One of the small group of hardcore lefties has just chimed in. I really like this speech, though I don't know the speaker's groupuscule:
Date sent: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 17:28:53 -0800 OWC CAMPAIGN NEWS - distributed by the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights, c/o S.F. Labor Council, 1188 Franklin St., #203, San Francisco, CA 94109. To UNSUSCRIBE from this list, send a message to <owc at energy-net.org>. Phone: (415) 641-8616 Fax: (415) 440-9297. Visit out website at: http://www.geocities.com/owc_2000 . (Please excuse duplicate postings, and please feel free to re-post.) -------------------------------------------
OWC REPORT BACK NO. 4
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Dear Friends:
The length of the texts we are sending you requires that we break them up even further. OWC Report Back No. 4 will include the Opening Keynote Address by Daniel Gluckstein, national secretary of the Workers Party of France and coordinator of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC), which was one of the sponsors of the OWC.
OWC Report Back No. 5 will contain the Verdict of the International Tribunal on Africa, and OWC Report Back No. 6 will contain the Report on the International Campaign to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, presented by Jerry Gordon, as well as the motion on this issue adopted by the conference. - OWC ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
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OPENING KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY DANIEL GLUCKSTEIN, National Secretary of the Workers Party of France, and coordinator of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC)
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
The Organizing Committee of the Open World Conference asked me to present these introductory remarks to the conference. I'd like to begin by quoting from the initial Appeal that summoned working people the world over to participate in this conference. It is written here, and I quote, "Today, international labor rights, particularly the right to collective-bargaining and the right to strike, are considered barriers to 'free trade'."
Traditional trade unionism, we are told by the powers-that-be, no longer has a place in this new millennium, as it is just another barrier to trade. They make no bones about it: Traditional trade unionism is an obstacle to "free trade" and to the ability of multinationals to be "competitive" in the world market.
We wrote these lines about two years ago as we set out to convene this Open World Conference. Today, we can verify whether our assessment, our analysis, was correct or not. It is clear that in these past two years there has been growing resistance around the world to the so-called "globalization" process - against the WTO, in defense of workers' rights.
The call issued early last year by the AFL-CIO to mobilize in Seattle at the time of the WTO Summit is one such expression of this resistance. It was a powerful demonstration, showing the resolve of the U.S. labor movement to fight back. Everywhere there have been mass demonstrations and strikes against these policies of global destruction.
And yet it would wrong to think that the multinational corporations, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank and all the government in their service have given up their objectives. They have not done so, not for a minute. They have not pulled back in their quest to make enormous speculative and stock market profits that are based on the destruction of the labor force of the working class. They haven't given up in their attempt to crush working people and send them into hardship all around the world in order to facilitate their ability to plunder and super-exploit resources and workers.
They haven't given up their goal to remove what they call barriers to trade; that is, independent trade unions, collective-bargaining agreements, labor legislation, social protection systems. These are all obstacles for them.
For them they are barriers. For us, for working people the world over, they are the rights that have been won by two centuries of class struggle: the right to strike, the right to place demands on the employers, the right to negotiate contracts, the right to maintain independent trade unions.
The question of the independence of the labor movement - which is the central theme of this conference - is not an abstract question. It is the central question for every democracy. There can be no democracy without the inalienable right of the oppressed and the exploited to organize in defense of their own interests, on their own independent ground.
And so we have to say clearly that the very existence of independent trade unions and labor organizations is submitted to enormous threats throughout the world.
There are two faces to this threat. There is one threat, let's call it the classical threat, involving political regimes where trade unions are officially integrated into the State apparatus. Unions in this case are on the side of the State, defending State interests against the interests of working people - and not on the side of working people. This is the very definition of a totalitarian regime. And today it is important to note that in the world's main democracies, the priority is given to passing "free trade" agreements with totalitarian governments, because the multinationals and those beholden to their agenda want to take advantage of the low labor costs in countries where workers do not have the right to organize independently. The bosses also wield the threat to transfer production to such countries as additional pressure on the workers in their own countries to accept rollbacks.
But there is also a more disguised form of attack against independent labor organizations. On the surface it may appear less brutal. It is not. Such an attack involves the myriad plans of integration, co-optation, of "labor-management cooperation", of jointism - all of which are aimed at transforming the trade unions into relay instruments of the policies decided by the governments, by regional trade organizations or by supra-national or international organizations of international finance capital.
Even if this attack seems less ferocious, it is just as dangerous. At the end of the day, co-opting labor organizations into the State or into the organizations of international capital, such as the WTO - whether it be carried out by totalitarian brutality and oppression or by other more benign forms -means essentially destroying the basis of democracy and the working class itself.
A couple of years ago, Renato Ruggiero, who at the time was the director of the WTO, said the following: "We are writing today the constitution of a new global economy." But what constitution and for what global economy?
A Canadian university professor described this world in the following way: "What's original about this new system, is that is not possible to purely and simply crush all the democratic forces. It is therefore necessary to force them, coerce them, or lure them, in such a way as to prevent them from joining together to fight economic liberalism."
And this same university professor added: "There is a dual dimension to this process: coercion may be deployed, if necessary, while promoting a consensus based on the co-optation of the forces of opposition into the spirit and structures of jointism."
This formula of assimilating and "recuperating" opposition forces through partnership or consensus is easier to justify in democratic societies. But in reality this method is totally contradictory with democracy. In the oldest democracies of the world - the United States, France, Great Britain and others - democracy was built by writing into its founding texts the right for workers to organize independently in defense of their own specific interests. If these organisations built by the workers to defend their own interests are co-opted into the policies of the multinationals, there can no longer be any democracy.
In my country, France, this is taking a very specific form. The onslaught of globalization and deregulation has led us to a situation where, today, the French working class is confronted with a generalized offensive threatening all the basic gains that were won in the past two centuries. What's involved is an attack unprecedented since the terrible times of Vichy and the occupation in France.
First of all, the government, in the name of the so-called reduced work-time law, has started to undermine all the collective-bargaining agreements and contracts which had been negotiated in all sectors. The government is demanding that the trade unions participate in the implementation of these policies. At the same time, the employers' associations, inspired by the words of Renato Ruggiero, are out to dismantle all the social protection systems in France. The employers are trying to force the unions to join them as partners to implement what the employers call a new social constitution.
What should the labor movement do in France today, brothers and sisters? Strikes and demonstrations are multiplying across France against these destructive policies, but what should be the role of the organizations built by the workers to defend their interests? Should they accept to "accompany" the implementation of these attacks?
Brothers and Sisters: It is clear that if this were to continue, even if outwardly France appears to be a democratic country, fundamentally we would no longer be a democratic country. It is true there are trade unions which have accepted to integrate themselves into these policies of consensus and jointism. But it is also true that this is an ongoing process, and the day is not over yet. That last word has not been spoken. And this is because, luckily, there are also trade union organizations that have refused to play the consensus game.
Today, the government is trying to force the public service workers to organize on their own the dismantling of the public services and to accept flexibility, wage cuts and the "annualization" of work time. I am proud to inform you that both main trade union federations in France have refused to sign this government directive. One of these federations has stated in a recent communiqué: "Who could sign such an agreement, surely not an organization that represents working people!"
But brothers and sisters, we need to ask ourselves the following question: If the trade unions were co-opted or integrated into the State apparatus and into the structures of globalization, would they have the ability to refuse to sign and to maintain their freedom and independence, as this French federation has just done? Would they maintain their freedom to sign a contract or to refuse to sign it if they deemed such an agreement contrary to the interests of their members?
We know very well that in the global system of co-optation they would like to set up, the only thing trade unions would have the right to do would be to accept the crumbs of "social clauses" - whose only function is to camouflage the destruction of all the gains and institutions which have structured the working class as a class.
Five years ago in a conference that was held in Slovakia, an American trade unionist, Mike Griffin - who was supposed to be with us today - described the strike that he had helped organize in Decatur, Illinois. The onslaught of the Staley Corporation, the employer, was directly aimed at destroying the contract. He explained how, following the strike, an 118-page collective-bargaining agreement had been reduced to 15 pages.
This is an example of what is happening all over the world. If they could, those who are orchestrating this so-called globalization would like to reduce all the contracts around the world, and all of the ILO conventions codifying labor rights, to two or three pages of empty abstract principles, having no obligatory constraints. It would be left to the multinationals to interpret these general labor "principles."
But the condition for the multinationals to even agree to such general "principles" would be for the trade unions to abandon all their independent actions aimed at defending the working class.
And this is precisely what is at stake with this corporate attempt to revise the ILO conventions.
ILO Convention 138 on child labor was already revised last year, and the shameful revision of Convention 103 on maternity rights is scheduled for later this year. From what I understand there are 50 ILO Conventions slated for "revision" by the globalizers. It must be clear that each revision is in a negative and destructive direction.
Today, ILO Conventions stipulate obligations which the employers must meet. With the new ILO conventions - resulting from the "revision" of the old ones - there will only be recommendations. Up till now, it has been clearly established that workers have the right to this and to that. Henceforth, these "rights" will all be submitted to exceptions and conditions. Let me take one example: Convention 103 of the ILO prohibited all layoffs of pregnant women. In the revised version, this passage is transformed into "prohibition of any layoff except if it is for a reason which is not linked to the pregnancy."
Brothers and sisters, we all know how long it will take an employer to justify a layoff on the grounds that it was due to a so-called external motive unrelated to the pregnancy. Even the dumbest boss in the world doesn't need more than 10 minutes to be able to find a way to carry out an arbitrary layoff. And this is the same thing that is happening with all of the revisions of the ILO conventions.
And they would like the trade unions to be part of this process of revision. That's what's on the agenda at the upcoming ILO assembly in June in Geneva. And that's what's is on the agenda at their so-called World Summit of Heads of State in September 2000 in New York.
And that's why they are trying to "reform" all the national and international trade union organizations, to convince them not to continue to be the representatives of the workers but on the contrary to be the representatives of the WTO, of the multinationals - that is, to become tools against the workers .
We are meeting here today because, like millions of workers around the world, we think it is not possible for this course to continue. In all of our countries there is a translation of these processes in our lives and experiences. It means growing hardship, the dismantling of public education and healthcare. It means the proliferation of wars, epidemics, and diseases that are ravaging entire continents.
A week ago, in an International Tribunal charged with studying the situation in Africa (a Tribunal that took place in Los Angeles), a delegate from Azania/South Africa posed the following questions. She asked this terrible question: "We who are living in Africa, we are beginning to wonder: Will there be a new generation of Africans?"
This is a terrible question to be asked, dear friends. The labor movement has the responsibility and obligation to respond. We have the responsibility to answer our sister from Azania. Yes, there must a new generation of Africans. There will be a future generation of Africans, a generation which must arrive to the age of adulthood, educated, with the right to healthcare and in good health, with the right to a decent life and access to culture.
And for this to be possible, all the exploited and oppressed peoples of the world must be able to defend the organizations that belong to them: the workers' organizations that were built through struggle, with the blood, sweat and sacrifices of the working class over centuries. Yes in Africa and throughout the world, there will be a new generation because despite the terrible threats that are weighing upon humanity, the workers and oppressed peoples of the world will be able to build a united fightback.
They will push back the offensive of this new totalitarian system, beginning with the WTO, which in all of our countries, is aimed at trampling upon democracy and democratic institutions, while plunging workers and peoples into hardship and destitution.
We know that it will be a long struggle, we know that it will be tough. It's already tough. But this is the only road that will open the way to hope for future generations - not the future that the IMF and the World Bank would like to force them into. Ours must be a future built by the common action of workers and organizations, having broken the shackles of exploitation and oppression. I very much hope that the proceedings and decisions of this conference will contribute to building such a future. Thank you.