“polish jobs for polish workers”?

by Chris Kane

The leaders of global capitalism, gathered at the G20 summit in London, declared: “We have committed ourselves to work together with urgency”, in their response, they espouse unity around “an open world economy based on market principles”.[i]  In contrast global labour is not yet unified in its response to the crisis: our trade unions are organised at the level of the heavily bureaucratised European TUC and IFTU. These have tended to retard rather than unify and advance the militant struggles taking place in separate countries. This lack of effective organisation at an international level has also had a corrosive effect on the principles based on the necessity of solidarity amongst workers of all nationalities to advance our common interests.  Rather than match the unity of global capital we are seeing the labour bureaucrats, yet again, actively fragmenting and undermining the global solidarity necessary to respond to the crisis.