Transnational labour solidarity in (the) crisis

The global financial crisis as part of globalisation has put labour movements under pressure around the world. This poses yet again the question of transnational solidarity. As a result of uneven and combined development, individual labour movements find themselves in rather different positions with contradictory interests. The purpose of this article is to assess conceptually possible labour strategies towards transnational solidarity against the background of the structuring conditions within the global economy.The article is organised into two parts. First, the structuring conditions of capitalism will be charted including processes of uneven and combined development. This will provide the basis for the second step of conceptualising the potential agency of labour and its possibilities to establish relationships of transnational solidarity despite the unevenness of global development. In this discussion the definition of ‘labour’ itself will be problematized and concepts of ‘labour aristocracy’ and ‘false consciousness’ critically examined