The departure of Carlos Custer came
entirely unexpected at the end of the year 1996. There was still a
year to go before his mandate of the Congress of Mauritius would have
ended. The reason of his departure was not clarified either by
himself or by the WCL board. The only thing I noticed was his
opposition to the early retirement of a number of administrative
staff members with whom he worked well together such as his personal
secretary, the coordinator of the administration, the head of the
accounting and other staff members. He considered their early
retirement as an unnecessary reorganization that the WCL would do
more harm than good. However, he had no problem with the early
retirement of several other staff members. But the ACV did not listen
to Carlos and went on with the reorganization.
Was for Carlos Custer the announced
reorganization by the ACV, the straw that broke the camel? That is
possible. I myself had also written a report with some proposals for
changes at the secretariat. Following my report CNV President Anton
Westerlaken made together with the subsequent CNV General Secretary
Bert Boggelen a study based on interviews with the responsable
leaders and staff members.This study was well intended but had little
practical results. With a report alone you cannot solve the problem
of incompetence. With the proposed reorganisation the real problems
were not solved, but I realized that opposition to the ACV would be
meaningless given the position of ACV in the WCL.
Part of the WCL staff members that went on early retirement (1996). |
I do not know if Carlos had discussed
his early departure with Emilio Maspero, the General Secretary of
CLAT. I can not imagine that he has not done it since there was a
constant dialogue between Carlos and Maspero. If Maspero would have
agreed, why would that have been? Indeed, with Carlos at the WCL,
Maspero had a lot of informal influence on the WCL policy. Maybe
Carlos has threatened to resign if the reorganization would go
through and when the ACV went on with the reorganization, he had no
other option than to leave?
At the Confederal Board meeting in
Lugano (October 1996) Willy Thys of the ACV Board was appointed
interim Secretary General with the intention that he would be elected
General Secretary at the next World Congress. At my own suggestion,
CNV President Anton Westerlaken proposed that I should be elected as
Deputy Secretary General at the same Congress. The proposal was
supported by Michel Bovy as Chairman of the Commission Trade Action.
The aim was to create a strong position for Trade Action within the
WCL in order to strengthen the WCL as a whole. Unfortunately, nothing
happened then. Apparently CNV did not succeed to convince other WCL
members to support this proposal.
During the
International Colloquium on Trade Action, which was held shortly
after the Confederal Board in Ostend, Belgium (25-27 November), it
appeared that the Protocol for the Trade Action Secretariat still
was not implemented fully. Therefore, on behalf of the Colloquium
Michel Bovy, also chairman of the Commission Trade Action, wrote a
letter to Willy Thys, saying the following:
"Through this joint letter, the
International Trade Federations make known to the Board of the WCL,
that continuation of the current division of labor is unsustainable.
Untenable for the two Executive Secretaries and most untenable in
relation to the activities of the members of the ITF's. We believe
that should be implemented in the short term the Protocol between WCL
Trade Action and the WCL (judgment of the WCL Congress in
Mauritius)."
Shortly after this I made at the request of Willy Thys a list of all
relevant documents relating to the decisions on the organization of
the WCL Trade Action Secretariat (January 30, 1997). The review
contained the Guidance Resolution of the World Congress of Mauritius
(1993) and the restructuring proposal that was discussed at the same
Congress and in which was stated that "the Executive Secretaries
of for Trade Action would do only tasks related to Trade Action.
There should be a minimum of three Executive Secretaries and their
number should depend on the resources and needs. "
The note also stated that there was no money for three full-time
Executive Secretaries and therefore on the Congress came to the
compromise to choose two Executive Secretaries: Dirk Uyttenhove and
myself. Since I also had confederal responsibilities (Europe and the
International Solidarity Foundation), I was in fact involved only as
a half time Executive Secretary. Therefore I urged to look for a
solution through additional administrative support to the Trade
Action Secretariat and to further discuss with the CNV their
commitment for additional support for the Secretariat.
After all, during the aforementioned International Colloquium in
Ostend, the CNV Industrial Trade Union had announced to make
available additional funds for the Trade Action Secretariat.
Treasurer Wim van der Jagt had explained that he wanted to discuss
with other CNV Trade Unions to contribute extra to the WCLTrade
Action Secretariat. A copy of this note was send to the Presidents of
the ITF's and of course Michel Bovy, the Chairman of the WCL Trade
Action Commission.
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