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ILC INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER NO. 125 –126 (PART 1 OF 2)A dossier of
weekly information published by the International Liaison Committee of
Workers and Peoples April 4 – 11, 2005 International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples 87,
rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010 Paris, France BULLETIN NO. 2 OF REPORT (PART 1) The
World Conference of the ILC was held in Three
bulletins will present a full report on the World Conference. Below we
publish the second of these three bulletins. On the
following pages you will find the first set of presentations by
delegates to the World Conference. Because of the length of these
presentations, we have divided Newsletter No. 125-126 into two parts.
Bulletin No. 3, which will include the Closing Statements and
conclusions of the Conference, will follow this issue. It will include
all the other presentations by the delegates to the plenary sessions of
the Conference. In
this Bulletin: Presentation
– Daniel Gluckstein – Introductory Report Nancy
Wohlforth – ---------- PRESENTATION: Introductory
Report by Daniel Gluckstein, (Report
prepared jointly with Roger Sandri) Before
beginning our proceedings, I would like to salute the delegations of
sisters and brothers present who sometimes had to carry out extremely
complex formalities to overcome the administrative obstacles meant to
prevent them from obtaining their visas. Tomorrow a
complete report will be presented on this problem but I would like to
take one example. After six weeks of procedures, engaged at considerable
cost, it was only possible to receive a visa for one out of the seven
trade union leaders from Likewise, of
the five comrades from the Pakistani Trade Union Confederation [APTUF],
three were refused visas under various pretexts. The last visa obtained
was not granted until March 16, which necessitated a last minute
departure, meaning that only two out of five delegates from the
Pakistani confederation are present. The brother
from the The Sri
Lankan brother trade union delegate didn’t receive a visa, neither did
the comrades from As you’ve
noticed, this concerns Asian countries. But as we hear a lot about
Europe these days, you might be interested to learn that the brothers
from There is
currently a scandal in I would like
to salute all the brothers and sisters who could come, I would like to
warmly salute also, maybe even more so, the comrades who, despite their
efforts, could not be present among us. We will send them a report-back
of the conference. Also, please
excuse among those absent -- not for reasons of visa -- Comrade Roger
Sandri, who was supposed to present the keynote report to the Conference
and who has asked to be excused due to family obligations. But as we
prepared this report together, what will be presented to you is a common
report from Roger Sandri and myself. I would also
like to excuse a brother who is usually present at all our international
conferences, Pierre Lambert. And among the comrades present, please
allow me to address a particular welcome to a brother who has played an
extremely important role in all the activities of the International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC) and in defense of the ILO
conventions, who has been unable to be as active recently for reasons of
health but who is here among us. I would like to salute our Comrade
Miguel Cristobal, who is with us at this Conference. As you have
seen in your delegate’s packet, it is proposed for the rest of this
evening’s session that I introduce the discussion, and that the
discussion as such begin tomorrow. More information about conference
organizational matters will be given. With your
permission, in order to respect the schedule and to make sure we finish
in time for dinner this evening, I would like to introduce the
proceedings by explaining why -- as some comrades may not know this --
this is a joint report written by Roger Sandri and myself. As you know,
I was given the responsibility at the last ILC World Conference to
ensure the international coordination of the ILC within the framework of
the mandate given me by the Workers Party in France. But within
the ILC there are a number of comrades who play important roles. Comrade
Roger Sandri was, for several decades, a major trade union leader in
France, at the head of one of the two French labor confederations. Since
his retirement he actively contributed to setting up the ILC and has
shared with us for almost fifteen years now his experience and
knowledge. And it was
thus quite normal for Brother Roger Sandri -- who has submitted two
written contributions that you have certainly read in your packet -- to
introduce the discussion. Unfortunately, as I said, important family
imperatives have prevented him from doing so.† We therefore
agreed on the following. I will give you a report that was largely
prepared in common and which Roger Sandri has authorized me to present
in his name. Also, the particular contribution that he wrote for the
Conference and which is to a great extent integrated into my oral report
has been translated into several languages and will be distributed to
you tomorrow, which is one way for Roger Sandri to be a part of our
proceedings. Comrades, as
you know, the ILC was founded in Barcelona in 1991, and through the
various conferences it has since organized or helped to organize, we
have progressively affirmed the character of the International Liaison
Committee of Workers and Peoples. We regroup
activists, coming out of all the historical currents of the labor
movement. These are militants who share a profound dedication to the
defense of working class interests, of their demands, and above all, to
the independence of their organizations. The ILC has
been built throughout its conferences and campaigns, in the respect of
the various positions and commitments held by all. It has never placed
itself in competition with any labor organizations whatsoever, be they
at the national or international level. We have,
however reasserted, at every step, the need to struggle against the
structural adjustment plans of the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank, under the aegis of imperialism, with U.S. imperialism in the
forefront. These
structural adjustment plans, as we know, have afflicted and continue to
afflict, first and foremost, what are called "developing
countries". In particular, Africa, but not only there. They are
have resulted in heinous plunder, organized by the capitalist big
business groups, which are trying to control and to appropriate the
natural resources of the African continent and beyond. These
policies have led to the emergence of factions of all kinds, to the
multiplication of alleged ethnic wars, whose first victims are always
and everywhere women and children. Just take a look at what is going on
at this very moment in the Darfour region of Sudan. But what is
often less known and should be included in our discussion is that
neither these structural adjustment plans nor the politics of plunder
that derive from them result from any uncontrolled or inevitable
condition. They originate to a great extent from worldwide policies of
wholesale economic destruction which originated in what is called the
Washington Consensus, coined in 1990 under the joint authority of the
U.S. president and the British prime minister. This Washington
Consensus, with the support of world financial institutions, set out the
guidelines of policies elaborated essentially by John Williamson, future
chief economist of the World Bank. These
structural adjustment policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank
were conceived to condition all financial aid requested by any country
from the world’s big bankers upon adoption of the following measures:
reduction of budget deficit, priority given to cut state expenditures
which build infrastructures or to anything which incites economic
investment rather than subsidies of all kinds, in particular to public
services. Reforms of tax systems will expand the contribution brackets
of the poorest so as to reduce those of higher incomes. Liberalization
of financial markets; encouraging trade to favor exports; liberalization
of commerce by decreasing import duties; measures aimed at attracting
foreign investment; measures aimed at favoring deregulation and
competition in all economic sectors and, finally, insuring intellectual
property rights for patents, 80% of which are American, as a means, we
are told, of promoting the creation of wealth. As one
French writer has recently emphasized, what is called the Washington
Consensus has become a litany of peremptory recommendations that the IMF
and the World Bank put forward as they so choose, even to countries that
never asked them for any advice. The former
IMF Director General, Michel Camdessus, described the mechanism:
"We have accumulated over the years all sorts of rules, all
inspired by legitimate concerns like protection of the environment, of
particular professions or social welfare regimes, or such and such an
industry. But this explains why investors prefer to go elsewhere." Camdessus
brings to light the main stakes, and the overall logic of these measures
can be summarized in his very words: "Attracting investors by all
possible means", including by destroying all social gains and
workers’ conquests, which are portrayed as a major obstacle to foreign
investors. And
together, these structural adjustment plans and these deregulation
measures, this heinous plundering whose consequences we will analyze
during this conference, all these measures are derived from the
political imperative announced by Camdessus. And in particular, the need
to undermine everywhere regimes of social protection and thus pave the
way for charity. Comrades, in
the face of these murderous policies coming from all the institutions of
globalization, including the IMF and the World Bank in the front lines,
the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples has not, as
you know, sat by as a passive observer. In February 2000, a Tribunal was
organized at the initiative of the ILC in Los Angeles. It brought to
light the responsibility of the institutions of globalization and the
main world governments in the murderous course, which has devastated the
entire African continent by imposing the regime, I should say
dictatorship, of reimbursing the foreign debt. Regarding
Africa, its debt today has reached the astronomical heights of 350
billion dollars, a debt whose interest payments have largely surpassed
the principal to the greatest advantage of the financial creditors and
investors, who are increasingly none other than mafiosi speculators. Is it worth
recalling a figure here: according to official statistics of
international capital institutions, speculative funds (not those
invested in stocks or obligations or Treasury Bills), those which are
derived from funds strictly invested in speculation today represent
three hundred trillion dollars. That is the equivalent of 4 to 5 years
of world GDP, 4 to 5 years of the total value of wealth produced by
mankind as a whole. This is the pure product of speculation, which has
as its only function not investing in the production of material wealth
but in organizing raids and plundering in order to appropriate, by hook
or by crook, the inflated profits of this speculated capital. The debt has
been a major financial instrument for developing this speculation. It
has developed at drastic and murderous costs for all the peoples forced
to pay it, in particular the peoples in Africa, but not only. The same
policies have afflicted people in Asia, in Latin America and have
finally extended throughout the world. Because
it’s even true today for the old industrialized countries of Europe
and North America. They cannot escape from the logic of structural
adjustment plans, they cannot escape from the dictatorship of the most
profitable return upon investments that require all barriers to
productive or speculative investment be removed. The policies
of deregulation are ravaging North American and European continents and
have, in a more drastic form, been ravaging the countries of Eastern
Europe for over ten years. These countries have of course been
politically freed from the control of Stalinism but then immediately
found themselves plunged into the chaos of opening up to capital, which
meant immediately opening up to speculation and plunder. So this
situation today affects the entire world. The 20th
century, which ended a few years ago, was marked, we know, by major
ideological and political confrontations. But for us and for all
organizations belonging to the labor movement, what’s essential to
retain is the following: Throughout the entire 20th century, national
working classes were able to increasingly organize and engage in actions
on the grounds of class struggle. This struggle helped to develop or
rebuild political democracy in the face of a capitalist system that was
often compromised by various forms of totalitarianism or corporatism.
There is thus a direct link between the labor movement organizing and
reinforcing its ranks and the development of political democracy. Political
democracy implies, on the one hand, the existence of political parties
and, on the other hand, that of trade unions whose main concern is
defending working peoples’ specific interests. We know Karl Marx’s
expression: "It is material conditions which determine
consciousness." The working class’s consciousness in each
country, its awareness of its own force, of its ability to act, of its
utility, of its unity, of its common interests, is not an intangible
consciousness floating in the air, it is a consciousness materialized in
labor institutions, the first of which are trade unions. And it’s
thanks to the existence of trade unions that workers become aware that
they belong to a specific class, the class of the exploited. It’s the
crystallization of this consciousness when they are organized in unions
that has allowed the working class to act as the locomotive of the
development, defense and strengthening (once would have to say today,
reconquest) of political democracy. It’s
through the collective action of labor and its ability to exert pressure
upon governments and employers over the last two centuries that workers
have been able to win all kinds of social protection. The result has
been the limitation of work time, the protection of women and children
in the workplace, improved wages, health and safety conditions. It’s
this pressure exerted upon governments and employers which has won the
right for labor organizations to be able in all instances to discuss,
negotiate and even contract within the framework of contracts and
collective bargaining agreements. And it’s
in relation to this incessant trade union activity, on the grounds of
class struggle, that is, on the ground of the independence of workers’
organizations, that the public services were built in the collective
interest, often covering wide sectors of the population, managed by the
representatives of the nation. It’s within this framework that, in
particular, public health in all its forms, protection from illness,
against old age and so many other gains were won, not abstractly but
through organized class consciousness, crystallized in the existence of
independent trade unions without which the term political democracy has
no content. But
comrades, we know that the politics derived from the Washington
Consensus that I evoked above can in no way allow the existence or even
the subsistence of this political democracy. The
framework of globalization we are facing today includes all the
so-called regional constructions, including the European Union and its
future Constitution, the FTAA, NAFTA and all the so-called free trade
treaties. In this purportedly "globalized" world, there is no
place for public services, even those public services guaranteeing
education and social protection. There is no place for anything else but
policies of unbridled privatization, policies that are often insidious
for they adopt buzzwords like "missions of general interest,"
which can be accomplished by either private firms or non-governmental
organizations. And this
methodological, systematic destruction of public services has as its
inseparable corollary: the destruction of the employment status of
public workers attached to these public services -- generally the
national civil service -- as NGOs mushroom. And it should be said that
despite their claim to be "non governmental", the latter are
not in the least independent. Statistics
show (we have published them, they are available) that these NGOs are
abundantly financed not only by churches of all denominations but also
by major corporations. Need we mention the Ford Foundation which, as its
name indicates, was founded by the Ford motor dynasty and whose hundreds
of thousands of dollars flow in all the Social Forums around the world,
in all the "social" initiatives of globalization? And these
NGOs are also largely financed through the official policies of the
international and regional institutions of international finance
capital. Do you know
that the World Bank has on its official payroll more than 120
staff-members exclusively assigned to handling relations with the NGOs?
Did you know that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and
the European Union have considerable budgets earmarked for NGO
activities? For example, an NGO gathering that I know quite a bit about,
the European Social Forum (ESF) published its budget. The ESF was
financed up to 90% through subsidies from the French government, various
French regional administrations, the European Union and other
international NGOs. Sisters and
brothers, it is clear that the NGOs, which are used everywhere to
replace public services, have no democratic legitimacy, but play a
political role, which I would like to comment upon later and which
should be discussed at this conference. Many of us
here had the opportunity to discuss this question three years ago at the
conference we held in Berlin, co-organized with a certain number of
trade unionists and political activists in Germany, whose presence I
salute here. At this time we already pointed out how these policies
deriving from the Washington Consensus necessarily fuel the tendency
towards wholesale deregulation. We said at
the time that this sweeping deregulation took a form that one should be
quite wary of, namely that of the individualization of work relations.
The working class has won its collective rights and gains throughout its
history of class struggle. It has set up organized relations, pitting
one class against the class. When labor organizations won the right to
negotiate in a particular sector or at the national level, or even -- as
is the case within the framework of the ILO -- internationally, they
imposed the recognition of the working class as a collective whole, one
that negotiates with another collective grouping, the capitalist class,
to attempt to win its collective rights. And the
entire logic underlying what is called globalization is aimed at
substituting individualization for all that is collective. All
collective bargaining agreements, employment status, collective rights
are increasingly being emptied of all their real content to the benefit
of locally based corporate agreements. And beneath
this generalized campaign to replace broad collective agreements with
company-based contracts lies an extremely insidious notion: if work
relations are exclusively established at the local firm-level, and
sometimes even at the individual employment relationship between
employee and employee, then this extremely elementary level of class
struggle necessarily implies that the firm becomes a kind of community
that all are part of, both workers and bosses. This opens the door to
all kinds of opportunities for bosses to manipulate the workers they
employ. Comrades,
all the policies aimed at dismantling the public services, which impose
the foreign debt, which privatize, which undermine employment through
delocalizations and challenge the overarching architecture of social
rights are the normal result of the collapse of the purchasing power of
workers on all continents. These policies’ ultimate aim is to
facilitate investments, which can only come at the cost of increased
return for capital through the diminished remuneration of the work
force. Can we
forget that officially, of the six billion individuals who make up the
world population, half of them (3 billion), live on less than $2 a day?
Can we forget that the World Trade Organization, the IMF, the Word Bank
implement in all areas (as in Europe) policies that result in
considerable regressions of purchasing power through combinations of
wage freezes, weakened collective wage guarantees, and that they also
result in the casualization of wage earners through forced part-time,
contingency schemes and the dismantling of all gains and guarantees? Last January
1st this onslaught took a particularly brutal form with the end of the
Multi-Fiber Agreement, which organized international textile industry
quotas. The president of the International Textile, Garment and Leather
Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) has forecast that 30 million jobs may be
lost due to the end of quotas as these jobs now migrate to China,
especially affecting millions of workers in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and
Sri Lanka. But he also pointed to the consequences for workers in
Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritius, Central America, Mexico, and also
Europe. Comrades, we
also have reason to doubt that all these 30 million jobs will
effectively be outsourced to China. It is probable that only a fraction
of them will end up in the Chinese textile industry; nonetheless, the 30
million job losses are a reality that is already in the making. In
Bangladesh, and I know that Comrade Tafazzul Hussain will speak much
better about this than I, official statistics forecast that 40% of
clothing factories will be closed between now and the end of 2005, and
that, in particular, a million jobs held by women workers will disappear
during this year alone. Comrades, if
these jobs are transferred to China, we know at what cost this will take
place: in corporate work camps of 40,000 workers, mostly women; at wages
which vary between 45 and 60 euros per month for 45 to 70-hour
workweeks. It’s at the cost of foreign investment that takes place
through agreements with the Chinese government because the multinational
corporations believe -- and do not hide this fact, they openly claim it
-- that they find incomparable conditions of production and exploitation
in China because they enjoy -- as they say -- guarantees of permanent
social peace, as the official trade union, the only one that is
authorized, carries out the Chinese Communist Party leadership’s
official workplace directives. In this
respect -- and we will come back to this -- it is obvious that the
permanent campaign waged by the ILC towards the International Labor
Organization, a campaign whose various dimensions will be discussed at
this conference, places this important issue on the agenda in two ways:
one is the need to call upon the ILO to act on the question of
production quotas and employment guarantees for workers whose jobs are
at stake; the other -- and I know our Chinese brothers will talk about
this -- is the following: Aren’t ILO Conventions valid and necessary
for the Chinese proletariat today? In
particular, the guarantees written into the ILO Conventions, for the
right to freely join the trade union of one’s choice, the need for
trade union independence, the need to respect trade union pluralism, the
right to strike, the right to negotiate, to contract ... are these
conventions not support mechanisms which the superexploited Chinese
proletariat, in the conditions I’ve just described, must claim as
their own? Isn’t it in helping the Chinese working class to conquer
and reconquer its rights that we can bring the most concrete and
practical form of aid to workers around the world, threatened with this
veritable catastrophe, which is the lifting of textile quotas? Comrades,
remember that the theme of our 2002 Berlin Conference was "against
deregulation, for workers’ rights for all." In the introduction
to this discussion, we wrote the following: "Following
long social struggles, the workers of industrialized countries with
their trade unions won trade union rights aimed at protecting workers
from the risks of economic crises inherent in the capitalist
system." We also
wrote: "In the
private sector, in industry, commerce, and in agriculture, the full-time
employment contract had become the rule, generally including benefits;
regulatory and branch-level collective bargaining guarantees destined to
reduce the material prejudice inflicted upon the worker in case of
abusive dismissal." We recalled
in that contribution how lengthy mandatory notice and severance pay for
layoffs had a dissuasive effect for employers, thereby making it less
interesting to lay off workers. We underlined how the introduction of
flexibility and deregulation was beginning to significantly modify this
network of guarantees, and that we warned against measures of the
drastic opening up of markets to world competition, which would result
in management techniques such as just-in-time, zero-stock, etc. All these
observations were submitted to the discussion in 2002. Three years have
gone by, and the situation has not improved, far from it. In three
years, the destruction of social gains has incessantly continued to
spread across the planet, and it also affects the notion of work time. I want to
underline here what we pointed out in 2002 about France, regarding the
so-called "35-hour week" law, which in reality has only
resulted in generalizing the annualization of working time, eliminating
the notion of collective work schedules, and has introduced
individualized work schedules. It has thereby become an integral part of
this forced march towards the individualization of social relations
where the class struggle is called upon to bow before the so-called
" community of work ", at the firm-level or even less. Comrades, in
Europe, the European Union’s expansion to 10 new countries leads to
the generalization of social dumping. The search for the lowest social
costs leads to massive job destruction, in particular in the old
industrialized countries of Europe. This is a very dramatic situation.
Germany has experienced an unprecedented collapse, and the same is true
in France. One official figure: 2,400,000 unemployed in France and even
this is underestimated due to the manipulation of figures. The total
number of unemployed, according to various Labor Ministry categories,
combined is 4,300,000, or 18% of the workforce. The sum of workers who,
over the last year, were at least once on unemployment or looking for
work is seven million. This means that almost 1/3 of the workforce was
unemployed or partially unemployed, or in any case in a contingency,
precarious situation, and thus incapable of earning a regular income
with the basic benefits and guarantees won by the working class. In reality,
the threat of delocalization is used in the rampant rush to lower wage
levels and destroy social gains. It is also aimed at disengaging state
intervention in Europe and North America from all forms of collective
social protections, which brings us back to individualization. If we
take a look at all the counter-reforms which are aimed in all our
countries at dismantling retirement regimes and public health, they all
have in common the substitution of individual insurance, generally
private or provided by NGOs, in place of collective insurance founded
upon workers’ solidarity, on solidarity between generations, and
between the ill and the healthy. The solidarity links made by the
working class through its collective institutions of social protection
are in turn meant to disappear and leave way for what are no longer
labor institutions but a sum of individualized, commercial, atomized
relations. In
particular, regarding retirement benefits, this is a main area of
speculative pension funds. The latest official figures show a 17% return
on investment, which explains why speculative funds are invested not in
the production of commodities but in areas where investment returns
appear to be the quickest. Comrades,
all these measures are linked to another kind of measure everywhere: the
undermining of all forms of unemployment insurance payments. In Europe,
the relevant European directive refers to the "activation of
passive expenses". Its aim is to destroy all organized social
relations in all countries. Until today, in France, Germany and most
industrialized European countries, employed workers have a contract and
receive a wage or salary. An
unemployed worker no longer receives a salary but an indemnity or
transfer payments. This old system guarantees workers a continuity in
their right to obtain a work contract covered by collective guarantees.
The activation of passive expenses demanded by the European Union means
that from now on no indemnity or payment will be transferred unless, in
exchange, the unemployed worker accepts any kind of activity offered him
(part-time, deregulated, underpaid, with no relation to his or her
qualification). And in the future the idea is to eliminate the status of
employed or temporarily unemployed workers. This will be replaced with
one in which the working class will become a mass, no longer engaged in
employment but only an activity -- these are the terms used -- an
activity which would open the right to a payment: no more unemployed, no
more workers, only a vast army of the assisted without rights or
guaranties, placed in an individual relationship with no other choice
but to accept. The German
comrades will explain how these policies, implemented by Minister Hartz,
have forced workers to accept whatever kind of activity in order to
increase unemployment benefits by just one euro. For example,
one young woman was asked by an unemployment agency to accept the
"job" of prostitute -- which she naturally refused -- as a
condition to continue to enjoy unemployment benefits. This is the
"activation of passive expenses," comrades. This, in
Germany, in other forms takes place in France with a program that is
like workfare. It brings us back to this offensive which, taking many
forms, is meant to destroy the collective nature of rights, guaranties,
and organizations, and therefore all that makes up the conscious working
class and its interests. In France,
in particular, there is the proposal made by Camdessus (you know, the
former director general of the International Monetary Fund) in his
report on conditions of economic growth in France, with the approval, it
should be underlined, of some trade union leaders, for an alternative
work contract which he calls the activity contract. The worker would
alternate between periods of employment, of unemployment, of mobility
from one firm to another, one training period to another, then to
elderly domestic care. In the end his or her remuneration would be paid
partially by the employer, partially by the unemployment agency,
partially by welfare aid: there would be no more work contract, no more
collective guarantees, but only total, slavery-like submission. So comrades,
all of these are attempts to forcibly individualize work relations as a
way of removing all obstacles to private investment, to take a phrase
coined by the Washington Consensus. And it is important to note -- at
least this is the case in the European Unions, but I think it is true
for all countries -- that these measures are implemented by all
governments, be they right or left. All
governments, right and left, agree to rebuild a social architecture in
which firms finally become the only geographic ground for the meeting of
conflicts of interest, around the "community of work." This
community of work, of sinister memory in 20th Century Europe, introduces
a form of neo-totalitarianism where the worker is not supposed to be
able to defend his or her specific interests but to participate in the
common good, through a regime of exploitation overseen by government,
the state and its institutions. And
comrades, this is one reason why trade union activists throughout Europe
who are attached to the defense of workers’ rights, to the
independence of their organizations, are rising up against the alleged
European Constitution. This is because it consecrates the principle of
the "community of interests" and of the "community of
work," where trade unions would be nothing but a subsidiary tool
for implementing directives dictated by the European Union and the IMF. Comrades,
since 2002 these policies of imperialist plunder have also taken the
form of the war in Iraq, under the false pretext of arms of mass
destruction. The reality, as we will see during this conference, is that
for the warmakers Iraq needs to be destroyed because Iraq is the
world’s second biggest country in terms of oil reserves. And this
reality has been crystal-clear since the alleged end of the Iraqi war,
which is an unending war. We see how the war’s aim was in no way to
build democracy, neither was it to build a nation or a system of
institutions. Its aim was the veritable dislocation of the Iraqi nation. Beyond the
false impression, beyond the pretexts that were given at the time, those
of fighting against religious fundamentalism, against terrorism, etc.,
the imperialist strategy of controlling oil and national resources is
being extended throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Maybe some
of you have not heard of what is called the Greater Middle East Plan. It
was developed under the Bush administration. It encompasses 23 countries
from Morocco to Pakistan. Why these 23 countries and not others? Because
of the 23 countries, 21 of them harbor within them 72% of the world’s
hydrocarbon reserves and 57% of the world’s natural gas. As for the
two countries that are not on this list, recent research shows that they
potentially have major reserves which have yet to be exploited. The map
of the Greater Middle East is the map of the "Iraqization,"
which is programmed for these 23 Arab-Muslim countries with the
objective of plundering their resources. This shows,
brothers and sisters, that the campaign launched by the International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples for workers’ rights in Iraq
is an important factor in fighting back against this threat. But before
coming to specific campaigns, we must further our discussion about
political democracy, NGOs and the place of trade unions. As you know,
the ILC’s role is to circulate information, organize exchanges and
allow labor activists to participate in our conferences. This allows us
to understand the role and responsibilities of world players, including
the roles of certain political or trade union apparatuses engaged in
accompanying the process of globalization. And such is the case of what
is called the alter-globalization movement. I spoke above of the role of
Non-Governmental Organizations. These organizations and the gatherings
that they hold, such as the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, despite
any good intentions, have a very specific function that can be
summarized in the following way. All representatives of imperialism and
multinationals know very well that their policies provoke inevitable
conflict. So they need to call upon alter-globalization NGOs and Social
Forums to offset, or stave off, this conflict. Hence the Washington
Consensus is gradually becoming the Porto Alegre consensus. And this
brings us back to the question of political democracy, which, for us, is
diametrically opposed to so-called "participatory democracy."
Political democracy, the role of trade unions in political democracy, is
written into the political history of the labor movement, as is that of
all the world’s organizations. Those who were able to attend this
conference’s opening rally, devoted to the issues facing women on all
continents, heard the leader of the UGT international relations bureau,
Comrade Bonmati, salute this ILC Conference’s proceedings. And during
his speech, Brother Bonmati emphasized, in particular, two points. He
said, "On the
one hand, we cannot accept to consider globalization as something
neutral, which is supposedly in the interests of all. Globalization is
nothing else but an attempt to restructure the capitalist economic
system, its only aim being the reorganization of the production system
in order to draw increased surplus value from the world market." And Comrade
Bonmati added: "Our
responsibility is to help workers understand the indispensable role of
unions, as the role of the ILO as an indispensable instrument of
workers’ interests. We must underline the fact that today there is an
attempt to weaken the ILO. Some would like to see the ILO stop producing
the important international conventions it has elaborated up until now,
and there is even within the ILO a current of opinion which is
attempting to purely and simply disfigure it, because it claims to be a
fourth group of the ILO, that is in addition to employers, governments
and labor: it’s the alleged group of NGOs." And he
added: "Öthe
NGOs have certainly a role to play in society. But from the perspective
of employer-employee relations, from the point of view of work-capital
relations, the fundamental role is and must remain that of labor
unions." Comrades, I
share and I think we all share this assertion made by Comrade Bonmati
for it expresses the relevant realities of today’s world political
situation. Are we
correct to say today in 2005 -- and this was new in 2002 -- that the
world labor movement has to face an onslaught by the same new world
governance, which is aimed at destroying the very principles and
structures of the labor movement, nation states, and the ILO and its
international system of norms? Let us
recall a certain number of rules and events. In 1995, in Copenhagen,
there was held for the first time what was called the World Social
Summit of the United Nations. At this summit were present, for the first
time, the IMF, the World Bank and the GATT (which later became the WTO),
the European Union, NAFTA, and also representatives from trade unions
and labor organizations. This world
summit had on its agenda the need to co-opt trade unions into the UN and
the globalization framework. Three years later, in 1998, the president
of the United States, Bill Clinton, spoke to the annual International
Labor Organization assembly. Note that this was the first time an
American president ever spoke before the ILO Assembly. The American
comrades here know that, in general, the American government does not
pay much attention to the ILO. Of the 187 existing ILO conventions,
there are I believe barely a dozen ratified by the United States, and
most of them, for reasons I don’t know, deal with working conditions
of merchant marine sailors. So why did Bill Clinton attend the ILO
Assembly in 1998? Because in 1998, the ILO adopted a declaration of
principle called the Charter of Fundamental Rights at Work. This newly
adopted Charter of Fundamental Rights introduced a basic modification
into the ILO normative system. Until that point, when an ILO convention
was discussed, it was done by the workers group, the employers groups
and the representatives of states and governments. When it was adopted
it was submitted to ratification of the states. When a state ratified an
ILO convention it became mandatory as an enforceable law. Any worker
could appeal against any measure violating the ILO convention once it
became law. No employer could be exempt from it. This is the system of
ILO conventions: specific, detailed, constraining norms that are
enforceable against states and governments. In 1998 the
system of the Charter of Fundamental Rights replaced the 187 ILO
conventions with seven fundamental norms, which can be summarized as
follows: they are merely principles and recommendations; they no longer
have any constraining character. What is even more serious is that it is
written in this Charter that "ILO members, even when they have not
ratified the aforementioned conventions, are obliged to respect them
‘in good faith’, in conformity with the Constitution, the principles
of fundamental rights which are the object of these conventions."
So they are recommendations, principles, not submitted to ratification
by states; there are no constraints or mandatory enforcement, but they
must only be respected in "good faith." And this
corresponds to the ILO’s "Declaration of tripartite principles on
multinationals and social policies," which calls upon the
multinational corporations to commit themselves to not over-exploit
their workers. If a
multinational signed the recommendation and does not respect it, this
would have no practical consequence. A multinational might sign a
recommendation, and a worker or group of workers might think that it did
not respect it, but they have no recourse or means to appeal. The Charter
of Fundamental Rights translates into a mechanism that you all know
well, that of "social labels" (there is a label placed on
merchandise) to say that they are produced in socially fair conditions.
But who attests to these socially acceptable conditions? Which
government, state is charged with implementing the law? None. What trade
union is charged to make sure the collective contract or bargaining
agreement is respected? None. The multinational commits itself to
producing in socially acceptable conditions. And you know as well as I
do that "sustainable development" has been good for business.
Sustainable development and so-called "fair trade" has been
used in trade of coffee, tea, fabrics and many other products to
increase prices for a clientele who have their social conscience
appeased for a couple of dollars or euros more. In exchange, the workers
who produced for sustainable development have no trade unions, no
employment contract or collective bargaining agreement, not even a
government to which they can turn to see to it that their rights are
enforced. Comrades,
all of this began at the 1998 ILO Assembly under the aegis of President
Clinton. What many of us know, but which is generally less known, is
that in continuity with this the 1998 Assembly, the International Labor
Bureau Administrative Council of November 2001 set up a commission
called the Commission on the Social Dimension of globalization. This
commission has met on several occasions, and it presented a report to
the ILO’s 92nd Conference. It reports on meetings with the IMF, the
World Bank, the WTO, the European Union; all the Bretton Woods
institutions gave their stamp of approval to its conclusions. The report
of the Social Dimension of Globalization was also discussed during the
world congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
and during the Porto Alegre World Social Forum of January 2005. What did the
report say? "Our
goal is to elaborate recommendations (it specifies that this will be
done in liaison with the IMF director general, the WTO and the World
Bank) for a just and inclusive kind of globalization, for new world
governance, one which is fair and includes universal values and human
rights. These recommendations must be carried out by all actors:
governments, parliaments, firms, members of civil society, trade unions,
and international organizations." In November
2004, the last ILB Administrative Council studied the follow-up report
of the "World Commission on the Social Dimension of
Globalization". And the ILB Administrative Council commented that
"real progress had been made." In this
synthesis document, for example, the progress is described as follows:
"During the session of the European Parliament, the Council of
Europe presented a communiquÈ on the social dimension of globalization,
which, like the European Union, helps to extend its advantages to
all." Comrades,
all the policies we are forced to endure in Europe are but an
illustration of what they mean by the "Social dimension of
globalization." We are told that the report is under discussion in
the European Parliament or that: "On the occasion of the Global
Unions with Civil Society seminar, the ICFTU underlined the importance
of the report on the social dimension of globalization." What’s
more, the synthesis document of this social commission explains that,
more than mere debates, it proposes concrete measures: "The
expansions of globalization has entailed more complex forms of world
governance, which is not the exclusive property of the nation states or
of national intergovernmental organizations. It includes increasing
numbers of non-state actors." Comrades, I
draw your attention to the fact that if globalization is no longer the
exclusive area of concern of nation-states or intergovernmental
organizations, whose concern is it? That of the institutions of new
governance, which on international, continental and national levels,
down to that of the individual firm (the famous corporate government)
should integrate all the actors of globalization, including trade
unions. This debate
also took place at the Porto Alegre Social Forum. It took place at the
ICFTU Congress, which decided to merge with the World Confederation of
Labor, the Christian confederation, and it has been announced that this
merger will take place next year at the January 2006 World Trade Union
forum at Porto Alegre. Comrades,
this world governance we hear so much about is coming about before our
very eyes. The IMF now publishes a regular bulletin devoted to, and I
quote, "relations between the IMF and the organizations of civil
society." In this bulletin we learn that a permanent institution
called the Bridge Initiative now brings together actors of various
origins: "the top directors of multilateral institutions,
representatives of civil society organizations of world significance,
notably the World Social Forum." And this Bridge Initiative, that
is to say this common institution with the IMF, the World Bank and
representatives of the World Social Forum, met to prepare in common the
"next Porto Alegre World Social Forum." Comrades, in
a text that has just been published the vicepresident of ATTAC-France
takes this very far by proposing that the so-called alter-globalization
movement should take up the challenge of "setting up world-wide
democracy." He says the following: "World-wide democracy is
not the addition of national democracies. World democratic institutions
are not derived from national institutions, no matter how democratic
they may be." And he continued: "Up until now, democracy was
automatically linked to the nation-state. This model is no longer
transposable throughout the world. To build it, it is necessary to pass
through a phase of ‘deconstruction’." This means that in order
to build "world democracy," about which we have no idea what
it would look like, the first thing to do is to deconstruct political
democracy as it exists within the framework of the nation-state. Of
course, the next inevitable step is to destroy the nation-state itself. It’s
preoccupying, to say the least, that all this talk takes place at the
very moment when world imperialism intends to destroy nations under the
barbarous, military form taken in Iraq, or to dismantle all the
institutions which constitute democracy and the working class in a
nation like France. This may take place, under the banner of
alter-globalization or their campaign for world governance, through this
worldwide democracy which undermines political democracy as it exists in
the nation-state while it promises to bring about paradise on earth. Because,
comrades, this may seem abstract, but deconstructing political democracy
as it exists means deconstructing the political systems that guarantee
the existence of independent trade unions in our countries. But
deconstructing the institutions of political democracy, as weakened or
adulterated as they may be, would mean deconstructing Labor Codes, the
system of labor relations, and employment status. Comrades, such
policies are more than just the political accompanying of globalization,
they are the policies of co-management and jointism of globalization,
and this is what the alter-globalizers are advocating. Naturally,
this vice-president of ATTAC France remarked: "Our approach is the
way to set up a legitimate, democratic, efficient from of world
governance." Efficient. The risk is that this efficiency comes from
co-opting trade unions to carry out these plans. But beware, for not
only are all political and social actors invited to join, they are being
literally dragged into this forced march towards world governance. This
is true, as I said, for the Social Forums and NGOs; but after all, it is
in their very nature to do so. It’s
another thing when the ICFTU and the World Confederation of Labor (WCL)
merge, thereby openly participating in world governance because they
hail the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization and
its work, and want to be part of its activities. Even more
serious, the ILO itself is at the center of the whole process. But the
ILO, despite its limitations and any criticisms one might have of it,
has the advantage of being made up of a group of workers, a group of
employers and groups of governments/states. Thus the existence of these
different groups reflects the existence of distinct interests. The ILO
implies the recognition of a working class, of a labor movement that can
legitimately express and claim the specific concerns and demands of
workers. This is no guarantee that they will be satisfied by the ILO,
but it is an acknowledgement of class independence. If all this is
transformed, to be founded upon world governance, where would this take
us? I know that
many comrades here, and it’s only human, might say: all of this is of
great concern, but it’s far from my own preoccupations, and at least
in my country or in my own labor organizations the situation has not
reached this point. This is true, and quite fortunately so. But
sometimes the danger is much closer than we may think. In France
there is an institution called the Social and Economic Council, made up
of representatives of the state, of various socio-economic groups, of
employers’ associations and trade unions in their official capacity.
The Economic and Social Council met last month to take a stand on the
Social Commission on Globalization, which I’ve just mentioned and
which aims to set up world governance. As it’s an
institution that takes its work seriously, the Economic and Social
Council heard representatives from the ILO, the World Bank, and even
Camdessus himself. They all came to speak before the Economic and Social
Council. The result was the publication of a thick report in which the
Economic and Social Council voted unanimously to approve the proceedings
of the Social Commission on Globalization. Of course,
some trade unions qualified their votes with remarks that I personally
interpret as reasserting the need for trade union independence. But
it’s a fact that setting up world governance, with all that it implies
from the standpoint of corporatism, has just -- despite any lack of
awareness of the stakes involved for some of the comrades present, maybe
by lack of vigilance, maybe deliberately for others -- in any event has
just received the unanimous approval of the representatives of the
French government, of French employers and of all the trade union
confederations in this body. As for the
comrades from other countries, the warning here is that, in one way or
another, the same pressures may very well be exerted within their own
organizations. So this
brings us to what should be the objective of our discussions at this
conference. Are we right or wrong to be concerned about what should
rightfully be called a deviation or false route? Are we right or wrong
to say that what is being presented to us as a campaign for
globalization with justice, fair world governance, inclusive of
universal values and human rights, has nothing to do with the
prerogatives of the International Labor Organization, has nothing to do
with the role of trade unions within the framework of political
democracy? Are we right
to say that what is presented to us as a march towards world governance
is nothing else but a deliberate onslaught to eradicate the
international system based upon the existence of nation-states? To
eradicate the system of nation-states, which harbors the forms of
political democracy, whose gains and organizations, whose labor
organizations are an obstacle to globalization? Are we right to say that
the universal values and rights of humankind that are being proposed are
in reality nothing else but the individualization of rights? That they
are not enforceable rights or in no way equivalent to the collective
rights the working class has concretized in various forms of collective
gains, guaranties and organizations? Are we right
to say that the system thus proposed turns its back on the existence of
antagonistic social classes? Are we right to refuse the notion of civil
society, an abstract notion meant to dilute class organizations, and
assimilate them to organizations representative of any and every sector
of society? Are we right to accuse the globalization we hear so much
about as but one component of the mechanism dragging humanity into a
spiral of chaos? Are we right to say that the devastated continent of
Africa points the way to Asia, Latin America and also Europe tomorrow?
Are we right to say the dislocation that is destroying all existing
rights and gains, in the name of the world governance they want to
impose, has as its only function to preserve and strengthen the
domination of the capitalist system based upon the private ownership of
the means of production? Comrades, in
this situation is it necessary to mobilize in defense of the
International Labor Organization? I would like to quote, here, a passage
from the ILO’s founding charter: "Whereas
universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon
social justice; And whereas conditions of labor exist involving such
injustice hardship and privation to large numbers of people as to
produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are
imperiled; and an improvement of those conditions is urgently required;
as, for example, by the regulation of the hours of work, including the
establishment of a maximum working day and week, the regulation of the
labor supply, the prevention of unemployment, the provision of an
adequate living wage, the protection of the worker against sickness,
disease and injury arising out of his employment the protection of
children, young persons and women; provision for old age and injury,
protection of the interests of workers when employed in countries other
than their own; recognition of the principle of equal remuneration for
work of equal value; recognition of the principle of freedom of
association, the organization of vocational and technical education and
other measures; "Whereas
also the failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labor is an
obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the
conditions in their own countries; The High Contracting Parties... agree
to the following Constitution of the International Labor
Organization." Comrades,
should we or should we not uphold this preamble of the ILO? Should we
defend the objectives it assigns to the ILO? Need we fight to support
and reconquer all its conventions? This is the
debate, which I believe we should have here. Those who, in the name of
so-called civil society -- this sort of neutral community in which the
interests of all are supposedly obliterated in the name of the common
good -- decree the end of the nation-state would, in reality, like to
decree the end of the class struggle. Because we
are internationalists, we defend the existence of all nations and every
parcel of democracy and rights they have gained; we defend nations to
the extent that they represent a step forward in the progress of
mankind. We defend the existence of nations within which the workers
build their own labor and class institutions. Be it under
the banner of alter-globalization or world governance, or whatever other
name, we cannot and will not allow the working class to engage in
dismantling its own gains. It cannot participate in the dismantling or
the weakening of democracy, or of the nations whose existence is
inextricably linked to that historic gain called democracy. Those who
reject or claim to reject the existence of nations and of class struggle
would like us to believe there is no more social or labor question. The
21st century is beginning, to the contrary, as a century where the
social question is preeminent, one which, far from being already
resolved, makes an urgent plea for finding solutions, solutions that
require labor organizations and other such instruments. I would like
to conclude by recalling what Karl Marx said: "The class struggle
is international in principle, it is national in its form." That
was true yesterday, it’s still true today. And this is why in
acknowledgement of equality among all nations -- because there are no
big and small nations -- in the respect of equal rights for all nations,
for all the peoples who make them up and for all the working classes
that built them, we are duly entitled to claim today as our banner that
of workers’ internationalism. We raise this banner in the face of and
against the nebulous banner of alter-globalization and so-called world
governance, which are nothing else but the banners of corporatism,
ruinous of democracy and of rights. ******************** Nancy
Wohlforth, Secretary-Treasurer of OPEIU, Co-Chair, USLAW, and Co-Chair
Pride at Work (AFL-CIO) * (titles are listed for identification purposes
only) I would like
to begin by informing all the sisters and brothers gathered here that I
bring greetings from Jack Henning, former head of the California State
Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO), which has two million members, and Walter
Johnson, former head of the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO). Both
Brothers Henning and Johnson had hoped to be here, but as elders it has
now become difficult for them to travel. They both helped us to get this
conference started in 1997, in San Francisco, where for the first time
people gathered from around the world to actually listen to each
other’s problems and hear about the trade union movements in countries
other than the United States. This was an
extremely critical beginning of a necessary dialogue that leads to
today’s conference. For we must understand each other’s problems and
union structures, and we must understand how to work together -- because
we know the bosses understand this very well. And without our being able
to come together to form true global unionism we cannot begin to fight
the bosses. Brothers
Henning and Johnson are people on whose shoulders we all stand on. Jack
Henning was a member of my union for many, many years, and he made
amazing contributions to the trade union movement, often swimming
against the current of the "popular" -- that is, official --
leadership of the U.S. trade union movement. He was never afraid to take
a stand as he did, for example, against the war in Vietnam and against
every war of oppression, and this at a time when the labor movement in
the United States supported all such wars. So while
they are sorry not to be here, they send you their heart-felt greetings. We meet here
as, all of you know, today on the second anniversary of the bombing of
Iraq by the forces of American imperialism, and we meet here just two
months after Bush was "reselected" for his second term, and I
say "reselected" very deliberately. When we last met with many
of you it was in Berlin in February 2002, and we spoke then about how
Bush stole the election. We have no misgivings about affirming this
here: Bush stole the election again. The problem this time, however, was
that even though the Democratic Party and the establishment in the
United States promised that no vote would go uncounted, the Democrats
conceded and threw in the towel while the ballot was still being counted
in the very key swing state of Ohio. Indeed, there were major voting
irregularities in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico. We think
Kerry would have won Ohio had they continued to count the ballots. What
was really incredible was that the Democratic Party vice presidential
candidate, John Edwards, was at that very moment making a speech,
saying: "We will not concede, we will not stop counting the ballots
until every ballot is counted." And about five minutes later out
prances Kerry and throws in the towel and says, "OK, we have lost.
Let’s move on. The country needs unity." I think it
was crystal clear, if it had ever been a mystery to anybody before, that
the Democratic Party did not want to rock the boat of the big
corporations who fund them, just as they fund the Republican Party. The
corporations hedge their bets, they give their money to both candidates
to make sure that their policies of Global Capitalism are carried out
regardless of which party wins the election. More and
more we in the United States are living in a one-party State. We do not
have true democratic elections. People in
Europe are constantly amazed at how in the heck the people in the United
States could vote for an idiot such as George Bush. Let me tell you that
he pulled it off very cleverly and very simply with three concepts:
"God, Patriotism and Guns, and Gays." The most unpopular
wartime president in history won by using the wedge issues to whip up
his right-wing fundamentalist Christian base. He truly believes, and
says so in his speeches, that he was chosen by God to lead the crusade
to establish fundamentalism in a worldwide empire. He continuously
proclaimed right up to the election, as did his henchman Dick Cheney,
the vice president, that if you are against him, you must be a
terrorist. Some of us
are old enough to remember that they used to say in the United States,
"there are Communists under every bed"; that’s what they
would do to scare people. Now there are "terrorists under every
bed." Anyone who wants to speak out must be a terrorist. So that
was a very clever tactic of fear that Bush used. If that line did not
get through, he then went on to proclaim that the homosexual agenda was
taking over the country. And if gays were allowed to marry, then the
fabric of heterosexual marriage and thus the moral fabric of the country
would be destroyed. Get this. This is a country where over 50% of the
population are divorced. My partner and I have been together 24 years; I
don’t see how we threaten marriage. I’m thinking of passing a law
against divorce just to get back at them, and because that’s how
absurd it all is. The real
issue in the United States for lesbian and gay workers, so you don’t
get confused about all the marriage propaganda, and what we fight for
inside the AFL-CIO as Pride at Work, is against discrimination and
against termination on a job. In 34 states in the United States, just
for being a gay person, you can be instantly terminated from work, no
matter what you do. You might be a great worker, it doesn’t matter. If
they find out your sexual orientation, you are out the door. As absurd as
Bush’s cartoon-like persona might seem and the reasoning might appear,
the consequences for millions of people around the world are
catastrophic with Bush’s selection. He has continued to strategically
move to control all the oil and natural gas resources around the world.
We heard from the comrades in Algeria: that Bush just picked up the
phone, and now they are going to be forced to privatize their natural
gas and oil resources. If that does not work, he of course uses his big
guns, the preemptive, permanent strategy of war. And he finances this,
of course, through his cronies in the IMF and the World Bank who control
the economies of all nations. We only wonder in the United States, and I
am sure all of you do, what country will be next? Will it be Syria, will
it be Iran? We certainly know sitting here today that it will be some
country in the Middle East; that it has something to do with oil. To do this,
to carry out these policies, it requires him to destroy the institutions
of the fightback movement. So he is not just attacking the trade union
movement, he’s attacking the women’s movement, he’s attacking the
gay movement, he’s attacking the environmental movement, and most
particularly he’s attacking the movements of people of color
throughout the country. The
Bush-Rove team has created far more powerful tools of oppression than
ever before: We have two USA Patriot Acts. How does he rule? Very
simply. Some of you from Europe will remember the Big Lie theory of
government under Hitler. Bush learned this lesson, and this is exactly
how he rules and how he operates. Remember the weapons of mass
destruction that supposedly were why we attacked Iraq, wasn’t it?
Under this mass deception, over 150,000 Iraqi people that we know of
have been slaughtered, and at least 1,500 U.S. troops (not to mention
troops from other nations) have also been slaughtered. Well then, along
comes the truth: there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. Oh
well, that doesn’t really matter. They could have made them, so what
the hell! We needed to crush them, so we killed them anyway. Besides,
you know, we were really in Iraq to fight terrorism. It was very
interesting. Somebody in the debate had to remind Bush that Osama bin
Laden was not in Iraq. He said, "Oh yes, but the spell of Bin Laden
is casting its wings, its propaganda, over the whole of the Middle East,
so what the hell! Let’s go ahead and attack Iraq first." It’s very
sad but the bourgeois press controls the national media, the TV
stations, the radio stations. In fact, there are very few independent
press outlets left. The Gannet Press has bought out most of the print
media in the United States. The only way you can get news of what is
really happening is through one public radio station and through the
Internet. If you do not spend time on the Internet you will have no idea
of what is happening in the rest of the world. None. Of course,
Bush threw out all of these smokescreens of "guns, patriotism,
gays" to keep people from thinking about the real truth of the
government. The Bush-Rove team was able to keep the working people in
Ohio, the key electoral state, from knowing what was really happening
and by feeding their fear. Bush-Rove kept them from focusing on the
250,000 jobs that they have lost under the Bush regime through
offshoring and the "Free Trade" deals, supported by both
Republicans and the Democrats. Now, Bush has submitted a US$2.7 trillion
budget that slashes all social safety net programs, while increasing
military spending, to create a vast fighting force bigger than at any
time in the history of the United States. This budget proposal does not
even include the money he has asked for Iraq. Many of you will remember
that Bush asked for US$87 billion to start the war, and there was only
one courageous soul in the whole Congress who even bothered to oppose
any such budget proposals, or even raise a question about it. I believe
in the end it was voted for unanimously. So while
Bush puts forward this US$2.7 trillion budget, we have now created a
$US665 billion public deficit. This is the largest deficit in history.
How do you finance such a deficit? Well, the U.S. has been borrowing
from the countries around the world, especially China and Japan, which
has led to an enormous foreign debt. God forbid they decide to call in
the debt, because the country would be ruined. It is true that in the
recent period, the financing of these debt obligations has been
relatively painless, because in the past few years, through
manipulations of the marketplace, they have been able to keep interest
rates relatively low. However, we all know these rates cannot continue
forever, and the external debt obligations are going in the end to
constitute a mass loss for American households. It is really no
exaggeration to say that current economic policies of Bush will lead to
massive poverty among working families in the coming decades. I remember a
few years ago touring with some comrades coming from Europe who could
not believe all the homeless people sleeping on the streets of San
Francisco. At the time we said: "This is what you are going to be
facing in Europe under the European Constitution and the policies of EU."
From what we have heard in this conference, we see that this is now
starting to occur. The most
dangerous thing, of course, Bush has done in the midst of all this is to
put forward a policy to privatize the Social Security system. Not only
will this ruin peoples’ lives, over 60% of women only have social
security for their pension. Now you might think pensions are a sort of
luxury, but the biggest public pension is only around $12,000 a year, so
if you put this money into private accounts, and the Wall Street market
collapses, as it is does quite frequently, and you happen to be on the
downside when you retire, you will retire with nothing, just like the
workers at Enron. How do we in
the U.S. labor movement, respond to this? This is the key question
facing us in the United States, and also facing trade unionists the
world over. In the
United States, the trade union movement has declined rapidly. In the
1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, unions represented one in three workers.
Today, they represent one in 12 in the private sector, and that number
is falling weekly. The "war against terrorism" has been used
to get rid of unions in the public sector. Bush has used the terrorism
threat to get rid of all government unions that have nothing really to
do with the issue of terrorism, such as in the Treasury Department. In January,
Bush went even further: 770,000 government employees are going to lose
their right to civil service protections and they are going to lose what
is at the very heart of both the trade union contract and the civil
service protections, which is equal pay for equal work. In effect it
will be replaced with a system where employees will now be the victims
of cronyism, discrimination, and arbitrary policy making. Going even
further, Bush has announced plans to totally gut all civil service
protection and collective bargaining rights for federal employees. As you know,
in the private sector, offshoring and outsourcing have undermined union
jobs in whole new industries, especially in the white collar and
technical sectors of the U.S. economy. I represent professional and
white-collar workers. Now their jobs can be done in India, any place.
You pick up the phone to make an airline reservation with United
Airlines, and you might get somebody in India. They can’t tell you
because they are not allowed to. So the flexibility of global capital to
move production has not only weakened the U.S. labor movement, it is
also contributing, I believe, to the decline of unionism and of the
power of unionism worldwide. The decline of our unionism and the
discussion on how to reverse that decline can only be understood in a
global context. No progress can be made in the U.S. labor movement
without building a truly international trade union movement. Now I’d
like to turn briefly to the growing debate that many of you have
probably heard about, which is happening within the AFL-CIO. The debate
within the AFL-CIO centers on several principles. One is how to build
back labor’s power, whether by merging currently existing unions,
which is to concentrate resources and money to organize within the
private sector, or to continue to operate in the same manner, but
allocate more and more money to winning back the Congress and the White
House for the Democratic Party. I am not
saying that if the largest U.S. union -- which is the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) with 1.8 million workers, a union that
organized 720,000 workers in the last eight years -- leaves the AFL-CIO,
is a good thing. What I do want to let you know is that, for the first
time in my 40 years in the labor movement, there is real dialogue going
on, that is open to anyone who has access to the Internet. The SEIU has
created a website and they have asked all unions, all constituency
groups, and believe it or not, all rank and file members, to contribute
ideas on how to revitalize the labor movement. Not only have they asked,
but they have actually published on their website all of these ideas. Luckily this
has forced the bureaucracy of the AFL-CIO to have to create such a
website as well. They did something a little different, though, they did
not open it up to dialogue, and today I have not seen our proposals of
USLAW calling for the troops "out now", and to "bring the
soldiers home and get the hell out of Iraq" on the official AFL-CIO
website. Even many in
the high levels of the bureaucracy understand now that they need to
think globally. The most shocking thing was at the Executive Council
meeting of the AFL-CIO a week or two ago, and Jimmy Hoffa, the president
of the Teamsters’ president -- the third largest union in the United
States and the largest in the private sector -- actually said,
"American workers and workers the world over need a strong U.S.
labor movement. Without it, the inexorable global race to the bottom
will lead to further inequity, further erosion of basic wage and social
standards, and further limits on political democracy. Continuing on our
present course simply ensures future decline. It is time for
change." On the other
side of the debate are those in the labor officialdom who say, "We
should continue on our same course", which means continue to pour
tons more money and political action to help elect more and more
Democrats. It is estimated that in the 2004 elections the labor movement
in the United States spent nearly half a billion dollars, if you combine
the hard donations of US$200 million in cash with the in-kind donations
of resources and the staff time of 5,000 people. In addition, trade
unions across the country dispatched 200,000 union volunteers to ring
door bells to elect John Kerry. Imagine this. If we double all the
money, is this really going to help us? We who are
progressive think that if we had spent just some of the money, we could
have done a lot of organizing. I often wonder, even if the Democrats
were to win back the White House, or some of the places in the
governors’ races in the states, what would we really accomplish? Whom
would we be winning it back for? Would we be winning it for the working
class, for people of color, for poor people? I think not. Within this
debate, many people -- myself included -- feel this money should be
spent on a massive multi-union organizing campaign to take on the
largest corporation in the United States. And that is Wal-Mart, which is
now becoming the largest corporation in the world. If we could do that,
at the same time as running our own independent labor candidates, we
would have some real power and some real leverage. We, the
progressive unionists, have an opportunity to use this debate to our
advantage. Union leaders are saying openly that labor should reconsider
its relationship to the Democratic Party, as workers right now do not
have a party that speaks clearly to their economic interests. Union
leaders, such as Andy Stern of SEIU, are admintting that working people
are looking for political leadership and are not finding this in either
the Democratic or the Republican parties. Do I think
for the moment that those at the top, on their own, are going to lead
the break with the basic one-party system? Of course not, but we cannot
sit on the sidelines and either let the squandering of resources
continue or abstain from politics altogether. We do not have that luxury
because it will be impossible to organize massive numbers of new people
into unions without a fundamental overhaul of U.S. labor law, and
without independent political action. Working
people in the United States, those 50 million who did not vote, see
politics as the politics of corruption, politics of greed, and politics
of the large corporations. As
deregulation has escalated and as globalization has gathered steam, the
corporations have gone on a tremendous political offensive. And the
trade unions, instead of fighting back, have spent more money on their
hands and knees begging the Democratic Party to support labor’s
agenda. Making matters worse, the employers have developed a very
well-thought-out strategy to repeal all progressive measures, especially
Social Security retirement benefits, and they are engaged in a mass
union-busting campaign. We who live in the belly of the beast have a
critical role to play in using the power of the labor movement to strike
massive blows at the heart of that beast. To that end
I would like just to end by saying that the U.S. labor movement must
condemn Bush’s politics of preemptive wars, demand no interference
against the workers’ and peasants’ movements in Venezuela, demand an
immediate end to the war on Iraq, support Iraqi trade unionists who are
fighting against a ban on trade unions, the one law of Saddam Hussein
that the United States occupation has left intact. In other words, we
must make the word "Solidarity" mean something of substance.
Thank you. ############################################ ILC INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER NO. 125 –126 (Part 2)A dossier of
weekly information published by the International Liaison Committee of
Workers and Peoples April 4 – 11, 2005 International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples 87, rue du
Faubourg Saint Denis 75010 Paris, France
BULLETIN NO.
2 OF MADRID REPORT (PART 2) The
World Conference of the ILC was held in Madrid on March 18-20, 2005 Three
bulletins will present a full report on the World Conference. Below we
publish the second of these three bulletins. On the
following pages you will find the first set of presentations by
delegates to the World Conference. Because of the length of these
presentations, we have divided Newsletter No. 125-126 into two parts.
Bulletin No. 3, which will include the Closing Statements and
conclusions of the Conference, will follow this issue. It will include
all the other presentations by the delegates to the plenary sessions of
the Conference. Presentations
in this Newsletter: Marcela
Maspero – Venezuela Cher Hared
Hassan –Djibouti Josep
Calzada – Spain Tafazzul
Hussain – Bangladesh Gotthard
Krupp – Germany Mamadou
Ouattara – Ivory Coast Jorge
Martinez – Chile Lybon Mabasa
-- Azania Tiberiu
Cozma – Romania Gene Bruskin
– United States Christian
Marimoutou – Guadeloupe Vissikou M.
Senouvo – Togo Gulzar
Chaudhary – Pakistan Alexandre Hébert
– France Clarence
Thomas – United States Serge
Goulart – Brazil Carmelinda
Pereira – Portugal Innocent
Assogba – Bénin Erwin
Salazar – Peru Trade
unionist from Lebanon Patrick
Hebert – France Julio Turra
– Brazil Gabriel
Gaudy -- France Jacqueline
Petitot – Martinique Nambiath
Vasudevan – India Camille
Mombo Mouelet – Gabon Alexandre
Anor – Switzerland Victor Hugo
Zavaleta – Mexico Philippe
Larsimont – Belgium Richard
Tiendrebeogo – Burkina Faso ---------- Marcela
Maspero (Venezuela) National
Coordinator, National Union of Workers of Venezuela (UNT) Good
morning, comrades. It is up to me to explain the subject of Venezuela --
a country that is going through a profound revolution at this time,
thanks to the election of President Chavez to our government. It is a
revolution that, furthermore, definitely has swept through the trade
union movement. The new
government in our country has announced deep changes and a revolution
from the social, economic as well as trade union point of view. A new
constitution was promulgated for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
that substantially improves the economic, social and trade union rights
and wellbeing of all workers, of all citizens in a participatory and
protagonist democracy in our country, precisely in opposition to what
had been the traditional representative democracy in Venezuela. The CTV had
been the largest trade union organization in our country for over 40
years. From the CTV came the majority of trade union leaders who are now
members of the National Trade Union of Workers (UNT). In its origins,
the CTV had a profound class-struggle content, nay even revolutionary
content — but over the course of time it lost its autonomy and working
class identity and became subordinated to Fedecamaras (the employers’
association) and the governments in office. Hence, it lost credibility
with the workers. When Chavez
assumed the presidency, the question of elections within the CTV arose.
Already during its congress in 1995, the national governing body of the
CTV had approved holding elections by the rank and file by direct and
secret vote of the workers. These were elections to determine the
federation's leadership. But it isn’t until President Chavez’s
election that this call was raised again. Then a trade
union electoral process occurred in Venezuela. It is important that all
of you here from all parts of the world know with all clarity and
transparency that it was not a process linked to State intervention. It
was an agreement reached in the framework of the Constituent Commission,
with the participation of all five trade union federations that today
exist in our country. The governing body of the CTV decided to abide by
a process of trade union democratization supervised by the National
Electoral Council, as established
in our new constitution. These trade
union elections had as a result a deep renovation of the ranks of
national and regional trade union bodies. But when it came time for the
Executive Commission of the CTV to publicly announce the results of the
CTV elections, it was evident for all to see that 52% of the voting
ballots had disappeared. Consequently, the workers of Venezuela, who had
envisaged a democratic renewal of the CTV’s governing body, were
profoundly disappointed. Later, the
CTV lined up alongside the sectors who carried out the attempted 2002
coup d’etat, producing the shortest dictatorship ever seen in the
world. The dictator only governed for 48 hours, thanks to the strength
of the people who believed in this revolutionary process and reinstated
Chavez to his mandate. It is important to note that in this process of a
coup d’etat, we, the workers, did not act so much as the working
class. We simply took to the streets and joined the people, setting
aside our role and place as the working class. After this
attempted coup d’etat, a profound reflection took place in the hearts
of trade union and revolutionary currents in our country. Personally I
belong to the Bolivarian Workers’ Force, which is one of the trade
union currents born of the Bolivarian process, and we had our first
national meeting of workers on September 8-9, 2002, for the purpose of
defining a new instrument for the working class considering the betrayal
by the CTV of all class principles and its anti-democratic and fascist
stance as evidenced by its support of the April 2002 coup d’etat. Agreement by
all the currents on what to do was not possible and so we simply created
a commission charged with working toward the creation of a new trade
union federation. In the midst
of these discussion, the sabotage "strike" was launched by the
bosses’ association, Fedecamaras, and by the then-president of the CTV,
Carlos Ortega. It is being said in certain circles that there are no
trade union freedoms in Venezuela. But you should know that from the
moment this sabotage operation was initiated, Mr. Ortega spent 16 hours
a day issuing his daily corporate-led directives against the government
and against the workers from the very offices of Fedecamaras. This
occurred from December 2002 till February 2003. And this is
when we, the workers of Venezuela, adopted a class position. We, the
workers, were the ones who got production in the oil industry back up
and running when the administrators, bureaucrats and technocrats were
doing everything to sabotage production on behalf of Fedecamaras and its
international patrons. This was not a workers’ strike around trade
union demands. It was a lockout decreed by the bosses and their
money-launderers with the political aim of bringing the country to its
knees so as to depose the government of President Chavez. The oil
sabotage "strike" was joined by a lockout of countless private
sector businesses and industries. There, workers were compelled to
protest at the factory or business entrances to demand that the bosses
let them come in to work. Here, too, there was no trade union grievance
or demand. Given that
the Venezuelean opposition talks about 18,000 fired administrators, it
seems important to us to let you know that over 100,000 workers lost
their jobs in the private Venezuelan oil industry as a result of this
lockout. Many of these workers, despite the reemployment injunction of
the Department of Labor, have not been reinstated in their jobs by the
enterprises. Furthermore many of these private-sector enterprises shut
their doors, and were later occupied by the workers. That is was
happened to Venepal, to the national valve construction enterprise and
to other enterprises -- all of which were occupied by workers. This
class position taken in the face of sabotage actually brought the
different currents to take up the discussion of a new union federation,
and that is how the National Union of Workers (UNT)was born, as an
instrument in the hands of the Venezuelan working class. The UNT is
autonomous from the government, from all political parties and from all
political, religious or other beliefs. The UNT is
internationalist, deeply democratic and it is a class organization.
Let's recall that the UNT came out of a congress that was attended by
more than 1,000 delegates from 500 trade unions, who then decided to
constitute the UNT. We designated a national directorate formed by 21
members: it works horizontally and has the firm mandate to call for
elections in order to determine the direction the UNT will take. Our
first congress was held on the August 1-2, 2003, where the UNT's guiding
principles and a fighting platform -- the tools of the union's ethics --
were adopted. But the proposed reform of the union's bylaws has not yet
been approved by the union's rank and file; this issue is still waiting
to be addressed at our next congress which should take place between May
and June of this year. It is
equally important to point out that within the scope of our tasks to
develop the UNT, we had to take a political stance in our country given
the danger of an intervention by U.S. imperialism, which on numerous
occasions has issued startling statements concerning the policies
implemented in our country, statements that were voiced by the highest
spokespersons of the Department of State and by its representatives in
our country. The
Venezuelan workers were the ones who, united in the UNT, told U.S.
imperialism that it has nothing to say in our country, that Venezuela is
a sovereign country and that we, the workers, answer for the sovereignty
of our country. Today the
UNT can show you with satisfaction the formation of 23 regional sections
in each region of our country. Furthermore we now have national trade
unions as well as national sector federations for each fundamental
sector of the country, such as oil, electricity and the primary
industries’ sector. Ninety percent of private-sector workers are
organized in the UNT, and in 90% of the factory shopfloor referenda or
in the debates over collective bargaining, the UNT is there head to head
combating the CTV. We want to
explain that in our country, faced with privatizations, there is lots of
talk about co-management. And we should also talk about the historic
phenomenon of Venepal. The workers occupied it during the
sabotage/strike and now it has been expropriated through a decision of
the National Assembly of our country and by presidential decree; it is
presently under the joint control of the workers and the state. We have
begun an intensive process of co-management in the electricity sector
and the sector of basic agricultural businesses. Parallel to
this, the collective contracts of the public and private sector are
being discussed in our country, after years in which they had not been
addressed; we are in the middle of an intense combat -- Venezuela is
currently, once again, being threatened by U.S. Imperialism -- to defend
our sovereignty and the independence of our country in the face of the
intervention of American Imperialism. To conclude,
Venezuela has been and continues to be attacked in international
institutions of all types, including the ILO. We have
launched an international campaign against the attack begun by
Fedecamaras a year ago. You must understand that, last year, thanks to
the support of the Workers' Group of the ILO, neither the CTV nor
Fedecamaras met their objective of getting Venezuela to be sanctioned.
Nevertheless, in a proceeding that has not followed the norms of the ILO,
Fedecamaras has registered a complaint. We want to give thanks to the
International Liaison Committee -- in particular to Julio Turra, Luc
Deley, Alexandre Anor, Daniel Gluskstein, and Alan Benjamin, and all of
you -- for supporting the UNT's international campaign against the
complaint registered by Fedecamaras. It is very
important for us to have received your support, and I think that next
week, when the topic of Venezuela will be raised at the ILO's Governing
Body, the Workers' Group will not dare to support the proposal of the
bosses; we will, therefore, leave the international scene with honor, in
order to return to our country to continue fighting for social justice,
for national sovereignty, for independence, and for the struggle to
consolidate and strenghten the working class, and for the basic rights
of the workers and the people. Thank you. ******************** Cher
Hared Hassan (Djibouti) International
Relations Director, Djibouti General Labour Union (UDT) Greetings, I am in
charge of external relations for the Djibouti General Labour Union. I
represent the Republic of Djibouti. I am going to try and give you a
summary of the situation in our country. Djibouti is
a small country situated in Eastern Africa. It is where three continents
Europe, Africa and Asia join and it is on a very important maritime
route. There are 600,000 inhabitants; the national annual per-capita is
285 Euros. These elements should make this country able to develop. But
the social reality is quite the opposite. In our
country 70% of the working age population are jobless. 65% of the
population lives below the poverty line. This is United Nation data. The question
emerges: what makes such a situation possible? Since we became
independent, a group of corporate interests have laid their hands on the
regime in order to slam down the will of the Djibouti people and attend
to their own interests. The Djibouti General Union is the only free and
independent trade union in the country. Our Federation is not only an
organisation that defends the moral and material interests of workers;
it is the sole democratic tribune where the Djibouti people are able to
express themselves. It is the only organisation that can stand up to
those corporate interests that have laid their hands on the regime. The
situation in Djibouti has gone from bad to worse and the regime has gone
beyond mere administrative and police repression of trade union
activists; it threatens the very existence of trade unionists, as a
comrade of our teachers’ federation was found dead at our
headquarters. We have
lodged several complaints to the ILO. The ILO has yet to take the
necessary measures to bring the Djibouti regime to abide by the 70
international conventions it has endorsed. Currently,
the government openly awards itself every right. The labour code, the
document that regulates labour laws, in Djibouti was written in 1952.
The document grants union freedom and permits workers to organise their
actions in total freedom. But the
regime has lately come up with a newfangled labour code, a document that
the employment ministry prepared alone without asking trade unionists
for their opinion. The document was solely devised to eradicate free and
independent trade unionism from Djibouti. It was
adopted by the Council of Ministers in November 2004 and they intend to
pass it in Parliament so it becomes law. The
situation prevailing in our country is awful. Somalia is a bankrupt
state. If international organisations do not help us bring the regime to
reason, I believe that we are heading towards a Somalia-like situation.
Seeing all that has accumulated, we have reached the breaking point.
When the people's reaction is unleashed, i.e. violent and
uncontrollable, it heads towards disaster. Indeed, one
can witness what happens in Somalia. As there are many similarities
between our country and Somalia and in our region tribalism plays an
important role. It will be too late to cure the evil outcome. We ask that
the international organisations send out an alarm signal on the social
situation and bring the Djibouti regime to reason. We are going
to circulate a motion of support for our union federation among the
participants, we ask for support and world solidarity so we can bring
ILO to take the necessary measures during the international meeting in
Geneva; i.e. to bring the Djibouti regime to abide by the ILO
conventions. This motion
will not be limited to the Conference; we want it to be an open motion
of support so the trade unionists attending from all the continents can
assist us. For instance in Europe, there are French, Belgian, and
Spanish organisations. By the same
token, we ask the organisations from Asia that attend to participate in
this international solidarity. We also ask the American organisations to
help us as well as those from Africa and to ask trade unionists the
world over to endorse and send a copy to the ILO as well as to our
organisation to enable us to use the documents and the other means we
have to compel the ILO this year in June in Geneva to take effective
measures against the Djibouti government. I thank the
ILC for giving me the floor here in front of so many representatives
from all over the world. ******************** Josep
Calzada (Spain) UGT
Trade union member Good day,
comrades. I am an activist from the General Workers Union (UGT) from the
banking and financial sector of Spain. I want to comment about the
situation inside the UGT with respect to the referendum about the
so-called European Constitution and also about the current situation. I
want to make some brief comments. Following the position taken by the
UGT in support of the European Constitution, the situation inside the
union can be characterized as one of great confusion. Many activists
didn’t agree and others, along with the most overwhelming confusion,
had their doubts. The
leadership of the UGT, aware of this situation, did not organize any
internal discussion because of the doubts that had been expressed and
the opposition from within its ranks. I am going to give an example.
Within the national committee of my federation in which about a hundred
persons were participating I spoke about the lack of internal debate and
in favor of a no vote on the referendum. There was not a single word of
support for the yes vote. I sold about 25 pieces of literature which
analyzed the Constitution and supported a no vote. Many activists showed
their agreement. And this is only one example. You know the
results of the referendum. It did not represent a defeat for the
supporters of a no vote but rather the opposite. The battles against the
misnamed Constitution and the measures to be put in place that it
implies have not yet begun. The leadership of the unions has just signed
a collective bargaining agreement for the year 2005. This is at the
center of the European Union offensive about competitiveness and the
attacks that this implies against our salaries and our working
conditions. It is evident that the employers, while being supported by
the European Union, have imposed their standards for competitiveness,
flexibility and wage moderation. In the near
future there are going to be meetings at every level of the UGT. We are
going to continue to wage the fight against the poorly named European
Institution and everything that it implies. The activists of the UGT
attentively follow all the struggles and positions taken by the union
movement, especially in France, which is where the next referendum will
take place. We should
reinforce the information, the collaboration and the initiatives
launched across Europe in the common struggle for our work and our
rights. The battle continues. The coming months are very important. This
conference will undoubtedly help to bring about a positive outcome. Thank you,
comrades. ******************** Tafazzul
Hussain (Bangladesh) President, National
Federation of Trade Unions of Bangladesh Comrades,
dear friends, I am the lone participant from Bangladesh, because you
know and as comrade Daniel has already explained, our participants have
not been allowed visas. Visa allowance is not the main question. The
question is that the people who have power in the embassy, the French
embassy in Bangladesh, first asked us to bring our hotel reservations,
we brought the hotel reservations. Then they
asked for bank statements. The four trade union leaders had to produce
bank statements. Then on the third day they asked for travel insurance.
We produced the travel insurance and the fourth day they said: this
insurance company is not allowed, bring us another insurance company. In
this way, they were harassed for four, five days, people who came
hundreds of kilometers away from Dakha. They were frustrated and
harassed like anything. Anyway, this is the fate of the poor countries
like Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi trade union leaders and people. Friends, we
are meeting in Madrid, the capital of Spain, not far from Barcelona,
where the ILC was founded in 1991. This is the sixth meeting we are
having. We are calling for the unity of the working class to fight
against the onslaught of the imperialists and the capitalists. But since
then, the imperialist onslaught has been intensified: privatisation,
structural adjustment plans, and closures have reached such an extent
that the workers are now slaves or jobless. After all
our fighting, the imperialists have intensified and united themselves
through WTO and they plan to destroy the ILO conventions, some of the
conventions have already been destroyed, they are now planning to
destroy the ILO itself. You know, Tiger Asia has now become Beggar Asia
because of this imperialist onslaught and the World Bank and IMF
prescriptions. Now the imperialists are trying to destroy the very
existence of nations. After destroying the independence of the trade
unions, the independent trade unions were their target, are still their
target, and by reducing the numbers of labour forces, by destroying the
trade unions, by destroying this independence, now they are trying to
destroy the nations and their independence. They are the IMF, the WB,
and the most insidious are the NGOs. NGOs are the
second forces after the WB in foreign countries. They are installed by
the "grace and good wishes" of the imperialist countries, the
IMF, the WB, the Washington bosses. Today liberalization, privatization
and deregulation have reached such an extent that the labour forces, the
trade unions, even the governments have no control on the onslaught of
the imperialists and their destructive policies. They are destroying the
collective bargaining power of the trade unions. Globalisation means the
internationalisation of exploitation. Another
process to divert the objectives of the trade union and the labour
movement is the Porto Alegre process. They are asking for a new world.
We don't know what that new world is, and the trade union and labour
forces are fighting to maintain the gains of the labour forces, gains of
our fights, gains of our ancestors. They are asking for a new world. What is this
new world? We don't know, one in which we cannot sustain, one in which
we cannot keep our previous gains intact. But they are asking for a new
world. What is that
new world? Nowadays the IMF and the WB and the multinationals and the
imperialist bosses are saying to every government: your government is
not good. Good governance is required. Now what is that good governance?
They have instigated corruption; on the other hand, they subjugate
governments for corruption. NGOs and so-called civil society are trying
to have seminars and meetings for good governance. What governance? Last
month, there were four seminars in Bangladesh, for corporate governance.
What does it mean? What does
that mean? Are we going to have corporate governance? Corporate
governments? We know in Bangladesh, in India, in the British colonies
what corporate rule is. They cut the hands of the weavers to protect the
textile industry in Manchester. We know what corporate rule is. But now
we are going to have corporate rule. Now back to
Bangladesh, Bangladesh is passing through a war like situation.
Terrorism has reached such an extreme that even the police minister is
not safe. The police minister has complained to the court that his life
is not safe. This kind of terrorism is prevailing in the country. The
anti-liberation forces that we fought against for our liberation are
practically in power. So you can imagine the conditions of the country. Under these
circumstances, we, the labour forces and progressive forces are
fighting. And we have fought some wars successfully. We saved our
natural gas from the clutches of imperialist United States companies
like Unocal, Texaco, Nikko and other occidentals. They are
asking for gas export. We are not exporting gas to any country, not even
India, but we are asked to give our gas to American companies. Why do we
oppose exporting? Because the terms and conditions of export are that
after 20 years, Bangladesh will get a share of 20%. And during
these 20 years, whatever gas we consume produced by the American
companies, we have to pay in hard currencies. A calculation shows that
if we signed that agreement in 20 years, Bangladesh will owe to the
American companies 20 billion dollars, and after 20 years, we will get
some share, and at that time, the gas reserve will be finished. Such are the
conditions. So we must
oppose this kind of export. We have
saved our port which was the target of SSA, an American company that
targeted our port through bitter struggle and also through an
international convention we held in Chittagong with brother Clarence
Thomas who was present as an international guest, an international
leader, and through that fight we saved our port from the greedy eyes of
the American imperialists of SSA, the present ruling clique and Dick
Cheney, who owns a gas field in Bangladesh. Friends,
this fight, our saving of the port and gas and oil reserves, we are now
paying for it. We are being punished. Why? The gas fields’ production
belongs to the American and British companies. All gas fields. Our power
production is based on natural gas. They have now falsely started to say
that there is no gas, whereas they are eager to export gas. The leather
industry is closed. Power production is closed. Now Bangladesh has no
power but old power houses supplied by gas. And gas supplies are run by
American companies. So this is indirect punishment to the people, to the
government, to the nation. Just for their unlawful request, unlawful
demand. Friends, oil
owners were telling us for the last 12 years, even before that, that our
country, Bangladesh, was a testing ground for the imperialist’s
various prescriptions, various designs. Now again on this testing ground
an experiment has started. They are testing corporate rule, corporate
government. If they are successful, as they were successful in
structural adjustment, privatisation etc, in making those plans in
countries like Bangladesh, all of you in your countries are bound to be
facing the same situation. This has
already started in the industrialised and affluent countries in Europe
and America. And this is
what this so-called social summit is for. They are asking for a new
world. I think that the new world is corporate governance. If we do not
start fighting, if we do not oppose this new measure immediately, our
fate will be a plight. I thank all
the participants from various parts of the world for being here. Let us
redouble our efforts to fight back against this new prescription of
corporate capital and imperialism. Thank you. ******************** Gotthard
Krupp (Germany) Regional
leader of Berlin Ver.di union and of the Labor Commission of the SPD Dear
Brothers and Sisters, In Europe,
imperialism's offensive manifests itself in a particular form in
relation to Germany -- the strongest imperialism in central Europe, the
country where the workers' conquests are the strongest: The industrial
strength of our country must be dismantled and the recently won unity of
the country must be dissolved into the framework of the Europe of
regions. The working class and its organizations must be atomized. Schröder's
government has assumed this task; this is the political content of his
Agenda 2010 program and of his labor reform, the Hartz laws. The Schröder
government must be the vanguard of the European governments and the EU;
the financial institutions and the bourgeois parties push him down this
road. But the SPD was elected by the workers and Schröder was not
elected for there to be today in Germany 8.5 million people unemployed
-- that is, real unemployment is %20 to %30 and even %35 in the East. We should
remember that in the 1930s, 7 million people were unemployed. Schröder
was not elected to condemn hundreds of thousands of workers to poverty
or subject to jobs without rights at one Euro per hour. These are forced
working conditions without a labor contract, without even the right to a
union. The system
of voluntary labor instituted in 1931 was no more voluntary than it is
today. Thus, this policy is provoking indignation and anger among the
workers. How can such a policy be possible so soon after the unification
and the fall of the Berlin Wall? How is it possible that it is a SPD
government that is implementing such a policy? Consequently,
the SPD has lost the past nine elections. Hundreds of thousands have
left the SPD. This policy is destroying the SPD's base. Meanwhile, Schröder
has lost his majority. So why do the EU, the financial institutions, and
the bourgeois parties continue to use the Schrder card? The reason
is that they need a SPD government and because only a SPD government can
strangle the resistance coming from the SPD and the unions. Only such a
government is able to repress the resistance of the working class
expressed through its unions. And still,
under the renewed pressure of the IMF, the EU and the U.S. government,
Schroder is resorting to new measures that are even more brutal. For
their part, the masses persist in their resistance. The danger of a
social explosion is growing. But the
workers’ organizations have not been destroyed and as long as they
exist Schröder will be in danger. In this situation, we
social-democrats, and ex-social-democrats and unionists, have taken up
the urgent call " Schröder must go!" At the SPD
congress in Berlin in December, I said that only an extraordinary
congress of our party can save the SPD by breaking with Schröder and
demanding his departure. This demand has been expressed especially
forcefully in the protests in East Germany. Unionists and thousands of
social-democrats have supported this demand, and every day that passes
shows that there can be no solution for the party, for the unions, and
for the people as long as Schröder is in charge. This
struggle for control of the SPD is not completed, but the problem of the
trade unions is being pushed to center stage. The unions must remain
independent from the policies of Schröder and the policies of the EU.
In brother Sandri's introductory report for the conference, he explained
the phenomenon of international union mergers that took place in Japan.
The union apparatuses want to escape the control of the ranks; the goal
is to integrate the unions into the international institutions of
globalization. The cutting edge question facing us today is the
independence of the unions. In Germany,
we had a very early experience with one such fusion. Four DGB unions
merged together to form the Ver.di union. In their capacity as strong
sector unions, they were united by their national collective bargaining
agreements. They organized all workers in the same sector. This fusion
was based on the dissolution of the sector unions and of their
collective-bargaining agreements, and their subsequent reorganization by
professional sectors. This all was done in the name of differentiating
the individualization of workers’ interests. Thanks to
this merger there was the creation of a super-centralized apparatus,
unchecked by any mandate. First affected was the public services trade
union: OTV. It was the guarantor of the civil service status throughout
the country and the collective bargaining agreement of 3.5 million
workers in the public sector, and indirectly 8 million workers. Opening up
the public sector to privatization and deregulation has become the
program of Ver.di -- a program that is identical to the program of Schröder,
the EU, and also the ETUC. And the leadership of Ver.di has downgraded
-- through regional differentiation and salary degradation -- the the
civil service status. And just now the Ver.di leadership has removed a
clause that had been in the contract for 40 years, against the fierce
resistance of the trade union affiliates and even large sectors of the
union leadership. This
convention was replaced by a new public service contract that okays all
sorts of differentiations and regionalizations, wage differentials and
extensions of the work day with no increase in pay. Worse still, all
wage earners were deprived of all decision-making powers. Moreover,
many sectors, such as the public transportation sector were excluded
from this agreement to be to the private sector. They are being forced
to negotiate their own agreement, with wage losses of up to 30% to 40%,
not to mention an aggravation of working conditions. It is necessary for
them to become competitive in relation to the businesses in the East, in
Poland, in Ukraine, all of which are already breaking into the German
market, or in relation to businesses seeking to employ workers at one
Euro an hour. In this
situation, the workers in the Berlin transportation system -- the
largest company of its type in Germany— have begun to struggle against
this decision. Now, they must force their union to re-impose the old
agreement and all the conquests linked to it. This, of course, implies a
very acute struggle with the national Ver.di leadership. Thousands of
unionists and social-democrats are seaching for a way out; they are
fighting for their organization and for the defense of their living and
working conditions. There is still time to organize a movement that can
defend and reconquer workers’ rights and social security systems. One
thing is clear: to defend independent unions and to save the SPD, Schröder
must go. In this struggle we are linking up with the resistance movement
in all of Europe for the "No!" to the European Constitution.
Thanks. ******************** Jorge
Martinez (Chile) President
of the Federation of Banking Unions I would like
to send fraternal greetings from the workers of the banking sector of
Chile to all the workers of the world and especially to all the
representatives in this room. Let’s give thanks to all the comrades
that have made possible the major event which is this world conference. After the
fall of Chilean dictator Pinochet, three coalition governments of the
"dialogue for democracy" followed. These governments have been
possible thanks to the sacrifice of millions of workers which includes
giving their life so that it could happen. They have turned their back
on the working class, becoming simple administrators of the system,
allowing the multinationals to maintain and increase their profit rates. Even if
certain freedoms are guaranteed in Chile such as the freedom of worship
and the right to free assembly, the people do not have the guarantee of
a quality education and they are deprived of health care. This last
point is one of the greatest humiliations that the people are forced to
support due to the fact of it’s poor quality and being extended to
only a small part of the population. It hasn’t even been possible to
enjoy good housing conditions that guarantee a minimum of safety and
comfort. Delinquency increases, both in the number of crimes and their
violent nature. The model
applied to Chile does not have a regulatory framework. It has just the
opposite. There is total freedom to do whatever one wants, transforming
Chile into one of the top ten countries having the worst distribution of
income. In our country 65% of the workers can not obtain a minimum
pension. The Chilean work force consists of about six million workers
and just under a million of them are temporary workers. Collective
bargaining does not exist. Everything is imposed The process
of privatization has put competitive state run enterprises such as the
electrical companies, drinking water, and telecommunications in the
hands of multinational. Through stock offerings, two-thirds of the
mineral resources, largely consisting of copper mines, have been
conceded. Another hard
blow absorbed by the working class is the reform of the social security
system which completely relieved the state from any responsibility,
leaving workers to their own fate. These funds, which today amount to 60
billion dollars, are managed by the multinationals which invest a big
part of it abroad in high risk capital. What is
taking place in Chile shows how governments which claim to be socialist
are turning turn their backs on the working class, transforming
themselves into servants of foreign capital, the IMF, the WTO, and the
World Bank, the principal tools to control the poorest nations of the
world. There is no other country in the world where the neoliberal model
has as been as thoroughly applied and carried out as is the case with
Chile. We have been a laboratory experiment for 30 years. This has
caused serious damages for the future generations which will not be able
to benefit from possibility of development. What’s
going on with the banks in Chile? The last
year, the banks had a profit rate of 19% with about one billion dollars
in reserves, 75% of which is managed by foreign banks, the most
important ones being the Spanish banks such as BBVA and Santander
Central Hispano (SCH). This does not stand up for one minute to the
analysis which places the yearly growth rate in Chile at less than 6%. Figures
published in the press point out that the bank managers earn an average
of 240 million pesos a year, or about 411,000 dollars, which corresponds
to about 1200 dollars a day. In Chile, 80 % of the population earns less
than 300,000 pesos per month, which is about 512 dollars. This
phenomenon obliges us the workers to take measures to strengthen our
unity and to mobilize ourselves so as to confront this. This is why
there has appeared on the scene in Chile the movement Social and
Democratic Force, composed mostly of workers in the education,
healthcare and banking sectors. By means of Social Force, we want to
create a social policy that focuses on the family. We call for the
political independence of the country’s youth. We are opposed to
capital which does not offer even the possibility of fair and sustained
development. As social organizations, we want to tell the average
citizen that today it is not represented by the political class. This is
illustrated by the fact that 2.3 million Chileans do not appear on the
voting lists and therefore do not participate in the decision making.
Finally, we cannot allow ourselves to miss the opportunity to
acknowledge the courageous struggle of the Venezuelan people against
American imperialism. Venezuela protects its energy resources while
redistributing their benefits to the people, closing their doors to the
multinational predators. We support the solidarity campaign with
Venezuela. We call upon the organizations gathered here to associate
themselves with the campaign of the Venezuelan workers to defend their
Bolivarian revolutionary process. Participating
in this meeting, which allows a true association of workers and people,
strengthens our mutual understanding because it is the key which will
allow us to open the door to a new world which has more solidarity and
that is more fair and fraternal. Thank you
very much, ******************** Lybon
Mabasa (Azania) President,
Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA) I want to
thank the chairperson of this very important gathering and to greet all
the activists, trade unionists, and political leaders from all over the
world. My name is
Lybon Mabasa. I come from Azania (that's our name for South Africa), the
land of Nelson Mandela, of Thabo Mbeki. I come from the country of
Africa which was the last country to become free, a country where people
had hoped that if it became free, it would open new possibilities for
the people of Africa, and also the Black majority in South Africa. But today
the reality is that, we are told, there is a 4% economic growth in South
Africa, but more people are unemployed; even the trade union movement
has lost more than 1.5 million members, because the overwhelming
majority of people are becoming unemployed by the day, the government of
the day is pursuing a policy of accelerated privatization. They have
privatized electricity, they have privatized even water, they have
privatized telecommunication, and they are in the process of privatizing
education. The
hospitals in South Africa, especially those hospitals operating within
the Black community, were among the best in the world; but today if you
go to those hospitals, people say that you go to the hospital in order
to die, not in order to live. In the hospital, you will not be able to
find bedding, you will not able to find even bathrooms. Some of them
have become the worst hospitals in the world. You find a
situation where most teachers are leaving South Africa, because in South
Africa they can no longer find employment, whereas the reality of the
situation is that illiteracy in South Africa has grown. The dream of
compulsory and free education has not become a reality in South Africa.
The UNDP, the United Nations Development Programme, has issued a report
which states that the life of Black people is worse off in South Africa,
even worse than what it was under the Apartheid regime. The external
debt, the debt of the IMF and the World Bank, has grown to a point where
it now stands at US$52 billion, and we annually spend about 8 billion
rands just to service the debt. The problem
of landlessness is huge. The majority of our people in South Africa have
no land, they have no houses, they live in shacks, that is why the
overwhelming majority of people are supportive of Robert Mugabe in
Zimbabwe. As a matter of fact, Mugabe has become a great hero in South
Africa. When he attends activities in South Africa, he gets a better
standing ovation than the president of South Africa. This is
because our people are saying: we fought in order to get better lives
for ourselves, but under the present circumstances, white privileges and
positions have been consolidated. The majority of people in South Africa
today live without enough food, despite the fact that South Africa is
still the leading gold producer in the world, is still the leading
platinum producer in the world, but the overwhelming majority of people
still find themselves without food on their table. We are in a
situation where the country almost leads the world in terms of the
number of people who are infected with HIV-AIDS, where 6 million people
are infected with HIV-AIDS, and we are told that in five years time,
plus or minus 5 million people will have died of AIDS in sub-Saharan
Africa. And the overwhelming majority of those people would have come
from South Africa. Today, we have a situation where the pharmaceutical
companies are refusing or are continuing to refuse in assisting to
provide antiretrovirus for the majority of people who have HIV-AIDS. We are
seeing for the first time the return of treatable diseases such as
tuberculosis. We are starting to see people suffering from malaria in
South Africa, and the situation for the overwhelming majority of people
is becoming very difficult. In the labor
movement, we have a situation where the trade union movement, because of
the pressures and the relationships that they have with the ruling
parties, are no longer able to defend workers, are no longer able to
recruit members, and this is the result of the fact the government has
set up a structure that allows people not to be members of trade unions,
but this structure, the CCMA, can now represent workers as individuals,
which discourages people to be involved in a process of collective
bargaining, or the process of being members of trade unions. People no
longer see the value of trade unions, because they can go to and be
represented at the CCMA as individuals. And we are seeing the growth of
this kind of institution amongst people in South Africa. We also are
seeing a situation where our regime, the South African government, is
involved in almost all the conflicts in Africa. To Thabo
Mbeki, wherever there are problems, the United States, France, and other
Western countries call and say, "Can't you go and intervene in Cote
d'Ivoire, can't you go and intervene in Darfur, can't you go and
intervene in Burundi," and just two weeks ago, the South African
soldiers were involved in a situation in the DRC where more than 60
people were killed. We are seeing the involvement of South Africa in all
regional conflicts. And the South Africans soldiers are becoming what
the American soldiers used to be in Africa. People are starting to hate
South African soldiers, they are even starting to hate South Africa,
because of the role that is played by the regime in so-called conflict
resolution in the region. Presently
the struggle which we need and we continue to be involved in is to try
and fight for the independence of the labor movement, is to try and
fight for the independence of COSATU, for the independence of NACTU.
Because as long as these organizations are married to the ruling party,
they will not be able to represent the people, they will not be able to
defend the workers, they will not be able to defend the landless people,
they will not be able to be on the side of the majority, who need a
better economic status, who need a better political framework other than
that one which the government is pushing. Every day we
are told that capitalism is working in South Africa, but the evidence
that is available shows that the lives of people are much, much more
difficult than they have ever been, even under the apartheid regime.
Thank you. ******************** Tiberiu
COZMA (Romania) President,
EMLONEA Trade Union Dear
friends, dear Comrades, A lot of
speakers in this conference have talked about ILO standards . This is
not by chance since these standards have a very concrete aspect for all
of us trade unionists and labor activists throughout the world. My name is
Tiberiu Cozma. Many of you know my name because you have heard of my
brother Miron Cozma. Many of you have taken part in the international
campaign which we have been carrying on for many years to get him out of
jail. Some of you were Miron's colleagues at the ILO where he led the
Romanian labor delegation twice, in 1994 and 1995. I don’t
believe it is necessary to insist on the importance of campaign that we
have been carrying out together in defense of Miron Cozma. I would,
however, like to take the opportunity of this world conference, of your
presence here, leaders and activists from the whole world, to inform
you, and through you, to inform the labor organization throughout the
world, of the latest news on my brother's situation, on the denial of
his right for so many years, at the instigation of the United States and
the European Union. You must
remember that my brother is in prison following a sentence for
"subversion of the State power, " delivered for his taking
part in the miners' protest of 1991. Dozens and dozens of organizations
throughout the world have been mobilized in his favor. Among them, there
were workers from Africa, Asia, North America, Latin America, Western
Europe. Labor solidarity has been developed also in our balkan-danubian
region, where they tried to set the peoples against one another.
Unionists from Ukraine, Serbia, Greece, the Moldavian Republic have
supported our efforts, proving that even in that area too, there still
exists a working class, united around their rights and their interests. After years
and years of campaign, on December 15, 2004, the then President of
Romania, Ion Iliescu at the end of his term of office, decided to pardon
Miron Cozma. Following American and European pressure, the same Iliescu,
who happened to be on a State visit in Brussels, decided less than two
days after, to invalidate his pardon. My brother was arrested again,
after having enjoyed freedom for 21 hours. Thus he was submitted to the
most severe torture which is the illusion of freedom. On Febrary
6, 2005, at Petrosani in the region of the Jui Valleey -- an area which
was really devastated by the closing down in stages of the mining
sector, as well as many other depressed areas in Rumania -- more than
300 unionists and labor activists have met together with comrades from
France and Germany to demand the release of Miron Cozma and the end of
repression against union leaders of the mining sector. All those
activists got together because they all understand that Cozma's
imprisonment and the sentencing of the other leaders represent an open
violation of international standards, particularly ILO standards, which
our country has ratified all the same. It is a violation of fundamental
rights on the basis of which in the whole world, including Romania, the
labor movement can defend their interests, can defend the very existence
of the working class. All the
unionists who were present, among whom the top leaders of the Meridians
and BSN (Union National Bloc) Confederations, have understood that if
today those rights are denied to Cozma, tomorrow anyone of them can be
targeted. The
difficulties which we are facing in our struggle are great. We are
debating with leaders at every level to present at last the Cozma Case
before the Union Liberties Commission of ILO. But precisely the same
forces which have imposed to the authorities of Bucharest to send him to
jail again are doing their best to check our actions. I reassert,
here and now, with force: my brother is in danger! Those who keep him in
prison want to destroy him physically and psychologically! The
authorities transferred him to a prison where the most dangerous
criminals are kept. His health is getting worse, this fact has been
corroborated even by the Commission of Inquiry of the Romanian
Parliament. I solemnly
declare: my brother's fate lies in the hands of the international labor
movement, through you, delegates to this world conference. Help us
continue this campaign. Our victory will be the victory of the
international labor movement! ******************** Gene
Bruskin (United States) Co-Convenor,
US Labor Against the War (title for id. only) I want to
thank the ILC for allowing me to speak at this wonderful gathering of
people from across the globe. It is very inspiring to me to be here and
to hear about the courage and the brilliance of so many friends and
comrades in waging battle in so many countries on behalf of workers and
the poor. And I want to address special thanks to the International
Liaison Committee and to Daniel Gluckstein for his leadership and his
vision in making this happen. Thank you Daniel. I want to
try and put the Bush administration and the U.S. anti-war movement in
some political context. The trade union movement and the peace movement
did not vote for Bush, did not like Bush, either in 2000 or in 2004. In
fact, 60 million Americans voted against Bush in 2004, but that was not
enough to defeat him. In the 2004
election, Bush ran a contest based on lies and fear. Continuously
raising 9/11 and the threat of terrorism and linking the war in Iraq and
the war on terrorism, even though there was no significant link between
Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Both elections were marred by
significant fraud, by hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate money
for Bush, and by the denial of the right to vote for many thousands of
African Americans who opposed Bush. The 2004
elections showed once again that the U.S. is in no position to serve as
a model of democracy. In fact I would like to issue a call for Fidel,
and perhaps Hugo Chavez to come to the United States to monitor our
elections for fairness. Do I have some support for that call? Immediately
after Bush came into office in 2000, he began to attack the rights of
workers. He eliminated newly won health and safety rights, he appointed
anti-union people to all the agencies that regulate labor rights, and of
course, he started cutting taxes mostly for the rich, to set the stage
for the shrinking of the federal budget, so there would be no funds
available for social services for the working class and for the poor.
But it was not until the tragedy of 9/11 when the World Trade Center was
attacked that George Bush found his moment. 9/11 was a
very dramatic attack for the people of the United States. Unlike most
countries in the world, we had been sheltered from war on our territory
since the Civil War in the 1860s. The intensity and the ferociousness of
this deplorable attack was terrifying to Americans. Everyone suddenly
felt vulnerable and there is still fear in the hearts of many Americans. But there is
an important reason that so many Americans, including trade unionists,
had no way to understand the attacks. And that is that we as a nation
have been told too little about our own history: most Americans don't
know that the U.S. government overthrew the democratically elected
Mossadegh government of Iran in 1953, and that we ushered in more than
two decades of rule by the Shah. Few Americans realized that we
overthrew of the democratically elected government of Arbenz in
Guatemala in 1954, and we ushered in decades of vicious repression, and
hundreds of thousands of deaths of indigenous workers in Guatemala. Most
Americans don't understand that we were accomplices in the murder of
Patrice Lumumba in the Congo in 1963, that it resulted in the rise to
power of the Mobutu dictatorship and decades of suffering and the death
of millions of Congolese people. And most Americans are unaware that the
United States was an accomplice in the coup in 1965 in Indonesia that
resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of progressive and left
Indonesians. And only now are Americans learning more fully about our
role in overthrowing the government of Allende in Chile. The facts
about the U.S. role in these events, and many more that I didn't
mention, are no longer in dispute. They have been written about in the
U.S. press, but they are not in our history books, they are not in our
popular media, they are not in the mainstream political commentary on
TV, and the majority of Americans, including trade unionists, know
little about them. So they were surprised. Although
there was a strong left current throughout much of U.S. history until
after World War II, the anti-communist right-wing attacks on the labor
and popular movements in the post-war McCarthy era drove the U.S. labor
movement decisively to the right on foreign policy issues, joining the
corporate and political leaders in the Cold War consensus. The
overwhelming message that most American are taught in school and is
repeated day after day in our media, is that America is always on the
side of democracy and freedom in the world, and we are fighting first
the evils of Communism and now the scourge of Islamic fundamentalism.
Why, many Americans ask, would anyone attack us? Of course, the
privilege of living in the most powerful military and economic nation in
the world has allowed many in the U.S. to ignore the realities of the
rest of the world, and see things in the U.S., as we say, through
rose-colored glasses. Following
the events of 9/11, and with fear in the hearts of so many Americans,
Bush saw an opening, and he took it. He immediately launched the war on
Afghanistan, and put into practice the Bush national security doctrine
that proclaims that anyone, in any nation, that disagrees with us, and
that Bush declares as a threat, then we have the right to preemptively
strike. And the
goal, hypocritical as it may seem, is explained as the need to spread
democracy, especially in the Muslim world. Bush sums up his doctrine by
saying: You are either with us or against us. The plan to attack Iraq
was made before 9/11, but it was sitting on a backshelf. It came off the
shelf in the days after 9/11, and a team was designed to roll out the
plan. The Democratic Party and the labor movement were paralyzed after
9/11, feeling like our nation was under attack, and we needed to support
the President, even a president that we did not like. As Bush rolled out
his plan, however, it became clear that he would launch a war at home as
well as a war abroad starting with unions and immigrant workers. First, he
gave billions of dollars to help the private airline industry that lost
business after 9/11, but had nothing for the thousands of airline
workers that lost their jobs. He created a massive Homeland Security
Department, with 170,000 workers in it, and took away their right to
organize unions because he said that was bad for security. There were
thousands of baggage screeners at airports, many of them immigrants who
were organizing unions at the time of 9/11. They were all fired along
with their private employers. And they
were replaced by 25,000 federal public employees who were then denied
the right to organize because Bush said it was bad for security. And since
then hundreds of thousands of federal workers have lost protection on
their job. Bush's Secretary of Education even called the largest
teachers union in the U.S., the NEA, a "terrorist
organization" on national TV. In other words, the rights of workers
are bad for security and we must take your freedom in order to give you
freedom. Both at home and abroad. The
government rounded up and imprisoned a thousand immigrants all over the
country, mostly Arabs and Muslims, many of them long-standing U.S.
residents. And as was mentioned earlier, created the USA Patriot Act,
with support from the Democratic Party. It allowed the government
essentially to declare any American an enemy combatant and to put you
potentially in the Guantanamo military base jails without any rights.
And now they want to push for a Patriot Act II. Then, in the
summer of 2002, the Homeland Security Department intervened in a
critical labor dispute between the militant and progressive longshoremen
workers union, that Brother Thomas here represents, and their employers,
and they used the excuse of national security. But in spite
of this, Bush's fortunes were fading at home, and the economy was
collapsing, and every day the papers were filled with the flood of
exposures of corporate greed and graft, and corruption by companies run
by Bush and Cheney's friends like Enron and Haliburton. And so to
counter this, in August 2002, with the elections ahead for Congress,
Bush began to talk about a war in Iraq. And the headlines and the front
pages across the nations instantly changed from talking about corporate
greed to talk about the threat of Saddam. And the Republicain Party
swept into total control in the 2002 elections. At this
point the peace movement began to grow rapidly, and the labor movement
finally became involved. People began to see that the attacks on
people's rights at home and abroad were connected. Starting in
the fall 2002, union bodies at the national, local and regional levels,
representing more than 5 million workers, passed resolutions opposing
the war. At first as a spontaneous movement, and then, in January 2003,
USLAW was formed, an organization that I helped to found, in order to
coordinate the entire labor voice across the country. And we continued
to organize and educate workers against the war, to bring workers into
the street and to fight against the Bush agenda. The unions
in USLAW represent the janitors and healthcare workers, railroad workers
and truck drivers, auto workers and teachers, and many other kinds of
workers. We demanded an immediate withdrawal. Even the AFL-CIO, the
umbrella organization of labor unions in the United States, eventually
passed a resolution critical of the war. But perhaps the most revealing
connection between Bush's war abroad and at home, was an incident that
occurred in April 2003, at a picket line of anti-war protesters on the
docks of Oakland, California, set up to protest an anti-union company
called SSA. The SSA had just got a huge contract in Iraq to rebuild and
privatize the port of Umm Qasr in Iraq and was leading the fight against
the longshoremen. The dock workers of the ILWU had refused to cross the
protesters' picket lines The police fired on the demonstrators with
rubber bullets, shot forty people, including nine dockworkers. Bush has
continued this campaign against working people, now attacking our Social
Security plans and dramatically cutting our budgets for social programs.
Bush has even cut benefits for military veterans. And more than 1,500
Americans have been killed already in Iraq. The
international network of US Labor Against War began working with Iraqi
trade unionists, and supporting the various efforts of the Iraqi trade
unionists. We sent a delegation including Brother Thomas to Iraq. We
pressured the Congress. We worked with the ILC for labor rights in Iraq.
We raised money for Iraqi unions. And in May we will bring Iraqi trade
unionists to the United States, even though they were denied an
opportunity to be at this conference. And I want
to say just briefly here that there is a Bush plan in Iraq. And the plan
is fundamentally to privatize Iraq and to use the market fundamentalism
of the Bush regime to take control of the Iraqi economy. And they are
continuing to implement these policies to privatize everything from
water to oil, even in the midst of the violence and the chaos. And the
Iraqi workers we have talked to have opposed this. One thing
that we need to realize here that has yet to be mentioned about Iraq:
there are countless meetings underway among the international bankers in
the West. The Paris Club met recently, in which it has been decided, it
has been ordered, to forgive the US$40 billion held in the West and
eventually the US$20 billion in debt. But Iraq must submit to those
famous most rigid IMF structural adjustment programs and the dismantling
of their economy, even denying Iraqis their own food and seed
production, even privatizing their right to eat. The trade unions are
opposed to privatization, and we must support this and oppose the debt. In closing
let me say that the working classes as we see here and the popular
movements across the globe are engaged in tremendous struggle against
global capital. But I want to suggest that the Iraqi struggle must still
continue to hold a central place in our work. Bush has chosen the place,
the U.S. is the unchallenged superpower in the 21st century, and he has
chosen Iraq as the place to take his stand. We must oppose this, and our
solidarity with the Iraqi trade unionists can play an important role in
the fight. It is a
fight that together we can win, and the victory of the Iraqis and the
defeat of the Bush agenda in Iraq will be a victory for the world's
people because it opens the possibility of redefining the 21st century
as one of internationalism that reverses corporate globalization and
sets the stage for a world based on economic and social justice. We must
take this century back. Thank you. ******************** Christian
Marimoutou (Guadeloupe) Movement
for a Workers and Peasants Parth (MPTG) I have
greeted you in my own language. I am greeting you working men and women,
great fighters, in the name of my organisation. I greet the
International Liaison Committee World Conference. I greeted
you in my mother-tongue, Creole. This language is spoken by over 4
million people in the Caribbean, across the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
We are fighting for its recognition as an official language. France’s
successive governments have acted along an agenda of alienation and
assimilation; now, backed by the European Union, the French government
is striving its utmost to exclude us from the Caribbean. I am a
member of the secretariat of Movement for a Party of Workers and
Peasants of Guadeloupe, affiliated to the ATPC (Association of Caribbean
Workers and Peoples) and to the ILC. Just like
Martinique and so-called French Guyana, Guadeloupe is one of France’s
last colonies, it is also a part of the Caribbean; it is a country 1,703
square kilometres large, with a 450,000 strong population. Originally
its population consisted of Cibist, Caribbeans and Aochs who were
slaughtered by colonisers in their colonial drive. Then, it was hit by
the slave trade that contributed to the enriching of European
barbarians, especially in France. In 1802,
after the Guadeloupe war where Black people valiantly fought
Napoleon’s armies to the shout of "freedom or death,"
slavery was re-instated. After the 1848 abolition, we remained a French
colonial concession. In 1946, France adopted a law of assimilation and
made us a French "département". This is why
today, we are "Europeans". You have to know that there is such
thing as tropical Europe. In many enterprises the labour code is
flouted, conventions and agreements are endorsed and mocked. The social
laws wrenched by workers are relentlessly pushed under. State and
Justice join hands to implement capitalist barbarism. During the
MEDEF (bosses’ association)’s general assembly, its chairman thanked
the state and justice for their aid. We witnessed
the same foul play during the conflict between the UGTG and the TEXACO
multinational; the French state played toad to the TEXACO bosses by
permitting dangerous tank-trailers to run on the roads while it remained
mute over the lay-offs of striking workers despite unfavourable reports
of factory inspectorate. Such
decisions as tax exemptions and reduction for bosses contribute to a
genocide by substitution by favouring massive arrival of European firms,
especially French ones with their own labour-force. Yet, real
unemployment figures stand at 40%. But official data only shows 25%.
91.7% of the economy depends on imports. The strike of port workers
initiated in solidarity with Michel Madassamy against anti-union
repression showed that we were sorely dependent on imports. Faced with
this situation, we the Workers and Peasants fight for the independence
of the working class and its organisations, for the unity and
self-determination of the people of Guadeloupe and our country’s
national independence. We believe
this can be achieved only thanks to the active solidarity with Caribbean
workers and peoples. In that respect, with the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Alliance of Martinique, the National Union of Workers of the
Dominican Republic and the UGTG, we convened the first Caribbean
Conference on December 12th and 13th 2002 in Guadeloupe on the following
principles: for the independence of organisations, against FTAA, for the
right of peoples to self-determination. It is worth noting that ATPC
(Association of Workers and Peoples of the Caribbean) came into being
during that Conference. We continue
mobilising workers. We act for the release of Miron Cozma, for the
defence of the UNT in Venezuela and in solidarity with Brazil’s
workers and landless peasants. We thus contribute to the international
struggle of workers and peoples in the construction of the ILC through
the ATPC; that is the meaning of our participation in the ILC World
Conference. Our
contribution is also for solidarity, independence and unity in the
Caribbean; that is why we work together with other organisations in the
regions among which Martinique’s AOP to convene a Caribbean Conference
in the near future; we have programmed a tour and we already met the WTU
(Trinidad), we are to travel to Sainte-Lucie in the Dominican Republic
and also to Haiti to meet trade unionists who were banned from coming to
Guadeloupe during the March 20th 2004 action day against the war when a
Caribbean meeting, organised by the ATPC was held, for the right of the
people of Haiti to self-determination, against the invasion of Haiti and
against the threats looming over Venezuela So, quite
naturally, Workers and Peasants took up the appeal to this Conference
and has committed itself to fighting the system side by side with you.
That is the meaning of our participation in this World Conference. Up with the
unity of workers, up with solidarity between peoples, down with
capitalism and its valets disguised as trade unionists in the ETUC,
disguised as democrats in social forums. We here reaffirm what we said
in Sao Paulo during the Workers’ Continental Conference against FTAA,
capitalism cannot be made more humane, it has to be fought. ******************** Vissikou
M. Senouvo (Togo) National
Federation of Trade Unions of Togo (UNSIT) I greet you
in the name of my trade union, the National Union of Independent Trade
Unions of Togo. I come from Togo, a small country of West Africa,
separated from the Ivory Coast, which is at war with Ghana. Since the
5th of February this year -- the date of the death of Gnass-Ingbe Eyadéma,
who had reigned alone over Togo during 38 years -- there exists a crisis
situation, characterized by the attempt at a sort of monarchic
succession, which was to be legalized by violations of various elements
of the Constitution. The presidential directorship must soon take place
under preparatory conditions, which predict socio-political
difficulties. The
financial backers of international funds have come and gone. We have
seen the programs of structural readjustment, concocted for the payment
of an iniquitous external debt, and of which the basic measures consist
of the privatizing of state companies. This has resulted in the
destruction of public services, the dismantling of the social security
system, and especially of the statutes of personnel, collective
agreements, etc. We see corruption in the management of public affairs,
with consequences that we know well, and what they portend for the
workers and the population: massive layoffs, galloping unemployment,
extension of the informal economy, accumulation of arrears in salary and
pension payments, suppression of student grants, generalized
impoverishment, aggravation of the conditions of existence, de-scholarization,
the degradation of public health by an increase in the death rate, a
general increase in the seriousness and number of illnesses, and
under-nourishment and malnutrition. I would like
to give you a few figures. The report on human development in Togo,
published by the PNUT in 2003, calculated the index of human poverty at
38.5%, and the index of human development at 0.501%, which places Togo
number 141 out of 173 poor countries. According to
the intermediary strategic document for the reduction of poverty
published in 2000, on the basis of an annual revenue of the equivalent
of 100 to 150 US dollars, 72.6% of the population live below the poverty
level. And 57.4% live in extreme poverty with around one dollar per day.
The revenue per inhabitant in 2002 was 270 US dollars, with a GNP of 1.4
billion US dollars. According to
the demographic and health survey of 1998, malnutrition affected one
child in four, among those of less than 5 years old. The infant death
rate was at 146 per thousand, with a rate of 6% prevailing in the
capital (Lome). In 2001 the country exceeded the line of 5% at which
maladies spread rapidly. The debt
passed from 70% of GNP in 1992, to 144% on 2003. It is under these
intolerable socio-economic conditions created by the policies of
pillage, of so-called austerity, that the trade union organizations, and
especially the one I represent, are obliged to demand the respect of the
most basic workers’ rights. This, in a situation of open hostility by
governmental organizations and trade union repression. The business
sector is fifty months in arrears of payments for workers, where
employers no longer pay their social security contributions. Where is
the advantage for the workers and the trade union organizations in this
situation? We defend
the interests of workers, without any sort of ethnic, regional,
religious or other discrimination. And it is for this reason that we are
the first in line to safeguard the unity of the nation. Where is the
interest for those workers who try to find a pacific and democratic
solution, where the sovereign people in its totality can express itself? As a trade
union organization, we are convinced that a solution is possible and
necessary, and that this solution requires, first of all, the
non-interference of outside powers, from any direction, which seek today
to use the situation of crisis to pillage the riches of the nation. It is up to
the Togolese and their organizations to find a democratic solution and
peace to open up a future imbued with respect for unity in Togo. And, more
than ever, I remain persuaded that it is up to we Africans, especially
with our trade union representatives, and in relation to the
international workers’ movement, even under these extremely difficult
conditions, to find a way to resolve our problems and to defend our
continent, our peoples, and the riches which will allow us to have a
decent life. ******************** Gulzar
Chaudhary (Pakistan) General
Secretary, All Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF) My name is
Gulzar Chaudhary, I am from the APTUF, which is the biggest trade union
federation in Pakistan. This country
has remained under martial law for more than 28 years, and there is
still a martial law. And the government is claiming there is a so-called
democracy system there. Pakistan is one of the most indebted countries
in the world. There, 76 children die out of 1,000 at birth, 101 out of
1,000 die at the age of 5 years. According to
a survey, 78% people are living below the poverty line and 44% in deep
poverty. Pakistan is spending 2% for education and less than that on
health. A different survey shows that 1/4 of the total population are
unemployed. According to a government census in the year 1994, 1,000
women were murdered in the name of honour killing. 10,000 women were
raped, 100,000 women suffered domestic violence, 52 women had their face
burned by acid being thrown on them and 78% of women reported sexual
harassment. Every year, 250 newborns are thrown into trash cans, all of
them are girls. Every year
about 10,000 cases are registered under the Urdu ordinance of which the
majority are from women. In 2004, in the city of Karachi alone, 10,000
children ran away from home, suffering different social evils. That very
year, 1,000 people committed suicide. Thousands of
youth are wandering through the country. 5.8 million children do not
have access to school. 4.5 million people are using drugs. In 2004, the
price increase for basic commodities was more than 10.5%. The government
is claiming that they would not take any loan from the international
financial institutions. But the reality is that the government is
spending major shares to pay the interests of the loans. The total debt
of Pakistan is 85% of GDP, and the total foreign loan amount is 93% of
the GDP. 17 million
Pakistanis have a loan, and at least 1 million dollars have been spent
on Afghanistan strategy, debt, and a good amount of 10 million dollars
spent for bombs, millions of dollars are used to repay the debt. Good
amounts have been spent on military expenditures. This is a
summary of the situation, regarding the political and trade union
situation. There is martial law; there is no freedom for political
activities or trade union activities. In Pakistan, there is basically no
free formation of trade unions or collective bargaining. Because in all
this destruction, there is still not more than 3% of the work force
unionised. A majority of the work force does not have the right to form
a union, even in agriculture, even in the service sectors, even in
education, even in the textile factories. Unionists
have no right to gather or to speak out. If you hold your union meeting,
you may have to pay sanctions. Similarly, political parties also have
many restrictions; political and trade union organisations are not
flourishing in Pakistan. So due to
this, the fundamentalist religious parties are growing, because they
have very lengthy and active networking in the area of education, due to
their schools. They train the children, the youth and educate them. And
then many of them are armed and trained as private armies. If someone is
against the religious leader, then that person will be no more. I only want
to mention here that in Pakistan, as I have already told you, 1/4 of the
population is unemployed. There is a lot of bonded and forced labour. In regards
to bonded and forced labour, I say that there are millions of workers
who are forced and bonded, especially to the landlords, to the feudal
lords, especially far from the cities. These big landlords have their
own courts. Similarly there are 9 million children who have to fight for
survival, they have no access to school they are very unstable, their
parents are very poor, and they send their children to work. And the
working conditions of the children are very miserable. Gunmen are
flourishing. Now the
government of Pakistan in my province of Liam issued an order, an
executive order which is contradictory to the federal order industrial
ordinance, that no labour inspector can inspect a factory even if the
boss of that factory is violating labour laws. These are the conditions
in which the employers have all the freedom to do what they wish. So
there are a lot of government laws that the employers are violating.
Even in the public sector, such as railways, and other big industrial
sectors in Pakistan, there are 100,000 workers that have no right to
form a union. And the army is controlling the institutions. It is
similar in the telecommunication sector, the electricity department, the
army is in control. And on top of that, on the one side, workers earn a
very minimum wage, they are unable to survive, and on the other, the
ministers, the president, the parliamentarians, the legislator’s
allowances, their residential allowances, have been increased, within
three years, by more than 300%. Now I come
to the collaboration of Pakistan with US imperialism. The
Pakistani government was in ready collaboration with American
imperialism, and furnished the youth who were ready to fight in
Afghanistan against Russia. Then the Pakistani government sent their
troops along with the American army to kill innocent people of
Afghanistan. Similarly in Iraq, and in other countries, the Pakistani
government is fully complicit in the American agenda. What is happening
now in Pakistan? In Afghanistan America is unable to control the
country, they control only the capital of Afghanistan. Now they plan to
capture Southern Pakistan near the Iran border, which is a very easy
reach to China and to other countries. There is now a great conflict
between the Pakistani army and the feudal lords of Baluchistan. So there
is great tension. Similarly, near the border of Afghanistan, there is a
fight between the Sadars feudal lords and the Pakistani army. There is a
great clash. So now the Pakistan army is unable to control and the North
of Pakistan, Baluchistan, the imperialist strategy is to be there in
Baluchistan to control Iran and Afghanistan and even Pakistan, because
there are a lot of natural resources: gas. So the
policy of the Americans is to capture the control of the economies of
these countries and they are going forward to capture the Asian economy.
Workers’ rights are busted, the workers have no rights, so the
situation is very dangerous, in Pakistan, many trade unionists have been
arrested in our organisation, activist members, and myself, there is an
ordinance against me due to trade union activity. The situation is very
dangerous. And on
behalf of the international conference, I make a request to the leaders
and comrades here that we should make a program in which we can prove
our solidarity all over the world. We have this conference, we exchange
our views, we tell of our situations, so it is my request that on May
1st in each country in solidarity under the umbrella of the ILC we
should celebrate May 1st within the same agenda of the ILC on the
international level. And second,
we should not only get together on May 1st, we should also launch an
action campaign on an international level against deregulation,
privatisation and the imperialist debt -- in all the 5- to 70 countries
where we have forces. This way we can show our solidarity. Because
in this situation, as comrades have already said, globalisation is felt,
the employers have all the rights, they are going to get united, then
the working class should be globalised. Now as comrade Daniel has said,
for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc, delegates have not been allowed to come
here. So we should globalize our action, and make a minimum programme
and protest against the imperialist forces. Thank you. ******************** Clarence
Thomas (United States) Co-Chair
of the Million Worker March Movement On behalf of
International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 and the Million
Worker March movement, I'd like to express solidarity to you all. For
those of you who may have thought you would be hearing from the Supreme
Court Justice who shares my name, I hope you will not be disappointed. Let me first
all give you a little background about the union that I represent. The
International Longshore and Warehouse Union represents some 29 ports on
the West Coast of the United States and Canada. All the shipping that
goes to the West Coast, my union loads and unloads those ships. It is
also the home of the 20th century revolutionary trade unionist Harry
Bridges. Harry Bridges was an Australian immigrant. He helped to form
the union in 1934 with the great strike on the West Coast. He was
hounded by the FBI and the CIA for his position with regards to the
class struggle and to the fact that racism and discrimination are tools
of the bosses. It is no accident that my local, ILWU Local 10, is the
most diverse local of the West Coast. Let me be
more specific. During the great strike of 1934, when Black workers were
being used as scabs -- because at that time the social conscience of the
union had not seen fit to bring in Black workers -- Harry Bridges went
to Black congregations around the Bay Area in California, and he
appealed to Black workers to join the picket lines, promising that Black
workers would become members of the ILWU. Harry Bridges understood that
white workers in the United States could not progress without the
movement and progress of the Black workers. The ILWU has
taken a position against the war for several decades. In 1950 we
took a position against the Korean War. In 1965 we were the first trade
union organization in the United States to take a position against the
Vietnam War. In 1991, we opposed Desert Storm, and we were among the
first unions to oppose the war and occupation of Iraq. Today, March
19th in San Francisco, my Local, ILWU Local 10, will be withholding its
labor in observance of the second anniversary of the imperialist war
against the Iraqi people. There will be no cargo loaded in the port of
San Francisco, and there will be no cargo loaded in the port of Oakland,
the fourth largest port in the world. When you
take a position like that, you are showing the workers of the world what
is necessary in order to end this war. We have to take action at the
point of production, and that's why you need to go back to let your
comrades know what is happening in the United States of America, so that
all workers are willing to stand up and take a position. ILWU Local
10 initiated the Million Worker March. Many of you heard about this
initiative. Brother Lybon Mabasa from South Africa was one of the
speakers there. So were members of the port and rail workers’ union of
Japan, and trade unionists from Haiti. The purpose of that March was to
mobilize workers in our own name, independent of the Republican and
Democratic parties, because those two parties are the parties of the
bosses, they are engaged in cuts in wages and in class warfare against
the American workers. The Million
Worker March was led by African American trade unionists. It is very
important for you to understand that, because we are the most oppressed
sector of the working class in America. The official leaders of the
AFL-CIO did not want us to have a March. The Democratic Party conspired
with the officials of the AFL-CIO to do everything they could to
undermine the Million Workers March. Why? Because we
were mobilizing in our own name against the war in Iraq. We were
mobilizing in our own name against the attacks on our civil liberties:
the USA Patriot Act. We were mobilizing in our own name against that
bloody military budget and the military-industrial complex. We mobilized
in our own name two weeks before the national election, and they did not
want the world to see that there were workers -- organized and
unorganized -- who wanted to speak out and wanted to say that, no matter
the outcome of these elections, we, the working people, were not going
to have national healthcare, the war in Iraq was not going to stop, and
the privatization of our Social Security was not going to stop. Many
progressives in the United States thought it was a wise decision to back
John Kerry. As I mentioned earlier today, in 2003, I was a part of a
trade union delegation that went to Iraq to meet with trade unionists,
to see first hand the rape and pillage by U.S. imperialism of the Iraqi
people and how the United States has destroyed that great nation's
infrastructures. I put my life into the hands of Iraqi trade unionists
who did not know me. How could I come back, and support John Kerry? No
way! What you
need to understand is that there is a group of trade unionists in the
United States who are not afraid. It is a group of trade unionists who
are willing to put something on the line for you. Workers who you don't
even know have taken off work on this second anniversary of the war on
Iraq. It means a lot for longshoremen to miss out on overtime pay,
believe me. But we understand the importance of solidarity. We are not
just workers, we are workers with a conscience. The Million
Worker March represented something that has not taken place in the
United States since the days of the Great Depression. We mobilized in
our own name independently of the Republican and Democratic parties. As you can
see, I am an African American. Black people did not get the right to
vote by voting. Black people got the right to vote by mobilizing and
organizing in their own name. The trade union leadership today is made
up of individuals who are class collaborators. They are lieutenants of
labor in concert with the captains of industry. These are individuals
who don't care about the rank and file; they only care about themselves.
We are living in a time now when trade unions need to stand up and take
a position on matters concerning foreign policy. Workers who are
involved in producing for the military industrial complex must have a
conscience. The time is over for us who are in the so-called belly of
the beast, not to come up with excuses, otherwise we can't carry our
fair share. It was 1994
when Black longshoremen, along with white longshoremen and others,
boycotted the ships in from South Africa. When Nelson Mandela came to
the Bay Area in 1989, he saluted the ILWU for its work. Workers have to
take a position. Workers have to make sacrifices. It is our work that
generates the wealth. It is we the workers who you fight the wars. It is
we who are sent to die unnecessarily! George
Bush's record speaks for itself, but I want to make something very clear
to you: The Democratic Party has bought into supporting the Republicans.
They have betrayed the working class. How can you give our dollars to
the Democratic Party and have nothing to show for it? How can you call
yourself a progressive and vote for John Kerry? No, there is
another voice in the labor movement in the United States, and I say to
you, there may be a time when we will need your support -- when we go
into this next contract negotiations with the Pacific Maritime
Association. George Bush wants to break the ILWU. Do you think he wants
an organization that shuts down the ports in opposition to the war? We may need
you to stand with us in 2008. If we have to go out on strike and they
bring out the military on the docks, we want longshoremen in Britain,
longshoremen in Australia, in Japan not to touch that cargo. We need to
show the bosses our power. And I'll
leave you with this: An Injury to One Is An Injury to All! An Injury to
One Is An Injury to All! Thank you. ******************** Serge
Goulart (Brazil) Coordinating
Committee of Council of Occupied Factories Comrades, My name is
Serge Goulart. I come from Brazil and I come here on behalf of the
Coordination of Councils of Occupied Factories that have been resisting
for two years in order to try and save the jobs of the CIPLA, Interfibra
and FLASKO workers. All three are Brazilian plastics facilities. We
started striking two years ago, this led to factory occupations, and we
took over the control of the firms that are now managed by factory
councils. Right when we started taking control of those factories, we
were faced with a question: everyone was saying that the solution was to
reorganize the firms on a cooperative basis and implement what, in
Brazil, goes under the name of self-management. But we know
the history of self-managing co-operatives born of the workers'
movement; eventually, workers became small-scale bosses full of
illusions who forsake their class and their social and labor gains, and
finally vanish into thin air in the marketplace, which is controlled by
major multinationals, banks, and international financial institutions. That these
factories are being occupied is the outcome of the capitalist drive to
plunder and slash labor costs, which is always detrimental to workers. It is a
well-known fact that plunder and wreckage are wrought in Brazil via the
external debt, the "free trade" agreements such as FTAA that
are trying to gain a foothold, or Mercosul or the agreements with the EU.
All industries are in a sorry state in this country of 180 million
inhabitants, and we are trying to save these jobs. We simply
refused to become deluded, small-scale bosses and capitalists. We sought
the solution to our problem in the powerful tide that lifted Lula to the
presidency two years ago. We addressed
the federal government and President Lula, we explained the necessity to
save the 1,000 jobs at the three factories, to nationalize the companies
and make them state-owned, because the market cannot possibly offer any
solution that can guarantee saving these jobs. Lula
answered that nationalization was not on his agenda. We know -- the
whole Brasilian nation knows -- that Lula's agenda is written in
Washington. But we told the president that there was another solution
that he could present; to this day we are still waiting for the solution
that the president is to present. What has
kept us together during this period is not only the solidarity of the
CUT workers, trade unionists, and members of parliament, but the great
unity among workers who know that the right to work, to keep one's job,
and not to be marginalized and plunged into social decay is a core issue
in today's world. Brazil is
surrounded by revolutions. On our borders lies Uruguay, where 30% of the
population marched when Tavaré Vasquez won; Bolivia, where a revolution
is ongoing; Argentina, which a few months ago, overthrew another of five
presidents; and Venezuela, which is going through a process, as comrade
Marcela Máspero explained this morning, that has resulted in the
workers of Venepal, Venezuela's largest paper mill, winning a two-year
fight to get Chavez to decide to expropriate and nationalize Venepal. We are
fighting to get Lula to act as Chavez did in Venezuela; to nationalize
the occupied factories and save jobs. We feel this is the responsibility
that the president elected by the Worker's Party has to take in front of
all the workers. We are going to push this demand until it is met. I have a
mandate to state before this conference, as do the comrades of the
Brazilian delegation that come from occupied factories: We propose that
you assist us in securing this victory that undoubtedly will be a
victory for all the workers of the Americas and for all workers across
the world. When a worker, a union, a struggle wins, wherever that
happens, it is a victory for all and a point of leverage to go forward
and continue. We have come
here with the mandate of the factory council and of workers' assemblies.
You should also know that our flight tickets -- very expensive in Brazil
-- have been paid for by thousands of workers who gave one real (a
quarter of a dollar) each. We come with this mandate to ask you all to
gather our strength in an international campaign to put pressure on the
Lula government by sending telegrams, emails, delegations, press
releases, newspaper articles in trade union and party newspapers, and
motions in parliaments across the whole world. We must put
international pressure on the Lula government so he will act as Chavez
did in Venezuela and nationalize CILPA, Interfibra, and Flasko. That is
our mandate; that is what we ask the International Liaison Committee to
do to show us the way to continue this fight; we know we can win if the
factory workers join their forces. We have
already given ample proof to the Brazilian society that workers have no
need of capitalists. We are the better managers. They are superfluous,
they are social parasites. But we also know that this fight cannot be
won only within the bounds of the enterprises. It only can be won
outside with the unity of workers and their organizations, by an
international struggle that only the working class can fight for its
brothers and sisters. Our
solidarity goes to all the workers' struggles. Last year, we were siding
with the workers of Venepal celebrating their victory. We wish to help
and celebrate the victory of the release of Miron Cozma. We wish to
stand side by side with all workers who everywhere to celebrate their
victories, to show that when people rise, they are able to overcome the
most awful and terrible onslaughts of imperialism. We know that
worldwide the situation is fraught with dangers. We believe in the
strength of people, we believe that the working class can overcome if it
keeps its organizations, if it unites, if it opens up the prospect of
liberating this society from being engulfed in barbarism, then, it can
get rid of the parasites of capitalism and finally put an end to the
regime of private ownership of the means of production. We hope that
this ILC conference will help us take this step forward in Brazil. We rely on
you. We hope that the conference will give our request a favorable
answer. Thank you
all. ******************** Carmelinda
Pereira (Portugal) Workers
Party of Socialist Unity (POUS) Dear
comrades, The
implementation of the European directives in each one of our countries
has very serious consequences; they are all met with determined
resistance and mobilisation by workers and people. Concerning
Portugal, all the successive governments have bowed to the European
Union, they have all implemented policies that have led to a situation
in which the material, social and cultural bases of the Portuguese
nation are so severely jeopardised that the country itself as an
independent nation is at risk. This
disastrous outcome came with such speed and the alteration was so
drastic because the Portuguese people have been forced to fall back and
have undergone a setback in the revolutionary process that started on
April 25th 1974. At that
time, the masses' revolutionary movement brought about the beginning of
an agrarian reform and imposed the nationalisation of the most important
sectors of national economy. Those
measures have enabled Portugal to survive as a nation despite the loss
of the former colonies plundered by the Portuguese bourgeoisie that had
used them as its principal wealth provider. European
Union directives have now been implemented for 18 years; the outcome has
been the privatisation of most of the national economy's strongholds as
well as the near death of agriculture and fishing. That is why
Portugal is now importing over 90% of its food. That policy
has always been resolutely resisted by the masses. The governments of
this last decade all fell, claiming they did not have the right
conditions to govern the country. The last government, headed by the
current President of the European Commission also resigned and his
successor only lasted 4 months! On February
20th, Portugal's working masses and people inflicted a historical defeat
on the parties that composed that government, the two parties of the
Portuguese bourgeoisie that were striving to push the implementation of
the European Union directives as far as possible. During those
general elections for the Assembly of the Republic, the socialist party
got the majority of the MP's for the first time since the revolution. The masses
are yearning for a radical political change and say that the new
government headed by Sócrates cannot say it does not have a sufficient
majority to put this change into practice. But how can
such change come about with the European Union and NATO? Sócrates
has already declared that he has committed himself to implementing the
Brussels directives. He has already declared that he would create the
required "political conditions". ******************** Erwin
Salazar (Peru) President
of the Lambayeque region of the CGTP Member
of the national committee of the CGTP My name is
Erwin Salazar. I am the president of the CGTP in the Lambayeque region
and a national leader of the CGTP of Peru, which is the main
organization of workers in my country which confronts the policy of
imperialism and helps open an independent road, based on the power of
the workers themselves. The report
by comrade Daniel Gluckstein gave the framework of what the class
struggle is like on a world scale and of the threat that imperialism
represents for life on all continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe with the
policy of the European Union and of Maastrict. And to this
I would like to add some aspects of this policy of destruction on the
American continent. FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), the weight
of the foreign debt which has reached more than 850 billion dollars, the
privatizations, the Colombia plan and the network of military bases all
over the continent, and now the threat against the revolutionary process
in the Venezuela are manifestations of this destructive policy on our
continent. But comrade
Daniel Gluckstein gave us a report which offered more to think about
with respect to the social dimension of globalization. I want to add
some remarks to show that imperialism, the multinationals – the more
than 200 hundred largest multinationals of the world -- are completely
involved with seven universities in the United States that shape the
leaders which later appear on all the continents as presidents, cabinet
members, and legislators. An article
in the Wall Street Journal, the main daily newspaper for the stock
market of New York, lists the seven universities in question. They are
Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, University of Chicago and
Yale. They discuss the topics of globalization as they themselves call
it. At the
center of the order of the day within our world conference, we will also
discuss amongst ourselves in order to find out what imperialism and
globalization are made of. And the newspaper continues, "During
three decades, the economics departments of American universities have
contributed to the formation of groups of foreigners that are constantly
growing. A large number of them return to their countries to become
business leaders, government ministers and even presidents." Next
comes the Chilean experience and others. "The ex-president of
Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, the former Argentine minister of the Economy,
Domingo Cabalo, and the current president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo, to
only mention a few of those that have been educated in the American
universities." It is clear
that the plan of globalization is part of the question of the formation
in American universities of frameworks and leaders for the free trade
agreements, the external debt, privatizations, and the social dimension
to export them, which would be the presidents and ministers on all
continents. But this
plan collides with the resistance of the worldwide worker movement. I
think that it is therefore important for us of take into account the
social explosions which have occurred. On our continent we have the
social explosion of Caracas in 1989, the mass movement which expelled in
Ecuador first Bucaran then Mahuad, then the movement which ousted in
Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the movement in Argentina which kicked
out De la Rua, and Peru with Fujimori. This
resistance is the basis for our world conference to be able to grow and
to free from jail our comrade, Miron Cozma, to defend Venezuela and to
lead the struggle for the victory of the opposition to the European
constitution. Independence
is indispensable because we don’t believe in any social dimension to
imperialism and globalization. That’s where you find the NGOs, the
social forums and the policy of collaboration and of "good
governance". The world union movement must stay independent, just
as this worldwide conference, which has already adopted the basic
principle of the independence of the workers’ movement. In Peru, the
struggle of the CGTP allowed us to battle against governance and
continues to allow us to fight against the multinationals. Through the
CGTP, the mass movement is the most powerful that it can be. It allowed
us to open the most important way forward, which is that of the popular
assemblies that have the goal of going farther yet towards the goal of
putting and end to the system. Today we
look at the question like this: Out with Toledo! And at the same time we
demand popular assemblies that would form a sovereign constituent
assembly with real powers. Finally, I
would like to express the hope that this fight for popular assemblies
would allows us to form, with respect to their independence, the power
of the workers not only in Peru but in the entire world. One more time,
as our Chinese comrade pointed out, the importance of this world
conference should be strengthened. The emancipation of the workers will
be the result of the efforts of the workers themselves. ******************** Trade
unionist from Lebanon Jack Straw
the British foreign minister, expressed his displeasure when the
Lebanese President asked his former Prime Minister to form his new
cabinet. Of course, Straw is rightly displeased since
"democracy" demands, when a Lebanese Prime Minister is
appointed -- to consult Bush, Rice and Straw -- and not the mandatory
consultation of the members of parliament, in accordance with the
Constitution of Lebanon, and that was what actually happened! Straw, Bush,
and Rice think they are within their rights when they continue their
daily media onslaughts and denounce "the attacks against Lebanese
sovereignty" when the people's representatives chose their Prime
Minister. When Saterfield flew to Lebanon and stayed three days to meet
what goes under the name of the opponents, did he do so because he
worried about the independence of Lebanon, its sovereignty and against
foreign intervention? Do
democracy, sovereignty, and independence have new-fangled meanings in
Lebanese that we do not know? Lebanon has
entered a particularly troubled era. There are rallies, marches,
counter-marches, and nobody knows what comes next. To know what
comes next, we have to know what has been planned. The answer
to that question can be found in an article published in the "Executive Intelligence Review"; it is based on a document
prepared back in 1996 under the direction of Dick Cheney and his new
conservative collaborators. This
document writes (as I showed) about a "radical change" that
will generate the creation of a new Middle East -- or Broader Middle
East -- through attacks on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. The document
contains a scenario to tear the Palestinian authority apart and a scheme
to transform those countries into targets of military attacks and
political troubles. It proposes to use some members of the Lebanese
opposition to generate a fissure in what is coined as the "Syrian
hold on Lebanon," and calls to topple Saddam Hussein from power in
Iraq. The outcome is the creation of a new Middle East that will
actually be a patchwork of Balkan-like countries headed by puppet
governments. Much of the
document has already become reality. Now comes the turn of Lebanon;
Resolution 1559 was voted in and Hariri was assassinated. The Lebanese
people were staggered by the events. Everyone took to the streets. The
government supporters as well as the opposition voiced their anger and
their astonishment, they chanted roughly the same slogans to know the
truth about the assassination of Hariri, to demand freedom and to
denounce intervention. The Lebanese people hold their freedom,
sovereignty, and independence dear. That is what the Lebanese want, but
what is in the books against them can bring about a radically different
situation. Lebanon is
under threat of a new civil war; Lebanese people have already undergone
civil war, they know perfectly it is completely useless. However, we
hope the Lebanese youth will be able to understand what is being schemed
in their country. We hope the efforts of international solidarity will
shed light on the interests that pull the strings in Lebanon. Let honest
people everywhere across the globe take a stand and say whether what is
going on in Lebanon is in the service of democracy or in the service of
the multinationals and of those who want to lay their hands on the
world's riches, especially oil in the Middle East. Down with
war! Up with
peace -- A fair peace that will be able to preserve the freedom,
dignity, and natural wealth of the peoples! ******************** Patrick
Hébert (France) Trade
unionist In his
introductory report, the comrade focused on the threats looming over the
independence of the trade union movement, especially, on the
international level; he recalled the projected merger of the ICFTU with
the WCL, whose outcome would be a shapeless mixture, which, under cover
of "civil society" of "participatory democracy", of
social forums and whatever other fuzzy system, would deny workers the
right to freely organise in their independent organisations which they
rely on to defend their own interests as a social class. Since the
opening of this conference, other comrades, other speakers, from various
horizons, coming from small or larger countries have mentioned similar
hurdles. This general onslaught against the working class right to
organise freely as a social class takes various guises according to each
country; sometimes it is sheer violence, sometimes the ways are more
devious. That is no
novelty, all along its history, the labour movement has had to fight to
have its right to existence recognised. Ever since of course, according
to each country’s different situation, governments and bosses have
tried to challenge this gain. Today, this
threat takes, among other ones, the form of making rights individual.
Individualised rights are obviously incompatible with the very existence
of trade unions whose purpose is to gain collective rights. This
situation occurs on the international level but also of course on the
European level and especially in France. We know
that, in Europe, the ETUC today regroups almost all the European trades
Unions; that is fact even though it is in many ways regrettable. The
ETUC has systematically sided with all the policies of the European
Union for many years. It has sided and condoned; now, better or worse,
it asks and demands to participate in the implementation of European
directives. When we take this orientation and history into account, we
can understand that quite naturally, the ETUC clearly and unambiguously
advocates the YES vote for the constitutional Treaty that, according to
each country will either be voted through referendum or adopted by
parliaments. On the
judicial level, that Constitutional Treaty, concentrates all the
European directives adopted for years; those all have the same
objective: to damage workers’ rights out of shape and attempt to
shatter trade unions. But though
we can observe that on the international level the worst threats loom
over the international labour movement – the ICFTU and its programmed
dissolution and the ETUC on the European level – all those threats
cannot make us give up the fight in defence of the organisations that
the working class has constituted along its arduous history, that it has
conquered sometimes through bloodshed. For my own
part, I am a member of the FO trade union Federation and I have some
leadership responsibilities. Naturally, my organisation has, like the
others to sail against the wind, to resist pressures that would turn it
into something quite alien to its initial purpose. The World Bank, the
WTO, the IMF and, on the European level, the E.U. are using every
possible scheme to co-opt trade unions into accessories of the
implementation of their agenda. When faced
with such situation, should we turn our backs on the necessary fight, on
the defence of our organisations? For my own part, I rejoice that my
organisation, the CGT-FO, during a meeting of the steering committee of
the ETUC voted NO to the proposed project of the ETUC. The fact that a
trade union took such a stand on the European level at the ETUC steering
committee, even though alone for the time being, is certainly not enough
to whip up a majority vote, but it is a point of leverage not only in
France but for all the workers in Europe. By the same
token, I rejoice that the organisation I belong to contributed to a call
for industrial action and marches on last March 10th. A little more than
a week ago in France, a large proportion of public as well as private
sector workers were on strike. Besides, a million workers marched to
demand wage raises, indeed, a demand radically opposed to the ETUC’s
agenda. The marches
and strikes have naturally fueled the appeal for the NO vote at the
referendum. So much so that, for the first time, an opinion poll has
given the NO vote as a winner. We do not know what will indeed happen,
whether, as pressures relentlessly continue, the NO vote or the YES vote
will carry the day Of course, we know that even if the NO vote is
defeated, the class struggle will continue. We also know that, if it
wins, nothing will be over, we still will have to fight. But we also
know that the results of the referendum will have some weight, and will
bear on the class struggle in France, in Europe and also on the
international level. If the NO
vote won in France, this undoubtedly would be a major point of leverage
for workers, not only from the point of view of elections but also on
the level of everyday struggles, i.e. of class struggle. We cannot
give up. Each time we are afforded a point of leverage, we must use it
to continue defending the working class, its independence, the
independence of its organisations. That is why
this World Conference is of the utmost importance. Since 1991, 14 years
ago, we have been meeting at regular intervals, I sincerely hope we will
pursue this activity, continue getting in touch with one another so we
can, together, help each other defend and fight for the independence of
workers. ******************** Julio
Turra (Brazil) Member
of the leadership of the CUT trade union federation In order to
speak of my country, Brazil, you have to start from the whole framework
quoted in the report: the imperialist onslaught and the peoples’ and
workers' resistance. The onslaught combines the destruction of the
framework of nations as they were constituted by the long struggle of
peoples and organizations that workers have constituted in defense of
their rights. To talk
about Brazil, you have to start from Latin America, too, because those
world processes are verified with extreme accuracy in this part of the
American continent. We have already heard of Argentina here, Comrade
Marcela spoke about Venezuela, and I would like to remind everyone that
one of those who helped to promote this conference, Comrade Miguel
Zubieta, secretary of the Miners' Federation of Bolivia, cannot be
present here. However, he sent a message that comrade Daniel will
certainly read, because Bolivia has entered once again in a process of
revolutionary upsurge of the masses, at the center of the country's
political life. And what is the crucial demand in Bolivia? It is to get
free from the imperialist yoke, under the concrete form of
renationalization of Bolivia's gas, oil and water resources -- which
like in all Latin America, are given to the greed of multinationals and
the plundering of imperialism. In Latin
America, an entire sub-continent is rising. It has in Venezuela an
advanced position of the revolutionary process. But at the same time, as
Marx explained, the working class, is a class aware of its interests,
only to the extent it is organized. This is why
the future, fate, and development of the revolutionary process of
Venezuela depends essentially on the consolidation and the constitution
of the UNT as an independent union. This is a major political problem,
because there is no other organization in Venezuela, no other expression
of the working class organized on its own class ground in defense of its
interests as wage-earners against capitalist exploitation, except the
UNT. It is a union, it is a national union, but it occupies a crucial
position in the struggle of all the Venezuelan people to assert their
sovereignty against American imperialism, against the Bush
administration. That is why
in Bolivia, the movement is supported by the traditional organizations,
built by the Bolivian working class, the COB, the Miners' Federation. But in this
resistance movement, sadly, within our own class, we are facing
obstacles. We have heard here of the ETUC in Europe. In Brazil,
two and a half years ago, the workers and the people have lifted to
power a former union leader, one of the founders of my union, the CUT:
Lula. Unfortunately,
after two and a half years in office, the demands that were at the basis
of Lula's election, far from being met, have been denied by the
government's policy -- which goes along with that of the IMF and goes
along therefore with Bush's policy directives. It has reached the point
where there are today Brazilian troops under the UN blue helmet,
occupying Haiti. And this
process represents a major threat to my own union federation, the CUT,
the hegemonic union in the country, with its 66% of all affiliated
unions nationwide, representing more than 20 million workers. The CUT,
which was born in the heat of the class struggle 22 years ago, is
threatened as an independent union, autonomous in relation to all
political parties, as a union federation that is independent from the
bosses and the State. Today a "reform of the trade unions" is
being debated in the Brazilian Parliament. What is the
content of this trade union reform? In the first
place, the goal is to integrate the CUT into the State apparatus, under
the form of a tripartite Forum -- with the bosses, the government and
the union. This represents a receivership of sorts over the union and
denies the rank and file the right to organize the unions as they see
fit -- or, as the comrades from Latin America put it. "as they feel
like it". The State
would have the right to determine in what sector, with which status a
union can be organized. This would mean an integration into the State
apparatus, in opposition to the very founding of the CUT, 22 years ago,
when it broke free from the control of the Minister of Labor over the
unions. This reform,
moreover, opens the door to flexibility of working conditions. In what
sense? By establishing a norm, which, I think every boss in the world
would wish for. This norm is that what is negotiated between the union
and the employer has precedence over the law. This means that labor and
social rights, gained through hard battles over decades of class
struggle, have no bearing any more in bargaining between labor and
capital. But, as we all know, there is no level playing field here
between workers and bosses, because the capitalists own the means of
production and therefore will always have the upper hand when labor
comes into conflict with the workers. And it is a
government led by a founder of the CUT that is implementing this
"reform." And at the
same time, it is with the organization built by the workers -- just like
the COB in Bolivia, or like the UNT in Venezuela, or like our own rank
and file in the CUT, there there is a fierce opposition to this reform
of the trade unions. This gives
me the certainty that we will block the road to this union reform.
Because the main target of this reform is exactly to disfigure and
change the nature of a national union federation, the CUT, which was
constituted 22 years ago as a "class struggle" union, an
independent union. I would like
to conclude, because time demands it, by saying that obviously the
situation is difficult. I could give another example that other
delegates from Brazil will certainly give, and this is a crucial issue
for all Latin America. The Chavez government has just declared war on
the large landowners in Venezuela. But in Brazil, the Lula government,
which has a minister closely connected to ATTAC, who appears to be on
the left, a Social Forum advocate. This man’s name is Miguel Rossetto.
He is minister for land reform, but not only is he nothing to advance
the land reform, he in fact has become an accomplice in the
assassinations that are occurring in the Brazilian countryside, where
the large landowners are arming their militias to kill the landless
workers. There have been a series of assassinations in the recent
period. Yet it is in
the rank and file of the CUT, in the rank and file of the Workers Party
-- President Lula's own party -- in the Landless Workers’ Movement, in
the organizations that for the last 20 years, the Brazilian workers have
built the resistance to policies that destroy the nation and destroy its
own organizations. And it is in
this struggle of resistance that this world conference is taking form,
and I would like to make a proposal that we continue the fight in
defense of Venezuela. It is a mistake to fancy that the struggle in
defense of the sovereignty of the people of Venezuela, of the UNT as an
independent union concerns only Latin America. No this is an
international question. Proof of it
is the very quick campaign that we launched in recent weeks in support
of the UNT's position in the ILO, against the provocation of the bosses
of Fedecamaras. Indeed, we managed, in just a few weeks, to collect more
than 500 signatures of unionists throughout the world, not only in Latin
America, but from Pakistan, India, from African countries, the USA,
France, Spain, Italy -- and this struggle must be continued, because it
is a struggle which sustains the only existing possibility of a way out
of the crisis of humankind. So that the working class can be organized
on their own class ground, because as someone said it before, the
emancipation of the workers will be the task of the workers themselves,
or it will never happen. Thank you. ******************** Gabriel
Gaudy (France) Trade
Unionist I wish to
bring up a few issues that of course have already been very widely
approached this morning. I should like to insist on what the comrade
from Bangladesh was saying to the effect that the most important thing
today was to retain the social gains still existent in various regions. In the same
way, I think it is equally important to note that our American comrades
observe there is strictly no difference as to social policy between the
Democrats and the Republicans. I think this
is valid in all the parts of the world between the various parties
whatever their label. I was reading the newspaper El
Pais that showed a photo of Chirac, from France holding hands with
Zapatero, from Spain, Putin, from Russia and Schroder from Germany.
Today the policies conducted in those countries have been reported on
and analysed by each one on this dais. The social gains are mercilessly
scrapped in the name of a liberal ideology that consists in undermining
all the existing social gains. In France,
European directives that forced the markets open and shredded social
gains were implemented even before the debate over the European
Constitution occurred; the process has been lasting for a whole decade. Those social
gains are essential for workers’ lives. In case of illness, the right
to be taken care of from the beginning, till one is cured with a
healthcare system that pays for the expenses of those who are taken ill.
Retirement pensions are under attack in all the European countries, more
generally, across the world. Demonstrations have been staged everywhere
in France, in Germany and elsewhere because the retirement pension
systems funded by solidarity between the generations are being pushed
backstage to promote pension funds. All those
gains are under attack, but also collective agreements, statuses, labour
codes. All the comrades have mentioned the onslaughts against the labour
codes in each one of our countries. There is also the destruction of
public services. Take for
instance the issue of power utilities. Some
countries have been shown as role models in relation to their policies
in matters of power production and distribution, like the USA
(especially California) which is considered to be the 6th economic power
across the world; in the last period black-outs have been frequent
because productivity was pushed to its highest point, energy was
artificially made scarce and expensive. Power bills
for Californians doubled and trebled as power had become scarce. Those are
realities that in France we do not accept, we do not accept the
privatising process of energy because if privatisation becomes
effective, the principle of equal price of energy at every point of the
grid will disappear. If one
listens attentively to what was said about the chiefs of government of
our countries, I do not forget that, at the Barcelona summit where all
the European chiefs of States met, the President of the Republic and his
former socialist Prime Minister decided to lengthen work-time before
pension entitlement by 5 years for all the French people; without saying
one word to the French people first. When they
were in power, the socialists also wished to privatise power utilities
and distribution and, of late, such positions have been taken up by the
right wing. The stand
taken by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) relays all these
orientations I have just mentioned. It also relays the fact that a
European Constitution would be necessary; by the way, most of it was
written by liberals. You can easily guess that my union, especially my
Paris local most determinedly opposes the trend I have explained. We have to
observe that in the name of alleged solidarity we are asked to tone down
our social demands and bring our social gains to a lower level. We might
then be on the right European median scale. If we fail to fight, if we
do not demonstrate in interprofessional strikes as we did on March 10th,
as our German comrades did on other occasions, then, because we will
have given in on social gains, you, in other countries, in the name of
global solidarity, you will also have to accept to surrender your social
gains won through workers’ struggle I believe
the struggles we have to fight are necessary because we have to keep
those social gains and ward off all those who, in the name of the
European constitution or whatever other constitution would threaten the
principles that in our countries are bound to the republican values of
equality and fraternity. Besides our
past experiences, this Conference affords us opportunities to regroup,
to react in common, to struggle side by side because we start from
similar orientations. ******************** Jacqueline
Petitot (Martinique) Workers
and Peasants Alliance (AOP) I am a
member of the Workers and Peasants Alliance, an organisation affiliated
to the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples in
Martinique; also a member of the Association of Caribbean Workers and
Peoples already mentioned by my comrade from Guadeloupe. Martinique
is a small island of the Caribbean, 1,080 square kms, inhabited by a
little over 400,000 people. We are labelled a "French Département"
by France and "ultra peripheral European region" by Europe.
Apparently, just like our brothers of Guadeloupe and French Guyana, we
are part of Tropical Europe. Next November 7th to 17th, the first Social
Caribbean Forum will be held in Martinique; the co-convenors are Attac
and the leaders of the group "Socialist Revolution", the USec.
organisation in Martinique; the Revolutionary League of France and the
agrarian reform Minister in Brazil, Miguel Rosetto are members of that
organisation. The initial
budget for that forum is expected to gross 5 million Euros; one third is
funded by the French government, one third by the European Union and one
third by the regional authorities in Martinique, regional and general
councils; the European Union said it would supply the money only if the
local authorities did. The
Martiniquais convenors of the forums are very proud to have been awarded
the organisation of the forum and to have got the better of Cuban and
Dominican candidacies. Almost all
the organisations in Martinique are involved in the preparation of the
Forum. Why was
Martinique chosen? In Guadeloupe, the labour movement is structured by
the UGTG that has become the most important trade union, with the
strength of its 7,000 members paying their membership dues; it can be
considered as the Caribbean capital of trade union independence. UGTG,
emulated by the second trade union in Guadeloupe, the CGTG, refused to
participate in the constitution of a structure of social dialogue and
condemns social forums. On the
opposite, the economy of Martinique is controlled by the descendants of
the first French colonisers -- that here, we call "békés"
– large landowners, that increasingly turn towards import-export
business; in their vast majority, they are consuls representing the
various European countries, and that is no mere detail. Martinique can
be called the Caribbean capital of social dialogue. Almost all the trade
unions in Martinique have been co-opted into a structure of class
collaboration that goes under the name of "Association for the
Promotion of Social Dialogue". When he presented his season’s
greetings, the Préfet of Martinique, the representative of the French
government, rejoiced over the social social climate, tranquillised
thanks to social dialogue. But, workers and organisations increasingly
reject the method of social dialogue and try to reclaim the means of
union independence. What they want is independent, fighting unionism
emulating our UGTG comrades of Guadeloupe. We consider that indeed,
reclaiming this union independence can be achieved only through regular
exchanges with our comrades of Guadeloupe and that is what we are
striving to fulfil. As our
comrade said this morning, in December 2002, a Caribbean conference was
organised in Guadeloupe with the UGTG, supported by the ILC; its purpose
was to promote union independence, the national sovereignty of the
peoples of our region, and breaking free from the free-trade treaties
that bring ruin on small countries already plundered by over three
centuries of slavery and colonisation. Trade unions
and political organisations from Martinique, Guyana, Dominican Republic,
Mexico, the USA and France participated. The comrades
from Guadeloupe and ourselves are set to preparing a new Caribbean
conference due for December 2005, with, again, the support of the ILC
and, this time hopefully, the participation of the comrades from Brazil
who had not been able to secure visas and of the comrades of the UNT,
Venezuela; this last country’s constitution, based on class
independence should be a role model to reclaim trade union independence
in Martinique and in all the Caribbean islands. The
organisers of the Caribbean social forum fraudulently claim that Europe
would afford a progressive alternative to the USA. For our part, we are
trying to bring the proof that it is this same Europe that, siding with
the USA, has just managed to make Romania’s president roll back on the
pardon that had released Miron Cozma. In Martinique, among others, in
Guadeloupe and in Haiti, stands have been taken in favour of his
release. Europe also,
especially France, expressed hostility to President Aristide’s demand
for refund of the extravagant sum that had been paid by Haiti to be
recognised as an independent country after January 1st 2004; the
abduction of the president was therefore organised after, according to
president Aristide, open threats on his life. The abduction was
unanimously condemned by the United Nations countries and was followed
by an occupation of Haiti by UNO troops among which Brazilian military. Europe has
used the Economic and Social Council of Martinique as a point of
leverage to organise a vast promotion of social dialogue in the
Caribbean in order to safeguard its interests in the region. When they
organise that forum jointly funded by Europe, and Attac, the group
Socialist Revolution and the other trade unions play into the hand of
France and Europe that work to reinforce their presence in the region. Let me read
an excerpt from a report of a summit European Union/Latin America held
in Madrid, on May 17th 2002: "Between 1996 and 1999, European
countries’ investments rose to top rank from 13,289 million dollars to
42,266. European, especially Spanish firms are particularly active in
the privatising processes, public sectors, banks, telecommunications,
air transports, energy" We say that in the Caribbean, tropical
Europe as well as the USA, spell the ruin of local economies. For our own
part in Martinique, we have decided to campaign for the NO vote at the
referendum on the European Constitutional treaty, in the same move, top
of the list on our agenda is the concrete fight for a sovereign
constituent assembly in our country. ******************** Nambiath
Vasudevan (India) Representative,
Trade Union Solidarity Committee (TUSC) Comrades,
I am Vasudevan, from India. I represent a group of independent unions in
Mumbai, which sends its greetings to all of you who are attending this
conference in Spain. While
reporting to the meeting, Comrade Daniel referred to India in the
context of the tsunami. You are aware that India was one of the Asian
countries hit by the tsunami last December 26. It killed over 18,000
people in the southern coast of the country, leaving behind hundreds of
children without parents, and parents without children. Most of the
victims were poor working class people, many of whom belonged to the
fishing community. There was no warning whatsoever before the tragedy
struck them. It is now learned that American scientists had recorded the
tremor, but since there was no treaty between the US and the Asian
countries, America did not regard it as its business to alert the
affected countries. If the American organization had passed on the
information recorded by its scientists to India, Indonesia, Thailand and
Sri Lanka, it could have saved thousands of lives, and people would have
had an opportunity to seek shelter, and life losses could have been
reduced. This did not happen. As a result, over 280,000 people in Asian
countries have perished, besides causing indescribable devastation of
property and livelihood. The tsunami victims have not been
rehabilitated. But the USA
initially used this opportunity to offer military help to Sri Lanka, and
only now is there an offer to help those people who are affected by the
tsunami. The issue that concerns India, and it is a most important
issue, is the cost of unemployment. The number of unemployed is
considerable, 93% of the total workforce, or 370 million people in
agriculture, confection, transports, fishing, skilled industries, and
self-employed activities. Trade unions have been agitating for
legislation for the protection of this huge work force. New jobs are
coming up in the organized sectors and the unions are planning to
organize a massive rally in Delhi in the month of May. New jobs are
also coming up in the service sector, in information technology, the
export-oriented unit, confection, supermarkets, food processing, and
high-tech. All these are in the private sector, and all are contract
jobs. Many Indian towns in cities have become business processing
outsourcing (BPOs) and call centers. According to
a national commission report, there are now 80 privately owned sectors,
BPO centers and call centers. This represents an increase in investment,
from 600 million US dollars in 1999 to 5.7 billion in 2004-2005. The
garment industry is now targeting India as a host for international
exploitation by the multinational corporations, and this is expected to
generate 7 million jobs by 2009. In the
high-tech sector, normal working hours at BPOs and call centers are now
12 per day. And with productivity up by 30 to 40%, we see more
backbreaking jobs in the other sectors, where wages are extremely low. Teachers,
including college professors, are on a contract basis, calculated in
hours of duration for each lecture. The normal lecture time is 40
minutes, for which a college DC pays 80 cents. Comrade
Daniel also mentioned the claims made by several sources about jobs
creation after the abolition of the multi-fiber agreement quota system. Since
January, in India there has been a tremendous euphoria in industry and
garment circles, about the opportunities coming up in the services
sector of the world market after the abolition of the multi-fiber
agreement quota system. India is
expecting to stand only for 2% to 15 % of market share and for that
purpose, India wants to compete with China, which already has a 15%
share of the world garment and textile market. Apart from
the contract labor system, and apart from this unorganised issue another
sector of development in India is that of patent rights. India has a
Patent Act, which has now been amended by the Indian government without
any discussion with the national parliament. The debt will rise to such
an extent that medicine, which now costs only 25 dollars, but is impure
for cancer treatment, will go up to 165 dollars, and the treatment which
cost 300 dollars before January 1, could go up to 500 dollars. This
would make it impossible for most working class cancer patients to have
any treatment. This will show that capitalist globalization has created
a serious imbalance in society, and that there is no place for the
impoverished. By taking
steps in this direction, what is particularly evident is the serious
social impact in the area of employment, particularly among the youth
and women. The flashy life enjoyed by one class of the people has left
many others to turn to crime and underworld activities. Even housewives
are taking jobs in bars as dancers, waiters, and prostitutes. The
government is now speaking in terms of making many cities in India of
the Changai type. And for that they are making every effort instead of
finding a solution to the people’s anguish. In
conclusion I would like to say that the magnitude and the complexity of
owning class rule in India is very serious. At the same time it is
certain that if there is international unity, if there is unity of
working people throughout the world, it will be possible for the workers
in India along with the workers in other parts of the world to march
toward a society based on socialism. And while saying this, I should
also mention that we have a very serious concern about what is taking
place in our country and elsewhere. Even though there is a relaxation of
the conflict between India and Pakistan, the messages coming from the
USA, on the issues of Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, are serious
matters to us. We will not
be able to fight alone on these issues, therefore it is very necessary
that a conference of this type is taking place where we will decide to
stand together and fight against globalization. Thank you. ******************** Alexandre
Anor (Switzerland) Member
of Parliament, Socialist Party, Grand Council of Geneva I would like
to return to certain aspects of the current situation in Switzerland, in
particular the pressure exerted by the European Union on the occasion of
the rotation on the accords on free circulation. In the past
years, the Socialist Party (PS) and the Swiss Labor Union (USS) have
been opposed to the dictates of the European Union -- dictates that were
supported by the bourgeois majority in the government. The
orientation of the PS and the USS was, up until the present, to say:
since Switzerland is not a member of the EU, we are under no obligation
to respect these dictates. Today, because of the accords on free
circulation, the political pressure of the EU against the Swiss
government is massive. So much so,
that after having planned to launch a referendum against these
agreements, the unions and the PS have for now ceased to oppose these
agreements. The European
Union wants to impose the liberty to exploit. The only aim of these
agreements is to introduce unfettered competition, wage dumping and
social dumping; that is, the race to the bottom. We're talking about the
super-exploitation of not just Swiss workers, but also the
super-exploitation of workers around the world -- particularly, workers
in Eastern Europe. We must
defend the collective guarantees and collective bargaining agreements,
which today are being attacked by the institutions of the bosses and
which are being emptied of their content. This is why the USS has
decided to organize mobilizations that coincide with the vote on the
referendum. It would be
stupid to hide from ourselves the difficulties that we are faced with.
The PS and the unions have fought the liberalizing dictates; the Swiss
people have always responded sympathetically to the slogans launched by
the PS and the USS. One of the
more well-known examples is that of the defeat of the liberalization of
the electricity system. There were the resignations and there was the
rejection of the tax cuts. Presently,
it is important to note that the PS and USS have decided to not oppose
the free circulation agreements. This position is weighing down heavily
on the labor movement. Nevertheless, in the face of the bosses’
offensive against the collective bargaining agreements,
the USS has launched a whole number of mobilizations that could play
a decisive role. I would like
to read to you the position of leaders of the USS. The co-president of
the merged union federation of the metal and dockworkers union, the
biggest union federation in Switzerland, declares: "The trade
unions will not be able to support, with all the necessary commitment,
the campaign of popular vote -- at least not if the bosses do not
retreat between now and September, date of the referendum vote." With this
perspective, we took the initiative to launch an open letter to the PS
and the union leaderships during the referendum campaign with the goal
of presenting to the sovereign people, in the democratic traditions of
our country, the position against the free circulation agreements. We recently
received a message from Louisa Hanoune, which stated: "The
parliamentary fraction of my party organized, on the 10th of March, a
daylong hearing in parliament on the right for all the Palestinian
refugees to return to their homeland. I am sure that you would agree
with us that this democratic and inalienable human right is of
international significance. "Participating
on March 10th was the principal Palestinian leader concerning the
refugee question, as well as a French anti-war activist and member of
the Dialogue magazine of Arab and Jewish activists. Free debate
prevailed on March 10th. Many points of view were expressed. But all the
participants, regardless of their political backgrounds, supported the
democratic right for the right to return for the Palestinian refugees. "At
this conference we were informed that several Palestinian MPs are
presently in Israeli prisons. The Swiss MP announced that he would try
to get his parliamentary fraction to speak with the Israeli authorities
and call on MPs throughout the world to demand freedom for the
imprisoned Palestinian MPs. Parliamentary immunity is an internationally
recognized right. Could it be that this right is only valid in Israel
for the Jewish deputies in the Knesset? This discrimination is not
acceptable. I am convinced that no labor activist, no citizen, can
accept this. "Thus,
I am addressing you to ask that you join this democratic campaign to
call for the liberation of the imprisoned Palestinian MPs. We will also
keep you informed about the different developments in the campaign for
the right to return." "Immediately,
our parliamentary fraction submitted a motion on this question to all
the Parliamentary groups in the National Popular Assembly of Algeria
with the aim of eliciting support for this campaign from the heads of
State of the Middle East and Maghreb who will gather at the Summit of
the Arab League on March 22-23 in Algiers." "Fraternal
greetings, Louisa Hanoune, Algiers March 18th 2005." I
participated in the day organized by the Algerian Parliament. I was
particularly outraged by the arrest of the MP Hussan Khader, a member of
the Palestinian legislative council and a MP from Nablus. I am convinced
that the are completely unjust. In
particular, I was shocked to see that this deputy, a representative of
the people -- whatever may be his political positions -- was imprisoned
and that his parliamentary immunity was trampled on. That is why I am
reiterating the call that I made on March 10th to launch an
international campaign for the liberation of Hussam Khader and all the
Palestinian prisoners. This is why I am the co-signer of a brief appeal
that I present to you to distribute, not just at this conference, but
also in your respective countries -- and thus to all of your elected
representatives. It states: "We
demand the immediate release of Mr. Hussam Khader, member of the
Palestinian legislative council, MP of Nablus. Initial signatories:
Louisa Hanoune, Algerian Parliament MP, Alexander Anor, Socialist Party
MP from Geneva, Nancy Wohlforth, co-president of Pride at Work and
Secretary-Treasurer of OPEIU (in a personal capacity), and Andy Griggs,
president of the Committee for Human Rights of the Los Angeles teachers
union UTLA (in a personal capacity)." ******************** Victor
Hugo Zavaleta (Mexico) General
Secretary, Public Healthcare Workers Union, state of Chiapas Good day
comrades, I want to
send you the most hearty and combative greetings on the part of the
Mexican delegation. I am Victor Hugo Zavaleta, General Secretary of the
union for the public health sector from the state of Chiapas in Mexico.
This great tribunal allows me to express in a few words the situation
that the workers of Mexico are facing as a result of the offensive that
capital launches with all its trickery. We only need
to point out that due to the degradation of the national economy, of the
approximately 124 million Mexicans; more than 20 million are living
today in the United States in order to look for work there. You can see
in Mexico today that there are deserted small towns inhabited only by
the elderly, women and children because the men needed to leave the
country in order to earn a living. Despite the hard reality that we live
and the worsening poverty that affects more than 60% of the population,
the right wing government of Present Fox, a puppet for the IMF,
continues to apply his three great reforms that amount to aggression
against the people. This is done even when facing the direst
consequences. The first of
his reforms is that of the public health sector. This has the goal of
placing a tax on medicine and food. I am a doctor and I can tell you
that the best brand of analgesic costs about 2 dollars. It needs to be
pointed out that more than 36% of our population lives on less than 2
dollars per day. The second
reform that this right wing government wants to implement is for the
energy sector. This is where he wants to sell petroleum and electrical
energy to private capital. The third reform consists of his efforts to
modify our federal work law. We have a law that still protects the
workers, even thought it is a law that consists more of words than being
put into practice because the federal government, an accomplice of the
large multinationals, violates it on a daily basis. It is
unacceptable that there are workers in Mexico that must work 10 hours a
day for a wage of barely 2 dollars. This is what one finds inside the
project of the federal government and big capital that wants to bring
its Puebla-Panama Plan to Mexico and Central American, which is nothing
more than the implementation of the FTAA. In Mexico we
have lived for 70 years under a regime that Vargas Llosa has called the
perfect dictatorship. During this time, the political power was held by
only one political party. This is a party which murdered and massacred
hundreds of students in 1968 and which, from that date on, has hounded
every political leader that stood up for the working class. But today
the times are beginning to change. We are beginning to see the light at
the end of this dark tunnel. And today the union workers are beginning
to unite, despite the large union federations that are manipulated by
the government. We are
beginning to unite ourselves in an independent way to demand a slowing
down of the privatizations in Mexico, in order to demand that the three
big reforms not be implemented this year. We demand that everything that
belongs to the Mexicans be respected within the various regions of our
country that have independent unions. I would like
to explain to you, as a doctor, how the privatizations in the health
sector have been implemented. It is shameful to see the poor people, the
farmers, the Indians, and those that live in the shanty towns on the
outskirts of the large cities are beginning to have to pay in order to
receive their care from the public health system. We, as
workers in the health sector, condemn this and call upon the
international community to support us because we support you with the
problems that affect you. We ask that you support us in our struggle to
stop this policy of privatization of the health sector in our country.
We can not accept that the poor are paying for health care. It is with
sadness that we see (Today is the first time that I have attended a
conference and I benefited from having visited a hospital in Madrid.)
the incredible difference with the hospitals in Mexico where we lack
medicine to treat our patients but that does not stop them from
demanding a monthly fee. For the
unity of the peoples, for healthcare for the poor people of Mexico, we
ask the international community to support us to the extent that it can! Thank you. ******************** Philippe
Larsimont (Belgium) Coordinator,
Movement in Defense of Workers In the
previous interventions, much has been said on the European constitution
and the ETUC. I should just like to mention a few facts that illustrate
the problems we have to face. The first
thing that must be recalled is that two years ago, the FGTB, the Belgian
trade union federation that is socialist in the broad sense of the term
and that regroups over a million members, decided to boycott the ETUC
Prague Conference for several reasons. The main raison was summarised in
a declaration that the FGTB had published at that time: "73% of the
ETUC financial resources come from outside subsidies". I should add
that those subsidies come from organisms linked to the European Union. For those
reasons, one should not be surprised at the ETUC’s stand in favour of
the constitution. But this also raises a specific problem. Should one,
for a moment suppose that the ETUC indeed is a trade union, which is
open for discussion, it is true that each trade union needs an apparatus
and permanent members, structures and so on. One can always ask whether
the apparatus truly is in the service of the members. That is open for
discussion. But what we have here is an apparatus that receives its
funds from elsewhere. Therefore it has a life of its own. I think that
we want to take the full measure of the stands in favour of the European
union within the ETUC structures. Another issue sticks out immediately;
it is directly linked to the one I have just mentioned, namely the
mandate. On what mandate have the leaders of such and such union taken a
stand? In October
they had nothing at all. No FGTB structure had given a mandate. To such
an extent that the FGTB Conference acted diplomatically and disowned it.
Last Monday, the BGTB Brussels branch organised a day-long debate over
the European Constitution; among the persons invited are Decaillon, who
will talk in the name of the ETUC, and the chairman of the FGTB Belgian
public Services branch, who is opposing the constitution. A French
comrade intends to intervene to ask Decaillon: dear comrade, there is
something I do not understand: everyone in Belgium knows that the CGT
national committee voted to reject the Constitution. Who then are you
speaking on behalf of? This issue
is raised everywhere. Today, a march is called in Brussels by the ETUC.
It is significant that, as a forerunner of the march, the Belgian Social
Forum published an appeal that did not mention the Constitution at all.
Which enabled the ETUC to push still further and therefore explicitly
call for a march for the YES vote to the Constitution. People
mobilised in Belgium and the consequence was that within a couple of
days, the same chairman of the FGTB that had said YES to the
Constitution in the ETUC structures, scurried to the offices of the ETUC
to ask that they immediately withdraw the leaflet, which was done. This
does not make the ETUC different but it shows that nothing is final. Therefore,
provided we stick to our independence and we fight to make our
organisations, whether political party or trade union, boldly affirm
this independence, nothing is lost. ******************** Richard
Tiendrebebeogo (Burkina Faso) General
Workers Federation (CGT-B) Burkina Faso
is a country situated in Western Africa, without any outlet on the sea.
On our borders lie Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo. I represent
there the Regional Federation of Labor of Burkina, the largest
federation in Burkina. What can be
said about Burkina, with the consequences of over a decade of structural
reforms by the IMF and the World Bank? Just some figures. Today the
median life span is 46 years. Over 46% of the population live on 112
Euros per year. We are a Deeply Indebted Poor Country [DIPC] and you can
imagine a little what is going on in the healthcare and education areas.
I think our comrades from Benin and Togo have already spoken about that.
Today, for
instance, on the basis of what goes under the name of the debt criteria,
in conformity with the demands of the IMF and the World Bank that say
roughly this: today in African countries it is useless to train teachers
for basic education. Today in Burkina, teachers are recruited without
any training, they are paid 30,000 CFA francs per month, the equivalent
of 43 Euros a month. Which means that education is nil. And as everyone
knows, a country cannot develop without education. The same is
true in health-care where workers are recruited according to DIPC norms
and paid 43 francs per month. Can you imagine that? I do not know what
one can do with 43 francs a month. As was said
yesterday in the African tribunal, the African chiefs of states also
have their responsibilities. Our heads of state zealously implement the
measures of the IMF and the World Bank whose consequences are there for
everyone to see. Conversely, some minorities benefit, among them are
those in power and their cronies. In the framework of privatizations,
while some workers can work clandestinely after the closure of their
firm, many political leaders and managers line their pockets through
corruption and connections with various political officials. Just an
anecdote: There is this well-known person who goes to the bank with 200
million CFA francs, cash. Then the bank’s top clerk calls the
accounting officer who says, "Some people have still more cash
under their mattresses." It just means that you can find millions
of CFA francs under mattresses but a primary school teacher is paid only
30,000 CFA francs per month, and he must do everything to give children
some education. The comrades
and friends in the trade unions know what is happening in Côte
d’Ivoire and Benin, when they condemn the IMF and the World Bank, as
well as those in power who do their bidding: that the various regimes
are not at all democratic. These so-called leaders are just satraps of
these institutions of international capital, with no other program than
that of the structural adjustments that are imposed on our peoples, and
to maintain their positions of power and privilege. The consequence is
war in Côte d'Ivoire where, in addition to interests of imperialist
powers, there are the interests of local lackeys who compete against
each other, either to fawn on imperialism in the sub-region, or to grab
a portion of the takings. In Côte
d'Ivoire, people travel with suitcases full of cash; they point to
current events as an excuse. People have
no interest in those wars, those divisions, which are against the
interests of the people; this is where solidarity must be shown on the
level of trade unions and the various political forces that should
support us. It is the people who must solve these problems, with no
outside intervention. As far as
trade union activity is concerned, we would like solidarity to be
developed in the sub-regional area, and we await help in organizing a
regional Conference around the need for peace in Cote d’Ivoire. We wish for
this conference to be convened, but before that can happen efforts must
be made at the subregional level, in order to assess how the trade
unions can mobilize the workers in a solidarity campaign, in our common
interest against imperialism. We will work in solidarity with peoples
worldwide so that, as the song says: "if the working class fights,
again it will prevail…" ----------
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Open World Conference of Workers