From: Robert Cherwink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 99
From: Western Hemisphere Conference <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
OWC-YEAR 2000 CONFERENCE APPEAL
***********
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Please join with us in building a significant international labor
conference for the independence of the trade unions and democratic
rights.
You will find below the Appeal for this international workers'
conference, which will be held January 14-17 of the year 2000
at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in San Francisco. The Appeal was
issued by the Western Hemisphere Workers' Conference Continuations
Committee in conjunction with the San Francisco Labor Council
(AFL-CIO).
Following the text of the Open World Conference Appeal is a first
list of endorsers. The enormous enthusiasm elicited for this
Open World Conference in just a few weeks indicates that this
year 2000 workers' conference could represent another important
step toward building Global Unionism.
But for this to happen, we urgently need your endorsement of
the Conference Appeal and your support. Please send us your
endorsement of this Appeal as soon as possible, and list
exactly how you would like to be identified.
Also, we urgently need your financial support to produce and
mail the bimonthly conference preparatory bulletins and to build
this event as broadly as possible within the international
labor movement. Contributions, large or small, should be sent
to WHC, c/o San Francisco Labor Council, 1188 Franklin St. #203,
San Francisco, CA 94109. Please make checks payable to WHC.
You can also reach us by phone at (510) 234-6603 or fax
(510) 234-6998. Our e-mail address is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copies of this Appeal are available in Spanish and French.
Please let us know if you wish to be sent a copy in one or both
of these languages.
Also, if you wish more information about the Western Hemisphere
Workers Conference Continuations Committee, please let us know.
Thanks for your support,
In Solidarity,
Ed Rosario Mya Shone
Co-coordinator Co-Coordinator
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
APPEAL for an Open World Conference of Workers in Defense of
Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights
>From every corner of the globe, we hear the same message from
governments and the multinational corporations they serve: It is
working people who must relinquish their jobs, social protections
and, most important, their independent trade unions to permit
global capital's "free trade" agenda to move forward. It is we who,
in the name of "modernization" and "globalization," must forfeit
all the gains we have won over decades of struggle.
The existence of international labor rights -- particularly the
right to collective bargaining and the right to strike -- are
considered barriers to "free trade." Indeed, the traditional trade
union, we are told, is not suitable for the workplace of the new
millennium insofar as it said to "hamper" a corporation's ability to
compete in the global economy.
In our own experience in the United States we have witnessed
countless efforts by the employers and the government to restrict,
suppress and even bust unions. The assault has taken various
forms -- PATCO, Taft-Hartley, Landrum-Griffin, the Hatch Act,
state "right-to-work" laws, Congressional back-to-work orders for
striking railworkers, "Paycheck Protection" acts, and lawsuits
against unions and officers who respect picket lines -- such as in
the West Coast Neptune Jade case. The list goes on. But the content
is always the same: to shackle the labor movement.
When this doesn't work, we have seen the employers and
government try to integrate us into their plans. Under the pretense
of making us their "associates" and "partners," they deploy all
sorts of schemes to undermine collective bargaining and to roll
back our rights and working conditions. They also hold out the
promise of toothless "side agreements" and other such language to
get us to drop our fight against NAFTA and the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI), which are so crucial to global
capital's "free trade" agenda.
What can we do to fight back?
On June 7, 1998, close to 200 trade union delegates from 36
countries met in Geneva to counter global capital's assault on
working people the world over and to promote a fightback in defense
of trade union rights. The meeting, held on the eve of the annual
convention of the International Labor Organization (ILO), was
called by the heads of 17 national trade union federations in Africa
and the International Liaison Committee for a Workers'
International (ILC), a coalition of trade unionists and activists in
82 countries fighting the structural adjustment policies of the World
Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund
(IMF).
Ed Rosario, coordinator of the Western Hemisphere Workers'
Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations, was the keynote
speaker at the Geneva meeting. Brother Rosario, who represented
the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO), called for an
international labor fightback in defense of the ILO conventions
(right to collective bargaining, ban on child and forced labor, ban
on discrimination in employment, equal wages for work of equal
value, etc.) against all the attempts by the WTO and IMF to subvert
and ultimately destroy them. He also urged the conference
participants to join the struggle for Global Unionism charted by the
Western Hemisphere Workers Conference, which was held in
November 1997 with the participation of 412 delegates from 20
countries -- including a representative from the national AFL-CIO.
A central concern expressed by all the trade union delegates in
Geneva was the growing threat to the independence of the trade
unions on all continents. They took note of the increasing attempts
by the WTO and IMF to break the power of the unions by seeking to
incorporate the leaderships of the trade unions into "Social Pacts"
and "Roundtable Agreements" with the very governments and
bosses that are dismantling our jobs, worsening our working
conditions and attacking our very unions.
Such pacts are based on the idea that labor, management and
governments must come together to find "common solutions,"
thereby putting aside what WTO head Renato Ruggiero calls the
"confrontational relationship and frictions inherent in traditional
labor-management relations."
The participants in the Geneva meeting called on working people
throughout the world to reject the strategy of "Social Pacts," which,
they warned, was the road to the integration-cooptation of the unions
into the very fabric of globalization -- something the multinationals
so desperately need as they seek to avert mass social upheavals that
could threaten their anti-worker designs.
At the conclusion of the gathering in Geneva, the delegates
concluded that there must be a world conference aimed at defending
the independence of the unions -- and democracy itself, insofar as
an independent labor movement is a cornerstone of a free and
democratic society. They proposed a conference in the year 2000 in
response to a United Nations Summit, to be convened in June of that
year at the behest of the IMF and WTO with the explicit purpose of
advancing the integration-cooptation agenda of the multinationals.
The UN Summit is designed to bring together all the players in the
so-called "civil society" (local employers, multinational
corporations, nongovernmental organizations/NGOs, churches,
trade unions, charity organizations, lobbying groups, and political
parties) into a common framework to promote more "democratic"
and "participatory" free trade pacts and other anti-worker policies.
The time to act is now!
In answer to the June 7 appeal from Geneva, the Western
Hemisphere Workers=B9 Conference Continuations Committee --
together with all the undersigned endorsing unions, trade unionists
and activists =8B call upon all who seek to defend unions, to protect
and advance the gains of the workers' movement and to guarantee
that a safe environment exists as we move onto a better future for
all people:
Join us in organizing a worldwide workers' conference in early
2000 in San Francisco.
Following as it will on the successful Western Hemisphere
Workers' Conference Against NAFTA and Privatizations, our
conference in the year 2000 will afford an opportunity to gather
together unionists and activists from around the world to share
experiences, to analyze the attacks of the bosses, and =8B most
important =8B to chart an international fightback. We need to unite
all those who are upholding the defense of independent trade unions
and democratic rights, irrespective of country, union or political
horizon.
We call upon unions and working people to endorse this call.
Contribute information to a multilingual bulletin to be published
regularly by the conference organizers on the issues confronting the
trade union movement. Help us raise the funds necessary to ensure
trade union delegations from around the world who will be present
at the conference.
Please join us in building Global Unionism and an international
movement against privatization, against the scourge of "free trade"
agreements, against NAFTA and its extension into the FTAA,
against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), against
the destruction of jobs and benefits =8B and for the defense of our
unions and our democratic rights.
A totally unified global response is the very response the bosses
and the politicians most fear. This is precisely the response we must
forge. We must send out the message: Labor is on the Move =8B No
More Boundaries. By working together, WE SHALL OVERCOME!
.........
Please send all organizational/individual endorsements and
financial sponsorships (payable to Western Hemisphere
Conference or WHC) to the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-
CIO), attention: Ed Rosario, 1188 Franklin St., suite 203, San
Francisco, CA 94109. You can also fax your endorsement to us at
(415) 440-9297, or call us if you have any questions at (415) =
681-5868
or (415) 440-4809. You can also email us at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[LL Moderator's note: List of endorsements deleted for
transmission to Leftlink.]
Peace!
Rob, Sector Air Raid Warden at Rob's Place
/RENEGADE/ newsletter: http://fornits.com/renegade/
DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM
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Robert Cherwink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION -- Ethiopian Proverb
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