Workers of the world to unite

I heard this story on the Marketplace podcast and was impressed. Obviously, trade unions (and their members) have been on the losing side of a lot of the changes brought by globalization. But this is the first time I’ve heard of them proactively stepping up to respond.

But his union and others are trying to stop the slide into irrelevancy. They’re asking, if corporations aren’t constrained by national borders, why should unions be? IG Metall has signed agreements with Britain’s second-largest trade union, Amicus, and two American unions — the United Steelworkers and the Machinists.

The agreements call for more information sharing and collaboration. But the ultimate goal is much bigger. They want a transnational super union within a decade, which could have more than 7 million members. It could, for example, call for multinational strikes and keep companies from playing workers in different countries against one another.

Whatever you think of trade unions, it’s interesting watching how the world changes as “globalization” goes from being a catchphrase to simply a standard way of life.

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