Labor Unions Without Borders
Will workers of the world (finally) unite? Leaders say yes, but barriers loom
But Elliott believes that moving workers in different countries to collective action will be too hard. "If unions are thinking this is mainly a way of putting pressure on companies with joint strikes and actions, it's not going to work," she says. While Elliott says the collective-bargaining model used by old steel- and autoworkers, who were insulated from international competition, is dead, she does think unions can still benefit from sharing information and improving negotiating strategies.
During the union leaders' visit to China, they held seminars on collective bargaining to help workers learn how to handle private employers. In China, even most Wal-Mart employees are unionized. However, the growing ranks of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions won't give workers great muscle. It is controlled by the Communist Party and used as a political tool.
Decline. Country differences might make it hard to repeat labor's few regional successes. Even in Europe, where trade unions have been an entrenched part of the economic fabric, union membership has declined in all but three of the smallest European Union member states between 1995 and 2004, according to the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
Some labor leaders say unions should refocus efforts inward and use members' dues to train them to keep their skills current as technology changes their industries. Elliott says unions might be more useful if they provided services like childcare and healthcare to workers, rather than pressuring companies to adhere to an international standard for benefits. Such potential changes may seem radical now, but they might eventually happen if efforts to go global don't work.
Indeed, companies are trying to make sure unions' global thrust doesn't succeed. When the UFCW sent Smithfield's European workers a video alleging worker abuse at the Tar Heel plant, that boosted the company's resolve to tell its side of the story, says Dennis Pittman, Smithfield's director of corporate communications. "We don't anticipate it having any effect," he says of the UFCW's moves. Unions "are desperate, and they have got to get membership somewhere."
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