Organizing, global agreements on worker rights, and solidarity actions to turn around the "Walmartization" of jobs, outsourcing, and government attacks on unions were the focus of the UNI Communicators Forum.

Some 50 communicators from unions in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and the Americas met in Washington, D.C., in May to preview issues on the agenda of the UNI World Congress in Chicago in August.

Noel Howell, UNI press and information director, said the theme of UNI's second World Congress is "the union agenda is global."

Howell said the theme reflects the need for "unions to work together across frontiers in new ways" to counter the power of such global corporations as Wal-Mart and Tesco and the development of powerful regional economic areas.

Unions also need "new global organizing initiatives to respond to the development of whole new industries like call centers and mobile phone networks," Howell said.

The Union Network International (UNI) is the global federation of unions representing workers in skills and services industries, including printing, publishing, communications, government, and retail sectors. Established through the merger of several union federations in 2000 and headquartered in Nyon, Switzerland, UNI has some 1,000 affiliated unions with more than 15.5 million members in 140 nations.

Wal-Mart and Wackenhut

In a panel discussion on strategic campaigns involving large multinational companies, Jim Papian of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) said his union's campaign against the giant retailer Wal-Mart forced the company to respond with a multi-million dollar ad campaign of its own to try to sweeten its image.

Papian said Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott used "doublespeak to defend an image that is indefensible" during his recent publicity circuit on news and talk shows.

Papian noted it is an uphill battle to defend company policies and practices that have been condemned by states, provinces, and communities around the world. For example, it is hard to sweep under the rug the class action lawsuit by some 1.5 million women who worked at Wal-Mart and are charging the company with job and pay discrimination.

It is hard to ignore the child labor charges filed against the company, which were mitigated in what he called a "sweetheart deal" with the Bush administration in the Labor Department.

'Wal-Mart has been exposed.' See wakeupwalmart.com

The company blatantly demonstrated its anti-union scofflaw policies by closing a store in Quebec after workers there voted the union in and then asked the provincial government for a mediated settlement, which was their right under Quebec labor law.

Luis Espinosa of the UFCW said that, contrary to Wal-Mart's ad campaign about good "careers" at the store, Wal-Mart pays wages that are "scraping poverty-level" and classifies most of its workforce as "part-time" even though they may work more than 30 hours a week. Wal-Mart's health insurance plan is so expensive and coverage so poor in the United States that only some 500,000 employees opt for the coverage, leaving 700,000 without, he said.

Wal-Mart's philosophy for its workers and its vendors' workers to "make someone else pay" has federal and state governments and communities concerned, Papian said. For example, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce estimated that Wal-Mart's low wages cost federal taxpayers some $2.7 billion a year for Wal-Mart employees eligible for federal public assistance programs.

A University of California at Berkeley study in 2004 found that Wal-Mart's low wages and lack of benefits costs California taxpayers millions of dollars in public assistance every year. In Georgia, the legislature took aim at the company after it found that the company ranked first in the number of its employees enrolled in the state health program.

"Behind all the numbers there are human beings, and they are suffering," Papian said.

Papian cited the case of Rosetta Brown, who worked in a Wal-Mart division, Sam's Club, in Chicago. Brown's back was severely injured while doing inventory at the store. Management, which had locked the doors at the beginning of the inventory shift, refused to allow Brown to leave to seek treatment for the injury. Nor would the company pay Brown worker compensation for her injury.

"Wal-Mart has been exposed," Papian said. He said the UFCW is moving to the next step with a new "Wake Up Wal-Mart" website urging public action "to make Wal-Mart a responsible corporate citizen."

The website at www.wakeup walmart.com includes facts, flyers, and opportunities to sign up to help with the campaign.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is leading a global multi-union campaign to raise professional standards, wages, benefits, and working conditions in the fast-growing private security industry.

Andy McDonald of the SEIU detailed the union's campaign to get a global agreement and organize workers at Wackenhut, a subsidiary of United Kingdom-based Group 4 Securicor and the second largest private security firm in the United States.

Group 4 Securicor was a product of the merger of Group 4 Falck with Securicor in July 2004. The company employs some 360,000 people in 100 countries around the world.

McDonald said Wackenhut wages average $8.50 an hour. Despite a 90 percent unionization rate in Group 4 Falck's operations in its native Denmark, Wackenhut in the United States has used illegal tactics–including firings–to fight unionization efforts. Hundreds of charges of labor law violations have been filed against the company.

The company also has been the target of multiple investigations for its poor performance on contracts for guarding nuclear power plants and military bases, McDonald noted. Some 40 percent of Wackenhut's contracts come from the government.

McDonald said the SEIU launched a global campaign because the parent company is headquartered in Europe and because the company is "beginning to export some of its practices from the United States to other operations. That's why it is critical that everyone work together," he said.

McDonald said SEIU reached a national agreement with another multinational security firm, Sweden-based Securitas. That agreement provides for automatic union recognition when a majority of bargaining unit workers demonstrates support for the union. Securitas, which is the product of mergers of Pinkerton, Loomis, Wells Fargo & Burns International, employs some 200,000 workers in 20 countries.

As part of the strategic campaign, SEIU developed two websites. "Eye on Wackenhut" (www.EyeOnWackenhut. com) provides information for the public and employees. "Focus on Group 4 Securicor" (www.FocusOnGroup4 Securicor.com) provides information of interest to company investors.

IT outsourcing expands

Peter Skyte of Amicus announced a new global agreement on offshore outsourcing with Computer Scienes Corp. (CSC), one of the world's leading information technology service companies. Amicus was created by the merger of three unions in the United Kingdom including the former Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU).

Skyte said the union's goal in negotiating outsourcing agreements is "not to make society work for globalization but to make globalization work for society."

The agreement with CSC, which Skyte said took 15 months to negotiate, includes a requirement that the company consult with the union prior to outsourcing. The pact also provides for no compulsory layoffs, a share of the company's savings from outsourcing to be invested in workforce training, and ethical company practices in insourcing nations, including living wages and proper health and safety conditions.

Skyte said the company agreed to the pact because it sees "it as a way to be more competitive as an employer that cares."

What outsourcing of manufacturing jobs was to the 1980s and 1990s, the outsourcing of jobs in information services and technology (IT) is to the 2000s, the UNI panelists agreed.

Gerhard Rohde of UNI said he is "convinced that offshoring is a process we cannot stop, but we can contribute to better manage the process and alleviate the impact on our members."

Rohde said the fastest growing outsourcing economic segments now include information technology enabled services and business processes, such as legal databases, accounts, financial services, payroll, digital content and animation, and research.

One of the things UNI is doing to help manage the process is to coordinate organizing campaigns by its affiliates in the IT sector in India, which is the primary insourcing nation for IT jobs. Rohde said about 70 percent of IT outsourcing goes to India.

The United States, like other nations,...is moving toward a 'Wal-Mart economy'

Rohde said there is a high failure rate for offshore outsourcing projects, with failure estimates ranging from one-third to one-half of projects. He said the reasons for the failures include vastly overestimated savings potential, low-balled contracts, underestimation of communication and coordination needs, short-term approaches rather than long-term relations building, mishandling of human resources, and misjudgement of intercultural differences.

Ralph Maly of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said outsourcing of good paying jobs and the anti-union policies of corporations and the Bush administration is leading to the "Walmartization of America."

Maly said that, when a company lays off workers to take jobs offshore, the replacement jobs obtained by the laid off workers usually involve a 14 percent cut in pay and benefits. This means a decrease in workers' purchasing power, he said.

This also is one of the driving forces in the broadening income gap in the United States, Maly said. He said that, while the pay of CEOs in America has increased some 315 percent per year, the wages of average working Americans have increased only about 3 percent.

Maly said, in the telecommunications industry, jobs at call centers have been a prime target for outsourcing by AT&T, Verizon, and other companies. He said only Cingular has not outsourced. He said Cingular also signed a neutrality agreement with the union to organize workers at the company, while Verizon, AT&T and other telecom companies have been openly hostile to union organizing efforts. "Cingular wants to take the high road," Maly said.

In addition to organizing, Maly said, CWA is fighting the export of U.S. jobs by supporting data privacy legislation that has been introduced in some 14 states and in the U.S. Congress.

Unions under attack

In a panel discussion on attacks on unions and union leaders and members by governments and other groups, Jim Sauber of the National Association of Letter Carriers previewed a paper, "U.S. Labor Market–Not for Export," that will be presented at the UNI Congress.

Sauber said the study focuses on how economic structural changes in the United States, coupled with political changes, have made it difficult for unions to organize. The consequence, he said, is the "tremendous growth in income inequality and reduction in the quality of jobs."

In addition to lower incomes, the costs of decreased unionism include a decline in social protections, such as less health care insurance and pensions. Last year, a record 45 million Americans lacked health insurance, Sauber said. Most companies have replaced defined benefit pension plans with very risky defined contribution plans, which Sauber said makes for a "horrible system."

The United States, like other nations around the world, is moving toward a "Wal-Mart economy," Sauber said, with a high tech distribution system combined with very low wages and anti-union employment policies.

The Bush administration's attacks on unions include stacking federal agencies and courts with anti-union administrators and jurists and issuing regulations to harass unions, Sauber said.

But the most blatant so far was when the Bush administration, abetted by Congress, stripped union protections from 850,000 workers in the Homeland Security Department and Pentagon on supposed national security grounds. However, Sauber noted, most of those workers are secretaries, clerks, maintenance personnel, and other workers who have nothing to do with national security.

Rod Masson of the Finance Sector Union (FSU) of Australia said unions in that nation are gearing up to fight anticipated anti-union legislation from the government of Conservative Prime Minister John Howard, which won re-election last October. Masson said that, for the first time in 30 years, the Conservatives also carried the upper house of Parliament and now "have complete power."

Masson said the Howard government spent $90 million Australian dollars on a commission to investigate construction industry unions. For all of that, the commission found only two cases of criminal activity and both of those were related to the commission, not the industry in general, he said.

When the Conservatives take control of the Senate in July, Howard announced plans to: attack minimum wages by removing the independent Industrial Relations Commission's role in setting them; take away dismissal protections for millions of workers in businesses with fewer than 100 employees; reduce working people's rights to bargain collectively and take action to improve pay and conditions; restrict access to unions; and promote individual contracts to replace collective contracts.

Masson said Australian unions are launching campaigns to educate the public on the issues involved. While most Australians are unaware of Howard's plans, Masson said, when they find out about the issues, "they get very angry. They don't want to go down the road to a U.S.-style system and don't want minimum wages to go down. They know it will affect them."

In a videoconference link, Colombian labor leader Saul Pe¤a detailed the plight of Colombian workers for the UNI communicators.

Some 65 percent of the population lives in absolute poverty, said Pe¤a, who is general secretary of SINTRAISS [Union of Workers of the Institute of Social Insurance]. The government's privatization policies–encouraged by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)–have cost thousands of jobs, he said. But while ordinary citizens struggle, economic development has concentrated wealth, Pe¤a said.

The workers' movement in Colombia "faces great difficulties," Pe¤a said. Ninety-four labor leaders were assassinated in 2004, he said, and "the policies of our current government have been to fight the unions and prevent workers from coming together to protect their rights."

Pe¤a said that one-third of Colombia's revenues go to pay for the "very burdensome" national debt and war instead of being invested in education that would help bring people out of poverty. He said only an end to the violence between the government and warring factions, relief from national debt, and a government committed to respecting human and worker rights will help relieve the suffering.

Sushil Chaudhary from UNI Nepal's Liaison Council reported on the crackdown on human and union rights in that nation after Feb. 1, when King Gyanendra dismissed the government and declared a state of emergency. The king declared news blackouts and journalists worldwide protested the news bans and the arrest and detention of Nepalese journalists.

Chaudhary said unions risked government reprisals by staging a rally on May 1, but it was successful and government troops refrained from attacking unionists.

Chaudhary said that unions in Nepal are forbidden to hang banners, print newsletters, or publish web sites. As a consequence, UNI set up a web site for Nepalese unions on its server.

IMF talks to unions

In a panel discussion on the IMF and World Bank, Peter Fallon of the IMF said that the fund has "moved a great way forward" in communicating with unions in the countries serviced by the fund." It is important that country teams do talk to unions and others outside of government," he said. He reported that 69 percent of the IMF country teams had met unions in the past two years and 41 percent reported that they were influenced by what they heard.

Peter Bakvis of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions welcomed the new dialogue between the IMF, World Bank and labor but said "dialogue has to lead somewhere or people will feel disenchanted."

Unions have long protested the stringent conditions set on governments seeking to borrow money from the IMF and World Bank. Some of those conditions include the forced privatization of publicly held companies and institutions.

UNI-Africa's John Masonda said unions in Zambia were successful in convincing the Parliament not to privatize a bank only to lose again when the IMF insisted on the privatization as a condition of assistance.

"Everything is up for sale, and we don't know what will be left for us," Masonda said.

The Group of Eight major industrial nations recently agreed to forgive about $40 billion in debt owed to the World Bank, IMF, and other lending institutions in some of the poorest nations, including Zambia. But critics argue that isn't nearly enough.

The 'UNI bridge'

Forum communicators, facilitated by UNI Webmaster Christine Revkin, exchanged technical and other tips on improving the set up of union web sites, communication and political action possibilities, and increasing the number of visitors to sites.

One of UNI's projects to grow union communication is the "UNI Bridge." The project involves sending a webmaster from a UNI affiliate to help set up a website for an affiliate union that doesn't have a site.

This year, Miguel Loriz from Comfia CCOO in Spain was chosen to help set up a website for the National Liaison Council of Peruvian unions.

Attacks on unions have increased as corporate-dominated economic globalization has spread. Discussing the implications are, from left: Jim Sauber of the National Association of Letter Carriers; Rod Masson of the Finance Sector Union (FSU) of Australia; Sushil Chaudhary from UNI Nepal's Liaison Council; and Noel Howell, UNI information director.