Page 43 - ILC Together For a Just World Broşür.indd

Together For A Just World

ning of the labour movement. In many countries, trade unions have been divi-
ded, marginalized, or politically constrained. This decline cannot be explained
solely by internal organizational challenges. Strike bans, the narrowing of colle-
ctive bargaining spaces, the expansion of subcontracting, the institutionalizati-
on of precarious forms of employment, and regulations that restrict the political
influence of labour organizations are all part of a broader structural orientation
that systematically limits labour’s collective capacity. The authoritarian neoli-
beralism observable in many countries today narrows the political sphere while
expanding capital’s freedom of movement at both national and global levels.

This economic and political transformation is further intensified by ecological
and humanitarian crises. The climate crisis, as a structural outcome of unc-
hecked capital accumulation, accelerates environmental destruction, while the
costs of this devastation are borne disproportionately by the poor and by wor-
kers. Wars, food crises, water scarcity, and environmental disasters displace
millions, while the resulting pool of migrant labour constitutes the most vulne-
rable and most intensively exploited segment of global labour markets.

The United States, Western Europe, Japan, and their allies shape the global eco-
nomic rules through institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the World
Trade Organization, rendering peripheral countries dependent on low value-ad-
ded production and cycles of cheap labour through debt regimes, structural
adjustment programmes, and technological monopolies. While the prosperity
of core countries rests on an asymmetric network of relations based on the
continuous transfer of value from the periphery, the discourse of “development”
functions as an ideological framework that obscures these relations of depen-
dency.
At a time when global inequalities are deepening and pressure on labour is
intensifying, the capacity of international institutions to transform this reality
is increasingly being questioned. From the United Nations to the International
Labour Organization (ILO) and international labour confederations, many insti-
tutions possess an important normative legacy; yet within existing power rela-
tions they often struggle to generate structural change. These limitations are
not primarily the result of institutional intent, but rather of structural pressures
such as the growing global power of capital, the fragmentation of labour, and
the contraction of democratic space. It is precisely here that the fundamental

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