Workers of the world unite4/13/2023 ![]() ![]() Labor has also showed strength by partnering with allies at different points along the globally dispersed production chain. Management had tried to use its transnational status to play workers against each other, but instead it was confronted by a united cross-national organized labor force. In mid-2018, they went on strike-starting in Ireland before spreading across the continent-for pay increases, direct employment, and collective labor agreements that comply with national labor laws. Since 1984 when the company was founded, CEO Michael O’Leary had been a vocal opponent of union organizing, but workers didn’t listen. The workers of Irish budget airline Ryanair understand this well. When corporations expand their operations across national border, unions may gain new leverage points for organizing. Unions have used globalization to their benefit by organizing transnational labor actions, forming new transnational structures, and fostering solidarity with migrant workers at home. Globalized capitalism may have created the basis for a new global working class, not only in material conditions but also in consciousness. That will become even easier over time, as translation software improves. And digital media allows workers to see and hear each other, sharing stories that can foster global solidarity. ![]() At the most basic level, online communication provides tools to organize across countries-imagine trying to organize a transnational strike a century ago. But globalization may have opened as many doors as it has closed. Labor faces these and myriad other obstacles in our rapidly changing, interconnected world. Corporations can then stoke divisions across racial, ethnic, and linguistic lines to undermine the solidarity necessary to organize. Increased migration can bring new workers into a settled labor force, sometimes cutting wages and changing working conditions. Multinational corporations can threaten to close plants when workers request better wages, and executives can even pit their own workers against each other, going back and forth between plants to get local managers and workers to underbid each other in a race to the bottom. Increased mobility of capital has led to a sharp increase in relocation, outsourcing, and offshoring. Neoliberal globalization presents many challenges to labor organizing. Author, professor, Dublin City University
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