Queer Activism, Feminism and the Transnational Labor Movement

Transnational Queer Labor Activism

The emergence of a gay labor activism at the transnational level is the outcome of several decades of queer organizing within national unions in Canada, the U.S., Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Great Britain, Germany, and many other countries.¹ In addition, there has been a proliferation of real and virtual political spaces where transnational activists from a variety of movements—gay, human rights, feminists, labor, global justice—can meet to exchange information and strategies for change. These spaces include various UN Forums, international labor conferences, the World Social Forum, and the Gay Games. Such transnational networks have the capacity to be effective when they draw on trade union resources to create forums and spaces for lesbian, gay and transgendered workers.

One site for transnational queer labor activism is the Global Union Federation (GUFs). These organizations are federated peak labor bodies, mostly headquartered in Europe, whose missions include building international support and solidarity for workers and their struggles for labor rights worldwide. The GUFs have expanded to every region of the world and have grown in size, scope, and political influence. Today there are ten different global union federations representing millions of workers in almost every country in the world.²

The two GUFs that have been most receptive to gay activism have been female-dominated, feminist-influenced public sector federations with well-developed equity programs and structures in place.³ The Public Service International (PSI), founded in 1907, is comprised of 650 affiliated trade unions in 150 countries representing 20 million public sector workers in government, health and social care, municipal and community services, and public utilities. The Education International (EI) is comprised of 348 affiliated organizations in 169 counties representing 30 million teachers and education workers from pre-school through university.

Both PSI and EI have broadened the scope of their mission to include basic questions of equity, justice and free access to public services and education. They now maintain permanent standing within international organizations concerned with labor standards, including the International Labour Organization (ILO) and various UN sub-organizations, employer organizations, and newer financial institutions like the WTO. In the case of violations of human and trade union rights, these organizations have learned that joint action with human rights groups and consumer rights organizations can make protest more effective. Building alliances with activists from women’s, environmental and non-governmental organizations contribute to achievements that would not be possible without a cooperative approach.⁴

It was at the 2004 World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil that gay activists from PSI and EI sponsored their first joint forum on sexual diversity. The purpose of the forum was to develop a set of proposals for action on the rights for LGBT workers framed as basic human rights. The resulting declaration recognized the diversity of the LGBT lifestyles and argued that unions should take the lead in eliminating discrimination against these communities. It also noted that equal rights for LGBT workers would be strengthened if they were successfully integrated into broader campaigns for labor rights at national, regional and international levels.

The declaration expressed the concern that because the rights of sexual minorities were not explicitly recognized in most international and national labor standards, discrimination and inequity based on sexual orientation and gender identity continued to persist at different levels of the world economy.⁵ The action plan adopted at the WSF called for a multifaceted approach: establishing a sexual diversity network that would facilitate the sharing of resources and the coordination of national and international campaigns for LGBT labor and social rights; linking webpages to provide a regular supply of news and updates about the work of the national networks; participating in the World Workers’ Out Conferences; and holding a second joint international forum on sexual diversity prior to the PSI World Congress.

The second PSI-EI Sexual Diversity Forum was held September 21-22, 2007 in Vienna, drew over 300 hundred participants, and covered a range of topics including collective bargaining for LGBT equity issues, diversity and antidiscrimination training, bullying and workplace climate, building alliances and protecting and expanding quality public services like free education for all. The joint PSI-EI sponsored forum website serves as an important resource for labor and queer activists and is used to mobilize international solidarity campaigns—such as the one for a Polish educational official who lost his job for authorizing a teacher training guide on gay tolerance. The site contains research reports on the status of LGBT members, a training guide for incorporating LGBT issues into the work of the union, press releases, and links to the broader movement for LGBT rights.⁶

Queer labor activists also find political opportunities in global alliances at international gay rights conferences such as the international Out at Work Conference which grew out of—and subsequently extended—global/local networks of gay, lesbian and transgender workers. The Sydney conference in 2002 drew 1700 participants from 113 countries. Conference declarations and action plans stress the political necessity of global campaigns to tackle the appalling working conditions of those who “live in countries that still execute their homosexual citizens.”⁷ The next international conference (now framed as a human rights conference) will be held in Copenhagen in 2009. Rebecca Sevilla, co-founder of gay and lesbian organizations in Lima and LGBT equity expert for the Sexual Diversity Forum, is the honorary co-chair of the Copenhagen games.⁸ Such transnational networks have the capacity to be effective when they draw on trade union resources to create forums and spaces for lesbian, gay and transgender workers.

1. See Laboring for Rights: Unions and Sexual Diversity across Nation, Ed. Gerald Hunt. Philadelphia: Temple, 1999; Out at Work: Building a Gay-Labor Alliance, Eds. Kitty Krupat & Patrick McCreery. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. [↩]
2. A Global Union Federation (GUF) is an international federation of national unions organized by industry, sector, or occupation. Unions are members of the global union federation in their sector. For example, a steelworker in the U.S. would belong to the United Steelworkers of America and that union would in turn belong to the International Metalworkers Federation—the GUF representing workers in steel, auto, electronics, and precision instruments. GUFs are peak labor bodies because the pull together workers from different unions and different countries. To read more about GUFs see http://www.global-unions.org.  [↩]
3. For the value of self-organizing see the special Industrial Relations Journal, 37, 4, 2006. [↩]
4. See PSI web site http://www.world-psi.org and EI web site http://www.ei-ie.org/en/index.php. [↩]
5.  http://www.ei-ie.org/lgbt/en/. [↩]
6. http://www.ei-ie.org/lgbt/en/. [↩]
7. Workers Online. Workers Out For Gay Games. 2002. http://workers.labor.net.au/139/news83_gay.html. [↩]
8. See worldOutgames at http://www.games-cologne.de/en. [↩]