The purpose of this blog is to provide analytical commentary on formal and informal labour organisations and their attempts to resist ever more brutal forms of exploitation in today’s neo-liberal, global capitalism.

Sunday 27 February 2022

Workers solidarity in the EU multilevel system: When and where can it occur?

Trade unions have the task to organise collectively and establish relations of solidarity amongst working people. And yet, they have often found it difficult to extend this solidarity across borders within the European Union (EU). In this blog post, I will argue that while the capitalist dynamics of Uneven and Combined Development (U&CD) make transnational solidarity often difficult, it is not impossible either. Especially if we expand our understanding of labour movements beyond trade unions and also include social movements such as environmental groups in our definition, then labour movements have on a number of occasions demonstrated their ability to defend the interest of society against capitalist exploitation. Most notably, I will refer to the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ‘Water and Sanitation are a Human Right’ as well as the resistance against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).