“Debatir a fondo las alternativas”
Sergio Ferrari
Rebelión
www.rebelion.org
Ex – dirigente sindical de toda una vida, Eric Decarro es también un referente para el movimiento social suizo. Asistente a varios de los Foros Sociales Mundiales precedentes, Decarro participa también desde años activamente en la dinámica de organización de los Foros Sociales Europeos. Ha sido un pilar tanto del Foro Social Suizo como del Foro Social de la región del Lago Léman, plataforma que convocó en 2003 las manifestaciones multitudinarias contra la Cumbre del G8 de Evian, en la Francia vecina. Entrevista exclusiva sobre los desafíos del próximo FSM de Belém de Pará, a pocos días del inicio del mismo el próximo 27 de enero.
P: ¿Cuál es su valoración previa sobre la próxima edición del FSM que va a desarrollarse en Belén?
R: Me parece muy oportuno que el FSM se realice en Belém, en la Amazonia brasilera, una región emblemática a nivel mundial por el intenso proceso de deforestación que avanza a pesar de la lucha de los movimientos de base ahí presentes. Esta deforestación -producto de la cultura de la soya para alimentar el ganado europeo- contribuye a la desregulación climática. Aberración mayor de un sistema que sólo se preocupa por la ganancia y el acceso al mercado.
Por otra parte, estoy persuadido que estos foros son siempre citas muy importantes para que los representantes de los movimientos sociales que vienen del mundo entero puedan intercambiar entre ellos. Le asigno mucha importancia a la mundialización y a la emergencia, en este marco, de una solidaridad fortalecida entre todos los que son explotados. Y en ese sentido el FSM, que se realizará en el mismo momento que el Foro Económico Mundial de Davos (Suiza), tiene también un valor simbólico, ya que en esa ciudad alpina helvética se encontrarán, como siempre, los representantes del poder económico, financiero, político e ideológico a nivel mundial.
P: Se llega a este nuevo FSM con interpretaciones diferentes sobre el estado actual del movimiento altermundialista y los propios foros. ¿Viven una etapa de fortalecimiento o de debilitamiento?
R: Siento que los foros sociales se han debilitado. Nacieron y se desarrollaron en un primer momento en contra el neoliberalismo comercial, financiero y las políticas de desregulación del Estado.
Para mí, el problema, es que en cierta medida, los FSM o algunos de los actores que en ellos participan, han tenido la tendencia a desconectar neo-liberalismo y capitalismo, pensando que es posible revertir las políticas neo-liberales en el marco del sistema. Algo imposible ya que esas políticas son la expresión misma del capitalismo, en su fase actual dominada por las finanzas.
Además, muy rápidamente los foros se encontraron con una complicada coyuntura política, luego de los atentados del 11 de septiembre del 2001, que provocó la denominada lucha contra el terrorismo y las invasiones y guerras a Afganistán e Irak. Con un endurecimiento del marco político y restricción de los espacios democráticos. Y ahora, en esta última fase, el endurecimiento producto de la crisis financiera mundial –y la económica– y la recesión que tocará a todos los países y sectores.
P: ¿Cuál es el principal desafío de este próximo FSM?
R: El tema principal es la crisis mundial y cómo confrontarla. Una crisis de sistema, global, con múltiples aspectos que se refuerzan unos a otros. En ese sentido, el FSM debería tener el coraje de abrirse a todas las posiciones y los más diversos movimientos y sensibilidades políticas, para avanzar en el debate de una proposición alternativa.
Hay que abrir el debate entre aquéllos que piensan que se pueden resolver los problemas en el marco actual y ven la crisis como una oportunidad para presentar nuestras reivindicaciones. Y aquéllos –entre los que me ubico- que pensamos que, al contrario, esta crisis va a endurecer las relaciones sociales, ya que el sistema va a buscar, a todo precio, restaurar sus normas de rentabilidad.
Y se debe trabajar, urgentemente, en el contenido de esta alternativa, del modo de producción, de intercambio y consumo, que rompa con este capitalismo que nos lleva de crisis en crisis. Construir una alternativa a este modelo actual, cada vez más aberrante y depredador. La multiplicación de alternativas locales no puede enfrentar sola la crisis financiera que provoca en todas partes miseria y políticas antisociales reforzadas... Hay que tener puntos de referencia que permitan ver lo estratégico pero también posicionarse en el hoy-ahora. Por ejemplo: ¿hay que salvar el sistema financiero y los bancos? Es aberrante que se destinen miles de millones de dólares, euros y francos para salvar ese modelo que no se preocupa por enfrenta el hambre, la miseria, las enfermedades en el mundo. Vemos Estados comprometidos en salvar sus bancos y el sistema, cuando no logran reunir a nivel mundial los 30 billones de dólares que se necesitarían para terminar con el hambre a nivel planetario. Sin preocuparse seriamente por los problemas de fondo de la seguridad social y suprimiendo empleos, incluso, en el sector público. Sin dar respuestas a los jóvenes, ni inquietarse realmente por la regresión social.
P: Quiere decir, el FSM puede pecar de una cierta debilidad en cuanto a “la” alernativa...
R: Insisto: la multiplicación de alternativas locales tiene un valor, la diversificación de las temáticas en el FSM también, pero si no se logra una orientación clara, una alternativa global al sistema, no se podrá resistir realmente. Ni si quiera se podrán presentar nuestras reivindicaciones y propuestas de reformas por las que nos batimos ya en la actualidad.
Necesitamos una brújula. Hay trabajar el contenido de esa la alternativa que será fuera del sistema actual.
Una última preocupación. Los foros tienen la tendencia a parcializar sectorialmente las temáticas. No tenemos una visión de conjunto. No hay grandes debates transversales. Y el problema entonces es que nos quedamos siempre en el “anti”. El anti-guerra; el anti-represión; a nivel sindical en una visión defensiva; lo mismo en cuanto a los derechos de los migrantes. Hay que salir de ese encerramiento. Buscar una alternativa, construir una perspectiva....
Sergio Ferrari. Colaboración de prensa E-CHANGER, ONG suiza de cooperación solidaria, co-organizadora de la delegación de 50 personalidades sociales helvéticas que estarán presentes en el FSM de Belém.
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1/21/09
Revitalizing Labor
Unions and Young Workers
By ADAM TURL
http://www.counterpunch.com/turl01082009.html
A recent study, "Unions and Upward Mobility for Young Workers," by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) confirms that the need to join unions couldn't be a more pressing issue for those coming of age today.
Of course, workplace organization was an urgent need for youth even before the onset of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The prospects for young working-class people had already worsened after three decades of stagnant wages and rising inequality.
The CEPR study notes that average wages (adjusted for inflation) for 18- to 29-year-olds were roughly 10 percent lower in 2007 than in 1979. Earlier research showed that some young workers were making up to $8,000 less per year in 2004 compared to 1975.
This precipitous decline in the material well-being of young workers occurred even as they increasingly flocked to universities, community colleges and trade schools to prepare and train for what were once called the "high-value jobs" of a "new global economy."
Between 1979 and 2007, the percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds with a college degree increased from 16.1 percent to 22.4 percent. The number of students who attended college (but didn't necessarily graduate) nearly doubled.
But this surge in secondary and vocational education didn't alter the downward trajectory of young workers' incomes. Instead, workers were saddled with greater debt as a result of taking on student loans to pay skyrocketing tuition costs.
This increase in educational achievement shows that the problem can't be boiled down to individual solutions (work harder and get ahead) or greater access to job training (although the government has repeatedly failed to deliver such training).
Instead, the root of the problem lies with the employers' neoliberal assault on unions and working-class people generally, which drove down wages and eliminated higher-paying unionized jobs in manufacturing.
Since the late 1970s, each cohort of young workers has entered a job market in flux, as older centers of industrial production declined, and new ones developed. Some manufacturing jobs disappeared as the result of globalization. In many other cases, technological advances were used by companies to have fewer workers produce more--often at lower wages. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy shifted toward more service jobs, which typically pay worse than the factory jobs they replaced.
* * *
ANOTHER KEY issue in the declining wages for young workers was the decay of organized labor. As the CEPR study puts it:
One factor contributing to the absolute and relative decline in the wages of young workers is the steep drop over the same period in their unionization rate. In 1983 (earliest year available), 16.0 percent of young workers were in a union; by 2007, the figure had fallen by almost half to 8.2 percent.
As a result, many young workers are employed in industries that are virtually nonunion--and employers have spared no expense to keep them that way. Union-busting bosses have been able to rely on U.S. labor laws that overwhelmingly favor business--and have made it increasingly difficult to organize the unorganized, even in growing industries.
Now the global recession has profoundly deepened the crisis facing young workers. From the spike in unemployment and underemployment to sharp--often double-digit--increases in college tuition and fees, young workers face conditions that cry out for greater union representation.
Unions can undermine the leverage that capitalists have in the labor market by overcoming competition between workers and allowing them to negotiate with employers for a greater share of the wealth that workers themselves create. Unions also give workers dignity and a sense of their power by giving them a greater say over the conditions of work itself.
Today's economic crisis makes unionization all the more urgent as workers face layoffs, wage cuts and attempts to eliminate health insurance and other benefits.
In the context of this economic meltdown, the union advantage is clearer than ever. As the CEPR study showed, unionized workers aged 18 to 29, whether skilled or unskilled, earn wages an average of 12.4 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts. And between 2004 and 2007, the median income for young workers in unionized jobs was about $15.57 per hour, compared to $11 for nonunion young workers.
The study also found that young workers in unions are 17 percent more likely to have employer-provided health care and 24 percent more likely to have an employer-provided pension plan. In "low-wage occupations," workers are 27 percent more likely to have employer-provided health care. Nearly 40 percent of young workers in these occupations have health coverage, compared to less than 20 percent of nonunion youth.
These numbers show why Corporate America erected every imaginable impediment to prevent workers from combining into unions for the past 30 years--at the same time as it implemented an all-out war to break up and destroy existing unions.
* * *
THE TIMES, however, are changing.
Take the potential re-introduction of the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). EFCA would allow employees in many workplaces to forgo the current drawn-out process of a National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) election.
The NLRB process invariably favors employers by allowing corporations more time to intimidate employees during a protracted campaign that culminates--usually after several delays--in a (supposedly) secret ballot. On the other hand, EFCA would allow workers to win union recognition by merely getting a majority to sign union cards.
In 2007, EFCA passed a vote in the House of Representatives before failing to get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But in 2009, the Democrats will have greater majorities in both houses, and President-elect Barack Obama has said he would sign EFCA into law if it reached his desk.
Passage of a significant piece of pro-union labor legislation has become a real possibility. But it won't happen without a fight.
For example, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed article calling EFCA "unconstitutional" because it would force employers who refuse to recognize a union into arbitration to settle contract and other disputes.
Nevertheless, even some establishment heavyweights are in favor of EFCA. For example, the New York Times editorial page weighed in to support passage of EFCA:
The measure is vital legislation and should not be postponed. Even modest increases in the share of the unionized labor force push wages upward, because nonunion workplaces must keep up with unionized ones that collectively bargain for increases. By giving employees a bigger say in compensation issues, unions also help to establish corporate norms, the absence of which has contributed to unjustifiable disparities between executive pay and rank-and-file pay.
But support from the Times editorial board won't mean anything unless unions step up the fight. The labor movement should take the lead in aggressively pushing EFCA--and not merely through lobbying, but by mobilizing union members to publicize what's at stake, to protest and to put real pressure on the politicians in Washington.
The unions could also reach out to young workers and students to join a movement to support EFCA--and the labor movement more generally. Young workers are more open to the importance of unions than at almost any time in two generations. Studies have shown that young people under the age of 29 are the second most pro-union group of any age group in 40 years.
Numerous young workers and students rallied around the cause of the victorious Republic Windows and Doors factory occupation in Chicago in December, and the efforts to organize Starbucks have also been initiated by young workers. Student groups worked to support the long, bitter union drive that recently prevailed at the big Smithfield meatpacking plant in Tar Heel, N.C
These same workers and students can be convinced to rally around the cause of EFCA specifically, and unions more generally. Young workers have a vested interest in organizing in their workplaces and schools--pushing for resolutions in student governments, collecting petitions, and reaching out to faculty and staff unions on campuses to build solidarity and support.
Younger workers can--and must--play a role in revitalizing a labor movement that has been on the defensive for 30 years. It's already clear that in this economic crisis, young workers will have to fight hard to achieve a decent future.
Adam Turl writes for the Socialist Worker.
By ADAM TURL
http://www.counterpunch.com/turl01082009.html
A recent study, "Unions and Upward Mobility for Young Workers," by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) confirms that the need to join unions couldn't be a more pressing issue for those coming of age today.
Of course, workplace organization was an urgent need for youth even before the onset of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The prospects for young working-class people had already worsened after three decades of stagnant wages and rising inequality.
The CEPR study notes that average wages (adjusted for inflation) for 18- to 29-year-olds were roughly 10 percent lower in 2007 than in 1979. Earlier research showed that some young workers were making up to $8,000 less per year in 2004 compared to 1975.
This precipitous decline in the material well-being of young workers occurred even as they increasingly flocked to universities, community colleges and trade schools to prepare and train for what were once called the "high-value jobs" of a "new global economy."
Between 1979 and 2007, the percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds with a college degree increased from 16.1 percent to 22.4 percent. The number of students who attended college (but didn't necessarily graduate) nearly doubled.
But this surge in secondary and vocational education didn't alter the downward trajectory of young workers' incomes. Instead, workers were saddled with greater debt as a result of taking on student loans to pay skyrocketing tuition costs.
This increase in educational achievement shows that the problem can't be boiled down to individual solutions (work harder and get ahead) or greater access to job training (although the government has repeatedly failed to deliver such training).
Instead, the root of the problem lies with the employers' neoliberal assault on unions and working-class people generally, which drove down wages and eliminated higher-paying unionized jobs in manufacturing.
Since the late 1970s, each cohort of young workers has entered a job market in flux, as older centers of industrial production declined, and new ones developed. Some manufacturing jobs disappeared as the result of globalization. In many other cases, technological advances were used by companies to have fewer workers produce more--often at lower wages. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy shifted toward more service jobs, which typically pay worse than the factory jobs they replaced.
* * *
ANOTHER KEY issue in the declining wages for young workers was the decay of organized labor. As the CEPR study puts it:
One factor contributing to the absolute and relative decline in the wages of young workers is the steep drop over the same period in their unionization rate. In 1983 (earliest year available), 16.0 percent of young workers were in a union; by 2007, the figure had fallen by almost half to 8.2 percent.
As a result, many young workers are employed in industries that are virtually nonunion--and employers have spared no expense to keep them that way. Union-busting bosses have been able to rely on U.S. labor laws that overwhelmingly favor business--and have made it increasingly difficult to organize the unorganized, even in growing industries.
Now the global recession has profoundly deepened the crisis facing young workers. From the spike in unemployment and underemployment to sharp--often double-digit--increases in college tuition and fees, young workers face conditions that cry out for greater union representation.
Unions can undermine the leverage that capitalists have in the labor market by overcoming competition between workers and allowing them to negotiate with employers for a greater share of the wealth that workers themselves create. Unions also give workers dignity and a sense of their power by giving them a greater say over the conditions of work itself.
Today's economic crisis makes unionization all the more urgent as workers face layoffs, wage cuts and attempts to eliminate health insurance and other benefits.
In the context of this economic meltdown, the union advantage is clearer than ever. As the CEPR study showed, unionized workers aged 18 to 29, whether skilled or unskilled, earn wages an average of 12.4 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts. And between 2004 and 2007, the median income for young workers in unionized jobs was about $15.57 per hour, compared to $11 for nonunion young workers.
The study also found that young workers in unions are 17 percent more likely to have employer-provided health care and 24 percent more likely to have an employer-provided pension plan. In "low-wage occupations," workers are 27 percent more likely to have employer-provided health care. Nearly 40 percent of young workers in these occupations have health coverage, compared to less than 20 percent of nonunion youth.
These numbers show why Corporate America erected every imaginable impediment to prevent workers from combining into unions for the past 30 years--at the same time as it implemented an all-out war to break up and destroy existing unions.
* * *
THE TIMES, however, are changing.
Take the potential re-introduction of the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). EFCA would allow employees in many workplaces to forgo the current drawn-out process of a National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) election.
The NLRB process invariably favors employers by allowing corporations more time to intimidate employees during a protracted campaign that culminates--usually after several delays--in a (supposedly) secret ballot. On the other hand, EFCA would allow workers to win union recognition by merely getting a majority to sign union cards.
In 2007, EFCA passed a vote in the House of Representatives before failing to get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But in 2009, the Democrats will have greater majorities in both houses, and President-elect Barack Obama has said he would sign EFCA into law if it reached his desk.
Passage of a significant piece of pro-union labor legislation has become a real possibility. But it won't happen without a fight.
For example, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed article calling EFCA "unconstitutional" because it would force employers who refuse to recognize a union into arbitration to settle contract and other disputes.
Nevertheless, even some establishment heavyweights are in favor of EFCA. For example, the New York Times editorial page weighed in to support passage of EFCA:
The measure is vital legislation and should not be postponed. Even modest increases in the share of the unionized labor force push wages upward, because nonunion workplaces must keep up with unionized ones that collectively bargain for increases. By giving employees a bigger say in compensation issues, unions also help to establish corporate norms, the absence of which has contributed to unjustifiable disparities between executive pay and rank-and-file pay.
But support from the Times editorial board won't mean anything unless unions step up the fight. The labor movement should take the lead in aggressively pushing EFCA--and not merely through lobbying, but by mobilizing union members to publicize what's at stake, to protest and to put real pressure on the politicians in Washington.
The unions could also reach out to young workers and students to join a movement to support EFCA--and the labor movement more generally. Young workers are more open to the importance of unions than at almost any time in two generations. Studies have shown that young people under the age of 29 are the second most pro-union group of any age group in 40 years.
Numerous young workers and students rallied around the cause of the victorious Republic Windows and Doors factory occupation in Chicago in December, and the efforts to organize Starbucks have also been initiated by young workers. Student groups worked to support the long, bitter union drive that recently prevailed at the big Smithfield meatpacking plant in Tar Heel, N.C
These same workers and students can be convinced to rally around the cause of EFCA specifically, and unions more generally. Young workers have a vested interest in organizing in their workplaces and schools--pushing for resolutions in student governments, collecting petitions, and reaching out to faculty and staff unions on campuses to build solidarity and support.
Younger workers can--and must--play a role in revitalizing a labor movement that has been on the defensive for 30 years. It's already clear that in this economic crisis, young workers will have to fight hard to achieve a decent future.
Adam Turl writes for the Socialist Worker.
Banmujer, un banco en Venezuela para la autonomía y el empleo femenino
La pobreza extrema se ha reducido
Joana García Grenzner
Diagonal
Desde 2001 el Banco de Desarrollo de la Mujer (Banmujer) ha concedido más de 95.000 créditos a grupos y cooperativas de mujeres para paliar el desempleo femenino.
Banmujer ha creado más de 416.000 empleos con una filosofía totalmente horizontal. Las mujeres se agrupan en unidades o cooperativas de dos a nueve usuarias y se les da un crédito a devolver en cuatro años: 5.000 bolívares fuertes por cada integrante y 50.000 a la cooperativa, con un 6% de interés anual. “Cuando lo cancelan pueden pedir otro mayor. La idea es que inicien proyectos por sí mismas. También pueden solicitar talleres de formación según la necesidad”, explica Yohana, promotora de estos proyectos en el Distrito Capital, donde, en cada barrio, se conceden entre 300 y 400 créditos. Las usuarias se agrupan en 195 redes que abarcan todo el país. Yedilma, maestra jubilada, montó una tras contactar con Banmujer en el consejo comunal: “junté a 27 personas interesadas, en mi grupo éramos cinco. La red se reúne en mi local”.
En estos diez años ha habido mejoras: la actividad laboral femenina ha aumentado un 10%, situándose en un 50% de las venezolanas en edad de trabajar (casi cinco millones), y el desempleo ha bajado del 9% al 8%. La pobreza extrema, que afecta especialmente a las mujeres, se ha reducido espectacularmente: del 42,5% de la población venezolana en 1996 al 9,5% en 2007. La Misión Madres del Barrio de Inamujer, iniciada en 2006, ha contribuido a ello asignando pensiones temporales del 60% al 80% del salario mínimo y capacitando profesionalmente a más de 100.000 madres en situación de extrema pobreza. Eso sí, casi tres millones de mujeres siguen dedicadas a “quehaceres del hogar”.
El apoyo mutuo intenta revertir la creciente precarización del empleo y el aumento del desempleo femenino desde mediados de los ‘90. Aunque algunos proyectos de Banmujer dan cabida a los hombres, explica Mirla, que también está en una cooperativa, se trata de “darle un empujoncito a las mujeres, porque muchas no tenemos la oportunidad de trabajar en una empresa. En otro banco no sería posible, te cobran, exigen...”. Pero más allá de invertir tendencias, los créditos de Banmujer transforman proyectos de vida. María Marta montó una cooperativa de costura y empezó a estudiar administración. “Cambia mucho tu vida pero es cuestión de organizarte. A veces mi hijo me lee mientras coso y mi hija me pasa a limpio los trabajos. Mi marido se va adaptando, sabe que tengo que participar. Es un cambio radical verme salir casi todos los días”.
Joana García Grenzner
Diagonal
Desde 2001 el Banco de Desarrollo de la Mujer (Banmujer) ha concedido más de 95.000 créditos a grupos y cooperativas de mujeres para paliar el desempleo femenino.
Banmujer ha creado más de 416.000 empleos con una filosofía totalmente horizontal. Las mujeres se agrupan en unidades o cooperativas de dos a nueve usuarias y se les da un crédito a devolver en cuatro años: 5.000 bolívares fuertes por cada integrante y 50.000 a la cooperativa, con un 6% de interés anual. “Cuando lo cancelan pueden pedir otro mayor. La idea es que inicien proyectos por sí mismas. También pueden solicitar talleres de formación según la necesidad”, explica Yohana, promotora de estos proyectos en el Distrito Capital, donde, en cada barrio, se conceden entre 300 y 400 créditos. Las usuarias se agrupan en 195 redes que abarcan todo el país. Yedilma, maestra jubilada, montó una tras contactar con Banmujer en el consejo comunal: “junté a 27 personas interesadas, en mi grupo éramos cinco. La red se reúne en mi local”.
En estos diez años ha habido mejoras: la actividad laboral femenina ha aumentado un 10%, situándose en un 50% de las venezolanas en edad de trabajar (casi cinco millones), y el desempleo ha bajado del 9% al 8%. La pobreza extrema, que afecta especialmente a las mujeres, se ha reducido espectacularmente: del 42,5% de la población venezolana en 1996 al 9,5% en 2007. La Misión Madres del Barrio de Inamujer, iniciada en 2006, ha contribuido a ello asignando pensiones temporales del 60% al 80% del salario mínimo y capacitando profesionalmente a más de 100.000 madres en situación de extrema pobreza. Eso sí, casi tres millones de mujeres siguen dedicadas a “quehaceres del hogar”.
El apoyo mutuo intenta revertir la creciente precarización del empleo y el aumento del desempleo femenino desde mediados de los ‘90. Aunque algunos proyectos de Banmujer dan cabida a los hombres, explica Mirla, que también está en una cooperativa, se trata de “darle un empujoncito a las mujeres, porque muchas no tenemos la oportunidad de trabajar en una empresa. En otro banco no sería posible, te cobran, exigen...”. Pero más allá de invertir tendencias, los créditos de Banmujer transforman proyectos de vida. María Marta montó una cooperativa de costura y empezó a estudiar administración. “Cambia mucho tu vida pero es cuestión de organizarte. A veces mi hijo me lee mientras coso y mi hija me pasa a limpio los trabajos. Mi marido se va adaptando, sabe que tengo que participar. Es un cambio radical verme salir casi todos los días”.
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