<http://www.aflcio.org/publ/speech2000/sp0128.htm>
Remarks by John J. Sweeney Can We Take Open Markets for Granted? World Economic Forum- Davos, Switerland January 28, 2000
Thank you, Chairman Barnevik. I am delighted to join the distinguished members of this panel to express the views of working families in the United States - including 40 million people who live in union households - about the future of open markets and free trade.
Surely, whatever our disagreements, we can all agree that neither the existence of open markets nor their value can or should be taken for granted. The rules must be defined; the benefits must be demonstrated.
We must ask ourselves: what is the fundamental test of globalization?
It's not whether markets are more open or less open. That mistakes the means for the end. The end is human development. The fundamental question is whether globalization is helping to lift the poor from poverty; whether it is empowering the many, not just the few; whether its blessings are shared widely; whether it works for working people.
The global market that has been forged in the last decades is now being called to account. The recent global financial crisis was an economic five-alarm fire. Seattle provided a political wake-up call. Both suggest the current course cannot be taken for granted, and should not be.
Yes, globalization is creating vast new wealth, but financial crises are growing more frequent and severe, and inequality is rising, as the UN reports, both among and within nations. This means that the seeds for rejection of globalization are in every political system, in developed nations as well as developing nations.
Freedom, as Nobel prize-winner Amartya Sen teaches us, is both the object and the means of development. Yet more direct private investment goes to developing nations that are not democratic than to those that are - even when China is not counted in the calculation.
That is why Seattle is so important. The protests in the streets by workers, environmentalists, farmers, and students from across the world were mirrored by the anger inside the hall from developing country delegates who felt just as locked out as the demonstrators. As Joseph Stiglitz reminds us, if we care about equitable, sustainable development, then the impact on people - not only incomes, but the environment, health, food safety and democratic participation - as well as urgent issues such as debt forgiveness, can no longer simply be left to chance.
Understand the message of Seattle. It wasn't an isolationist rejection of open markets; it was a call for new global rules. Workers North and South marched together. And the many different voices made one clear statement: the current course cannot be sustained; fundamental reform is needed.
Clearly, we have to do better. If we do not - if the global system continues to generate growing inequality, environmental destruction and a race to the bottom for working people - then I can assure you, it will generate an increasingly volatile reaction that will make Seattle look tame.
All of us need to think anew. Leaders of the global institutions face a legitimacy crisis that cannot be solved by better public relations. Their institutions will become more accountable, or more irrelevant.
Leaders of developing nations face a growing inequality of income and hope. They should not be forced into one economic strait-jacket. For they will either find ways to empower workers and protect the environment, or face growing popular resistance.
Global non-governmental organizations raise fundamental concerns. Now it is important for the NGOs to go from opposing what is, to proposing what can be. They must not assume that the price of development requires cashing in basic human rights.
Heads of global corporations and banks must not be misled by their own rhetoric. They will be held accountable for how they do business - by consumers, by workers, by governments. Leaders of the corporate community should join the effort to build enforceable laws that put limits on cut-throat competition. It is in the self-interest of multinational corporations and the governments that regulate them to have rules that are agreed upon by all.
Labor leaders across the world also must change to meet the new challenges. At the AFL-CIO, we know that we have to deepen our own growing internationalism, and develop new sophistication in bargaining and organizing across national lines.
We also recognize that we must join our voices with those in developing countries calling for high-road development strategies. We must work to ensure that developing countries are no longer crippled by unpayable debt burdens, and that they have the resources they need to engage in trade negotiations on an equal footing as well as the technical support to implement and enforce labor and environmental standards.
Seattle marked a crossroads. Now, joined by millions of others across the world, we pledge not to rest, but to continue to press for core workers' rights that are the basis of economic freedom and equitable development.
In this panel, in this conference, I realize I raise a minority voice. But these views are shared by a broad and growing majority - both in the United States, where voters overwhelmingly believe that workers' rights and environmental protections should be enforced in the global economy, and across the world, by working people whose voices too often go unheard in meeting halls such as this one.
Here, let us all agree on one thing: that business as usual cannot be the order of the day. This global economy will either be reformed or face ever greater resistance.