ORIGINS
Trial and Error: False Starts and Accidents
The pre-history of the GLI goes back to an international conference organized by four International Trade Secretariats (IUF, ICEM, IFBWW, IFJ) in August 1989 in Washington D.C. to discuss confronting globalization. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland had issued a fatwa against the conference urging member unions to stay away. Richard Trumka, then president of the Mine Workers’ Union, ignored it, participated and made a very good speech. The ICFTU had been invited and was represented by Jerry Zellhoefer.

As a follow-up of the conference, a first GLI was constituted in January 1992, with a Board of Directors consisting of four ITS general secretaries: Ulf Asp (IFBWW), Michael Boggs (ICEM), Dan Gallin (IUF), Aidan White (IFJ), and Arthur Lipow, an American socialist (ISL) academic, teaching at Warwick University, London. This GLI was formally registered in Washington D.C. in January 1993. As a first activity it was planned to publish a quarterly (Global Labour).

The (voluntary) staff consisted of Arthur Lipow, Michael Allen (of International Labour Reports, UK) and Kurt Stand (at that time IUF Regional Secretary for North America). This team proved to be totally dysfunctional. To cut a long story short, by early 1994 it was clear that this GLI was going nowhere. Only one issue of Global Labour had been published, and we had run out of money.

Lipow, who had been in charge of fund-raising, left for California after failing to raise any funds, Michael Allen disappeared in the world of management think tanks. Attempts to get further ITS support were unsuccessful. At a meeting at the IMF secretariat where Dan Gallin sought to convince the ITSs present, and in particular Marcello Malentacchi, IMF general secretary, to support Global Labour, Denis McShane, then communications director of the IMF, made a passionate plea against supporting it, declaring it divisive and a waste of time and money. Malentacchi dutifully deferred to his communications director and that was the end of that story.

The US-based GLI, now a shadow of its former self, was left under the stewardship of Kurt Stand, with an uncertain perspective of eventual revival. In October 1998, however, Stand was convicted on espionage-related charges (for the German Democratic Republic) which of course ended his role in the IUF and in the GLI.

Since then, the first GLI in its US registration has remained in a state of suspended animation, since overtaken by other developments.

The day we got serious
The Global Labour Institute in Geneva (hereafter GLI-GE) was formally established on March 20, 1997, in the offices of Notary Public Laurent Brechbühl in Geneva, who drew up the “Constitutive Act and Rules” of the GLI-GE, with Dan Gallin, at that time General Secretary of the IUF, and in the presence of Joëlle Kuntz, Ron Oswald and Wolfgang Weinz.

The legal status of the GLI-GE is that of a foundation in terms of the Swiss Civil Code (Article 80 and seq.).

The first GLI Board was composed of: Dan Gallin, IUF General Secretary (Chair); Joëlle Kuntz, journalist; Claus Larsen-Jensen, international secretary of SID, Denmark; Ron Oswald, IUF Deputy General Secretary, David Spooner, Secretary of the EURO-WEA, Victor E. Thorpe, ICEM General Secretary; Wolfgang Weinz, IUF Coordinator for Eastern and Central Europe.

The objectives, principles, working methods and tasks of the GLI were defined in its Mission Statement (initially called “Introducing the GLI”). Several drafts were discussed in the first six months of 1997 until a final version was adopted in July. Although it has been amended several times since, it has remained substantially similar to the 1997 version.

At the 23d Congress of the IUF held in Geneva from April 15-18, 1997, the General Secretary referred to the GLI-GE in his report on Item (10) of the Agenda: Global Solidarity Activities. This 11-page document is highly political. It describes the challenges the IUF, and the international labour movement in general, are facing, the need to be clear on a program to counter these threats, to strengthen organizing capabilities, to clarify our politics, the need to create broad coalitions with other civil society actors, and the importance of labour-related NGOs in building such coalitions.

The report states near to its conclusion:

NGOs are a hub with relationships that can go in different directions. For the IUF. they have not only been sub-contractors for research, information and education but a link with other actors and potential allies in civil society. The question arises: why< can we not create such hubs ourselves and thereby increase our capacity of building alliances without placing additional burdens on the secretariat?

We are already answering this question. An IUF NGO already exists: it is the Tom Bavin Foundation. Another NGO which substantially shares the IUF’s industrial and political objectives also exists: it is the Global Labor Institute in Washington D.C., registered under American law, which was originally created as a support structure of the journal “Global Labour”, together with ICEM,

IFBWW and IFJ. (IFBWW has since withdrawn). It has been inactive in recent years but it could be activated any time to advance this or other aspects of our agenda. Another NGO with similar objectives and principles is in formation: also called Global Labour Institute but based in Europe.

Even though they closely share the IUF’s overall objectives and principles these foundations are one step removed from the organization and therefore have a flexibility which the organization itself does not have.

A foundation can organize meetings and conferences, can publish, can sponsor films and television programs, can be a think tank, can run educational activities, summer schools, etc. It can establish cooperative relations, on an ad-hoc or longer term basis, with other ITSs, with other foundations, with other NGOs, at any level, single unions, union confederations, political parties, individuals, etc. without any formal limitations. It can, within its own structure (as in the case of the two GLIs) constitute a link between the IUF and others. It can also access funds which the IUF as such would have a much more difficult time tapping.
….
Three elements are mentioned earlier in this report that are needed to successfully advance he IUF’s organizing and bargaining agenda: a program, a strengthened organizing capacity and a capacity for political action. It is within our possibilities to create the institutions that would facilitate this work and at the same time enable the IUF to form flexible alliances , within or near the labour movement, with those who share our objectives.

Then comes the operative part of the document, which has five points:

(1) explore the possibilities of extending and deepening cooperation with ITS partners and with the ICFTU where appropriate; (nothing new here, this is a CYA paragraph, the operative words are “where appropriate”)
(2) to add an international trade union development program relevant and appropriate to affiliates in industrialized countries to its current education activities aimed at developing countries and to seek extra-budgetary funding for such a project; ( this reflects the realization that it is actually not principally the unions in “developing countries” that most need “educating” but those in “industrialized countries”)
(3) to play an active role in building a broad coalition of labour-related organizations and other potential allies who share our democratic values , principles and objectives; (this is new, it implies assuming political tasks, not directly related to the IUF’s industrial agenda but consistent with its “citizenship in the international trade union movement”).
(4) to identify partners for the development of a program for social, political and economic alternatives to the different forms of globalization and to initiate actions in this regard: (this completes the previous paragraph: the issue is to build a broad based coalition to fight for a socialist program).
(5) to continue IUF participation in the Global Labor Institute (Washington DC) and the Global Labour Institute Foundation (Geneva), both founded for the purposes described above. (this is the paragraph committing the IUF to support the GLI-GE for the purposes stated earlier).

This report, including its operative part, was unanimously adopted by the congress.

In a later meeting, Anton Johanssen, president of the Danish Food Workers’ Union and a member of the IUF Administrative Committee, told me: “I don’t think you will be able to lift this stone”. I thought for a moment and told him: “Maybe. We shall see”.

PRIORITIES
Building an International Network
This was not, at first, a perceived priority, because initially the early GLI founders imagined a single GLI closely working with all or most ITSs (later renamed as GUFs), and expected the ITSs to be the main vehicle for the international dimension. It soon became obvious, however, that the GLI had only one reliable international partner in the labour movement, the IUF.

Also, the GLI had been an affiliate, for many years, of the International Federation of Workers’ Education Associations (IFWEA), with Dave Spooner serving as General Secretary (2003-2007), having previously served as General Secretary of the Euro-WEA (1995-1999), and as international secretary of the British WEA. Dan Gallin had been President (1992-2003). We had hoped to advance the GLI agenda through co-operation with the IFWEA and with some of its affiliates.

However, at its 20th General Assembly (Ahmedabad 2007), it became eventually clear that no useful purpose could be served by continuing membership and the GLI disaffiliated in 2009.

At that point Dave Spooner proposed to create a GLI in the UK, which would be independently able to act on the original purposes of the GLI, in co-operation with the GLI-GE. This had become possible through Dave’s building relationships with leading British unions and some ITSs, for which he had conducted education and training programs. The proposal was unanimously supported by the GLI Board and the GLI-Manchester was established in 2010.

The year 2010 was a liberating experience. We had basically decided to act on our own, without asking anyone for permission, an d without having to look over our shoulder, to do what we thought was right.

In the meantime, we had established relations with the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University in New York, which we had discovered in 2005 thanks to a fortunate accident (it had been founded the same year with almost the same name and had turned up in internet). After an initial phase of alarm (was this a hostile operation?) we found that, on the contrary, Sean Sweeney and his team were very much sharing our purposes. Our relations with what has now become Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) have continued to improve and are now excellent.

Relations with Center Praxis in Moscow, which were originally established through the IUF Moscow Office in 2002 , resulted in Center Praxis joining the other three GLIs and having a representative on the GLI Board since 2013.

“GLI-Russia” is a recent informal coalition of Russian comrades and supporters which includes Center Praxis.

The GLI had now become an international network. Although this had not been the original intention, it has become obvious through the positive response received that this was the way to go. There have been declarations of interest in our approach and our work, in Belgium, Bulgaria, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sweden – some of which may lead to the creation of new GLIs, including possibly with French and Spanish as working languages.

Building the international network has now become a high priority. Since all GLIs are autonomous and responsible for their own funding, this is not a highly expensive task: the role of the existing GLIs in encouraging the formation of new GLIs is mostly advisory. The possibility now exists to advance a common agenda of trade union renewal in several parts of the world, in alliance with others of course, but under our own sole responsibility and independence.

ACTIVITIES
The International Summer School
As from July 2012, the GLI-Manchester has begun to organize a GLI International Summer School (GLI-ISS) which has since become an annual event. Although GLI-Manchester has been principally responsible for this activity, with Dave’s vast experience in workers’ education and firm support in the British unions, the GLI-GE has actively participated from the beginning in all stages of preparation (choice of focus, lecturers, participants, background materials, etc.).

The GLI-ISS has become the base for other GLI activities (building the international network for instance).

Women Workers in the Informal Economy
Because of Dan’s previous links with the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India (in 1983 the IUF had been the first international trade union organization to accept SEWA into membership), Ela Bhatt, founder and first general secretary of SEWA, approached Dan in 1997 with the proposal to join WIEGO, an international women’s network that had been created the same year.

Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is a network created for the purpose of advancing the interests of women workers in the informal economy (home-based workers, street and market vendors, waste recyclers, domestic workers and others) through their organization into unions, co-operatives and other self-help organizations.
Its membership includes membership-based organizations (such as unions), NGOs and individuals, and its leadership is drawn from the same constituencies: trade unionists (with SEWA cadres in a leading role), academics and activists. Its international co-ordinator is Martha (Marty) Chen, on the faculty of Harvard University, and its Chair is Renana Jhabwala, national co-ordinator of SEWA.

Before the formation of WIEGO and of the GLI, the IUF had been instrumental in building a trade union coalition with SEWA at the ILO to secure the passage of the Home Work Convention in 1996. After Dan’s retirement from the IUF in 1997, the foundation of the GLI and of WIEGO, it became possible for the GLI to engage fully with WIEGO.

In 1998 Dan joined Patricia Plattner, a Geneva film maker, and her team in the final stage of the production in India of a film about SEWA. The film (“Made in India”) tells the story of the union through six of its members, though union events and through a conversation between Ela Bhatt and Dan. The GLI contributed by facilitating the contacts and providing background information. It appears in the film’s credits. The GLI library has videocassettes of the film.

WIEGO launched its Organization and Representation Program (ORP) in 2000, with preliminary work involving the GLI starting in 1999. Dan was asked to become the ORP director in 2000 and served in that capacity until 2002. He resigned that year because he realized that the volume of work involved would make it impossible for him to seriously conduct any other activities (such as, for instance, the GLI). However, he continued to oversee the program until a successor (Chris Bonner) had been found and appointed in 2004.

In the meantime, he had also been co-opted to the WIEO governing bodies (Steering and Management Committees). He resigned from these functions in April 2010 (Fifth WIEGO General Assembly, Belo Horizonte), for the same reasons (to make space for other work). He retained however the function of member of the ORP Advisory Committee.

At the International Labour Conference of 2002, where informal work was a major agenda item, the GLI produced a brochure “Platform of Issues” on behalf of the WIEGO-led coalition, which summarized the principal demands of workers, and in particular women workers, in informal employment. The Platform became the basis of most of the Conclusions of the ILC Committee.

Karin Pape joined the GLI in 2002 as an administrative assistant but very soon started working on informal and precarious work with a special focus on home work, in South Eastern Europe and Asia. Much of the GLI activity at that time was focused on securing ratifications for the Home Work Convention and in that context Karin wrote the brochure “Eleven Good Reasons to Ratify the Home Work Convention (C. 177)”,in German and English, which was co-published by the FES and the GLI in 2006. In 2007 Karin joined WIEGO as a part-time Regional Advisor for Europe while continuing to work with Dan in the GLI. Also in 2007, Karin joined the GLI Board.

The Domestic Workers’ Movement
A major development started in 2006 when IRENE, a Dutch development NGO, called a first international conference of domestic workers, supported by the FNV. Dan participated on behalf of WIEGO and Barbro Budin for the IUF.

The domestic workers’ representatives, some of them representing unions, concluded that they needed an international organization and an ILO convention covering domestic work. It was decided that three organizations, IRENE, WIEGO and IUF, would jointly assist them in advancing this project, in co-operation with such domestic workers who were already members of unions (either of their own or of unions including other workers).

The IUF, which had held the historical jurisdiction for domestic work but had not been active in that sector, had in the meantime affiliated to WIEGO. Barbro Budin of the IUF secretariat in Geneva became the contact person for the domestic workers’ project.

At a meeting in Geneva in 2008, the group of domestic worker activists decided to set up a provisional Steering Committee, supported by a technical team (Chris Bonner for WIEGO, Dan for GLI and Barbro for IUF).

Initially IRENE was given the responsibility of the secretariat but, although it had very competently organized the initial conference, if proved unequal to the task of building an organization. A dangerous leadership vacuum was developing and at the International Labour Conference of 2009 Dan and Karin called a meeting of the Steering Committee to resolve the leadership issue.
What we told them in effect was: you are now your own leaders. We stressed that at this particular moment in time they were entirely free to take responsibility and to act on their own behalf.

They got the message, and they designated Karin as interim international co-ordinator. The International Domestic Workers’ Network (IDWN) was launched. Karin was seconded to the IUF by WIEGO, which covered her salary and the IDWN operating expenses. The management of the IDWN website was first reorganized by Dan, then taken over by Kathleen McKenzie in cooperation with Karin (GLI and WIEGO), Giulia and Barbro (IUF), Chris (WIEGO) and Dan (GLI).

The IDWN affiliated to the IUF as a “special group” under Article 13 of the IUF Rules, which provides for the affiliation of federated groups where all of their members are not necessarily affiliates of the IUF.

The organization was now in place to start fighting the major battles for international recognition, to begin with the adoption by the International Labour Conference of the ILO Convention on Domestic Work (C.189). This struggle, essentially an exercise in coalition building within the ILO process, took place at the International Labour Conferences of 2010 and 2011. The experience gathered by WIEGO, the IUF and the GLI at previous ILCs enabled the IDWN group and its allies to mount a very effective lobby and resulted in the adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention (C. 189) by a very substantial majority.

In August 2011 Karin went back to her “WIEGO Europe” work, but continued to participate in IDWN work as technical advisor to the Steering Committee. She was succeeded as international co-coordinator by Elizabeth Tang (Hong Kong).

The final event of this initial period of building an international movement of domestic workers took place in Montevideo, where the founding congress of the International Domestic Workers’ Federation (IDWF) met from October 26 to 28, 2013, hosted by the Latin American Regional Secretariat of the IUF. The IDWN had become the IDWF, with new Rules. Elizabeth was formally re-elected international co-coordinator.

Addressing the closing session of the congress, Dan stressed its historical importance: they had created the first international labour organization in history entirely run by women, they had demonstrated that there was no such thing as “unorganizable” workers, and they were part of the renewal of the trade union movement.

The GLI had played a key role in this entire process as a catalyst. I believe it would not be an exaggeration to say that without the GLI none of the above would have happened. No doubt sooner or later domestic workers would have organized also at international level, because that is what workers do, but it would not have happened at this time, and perhaps not under such favorable circumstances. The GLI contribution was made possible by its strategic positioning as a link between the IUF and WIEGO and by its clear vision of integrating what is essentially a women workers’ movement in that part of the international trade union movement which is receptive to its concerns.

Recovering History, Publications
The GLI Mission Statement says: “those who cut off their roots cannot grow”. One of the GLI tasks is “rescuing labour history from oblivion” and “make it available to the movement as an organizing tool”. It goes on to say that the GLI “will give special attention to efforts aimed at restoring the historical memory of the labour movement in countries where it has been severely repressed, such as, for example, the countries of Eastern and Central Europe and the successor states of the USSR”.

Dan wrote a short history of the international trade union movement in 2009. It is called “The Labour Movement” and is an expanded version of a chapter of an multi-author book on social movements, published by Harvard University. It can be downloaded from the GLI-GE website in English, and it has been published in Bahasa Indonesia .0(in 2006, (by the IUF Office in Indonesia), Thai (in 2009, by the Thai Labour Campaign, in a volume with Draper’s “Two Souls of Socialism”) and Romanian (in 2012, by Svetlana Boincean in Moldova) as a brochure. In its present state, after several revisions and additions, it is still fragmentary and incomplete, but it does cover the principal developments of the international movement.

In 2002, the GLI published jointly with the Institute of Employment Rights (UK) a brochure by Paul Germanotta: “Protecting Worker Solidarity Action: A Critique of International Labour Law” defending the right to conduct solidarity strikes (secondary action).

The GLI has also supported publications of the Center Praxis in Moscow, in particular the Russian edition of Wilebaldo Solano’s “The POUM in the Spanish Revolution”. Solano, who died in 2010, was the last general secretary of the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM). The book describes how and why the USSR derailed the Spanish revolution in 1937. The GLI contributed communications, advice, editing, and money (EUR3,500) towards translation expenses. Dan also contributed a preface. The original plan was that Solano should write the preface, but he died before the book could be published (in 2012). The Spanish comrades, and his widow Maria Teresa Carbonell, decided that Dan should write the preface. It is available (in French and English) on the GLI website.

Currently (2015) The GLI is supporting the publication of a Russian translation of the Stalin biography by Boris Souvarine (1895-1984) one of the founders of the French Communist Party, expelled in1924. His Stalin biography, published in 1935 in French in Paris, is the first and, with many others published since, still the most insightful. The GLI is committed to support this publication with CHF5,000 out of a total cost estimated at EUR8000.

Other activities include making socialist material available to organizations and individuals, by tapping into the American publications of the socialist “language federations”.

Because of the strong presence of immigrant communities in the American working class of the early 20th century, the American Left (Socialist Party, Socialist Labor Party, IWW, Anarchists, eventually also the Communist Party) developed an extensive range of publications in different languages: newspapers, reviews, pamphlets, books, in Yiddish, German, Polish, Czech, Finnish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Serbo-.Croat, Greek, etc. Much of this literature contains material by leading theoreticians and historians of the international movement, but also by native writers, which were suppressed in the USSR and later in all of Eastern and Central Europe under Soviet occupation.

When such material appears on sale at specialist bookshops (notably Bolerium in San Francisco), the GLI buys it and donates it to individuals or institutions where it may be assumed that it can help the reconstruction of historical memory of the labour movement in their countries. For example, Sergeius Glovackas has received material in Lithuanian, Krastyo Petkov material in Bulgarian, Petre Damo has received the Preamble of the IWW constitution in Hungarian and Romanian, Károly György also received IWW material in Hungarian, books in Russian and English were donated to the Victor Serge Library in Moscow. The GLI still has material in Serbo-Croat and Greek in stock.

Russia, Ukraine
The reconstruction of the movement on the basis of a radical, independent and democratic trade unionism, has been a particularly challenging task in the successor States of the USSR, in particular Russia, because the social destruction wrought by Stalinism lasted there much longer than elsewhere in Europe and because Russia holds a key position in the world labour movement, for better or for worse. For this reason the GLI has made it a high priority.

Both Dan, working with Kirill Buketov and GLI-Russia, and Karin, working in the context of organizing informal workers, have been involved in this activity.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2014, the defence of the right of national self-determination in the Ukraine, and the defence of human and labour rights in Russia and the Ukraine, have become a new priority.
Several conferences have taken place under the co-sponsorship of GLI-Russia, or GLI-GE, or both, sometimes together with others:

June 2003: “The Anti-Totalitarian Left: Between Past and Future”, Moscow
November 2012: “For Justice and Freedom: The Labour Movement and the Left Against Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism”, Moscow
November 2013: “The New Trade Unions and the Democratic Left: Historical Roots and Ideological References”, Kiev
October 15, 2014: “The Ukrainian Revolution Against Russian Imperialism”, Paris.
October 2, 2015: “Free A. Koltchenko, O. Sentsov, G. Afanassiev” (Ukrainian political prisoners abducted from Crimea, tried and sentenced in Russia), Moulins (Allier), France (Organizers: FSU, Solidaires, Ensemble (Front de Gauche), Alternatives Libertaires Auvergne, Organisation Communiste Libertaire (Moulins), GLI-GE).
Dan has attended and addressed all these conferences. Kirill has been among the principal organizers.
November 6, 2015: Follow-up meeting in Moulins, same issue, same sponsors.

Website
The first website of the GLI-GE was set up by Mary Sayer in September 1999, to be followed in 2000 by the current website set up by Eric Lee (Movabletype Publishing Platform).

It contains sections in English, French, German, Spanish and Scandinavian languages, with basic information about the GLI (mission statement, Board and Advisory Board members, annual reports), GLI publications in their original language, outside contributions, links to other websites (labour organizations, WIEGO, etc.), reference to resources. The full text of two books is available: Edo Fimmen’s “Labour’s Alternative” with an introduction by the GLI Chair and by Sigvard Nyström, former IUF president¸ and Sen Katayama’s “The Labor Movement in Japan”, originally published in 1918 by Charles H. Kerr in Chicago – a history of the early period of Japanese trade unions and Left politics, little known even in Japan.

The English pages are by far the most developed, some recent work has been done on the French and German pages, the Spanish and Scandinavian pages are stagnant. Especially the English pages, contain a wealth of historical and political material not easily available elsewhere, as well as contributions covering the most important recent developments of interest to trade unionists and social activists (Greece, the Arab revolutions, Putinism, etc.) . Unfortunately, this material has piled up within a framework not designed for such use, and which is now outdated. The entire website has become difficult to navigate. It needs reorganization, much more explanation and guidance to become user friendly.

One could also imagine adding new material (songs, poems, quotes), lots of photos and graphical material, more languages (we have Edo Fimmens’s “Labour’s Alternative” in Finnish, materials in Russian and in other Eastern European languages, add Portuguese to the Spanish pages, etc.), a look somewhat closer to the New Unionism website by Peter Hall-Jones. Ideally, this should be a full-time job. As is, the site is managed off and on (more off than on) by the GLI Chair when there is nothing more urgent to do (travel, meeting deadlines, etc.)

Library
The GLI library was originally the political part of Dan’s library which he donated to the GLI when it was founded. At that time, it contained approximately 1300 items (books, brochures and pamphlets, reviews).According to the most recent estimation (October 2015) it now contains approximately 5000 items.

It is roughly organized according to countries and regions (Russia/USSR, Germany, the US, Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Eastern Europe, etc., Asia, Latin America, etc.) and according to topics (Socialism, Marxism, Anarchism, Trotskyism, Communism, Fascism, International Trade Union Movement, Women’s Movement, Socialist International, Comintern, etc.).

Most of the material is in English, there is a lot in German and French, other languages represented are Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, Yiddish, Greek (I may be forgetting some).

In its present state, it is difficult to use. A first attempt to catalogue it in 2001 could not be completed because of the departure of the comrade in charge to South America. The move of the office from Avenue Wendt to Avenue Mermillod in 2013 proved disruptive, even if most of the structure of he library was preserved. Recent acquisitions (since 2013) have not been integrated in the appropriate shelves.

It now needs to be catalogued and properly displayed to be made accessible to interested users. The GLI in its present situation would be unable to function as a lending library, although consultations on the site (the GLI office) are a practical possibility. We are in touch with our comrades from the Centre International de Recherches sur l’Anarchisme (CIRA), in Lausanne, with a vastly larger library, who can help.

Consultations, Networking
An important part of the time of the GLI Chair has been spent in contacts and discussions, with individuals from different unions, political and social movement activists. participants in the GLI summer schools, and others, about advancing their struggles and our common struggle.

This is not the place where I can render an account of these discussions, but members of the GLI Board have participated in such discussions on many occasions and are aware of their import. It is through these discussions and consultations that the movement is built.

Conclusions
This is not an activities report. It is a selective overview of GLI-GE activities, a full report on the activities of the past eighteen years would have to be much longer.

The intention of the GLI Chair has been to provide the GLI Board and perhaps others with a reminder of the original purpose of the exercise and with a summary account on how we tried to meet this challenge, to “lift this stone”, as best as we could. It should provide the context for fundraising and recruiting materials.