Constructing Transnational Solidarity: The Role of Campaign Governance
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Author | Sarosh Kuruvilla,Santanu Sarkar |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12465 |
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12465
58:1 March 2020 0007–1080 pp. 27–49
Constructing Transnational Solidarity:
The Role of Campaign Governance
Santanu Sarkar and Sarosh Kuruvilla
Abstract
Our inductive study of two transnational labour solidarity eorts focuses on
the role of campaign governance. Specifically, we study contrasting campaign
strategies, tactics and coalition structures in campaigns by two global union
federations, UNI Global Union and the IUF, contextualizedin terms of how these
campaigns unfolded in India. Our contribution consists of two arguments. The
first is that a degree of internal consistencyamongst dierent campaign elements
is important for success,and the second is that a mode of articulation that allows
for local concerns in aliate countries to find voice in global campaigns is more
likely to result in concrete gains at the local level.
1. Introduction
Transnational labour solidarity (more commonly referred to as labour
transnationalism) has been the subject of scholarly interest for almost a
century, even though calls for it originated even earlier (e.g. Marx and Engels
1848). Early research during the first half of the twentieth century, such
as that of Fimmen (1924) and Lorwin (1953), highlighted the need and
rationale for labourtransnationalism. The latter half of the twentieth century
evinced a number of important contributions thatreprised and extended early
literature.Notable contributions include those of Logue (1980), who specified
the conditions under which national unions would internationalize, and the
early works of Waterman (1998) and Munck (1988), which emphasized the
(renewed) need for labour to come together to counteract the power of
global capital. In addition, there was the argument of Levinson (1972),
advocating the development of transnational collective bargaining as an
eective response to the pressures from multinationals on host country
workforces, Ramsay’s (1997, 2000) suggestion that labour internationalism
needs to be variegated since multinational corporations follow dierent
strategies in dierent industries and are structured dierently, and the various
writings of Hyman (e.g. 2005) on union internationalization strategies.
Santanu Sarkar is at XLRI, XavierSchool of Management, Jharkhand. Sarosh Kuruvilla is at
ILR School, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
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2019 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
28 British Journal of Industrial Relations
The 2000s produced more empirical scholarship rooted in the arguments
noted above. The edited works of Harrod and O’Brien (2002), Gordon and
Turner (2000) and Bronfenbrenner (2007), for example, provided evidence
regarding successful cases of labourtransnationalism and identified important
barriers in failed cases. The latest wave of research has struck a more
positive note, with many scholars highlighting over 115 global framework
agreements (GFAs)1which havebeen signed as evidence of successes in labour
transnationalism. Yet, notes of pessimism persist, such as Waterman’s (2014)
critique that European unions are still trappedin an ‘iron cage’ of nationality,
which prevents successful transnational solidarity. And, there has been an
increase in nuanced research on cross-border solidarity cases that has shed
light upon the conditions under which GFAs signed at the global level may
or may not result in specific improvements at the local level, exemplified in
the works of Anner et al. (2006), Brookes and McCallum (2017), Fichter and
McCallum (2015) and Niforou (2012).
To provide some order to this vast literature, Brookes and McCallum
(2017) divide it into two strands. The first, more theoretical strand, casts
labour transnationalism as a countermovement to reshape global capitalism,
while the empirical strand examines individual cases of transnational labour
solidarity. As Niforou (2015) suggests, the empirical strand is quite varied,
as it is informed by a variety of disciplinary approaches such as geography,
sociology, political science, economics and law. It is also varied in terms of
its focus on dierent facets of labour transnationalism, such as why GFAs do
not result in meaningful gains at the local level, or the roles of supranational
institutions such as European Works Councils. Examples can be seen in the
works of Barrientos and Smith (2007), Davies et al. (2011), Riisgaard and
Hammer (2011) and Williams et al. (2013). The units of analysis in this
strand are also diverse, including movements, campaigns, bilateral alliances,
multilateral alliances, global union federations, global value chains and, of
course, GFAs.
Brookes and McCallum (2017: 208) suggest that this cacophony of case
studies on labour transnationalism from diverse disciplines oers ‘more
trees than forest’. They call for researchers to conceptualize more clearly
and consistently what labour transnationalism is, develop clear criteria for
categorizing the wide range of observed ‘types’ of labour transnationalism
and identify which instances of it are directly comparable (whether small
N comparative case studies or large N quantitative analyses), in order to
advance our understanding and develop theory. In a similar vein, Anner et al.
(2006) argue that moresystematic and contextualized comparisons are needed
between what mayseem to be ‘apples and oranges’ in order to synthesize from
diverse industry case studies.
In these studies, the meaning of ‘success’ in labour transnationalism is also
varied. Brookes and McCallum (2017) note the diculty of comparing more
established and stable transnational alliances, which do very little in local
contexts, with others that are more ephemeral, yet capture the excitement
of a social movement. Brookes (2013) provides a useful definition of success
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2019 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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