From: GERALD LEVY (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Tue May 06 2008 - 08:15:56 EDT
That seemed plausible until the breakup of the Commintern. Comminform was much more limited, and since then the European bourgeoisie have made more progress at union than the workers of Europe. We do not even have a single European workers party to contest the EU elections. Hi Paul C (and Dogan and Jurriaan): The picture I would paint is somewhat different. The long-term trend *for capital* has been increasing concentration and centralization and this led not only to oligopolistic markets but also the formation of *transnational corporations*. So, in *that* sense, capital has been confronting labor more in a united way. But, we have not seen the same 'concentration and centralization' of workers and unions internationally to confront capitalists in an effective way. Not only haven't mass *international* working parties been formed to further the agenda of labor in the political process, but examples of *transnational bargaining* by trade unions have been few and far between. In "transnational bargaining" all of the unions *internationally* representing workers employed by a single firm enter into joint and coordinated negotiations. This has been attempted (going back at least as far as the early 1980's when auto unions which were members of the International Metalworkers Federation - the *other* IMF! - entered into coordinated bargaining with GM and Ford, for example), but has not generally been very successful - for a variety of reasons which basically reflect the divisions among workers internationally (e.g. different cultures, different conceptions of the role of trade unions and 'labor relations', different contracts and laws, and different histories of class struggle). So - on balance - I would have to say that capital confronts labor in a far more united way internationally than is the case the other way around. In solidarity, Jerry _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
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