Building Global Labor Solidarity Today: Learning from the KMU of the Philippines

• In Event: 479 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 09. Political Economy

Abstract

With the rise of new labor movements in countries such as China, Egypt, and Iran, and new developments within labor movements in places such as Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan and Venezuela, activists and leaders in these labor movements are seeking information from workers and unions around the world.

However, many labor activists today know little or nothing about the last period of intense efforts to build international labor solidarity, the years 1978-2007. During these years, we saw the emergence of five labor movements, each which played central, if not the central role, in helping to overthrow the military dictatorship in their country: they were some of the leading proponents of popular democracy in the world!

One of these labor movements from which the concept of “social movement unionism” was developed was the KMU Labor Center of the Philippines. It is this author’s contention that there is a lot unknown about the KMU that would help advance global labor solidarity today. This paper suggests that the KMU has innovated in five areas: created a new type of trade unionism, developed new organizational structures, pursued member education, advanced organic relations with sectoral organizations outside of labor, and initiated extensive efforts to build international labor solidarity with workers and unions around the world.

This paper suggests that the global labor movement can learn from these KMU innovations.

Author

• Kim Scipes, Purdue University-North Central