It is widely recognised within and around the labour movement that labour (as wage work, as class identity, in the trade union form, as a partner in industrial relations, as a radical-democratic social movement, as a part of civil society) is in profound crisis. Even more is this the case for labour as an international movement at a time in which the old international capitalist order is being challenged by the new global capitalist disorder.

Introduction: three internationalisms

It is widely recognised within and around the labour movement that labour (as wage work, as class identity, in the trade union form, as a partner in industrial relations, as a radical-democratic social movement, as a part of civil society) is in profound crisis. Even more is this the case for labour as an international movement at a time in which the old international capitalist order is being challenged by the new global capitalist disorder. Recovery requires a critique of traditional labour internationalism, re-conceptualisation, new kinds of analysis, and a new dialogue and dialectic between interested parties. Presented here in turn are the following:
1) a critique of the union internationalism of the national/industrial/colonial (NIC) era;
2) a reconceptualisation of unionism and labour internationalism appropriate to a globalised/networked/informatised (GNI) capitalist era,
3) the millennial dialogue on labour and globalisation;
4) one of the new academic approaches to international labour/labour internationalism;
5) the role of communication, culture and the new information and
communication technology (ICT). The conclusion stresses the centrality of networking,communication and dialogue to the creation of a new labour internationalism.

Before starting, a note on ‘internationalism’, ‘labour internationalism’ and ‘union internationalism’. Within social movement discourse, internationalism is customarily associated with 19th century labour, with socialism and Marxism. It may be projected backwards so as to include the ancient religious universalisms, or the liberal cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment. And it should be extended, in both the 19th and 20th century, so as to include women’s/feminist, pacifist, anti-colonial and human rights forms. In so far as it is limited to
these two centuries, and to a ‘world of nation states’, we need a new term for the era of globalisation. Some talk of transnationalism. I prefer global solidarity, in so far as it is
addressed to globalisation, its discontents and alternatives. As for labour internationalism this refers to a whole gamut of international labour-related practices, including those of co-operatives, labour and socialist parties, socialist intellectuals, culture, the media and even sport. As for union internationalism this refers to the primary form of worker self-articulation during the NIC era. This has so displaced or dominated labour internationalism during the later-20th century as to be commonly conflated with the latter. Yet it is precisely union internationalism that is most profoundly in crisis, and in question, under our GNI capitalism. In what follows I may use internationalism as a stand-alone term, but only as a familiar and general descriptor, behind which there lies the above understanding.

1. Union internationals and the national/industrial/colonial era

There have been and still are other types of international union organisation. I limit myself to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and two others that have related to it
in ways of continuing importance. The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was in ideological/political competition with the ICFTU during the Cold War era. The International Transportworkers Federation (ITF), as one of several major industry-based International Trade Secretariats (ITSs), was and is in some competition with the nation-state-based ICFTU. The political/ideological victory of the ICFTU in the Cold War thus still leaves open the question of whether nationally- or industrially-based internationals (or something rather different) are most appropriate for a new union, labour or general internationalism in the era of globalisation...

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