Source: Peter Evans, Scholars Strategy Network, Key Findings, July 2013
Hard times can push social movements toward new strategies, and American trade unions have certainly seen their share of adverse economic and political trends in recent decades. One result has been a turn toward building global alliances. By reaching out to fellow workers across national boundaries, and at times working in concert with other employees of one transnational corporation, U.S. unions have been able to gain new leverage in what has otherwise been an era of receding union power.
Global collaborations involving three mainstream U.S. unions – the Steelworkers, the United Automobile Workers, and the Service Workers International Union – illustrate some of the goals and accomplishments that can be furthered. Counterpart unions can form a pincers movement to pressure a shared corporate adversary, and union drives stand a better chance of success if various national sets of workers participate at the same time.