The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part . . . has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self- interest, than callous “cash payment”. . . . It has resolved personal worth into exchange value. . . . It has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
(Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970, pp. 37–8)
The mercantilization of life
The marketization inherent in globalization is characterized by pillage of the public: privatization and corporatization of remaining public companies; and cuts to public services such as health, education and welfare. While the vast majority of citizens are adversely affected, working- class and poor people in general suffer most when the commons of society are eroded by marketization that prioritizes corporate interests. In 1980, with the assault on public spending commencing, Negri argued that the welfare state in developed countries had, from the capitalist viewpoint, become too generous and sustained proletarian power, so public spend-ing was reoriented to undermine workspend-ing- class aspirations:
Capital, together with the forces of reformism, now imposed on public spending the productivity criteria characteristic of private enterprise. This
‘productivity paradigm’ was neatly timed, launched and managed through the co- optation of the trade union movement . . . through . . . the 1970s . . . breaking up the unity of class behaviours and smoothing the way for capi-talist reorganisation.1
This restructuring of public spending used welfare to command labour via
‘budgetary manoeuvrings’, marking the transition from welfare state to ‘warfare state’.2 Though unions often collaborated, labour institutions suffered. Privatiza-tion and decreased public- sector spending weakened unions and therefore workers’ capacity to resist worsening wages and conditions, because the private sector grew at the expense of the public sector, where unions were stronger.
Marketization is supervised by the usual suspects: the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF; and at regional levels by institutions such as the European Central Bank. However, even without these transnational agencies, enhanced capital mobility pressures governments, whatever their inclinations, to enact policies that favour corporations against the interests of employees and the general public. Previous chapters have examined the direct impacts of capital mobility on workforces. This chapter considers its indirect impact on workers via its effects on governments. The location decisions of corporations punish govern-ments who defend public expenditure against neoliberal principles of fiscal
rectitude.3
To attract and retain mobile international capital, states have reduced the
‘social wage’ (public health and other free public services, welfare and social security systems) to provide low taxation regimes.4 Economics journalist Kenneth Davidson observed of Australia at the end of the twentieth century: ‘It isglobalisationthatjustifieshalvingthecapitalgainstax,whichwillgivea$12
billion tax cut to Australian shareholders without any effort on their part. The consequent erosion of the tax base will be used to justify further cuts to educa-tion and health funding.’ The widening income differential is not only obnox-ious, he maintains, but ‘a threat to democracy’. Governments have taken equity off the agenda and want to roll back the welfare state ‘in order to create a tax regimeattractivetothemanagersofglobalfinance’.5 This aspect of globaliza- tionwasidentifiedbyMartinandSchumannasa‘trap’fordemocracy:‘ifgov-ernments, on every burning issue of the future, can do no more than evoke the overwhelming constraints of the international economy, then the whole of pol-itics becomes a spectacle of impotence, and the democratic state loses its legitimacy’.6
Marketization undermines democracy in other far- reaching ways. The market is fundamentally anti- democratic, conferring votes on paying capacity rather than people; so the freer play of market forces not only fails to improve most people’s lives but instead brings increased levels of adversity and anxiety, loss of amenity and lack of choice. Marketization imposes particular hardships on women when cutbacks in public services place additional demands on those most likely to replace those services ‘voluntarily’.
Neoliberal policies not only alter the balance away from democracy and towards the market but have been imposed without full consent of the governed, because voters were deprived of real political choice in the matter. Public opinion surveys indicate time and again that neoliberal policies lack majority support, yet majorpartiesprefertomaintaintheconfidenceofthemarketsthanofthepeople,
topleasecorporationsratherthantheirconstituencies.So,governingpartiesinthe
past four decades have tended to pursue free- market prescriptions and oppositions have feared to offer alternatives. The increasing commitment to free- market pol-iciesoflabourandsocial-democraticpartieshasbeenparticularlysignificantinthe
process by which political choice has been eroded.
In any case, consent is irrelevant to the neoliberal project. The relationship of corporations to democracy and democratic processes is entirely contingent. The
free market and political democracy, which Francis Fukuyama depicts as com-patible components of ‘the end of history’,7 are incompatible when the free market is taken to neoliberal extremes. Moreover, the unleashing of market forces has been accompanied not by a reduction in state control but a noticeable increase in its powers of intimidation and surveillance. Corporations are per-fectly happy to operate in non- democratic environments and, when necessary, simplymanipulatedemocraticprocessestotheirbenefit.
Marketization also threatens or obstructs the much- vaunted right to consume, despite free- market rhetoric about ‘choice’ as privatized entities spend more on marketing and less on maintenance. An example is the fate of Australians in country areas following the privatization of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and deregulation of the financial sector by 1983–1996 Labor governments.
Between June 1991 and June 2000 almost 2,000 bank branches closed, leaving 600 country towns without banks.8 This led to unusual alliances between bank employees and those deprived of banking services. Conservative country folk teamed up with unionized workers to voice their anger at the disappearance of banks from their communities.9 With 47,000 jobs lost between 1991 and 1996, the FinanceSectorUnion(FSU)stressedtheconnectionbetweeneffectiveconsumer
protection and employees’ interests.10 A survey conducted in mid- 1998 ascertained that 90 per cent of people opposed bank closures and believed the federal govern-ment should prevent them.11Publicopinionsurveysalsorevealedafirmupward
trend between 1996 and 2001 in positive attitudes towards trade unions.12
InApril2001,theFSUbuiltacoalitionwithcommunity,pensionerandcon-sumer groups with grievances against the banks, which was supported by affected local governments. In addition to its annual wage- rise claim, the union’s pattern- bargaining claim against all four major banks included a claim for more staff, fewer branch closures and better customer service.13 Business Review Weekly conceded that consumer, pensioner and union groups were united in their angerthatbankprofitabilitywas‘excessive’andthatshareholderdividendsout-ranked the claims of other stakeholders, and united in their conviction that increased job stress due to understaffed branches was linked with ‘increasing customer anger at poor service’.14
In April 2002, when the National Australia Bank announced the closing of another 56 rural branches over the following 18 months, with a loss of 1,500 jobs,theFSUandtheAustralianConsumers’Associationjointlyslammedthe
decision. The FSU held a rally in Melbourne, promised industrial action and
declared it ‘won’t stand by and let this happen’ and that it expected to receive widespread community support, particularly from communities affected by branch closures.15InSeptember2003,theCommonwealthBankannouncedthe
shedding of another 3,700 employees, over and above the 1,600 lost in the previousfinancialyear.Itmadethisannouncementafterreportinga$2billion
profit that financial year. The FSU condemned the cuts as an affront to staff,
warned that customers would suffer and hinted at industrial action. Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott conceded the bank’s move would ‘fuel the usual sort of anger at banks’.16 It did.
Manuel Castells argues that marketization is not simply a problem for working- class people but a problem for labour movements as political actors.
The privatization of public agencies and the demise of the welfare state, while alleviating societies from some bureaucratic burden, worsen living conditions for the majority of citizens, break the historic social contract between capital, labor, and the state, and remove much of the social safety net, the nuts and bolts of legitimate government for common people. Torn by internationalization of finance and production, unable to adapt to net- workingoffirmsandindividualizationofwork,andchallengedbythedeg-endering of employment, the labor movement fades away as a major source of social cohesion and workers’ representation. It does not disappear, but it becomes primarily, a political agent integrated into the realm of public institutions.17
Far from fading away, unions that oppose marketization retain their relevance, as they are perceived as playing a valuable role in society. Marketization not only foments discontent but also fosters new forms of connectedness amongst the disgruntled.
The ‘social factory’ and ‘community unionism’
In contrast to the gloomy approach of Castells and others, autonomist Marxism offers a perspective that provides for the possibility of labour movement regen-eration in the destructive wake of marketization. Negri describes marketization asthe‘realsubsumption’ofcapitalwherebycapital’slogicinfiltratesandtrans-forms every productive situation or relationship: ‘There is no outside to our world of real subsumption of society under capital. We live within it, but it has no exterior; we are engulfed in commodity fetishism.’ It is ‘the mercantilization of life’.18 By disseminating capitalist production relations throughout society, real subsumption demolishes the walls of workplaces. Negri’s notion of the
‘social factory’ describes how the principles of domination and production evident in the workplace are imposed upon the wider society so that it is organ-ized increasingly by these same principles. Capital is becoming centralorgan-ized at a societal level as a social factory, ‘to reorganise its command over social labour time,througha“correctadministrativeflow”overtheentiretimeandspaceof
proletarian life conditions and possibilities’.19
This makes all activities directly productive in immediately capitalist terms, which is functional for capitalism but also expands opportunities for opposition.
As the processes engaged to valorize capital in production spill over into society, communitiesbecomeasignificantterrainforstruggleagainstcapital;classcon-frontation extends well beyond the workplace.20 The result of capital insinuating itself everywhere is that class antagonism is refracted into a multiplicity of points of conflict. Dyer-Witheford describes how the front of struggle snakes
through homes, schools, universities, hospitals and media, and takes the form
not only of workplace disputes but also of resistance to the dismantling of the welfare state and opposition to ecological despoliation.21
The wider society has become a battleground against capital; incessant mar-ketization has spawned new forms of resistance. Unions in many countries
spearhead mobilizations expressing the shared interests of employees with other sections of society, for example in resisting downsizing or closure of enterprises or services in a particular locality. Opposition to marketization often manifests itself in defence of ‘community’, hence the frequent description of union involvement in such campaigns as ‘community unionism’ or ‘union- community coalitions’. Typically, these mobilizations involve alliances between unions, social movements, community organizations and single- issue campaigners.
Whatever the relationship brokered, this trend towards union links with the wider community is born of the mutual interest of employees, local residents and consumers – most people in fact – in opposing policies and processes associated with corporate globalization that diminish the commons of societies. It is signi-ficantthatunions–withresourcesandpoweratthepointofproduction–often
initiate or emerge as natural leaders within these newly minted alliances between people adversely affected by marketization.
The term ‘community unionism’ developed to describe the newfound propen-sity for unions to reach beyond workplaces to the wider community. It is at times confused with social- movement unionism, with good reason: unions inclined to social- movement unionism are likely also to embrace community union-ism; and radical union activities often involve both social- movement and community- unionism strategies. Nonetheless, in this book a distinction is made:
‘social- movement unionism’ to describe militant, ultra- democratic, highly class- conscious and solidaristic unionism (discussed in Chapter 6); and ‘community unionism’ – and the variations on that terminology – for situations where unions lead coalitions of other groups to defend working- class and broader public inter-ests against neoliberal policies.
Community unionism existed well before the coining of the term in Canada in the 1990s, where such alliances became so habitual ‘community unionism’
was invented to refer to the work that unions do in alliance with the com-munity.22 The spectacular ‘Ontario Days of Action’ placed Canada at the fore-front of such developments in the Anglophone world. In 1996–1997, sustained collaboration between labour and community groups resulted in the mobilization of 2–3 million people in successful strikes, rallies and demonstrations as part of a wide revolt against the aggressive neoliberal policies of the Ontario govern-ment. It was the result of years of hard work that had built strong ties of solid-arity and trust between the labour movement and other social movements.23 Judging from research on coalitions between unions and the community in North America and Australia, Carla Lipsig-Mummé observes alliances usually
begin with the union and then reach out to the community.24 An example was the late 1980s/early 1990s campaigns of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers
against downsizing and reduction of services, including the closing of thousands of postofficesinruralareas.TheCUPWreachedfarbeyonditsnormalconstituency,
drawing strength from community groups reliant upon a high standard of mail delivery. These included the farmers’ coalition ‘Rural Dignity’ as well as pen-sioner groups, students, the disabled and retirees.25(In2015theCUPWlaunched
a constitutional challenge, with wide community backing, against Canada Post’s movetoeliminatedoor-to-doordeliverytofivemillionaddressesinCanadaover
thenextfiveyears.26)
Opponents of organized labour like to characterize unions as ‘special inter-ests’ whose gains come at the expense of the rest of the community, but unions are increasingly working with other organizations rooted in the community and perceived as advocates for the common good.27 Community unionism might simply mobilize local constituencies in defence of union objectives at a par-ticular workplace or workplaces; but community unionism operates commonly and most powerfully where a common good is threatened by powerful partial interests and relevant unions provide leadership in campaigns of opposition. This is especially apparent in struggles to defend the public realm.
Labourgeographers,suchasAndrewHerod,areinterestedinthewayunions
establish ‘spatial power’ by organizing power from local communities through union- community relationships and renew themselves through this exercise of community- based power.28Forexample,StephenTuftsexamined‘Labor’s(Re) Organization of Space’ in community unionism in Canada in the radical geo-graphy journal Antipode; and Transactions of the Institute of British Geo-grapherspublishedJaneWills’2001studyof‘CommunityUnionismandTrade
UnionRenewalintheUK’,whicharguedthatincreasingthescaleofpolitical
mobilization through community unionism gave unions the power to raise ques-tions of economic and social justice on a wider plane.29
Labourstudiesscholarsbecameenthusiasticaboutunion-communityactionsthat
revealed the capacity of unions to emerge as prominent community actors, mobil-izing local constituencies and revitalmobil-izing central labour councils to rebuild labour’s power at the grass roots.30 Case studies of the phenomenon proliferated.31 In general, as Amanda Tattersall noted in 2005, the rise of community unionism was presented as a significant aspect of union renewal, indicating both that union revival had
occurred then contributing to further revival. In a complex typography that distin-guishes various terms, she explains that ‘union- community coalition’ is also used to describe the trend of unions ‘reaching out’; these union- community coalitions are usefulmechanismstorebuildunions’politicalandeconomicinfluence.32
Another term is ‘labor- community coalition’ or ‘labor- community alliance’
used in a 2007 collection edited by Lowell Turner, which includes studies of
developments such as the re- emergence of central labour councils as focal points in coalition campaigns, and case studies of innovative union efforts to build coalitions in places such as Seattle, Buffalo, Los Angeles and San Jose.33 According to Turner, the collection explores ‘the contemporary potential of labor’: the growth of social coalitions and networks at the local level indicates prospects for progressive transformation in an era dominated by neoliberal
globalization with organized labour’s contribution significant to a broader
renewal of progressive politics and institutional reform.34
Tattersall developed the term ‘coalition unionism’ in her extensive 2010 study of the phenomenon in Chicago, Ontario and Sydney. Though unions across
industrialized countries have a long history of coalition building, coalitions have become increasingly significant, because social isolation and membership
decline have made it more necessary for unions to unite with other social forces to advance a broad vision of economic and social justice.
If unions are going to survive this crisis of power, they need to reinvent themselves. A key strategy for revitalization is building ‘positive- sum’
coalitions, as opposed to transactional coalitions. . . . More mutual and shared relationships among unions and community organizations can also help revitalize unions internally, invigorating their political vision, campaign techniques, and membership engagement.35
In the labour studies world, interest in union- led community opposition to marketization was motivated at least in part by the potential of such actions to redress declining union densities. However, workers’ resistance to marketization is grounded in concerns more fundamental than a desire to revitalize their own insti-tutions. It is the nature of society that is at stake and the situation of working- class people especially. In many mundane and drawn- out struggles, and spectacular and spontaneous ones, workers and their organizations have played important roles in opposing marketization. The following section provides glimpses of mobilizations against privatization and the role within them of organized workers.
Privatization and its discontents
Privatization of public wealth has increased the ratio of private capital to national income in the past four decades. These transfers of public wealth to the private sector are not limited to rich countries; the same general pattern has occurred on all continents, and the most intensive privatization in the history of capital took place in former Soviet bloc countries.36 Where there was less to privatize the process was less rapid, but remorseless nonetheless.
Privatization of public assets is a practice especially dear to corporations
Privatization of public assets is a practice especially dear to corporations