INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNIONS OPPOSE EU FREE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH COLOMBIA AND PERU

Lima, casual street portraits, 2011 (Petrus)

Beginning of the month of October  trade union leaders of Europe, Colombia and Peru reaffirmed their opposition to the draft EU-Colombia-Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in meetings with key Members of the European Parliament and officials of the European Commission.

“The international trade union movement is united in this call for a vote against the FTA. To do otherwise would disregard the appalling human rights record in Colombia and continued labour violations in Peru and would damage the EU’s reputation as a leading force in the promotion of human rights and basic freedoms”, states a joint letter sent to MEPs ahead of the EP’s decision on the FTA.

The EP is set to vote on the ratification of the FTA before Christmas.”

Loma, casual street portraits, 2011 (Petrus)

Dear Members of the European Parliament,

In the forthcoming weeks, you will have the opportunity to vote on the EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia and Peru. We, the workers and trade unions of the European Union and Latin America, reiterate our opposition to this FTA.

Furthermore, we call on the members of the EP’s international trade committee to ensure that the EP’s strong  demand for a binding action plan on human rights, labour law and environmental protection is respected, as agreed in June 2012.  To date, neither the EU nor the governments of Colombia and Peru have put forward a plan, let alone one that satisfies

the benchmarks clearly established in the resolution.

Lima, casual street portraits 2011 (Petrus)

The violation of fundamental rights remains a fact of life for many Colombian workers.  The adoption of the US-Colombia Labour Action Plan, linked to the US-Colombia FTA, required some important legal and administrative changes, but unfortunately did not require proof of

progress  in practice  before the  implementation of the agreement. Thus,  the reality on the ground for Colombian workers remains  wholly  unacceptable. Union leaders  and activists continue to be assassinated, threatened, and intimidated, and perpetrators  continue to  enjoy almost complete impunity despite the widespread and intense international attention. Labour

laws continue to be violated. Many workers throughout the economy still find themselves working under sham employment relationships, from cooperatives to newly-created schemes, despite changes in legislation and a promise to make this a priority area for labour inspection. Similarly, workers find themselves labouring under employer imposed pacts meant to weaken

or eliminate the union. As a result, workers face a major obstacle to the exercise of freedom of association.

Lima, casual street portraits 2011 (Petrus)

This, together with the continued violence, has led to a continued decline in

unionization in Colombia. 

We note too that trade unionists in Peru also face hurdles in law and in practice to the free exercise of their rights.  Anti-union dismissals, the disregard for collective agreements and bargaining rights, and union busting in the private sector continued to be common practices. Workers in agribusiness, who are most frequently subcontracted and temporary workers, are among the worst treated.

This reality shows the importance of legally binding commitments to improve labour and human rights. However, these are absent from the FTA and its Sustainable Development Chapter, which is not subject to a meaningful dispute settlement procedure, as provided for

the commercial provisions of the FTA.

The international trade union movement is united in this call for a vote against the FTA. To do otherwise would disregard the appalling human rights record in Colombia and continued labour violations in Peru  and would damage the EU’s reputation as a leading force in the promotion of human rights and basic freedoms.

Yours sincerely,

Bernadette Segol, General Secretary ETUC

Sharan Burrow, General Secretary ITUC

Victor Baez Mosquera, Secretario General CSA/TUCA

Meter Waldorff, General Secretary of Public Services Internacional and

                            Chair of the Council of Global Unions

Source: ETUC (www.etuc.org)

WHO WANTS PEACE IN COLOMBIA?

During my holidays in Cuba (2008) I stayed a few days in Vinales. We decided to try to visit the community of Los Acuaticos. One of the basic rules of this religious community is not to involve in any state institution. Because of repression by the state in 1943 gthey fled into the Sierra del Infierno not far from Vinales. The community is very small. We found a guide who wanted us to bring to one of these families. We were very surprised to learn to know a young Colombian couple hihg up in the mountains staying with a poor farmer's family. They explained that they had come from Bogota because the mother of the women once had nice holidays in the same area. I must say that it became inmediately to my mind that they have something to do with FARC or some other Colombian revolutionary group like for example ELN, but of course I did not mention this. In stead I asked them if it was permitted to take a photograph.

Do the state of Colombia and the FARC really want peace? For the State of Colombia that depends above all from the army that is winning the war against the FARC and at the same time is gaining a lot. I believe that the Colombian army is the best-trained and best-armed army of Latin America. Thanks to the USA. They always have supported the Colombian army with know how, special training and weapons especially when the FARC developed into a narco-terrorist brigade.

A few years ago the Venezuelan president Chavez tried to use the FARC for its own political purpose: to show his anti-americanism and solidarity with a leftist struggle, to become a peacemaker and to put Colombia under attack. The USA inmediately expanded their military bases in Colombia. After having sought advice from his generals, president Chavez had to back down. The Colombian army is too strong for the Venezuelan army.

Has the Colombian Government control over their military? I do not know, but you can say that the Americans have. If they want peace in Colombia they will force the Colombian military to follow that path. We can expect from US president Obama that he wants peace. If presidential candidate Romney also wants peace in Colombia is more difficult to say. Maybe he prefers to go on with the war, with the advantage that the Colombian army remains alert and the Venezuelan president Chavez can be kept in check.

Does the FARC want peace? It is generally assumed that they want so because they have become military weak and lost a lot of their leaders. However, there is still plenty of jungle in Colombia to continue guerrilla warfare. Indeed, it will be difficult for FARC to get new weapons but even with fewer weapons you can continue to control the peasants, the coca production and the marketing of coca and at the same time make life difficult for the Colombian army. But the FARC is internationally more isolated than ever. Its closest friend Cuba is now too poor to do anything of importance. On the contrary Cuba needs Venezuelan oil to survive so it is not in favour of political and/or military adventures.

Maybe the goal of these peace negotiations for FARC is to break through their international isolation? What we have seen so far from the FARC is a lot of show. Suddenly the FARC is talking about social justice for peasants while for years they forced peasants to produce drugs, forced their sons to enter in the FARC and massacred villagers who did not wish to cooperate with them.  According to the FARC peace will come when the Colombian government will distribute land to the peasants. As if that will be a solution to rural poverty. How do these poor farmers get the necessary agricultural knowledge, good seeds, financial credits, agricultural techniques, fertilizers and other necessary products, transport and marketing of their crops, etc.? Such projects require decades and FARC knows. Why else they themselves did never start such reforms in their controlled areas? But with the peace negotiations, they get the chance polishing their image of drugs gang into revolutionaries with a noble causes like social justice for poor farmers. 

WOW WORLD CONGRESS: WORKERS' VALUES CLASH WITH SHAREHOLDER VALUE

The WOW World Congress was held in Vancouver, Canada from 11 to 14 September.

Since the fall of the wall in Berlin that came together with the failure of communism, capitalism reigns worldwide. US President Reagan (1981 – 1989) and British Prime Minister Thatcher (1979 – 1990) supported  the development by a policy of liberalization of labor and capital. The new capitalistic game resulted in more shareholder value and less workers value. Since those days it was all talking about ‘shareholder value’ which meant that shareholders should get as much as possible money out of their investments in companies even at the expense of the workers in those companies.

Roel Rotshuizen (left) was releceted as President of WOW. Maria Eminenti (right) representing the Asian Brotherhood of Workers ABCW, presides one of the sessions of the Congress.

Globalisation pushed workers even further to the edge. Capital moved to all corners of the world looking for more money value. Companies moved to low wage countries. Workers had to accept lower wages or else would loose their jobs.

Koffi Chrysanthe Zounnadjala, President of the Fédération Panafricaine des Employés FPE, speaks to the Congress. He was reelected as vice-president for Africa. At his right executive secretary Bjorn van Heusden.

The emergence of China as world’s greatest factory with its nearly unlimited labor reserves undermined the positions of worker’s worldwide even further. Chinese workers are organized in unions controlled by the communist government. Because of lack of freedom they have no other option than to accept labor conditions as established by their government: low wages and poor working conditions. But on a day Chinese workers will start to fight for their social rights. Nobody knows when, but someday it will happen.

Guenther Trausnitz, president of the WOW European Organization WOW/EO, was reelected as WOW Vice President.

It is clear that the world of labor has been pushed onto the defensive. What should be the answer of the free trade unions? Fight back, but how? We cannot go back to the past. We as unions have the task to develop a new vision for the future. What should be the basis of this new vision?

Roberto Mejia (to the right), President of the Latin American Federation of the Employees in the Communication and Cultural sectors FELATRACCS, informs the Congress on he activities of FELATRACCS. he was also reelected as Vice-President of WOW. To te left executive secretary Bjorn van Heusden.

We in WOW believe that our values as established in the past, can be of use today if we have the courage to reconsider them and to analyse reality with an open mind. That is what we did on the WOW World Congress held in Vancouver Canada, from 11 until 14th of September. We went back to our roots for the sake of the future of our unions.

Erwin Koenze(on the left) representing the Latin American Federation of  Employees in the Comercial sector FETRALCOS speaks about the activities of FETRALCOS in the last 4 years. On the right, behind the table, Miguel Duche representing the Latin American Federation of Employees in the Banking and Insurance sector FELATRABS. Miguel was elected as Vice President of WOW. In the middle executive secretary Bjorn van Heusden.

One of the results of the Congress was the adoption of the ‘Resolution on Workers’ Values’

1.    The World Congress of the WOW gathered in Vancouver, Canada from September 12 to 14 concluded that “Workers’ Values” should be the guiding principle of economic and social affairs in the world.

2.    Workers’ Values are based on the principle that the economy should benefit mankind and that all human-beings deserve to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of their religion, race or sex.

3.    Workers’ Values stand for ways to solve problems and conflict in the workplace, in the company or elsewhere by way of dialogue and cooperation bases on mutual respect and interest.

4.    Workers’ Values mean that every worker has the right to work and live with dignity and take his/her responsibilities on all levels of his/her life, be it in the workplace, his/her family as well as social life in the broad sense of the word.

5.    Workers’ Values should be the guiding principle to all collective agreements and their stakeholders.

6.    Workers’ Values include fairness, social justice, solidarity and transparency at every level of the society, from workplace to company, from community to nation-state and as well as on the international levels.

7.    Workers’ Values demand for transparent, open and democratic leadership on all levels of the society.

Dick Heinen, Executive Director of the Canadian CLAC was our host. He was elected as Vice President of WOW and as such he became a member of the WOW Worldboard.

Our task as unions is to make these ‘utopian values’ reality by developing an international, regional, national of local trade union strategy. Therefore we have to develop strong democratic unions as instruments to create the human world we want. Not easy but a honorable task.

BRAZIL PREPARING THE FUTURE

Meeting of the Latin American Federation of Banking and Insurance Workers FELATRABS in Rio de Janeiro. Left standing President José Trabulo, sitting next to him Secretary of Organization and Finances Miguel Duche and Secretary General Leonardo Marquez. On the right Carlos Gaitan, invited guest as former President of the Latin American Federation of Industrial Workers FLATI.

What can a country do that has so many debts that private investors don’t want to lent you more money?  That is the problem Greece is confronted with and Ireland and Portugal and who knows what country will be next. Of course, as an Euro country you can ask financial support of those countries with which you share the same money. But that also has its limits as we are seeing today in the Eurozone.

Maybe the answer is coming from Brazil that until now is a very healthy economy and the government wants to keep it like that. The left oriented Brazilian government has decided to invite private capital to invest the huge amount of 53 billion Euro ( about 66 billion US$) in the national road and railway infrastructure. In just 5 years the government wants to double the existing network of roads and railways.

The project was praised by the Brazilian industry. Finally one is going to invest in the aging transport infrastructure of the country. To give just one example: 90 percent of the Brazilian rail network goes back to the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Trains have speed limits of 40 km per hour.

The billion-dollar project is an answer of the government of president Dilma Roussef to the moderate economic growth of Brazil. Last year the Brazilian economy grew 2.7%. This year a growth rate of 2% is expected. The last 10 years the Brazilian economy was growing with an average 4%. Roussef hopes that the investments in the sixth economy of the world will give additional impetus to the economy. The project will deliver 150.000 extra jobs. In 2014, the year of presidential elections, the first results of the projects should be visible.

In 2014 the World Cup Soccer will be held in Brazil. Photo made on the famous Copacabana beach of Rio de Janeiro.

Until 2010 Brazil seemed to be immune for the international crisis. The big, healthy Brazilian banks prevented Brazil in 2008 to be sucked into the international credit crisis. But since last year Brazil has also been affected by the economic downturn in the US and Europe. The country started to introduce budget cuts but also incentives to maintain economic growth. The focus was on boosting the domestic consumption. Taxes on cars were lowered and consumer credits less expensive. However, the results were not satisfying.

It is expected that in the first 5 years the amount of 32 billion Euros will be spend. In 2018 this should result in 10.000 km extra railways and 7.500 km. new highways. In the near future the south and the north of Brazil will be connected by railway. The other 21 billion Euros will be invested over a period of 30 years.

Of course there are also doubts whether such a large project can be successful. The government should attract investors on the capital market what will not be easy at the current financial climate. There are also doubts on the deadlines imposed by the government. To assign the railway and highway concessions, the government has earmarked only 13 months. Specialists say this is a very short period if you take in consideration that between 2003 and 2012 only 8 small highway concessions were granted.

One doubts also on the deadline 2018 when should be realised 10,000 km railway and 7,500 km. highway. The last time the government gave a concession was in 2008 for a highway of 270 km. for the amount of 280 million Euros. Until now only 40 millions have been spend.

Roussef hopes this time it will be different. Soon she will announce the privatisation of ports and airports. Brazil, guest country for the World Cup Soccer 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016, will enter an era of historical infrastructural works and giant projects.

This is a summary of an article published in NRC Handelsblad, 17/8/2012 by Philip de Wit.

ETUC PROPOSES A EUROPEAN SOCIAL COMPACT

Mexican workers on a truck.

The European Trade Union Confederation ETUC proposes to the European Commission a “European Social Compact”. Important elements of that Compact are:

- Collective Bargaining and Social Dialogue as an integral part of the European Social Model guaranteed at the EU and national level.

- Economic governance for sustainable growth and employment by making the European Central Bank ECB the lender of last resort thus enabling it to issue Eurobonds. Growth programs adapted to each country should be discussed, agreed and monitored with social partners. The ETUC asks for extra resources, raised from improved use of the European structural funds, the European Investment Bank, project bonds, and an adequately engineered financial transaction tax should be allocated to social and environmental purposes. Stop EU pressure to liberalize public services that are a national responsibility.

- Economic and social justice meaning redistributive and graduated taxation on income and wealth, and the end of tax heavens, tax evasion, tax fraud, corruption and undeclared work. Action against speculation, effective measures to secure social equal pay and equal rights for work of equal value for all, policies to end the pay gap between women and men, wage-setting to remain a national matter and to be dealt with according to national practices and industrial relation system, negotiations between social partners at the relevant level, the statutory minimum wage should be increased substantially and harmonization of the corporate tax base and minimum rates of taxation for companies.

This is what you can call an impressive shopping list of classical trade union wishes. It looks like there is no financial crises at all, that states are not in a deep debt crisis, that financial markets don’t trust anymore some Euro-countries, that there have been no global changes and that a new world wide economic crisis is threatening everybody to lose his or her job.  Reading all these wishes you wonder if European trade unions are able to understand what is going on and what should be the priorities in these times.

What to do against unemployment if all classical measures like more government spending and maintain the status quo of the social welfare state do not work anymore? Continue on this road by states to make more debts, which however is not accepted anymore by the financial markets?  It is true that more and severe cuts in the national budgets of the Euro countries do not work either. On the contrary these budget cuts threaten to worsen the economic crisis and therefore the unemployment rates.

Is it not time that the European unions take a serious look to what is really happening and put as a first of all and everything priority employment? May be there are measures that will help to get more people into work so they get back a minimum of dignity? May be one should think about accepting less wage raises or less growth of social services in exchange for more jobs? May be some measures make the European economy more efficient and competitive so the economy will recover and strike new paths? Is that not also a question of solidarity?

Whatever these measures should be, it has become clear these days that the classical trade union positions don’t give an answer to the economic and financial crisis and to the global changes which by the way are creating chances for more workers than ever. For the first time in history millions of poor workers are now involved in global economics. The ETUC should this consider also. Most probably global change has its price and may therefore affect the prosperity of European workers but isn’t this not also a question of solidarity, a classical trade union value? 

THE STRENGTH OF GERMANY

While cycling through villages and small towns in the Bavarian Black Forest, I realize again how well Angela Merkel Land is organized and how clean it is. Everything is well maintained, the houses, roads, forests, fields and everything else. The prosperity or should I write the wealth splashes off. You wonder why.

Germans are not only hard workers, but also tough, technically inventive and what is called in German gründlich (thoroughly). The car museum in Schramberg is a testimony of this. Immediately after the Second World War, when the country was nearly completely destroyed, the Germans rebuild American jeeps into mobile sawmills that produced the wood for things like for example the famous cuckoo clocks. While the Allied Forces occupying Germany did not allow anymore Messerschmitt to build their dangerous fighter planes, the company switched to the production of small cars. Volkswagen, DKW (later AUDI) and BMW soon followed. NSU motorcycles and mopeds like Zündapp were in the fifties of the last century even popular in the Netherlands.

It is also the land of the craftsman who succeeds in building up a medium or even large company thanks to his inventiveness and creativity, even on the world market. Almost every village or small town has its own industrial park where not only agricultural equipment is repaired. There are also a lot of medium sized companies producing export market products with the latest technology. I see a plant for laser technology in the small village of Aichhalden and one for lightweight rims in Schiltach. The German countryside and its industry are perfectly integrated. The countryside is no longer a farmers business due to the more well-maintained and extended infrastructure of roads where even the cycle tourist is not forgotten. Everywhere there are cycle roads and signs. Also on this field the Germans strive for perfection.

But there's more. Merkel Land is also a stable democracy with a reliable legislation that can be trusted by international investors. This of course supports economic and industrial development together with stable labour relations. Of course there are sometimes labour conflicts. The great and mighty trade union IGMetall occasionally organizes strikes or mass demonstrations but ultimately it is always ready to start a dialogue with employers or the government with the aim to find a compromise. The German consensus model works just as well or perhaps better than the so-called Dutch polder model.

But sometimes I get the creeps of so much perfection. It does not seem healthy to exclude all surprises from life. Life must also be an adventure or we will die of boredom. 

CONFEDERATION INTERSINDICAL DE CAJAS CIC CLAIMS DISMISSAL OF EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER ALMUNIA

CIC President Gonzalo Postigo working on a WOW Financesection declaration during a meeting in Vienna, April 2012

CIC has claimed that the European Commissioner of Competition, the Spanish Joaquín Almunia, submits his resignation for suggesting that some banks intervened by the Bank Restructuring Fund (FROB) should be liquidated. 

During his recent visit to Spain Almunia argued on several occasions that it would be better to liquidate orderly intervened financial institutions if the costs of its restructuring demands greater efforts to the taxpayer. He maintained that this formula has been used many times during the crisis of the last five years.

According to CIC, Almunia's statements are "unacceptable, the most grave and blameworthy" to those said by "any public responsible European" so that, in his own view, "this must have the necessary political consequences." This means that the Commissioner should "resign and if he does not understand the gravity of his acts, he should be dismissed by the Commission."

To this end, CIC has already sent a letter to the Commissioner of Economic and Monetary Affairs requesting this punitive measure against the "bad influence on the perception of the markets right now on the whole Spanish financial system, contributing negatively to the evolution of the risk premium on Spanish debt. "

Furthermore, CIC has offered to perform in Brussels "or in any other forum" to "tell the reality" of what happened in the Spanish financial system in general or in the savings banks in particular.

THERE ARE NO OFFICIAL DECISIONS

CIC president, Gonzalo Postigo, considers the words of the curator to have caused a "great economic and moral damage" to the affected entities as "customers have been impacted by negative information that does not respond to any formal decision taken ".

Postigo argues that  "the four entities - referring to Bankia, Banco de Valencia, Catalunya Caixa and Novocaixagalicia - have had to endure the withdrawal of funds by customer, frightened by some information that has provoked the weakening of the institutions under suspicion," adding that "these have also caused damage to many customers, who dominated by fear, have suffered penalties for withdrawing funds before the expiry of the period.”

In this sense, he has called it "inconceivable" that a measure such as liquidating a bank "has been said repeatedly as a possibility" when it is not even decided. He concludes that "even the younger sector employees know how to communicate such decisions, and still know better how this news should not be treated."

Source: europapress.es/Economia

Original language: Spanish