Table 5 - uploaded by Richard Croucher
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This pathbreaking book provides both an invaluable resource on the history of global union federations, and new insights on current issues and contestations. It will be of great interest to all with an interest in the state of unions worldwide, commentators and critics of globalization, and those concerned with fairness at work in a wide range of c...
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Citations
... for NAALC see e.g.Dombois et al. 2003. 4 For IFA and GUF see e.g.Riisgaard 2005;Müller et al. 2008;Croucher and Cotton 2009;Dehnen and Pries 2014;Hadwiger 2015. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology (2020) 4:5 ...
Labour regulation is often approached either by methodological nationalism or methodological globalism. Main arguments are that labour and its regulation are increasingly dis-embedded and commodified. As an alternative framing we propose a (neo-)institutionalist multi-level and multi-actors approach. Based on literature review and own studies we argue that there is empirical evidence of transnational labour regulation combining different logics of action and institutional contexts. Taking the example of the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, we demonstrate the multi-level, multi-dimensional institutional settings and sketch out basic elements of an integrative perspective on sewing transnational textures of labour regulation.
Key terms
Labour regulation, globalization, transnationalization, Bangladesh Accord, neo-institutionalism, multi-level multi-actor approach.
... Among the vast literature on cross-border labor action, labor education has been acknowledged several times as an important factor to improving it (Croucher and Cotton 2009;Erne 2008;Knudsen 2004;Niforou and Hodder 2018;Novelli 2011). Like learning for democracy, workers and their representatives require the appropriate knowledge, attitudes and skills to collaborate across borders. ...
... Since the TC framework relates to all four human elements and intelligences, one might agree with Koehn and Rosenau that their concept is, indeed, 'collectively exhaustive', at least for ordinary adult education and, probably, the commitment to international trade unionism that Croucher and Cotton (2009) suggest is needed. For more critical adult education, however, as well as more fundamental structural changes in the economy, society and political governance at all levels, the TC framework is not as collectively exhaustive as Koehn and Rosenau assert. ...
In the literature on cross-border labor action, labor education is seen as an important factor to improving it. This article therefore first reconstructs an innovative pedagogic concept, transformative Transnational Competence, to advance transnational labor education and action. Although initially developed for multinational firms and international organizations, this pedagogical concept is promising for labor, as it also focuses on emotional issues that are central to collective action. Subsequently, we use our reconstructed concept as a yardstick to assess labor education programs of public and private sector unions in Ireland and Germany. Our study shows that all unions face similar difficulties leading to rather little attention to transnational labor education, regardless of the very different labor relations landscapes in which they are operating. Hence, unions’ difficulties in relation to transnational labor education and action cannot be due to distinct national or sectorial factors, such as labor relations systems and different amounts of resources allocated to labor education. Instead, transnational labor education is facing challenges that are common in all cases, notably the tension between utilitarian and emancipatory orientations of union leaders, educators, and members involved in labor education programs.
... One take-home message of these analyses, which often infuse GVC theories from international po liti cal economy with labor geographers' concepts of place, space, and scale, is that traditional industrial action still works-at least sometimes, under selective conditions. Following this line of logic, several unions have even attempted to research and map out complex logistics networks in transportation, garments, and other industries in hopes of enhancing labor's leverage (Anderson, Hamilton, and Wills 2010;Croucher and Cotton 2009;Juravich 2007). Yet not all workers are in a position, literally, to disrupt a whole production network. ...
... Still, power imbalances do not entirely preclude the development of the type of long-term, strategic outlooks that promote reciprocity-based interunion coordination. Croucher and Cotton (2009), following Ruggie (1993), argue that global unions facilitate a type of reciprocity based not on direct give-and-take but on multilateralism, "an institutional form that coordinates relations among three or more states [or in this case unions] on the basis of generalized princi ples of conduct . . . without regard to the particularist interests of the parties or the strategic exigencies that may exist in any specific occurrence" (Ruggie 1993, 77). ...
... Other scholars stress the importance of multi-stakeholder processes on social upgrading (Dolan and Opondo 2005;O'Rourke 2006). The extent to which lead firms include different stakeholders, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or trade unions (Croucher and Cotton 2009) in social upgrading processes will depend on the lead firm's strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Yet, research on if and how social upgrading can be achieved in a GVC through the lead firm's CSR is still limited (Barrientos 2013;Locke et al. 2009;Lund-Thomsen and Coe 2015). ...
In this article, we explore how a lead firm's strategy for corporate social responsibility influences the social upgrading of a supplier in a global value chain. Based on a single case study approach, we investigate the interaction between Dutch smartphone producer Fairphone and its Chinese supplier Guohong. On the one hand, the case illustrates how a cooperative approach to corporate social responsibility can lead to progress in suppliers' social upgrading. In particular, we highlight the role of a so‐called workers' welfare fund as a mechanism not only for improving measurable labour standards but also for enabling rights. On the other hand, the case demonstrates how the limited production and technological capabilities of the suppliers, a competitive market environment and lead firms' limited strategic access to the supply chain might constrain the extent of social upgrading through a cooperative approach towards corporate social responsibility in a global value chain.
... To date, one can roughly divide research into two overlapping strands. The first comprises studies of the role of different GUFs as global labour actors (Croucher and Cotton 2009), empirical work on conflicts and campaigns led either by GUFs or emerged from the bottom-up (Fairbrother et al. 2013) and assessments of their involvement in transnational union and other activist networks, codes of conduct and framework agreements (Bartley and Egels-Zandén 2015;Fichter and McCallum 2015;Hale and Wills 2007;Niforou 2012). Theoretically informed macro-level discussions on the future of global labour dominate the second strand. ...
... The extensive literature on the type of learning in which unions engage at both national and international levels (Croucher and Cotton 2009;Shelley and Calveley 2007) rarely considers the actual practices and processes of activist pedagogy (Stanford 2015: 235). Where it does, the research tends either to engage briefly in describing the use of active learning methods by unions (Croucher 2004) or consider unions as learning organizations (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman 2013: 196-7). ...
In this article, we examine the potential of global union pedagogy to address the structural and political challenges of cross‐border trade‐union action. We do so by proposing an analytical framework that draws on labour relations, political sociology and education to explain educational processes and outcomes as responses to the pitfalls of global labour campaigns and the inadequacy of global and local labour institutions. We proceed to assess the value of our framework by elaborating on its different dimensions – framing, synthesizing, connecting and regenerating – in relation to the educational work of a global union federation, namely the International Transport Workers' Federation. We find that an actor‐centred approach that combines top–down, bottom–up as and horizontal processes of collecting knowledge from different contexts and making links between different countries, industries and parts of supply chains can help actors realize that their seemingly diverse concerns are essentially different manifestations of the same problem.
... The global union federations are major players at the supranational level (Croucher and Cotton, 2009). Parallel with the global trend, Turkey witnessed an increasing involvement of GUFs in local campaigns in the 2000s. ...
The article concerns the recent transformation and ensuing successes of a Turkish trade union of road transport workers called Tüm Taşıma İşçileri Sendikası (TÜMTİS). In the mid-2000s, TÜMTİS was mainly organised in small-sized freight companies having around 1 500 members with collective contracts. The strategic choice of a new leadership to concentrate on a large-scale, international firm with the support of Global Unions was the turning point. The ensuing United Parcel Service campaign ended with a collective agreement for nearly 2 700 new members in 2011. The union won its second large-scale organising victory at DHL in 2014. At the time of writing, a third large-scale firm is on the verge of recognition. To scrutinise this case, I use the power resources approach in a critical way. To the approach, I add an examination of the subjectivities of union leaders by drawing on the debates about different types of unionisms, importance of the ideology and motivations. I argue that the agency behind this revitalisation can be only explained by taking both its objectivities and subjectivities into account. While the class unionism embraced by TÜMTİS leaders explains the subjective side of the story, associational power from below and its meeting with international solidarity play the key role on the objective side.
... TLAs also demonstrate that organized labour can, at least under certain conditions, change the behaviour of transnational corporations and other employers, resulting in more equitable outcomes. Yet despite growing scholarly interest in Networks of Labour Activism (NOLAs) and in TLAs specifically (Anner, 2011;Bair and Palpacuer, 2012;Bronfenbrenner, 2007;Croucher and Cotton, 2009;Evans, 2010Evans, , 2014Fairbrother et al., 2013;Kay, 2011;McCallum, 2013;Zajak, 2015), we still lack a theoretical framework for understanding the specific dynamics of transnational campaigns spearheaded by organized labour. This is because scholars still have only a limited understanding of labour as a transnational actor. ...
This article highlights how and why the dynamics of transnational labour activism are not fully captured in theories of transnational advocacy networks (TANs). The article develops a new theoretical framework for analysing labour transnationalism that takes into account the unique capacity of workers to physically disrupt production by withdrawing their labour (structural power) and the unique capacity of organized labour to invoke employment relations institutions at the national and international levels (institutional power). It demonstrates the utility of this theoretical framework through an analysis of transnational labour campaigns spearheaded by factory workers in the Philippines and Pakistan. The case studies reveal that while transnational labour alliances (TLAs) do share some characteristics in common with TANs, the mechanisms through which TLAs sustain and escalate transnational campaigns can only be understood with reference to the unique structural and institutional capacities of labour.
... Knudsen (2004) is convinced that through education, EWCs can overcome the obstacles that limit their impact on managerial decisions. Other authors have also highlighted union education as a cornerstone for successful cross-border action (Bicknell, 2007;Croucher and Cotton, 2009;Novelli, 2011). ...
In this article, we compare trade union training for European Works Council members in Ireland, in Germany and at EU level. The programmes have only limited success in fostering transnational union action. We conclude that the limited transformative impact of unions’ training programmes is not for the most part due to lack of resources. Rather, their narrow pedagogical focus on technical knowledge and skills crowds out the development of knowledge about social mobilization and the construction of attitudes of solidarity between unions.
... GUFs have partly taken this role to coordinate actions at the supranational level. However, the affiliation of a local 9 Hyman, 2002;Croucher and Cotton, 200910 Wright, 2000: 962 11 Wright, 2000 trade union to a GUF does not necessarily translate into local compliance with core labour rights. 12 Differences in perceptions regarding local strategies and international campaigns but also differences in political orientations can result in inter--union conflicts and therefore in the absence of a shared collective identity between (and within) the global and the local groups of labour. ...
... That is, this international exchange increased both the supply and demand for strategies to organise contract workers and in so doing allowed for a shift in Sintracarbon's political focus, away from the risk involved in union organizing activity towards successfully managing significant organisational change. Additionally we argue that ICEM's sustained and multi-stage project activity allowed for effective articulation between local and international trade union structures, based on the principle of subsidiarity, allowing for exchange of ideas and experience between affiliates (Croucher & Cotton 2008;Cotton & McCormick 2012). The next section introduces our theoretical framework followed by a section which contextualises the employment relations situation in Colombia. ...
... For unions in hostile organising environments an appeal to international solidarity via the GUFs can be an effective way to increase leverage with employers, by mobilizing international solidarity action and intervention at the multilateral level. This can be particularly effective with MNCs headquartered in OECD countries where stronger unions are often located, the majority of whom are affiliated to the GUFs, thus providing a potentially important entry point into dialogue with international employers for the many unions that do not have this capacity at local level (Croucher & Cotton 2008). ...
... The education methods used in trade union projects are based on participatory education principles and structured in self-organised and directed study circles, influenced by German and Scandinavian workers' education and the work of Paulo Freire in Latin America (1970). These education methods emphasize equality, participation and problem solving (Croucher & Cotton 2008;Khaliy 2005) and promote both activism and organising (Carter & Cooper 2002;712-742). GUF projects involve those affiliates that fund and support educational projects (particularly from the Netherlands and the Nordic countries), and those in the developing world that work in partnership with them. ...
