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The Bretton Woods Institutions and trade unions:
Building a dialogue
For several years international financial institutions have been under fire from unions and civil society. Thus as the WTO (World Trade Organization) and the Bretton Woods Institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) shape the world economy, they are reproached for imposing hard-line free enterprise on countries which are not necessarily prepared to face its social consequences. Here, labour journalist Samuel Grumiau explains how an international seminar organized by ACTRAV (the ILO Bureau for Workers' Activities) in Geneva from 24 to 28 September of this year made it possible to discuss the various points-of-view on this subject and to refine union strategies on globalization.
Seated around the same table, representatives of trade unions and international financial institutions were at least in agreement on one point: for several years, these institutions endeavoured to discuss their policies openly and to attempt to review them. However, the workers were sceptical about the good will of the financiers when it came to their commitment to consult civil society. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided that all loans accorded under preferential conditions and all measures for debt relief had to be based on a strategy of poverty reduction, a process which should provide for more systematic consultation with civil society, including trade unions. However, according to labour leaders, there is still a long way to go. "One day I was called to meet a representative of the Bretton Woods Institutions", says François Murangira, Secretary-General of the Rwanda union CESTRAR, "but only during breakfast in a big hotel in Kigali! I would have preferred to have him meet the inhabitants too. He would have seen homeless people, sick people, starving people. He would have seen that while the financial institutions produce tons of pages of reports, poor people continue to die by the thousands." Too often, consultation with the unions turns into a monologue by the representatives of the international financial institutions, who explain strategies to the unionists without asking for their opinions.
If the international financial institutions recognize that their communication strategy hasn't been a great success until now, the unions also need to sharpen their arguments. "Unions must show that the justice they demand for workers produces results, that it improves the performance of the economy and the enterprise. That would highlight the idea that the union is something normal and respectable," notes an ILO official. But do unions in developing countries have the means to keep themselves informed on the discussions taking place? In this regard, several participants at the seminar complained that a good number of documents published by the World Bank and the IMF were only available on the Bank's Internet site, but that network connections are extremely difficult in many countries of the South.
The unions complain that too often the assistance of the Bretton Woods Institutions is tied to a reduction in public spending and on privatization. "When one knows that in Africa an employee feeds five or six people, how can the Bretton Woods Institutions speak of a reduction of poverty by requiring the layoff of 25 per cent of civil servants?", asks Tandiwe Munyani, union official of ZCTU (Zimbabwe). "And when the IMF demands that Bulgaria reduce salaries even more, when they are already so low, one cannot speak of a measure aiming to reduce poverty", adds Peter Bakvis, representative of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Washington. Luis Anderson, Secretary-General of the Inter American Regional Organization of the ICFTU, cites the example of Colombia. "In this country at war, where unionists are being assassinated, where workers live in fear for their lives, the IMF has just requested the government to show more flexibility on the labour market! Where will that lead?"
A background document prepared by ACTRAV for the Symposium, points to a number of instances where IFIs policies actually run contrary to ILO core Conventions, namely on the right to bargain collectively, and to universally accepted provisions for social protection.
Representatives of the international financial institutions stress that their policies derive from decisions by member Governments. And trade unionists pointed to discrepancies between what governments seem to decide at meetings of the WTO, the Bank and the Fund and what they commit themselves to do in the framework of the ILO, referring to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted in 1998.
They stressed the role which must be played by the ILO in the globalization process, even if, as one delegate put it, the ILO has less possibility of action. "The WTO can directly impose sanctions, require compensation, etc., while in the ILO everything rests on long negotiations.", he said. WTO Director-General Mike Moore addressed the Symposium and answered questions from union delegates about making the WTO work for workers and about the possibility of a labour input in the organization. The union representatives made clear their demand for concrete cooperation between the ILO and the WTO. A demand that was repeated during a week of action coinciding with the WTO ministerial conference this November in Qatar.
At the end of the seminar, it appeared clearly that the globalization of the economy has so far failed to deliver improvements in living and working conditions and that a new approach was needed. Perhaps the creation of the Global Commission on the social dimensions of globalization, which would be discussed at the next meeting of the ILO Governing Body in November, would provide a new forum to devise such an approach and bring the different points-of-view more closely together. "The failure of neoliberal policies has left an intellectual vacuum in the direction of global economic policy. We have to occupy this vacuum. We need to change the policy and to change the policy we need dialogue", Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO, told union representatives at the Symposium. At least that dialogue seems to have started.
- Samuel Grumiau -