International Centre for Trade Union Rights

Opposing neoliberalismAuthor(s): Carolyn JonesSource: International Union Rights, Vol. 7, No. 2, Focus on labour codes (2000), p. 18Published by: International Centre for Trade Union RightsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41933688 .

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ICTUR IN ACTION □

Opposing

neoliberalism

The 14th World Trade Union Congress met in New Delhi, India, March 2000. The Congress, organised

by the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), was attended by 420 delegates from 74 countries. Trade Union leaders from around the world came to highlight the social and economic problems facing millions of workers in the face of globalisation and policies of neo-liberalism. Among the delegation were three representatives from ICTUR and IUR, Tom Sibley, Carolyn Jones and Regi Thomas. CAROLYN JONES reports.

The economic context The economic disparités between rich and poor countries as well as between rich and poor people within countries is growing, thereby undermining economic security, social standards and basic human rights. One- third of the world labour force is either unemployed or underemployed. Sixty countries have been getting steadily poorer since 1980. More than one billion people are unable to meet even their most basic human needs while over 800 million are under-nourished and hungry. According to estimates, 86 per cent of the world's wealth belongs to 22 per cent of the world's population.

Why? The 20th century saw stupendous achievements and transformations in the way people live and work. Achievements in scientific and technological developments, in transport and communication and information technology. Such acievements have greatly enhanced the capacity to produce everything that is needed to assure a better life, social development and

economic security for all. But these developments have not been used for the benefit of the many who have worked to turn those achievements into a reality. Rather they have been used as a lever of control by the powerful transnational corporations.

Throughout the 1980s this process was encouraged by Thatcher and Reagan and their neo-liberal policies of privatisation and deregulation have opened the world's markets to TNCs, limiting the role of the state in the global economy. Such policies led not to viable economic and social development but to an unprecedented concentration of wealth and power. As the UN says, fewer than 400 rich people now have a total wealth equal to the annual income of half the world's population.

The experience of workers Delegate after delegate at the Congress outlined the social and economic problems facing their members. In each country the fight to defend workers' intererests took specific forms but the objectives remained the same - to improve working conditions, to defend the rights contained in collective bargaining agreements and to maintain ILO standards.

From Japan it was reported that the free market had not delivered progress. Rather economic restructuring undermining industry, collective bargaining and social provision. In Portugal, workers were planning to strike in April over attacks on their pay and conditions while delegates from Australia outlined the battle fought by maritime and construction workers in defence of their individual and collective rights. In India, policies of . liberalisation had led to an assault on the core public sectors like steel, coal and télécoms. Prices had increased and unemployment had risen, state subsidies for the poor had been withdrawn, import duties reduced and excise duties on domestic industry increased as conditions

imposed by the IMF and World Bank.

Discussing an alternative system Congress agreed that the ongoing trends towards regional economic blocs were not in the interests of workers and jobs. The establishment of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) had failed to produce the 300,000 jobs promised by the supporters of NATFA and instead had led to the loss of 25,000 jobs with over a million workers dislocated when corporations transferred production to neighbouring borders.

A common theme throughout the contributions was a distinct hostility to the concept of a social clause under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). There was a real fear that the WTO would be used as a mechanism to undermine the ILO and its core labour standards by linking standards to trade agreements.

This objection is often portrayed as developing countries not wanting trade to be linked to standards for fear that this would remove the trading advantage of countries with fewer legal rights and cheaper labour costs. But the argument was not about trade protectionism but about protecting the role and standards of the ILO. The discussion concentrated on the need to ensure that the right to join and organise in trade unions were not watered down in the interests of free trade.

Given the problems associated with globalisation and the obvious need for trade unionists to work together, the Congress also focused attention on the need for more united international trade union action. To that end, the Congress called for all representative trade unions to be allowed to participate fully in the work of the ILO committees.

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 1 8 Volume 7 Issue 2 2000

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