‘Globalisation has doomed labour unions’

Karachi

Globalisation has doomed the role of labour unions and there is no scope for the workers.

These were the observations of Dr Azra Talat Sayeed, director, Roots for Equity, while speaking at the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences on Saturday evening.

She said the professional class had harmed the labour unions and that capitalism had handed over the workers to the market forces.

Dr Azra said that the capitalist and the labourer could never sit at the same table because of a clash of interests. Market control had to be regulated by the labour but deregulation had upset it all, said.

She said that sectors like mining manufacturing and heavy industry had just decimated the unions, and as their workers would be a real potent force in the welfare of workers, so the big entrepreneurs decided to just hand them over to the market forces.

China, she said, had a large domestic market and all western manufacturers got into a race to make inroads into it, and as a result they could get cheap labour and hence lower the cost of production, which made the domestic labour suffer and cut back their strength.

She said: “Today we have crossed all limits of technology. Technological progress is at its height but the power of this

invincible technology has really strengthened the hands of these anti-labour capitalists and feudals.

“Most thought after 1995 that socialism was dead but with the turmoil that has been unleashed among the labour movement by the capitalist clearly proves that socialism is not dead.

“Up until 1995, the time of the formulation of the WTO, trade unions were very powerful. However, the post-WTO world saw a new phenomenon and that was the proliferation of NGOs, which hurt the labour unions.”

She maintained: “The demolition of the Berlin Wall and the mad race of China towards capitalism also affected the labour movement as China thus far considered the stronghold of labour egalitarianism and socialist ideals abruptly gave up its stance.”

Globalisation, she said, was actually, a euphemism for capitalism. All pro-labour movements, she said, were stopped.

“Besides, the class discrimination that was a hallmark of a classed society has dealt a blow to labour,” she said.