Peter Waterman* responds to the Korean Trade Union Confederation:

OVERCOMING THE CRISIS OF LABOUR AND UNIONISM UNDER CONTEMPORARY CAPITALIST CONDITIONS

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Introduction

September 2007 I was invited by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) to speak to a number of left union, academic and social movement events. The KCTU is evidently not simply confronted by the global crisis of trade unionism but trying to confront this in most fundamental self-reflection. In preparation for my presentations, and for related consultations and press interviews, I was asked to answer the following questions. These were prepared by Lee Soo-bong, President of the KCTU Policy Research Centre, and sent by Lee Changgeun, International Executive Director of the KCTU. The questions and answers are below. Text in square brackets [aaa] represents clarifications or comments. (PW, January 2, 2008).

Questions and answers

KCTU. Workers are living under the system of capitalism so that [they] are easily affected by the ideology of capitalism. The immanent capitalistic consciousness of working people becomes the firm base of the sustainability of capitalism. Under this kind of structural condition, labour movements have difficulties to make fundamental change of that system. However, labour movements have only limited measures to change the consciousness of the rank and file workers fundamentally. Those are education, publicity etc. Do you have any idea or cases to make the consciousness of rank and file workers more radical beyond the capitalism?

PW. I guess I would look for answers here in terms of the dialectic and dialogue between (would-be) leaders, whether political, intellectual or cultural, and workers. I do not assume that leaders are necessarily more - or the most - advanced, because of the problematic history and common present crisis of such leaderships. They are affected, if in different ways, by their experience of capitalism and their place in the labour or social movement hierarchy. Secondly, we need to know exactly what the consciousness of workers is. Or perhaps one should say consciousnesses in the plural. And then in two senses, because workers have varied experiences, capacities, hopes and expectations, and because workers come in many different shapes and sizes (in terms of age, occupation, industry, locality, gender, etc). In addition to education and publicity, I think the labour movement has to be culturally active, which means encouraging worker imagination, creativity and self-expression.

KCTU. There are several analyses on the root of labour flexiblisation and the increase of 'a-typical workers'. Have you heard about the Korean case regarding this? Which one is more fundamental reason of the increase of irregular workers in Korea, the government's policy for labour market flexiblisation and the change of company's labour management strategy or more general phenomena which periphery countries like South Korea are facing under the neoliberal globalisation?

PW. I do not know the particular case of Korea, but the tendency beyond the giant integrated plant and office (the Fordist model) appears worldwide and general. It is made possible by computerisation/informatisation, implying new products and processes and extensive consequent possibility for corporate networking and subcontracting. This implies also extensive flexibility and increased rapidity of change. The consequences are dramatic, if not disastrous, for a world trade union movement constructed on the Fordist model.

KCTU. In Korea, irregular workers are basically demanding the transferring into the regular form of employment. However, in my opinion, even the regular form of employment is not the fundamental solution to stop the capitalistic exploitation but also the demand to sell the labour force in a more stable condition. So do you have any more radical and realistic idea on the solution of irrugular workers issue?

PW. I agree with you, which is why I think the ILO/ITUC [International Labour Organisations/International Trade Union Confederation] slogan of ‘Decent Work’ can be simultaneously attractive to workers or the unemployed and pathetic in its limitations. I have proposed as alternative the notion of ‘Useful Work’. I think discussion on the meaning of this could be subversive of liberal assumptions and capitalist practice. In my paper on ‘The Networked Internationalism of Labour’s Others’ http://www.choike.org/ documentos/waterman_others2007.pdf. I have listed various projects around the Global Justice Movement/World Social Forum, that look in this direction, such as the notion of ‘solidarity economics’. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10926.

KCTU. In case of Korea, the criteria of wage increase is the concept of living cost [the cost of living]. The concept of living cost is usually calculated based on the necessities of life. However, this criteria is not effective any more for the high-wage labourers. Furthermore the wage-increase struggles have fundamental limitation to overcome the capitalism. So, in my opinion, more fundamental wage and collective bargaining strategy is needed in linkage with the shortage of working hours. Do you have any advices or good examples regarding this issue?

PW. I agree. So would Andre Gorz, whose slogan is ‘the liberation of life from work’ http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/gorz.html! He argues for a movement beyond work for capital and toward free, creative, social work. A related theory and, indeed, campaign is for a Basic Income Grant (South Africa) http://www.ilo.org/public/english/ protection/ses/info/publ/big.htm. This would not only provide a guaranteed income for everyone but create a minimum level under which wages could not sink. Check out Basic Income Earth Network on the web http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/BIEN/Index.html.
KCTU. I believe that the shortening campaign of working hours [shorter working hours campaign] should be organised on the international level. Do you think what kind of strategy is needed to realise this campaign both on the level of theory and practice?

PW. I agree but also have no idea of what this would imply either theoretically or practically. The significant internationalization of the union movement began in the 1890s with the struggle for the eight-hour day. Many workers in many countries have never achieved this. In France, there has been a reversal of the shorter hours won earlier. No doubt this was done on an argument of competitivity (with other countries working longer hours!). So the case for an international standard and campaign would seem strong. http://www.iww.org/projects/4-Hours.

KCTU. I think that the fundamental task as working class to overcome the capitalism should be incorporated into the current movements not merely considered as a long-term future objective. Do you have any good examples for trade union organisations to organise anti-capitalism or non-capitalism movements?

PW. I agree with you and have tried to include in my Global Labour Charter proposal the notion of emancipatory demands http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/waterman 100707.html. These would be demands subversive of capitalism and opening up toward a post-capitalist society. In other words, they would increase worker freedom and control over their own production, lives, and communities. My feeling is that union organizations have either abandoned the idea of ‘the abolition of wage slavery’ or they hold to a revolutionary rhetoric which is both archaic in nature and postponed to a distant future.

KCTU. It is not easy to say that working class has the same 'single sentiment' or consciousness due to the division of working class in the era of neo-liberal globalisation. KCTU is not the exception. For the past years, high waged workers have been increased and the traditional militant and revolutionary unionism in South Korea has been weakened. But KCTU has still strong tendency and willingness to pursue revolutionary unionism and key subject for the progress of whole society. In this regard, KCTU is very interested in the Social Movement Unionism. Do you think the SMU will be [able] to [produce] an appropriate strategy or project for the future of KCTU movement? and do [you] have any advices or ideas for KCTU to pursue it?

PW. Actually, the working class has been divided and had multiple consciousnesses since it was born! The notion that it was or would be a single force with a united single consciousness was an illusion of 19th and 20th century socialists. Now, in so far as I invented the concept ‘social movement unionism’, around 1985, I have a certain attachment to it! Since then it has taken off dramatically (25,000+ hits on Google!) but also gone in several different directions, some of which are – because of archaic assumptions – either non-starters or dead ends (Kim Moody’s influential formulation assumes the vanguard role of the Fordist proletariat). See on this http://jwsr.ucr.edu/ archive/vol10/number1/pdf/jwsr-v10n1-waterman.pdf . The most serious criticism of the concept is that of Anthony Ince http://uin.org.uk/content/view/244/70/, itself discussed in my ‘Networked Internationalism’ paper (Waterman 2007). I think he has taken the matter much further. I have one or two caveats concerning his argument. I think the concept would benefit from further dialogue globally.

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*Peter Waterman (London 1936) is a specialist on international unionism and the global labour and social movements more generally. After working twice in the international Communist movement in Prague, he became an academic, working in and on West Africa. He worked at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, 1972-98. Through the 1980s he edited and produced the Newsletter of International Labour Studies. Since the early-2000s he has been involved with the World Social Forum and broader global justice and solidarity movement. He has published monographs and compilations in many languages, including Spanish, German, Korean and Japanese. He launched the idea of ‘social movement unionism’ in the later 1980s. In 1986 he proposed the idea of a Global Labour Charter Movement. He is currently writing his ‘autobiography of a long-distance internationalist’.

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References

Waterman, Peter. 2007. ‘The Networked Internationalism of Labour’s Others’, http://www.choike.org/documentos/waterman_others2007.pdf.

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