New Labor Organisation Urges
Unions To Adapt To Globalization
9-9-1
BERLIN (AFP) - A new global labor organization, the 15.5 million member Union Network International (UNI), called for minimum rights for workers in the face of globalization as it wrapped up its first congress in Berlin Sunday.
Around 1,000 delegates passed a resolution during their five- day congress that defined a new class of workers, including those in information-related industries who often function internationally and who are not covered by normal "collective bargaining and social dialogue."
UNI said it wanted to win basic workers rights for these people by negotiating minimum standards with employers and guarantees for protection in social rights, benefits and training.
German President Johannes Rau had opened the congress Wednesday with a call for a worldwide response by labor to industrial globalization.
He said globalization represented "a changed reality", and that is why it was "undeniable" that trade unions had to be international.
"We can't afford the internationalization of capital (to be matched by) the provincialism of the rights of workers," Rau said.
UNI president Kurt van Haaren said that in the new world of global financial, labor and product markets "a strong global labor union is forcefully necessary."
He said "the monstrous power" of international firms and business "calls for control and a counter-power, calls forcefully for a labor union counter-power."
Van Haaren said the 1,000 delegates gathered at a hotel and convention complex in formerly communist eastern Berlin represented 15 million members from 1,000 trade unions from 150 countries, including branches of major French unions, the huge German union Verdi, Japanese unions and the major US union the AFL-CIO.
The UNI was founded in January 2000 to provide a "social" response to globalization, the organization said in a communique.
It calls itself the "skills and services international" and says it is the global union for the new millenium.
It uses on-line technology and other modern communications to build networks with affiliate unions.
The UNI delegates said they wanted unions to oversee pension funds.
They said that 17 billion dollars (18.8 billion euros) in pension money is currently invested in financial markets and that unions should be able to "influence how this capital is used ... (according to) ethically and socially defendable principles."
The UNI said firms, especially ones that are global and escape in many instances control by individual nations, should be held to "principles of good governance," specifically giving unions the right to consult on the social consequences of mergers and acquisitions.
It said world committees should be set up in international companies, based on the European experience with such committees, to define "minimum norms which multinational must respect."
The UNI delegates spoke out for the idea of "global" union actions, mainly in fighting discrimination and racism and for the role of young people and women in society.
Finland's Maj-Len Remahl, 59, was elected UNI president Sunday for two years, replacing Van Haaren, who has led UNI since its creation in January 2000. Since December 2000 she has headed the Finnish service union PAM, which has 200,000 members.
American Joe Hansen became Sunday the new main UNI vice president. Briton Philip Jennings remains as UNI secretary general.
The next UNI congress is to be held in Chicago, Illinois in 2005.
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