councilor.org
| Source | Dave Anderson |
| Date | 99/05/01/22:49 |
| /* Written 9:14 AM Feb 26, 1999 by jdoug@ix.netcom.com in igc:labr.all */ /* ---------- "Sweeney in Switzerland..." ---------- */ Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 09:41:18 -0700 (MST) From: ANDERSON DAVID Remarks by John J. Sweeney President of the AFL-CIO 1999 Annual Meeting World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland January 30, 1999 It is a delight to be here once more, and to have this opportunity to share with you some of the perspectives of the 40 million working men and women in households represented by the AFL-CIO. We've been asked to talk about how to "manage the social impact of globalization." But let us not think of globalization as a natural phenomenon with regrettable social side effects. The forces of globalization now wracking the world are the creation of man, not of God. Our task is not to make societies safe for globalization, but to make the global system safe for decent societies. This is not a quibble about words. As we meet, about a third of the world's economy is in recession. 100 million people who thought they were part of a growing middle class have been brutally thrust back into poverty. And, as recent events in Brazil have shown, the crisis is far from over. Global deflation is now the nightmare of central bankers. Too many goods, too much productive capacity chasing too few consumers with too little money. In the crisis, the US is the buyer of last resort. But US consumers are already spending more than they make. US manufacturers are in recession. In recent months, 10,000 steelworkers have lost their jobs to a flood of imports, their families disrupted, their communities devastated. The US trade deficit is headed to unsustainable new heights. The terrible human costs can have one good effect. They can sober the debate about the global economy. For two decades, conservative governments have been on a binge, dismantling controls over capital, currencies, and corporations. Now we awake the morning after, our heads aching, our hearts burdened by the destruction that we see around us. Globalization --- in the extreme, corporate dominated, de-regulated form we have witnessed --- is not the scapegoat of the current crisis; it is the cause of it. After two decades, the results are very clear. The global casino of capital and currency speculation has generated booms and busts of increasing severity and frequency, as World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz has warned. And it has produced slower growth and greater inequality in countries large and small, developed and developing - as governments scramble to protect themselves from the global storms. In its current form, globalization cannot be sustained. Democratic societies will not support it. Authoritarian leaders will fear to impose it. The so-called Washington consensus is no longer the consensus even in Washington. Over the last year and one-half, workers, environmentalists, consumers --- reflecting the opinion of the vast majority of Americans ---- came together to block the president's request for fast track trade authority not once, but twice. We insisted that enforceable worker rights and environmental protections be central to any new round of trade negotiations. And we were right. Now US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin calls for a new "architecture" to limit instability. President Clinton pushes new initiatives on child labor, on core labor rights, and on the environment. America's voice, I suggest to you, will either sound a new note in any future round of trade negotiations, or it will be muted in spite of itself. When you are in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. If the newly sobered global community has stopped digging, we're still left in the hole. Working people across the world understand that if nothing is done, corporate globalization will continue, unchecked and uncontrolled. We need to go a different way. Calls for greater transparency, better accounting and more generous safety nets are satisfying, but not sufficient. The essential building blocks of a new internationalism can be seen in the struggles of workers and citizens across the world.. People are demanding protection from the havoc caused by currency and capital speculation. If this is not done at a global level, it will be done at a national level --- as we've seen from Hong Kong to Malaysia to Chile. While curbing speculators, we must get the global economy going again. Recent efforts to lower interest rates in Europe and the United States, and to pump up demand in Japan should be seen only as first steps. In this crisis, as the IMF recently admitted, enforcing austerity on indebted countries only makes things worse. The Fund and the Bank should help restructure debt and stimulate growth. And as the growing Jubilee 2000 movement has called for, industrial nations should move to relieve the debt burdens on the poorest nations, while increasing investment in sustainable energy, education and health care. At the same time, we need to create the conditions for sustainable growth. That is why it is vital to empower workers - to enforce core worker rights in the global market- the right to organize and to bargain collectively to improve one's lot, the prohibitions against child labor and forced labor, the elimination of discrimination. Empowering workers strengthens democracy. It is also vital to sustaining prosperity, to making markets work. When the famed US labor leader, Walter Reuther, visited Japan in the 1960s, he saw that Japanese autoworkers were riding bicycles to work. "You can't build an automobile economy on bicycle wages," he warned the Japanese. But of course they could, by exporting their automobiles to the United States. Now the limits of that export-led growth model are apparent. A vibrant global economy requires consumers -- workers who capture a fair share of the profits that they produce. The struggle to do just that is taking place in offices and shop floors across the world. As President Clinton has said, global rules are crucial if we are to keep the global market from becoming a race to the bottom. Finally, this debate can no longer be contained in closed rooms in luxurious hotels. It is already being waged on the streets, the shop floors and the computer screens across the world. As the cloistered negotiators of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment discovered, trade and investment agreements must gain public support if they are to go forward at all. Open covenants, openly arrived at is not simply a slogan --- it is a growing reality. We are entering a new era. We will either build a new internationalism that empowers workers, protects consumers and the environment, and fosters sustainable growth - or we will witness a harsh reaction as desperate peoples demand protection. I urge all of you to join us in our effort to bend the forces of globalization so they help workers everywhere build a better future. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho