Open World Conference of Workers

In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights

 

WHC Report Section 5

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 Please find below Part 5 of the continuing report on the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference, which was held November 14-16 in San Francisco.

 Part 5 contains the following:

 Excerpts from the following presentations:

 

Interview with Daniel Gluckstein, international coordinator of the Workers' International Liaison Committee (ILC), a week after the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference.

 Question: What was your assessment of the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference?

Gluckstein: All six members of the French delegation to the San Francisco conference -- unionists and political activists alike --  consider this was a truly significant event. In our view, it was unprecedented for trade union leaders and activists from Canada and Latin America to join together with a significant wing of the U.S. labor movement --  including an official representative of the national AFL-CIO -- on the basis of building a common fightback against the devastating policies of "free trade" and privatization.

We were particularly impressed by the report by Stan Gacek, director of the Western Hemisphere for the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department. Gacek made it clear that while the AFL-CIO favors the incorporation of labor and environmental clauses directly into NAFTA and into the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, he and the AFL-CIO leadership view these pacts --  as they exist today -- as major obstacles to the demands and well-being of the workers. The conclusion they have drawn is that to win what they call a genuine workers' agenda, they must be part and parcel of the common hemisphere struggle against NAFTA and privatizations. Gacek called this a total campaign strategy.

This fightback stance, however, is not shared by many of the European trade union federations. As I pointed out in my presentation to the conference's plenary session, there is a major offensive under way throughout Europe to transform the trade unions into direct instruments for the implementation of the directives of the European Union (EU) -- which is our equivalent to your NAFTA.

Today, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has become an instrument in the hands of the European Union. In fact, one cannot even speak of it as a trade union body in any meaningful sense of the term. It is no longer even affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), of which the AFL-CIO and many other European federations are members.

Unlike the AFL-CIO, the ETUC is not proposing to fight back against the European Union and all its destructive consequences: massive loss of jobs, increased privatization and deregulation, deteriorating working and living conditions, and so on. On the contrary, it is openly supporting all the decisions coming from the European Union. It calls this the "social accompaniment" of the EU decisions. And it is pressuring all the federations and unions in every European country to support these brutal directives.

The trade union leaders in our delegation gave lengthy reports back to their executive boards and members following the Western Hemisphere Conference. They felt the conference was a big help for them in France -- but also throughout Europe -- in the fight against similar attacks by the bosses and the governments in their service.  They insisted that this fighting stance by the U.S. unionists  was an encouragement for all the trade unionists in France and throughout Europe, be they top officials or rank-and-file members, who are resisting this anti-worker offensive.

Question: Brother Gacek argued strongly for the inclusion of a social clause in the new Free Trade Area of the Americas, a strategy many conference delegates opposed. But he was quick to point out that he and the AFL-CIO were opposed to all "social pacts." Did you find this distinction to be of any importance?

Gluckstein: Absolutely. The ETUC, in conjunction with the European Union, has just published a book that was distributed at the recent Luxembourg Summit of the European Union. The title is "Social Pacts in Europe." It was edited by the European Trade Union Institute and the Observatoire Social Européen. It explains openly that by "social pacts" they mean corporatism or neo-corporatism. This is exactly how they put it:

"In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the agreements between governments and social partners known in the 17th and early 18th century as 'corporatist' or 'neo-corporatist' agreements and today commonly labeled 'social pacts'."

In a footnote to the book, the authors define corporatism or neo-corporatism as a "political structure pertaining to an advanced stage of capitalism which integrates the economic and social interests both through representation and cooperation between their leaders and mobilization and social control toward the respective constituencies and members."

There is, of course, a much more recent example of corporatism or neo-corporatism the authors could have cited -- and that is what Mussolini sought to institute in Italy. Indeed, like Mussolini, the authors of "Social Pacts in Europe" are calling for a political system where all social classes in society -- whatever their differences -- must collaborate through their representatives with the objective of overcoming all these differences in a common system.

They openly advocate building such "social pacts" in every country, but also on a European level. This would lead to the destruction of all the gains registered over the past 150 years by the labor movements in each country, gains that were codified in labor codes, conventions, collective-bargaining agreements, and in the very existence of nations and states.

The ETUC openly advocates participating in "social pacts" with the governments that are dismantling our jobs, working conditions, collective-bargaining agreements -- in fact, our very unions. The strategy of "social pacts" is the strategy of collaboration with those who seek to kill you. There could be nothing more demobilizing. It is a path for the integration-cooptation of the unions into the very fabric of globalization -- something the multinationals so desperately need to avert the kind of mass social upheavals that would threaten their designs.

Gacek said the AFL-CIO is opposed to these "social pacts." This is very significant. Of course, as you know, I am not in favor of the incorporation of social clauses into free trade pacts. I think this strategy could derail an effective fightback against these "free trade" agreements. Nevertheless, it is a fact that on this critical, cutting-edge question of "social pacts" with the bosses, the AFL-CIO is now calling for mobilizing in the streets to win our demands. Opposition to the "social pacts" opens the door to worker resistance and mass actions.

The AFL-CIO organized massively to defeat Fast Track. This was important. Gacek now says he would support a Common Day of Action in April 1998 as part of the AFL-CIO's total campaign strategy. This means that the united front that was forged at the conference can be deepened in the streets of the United States and the rest of the hemisphere in April 1998 around the four final conference demands: No to NAFTA! – Not to FTAA! – No to MAI! – Stop Privatizations and Deregulation!

Obviously, such a fighting stance is on the agenda in Europe as well. That is the reason why we in the ILC, together with unions and organizations from 23 European countries, are convening in Berlin at the end of January 1998 a European Workers Conference Against the European Union. As I told the San Francisco gathering, U.S. trade unionists are cordially invited to attend this European conference.

 

     Excerpts from Presentation by Patrick Hebert, leader of the French trade union CGT-Force Ouvriere:

      The problems we working people face in Europe are identical to yours. We followed closely the UPS strike in the United States. You know, the European corporate class and their media pundits never stop repeating that the American workers are willingly accepting the downsizing and privatization drve. They tell us the United States is the model for the future of working people the world over.

        We were surprised by the depth and combativity of the UPS strike. The strike had enormous repercussions in Europe.

       You might know, for example, that a mass truckers' strike paralyzed France between Nov. 2 and Nov. 8. The country was shut down, roads were blocked. Goods could not be shipped.

       And yet the truckers did not win their demands -- despite their militancy and mass mobilizations. And this is because there existed a roadblock, an obstacle in the path of the workers. Unfortunately, this is an obstacle -- I might add -- that exists in the Americas as well. And I am referring here to trade unions -- or rather organizations that call themselves trade unions -- that are, in fact, cooperating with the governments, helping them impose their anti-worker plans.

       These so-called unions betray the workers' struggles as they collude with the bosses and the governments. This is what set back the French truckers' strike.

       We have to state things clearly, without any ambiguity. There are two ways to prevent the unions from defending the interests of their members. One way -- the most brutal -- is sheer repression.

       But there is another, more subtle (possibly even more "civilized") way -- which consists of coopting the unions, thereby transforming them into instruments to implement the corporate onslaught.

       We're having to deal directly with this problem in Europe today. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has totally approved the offensive against the workers decided by the heads of state in the framework of the Europe of Maastricht and Amsterdam [a reference to the cities where summits of the European Union have been held].

       This is why it is so crucial for working people in France and Europe to see how workers in the United States -- particularly the Teamsters and the other AFL-CIO unions -- are resisting and fighting back against the very same policies the ETUC is urging us to accept.

       I would especially like to invite leaders from the AFL-CIO to come to France and Europe, to speak about how the workers are resisting exploitation in the United States.

           

Excerpts from Presentation by Barbara Prear, Chairperson, North Carolina Public Service Workers Union-UE Local 150:

         My name is Barbara Prear. I'm a public service worker at the University of North Carolina and the chairperson of North Carolina Public Service Workers Union-UE Local 150.

       We started to form a union of public service workers seven years ago. In May 1997, we formally initiated a union organizing drive, together with the United Electrical, Radio and Machinist Workers of America (UE). There are roughly 15,000 workers in the University of North Carolina system. There hasn't been a statewide organizing drive since the J.P. Stevens campaign in the 1970s.

       Right now we are on nine campuses. Most people who've signed union cards to date have been housekeepers and groundskeepers.

        You must understand that we're facing immense obstacles. North Carolina is a "right to work" [for less] state. Up until 1969, it was a crime punishable by a fine to join a labor union. Although overturned in 1969, the law remains on the books. This has a chilling effect on workers organizing in the public sector, and points to the role of the government in contributing to the anti-union climate in the South.

        In North Carolina, there are 376,000 public employees who don't have official collective-bargaing rights by law. They are not entitled to a union contract or collective bargaining. They have no right to strike. They can be fired at will. These are conditions similar to what you have in many Third World countries.

        It has been a giant step for workers to be willing to support this union drive. They want someone to help them organize and fight.

        We feel we have no choice but to organize to save our jobs and to improve our wages and working conditions. People can't live on $5.50 an hour. Racism is wild and kicking in the South.

       In our view, this movement for unionization at UNC is tied directly to building a statewide rank-and-file-led organization. It can also help build a broad labor-community coalition to resist privatization of public employment and other policies such as welfare "reform" that lower the standard of living of workers and decrease the rights for working-class citizens.

       The South is a NAFTA zone within our own borders. There are 15 German corporations that have moved to North Carolina. They've been lured here by cheap labor, a union-free environment, and all sort of perks from the public authorities.

        These companies promise lots of jobs. But they don't deliver. They hire a handful of permanent workers. The rest are temp workers -- without any benefits or job stability.

      That's what we've got in the South -- the growth of contracting out of public sector work, mass privatizations, and temporary work.

     What's happening in the Third World is horrendous. I am appalled by all I have heard this weekend. Unfortunately, most people are not aware that it's happening right here in our country.

       Our union campaign, we believe, can be adopted by unions throughout the South. It must be viewed as a campaign to challenge and defeat the anti-labor climate in the South. Organizing the South is cutting off the area which allows capital to duck its obligation of living wages, benefits, environmental protections, and community growth.

       That's why we call on all of you to support our efforts to Organize the South. [For more information about this organizing effort, contact Black Workers For Justice, P.O. Box 1339, Rocky Mount, NC 27802, or call (919) 446-1307.

   

   

   Excerpts from Presentation by David Orchard, Director, Citizens Concerned About Free Trade (Saskatchewan, Canada)   

       Ten years after the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was imposed against the majority of the Canadian people, who were against it, what has happened?

        They promised us jobs, jobs, and jobs. At the time the unemployment rate was at the level of the United States. Now it's double. There have been record bankruptcies every year since the deal was imposed. There's been a sweeping takeover of all our public institutions and enterprises since the creation of the FTA and, later, of NAFTA.

       The Canadian rail line was put up for sale at one-half the price. Now 70% is U.S.-owned. Our forests have been raped. Gas and oil have been sucked out of the ground at a frenetic pace. And yet we're getting a 0% to 1% royalty on that petroleum.

       The Wall Street Journal recently called on Mexico and Canada to drop their currencies and use the dollar in the North American free trade zone. This will give you an idea of how deep is the push for the assimilation of our nation.

      We were told that the FTA would cause no problems to all our social programs; they'd be better and richer social programs because we'd be a more prosperous country.

       Instead, we've seen an assault on all social programs across Canada. We have in Canada, as you know, a universal, free healthcare system. But under the terms of the FTA, we were forced to allow the entry of the American healthcare for-profit system into Canada. They called this the "right to establishment."

       So now we're seeing the systematic attack against our healthcare system. They're telling us there's no money left in our universal healthcare system; we can't afford it any more. It's a Big Lie!

       To allow the for-profit healthcare system to enter, they've had to gradually dismantle our universal, healthcare system.

       We've been told we'd have access to the largest and most secure market in the world if we went for free trade. The truth is that we've had more harassment over our exports since we entered the FTA. We've had caps on our exports of timber and wheat -- and the list goes on. We see Canada as sort of the Achilles' heel of this entire globalization issue.

        One of the key Canadian negotiators of the FTA, a man by the name of John Murphy, let the cat out of the bag when he acknowledged that the FTA and NAFTA are not really about free trade. The issue, he said, is politics. These agreements were to be a guarantee that Canada would not go back, among other things, to the National Energy Policy, which had given the Canadian government control over the nation's gas and oil resources. These are forced trading arrangements that put control of our nation in the hands of the Washington and U.S.-based multinationals.

        The model for them was Chile -- which had established the full reign of the free market economy. But Chile was an example in another way. People would not go along with these policies -- so armed might was needed.

       Canadians have twice voted against free trade -- and we have it anyway. Salinas never even consulted his people in Mexico. None of the men who signed NAFTA had a mandate from their people to do so.

      We want to see Canada withdraw from the treaty altogether. Resistance against free trade is immense. There have been nationwide strikes and province-wide general strikes. The recent Ontario teachers' strike had overwhelming support among the population. But the trade union leadership has really dropped the ball in terms of the fight.

      Under NAFTA, there's a six-month cancellation clause. But with the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), there's a 20-year lock-in. So we view the MAI as making NAFTA uncancellable in the face of growing opposition to it.

       We are told that globalization is inevitable. There's no choice. It's a Big Lie! We don't have to have these agreements. We don't have to see our jobs and working conditions destroyed, our environment destroyed. No, we want to get out!

       Nor do we see anything positive in any of the so-called side agreements or so-called labor and environmental clauses within the text of any new free trade expansion agreements. All they do is legitimize the process. If you go for these side agreements or social clauses, you've essentially signed onto the process -- and then you can't get out. We want to get out of these deals! That should be our stance!

         

 

Excerpts from Presentation by Mike Griffin, Director, War Zone Educational Foundation (Decatur, Illinois):

  I come from Decatur, Illinois, which was once the War Zone of the labor movement in this country. There were three unions in struggle at Caterpillar, Bridgestone/Firestone, and A.E. Staley.

Our struggle was a militant struggle. We hoped that by showing our willingness to wage a serious fight in the streets, as we did, that the labor movement would get off its bureaucratic ass and help out the three fighting locals.

Unfortunately, none of the three International unions to which our locals were affiliated wanted us to fight together. Out of necessity, we reached out internationally to unions in Germany, France, Sweden, Slovakia, and round the world to help us combat the major customers that belong to A.E. Staley. The company wanted to break our union.

When we saw that the leadership of the labor movement was going to sit back and allow us to take it on the chin like so many other unions, we put 80 people on a bus to Bal Harbor, Florida, to force the issue.

We put together a mighty campaign movement with support groups around the globe. We challenged Lane Kirkland's leadership in as respectful a manner as we could. We knew we needed a new voice for the labor movement. We don't apologize for that.

But ultimately our International union undermined our struggle. We didn't lose our struggle in Decatur as a result of the multinational employers -- even though we were up against Tate and Lyle. We lost because of business unionism, because there was bureaucracy that valued bringing in dues more than fighting in the streets of Decatur.

Along the way, we worked with groups like the International Liaison Committee and unions such as Brian's: the IlWU. We drew support from across the globe.

At times, our International unions did not want us to attend gatherings sponsored by the Workers Party of Slovakia or other such groups. We were told these organizations were not sanctioned by the AFL-CIO. We went anyways. We understood that international labor solidarity could not be a prisoner of Cold War ideology.

We did not allow the institutional bureaucracies to prevent us from linking forces with true fighters in other countries. We had learned through our own struggle that international labor solidarity is being able to take on an international employer whatever part of the globe he lives or hides in.

Brothers and sisters, we could have won our fight in Decatur, Illinois. We were close to winning because of the effective campaign that we put together in this country and on a global basis. It took union bureaucracy to lose that struggle for 760 families in Decatur, Illinois.

It took me four years to get pissed -- but I finally did when I saw how close we were to victory and how crushing a defeat was imposed on us.

Our labor movement was founded on the streets of America -- and that's where it belongs. The outreach we did was done by the rank-and-file. We have brought a resolution to this conference. It's about building a rank-and-file movement for global solidarity. It calls for initiating actions of international solidarity at all levels of request, with or without support of institutional bureaucracies. I hope you will support it.

 

[Addendum: The resolution submitted by Mke Griffin on Global Unionism was adopted by the workshop on Global Unionism and International Labor Solidarity. It was read to the conference plenary session on Sunday morning, November 16, by workshop reporter David Walters. It was later included in the list of resolutions adopted by the conference workshops and mailed out to all conference participants.]

Excerpts from Presentation by Luis Mesina, President, National Bankworkers Union of Chile

  For us in Chile, it's essential that we link up with our trade union brothers and sisters from throughout the hemisphere against this global onslaught.

  There was a meeting of Chilean governmental and political leaders the other day. Former dictator Augusto Pinochet was present. Pinochet hasn't left the political scene, far from it. He is hoping to become the new president of the Chilean Senate.

  All who were present at this meeting lamented the defeat of Fast Track, but they said they were determined to see NAFTA expansion as soon as possible. They will be meeting in April to push this process through -- Fast Track or no Fast Track.

  Their agenda is straightforward: It's about imposing the "Chilean model" throughout the hemisphere -- a model of full-scale privatization, the destruction of all systems of social security and protection, particularly the privatization of pension plans. 

Brothers and sisters, this is a very historic meeting. We have to reaffirm our own vocabulary, our own identity as a working class, our own agenda. We must go back, on a continental level, to the origins of the trade union movement -- that is, mass struggle against a system -- today "savage capitalism" or global capitalism. We must confront this system head on, not buy into the process of "free trade" and globalization under any form.

  We must coordinate our efforts based on a strategy of mass action, mass struggle. We need a concrete plan of action. This has been sorely lacking. The countless unions and federations in Chile that have endorsed my participation in this historic gathering are hoping that a coordinated plan of actions in the streets will come out of this conference -- beginning with a coordinated Continental Day of Action in April, when the heads of state will meet in Chile to advance the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

  Those who have mandated me to be here at this conference understand that unless we unite on a hemisphere-wide level, we will simply be liquidated as an organized trade union movement country by country. We cannot allow this to happen.

     

  Excerpts from Presentation by Brian Henderson, general secretary of the Edmonton of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW):

  My name is Brian Henderson and I am the general secretary of the Edmonton of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). It's the country's third-largest local.

We're in a massive struggle against our employer. The key issue we're fighting for is job security within the post office, the creation of full-time employment, and a wage increase -- which postal workers haven't seen since 1991.

We've seen, like everwhere else, that through privatization we've lost full-time employment within Canada Post. Temporary employment is on the rise. With deregulation and downsizing, we are losing permanent employment.

At Canada Post we now have 10,000 temporary workers across Canada who are working from 14 to 40 hours a week, yet without benefits, like the permanent employees.

Our employer wants even further rollbacks, with the elimination of yet another 4000 permanent postal jobs. They are restructuring the letter-carrier system, seeking to extract a $230 million profit within the next three years.

What we've said as the CUPW is that we're not rolling back! We're asking the employer to create 2000 full-time positions in the post office based on the 9000 temporary jobs that we have.

We're asking for a 6% to 8% wage increase. We're asking for a shorter workweek for our maintenance workers.

And we're going to have a national strike beginning next Monday [November 17] throughout Canada. Deborah Bourque, our International Vice President, was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at this conference. Unfortunately, she cannot be here as she is in last-minute, round-the-clock negotiations with the employer. But she sends her best wishes to the conference.

Postal workers will not accept the government or corporate agenda. We will create full-time employment with benefits for all. That's our answer.

  [Addendum: Canadian postal workers went on strike Wednesday, November 19, shutting down mail service across the country after weeks of fruitless contract bargaining. The work stoppage by 45,000 postal workers came after dozens of wildcat strikes had already crippled Canada Post, the federal mail service.

"We are on strike because Canada Post has consistently engaged in bad faith bargaining ... because Canada Post leaves us no other option,'' said Darrell Tingley, president of Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

[The Canadian government did not initially seek special powers to end the postal workers' strike. But two weeks after the strike began, authorities enacted a Special Law decreeing a back-to-work order for the 45,000 striking workers. Failure to comply with this order could result in individual fines of up to $1000 per day and up to $100,000 a day for the union.

[On December 5, faced with this union-busting law and the threat of $50 million a day in fines, the CUPW called off the strike and asked its members to return to work.]

 

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