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Democracy and Crisis pp 209–228Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Global Unionism and Global Governance

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Abstract

In 2001, several international unions and union bodies1 met to discuss a wide-ranging review of international unionism (Schmidt, 2005). One upshot of this review was that the international unions began to rebadge themselves as global unions. There were several reasons for this organisational name change. First, it reflected efforts to address the social consequences of neo-liberal policies of economic globalisation and the International Labour Organisation (ILO)-led campaign for decent work for all workers everywhere. Second, it reflected the way global unions seek alliances with other transnational movements against neo-liberal globalisation. Third, after the end of the Cold War, the collapse of apartheid, and union involvement in several democratisation movements, the new name reflects the unions’ attempt to move beyond old tensions between revolution and reformism, or communist, social democratic, and liberal forms of internationalism.

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Authors
  1. Andrew Vandenberg
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Citizenship and Globalization, Deakin University, Australia

    Benjamin Isakhan (Senior Research Fellow) (Senior Research Fellow)

  2. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Australia

    Steven Slaughter (Senior Lecturer in International Relations) (Senior Lecturer in International Relations)

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© 2014 Andrew Vandenberg

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Vandenberg, A. (2014). Global Unionism and Global Governance. In: Isakhan, B., Slaughter, S. (eds) Democracy and Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326041_11

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