International ILC
Newsletter Number 27
May 19, 2003
Weekly information dossier published by the
International Liaison Committee -ILC,
Please contact : International Liaison Committee -ILC,
c/o Parti des travailleurs - 87, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, 7510
Paris France
phone : (33 1) 48 01 88 28 fax : (33 1) 48 01 88 36
e-mail - eit.ilc@wanadoo.fr
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Contents:
- Introduction
- Switzerland: Geneva June 15th 2003 meeting for the defence of ILO conventions, discussion within the Hosting Committee
- NO to the reform of pensions, fight for the land in Brazil.
- Workers demonstrate in Basra, Iraq
- France: Informations Ouvrières Workers' Party newspaper on the fight against the pension "reforms"
- Belgium: Jobs under threat, thousands of workers call on the leaders of the Socialist Party
- Subscription information
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Introduction:
The Meeting in Defence of the Conventions of the International Labour Organiaation (ILO) and in Defence of Labor Organizations is being prepared.
It should be remembered that this meeting will be held at the initiative of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples on June 15, 2003 in Geneva, on the occasion of the 91st annual conference of the ILO.
After the formation of the Hosting Committee in Switzerland (see below), a meeting took place in Washington D.C. among representatives of the ILC and leaders of US Labor Against War (USLAW). A leading representative of this labor antiwar coalition in the United States will be present in Geneva. Railroad workers from the Philippines and activists from India have also been in contact with the organizers of the Conference to inquire about participating in it.
The participation of these delegations clearly raises important financial questions. For this reason we are calling on all of the correspondents of the ILC, all activists and workers conscious of its importance and of what is at stake in this conference, to support it financially and to subscribe and get others to subscribe to the ILC International Newsletter, thus contributing to its financing.
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Meeting of the Hosting Committee of the June 15th Conference in Geneva, in defence of ILO conventions, in defence of the independence of labour organisations
The Hosting Committee met last Saturday May 10th with the coordinator of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ref. to our previous issue). We are publishing below a summary of the discussion.
- War and threatened rights: Luc Deley, union leader SPP -public services union, Geneva.
The ILO's founding charter states: Universal and lasting peace can only be founded upon social justice; existing labour conditions result in injustice, poverty and deprivation for a great many people, creating such discontent that universal peace and harmony are endangered".
For trade unions, this text is of the utmost importance: in a situation of impending war, defending our rights becomes all the more important. When war is a permanent threat, national labour codes and rights are viewed by the warmakers as hurdles in the path of war.
The ILO, which guarantees the labour conventions that are at the core of the resistance against deregulation and war, is also under threat.
We already know that American unions, including representatives of USLAW -- a coalition that mobilised the Americal labour movement against the war in Iraq -- will participate in the Conference. USLAW stands squarely for the defence of workers' rights and has pledged its support for the fight to secure that Iraqi workers' rights are respected during the period of reconstruction.
An Iraqi militant will also participate; he will present a memorandum on the situation in Iraq and an assessment on whether ILO conventions are abided by. It should be recalled that over 50 conventions had been ratified by Iraq.
- Defending democracy in Iraq: Daniel Gluckstein, coordinator of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples.
The issue we are facing is the future of Iraq: Either direct U.S. rule or the reinstatement of some basic rules of international law. (The first option seems the likelier one at present.) If Iraq is carved into three or four parts, without any central government, who will guarantee equal rights for Iraqi workers who, up till now, were able to demand those rights across Iraq?
For instance, Iraq had ratified ILO Convention 98 on free association and negotiation. If restoring democracy is the goal of the intervention, as is claimed, why shouldn't what is provided for in ILO Convention 98 be restored, i.e. Iraqis' right to organise as they wish, to voice their own demands, to have their own trade unions, collective-bargaining agreements
When trade unions are threatened, democracy is under attack. Conversely, if the gist of the matter is to restore democracy, that can only be achieved on the basis of carrying out the fundamental principles of the ILO.
But, it is quite obvious that, since the war on Iraq, the whole set-up of international relations has been threatened: the UN, the ILO, are menaced. One of the propositions made to manage Iraq's oil reserves is to put the IMF in charge.
The ILO and the defence of its norms are a lever for working people in a war situation. The labour movement massively opposed the war in Iraq.
Iraqi militants meeting with USLAW unionists in the war context gives this conference in Geneva a special status.
We have to encourage every step taken in defence of the ILO. As the hosting committee, we are responsible for giving impetus to more regular discussion on what is at stake in the ILO discussions.
- The connection between the weakening of ILO conventions and the threats to gains in Switzerland: Luc Deley.
Revising the laws in Switzerland and revising ILO norms are closely connected. That is particularly valid concerning unemployment benefits, women's night work, but also in relation to vocational training.
Last year, we fruitfully exchanged ideas on the various experiences of the Swiss labour movement in the framework of the ILC's 9th meeting. We raised the issue of pensions -- the issue of capitalisation, of the struggles in the building sector to lower retirement age. We also discussed the projected law of privatisation of power production and distribution. We have to pursue that exchange today, using the elements given by what has happened since.
- On protecting maternity and the issue of night labour: Simone Girodo, member of the Working Women's Commission of the ILC.
During the discussion, we reviewed the international campaign in defence of Convention 103 protecting maternity. In that framework, we had met numerous trade union leaders and deputies in Switzerland. We had taken a hand in publicising what is usually discussed behind closed doors in the ILO and that considerably bears on how regulations evolve in Switzerland. Last year, the ILC's Working Women Commission once again asked to be received by the ILO on questions of maternity protection, the ban on women's night labour in industry and the ban on child labour.
Among others, we learned that ILO Conventions 3 (maternity protection) and 4 (night labour) that date back to 1919, are still open for ratification. The level of protection they afford is higher than currents ones. From that point, people are mobilising in various countries to secure the ratification of those Conventions and also to reconquer those protections enshrined in Convention 103.
We now have to contact again the ILO to have some target questions answered, assess the revision of rights
We could possibly get a new appointment before the June 15th Conference, so we would be able to report back to this gathering.
In those matters, continuity is very important. For instance, during the struggle against the revision of ILO Convention 103, we met Mrs Engelen-Keller, a trade unionist, who was representing the workers' group at the ILO on this particular question. We had good discussions on the defence of ILO Conventions.
Since then, she has become a member of the SPD leadership in Germany; with others, she has opposed "Agenda 2010" proposed by Chancellor Schröder, and defended workers' rights and gains.
That is why we must make sure that those discussions are earnestly pursued: what is happening in Germany is important for us.
- Air transportation: Pascal Sprüngli, Vice-chairman of the SSP group, SSP air-transport.
Air transports have been badly hit by the war in Iraq and SARS. The media are buzzing with the consequences (massive lay-offs). But one point is left in the dark: what leads the sector to extreme weakness is the policy of liberalisation that has been under way for several years, among others the "seven liberties" that now define the rules of air transports in all the countries.
We must circulate this information and what is at stake. The union took a clear stand against the seven liberties. We must denounce this policy that has harmed our sector more than war and epidemics. Actually, war is just an excuse to drive deregulation to the end.
It is interesting to discuss those questions with American trade unionists who have suffered under such policy for over twenty years. That could possibly be the gist of our June 15th discussion.
What happened in Switzerland is that the government funnelled over a billion Francs. Meanwhile, the government has carried on deregulating, therefore it pushes the national airline to the brink.
- Simone Girodo:
On that issue: international meetings should be organised with workers in that sector, as was begun for example in the education sector. To create a coordination.
- Luc Deley:
On that issue: there have been wage cuts of up to 20% at American Airlines under guise of keeping the company afloat. A few days later, it became known that the top executives had awarded themselves millions in bonuses and were preparing to jettison the company.
Then comes the on-going revision of ILO Recommendation N° 150 on "Putting human resources to the best use" -- which is to start during the ILO yearly meeting.
The report that introduces this discussion proposes to adjust the recommendation to current reforms in countries (intervention of the private sector and the civil society, "different" means of education)
The ILC calls on union activists and members of that sector to meet in Paris on June 14th and 15th in the framework of a Conference against war in defence of public education. In the framework of the preparation of this conference, it was proposed to ask the general director of the ILO to receive a delegation expressing the worries and demands of workers in every country.
- Pascal Sprüngli:
On that issue: one of the dangers of training according to separate sessions is that each session is naturally invoiced by the institution that gives the training -- whether it be a public institution or a private one [Ed.N], therefore some training sessions may have to be paid for by the trainees. I for one experienced session training, I witnessed that some trainees paid for the tuition, others asked their employers to pay.
- Daniel Gluckstein:
In France, there are measures that go in the sense of taking into account professional experience, actually they take into account pseudo -on-the-job professional training; the skills thus acquired become equivalent to duly sanctioned vocational diplomas. As a consequence, the level of professional skills is lowered in the framework of collective labour contracts.
- About casual labour and Codes of Good Conduct: Daniel Gluckstein:
Concerning the ILO, the issue is that many governments are determined no longer to abide by the normative system of ILO conventions. Those norms and conventions are debated during the ILO yearly conference between representatives of bosses, trade unions and governments, then they are applied following the ratification in the different countries. When they are ratified, they are transposed into national laws. They are as good as laws and become binding for the given country.
As of 1998, the trend has been to substitute another system. The 184 ILO conventions are to be replaced with 7 essential norms that would not become laws after being adopted by each country's law-making body; they would be norms that multinationals would be asked to respect. But the rights would escape the binding jurisdiction of national legislation. The situation has been radically altered. Any multinational corporation can pretend it will abide by such general principles, but there is no constraining
A year ago, I participated in a conference in China. A young woman was present; she worked in the ILO department for South East Asia. She told the following story which illustrates the difference between ILO conventions and general principles. In a Nike factory she had visited in an Asian country, Nike had agreed to abide by the principles concerning the right of workers to defend their working conditions. What did that mean? The right to negotiate? The right to organise trade unions? No. What it boiled down to was a brand new building right in the middle of the mammoth-sized factory; it went under the name of "workers' social resource centre." Everybody was entitled to go there and get some information on their rights; the hitch was that there was no right at all to demand as the country's legislation does not allow for such notions as workers' rights; what is more, working hours made it quite impossible for any worker to visit that "resource centre."
That is why I stick to the defence of ILO Conventions and to the fight to have them ratified, then really applied in the respective countries.
- Luc Deley:
The USS (Swiss trade union federation) published a press release on the relation between a Nestlé branch in Colombia and one of the country's unions. Nestlé, which had endorsed the United Nations' "Global Compact", refused to intervene in this labour dispute between the union and one of Nestle's subsidiaries. Apparently, the corporation simply does not intervene in its branches' labour disputes.
This is what the USS noted in a recent press release: "With reference to the principles ruling its activities across the planet, Nestlé Ltd considers that it abides by every rule concerning the current labour legislation in Switzerland as well as in those countries that hosts its subsidiaries, including in the specific field of collective work relation."
"The USS is sorry to see that Nestlé refuses to hear SINALTRAINAL' grievances on the one hand, and its refusal to take a step towards discussing to dispute at Cicolac, on the other hand. That stand is all the more difficult to comprehend as the Swiss corporation pretends it has agreed to the United Nations' Global Compact that refers to the ILO's fundamental Conventions, especially those relating to union freedom (N° 87) and the right to collective bargaining (N° 98)."
- Daniel Gluckstein:
On that issue: that is exactly the same case. The same problem arises with trade mark products -- or "social labeling." Š That is merely a hoax.
- On the declarations on principles: David Hermann, Union secretary Unia-Actions (Clerical sector) Geneva.
I have worked for the Actions-Unia union for several years. I can announce that unions are active in low-cost airlines such as Easyjet. The managers are paid according to a ratio pegged on the savings they secure.
Workers understand the logic of that and are beginning to organise.
I should like to speak on the issue of codes of good conduct: I was a member of the administrative board of a charity "ECLT foundation", which aims at ending child labour in tobacco plantations. This charity was set up by the UITA (International Union of Food-Growers); it is also headquartered in Geneva with the tobacco multinationals.
What is quite obvious is that tobacco multinationals are using the charity as a means of giving their image some new lustre as a marketing brainwave. There are projects in various emerging countries, generously funded by the multinationals.
The PA eggheads are associated in those ventures, in connection with the ILO and they are quite honest. But there is a discrepancy between those words and the representatives of the multinationals' branches on location. An example in Mexico, a branch determinedly opposed the headquarters' directives; it explained that child labour was beneficial to everyone, and above all, it explained that the set objectives of headquarters could not be fulfilled if child labour was not resorted to.
Multinationals can continue their dealings and gloss it over.
- Luc Deley:
On this issue, there is a convention on child labour that was signed by Switzerland four years ago. This recent ratification afforded some leverage to those who struggled in other countries. This enabled workers to further the existence of the convention and to further its implementation in the various countries.
- Daniel Gluckstein:
I have just finished reading the document on Nestlé. Couldn't Jean-Claude Prince be contacted again to get further, more complete information on the question? The core question here is the conflict between Nestlé's Colombian branch and the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL. The USS intervenes and asks the multinational to start negotiating with the Colombian union. The management answers: no way, we have rules stipulating that each branch or subsidiary acts as it chooses. That is sheer hypocrisy: on the one hand, they endorse a Global Compact with the UN that refers to the ILO, but, then, each branch or subsidiary acts as it chooses. When the USS correctly asks that negotiations start, the multinational shrugs it off saying that it is none of our business, and the branch acts as it chooses. That is what underpins the whole problem. As long as it is not ILO Conventions that are ratified and enshrined in each country's national legislation, all the multinationals can be asked to sign all the agreements possible, but all will amount to nothing. There are too many loopholes. Nothing is binding.
At the same time they want to gloss it over with good relations with unions.
- Pascal Sprüngli:
On that question: the Global Compact erases the last partner. Only unions and multinationals are left, and States are left out.
That is exactly what went on at Swiss-Air some days later.
- On the question of European Enlargement toward East European countries.
Jacques Robert, general secretary, vice-president of the Industry and Building Sector Union (SIB)
It is obviously desirable that everyone should be free to go from one country to another, provided there is no social and wage dumping. During the negotiation of bilateral agreements with the EU, we had secured safeguard-measures. But we can observe that the implementation is very sluggish, with evident political ill-will.
If it does not work, free circulation as it is provided for in the agreements with the present EU entails dumping; with the new members, free circulation will make matters worse as the wage gaps are much wider. True dumping is quite likely. The measures should be strengthened whereas they cannot really be implemented.
Bosses lick their lips over the dumping. And if there are problems, the UDC's position may be reinforced as it can lean on people's fears.
We have to debate those issues on June 15th. All the more as if there is a solution to withstand dumping, it has to be circulating information between different countries' trade unions.
- Daniel Gluckstein:
Obviously, these issues are quite momentous. The current discussion reaches far beyond the June 15th encounter. We may have to take a targeted initiative on the European level. We started discussing with some of our comrades as it really is an urgent question. It is an important component of the current crisis in Germany. The border with Poland is 80km. away from Berlin. A Polish worker's average take-home pay is around 150 Euros, that is, one tenth of a German's workers' wage. The response cannot be xenophobia. In itself, free circulation should be understood as an advance.
The answer lies with the fight to forbid any breach from those rights enshrined in the national laws.
But everything we see in France points at multiplied breaches; thus people who are employed in France still depend on their home-country's legislation. This goes further than mere "dumping": it amounts to the ruin of any norm, any right, any guarantee.
Struggling to ban any breach would also give some leverage to secure a levelling of working conditions towards the top.
- On retirement pensions: Jacques Robert
On the issue of retirement pension, last time, I announced that we had finally gained on earlier retirement age from 65 to 60 for building workers (masonry). Just after, we were no longer winners. The bosses refused to implement the agreement; we again struck. The workers were ready; they felt they had been cheated of their victory.
Earlier retirement age is an important gain; it amounts to 10% of the work time. It shows that fighting means we can win.
The issue is still more urgent after the Barcelona EU summit. In Switzerland, the problems connected to capitalisation were "discovered". Well, for some it is no novelty.
The agreement of retirement pensions was lately extended to the fitting sector, but it is not exactly the same text. It is not 60 but 62 years of age. And the agreement is not pegged on extension.
- The power sector: Rudy Jaussi, chairman of the SSP group of industrial services in Geneva
On September 22, 2002, when the Law on electric power market was voted (LME), it was simply rejected by the Swiss people. That is no surprise, it was the first time in Switzerland and in Europe that a sovereign people was called on to take a stand on the liberalisation of a traditionally public market. A few months after the vote, EU pressures are again taking the upper hand. The EU set the July 1st deadline for opening up the market for enterprises, and for households the deadline is July 1st 2007. Through the OFEN, the Federal Council sets up a very broad-based thinktank since it regroups representatives of cantons, townships, power sector, consumers, environment watchdog organisations, and, for the first time ever, two USS union members were invited (Serge Gaillard and Rolf Zimmermann); The agenda was to set up a bill by the end of 2004 so that it could be implemented by the beginning of 2007, "in total harmony with the EU."
As of now, the USS's orientation is being discussed; some are putting forward the idea that the absence of any law might give the Market a free hand through such organisms as the Agency of Competitiveness (comco) or price watch and that the moment could be chosen to negotiate a law that might liberalise for the enterprises while securing strict regulating measures. Others consider that it is a far reach from what the sovereign people expressed on September 22nd and they are driving towards the implementation of a law on "Gas and Electricity public service". Those problems are quite topical not only at the heart of Europe but across the whole world, it can reach to another industrial "public sector" service that is the management and distribution of water (tap water, purifying processing, irrigation).
Then what is valid in the sector of air transport is prevailing everywhere, liberalising a sector inevitably leads to the privatisation of whole chunks of public services; the State is left with the task of making it feasible or getting funds from the IMF and other banks which simply heaps up on the national debt and then to give its management into the hands of private major multinationals. (Financial burden for the state, profits for the private sector)
We won a battle, not the war. And yet, the result of this mobilisation launched by the unions and supported by the PSS and other left-wing forces, showed that it was possible to turn the tide towards the liberalisation and privatisation of public services of the public services of power, gas and water distribution which is presented as unavoidable.
- Daniel Gluckstein:
What happened in Switzerland is truly important. In France, the government wanted to modify the status of EDF-GDF workers in the framework of liberalising power production and distribution. They enjoy a very generous retirement pension system, which was gained after World War Two; actually it is rather "a pay-packet for non-active workers". The government wanted to alter that in the name of the Europe Union. A thinktank was set up, it integrated some trade unions. The conclusions threatened the status, some trade unions agreed.
Then the staff members were consulted; they gave a 57% majority to keeping the status of civil service.
The government is at it again. But it is important to say that the concessions are not inevitable, that a movement is active through which workers are trying to retain their gains.
- Numerous messages: Luc Deley
Those who could not come sent us messages.
Vincent Leggiero, union member of the Geneva public transports union. He says there was important industrial action with a strike to demand pay raises. The management recoiled even before the strike started. It is a sizeable pay-raise. This shows that we are not only on a line of defence.
The Neufchâtel post workers are in a dispute over the closing up of sorting offices. Here too there have been strikes lately. Nothing is final but we have to keep in mind that since 1918, there had been no strike in that sector.
- Vocational training: Max Robert, teacher' union member SSP
A rather brutal onslaught is now developing in education. People are often under the impression that education cannot be deregulated.
The onslaught is underestimated. For instance, the Swiss Parliament adopted a new law on vocational training last December. Now, the federal council has started consultations on a project of ordinance for the implementation of that law. The first lines set the tune: "When in doubt, the ruling principle is that the most liberal option should be chosen."
So the framework set by the ordinance leaves the door open to privatisation of large chunks of vocational training. (Concerning compulsory basic education, there is no real privatisation, just a downgrading of skills and qualifications.)
The law provides for setting up "a market of education" to making sure that competition on that market is not warped.
The other aspect of the question is that the law is geared on "life-long education, which tends to ruin the right to true basic education. Besides, the law targets the unified character of basic education since provision is made for varied training ways for the same diploma and similar training for varied diplomas. Essentially, skills are acquired on the job and the "validation of skills" is provided for.
Here again, that is not a typically Swiss problem (twofold training system), it is part of the global context.
For instance, there is the EU white paper on education which is essentially guided by the principle of lifelong training, and the participation of the private sector to training
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Brazil
Workers and unions say no to a devastating reform of their retirement system
The new President of Brazil, Lula, of the Workers Party, just presented a reform project for the retirement regime. Over the past days and weeks, it has been possible to calibrate the point to which this project has been badly received by the workers and unions that worked so hard for Lula's victory as President of the Republic.
Together with their unions, the workers have shown clearly, on multiple occasions and in various ways, their opposition to this reform that, among other things, would bring the following: an increase in the minimum age for the retirement of public workers, which would go from 53 to 60 for men and 48 to 55 for women; the diminishment in the pensions covered, which would no longer be equivalent to the worker's last full wages and would instead become 70% of their last salary; the requirement to pay a fee on the retirement fund itself
The IMF and the "markets" have been calling for this reform for years. The previous government tried but, in the face of opposition from the Central Trade Union Federation (CUT) and at that time, from Lula and the Workers Party (PT), the last president was not able to go as far as his bosses in Washington and in the trading rooms of the international stock exchange would have liked. Since his rise to power, the IMF has pressured Lula to make these counter-reforms happen.
On May 1st, Joao Felicio, president of the CUT, reminded again that the main union federation in Brazil, as well as the coordinator of the Public Employees unions, are opposed to the text of the "reform" as it currently stands.
At the initiative of the O Trabalho current of the Workers Party, an open letter to Lula has gathered thousands of signatures and has given rise to motions in the local and regional congresses of the CUT, which will hold its national congress this coming June. "We address this letter to you, President Lula (says the letter) to ask you to withdraw this project for reform of the retirement system. The necessary condition for a broad, democratic debate on the issue is the withdrawal of the Cardoso's (former President of the Republic, NDLR) "reform", the 9717 law and the 20th constitutional amendment, the abandonment of the legislative project number 9, in accordance with the unanimous decision of the Executive Commission of the CUT this past February. Your government must support itself on the workers in order to confront those who have always plundered Brazil.
You, President Lula, will receive all of our support to reject this dictate from the IMF that threatens our rights and our organizations. The millions of working women and men who elected you are expecting that you will tell the IMF that we do not accept it and that we will fight with all of our means against this reform of the retirement system that attacks our rights and sets us back decades."
Deputies and Senators from the Workers Party, for their part, have made it known that under no circumstances will they vote for this reform that is "contrary to that which we have always defended." Today they are being threatened with sanctions. The National Executive Commission of the party met in an extraordinary session on May 12th. After a difficult day of debate, the possible sanction of the deputies Joao Batista Araulo and Luciana Genro, and a senator, Heloisa Helena, was submitted to the control commission of the Workers Party. Some, within the leadership of the party, are talking of expelling them.
It is a threat that has provoked indignation in the ranks of the party far beyond just those designated the "radicals" of the party. This was evident in the recent declaration from Senator Paim, a historic figure in Lula's current of the party (see following article). "The party is not a religion and it does not include anathema or ex-communion" declared Francisco de Oliveira, professor of sociology at the University of Sao Paulo, who participated in the drafting of the program for Lula's government.
"The PT has always defined itself as in favor of democratic socialism and pluralism," declared Emir Sader, a professor at the University of Rio de Janeiro, one of the most respected intellectuals in Brazil, closely tied to Lula. "The PT has criticized the consistently Stalinist practice of prohibiting debate-that is what Stalinism was, not discussing the argument, but saying that it was at the service of the enemy and as such had to be sanctioned in a disciplined way."
The PT current O Trabalho has also declared itself in total solidarity with the threatened parliamentarians and completely opposed to any type of sanction: "We consider that, whatever their positions may be with respect to the reform of retirement, the parliamentarians who are being threatened are within the framework of the PT, without a doubt within their legal democratic rights. For our part, we also oppose this reform. We have alerted the leadership and all of the activists of our party of the fact that there is pressure from all sides to take measures contrary to the democratic tradition of the party."
"I Act According To My Conscience"
Declaration from Senator Paim (1)
This declaration demonstrates that the resistance to this reform, which is harmful to workers and counter to all of the positions maintained by the PT up to today, is much broader than just the "radicals":
"I am being coherent with what I have always said. I do not fear expulsion from the party, I say this with knowledge of the threats against three colleagues. I act in accordance with my conscience. I want to work and to dialogue. I helped elect the president and I believe in this government, but it is important to respect the right to expression. I only want a serious debate," he stated, accusing the government of "going counter to everything that was praised for over 17 years in the House of Representatives, at least with respect to the reform of the retirement funds."
(1) Senator Paim is a member of the Articulation, the majority current in the leadership of the PT
The struggle for land: Isn't it necessary to revoke the measures of the previous government?
The concentration of land in the hands of the Banks, the large landowners and the foreign multinationals is such in Brazil that today, according to the calculations of the INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), more than three million families are without land, living in inhuman conditions on the edges of the highways, in miserable conditions, next to land that is unused or underused and serves only as a guarantee in speculative or mafioso operations.
Hundreds of these people have been murdered by the thugs hired by landowners, protected by the successive governments. Twenty years ago a mass movement was formed, the MST (Landless Peasants Movement) to organize this revolt, the fight for land. Faced with governments that denied them the simple right to land and to life, the landless peasants and their MST organization have multiplied land occupations in the country. The Cardoso government, beaten in the last elections, implemented a provisional measure on the issue (Provisional Measure 2183) that excluded all occupied land from agrarian reform for a period of two years. His objective was to "eradicate the movement for land occupation." The demand for the overturn of this Provisional Measure and for a true agrarian reform was a factor in the victory of Lula and the PT in the last election.
The new Minister of Agrarian Development was awaited with great hopes by all of the landless peasants and by all of the Brazilian people. This position was entrusted to Miguel Rossetto, a member of the Democratic Socialist current of the Workers Party (1).
You can understand then, the surprise of the landless peasants and of all of the activists of the labor and democratic movements when they read in the news that the new minister had "guaranteed yesterday that the government will not present any proposals for repealing or altering the provisional measure 2183 that has contributed to preventing invasions of rural property. With an emphatic tone, the minister repeated this statement twice in front of some fifty property owners, members of the leadership and council of the Brazilian Rural Society (BRS), one of the most traditional organizations in Brazil. Š At the end of the meeting, in the headquarters of the BRS, in the center of Sao Paulo, the property owners commented among themselves that they had heard what they wanted to hear. "The meeting has been very positive," declared the president of the BRS, Joao Sampaio. "The commitment of the government to maintain the provisional measure calms the producers. Even though the measure has not completely eliminated the invasions, it has been the only measure able to prevent them" (O Estado, April 1, 2003).
How are we to understand this?
(1) Democratic Socialist is a current of the Workers Party famous for having been the main promoter of the Social Forums of Porto Alegre and of "participatory democracy."
Miscellaneous Information
The Brazilian Rural Society, an organization of landowners, is one of the oldest in Brazil. On its web page, it presents itself as "the most representative of the organizations in the rural sector that gathers our forces to firmly, coherently and completely defend the legitimate interests of Brazilian rural producers." It cites as a reference a statement about the group by the Minister of Agriculture in the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) government: "The BRS has been a great collaborator with the federal government's Ministry of Agriculture in the formulation of agricultural policy."
The agricultural policy of the Cardoso government consisted, under the orders of the IMF, of favoring the large "export" companies to increase the entrance of foreign currency, allowing the assurance of the payment of the debt. It also sheltered all of the speculative land operations and frequently the mafioso land operations as well. It is what the MST calls an "agrarian counter-reform." The policy of FHC has permanently fought the land occupations and left the field free for the large landowners' hired thugs ŠThe number of murders of landless peasants under FHC was the highest in the last twenty years.
A motion presented by the O Trabalho current to the national leadership of the PT on March 15 of 2003 called for the repeal of Provisional Measure 2183 dictated by Cardoso to obstruct agrarian reform. The motion was adopted.
What is Provisional Measure 2000 - 2.183?
Provisional Measures are decrees made by the President of the Republic that bypass the Congress. Provisional Measure 2000 - 2.183 was dictated in 2000 by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Its objective is to prevent the occupation of cultivated lands belonging to the large landowners.
It stipulates, in effect, that all land occupied by the landless peasants, belonging to agricultural property, whether it is cultivated or used as pasture, is excluded for two years from the program of agrarian reform.
The landowners are firm defenders of this Provisional Measure that they consider the best instrument for blocking occupations.
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Iraq
Workers´ Demonstration in Basra
Mark Tilley, Lieutenant Coronal of the British occupying forces, promoted to director of the Southern Refinery Company, has found himself confronting a rebellion. The workers of this refinery, the second most important in Iraq, want to elect the leadership of the company, but Lieutenant Coronal Tilley wants to hear nothing of it:
"I have to direct this refinery and I lack the power to change its leadership." Nonetheless, Tilley has elected a new management team with the support of the American armed forces.
The Anglo-American coalition that wants to retake control of the Iraqi oil fields will be running into some unforeseen obstacles.
Three hundred workers from the company demonstrated on May 5th to demand:
"We want free elections," "We don't want new Saddams."
But for the Office of Reconstruction of Iraq, led by the reservist General Jay Garner and put under the control of Bush emissary Paul Bremer, security and counter-terrorism expert, the priority is the re-establishment of law and order.
"Every delay in the export of Iraqi petroleum carries with it an explosion in the prices of crude," declared an expert business representative from U.S. Investment Group in Miami.
A social conflict in the refinery in Basra, which extracts almost half of the crude oil in the country, will have serious repercussions for national production.
"It is our country and we want to freely elect our leaders," declared an engineer in Basra.
(From an article from Boomberg News Feature, economic bulletin published on the Internet.)
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France
Informations Ouvrières
The newspaper of the Workers Party (PT) reported on the extraordinary demonstrations, on May 13, 2003, against the plans for reform of the retirement regime proposed by the government, and in its editorial raised the question of what actions must be advanced in order to win:
Repeated days of action? Or a general strike until the plan is withdrawn?
With more than two million demonstrators and record strike numbers, the mandate from May 13th was clear: withdrawal of the counter-reform Raffarin/Fillon, 37.5 for all (1), the repeal of the Balladur measures of 1993, complete maintenance of the system of retirement based on equal payment and distribution.
The breadth of the movement and the clarity of the message led the disinformation professionals to reserve a privileged spot in the news for the leaders of the CFDT trade union federation, who untiringly repeat the same message: hopefully the government will "make a gesture" in the direction of the CFDT, so that a compromise can be reached, at the price of some "compensation" that the workers should concede (2). Problem: The "compensation" in question coincides precisely with the central demands of May 13th; in particular, they would have to accept 42 annuities for everyone and the major part of the measures that accompany it.
Also participating in this attempt to confuse the issue was the obvious presence of the leaders of the defunct "plural left" at the demonstrations on May 13th. "The Socialist Party supports this strong social mobilization and calls for a strike on Tuesday against a reform that Š adds to the descent in the level of pensions already begun by the Balladur reform of 1993," declared Ms. Hidalgo, spokesperson for the SP. A question for Hidalgo: from 1997 to 2002, why didn't the government led by the Socialist Party overturn the Balladur measure of 1993?
Marie-George Buffet, national secretary of the CPF was also at the demonstration, declaring that "if we are careless with the retirement system, tomorrow it will be Social Security." Was this not the same Minister Marie-George Buffet, who was part of the Jospin government for five years? Was he not careless with the retirement system for five years in not repealing the Balladur measures of 1993?
For Minister Fillon it is easy to declare to the Socialist Party: "The majority that you represented (before 2002) applied the reform of Edouard Balladur over five years. Thus, you have assumed the responsibility taken by the preceding government and that, effectively, has led to a descent in the commutation rate for retirements."
Disgracefully, this is correct. It is correct in that, at the Barcelona summit, in March of 2002, Lionel Jospin and Jacques Chirac signed a document that praised the five-year increase in the average age for retirement. What are Fillon and Raffarin doing today if not applying the conclusions of Barcelona (3)?
From this you can arrive at two conclusions. The first: the mandate expressed by working people this May 13th is incompatible with the policy decided on by the European Union. From here it follows that the defense of retirement -- and this is equally true for all of the other labor and democratic demands -- requires a break with the European Union, its treaties, its directives and its European "Parliament." Anyone who maintains otherwise is indicating their willingness to betray the mandate.
The other conclusion: there are not one hundred ways to apply democracy. There is only one: the mandate entrusted to delegates, the control of this mandate, and the revoking of those delegates who fail to fulfill that mandate. This is valid for class struggle, for general assemblies and for strike committees. But beyond this, it is also valid for the Sovereign Constituent Assembly that, in the tradition of the great French Revolution, will open the way for the re-conquest of democracy.
One hundred and thirty two years ago, the government of the Paris Commune, the first workers' government known to humanity, was formed with delegates that were elected, mandated, revocable, and compensated with workers' salaries. The Workers Party calls on all people to express, more than ever, their commitment to mandated democracy and to its respect, paying tribute to the Paris Commune on this coming May 24th, at the wall of the Federates, where the last of the commune members were executed at the end of the Bloody Week.
Daniel Gluckstein
---
(1) Up till now, French workers have been able to retire after 37.5 years of work, while receiving 70% of their last paycheck for the remainder of their lives as a retirement pension. The new Raffarin/Fillon "reform would increase to 42 years the number of working years a French worker must work -- i.e. 42 annuities -- before receiving his or her pension. Moreover, the worker would only receive 63% of their last paycheck on a monthly basis. Not only would this radically reduce workers' retirement incomes, it would force them to complement their retirement income by having to resort to U.S.-style 401-K type pension plans, which have been banned in France till now. The introduction of such funds would open the door wide to the privatisation of the French pension system, which is a publicly administered fund based on contributions from workers and employers.
(2) This May 14th, Chereque announced that he had found the "solution" to the problem of retirement and its financing: increasing the CSGŠ89% of which is already paid by workers! Make the workers pay: here is a "unionism" that neither the government nor the MEDEF could dislike.
(3) Among these declarations on May 13th, we point to that of Olivier Besancenot, of the LCR, whose speech attempted to beat a record for its "radicalism." Just one thing though, this same Besancenot repeats right, left and center that the solution resides in the holding of "social forums," and especially in the coming European Social Forum, which will be held in France in November. Who is financing the forum?
The French government and the European Union. Who is co-organizing the forum? The badly named European Trade Unions Confederation (ETUC). Given that the ETUC is participating in the writing and application of all of the European directives, including those that question the retirement system, how can you, on the one hand, call for "a redirectable general strike" and on the other, to work carefully to pass these shameful counter-reforms?
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European News
10,000 jobs threatened in the iron and steel industry in Liege (Belgium)
Thousands of workers address the leaders of the SP
We are reprinting some excerpts from the leaflet of the Movement in Defense of Workers, a member of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples
The FGTB of Liege has calculated with scientific precision: 1,868 jobs directly, and 525 jobs indirectly, that is to say 2,393 in total, will be threatened by the closing of the smelters. To this can be added the job loss among the subcontractors, suppliers and others. In this way we arrive at the destruction of 9,547 jobs in the industrial region of Liege.
Whether it happens in 2009 or in 2006, who could accept such a catastrophe?
The responsibility of the Wallon government is absolutely compromised. Its action has consisted essentially in doing everything possible to implicate the unions in the closure in order to be able to withstand its political consequences.
The game for the judicial demands on Arcelor (the leadership of the group that also mocks the press) has only served to achieve this objective. It is intolerable.
In this government, the SP is the majority political force. More than 4,000 workers addressed their federation in Liege to ask it to take a position on putting Cockerill back under a public statute.
The facts demonstrate: there is no solution in the framework of Arcelor. There are laws that would allow Arcelor to be expropriated and to save the integrated iron and steel industry in Liege, putting all of Cockerill under public statute. This continues to be the order of the day.
There is also a solution for the drama that threatens the region of Liege. In order to oblige the Wallon government to go down this path, the situation requires an urgent call to the leaders of trade union organizations for a demonstration in Namur, the headquarters of the Wallon government. Nobody doubts that the workers and the population of the entire region will go.
The Liege section of the MDW
For the maintenance of the integrated iron and steel industry in Liege
On February 7 of 2003, during a demonstration in Seraing for the maintenance of an integrated iron and steel industry in Liege, the Liege section of the MDW (Movement in Defense of Workers) took the initiative to launch an "open letter to the federation of Liege of the Socialist Party with respect to Cockerill Sambre."
This letter says: "We address you, firstly because the SP proclaims that it defends the interests of global labor, and secondly, because you are the dominant political force in the government of the Wallon region that has a responsibility to assure the maintenance of the
steel industry in Liege."
It demands from the federation of the SP in Liege a position on three points upon which the struggle being waged by the workers of Cockerill Sambre hinges.
* For the long-term maintenance of integrated iron and steel industry in Liege;
* Against all layoffs at Cockerill Sambre as well as in the companies that depend on it (subcontractors, suppliers, etc.);
* For the return of all of Cockerill Sambre (hot and cold) to public statute
Workers and activists of all tendencies have signed this open letter over the past several weeks and have collected 4,145 signatures.
On April 3 (the day on which the first union meeting took place - Arcelor), a delegation of twenty workers (the majority from Cockerill, but also from other sectors like the FN, public services, etc.) went to deliver the signatures and to meet with the president of the Federation of the SP of Liege. This delegation received the support of several elected Socialists (deputies Charles Janssens and Andre Fredericc, the mayors Denise Laurent and Linda Musin) and the open letter was signed by numerous elected socialists at all levels.
Nonetheless, the president of the federation of the SP of Liege refused to give his support to the demands in the open letter and explained to the delegation that his federation would not take any position while the negotiations between the union and Arcelor were going on.
In refusing to take a position, in particular one that involves a public statute, the leadership of the SP left the field open for Arcelor to impose an accord to close down the hot steel section of the factory. This, if it is applied, would mean the death of integrated iron and steel and of 10,000 jobs (according to the calculation of the FGTB). This cannot be accepted. The shut down of the hot steel section is no more acceptable in 2009 than it is in 2006.
In these conditions, the return of the public statute (which could be done with the existing laws of expropriation) is the only solution that would still prevent Arcelor from killing the region of Liege. A position statement from the federation of the SP of Liege in this direction would be a point of support for the Wallon government to then take the same position.
With this in mind, the delegation has decided to continue the fight for respect of the 4,145 signatures to the open letter. It has also decided to organize a meeting on the objectives of the open letter.
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