Books: The Labor Divide
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While most immigrants until the 1980's were poor,
uneducated, and unskilled - the current lot is middle-
class, reasonably affluent, well educated, and highly
skilled. This phenomenon - the exodus of elites from all
the developing and less developed countries - is called
"brain drain", or "brain hemorrhage" by its detractors (and
"brain exchange" or "brain mobility" by its proponents).
These metaphors conjure up images of the inevitable
outcomes of some mysterious processes, the market's
invisible hand plucking the choicest and teleporting them
to more abundant grounds.
Yet, this is far from being true. The developed countries,
once a source of such emigration themselves (more than
100,000 European scientists left for the USA in the wake of
the Second World War) - actively seek to become its
destination by selectively attracting only the skilled and
educated citizens of developing countries. They offer them
higher salaries, a legal status (however contingent), and
tempting attendant perks. The countries of origin cannot
compete, able to offer only $50 a month salaries, crumbling
universities, shortages of books and lab equipment, and an
intellectual wasteland.
The European Commission had this to say last month:
"The Commission proposes, therefore, that the Union
recognize the realities of the situation of today: that on
the one hand migratory pressures will continue and that on
the other hand in a context of economic growth and a
declining and aging population, Europe needs immigrants. In
this context our objective is not the quantitative increase
in migratory flows but better management in qualitative
terms so as to realize more fully the potential of
immigrants' admitted."
And the EU's Social and Employment Commission added, as it
forecast a deficit of 1.7 million workers in Information
and Communications Technologies throughout the Union:
"A declining EU workforce due to demographic changes
suggests that immigration of third country nationals would
also help satisfy some of the skill needs [in the EU].
Reforms of tax benefit systems may be necessary to help
people make up their minds to move to a location where they
can get a job...while ensuring that the social objectives
of welfare systems are not undermined."
In Hong Kong, the "Admission of Talents Scheme" (1999) and
"The Admission of Mainland Professionals Scheme" (May 2001)
allow mainlanders to enter it for 12 month periods, if
they:
"Possess outstanding qualifications, expertise or skills
which are needed but not readily available in Hong Kong.
They must have good academic qualifications, normally a
doctorate degree in the relevant field."
According the January 2002 issue of "Migration News", even
now, with unemployment running at almost 6%, the US H1-B
visa program allows 195,000 foreigners with academic
degrees to enter the US for up to 6 years and "upgrade" to
immigrant status while in residence. Many H1-B visas were
cancelled due to the latest economic slowdown - but the US
provides other kinds of visas (E type) to people who invest
in its territory by, for instance, opening a consultancy.
The UK has just implemented the Highly Skilled Migrant
Programme which allows "highly mobile people with the
special talents that are required in a modern economy" to
enter the UK for a period of one year (with indefinite
renewal). Even xenophobic Japan allowed in 222,000
qualified foreigners last year (double the figure in 1994).
Germany has absorbed 10,000 computer programmers (mainly
from India and Eastern Europe) since July 2000. Ireland was
planning to import twenty times as many over 7 years -
before the dotcoms bombed. According to "The Economist",
more than 10,000 teachers have left Ecuador since 1998.
More than half of all Ghanaian medical doctors have
emigrated (120 in 1998 alone). More than 60% of all
Ethiopian students abroad never return. There are 64,000
university educated Nigerians in the USA alone. More than
43% of all Africans living in North America have acquired
at least a bachelor's degree.
Barry Chiswick and Timothy Hatton demonstrated
("International Migration and the Integration of Labour
Markets", published by the NBER in its "Globalisation in
Historical Perspective") that, as the economies of poor
countries improve, emigration increases because people
become sufficiently wealthy to finance the trip.
Poorer countries invest an average of $50,000 of their
painfully scarce resources in every university graduate -
only to witness most of them emigrate to richer places. The
haves-not thus end up subsidizing the haves by exporting
their human capital, the prospective members of their
dwindling elites, and the taxes they would have paid had
they stayed put. The formation of a middle class is often
irreversibly hindered by an all-pervasive brain drain.
Politicians in some countries decry this trend and deride
those emigrating. In a famous interview on state TV, the
late prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, described
them as "a fallout of the jaded". But in many impoverished
countries, local kleptocracies welcome the brain drain as
it also drains the country of potential political
adversaries.
Emigration also tends to decrease competitiveness. It
increase salaries at home by reducing supply in the labour
market (and reduces salaries at the receiving end,
especially for unskilled workers). Illegal migration has an
even stronger downward effect on wages in the recipient
country - illegal aliens tend to earn less than their legal
compatriots. The countries of origin, whose intellectual
elites are depleted by the brain drain, are often forced to
resort to hiring (expensive) foreigners. African countries
spend more than $4 billion annually on foreign experts,
managers, scientists, programmers, and teachers.
Still, remittances by immigrants to their relatives back
home constitute up to 10% of the GDP of certain countries -
and up to 40% of national foreign exchange revenues. The
World Bank estimates that Latin American and Caribbean
nationals received $15 billion in remittances in 2000 - ten
times the 1980 figure. This may well be a gross
underestimate. Mexicans alone remitted $6.7 billion in the
first 9 months of 2001 (though job losses and reduced hours
may have since adversely affected remittances). The IADB
thinks that remittances will total $300 billion in the next
decade (Latin American immigrants send home c. 15% of their
wages).
Official remittances (many go through unmonitored money
transfer channels, such as the Asian Hawala network) are
larger than all foreign aid combined. "The Economist"
calculates that workers' remittances in Latin America and
the Caribbean are three times as large as aggregate foreign
aid and larger than export proceeds. Yet, this pecuniary
flood is mostly used to finance the consumption of basics:
staple foods, shelter, maintenance, clothing. It is non-
productive capital.
Only a tiny part of the money ends up as investment.
Countries - from Mexico to Israel, and from Macedonia to
Guatemala - are trying to tap into the considerable wealth
of their diasporas by issuing remittance-bonds, by offering
tax holidays, one-stop-shop facilities, business
incubators, and direct access to decision makers - as well
as matching investment funds.
Migrant associations are sprouting all over the Western
world, often at the behest of municipal authorities back
home. The UNDP, the International Organization of Migration
(IOM), as well as many governments (e.g., Israel, China,
Venezuela, Uruguay, Ethiopia), encourage expatriates to
share their skills with their counterparts in their country
of origin. The thriving hi-tech industries in Israel,
India, Ireland, Taiwan, and South Korea were founded by
returning migrants who brought with them not only capital
to invest and contacts - but also entrepreneurial skills
and cutting edge technologies.
Thailand established in 1997, within the National Science
and Technology Development Agency, a 2.2 billion baht
project called "Reverse the Brain Drain". Its aim is to
"use the 'brain' and 'connections' of Thai professionals
living overseas to help in the Development of Thailand,
particularly in science and technology."
The OECD ("International Mobility of the Highly Skilled")
believes that:
"More and more highly skilled workers are moving abroad for
jobs, encouraging innovation to circulate and helping to
boost economic growth around the globe."
But it admits that a "greater co-operation between sending
and receiving countries is needed to ensure a fair
distribution of benefits".
The OECD noted, in its "Annual Trends in International
Migration, 2001" that (to quote its press release):
"Migration involving qualified and highly qualified workers
rose sharply between 1999 and 2000, helped by better
employment prospects and the easing of entry conditions.
Instead of granting initial temporary work permits only for
one year, as in the past, some OECD countries, particularly
in Europe, have been issuing them for up to five years and
generally making them renewable. Countries such as
Australia and Canada, where migration policies were mainly
aimed at permanent settlers, are also now favoring
temporary work permits valid for between three and six
years ... In addition to a general increase in economic
prosperity, one of the main factors behind the recent
increase in worker migration has been the development of
information technology, a sector where in 2000 there was a
shortage of around 850,000 technicians in the US and nearly
2 million in Europe ..."
But the OECD underplays the importance of brain drain:
"Fears of a "brain drain" from developing to
technologically advanced countries may be exaggerated,
given that many professionals do eventually return to their
country of origin. To avoid the loss of highly qualified
workers, however, developing countries need to build their
own innovation and research facilities ... China, for
example, has recently launched a program aimed at
developing 100 selected universities into world-class
research centers. Another way to ensure return ... could be
to encourage students to study abroad while making study
grants conditional on the student's return home."
The key to a pacific and prosperous future lies in a
multilateral agreement between brain-exporting, brain-
importing, and transit countries. Such an agreement should
facilitate the sharing of the benefits accruing from
migration and "brain exchange" among host countries,
countries of origin, and transit countries. In the absence
of such a legal instrument, resentment among poorer nations
is likely to grow even as the mushrooming needs of richer
nations lead them to snatch more and more brains from their
already woefully depleted sources.
The Labour Divide
III. Entrepreneurship and Workaholism
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
The Dutch proudly point to their current rate of
unemployment at less than 2%. Labour force participation is
at a historically high 74% (although in potential man-hour
terms it stands at 62%). France is as hubristic with its
labour policies - the 35 hours week and the earlier
reduction in employers' participation in social
contributions. Employment is sharply up in a host of
countries with liberalized labour markets - Britain, Spain,
Ireland, Finland. The ECB brags that employment in the euro
zone has been rising faster than in the USA since 1997.
This is a bit misleading. Euro zone unemployment is far
higher and labour force participation far lower than
America's. The young are especially disadvantaged. Only
Britain is up to American standards. The European labour
market is highly inefficient in matching demand and supply.
Labour mobility among regions and countries is glacial and
generous unemployment benefits are a disincentive to find a
job.
Reforms are creeping into the legislative agendas of
countries as diverse as Italy and Germany. Labour laws are
re-written to simplify hiring and firing practices and to
expand the role of private employment agencies. But
militant unions - such as Germany's IG Metal - threaten to
undo all the recent gains in productivity and wage
restraint.
The European Commission - a bastion of "social Europe" -
has just equalized the rights and benefits of temporary
workers (with more than 6 weeks of tenure) and full-time
ones. Yet another reformist adviser to the Italian Minister
of Labour was assassinated. This was followed by a million-
workers strong demonstration in Rome's Circo Massimo
against minor reforms in firing practices.
But the most successful and efficient labour market in the
world, in the States, is associated with a different ethos
and an idiosyncratic sociology of work. The frame of mind
of the American employee and his employer is fundamentally
at odds with European mentality. In Europe, one is entitled
to be employed, it is a basic human right and a public
good. Employers - firms and businessmen - are parties to a
social treaty within a community of stakeholders with
equipotent rights. Decisions are reached by consensus and
consultation. Peer pressure and social oversight are
strong.
Contrast this with the two engines of American economic
growth: entrepreneurship and workaholism.
The USA, according to the "Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor", is behind South Korea and Brazil in
entrepreneurial activity prevalence index. But 7 percent of
its population invested an average of $4000 per person in
start-ups in 2000.
A 10-country study conducted in 1997-9 by Babson College,
the London School of Business, and the Kauffman Center for
Entrepreneurial Leadership found gaping disparities between
countries. More than 8 percent of all Americans started a
new business - compared to less than 1.5 percent in
Finland. Entrepreneurship accounted for one third of the
difference in economic growth rates among the surveyed
countries.
Entrepreneurship is a national state of mind, a vestige of
the dominant culture, an ethos. While in Europe bankruptcy
is a suicide-inducing disgrace bordering on the criminal -
in the USA it is an integral and important part of the
learning curve. In the USA, entrepreneurs are social role
models, widely admired and imitated. In Europe they are
regarded with suspicion as receptacles of avarice and non-
conformity. It is common in the States to choose
entrepreneurship as a long-term career path. In Europe it
is considered professional suicide.
In the USA, entrepreneurs are supported by an evolved
network of financial institutions and venues: venture
capital (VC), Initial Public Offerings (IPO's) in a
multitude of stock exchanges, angel investors, incubators,
technological parks, favourable taxation of stock options,
and so on. Venture capitalists invested $18 billion in
start-ups in 1998, $48 in 1999, almost $100 billion in
2000.
The dot.com crash deflated this tsunami - but only
temporarily. US venture capitalists still invest four times
the average of their brethren elsewhere - c. 0.5 percent of
GDP. This translates to an average investment per start up
ten times larger than the average investment outside
America.
American investors also power the VC industry in the UK,
Israel, and Japan. A Deloitte Touche survey conducted last
month (and reported in the Financial Times) shows that a
whopping 89 percent of all venture capitalists predict an
increase in the value of their investments and in their
exit valuations in the next 6 months.
Entrepreneurs in the USA still face many obstacles - from
insufficient infrastructure to severe shortages in skilled
manpower. The July 2001 report of the National Commission
on Entrepreneurship (NCOE) said that less than 5 percent of
American firms that existed in 1991 grew their employment
by 15 percent annually since, or doubled their employment
in the feverish markets of 1992-7. But the report found
high growth companies virtually everywhere - and most of
them were not "hi-tech" either. Start-ups capitalized on
the economic strengths of each of the 394 regions of the
USA.
As opposed to the stodgy countries of the EU, many post-
communist countries in transition (e.g., Russia, Estonia)
have chosen to emulate the American model of job creation
and economic growth through the formation of new
businesses. International financial institutions - such as
the EBRD and the World Bank - provided credit lines
dedicated to small and medium enterprises in these
countries. As opposed to the USA, entrepreneurship has
spread among all segments of the population in Central and
Eastern Europe.
In a paper, prepared for USAID by the IRIS Centre in the
University of Maryland, the authors note the surprising
participation of women - they own more than 40% of all
businesses established between 1990-7 in Hungary and 38% of
all businesses in Poland.
Virtually all governments, east and west, support their
"small business" or "small and medium enterprises" sector.
The USA's Small Business Administration had its loan
guarantee authority cut by half - yet to a still enviable
$5 billion in FY 2003. But other departments have picked up
the slack.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) beefed up its Rural
Business-Cooperative Service. The Economic Development
Administration (EDA) supports "economically-distressed
areas, regions, and communities". The International Trade
Administration (ITA) helps exporters - as do OPIC (Overseas
Private Investment Corporation), the US Commercial Service,
the Department of Commerce (mainly through its Technology
Administration), the Minority Business Development Agency,
the US Department of Treasury, and a myriad other
organizations - governmental, non-governmental, and private
sector.
Another key player is academe. New proposed bipartisan
legislation will earmark $20 million to encourage
universities to set up business incubators. Research
institutes all over the world - from Israel to the UK -
work closely with start-ups and entrepreneurs to develop
new products and license them. They often spawn joint
ventures with commercial enterprises or spin-off their own
firms to exploit technologies developed by their
scientists.
MIT's Technology Licensing Office processes two inventions
a day and files 3-5 patent applications a week. Since 1988,
it started 100 new companies. It works closely with the
Cambridge Entrepreneurship Center (UK), the Asian
Entrepreneurship Development Center (Taiwan), the Turkish
Venture Capital Association, and other institutions in
Japan, Israel, Canada, and Latin America.
This is part of a much larger wave of in-house corporate
innovation dubbed "intrapreneurship". The most famous
example is "Post-It" which was developed, in-house, by a 3M
employee and funded by the company. But all major and
medium American firms encourage institutionalized
intrapreneurship.
Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship are often associated
with another American phenomenon - the workaholic. Bryan
Robinson in his 1998 tome, "Chained to the Desk",
identifies four types of workaholism (or "work addiction"):
1. The Bulimic Workaholic Style - "Either I do it perfectly
or not at all"
2. The Relentless Workaholic Style - "It has to be finished
yesterday"
3. Attention-Deficit Workaholic Style - adrenaline junkies
who use work as a focusing device
4. Savouring Workaholic Style - slow, methodical, and
overly scrupulous workers
Workaholism is confused by most Americans with "hard work",
a pillar of the Protestant work ethic, by now an American
ethos. Employers demand long work hours from their
employees. Dedication to one's work results in higher
financial rewards and faster promotion. Technology fosters
a "work everywhere, work anytime" environment.
Even before the introduction of the 35 hours week in
France, Americans worked 5 weekly hours more than the
French, according to a 1998 study by the Families and Work
Institute. Americans also out-worked the industrious
Germans by 4 hours and the British by 1 hour. The average
American work week has increased by 10% (to 44 weekly
hours) between 1977-98.
One third of all American bring work home, yet another
increase of 10% over the same period. According to the
Economic Policy Institute, Germans (and Italians) took 42
days of vacation a year in 1998 - compared to 19 days taken
by Americans. This figure may have since deteriorated to 13
annual vacation days. Even the Japanese take 25 days a
year.
In a survey conducted by Oxford Health Plans, 34 percent of
all respondents described their jobs as "pressing and with
no downtime". Thirty two percent never left the building
during the working day and had lunch at their desk.
Management promotes only people who work late, believed a
full one seventh.
Most Europeans - with the notable exception of the British
- regard their leisure and vacation times as well as time
dedicated to family and friends as important components in
a balanced life - no less important than the time they
spend at work. They keep these realms strictly demarcated.
Work addiction is gradually encroaching on the European
work scene as well. But many Europeans still find American
- and, increasingly British - obsession with work to be a
distasteful part of the much derided "Anglo-Saxon" model of
capitalism. They point at the severe health problems
suffered by workaholics - three times as many heart
failures as their non-addicted peers.
More than 10,000 workers died in 1997 in Japan from work-
stress related problems ("Karoshi") . The Japanese are even
more workaholic than the Americans - a relatively new
phenomenon there, according to Testsuro Kato, a professor
of political science in Hitotsubashi University.
But what is the impact of all this on employment and the
shape of labour?
The NCOE identifies five common myths pertaining to
entrepreneurial growth companies:
1. The risk taking myth - "Most successful entrepreneurs
take wild, uncalculated risks in starting their companies".
2. The hi-tech invention myth - "Most successful
entrepreneurs start their companies with a breakthrough
invention - usually technological in nature".
3. The expert myth - "Most successful entrepreneurs have
strong track records and years of experience in their
industries".
4. The strategic vision myth - "Most successful
entrepreneurs have a well-considered business plan and have
researched and developed their ideas before taking action".
5. The venture capital myth - "Most successful
entrepreneurs start their companies with millions in
venture capital to develop their idea, buy supplies, and
hire employees".
Entrepreneurship overlaps with two other workplace
revolutions: self-employment and flexitime. The number of
new businesses started each year in the USA tripled from
the 1960's to almost 800,000 in the 1990's. Taking into
account home-based and part-time ventures - the number
soars to an incredible 5 million new businesses a year.
Most entrepreneurs are self-employed and work flexible
hours from home on ever-changing assignments. This
kaleidoscopic pattern has already "infected" Europe and is
spreading to Asia.
Small businesses absorbed many of the workers made
redundant in the corporate downsizing fad of the 1980's.
They are the backbone of the services and knowledge
economy. Traditional corporations often outsource many of
their hitherto in-house functions to such nascent, mom-and-
pop, companies (the "virtual corporation"). Small and
medium businesses network extensively, thus reducing their
overhead and increasing their flexibility and mobility. The
future belongs to these proliferating small businesses and
to those ever-fewer giant multinationals which will master
the art of harnessing them.
The Labour Divide
IV. The Unions after Communism
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
Self Defense started as a Polish farmers' trade union a
decade ago. It leveraged its populist and activist message
to capture 20 percent of the electorate, at least in recent
opinion polls. Last week it failed to bring Poland to a
halt in protest against liberals in the central bank and
iniquitous bureaucrats in Brussels. In the last elections
it won 10 percent of the votes and 53 seats.
When the Belarusian Federation of Trade Unions convoked a
rally against the government's bungled economic policies at
the end of March, less than 1000 people turned up.
Restrictions imposed by the often violent authorities
coupled with sabotage by pro-government unions assured the
dismal flop.
Public sector trade unions in Macedonia have been more
successful in extracting concessions from the government in
an election year, though not before they embarked on a
nation-wide strike timed to coincide with an ill-fated
visit of the IMF mission. Despite strident warnings from
the itinerant delegates, the minimum wage was raised
heftily as were salaries in the public sector. The unions
are about to strike again in an effort to extend the
settlement to other state functionaries.
Romanian union members took the streets on May 30
threatening to emulate Argentina's mass protests and
shouting ominous anti-government and anti-IMF slogans. The
government buckled under and agreed to raise the minimum
wage by 70 percent within 12 months - as an opening gambit
in the forthcoming round of bargaining. Industrial action
in Romania in the past often ended in bloodshed and its
governments are mindful of it. An agreement was signed with
the prime minister on June 11.
On June 20, Spain's trade unions went on a general strike,
contesting the prime minister's advanced plans to reform
both hiring and firing laws and unemployment benefits. With
both job protection and social safety nets threatened, the
unions' success was less than striking. Only socialist
dominated regions and cities responded and demonstrations
flared up in only a couple of places.
The murder of a - second - government advisor on labor
legislation in March has stiffened the Italian authorities'
resolve to amend, however marginally, provisions pertaining
to the reinstatement of "unfairly sacked" employees. Two
small trade unions - CISL and UIL - have signed an
agreement with the government last week, ditching a common
front with CGIL, by far the largest syndicate with 5.4
million members. CGIL called for regional strikes through
July 11, followed by a general strike in September and
October. It will also challenge the amendments to the law
in the Constitutional Court.
Solidarity recently called upon the Polish administration
to withdraw its amendments to the labor code and to allow
it to negotiate with employers the voluntary expunging of
anti-labor clauses. In what they called a "historic
manifestation", Solidarity teamed up with erstwhile rival
left-wing union to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of
Labor. About 400 people showed up.
The one country bucking the trend may be Tony Blair's
United Kingdom. It has adopted a minimum wage and forces
employers to bargain collectively with unions if most of
their employees want them to. The number of such
"recognition" agreements, according to "The Economist",
tripled between 2000 and 2001, to 470. Union membership in
the service sector and among women is rising.
Working days lost to strikes in Britain doubled from 1997,
to almost 500,000 last year and the year before. Although a
far cry from the likes of Ireland, Spain, France, and Italy
- it is a worrisome trend. Interesting to note that many of
the strikes are the result of performance-related wage gaps
opening up among workers following botched privatizations
(e.g., the railways, the post office). Bellicose, fogeyish,
trade unions leverage the discontent bred by mismanagement
to their advantage.
Failure to mobilize workers, half-hearted activism,
acquiescence with policies implemented by right-wing
governments, transformation into political parties, growing
populism and anti-Europeanism - these are the hallmarks of
these social movements in search of a cause.
As more and more workers join the ranks of the middle
class, own shares, participate in management through
stakeholder councils, go entrepreneurial or self-employed,
join the mostly non-unionized service sector, compete with
non-unionized and thus more competitive workers in their
own country or globally, become temporary and contract
workers, or lose their jobs - union membership plummets.
The ignominious implosion of Communism and socialism
throughout Europe tainted the trade union movement, often
linked to both. Membership was halved in Britain in the lat
two decades. Union membership among the young in heavily
unionized Sweden slumped to 47 percent last year - from 62
percent in 1995.
The failure of trade unions the world over to modernize
only exacerbates this inexorable decline. The structure of
a traditional trade union often reflected the configuration
of the enterprise it had to tackle - hierarchical,
centralized, top-down. But rigorously stratified
corporations went the way of central planning.
Business resembles self-assembling ad-hoc networks, or a
guerilla force - rather than the bottom heavy and
elephantine organization of the early 20th century, when
most unions were formed. Individual workers adapted to the
ever-changing requirements of ever-shifting markets by
increasing their mobility and adaptability and by immersing
themselves in life-long education and training.
Consider the two ends of the spectrum: agency, freelance,
and fixed-term contract employees (or even illegal aliens)
and executives. Both are peripatetic. Workplace-orientated
trade unionism cannot cater to their needs because they
rarely stay put and because their skills are transferable.
The UK's Economic and Social research Council Future of
Work Programme, launched in 1998, studied the role of trade
unions in the rapidly changing landscape of labor. In
Working Paper no. 7 titled "Beyond the Enterprise? Trade
Unions and the Representation of Contingent Workers"
published last year by the Cardiff Business School, the
authors say:
"The empirical pattern revealed by the research is complex
... We also encountered situations where unions had made
use of enterprise unionism to represent contingent workers.
For example, enterprise collective agreements may be used
to regulate the numbers of contingent workers employed
together with their terms and conditions ... Departure from
the enterprise model was most apparent within unions that
organize freelance workers. The latter are mobile workers
and unions adapt to their mobility by reliance on non-
enterprise forms of representation. Amongst agency and
fixed-term contract workers, however, there is more
emphasis on integration of the needs of these workers in
the dominant, enterprise model of union representation. In
part, this reflects the fact that agency and contract
workers can develop a long-term employment relationship
..."
Trade unions are adapting by modifying their recruitment
methods. Unions solicit members in employment bureaus, temp
agencies, job fairs. They offer "customized packages" of
workplace-independent benefits and services dispensed by
paid, roving, union officials, or sub-contractors. Many
unions re-organized along geographical - rather than
sectoral or enterprise-wide - lines.
Syndicates are in the throes of appropriating functions
from both the public and the private sector. Some unions
offer job placement services, training, requalification,
and skill acquisition classes, legal aid, help in setting
up a business, seminars and courses on anything from
assertiveness to the art of negotiating.
In some countries, unions, having failed to negotiate with
multiple employers in different sectors all at once,
resorted to - mostly failed - attempts to unilaterally
dictate to employers the employment terms of temporary,
freelance, and contract workers. This was done, for
example, by publishing fee schedules. Others negotiated
enterprise agreements with labor supply firms, thus
circumventing the employers.
Unions have always tried to sway legislation by lobbying,
making political contributions, and endorsing political
candidates - as they have this past week Gerhard Schroeder
who is up for re-election in Germany come September. The
unions' ability to mobilize the vote makes them a
formidable force even in relatively non-unionized
countries, such as the USA.
Recognizing their importance as a social institution,
government or employer-financed unions still exist even in
Western and better governed countries, such as Greece. In
the former colonies of the British Empire, trade unions
have to be approved by a registrar.
Unions act as think tanks, advocacy groups, and pressure
groups rolled into one. They try to further job protection
wherever possible - though the task is becoming
increasingly untenable. Even old-fashioned unions put the
media to good use in exerting pressure over their
recalcitrant governments.
Some scholars urge the unions to diversify and embrace
work-related issues of minorities, the disabled, gays and
lesbians, or the old. Egged on by the ILO International
Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC),
Nepal's three main trade unions have targeted child labor
in their country. They issued a code of conduct applicable
to all their members. This is an example of the convergence
of trade unions and NGO's. Syndicates are recasting
themselves as labor non-governmental organizations.
Britain's once belligerent 6.8 million members strong
umbrella Trade Unions Congress (TUC) now talks about a
partnership with employers and labor-input in management
decision making. German-style institutionalized
consultations with employees regarding labor matters and
crucial business decisions are already enshrined in EU
directives.
The unions are trying to modernize in form as well.
In Britain, trade unions put technology to good use. The
Web sites of the TUC's member unions provide online
membership application forms, information packs, and
discussion of social and cultural issues. Jane Taylor,
Information Manager at the Communications Workers Union,
writing recently for the online research guides community,
FreePint.com, commented about the new openness of the
revamped unions:
"More and more unions are providing online access to their
internal and external documents. Some only provide access
to their journals, but others put a full range of their
documents online. These are often the most interesting as
they tend to be responses to government proposals,
briefings on changes in employment legislation and
briefings around the issues facing their members, whether
they be teachers or postal workers."
But Web sites are insufficient weapons against the twin
tsunamis of technological change and globalization. Unions
often blame the latter - and its representatives, the WTO,
the IMF, and the World Bank - of retarding workers' rights
by imposing austerity measures on crumbling countries.
The ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities (ACTRAV) organized,
last September, a get together between union activists and
representatives of international financial institutions.
The IMF's much vaunted poverty reduction strategy which
calls for consultations with all social stakeholders, trade
unions included, as a precondition for new lending, was
derided by the Rwanda representative. Quoted in the ILO's
December 2001 issue of the "World of Work", he complained:
"One day I was called to meet a representative of the
Bretton Woods Institution, but only during breakfast in a
big hotel in Kigali! I would have preferred to have him
meet the inhabitants too. He would have seen homeless
people, sick people, starving people. He would have seen
that while the financial institutions produce tons of pages
of reports, poor people continue to die by the thousands."
Others grumbled that the IMF had a strange way of
"consulting" them - they were invited to listen to a
monologue regarding the policies of the Fund and then
dismissed. The usual criticism prevailed:
"When one knows that in Africa an employee feeds five or
six people, how can the Bretton Woods Institutions speak of
a reduction of poverty by requiring the layoff of 25 per
cent of civil servants? ... And when the IMF demands that
Bulgaria reduce salaries even more, when they are already
so low, one cannot speak of a measure aiming to reduce
poverty ... In this country at war (Colombia), where
unionists are being assassinated, where workers live in
fear for their lives, the IMF has just requested the
government to show more flexibility on the labour market!
Where will that lead?"
Even the ILO joined the chorus accusing the IMF of
violating the ILO's core conventions by arguing against
collective bargaining and the provision of social
protection. The delegates also demanded a labor-related
input in all WTO deliberations.
The landscape of labor unionism is subject to tectonic
shifts. But unionism need not conform to its image of
archaic obsolescence. UNI and Ver.di are examples of what
can be achieved when a timely message is combined with
sprightly management methods and more than a modicum of
spin doctoring.
United Network International (UNI) held its first World
Congress last September in Berlin. It is the outcome of a
synergetic merger between IT, telecom, print, and media-
entertainment unions. All told, UNI boasts 800 member
unions in over 140 countries. It represents a break with
both exclusively national and rigid sectoral unions.
It is a "global union" - a cross-country, cross-sector body
of representatives. Its natural counterparts are
multinationals and IFI's. It already signed agreements with
OTE, Carrefour, and Telefonica - three global telecom
firms. Ten such umbrella organizations exist under the
auspices of the Brussels-based International Confederation
of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
The 3 million members strong Ver.di is the outcome of a
March 2001 merger of five German labor syndicates. It is a
services only union in a country where professionals prefer
to belong to less proletarian "associations", the modern
equivalents of medieval guilds. Its muscle, though, is a
response to the perceived threat of "transnational
capital".
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