Solidarity Arbitrage: Labour Transnationalism and the Challenge of Differential Inclusion at a US Automotive Plant

This article examines how competitive pressures within transnational labor alliances can undermine their potential for effective global solidarity. Drawing on a decade-long struggle by the United Auto Workers to organize a major automotive plant in the US, this research explores how internal conflicts within transnational coalitions contribute to organizing outcomes. The concept of solidarity arbitrage is introduced to describe how multinational corporations strategically exploit existing rivalries among employee representative bodies to weaken labor's collective power. This strategy involves the calculated promotion of less confrontational partners while marginalizing more militant ones—a form of differential inclusion. These findings challenge overly optimistic views of network effects, revealing that transnational alliances are not an unalloyed good. Successful organizing may require independent, adversarial strategies to counter solidarity arbitrage.