 a night to clean toilets and vacuum the offices of global giants like Chevron and Shell Oil. • Janitors marched through Houston’s most exclusive neighborhoods and shopping districts, into the lives of the rich and powerful. • Forced Houston’s elite, normally insulated from the workers who keep the city functioning, to face up to the human downside of the low-wage economy. • More than 80 union janitors and activists from around the country flew to Houston. CONTEXT • If the strike had been a local affair, the civic elite would probably have won. • Campaign went global, arising in front of the properties controlled by the same firms in cities around the world. • As the strike spread, janitors from cities around the world demonstrated • Protests put the struggle of 5000 workers in Texas in the international spotlight. • During past 40 years, Union membership steadily shrunk in the U.S. and around the world. • As unions declined, we see greater inequality, cuts in social welfare benefits, and a redistribution of wealth to giant multinational corporations around the globe. A TURNING POINT • SEIU declined dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s. • Through justice for Janitors campaign in the 1980s and 1990s, the SEIU grappled with how to respond to outsourcing within the United States; as a large contract cleaning companies consolidated on a national basis, so too coworkers in far-flung cities consolidated their offers to win campaigns and contracts. • Members from around the country helped Houston janitors win their strike. • SEIU moved from organizing single buildings → whole cities → global strategy. • The largest property owners and service contractors are becoming global companies that operate in dozens of countries → Need global strategy • Global corporations may threaten workers’ way of life, but they also present an opportunity. A TURNING POINT • Irony: Opportunity to organize global unions comes among the poorest, least skilled workers in one of the least organized and wealthiest sectors of the world economy. • Contract janitors, security officers, & others who clean, protect, and maintain commercial property • Their jobs cannot be moved from country to country. • Extraordinary re-organization and realignment of the worlds economy has opened up the opportunity to unite workers around the globe in a movement to improve their lives by redistributing wealth and power. UNDERSTANDING GLOBALIZATION • The world is tilting toward global trade, giant global corporations, global solutions, and toward Asia -especially China and India. • Of the 100 largest economies is in the world, 52 are not nations -- they are global corporations. • The top five companies, Walmart, General Motors, Exxon Mobile, Royal Dutch/Shell, and BP are each financially larger than all but 24 of the world’s nations. THE ANTIDOTE: GLOBAL UNIONS • In Past: Unionized workers saw workers in other countries as potential competition for their jobs rather than allies. • Now: Globalization is creating the conditions to organize global unions in the service economy. • The infrastructure of the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, and real estate), and the millions of service jobs needed to support it are concentrated in some 40 global cities, while manufacturing and mobile jobs --aided by new technology -- are being moved around the globe. • Now: The opportunity for global unions is greatest in service jobs concentrated in cities that drive the world economy. • Global cities rely on service jobs to function. • Janitors, security guards, maintenance, hotel, airport, service workers: Labor is essential and cannot be offshored (no threat of relocation). THE HOUSTON VICTORY • 1970s and 1980s: Unions structure: often competing in the same city -- constrained its ability to fight back • SEIU would unionize the entire commercial office cleaning industry. • Crucial to this: Developing a “trigger: after a contractor agreed to go union, SEIU would not raise wages until a majority of its competitors also went union, ensuring that no contractor was put in a competitive disadvantage. • FIRE industry: they could not be offshored • This strategy brought 100,000 new members into the union. In turn, that strength allowed the campaign to spread to cities such as Houston, where the same owners operated. • Contractor’s unfair labor practices in one city could trigger strike action by SEIU locals in other cities. • Multinationals are becoming more not less vulnerable as they spread across the globe.. GLOBAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZE GLOBALLY • As the economy has become interrelated and global, organizing work must do the same. CORPORATIONS NOT COUNTRIES • A campaign to change the world needs to focus on the corporations that increasingly dominate the global economy. • We must force the largest corporations to negotiate a new social compact that addresses human rights and labor rights. • This campaign must be grounded in a worksites of corporations that drive the economy and the cities in which they are located and from which they get much of their capital. GLOBAL WORKERS, GLOBAL UNIONS, GLOBAL CITIES • We must create truly global unions. • We need to determine the minimum number of countries and cities in which we must operate in order to exercise maximum power to persuade corporations to adopt a new social compact. • In other words, we need to use resources wisely. A MORAL AND ECONOMIC MESSAGE • The campaign needs a powerful message about the immorality of forcing workers to live in poverty amidst incredible wealth. • Immigrants and migrants workers need to be brought out of the shadows of second class status in the countries where they work. • It must promote laws that give immigrant and migrant workers full legal rights so they can organize, unite with native born workers, and help lead the fight. DISRUPTING – AND GALVANIZING – THE GLOBAL CITY • As activity and tension increase, the global business elite will go back-and-forth between making minor concessions to placate workers and attacking them. • We only get real change by executing a two-part strategy: 1) galvanizing workers, community leaders, and the public to lift up our communities and 2) creating a crisis that threatens the existing order. • The convergence of global corporations and workers in key cities around the world, where corporations are concentrating has created the conditions that allow us to envision how organize service workers. • Global cities cannot operate without global workers. Saul D. Alinsky – Protest Tactics ▪ Doing what you can with what you have. Tactics ▪ How the Have-Nots can take power from the Haves. Rule #1 ▪ Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have ▪ Never go outside the experience of Rule #2 your people. ▪ Creates confusion, fear, and retreat ▪ Whenever possible, go outside of the experience of your enemy. Rule #3 ▪ Example: General Sherman: Had no front or rear lines; he was loose and living on the land. ▪ Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. Rule #4 ▪ Enemy does not generally live up to their own rules ▪ Ridicule is a person’s most potent weapon. Rule #5 ▪ Impossible to counterattack ridicule; It infuriates the opposition. Rule #6 ▪ A good tactic is one your people enjoy. ▪ A tactic that drags too long becomes a Rule #7 drag. ▪ Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions Rule #8 & #9 ▪ Rule #9: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself ▪ The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure on the opposition. Rule #10 ▪ Unceasing pressure results in reactions from the opposition that are essential for success of the campaign. ▪ Pressure produces reaction and constant pressure sustains action. ▪ If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside. ▪ Based on principle that every positive has its negative. Rule #11 ▪ Gandhi’s development of the tactic of passive resistance: converted negative to positive. ▪ Example: Read: p. 256 ▪ The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative Rule #12 ▪ You must know what the alternative is you are fighting for. ▪ If enemy tells you that you are right, now tell us what to do, must have an alternative. ▪ Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. ▪ Corporations and metropolitan governments Rule #13 are complex – much “passing the buck” (shifting responsibility from one jurisdiction to another) ▪ Single out who is to blame for any particular evil. ▪ One criteria in picking your target is the target’s vulnerability – where do you have the power to start. Rule #13 ▪ Target can ask why you target him or her when there are others to blame. ▪ When you “freeze the target,” you disregard these arguments and, for the moment, all others to blame. ▪ Must also personalize the target. ▪ It is not possible to develop the necessary Rule #13 hostility against City Hall like it is against a specific person. ▪ All issues must also be polarized, if action is to follow. → “He that is not with me is against me.” Suicide Bombing Introduction • We need to understand the world from the assailant’s point of view • Braintax – The Grip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IhaL1i ghcw Lyrics http://rapgenius.com/Braintax-the-gripagain-lyrics 1) Suicide Bombers Are Not Crazy • Virtually all suicide bombers are psychologically stable. • Organizers do not want to jeopardize their missions by recruiting unreliable people. • Disqualified if show signs of pathological behavior 2) It’s Mainly about Politics, not Religion • Any political conflict makes people look for ways to explain the dispute & imagine a strategy for resolving it. • They adopt or formulate an ideology • If conflict is deep or ideology proves inadequate, people modify ideology or reject it for an alternative. • Importance of religious component may increase if strategies based on secular reasoning fail Example • Ideologies Palestinians used to explain loss of land to Jewish settlers & military forces & to formulate plan to regain territorial control • 1) Pan-Arabism: Belief that Arab countries would unify to force Israel to cede territory • 2) Nationalism: Place responsibility for regaining control of territory on Palestinians themselves. Example • 3) Marxism: Identified wage-workers as the engines of national liberation • 3 secular strategies did not work • 4) Islamic fundamentalism: Notions of “martyrdom” and “holy war” gained importance • Only 43% of suicide attackers were identifiably religious 3) Sometimes It’s Strategic • Suicide bombing often has a political logic. • Often a tactic of last resort undertaken by the weak to help them restore control of a territory they perceive as theirs. • Suicide bombings sometimes occur in clusters as part of an organized campaign often timed to maximize strategic gains. 4) Sometimes It’s Retaliatory • “She carried out the attack in revenge for the killing of her brother and her cousin by the Israeli security forces, and in revenge for all the crimes Israel is perpetrating in the West Bank by killing Palestinians and expropriating their land” • People often weigh the costs & benefits of different actions, but sometimes emotions (feelings of anger and humiliation) trump rational calculations 5) Repression is a Boomerang • Harsh repression may reinforce radical opposition and even intensify it. • Insurgents may turn to alternative and perhaps more lethal methods to achieve their aims. • Example: When Prime Minister Rabin ordered troops to “break the bones” of Palestinians who engaged in mass demonstrations, rock throwing, and other non-lethal forms of protest in the 80s and 90s, Palestinians responded with more violent attacks including suicide bombing. 6) Empathize with your Enemy • See things from your enemy’s point of view – increases one’s understanding of the minimum conditions that would allow the enemy to put down arms • Exercising empathy w/ enemy is key to effective counterterrorist strategy. 6) Example • Israeli Chief of Staff argued that Israel’s tactics against Palestinians had been to repressive & were stirring up uncontrollable levels of terrorism. • Expressed fear that by continuing harsh repression, Israel would bring about collapse of Palestinian Authority, the silencing of Palestinian moderates, and the popularization of more radical voices like Hamas. Predictions were correct. Tactical Innovation in the Civil Rights Movement  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbbcjn4d1cE Sit-Ins Internal organization was necessary for the emergence of massive sit-ins in the 1960s  Sit-ins were initiated by youth councils (young people supervised by older women and men) who felt a connection with the direct action movement & were not locked in to the legal approach of the NAACP  Southern CORE chapters: members were disproportionately young people.  Early Sit-Ins  Initiated by CORE and youth councils of NAACP  Black church was the chief institutional force behind sit-ins  Church supplied organizations w/ an established communication network, leaders, organized masses, finances (took collection), & safe place to hold meetings Early Sit-Ins  Leaders did not spontaneously emerge in response to crisis, but were organizational actors in the fullest sense.  Leaders were church leaders, school teachers, and leaders of direct action orgs.  Their organizational linkages gave them access to pool of demonstrators (teacher had access to young people) Early Sit-Ins  Resulted from rational planning  Example: non-violent workshops: taught college students philosophy and tactics of non-violent protest.  Held test sit-ins  1 year of planning  Result: Desegregated dining facilities at department stores. Planning & Organization  CORE: Conducted interracial 16-day workshops in Miami discussing theory and techniques of nonviolent direct action (rational & planned); Some lead by Dr. King  Miami CORE: Kept pressure on sitting in from 10am to 3pm (Saul Alinsky)  Focus on students, children, and interracial protesters Modeling  Sit-ins: Examples to others of how to protest.  Sit-Ins: Public so people walking by could see them.  People can see that “it is possible” Leadership Leadership was black, most demonstrators were black, finances came out of pockets of blacks, psychological and spiritual support came from black churches.  Activists: Part of the direct action wing of NAACP  National NAACP: Usually disapproving of direct action approach.  Early sit-ins: Tied together through organizational and personal networks.  The Sit-In Cluster of the 1950s  Produced through organizational and personal networks  Leaders of local NAACP youth networks knew each other and had direct contact w/ each other.  Direct contact took the place of press coverage; press refused to cover the events. Coverage could inspire. Sit-In Cluster of the 1950s  1st cluster occurred in Oklahoma & spread to cities w/i 100 radius. Spread rapidly  Sit-ins were:  1) Connected not isolated  2) Initiated through organizations & personal ties  3) Rationally planned & lead by established leaders  4) Supported by indigenous resources Early vs. Later Sit-Ins  Author: Early Sit-ins did not give rise to a massive sitin movement before 1960 b/c CORE & NAACP youth council did not have a mass base.  Once SCLC got involved (it had a mass base), a massive sit-in movement arose SCLC  Developed into direct action organization; provided the mass base capable of sustaining heavy volume of collective action  SCLC, CORE, & NAACP youth councils developed movement centers Characteristics of Movement Centers  1) Cadre of social change-oriented ministers (local leader) and their congregations. Church served as coordinating unit  2) Direct action organizations of varied complexity.  3) Indigenous financing coordinated through the church Characteristics of Movement Centers  4) Weekly mass meetings (Strategy talks & Built solidarity among participant)  5) Dissemination of nonviolent tactics & strategies  6) Adaptation of rich church culture to political purposes (sermons used to deepen commitment to struggle)  7)Mass-based orientation, rooted in the black community through the church TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM WORKS • Changed state human rights practices • Influenced negotiations over environmental protection of oceans, the ozone layer, and Antarctica • Helped shaped nuclear policy THE PROBLEM • Studies neglect the societal dimension of activists’ efforts. • These studies only look at how activism pressures states (this is seen as political) • Activists can change conditions w/o directly pressuring states. • They can change conditions by affecting Civil Society (arena of social engagement b/w the individual and the state) THESIS • TEAGs direct much of their effort towards state policies, but also their political activity extends into global civil society. DISSEMINATING AND ECOLOGICAL SENSIBILITY • TEAGs engage in direct action media stunts: Attracts journalists & inspires audiences to change their views and behavior about environment. DIRECT ACTION • 1) Bring hidden instances of environmental abuse to the attention of a wide audience: invite people to bear witness • 2) Engage in dangerous & dramatic actions that underline how serious they consider environmental threats to be. • Taking personal risks highlights their indignation and degree of commitment GOAL OF DIRECT ACTION • Aim to change the way vast numbers of people see the world • If convince constituents, they may convince the state. • Want ecological sensibility to reverberate throughout various collectivities & institutions • Want to convince all actors: governments, corporations, private organizations, ordinary citizens THIS WORKS! • p. 229 • It is not just about the state. If one looks only at state behavior to account for change, one misses a huge amt. of significant world political action. • Cause people to change buying habits. • If governments do not respond, their action not in vain: TEAGs influence understandings of good conduct throughout societies at large. COMPANIES CAPITULATED TO ACTIVIST PRESSURE • Companies capitulated to activist pressure and changed their practices not for economic reasons, not for ecological reasons, not to increase business. They made changes due to activist pressure. MCDONALDS • Activists: • Mailed McDonalds packaging back to McDonalds headquarters • Broke windows and scattered the company’s supplies • Organized task force to reduce waste at McDs → Provided McDs w/ feasible responses to activist demands TUNA LABEL DOLPHIN-FREE TUNA • Activists: Boycotted against all canned tuna • Demonstrated at stockholders meetings • Rallied on docks of Tuna Boat Association • Produced film promoting the idea of dolphin-safe tuna labels • Result: Reduced dolphin deaths by 2/3 RESULTS • Changes were already taking place. The government just codified these changes that were already happening. • Activists did not direct their efforts at governments, politicians, nor did they organize constituent pressure. • They focused on corporations themselves. ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS OF GOVERNANCE • Transnational activist groups enlist the economic dimensions of governance into their efforts establishing environmental oversight of corporations. • Establish environmental code of conducts and enlist corporations to pledge compliance. • Since corporations operate in many countries, this has transnational effects ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS OF GOVERNANCE • Environmentalists use codes to praise of criticize corporations. • Alert college graduates about corporate compliance attempting to make environmental issues a factor in career choice. EMPOWERING LOCAL COMMUNITIES • TEAGs often work in various parts of the world to try to enhance local capability to carry out sustainable development projects. • Logic is that local people must be enlisted to protect their own environments & that their efforts will reverberate through wider circles. • In these efforts, not galvanizing public pressure to change gov’t policy or directly lobbying state officials. • Engaging civil society not the state CIVIC POWER • Civic power rests on persuasion of people to change their practices b/c they have come to understand the world in a different way. It promotes certain actions over others.
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