Women, Law, and the Global Economy

Seminar

GLOBALIZATION, GENDER AND BIOPOWER: TRANSFORMING LABOR ORGANIZATIONS FOR INFORMAL SECTORS

By: Ryan McCready

Fall 2010

Paper written in fulfillment of the Northern Illinois University

College of Law Graduation Requirement

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I. Introduction

Globalization refers to transformations and emerging global trends in the politics, economies,

and social life of the modern world in a more or less uniform way. These transformations have

allowed for increased movements and penetrations of capital across borders and spreading

capitalist forms of production and wage-labor across the globe. The uniformity of this modern

transformation is guided by the economic theories of neo-liberalism and implemented by inter-

governmental organizations, states and even individuals operating in an increasingly global

economy.

The social consequences of globalization, the effects it has on our lives, are beneficial in

some ways but it also has its burdens. According to many academics the burdens include

declining working conditions, labor standards, and fewer employment opportunities, as well as

increasing poverty and inequality. On top of that, some academics have discussed the possibility

of an existing “race to the bottom” which suggests that these burdens will continue, becoming

greater, as an inevitable result of the neo-liberal paradigm which has developing countries

specialize in line with their comparative advantage – often an abundance of cheap labor.

Furthermore, feminist academics analyzing the gendered aspects of globalization have noted

how women and families, especially in the developing world, generally suffer globalizations’

burdens to a greater extent than men, and how mainstream economic policies overlook women’s

issues by assuming that what is good for men (mostly those working for powerful corporations in

the developed world) is also good for women. Globalization is presented as gender neutral but

this only covers up its gendered aspects.1 Feminist researchers, by “‘[g]endering’ the discourse of

1 Joan Acker, Gender, Capitalism and Globalization, 30 CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY 17-41, at 3 (January 2004).

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globalization exposes the discontinuities between the realities of women’s and men’s lives and

mainstream scholarly work about global processes” and this produces a better understanding.2

“Gender is a basic organizing principle in social life, a principle for the allocation of duties,

rights, rewards, and power, including means of violence.”3 This organizing principle is

embedded in capitalist societies and means “…women are usually disadvantaged in terms of

power and material and status rewards.”4

The coincidence of globalization trends and their overall uniformity in line with the socio-

political economic system known as capitalism, and its’ aura of inevitability and the power it has

to transform societies on a global level has energized harsh supporters and inspired harsh critics.

Two such critics, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri in a manifesto called “EMPIRE” describe

how capitalism, “…from its inception tends toward being a world power, or really the world

power.”5 They say that capitalism as an empire will attempt to “…regulate human interaction…

[and] rule over human nature [-]… [to] rule social life in its entirety, and thus… presents the

paradigmatic form of biopower.”6

The suggestion that a global empire is emerging through the spread of capitalism, will

control human life and society with biopower – whatever that is – and depends upon

globalizations’ ominous burdens, is a terrifying notion to those who believe it. This neo-liberal

globalization is so terrifying, and objectionable that when nation-states or inter-governmental

organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade

2 Id.3 Id.4 Id.5 ANTONIO NEGRI & MICHAEL HARDT, EMPIRE, at 225, (Cambridge: First Harvard UP) (2000), available at Angelfire.com. Web. 3 Apr. 2011,http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/negri/HAREMI_unprintable.pdf.

6 Id., at xv

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Organization (WTO) gather to discuss global economic policy thousands of people meet to

protest their actions.

Having been to one of these protests, and witness to both the repression of protesters by

authorities and how quickly and casually these globalization protests could be dismissed as

counter-productive by non-protesters, I began to wonder whether labor organizing as a means to

address globalization’s burdens is even possible under the dominant neo-liberal paradigm. A

bystander mocked protesters as a group of us were walking down the street and it made me

consider how, to many, the burdens of globalization, are seen as being beyond our control and

influence. That protesting and organizing to address problems of globalization are seen as a

problem, and that this dissent – not globalization itself – jeopardizes our collective interests. In

this paper I conclude that labor organizing is imperative, that we not give up given the burdens of

globalizing under a neo-liberal model, and that neo-liberalism is part of the problem.

This paper also discusses the problems workers deal with at work and asks whether the

masculinities of neo-liberalism should make empowering women a major goal or strategy for

labor organizers within the informal sectors of developing economies. I conclude that women’s

issues are very important in labor organizing. Part one and two of this paper will discuss

globalization under the neo-liberal paradigm and some of its’ consequences with the goal of

making you exclaim – ‘we have to do something about this!’ In part three I will discuss some

ideas for what could be done to advocate for global labor standards and labor organizing and also

share a personal protest experience – where I discover that even those who think they are

powerless to effectuate change may be tacitly supporting the neo-liberal globalization paradigm.

Part four will conclude the paper by arguing for developing new labor organizing strategies in

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informal sectors with a focus on women’s issues, rather than pinning our hopes on convincing

the inter-governmental globalization organizations to implement global labor standards.

II. Part One: Globalization, Neo-liberalism and Hidden Masculinities.

This Part focuses on the relationship between globalization and neo-liberalism. Globalization

is a modern phenomenon but it has historical roots in western colonization, and expansion.

Technological advances, the opening of once closed economies, and the collusion of states,

corporations and of new inter-governmental institutions like the IMF and World Bank have aided

this phenomenon. These inter-governmental institutions, along with states and transnational

corporations, are guided by the neo-liberal ideology. This ideology, while seemingly gender

neutral, is a masculine ideology which allows those at the tops of corporations, and other

institutions to claim close to zero responsibility for the reproduction of life and anything not

directly related to production and profits.

II.I Gendered History of Globalization

In “Gender, Capitalism, and Globalization”, Joan Acker describes globalization as “the

increasing pace and penetrations of movements of capital, production, and people across

boundaries of many kinds and on a global basis.”7 The increasing pace she speaks of can be

viewed as an acceleration of western capitalist expansion. Another writer, Thomas Friedman, in

his book “The World is Flat” notes how modern globalization is a new frontier in the history of

western expansion that he calls ‘Globalization 3.0’.8 He says that:

7 Acker at 17.8 THOMAS FRIEDMAN, THE WORLD IS FLAT (Picador) (2005), at 10.

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“…globalization 3.0 is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in globalization 3.0 – the force that gives it its unique character – is the newfound power for individuals to collaborate and compete globally.9

Friedman focuses on ‘individuals’ but this fails to capture the gendered aspects of this

expansion. Acker notes that “[i]n the history of modern globalization, beginning with the

expansion of England and other European countries in colonial conquest, agents of globalization,

leaders and troops, have been men, but not just any men.”10 As these countries expanded their

agents imposed and developed their own brand of masculinity, which during the ages of

conquest and settlement, combined elements of violence and egocentric individualism.11

Furthermore, this dominate brand of masculinity identified with capitalist production developed

femininity became identified with reproduction – both in terms of biological reproduction and as

a means of reproducing domestic spaces, identities, and Western family structures:

“As European and then American capital established dominance through colonization, empire and today’s globalization, one of the cultural/structural forms embedded in that dominance has been the identification of the male/masculine with production in the money economy and the identification of the female/feminine with reproduction and the domestic.”12

This division of production as masculine and reproduction as feminine is a fundamental part

of women’s subordination in capitalist societies.13 It is also contradictory and problematic in that

“production is organized around the goals of capital accumulation, not around meeting the

reproductive and survival needs of people.”14 Furthermore, as Acker explains, this division “…

was shaped along lines of gender and contributed to continuing gendered inequalities.”15

9 Id.10 Acker at 29.11 Id.12 Id at 25-26.13 Id at 25.14 Id.15 Id.

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Advances in technology, and the opening of once closed economies has accelerated the

expansion of capitalism in modern times. Even part of Friedman’s “… flat-world platform is the

product of a convergence of the personal computer with fiber-optic cable with the rise of work

flow software.”16 For Acker, however, this too has hidden gendered dynamics. “… [T]he ‘new

economy,’” she says, “is emerging in a form as male-dominated as the ‘old economy.’ The new

dominant growth sectors, information technology, biotech innovation, and global finance, are all

heavily male-dominated, although women fill some of the jobs in the middle and at the bottom,

as usual in many old economy sectors… [and] a primary factor seems to be the identification of

computer work with forms of masculinity that exclude women and emphasize obsessive

concentration and/or violence and self-absorption.”17

The opening of economies once separated from global competition is another component of

rapid capitalist expansion. Economist Richard Freeman notes that “…almost all at once in the

1990’s, China, India, and the ex-Soviet bloc joined the global economy and the entire world

came together into a single economic world based on capitalism and markets.”18 So even as the

world is ‘flattening’ or shrinking in an economic sense via global integration and technological

advances the workforce available to capitalist modes of production which competes on a global

scale has increased. Globalization researchers while focusing on this phenomenon, “…working

within a masculinized frame of reference,”19 according to Acker, may have begun using the term

‘globalization’ “as the dominance of neo-liberal capitalism began to be proclaimed in the late

1980s and certainly by the time of the demise of the USSR and communist regimes in other

16 Friedman at 10.17 Acker at 25-26..18 Richard Freeman, The Great Doubling: The Challenge of the New Global LabourMarket, at 1, (2006), available at http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/webfac/eichengreen/e183_sp07/great_doub.pdf.

19 Acker at 21.

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countries around 1989-90. At that time political leaders in the Northern, rich capitalist countries

began to proclaim triumphantly, ‘There Is No Alternative’ to their form of capitalism.”20 The

proclamation, that ‘there is no alternative’, is a shared mantra by states, corporations, and inter-

governmental institutions.

II.II “Corporatocracy” – Power and the Hegemonic Masculinity

Today these institutions, corporations, and centers of power continue to spread their form of

capitalism and with it they instill their brand of masculinity. It is one which is identified with

production at the expense of reproduction, even though this identification is out of touch with

reality. The gender inequalities of the past are continuing these days despite the fact that women

are often as much producers as reproducers.21 With this division, more and more labor power is

available to corporations as they spread this masculine brand of capitalism throughout the globe.

Together they form a kind of corporate hegemony, a ‘corporatocracy’ where men vie for the

most desired form of masculinity: the hegemonic masculinity.22

In his memoir, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” John Perkins describes the collusion

between the U.S. government, private corporations, and these inter-governmental institutions as

part of a ‘corporatocracy’:

“This was a close-knit fraternity of a few men with shared goals, and the fraternity’s members moved easily and often between corporate boards and government positions. It struck me that the current president of the World Bank, Robert McNamara, was a perfect example. He had moved from a position as president of Ford Motor Company, to secretary of defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and now occupied the top post at the world’s most powerful financial institution.”23

20 Acker at FN. 4.21 Acker at 26.22 Id. at 29.23 JOHN PERKINS, CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN, at 23, (Plume) (2006).

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Like Robert McNamara, the men near the top of this ‘corporatocracy’ embody a hegemonic

masculinity. As Acker explains, the “[h]egemonic masculinity is the most desired and admired

form, attributed to leaders and other influential figures at particular historical times.”24 “As

corporate capitalism developed, a hegemonic masculinity based on claims to expertise developed

along with masculinities still organized around domination. Hegemonic masculinity relying on

claims to expertise does not necessarily lead to economic organizations free of domination and

violence however. Some researchers argue that controls relying on both explicit and implicit

violence exist in a wide variety of organizations.”25

One such organization is the International Monetary Fund [IMF] which “is a public

institution… and does not report directly to either the citizens who finance it or those whose lives

it affects. Rather, it reports to the ministries of finance and the central banks of governments

around the world.”26 In his book, Globalization and Its Discontents, former World Bank Chief

Economist Joseph Stiglitz explains that the IMF asserts its control through voting arrangements

where “major developed countries run the show, with only one country, the United States, have

effective veto.”27 The IMF, he says, “…typically provides funds only if countries engage in

policies like cutting deficits, raising taxes, or raising interests rates that lead to a contraction of

the economy” in developing nations.28 In the 1980s, led by free market ideology, both the World

Bank and IMF began working together, becoming “…the new missionary institutions, through

which these ideas were pushed on the reluctant poor countries that often badly needed their loans

and grants.”29 The Bank gave “structural adjustment loans; but only when the IMF gave its

24 Acker at 29.25 Id., at 30.26 JOSEPH STIGLITZ, GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS. , at 12, (W.W. Norton & Company) (2003).

27 Id.28 Id. at 12-13.29 Id., at 13.

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approval – and with that approval came IMF-imposed conditions on the country.”30 These

conditions often make it harder to repay the loans.31

As an economic hit man [EHM], working for the ‘corporatocracy’ John Perkins had “…two

primary objectives… to justify huge international loans that would funnel money back to his

employer MAIN and other U.S. companies… [and then]… to bankrupt the countries that

received those loans… so that they would be forever beholden to their creditors…”32 According

to Perkins:

“This is what EHMs do best: we build a global empire… if an EHM is successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens,… we demand a pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control of United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course the debtor still owes us the money – and another country is added to our global empire.”33 “However – and this is a very large caveat – if we fail, an even more sinister breed steps in, ones we EHMs refer to as the jackals, [or the CIA] men who trace their heritage directly to those earlier empires… And if by chance the jackals fail, as they failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, then the old models resurface. When the jackals fail, young Americans are sent in to kill and to die.”34

Perkins’ testimony demonstrates the extremity of these operations. Not only is the economic

future of a country at stake with globalization, but the lives of civilians and soldiers embattled

over a conflict that is neither of their own. “The IMF, of course, claims that it never dictates but

always negotiates the terms of any loan agreement with the borrowing country. But these are

one-sided negotiations in which all the power is in the hands of the IMF, largely because many

countries seeking IMF help are in desperate need of funds.”35 All together these institutions and

individuals, which make up the ‘corporatocracy’ embody the notion of a hegemonic masculinity.

30 Id., at 14.31 Stiglitz at page 44.32 Perkins at 17-18.33 Id., at xx.34 Id., at xxv.35 Stiglitz at 42.

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II.III Neo-Liberalism – The Non-responsibility for Reproduction

As Acker writes, “[t]he new hegemonic masculinity… represents the neo-liberal ideology.

The Economist talks about the Davos Man, [named after a town in Switzerland where world

business, economic and political leaders meet yearly to discuss the world economy] a term that

includes businessmen, bankers, officials, and intellectuals.”36It is a model of masculinity whose’

only real motivation is greed and only cares for itself. “R.W. Connell (1998) describes a ‘trans-

national business masculinity’ as ‘marked by increasing egocentricism, very conditional loyalties

(even to the corporation), and a declining sense of responsibility for others (except for purposes

of image making).’ This masculinity also seems marked by arrogance, a passion to control,

ruthlessness, and aggression.”37

A gendered analysis of neo-liberalism – as it is spread by men who strive for hegemonic

masculinity – reveals a glaring contradiction. It is in the contradictory goals of humanity as a

whole and capitalism – the former in reproduction and production while the latter only

emphasizes production often at the expense of human welfare. Under neo-liberalism the

reproduction of life does not factor into its economic analysis. According to Acker:

“The implicit masculine standpoint in the ruling relations from which theories of society have been constructed impedes adequate analysis. For example, unpaid caring, household, and agricultural labor, along with much informal economic activity that maintains human life do not enter the analyses or are assumed to be in unlimited supply. The omission of, mostly women’s unpaid work seriously biases discussions of the penetration of capitalist globalizing processes and limits understanding of both negative consequences and potentials for opposition.”38

Furthermore, “The contradictory goals of production and reproduction contribute to another

gendered aspect of globalization capitalist processes. This is the frequent corporate practice, on

36 Acker at 31.37 Id.38 Id., at 20.

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national and global levels, of claiming non-responsibility for reproduction of human life and

reproduction of the natural environment.”39 While implicitly claiming non-responsibility for the

reproduction of human life by coming from a masculinized standpoint, the neo-liberal ideology

argues “…more open economies are more prosperous; economies that liberalize more experience

a faster rate of progress… This line of argument is championed by the more powerful centers of

the ‘thinking for the world’ that influence international policy making, including the inter-

governmental organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and

the World Trade Organization (WTO), and also the US and UK Treasuries, and opinion-shaping

media such as the Financial Times and The Economist.”40 In other words, the ‘corporatocracy’

forces liberalization, privatization, and fiscal austerity, under the assumption that reproduction

will be provided for.

Joseph Stiglitz describes the neo-liberal policy model as having three pillars. They are fiscal

austerity, privatization and market liberalization.41 Together these policies, according to Acker,

strip away old controls and implement new ones to propel a process of ‘freemarketization’:

“‘freemarketization’ or the reduction of old state and contractual controls with the substitution of other controls, and the potential commodification of almost everything are other aspects of present changes. The old controls that have either disappeared or are under attack include those that protected local/national firms and industries, enacted welfare state supports and constrained capitalist actions to oppose unions, to endanger workers’ health and safety, or to pollute the environment. New controls… regulate new categories of workers, constrain opponents of unlimited corporate freedom, or reinforce neo-liberal ideology, such as mandates in the U.S. that impoverished single mothers must work for pay without regard for the welfare of their children. Organizational restructuring, downsizing, new forms of flexibility and new forms of employment relations are parts of free-marketization,” - and these changes are interrelated and shaped by neo-liberalism.42

39 Id., at 26.40 Robert Wade, Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality?, 32 WORLD DEV. 1, at 2, (2004).

41 Stiglitz, at 53.42 Acker, at 35.

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According to the neo-liberal line of thought, ‘freemarketization yields progressive trends

(which they claim are poverty reduction and falling inequality) and “are due in large part to the

rising density of economic integration between countries, which has made for rising efficiency of

resource use worldwide as countries and regions specialize in line with their comparative

advantage.”43 However, for many developing countries the comparative advantage lay in an

abundance of cheap labor.”44 Therefore, by maintaining the abundance of cheap labor, by

specializing in cheap labor, these countries can develop according to the neo-liberal paradigm,

though only so far as the comparative advantage will allow.

In reality however, this specialization in cheap labor does not yield the progressive trends

that neo-liberals claim it does, and neither is specialization in cheap labor a viable way of

supporting reproductive labor. Stiglitz claims that the IMF policy of forcing fiscal austerity,

privatization and liberalization on developing nations was the real flaw. “The problem…” he

says, “… was that many of these policies became ends in themselves, rather than a means to

more equitable and sustainable growth. In doing so, these policies were pushed too far, too fast,

and to the exclusion of other policies that were needed.”45

II.IV Part One Conclusion

The neo-liberal model of economic development is imposed on developing countries from

the outside by intergovernmental organizations like the IMF and World Bank, through

conditional loans and structural adjustment. These institutions are publicly funded by

43 Wade, at 1.44 James Heintz, Rethinking Global Labor Standards: Controversies, Constraints, and Possibilities, 16 GOOD SOC’Y 65-72, at 65 (2007).

.

45 Stigliz at 54.

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governments in advanced countries for the benefit of a few within the ‘corporatocracy’. This

‘corporatocracy’ has developing countries specialize in their comparative advantage, but this

advantage often comes at the cost of poor labor standards and working conditions for those at the

bottom. The next section discusses the ‘Race to the Bottom’ theory, as just one consequence of

neo-liberalism, to explain that the neo-liberal policy models do not improve these conditions but

rather depends on poor working conditions in the developing world.

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III. Part Two: Consequences, the ‘Race to the Bottom’ and Global Labor

Standards

This part looks at the consequences of the ‘corporatocracy’s’ commitment to the neo-liberal

ideology and its’ policy models. The neo-liberal approach to globalization has developing

countries specializing in line with their comparative advantage which is often an abundance of

cheap labor. However, this may have created a situation where developing countries are forced to

maintain their abundance of cheap labor to stay competitive in the global economy which

researchers have called the ‘Race to the Bottom’ theory. The theory explains how neo-liberal

policies fail to address the burdens of competition in the new global economy, such as rising

poverty and inequality, and increased informalization of the labor market. This part ends with

some examples of what working at the bottom is like.

III.I Consequences – Poverty, Inequality, and Declining Labor Standards

Stiglitz, says:

“[t]hose who vilify globalization too often overlook its benefits. But the proponents of globalization have been, if anything, even more unbalanced. To them, globalization is progress; developing countries must accept it, if they are to grow and to fight poverty effectively. But to many in the developing world, globalization has not brought the promised economic benefits. A growing divide between the haves and the have-nots has left increasing numbers in the Third World in dire poverty, living on less than a dollar a day.”46

Rather than fighting poverty, the neo-liberal policy model recommendation increase poverty

and raise inequality both between nations and within nations. However this is not easily

discoverable since the World Bank is “the near-monopoly provider’ of this kind of

information.”47

46 Stiglitz, at 5.47 Wade at 7.

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Another economist, Robert Wade questions the World Bank’s claim in 2001 that poverty has

decreased in the past 20 years: “No ifs or buts,” He says, “I now show that the Bank’s figures

contain a large margin of error, and the errors probably flatter the result in one direction.”48 On

the poverty issue Wade argues that the Bank’s figures have a large margin of error. One

compelling reason is the “often-cited comparison between 1980 and 1998 - 1.4 billion in extreme

poverty in 1980, 1.2 billion in extreme poverty in 1998 –is not valid.”49 The bank introduced a

new methodology in the late 1990’s which makes the figures non-comparable.50 Further sources

of error bias the results downward, so the number of people in poverty seems lower than it really

is; and the bias probably increases over time, making the trend look rosier than it is.51 This is

how the individuals and institutions that comprise the ‘corporatocracy’ justify their adherence to

the neo-liberal model. Through opinion shaping media they claim to be fighting poverty but

actually their conclusions are based on faulty data that underestimates the cost of living.

Among the reasons for the statistical downward bias according to Wade are that “the Bank’s

international poverty line underestimates the income or expenditure needed for an individual (or

household) to avoid periods of food-clothing-shelter consumption too low to maintain health and

well being.”52 As a more masculine model, neo-liberalism under values the cost of the

reproductive labor required to maintain a healthy standard of living. If one looks only at the

Gross National Product [GDP] of a nation then you are not getting the full story. John Perkins,

the ‘economic hit man,’ notes how easy it was to justify huge loans using statistical data.

Commenting on the “deceptive nature of GDP” he writes that he “…discovered that statistics can

48 Id., at 5.49 Id., at 6-7.50 Id.51 Id.52 Id., at 7.

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be manipulated to produce a large array of conclusions…”53 These conclusions, that poverty and

inequality are falling; serve only the individuals and institutions of the ‘corporatocracy’ in their

quest for hegemonic masculinity.

Wade also questions the neo-liberal claim that inequality is falling: “several studies that

measure inequality over the whole distribution and use either cross-sectional household survey

data or measure a combined inequality between countries and within countries show widening

inequality since around 1980.”54 “The conclusion is that the world inequality measured in

plausible ways is probably rising, despite China’s and India’s fast growth.”55Additionally Wade

says “…absolute [rather than relative] income gaps are widening and will continue to do so for

decades.”56 Furthermore, Wade suggested that “China’s growth in the 1990’s is probably

overstated… Even the Chinese government says that the World Bank is overstating China’s

average income.”57

According to Wade “The neo-liberal argument says that inequality provides incentives for

effort and risk-taking and thereby raises efficiency.”58 But the truth “…is that this productive

incentive applies only at moderate levels of inequality. At higher levels, such as in the United

States over the past 20 years, it is likely to be swamped by social costs.”59 These social costs are

not often attributed to the neo-liberal model that view inequality as a force behind development

but inequality is a barrier to growth and human welfare. “Higher inequality within countries goes

with: (1) higher poverty; (2) slower economic growth, especially in large countries such as

53 Perkins at 16.54 Wade at 8.55 Id. at 13.56 Id. at 16.57 Id. at 12.58 Id. at 16.59 Id.

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China, because it constrains the growth of mass demand; (3) higher unemployment; and (4)

higher crime.”60

Higher inequality within a country can have drastic social effects, but higher inequality

between countries could also be problematic for the global economy. Higher inequality between

countries “…above moderate levels may cut world aggregate demand and thereby world

economic growth, making a vicious circle or rising world inequality and slower growth.”61The

issue of whether inequality is good for the economy overlooks the human dimension of

globalization. Inequality has effects on the people living all over the world but these effects are

often given less weight than the effects that neo-liberalism has on businesses trading on a global

scale.

Thus the burden of inequality leads to further burdens. This is not only problematic for

nations and individual people, but also for businesses trading on a global scale. John Rapley

writes about inequality in his book Globalization and Inequality: Neo-liberalism’s Downward

Spiral and “argues that neo-liberalism has skewed income distribution, thereby causing a rise in

political instability and volatility.”62He notes that by now many neo-liberal economists are

beginning to doubt the validity of the thesis that inequality is good for growth.63 Rising poverty

and inequality are not the only consequences of the corporatocracy’s’ commitment to neo-

liberalism. The neo-liberal model also causes labor standards to deteriorate as more employment

shifts to the informal sectors of the economy in both developing and developed nations.

60 Id. 61 Id.62 JOHN RAPLEY, GLOBALIZATION AND INEQUALITY: NEO-LIBERALISM’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL (Lynne Rienner Publishers) at 6, (2004).

63 Id. at 3.

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Meanwhile labor standards in the south are deteriorating; “…the data for Latin American

countries suggest a fall in labor standards during the last two decades. Tokman (1997) has

estimated that 90% of the new jobs created in Latin America between 1985 and 1995 were in the

informal sector. This informalization, together with evidence on the increased casualization of

workers, can be regarded as an erosion of labor standards…”64 One response to the problem of

eroding labor standards is to implement global labor standards, but this too is problematic in that

it could encourage more informalization of the work force. Furthermore, the ‘race to the bottom’

theory explains how improving labor standards jeopardize the comparative advantage of

developing countries.

III.II The “Race to the Bottom” – The Global Labor Standards Debate

Some have suggested implementing global labor standards to address the problem of

declining labor standards and working conditions, but even if they are implemented the new

standards will not help those working in the growing informal sectors. This section will discuss

the ‘race to the bottom’ theory in two forms. The first form is described as a competition

between north and south, which does not support implementing global labor standards. The

alternate form is described as a competition between southern nations, most notably Mexico and

China, and this description supports the implementation of global labor standards. But even if

global labor standards are implemented more needs to be done to help workers improve

conditions in the informal sectors.

64 Ajit Singh & Ann Zammit, Labour Standards and the ‘Race to the Bottom’: Rethinking Globalization and Workers’ Rights from Developmental and Solidaristic Perspectives, 20 OXFORD REV. ECON. POL’Y 1, at 93, (2004).

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In the context of global competition between developing nations, the ‘race to the bottom’

theory complicates the discussion on whether to apply minimum labor standards across the

globe, since it is seen as jeopardizing developing counties’ comparative advantage. According to

the ‘race to the bottom’ theory, countries that forgo improving working conditions to maintain

their comparative advantage cause other countries, with which they compete, to do the same.65

The ‘race to the bottom’ theory describes how “countries, as a matter of national policy, or

enterprises within them, as a matter of practice may abuse labor rights, and thereby cheapen

labor or make it more docile and attractive to investors. In this fashion, nations or firms may gain

competitive, so-called comparative advantage.”66 Thus, abusing worker’s rights is encouraged by

the neo-liberal model’s emphasis on having developing nations specialize in their comparative

advantage of cheap labor. Nations can turn a blind eye towards labor rights violations to gain an

advantage over other nations. Meanwhile corporations are already benefiting from contracting

and subcontracting to increase informalization, or in other words – to increase capital

penetrations into the informal sectors.

With a focus on maintaining a country’s comparative advantage inter-governmental

organizations such as the WTO, World Bank and the ILO are opposed to the idea of global labor

standards, as they could increase labor costs of global trade. “The labor standards at issue are

those embodied in the International Labor Organization (ILO) [core] Conventions.”67 They

include the freedom of association and collective bargaining, the freedom from forced labor and

65 Singh at 87.66 Robert Ross, Reframing the Issue of Globalization and Labor Rights, at 8, Revised from Presentation at the Political Economy of World-Systems 2002 Conference, University of California at Riverside, available at www.irows.ucr.edu/conferences/pews02/pprross.doc.

67 Id.

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discrimination, abolition of child labor, and the right to organize.”68These freedoms however are

not part of the neo-liberal paradigm; rather they present a problem for a country trying to develop

by maintaining its comparative advantage as it increases the cost of doing business.

The debate of whether to implement these freedoms is complicated by increased flexibility in

the labor market forcing greater concentrations of employment in the informal sectors while the

‘race to the bottom’ theory makes them politically unpopular. The ‘freemarketization’ of the

global economy makes implementing global labor standards unlikely to adequately address

working conditions. The concern is that these labor standards would apply only to the formal

sectors. As Singh explains, “The question of labor standards for developing countries derives its

complexity from the dual structure of these economies. Much of the labor force in the South

comprises… the informal sectors.… If labor standards are only to be limited to those working in

the formal sector, this would amount to giving greater privileges to those who are already

privileged. This would tend to increase social inequality…”69

III.III Informalization and the Changing Trans-national Corporate Structure

The informal sectors “[i]n most developing countries, the majority of workers are employed

in unregulated, informal activities including urban street vendors, waste collectors, paid domestic

workers, contingent agricultural workers, and home-based producers of clothing or other

manufactured goods.”70 “In most countries, women disproportionately work in informal

employment. The income workers receive from informal employment is on average, very low,

often consigning these workers and their families to a poverty-level standard of living. Since

informal employment is largely unregulated, these workers are excluded from labor standards as

68 Id at 86.69 Id. at 96.70 Heintz at 70.

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typically conceived.”71 Part of explanation has to do with the changing production structure

spreading into developing countries.

According to Dan Gallen, of the Global Labor Institute, “[t]he growth of the informal sector

since the 1980’s has had two main causes: the global economic crisis, and the way production is

being organized by transnational capital.72 He says that the:

“…modern enterprise is essentially an organizer of production carried out on its behalf by others. Its core includes the management of employees at corporate headquarters and possibly a core labor force of highly skilled technicians. This core directs production and sales, controls subcontracting and decides at short notice what will be produced where, when, how and by whom and from where certain markets will be supplied… Most of the production of the goods it sells and all labor intensive operations will be subcontracted... this type of company will coordinate cascading subcontracting operations which will not be part of its structure but will nevertheless be wholly dependent on it, with wages and conditions deteriorating as one moves from the center of operations to its periphery.”73

Furthermore, according to Dan Gallen:

“The deregulation of the labor market is also a strategy for eliminating the trade union movement. Subcontracting is a well-travelled road to evading legal responsibilities and obligations. The fragmentation and dispersion of the labor force, its constant destabilization by the introduction of new components (women, youth and migrants of different origins) in sectors without trade union tradition (computerization, services), the pressure for maximum profits (productivity) together with management intimidation – all these are obstacles to trade union organization.”74

According to Acker, “[t]he transnational organization of production builds non-responsibility

into the structure of capitalist processes. As corporations such as Nike or Liz Claiborne contact

production to firms in other countries, the corporation has relatively few workers of its own, thus

few who might demand responsibility. As Applebaum and Gereffi (1990,44) say, ‘contracting

means the so-called manufacturer need not employ any production workers, run the risk of

71 Id. 72 Dan Gallin, Propositions on Trade Unions and Informal Employment in Times of Globalisation, 33 ANTIPODE 531-49, at 533 (2001).

73 Id., at 534.74 Id., at 535.

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unionization or wages pressures, or be concerned with layoffs resulting from changes in

production demands.’”75 Corporate non-responsibility for reproductive labor is not merely an

ideological construction, but rather a built in component of the way corporations do business in

developing countries. As Gallen explains:

“By cutting down on the hard core of permanent full-time workers, by decentralizing and subcontracting all but the indispensable core activities, and by relying wherever possible on unstable forms of labor (casual, part-time, seasonal, on call and so on), management deregulates the labor market, not only to reduce cost but to shift the responsibility for income, benefits and conditions onto the individual worker. The outer circle of this system is the informal sector: the virtually invisible world of microenterprises and home-based workers. The informal sector is an integral part of global production and marketing chains. What is particular to the informal sector is the absence of rights and social protections of the workers involved in it.”76

The changing structure of transnational production and the increased concentration of

production in the informal sectors make implementing labor standards less likely to adequately

address working conditions in developing countries.

III.IV The “Race to the Bottom” – Returning to the Labor Standards Debate

The difficulties surrounding the problem of the ‘race to the bottom’ are compounded further

by the question of which inter-governmental organizations should enforce global labor standards.

The International Labour Organization - in the Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights

at Work, stated explicitly that labor standards should not be used for protectionist purposes.77 It

also suggested that these basic principles and rights should not in any way affect the comparative

advantage of any country.78 It is significant that the core conventions do not include minimum

wages as that might have been regarded as distorting a country’s comparative advantage.”79 The 75 Acker at 25-26.76 Gallen at 535.77 Singh, at 8678Id.

79 Id.

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ILO uses the logic of neo-liberalism and enters the debate favoring the maintenance of a

developing country’s comparative advantage; essentially this approach could exclude the

countries with the worst labor standards and working conditions from any inter-governmental

efforts to improve those conditions.

In any case the ILO is unable to use any sanctions against offenders, and advanced countries

would prefer WTO implantation since the WTO “has a dispute settlement mechanism (DSM)

and the ability to impose sanctions.”80 “The international labor movement, especially in the core

of high income countries, and sometimes supported by western governments, have proposed

including labor standards conditionally in WTO and other trade agreements. The proposal is

referred to putting a “social clause” into related trade agreements.”81

This ‘social clause’ is aimed at preventing developing countries from maintaining poor

working conditions in an attempt to remain competitive, but it may benefit the economies of

already wealthy nations especially if the ‘race to the bottom’ describes competition between

North and South. James Heintz, in “Rethinking Global Labor Standards: Controversies,

Constraints, and Possibilities,” says that:

“Opponents of the idea of global labor standards often draw on international trade theory to make their point. The argument goes as follows. Developing countries have an abundance of low-wage labor, but a shortage of other factors of production, such as capital equipment or a technologically savvy workforce. Their competitive advantage therefore lies in low-wage production. In this context global standards compromise the competitive position of developing countries with an abundance of low-skill, low-wage labor. Moreover, such protections shield workers in more affluent economies from global competition. The end result will be more protected jobs in rich nations and fewer economic opportunities in poor countries.”82

80 Id. 81 Ross, at 2.

82 Heintz at 65.

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This would in effect benefit the North at the expense of the south. If the ‘race to the bottom’

describes competition between Northern countries and Southern countries the global labor

standards of the ILO could favor advanced countries over developing ones without improving

conditions. This contradiction makes global labor standards a poor response to the problem of

the ‘race to the bottom’ if this holds true.

Northern Trade unions have led a concerted campaign at the WTO for instituting higher labor

standards in developing countries.83 While higher labor standards could provide workers in

developing countries with a mechanism for addressing poor conditions, the absence of these

standards could allow developing countries to become more productive in the long run as

productivity rises and wages remain stagnant and thereby threaten employment in the North.84

Conversely, improvements in labor standards could have the effect of reducing employment in

developing countries.85 Hence, “Developing countries have, however, resolutely opposed any

discussion of labor standards at the WTO regarding these as thinly veiled protectionists

devises.”86 Furthermore, developing countries may have a difficult time improving standards and

be subject to trade sanctions under the WTO.87 Thus, when the ‘race to the bottom is described as

being a race between the North and the South, it is dismissed by the WTO as unfair to

developing countries.

The alternate description of the ‘race to the bottom’ problem is that the race is between

Southern nations. According to Ross, “There is good reason for representatives of laborers in

low-income countries to favor the social clause… the standard argument against a social clause

83 Singh at 86.84 Id. at 89.85 Heintz 65.86 Singh at 86.87 Ross at 5.

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view competition in world trade as between workers in the rich North against the workers in the

poor South… Contrary to the conventional view, the fiercest competition in many of the world

export markets is… a South-South competition.”88 This would undermine the WTO’s position

that implementing global labor standards are counterproductive in improving labor conditions.

And despite the dominant perception that the ‘race to the bottom’ is between the North and the

South “There is evidence that South-South competition may already be a race to the bottom.”89

In his assessment Ross compares the U.S., Mexican, and Chinese apparel imports and argues that

China and Mexico are locked into such a race.90 This description of the problem would support a

response to the issues of falling labor standards and working conditions in the form of global

labor standards.

Anita Chan, in her article “A ‘Race to the Bottom’: Globalization and China’s labor

standards” also questions the description of the ‘race to the bottom’ as competition between

North and South. She quotes one observer as saying “‘in the ‘race to the bottom’, China is

defining the bottom.’”91 She argues that “…competition… is largely among countries in the

developing world.”92 The competition between China and Mexico has both locked in to a

desperate situation where any improvements that increase costs jeopardize their comparative

advantage. China’s system is keeping wages in Mexico down, the “pressures are tightening on

Mexican enterprises to more vigorously compete with China’s long working hours and bargain-

basement prices.”93This description would support implementing global labor standards;

88 Id. at 12-13.89 Id. at 16.90 Id. 91 Anita Chan, A “Race to the Bottom” , China Perspectives, 46 (March-April 2003), at 2, available at http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/259.92 Id.93 Id. at 5.

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however these standards are still unlikely to help improve conditions for workers in the informal

sectors.

III.V Working at the Bottom – Examples of Injustice

Meanwhile, China is defining the bottom when it comes to labor standards. The “...reasons

why Chinese wages can be kept so competitive compared to other countries…, it has an almost

inexhaustible supply of cheap labor from the countryside…, the decentralization and

deregulation in wage-setting under China’s economic reforms has enabled local governments to

turn a blind eye to labor exploitation… and the Fourth fundamental reason is the hukou

system.”94 The hukou system is a pass system which “… works in similar ways to the pass

system under South Africa’s former system of apartheid.”95

Anita Chan, in “Labor Standards and Human Rights: The case of Chinese Workers under

Market Socialism” included a letter from workers of the Guangdong’s Zhaojie Footwear

Company to illustrate the horrible and dehumanizing conditions workers face:

“The company docks our pay, deducts and keeps our deposits, beats, abuses, and humiliates us at will.

Those of us who came from outside the province only knew we had been cheated after getting here. The reality is completely different from what we were told by the recruiter. Now even though we want to leave, we cannot because they would not give us back our deposit and our temporary residential permit, and have not been giving us our wages. This footwear company has hired over one hundred live-in security guards, and has even set up teams to patrol the factory. The staff and workers could not escape even if they had wings. The only way to get out of the factory grounds is to persuade the officer in charge of issuing leave permits to let you go. A Henan worker wanted to resign but was not allowed to by the officer. So he climbed over the wall to escape, but was crushed to death by a passing train.

94 Id., at 6.

95 Anita Chan, Labor Standards and Human Rights: The Case of Chinese Workers Under Market Socialism, 20 HUM. RTS. Q. 886-904, at 888 (1998).

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Although it means forfeiting the deposit and wages and losing their temporary residential permits, each year about 1,000 workers somehow leave this place.

Being beaten and abused are everyday occurrences, and other punishments include being made to stand on a stool for everyone to see, and to stand facing the wall to reflect on our mistakes, or being made to crouch in a bent-knee position.

The staff and workers often have to work from 7 a.m. to midnight. Many have fallen sick… it is not easy even to get permission for a drink of water during working hours.”

On the other side of the world conditions are no better. Elvia Arriola, in “Voices From the

Barbed Wires of Despair; Women in the Maquiladoras, Latina Critical Legal Theory, and

Gender at the U.S.-Mexico Border” collected many firsthand accounts of the terrible conditions,

and low pay workers deal with. Maquiladora worker, Julia Gonzales says: “It is not possible to

live on what the maquiladoras pay and this has made it so many women workers cannot take care

of their own children. With such little pay, they are not able to provide food that their children

need.”96 Julia’s story is all too common for workingwomen on the border, and is a prime

example of just how little importance reproductive labor has in the eyes of the ‘corporatocracy’.

III.VI Part Two Conclusion

The race to the bottom describes how, through sub-contracting, and the informalization of the

labor force could spread throughout the globe as capitalism becomes more and more global. As

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” – “Injustice anywhere

is a threat to justice everywhere.”97 There is more truth in those words, if one considers the

concept of bio-power- a form of power which “…regulates life from its interior…,” and which

individuals embrace and reactivate of their own accord.98 Understanding this form of power 96 Elvia Arriola, Voices From the Barbed Wires of Despair: Women in the Maquiladoras, Latina Critical Legal Theory, and Gender at the U.S.-Mexico Border, 49 DEPAUL L. REV. 729, at 766 (2004).

97 King, Martin L. Jr.. Letter from a Birmingham Jail, African Studies Ctr – Univ. PA (April 16, 1963), at 1, available at http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.

98 Hardt at 23-4.

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enables us to step back and consider how by doing nothing about these injustices we tacitly

accept them and are thus powerless to counteract a global-capitalist empire.

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IV Part Three: A Way Out of Empire – Suggestions for Reorganization

This section argues that the increasingly global power of the ‘corporatocracy’ is dispersed to

individuals in different walks of life, and infusing them with a desire for hegemonic masculinity.

To counteract this it is necessary to empower women within their productive and reproductive

roles, to encourage the reproductive role of men, and develop new customs for providing for the

reproduction of life. Those working in deplorable conditions, like those mentioned in part two,

can develop communities capable of redirecting the bio-politics of the ‘coproratocracy’ through

union organizing. Meanwhile those in the developing world in closer proximity to the corporate

power centers can demand greater responsibility for the reproduction of life. This section begins

with a discussion of the ‘free-rider’ problem of union membership and the need for protest. It

discusses how some state welfare programs have been successful in breaking the cycle of

poverty in Latin America by empowering women, and men within their reproductive roles. I

conclude with examples of successful cross-border organizing, informal sector organizing, and

how a new worker’s movement is erupting in China.

IV.I Protest

Protesting and the boycotting of consumer goods have already been successful in

counteracting corporate non-responsibility, as Anita Chan explains:

“[t]he loudest and most persistent criticisms regarding the decline of labor standards as a result of a globalized economy have emanated from NGO-led consumer boycott campaigns…these NGOs are pressuring multinational corporations such as Nike over minimum wages, work hours, health and safety conditions. Although these groups are small and lacking resources, they have made inroads in raising the awareness of consumers. In response, an increasing number of multinational corporations are attempting to pre-empt being targeted by rushing to draw up their own corporate codes of conduct”99

99 Anita Chan, Labor Standards and Human Rights: The Case of Chinese Workers Under Market Socialism, 20 HUM. RTS. Q. 886-904, at 901-2, (1998).

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This kind of non-violent, direct action is necessary, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr.

because, “[l]amentably, it is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their

privileges voluntarily.”100Still, I’m sad to say from personal experience, despite MLK’s

arguments against attitudes such as the “outside agitator” idea, the devotion to “order” over

justice still persists.101While attending a protest at the G20 in Pittsburg, a meeting of Finance

Ministers, and central bank governors from twenty countries, a local citizen voiced his outrage at

us protesters as being outsiders and “free-loaders.”

“Free-loaders, Us?” I said, and dismissed the statements, but the idea of a “free-loader”, or

“free-rider” is a term relevant to union organizing. The “free-rider” problem is where a collective

good lobbied for by a group allows some individuals to enjoy the benefits of that good without

incurring a cost.102In “The Free Rider Problem and a Social Custom Model of Trade Union

Membership”, Allison Booth suggests that the problem could be overcome with her “Social

Custom” model of union membership, where union membership need not be compulsory or the

collective good excludable. 103 As she explains:

“…within a community, there is a set of rules and customs that are obeyed by individuals because of the loss of reputation within the community (a sanction) if the custom should be disobeyed. Reputation is assumed to be desired by individuals.”

By supposing “…that the union provides a single excludable good for its members:

reputation from belonging to the union and not being a ‘scab’,” Booth, viewing people as

rational utility maximizers, shows how the free-rider problem could be overcome since the

100 King Jr. at 3 101 King Jr. at 1 and 5. 102 Alison Booth, The Free Rider Problem and a Social Custom Model of Trade Union Membership, 100 Q. J. ECON., 253-61, at253 (Jan. 1985), available at, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1885744.

103 Id., at 253-4.

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reputation is exclusive to group members.104 Unions, in formal or informal sectors, should

develop a social custom within its members as being more than self-responsible but responsible

for reproduction, both women and men, while activists in developed countries demand the same

from corporations and states. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King voiced his

disappointment in moderates who would not “…reject the myth concerning time in relation to

the struggle for freedom.”105 The time is now! “[J]ustice too long delayed is justice denied.”106

And in the new global capitalist empire of the ‘corporatocracy’, none of us are outsiders. We

have the power to change this, but if we accept this injustice, if we believe we are powerless,

then we tacitly accept the rule of the ‘corporatocracy’ and embrace its’ bio-powers as our own.

IV.II Take back the Bio-Power

Negri and Hardt, in “EMPIRE” use French philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept of

biopower to describe how the capitalist empire, or in Perkins’s term – the ‘corporatocracy’- may

be regulating life:

“… the new ‘biopolitical nature of the new paradigm of power…bio-power is a form of power that regulates social life from its interior, following it, interpreting it, absorbing it, and rearticulating it. Power can achieve an effective command over the entire life of the population only when it becomes an integral, vital function that every individual embraces and reactivates of his or her own accord… The highest function of this power is to invest life through and through, and its primary task is to administer life. Biopower thus refers to a situation in which what is directly at stake in power is the production and reproduction of life itself.”107

This form of power however does not stop with the ‘corporatocracy,’ rather it is only an

institutional apparatus that employs part of it. The other part is us; those individuals outside the

‘corporatocracy’ who often live in poverty and towards the bottom of the inequality spectrum,

but who nevertheless have taken up the project of crafting ourselves in its image – the so called

104 Id., at 255-7.105 King Jr., at 5.106 Id., at 3.107 Hardt at 23-4.

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“Davos Man” who longs for hegemonic masculinity. As one Foucaudian scholar says, “…in

neo-liberalism, one saw the emergence of formulae of power that not only postulated, but also

sought to create, certain forms and spaces of self-government, self-regulation, and self-

responsibility.”108

Thus neo-liberalism, as the ideology of what is probably already a global empire – the

‘corporatocracy’– is infusing persons all over the globe with a desire for masculinity, but this

exists in a context where the role of women is still tied to reproductive labor, health and human

welfare, and where reproduction of life is both directly at stake and seen as secondary to the

masculinized drive towards wealth and power. Tied to this masculinity, although it creates a

“self-responsibility,” is the notion of corporate “non-responsibilty” for reproduction, and thus it

is our responsibility to take up a “self –responsibility” for empowering reproduction. Hardt and

Negri say that our “…political task… is not simply to resist these [biopolitics but] to reorganize

them and redirect them toward new ends…[to] one day take us through and beyond

‘Empire.’”109This also means making men more responsible for reproduction. In an empire where

“…women [are] often as much “producers” as “reproducers,”110men should take a more

prominent role in providing for reproduction.

IV.III Empower Women

In Latin America, state welfare programs, such as Mexico’s cash transfer program and

Familias en Acción [FA] in Columbia, are already using women’s empowerment as strategy for

reducing poverty, although anchoring the program in traditional gender roles.111 The main

108 Rabinow, at xxx.109 Hardt, at xv.110 Acker at 7-8111 See generally Maria A. Quijano, Social Policy for Poor Rural People in Columbia: Reinforcing Traditional Gender Roles and Identities?, 43 SOC. POL’Y & ADMIN. 397- 408, (2009), available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9515.2009.00670.x/abstract.

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objectives of these programs are to “… increase human capabilities of poor households… and

break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.”112 And thus far these programs are succeeding in

their objectives.113 In “Social Policy for Poor Rural People in Colombia: Reinforcing Traditional

Gender Roles and Identities?” María A. Farah Quijano explains that:

“The FA programme addresses the issue of poor women’s empowerment by giving them the option of receiving, managing and controlling cash benefit vouchers from the state.”114 “[It] gives cash subsidies to the poorest households with the object of providing an incentive for improving frequency and duration of attendance within education, and the health and nutrition of children from the poorest households, indigenous communities and families displaced as a result of violent internal conflict,… it is based on mothers, as FA gives them, and not fathers monetary benefit. Furthermore, mothers are the family members who bear the primary responsibility for carrying out the programme obligations.”115

Quijano writes that while the program is anchored in traditional conceptions of women, most

notably their role as mothers, and in this way it has re-traditionalized women as for those who

participate, “…the success of their role depends upon the gender division of both reproductive

and productive activities.”116 But she goes on to say that “…there are also cases in Paipa

[Columbia] which illustrate different gender trends, such as husbands and wives making

decisions together on domestic issues, men carrying out some domestic activities and care for

children without help of wives, and women abandoning men.”117 Although these examples are

compelling examples of women’s liberation, the program itself has achieved these only by

empowering those women who already had such inclinations, but were only prevented from

doing so by their lives before they entered the program. Or as, Quijano puts it, “…FA has built

112 Rebecca Holmes & Rachel Slater, Conditional Cash Transfers: What Implications for Equality and Social Cohesion? The Experience of Oportunidades in Mexico, GOV’T SOC. DEV. at 2, (2007), available at http://epic.programaeurosocial.eu/files/18-ficha-completa-eng.pdf.

113 Id. at 18.114 Quijano at 3. 115 Id.116 Id. at 2. 117 Id. at 3.

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on changes in gender relationships which were already under way before the programme started,

due to wider developments in the local economy.”118

Labor in the informal sectors should also have the strategy of empowering women. Within

the bio-political nature of the global economy “…under situations where the models of selfhood

are imposed from outside, a certain self crafting is required…,”119 empowering individuals and

groups in the realm of reproduction, for both men and women, is not only the best way to

improve health and well being, it may also be a useful strategy for labor organizing in the

informal sectors. And in turn, as a method of empowering women, in the informal sectors,

women might be able to make their own empowerment their own goal. One example of this is

those instances where mothers in the FA program better themselves and “realize that marital

violence is an issue they do not have to accept, but which can be modified”120

Furthermore, the program is flexible enough, in giving some men the option of taking on the

program’s responsibilities that the reproductive role of men has increased in some households.121

One single father beneficiary was elected as a group’s spokes person, and according to Quijano,

“… [m]any women admire him and say they would like to have a husband like him.”122 This

shows a widening view of the role of fathers in reproductive labor, and these are the views

unions should encourage in building social customs in the communities they wish to organize.

IV.IV Organize Informal Employment

118 Id. at 4. 119 PAUL RABINOW, THE ESSENTIAL FOUCAULT at xxi, (The New Press) (2003).

120 Quijano at 3. 121 Id.122 Id.

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Bishwapriya Sanyal in “Organizing the self-employed: the politics of the urban informal

sector”, writes about the political implications of the urban informal sectors, or UIS, and

highlights how sex roles can be helpful in pulling people together as an “axis of commonality”123:

“The emergence of a growing number of poor women’s organizations in developing countries indicates that sex [or gender] can be a unifying factor, particularly when socially determined sex roles restrict the access of women to economic opportunities in the formal sector.”124

Sanyal goes on to describe how the formal and informal sectors are not as separate as their

titles suggest. Rather “[t]he two segments are neither disconnected nor distinctly different. For

example, UIS firms often serve as subcontractors to firms in the formal economy.”125 And the

informal sectors are “…not limited to any one type of activity, such as petty trading, but covers a

heterogeneous set of activities, including repair work, light manufacturing, transport services and

house-building. The only commonality among these diverse activities is that, in the UIS context,

they are not legally established and hence are not subject to state regulations.”126 However,

governments and USI are not so antagonistic to one another in all circumstances.127 Sanyal says

that governments have begun “…devising policies to facilitate income and employment within

the USI.”128 This shows how states may play a role in helping workers in the informal sectors.

Furthermore, according to Dan Gallin of the Global Labor Institute, organizing the informal

sector is not only possible it, “serves the interests of the majority of workers worldwide”129 :

“Admittedly, the heterogeneous nature of employment relations, the difficulties of locating and contacting workers in informal employment and – in some instances – obstacles created

123 Bishwapriya Sanyal, Organizing the Self-Employed: The Politics of the Urban Informal Sector, 130 INT’L LAB. REV. 39, at 45-47, (1991), available at web.mit.edu/sanyal/www/articles/Self-Employed.pdf.

124 Id., at 47.125 Id., at40.126 Id., at 41.127 Id., at 54.128 Id.129 Gallen at 532.

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by legislation make organizing difficult. However, unions also often underestimate the capacity of informal sector workers to organize themselves. Organizing in the informal sector is not missionary work amongst an amorphous and passive mass of individuals. On the contrary, it depends on the ability to reach out to groups of workers who are survival experts and therefore, in many cases, extraordinarily dynamic and resourceful.”130

Gallen cautions that the informal sectors are not a transitory phenomenon as once thought but

may be here to stay.131That being so, organizing them to demand better pay and conditions must

be a vital part of labor union strategy if they are to fight poverty and inequality effectively and if

they are to play a unifying role in redirecting bio-power towards peace and justice. Not only

must they empower women, and redefine masculinities to include a care for reproductive labor,

the must also create new links across borders.

In “A Borderless World? From Colonialism to Transnationalism and the Decline of the

Nation-State” Masao Miyoshi describes the difficulty traditional, nationally concerned unions

have with creating such links across borders. He says:

"[t]he transnational class is self-concerned, though aggressively extroverted in cross-border movement. Labor unions, which might be expected to offer assistance to workers, on the other hand, still operate within the framework of a national economy. It is at present simply unthinkable that transnational labor unions will take joint actions across national borders, equalizing their wages and working conditions with their cross-border brothers and sisters"132

Despite Miyoshi’s pessimism there is hope. In “Globalization and Cross-Border Labor

Organizing: The Guatemalan Maquiladora Industry and the Phillips Van Heusen Workers’

Movement”, Ralph Armbuster-Sandoval discusses a successful cross-border organizing

campaign that overcame a history of labor repression in Guatemala, where workers overcame

130 Id. at531131 Id. at 531-2.132 Masao Miyoshi, A Borderless World? From Colonialism to Transnationalism and the Decline of the Nation-State, 19 CRITICAL INQUIRY 726-51, at 746, (1993), available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343904

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their distrust of North American Unions, and organized despite the new mobile nature of

capital.133 As Armbuster-Sandoval explains:

“… capital mobility, especially in the highly mobile garment industry, where production facilities and factories can be easily moved. … [W]hen confronted with labor rights violations and labor organizing campaigns, The Gap and Phillips Van Heusen threatened to leave El Salvador and Guatemala, respectively. Both companies eventually backed down, but other garment manufacturers have simply cut their contracts with their overseas producers and moved to new countries.134

Futhermore, there had been a history of “…repressive state-labor relations [that] also

undermined the possibility of labor organizing. For example, Rigoberto Dueñas, Assistant

General Secretary of the Confederación General de Trabajadores de Guatemala, stated, ‘the

[Guatemalan] military attacked the labor movement over the last 35 years and it jailed and

tortured many of its key leaders. These activities did not eliminate the movement, but they did

drive it underground and left it very weak.’”135 This too was overcome, but also the workers had

to get over their distrust of North American unions due to “…the long history of the AFL-CIO’s

activities in Latin America.”136 As Armbuster-Sandoval explains:

“In the early 1960s, the AFL-CIO established the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) with funding from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and several multinational corporations. Over the next 25 years, AIFLD divided militant and left-leaning labor unions and established conservative unions and federations that supported U.S. economic and foreign policies in the region. For example, in El Salvador, it directly undermined labor federations that opposed its policies, bribed labor leaders, and labeled the Unidad Nacional de Trabajadores Salvadoreños a “guerrilla organization controlled by the Frente Farabundo Marti para Liberación Nacional (FMLN)”. These activities… created [a] lingering suspicion of the AFL-CIO in Latin America and

133 Ralph Armbuster-Sandoval, Globalization and Cross-Border Labor Organizing: The Guatemalan Maquiladora Industry and the Phillips Van Heusen Workers’ Movement, 26 LATIN AM. PERSP. 108, at 109-11, (1999), available at, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2634297.

134 Id., at 110.135 Id., at 111.136 Id.

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[were] an important barrier to the establishment of cross-border labor linkages between U.S. and Latin American labor unions.”137

Despite all these barriers to creating linkages with other labor organizers in the United States,

organizers were able to come up with a new organizing model:

“[t]he PVH case illustrates that each structural barrier contained its own limitations. [The Sindicato de Trabajadores de Camosa (Union of Camosa Workers)] STECAMOSA developed a strategic cross-border labor organizing model that exploited some of these weaknesses. The model included a committed international trade secretariat, clandestine labor organizing, strong local union membership, trade and consumer pressure, the involvement of solidarity and labor rights organizations, and the manipulation of PVH’s corporate image.”138

For example the STEMCAMOSA organizing campaign turned PVH’s own “carefully

cultivated ‘socially responsible’ image…” against it at the beginning of negotiations.139 This

choreographed and carefully planned campaign of labor organizing demonstrates the possibilities

of creating links across borders and “…cross-border organizing and the negotiation of the only

collective bargaining agreement in the Guatemalan Maquiladora industry were achieved.”140 The

good news, according to Dan Gallen is that:

“…informal sector workers are already organizing, partly within existing union structures originating in the formal sector, partly into new unions created by themselves, partly into associations which are sometimes described as NGOs but which are often in fact protounions. International networks of informal sector workers already exist.”141

New workers movements are even organizing against poor conditions and wages in China.

Paul Mason, in his book “Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global”,

uncovers a new underground labor movement erupting in China, “China, where strikes are

137 Id.138 Id., at 122.139 Id., at 120-1.140 Id., at 121.141 Gallen at 540.

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technically illegal are becoming the strike center of the world.”142 One worker, Lou Chun-li, a

female migrant worker from Hunan, describes how easy it was to strike:

“‘You just pass a tiny piece of paper along the production line with the word ‘strike’ on it, and people strike… ‘We just went onto the shop floor and when it was time to start work, we just sat there and did nothing.’”143

“This is what the new Chinese labor movement looks like: lacking money, security and post-

school education these young and mainly female volunteers are part of a massive change that’s

sweeping the Chinese workforce.”144 So even at the bottom there is hope. It is our task to

organize ourselves in opposition to injustice, to pull ourselves out of a race to the bottom by

creating a new solidarity among all the working people of world. The central feature of this new

solidarity should constitute a counter power against the “corporatocracy” and demand more for

our reproduction.

V. Part Four: Conclusion

Taking globalization in a new direction is no easy task. Partly the difficulty rests on the

collusion of states, corporations, and inter-governmental organizations such as the IMF and

World Bank and their commitment to neo-liberalism. Together they assume that what is best for

the “corporatocracy” is what is best for all, and that what is best for men is also best for women.

Undermining these assumptions will be a vital step in redirecting these institutions’ prerogatives

away from purely economic interests that maintain the ‘corporatocracy’ and their collusion may

prove useful in advancing worker’s interests, women’s interests and even environmental

interests.

142 PAUL MASON, LIVE WORKING OR DIE FIGHTING: HOW THE WORKING CLASS WENT GLOBAL, at 2, (Haymarket) (2010).

143 Id., at 1-2.144 Id.

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It is important to realize that globalization is not a new phenomenon but a continuation in a

long quest for global domination and has roots in Western expansion and colonialism. It is linked

with the expansion of capitalist production which has now become a global model, as former

communist countries have integrated with the global community and new technologies

streamlined global trade and communication. With this expansion came the division of labor in

terms of masculine and feminine. Taking globalization in a more equitable direction will have to

undue this division of production and reproduction in face of the realities of modern society

where these responsibilities are more often shared. Recognizing the historical context from

which modern globalization has emerged reveals its discontinuities with modern society and

provides a starting point for discussing where to take globalization in the future.

Neo-liberalism emerged as the dominant economic theory and maintained the gendered

division of production and reproduction. Advancing the neo-liberal economic paradigm does not

result in a more just and equitable world. Rather globalization has led to a greater divide between

the rich and the poor and increased poverty especially in countries which specialize in an

abundance of cheap labor. To shed light on these results and the damage it does to communities

and cooperation in a global world is a vital step in permitting alternative economic and

developmental models to permeate through the ranks of these institutions. From there

globalization can take a new direction where the benefits of cooperation between these

institutions are more evenly distributed.

The assumption is that neo-liberalism advances growth and development throughout the

world through a process of “freemarketization” where state controls and supports aimed at

providing for reproduction are dismantled to allow for an unconstrained capital flows. In reality

most of the benefits of this economic model concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few

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powerful men. These men embody the hegemonic masculinity, an exclusive brand of masculinity

based on a ruthless quest for power and wealth. They use the institutional structures of the

“corporatocracy,” corporations, states, and inter-governmental organizations, to reinforce their

power and domination over the global economy. For the vast majority of workers this is an

unattainable goal and recognizing that may help workers band together rather than compete

against one another.

Neo-liberalism has also set up a “race to the bottom” where countries with the worst working

conditions, lowest pay, and workers rights maintain their advantage in cheap labor. Although the

“race to the bottom” phenomenon is more accurately described as between poorer Southern

countries, the World Bank and other inter-governmental organizations are reluctant to implement

global labor standards due to their commitment to neo-liberalism. However, it is important to

remember that these are publicly funded institutions that are not accountable to the public.145

Protest and petitioning can be helpful in making them more accountable as their funding

ultimately comes from taxpayers.

Global labor standards would be a worthwhile strategy in overcoming the ‘race to the

bottom,’ but the WTO is weary of the idea because they jeopardize a country’s comparative

advantage. Therefore targeting inter-governmental with protest is not enough. Protests and

boycotts directed at corporations have already been successful in getting corporations to improve

the working conditions of their subcontractors.146 These campaigns are also helpful in creating

linkages across borders, and the publicity they generate can help labor organizing across borders.

145 See Stiglitz, supra note 26, at 12.146 See Chan, supra note 99, at 901.

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Informal sector organizing has also been most effective when paired with publicizing corporate

non-responsibility, and collusion with human rights organizations and other NGOs.147

As workers and activists we should empower women in both their productive and

reproductive roles to counter the hegemony of the “corporatocracy,” and re-empower men in a

new direction of helping to provide for reproduction rather than encourage a quest for hegemony.

By developing new labor organizing strategies suited for informal employment and a focus on

women’s issues, we can counteract the “corporatocracy” rather than pinning our hopes on

convincing the inter-governmental globalization organizations to implement global labor

standards. Taking globalization in a new direction may not be easy, but unless we want the

world’s workers caught in a vicious ‘race to the bottom’ and competeing against one another in a

hopeless quest for hegemony, where women shoulder the burdens of inequality and poverty, it is

something that we must do in the next century.

147 See Armbuster-Sandoval, supra note 138, at 122.

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