Open World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
WHC Report Section 6
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Please find below Part 6 of the report-back on the Western Hemisphere
Workers' Conference, which was held Nov. 14-16, 1997, in San
Francisco.
Part 6 contains the following:
* A Report on the International Tribunal To Judge Those Responsible
for the Murderous Course Imposed on the Workers and Peoples of Africa
* Excerpts from the presentation by Art
Pulaski, secretary-treasurer
of the California Labor Federation
* Full presentation to the conference by John
Riojas, International
vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and
director of the International Affairs Department of the Teamsters'
union
* Excerpts from presentation by Tony
Mazzocchi, national organizer of
the Labor Party.
Conference Urges Support for the International Tribunal To Judge
Those Responsible for the Murderous Course Imposed on the Workers and Peoples of Africa
One of the featured speakers at the Sunday, Nov. 16 plenary session
of the conference was Norbert Gbikpi-Bennisan, general secretary of
the National Federation of Independent Unions of Togo. In his
presentation, Gbikpi-Bennisan urged the conference to support an
appeal, issued by high-ranking trade union officials in 18 African
countries, all of whom are longstanding opponents of the Structural
Adjustment Plans of the IMF and World Bank, to convene an
International Tribunal To Judge Those Responsible for the Murderous
Course Imposed on the Workers and Peoples of Africa .
The proposal met with an enthusiastic response. Not only was
Gbikpi-Bennisan's presentation greeted with a loud ovation, the
workshop on Global Unionism endorsed the Tribunal and more than 200
of the unionists present added their names to the appeal -- including
Stan Gacek of the International Affairs Department of the AFL-CIO.
The preliminary organizing meeting for this conference will be held
in Abijdan (Ivory Coast) on Feb. 27 - March 1, 1998. Its goal is to
establish a dossier for the Tribunal.
Among the facts about the current situation in Africa submitted by
Gbikpi-Bennisan to motivate support the Tribunal are the following:
* Within the next decade, life expectancy on the African continent
is expected to drop by 15 years, to the average age of 33.
Researchers attribute this drop mainly to contaminated water and the
lack of basic medical attention.
* After 20 years of Structural Adjustment Programs, the number of
Africans with less than the average minimum daily intake of 1600 to
1700 calories has risen from 98 million in 1977 to 168 million in
1997.
* Even though the African nations have reimbursed twice the amount of
money they borrowed from international banks between 1980 and 1996,
Africa is 13 times more in debt today than 16 years ago on account of
the onerous interest payments. The average cost of debt servicing in
an African nation is four times greater than the budgets alloted to
healthcare and education. In a country such as the Congo, prior to
the collapse of the state, the average yearly payment on the debt was
three times greater than the total payments to the public sector.
* The increased drive toward deregulation has led to a wholesale
destruction of Labor Codes. This has led the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to write: "[T]he absence
of any legal system to protect labor rights and human rights has
created a climate of corruption, intimidation, and gangsterism in all
labor and social relations" (excerpts from convention resolution of
June 25-29, 1996)
* The policies of "decentralization" imposed by the World Bank and
IMF as conditions for refinancing the debt have created a situation
where, according to the same ICFTU resolution, "coastal enclaves,
linked to the mining and agricultural centers by highly protected
corridors have proliferated, leaving entire regions of the interior
of these nations without any resources or infrastructure whatsoever."
(Ibid.)
[For a copy of the Tribunal Call, or for more information about the
labor fightback on the African continent, contact the WHC
Continuations Committee, c/o the San Francisco Labor Council, or the
International Liaison Committee at P.O. Box 40458, San Francisco, CA
94140.]
Excerpts from presentation by Art Pulaski, secretary-treasurer of the
California Labor Federation, to the Western Hemisphere Workers'
Conference:
It was a great victory for working people -- not just in this country
but across the Western Hemisphere -- when this past week we stood up
to corporate power and defeated Fast Track. It was a historic moment
when workers were able to band together and force the Congress to
reject Fast Track -- which, in reality, is the push to maximize
corporate profits and minimize workers' wages and rights.
We fought that battle not as protectionists -- as our oppostion
accused us -- but as union brothers and sisters for workers across
this hemisphere. We fought this battle to protect the wages and
working conditions of workers from the Northern tip of Canada to the
Southern tip of South America. That was our battleground.
We look at this fight not in protectionist terms, but as a global
unity for trade unionists and for workers everywhere.
This was just a first victory, a first step. President Clinton has
indicated he will bring back this Fast Track battle in a few months.
The only way we can win this great war is with the solidarity of
trade unionists everywhere. Keep up the battle and have a great
conference.
Presentation to the conference by John Riojas, International vice
president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and director
of the International Affairs Department of the Teamsters' union:
I'd like to talk about something that is very near and dear to my
heart, and that is the victory at UPS. I'd like share with you a few
of the things we learned during that strike, and during our entire
strategic campaign, which started early, and how we can relate that
with the fight that we face today with NAFTA and the expansion of
NAFTA.
First of all, one of the primary things that we learned during the
contract campaign against UPS -- and I know because I was a member of
the negotiating team that helped Ron Carey -- is that you must begin
early. If you're going to go into a struggle such as this, it is
imperative that the membership be informed and educated as to what
the issues are.
We went out to the membership. We surveyed the membership to find out
what the issues were that in fact were important to them. They told
us what the issues were. We didn't try to impose upon them issues we
felt they would want to fight for.
Second, once they had told us what the primary issues were, we went
out and strategized a plan that included going out to the membership
and educating them.
As I said, being a member of that negotiating committee, one of the
proudest moments of my life came during the strike, when I came home
from Washington [to San Antonio] and turning on the TV for a brief
moment to find out what had happened, and see our Teamster brothers
and sisters, our UPS package drivers, our part-timers, with
microphone shoved in their faces, being asked, "Why are you on
strike?" And them being able to answer intelligently because they had
been informed, because they had been led through this entire process,
educated.
I was just so proud seeing the brothers and sisters that came up with
me at UPS -- I was a parcel driver -- answering so intelligently. I
am sure that U.S. workers -- like workers around the world -- were
able to relate to a worker telling them why he or she was on strike.
I believe that is why we were able to garner the support not only of
trade unions all over the United States, but all over the world.
Workers could identify with the kinds of problems we were going
through at UPS.
The second thing we learned during the strike is that we cannot do it
alone. For a very long time the Teamsters union has probably had a
very arrogant attitude, that we are the almighty Teamsters, that we
can do anything and everything, and we need no one's help.
And that changed about six years ago, for the good, because we had
democratic elections in our union, for the very first time, and our membership spoke and elected a new leadership, with different ideas, inc
luding the view that we cannot do it alone, we are a very small piece
of the puzzle, and the puzzle includes all of us in labor, and
workers in the United States and all over the world.
Many of the speakers today have pointed out how well organized our
opposition is. That's true. UPS was very well organized. They began
their campaign some two years before the contract came up. They
started giving the workers a little bit more say in their working
conditions. They also supposedly gave our workers "ownership" in the
company. All of this was aimed at getting them to feel more part of
the company.
But we recognized that this was a ploy to pit one worker against
another. We exposed this supposed "partnership" between the workers
and the employer. We educated our membership about the real motives
of their so-called collaboration programs.
But though they are highly organized, we must also must recognize
that if we are organized, if we rely on the membership, if we
function democratically, then we are an even more formidable force
that can win -- as we did at UPS -- and that we can win on NAFTA,
NAFTA expansion, and other struggles.
I want to end by thanking unionists from all over the world, people
in this room, for their support in helping us win this battle. Our
rank-and-file members, many of whom were on the negotiating team,
were in Europe talking with members from other unions that had
workers represented at UPS.
We were going to begin job actions throughout Europe had the strike
continued. Without their support, their willingness to fight, we
don't believe we would have ended up with the victory that we won.
So, thank you, in particular, brothers and sisters from Europe.
Excerpts from presentation by Tony Mazzocchi, national organizer of
the Labor Party, to the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference:
We are glad to be part of this process of international working
class solidarity. Hopefully the full flowering of this movement will
come about as a result of elevated consciousness of working people
the world over -- especially in our nation.
I am here to say a few words about the emergence of new
consciousness among the American working class -- first of all, the
reintroduction of the concept that there is a working class, that
people have class interests and an effort to identify themselves as a
class.
We created a new party of working people, a party separate from the
one-party system that exists in our nation -- the Republicans and
Democrats, who have such a common purpose.
This party -- the Labor Party -- was born at a time when there is a
juggernaut steaming across every continent of the world. It's called
privatization, downsizing. It's a corporate offensive that is
progressing for more rapidly than some of us even dreamed of a short
time ago.
The market mentality, the religion of the market, is the dream come
true of Margaret Thatcher, who said there is no society, there are
just individuals. Their conception is of a set-up that savages its
population for the benefit of the few.
The Labor Party that is emerging in the United States has an initial
premise -- and that is to elevate working class consciousness and to
forcefully project a working class agenda, one that is clearly in the
interests of working people, one that says that in order to advance
our agenda, we have to be counterposed to the interests of the
business community.
This is a fundamental departure from many in the labor leadership,
who say that the way to advance is to cooperate with the very segment
of the corporate community that we naturally should be in conflict
with.
If you look at our country and our dwindling power as a labor
movement, it is precisely because of this failed strategy of
cooperation with the business community.
The Labor Party believes that working people must be willing to
fight in solidarity with workers with the world over, but they must
initially organize in the most difficult place to organize -- the
United States, which is the heart of world corporate power.
If we can't organize a fundamental response to the corporate
offensive in this nation, I'm afraid we will not stop it anywhere.
The Dark Ages are certainly in the future of working people the
world over unless this juggernaut, this corporate offensive with its
market mentality that is sweeping across the world, is stopped.
The greeting I bring you is one of optimism. I think we're going to
create a fighting movement, one that will have a strong, salutory
effect around the world. A strong, working-class Labor Party will
alter the world landscape.
My best wishes in this first step in freeing working people the world over.