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 can’t just demand a raise
in pay without offering an incentive to the company. We’re
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 it’s one in 12.
According to the text, the number of workers affiliated to a union has