Kees Marges sees a broader role for trade union solidarity

The global trade union movement has formed a coalition with many non-governmental groups in the cause of fighting poverty. So far so good. But what do they mean by poverty? What does this call mean for solidarity? And what does it require from trade unions and their members?

I am talking of course about the truly poor, people who cannot rely on an income from employment, or on social security payments when too old or sick to work. They may be people with disabilities triggered or exaccerbated by economic hardship, subsistence farmers who can grow only just enough food to eat, people forced to beg for money to survive. Ultimately, they include the 30,000 children per day who are dying as a result of preventable diseases and lack of access to basic healthcare.

Real solidarity with the truly poor would be a great answer to those who accuse the trade union movement of representing the elites and aristocrats of the working class. But let’s face it honestly. Trade unions are organisations founded by working people to defend the interests of workers: people usually employed, earning wages and other benefits. Many of them are members of a powerful trade union just for that reason. Working conditions, wages, income during illness, periods of unemployment and after retirement, and the continuation of employment itself are the core business of trade union officials.

Although the wages of too many workers are far below the level of what they should and could be, neither in the industrialised world nor in the developing world do union members battle with grinding poverty in the sense described above.

A new vision

Genuinely supporting the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) will require from trade unions an even broader vision than that so far understood, of what solidarity should mean. This is an evolutionary process already underway. As the casualties of market fundamentalism mount, solidarity for trade unionists increasingly means something you offer to people who don’t have the power to fight for their interests alone.

By the time this column is published, the third in a series of GCAP action days will have passed in July. We will know the degree of support they generated among unions in the cause of targeting national governments to deliver on the Millennium Development Goals drawn up in the United Nations Millennium Declaration of 2000. This statement of commitment to a fairer and safer world included the key goal of halving global poverty by 2015.

Action days and weeks, sending letters and declarations to governments and international bodies like the World Trade Organisation are vital for publicity and important aspects of the campaign. But will they be enough? Shouldn’t we attempt to use our industrial muscle, where possible, to boycott or take other legal actions against countries and companies failing to meet the development goal commitments to fair aid, trade and the cancellation of poor countries’ unpayable debts?

Don’t we need new and broader structures in which the trade union movement, with its power, experience and global reach, can become the driving force in the fight against poverty? This fight was at the centre of the movement, when it started in the 19th century. We have an opportunity now to embrace it seriously once again. We cannot be content to treat it as another hype, to be forgotten within a year.

Kees Marges is a writer and consultant on trade union issues.

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty was formally launched at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in January 2005. Details on the ITF website – www.itf-global.org – see news online.