Organizing a Global Labor Movement from Top and Bottom Bradley Nash, Jr., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University While the prospect~ for a global labor movement arc ripe, working people and their supporters may fail to take full advantage of this historical opening. A potential barrier is the existence of a strategic myopia when it comes to the role of preexisting labor organizations at the national and international levels. Specifically, these higher-tier institutions arc often viewed by labor activists and the rank-and-file a~ inherently autocratic and imperialistic, and arc thus deemed to have little value for efforts at fostering global labor solidarity. A consequence is that many in the labor movement concentrate their energies solely at a local or community level, with the idea that it is only here that true progressive change can result. In terms of broader solidarity and resistance, it is felt that cross-regional and cross-national linkages will eventually develop to expand the struggle to a truly global level. In effect, it is presumed by many that a global labor movement will, and in fact must, be built strictly from the "bottom-up" ( e.g. Brcchcr and Costello, 1994). I by no means wish to undermine the value of bottom-up strategics for furthering the development of a global labor movement. Indeed, in recent years gra~s-roots initiatives and struggles have undeniably been enormously more successful in resisting capitalist exploitation, furthering local interests, and establishing equitable linkages between working peoples around the world than their counterparts at the national and international levels. However, such bottom-up strategics do need to be complemented by "top-down" initiatives a~ well, including such actions a~ the implementation of global labor standards, accelerated cross-border organizing by national and international unions, and transnational coordination and cooperation between various peak-level labor confederations. Further, global level initiatives like these can in part be accomplished by transforming existing institutions, rather than by the lengthy creation of entirely new international worker organizations from the bottom-up. The trepidation and hesitation with which working people approach existing national and international labor institutions is certainly warranted. Taking the AFL-CIO a~ one example, it is certainly understandable why rank-and-file workers even in the United States, let alone in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, would resent and mistrust collaborating with this organization. At home, the AFL-CIO leadership spent decades stifling domestic labor militancy and channeling it into an acquiescent "business unionism" that supported, rather than challenged, U.S. capitalism. This support wa~ even more salient abroad, a~ the AFL-CIO used its Department of International Affairs to implement the anti-Communist foreign policy of the U.S. government and to ensure the continued global hegemony of American capital (e.g., Bina and Davis, 1993: 158-160; Borgers, 1996: 78-79; Howard, 1995: 371). If anything, then, a~ an established labor organization operating at the transnational level, the AFL-CIO ha~ long hindered, rather than facilitated, the prospects for a global labor movement. Despite this inglorious history, the AFL-CIO ha~ in recent years moved, however slightly, toward a more progressive position. Armbruster (l 995: 78), for example, cites the importance of the AFL-CIO's membership in the Coalition for Justic e in the Maquiladora<; (CJM), a<; well a<; the utilization of its "va<;t organizational resources", in the success of corporate campaigns in Mexico. Frundt (1996: 396-397) also lauds the AFL-CIO's involvement with the CJM, and additionall y notes the federation's involvement with progressive labor groups in countries such a<; Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. This shift in AFL-CIO strategy is attributable both to external and internal pressures. Externally, as put by Bina and Davis (1993: 160), "[t]hc global integration of capitalist production ha<; undermined the material conditions that have supported [the] AFL-CIO's traditionally nationalist, cla<;s-collaborationist posture". In effect, the need for a global response to global capital ha<; become an unavoidable reality . Internally, progressive change ha<; emanated both from the bottom and from the top of organizations . Beginning in the mid-l980s, rank-and-file activists and several member unions successfully challenged the AFL-CIO leadership on its stance toward Central America, notabl y it s support of the Reagan Administration's Nicaraguan policy (Howard, 1995: 376). In the mid 1990s, the AFL-CIO leadership itself changed, with a coalition coming to power that, at lca<;t on paper, appeared more attuned to the needs of rank-and-file work ers both within and, importantly, outside the United States (Borgers, 1996: 7 1-72) . [Page 6] Journal of World-Systems Research The ca<;c of the AFL-CIO points to a fact that proponents of a strictly bottom-up organizing strategy frequ ently lose sight of: organizations and their structur es arc human creations and arc therefore malleable . The "Michelsian paradigm" that ha<; long dominated thinking about formal organizations, and about labor organizations in particular, n eeds to be fully discarded (Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, 1996). Lar ge-scal e bureaucratic organizations do not all inevitably slide into oligarchy, and those that do need not remain that way. The democratization of existing institutions for the represe ntation of worker interests, albeit extremely difficult, is always a possibility. Overall, given the pace with which the globali zation of production proceeds, workers of the world may not have the luxury of waiting for a new global labor movem ent to b e built anew from the bottom-up. It mi ght be bette r to also consider worki n g with what we already have at the "top," and thus conduct the struggle on two fronts. References: Armbrus ter, R. 1995. "Cross-National Labor Organizing Strategics." Critical Sociology 21 (2) : 75 -89. Bina, C. and C. Davis. 1993. "Transn ational Capital, the Global Labor Process, and the International Labor Movement." ln The Labor Process and Control of Labor: The Changing Nature of Work Relations in the Late Twentieth Century, edited by B. Bcrbcroglu. W cstport, Conn: Pracgcr. Borgers, F. 1996. "The Challenges of Economic Globalization for U.S. Labor." Critical Sociology 22 (2): 67-88. Brcchcr, J. and T. Costello. 1994. Global Village or Global Pillagc9: Economic Reconstruction from the Bottom Up. Boston, Mass: South End Press. Frundt, H.J. 1996. "Trade and Cross-Border Labor Strategics in the Americas." Economic and Industrial Democracy 17 (August): 387417. Howard, A. 1995. "Global Capital and Labor Internationalism in Comparative Historical Perspective: A Marxist Analysis." Sociological Inquiry 65 (November): 365-394. Stepan-Norris, J. and M. Zeitlin. 1996. "Insurgency, Radicalism, and Democracy in America's Industrial Unions." Social Forces 75 (1): 1-32.