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Workers' Liberty'the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class'Workers' Liberty Australia |
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by Janet Burstall
American unionists were a significant presence at the Seattle demonstrations which closed down the World Trade organisation. The new fair trade policy of the US trade union movement, the AFL-CIO, is both a reason for, and another expression of the new internationalism of US unions. 'Fair trade, not free trade' was adopted as policy at the ACTU Congress in July, at the urging of Doug Cameron of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. The ACTU apparently took inspiration from the American unions, with Richard Trumka, an AFL-CIO leader as a guest speaker at the Congress. The AFL-CIO initiative is called "Campaign for Global Fairness", and advocates "a new internationalism" around four points.
"We must first undertake a program of broad-based education with our members and our leaders, then extend it to our allies and to the general public.
"Second, we must make workers' rights and human rights a mainstay of our trade and investment agreements...
"Third, we must undertake major new efforts to build international solidarity with our brothers and sisters in emerging nations as well as in development nations... We must escalate our support for their struggles to build strong unions...
"Finally, we must launch aggressive new initiatives to hold multinational corporations accountable... demanding that [they] disclose the location of their affiliates, joint venture partners and contractors internationally..."
This new AFL-CIO line is a great, and very welcome, shift from the old AFL-CIO stance of "Buy American" and intense suspicion (or downright sabotage) of independent and militant trade-union movements elsewhere in the world on the grounds that they might be tinged with "communism".
Unfortunately the Australian unions 'fair trade' campaign, under the title 'Make it here' is stronger on Australian nationalism than on international solidarity. The AMWU quite rightly recognises job loss and job insecurity as a major problem for manufacturing workers. What it sees as globalisation, which has caused this insecurity, is almost entirely capitalism, whether operating within one country or many countries. The aspect of globalisation which the AMWU challenges, is the lower level of tariffs on imports to Australia, than to Europe, the USA, Japan and other OECD countries. Tariff cuts are the reasons for job losses and job insecurity according to the AMWU. Whilst tariff cuts have made it easier for manufacturing employers to relocate to cheaper labour markets, the implication of advocating tariff increases is that workers in other countries have less right to be employed than Australian workers.
There are elements in the AMWU policy expressing support for the rights and struggles of workers in other countries. It advocates inclusion of 'core labour standards' in industrial agreements, which seek to commit international corporations to observe these standards in other countries. This is welcome, but unfortunately in contradiction with the main concerns and slogans being brought by unionists to demonstrations for 'fair trade': 'Make it here or jobs disappear', 'Buy Australian', 'Export goods, not jobs' and 'Imports kill jobs'.
The AFL-CIO Campaign for Global Fairness is a far better starting point for a campaign for international solidarity against the power of capital, than the nationalism of the ACTU/AMWU campaign.