Trade Union statement to WEF and WSF

Date: 07 February 2002

January/February 2002

Working people in most of the world are getting a bad deal in these first years of the 21st century, as employment security declines and the share of wages falls relative to profits. Inequalities are widening - between poor and rich, between women and men and between the developing and the industrialised countries. Similarly, the international economic institutions, are increasingly dominating the developing countries. Poverty is worsening while wealth is accumulating and concentrating as never before.

There is a growing democracy deficit as national policy options are constrained by global markets that often produce greater competition among governments than they do among enterprises. Democratic governance barely exists. And where global governance and binding rules are beginning to emerge, it is for the purpose of protecting property rights in the interest of capital rather than the rights of labour. The absence or weakness of democratic, global institutions to defend the common good and reflect the will of the people means, in effect, that power is shifting from the elected leaders of government to the unelected leaders of global capital.

There is a growing sentiment that decision-making has become too distant from individuals. This is true for millions of sub-contracted workers, putting the brands on products for companies that do not employ them. It is also true in political life where even the simple act of voting seems to many to be unrelated to their daily lives. The wholesale and irresponsible privatisation of vital public services - part of the definition and construction of a decent society - aggravates this alienation by destroying the link between affordable, decent, equitable and quality services, and political will and participation.

But more and more people, including a growing number of governments and firms, recognise that business as usual is not good enough. They know that although unregulated globalisation is working for some, it is not working for far too many people. The way that deregulation of the global financial markets has enabled the spread of the networks that feed terrorism bears witness to the need to take initiatives towards the development of a framework for global governance and to increase the regulation of globalisation.

Markets do not clean up after themselves. They do not automatically produce justice. They do not require the respect of human rights to prosper or function. In other words, putting the world on autopilot does not work. How many more Argentinas have to crash and burn before world leaders and institutions stop imposing their model and, instead, take a good hard look at it? And how many more Enrons have to go under, before those same leaders and institutions seriously question whether corporations are worthy of the public trust they have been given?

History shows that the trade union movement, composed of representative and democratic organisations, can help fill the moral vacuum created by market forces. They are instruments of the will of workers and become their lever to move the world - to change the distribution of wealth and power inside countries and beyond. Trade unions have the capacity to transform society. That is why all tyrants, public or private, fear freedom of association. Trade unions are also one of the very few actors capable of transcending the divisions that are polarising our lives today and are, therefore, among the building blocks of a better world. The international trade union movement reaffirms its conviction that respect for trade union rights is essential for social and economic development with social justice.

The trade union movement is carrying a united message to Porto Alegre and to New York. Trade unions are part of civil society just as they are part of industry. In order to be relevant to our members, we must be willing to engage in dialogue with employers for which workers toil, just as we are ready to negotiate with them, while, at the same time, working together with others in the community. Our role is to advance and defend the interests of workers by building alliances with those who share our views, and through debate and argument with those who do not. That is the reason for our simultaneous presence in both of these forums.

Global public debate, even if the participation in that debate is too limited, can be useful. The world cannot be neatly divided into those who are for globalisation and those who are against it. We are against the neo-liberal agenda that has imposed unbalanced globalisation. We will press the WEF to address the need to globalise social justice. At the same time, we will contribute in the WSF to finding constructive approaches to democratising globalisation in the interests of all working people. In the reality of the lives of families and communities, the social and the economic have been, remain, and will always be intimately linked.

Our goal is to win support for a world that is free from poverty and unemployment, from discrimination and injustice, from terrorism in all its forms, and from the threat of war and oppression. We want a world with full democracy and respect for human rights. We want a world where corporations, large and small, respect the rights of their workers and unions, and the societies in which they operate. We want an end to extremes of opulence and misery; we want full equality between women and men; we want respect for the rights of all, young and old; and we want an acceptance that economies and societies can only be sustainable when they are based on a high level of public services and on the regulation of private power by accountable and democratic governments and organisations. We are convinced that another world is possible. That is global labour's vision of the 21st century and that is what we are calling for in Porto Alegre and in New York.

This statement has been endorsed by the GLOBAL UNIONS GROUP - including the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the International Trade Secretariats (ITS) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD); - the WORLD CONFEDERATION OF LABOUR (WCL); and the EUROPEAN TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION (ETUC).

For further information

Contact:	Jason Gibson
Union:	Australian Services Union - Vic MEU Private Sector Branch
Phone:	03 9342 3418
Fax:	03 9342 3499
Email:	jgibson@meupsvic.asu.asn.au
WWW:	http://www.asuvic.org

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