Seachange Bulletin #125

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Seachange Bulletin #125: Labor vs Globalization
Iraq, NAFTA, FTAA, Venezuela, Kampuchea

Stop the War on Workers Rights ... At Home and in Iraq
An education and organizing conference

Saturday - February 7, 2004
8:30 am - 12 noon
Northeastern Law School
Huntington Avenue and Forsythe Street
(Enter on Huntington Avenue)
Boston, Massachusetts
T Stops (Ruggles on Orange Line. Huntington on Green Line)

Featured Speakers

Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10 (Longshoreworkers) Executive Board member, San
Francisco, California

David Bacon, labor journalist & photographer (photos by David Bacon)

Thomas and Bacon were members of an international labor fact-finding mission
to Iraq in October on behalf of US Labor Against the War <
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org>. They will show photos and video of their meetings with workers,
visits to workplaces and discussions with leaders of the labor movement.

In Iraq the Bush administration has decreed that:

Union activity is banned in state enterprises. Strikes are illegal. Iraqi
workers can be arrested and interned as prisoners of war for leading union
protests.

70% of Iraqis are unemployed. The $87 billion passed by Congress for the
occupation contained not a dime for Iraqi workers or the unemployed. Billions of
dollars of Iraqi resources are being privatized for exploitation and profit by
US corporations.

The US has lost 3 million jobs under the Bush administration. Wages are
stagnant. Medical benefits are being slashed. Labor and civil rights are under
attack. The very underpinnings of our democracy are in jeopardy of being
dismantled.

MA Labor for Justice with Peace
508-823-4068 or laborfjp@yahoo.com
To be put on mailing list send email to:
laborfjp-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Bomb before you buy
What is being planned in Iraq is not reconstruction but robbery
Naomi Klein, The Guardian, April 14, 2003
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,936203,00.html>

On April 6, deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz spelled it out: there
will be no role for the UN in setting up an interim government in Iraq. The
US-run regime will last at least six months, "probably longer than that". And by
the time the Iraqi people have a say in choosing a government, the key economic
decisions about their country's future will have been made by their occupiers.
"There has to be an effective administration from day one," Wolfowitz said.
"People need water and food and medicine, and the sewers have to work, the
electricity has to work. And that's coalition responsibility." The process of how
they will get all this infrastructure to work is usually called
"reconstruction". But American plans for Iraq's future economy go well beyond that. Rather
than rebuilding, the country is being treated as a blank slate on which the
most ideological Washington neo-liberals can design their dream economy: fully
privatised, foreign-owned and open for business. The $4.8m management contract
for the port in Umm Qasr has already gone to a US company, Stevedoring Services
(the company that suppied the scabs to the confrontation with the West Coast
longshore workers last year - ed), and there are similar deals for airport
administration on the auction block. The United States Agency for International
Development has invited US multinationals to bid on everything from rebuilding
roads and bridges to distributing textbooks. The length of time these
contracts will last is left unspecified. How long before they meld into long-term
contracts for water services, transit systems, roads, schools and phones? When
does reconstruction turn into privatisation in disguise? Republican congressman
Darrel Issa has introduced a bill that would require the defence department to
build a CDMA cellphone system in postwar Iraq in order to benefit "US patent
holders". As Farhad Manjoo noted in the internet magazine Salon, CDMA is the
system used in the US, not in Europe, and was developed by Qualcomm, one of
Issa's most generous donors. ...

Bomb Before You Buy: The Economics of War
Naomi Klein, Chronogram, December 2003
<http://chronogram.com/backIssues/2003/1203/roomforaview/index.html>

A couple of days after September 11, the National Post newspaper ran a story
with the headline "Globalization is So Yesterday." No one was interested in
talking about the ravages of capitalism, we were told. The world was now
focused on an entirely new set of issues: war, terror, and the clash of
civilizations. Everything we thought we knew before September 11 no longer applied. It was
nonsense, of course. But it is true that many of us in the globalization
movement were caught somewhat flatfooted by the military upsurge of these last two
years. Yes, many of us instinctively made the transition from trade issues to
anti-war activism, but we were not able, at first, to fully connect how
warfare is used to enforce the very economic policies we had been fighting against.
The anti-war movement, for its part, faced a similar problem making these
connections. The mainstream of the anti-war movement in North America focused
almost exclusively on the visible atrocities of war: the violence, the human
rights abuses, the broken international laws. When explaining why these wars were
erupting, rarely did we surpass pat answers like, "It’s about the oil." Some
even argued that analyzing the economic model that sees war and occupation as
market opportunities was "too divisive." Activists were urged to stay on
message, to focus on the effects of war, but not its underlying causes. I believe
that this failure to marry the economic analysis of the globalization movement
with the moral outcry of anti-war activism ended up hurting both movements.
By failing to see the lengths to which capital will go to crack open new
markets, the globalization movement seemed soft and naive. So did the anti-war
movement: attempting to stop a war without directly confronting the economic system
behind it is like trying to stop a bomb after it has already been dropped. In
this context, peace never had a chance. Fortunately, these artificial
divisions are beginning to break down. This is because, now that the war in Iraq is
"over", the economic project behind the attack has emerged, fully formed. ...

The US Arrests Iraq's Union Leaders
David Bacon, December 10, 2003
<http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/news/news.php?news_id=2484>

Baghdad - US occupation forces in Iraq escalated their efforts to paralyze
Iraq's new labor unions with a series of arrests this weekend. On Saturday, a
convoy of ten humvees and personnel carriers descended on the old headquarters
building of the Transport and Communications Workers union, in Baghdad's
central bus station, which has been used since June as the office of the Iraqi
Workers Federation of Trade Unions. Twenty soldiers jumped out, stormed into the
building, put handcuffs on eight members of the Federation's executive board,
and took them into detention. "They gave no reason at all, despite being asked
over and over," says federation spokesperson Abdullah Muhsin. Soldiers painted
out the name of the federation on the front of the building with black paint.
Because the new Iraqi unions lack basic resources like office furniture and
machines, there was little to confiscate in the building. "But we did have a few
files, and they took those," Muhsin adds. Ironically, the office had posters
on the walls condemning terrorism, which soldiers tore down in the raid.
Although the eight were released the following day, there was no explanation from
the Coalition Provisional Authority for the detentions. The bus station raid
followed the detention of two other trade union leaders on November 23 - Qasim
Hadi, general secretary of the Union of the Unemployed, and Adil Salih, another
leader of the organization. Hadi has been arrested twice before by occupation
troops, for leading demonstrations of unemployed workers demanding
unemployment benefits and jobs. In the latest raid, CPA troops said they'd found two
guns in the union's office, which was only permitted to have one. Hadi explained
that the organization has been the subject of threats and fatwahs by Iraqi
religious parties, and needs weapons for self-defense, since US troops are unable
or unwilling to provide security. The two were released after being detained
for a day. ...

US occupation forces raid Iraqi union headquarters
Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions, December 11, 2003
<http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000001.html>

Statement of the Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions (IFTU) About the
Vicious Attack By the Occupation Forces on its Headquarters on Saturday 6th
December 2003.

To: Workers and the Iraqi Working Class, Iraqi, Arab and World Public
Opinion, Supporters of Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights all over the world.

The American occupation forces, using a force of about ten armoured cars and
tens of soldiers, attacked the temporary headquarters of the IFTU (at the
headquarters of the Transport and Communication Union, in Karkh district, Allawi
Al Hilla, Baghdad) at 10.30 am on Saturday 6/12/2003, and arrested 8 of its
leaders and cadres, who were handcuffed and taken away to an unknown destination.
The attackers ransacked and destroyed the IFTU's possessions, tearing down
banners and posters condemning acts of terror, tarnishing the name of the IFTU
and that of the General Union of Transport Workers (on the building's main
front) with black paint and smashing windows glass, without giving any reason or
explanation. The IFTU, as one of the most important organization of civil
society, that includes within its ranks sons of working class, the builders of a
new Iraq and the Democratic future of Iraq, strongly condemns this unjustified
terrorizing act by the occupation forces which targetted trade unionist cadres
and leaders who are well-known for their struggle against the hated
dictatorship. While calling for the release of our detained colleagues as soon as
possible, and condemning any attempt to launch a new attack on trade union centres,
or further arrests of trade union leaders, we stress that the Iraqi working
class will not forgive this attack which constitutes a blatant violation of
democracy and human rights. ...

Outside View: Baghdad raid bungle or plot?
Gary Kent, United Press International, December 12, 2003
<http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20031212-065635-9192r.htm>

London - Trade unionists around the world are protesting a US raid on the
head offices of the post-Saddam trade union movement in Iraq. On Saturday, Dec. 6
American armored cars and soldiers raided the offices of the Iraqi Federation
of Trade Unions in Baghdad, according to union sources. They reportedly
trashed the offices, threw black paint over the windows and arrested eight
officials. Ironically, the soldiers tore up posters opposing terrorism in Iraq by
remnants of Saddam Hussein regime and foreign fighters. There is some confusion
over what happened. The Iraqi trade unions say that the officials were released
unharmed and are demanding an explanation and compensation. But the former
British foreign office minister Peter Hain told the House of Commons in London
that he did not know of this incident at the union offices. However, Hain
confirmed that there was a US raid which netted illegal arms and ammunition. He
added that eight Fedayeen were arrested and that two of them are now facing murder
charges. Were there two incidents or one? Who is telling the truth? ...

ICFTU to Hold Talks on Reconstruction and
Labour Rights with Iraqi Trade Union Groups
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, ICFTU Online, December 16,
2003
<http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991218824&Language=EN>

Brussels - An international trade union delegation will hold talks with
representatives of Iraqi trade union groupings in Amman, Jordan on 17 and 18
December. 23 representatives of national and international trade union organisations
will discuss reconstruction efforts, the rights of Iraqi workers, and the
effects of the ongoing violence in the country. ICFTU General Secretary Guy
Ryder, who will lead the international delegation, said "This meeting is an
opportunity for us to become better acquainted with the different groups seeking to
build a genuine and democratic trade union movement in Iraq, to provide a basis
for future international support to the emerging trade unions and to analyse
together the problems facing Iraqi workers and the Iraqi people in general.
The capture of Saddam Hussein is a welcome development, and a major blow to
those who are trying to stop Iraq becoming a democracy. But very serious problems
remain. Helping to build a free and democratic trade union movement in Iraq is
a key priority for the ICFTU." During the talks the delegation will seek more
information from the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) on the attack on
its headquarters by US soldiers on 6 December and the overnight detention of
eight IFTU representatives. The ICFTU, deeply concerned at the reported
circumstances of the attack, has requested its US and British affiliates to raise
the matter with their respective governments. Other Iraqi groups present will
include the General Federation of Trade Unions, teachers’ and journalists’
representatives and Kurdish trade unionists. The international delegation includes
ICFTU affiliates from Arab countries, as well as from Europe, North America
and from the Global Union Federations for transport and for construction. The
International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions will also be represented. ...

Iraqi trade union target of US occupation forces
The Daily Star, December 20, 2003
<http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=36974>

London - An international trade union delegation called on Friday for support
for Iraq's nascent trade union movement - once a target of the deposed Iraqi
dictator, Saddam Hussein; now, apparently, a target of the US occupation
forces. At the end of a two-day meeting in the Jordanian capital, Amman, a
spokesman for the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
acknowledged that "the ongoing violence in Iraq makes it hard for trade unions to operate
effectively," but called on the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi
Governing Council to give more attention to the problems facing Iraqi
workers. The spokesman said the meeting discussed reconstruction efforts, the rights
of Iraqi workers and the effects of the violence currently enveloping parts of
Iraq. ICFTU Secretary-General Guy Ryder urged the development of labor
legislation conforming to international standards "to protect workers from
exploitation and to allow for the development of legitimate trade unions and employer
organizations, as well as for the reconstruction of the economy and the
development of democracy in Iraq." Ryder criticized the Bush administration's
decision to limit foreign investment in Iraq to those who supported the US-led war to
remove Saddam Hussein. "The international community needs to work together to
rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and economy and to help democracy develop," he
said. "In the ICFTU's view, the US decision is not in the best interests of
the Iraqi people, in particular given the serious allegations now being made
against one of the main US companies involved in the reconstruction." Ryder
appeared to be referring to the US giant Halliburton, Vice-President Dick Cheney's
former company, which has been accused of overcharging and other violations in
an Iraq reconstruction contract. Halliburton has denied any price gouging. ...

IFTU welcomes capture of former dictator Saddam Hussein
Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions, December 22, 2003
<http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000005.html>

At an emergency meeting of its Executive on 14 December 2003, the Iraqi
Federation of Workers Trade Unions (IFTU) congratulated the people of Iraq and the
world on the capture of the bloody dictator and the manner in which he was
caught in his burrow near Tikrit. We hope this will contribute to uniting the
Iraqi people for a new, unified and democratic Iraq, which will end dictatorship
forever. In order for Iraq to move forward, Saddam must be tried in Iraq and
the truth must come out about his crimes and those he killed, whose memory we
honour.

Teachers union calls for trial of Saddam Hussein
Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions, December 22, 2003
<http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000006.html>

Welcoming the capture of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Teachers Union called for
public trial of the former bloody dictator not only in order to discover the
truth about those who disappeared but also to bring about a unified and
democratic Iraq. The union specifically pointed to one of their members who
disappeared on 23 May 1980, Hassun Ali Al-Mousawi, a secondary school teacher from
Najaf - one of many thousands of honourable teachers who disappeared without trace.

Electricity Strike in Basra
Basra Braces Itself for Industrial Shut-Down
Ewa Jasiewicz, Occupation Watch, January 8, 2004
<http://www.uuiraq.org/english/21.html>

Five days ago, workers in Najebeeya and Haatha power plants, and power
stations in Khor Zubair and She'iba, staged protests and walk-outs over low wages
and long hours. In Najibeeya workers attacked the administration building and
the boss himself Hammad Salem Rghadbaan - a man notorious for mistreating
workers and now protected by the usual boss-propping heavies in Basra SCIRI'S Badr
Brigades, muscle also for Iraqi Port Authority chief and many a worker Molotov
target - Abdel Razzaq. Rgahdbaan, a former influential Baathist, enjoys a
stretch-office complete with massive satellite televison, sofas, an expensive,
imposing desk and male mignions serving crystal bowls full of chocolate treats.
He denys the existence of unions, using Bremer's issue on Organization in the
Workplace to delay all recognition, pressurizes building workers at the plant
to halt construction on the union's HQ, has allowed a former buddy employee to
effectively squat the plant's nursery with his family, despite them having
their own house in Gurna and leaving 28 kids shut out from a safe space to dwell
in during the day and women workers to bear their kids on their arms or walk
with them in baleful tow. The current new nursey space the former canteen - is
a loose electricity-cable dangling shaft of a place, devoid of furniture and
being renovated at a painstaking slow pace. Rghadbaan also pays out slavewages
(2000 ID per day just over a dollar a kg of apples, a kg of potatoes and
packet of cigarettes) to retired workers forced back to work out of desperation,
and a basic $60 per month for most under 5-years service workers at the last
count two months ago. Women are also discriminated against in their wages
receiving 10,000-20,000 ID less than their male counterparts, per week - an undercut
of over a whole day's wages. This swindle is also a violation of International
Labour Convention 100 on equal renumeration which Iraq is a signatory to.
Rgadbaan also assaulted the plant's only female trade unionist, and mother (who
brings her 5-year-old son Saif with her everywhere she goes) and an outspoken
critic of the management. Friends inform me that she was shoved by him, which
is here is culturally akin to a full attack. There is also no safety equipment
at Najebeeya: no boots, new suits, glasses, masks, gloves, first-aid
equipment, emergency communication system or safety belts. No major necessary
reconstruction has been carried out yet either, nine months on into the occupation. ...

Free-Market Iraq? Not So Fast
Daphne Eviatar, The New York Times, January 10, 2004
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/arts/10OCCU.html?th>

There is no doubt about American intentions for the Iraqi economy. As Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, "Market systems will be favored, not
Stalinist command systems." And so the American-led coalition has fired off a
series of new laws meant to transform the economy. Tariffs were suspended, a
new banking code was adopted, a 15 percent cap was placed on all future taxes,
and the once heavily guarded doors to foreign investment in Iraq were thrown
open. In a stroke, L. Paul Bremer III, who heads the Coalition Provisional
Authority, wiped out longstanding Iraqi laws that restricted foreigners' ability to
own property and invest in Iraqi businesses. The rule, known as Order 39,
allows foreign investors to own Iraqi companies fully with no requirements for
reinvesting profits back into the country, something that had previously been
restricted by the Iraqi constitution to citizens of Arab countries. In addition,
the authority announced plans last fall to sell about 150 of the nearly 200
state-owned enterprises in Iraq, ranging from sulfur mining and pharmaceutical
companies to the Iraqi national airline. But the wholesale changes are
unexpectedly opening up a murky area of international law, prompting thorny new
questions about what occupiers should and should not be permitted to do. While
potential investors have applauded the new rules for helping rebuild the Iraqi
economy, legal scholars are concerned that the United States may be violating
longstanding international laws governing military occupation. ...

No Unions for Iraqi Workers
US authorities keep Hussein's anti-union policies in place
Dan Levine, Hartford Advocate, January 29, 2004
<http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content.html?oid=oid:51610>

Despite George W. Bush's ritual trashing of Saddam Hussein, the American-led
occupying forces in Iraq have a special affinity for one the Hussein's decrees
- his law banning labor unions. Not only is this anti-union edict still on
the books, but it is being vigorously enforced by American soldiers in Iraq,
according to some witnesses. Just last month, US troops arrested several
executive board members of the Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions and trashed
their headquarters, reports journalist David Bacon on the Pacifica News Service.
The soldiers released the unionists a day later, but the United States
(through the Iraqi governing council) is repressing attempts by Iraqi workers to
improve their economic situation and claim a voice in an upcoming round of
privatization, Bacon says. In October, Bacon traveled to Iraq with Clarence Thomas,
an executive board member of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local
10 in San Francisco, in order to study the burgeoning trade union movement in
Iraq and its conflict with the coalition. Bacon and Thomas are both active
with US Labor Against the War, and they will speak at Central Connecticut State
University in New Britain on Feb. 4. ...

Iraqi Communists Make a Comeback
Public Wake for Bomb Victim Reflects New Status of Long-Persecuted Party
Pamela Constable, Washington Post, January 29, 2004
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58107-2004Jan28.html?referrer=
email>

Baghdad - The funeral canopy stretched nearly a full block in front of Yasser
Aboud's house in a rundown Shiite Muslim district of the capital. All day a
stream of mourners came and went: men in Arab robes and business suits and
greasy work pants, greeting one another soberly and sitting awhile under the tent
to sip tea, smoke cigarettes and gossip quietly. But even in grief, Monday's
gathering was a political celebration of sorts. Two men were dead, victims of a
terrorist bombing Jan. 22 at a neighborhood office of the Iraqi Communist
Party. But for the first time after decades of furtive, underground life, party
members could mourn their dead proudly, in public and by name. "In Saddam's
time we would never dare have an open funeral," said Khalaf Ashrak, 52, a
longtime friend of Aboud, recalling the repression of Communists by President Saddam
Hussein's Baath Party. Gesturing around the crowded tent and pointing out
prominent guests, Ashrak said: "His government tried to crush us for 40 years.
Usually when they killed one of us, they never gave back the body, and sometimes
they even made us pay for the bullets." The comeback of the Iraqi Communists
is one of the most remarkable political stories of the post-Hussein era. Once
ruthlessly persecuted, the party has rapidly reemerged, this time as an
influential, moderating force in national life. The general secretary, Hamid Majid
Mousa, 61, sits on Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council. The party, once a
network of underground cells in which no one used his real name, has opened dozens
of branch offices across the country. In Baghdad, the party's dingy,
smoke-filled headquarters hums with purpose and energy, as members attend seminars,
cultural events and meetings on current events. ...

Editorial Comment: In 1916, during the First World War, called by some the
War to End All Wars and by others the Great Imperialist War, a British civil
servant named Sykes sat down in a back room with his French counterpart Picot to
draw up plans for the disposition of the Ottoman Empire after victory. France
took over Lebanon and Syria, while Britain was awarded Palestine,
Transjordania and Iraq. Eventually the British set up a monarchy in Iraq. Social
contradictions sharpened as wealth became ever more concentrated in the hands of the
ruling elite, feudal landowners and foreign interests. After years of strife,
revolution broke out on Bastille Day 1958. In time a constitution was drawn up
that proclaimed Iraq a binational state of Arabs and Kurds. The government of
Iraq was entrusted to an alliance of the left wing of the Ba’ath (Arab
Renaissance) Party, the Iraqi Communist Party and the Kurdish Democratic Party. Key
sectors of the economy were nationalized. Land reform was instituted. The rights
of women and minorities were respected. Unions began to flourish. But this
situation lasted only a few years. Greed was supplemented by discrete,
well-placed foreign funds, including CIA money into the pocket of a junior officer
named Saddam Hussein. Democratic leaders were assassinated. The Ba’ath Party was
purged of progressive forces. The tripartite alliance was broken, with the
persecution of Kurds, Communists, and unionists. When the Shah of Iran was
overthrown and Iran became a major enemy of the United States, Iraq played the role
of US surrogate in the eight-year war against its eastern neighbor. The Saddam
regime used against Iranis and Kurds chemical weapons whose components were
reportedly supplied by US companies. Saddam Hussein got too big for his
britches, as they say, and tried to settle a border dispute over a vast underground
oil field with Kuwait through invasion. Like so many others on the payroll
before him, like Marcos and Noriega, Saddam was expendable. The tragedy is that the
people of Iraq had to suffer twelve years of deadly UN sanctions, wars,
invasion and occupation, and now their country is being sold out from under them so
George W. Bush and his coterie can have the Free Trade Area of the Middle
East that they’ve been calling for since at least the late nineties. The vibrant
political life of the Iraqi people don’t need occupying powers to try to teach
them about democracy or how to run their own country. The US, UK and their
clients should turn over the keys now and get out. In 1970 there was the
"McGovern Amendment" circulating in Washington that would have required that not one
additional dollar be spent on the war against Vietnam except for what was
needed to get the US troops safely home. We need to circulate and impose such an
amendment. It should be demanded of every presidential candidate. - Sandy
Eaton, RN, Quincy, Massachusetts, USA

Soldier Letters
Compiled by Michael Moore, Fall, 2003
<http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/dudewheresmycountry/soldierletters/00
.php>

This letter was sent by mail from Iraq from Specialist Mike Prysner:

Dear Mr. Moore:

I’m writing this without knowing if it’ll ever get to you. I’m writing it
not knowing why, or knowing what I’m going to say. I’m writing it not knowing
if I’ll ever finish it or mail it. I’m writing it from the trenches of a war
(that’s still going on), not knowing why I’m here or when I’m leaving. I’ve
toppled statues and vandalized portraits, while wearing an American flag on my
sleeve, and struggling to learn how to understand. I was in Vindanza, Italy
when I heard your Oscar acceptance speech. It was the day before I boarded a
plane and experienced a "combat landing" in uncharted territory in northern
Iraq. It was such a surreal feeling - the only light came from a red bulb - we sat
shoulder to shoulder in silence. We were told to expect heavy
artillery/chemical attacks. I can’t say I know what was on the minds of those men packed next
to me, but I assume it was thoughts of family and religion. But me, a single
20 year old, I was thinking about what you had said. I joined the army as soon
as I was eligible – turned down a writing scholarship to a state university,
eager to serve my country, ready to die for the ideals I fell in love with.
Two years later I found myself moments away from a landing onto a pitch black
airstrip, ready to charge into a country I didn't believe I belonged in, with
your words repeating in my head. ...

'Miami Model' of FTAA security is lightning rod
Jim Defede, Miami Herald, December 18, 2003
<http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/jim_defede/7517140.htm>

Richard Trumka is not someone you want as an enemy. A third-generation coal
miner, Trumka was born in a small Pennsylvania coal town. While working the
mines he went to law school at night and later led an upstart campaign to take
over the mineworkers union. While president, he waged two bitter strikes against
the state's largest coal operators. Today, as secretary-treasurer of the
national AFL-CIO, the 54-year-old Trumka is one of the most powerful men in
organized labor and has made it his personal mission to settle the score with Miami
city leaders and its police force for what happened during the Free Trade Area
of the Americas summit last month. "The American labor movement is committed,
and I am personally committed, to see that the brutality we saw never happens
again anywhere in this country," he said Tuesday during an AFL-CIO meeting to
gather testimony from people who say they were abused by the police. The
often emotional meeting lasted four hours. "The stories were worse than I
imagined," Trumka said afterward. He said the AFL-CIO would call on its friends in
Congress and throughout the country to "help us stop ‘the Miami Model’ in its
tracks so it can never raise its ugly head again." ...

The battle after Seattle
Four years after the landmark 1999 protests in Seattle, times are tougher for
the global justice movement. But activists are adapting by broadening their
ranks, shifting their tactics, and envisioning an alternative world
Victor Tan Chen, In the Fray, December 29, 2003
<http://www.inthefray.com/html//article.php?sid=129>

About 2,500 police officers had shown up in downtown Miami, hailing from more
than forty local, state, and federal agencies. With their black helmets,
chest armor, and body shields, they looked like twenty-first-century Roman
legionnaires, staring down the barbarian hordes from beneath their polycarbonate
visors. Their adversaries were some 15,000 strong: protesters, mostly labor union
members, with smatterings of dreadlocked anarchists, backpack-toting students,
and gray-haired retirees, who had come to Miami to demonstrate during the
week’s negotiations over a hemisphere-wide trade pact known as the Free Trade
Area of the Americas (FTAA). As activists ended their protest march on that sunny
Thursday afternoon, police began their own. Slowly but relentlessly, they
pushed the crowd back with wooden batons, firing rubber bullets and drenching the
crowds in pepper spray as they advanced. A police spokesperson said the melee
- what seemed more like a rout - started with a few protesters hurling rocks.
By the end of the next day, 231 people had been arrested, and dozens injured,
including a handful of police officers. Two months earlier, at the World
Trade Organization’s (WTO) summit in Cancún, Mexico, there were thousands of
police as well, though they did not march, nor fire any bullets. They did not have
to. Eight-foot-tall chain-link fences had been erected all along the road
leading into the Mexican resort town’s "hotel zone," where trade ministers from
around the globe were meeting. The protesters, their placards, and their
puppets stayed on one side; the riot cops stayed on the other. Activists ripped down
the first security perimeter on two occasions that week, but for the most
part the crowd of several thousand was kept where police wanted them - miles away
from the trade negotiations. Four years after the landmark protests in
Seattle that shut down a WTO ministerial meeting and landed the
"anti-globalization" movement on the map, activism against free trade and corporate power has not
gotten any easier. Authorities have responded to the mass mobilizations at
every international summit by moving their events to far-off locales, where
social movements are weak and trucking in large numbers of activists is next to
impossible. Police have learned from the failures of Seattle, cordoning off key
city blocks in advance and using a combination of tall fences and non-lethal
firepower to keep protesters in line. And though last year’s demonstrations
against the Iraq War helped bring back the nation’s taste for popular protest,
American activists in the past two years have had to deal with an unfavorable
political climate ever since September 11, when pundits started likening
anti-globalization to terrorism and anti-Americanism. ...

NAFTA's legacy - profits and poverty
David Bacon, San Francisco Chronicle, January 14, 2004
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/14/
EDG3548NNO1.DTL>

Ten years after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, President
Bush calls it a great success and vows to extend it to Central America
through a new Central American Free Trade Agreement, as well as the rest of Latin
America through the Free Trade Area of the Americas. President Bill Clinton
before him promised that the rising tide of cross-border trade would "lift all
boats," benefiting everyone. The agreement certainly produced some winners.
Multinational corporations who built factories south of the US/Mexico border have
been able to cut labor costs and increase profits. Mexico created a new
generation of its own billionaires during the treaty's 10-year history. But not
everyone reaped NAFTA's benefits. The rising tide of profits and productivity did
not lift all boats. Instead, on both sides of the border, communities of
working people and the poor have paid the price for trade liberalization.
Predictions of US job losses were, if anything, underestimated. By November 2002, the US
Department of Labor had certified 507,000 workers for extensions of
unemployment benefits under the treaty because their employers had moved their jobs
south of the border. Most observers believe that is actually a significant
undercount, partly because many workers losing jobs don't know they qualify for
trade-related benefits. According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington,
NAFTA eliminated 879,000 US jobs because of the rapid growth in the net US
export deficit with Mexico and Canada. While the job picture for US workers was
grim, NAFTA's impact on Mexican jobs was devastating. Before leaving office
(and Mexico itself, pursued by charges of corruption), President Carlos Salinas
de Gortari promised Mexicans they would gain the jobs Americans lost. In the
United States, he promised that this job gain would halt the northward flow of
Mexican job-seekers. NAFTA's first year saw instead the loss of more than a
million jobs across Mexico. To attract investment, NAFTA-related reforms required
the privatization of factories, railroads, airlines and other large
enterprises. This led to huge waves of layoffs. Mexican enterprises and farmers, who
couldn't compete with US imports, also shed workers, and the subsequent peso
devaluation cost even more jobs. Because unemployment and economic desperation in
Mexico increased, immigration to the United States has been the only hope for
survival for millions of Mexicans. ...

The Children of NAFTA
Labor Wars on the US/Mexico Border
David Bacon, University of California Press
Publication Date: February 2004, 348 pages, $27.50
<http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html>

Food, televisions, computer equipment, plumbing supplies, clothing. Much of
the material foundation of our everyday lives is produced along the US/Mexico
border in a world largely hidden from our view. Based on gripping firsthand
accounts, this book investigates the impact of the North American Free Trade
Agreement on those who labor in the agricultural fields and maquiladora factories
on the border. Journalist David Bacon paints a powerful portrait of poverty,
repression, and struggle, offering a devastating critique of NAFTA in the most
pointed and in-depth examination of border workers published to date. Unlike
journalists who have made brief excursions into strawberry fields and
maquiladoras, Bacon has more than a decade's experience reporting on the ground at the
border, and he has developed sustained relationships with scores of workers
and organizers who have entrusted him with their stories. He describes harsh
conditions of child labor in the Mexicali Valley, the deplorable housing outside
factories in cities such as Tijuana, and corporate retaliation faced by union
organizers. He finds that, despite the promises of its backers, NAFTA has
locked in a harsh neoliberal economic policy that has swept away laws and
protections that Mexican workers had established over decades. More than a showcase
for NAFTA's victims, this book traces the emergence of a new social
consciousness, telling how workers in Mexico, the United States, and Canada are now
beginning to join together in a powerful new strategy of cross-border organizing as
they search for economic and social justice.

The human cost of the computer age
John Authers & Alison Maitland, Financial Times, January 26, 2004

Electronics workers in Mexico, like their bosses, have their eyes turned to
the east. "They have server plants in China," says Alejandro [not his real
name], an engineer in a plant that makes large servers bearing the emblem of
International Business Machines. "That's the pressure - we have to work the way
they work in China. That's what they always say. If we want to keep the
maquiladoras [foreign-owned assembly plants] here in Mexico, we will have to work the
way they do in China." Veronica, a production-line manager for a company making
plastic mouldings for Dell laptops, has had the same experience. "An engineer
said we were generating losses, and all our jobs would go to China. They said
they have dormitories for people to work there. The pressure is coming from
the top, and it's much worse than it used to be." Labour rights workers in
Guadalajara confirm the picture. Juan Carlos Paez, of the Centre for Reflection
and Action on Labour Rights (Cereal), says: "Last year, the average pay for
production line workers was a not very generous 500 pesos (about £24.80) a week.
This year, most people are being offered 450 pesos." He adds that productivity
bonuses, once the norm, are becoming rarer, as are opportunities to obtain
loans against salaries. Contracts are getting shorter. The Financial Times
interviewed one technician who is now on his 21st one-month contract. Redundancy
pay-offs, when they are made, are on the basis of the last contract, not on the
totality of their work for a company. These interviews support the findings of
a report published today by Cafod, the UK-based Catholic development charity.
It highlights the harsh and often humiliating experiences of workers who make
personal computers, printers, monitors and components in Mexico and China for
big producers such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. The technology industry
has, until recently, escaped the supply-chain scrutiny that has damaged the
reputations of big brands in the footwear and clothing industries. But interest
in what happens at the lowly end of high technology is growing, just as the
industry shows signs of recovery from its 2001 slump. In Clean Up Your Computer,
Cafod's researchers report that electronics workers in the Pearl river delta
in China often face dangerous conditions from toxic chemicals, smoke from
soldering, metal dust or noise. In China, it says, workers who test monitors can
spend 11 hours a day in front of flashing screens. There was no health and
safety training in many fac tories in Dongguan, where a Hong Kong-based partner of
Cafod carried out most of the research for the study. It reports that workers,
many of them young women from rural China, are often in debt to a labour
agency before they start their job. Their basic wage can be well below the legal
minimum and many work excessive overtime, sometimes totalling 16 hours a day,
seven days a week. Faced with such competition, labour rights in Mexico are
under growing pressure. ...

The Bolivarian Workers Force & UNT Said No to
Neoliberalism & its Regional Strategy - FTAA
Caracas, January 18, 2004

With a total of 137 union leaders of the FBT, UNT, CUTV, and CODESA, of the
economic sectors of Construction, Public, Pharmaceutical, Textile, Chemicals,
University Students, Culture, Teaching, Hydrological, Electric, companies of
Guiana and Petroleum, coming from the states Yaracuy, Caracas, Carabobo, Aragua,
Vargas, Miranda, Guarico, Lara, Merida, New Esparta, Bolivar, Anzoategui and
Monagas, the forum, "VENEZUELA FACING THE FTAA", took place in the Protocolar
Bowl of the Teresa Carreno Theater. The event heard the report of the Minister
of Production and Trade, William Castro Soteldo, who spoke on the
participation of Venezuela in the recent Extraodinary Summit of Presidents of America,
(excepting the excluded Cuba), in Monterrey, Mexico; also the contribution of
Professor Judith Valencia of the UCV, who commented on the conterxt of "America
in the Times of FTAA", Professor Edgardo Lander, who spoke on "FTAA and the
Utopia of the Total Market" and finally, the report of Professor Eduardo Saman,
Director of the Autonomous Service on Intellectual Property, (SAPI), who spoke
specifically on "FTAA and Intellectual Property". A number of social
organizations were also present at the Forum, such as The Indian Council of Venezuela,
BONIVE, Positive Middle Class, Students, Agrarian Organizations and
representatives of organized communities. As Professor Roldan Tomasz Suarez said, to
which we agree, the project of "FREE TRADE AREA OF THE AMERICAS (FTAA) is an
initiative of the goverment and enterprises of the United States of America,
trying to incorporate our brothers of Latin America and the Caribbean, except
Cuba. It wants to: liberalize the trade in industrial goods, deregulate services
(finance; telecomunications; transforming, distribution and furnishing of
electricity; education; health; use, administration and delivery of water, etc.),
deregulation of investments, of government purchases and of intellectual
property, among others, eliminating or reducing the interventions of the
States(nations, provinces and municipalities) in such transactions. At the same time as
it enables such liberalizations, it also impedes the free movement of workers
and persons, as well as of agricultural goods and agroindustrials. It is a case
basically of an association among unequals, given that the economy of the
United States represents about 77% of the Gross Product of the American
hemisphere and there will not exist any special treatment and differentiation for
countries of less relative economic development. Therefore the Bolivarian Workers
Force and the National Union of Workers, propose to continue these forums over
all the national geography as well as the necessity to have permanent places
for discussion with the workers, social forces and the people in general on the
proposal of Free Trade of the United States which only will permit the
dictatioship of the big enterprises of that country over the deprived economies of
our countries, with a high grade of poverty and social and economic exclusion.
In the same manner it was approved to give a vote of confidence to the valiant
position of President Hugo Chavez and the whole negotiating team on FTAA at
the meeting in Monterrey, which, condtrary to what was published, was supported
in the speeches of many of the Presidents made during the development of the
meeting. It is not enough to say no, to face the FTAA it is necessary to
develop the Social Front of Struggle Aainst the FTAA, for it we will bring our
experience in Venezuela and explain it at the III Hemispheric Meeting of Struggle
Against the FTAA, to take place in Havana, Cuba, the 26th to 30th of January
of this year, which delegation will be headed by Professor Ediardo Pinate,
who, to our pride, is part of the team of preparation for this event. The first
forum of discussion which the FBT will prepare will be on FTAA and Work, a
theme little discussed in the negotiations which have taken plact on the FTAA,
which is a fundamental theme to consider the flexibilization and deregulation
which will be imposed on the working class of the American Continent if they
come to approve the FTAA. We therefore invite them to be attentive before the
meeting, offering as contact the following electronic address:
molinaruben@cantv.net, the address of the International Relations Coordination of the FBT.

TransAfrica Forum Delegation Left Venezuela With
a Very Positive Image of the Bolivarian Project
Interview with Bill Fletcher
Edgard A. Hernandez, Venezuelanalysis.com, January 22, 2004
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1093>

After spending seven days in Venezuela in January of 2004 visiting several
social organizations and meeting people in the Venezuelan government, the
US-based TransAfrica Forum delegation headed by its president Bill Fletcher, actor
Danny Glover and others, returned to the United States delighted with the warm
treatment that they received from the Venezuelan people. During their visit,
the delegation inaugurated a school dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
and also opened up a photo exhibition dedicated to Dr. King's work and legacy.
The TransAfrica Forum delegation visited several poor neighborhoods and met
with groups that support Venezuela’s progressive government and also with groups
from the opposition. After their return to the US, Venezuelanalysis contacted
Mr. Bill Fletcher in his office in Washington DC, from where he kindly agreed
to an exclusive interview which we now present to our audience ...

Murder of Labor Leader Roils Waters in Cambodia
Jim Lobe, OneWorld US, January 26, 2004
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/20040126/wl_oneworld/
4536774731075131104>

Washington - The assassination of Cambodia's most important trade-union
leader has sharply increased tensions surrounding the unsettled political situation
in the Southeast Asian nation and could jeopardize Cambodian textile exports
to the US. Thousands of mourners turned out Sunday for the funeral of Chea
Vichea, who was both the leader of Cambodia's textile workers and a prominent
political foe of the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. He was only 36 years
old. Rights groups expressed uncertainty as to whether his murder was motivated
by his opposition activities or his labor organizing efforts, which have been
strongly opposed by many of the owners of the country's fast-growing textile
industry. Several prominent personalities, including a radio journalist and a
popular singer - both associated with the opposition royalist party
(FUNCINPEC) - have been slain by unknown assailants over the past three months. Vichea
was a leading member of a second opposition party, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP),
named after its leader. "This assassination will surely exacerbate the climate
of fear for workers, journalists, environment and human rights activists who
speak out or publicly demonstrate to express their views," said Sara Colm a
senior researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). "It is a watershed
killing that will not only send shockwaves through the labor movement, but
may also silence and intimidate opposition activists and journalists," she
added. ...

Martin Luther King, Jr: Study War No More <http://www.bushflash.com/mlk.html>

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<http://www.aarn.org>
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<http://www.masscare.org>
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<http://www.pnhp.org>
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