December 31, 2004?

Lobbyists spent a record $1.1 billion in the first half of 2004 to influence Congress and the Bush administration, according to documents filed with the U.S. Senate. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce led the way with $30 million in spending.

Europe’s trade union movement is on the defensive. It is also in a deep political and ideological crisis. At present, the trade unions are unable to fulfill their role as the defenders of the immediate economic and social interests of their members. They have lost ground in all sectors and industries. What was, in the post–Second World War period, the strongest and most influential trade union movement in the capitalist world is today openly confused, lacks a clear vision, and hesitates in its new social and political orientation. Ironically, the same theories, analyses, and policies which gave it its strength in the postwar period have now become a heavy burden. The ideological legacy of the “social pact” is now leading the trade union movement astray.

The Neoliberal Offensive

Behind this development is the ongoing neoliberal transformation of our societies. As this process is not the theme of this article, let us just mention a few important points. Over the last twenty years, we have been confronted with an immense offensive from neoliberal forces. Capitalist interests have gone on the offensive, and we have seen an enormous shift in the balance of power between labor and capital. Multinational companies have, of course, been at the forefront of this development. The postwar “social pact” between labor and capital, the policy of peaceful coexistence between unions and employers, has broken down. The capital side has withdrawn from the social pact and is increasingly pursuing a confrontational policy towards organized labor.

The attempts by multinational companies and their political servants to deepen and to institutionalize their newly-achieved positions of power are important parts of this development. This is being done mainly through international institutions and agreements such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and regional power structures like the European Union (EU). Since these bodies are less democratic than local and state governments, they have proved to be the most useful and effective instruments for the institutionalization of corporate power.

The following analysis is based on the concept that the EU is today the conduit through which the neoliberal social and economic model is being institutionalized in Europe. The EU and other regional and supranational institutions are being constructed on the basis of the new balance of power and cannot be changed, democratized, or defeated until workers are able to shift the current balance of power in their direction. Such a shift would require the trade union movement to make its main long-term task the mobilization of popular and working-class power.

New Conditions, Old Policy

Unfortunately, mobilizing working-class power is not the project of the trade union movement in Europe today. The paradox labor faces is that while the economic and political climate in which the trade unions must operate has changed enormously, most unions have continued to pursue the policy of the social pact. They consider so-called globalization to be not the result of conscious strategies and new power and class relations, but rather the necessary consequences of technological and organizational changes, a position remarkably similar to that expressed by Margaret Thatcher when she infamously said, “There is no alternative.” What is needed, they say, is to transfer the policy of the social pact from the national to the regional and global level. Their methods are “social dialogue” with employer organizations and state and suprastate institutions, campaigns for the formal introduction of labor standards (such as the labor conventions of the International Labor Organization [ILO], which, among other things, prohibit forced labor, guarantee the rights of free association and collective bargaining, and prohibit employment discrimination) in international trade agreements and trade organizations, as well as the pursuit of corporate social responsibility (CSR) codes of conduct and framework agreements with multinational companies. These latter are voluntary, unbinding, and unenforceable codes of conduct developed by the multinational companies themselves. So far, they have had no identifiable effect on corporate behavior and seem to have as their main aim counteracting the negative public image of many multinational companies.