Economic Crisis:

Global Labor Needs a Global Stimulus

By Scott Marshall

“Workers of the World Unite” is back by popular demand. And not just by demand, but by necessity.

Global transnational corporations and their partners finance capital are working full time to craft an economic solution to the world crisis that preserves their enormous profits and power while putting the burden of recovery on working people. How could it be otherwise?

The capitalist beast has not changed its spots. But it has mutated into a much larger, globally interconnected, behemoth. Its institutions, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization are in full swing. Not to mention the infamous G8 and G20 big country summits. Of course, none of these even have seats at the table for labor.

The global nature of the economic crisis, and the vast, new levels of global economic integration all demand that labor develop its own global strategy.

The recent meeting of world labor leaders in Washington, DC at the time of the last G20 emergency meeting was a very good start. (Read about it in the People’s Weekly World) This meeting of labor leaders from the big economies mapped out some important strings that should be attached to any global deals to protect the public interest. But labor needs to go far beyond just adding its own conditions to the plans being hatched by these global capitalist forums.

First the crisis demands that world labor take steps to accelerate the growing trend of international labor cooperation and even organizational integration. An important first step is world labor unity. How about the merger of global labor federations and industry groups without regard to political or ideological conditions – an end to the cold war for good? It also means further development of initiatives like the United Steelworkers and the British Unite the Union merger into a new global union. (Read about it here) These are all parts of a growing objective process that matches labor unity to the actual conditions of global capital. Again Workers of the World Unite!

Secondly, global labor needs a global program. This will take a lot of discussion. It will take the best thinking of us all. The truth is that the massive impact of the global economic disaster on working families everywhere, can make demands that seemed utopian and impractical in the past, realistic solutions for today.

For example don’t we need a massive global economic stimulus that creates jobs? How about a project by the G8 nations to provide clean drinking water for the billions of people who live without it around the world? Not only would this global infrastructure project be a major blow for world health, it could create millions of jobs in areas that need them most. Such a project would help build sustainable infrastructure for further development in poverty stricken areas of the globe.

Or how about a global minimum wage? As a beginning, why not set minimum standards for transnational companies that prowl the globe in search of cheap labor? They can afford it. Such a minimum wage would have to be based on real circumstances in any given country. But a global minimum wage would protect the living standards of workers in developed countries by raising living standards everywhere. Better wages and benefits help lift standards all around.

Lastly global labor needs to intensify its fight for global labor rights. Stronger labor movements help curb the worst excesses of global capital run wild. At home we need the Employee Free Choice Act to better defend the interests of all working people. More labor power is a counter balance to corporate greed and corruption. The kind of greed and corruption that helped produced the current economic crisis in the first place. Sustainable economic development requires more democracy in the system. Unions contribute to democracy by giving workers a bigger collective voice.

Stronger labor organizations will result in workers and their families keeping more of the wealth they produce. Unions raise the standards for all workers by creating upward pressure on wages and working conditions around them. This in turn creates more demand from below for goods and services making for a more sustainable economy.

Workers of the world unite – now more than ever!

Obama Wins!
Labor Wins!
Working Families Win!

The American people reject policies of greed
and union-busting!

By Scott Marshall

President-elect Barack Obama.

Those words ring with meaning. For organized labor they ring with pride, hope, and energy for the struggles ahead. No one feels like “labor’s candidate won, so now we can go home and rest.” Rather, as congratulation messages pour in from all parts of the labor movement, the critical subtext is, we are ready and eager to march with you for change. At the top of labor’s change agenda is boots-on-the-ground support for the Obama agenda of a new “New Deal” for economic recovery and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Organized labor played an amazing role in the election Barack Obama.

Unions played an extraordinary leadership role in winning the working class for Obama.

It’s been many years since labor was so totally united behind a presidential candidate.

Labor raised the struggle against racism and for class unity to a whole new level.

Unions gave vital leadership in building support for Obama on issues like the economy, workers rights to organize, protecting retiree’s pensions and social security, healthcare, and building green manufacturing that protects the environment and puts people back to work.

The labor movement took independent political action to spectacular new levels. Unions broke all previous records in mobilizing it’s rank and file for labor walks, phone banks, plant gate distributions, and member to member contact in the workplace. Labor continued to build and develop it’s own political apparatus and voice. Hundreds, if not thousands, of union halls became campaign central for the Obama campaign as well as for targeted Congressional contests.

As phenomenal as labor’s efforts were, the impact of the Obama upsurge and campaign on labor was also incredible. New coalitions were built or strengthened. A new depth was added to ties between labor and all the components of the Obama movement.

Labor’s role was hardly mentioned in the mainstream press. All the more reason for labor to have a big showing of celebration and support for our new President. Some in labor have begun to talk about a big mobilization for President Barack Obama’s “People’s Inaugural.”

What a great idea!

What's a union gonna do for me?

By Melissa O'Rourke

For young workers who may not know what the advantages of being in a union are, the question "What's a union gonna do for me?" was answered in a report released last week by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The report detailed good news and bad news. The bad news is that workers aged 18-29 have the lowest unionization rates of any age group, and they have been hit hardest by the stagnant wage growth over the last three decades. This is despite a substantial increase in the number of young workers with college degrees.

The good news is that young workers who are in a union make an average of 12.4%, or about $1.75 an hour, more than non-union workers. They are also 17% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and 24% more likely to have a pension plan.

According to American Rights at Work, the Employee Free Choice Act would give workers a fair and direct path to form unions through majority sign-up, help employees secure a contract with their employer in a reasonable period of time, and toughen penalties against employers who violate their workers' rights. Senator Barack Obama not only supports the legislation, but is a co-sponsor. Senator McCain opposes it completely.

For young workers in the lowest-wage occupations, the study shows the contrast between union and non-union is even more stark. The median young worker in a low-wage occupation earned $10.62, almost two dollars an hour more than the $8.74 the median non-union young worker earned. These benefits also carried over into their health care coverage, 40% of union workers vs. less than 20% of non-union workers, and 29% had a pension compared to only 11.2% of their non-union counterparts.

In these tough economic times, the union advantage is not only strong, but obvious and necessary. If young workers are to survive, thrive and build a solid future, we must make sure the Employee Free Choice Act is enacted.

The report can be read in its entirety here.

Bush Hugs New Deal

The irony of it leaves one's toes tingling.

In 2000 Bush invaded the White House with a copy of FDR's New Deal in his back pocket. His plan was to dig a deep hole in the South Lawn and drop it in.

Today, as Bush's days as President dwindle down, the headline of a major newspaper informs us, "Bush Forces 9 Major Banks To Accept Partial Nationalization."

Gosh!

A not so Merry Christmas for Ohio workers

News from CWA: GM Refuses IUE-CWA Efforts to Keep Moraine, Ohio, Plant Open

Rejecting the efforts of IUE-CWA to negotiate a way to save a General Motors assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, the company has announced it will shut down the plant and lay off the final 1,400 workers two days before Christmas.

"IUE-CWA and the Local 84798 negotiating committee worked closely together to try to rescue this plant," IUE-CWA President Jim Clark said. "We had a strong basis to start from given the high quality and productivity of the workforce. Despite offers to 'do whatever it takes to save Moraine,' GM was determined to shut down the plant."

GM announced this summer that it would close the SUV plant by 2010 because of the big vehicles' slumping sales. About 1,000 jobs were cut in September when GM ended the plant's second shift.

The economic crisis and soaring fuel prices have hit Moraine and nearby Dayton, and its working families, especially hard. Clark described it as a "community already rocked by plant closings and layoffs."

But he said the Moraine plant could have survived if GM had been willing to work with IUE-CWA. "We left no stone unturned," Clark said, describing outreach to elected officials and a range of innovative proposals. "We presented GM with proposals that would have made the Moraine, Ohio, facility - the most competitive in the GM portfolio - even more competitive than their competitors. But GM was not willing to work with us by committing to new product."

The union is finalizing a settlement package for IUE-CWA members at the plant that Clark said "will allow them to transition their lives after this devastating blow." The package will include buyout, retirement and flowback opportunities.

"I know that we can count on the professionalism of our membership to see that the last truck out reflects the quality they are known for," Clark said, urging members to pour their anger into electing a president who stands with workers.

"I call on our members to express their outrage by voting in November for an Obama administration that will work to keep good manufacturing jobs in the United States instead of a continuation of the same trade policies and lax regulation that have destroyed our economy," he said.

Support Striking Colombian Sugar Cane Workers!

From the IUF: Some eighteen thousand Colombian sugar workers in the Cauca river valley region, organized in the National Union of Sugarcane Cutters (SINALCORTEROS) have been on strike since September 15. The IUF is requesting international support for their struggle.

While sugar ethanol production is booming and the mill owners reap super profits fortified by tax exemptions, the condition of the cane cutters continues to worsen steadily. The sugar workers of Valle del Cauca receive poverty wages for a workday stretching to 14 hours a day or more, 7 days a week. The work is debilitating, injuries and occupational diseases are widespread, and the living and working environment and drinking water are heavily polluted by pesticides.

The cane cutters are employed through the bogus "cooperatives" promoted by the Colombian government in order to free the actual employers of any obligations for collective bargaining and health and retirement benefits, which workers must pay out of pocket. These "cooperatives" supply the mills and ethanol plants (located in Free Trade Zones benefiting from additional tax breaks) with a vast army of contracted labour.

On July 14, the union presented a charter of demands to the mill and ethanol plant owners' association ASOCAÑA on July 14, calling for a living wage, reduced hours, an improved living, health and educational environment and the replacement of the fake cooperatives with formal work contracts, union recognition and a collective bargaining agreement.

The demands were ignored for two months, and the union took strike action on September 15. The government and employer response was to use police violence to clear the mills of striking workers.

The striking workers and their union have received strong support and messages of solidarity from IUF affiliates in the region and in the global sugar sector. Through the website of the IUF Latin American regional secretariat, you can add your support by sending a message to the government of Colombia and to the employers' association ASOCAÑA. The message calls on the the government to intervene immediately to bring the employers to the negotiating table to discuss the union demands presented on July 14.

To send a message in English, click here.

To send a message in Spanish, click here.

International and European union leaders call for crisis action from the G7 Finance Ministers

From the ITUC:

Brussels, 8 October 2008: The General Secretaries of the ITUC, ETUC and TUAC have sent an open letter to the G7 Finance Ministers meeting on 10 October, calling for a major recovery plan to stave off the risks of a global recession that goes beyond the coordinated cuts in interest rates announced by six central banks.

The mounting financial chaos is taking its toll on the real economy with sharply falling employment in the United States now spreading into a global recession, threatening jobs around the world with especially severe impacts on the poorest countries. The G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors must put in place a coordinated recovery plan targeted at stimulating the real economy in the G7 and beyond. There should be further coordinated interest rate cuts as necessary. Governments should bring forward infrastructure investment programmes as well as measures to create “green jobs” through alternative energy development and energy saving and conservation. Direct tax and expenditure measures should be introduced to support purchasing power of median and low income earners. As large parts of the financial system are being supported by public taxpayers, the unions insist that governments should take equity stakes and act as activist investors to protect the public interest and ensure that taxpayers are reimbursed. Beyond the immediate action, the G7 governments must work to ensure that a crisis of this scale does not happen again. Work on a new regulatory architecture must begin, covering not just banks but also the parallel financial system as well.

The call for action on the crisis follows the mobilisation of more than a million workers by trade unions in 123 countries around the world on October 7, the World Day for Decent Work. The central demand of the World Day focused on a fundamental transformation of the global economy against the background of the current crisis.

To read the full text please click here

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The ITUC represents 168 million workers in 155 countries and territories and has 311 national affiliates.