No. 85-86/15-1 August-September 1999
Meeting ICFTU - WCL in Geneva
TopA high level meeting between the Executive Committee of the WCL and a delegation of the Executive Committee of the ICFTU took place in Geneva on 7th July. It offered the opportunity of a "franc" discussion, as diplomats would say, around two themes: a possible collaboration between the two main international trade union confederations and the possibility of a structural rapprochement between them.
The debate was sometimes tense, without however fall into a form of aggressiveness sometimes reached in the past. The ICFTU recognises the existence and the effective work of the WCL, even if its representatives expressed some doubts on the genuine representativeness of our organisation. Various forms of collaboration are already existing between the two international organisations. The will is there to develop them, which, from the point of view of the WCL, involves the removal of the obstacle of the disproportionate representation between ICFTU and WCL within the ACTRAV (ILO). Both organisations have also advocated more transparency between them, in particular as regards representativeness and finances. The debate concerning the structures stumbled over a diverging interpretation of trade union pluralism. The ICFTU considers pluralism as a brake whereas the WCL sees it as an asset. However, there was no avoiding the fact that pluralism is a reality on the ground and not merely an ideological concept. Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the ICFTU, has meanwhile announced that his organisation was about to launch an internal debate on the form the international trade union movement is to assume to take up the challenge of globalisation. According to him, this debate is entirely open. He invited the WCL to take part to it. Which does only make sense, Willy Thys answered, if this debate generates a full-fledged dialogue between the international organisations and does not limit itself to debating about structures.
Various forms of more regular contacts between the ICFTU and the WCL were the object of an agreement between the two big international confederations. Members of the WCL will get more detailed information in this respect.
TopThe new Director General of the ILO, the Chilean Juan Somavia, has met the Executive Committee of the WCL on 8th July. The atmosphere of the meeting was friendly. His concerns and ours concur on more than one point, in particular as regards the need to put social concerns at the heart of, and not beside, the great international debates. The assessment that will take place in the year 2000, five years after the Social Summit of Copenhagen, could contribute to this. Another common concern: the search for an alternative to the current pattern of globalisation, a pattern that should take into account social as well as economic aspects; which Juan Somavia calls "an integrated thinking in front of the single thinking". The meeting also enabled the WVL to put forward some difficulties it encountered as regards its relations with the ILO, in particular its under-representation and the problems relating to trade union freedom in some countries.
TopWilly Thys, the General Secretary, attended the 2nd Congress of the CSC (Confédération Syndicale du Congo), that took place in Kinshasa, 14-16 July, 1999, on the theme "The responsibility of Congolese trade unions as regards National Reconstruction in a context of Globalisation et Structural Adjustment Programmes". In the view of Fernand Kikongi, President of the CSC, who was elected President of the WCL at the Congress in Bangkok, in December 1997, and is also President of ODSTA, the issue was to examine all the possibilities for trade unions to take part to reconstruction efforts, in this precise moment when the situation of the country has deteriorated in all fields: road infrastructures, telecommunications, monetary instability, closing of many companies, supplying problems of raw materials, and above all poverty (10 per cent of the population of Kinshasa suffers from malnutrition, i. e. 600 000 people). According to the orientation documents presented at the Congress, Congolese workers have known miserable social conditions from the 1st Congress of the CSC ( July 1993) to this date. Consumer prices have been soaring and no salary policy has been implemented. In his speech, Willy Thys underlined existing world-wide inequalities as regards wealth distribution. He explained that those inequalities are mainly generated by the big multinationals operating without any control. The WCL, he underlined, advocates world governance, within which the ILO should play a major role. Finally, he highlighted the important role national trade union organisations must play as an indispensable element of democracy. A two-day seminar preceded the Congress. It analysed the reasons why the country has declined since independence. Seventy people took part to the works of the seminar, whereas participants to the congress were 110. It is to be underlined that many people from warring provinces were not present.
TopFrom the 9th to the 15th of September 1999, the BATU will hold region-wide trade action seminar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Addressing the theme "Building a Better World Through Trade Action", the seminar will attempt to generate information and identify issues that affect the sectors covered by four Asian Trade Federations (ATFs): teachers (ACT), clerical workers (ABCW), mixed (factory, electronics, transportation, etc.), industries (ATF-MIG), public services (ASIAFEDOP). As a result, each ATF will seek to identify their priorities and adopt more concrete trade actions through visioning and strategic planning. Eight members, preferably national co-ordinators or board members, of each ATF will be invited. The Activity is held under the auspices of the BATU-CNV Project for 1999.
TopThe 2nd national Congress of the CTA (Central de los Trabajadores Argentinas) took place in Mar del Plata on May 26th, on the theme "Work for all". The objective of the Congress was reaffirmation and presence. It brought together some 8 000 delegates from all over the country. Manuel Zaguirre was attending the Congress in his capacity as representative of the WCL and of General Secretary of USO. In his speech, he among others assured the CTA of the support of the WCL and USO, insisted on the right of the CTA to exist and on the fact that the ILO Conventions regarding trade union freedom must be respected and applied in their whole by Argentina. The Congress was preceded by an "International Colloquium on Labour, Democracy and the New Society". The WCL was the only international trade union organisation present. Eduardo Ojeda, General Secretary of the CNT from Paraguay, represented CLAT and the CTCS (Council of the Workers of South Cone). Victor de Gennarro (ATE – Civil Servants Association) was confirmed in his position as leader, assisted by Martha Maffei (CTERA - Confederation of the Education Workers of the Republic of Argentina)
TopFrom June 17th to July 7th, there was a seminar by the trade action and the WCL in collaboration with the ILO. The themes of the seminar were trade union strategies in answer to shifts in the labour market. Representatives had been invited from national and regional trade federations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. In the current socio-economic context, nowadays, we are faced with 4 great evolutions : globalisation, deregulation, flexibilisation and computerisation. As trade unions, we cannot ignore those evolutions. We have to adapt our action and structures to enable the workers to experience not the negative but the positive aspects of them. Trade union structures and action, both at sector and interprofessional levels, are still too tuned on the traditional pattern of the national economy. New forms of organisation on the labour market are imposed to us by a internationalised economy that believes itself unassailable and drags the workers into a spiral of social dumping en dehumanisation of labour.
If we wish to oppose this as trade unions, we will then be obliged to adapt our structures and action means to the existing reality, to increase our representativeness both in traditional and informal sectors.
The 20 participants from various sectors exchanged their experience, which enabled them to better know their respective realities, and looked for possible strategies for the trade unions of the 21st century.
TopThe setting up of pilot projects devised to better organise women workers constitutes one of the major aspects of the women’s action plan approved by the 24th Congress of the WCL (Bangkok – December 1999). Those projects will be developed in those sectors where women are a majority, where trade union organisations are little present and where living and working conditions are very precarious: the informal sector, free exporting zones, migration. The preparatory stage, that has already begun, consists in a team of leaders receiving a technical training in the setting up and development of projects whose objective is to better involve trade union organisations in those sectors where women are numerous, to give a concrete answer to the needs of women workers and to increase women’s participation within the trade union movement. Those training workshops will be organised around the concept of "Gender" and should, after a stage of analysis, come up with the working out of a concrete project that should be implemented from the year 2000. The organisations taking part to this project are the FFW - Philippines (Migration), NWC-Sri Lanka (EFZ- Exporting Free Zones), BIG-Indonesia (SI-Informal Sector), GWC-Gambia (SI), CGTD-Colombia (SI), CGT-Honduras (EFZ), et CASC-Dominican Republic (Migration).
Top15/9 : Financial Commission, Brussels (Belgium)
16/9 : Meeting of Foundations, Brussels (Belgium)
6-10/9 : Congress ODSTA, Lome (Togo)
10/9 : FMTI : Meeting Daily Management Board, Brussels (Belgium)
11-14/9 : FME : World Committee and Seminar, (Switzerland)
17-18/9 : European Section, Brussels (Belgium)
18/9 : CSC Building industry, Houffalize (Belgium).
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