BY PIP HINMAN
SYDNEY — In debates on workers' struggles against corporate globalisation, not a lot has been heard from community and trade union leaders from the Third World. However at the Globalisation and Corporate Tyranny seminar here on September 2, a trade union leader from Indonesia and an anti-debt campaigner from the Philippines ensured that internationalism took centre stage.
The seminar, attended by some 75 people, was organised by Unionists Against Corporate Tyranny (UACT) in collaboration with Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET).
Romawaty Sinaga, international officer of the Indonesian National Front for Workers Struggle (FNPBI), and Francisco Pascual from the Philippine Resource Centre for People's Development were keynote speakers.
Opening the seminar, Dick Bryan, a political economy lecturer at Sydney University, noted that while globalisation has become the current buzz word, the main features of the expansion of capital around the globe were already pronounced in the early part of the 20th century.
The major difference is that capital's expansion today goes well beyond the former colonial areas, he said. Today, imperialism is competing to hegemonise all potential sources of profit, and the best way to do that is to increase productivity, deregulate the laws governing labour and drive down workers' wages, he said.
Bryan quoted United Nations figures which indicate that overseas subsidiaries of transnationals produce more than is traded, and that international investment is now replacing trade.
While multinational companies often threaten workers, saying that wages have to be "competitive", i.e. low, or they will be forced to relocate to the Third World, this is generally not feasible. "Some 75-80% of all investment is between the countries of the North", the exceptions being China and the former Soviet republics.
Sam Wainwright, a member of the Democratic Socialist Party and the Maritime Union, argued that the WTO, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should be replaced by democratic and accountable institutions. He agreed that globalisation is not a new phenomenon, but argued that there is more urgency now to come up with workable progressive alternatives.
Wainwright said that the protests at the World Economic Forum in Melbourne are an important part of a global struggle. "We will be in Melbourne not simply to try to shut down the meeting but to express our solidarity with all those around the world fighting for a humane political and economic alternative to the current one", he said.
According to Wainwright, some of the important demands the S11 protesters should be highlighting are: the immediate and unconditional cancellation of the entire Third World debt; a massive increase in aid from the First to the Third World; the right of the Third World to impose tariffs to protect its industries; for the Third World to have guaranteed access to First World markets; and the immediate free transfer of technologies to the Third World.
A political weapon
Francisco Pascual described the Third World debt as a "political weapon" used by the North against the South. He looked at the origins of the Third World debt and how it had come to be imperialism's new "colonial army".
"From the 1980s Mexican debt crisis, which sent shock waves throughout the capitalist world, capitalism has moved quickly to refinance debtor countries to avert a full-scale debt crisis", he said.
The financial crisis which erupted in Asia in 1997 was, Pascual said, largely the result of private debtors defaulting and governments subsequently moving to devalue currencies and nationalise private debts.
"Following the postwar boom, there was an influx of foreign development assistance to the Third World. This was triggered by the accumulation of capital in banks and financial institutions. During the 1970s and 1980s, the World Bank forced private capital to lend to the Third World, to help it 'develop'. But the real motivation for these loans was to refinance the Third World's growing debt.
"By the 1980s, the oversupply of goods on the world market meant that prices started to fall and the debt ballooned. The World Bank took over most of the debt from the private creditors, thereby assuming greater power over the economies of debtor nations. This was the time the IMF and WB introduced SAPs or 'structural adjustment programs', loans with new kinds of conditionalities", said Pascual.
Pascual likened the debt crisis to the role previously played by colonial armies. "When the rich and powerful nations were dividing up the world between themselves, they would send in their armies. Today debt plays a more potent role in conquering territories."
The IMF and WB were supposed to be resources banks, said Pascual, but they have now become major players in Third World countries' economies. For instance, "The World Trade Organisation has the power to raise disagreements to the level of international law and it has punitive powers such as the imposition of tariffs and embargoes", he said.
Drop the debt
The campaign to cancel the Third World debt is significant, Pascual said, because it has thrown the spotlight onto finance capital. "Some 90% of the debt is not being paid now, but this is not the main issue. The main issue for the IMF and WB is that the Third World continues to repay the interest on the loans. This serves to legitimise the whole unfair process and allows them also to impose new conditionalities."
Pascual said there is no proof that foreign "assistance" of this kind helps development in the Third World.
Romawaty Sinaga described how the economic crisis had affected Indonesia. "Now 30-50% of people live under the poverty line; unemployment has risen, with some 36 million people losing their jobs since 1997, and there are millions more underemployed.
"Work conditions are declining rapidly, with women workers bearing the brunt of capitalist restructuring."
Sinaga criticised the Indonesian elite for blaming Suharto for the economic crisis. "In fact, the local capitalists and the military are also to blame: they support the IMF-Wahid neo-liberal economic strategy."
She said the push to lower import barriers would deepen the misery of small farmers already badly hit by cheaper imports of rice and sugar. The FNPBI believes that this sector should remain protected.
Janet Parker, Sydney ASIET convener, took issue with the "fair trade" argument being promulgated by sections of the Australian trade union leadership, most vociferously by Doug Cameron, national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.
"The notion of fair trade has been around for some time and means different things to different people", Parker said. Some 30-35 years ago, fair trade was about trying to improve the lot of ordinary people in Third World countries, but since last November's WTO meeting, where the fair trade idea was promoted by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the ACTU and NGOs around the globe have adopted it as a goal.
"In essence they support a 'social clause' — writing specific labour standards into existing and future agreements negotiated by the WTO. This would particularly target countries allowing the use of child labour or forbidding the formation of trade unions", said Parker.
Cameron's promotion of a "social tariff" would mean that goods from countries with oppressive labour laws and practices and/or no environmental regulations would attract an extra charge, the proceeds of which could be used as development aid or assistance to Australian exporters. He alleges this is about lifting labour standards of working people around the world. But will it?
Child labour is a cause for concern, said Parker, but in many countries parents have no choice but to send their children to work. "Making imports from Indonesia more expensive and thereby less competitive internationally will not stop children from being exploited. And giving the WTO, an inherently undemocratic institution, more powers, isn't the solution to unfair trade.
"Third World governments and NGOs rejected the social tariff idea at Seattle, labelling it as covert protectionism and yet another manoeuvre to deny them access to US and European markets."
Parker said the only way to ensure improvements to working people's lot — here and around the globe — is for the working-class movement to adopt an internationalist approach. "That, in the end, is the most powerful instrument we have against corporate globalisation."
[For more information about UACT, a newly established network of unionists which aims to keep unionists informed about anti-corporate struggles taking place in the region and to promote solidarity here in support of those struggles, write c/- Green Left Weekly or email <uactoz@hotmail.com>.]