Focus on Global South Blows Whistle on International Union-World Bank Love-In

Peter Waterman | 28.04.2002 19:00

Focus on the Global South (Bangkok)rejects World Bank invitation to a confidential consultation with NGOs, publishes the correspondence and reveals that the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (Brussels) is in the WB's 'Core Group'for this event. An Introduction provides background and indicates furthe resources

FOCUS BLOWS WHISTLE ON ICFTU-WB LOVE-IN

Peter Waterman writes:

I received the correspondence below ‘via-via’ as the Dutch put it. (For the record, and for reasons suggested later, I did not receive this from Focus on the Global South).

In so far as Focus on the Global South condemns this kind of confidential consultation, declares itself in favour of transparency, and has circulated the correspondence through its own networks, I hope it will have no objection to my circulating it to mine. The participation of the ICFTU in this conclave reveals the shabby reality behind its joint declaration to the World Economic Forum in New York, and the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, early-2002, in which it declared itself equally a member of ‘industry’ (i.e. capitalism) and of civil society (2002a).

This is of its continuing efforts to persuade the global hegemons of the ICFTU’s value to them, and its continuing reluctance to commit itself to the global justice and solidarity movement. The latter would require it to abandon its partnership (junior, dependent) with global capital and the inter-state promoters of neo-liberalism, in favour of a real ‘social partnership’ (equal) with a global civil-society-in-the-making.

The behaviour of the ICFTU in this case is revealing of its general disposition: a preference for confidential elite negotiations rather than of public and open dialogue. In this case, the ICFTU is 'Core Grouping' itself with the World Bank.

In a recent article reviewing the Annual Reports of the World Bank, political-economist Paul Cammack (2000) says the following:

'The 1995 Report, Workers in an Integrating World, looked at conditions that might facilitate the untrammellled exploitation of labour by capital across the globe. It ruled out minimum wage legislation in middle and low-income economies with large agricultural or informal sectors; proposed that health-and-safety legislation should be governed by market principles and set a level where "costs are commensurate with the value that informed workers place on improved working conditions and reduced risk"; and it stipulated that trade sanctions were not to be used to enforce even the most basic workers' rights. The Report then described the ideal form that labour organization should take: trade unions strive to involve workers in activity that improves efficiency and productivity; they should not act as "monopolists" or oppose programmes for structural adjustment and reform. Effective unions, from the World Bank point of view, eliminate the need for large-scale state regulation and intervention, and help firms extract more surplus value from workers; they do not distort labour markets, or project jobs.'

Given that the World Bank considers the role of trade unions is to control the labour force in the interest of neo-liberal capitalist globalization, it would seem that the self-chosen role of the ICFTU is that of what the Dutch call 'town mayor in wartime!'. In other words, to collaborate with a vicious enemy on the grounds that if it did not, the citizens, or in this case the workers, would be even worse off. There is, in this case, no evidence that this is true. Nor would those town mayors who stood up to and against the World Bank's civilian gauleiters in sharp suits run the risk of losing their jobs, far less their lives, by refusing such subordinate collaboration.

This deeply ingrained ICFTU preference for the lobby over the street or the media, and for the pressure group over public mobilisation, was revealed a year ago, in a roundtable hosted by Focus on the Global South, in Bangkok, which the ICFTU insisted be ‘off the record’. I was invited to that event by Focus, accepted the condition, but (after agonising for several months) later broke the understanding on the argument that in the construction of a global civil society, openness trumps confidentiality except under certain conditions, which did not apply to this case, (Waterman 2002c).

The ICFTU then gave both me and Focus (which had had no hand in my decision, and had repeatedly reminded me of the condition I had accepted) a rough time for breaking the agreement. I therefore welcome the decision of Focus to make this present shabby private consultation (meaning, of course, incorporation, complicity, or at least collaboration with the work-destroying World Bank) public.
I would, or will, go further than Focus, and propose it organise an international internet and media campaign, addressed particularly to those dubiously-civil organisations in the ‘core group’, or on the invitation list, to at least withdraw from, at best condemn, this consultation, and the World Bank.

It should be obvious to any person outside the charmed circle of international elite and sub-elite lobbyists, that the way to civilise the international monetary fundamentalists, is to isolate them, oppose them and to come out publicly on a clear humanist, democratic, socialist, feminist, ecological, or whatever, platform, and with radical and democratic alternatives.

This alternative direction does not circumscribe either policies or strategies - as can be seen from the wide range of such displayed at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre (Waterman 2002b), or at any of the street-protests/teach-ins against the conclaves of the rich, powerful, authoritarian and corrupt in Seattle, Geneva, Barcelona, etc.

It does not even exclude negotiation with the hegemons, although it does absolutely require the previous ‘informed consent’ of those millions of victims of neo-liberal globalisation that the ICFTU and Amnesty (to name but two) claim to represent. And, of course any such negotiation will surely be more successful on the following conditions:

1. No elite negotiation before mass demonstration!

2. All consequent negotiation in the public sphere!

3. No accord before report-back to the constituency and its express approval!

Finally, this letter is being emailed to all addresses on the documents below, with the invitation to respond to it, and with the guarantee of its publication on the Global Solidarity Dialogue List.

Cammack, Paul. 2000. 'Attacking the Poor', New Left Review, No. 13, pp. 125-134.

Waterman, Peter. 2002a.'The Still Unconsummated Marriage of International Unionism and the Global Justice Movement: A Labour Report on the World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 31-February 5, 2002'. 15,500 words.

http://groups/yahoo.com/groups/GloSoDia

Waterman, Peter. 2002b. 'What's Left Internationally? Reflections on the 2nd World Social Forum in Porto Alegre'. 11,885 words.

http://groups/yahoo.com/groups/GloSoDia

Waterman, Peter. 2002c (Forthcoming). ‘Learning to Talk across Difference in an Interconnected World of Labour'. Transnational Associations (Brussels).

http://groups/yahoo.com/groups/GloSoDia

Peter Waterman
The Hague
24.4.02

waterman@antenna.nl

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GloSoDia

Now read on:

Confidential consultation with the World Bank

Below is the open letter from Focus on the Global South in reply to the World Bank’s invitation to join a workshop promoting the Doha declaration as working for the poor. Notably ICFTU is in the ‘core’ group.

10 April, 2002
|
Dear Mr Karlsson,
|
| Greetings from Bangkok.
|
| Thank you for your invitation to the Strategic Policy Workshop:
| “Making Doha work for the Poor: Different Perspectives”, Wilton
| Park, England, 7 and 8 May, 2002.
|
| We have discussed it in Focus and come to the consensus not to
| attend. We are totally opposed to this kind of private and closed
| meeting.
|
| We believe that meetings such as this perpetuate the problems of non-
| transparency, lack of public responsibility and accountability which
| are endemic to the WTO and characteristic of the Doha negotiations.
|
| Further, we are very concerned at the extremely limited participation
| foreseen in this particular meeting and in whose name the participants
| will be speaking.
|
| We are also concerned that the meeting seems to have a
| contradictory purpose. On the one hand you say that it is not a
| “negotiation” yet you hope to build a “modest platform of mutual
| understanding for faster action in other, more formal fora” and that any
| “constructive agenda” will be followed up.
|
| We will not attend this meeting. We will, however, be sending this
| letter together with your letter of invitation and the list of invited
| participants, through our various networks.
|
| Please be assured, though, that we fully agree that the issues you raise
| are extremely important and we are more than happy to participate in
| public debates and discussions at any time.
|
| Yours sincerely,
|
| Nicola Bullard
|
| -------------------------
|
| March 25, 2002
|
|
| Dear Ms Bullard
|
| Strategic Policy Workshop: “Making Doha work for the Poor:
| Different Perspectives”, Wilton Park, England, 7 and 8 May, 2002
|
| I am pleased to issue this personal invitation for you to join a group of
| leading thinkers and policymakers from civil society in an intensive
| dialogue with a senior team from the World Bank, to explore
| opportunities for collective action to make the new trade round a
| success in terms of poverty reduction.
|
| The 2-day meeting will be residential, professionally facilitated and
| kept small to allow close interaction, with around 20 participants
| from civil society and 5 from the World Bank, plus one or two
| resource persons from other organisations and the facilitators. It is
| supported by a grant from the Government of Finland and organised
| by a core group representing ICFTU (James Howard), Solidar
| (Giampiero Alhadeff), Christian Aid (Paul Ladd), and Oxfam
| GB(Kevin Watkins/Penny Fowler) as well as John Clark, one of our
| colleagues on leave with the London School of Economics, and
| Andrew Rogerson of our European office. This group jointly agreed
| that you should be invited and its members are available (contact
| details below) to answer questions you may have on the agenda and
| purpose of the event. Civil society participants’ travel and subsistence
| costs will be fully covered by the grant.
|
| Many have called for the next trade round, agreed at Doha to be a
| “development round”, yet this means different things to different
| people. This workshop is designed to allow a diverse group of
| influential people-all of whom approach trade policy from the
| perspective of development, poverty reduction and social justice-to
| build agreement where possible, and clarify areas of disagreement
| elsewhere, so that we can cooperate in defining a pro-poor trade
| agenda, and benchmarks to measure the key features of such a round.
| Mounting public debate has elevated trade and globalisation issues in
| the political agenda but has dangerously polarised them. Pro-poor
| progress necessitates finding common ground, building bridges
| between diverse players, and strongly arguing the moral imperative.
|
| On the trade agenda, there is a wide array of sectoral issues
| (agricultural subsidies’ impact on the South, intellectual property rights
| and essential drug prices, to name but two) and cross-cutting issues
| (sequencing of liberalisation and capacity-building, respect of
| fundamental workers rights, avoidance of environmental “races to the
| bottom” just as initial examples). Which are the ones where the most
| impact can be expected if energies are focussed on them in time?
| Who are the key actors and what are their respective roles? The
| workshop is aimed at these outcomes, as well as building a modest
| platform of mutual understanding for faster action in other, more
| formal fora.
|
| The workshop will be independently facilitated (by Andrew Acland of
| Dialogue By Design) and held under Chatham House Rules, meaning
| no attributed quotations should be made after the meeting, though a
| meeting record would be prepared and made publicly available.
| Participants might agree a follow-up work plan, perhaps including
| further meetings, or a common research or investigation agenda.
|
| I will be joined by several of my colleagues, including Mr. Uri
| Dadush, Director, Economic Prospects and Policy; Mr. Ian Goldin,
| Director, Development Research and Chief of Staff to Nick Stern,
| Chief Economist; Mr. Gordon Betcherman, Senior Advisor on labour
| issues and main trade union liaison for the Bank, and Mr. Bernard
| Hoekman, Principal Trade Economist.
|
| We intend to be very frank and open to ideas, and indeed welcome
| the opportunity to benefit from your different perspectives and
| experience. We do not see this as a “negotiation” -even more so
| because none of us represent a negotiating party in the trade round-
| but we do commit ourselves, as we hope you would also, to listen
| very actively, to seek common ground as well as identifying
| differences, and follow up any constructive agenda within our
| institution as well as in the wider policy debate arena.
|
| I enclose a draft agenda and list of invitees, as well as contact details
| for the core group. Upon acceptance we will send you brief
| background papers (mostly prepared by civil society organisations
| and selected by the core group), as well as logistical and travel details.
|
| Please inform Rachel Winter Jones in our Brussels office on email:
|

james.howard@icftu.org
|
| Mr. Giampiero Alhadeff, Solidar
| Tel: : +.322.500.10.20
| email:

giampi@solidar.org or

solidar@skynet.be
|
| Mr. Kevin Watkins, Oxfam GB
| Tel: +.44.1865 312326
| email:

kwatkins@oxfam.org.uk
|
| Mr. Paul Ladd, Christian Aid
| Tel: +. 44 207.523.2103
| email:

pladd@christian-aid.org
|
| Mr. John Clark
| Tel: +44 20 8969 3087
| email:

N.Bullard@focusweb.org
| Web Page

N.Bullard@focusweb.org
| Web Page

http://www.focusweb.org
|

Peter Waterman
e-mail: waterman@antenna.nl
Homepage: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/glosodia

UK Indymedia

Focus on Global South Blows Whistle on International Union-World Bank Love-In