Looking for an answer to the weakening
of the WCL International Trade Federations ITF's as the result of
switching of strong European WCL trade unions towards the Global
Unions (Food, Metal and UNI), the WCL Congress in Mauritius (1993)
decided to strengthen its Secretariat for Trade Action STA. Hence
Dirk Uyttenhoven, from the department of education and training of
the Belgian ACV Textile and Clothing trade union, was elected on the
Congress as a full-time Executive Secretary of the STA. From then on
the STA had about one and a half Executive Secretaries.
The presidents of the International
Trade Federations ( ITF 's ) considered one and a half full-time
Executive Secretaries as insufficient . Therefore, the Commission for
Trade Action CTA (consisting of the presidents of the ITF's and the
General Secretary of the WCL ) talked for over a year about a
'Protocol for Trade Action' . After one and a half year , such a
Protocol was signed by WCL General Secretary Carlos Custer and
President of the Commission Trade Action CTA Michel Bovy. It was
agreed that the Secretariat would consist of two full-time Executive
Secretaries , one full-time and one part-time administrative
assistant . The WCL would provide logistical support to the Trade
Action Secretariat such as translations, accounting, printing,
office, etc. Meanwhile EUROFEDOP / INFEDOP (public services) kept his
full-time General Secretary in the person of Bert van Caelenberg, who
had his own small, fully equipped secretariat, separated of the WCL
Trade Secretariat. The WCT (teachers) replaced in the course of time
its retired General Secretary Roger Denis (who was also functioning
more or less as a WCL Confederal Secretary) by the full-time delegate
Gaston De La Haye as Secretary general.
The full-time administrative assistant
was contracted, but otherwise everything remained the same because of
lack of money and possibilities and so the Executive Secretaries had
to improvise in time and prioritization. Also in the field of
cooperation between the International Federations and the WCL
everything remained the same. The International Federations went on
as before, without much more cooperation and policy coordination with
the WCL. Sometimes this brought tensions between the WCL Secretariat
and the Trade Action Secretariat but thanks to the benevolent
attitude of general secretary Carlos Custer relations remained good.
A special case was the International
Federation for Agriculture and Food trade unions FEMTAA. The switch
of the CNV and ACV food trade unions from FEMTAA towards the Global
Union UITA, had as a consequence that FEMTAA henceforth only existed
in name. WCL General Secretary Carlos Custer found this unacceptable
because of the importance of the agricultural sector in Third World
Countries. He invited the former trade union leader José Gomez Cerda
from the Dominican Republic, who lived for family reasons in Belgium,
to rebuild the FEMTAA on a volontary basis. At the request of Carlos
Custer the Trade Action Secretariat supported this attempt to revive
the FEMTAA as much as possible.
Thanks to the efforts of Jose Gomez was
held what you might call a rebuilding World Congress of FEMTAA in
March 1995 in the Workers University UTAL, San Antonio de los Altos,
Venezuela. At the Congress José Gomez Cerda was elected as General
Secretary. The former CFTC President Guy Drillaud (France) was
elected President of FEMTAA. During the World Congress, the newly
joined food workers trade union of Cartel alfa, led by chairman
Adrian Cojocaru, was prepared to support the FEMTAA with a
significant annual contribution. However, this was not sufficient for
financing the costs of the secretariat and the necessary activities,
with the result an ongoing search for additional funds.
Photo of all the participants on the FEMTAA Seminar and World Congress, march 1995, UTAL San Antonio de los Altos, Venezuela. |
Through organizations such as CNV Aktie
Kom Over, World Solidarity, the WCL Solidarity Fund and the ILO,
various activities could be funded. But it was much more difficult or
virtually impossible to fund the Secretariat in Brussels. One
solution could be to move the FEMTAA secretariat to one of the
continents. The most obvious was to move it towards Latin America
where CLAT had built a solid infrastructure with the Workers
University UTAL in San Antonio near the Venezuelan capital Caracas.
For unknown reasons, CLAT did not support this proposal with the
result that the FEMTAA secretariat continuously had budget deficits,
which had to be completed with the help of international institutions
for solidarity and/or international development.
Meanwhile, the continental
organizations BATU (Asia), CLAT (Latin America) and DOAWTU (Africa)
contributed to the strengthening of their existing regional trade
federations or supporting the creation of a new federation . Of
course the ITF's contributed to this, each in its own way and
according to its available resources. Thanks to a special trade
action program of CNV Aktie Kom Over and project-support of World
Solidarity funds were available . However, the question of the
autonomy of the regional federations was never worked out . For the
International Federations the regional trade federations were
independent, autonomous members with their own structures, programs,
funds etc . In contrast, the continental confederations BATU, CLAT
and DOAWTU were somewhat reluctant to accept the idea of independent
and autonomous trade federations. They insisted on a more
centralized policy and decision-making procedures. However a profound
strategic discussion of this important issue never got off the ground
. The two sides, the ITF's and the continental organizations, made
the best of it and that was what it was.
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