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A Working People’s Global Summit |
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A global economy requires a global approach—and not just from greedy corporations. The tumult caused by changes that span the globe most affect the billions of the world’s working people, and union leaders from around the world are coming together to share strategies and ideas to better represent these workers in the global economy.
The AFL-CIO is hosting a global organizing summit at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., Dec.10–11. Delegates will lay the groundwork for and discuss global strategies to help workers join unions. The summit opens on International Human Rights Day (Dec. 10), a time when U.S. unions traditionally mobilize to restore the freedom to join unions.
The summit is being sponsored by the Council of Global Unions, which consists of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development and a group of 10 union federations around the world.
Guy Ryder, general secretary of the ITUC, which represents some 168 million workers in 153 countries, says the conference will not just be a discussion about organizing. Participants will work to make sure employers around the world recognize unions as partners and negotiate bargaining contracts with them.
We want to contribute to what the unions are doing in the United States. If U.S. employers place restrictions on the rights of their workers, so can employers in other countries.
Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen, who chairs the AFL-CIO Organizing Committee, says some countries, including the United States, are not living up to their responsibilities to make sure workers have the right to bargain.
This is an issue everywhere, but this is a crisis here.
AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy, who chairs the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council Committee on International Affairs, led the discussion of this historic conference at the Council’s spring meeting in Chicago. Lucy noted this will be the first worldwide labor conference to be held in the United States.
AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff says the summit will attempt to reach a consensus on the crisis workers around the world are experiencing because of declining union densities. Workers around the world understand the benefits of collective bargaining—decent wages, pensions, health care—are tied to the ability to freely join unions.The delegates will discuss “collective strategies” to fight back, he says.
It’s crazy to fight these fights by ourselves. U.S. unions want to do this in a way that respects the unions in other countries and their national cultures.
The summit follows several innovative efforts by U.S. and European unions to work together.
- In May, the UAW spearheaded an unprecedented meeting of auto unions from eight nations to meet the challenges of globalization by developing shared strategies for moving toward the future. The representatives agreed to form an ad hoc global auto sector organizing working group to gather and share information, develop strategic organizing targets and coordinate solidarity among participants.
- In April, the United Steelworkers (USW), Amicus, the largest manufacturing union in the United Kingdom, and UK’s Transport and General Workers’ Union (T&G) took the first step toward forming a truly global union. Representatives of the three unions signed an agreement to move toward merger. Amicus and the T&G joined together as one union—Unite—with 2.1 million members on May 1, 2007.
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IBM Unions Hold
International Solidarity Conference
June 25 to 28, 2007 Paris, France
55 Union members from IBM, representing 17 unions from 13 countries, met in Paris between June 25 to 28, 2007 and discussed IBM’s strategy and the situation of IBM employees and the IBM unions in each of the countries represented.
The following unions contributed to the meeting: Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701 (USA), CC.OO (Spain), CePETel-CTA (Argentina), CFDT (France), Italian National Works Council, CGT (France), ERTO (Finland), IG Metall (Germany), JMIU (Japan), LBC-NVK (Belgium), CNE (Belgium), PESYI (Greece), PROSA (Denmark), Sif (Sweden), UNITES (India).
IBM Workers International Solidarity (IWIS) is the answer to IBM’s strategy of becoming a “globally integrated enterprise”: The IBM Employees need a “globally unionized workforce”!
IWIS declares:
• As IBM tries to apply a strategy of eliminating all local ties and links and to operate on a global level with no accountability to national societies, labor regulations and national working conditions: IWIS is the employees advocate to force IBM in recognizing a Corporate Social Responsibility as defined in international standards and to be more respective to its employee representatives and unions in every country IBM is doing business.
• While IBM formally acknowledges the legal rights of employees, the facts are IBM in practice does not apply them everywhere. There are cases where IBM acts against the Labor law, against the interests of employees and against union rights. Only a strong global network of union organized people within IBM can counteract this destructive attitude.
• IWIS requests the support and action of all national unions and global union federations in order to fight for IBM employees rights.
• All members of IWIS will stand together for this mission. They will act together along the belief that—an injury to one is an injury to all!
• IWIS member unions will think globally and act locally to enforce the legal and legitimate rights of IBM employees and their unions all over the world. • “LEAN” as redefined by IBM will have a negative impact on employees and IWIS will oppose any job cuts.
IWIS demands:
• As IBM wants to introduce a “new compensation model” this year, IWIS demands salary and wage increases for every IBM employee by collective bargaining agreements in each country where IBM operates.
• If IBM wants to introduce a “LEAN” process, IWIS demands IBM negotiate with unions (and/or legitimate workers representatives) in advance to avoid any job cuts.
• IBM should acknowledge the legal rights and laws of employees and their representatives. IBM should respect the national labor standards in all countries and recognize their legitimate representative unions.
IWIS calls:
• For union representation at IBM in every country. • Every IBM employee to become organized in a union.
• To encourage unionists to support IWIS global actions
• All unions representing IBM employees to join the IWIS network.
Lee Conrad (Alliance@IBM CWA)
www.allianceibm.org
Newly elected International Coordinator of IBM Workers International Solidarity