Key issues for Congress

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Contexto de página: Página principal > Revista 'Transporte Internacional' > Issue 9 August 2002 > Key issues for Congress

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The ITF Congress debates a range of key issues being faced by transport workers around the world. A number of these are put forward by the ITF Executive Board. Below we look at some of the issues which will come onto the floor in Vancouver and which are liable to shape the work programme of the ITF over the next four years.

The rise of logistics in international freight transport

Transnational corporations produce their goods in plants spread around the world and sell them in every market in the world. The globalisation of production and the liberalisation of world trade has placed new demands on transport.

Many of these global corporations have found that the sheer complexity of moving all their components, supplies and finished products around the world at the right time and cost effectively between all their different suppliers, assembly plants, distribution centres and final customers, requires them to use specialist logistics companies. Companies are increasingly outsourcing what they call their supply chain or logistics operations.

This demand has created a new generation of freight transportation and logistics companies. Freight transport companies are spreading their operations into shipping, ports, trucking, rail and aviation cargo. The specialist fast freight companies such as UPS and Federal Express are expanding to become global logistics companies. Government postal services, which are rapidly being privatised or commercialised, are turning themselves into global transport companies. These companies are intermodal and are developing seamless global transport networks.

In the past, transport networks were built to serve national rather than global transport plans. Transport matters are still usually heavily regulated by national standards and laws. But nowadays, 90 per cent of goods going across national borders is handled by international freight forwarders. It should hardly be a surprise, therefore, that enormous lobbying pressure, increasingly headed by logistics and freight forwarding companies, is now being deployed to break down such national rules to clear the way for the full liberalisation and globalisation of transport.

The privatisation of ports, airports, airlines and more lately rail companies has not only been about putting public services into private hands. It has also been about relocating transport investment decisions away from those concerned with national economic planning, towards those supporting the global distribution needs of transnational corporations.

Corporations are increasingly developing their plans according to investment and operational strategies which treat transport both as a global industry and an intermodal one. This raises questions for trade unions which at both the national and international level usually organise by specific transport mode. The Congress will look at the need to add cross-sectoral strategies to those of the individual ITF Sections.

Changes in the international trade union movement

The acceleration of globalisation following the end of the Cold War has become the new challenge for the international union movement. The current irrelevance of old ideological divisions has cleared the way for a much more co-ordinated global union response.

The term “Global Unions” has become a kind of brand name representing much stronger co-operation between the major international union bodies. Along with it goes a much more active response to global trends. We have seen the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) take up a new campaigning role in challenging the role of the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation in pushing liberalisation; developing new tools for influencing the behaviour of global corporations; and defending core labour standards and union rights.

The Global Union Federations (what until very recently we used to call the International Trade Secretariats), like the ITF, which focus on a single major industry or occupation, are working to tackle corporations which employ worldwide workforces and operate to global corporate strategies. The rise of these transnational companies (TNCs) is happening in all industries. New union strategies include negotiating “framework agreements” which set some basic industrial relations standards in TNCs.

The dividing lines between different industries are becoming less clear. The increasing overlap between transport logistics companies and postal services companies is a good example. It means there will need to be a closer working relationship between the ITF and UNI, the global union federation which brings together postal workers’ unions. There are lots of similar examples.

The impact of globalisation on every industry, the emergence of privatisation and deregulation as global trends, foreign investment and transnational ownership, all mean that unions fighting to defend jobs and conditions at the local level find that they cannot do this effectively any more without having some influence at a more global level.

This has two important effects. One, it becomes all the more important that the international union bodies are functioning coherently and effectively. Two, there needs to be a much greater awareness of, and involvement in, the activities of these bodies by trade unions. Some of this is to do with structures, but much of it is to do with attitudes and ways of working. Congress will look at how we work within the wider international union movement and at how effective we are in our internationalism.

The popular movement to reform globalisation

It is not just trade unions that are affected by globalisation, but the whole community. It is not just workplaces which are threatened but our whole environment; not just labour rights which have come under attack, but human rights.

Unlike many others affected by globalisation, workers in unions are relatively well organised. Unions have already established forms of dialogue with bodies such as the World Bank to make sure the views of workers are heard (if frequently ignored). But unions are not the only ones who are organised. In many recent mass protests against globalisation in Seattle, Prague, Gothenburg, Genoa and other cities there have been highly organised groups (the large majority of whom do not use the violent methods that have grabbed most of the headlines). The impressive international gathering of the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre in Brazil, which acts as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum (unions are involved in both), has become a focus for this wide popular movement.

Unions will not agree with all these organisations or everything they say. Some of these groups throw criticisms at, or have very little understanding of, trade unions. Nevertheless, most have concerns about poverty, social justice and basic rights which are at the heart of union concerns. Attempts at dialogue on issues where there had been conflicting views have already led to better understanding.

The emergence of a large, popular movement challenging the values of global markets and global profits is of immense significance to trade unions. But what role, if any, should trade unions seek to play in this movement? Should unions be developing more active alliances with other organisations and, if so, what kind? Should unions keep their concerns focused on employment issues or look at wider social issues too?

Organising workers in informal work

One of the most significant changes in the way that companies organise work in recent years has been the increase in casual forms of employment. Structural change, deregulation and privatisation, together with the increasing use of subcontractors have resulted in thousands of transport jobs in both developed and developing countries being “informalised” by the use of casual and “temporary” work.

While the definitions of what is and what isn’t informal work are not always clear, the trends are very clear indeed. The number of secure, well regulated jobs is sharply decreasing. Unprotected jobs are on the rise. The distinction between formal and informal work is becoming increasingly blurred. Work that was previously regulated and protected is becoming more flexible and vulnerable.

In transport, work is often being transferred to people who are legally classed as self-employed. Many road transport companies, for example, now contract owner-operators rather than employ drivers directly. This enables employers to minimise their own liabilities and social costs, while still controlling in every detail the working conditions of the driver. A nominally independent operator may in fact be effectively tied to servicing a single company.

Unions in a number of countries believe that these owner-operators are in a fundamentally different situation from genuinely independent operators who can choose the work they take.
Many unions are recruiting these owner-operators into their organisation.

The Congress will be asking a number of central questions. Should unions be organising owner-operators, or other sorts of “informal” workers, or not? Are unions capable of organising these workers? How can the ITF assist unions trying to organise these workers?

Involving women better

Transport is a gender-segregated industry. Although there are some transport unions with more women members than men (notably civil aviation cabin crew), women are often the minority in transport workers’ unions.

In preparation for Congress, the ITF has been carrying out a major survey of its unions to determine just how well represented women are, at all levels of trade union activity and structures. How many women general secretaries there are in the ITF, and whether ITF unions need more women activists or more women elected officials, are the kinds of questions the ITF Women’s Committee expects the survey will answer.

This is the third time the ITF Women’s Conference is being held just prior to Congress. The first, in 1994 in Geneva, agreed that a programme of gender activities should be established. The second was the 1998 New Delhi Conference, after which the first ever ITF Women’s Committee was elected.

Both the Women’s Conference and Congress in Vancouver will discuss the effects of the globalised transport workplace for women, particularly the challenges posed for women in public urban transport, and for unions recruiting in the growing logistics, distribution and call-centre industries.

They will also examine how to improve the role that women play in transport unions. The Women’s Committee is proposing amendments to the ITF Constitution aimed at improving women’s participation in the ITF. One concerns the inclusion of women in Congress delegations. Another is a proposal to make the Women’s Conference part of the ITF Congress, giving it the same status as the Section conferences. If passed by this 40th Congress, these amendments will take effect in 2006

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Issue 9 August 2002

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