the guerrilla strategy from the Global Labor Institute’s new manual

By mobilizing workers internationally, diversifying forms  of protest (strikes, media campaigns, boycotts, etc.), and exploiting the local vulnerabilities of a globalized company, unions seek to fragment its resources and make resistance more costly and difficult to contain.

The Coca-Cola boycott organized by the International Union of Food Workers (IUF) in 1979 is a landmark episode in the history of international trade union struggles. Dan Gallin, then general secretary of the Global Union Federation, recounts its origins in response to conflicts in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Guatemala, particularly in a plant then owned by a wealthy far-right family with ties to the Guatemalan military, where the IUF and Amnesty International discovered seven political assassinations of people affiliated with the union (there would be nine by the end of the movement). Initially, global days of action were organized, but these quickly proved insufficient: once the day of action was over, so was the disruption. The IUF then launched an international boycott of Coca-Cola, targeting not only the brand itself, but also its subsidiaries and subcontractors. Dan Gallin shared the strategy behind this choice:

« Target Coca-Cola's weak point, its dependence on a single, highly visible and well-known product, the Coca-Cola bottle ».

The aim is to put pressure on Coca-Cola's management to take responsibility for its subcontractors and intervene on behalf of Guatemalan workers, while raising global public awareness of the repression of trade union rights in the country. The IUF is therefore calling on all its affiliates to do everything in their power to ensure that Coca-Cola does not have a week's respite:

« Do what you want, what you can and when you can, but do something ».

Student organizations, human rights movements, and political associations joined the IUF's call for a boycott. For six months, a wide range of actions were organized around the world: protests in front of offices in major cities such as New York, Paris, Mexico City, and London; work stoppages and solidarity strikes by unions in Europe, Asia, and the Americas; supermarkets and small retailers were urged to remove Coca-Cola products from their shelves; some cafés in Manila refused to serve them to customers; information about the situation of Guatemalan workers and Coca-Cola's role in union repression was disseminated through information meetings, brochures, newspaper articles, and radio broadcasts. With mounting pressure and the boycott affecting Coca-Cola's image, particularly in sensitive markets such as the US and Europe, the multinational was forced to react. Coca-Cola finally entered into negotiations with the IUF and the Guatemalan union, bought the factory, dismissed the director and recognized the Guatemalan union.

The first collective action by bicycle couriers took place in London in August 2016. Forms of mobilization quickly multiplied and diversified, first in the United Kingdom and then elsewhere.

Mobilization of couriers, United Kingdom, 2016  

In 2017, direct action by bike couriers spread to some 15 European cities, taking various forms: gatherings in front of the headquarters of multinational platform companies, blockades of certain production sites (notably Deliveroo's central kitchens), occupations of public spaces, “velorution” (bike demonstrations), etc. In addition, there was online activism on social media and the gradual emergence of the “disconnection strike,” which was still being defined at the time, as described by CLAP, a collective of independent delivery workers in Paris: "Should we just disconnect and stop working? Stay connected and not accept orders? Accept orders and never pick them up? Pick up the orders and eat them among ourselves?[1]“. Callum Cant, a British courier and trade unionist, characterizes this movement as a ”wave of transnational resistance.[2]" Communication on social media and media coverage of actions in each country encourages the spread of methods of action and inspires other workers in neighboring countries to take action.

Communication on social media and media coverage of actions in each country encourages the spread of methods of action and inspires other workers in neighboring countries to take action.

Faced with the limitations of local and national struggles, spokespeople for the local collectives turned to transnational action, with a first meeting in Brussels in 2018 of the European Assembly of Riders, which gave rise to the Transnational Riders Federation. In the following year, a completely different, more institutional transnational dynamic took over. The European United Left invited courier and driver collectives to hearings with the European Commission and organized the Transnational Forums on Alternatives to Uberization (2019, 2021, 2022) with a view to the draft European regulation on platform work. In doing so, it challenged large multinationals such as Deliveroo, Uber, and Glovo. After a long political battle, this finally led to the vote on a directive in 2024. The adoption of this European directive, which aims to improve the working conditions of platform workers and combat disguised employment, has raised immense hope, but there is no guarantee that it will be rigorously enforced in the various countries.

The agile and decentralized guerrilla approach is therefore based on a transnational network, the dissemination and cumulative effect of diverse actions to force multinationals to react.

The agile and decentralized guerrilla approach is therefore based on a transnational network, the dissemination and cumulative effect of diverse actions to force multinationals to react and negotiate on both local and global issues.

This excerpt is from a new organizing manual produced by the Global Labor Institute – France, under the direction of Marielle Benchehboune <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> headquartered in Lyon.

[1] Cited in Dufresne, Anne, Leterme Cédric (2021), "Platform workers. The struggle for rights in the digital economy," Gresea/GUE, Brussels, April 2021, https://gresea.be/Travailleurs-de-plateforme-La-lutte-pour-les-droits-dans-l-economie-numerique-2049 , p. 58.

[2] Callum Cant, a Deliveroo courier in Brighton and member of the IWW union, published a book entitled Riding for Deliveroo, Resistance in the New Economy, Polity (2019), based on his experience as a courier.