In May 1994, I was
present on behalf of the board of the World Federation of Clerical
Workers WFCW at the congress of the Federation of Latin American
workers in the Commercial Sector, Offices and Private Services Sector
FETRALCOS in Panama. It was my first official visit to Latin America
since I had become the Executive Secretary of WFCW, a job which I
combined with that of Confederal Secretary of the WCL. To the
outsider this might be somewhat confusing, but this combination was
due to the fact that most International Trade Union Federations
(ITF's) affiliated to the WCL had not enough money to finance their
own secretariat and to organize international activities. Moreover,
as members of the WCL they had the right on secretarial support of
the WCL. It was said that such a combination would save money and be
more efficient and affordable. In practice, it was difficult for the
ITF's to organize their own agenda and to maintain their identity.
The federations in the
continents of the Third World were mainly poor, due to lack of
payment of dues by its member organizations. Obviously this is the
result of poverty in many countries of the Third World, but that is
not the only explanation. In the continents, the unions are organized
mainly by company and not by sector. In most countries of the Third
World and also in Latin America, except perhaps for example in
Brazil, Collective Labor Agreements by sector are not allowed and/or
recognized legally. Moreover, they are not encouraged by employers
and governments. Consequently, the unions do not feel the necessity
to organize its members by sector. Of course, unions could act with
the aim to change the labor law to make possible sector collective
agreements but it seems to have no priority at the trade unions.
As a result, companies
can compete on the basis of costs of wages. The only guarantee that
this does not degenerate into a race to the bottom are legal minimum
wages. But in many Third World countries, many employers do not
respect the legal minimum wage and governments are often too weak (or
corrupted) to enforce compliance with the legal minimum wage. The
result is that there are continuously conflicts in individual
companies, what in turn leads to employers to keep unions out of the
door as much as possible, if necessary by setting up their own trade
union, called the yellow unions. This vicious circle of conflict is
hard to break.
FETRALCOS in turn is
poorer than the other continental confederations because it organizes
the economically more weak sectors such as workers in the retail
sector and informal workers like street traders and market vendors.
FETRALCOS had and has more good will than financial resources. Still,
I wanted to investigate at the Congress, if FETRALCOS in spite of its
limited resources, would be able to organize its own secretariat,
however minimal. Such a secretariat would provide more guarantees for
the survival of the organization and conducive to its autonomy and
independence.
To illustrate the
participants of the Congress how this could be addressed, I made
together with the Congress participants a budget for a secretariat:
a part-time executive secretary, the rental of a small office, fixed
expenses like electricity, water, etc., various office supplies , the
initial purchase of furniture, computer, etc. and if it would be
possible including a number of activities, like an annual
boardmeeting and several missions to affiliated member organizations.
I estimate that we
ended up on a budget of around U.S. $ 10,000. The purchase of office
furniture and computers had to be financed separately. I thought
there was a solution for this with the help of a one-off solidarity
contribution of the world organization and / or other solidarity
funds. Since there were present at the congress 15 member
organizations, every organization would have to pay a contribution of
about $ 650 annually. It turned out that no member organization was
able to pay such a minimal annual contribution except for maybe one
or two unions from Brasil and Argentine.
Another way to reduce
the costs of the secretariat is to bring it into a financially strong
and stable member organization. In such a case, one of the board
members of that affiliated trade union could also function as
Executive Secretary. In the case of FETRALCOS this was not an option
because Juana Maria (Maritza) Chireno, as president of FETRALCOS, had already at
its disposal a small office in the UTAL building of CLAT in San
Antonio, nearby Caracas.
The cost of missions
and statutory meetings were captured on a more informal manner. It is
common in Latin America that the participants pay their own travel
expenses and the host organization pays the costs of accommodation.
But even this is often too expensive for some participants, so it
usually requires an extra contribution of sponsors in Latin America,
such as a university or the world organization and its network of
solidarity funds. On this more or less informal way FETRALCOS could
organize activities already for many years.
In November 1978 I made this photograph of the "corregidor" (alcalde) before the "corregiduria" in a small Panamanian village. |
During my stay in
Panama, we also visited the national confederation CGTP, a member
organization of CLAT. I made the following notes at the meeting with
the executive board of the CGTP:
1. In the conference
room are two air conditioners but the windows are broken, so they do
not help much.
2. It is a coming and
going of people. There is no beginning or end to the meeting. On the
other side, a woman writes down the names of those present carefully
in a book.
3. One is talking a lot
on national politics, especially about the machinations of the
presidential candidates and their political tactics. The conversation
is more about political power than on the content of politics. Also
be told, who belongs to which presidential candidate and how many
people a candidate can mobilize.
4. One pays more
attention to details than the broad lines of policy.
5. Formality and
informality alternate as two sides of the same coin but there is
still a system that leads to results whatever the time it may cost.
That there is so much
talk about national politics and presidential candidates, can be
regarded as a weakness of the trade union movement. Apparently, the
trade unions in Panama are not taken seriously by the government and
there is no institutional framework through which the unions can
express their political desires. That makes it very difficult for the
trade unions to participate in the power structure of the state
except on an informal way for example through personal contacts with
politicians. For trade union leaders this must sometimes be very
frustrating.
As usual in Latin
America, the talks are endlessly, but it seems no problem for the
participants. Apparantly people perceive time differently in Latin
America than in Europe, where everything is arranged in hours and
time, even leisure time (holidays) is regulated by hour and time.
Could that be because time has indeed become money in Europe, while
in Panama and the rest of Latin America this is not (yet) so much the
case? In any case, in Latin America average people have more time
than money. In Europe, the reverse is the case: average people have
more money, but they don't have time. You may wonder what makes a man
more happy? More time than money or vice versa?
Bueno Piet. Gracias por incluirnos en tu relato.
ReplyDelete@Maritza. Con mucho gusto.
ReplyDelete