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8
Hi everybody in the international study circle
My name is Alana. I have met all of you by reading your introductions in Session One. I am the co-ordinator of the international study circle project. I work in Manchester, England. Each week I will be preparing a summary from all of your reports. This will save time in your weekly sessions, and make it easier for those countries which are translating into other languages. If you want to read the full summaries coming from each country, they will be on our project web site.
This summary was prepared on Friday afternoon and then updated on Tuesday morning . I had only received reports from Estonia, Bulgaria, Spain and South Africa.
In Session Two, all the study circles answered the questionnaire called TNCs in Our Country. The questionnaire helped each study circle collect important information about TNCs in their country. There were many questions. It was not possible to answer all of them. This is not a problem. Every piece of information gives us a picture of how TNCs are operating in different countries. We have only just started putting this picture together.
The summaries have shown that in each country, there are TNCs operating in sectors of the economy like manufacturing, finances, services and transport. Many of us have the same TNCs operating in our countries. For example, Coca-Cola operates in South Africa, Bulgaria and Estonia. Companies like Shell and Nestle were also mentioned by the study circle in Estonia and Bulgaria. Do these companies operate in your country as well? By just looking at four countries involved in the international study circle project, we already have a picture of how TNCs spread themselves across the world.
Many of us know about TNCs which come from abroad and invest in our economies. The questionnaire also helped us see that there are companies from our own countries which go to other countries. For example, the South African study circle gave us information about how South African companies are investing in the United States, Europe and other African countries. Estonian companies are going to countries like Russia, Finland and the Ukraine. Whilst TNCs from Spain are mainly taking over public companies in Latin America which are now being privatised. So we also need to understand that companies coming from our own country might also be TNCs. Do we know which locally owned companies are TNCs? "We see it as a challenge to find out more about South African TNCs" said the South African study circle.
There are different experiences of how TNCs respect trade union rights. Some study circle said that generally many of the bigger TNCs do respect workers' rights. But this differs from company to company. Smaller TNCs tend to exploit workers more and often do not recognise trade unions. South Africa has had this experience with Taiwanese clothing and plastic companies. The important issue is that workers cannot rely on TNCs to respect their rights. Often these rights can only be won by organising and fighting for them. How can trade unions and other organisations from different countries support each other in the struggle to protect workers' rights? This is a question which we will look at from Session 4 onwards.
There are also different ideas on the positive and negative effects of TNCs. The Estonian study circle said that the wages in TNCs are higher than in local Estonian companies. They also said that there is now more competition in the Estonian economy. In Session One, our friends in Spain asked: Is everything bad with TNCs?
We can see from the study circle in South Africa that there are many problems with TNCs. This study circle gave us information of how TNCs do not respect the environment. For example, Thor Chemicals (a British owned company) caused the death of people who used a river which the company had poisoned. There are many more such stories of environmental damage by TNCs.
In our study circles, we will need to debate both the negative and positive aspects of foreign investment. But whatever our views are on this issue, we know that TNCs are interested in making big profits. The same TNC might bring something positive to one country by exploiting workers in another country. So we need to understand how TNCs operate not only in our own country but world-wide. Session Two has shown how each study circle can contribute information which helps us build this understanding.
Links Conserning this summary
Alana's other summaries
[Session 1]/ [Session 2]/ [Session 3]/ [Session 4]
[Session 5]/ [Session 6]/ [Session 7]/ [Session 8]
Summaries of session 2
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