ISC - Tackling Transnationals -Summary 3 / RSA1

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Summary of Session 3

Study Circle RSA1 (Martin Jansen)

Our meeting was attended by the facilitators and 6 members of the study circle. We began with a brief reminder of our discussion last week. Then we went through the reports from comrades in Estonia and Bulgaria.

* We noted the involvement of Switzerland as an investor. This led to a discussion about the way in which Swiss banks use confidentiality and secrecy even to protect mass murderers and other criminals. Our question to all study circles is: what do you know about Swiss (and other banks). The challenge is to break through the secrecy which hides information from workers.

* We were struck by a theme in both reports: isn't there something good about TNC's? We realised that there are different histories and experiences which can shape our perceptions of the same thing. We come out of a war in which TNC's looked for profit at the expense of the needs of human beings. We think this is still the case, not just in South Africa but internationally. If we seem to have a more aggressive attitude, it is because we are angry. We are part of Africa which has been plundered by TNC's. Technology allows us to link up with each other, but TNC's operate to divide and rule workers. We don't even know what is happening to many workers in different countries who work for South African TNC's.

To our comrades in Bulgaria and Estonia:

Sometimes TNC's respect trade union and environmental rights in one country, but the same TNC ignores these in another country. They are ready to use Africa as a dumping ground for the waste and poisons of Europe, even if they seem to respect environmental rights in Europe. They look as if they are respecting rights and working conditions in one place, but in anothere they are ignoring these. Then they move around from place to place, always looking for ways to cut costs. If they seem to be helping you today, they are harming other workers; and you can be next tomorrow.

They are profit-driven not needs-driven. We know that you have lived under "communist governments". We have lived under capitalist governments - and we know that it is always workers who suffer. Capitalists give with the one hand - but they are always trying to take away with the other hand.

To our comrades in Estonia:

We sometimes talk about multi-nationals and sometimes about Transnationals. We prefer Transnationals because it emphasises the new power and ways of operating of the biggest companies in the world. Also, it creates a picture for us of an octopus with a head in one place and tentacles moving all over the place taking what it needs.

Our last message before we continued to other things:

if TNC's respect rights in one place, then its a challenge to us to make sure that we force them to respect rights in all places, so that they can't divide and rule.

We then moved on to discuss:
WHY DO TNC'S COME TO SOUTH AFRICA.

Our main answers were:

for cheap labour
to profiteer
to maximise their control
to exploit the local market and avoid tariffs.

We then discussed:
WHY DO TNC'S ROAM THE WORLD.

In our discussion we highlighted the fact that the going rate internationally was $10-20 per month. We linked this to unemployment. If TNC's think that wages are too high in one place, either they make threats to force wages down (levelling downwards), or they move.

Then we discussed the question: aren't they at least creating jobs in some places? We can understand why some comrades will think that. The TNC's have got money and they can invest. But when they are doing that, they are exploiting poor people and the desperation for jobs - and that is evil. You must ask yourselves: How did TNC's that money in the first place? Our answer is that they got it through forcing workers to be exploited. So when they invest some of that money, we are not grateful. We remember the pain and suffering they caused to get it in the first place. They should leave the money with us and go.

We read the quote from the World Bank official. And we realised: its not just words, its actually happening. For example, there was an offer from Switzerland to Namibia that they would provide enough money for all the housing needs of Namibia if Namibia would let them dump their toxic waste in the Namib desert.

We then discussed some of the incentives TNC's are offered in South Africa.

These include:

cheap labour (even though they says its too expensive)
free land
low-cost energy
low interest loans
different kinds of "tax-holiday"

We also noted the pressures for bribery and corruption and free trade zones. We looked at an example of South African investment in dams in Lesotho where South Africa claimed the roads were a gift. In fact, it was all about getting the water to South Africa to meet the needs of industry. Workers in Lesotho were involved in industrial action - 2,300 were dismissed and 1,400 were re-employed.

In our assessment we noted:

that too few have too much and too many have too little in the world of the TNC;
that we should be looking at the broader picture across the world, not just the situation in our own countries;
that we must struggle together for time off from work for such education;
that we are challenged to get information and break the secrecy that protects TNC's;
in general, we think that we are seeing a picture that we knew, but it is getting clearer as we proceed;
we liked the direct comments from comrades in other countries and want to continue speaking straight to each other; we are looking forward to hearing from our comrades in other countries because we did not see all the reports.

One of our comrades - Lance - made apologies for next week. He has to be in Nelspruit (which is probably more than 1500k from Cape Town) for a march of the community with the trade unions. They are marching as part of the struggle against privatisation of water and attempts by a British company (Biwater) to take over from the public sector. Lance's union SAMWU is leading that struggle which is happening nationally also. Some of the policies SAMWU is fighting for to protect water supply from privatisation are:

reorganisation of the workforce and working methods according to needs;
training and capacity building for the public sector;
assistance from other public institutions
access to funding to develop and pay for proper services.
cross-subsidies (from rich to poor)

SAMWU says that water is our lifeblood - it must remain in public hands. Providing water must be needs-driven, not for profit.

So you can see: - the struggle continues!

Comradely greetings.

Jonathan Grossman
Department of Sociology
UCT
Private Bag Rondebosch
Cape 7701
South Africa

Email: GROSSMAN@SOCSCI.UCT.AC.ZA

NOTE: FAX CHANGED TO Fax: +27 21 6897576
Phone: +27 21 6503507

Links Conserning this summary

Study Circles other summaries

[Session 1]/ [Session 2]/ [Session 3]/ [Session 4]
[Session 5]/ [Session 6]/ [Session 7]/ [Session 8]
[Evaluation]

Summaries of session 3

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