Labor and the World Economic Forum
By Milt Neidenberg
What was needed was a loud and clear voice that could be
heard around the country and the globe demanding global
economic justice. It wasn't to be. They let out a squeak when
it should have been a bellow.
On Jan. 17, less than two weeks before the meeting of the
World Economic Forum, AFL-CIO leaders finally joined the
growing protest against this wealthy group of corporate and
banking moguls allied with government elites. This group of
billionaires will spend Jan. 31 to Feb. 4 defending their
grossly disproportionate share of the world's precious
resources.
The WEF will be held in New York to show the world that,
following the World Trade Center attack, the city is now a
secure setting for this glorified, ostentatious function. The
mobilization of police and other law enforcement personnel who
have been training for weeks, the media blitz of violence
baiting that has saturated the public, is all unprecedented and
calculated to intimidate participants from joining the
protest.
It seems to be working in regard to the AFL-CIO leaders. In
a letter and leaflet addressed only to local unions in New York
City and the state federation, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
outlined two modest activities scheduled for Jan. 29 to provide
laborresponse to the World Economic Forum. One activity will be
a forum to hear "what globalization is doing to our families,
our communities, our countries, our future." Sweeney will be
the featured speaker.
AFL-CIO calls off march
The other activity would have been a "March for Global
Justice." However, the march was called off. Instead, the
AFL-CIO will hold a rally at a Gap storefront near the
Waldorf-Astoria, where the WEF is meeting. Unfortunately, this
was the union leadershipresponse when city and higher-up law
enforcement officials denied them their constitutional right to
march.
Their literature states, "Say 'no' to sweatshops, layoffs
and the global corporate agenda, and say 'yes' to the worldwide
movement for global justice." This is a step forward from
previous years when they responded to the global corporate
agenda with an appeal for "fair trade, not free trade." As if
these greedy, marauding scoundrels who scour the globe to
enrich their treasuries at the expense of the most oppressed
have any sense of fairness.
Behind the façade of glitter and gold, a sense of
gloom and doom appears to be pervading the WEF participants.
Robert Hormat--vice chair of Goldman, Sachs International and a
spokesperson on many occasions for Wall Street's
sentiments--expressed his view that there is no longer a
feeling of invulnerability. "A new sense of realism has
descended on us, and we realize we're all in peril." (New York
Times, Jan. 27)
This should be a wakeup call for these labor leaders. The
mood of the class enemy is significant in planning action
struggles. One such struggle that is sure to come up at the WEF
is the Free Trade Area Agreement. FTAA--a threat to the
millions of workers here and abroad--is a top priority for the
Bush administration and corporate/banking tycoons.
AFL-CIO President Sweeney has been invited to address a
session of the WEF. Will he denounce this multilateral bosses'
agreement--which is nothing more than another North America
Free Trade Agreement? NAFTA, which opened up Canada and Mexico
to U.S. capitalists, decimated the jobs and working conditions
of workers here and abroad. The FTAA is much more threatening.
It will encompass all of South America and the Caribbean.
It remains to be seen what the text of his remarks will be.
But one fact is certain. There is a growing opposition and a
deep distrust abroad, particularly in Latin America, for the
FTAA, which seeks to open up those markets for further U.S.
exploitation.
Sweeney should show
solidarity on FTAA
President Sweeney should acknowledge this growing militancy
in a show of international solidarity and spell it out.
In Argentina, the labor movement and the poor continue to
take to the streets in general strikes and other mass actions.
In a show of defiance, they are demanding that the new
government break the financial and political grip U.S. banks
and corporations still hold on their country.
In Brazil, unemployment is on the rise. Organizations like
the Landless Workers Movement--who work on the sugar
plantations--are opposing the stranglehold U.S. tariffs and
quotas have on their economy.
In Mexico, steelworkers have occupied a number of plants
beholden to U.S. NAFTA agreements, along with other
struggles.
Venezuela, Colombia and much of Latin America are seething
with anti-U.S. rage as unemployment, poverty and hunger rise.
President George W. Bush's "free trade" policy, the FTAA, and
all the exorbitant benefits accrued to U.S. banks/corporations,
the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are in
jeopardy.
Meanwhile, socialist Cuba stands as an alternative, a beacon
of hope for the downtrodden masses of workers and peasants.
This is all good news for the labor movement here and it
should make the most of it. This militancy can only help the
AFL-CIO and the millions of members who are under assault from
the Bush administration and Wall Street.
The Bush administration is already charging these worldwide
movements with "terrorism" to justify its plans for military
aggression, as it is doing in Colombia.
According to an extensive article on the WEF in the Jan. 27
New York Times, "terror ism is now synonymous with opposition
to globalization." Financial writers Ste pha nie Strom and
Louis Uchitelle claimed: "Not only has globalization been cast
by terrorists as the cause of many ills, but it also may be the
culprit behind the synchronized slowdown of the world economy,
the first global downturn since the oil crisis of the
1970s."
This phony propaganda won't fly. The workers know well
enough who are responsible for the global recession: the
billionaires who will be attending the WEF.
Workers more concerned with economy than
'terrorism'
In a recent New York Times/CBS poll, a cross-section of the
population has shifted its opinion in recent weeks. According
to the poll, "the economy has now supplanted battling
terrorism." This is a significant development.
Since the attack on the World Trade Center, the government's
campaign to inject "terrorism" and patriotism into every facet
of life has enabled the Bush administration to successfully
carry out U.S. imperialism's war drive and the war against
labor, the poor and the oppressed.
Are those days numbered? Will the AFL-CIO leaders deal with
this dramatic development?
In his opening remarks to an AFL-CIO Biennial Convention
held in Las Vegas in late November, which most commentators and
analysts called uneventful and uninspiring, Sweeney urged union
leaders to "take the offensive in a war here at home." He was
referring to an offensive against President Bush, congressional
Republicans and corporations. While he repeated again and again
this theme of waging war here at home to the 1,000 delegates,
he added, "even as we support the president and our troops in
the conflict abroad."
Sweeney praised Bush for "waging the war against terrorism."
This sends the wrong message at a time when the deepening
recession is awakening the workers to struggle. The AFL-CIO
leaders are in a dangerous contradiction. Unless they detach
themselves from the frenzy of the campaign on "terrorism" that
justifies expanding the war abroad, the labor movement can't
wage an effective fightback against all the social ills
impacting on the workforce here.
Events such as the Enron debacle, which exposes every
feature of capitalist accumulation of wealth and the system
that deepens the gap between rich and poor, have awakened anger
among the workers--especially people of color--who will bear
the brunt of the recession.
Is the class-consciousness of multinational rank-and-file
workers on the rise? Is a people's movement--made up of
students and youth, immigrant and community
organizations--taking their grievances into the streets?
Just maybe, these developments have overshadowed the views
of AFL-CIO leaders and turned the wheel leftward toward new and
creative forms of struggle. It's time for these labor leaders
to get aboard and check it out.
Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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