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Meetings between leaders of countries are necessary and useful, if they do not aim at replacing international organisations that have been set up for global governance.

Once again it is time for the "Big" economic powers to meet and decide how to rule the entire world. The place for the event is Evian, France (just 30 kilometers outside Geneva).

This time, Bush, Koizumi, Chirac, Blair and the others have decided to spend one day to "consult" some of the other countries. That is why Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa and Switzerland have been invited.

To make the event look even more legitimate, the UN, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the WTO have also be included for the consultations. The ILO, the organisation with the best democratic structure, has not been invited, and we know from past experience that workers' rights don't interest the "Big".

The criteria used to select the countries and organisations to be in Evian are a secret and will probably remain so. Furthermore, the G-8 has no rules. It meets and decides the agenda without any kind of democratic process or transparency.

Undoubtedly, there are things absent from this meeting's agenda which should be discussed but within the framework of the UN and under the chairmanship of its secretary-general, such as:
<ul>
<li>how to write off the well over US$2,000 billion external debt of developing countries;
<li>how to introduce a special tax on speculative financial transactions;
<li>how to create jobs for the more than 200 million jobless;
<li>how to reform international financial institutions and make them democratic and transparent.
</ul>
These fundamental issues need to be debated if the powerful leaders are serious about solving the problems which are afflicting most of the world's population.

G-8 Summit is useless&lt;br&gt;for the poor

CANADA: Reacting to the decision announced on May 22 by DaimlerChrysler to drop plans for a new assembly plant for pickup trucks in Windsor, Ontario, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers union, Buzz Hargrove, expressed anger and deep disappointment. 

In a press statement released by the CAW, the union's president said that the new plant could have been a "major decision to reverse the downward trend of auto, the most important industry in the country," but he blamed the federal and provincial governments for not doing enough to make sure the plant became a reality.

Although the automaker said the project for the Windsor plant would not be economically viable, the union believes the two issues standing in the way of implementing the investment agreement, which had been reached during bargaining in the fall of 2002, are lack of federal and provincial government support, and the rising value of the Canadian dollar.

The CAW president has written to Canada's prime minister, Jean Chrétien, to urge him to convene a meeting of the key stakeholders in the project for the Windsor plant, in order to consider the economic hurdles to the project and work together to see if the obstacles can be overcome.

Windsor is just across the border from Detroit, USA. According to the Detroit News and just-auto.com, the Chrysler group is trying to cut costs and boost revenues at a time when U.S. car and truck demand is down 4 per cent so far this year, and its own sales reduced 7.2 per cent.

Canadian auto union is deeply disappointed and blames the government.

News item on CAW-DC bargaining agreement

DaimlerChrysler drops plan for new plant

USA: The IMF-affiliated IUE-CWA reports that, on May 19, the first union proposal was made in national negotiations as the 14-member Coordinated Bargaining Committee of General Electric unions opened bargaining with General Electric in New York City. 

The IUE-CWA president, Edward Fire, who also chairs the CBC, proposed that GE reinstate two workers who were fired at the GE-owned Johnson Technology for their organizing activity. The National Labor Relations Board has issued charges in both cases. Saying that this issue had to be dealt with and resolved in these negotiations, Fire said that "at its core, General Electric has always been and remains, anti-union." 

Fire and IUE-CWA/GE Conference Board chairman, Art Smith, outlined the major issues in the negotiations. Key among them are pension increases and job security. Fire called for "substantial" pension improvements for current and future retirees, as well as improvements in health care with no cost shifting.

"There will be no givebacks in the new IUE-CWA GE three-year contract," Fire stated. "If General Electric continues to insist that IUE-CWA members accept the massive concessions in health care cost shifting GE has talked about, our members are prepared, and will strike."

The 14-member CBC unions open national negotiations with General Electric.

GE negotiations get underway

CHINA: The China Labour Bulletin reports that on May 9, 2003, a court in Liaoyang, northeastern China, handed down harsh prison sentences to Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, the two independent metalworker activists who were arrested in March 2002 and kept in detention since then for their part in a peaceful workers' demonstration. Yao, 52, has been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, and Xiao, 57, to four years.

At their trial, which took place on January 15, 2003, both men were charged with "illegal assembly" and "subversion of state power" for leading a mass protest against alleged corruption at the Liaoyang Ferro-Alloy Factory, which led to the plant's bankruptcy, and against missing and unpaid wages and other benefits, including pensions. 

In late March 2002, the IMF joined the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in filing a formal complaint with the International Labour Organisation's Committee on Freedom of Association against the government of the People's Republic of China for violations of the principles of freedom of association. Since then, the IMF has written protests to the president of China and to the government-sponsored All China Federation of Trade Unions. In March 2003, the Governing Body of the ILO, of which China is a member, called upon the Chinese authorities to release all Liaoyang workers still in detention and to drop any outstanding charges against them.

Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang receive long prison terms for their participation in a peaceful workers' protest.

Background information

Chinese metalworkers sentenced

DENMARK: 530 delegates at the recent Extraordinary Congress in Odensee of the Danish Metalworkers' Federation (Dansk Metalarbejderforbund) unanimously voted for a merger with the Danish Telecommunications Federation.

The newly-amalgamated union, which keeps the name Danish Metalworkers' Federation, has 150,000 members, of whom 137,000 come from the metalworkers and 13,000 from the telecom union. Previous to the merger, Dansk Metal already had among its membership 12,000 in the IT and electronics sector.

The new federation has set up an IT secretariat, as well as a permanent department for equality issues.

Commenting on the merger, Dansk Metal's president, Max Baehring, said that "this measure will give us a stronger negotiating position and point of departure for improving working conditions in the branch."

The telecommunications union has been incorporated into the Danish Metalworkers' Federation.

Union merger in Denmark

GERMANY: In a bid to gradually introduce the 35-hour workweek for its members in the metal and electrical industry in eastern Germany, IG Metall staged walkouts in four auto plants on May 5. Targeted were three Volkswagen plants and one Opel plant. 

IG Metall, the IMF-affiliated German metalworkers' union, says that 13 years after the country's reunification, it's time for further steps to be taken towards realising the same working and income conditions for employees in the eastern part of the country as their counterparts in the west. Although weekly base pay is the same, the 310,000 metalworkers in the east have a 38-hour workweek, as opposed to the 35 hours worked in the west.

Contract negotiations between IG Metall and employers in the eastern German metal and electrical industry will begin in mid-May, but the union is nevertheless preparing a vote for a possible strike in early June.

Warning strikes kick off IG Metall campaign to put metalworkers in the east on par with those in the west.

East German metalworkers seek shorter workweek

Did you know that a metalworker in the USA has to work 1 minute to be able to buy 1 litre of unleaded petrol? Whereas he or she has to work 5-6 minutes to buy 1 litre of petrol in France, South Africa or Sweden. In the Czech Republic, he or she has to work 12 minutes, in Brazil about 25 and over 1.5 hours in Belarus.
Source: The IMF publication "The Purchasing Power of Working Time - An International Comparison." Sector: Basic Metals.

Do you know

Did you know that a metalworker in Australia, France or Ireland has to work 3-4 minutes to be able to buy 1 kilo of potatoes. Whereas he or she has to work 25-30 minutes to buy 1 kilo of potatoes in Colombia, Croatia or Malta, and almost one hour in the Philippines.
Source: The IMF publication "The Purchasing Power of Working Time - An International Comparison." Sector&gt; Electrical Machinery and Apparates.

Did you know that a metalworker in Austria, Japan or Great Britain has to work 5-6 hours to be able to buy a pair of shoes? Whereas he or she has to work 26-27 hours to buy a pair of shoes in Guatemala, Romania or Bangladesh, and 41 hours in Ukraine.
Source: The IMF publication "The Purchasing Power of Working Time - An International Comparison." Sector: Motor vehicles.

Did you know that a metalworker in Canada, Finland, Germany or the USA has to work 3-4 minutes to be able to buy 1 kilo of sugar? Whereas he or she has to work ten times as long to buy 1 kilo of sugar in Bulgaria, Colombia or India. 
Source: The IMF publication "The Purchasing Power of Working Time - An International Comparison." Sector: Machinery and Equipment.

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