File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-sy.9705, message 61


Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 06:10:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gerald Levy <glevy-AT-pratt.edu>
Subject: Metalworkers Federation Response to Globalization 


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 21:32:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher-AT-igc.apc.org>

Journal of Commerce May 28, 1997,

Metalworker union's aim: globalization

PETER TIRSCHWELL
SAN FRANCISCO


An umbrella union organization representing 20 million metalworkers around
the world is to approve today a groundbreaking blueprint to confront
corporate  globalization.
Meeting in San Francisco to set its agenda for the next four years, the
International Metalworkers Federation laid out an ambitious program to
organize workers in developing countries while expanding alliances among
unions in different countries.   

The federation encompasses more than 175 unions in 91 countries,
representing workers in aerospace, steel, automotive and machine tool
manufacturing.


Traditionally dominated by unions in Europe, Japan and North America, the
federation has seen its membership growth shift to developing nations as
heavy  manufacturing has migrated there. Member unions added 2 million
members in developing countries since the group's last convention in 1993.


Far from causing a retrenchment among old-line industrial unions, however,
that shift appears to have galvanized the group into a global mobilization
designed to offset the influence of multinational corporations.

"Metal unions have a unique role to play because you represent workers at
the giant multinationals that are driving globalization - General Electric,
Boeing, Seimens-Daimler Benz, ABB, Mitsubishi and Volvo,'' John Sweeney,
AFL-   CIO  president, told the group in a speech on Monday.


Central to the group's strategy as outlined in a 40-page ""action plan'' is
to organize newly hired workers of companies that already have contracts
with   federation unions in other countries. 

The plan, scheduled for approval this week, outlines a proposal to organize
2,500 workers at a General Motors plant in Thailand with the support of U.S.
and German auto worker unions. Organizing those and other workers will
require a  substantial increase in cooperation across borders, the
federation says.


"Your successes or failures in making sure multinationals based in your
countries operate unions worldwide will in large part determine the fate of
trade unionism as we know it in the 21st century,'' Mr. Sweeney said Monday.


The group's main goal over the next four years is to create a global network
of metalworkers that, wherever possible, will bring international pressure
on companies involved in disputes with workers.


"We have to respond to this challenge by having much better trade union
cooperation all over the world. It is not enough that we organize ourselves
within individual countries,'' said Marcello Malentacci, the federation's
general secretary.


Officials said the federation's action plan underscores the extent to which
globalization and related issues of worker rights, social standards,
environmental protection and privatization have come to dominate the agendas
of trade unions. 
                                                                            
                                                                "While four
years ago the (federation) was beginning to consider the impact of
globalization, this action plan is much more specific,'' said Dennis
Hitchcock, associate editor of IM Journal, produced by the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. ""There is an awareness now
that wasn't there five years ago to the same extent.''


As an example of the type of cooperation the group is seeking, officials
cited the highly publicized Bridgestone-Firestone Corp. dispute, which was
settled last December after a series of walkouts and demonstrations were
held in Latin America and Europe in support of the 6,000 striking workers.

"It sent a message to multinationals that workers could unite across borders
and impact productivity and market share,'' said Gary Hubbard, a spokesman
for  the United Steelworkers of America.


The federation's blueprint that the 800 delegates were expected to approve
with little opposition outlines a series of efforts including increasing
funding for organizing efforts and strengthening ""company councils'' where
information gets disseminated about activities at other company plants.

With some figures suggesting that 30 percent of workers in developing
countries are unemployed or underemployed, a key policy objective the IMF
will  take on involves combating unemployment, said Len Powell, an IMF
spokesman.





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