IMF Authors: Banking Deregulation Worsens Economic Crises
In corporate boardrooms and right-wing gatherings, so-called “free-market principles” are hailed as the keys to a strong and growing economy, and regulations designed to restrain banks and financial firms from driving the economy off a cliff — as they nearly did four years ago — are maligned as job-killers. In reality, according to the authors of a new working paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 was worse in countries where financial institutions got the deregulation for which they lobbied—and that’s also true of the United States.
In “The Economic Crisis: Did Financial Supervision Matter?” economists Donato Masciandaro, Rosaria Vega Pansini and Marc Quintyn look at the banking systems of democratic nations with market economies, and report:
[T]he degree of banking regulation seems to be particularly significant: more banking deregulation is negatively correlated with countries’ economic resilience….The same seems to be true when considering financial resilience…other things being equal, more restrictions on bank activities seem to have reduced the likelihood of suffering the recent financial crisis.
IBM Global Alliance Formed to Improve Working Conditions, Gain Respect for Workers
Unions representing workers at IBM around the world are coming together to form a new IBM Global Union Alliance to faciliate cooperative efforts to increase union membership in the company and pursue global agreements to improve working conditions of IBM employees worldwide. They also will support workers facing anti-union actions by the company.
The unions formally created the alliance earlier this month at a joint meeting of the UNI Global Union (UNI) International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) and the European Metalworkers Federation (EMF).
The Global Alliance also is planning a worldwide day of action June 14, just days before the 100th anniversary of IBM, which the company will celebrate on June 16. IBM unions worldwide will mark the anniversary with actions that promote the important role of unions in protecting workers and demand respect for IBM employees. More details will become available later, alliance officials say.
Union Enabled Housekeeper to Speak Up About IMF Chief
After International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested for alleged sexual assault on a Manhattan hotel housekeeper, there was a lot of domestic back-slapping for this country’s superior handling of such cases compared with such European countries as France, where sexual predation often is swept under the rug.
But as independent journalist Adele Stan points out, speaking out publicly against so powerful an international figure from the vantage of a hotel maid required guts—and a union.
By any measure, it was a risky thing to do. There’s a reason most rapes go unreported. But there was one thing that housekeeper knew could not be done to her for reporting her account, observes a colleague in the labor movement: she could not be fired for having done so, because of the contract between her union, the New York Hotel Trades Council, and the Sofitel Hotel at which she works.
Read Stan’s full piece here.
Global Unions Condemn Proposed Anti-Worker Laws in Mexico
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Unions across the United States and around the world are calling on the Mexican government to reject proposed draconian changes to Mexico’s labor laws that if enacted, would lower wages, destroy job security, increase poverty and violate workers’ and human rights.
The proposals, which are supported by Big Business and President Felipe Calderón’s administration, are similar to the anti-worker bills being pushed through state legislatures in the United States. In a statement, the Union Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), the largest independent trade union confederation in Mexico, says the laws would be:
a regressive initiative that undermines fundamental rights of workers, and strengthens corporate control of labor. It follows the logic of those who think that the only viable offer to overcome the economic crisis is to transfer costs to workers, by reducing wages, lowering job security, and making workers a readily disposable resource for the benefit of capital.
Global Unions Unite to Help Workers at Multinationals
The global union movement came together in Washington, D.C., last week to kick off a joint initiative to help workers at multinational companies join unions.
Members of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Council of Global Unions met with U.S. union leaders to discuss support for international organizing campaigns. Much of their help is directed at the United States, where workers’ rights now lag far behind other industrialized nations. They also met with senior officials of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The two-day meeting featured a presentation on Deutsche Telekom and subsidiary T-Mobile. While Deutsche Telekom respects workers’ rights in its home country of Germany, T-Mobile workers in the United States and other countries face management campaigns of intimidation and harassment because they want to form a union and gain collective bargaining rights.
Participants also discussed organizing initiatives at various companies, including Saint-Gobain, DHL, IKEA, Wal-Mart and Securitas.
Global Unions Push for Economic Stimulus
More than 90 trade union leaders from all parts of the world met this week in Washington, D.C., with senior officials of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to push for continuing economic stimulus to jump-start the global economy.
In the meetings, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank President Robert Zoellick agreed on the importance of employment, social protection, working with trade unions and broadening the distribution of economic growth.
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow says:
In view of the continuing unemployment crisis worldwide, it is vital that the IMF and World Bank recognize the importance of maintaining global economic stimulus until recovery is assured.
Global Unions Condemn Mexico’s Move to Bust 44,000-Member Union
The global union movement is accusing Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, of systematically trying to bust independent unions and is demanding that he respect the rights of workers to form unions.
The latest example of Calderón’s anti-worker bias is the takeover last month by federal agents and police of the country’s second largest electrical power distributor, Luz y Fuerza (Central Light and Power). Calderón used an executive decree to dissolve the utility, but, in doing so, he also fired the entire 44,000-person workforce and disbanded their union, the 95-year-old Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME), a frequent critic of the government’s policies.
