- BERLIN (AFP) - A new global
labor organization, the 15.5 million member Union Network International
(UNI), called for minimum rights for workers in the face of globalization
as it wrapped up its first congress in Berlin Sunday.
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- Around 1,000 delegates passed a resolution during their
five- day congress that defined a new class of workers, including those
in information-related industries who often function internationally and
who are not covered by normal "collective bargaining and social
dialogue."
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- UNI said it wanted to win basic workers rights for these
people by negotiating minimum standards with employers and guarantees for
protection in social rights, benefits and training.
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- German President Johannes Rau had opened the congress
Wednesday with a call for a worldwide response by labor to industrial
globalization.
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- He said globalization represented "a changed
reality",
and that is why it was "undeniable" that trade unions had to
be international.
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- "We can't afford the internationalization of capital
(to be matched by) the provincialism of the rights of workers," Rau
said.
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- UNI president Kurt van Haaren said that in the new world
of global financial, labor and product markets "a strong global labor
union is forcefully necessary."
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- He said "the monstrous power" of international
firms and business "calls for control and a counter-power, calls
forcefully
for a labor union counter-power."
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- Van Haaren said the 1,000 delegates gathered at a hotel
and convention complex in formerly communist eastern Berlin represented
15 million members from 1,000 trade unions from 150 countries, including
branches of major French unions, the huge German union Verdi, Japanese
unions and the major US union the AFL-CIO.
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- The UNI was founded in January 2000 to provide a
"social"
response to globalization, the organization said in a communique.
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- It calls itself the "skills and services
international"
and says it is the global union for the new millenium.
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- It uses on-line technology and other modern
communications
to build networks with affiliate unions.
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- The UNI delegates said they wanted unions to oversee
pension funds.
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- They said that 17 billion dollars (18.8 billion euros)
in pension money is currently invested in financial markets and that unions
should be able to "influence how this capital is used ... (according
to) ethically and socially defendable principles."
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- The UNI said firms, especially ones that are global and
escape in many instances control by individual nations, should be held
to "principles of good governance," specifically giving unions
the right to consult on the social consequences of mergers and
acquisitions.
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- It said world committees should be set up in
international
companies, based on the European experience with such committees, to define
"minimum norms which multinational must respect."
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- The UNI delegates spoke out for the idea of
"global"
union actions, mainly in fighting discrimination and racism and for the
role of young people and women in society.
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- Finland's Maj-Len Remahl, 59, was elected UNI president
Sunday for two years, replacing Van Haaren, who has led UNI since its
creation
in January 2000. Since December 2000 she has headed the Finnish service
union PAM, which has 200,000 members.
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- American Joe Hansen became Sunday the new main UNI vice
president. Briton Philip Jennings remains as UNI secretary general.
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- The next UNI congress is to be held in Chicago, Illinois
in 2005.
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