Dan Gallin, Labour Internationalist

On May 6, members of the IUF Executive Committee, affiliates, and staff inaugurated the Salle Dan Gallin, dedicating a meeting room at IUF headquarters in his name. Established by Dan himself, the space long served as a hub for intellectual debate, strategic discussion, and both formal and informal networking - giving rise to many of the global labour movement's most influential political ideas.

For nearly 30 years, Dan Gallin served as General Secretary of the IUF, helping to shape modern international labour solidarity through initiatives that became models for trade union and workers' rights advocacy. Dan passed away in May 2025 and we continue to gather reflections from those who worked alongside him.

In this tribute, Paul Garver, a now-retired U.S. trade unionist, who worked at IUF in the 1990s, shares insights aimed at informing a new generation of international workers activists about Gallin's ideas and enduring legacy.

Dan Gallin, Labour Internationalist

By Paul Garver

My colleagues have already summarized Dan's role as a labour internationalist. I would add that his writings continue to inspire my own theory and practice as a global socialist and labour activist, as well as that of many colleagues in the international labour rights movement. I hope they will continue to inspire the work of the IUF, its affiliates, and its global partners and allies as they confront the challenges facing workers and their unions today.

Origins
Born in Ukraine in 1934, Dan Gallin came to the United States as the child of a diplomat. He gravitated toward socialist ideas as a college student at the University of Kansas in the early 1950s, at the height of the McCarthyist period. Forced to leave the U.S. because of his political activities, he rejoined his family in Switzerland, where he became a Swiss citizen and a member of the Swiss Socialist Party.

A brilliant writer and theorist, Gallin could have pursued a career in politics or academia. Instead, he chose the labour movement, joining the Geneva-based IUF, the global union federation for workers in the food, beverage, and hospitality sectors. There he began shaping his strategic approach to international labour advocacy. He became IUF General Secretary in 1968 and served until his retirement in 1997.

I first met Dan Gallin at a bar in Washington, DC in 1987, after he spoke to a conference of the Democratic Socialists of America about the global labour movement. We drank beer, but the real focus was a wide-ranging conversation about socialism and labour movements around the world.

It was a time of major global developments: Solidarnosc in Poland, Eurocommunism in Italy and Spain, transitions from dictatorship and renewed labour organizing in South America, brutal repression in Central America, and the emergence of militant new unions in Asia and Africa.

At the time, I was working as a local SEIU staff member in Pittsburgh, developing a growing interest in international labour politics and gaining experience supporting labour activists in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. During our conversation, Dan asked whether I had ever considered working in the global labour movement. He made no promises, but said he would keep an eye out for opportunities.

Three years later, as I was transitioning out of my SEIU position and had just tentatively committed to a new role in New York State, I received a call from Dan in Geneva. He had secured funding from IUF's U.S. affiliates for a new position in strategic corporate campaigning -and he wanted me for it.

It was an offer impossible to refuse. Under Dan's leadership, the IUF had already waged and won a landmark campaign pressuring the Coca-Cola Company to intervene against violence targeting union leaders in Guatemala. It was a signal moment in global labour solidarity. I decided to take the plunge and learn what I could from Dan Gallin.

That first conversation foreshadowed the political clarity and strategic discipline I would later experience working with him.

Lessons learned
Dan never wavered in his commitment to socialist ideals. But for him, those ideals meant above all defending the independence and integrity of trade unions. He consistently opposed authoritarian distortions of the labour movement, wherever they emerged.

As General Secretary, Dan transformed the IUF from a passive forum for communication into an active organization capable of confronting global corporate power. This was no easy task. Like other global union federations, the IUF was a coalition of national unions - large and small, strong and weak - many operating under bureaucratic or complacent leadership.

When I joined the IUF staff in 1990, it included a core of social democratic and democratic socialist unions, but also reflected a wide range of ideological traditions among its affiliates: militant unions from the Global South, communists of various orientations, religiously affiliated unions, and more conservative organizations. Achieving "unity in action" required a slow and negotiated process among leaders the IUF itself did not select.

Dan worked tirelessly to build agreement around a focused strategic program: strengthening networks of unions within transnational corporations, supporting the development of autonomous unions in developing and post-communist countries, and advancing the rights of women workers.

Organizing and bargaining campaigns
In my work with Dan and other IUF colleagues, I participated in strategic organizing and bargaining initiatives targeting major transnational corporations including Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Danone, Kraft, Unilever, and Accor.

These efforts were supported by funding from U.S. affiliates as well as Northern European unions and foundations, allowing the IUF to expand its regional staff and organize international conferences that strengthened global union networks.

Dan also succeeded in engaging corporate leadership, persuading management to meet directly with union representatives. Some of these efforts resulted in global framework agreements, while others helped resolve urgent organizing and bargaining conflicts at the local level.

IUF regional coordinators addressed violations of trade union rights and other issues raised by affiliates. This global-local relationship was often difficult. Agreements reached at the global level were frequently implemented slowly and unevenly on the ground. Yet the credibility of global strategies depended on achieving tangible local results.

Dan consistently emphasized maintaining a balance between strong global pressure, rapid solidarity mobilization during conflicts, and the long-term strengthening of local unions. When necessary, he supported carefully targeted public campaigns - "surgical" solidarity actions - to increase pressure on corporations.

After Dan stepped down in 1997, his successors continued to pursue these strategic directions. As a result, the IUF today coordinates effective global union networks across major companies in its sectors, supports the development of new unions worldwide, and includes informal and domestic workers' organizations - many led by women - within its membership.

Building a legacy
Retirement from the IUF in 1997 freed Dan from the administrative burdens of leading an under-resourced but ambitious organization. He did not withdraw from public life. Instead, he became an independent theorist of the global labour movement, continuing to write and speak critically about its history, contradictions, and future.

His work often focused on issues insufficiently addressed by mainstream labour institutions, including workers' education, the informal economy, and domestic labour. He also critically assessed developments such as global framework agreements between unions and multinational corporations. His writings were collected in two volumes, Solidarity and Resistance, published by LabourStart in 2014.

He captured his vision succinctly in 2006: "We define a union as an organization of workers democratically controlled by its own members, who decide on its policies and activities… We do not believe that union strength can be built, or re-built, at any level, without the involvement of an aware, informed, motivated and militant membership… We will continue to support those working for the reform of the labour movement through struggle, reconstructing its identity as a movement for democratic social transformation, with a common vision of an alternative and better society."

For Dan Gallin, socialism without democracy - and without an organized working class - was inconceivable. He pursued this vision not only in theory but through decades of practical struggle. His life remains a model of committed, critical, and democratic labour internationalism.