The mere reference to globalisation is no longer sufficient to depict and impose neo-liberal reforms as the only alternative. The ruling powers and their media discover their “social conscience” and finally want to give globalisation a “social face”. This can also be attributed to the protests following Seattle, Genoa and Heiligendamm. But the opposition is still fragmented – social movements, trade unions and NGOs concentrate too much on their own special interests and clientele. The main slogans of the post- Seattle years – "A different world is possible!" and "Questioning everything, we move forward!" ¬– have lost their power to provoke. Not because they were wrong, but because the state of movements and struggles, and the urgency of the problems posed, call for more.

There is a common thread connecting seemingly independent and separate discussions, a thread which interlinks them and highlights the potential of a joint project. Not only at first sight are the different initiatives engaged in counteracting the globalisation of capital, markets and goods with that of social rights.

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NGOs engaged in development policy therefore debate a universal minimum income which would enable everybody to buy three meals a day, wherever they live. In doing so, they suggest a feasible solution for the most glaring scandal of the globalisation process, the fact that, in a world which produces food in abundance, almost one billion people are at risk of starving to death.
By demanding a universal minimum income to which everybody is entitled, the NGOs express a global social right to a universal guarantee of survival for every individual – something that can only be brought about with a transfer of resources from north to south.

Similarly, other demands, such as a guaranteed universal equal and free access to healthcare, are also made. Confronted with this special problem, they draw a picture of a possible world which would be – compared to the world of today – completely different, not only for those directly affected.

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Faced with structural mass unemployment and the constant blackmail of transnational corporations, trade unions organised on a national level are increasingly compelled to coordinate their operational and political action on an international and global level. In the form of transnational alliances, they therefore try to enforce common standards and practices as agreements that corporations are compelled to implement wherever they operate. This way, they want to find a strategic answer to the fact that, up to now, unbridled global competition for capital has inevitably led to friction between the various national lobbies of workers and employees. By emphasising that social rights for wage-workers can only be implemented on a global level, from their perspective they contribute to an all-embracing process of globalisation of social rights.

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Global social rights also highlight migrants' demands for freedom of movement and settlement worldwide. This not only raises questions about the existence of borders and social hierarchies, but also challenges all national-protectionist concepts and even the expanded political concept of a European area. The contradictions between employees come to a head in relation to the legal entitlements of migrants – not by coincidence, because the ambivalence of the globalisation process condenses in the figure of the migrant and in the strategies of  selective isolation and exclusion, with which they are to be subdued.

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The complexity of a project for global social rights seems to multiply as soon as the inevitable ecological questions are included. What does global ecological justice mean, when the traditional industrial countries historically bear the blame (not only) for climate change, some threshold countries are following suit, and poor countries in particular are affected by the consequences? Added to this is the need to take urgent action: if the global trend of increasing CO2 emissions cannot be curtailed, uncontrollable and irreversible consequences are imminent.

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If the potential of the various initiatives for the globalisation of social rights is to be unleashed, it cannot be done by making up a catalogue of wishes, but only by an open exchange about the inner contradictions of those who work for globalisation from below. Starting with ecology, the issue would revolve around how development and growth can be defined from different points of view and put into relation to the limits of ecology. This would then raise questions about a lifestyle which cannot be globalised due to reasons connected with ecological responsibility, despite the fact that such a lifestyle is a global aspiration. For example – the right to global mobility can only be achieved by multiplication of the dominant modes of transport (everything from cars to aeroplanes) at the expense of an ecological catastrophe, even if technological advances are assumed. If private transport and foreign travel is not to continue to be a privilege of a well-to-do minority, the only solution involves sacrifice on the part of the global middleclass – us in other words. Or are we striving for radical change – for completely different conditions in which we can or must re-invent the good life – with a globally-sustainable consumption of resources and energy?

Win-win situations rarely develop of their own accord. On the contrary: the predominant location-based logic relies on competition and pitting one side against the other with a view to maximum exploitation, not only between global south and north, but also between companies belonging to the same corporation, sometimes even between those based in the same country. Permanent employees being coerced to compete with temporary or contract workers and, of course, with the unemployed is bad enough, but the system of "divide and conquer" is intensified when "native" employees are pitted against migrant workers. Migrants move in (the legitimate) search for a better life and struggle against intentionally-constructed wage differentials and a border and visa regime which forces them to eke out an existence in low-wage sectors – "illegal" and almost bereft of rights, they are forced to compete with temporary or contract workers and the unemployed.

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If resistance against the system of "divide and conquer" is not only to be based on the abstract understanding that all workers and employees are – in spite of dividing borders of status, countries or nations – members of the same chain of utilization and of the same transnational-operating capital, trade unions have to emphasise day-in and day-out that not migrants, nor temporary workers nor the unemployed are to be blamed for working conditions and their effects on the labour market as a whole. Union-based and non-union-based approaches are therefore of great importance – approaches in which people with and without work, or with and without documentation, join forces to demand their rights. On the one hand, fleeing one's homeland and migration are connected to the increasing level of ecological devastation of the global south, on the other hand a just distribution of resources would facilitate a "right to stay" for many people of the south. This points to further connections and potential similarities between supposedly particular interests. It speaks volumes for the depth and acuteness of substantive and symbolic separation that communication, not only between those directly concerned but also between their organisations or representations, has to be established or at least to be deepened: between different (to a large extent) nationally-organised trade unions, self-organisations of precarious workers, unemployed and migrants, networks of anti-racist solidarity and NGOs engaged in development or ecological policy. The social forums of the globalisation-critical movement are a means of such communication.

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The discussion about the different inner logic of actions by activists in social movements, NGO staffers and trade unionists is a first step on the road to defining common interests and among them the special interest in formulating joint policies for bringing about global social rights. For such a beginning a lot is gained if it becomes apparent that, despite all differences and contradictions, all participants recognise the need to fight for social rights – not only within national borders but throughout the world. Worldwide – provided they are in force everywhere, in every country for everybody.