Open World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
WHC Report Section 2
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Please find below Part 2 of the report on the Western Hemisphere
Workers Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations. It includes:
(1) Excerpts from some of the keynote speeches,
(2) List of greetings sent to the conference
(3) Article on the Conference by UAW member Caroline Lund which
appeared in the Dec. 3 issue of Green Left Weekly of Australia.
Excerpts from Keynote Speeches
Excerpts from opening presentation by Jack Henning,
Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus, California Labor Federation (AFL-CIO):
It should be recognized, brothers and sisters, that however we may
speak with the representatives of capital, our system - capitalism -
was never founded for the protection of workers; not for their
protection, not for their advance.
This isn't to say that we favor giving all the power and all the
means of production and distribution to the government; the Soviet
experiment contradicts that idea. But it is to say that we are
fighting a force that is in everlasting opposition to everything we
hold essential - to the very dignity of working people.
We may have an agreement with a good employer here or there, but the
very nature of our system is that these employers do not prevail in
the councils of those who rule the economy of our country. And so it
is that we are in a death struggle on this question of NAFTA and
trade and the fast track.
This great issue that we face strikes at the heart of the labor
movement - and we must defeat it or become a museum piece in the
industrial history of the nations of the world. The answer to global
capitalism is global unionism - there is no other answer.
We may think that we as workers are rather secure today, but global
capitalism reminds us we will never be secure until we break its
power.
So let us rally behind this effort, as a beginning. We're in a great
moral struggle. Morality is with us. We need only the will and the
organization that is permanently devoted to this effort. This must
not be a one-shot deal, a passing phase. This body must become a
continuing structure. Only in this way can we stop the denial of
morality that exists within the heart of venture capitalism.
Excerpts from opening presentation by Jorge Cuellar Valdez,
International Relations Director, SUTAUR-100 Bus Drivers Union (Mexico)
We are confronting - all of us in this hemisphere - an administration
in Washington that is seeking to impose, by whatever means necessary,
these destructive "free trade" agreements and privatization plans.
Their goal is to annihilate the trade union movement - which is
considered a barrier to trade - and to overturn and destroy all the
social and national conquests of the peoples of the continent;
conquests wrested through mass struggles.
The brutal attacks of "savage capitalism" require a concerted
response from the trade union movement of the Americas, acting in
unison against our common foe.
As is natural, there are many different points of view within the
trade union movement of our hemisphere about how best to confront and
defeat these "free trade" agreements. I speak here today in the name
of organizations in Mexico that believe the solution lies in the
struggle to abrogate these treaties altogether. There exists today a
provision in NAFTA, for example, whereby a country can withdraw from
the agreement following a six-month notification. Based on our
three-year experience, we say, "Let's get out of NAFTA!"
We believe that calling for the inclusion of side agreements into
these pacts - or even "enforceable" labor and environmental clauses
within the treaties themselves - only validates these agreements. We
don't believe these pacts can be reformed and made to incorporate our
agenda in any meaningful way, as they are by their very nature
stacked against us.
These are the conclusions many of us have reached. We realize,
however, that not everyone shares our point of view, and we respect
those who hold different opinions.
That is why all of us in our Mexican delegation bring this message to
you: Let us unite in common struggle. Let us organize and build
common actions, irrespective of the strategic differences we may have
on the issue of the "social clause" or on any other matter where we
may disagree. We cannot afford to confront this juggernaut with our
ranks divided along national, political, or trade union lines.
Let us reclaim and make real the old slogan, "An injury to one is an
injury to all."
Excerpts from remarks by Baldemar Velasquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO):
Today, we are turning a new page in the history of the U.S. labor
movement. We are beginning to see our unions act as truly
international unions that see the growing attacks of capital as a
phenomenon that affects workers and our communities not only in this
country, but throughout the hemisphere and the world.
These attacks on the labor movement - which go under the heading of
NAFTA, GATT, the World Trade Union and all the other evolving
international trade pacts - are provoking and shocking us into
reality.
It's historic that we have with us today Stan Gacek, a top leader of
the International Affairs Department of the AFL-CIO. It's time that
we in the American labor movement begin to focus on the common
interests all of us have as workers, whatever country we may live in.
I think that in the past we have been too preoccupied with our
domestic concerns as American trade unionists - almost having too
nationalistic or provincial an outlook of the reality that we face in
this world economy.
Being part of this great labor family - with all our weaknesses and
faults - I have always felt there is still time to pick up and start
doing what we need to do. The presence of Brother Gacek here today
reflects an extremely significant change in our unions in this
country, and I am very grateful for it. This is why this is truly a
historic occasion.
Excerpts from keynote address by Stan Gacek, director for the Western Hemisphere of the International Affairs Department, AFL-CIO:
It's a great honor for me to bring to this meeting the warm greetings
of the AFL-CIO, of the 13 million working men and women which it
represents in the United States - and special greetings from its
officers, President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka,
and Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson. I also want to
extend the greetings of Luis Anderson, the general secretary of the
Inter America Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT), an
organization which represents 45 million working men and women in
this hemisphere.
I am particularly honored to be with you in this impressive
gathering, this dynamic gathering, this very historic gathering.
I would like to concentrate on what has been our experience of late
in the ORIT - that is, our struggle to try to get an authentic and
enforceable labor rights system in the process of the proposed
expansion of NAFTA throughout the Western Hemisphere - that is, the
FTAA [Free Trade Area of the Americas].
We have tried to push this process in the direction of balanced
development for the benefit of workers. But our struggle thus far has
been to resist this process because we see that this process has been
hostile to our basic demands.
So far our effort to make the FTAA process really work for working
people has involved in great part what I would call a
political-diplomatic strategy. That means trying to meet politely
with presidents, heads of state, trade ministers ... to try to get
them to see the logic of our positions.
As I've said, we have felt in ORIT like the cynic philosopher of
Greece, Diogenes, who went through the City looking for the honest
citizen. We are looking for the honest president, head of state,
trade minister - and we have not found him or her as yet.
What has motivated these people is what Jesse Jackson likes to refer
to as the Golden Rule - those who have the gold make the rules. And
we know this is what is motivating this trade "integration" agenda
So we, as trade union internationalists, have a critical challenge
ahead - and that is to try to get labor rights and a social dimension
directly into the deliberations of the IMF, World Bank, Inter
American Bank, and other institutions.
If I can leave you with anything today, it will be this: In order to
get a trade system for the future that will really enhance labor and
union rights, enhance the income and security of workers around the
world, we cannot follow a mere political-diplomatic strategy of
meeting with trade ministers and presidents. We need a total campaign
agenda.
Now all of this is predicated on a premise - that we will work to
oppose and resist any and all trade agreements and trade expansion
that do not incorporate our agenda and a labor and environmental
rights system directly within the trade instrument.
I've got to say that there may be many of you here today who do not
agree with these premises, who would say that any notion of trade
expansion whatsoever is going to work against us and that therefore
we should say "no" absolutely.
I very much respect that opinion, but I would like you to consider a
couple of other points with regard to this debate.
One point is this: There are trade blocs that have emerged in our
hemisphere. I am certainly not opposed to reversing what has
occurred, if we can push it in the direction of a true worker agenda,
but we have these instruments, this reality that we are going to have
to face in some way.
Our experience has shown that there is a very broad agreement among
trade unionists, North and South, on the need to fight for an
enforceable labor rights and environmental rights system -a real
social clause. This agreement includes large sectors of civil society
throughout the Americas as well. And when I am talking about a social
clause, I am not talking about norms or a Social Pact. What I am
talking about is a real system to guarantee the realization of core
labor rights: real freedom of association, real collective
bargaining, real right to strike.
Let me also address another argument - that if we fight to get our
voices heard at the Summits in Belo Horizonte or San Jose (Costa
Rica) or Santiago de Chile, we are in fact getting coopted.
Well, we're not even close to getting coopted because they are not
even listening to us. They're not even granting us the opportunity of
a labor forum.
But I do think that we can - and must - hold the course. I think that
if we're given a voice in this process like the Business Forum has
been given that we can get our agenda heard, or at least respected.
But for this to happen we must mount a total campaign strategy,
beginning with mobilizing to defeat the treaties as they now stand -
just as we were able to defeat fast track. Yes, we must say no to
NAFTA. And yes we must fight for a real worker agenda in the FTAA
process.
I want to salute this conference because I believe you have here the
beginning stages of a total campaign concept. By saying "no" to NAFTA
and privatizations, as you are doing in this assembly, you are saying
"yes" to a real workers' agenda.
Excerpts from response by Stan Gacek to the report by the Conference Declaration Committee presented by Alan Benjamin, assistant conference coordinator:
Once again on behalf of the AFL-CIO I want to say that it has been a
great honor to witness this effort to attempt to develop a true
campaign that says no to the expansion of free trade which does not
bring in a true workers' agenda.
I would like to say that this declaration [a reference to the Final
Conference Declaration] is very positive in the sense of looking for
a common day of action.
Obviously, there is a great deal of work that needs to be done to get
this off the ground. I certainly will communicate this declaration
and the deliberations of this assembly to the AFL-CIO, but also to
the ORIT and the ICFTU.
Insofar as we in the ORIT will be involved with all the activities in
Santiago [in April 1998], we will very much want to coordinate our
actions with all of you here. In this spirit, I just want to close by
saying that it is very important that we in the trade union movement
- both within the labor "bureaucracy" and among the rank and file -
work together to fight for our agenda.
Excerpts from closing comments by Jack Henning:
This could be, if properly pursued, a lasting day in the history of
the American labor movement. It will be nothing, however, if there is
no pursuit of the purpose of this assembly.
I should note with some pleasure that it was our California Labor
Federation, representing some 2 million members, which presented the
idea of global unionism under the "Old Order" [a reference to the
resolution on global unionism submitted to the 1995 AFL-CIO
convention, led at that time by Lane Kirkland].
And the presence of Stan Gacek here is an indication that there has
been a certain liberation of minds with respect to the trade union
movements of the world. That's a matter of great encouragement to us.
We need have no fear of the rank and file. Yes, we need education,
but I can tell you that in our conventions of the California State
Federation, there is thunderous enthusiasm for the idea of global
unionism.
The rank and file have been awaiting this, waiting for this to come
to pass - and we shall the day, God willing, that there will be a
great international assembly of all the trade unions of the world -
not with any confining, structural censor, but in the sense of free
thought, free speech, proposing whatever the mind of the workers want.
We have seen the beginning of liberation. It's our common destiny to
make sure that it's more than a gesture. If we do no more than this
assembly today, we'll be a forgotten footnote in history.
But we owe the workers of the world more than that. We owe them the
forces, the machinery, the operation of global liberation of the
masses - and we owe them unyielding opposition to global capitalism.
Greetings were sent to the Western Hemisphere Workers Conference by:
* the national AFL-CIO and its top officers, John Sweeney, Richard
Trumka and Linda Chavez-Thompson (presented orally by Stan Gacek)
* Luis Anderson, general secretary of the Inter American Regional
Organization of Workers, in the name of the 45 million workers
affiliated with the ORIT (presented orally by Stan Gacek)
* Valentin Pacho, General Secretary of the World Federation of Trade
Unions, in the name of the more than 100 million workers affiliated
with the WFTU on all five continents
* Robert White, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, in the
name of the CLC
* Deborah Bourque, Vice President of the Canadian Union of Postal
Workers (who was a scheduled conference speaker and was unable to
attend on account of the Canada-wide postal workers' strike)
* Deputy Benito Miron Lince, president of the Human Rights Commission
of the National Congress of Mexico, in the name of the entire Human
Rights Commission
* the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC)
* the Bolivian Workers Federation (COB)
* the General Federation of Workers (CGT) of the Dominican Republic
* the National Union of Electrical Workers of Dominican Republic
* the National Union of Banana Workers of Honduras (COSIBAH)
* the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, and its general
secretary, Malcolm Buchanan (who was a scheduled conference speaker
but was unable to attend on account of the Ontario-wide teachers'
strike)
* the Haitian Preparatory Committee for the Western Hemisphere
Workers' Conference and its 17 affiliated unions and federations
* 10 elected officials on the Caribbean island of Martinique
* the SUTAUR-100 bus drivers' union in Mexico
* the INECEL Electrical Workers Union of Ecuador
* the National Teachers Union of Peru (SUTEP)
* the Dockworkers Union of Lima-Callao (Peru)
* the Federation of Unionists of Lambayeque (Peru)
(copies of the written greetings are available upon request)
Article on the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference published in the Dec. 3 issue of Green Left Weekly of Australia
By CAROLINE LUND
An important conference took place in San Francisco in mid-November:
the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference Against NAFTA and
Privatizations. The nearly 400 participants came from 20 countries -
mainly from North, South, and Central America and the Carribean.
The struggles we heard about were amazingly similar - from the
Hyundai workers, bus drivers and teachers in Mexico, to the bank
workers in Chile, to airport workers in Haiti, to oil workers and
electrical workers in Ecuador, to the UPS workers in the United
States, to the truck drivers in France.
Hearing these stories of struggle, it seemed as if the whole world is
being homogenized under the pressures of corporate-driven trade
agreements and high finance - that is, by the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), the European Maastricht Treaty, and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF).
Everywhere the stories are the same: the tearing down of social
services, rape of the environment, privatization schemes that enrich
the rich and do nothing for working people, and the harshening of
laws against union organizing and functioning.
The conference was sponsored by the California Labor Federation
(AFL-CIO) and the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO). Other
national unions endorsing the event included the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union, the United Farm Workers union, the
United Electrical Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, and
scores of local union bodies across the U.S., Canada, and Central and
South America, as well as many organizations dedicated to democracy,
labor, and social rights.
Some of the key activists in building the conference are U.S.
supporters of the Paris-based International Liaison Committee for a
Workers' International, which received thanks from a number of
speakers for its important role.
This event contrasted with the stance of much of the U.S. labor
officialdom, which has been to demand that good "American jobs" be
kept here in this country, and to look down on people in poor
countries who "will work for next to nothing."
"The answer to global capitalism is global unionism - there is no
other way!" declared Jack Henning, former head of the California
Labor Federation, in opening the conference.
Julio Turra, representative of the United Federation of Workers of
Brazil (CUT), said that the proposal to extend NAFTA to all of South
America provides an opportunity to call for the unity of all workers
in the hemisphere and an end to all borders for workers.
A representative of the International Affairs Department of the
AFL-CIO, Stan Gacek, addressed the final session of the conference.
In introducing him, Baldemar Velasquez, President of the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee, noted the significance of the fact that the
national U.S. labor federation decided to send a representative.
Velasquez said it was about time that U.S. labor concern itself with
workers of the world and drop its often nationalistic and provincial
outlook.
Gacek brought greetings from John Sweeney, Rich Trumka, and Linda
Chavez-Thompson, top leaders of the AFL-CIO, and hailed "this very,
very dynamic, impressive, and historic gathering."
In response to a question from the floor about continued U.S.
government funding to the AFL-CIO's international department, Gacek
said the union federation was no longer in the business of "importing
cold-war ideology" to other countries, and that the reorganized
international department is now called the Solidarity Center.
A high point of the conference was remarks by John Riojas,
International Vice President and Director of International Affairs
for the Teamsters union. He spoke about the recent UPS strike, and
the crucial role played by an involved and educated rank and file. If
the UPS strike had continued much longer, he said, the strike would
have been supported by job actions by pro-union UPS workers in Europe.