ETUI-REHS Education REHS Turin, November 2007 Yuliya Simeonova Different Forms and Impacts of Globalisation What is globalisation? Different levels of globalisation Players’ strategies

ETUI-REHS Education REHS Definition  a method of production (capitalism, now in a phase of financial capitalism)  an ideology and form of government (neo-liberalism)  and cultural and trade domination (and when needed, military domination) by Western countries. What you call globalisation is nothing more than the final phase of the Westernisation of the world

ETUI-REHS Education REHS  The term "globalisation" refers to a process by which financial capitalism tends to impose its interests on every society on the planet and to all sectors of society (labour, consumption, culture, public management, etc.)  It is a process that extends to the entire planet a mode of production, a political ideology (neo-liberalism) and a dominant culture (that of the USA and secondarily that of Western Europe): producing effects of polarisation and growing inequalities, rather than uniformisation. Abolishing borders and imposing the same rules on everyone leads to greater inequalities between the dominant and the dominated

ETUI-REHS Education REHS  Globalisation is intentional and organised by a consortium of actors, financial and industrial, political and military; these actors are many and dissimilar, but are linked by common interests and far- reaching lobbies. These actors put forward identifiable choices and give rise to resistance by other actors  The process is not entirely new: globalisation is a stage in the development of capitalism; this stage has certain new characteristics (telecommunications, increased power of finance); it also has certain regressive aspects (deregulation); but fundamentally it prolongs the development of capitalism

ETUI-REHS Education REHS Мain aspects of globalisation Internationalisation of trade Internationalisation of production Internationalisation of capital

ETUI-REHS Education REHS Main players Multinational companies – Direct foreign Investment International finance organisations and WTO European Union

ETUI-REHS Education REHS  From the consensus of Bretton Woods to the Washington consensus  Deregulation of financial markets (N. York, Tokyo…)  Deregulation of Direct foreign Investment: competition between states  Deregulation of trade (GATT – WTO) and regionalization (EU, MERCOSUR, ALIENA, APEC…) The triumph of globalisation

ETUI-REHS Education REHS Unequal globalisation Globalisation is not global Globalisation is not global Impact on regional level Impact on national level Impact on local level (country, town, community) Impact on Trade unions

ETUI-REHS Education REHS Mains concerns/issues How the trade unions in different countries see the globalisation? How does globalisation influence the realities of workers on a national level? How does globalisation influence the organisation and action of trade unions? What are the instruments for effective regulation? What trade unions strategy to develop at  National  Regional  European and  international level?