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Labor and Transnational Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

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Extract

Since World War II national trade union organizations have become involved in the internal political affairs of other countries, usually through the labor organizations in these countries. Soviet trade unions, a precursor and model in this respect, supported Soviet foreign policy through their international trade union contacts. United States unions played an important role in promoting the Marshall Plan, winning trade union support for it in Western Europe, and countering the opposition of communist-oriented trade unions in France and Italy. British and French unions were active in the colonial territories of their countries and often continued their influence after these territories achieved independence. United States unions have been active in Latin America and in the less developed areas of the Caribbean and Africa.

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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1971

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References

1 The foreign activities of United States trade unions in the postwar period have been analyzed by Windmuller, John P., American Labor and the International Labor Movement, 1940 to 1953 (Cornell International Industrial and Labor Relations Reports, No. 2) (Ithaca, N.Y: Institute of International Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1954)Google Scholar. Windmuller, has continued his analyses of subsequent events in a series of articles: “Foreign Affairs and the AFL-CIO,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 04 1956 (Vol. 9, No. 3), pp. 419432CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Labor: A Partner in American Foreign Policy?Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 11 1963 (Vol. 350), pp. 104114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leadership and Administration in the ICFTU: A New Phase of Development,” British Journal of Industrial Relations, 06 1963 (Vol. 1, No. 2), pp. 147169CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Foreign Policy Conflict in American Labor,” Political Science Quarterly, 06 1967 (Vol. 82, No. 2), pp. 205234CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Internationalism in Eclipse: The ICFTU after Two Decades,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 07 1970 (Vol. 23, No. 4), pp. 510527CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The role of United States labor representatives in the administration of the Marshall Plan is critically discussed in Heaps, David, “Union Participation in Foreign Aid Programs,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 10 1955 (Vol. 9, No. 1), pp. 100108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

The foreign policies of British and French trade unions have not received the same degree of scholarly attention. The activities of these unions in colonial territories are touched upon in Fischer, Georges, ”Syndicats et décolonisation,” Présence africaine, 10 196001 1961 (Nos. 34–35), pp. 1760CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roberts, B. C., Labour in the Tropical Territories of the Commonwealth (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1964)Google Scholar; and Meynaud, Jean and Salah-Bey, Anisse, Le Syndicalisme africain: Evolution et perspectives (Etudes et documents Payot) (Paris: Payot, 1963)Google Scholar. The theme of trade union foreign policy is analyzed in a book by Harrod, Jeffrey, Trade Union Foreign Policy: The Case of British and American Unions in Jamaica (London: Macmillan & Co., forthcoming)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Assistance to labor movements in less developed countries is analyzed in Jacobson, Harold Karan, “Ventures in Polity Shaping: External Assistance to Labour Movements in Developing Countries,” in The Politics of International Organizations: Studies in Multilateral Social and Economic Agencies, ed. Cox, Robert W. (Books that Matter) (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), pp. 195205Google Scholar.

2 Statement by Doherty, William Jr, former director of the social projects department of the AIFLD, reported in United States Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Survey of the Alliance for Progress: Labor Policies and Programs, study prepared by Dockery, Robert H. at the request of the Subcommittee on American Republics Affairs, Committee Print (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1968), pp. 1316Google Scholar.

3 The term “new statecraft” is derived from Liska, George, The New Statecraft: Foreign Aid in American Foreign Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960)Google Scholar, and has been taken up as one aspect of transnational relations by the editors of this volume. The potential of a trade union role in United States foreign policy was underscored by Lodge, George C., “Labor's Role in Newly Developing Countries,” Foreign Affairs, 07 1959 (Vol. 37, No. 4), pp. 660671CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The potential role of United States labor in the cold war was indicated in Carlton, Frank T., “Labor Policies for the Struggle with Soviet Communism,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 04 1959 (Vol. 18, No. 3), pp. 277284CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 An account of the Saint Gobain case from the standpoint of the unions is given by Levinson, Charles, secretary-general of the ICF, ICF Bulletin, 0607 1969, pp. 918Google Scholar. The larger issues of transnational bargaining are approached in Günter, Hans, ed., Transnational Industrial Relations (London: Macmillan & Co., forthcoming)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which incorporates the work of a symposium convened by the International Institute for Labor Studies to examine the emergence and future potential of the trade union response to the multinational corporation and the industrial relations consequences of regional economic integration.

5 Carr, Edward Hallett, Nationalism and After (London: Macmillan & Co., 1945)Google Scholar, called this the “nationalization of socialism”; see also Borkenau, Franz, Socialism: National or International (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1942)Google Scholar.

6 The salient exception has been the exclusion of women up to the twentieth century. Nonintegrated low-status social groups, usually ethnic minorities, have become more visible in Western industrial societies in the second half of. the twentieth century.

7 The concept of “internal colonialism” has been developed by Rodolfo Stavenhagen. See his Les Classes sodales dans les sociétés agraires (Sociologie et tiers monde) (Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1969), especially pp. 343fff.Google Scholar; and his essay “Seven Fallacies about Latin America,” in Latin America: Reform or Revolution? A Reader, ed. Petras, James and Zeitlin, Maurice (Political Perspectives Series) (Greenwich, Conn: Fawcett Publications, 1968), pp. 1331Google Scholar.

8 See Windmuller, pp. 117–133.

9 For a discussion of collective labor agreements see Spyropoulos, Georges, Le Droit des conventions collectives de travail dans les pays de la Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier (Travaux et recherches de l' Institut de droit comparé de l'Université de Paris, No. 16) (Paris: Les Editions de l'épargne [under the auspices of the Centre francais de droit comparé with the aid of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique], 1959)Google Scholar, which includes a preface on this theme by Paul Durand. The reasons for the failure of collective bargaining to appear at the community level in the EEC are analyzed by Hans Giinter, “International Collective Bargaining and Regional Integration: Some Reflections on the Experience in the EEC,” in Günter;, and Spyropoulos, Georges, “Le Rôle de la négociation collective dans l'harmonisation des systèmes sociaux européens,” Revue Internationale de droit comparé, 0103 1966 (Vol. 18, No. 1), pp. 1955Google Scholar.

10 See Myers, Charles A., “The American System of Industrial Relations: Is It Exportable?” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association, Pittsburgh, Pa., December 27–28, 1962, ed. Somers, Gerald G., pp. 214Google Scholar.

11 Servan-Schreiber, Jean-Jacques, Le Déft américain (Paris: Denoël, 1967)Google Scholar. The publicity associated with the publication of this book may be used to date the widespread awareness of this particular consequence of West European economic integration.

12 A factual note on developments in this respect is The Trade Union Response to Multinational Enterprise,” Monthly Labor Review, 12 1967 (Vol. 90, No. 12), pp. iiiivGoogle Scholar.

13 On the divisions within the American labor movement on foreign policy issues see Windmuller, , Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2Google Scholar.

14 Partners in Development, Report of the Commission on International Development, Pearson, Lester B., chairman (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), pp. 7677,136ff.Google Scholar

15 See Norman Scott, “Some Possible Implications of East-West Enterprise Agreements,” and Zdaněk Mošna, “Economic Reforms and Labor Relations in the Socialist Countries of Eastern Europe,” in Günter.

16 The Randall commission report, for example, rejected this argument. See the Report of the Commission on Foreign Economic Policy to the President and the Congress, Randall, Clarence B., chairman (Washington: Government Printing Office, 01 1954), p. 62Google Scholar.

17 Jager, Elizabeth, “Multinationalism and Labor: For Whose Benefit?Columbia Journal of World Business, 0102 1970 (Vol. 5, No. 1), pp. 5664Google Scholar. The author is an economist with the AFLCIO, although she includes a disclaimer that her views necessarily represent those of that organization.

18 Unpublished report on a meeting of trade union experts convened by the OECD to discuss multinational corporations, Paris, November 1969.

19 The origins and evolution of this relationship are described and analyzed in Harrod.

20 See Windmuller, pp. 72–76.

21 Vernon, Raymond has referred to the potential conflict between corporation and national policies in ”The Role of U.S. Enterprise Abroad,” Daedalus, Winter 1969 (Vol. 98, No. 1), p. 126Google Scholar. He specifically cites governmental concern with fiscal and monetary effects of corporation policies, but income and investment consequences may be seen as other aspects of the problem.

22 Unpublished report on an OECD meeting of trade union experts.

23 The issue of centralization versus decentralization in regard to industrial relations management in multinational corporations is discussed in Belford, J. A., “Centralized Policy Direction of the Industrial Re lations Function in an International Company,” Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association, Chicago, 111., December 28–29, 1964, ed. Somers, Gerald G., pp. 7484Google Scholar. The essay by Louis T. Wells, Jr., in this volume discusses the broader behavioral implications of centralized and decentralized models of multinational corporation management.

24 Vernon, , Daedalus, Vol. 98, No. 1, p. 115Google Scholar.

25 These factors are analyzed more fully by B. C. Roberts, “Factors Influencing the Organization and Style of Management and Their Effect on the Pattern of Industrial Relations in Multinational Corporations,” in Günter.

26 See, for example, the article by Jack Lee in Günter.

27 Such a symbiotic union-management relationship in bauxite mining for the aluminum industry is analyzed by Jeffrey Harrod, “Multinational Corporation, Trade Unions and Industrial Relations: A Case Study of Jamaica,” in Günter.

28 Apter, David E., The Politics of Modernization(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 24ff.Google Scholar

29 Weiner, Myron, The Politics of Scarcity: Public Pressure and Political Response in India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 88ff.Google Scholar

30 The point is made by Vernon, , Daedalus, Vol. 98 No. 1, p. 121Google Scholar.

31 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Faletto, Enzo, Dependencia y desarrolto. en América Latina: Ensayo de interpretatión sotiológica (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1969), especially p. 143Google Scholar.

32 Multinational Corporations and Labour Relations,” Economic and Social Bulletin, 0304 1969 (Vol. 17, No. 2), pp. 18Google Scholar. A number of statements on the question have been made by the director of the Economic Social and Political Department of the ICFTU, Heribert Maier; see The Times (London), 11 10, 1970, p. 27Google Scholar.

33 This proposal is discussed in Haas, Ernst B., Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1964), chapter 10Google Scholar; see also The ILO and Reconstruction, Report by the Acting Director of the International Labor Office to the conference of the International Labor Organization, New York, 10 1941 (Montreal: International Labor Organization, 1941)> pp. 105108+pp.+105–108>Google Scholar.

34 Mitrany, David, A Wording Peace System: An Argument for the Functional Development of International Organizations(London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1943)Google Scholar.

35 Quoted in Fowler, Henry H., “National Interests and Multinational Business,” California Management Review, Fall 1965 (Vol. 8, No. 1), p. 5Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., p. 3.

37 Ball, George W., “Cosmocorp: The Importance of Being Stateless,” Atlantic Community Quarterly, Summer 1968 (Vol. 6, No. 2), p. 165Google Scholar; see also, by the same author, Multinational Corporations and Nation States,” Atlantic Community Quarterly, Summer 1967 (Vol. 5, No. 2), pp. 247253Google Scholar.

38 Tannenbaum, Frank, “The Survival of the Fittest,” Columbia Journal of World Business, 0304 1968 (Vol. 3, No. 2), pp. 1320Google Scholar.

39 The Giants' Causeway,” The Economist, 12 2, 1969 (Vol. 233, No. 6592), p. 11Google Scholar.

40 Howard Perlmutter, “Toward Research on and Development of Nations, Unions and Firms as Worldwide Institutions,” in Günter.

41 Levinson, Charles, “Towards Industrial Democracy” (Statement delivered to the First International Trade Union Conference on Industrial Democracy, Frankfurt-am-Main, West Germany, 11 28–29, 1968)Google Scholar. This text has been reprinted in the ICF Bulletin, January 1969 (Special Issue).

42 One result of an awareness of this probability has been stronger advocacy of population control policies, for example, by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).