COSATU’s Dispute with the World Social Forum: A 20th or 21st Century Labour Internationalism?

[Draft submitted for consideration of the South African Labour Bulletin.

Translation permitted. Print publication in English embargoed until further notice. PW]

Peter Waterman

p.waterman@inter.nl.net

http://blog.choike.org/eng/tag/peter-waterman

Introduction

March 2009, the South African trade union confederation, Cosatu, itself long active within - and even on the International Council of - the World Social Forum, publicly announced that it was boycotting the WSF IC due to take place in Morocco in May. This was in solidarity with the Western Sahara, which Morocco has long occupied and brutally oppresses, an occupation condemned by many African states and by much democratic opinion worldwide. The Saharawi union organisation endorsed this boycott, as did other Saharawi organisations, the Hungarian Social Forum and a Spain-based solidarity committee.

But the WSF IC meeting nonetheless took place, attended by various unions, socialist, radical-democratic and internationalist social movements of the Maghreb (North-West Africa) and the Mashraq (East-Mediterranean Arab countries). The meeting also marked a significant growth of international solidarity movements within and between these world areas as well as between them and Asia, Latin America and the Global North.

The Rabat IC meeting was attended by national and international unions with which Cosatu is allied. These included the Brazilian CUT and the South Korean KCTU – unions with which Cosatu has been closely identified. And it was also attended by the International Trade Union Confederation, of which Cosatu is a prominent member! The meeting decided, finally, on Dakar, Senegal, as the site for the WSF in 2011. Cosatu could have certainly made its concerns over the Western Sahara clear in Rabat and have discussed them with labour and other social movements close to the Saharawis.

It seems to me that a number of issues arise from this conflict. I pose them here in the hope of a response from Cosatu and/or supporters of its boycott. And I am also hoping for a wider labour and social movement dialogue on what is admittedly a complex matter. This might help the international labour movement move from a 20^th century union internationalism to a 21^st century one (for which see Point 6 below).

1. Was the WSF unprincipled in holding this IC meeting in Morocco?

It is easy to point out contradictions in the WSF IC’s attitude towards, say, Palestinians on the one hand and Saharawis on the other. I have often myself pointed out various other contradictions within the WSF and its IC. (One criticism is its claim or aspiration to represent civil society as a whole whilst being in practice attended, up to 80 percent, by the university-educated, dominated by NGOs and financially dependent on Northern-based, state-funded ‘development’ agencies. The WSF community finds such criticisms normal). However, the Rabat meeting apparently both responded to and further stimulated the growth and coordination of civil society within the Maghreb and Mashraq. In any case, the WSF is not so much an organisation (centralised and issuing policy statements) as a space for the development of alternatives to neo-liberal capitalism, within which such major issues as solidarity with the Saharawis can and should take place.

2. If Cosatu boycotts the WSF IC, why does it not boycott the ITUC…and the US Solidarity Centre?

Cosatu is on the General Council of the International Trade Union Confederation, together with the Histadrut, the Zionist organisation for Israeli workers. Indeed, Histadrut even has a Vice-Presidential position within the ITUC. The ITUC is a Eurocentred union international that in many ways continues the Cold War and Eurocentric policies of its predecessor, the ICFTU. Why has Cosatu, which has endorsed an international boycott against apartheid Israel, neither publicly condemned nor boycotted an ITUC meeting over this, or any other issue? Why has it never – at least publicly - raised the Palestinian issue within the ITUC?

Cosatu receives aid from the American AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Centre, a body that is not only 90 percent dependent on US state funding but that has also been implicated in a coup attempt against democratically-elected and socialist President Chavez of Venezuela. Writing in the South African Labour Bulletin, December-January 2007, Kim Scipes implied Cosatu should rather be cooperating with anti-imperialist labour solidarity activists in the USA than the deeply-compromised and secretive Solidarity Centre. What principle does Cosatu apply to aid from unions funded by or collaborating with imperialist states – particularly the US godfather of all of them?

3. Which states qualify to host international solidarity meetings?

The WSF has held forums and IC meetings in numerous dubiously-democratic states, some of them no doubt guilty of major human-rights abuses or responsible for (sub-) imperial activities. One thinks of the USA, Kenya, India, Pakistan and even Brazil, (where rural and indigenous activists are subject to often brutal repression). Decisions concerning where the WSF itself and its IC meet are, however, subject to often-lengthy and open discussion. The implicit guiding principle seems, however, to be whether a particular event can be supported by and will further stimulate the development of civil society and global solidarity, locally, regionally and internationally. Has Cosatu ever publicly boycotted any previous WSF IC meeting? Or, for that matter, any meeting of the ITUC in some labour-repressive or (sub-)imperial state?

4. Why did most other unions not follow the Cosatu boycott?

Bearing in mind that previous solidarity activities of the Cosatu have been endorsed by unions internationally - and that some Cosatu campaigns have inspired union solidarity campaigns elsewhere – the Cosatu boycott of the WSF IC Rabat meeting was a failure. It seems that national and international unions, right, centre or left, 1) expressed their understanding of the issue raised by Cosatu but 2) considered that such could and should have been raised within the WSF IC itself. To me, these unions seem to have been giving priority to the development of civil society with and within the hosting region. How is Cosatu evaluating the outcome of its boycott action?

5. Are union-sponsored international bans or boycotts always justified?

In the 1970s the ANC-identified South African Congress of Trade Unions (then in exile) tried to block direct foreign union contacts with the new union movement in South Africa. Although SACTU did sterling work in propagating union solidarity with South Africa abroad, its attempt to isolate the new unionism failed. I was only one of thousands of foreign union and labour activists who established direct solidarity relations (in my case with the Institute for Industrial Education, Durban, and then with SALB). SACTU failed because it was out of touch with union developments within South Africa. On the other hand, I welcome the Cosatu’s BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel. However, Cosatu’s international, the ITUC, does not! It would seem that a boycott strategy is sometimes justified, sometimes not; that it is sometimes effective, sometimes not. I would consider boycott action particularly problematic when employed, in practice, against an ally – as with the Cosatu boycott of the WSF-IC in Rabat. What can have possibly motivated Cosatu to take such action against this significant global social movement? Did it consult with its foreign and international union friends before doing so?

6. What are (could or should be) the differences between the old labour internationalism and the new?

I distinguish between the ‘traditional union internationalism’ of the 20^th century and a ‘new global labour solidarity’ fit for the 21^st. I am not opposing the second to the first, since there are significant overlaps, but I do think that, under a globalised and computerised global capitalism, the first has to be surpassed by the second.

The Old Union Internationalism. This was, in the 20^th century, heavily marked by the following negative features:

1. Labour internationalism was largely reduced, in thought and action, to union internationalism,

2. Internationalism was itself largely reduced to inter-nationalism, with participant unions prioritising ‘their’ nation, region or bloc over others,

3. Rich and powerful Northern unions dominated or patronised poorer, weaker Southern ones,

4. Union internationalism was often reduced to relations between union leaders or leaderships, each claiming to speak for its members - or even all workers in their countries, their regions or the world!

5. Union members were systematically excluded from, uninformed about, disinterested in, or inactive on international issues,

6. Ideological rhetoric had a high profile (in favour of ‘proletarian internationalism’, ‘free trade unionism’ or ‘development cooperation’), with this untranslated into effective worker-to-worker solidarity relations,

7. There was a high political, financial and moral dependency on partnership with national or international capital and/or state and/or political parties,

8. There was much destructive polemic, presenting one’s own side as virtuous, others as vicious (as with the 20^th century competition between Social-Democratic and Communist internationals).

The New Global Labour Solidarity. This is my proposed model, and others are free to propose their own, but I think elements of the model are increasingly appearing internationally:

1. Union internationalism should be understood as only one amongst many labour internationalisms and one amongst many other social-movement internationalisms (as expressed in the global justice and solidarity movement and the WSF),

2. Recognising that under globalization workers are – simultaneously - local, national, regional and global beings, that they have common interests autonomous of capital, state and inter-state organisations,

3. That solidarity must be multi-directional: South-to-North, East-to-West, South-to-South, etc,

4. That informality, flexibility, openness, dialogue and mutual learning must surpass bureaucratic, diplomatic and patron-client relations,

5. There must be worker ownership of international solidarity activity, allowing for direct horizontal networking between all kinds of worker and pro-worker movements (whether unionised minority or un-unionised majority),

6. Worker to worker solidarity activity, with campaigns later subject to public reflection and evaluation,

7. Autonomy from capital, state, political parties, with labour thus contributing to a radically-democratic global civil society.

8. Dialogue must mean recognising others as equal contributors to a new kind of internationalism, these others including women’s, ecological, non-fundamentalist religious, indigenous and precarious workers, rural, urban and other movements.

Conclusion

I do not wish to set up Cosatu as representing the Old Union Internationalism – especially given both its birth in the anti-apartheid struggle and its internationally-admired solidarity with, for example, Zimbabwe and Palestine. No more do I want to present the World Social Forum or the general global justice and solidarity movement (or alternative labour networks within these) as ideal representatives of the New Global Solidarity. It is, however, only in an intimate, open and friendly relationship between unions and the new global solidarity movements that such a principled and effective international solidarity model could be developed.

Finally, I get the impression that Cosatu is giving its international solidarity activities more attention than previously. And that it is organising national and international events on international solidarity issues. Given its history, plus its international reputation for mass solidarity activities, Cosatu could play a major national and international role in discussing and developing a new kind of international labour solidarity, free of the shackles of the past.

Peter Waterman (London 1936) worked for the Communist World Federation of Trade Unions in the late-1960s, later specialising on African unions, then on labour and other internationalisms within the Hague-based Institute of Social Studies (1972-98). He edited the Newsletter of International Labour Studies (1980-90). Since retirement he has worked extensively on the relationship between the labour movement and the WSF. For his recent work, see http://blog.choike.org/eng/tag/peter-waterman or http://www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/waterman.