Elizabeth Cotton

Global Unions as imperfect multilateral organizations: An international relations perspective

This study applies an international relations framework and the notion of multilateral organizations as a means of understanding the nature of trade union internationalism and the conditions under which it operates. The authors argue that international trade unionism involves an imperfect multilateralism which requires close working relationships between small groups of unions in order to function, that is, a ‘minilateral’ method of working. By using this framework the authors attempt to highlight the intrinsic durability and adaptability of the Global Unions and also identify areas of activity that serve to strengthen them as organizations, primarily by building affiliates’ engagement and investment in them.

Transnational regulation of temporary agency work compromised partnership between Private Employment Agencies and Global Union Federations

This article critically assesses the potential for the international regulation of temporary agency work (TAW) through building partnership between the Global Union Federations (GUFs) and major Private Employment Agencies (PrEAs). Given the limits of existing national and international regulation of TAW, particularly in developing countries, and the current deadlock in dialogue through the International Labour Organization, the argument of this article is that Transnational Private Labour Regulation (TPLR) offers a unique opportunity to establish a basis for minimum standards for temporary agency workers. This article goes on to propose three potential TPLR frameworks that, although compromised, are transparent, fair and sufficiently elastic to accommodate the distributive and political risks associated with partnership. They also offer important gains, namely increasing the competitive advantage of the PrEAs involved, minimum standards for agency workers and ‘field enlarging’ strategies for the GUFs and their affiliates.

Constructing solidarities at work: Relationality and the methods of emancipatory education:

Taking as its starting point the decline of ideological and class identifications in the United Kingdom, this article presents the case for reviving a model of emancipatory education to develop solidaristic relationships at work. The central argument of this article is that emancipatory education methods offer useful tools to build relationality that can act as a basis for mobilising solidarity in the UK context. In order to analyse the psychological and political impact of emancipatory education methods, this article explores the conceptual and methodological parallels between emancipatory education and psychoanalysis, namely, their capacities to build relationality between people through consciousness raising and collective problem solving using dialogic methods. This article goes on to argue that in the absence of class identity or shared ideology, emancipatory education practices offer realistic opportunities for working people to formulate conceptions of common interests and build solidaristic relationships sufficient to mobilise collective organisation and action.