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We are members and citizens of the social-democratic and socialist labour
movement in its broadest sense that includes political parties, trade unions,
workers’ education organizations, solidarity and welfare organizations,
cultural and leisure organizations, women and youth organizations, and
others. We are members and citizens of this movement from our own countries
and also internationally, through the international organizations where we
are active. This movement is facing an existential crisis. It is a crisis of
identity, of direction and of purpose. If our original goal was to create,
through our joint efforts, a society based on justice, freedom and security
worldwide, we are no closer to it than we ever were. We are losing the
struggle for society:
- A drastic shift in power relations in favour of transnational capital
has taken place: transnational capital is reordering the world economy in
its own interests, with the support of the conservative government of the
leading world power and of the leading European governments, through the
Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization and the EU
institutions.
- The immediate consequences have been: growing social inequalities and
social disruption, undermining of social protection, spreading poverty
world-wide, and new and growing threats to the environment that are
potentially life-threatening for humanity.
- Technological developments, including biotechnology, are largely under
corporate control. They are not only rapidly changing people’s lives, but
are also raising political and ethical issues which the labour movement
has, with some exceptions, failed to address.
- The ideological barrage from conservative think tanks, academic
institutions and media has successfully promoted the belief that human
welfare can best be achieved by individual solutions, thus undermining
social cohesion and values like solidarity, compassion and cooperation.
- Migration, caused by global inequalities, wars and repressive regimes,
has become a major political and social issue in
many countries, leading to the emergence of far-right movements. In
general, the labour movement has in general failed to adequately address
this issue.
- With some notable exceptions, trade union membership is declining in
most industrialized countries, in many underdeveloping countries and in
all transition countries. Repression accounts for most of this decline,
although economic
and social developments, and the movement’s own internal weaknesses, are
also a factor.
- The collapse of bureaucratic collectivism and of its totalitarian
institutions in the former Soviet Union and its
block has not led to a social-democratic revival, as many of us had hoped,
but to the expansion of capitalism in its most brutal form and to the
discredit of the concept of socialism – a posthumous victory of Stalinism.
- Relations between the trade union movement and social-democratic
parties, especially when in government, have
become problematic in many countries, and also at international level.
Trade unions and their traditional political allies often and increasingly
diverge in their analysis of the problem and in the solutions they
advocate.
- Organized resistance to the hegemony of transnational capital has come
mostly from the new social movements, which in most cases have developed
independently of the labour movement and in some instances in opposition
to it. As members and citizens of the labour movement, these are
challenges which engage our responsibility. There is no one else who is
responsible for our movement and for its future except ourselves, and the
time to act is now. Our movement still has huge resources at its disposal,
if we are able to join the forces available. The labour movement
can become a formidable and ultimately successful force for social change.
We do not need to lose the struggle for society and we have a fundamental
responsibility to make sure that we do not. But we have to ask ourselves
serious questions. They range from the general to the specific. Here are
some of them, in no particular order:
- Many millions of people are struggling for a better life every day,
if for no other reason, because they have no alternative. Are we
prepared to lead and organize these struggles? If so, by what right and
with what credentials? Are we prepared to reaffirm a socialist
perspective in these
struggles and challenge the dominant conservative ideology (otherwise
known as neoliberalism, neo-conservatism or the “Washington consensus”)?
If we are not, do we believe that the struggle for a better society can
be successfully conducted within the limits of the “Washington consensus”?
- Does the international trade union movement (essentially the ICFTU
and the Global Union Federations) have a strategy for social change? If
so, what is it?
- The labour movement, through its national and international
organizations, is spending tens of millions of dollars every
year in development aid (mostly public funds). What proportion of this
money has demonstrably and measurably contributed to the strengthening
of the labour movement nationally and internationally, and to changing
the international balance of forces in favour of labour?
- Some social-democratic and labour parties have severed the
historical privileged links with the trade union movement, and have
declared that, as far as they were concerned, trade unions were just
another pressure group among others. How do we deal with this, as
socialists, trade unionists, workers educators? The trade union movement
is political in everything it does and needs a political dimension. If
its historical allies are withdrawing from their old relationship, what
conclusions should the trade union movement draw from this? What
conclusions for socialists?
- Industry-based, enterprisebased trade unionism is shrinking
everywhere, largely because of changes in the structure of companies (from
producers to coordinators of production carried out on their behalf by
others). Are there other forms of trade union organization which can
successfully organize the new (and old) unorganized, particularly in the
informal economy? What does “social movement trade unionism” mean and
what makes it different?
- Trade union rights are challenged everywhere. In some countries,
trade unions are targets of outright repression (Colombia is the worst
example, but there are many others). In most industrial democracies
certain rights which are basic human rights, such as the right to strike,
especially when it comes to solidarity strikes, are severely curtailed.
This is not a problem of the trade union movement alone. It is a problem
of the entire labour movement because it strikes at the root of our
collective power. Some of us have campaigned for trade union rights for
some time. What can we do to broaden and strengthen such campaigns? What
can we do to change the mind of certain labour
governments which endorse restrictions of trade union rights decreed by
conservative governments that preceded them?
- How does the labour movement relate to new social movements (f.ex.
ATTAC, Greens, women’s movements)?
Are they our allies? If so, under what conditions? Are we prepared and
capable of forming coalitions with such movements (i.e. certain NGOs) to
create a broad-based popular mass movement for social change (back to
question (1))?
- The Socialist International is no longer an organization in any
recognizable sense but a forum for (mostly European) socialist
politicians. By its own choice, it has no relations with the
international trade union movement. Many in the trade union movement who
are disillusioned by their own social-democratic or labour parties have
given up on the SI as a lost cause. As socialists, we cannot take this
lightly. For those of us who are active in SI member parties, are we
prepared to pursue this issue? Is it possible, or even desirable, to
seek a new relationship with the SI based on a constructive and
practical alliance in pursuit of common goals? If so, what goals? More
broadly, what can be expected of the SI today and what can it deliver?
- Despite the collapse of the Soviet block and of Stalinism as an
ideology, authoritarian regimes remain in place in some of the successor
States of the USSR. China has developed a system t h a t can best be
described as market
Stalinism. Stalinist regimes remain in place in Vietnam and in Cuba and
North Korea remains locked in its own bizarre version of totalitarianism.
Just as in the past significant parts of the democratic labour movement
blurred ideological differences in the name of the “realpolitik” of
their governments, so today “constructive engagement”
policies are gaining ground, most notably with respect to China and the
Chinese State labour organizations, with equally disastrous political
results. For many reasons, the political identity of democratic
socialism, and its incompatibility with any form of totalitarian
ideology anywhere, needs to be reaffirmed. We do not believe, of course,
that a seminar can do justice to such important and complex issues. We
do believe, however, that such a discussion needs to be initiated. So
far as we are aware, it is not taking place anywhere, and we believe
that these issues can only be ignored at our collective peril. As the
IFWEA already includes in its membership workers education associations,
trade unions and Global Union Federations, social-democratic party
institutions, labour service organizations, think tanks and labour
colleges, we think we are in a position to host a discussion on broad
labour movement issues. We are prepared to make this seminar the first
of several. However, we look at this as the beginning of an open-ended
political process, and we welcome other organizations joining us in
moving it along.
1) Excerpt on the talking points presented by Dan Gallin
in the form of an invitation letter to IFWEA’s roundtable discussion in Oslo
last September 19-20, 2002. Twenty participants from national and
international trade unions, workers’ education organizations and solidarity
organizations in twelve countries participated in the roundtable discussion,
which was chaired by Reiulf Steen, former chairman of the Norwegian Labour
Party”.
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