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INTRODUCTION: SPECIAL No. 4 After the Founding Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC): For the preservation of the trade union movement -- An indispensable
discussion will be held on Saturday, June 9, 2007 in Geneva at the This meeting organized at the initiative of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples has a special importance. It will be held several months after the founding congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) that was held in November 2006 in Vienna. In order to assist with this indispensable discussion, the ILC International Newsletter has dedicated three special issues to this question (Nos. 214-215, 221 and 225). "After the ITUC congress, for the preservation of the trade union movement, a discussion is indispensable" is our theme. Its aim is to furnish all our correspondents with documents and contributions. We continue with this fourth special issue that includes: ÿ Contribution No. 2 by Roger Sandri, "Globalization against democracy" preparatory to the meeting in Geneva on June 9, 2007. It poses the question that concerns all worker activists and supporters of democrat rights: "Does globalization threaten democracy?" Sandri adds: "In political democracy the nation-state stands on the pillar of popular sovereignty Š and the exercise of individual and collective freedoms." Is the existence of political parties and trade unions threatened? Also included in this issue: ÿ Gerard Schivardi, candidate for the presidential election in
France, made a declaration to the press after the national commission
controlling the campaign (CNCCEP) invalidated the profession of faith
(statement to be published in the voter handbook for all citizens) and
the electoral poster of the candidate. For the first time since the
war, 25 million such election statement were pulled. Distribute these documents. Subscribe to the ILC international newsletter ---------- 15th meeting in Geneva: Saturday, June 9, 2007 Second Contribution by Roger Sandri Globalization against democracy To use an expression by Winston Churchill, former prime minister of Great Britain, when totalitarianism was on the rise in Europe: "Democracy is the worst of systems with the exception of all the others." This is true. All totalitarian regimes attacked democracy, especially the freedoms that are the corollary: freedom of thought, freedom of relition, freedom to organize, meet and act outside an established truth. In its long journey, humanity and the individuals that constitute it, through a long and difficult struggle, have managed to overcome the coercions and the powers that crushed them, so that their ideal of justice and freedom would triumph, knowing that nothing is acquired in a definitive fashion and that vigilance was a permanent given. All the peoples of the world, with their history have experienced this state and organized the necessary battles in order to extract their emancipation from all established powers, for the conquest of freedoms that are the foundation of democracy and in the first place political democracy. There are still and always numerous states where democracy remains an objective to be obtained. Of the member states of the UN, a good number of them are still governed by systems opposed to democratic freedoms. In accordance with this report, the dominant economic forces on a world plane are not foreign to the maintenance of this abnormal situation. In fact they adapt perfectly to the betterment of their own interests. The history of the 20th century ha shown that even the smallest democracy was fragile. Fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, etc., marked in a tragic and inhuman manner on the road that led to a liquidation of democracy. Without going back into ancient Greek history, cradle of a certain democracy, the Larousse dictionary gives its own definition: "A political regime in which the people exercise their own sovereignty without the intervention of a representative organ (direct democracy) or by interposed representatives (representative democracy)." Direct democracy linked to populism was supported by what the Frenchman Gustave Le Bon called 'the psychology of faults', that is to say the manipulation of these by a chief, leader or guide taking what Marx called 'the unconscious movement' for its own benefit. * * * The conquest of political democracy is intimately linked to the existence of a nation state in its modern form. In order to exercise it, democracy or more precisely political democracy needs a geographic framework, that is to say a territorial space where it can be exercised. This framework or space is the national state. The nation state gathers men and women speaking the same language, with the same tradition, united in a common destiny in order to form the people. There are a French people, a German people, Spanish, English, etc. All the elements that constitute the different peoples are found in the nation, and the political structure that is its offshoot, the state. * * * Globalization, which is based on the global economy and on a market that has become global through the will of capitalist forces, wants to break national barriers, considered restrictive, in the name of a cosmopolitanism already described by numerous U.S. commentators, bombarding us with conclusions and fixing the parameters of that which must be 'the new global economic order.' Confirming what I have been able to develop, for these hardly neutral commentators, the criteria of a nation-state, product of the emancipator history of the peoples, must cede place to another system touted by globalizers since 1995. They say: "We can think that the days of the national state hierarchically structured are numbered, while conversely the organization of political domination in the form of a network in which the national states are abolished clears the way for new possibilities of action in a globalized economy and culture." In effect the liberalism justly condemned by the anti-liberals is everything but liberal in the political sense of the term, because of the weight of the oligarchies. As André Bellon indicates in an essay titled "Why I am not an alter-globalizer." "One must call things by their name. The economic and social system that we modestly describe as globalization is the present stage of capitalism. Fundamentally, this stage is the result of implementing since the end of the 70's what John Williamson determined later, in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the breakup of the Soviet Union: 'The Washington Consensus'. This is built on the three pillars: privatization-liberalization-stabilization." * * * Correlated to the liquidation of the nation states, the globalized system needs the structure of a political framework for decision making, a global state, acting as a sort of 'expression of the dominant class.' Global imperialism, led by U.S. imperialism, sits unabashedly on international institutions or should we say 'global ones' such as the UN, OECD, WTO and, of course, on financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, whose president is named by the president of the U.S.A., in application of the Bretton-Woods agreement signed at the end of the 1939-1945 war. 'World governance' advocated by these institutions, remains the objective of imperialism in search of a superstructure, that is to say a global state, expression of its self interests. The U.S. philosopher of German origin, Hannah Arendt, in analyzing the phenomenon declared: "Incapable of assuming its own discourse, globalization can only be totalitarian since it is founded on work; it is increasingly incapable of producing work." This means that the capitalist means of production, after its total progressive phase, has passed its peak embarking on the route of destruction of its own productive forces the consequences of which are today hitting the labor classes throughout the world. Jean Jaures, the noted French socialist had a clear vision of things declaring, "When we give up wanting to change things, we change the words." In the present context, often analyzed and included in the ILO proceedings, we speak of looking for a road leading to 'decent work'. This is a fine example of the impotence and capitulation before the dominant forces that have demanded and obtained, among others, the end of the ILO convention system founded on the political commitment of the nation states. As Bellon cites, contrary to his eulogists, globalization does not prevent wars, but it transfers a substantial maintenance of international order to the key of the imperial vault. That which I have called 'The United States, key to the vault of global economic architecture." On the other hand, Madeleine Albright, secretary of state in the Clinton government of 1997 said. "We must continue to shape the global economic system that works for America." In a political democracy, the nation state stands on the pillar of popular sovereignty, expressing itself through universal suffrage, in support of a project of society, at the center of which is the exercise of individual and collective freedoms, with a priority of the right of reply at the disposal of its citizens through the intermediary of its political parties and trade union organizations active in the economic and social area. These two principles form part of political democracy, but also on the other hand, social democracy having an influence on the sole ground of class, this social democracy rejects all forms of institutionalization, similar to 'corporativism'. The exercise of democracy requires a completely free freedom of expression, by the press and all means of communication. The disappearance of the nation state ceding to cosmopolitism founded on the only individuals gathered in a 'globalized community village', flows onto the rupture of the nation and its bases, especially language. On the contrary, the state reinforces the kingly powers conferred by world order, for the sole benefit of economic interests of the dominant powers. That is why at a certain moment, 'the strong state' based on the 'principle of subsidiarity', that is to say a reverse democracy, acting from above towards the bottom. Cosmopolitanism founded only on individuals carries us back to the principles of liberal individualism of the 18th and 19th centuries whose base principles concerned the economy. * * * Going back to Bellon's essay on "Why I am not an alterglobalizer", for globalizers and alterglobalizers, on the narrow thread of their logic, the nation being the political expression of the people and the state, organic form of the nation, the bow is tied: in the name of not wanting to stifle individuals, all political organization is suppressed: all social organization is destroyed. The French revolution of 1789 borrows from the thesis of the U.S. revolution in the name of economic liberalism supported by the bourgeoisie who had become the dominant class and already operating as a political expression of modern capitalism, with Great Britain as its reference. In France the Chapellier law of June 14, 1791 decrees: "The destruction of all types of corporations of citizens of the same state or profession being one of the fundamental bases of the French constitution, it is forbidden to reestablish them under any pretext or form." In the spirit of the law there are only individuals melded in a multitude. Presently the democratic concept founded on an expression from the base to the summit, passing through the channel of intermediary bodies, is stuck in a hole by the tenants of globalization and their allies. The construction of democracy starts out on a rocky road. Direct democracy gives birth to all forms of Bonapartism, and is only a caricature of authentic democracy. The constitution of the 5th republic is an example in which universal suffrage, the election of a president of the republic, is supposed to confer the supreme function to one man or one woman. Real democracy, that is representative political democracy, is built on a base of the existence of intermediary bodies, with the participation of political parties whose mission is to firm the citizen, educate him/her, and build a project of society by submitting it to the sanction of universal suffrage. In the opposition, the political party, when required, opposes the state and its natural force in its nature and its definition. Political parties, in the framework of reasoned pluralism, are the guarantors of individual and collective freedoms, the foundation of political democracy. As such, political parties fill an irreplaceable function. In the present debate in the electoral campaign for the election of a president of the French republic, Simone Weil, former minister, before certain declarations made by candidates, warns them by declaring:: "When there are no more parties, one installs a totalitarian system." Liberal individualism fed by a globalized ideology, is naturally opposed to the existence of political parties, as it opposed the intermediary bodies supposed to break up the 'civil society' by opposition to the thesis developed on ' global economy', an antithesis to authentic democracy. In other words, for the holders of a globalized ideology, social classes no longer exist, there are only individuals united under a common project. A singular backwards turn. Our position is founded on the permanence of the nation-state. In its concrete functioning in order to fulfill its role, political democracy needs a geographical and territorial framework where the will of the people is manifested, growing roots in its history, its roots, its language, its traditions. Each people are the depository of these criteria. The French peoples are a concrete reality as are the German people, English, Chinese, American,. Etc. Contrary to what some think, there isn't a European people any more than there is a world people. This is the reason why all those who, under the pretext of national interests submerged in an global ocean, foster the creation of a 'global governance' on the basis of a reform of the UN, are opposed to the objective reality of the existence of nation-states, that after the war were won with great difficulty, and their existence and political independence on all continents. In a previous article I discussed the embryo of a 'global government' whose legitimate democracy we question. The human catastrophe linked to the last world conflict, following the failure of the Society of Nations before the war, has seen the conquerors confer on the UN a mission of coordination, with the aim of managing and regulating the crisis and conflicts to come. The mission of the UN stops there. Having no political legitimacy other than that conferred on it by the member states, the UN cannot claim a regal function over the states. * * * The functioning of political parties in the framework of pluralism as the base of democracy. The same applies to trade unionism particularly that of labor trade unionism. The open door to liberalism and the triumph of the bourgeoisie working through these parties, as well as the political expression of capitalism, places in evidence the brutal division of society into social classes with conflicting interests, founded on the exploitation of men by men. The class war engendered by this harsh reality leads workers who are the victims of capitalist exploitation to organize, join together in order to defend their particular interests, in other words the interests of their class. Thus they prove that this fight is not a principle nor a dogma, but rather the reality that creeping globalization is far from having rubbed out. The political fights, following hard struggles, have allowed the advent of democratic freedoms, freedom of speech and of course, to meet and to organize in opposition to the Le Chapelier law of 1791 and the existence of the crime of coalition. It is in this context that in the majority of industrialized countries the workers gained the right to create their own professional trade unions. The characteristic of labor trade unionism exercising their activities in democratic countries, is marked by the desire to preserve its class independence, by refusing all forms of integration into state structures or that of a company. We are conscious of the fact that there is not one single model. Each national trade union works in connection with the political tradition of its country, it being understood that authentic trade unionism must be inseparable from the exercise of democratic freedoms, in opposition to all forms to 'totalitarianism'. Free trade unionism, including political parties, is a fundamental element of democracy. In the history of the 20th century, all totalitarian regimes founded on a 'single party' have immediately proceeded to the integration of trade unionism to the totalitarian system, giving it the function of 'penetration of the masses', and attempting against democratic freedoms. Today globalization, under less brutal forms, tends to integrate trade unionism in its structural scheme. This also concerns national governments that are always looking to implicate workers' trade union organizations in their politics of alignment, working as subsidiaries to globalization and the European Union becoming the regional level of the system. The international trade union organizations are progressively integrated into policies decided by globalization authorities and by multinational groups under US domination that form the backbone in a position of monopoly. In fact, the international trade union structures are progressively sliding from a protest trade unionism to that of support trade unionism. The ILO is also subject to global pressures, the neglect of the conventional system dictated by the United States in the extension of the Washington consensus that totally involved the institution into global policies. * * * Faced with globalization, the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples speaks out again in favor of proletarian internationalism.. Internationalism respects the structure of nation states, considered the natural base of democracy and freedoms that are the corollary. We quote the French politician Jean Jaures at the beginning of the 20th century: "The revolutionary action, international, universal, will carry the mark of all national realities." In the 19th century, Karl Marx in analyzing the connection between 'nation-state' and 'internationalism' said, "The class war is international in its principle, but it is national in its form.' Political and public freedoms, trade union freedoms, freedom of expression are fundamental elements of real democracy. It is the freedom and the right of each individual to join, meet, plan in order to defend his/her ideals. This is the irreplaceable role of political parties. In regard to the labor class, it means continuing to be able to defend, through its trade union organizations, their particular interest, on a class level, in total independence, in opposition to any system of integration or outside interference. The global economy and globalization founded on a conglomerate of individuals, without frontiers, formed by a system of artificial networks, subject to manipulation, prefigures the emergence of a new totalitarianism, a sort of Big Brother, already described by George Orwell in 1984. Globalization and democracy are paradoxical. Roger Sandri ********************
Gerard Schivardi, candidate to the presidential election in France, made a declaration to the press after the national commission controlling the electoral process (CNCCEP) invalidated the candidate statement (to be published in the voters' handbook) and electoral poster of the candidate. Gerard Schivardi issues his appeal below. Appeal for the defense of democracy and freedoms The facts: On March 29, 2007, the national commission controlling the campaign for the presidential election (CNCCEP) invalidated the candidate statement and the official poster of candidate Gerard Schivardi. On March 30, 2007, this same commission reaffirmed this stance on the ground Schivardi presented himself as the 'candidate of the mayors.' The decision of the CNCCEP is without precedent. It is very prejudicial to Schivardi's campaign. 25 million candidate statements and 180,000 posters already printed had to be dumped. The cost, 300,000 euros, is at the expense of the candidate. This destruction makes it impossible for all the voters to receive Schivardi's candidate statement. These are the facts without precedent. What are the real reasons? Gerard Schivardi's declaration to the press (March 30, 2007 at 10 a.m.) It has been proven that the European Union is a hoax whose aim is to overturn the rights and guarantees of the workers, the youth and democracy. It has been proven that the European Union is the destroyer of freedoms in all domains. Our country dearly fought for its democratic liberties. The decision that has been taken against me constitutes a first step, a first blow against freedoms. It is the open door to future blows against democratic freedoms. Today, it is the word of candidate Gerard Schivardi -- mayor of Mailhac, general councilor of Ginestas, sponsored by 554 mayor colleagues and supported by the Workers' Party -- that is targeted. Whose turn will it be tomorrow? Will they question the existence of parties? Will they question the existence of independent trade unions? It is the fundamental question of democracy that is questioned here. Apart from the reasons invoked here, whose validity I will not discuss, there is reason to ask: why this unprecedented measure? Can't we freely declare in France, in 2007, that the European Union is leading the country into bankruptcy? Can't we freely denounce in France, in 2007, the responsibility of the European Union and the Treaty of Maastricht for the overturn of the existence of 36,000 communes; the closure of schools, post offices, maternity wards; the dismantling of the social security and hospital systems, in the privatization of dismantling of public services? Don't we in France have the freedom to denounce the responsibility of the European Union for the policies of relocation and restructuring? Can't we freely, in the France of 2007, propose the renationalization of Airbus and other key sectors of industry, even if we have to call into question article 87 of the Treaty of Maastricht? In other words, can't we freely in the France of 2007, call on our own citizens to vote for a break with the European Union? I recall that on May 29, 2005, it is precisely the rejection of the European Union was the majority vote for the NO to the EU Constitutional treaty. Can the aspirations this majority of May 29 be dismissed from the electoral debate? These are the questions that I solemnly pose to the public opinion of the country. There are many of my mayoral colleagues who, without necessarily supporting my candidacy, have expressed their concern in the face of threats to the freedom of expression of my program We are today faced with a new stage. A turning point has arrived loaded with danger for democracy. I appeal not only to the mayors, but to all citizens desirous of democracy, whether they share my opinions or not. Everyone knows: a blow against democratic freedom is a threat against all our democratic freedoms. A blow against the freedom of expression of a current of opinion, is a threat against the freedom of expression of all currents of opinion. Under the difficult conditions imposed by the CNCCEP conditions, and with respect for the rules of the republic, I will go to the very ends of the mandate conferred on me: to be the candidate in these elections of all those -- elected representatives, public and private sector employees, residents of towns and farms, youth, unemployed, pensioners, mothers of families -- who like myself share this conviction: in order to save and reconquer the democracy that is in danger, in order to save and reconquer public services and the freedom of 36,000 communes, there is only one way: to break with the European Union. ***********
Will Education International become a global trade union involved in the implementation of public-private partnerships? The ILC International Newsletter regularly publishes reports on the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation). Education International (EI), which is one of the international trade union federations associated with the ITUC in the framework of the council of Global Unions (1), will be holding its congress next July in Berlin. The preceding congress of EI, which was held in 2004, decided on the merger with the CSME, the education branch of the World Federation of Labor, in anticipation of the congress that constituted the ITUC, which was held in Vienna last November. We now see the direct consequences of this merger on the orientations. The draft of the resolutions have just been made known: they represent a major turn, for example, toward support for the public-private partnerships, on the mandate requested by the executive bureau to intervene on a national scale in the direction of governments and to work systematically toward the unification of trade union organizations in the national plane. Will this be done without the member activists being informed? We believe our responsibility is to inform on what is at stake and to assist in the discussion. Is the role of the trade unions to assist in privatization? For example we read in draft No. 3, which we cite extensively (1): "(Point 9) The congress notes that the public-private partnerships are acceptable if they are initiated in order to add new means to the insufficient public financial resources, which in this context, support public authorities in taking charge of their responsibilities, aiding to improve the quality of public education and from the time they are established via process of consultation which includes a trade union representation; on the other hand they are not acceptable if they are also used a means to promote private education or the commercialization of educational services. (Point 10) Recognizes that certain forms of public-private partnership, based on an authentic commitment of the private partner to accomplish the objectives of the EPT (Education for all) and developed in collaboration with the educators and not motivated by commercial or lucrative considerations should be acceptable." In other words the draft makes a complete abstraction of the reduction imposed on public budgets, whether in a structural adjustment plan in Africa or in a Latin American country and the payment of the debt that bleeds these countries, the stability pact in the European Union, the war budget in the U.S. that leads to cuts in social budgets, etc. Isn't this the cause of a lack of 'supplementary resources' in public budgets? In fact it is about the desires to have national trade unions approve a judicial framework for privatization of education that allows the multinationals to profit (see article below) for periods running to 30 or 40 years. It is more and more about asking the trade unions to integrate into the setting up of so-called 'good partnerships.' We take the liberty of citing the resolution on this subject of the constituent congress of the Education International (EI) in 1993, and reaffirmed in subsequent congresses: "By its nature the privatization of an economic activity or service implies the idea of profit for the investors and it is to misunderstand or refuse to understand the mechanisms of the liberal economy to consider that those who would be susceptible to invest in a certain form of privatization of education would not seek to legitimately obtain profits, like any other investment whether industrial or commercial. "Obtaining profits through these systems of education would cause an equivalent reduction of the funds available for improving the quality of education. "That partial or total privatization of educational services does not carry any further costs than in the public service if one takes into account financially all the additional services, indispensable for the proper functioning of educational establishments, such as the continuing training of teachers, services in support of special students, the upkeep of school buildings, etc. "That under these conditions, the act of education would evolve from a concept of free or nearly free offered to all in the heart of a society to a concept of commodity that would be sold and bought, and whose content is in function of the market demand, of publicity and fashion, that is based on the values and principles to which all democratic societies are attached to.." It is not by chance if the drafts no longer refer to the exclusion of education of the AGCS (general agreement on the commerce of services) of the WTO. The position proposed to the congress is a veritable shift! The private-public partnerships, a demand by the international and multinational institutions! But who is claiming responsibility for 'the privatization of all public services and imposes them on the peoples?' Isn't it the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which have imposed the structural adjustment plans and the quasi-destruction of the public education systems in numerous countries in Africa and thus set back education? Isn't it generalized privatization that derives from the NEPAD (new partnership for development) and economic partnership agreements that the European Union wants to impose by the end of 2007? The trade unions are invited to integrate as a component of governance. Here are two examples: Several months ago the IMF ordered Cameroon to privatize the balance of its private sector (telephones oil, etc.) and the World Bank, in a seminar in Yaounde in December 12-15, 2006 in order to validate that "the countries in development especially in sub-Saharan Africa, said it should resolutely promote the public-private partnerships adapted to the scale and characteristics of their economies." A forum on governance in Africa was held in Addis Ababa on November 24-26, 2005, organized by the African Union. It gathered local officials, public institutions, representatives of civil society, trade unions, the private sector and international organizations (World Bank, etc.). It concluded that it was important to support an alliance between the public and private sectors and civil society. In its Green Book publication on public-private partnerships, the European Union as of 2004 wants privatization, in one form or another, to become the rule. For example: "Point 7. While one public authority wants to reduce one third of its management services, it must respect the right of public markets and concessions, even if the service is considered as relevant to general interest. In Point 52 we read that the private partners are in fact free to negotiate part or all of a public market or a concession." It is the application of 'free and unforced' competition when nationalization is forbidden. One of the UN institutions is the economic and social council (ECOSOC) which consists of the so-called actors of the civil society such as the NGO's and the ITUC. At Davos during the world economic summit in 2007, where the 'powers of the world' gather, the ITUC published a declaration affirming that 'ECOSOC should be transformed into an economic, social and environmental security council that would have the greatest authority on economic and social questions.' In a report published by ECOSOC on March 14, 2005 it said: "it was invited to approve for a new two year period the mandate of its alliance for the public-private partnership (Alliance PPP). It added that the working group has largely contributed to clear the obstacles to private-public partnerships and underlined the importance of good governance for the success of the PPP." Does this mean that at the next IE congress must raise a new obstacle, that of the resistance of national trade unions to privatization? The work of the ECOSOC is none other than the application of orientation developed in the speech of Kofi Annan, then secretary general of the UN at its 59th session in 2001, a year after the declaration on the 'objectives of the millennium' "The states cannot undertake this work alone. We need an active civil society and a dynamic private sector. Civil society as well as the private sector occupies an increasingly important space formerly reserved to the states." There are dozens of examples such as this: not a single public building, whether it is a hospital or a school can be built without offering a 20 or 30-year guaranteed income to the multinationals who will be awarded their management? Will schools then be the transmitters of knowledge to the next generations? Or will they be a place for profit where one will pay into the public budget that is to say the client. Should the role of the trade unions be to agree to this process? The answer evidently is no. The EI, a global trade union? (2) We read in the draft that the congress is asked to mandate the executive bureau to start discussions with governments and international organizations regarding the implementation of strategies to offer an initial and continued education with the teachers in order to accomplish the objectives of Education for Everyone through 2015? We ask; is it up to the executive bureau to discuss with governments over the heads of affiliated organizations regarding the statute, labor conditions, wages, and teachers? Initial and continued education covers all these areas. Don't the affiliated national organizations have the prerogative of being the spokespersons of the employers and their mandates, whether they are the state, public collectives or the private sector? On the contrary the draft want mandates regarding the statute of teachers (unique status), the system of bonuses or incentives for certain zones, so many demands that would set back the sovereignty of national organizations and thumb their noses at extremely important differences from one country to another or within a same country: local or national status, conventional regime, etc. The international institutions (OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, the European Union, etc) are not the pertinent level at which to discuss the defense of teachers' interests or other categories of employees. If it is about denouncing and combating the direction they want to impose on countries against their sovereignty and to call on trade unions to oppose a solidarity resistance with the support of the IE, obviously that would be one thing. But are we going to negotiate the implementation of an acceptable wage for merit or temporary contracts with institutions, under the pretext that the world is moving and globalization is here to stay? Unique national subsidiaries, organically linked to the NGO's? Draft No. 3 requires a mandate for the executive bureau (point 20): "in order to systematically encourage the trade unions of the education sector to work together for the organizational unity on a national and international level." Not only uniqueness, against trade union pluralism that corresponds to obvious differences in the concept of trade union action, but also the possibility of directly intervening 'systematically' in the national trade union and the life of organizations. For example the logic of this position would be to have unified trade unions to go along with the privatization in the framework of public-private partnerships. Also: resolution 4 "underlines that the realization of social justice and of quality of public education requires an effective cooperation between teachers' trade unions and their allied organizations of civil society." (2) 'Effective' cooperation on all levels becomes obligatory. According to the World Bank and the European Union 'civil society' covers private foundations, churches, trade unions, the NGO's, and cultural and ethnic groups. That's a lot of people! With this alliance, what would happen to the defense of the interests of employees that are the teachers vs. the employers in the framework of solidarity with the defense of common interests of all employees that includes the right to education of their children? IN conclusion, what would happen to trade unionism and the trade unions in the education sector with these directions? ----- ENDNOTES. (1) The council of global unions consists of the ITUC, the CSC-TUAC, and the international trade union federations IBB, IE, ICEM, FIJ, FITTHC, UITA, ISP and UNI conjointly with the international alliance of arts and entertainment (IAEA). The international federation of labor organizations of the metalworkers (FIOM) did not sign. (2) The UNI (world grouping of trade unions of the service sector: telecom, commerce, etc) is openly presented a global trade union, whose major policy is the conclusion of partnerships with multinationals: minimal agreements qui n'ont par nature aucun caractere contraignant pour celles ci. Ethnic declarations that do not add judicially opposable rights to the workers. After the UNI congress in 2005 the secretary general of the IE, Fred Van Leuwen declared: "let us not let the multinationals define the 'good practices', who is 'responsible', 'ethnic' or who is not ethical or 'responsible, these are not collective rights." (3) In the resolution adopted at the ITUC congress it says that 'the congress equally demands that the ITUC to work jointly with political groups and other organizations of civil society that share their values and objectives and to reinforce their capacity to initiate and sustain world campaigns in order to gain wide support from public opinion for its values and objectives.' In the IE's resolution things went even further. ----- "PPP": Plunder of the Public by the Private The privatization of public services can take different forms: for example transportation, energy, water, and telecommunications are in the hands of multinationals in numerous countries that manage and commercialize these services directly. Other forms exist such as delegation of public services through concessions or leasing of garbage collection, funeral parlors, etc.) For certain infrastructures as well as for schools, hospitals and prisons, so-called non-marketable services, the public-partnerships were invented. Some within the labor movement wanted to present them as a sort of development form for public services rather than privatizations and a means of satisfying the limitless appetites of the financial markets. The public-private partnership can cover other interventions of public power at the service of capital. We have seen numerous cases of the introduction of public funds into companies that are judged insufficiently profitable for financial capital such as the case in France of Alsthom. They became sufficiently profitable in order to be privatized and chopped up. Nationalization is what international institutions want to ban in the states! "Sustainable development: removal of the state and universal privatization? A brochure titled "Public-private partnership, delegated management: the French know-how" was edited by the French finance minister, should be studied to see what is at stake. In the chapter titled, "The public and private partnership, an essential element of sustainable development. The state has long played a major role in assisting in the conception and management of public facilities but today, in an open and demanding world economy the public collectives no longer have the means." Why do they no longer have the means and in the framework of the European Union, no longer the right? The brochure does not explain this by the answer is: the Treaty of Maastricht and the stability pact impose it. Furthermore: "It is generally understood that the realization and management of these projects in the framework of 'all public' are no longer envisageable for reasons of economy and efficiency. Today most of the actors think that the route to reform leads to public private partnerships." These unanimous actors are none other than the multinationals. Should the trade unions stand and cheer? In the chapter "Why call on companies to manage collective services" it says: In the present context of globalization of economic activities, competition between the territories is accentuated for which the states and public collectivities are responsible. The territory can no longer be protected negatively; it must be done in a positive fashion by being more active than the others." The ETUC wants to support the public private partnerships The draft of the 'strategic program' prepared for the congress of the ETUC to be held in May includes this same position: "4.23. In reference to the public private partnerships (PPP) the ETUC proposes to find supplementary financial resources in order to support the public sector. The public private partnerships permit the entrance of the private sector into sectors of general interest." It is obvious that in order to establish a connection that a draft directive on general interest services was adopted by the executive committee of the ETUC on September 20, 2006, a term that the European Commission has substituted for that of public service in order to include privatization in all its forms. Competition between the territories, organized by the decentralization advocated throughout the world, will make entire regions useless without their assets, and the unprofitable public services will disappear as can be seen in schools, hospitals and post offices. Profits and plunder guaranteed for 30 or 40 years On what is the private public partnership contract based on as defined by the European Union? The selected private company finance the construction of manages the public services for 10, 20 or 30 years including some contracts for 40 years. The state or the territorial collective gives the company a 'rent' or a fee for the duration of the contract. This is called "a long term contract for public payment." Concretely, in an educational establishment the services of, maintenance, caretaking and catering offered by the personnel is privatized and civil servants are suppressed. The personnel can resign from their public service jobs if they want to stay. Several months after decentralization, educational projects in France have multiplied.
The multinationals that snap up the contracts are well known: Vinci, Sodhexo, Accor and Dexia and also the banks like the Credit Agricole in France. Crowning everything, our taxes will be paying them for 30 years in order to provide the shareholders with substantial profits. For example Vinci won a contract on the private public partnership in Romania in October 2004 for a 36 kms portion of a highway. The group published a victorious communiqué: "The financing will be insured by a debt linked to the project without recourse to the shareholders." Yet they say the risks are share between the public and the private! Vinci has also obtained a PPP for the renovation of 43 schools in Germany. The company's assets were listed at 26 million euros (+11%). Its official estimates for 2007 are well oriented thanks to the PPP's. Vinci is the driving force of companies listed in the CAC40 in Paris: their profits for 2006 amounted to 100 billion euros. The European Union En Pointe The European Commission published two directives on the subject in 2004 as well as a green book (directive 2004/17/CE), dedicated to 'general interest services', relative to the transfer of the markets in the sectors of water, energy, transportation and postal services, and directive (2004/18/CE) relative to the public labor markets, supplies and services. It also published a green book on the PPP's and the community right of public markets and concessions. COM (2004) 327 at the end of April 30, 2004 which opened a communication in November 2005 and a directive on the right applicable to the PPP's in preparation for the second semester in 2007. The European Investment Bank has just created a European center for mounting the private-public partnerships (PPP). These directions are defined as general interest services (SIG). The European parliament adopted a resolution on the private-public partnerships in October 2006. In the recommendations it formulates, they are against the return to the communities of services delegated and invites the member states to take measures so that the repercussions on the agents of local authorities are treated humanely and in good time, so that equitable agreements concerning the transfer of employees (from the private or public sector) and their conditions of employment are encouraged and respected. Need we comment? The PPP's were invented by Thatcher under the name of PFI (Private Finance Initiative). Tony Blair's new labor government continued to develop them: there are over 600 today. They even privatized the civil state (1). Le Monde published an article regarding the public private partnership in British hospitals (01/03/06): "In view of the PPP's launched in 1996 by the conservative government the private sector builds and manages hospitals for the state. The reimbursement of the hospitals debt is scaled over a period of 25 to 40 years. This charge, a part of which is a variable tax, burdens the operational budget of hospitals and their revenues, insured by the health minister, are dependent on reaching fixed objectives according to the number of patients treated. The buildings sector is also accused of an affinity for profits by creating an informal market for the retrocession of contracts, by developing -sub-contracts (leases) for speculative ends." Greed and speculation are the reality. Thatcher's argument to justify the PFI's was, "There is no alternative" later known by its acronym TINA! Some in the labor movement, parties and trade unions, want to tell us the same thing. Accept the destruction of all our gains or resist: that is the true alternative. (1) A study requested by the CSQ, Quebec federation. --------- Notes on the public private partnerships (PPP): myths, realities and what is at stake" In the United State a return to the see-saw At first the U.S. case might seem paradoxical. Given the almost religious fervor of the Americans in their approach to the private sector, we could be led to think that the PPP are proliferating exponentially in the U.S. The tendency observed since the middle of the 1990's is actually the reverse, with a return to public services and traditional offers. The U.S. municipalities are increasingly skeptical, resuming some services which had previously been sub-contracted out. From 1992 to 1997, 88% of U.S. public administration has retaken at least one service formerly sub-contracted out and 65% of local administrations have taken back three services." Nothing is inevitable!
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Open World Conference of Workers