Crisis of Imperialist Globalisation and Trade Union Movement
Economic Crisis
The global economy is in crisis, and facing recession. This round of crisis is wider and deeper than the previous one. The imperialist globalisation has been locked in a crisis. The trend of rate of growth during each expansion has been falling. This, with the increasing volatility, indicates the direction of deep recession of the global economy. The crisis of 2007-09 with the US mortgage bubble burst, that engulfed the global financial system because of the securitisation of subprime assets, has now broadened to include sovereign debt and the real economy in the European zone. The extent of this global debt is best reflected in the staggering increase in global government debt of over $40.1 trillion by 2010. The 2010 recovery was a feeble one which did not enable the expansion of productive forces at the periphery of the imperialist system.
The imperialist globalisation in the present phase is imposed through financialisation and restructuring of production. This became possible with the delinking of the dollar from gold and the breakdown of the Soviet bloc. These developments forced open the economies of developing countries in a major way and weakened the power of national states to impose capital controls. As a result, capital acquired the capacity to both flow to low wage locations as well as to de-value labour. This phase is coming to an end with a crisis of the dollar itself. For the first time since the Second World War, the US Treasury bond has been downgraded from its prime status, thereby undermining the dollar as the world currency.
More importantly though the crisis has engulfed the very centre of the global economy and opened up the irreconcilable contradictions in the capitalist system, the governments are still not willing to confront finance capital. In fact, the response of governments is to acquiesce to the dictates of finance capital. Moreover, the imperialist globalisation has brought the stress on the centre and the periphery in both economic and political terms. Even the crisis of the euro and the EU, is in itself, a reflection of the inability of even the periphery of the European core to be integrated in the EU on equitable terms. The collapse of the credit cycle has impacted even the Chinese economy and growth in China, India and other developing countries has slowed down. This fall in the growth in the developing countries has fore grounded the excess productive capacity that has arisen and cannot be serviced within the capitalist system, and this will open up various forms of protectionist measures as countries respond to the situation, raising the possibility of a trade war. This is what brings the imperialist globalisation led by financialisation of the global economy into a serious crisis open to challenge by various classes, peoples and nations.
The coming time will be a phase of contention and struggle between two broad trends. One, of governments bending to the needs of finance capital, a process that works best within a monetarist ideology. The other, of peoples’ power asserting itself to reverse this financialisation process. This contention will emerge at many levels and will force a reversal of this financialisation process, beginning with the imperialist determined monetary framework.
The labour movement has to pose an alternative to imperialist globalisation both at the international and domestic levels. It has to struggle for a framework of development within which technological upgradation and wage rise are allowed simultaneously through institutional mechanisms. This will require unionisation and collective bargaining processes to be firmly established at both firm and industrial / sectoral level, which can only lead to an equitable sharing of rises in productivity in the real economy and provide grounds for expansion of the economy. In the first instance, clearly fiscal expansion has to become the immediate target point of intervention. But it needs to move beyond that and combine public resources with public debt for industrial development. As such, growth will require building up capacities in the traditional goods sectors. This may not be possible with just the market forces and private sector investment playing a role.
People’s movements can force governments of their individual countries, more so in Asia and other developing regions, to implement national policies to reduce the impact of this imperialist globalisation. However, it may not be sufficient and effective, to reverse the imperialist globalisation without collective action at global level. The peoples’ movements and unions have to coordinate for this convergent action. One such alternative is to campaign and force governments towards a global reserve currency other than the US dollar, for this will allow for a new phase of global restructuring. Despite the difficulty, contentious or protracted nature of this struggle unity has to be forged of trade unions for this policy.
Emerging Political Crisis
The economic crisis is precipitating a political crisis. In a way people are moving away from dominant political parties and the parliamentary system. The political crisis is also manifested with wider layers of society becoming actively involved in anti-government movements. The militant strikes and mass demonstrations in Europe and the Occupy Wall Street campaign in USA are significant manifestations of the breaking down of the capitalist hegemony. Moreover, the peoples and workers upsurge for democracy in the Arab World, the massive demonstrations in Chile, in Tiananmen Square and Dalian in China, and the wide protests in Russia and Latin America, all show the disillusionment about imperialist globalisation and the rising curve of people’s upsurge globally.
In India, the anti-displacement movement of peasants and adivasis, the militant and violent outbursts of workers in industrial areas have been joined by the wide mass movement against corruption in India, which are drawing the middle classes, and now even the traders, into anti-government movements. The emergence of the political crisis is manifested in the loss of credibility of the parliamentary system and representatives of dominant parties in parliament – Congress, BJP, and even the CPM, representing the parliamentary left. Moreover this crisis is spilling into a growing contention between these parties, and even undermining the possibility of a stable two party system. This weakens the possibility of forging a wide consensus on key issues by the ruling classes, and therefore contributing to the emerging political crisis in the country.
This opens up the possibility of widening the base of peoples’ movements to reassert the democratic power of the people at political, social and economic fronts. The task is of identifying the social movements that articulate and represent this social base, building unity of these peoples’ movements and labour movements for political struggle institutionalising the gains of mass movements in local governance structures, and building up a framework and institution for national and sustainable development. It is a step in the direction of a large-scale political mobilisation and nationwide resistance, for forcing a reorganisation of the left forces and creation of an alternative political block against dominant parties.
The political mood in the country is created by many strands of opinion that coalesce around few core ideas. The opposition to bureaucratic capitalism is very wide, cutting across classes, with each having different reasons and interests for their opposition. The present context foregrounds the bureaucratic power, which people experience as issues of corruption and maladministration in public institutions. This struggle against bureaucratic capitalism, though, draws on the anger of people, who experience corruption as a part of our public culture. It always emerges with the dominance of middle class, which retains the liberal framework and desires to sustain the bourgeois hegemony. Instances of corruption that are directly experienced by the working people are the result of the unequal power relations and the illegalities in which they are forced to exist and which make them dependent upon patronage of state, to state officials and politicians who have access to the state. For the working class, corruption deepens their experience of subordination.
The broad front against corruption has an internal contention between liberalism and democratisation. This means that the fight against corruption must include demands for legislation and democratic implementation of a law that allows people who are interested or are entitled to rights and benefits under the law, to become an agency for implementing the law.
The NTUI believes that we need to build the widest unity for broadbased-multiclass movement and draw from this a wider social base for alternative political options. At the core of this broad based movement must be the united working class and trade unions have to evolve flexible tactics to be able to move step by step towards higher forms of action.
Build The Widest Economic Struggle
In a phase where the masses have already moved on economic issues, it is important to widen the arena of economic struggle and scale it up to transform it into a political struggle. Unleashing of wage struggle on a broader scale and building public opinion for higher wage share will sustain the emergence of spontaneous movements of the masses on economic issues. Moreover, this will not allow the mobilisation and spontaneity to slide into parochialism and social prejudice or get dissipated into minor reforms. The NTUI calls for widening the economic struggle by drawing in all sections of the working people to force a shift in the balance of forces. A key task of the NTUI has to be also to translate this active participation of the working people into a union-building process.
The NTUI is opposed to the notion of unrestricted eminent domain of the state and calls for defining public interest and deciding it through a democratic and participatory process. It further demands a policy for democratic industrialisation that gives the gram sabha the concurrent right to decide land use within its domain and ensure free and fully informed prior consent, ensure net benefit to all affected people and a comprehensive rehabilitation programme for displaced people, which allows all affected person access through justiciable process of law.
The various protests and opposition to land acquisition have to be consolidated to become effective and a nationwide force. NTUI calls for all working people dependent on natural resources to unitedly struggle to dismantle the power of eminent domain of the state, demand democratic industrialisation, and build on the common property resources into higher forms of legally recognised cooperative and collective institutions and thereby expand the sector of people’s control in the economy.
The government’s ability to manoeuvre this political crisis is also narrowing. The open opposition by the army and business organisations on policy issues is a sign of the increasing possibility of authoritarian turn of the State. This brings forth the danger of people’s upsurge being channelled into sharpening social prejudice and anti-minorityism as part of fascist ideology. More immediately, the state is taking recourse to increasing coercive methods and acquiring legitimacy for this by building wide consensus on the doctrine of internal security.
NTUI reaffirms its opposition to the doctrine of internal security and has stood for immediate prohibition on the use of defence forces in internal issues without prior parliamentary approval; monitoring and review of all actions of central forces by a parliamentary standing committee; and strict legal accountability for all violations of human rights and fundamental rights by specially constituted Human Rights Courts.
In our struggle for democratisation, one axis has been to defend human rights and the human rights defenders. NTUI will continue the efforts to build a robust and strong co-ordination of mass organisations and human rights organisations to build a strong line of defence of human rights and for human rights defenders. The widespread use of internal security laws and the pretext of extremism are used to curb and destroy union movement and detain union activists. The defense of democracy means the defense of union rights and union leaders in the most difficult and distressed areas of the country. The NTUI has to defend and sustain the frontline of this union movement.
The next phase of our struggle has to be focused on forcing the retreat of military from society and demanding the repeal of all laws that legalise the intrusion of military in society and calls for the widest unity for a decisive struggle to repeal AFSPA.
Building Unity
Our effort at building unity with all trade union federations has opened discussion within the trade union movement but has not acquired critical strength to force a change for unity at the national level beyond joint statements. Though, in some states we have acquired the legitimacy and capacity to shape this unity, we have to draw appropriate lessons from this experience. However, the militant mood of the workers and union members has compelled the central unions to take united actions against the anti-people policies of the government. The march to Parliament on 23 February 2011, and now the all India strike called on 28 February 2012 are steps in this direction. Though, the broader trade union unity has become dependent on the will of the pro-government central trade unions and has not yet moved beyond tokenism. NTUI will unite with this joint agitation and strive for the inclusion of the demands of all sectors of the working class. It will deepen this unity through consistent and militant struggles. In this context our tactics for unity has to be forged from below. It has to be grounded and shaped in industrial areas and towns with working class concentration. Our capacity and strength for intervention at the national level will depend upon our ability to scale up this local unity in a strategic way.
In this context, we have to focus on –
a) Intervention in the emerging mass movement against corruption and inflation in order to bring institutional change which allows for more accountability of state and power to working people to decide issues;
b) Widening the democratisation struggles to force the retreat of military and para military forces from policing functions and repeal of AFSPA and other security laws;
c) Widening the wage battles as key economic struggles, through the fight for universal minimum wage and eliminating the wage gap between regular and contract workers and build on these battles for the democratisation of industrial relations, and strengthening unions’ power to enforce laws and eliminate unfair labour practices.
We call upon the working people and their organisations to grasp the roots of this deep crisis in imperialist globalisation, build upon the people’s upsurge and unite the spontaneous struggles into a progressive and militant movement to defeat the imperialist globalisation.
Proposer: N Vasudevan, All India Blue Star Workers Federation, Maharashtra
Seconder: M Rajan, Kerala State Council
8 January 2012, Kolkata