As working people and their allies build strength around global issues, policy makers have begun to take notice of their message: If the global economy doesn't work for working families, it doesn't work. In April, more than 30,000 people continued to spread that message by protesting in Washington, D.C., against policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that strangle the economies of developing nations and force millions into poverty. Again in September, thousands of union members and community groups in the United States and Europe rallied in local communities and in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, where the World Bank and IMF were holding a joint meeting.

The protesters' message is resonating with people in all walks of life as workers feel the impact of globalization in every corner of the world. The World Bank recently released its World Development Report 2000/2001, which calls for "empowering" poor people, and the Clinton administration is calling for making workers' rights and environmental protection part of the rules of the WTO. The recent trade agreement with Jordan marked the first time the United States and a trading partner have agreed to enforceable protections for workers' rights in the core of a trade agreement. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says these actions represent a growing consensus that "globalization must be reshaped to reflect broader values than simply the freedom of capital and the rights of corporations." But that is not enough, Sweeney says. "We need enforcement of the existing global consensus on core worker rights—no child labor or forced labor, freedom from discrimination and the right to organize and bargain collectively."

The World Bank estimates 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day, while one-third of the world's labor force is unemployed or underemployed and 250 million children are working.

"Workers came to Seattle because we are all connected in one way or another to the global economy," says Verleen Wilder, Union Cities organizer for the King County (Wash.) Labor Council. "If we don't take it upon ourselves to stop this march of unrestrained corporate greed, it's going to run over all of us. It lowers our living standards, destroys our air and water and robs us of our dignity."

Julian Bond, professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C., and national chairman of the NAACP, describes the world as it would look if it were a village of only 100 people. "Keeping all existing ratios the same," Bond says, "that village would look like this: There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere—north and south—and 22 Africans; 52 would be female; 70 would be nonwhite and 30 white; 70 would be non-Christian and 30 would be Christian.

"Six of the 100 people would own 59 percent of all the wealth in the world, and all six of those people would be from the United States. Eighty of the 100 people would live in substandard housing. Seventy would be unable to read and write. Fifty would suffer from malnutrition. One would have a college education," Bond says.

To build on the lessons learned during the Seattle demonstrations, the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions launched a Global Fairness campaign to educate union members about the importance of international solidarity and build strong partnerships with unions in other countries to take on global companies. The campaign also aims to deepen coalitions with grassroots organizations to pressure international financial and political institutions to change global economic policies and build strength to counteract corporate power.

Thousands of union activists have begun to work to create a strong, lasting force that will educate and mobilize communities to seek a just global economy.

Educating members

Since the global actions in Washington, D.C., in April, nearly 30 state federations, local unions and constituency groups have sponsored workshops on the global economy with materials produced by the AFL-CIO's Education Department. The sessions included discussions on how the global economy affects workers' daily lives, the new realities in the global economy, the global corporate agenda and international union solidarity.

Recognizing that millions of workers in the global economy are systematically denied their core rights to join a union, bargain collectively and be free of discrimination, forced labor and child labor, the International Labor Organization in June called for the posting of its declaration of workers' rights in every workplace in its 175 member countries. Working with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, international trade secretariats and national unions in countries around the world, the AFL-CIO called on the ILO to launch a worldwide campaign to "Post the Declaration."

"We must hold corporations and governments accountable to their commitment at the ILO and make the declaration a reality for workers by publicizing, popularizing and posting the declaration in every workplace, government building and trade union hall around the world," the AFL-CIO Executive Council said in an Aug. 2 statement.

"It is critically important that rank-and-file members learn the implications of the global economy," says Bernard Brommer, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, which held a global economy workshop at its convention in late August. "We need to understand the dynamics, who the winners and losers are, and how we can get in there and make our voices heard. If we don't get involved and join together, we're going to have a lot more problems down the road."

Unions and central labor councils are getting set to take the next step in the education effort, training local union activists to teach other members about the global economy. The King County Labor Council will hold the first such train-the-trainer session in Seattle early in 2001.

Building solidarity across borders

More and more unionized companies in the United States are based in Europe or Asia, as global companies move capital and resources across political boundaries, seeking the highest profits, the lowest labor costs and the fewest environmental restrictions. To combat these international profiteers, unions are beginning to reach out to fellow trade unionists in other countries for solidarity and to develop joint strategies for organizing and bargaining.

International solidarity played a significant role in bringing the contract talks between the 14 unions in the Coordinated Bargaining Committee and General Electric this summer to a successful conclusion, says Douglas Meyer, research and public policy director for IUE-CWA Industrial Division. In 1998, the unions at GE plants began an international exchange program to foster understanding and build solidarity among workers, Meyer says. During the Seattle protests, the GE unions spotlighted the company's practice of moving jobs overseas in search of low wages and few environmental restrictions.

Working with the International Metalworkers' Federation, the CBC convened a GE World Council in Washington, D.C., in March with 150 delegates from 20 countries, who pledged to support the CBC unions and set up a structure for future efforts in organizing and collective bargaining. In the final days before the contract expired June 25, GE union members took part in an International Solidarity Day to support bargaining talks around the world—with GE workers in Istanbul, Turkey, wearing T-shirts with the CBC slogan, "GEt Up, Stand Up for Secure Jobs," Meyer says.

Developing coalitions

Unions are continuing to reach out to communities and are expanding their alliances to include coalitions with religious, environmental and human rights activists to pressure international financial and political institutions to change global economic policies.

Local coalitions also are budding, as unions and activists begin to link the inequities of the global economy with workers' struggles in their communities. In April, as part of the World Bank protests, the AFL-CIO and Jubilee 2000, a global, faith-based movement, drew attention to the need for debt relief for developing countries that cannot meet their citizens' basic needs. During the September mobilization, activists in some 50 U.S. cities marched and rallied in support of organizing and collective bargaining campaigns. In Seattle, Jobs with Justice and Jubilee 2000 Seattle held a Workers' Rights Board hearing on the right to organize at Starbucks, following the successful efforts by coffee bean roasters to join the Operating Engineers. In Washington, D.C., Parking Lot Attendants Local 27, which is affiliated with the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees, defended the rights of parking lot attendants to choose a voice at InterPark. In Columbus, Ohio, United Students Against Sweatshops joined Steelworkers and the human rights advocacy group the National Labor Committee to demand that Kohl's Department Stores stop abuses of workers' rights by its subcontractor at the Chentex sweatshop in Nicaragua. In Milwaukee and Lexington, Ky., union members and former Nicaraguan sweatshop workers took the same message to Kohl's stores.

		From America@work, November/December 2000.

The key to balancing the power of corporations and ensuring the vitality of free societies lies in empowering workers around the world, says Sweeney. The right of workers to choose a union is accepted as a universal principle by the United Nations and the ILO, but it is widely opposed by tyrannical governments and some multinational companies. To correct the imbalance of power, "we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that universally recognized core worker rights be built into the rules of the global market," Sweeney says.

In the year since Seattle, the union movement has made a start in making the global economy work for working families, but union activists acknowledge there is much work ahead. "What happens in the global arena directly affects workers in every country. It determines the products we buy, the jobs we gain or lose, the markets where our products are sold, the standard of living we enjoy," says Milwaukee County Labor Council President John Goldstein. "The next step is to build on our successes by creating a stronger union movement. Then we will be able to gain the power to gain a seat for workers, environmentalists, consumers and developing nations at the table when decisions are made and trade deals cut."

To Wilder, it is even more basic. "This is a struggle for our freedom and the upholding of our basic values as working people. If we lose this fight, we lose everything."