Open World Conference of Workers

In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights

Sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council, the International Liaison Committee for a Workers International and the Continuations Committee of the Western Hemispheric Workers Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations 

Who We Are

What's New

Who We Are

International Liaison Committee

OWC Campaigns

Paginas en Español

Public Education Conference 2003

Berlin Conference 2002

Open World Conference 2000 

Tribunal on Africa

Campaign In Defense of Working Women's Rights

Western Hemisphere Workers Conference

Links

On November 14th, 1997, the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations (WHC) was held in San Francisco. Called at the initiative of the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO), the conference gathered 412 registered labor and community leaders and activists from 20 countries. The delegates came together to exchange information about the devastating effects of "free trade" and privatizations on workers and their communities and to "determine how to use our collective energy and resources to defend our common interests and gains."

Jack Henning, convener of the WHC and Secretary-Treasurer-Emeritus of the California Labor Federation (AFL-CIO), presented the message of Global Unionism as "the only effective means to defeat Global Capitalism", and insisted that "[t]his conference must not be a one-shot deal, a passing phase. This body must become a continuing structure."

In keeping with Brother Henning's directive, the WHC constituted a Continuations Committee. In 1999 the WHC Continuations Committee joined forces with the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC) and the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) to issue a call for an Open World Conference in San Francisco.

On February 11-14, 2000, close to 600 unionists and activists representing unions and democratic rights organizations from 56 countries met in San Francisco at the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights (OWC).

The Open World Conference method and objectives were spelled out clearly in its Final Declaration:

"Our aim is to improve living and working conditions, and to defend the rights and guarantees written into collective-bargaining agreements, legal job status and Conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO). These are the conditions for genuine peace in the world. These are the conditions for real democracy in all countries, which can only be based upon the rights of peoples to self-determination and equality between races. These rights can only be won by the peoples themselves as they work to seek out and find the solutions to the problems which confront them."

One of the decisions of the Open World Conference of February 2000 was to constitute a Continuations Committee. A year later, the OWC Continuations Committee joined forces with the International Liaison Committee and a broadly based trade union committee in Germany (the Berlin Conference Preparatory Committee) to convene the International Conference Against Deregulation and For Labor Rights For All -- which was held in Berlin in February 2002, with the participation of delegates from 51 countries.

While the Berlin Conference constituted a broadly based Permanent International Committee Against Deregulation and For Labor Rights For All, with leading unionists from all continents sitting on this Committee, the Continuations Committee of the OWC has continued to function as a predominantly U.S.-based committee to pursue the activities and ongoing campaigns of the Berlin Conference across the United States and around the world. 

Jack Henning
Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus
California Labor Federation
(AFL-CIO)

Walter Johnson
Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus
San Francisco Labor Council
(AFL-CIO)

Baldemar Velasquez
President
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
(AFL-CIO)

Ed Rosario.
Member,
New York Labor Council
for Latin American Advancement
( AFL-CIO)

Daniel Gluckstein
Coordinator
International Liaison Committee
for a Workers' International (ILC)

Patrick Hébert
General Secretary
CGT-Force Ouvrière
(Loire-Atlantique) France

Nancy Wohlforth
Secretary-Treasurer
OPEIU
(AFL-CIO)

Frank Martin del Campo
Executive Board
San Francisco Labor Council
(AFL-CIO)

Alan Benjamin
Executive Board
San Francisco Labor Council
(AFL-CIO)

Julian Kunnie
Professor of Africana Studies
University of Arizona - Tucson