Read the text below which is entitled The global union in
order to answer questions 25 to 27.
The global union
Source: Newsweek Special Edition
Dec 2005 Feb 2006 (Adapted)
What would a global union look like? Think more
corporate partnership than class struggle. Today, capital is
global and employers are global. Companies, not countries,
make the rules. To survive, unions need to find their niche.
Global companies are going to need an organization that,
in a sense, will manage their labor and protect workers
rights. A global union would set standard practices and
codes of conduct perhaps even minimum wages and
work hours.
My critics in the labor movement cringe when I use
words like partnership and value added. The reality is
that unions need to add value or corporations will ignore
us. If we want an equitable stake in the company, we need
to define what our goals are. We cant just demand a raise
in pay withoutoffering an incentive to the company. Were
already far behind multinational corporations in the global
game. We made the mistake of transferring the industrial
model of unionism of the last country to the 21st. We lost
market share: in 1960, one in four workers was in a union;
now its one in 12.