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Globalization
& World
Trade
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In
the Wake of Seattle ...
Only a
Beginning
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While unionists from wealthy countries in the
North and poorer countries in the South can agree that the WTO
(as it now stands) and other global trade and economic
policies are only exacerbating poverty and inequality, simple
opposition to these regimes doesn’t do enough to address the
astounding gap in economic wealth and political power between
North and South. One obvious step to take is to relieve
nations of the South of the crushing debt they bear as a
result of corporate-dominated global policies. The AFL-CIO,
ICFTU, and other labor institutions support the mounting
campaign to cancel the debt, called Jubilee 2000.
And unionists from North and South need to
build a movement demanding that all nations, including the
U.S., sign and adhere to the labor rights standards developed
by the International Labor Organization. Ultimately, we need
enforceable standards to make corporations honor workers’
basic rights — or else pay a hefty price. "We can’t
control what corporations do," says Mazzocchi. "But
we can make the cost of doing it extremely high."
FORGING STRONG LINKS
Forging strong international links between
workers is also important. The secretariats of the ICFTU have
helped workers from some sectors establish contact and
coordinate campaigns. But the scale of this work is still
small.
"I think the only way workers from
different countries are going to reach an understanding about
what kind of trade and labor rights rules we need is by
engaging in common struggle," says Dave Campbell,
president of PACE Local 1675, which represents oil workers in
Los Angeles. Campbell’s local has initiated ongoing contact
with Mexican workers, including oil workers. "I think it’s
really a matter of forging links and finding common interests,
learning to trust each other in actual struggle. Sometimes I
see North Americans who think they know better go down into a
situation in Mexico and try to tell people there what to do.
That’s wrong — you’ve got to let people call the shots
in their own country, and just be available to help when they
need you to help."
COMING TOGETHER
Baldemar Velasquez believes that what’s
needed is "a true international trade union movement
where we create a joint structure with our complementary
unions in other countries." Several years ago, Velasquez
helped Mexican tomato pickers win an unusually good contract
— which boosted the bargaining power of his own members who
pick tomatoes in the U.S. Velasquez’s fellow Labor Party
co-chair, Bob Clark of the United Electrical, Radio, and
Machine Workers (UE), also comes from a union that has led the
way in forging direct links between U.S. and Mexican workers.
More such direct contact can’t help but
increase awareness and improve relations between workers in
different countries. José Bravo recalls some tense moments
when that awareness has been lacking. After speaking at union
rallies about the need for solidarity between labor and
environmental justice movements and between people on both
sides of the border, he says, "people will accept
everything I’m saying. And then some labor people will get
up there and say, ‘We got to stop these Mexicans because
they’re uneducated and they’re going to come into this
country and run over our children with their trucks’... And
I think — didn’t we just talk about this?"
Dave Campbell thinks in the end, workers will
have to come together: "In the coming struggles with
these multinational companies, the more nationalistic
positions that some people have are just going to be swept
aside — they’re just going to be ineffective," he
says. "Because the only way to defeat the multinationals
is for workers to be multinational. We don’t have a
choice."
– Laura McClure
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