Role of TradeUnions

Sustainable Growth and the Role of Trade Unions
- Ardhendu Dakshi
Sustainable growth of the economy is extremely vital for the working class and the trade unions. A steady and all round expansion of production and services means steady jobs, a secured life and prospect of a decent wage and a better career. Continuous growth of economy also denotes higher consumption by the people, general improvement of their standard of living and the working class, being a part of the society, also is the beneficiary of sustained growth of the economy. A balanced growth in all the three major sectors like agriculture, industry and services signifies a mutually supportive system with a better distribution of the wealth generated by the society. With a proper distributive system in place, the economy develops into a self-sustaining or self-generating one. This is something that not only the working class but also all other sections of toiling people want to have for their prosperity and peace in life. A proper macro-economic management can bring about big social changes and stability in the society that can usher in a situation conducive for further growth. The fundamental principles for the policy makers must be driven by the desire to uplift the condition of the common people who will ultimately hold the economy up and help it to expand.
The class, conscious trade unions look beyond the primary task of looking after the welfare of their members, to the other aspects of economic management and related developments. We have seen in the past as well as in the present time that wrong policies and mis-management of the economy can bring disaster in the life of the people but the working class are always hardest hit during an economic downturn. When the economic slow-down starts because of unbalanced and unplanned growth driven only by profit-motiveness by the capitalist class the workers are simply thrown out of their jobs, common people are forced to suffer all their hardships in life and when protests grow and situation become unmanageable, their democratic rights are trampled down. In the world of capitalism this is the general rule. In spite of all the known fault lines of capitalism, the governments run by the capitalists, in order to maintain their dominance have resorted to violence against their own people in their own countries as well as against other countries and the people there. The horrors of war all through the twentieth century are results of capitalist crises and the pursuit of world capitalism to establish their absolute dominance over world economy.
The Role of Trade Unions
There are two types of responses from trade union when the crisis strikes the head of the workers. One section of trade unionists call such crises as "natural" by claiming that economy, as always, have "ups" and "downs" and therefore, the workers shall have to bear it out and, with great hope, should wait for better times. They also are keen to protect the domestic employers, for obvious reasons, and the governments by shifting the responsibility to the "global" phenomenon of economic crisis. This is an easy option to deceive the workers and the people. They preach tolerance and ask workers to make sacrifices in order to protect capital and the capitalists though they are mainly responsible for such crises.
Last 20 years, in the matters of economic development, is a period fit for a close study. The period of "Neo-Liberal Globalization" is marked by high rate of growth but is a disbalanced and skewed one is proving to be un-sustainable and the crisis is deepening. We have witnessed a massive transfer of wealth from poor countries to rich countries and from poor people to rich people. Huge production capacities have been generated by paying "One dollar or, at the best, two dollars to the workers". In the process some people have become phenomenally rich and a new middle class has emerged enjoying the best of their life at the cost of the working class. Most of the national governments and policy makers have put a supportive frame-work to help such a crude, ruthless exploitation of labour. Some trade unions also fell in line calling globalsition as "inevitable".
Apart from the economic suffering by the working class the other big loss is their trade union rights. Except for the socialist countries, there has been a pervading decline of trade union rights in both developed and developing world. In the developing countries labour law enforcement has been lax and in some countries the entire legal framework for protection of labour has been demolished. All these steps have led to further impoverishment of the working class in both industrial and rural agricultural sectors.
In such a situation the role of class oriented trade unions has been altogether different, if not opposite. As for example, we, in the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), have all along opposed this model of growth as we knew that it would not be sustainable. Another major development is causing more worry for the workers in developing countries.
For various reasons the western economies have shifted their manufacturing base to the developing countries. Availability of cheap and skilled labour, raw materials and better infrastructural facilities are the main considerations. But to keep their control over the emerging economies they have kept their hold over the stock markets and investment agencies. This is a dangerous situation because, in such a mechanism, the economy of developing country is tuned to the needs of developed world without creating a strong domestic market to fall back on, in case there is a demand slump in developed world. All these will lead to a globalized crisis and the main sufferers will be the workers in developing countries. Their trade unions will have little chance to protect jobs of their members, not to speak of decent wage and labour rights.
The duty of the class-based trade unions is to hit at the root of the cause of fragile and vulnerable economic structure. Understanding the cause unsustainable growth and to fight for changing the macro-economic policies is the fundamental duty of class conscious trade unions.
The capitalists preach that poverty anywhere is danger for prosperity everywhere but they do not practice their own dictum. Poverty has increased in most of the developing countries in last 20 years. In some countries, like India, the recent growth is impressive but illusory because there has been no simultaneous growth of domestic market. 80 per cent of people live just at subsistence level and 90 per cent of the workers cannot buy the products they produce. In case of a slack international demand the growth in India cannot be sustained. The government may only try to prop up the stock market, the manufacturing sector is bound to face a collapse in a global slump.
The role of trade unions has to be one to avoid such a situation. Trade unions must play a role of intervention in the policy making stage through mass action, should oppose wrong policies by the government, particularly in capitalist economies, and fight for distribution of wealth to the people and the workers so as to ensure a better real income by them. These steps only can guarantee a sustainable growth of the economy where production, distribution and consumption can be evenly matched and market is developed in the country. When the orthodox capitalist system fails, trade unions, obviously, should have a role to intervene to change the economy and the society. More than anything else, sustainable growth of economy is extremely vital for the working class a well as their trade unions.
Internationalisation of Movement
All said and done we believe that when trade union movement becomes a social movement for a change, it cannot be confined in one country, inside one geographical boundary, in this era of globalization. We are witnessing two dangerous trends all over the capitalist world that are influencing the life of conventional working class in post world war-2 situation, particularly in the era of globalization.
Firstly, there is gradual displacement of regular workers in advanced countries by informal and illegal immigrant workers who do not enjoy same rights like regular workers. Secondly, in the developing countries there is large-scale displacement of regular workers by contractors' workers or informal workers. Outsourcing of jobs are rampant almost everywhere.
While the employers are totally united and employing the same methods, bargaining with national governments in the same way, about everywhere across the globe, unfortunately national governments are competing with each other to grant more liberal concessions in the matters of wages benefits, social protection and labour rights. The workers are at the receiving end.
This situation compels the trade unions to join hands nationally, regionally and globally. Without a concerted resistance there is poor chance to fight such exploitation at the local level. Let us admit the fact that the multinational corporations are taking full advantage of this situation and maximizing their profit.
We welcome the move by the ACFTU to organize this meeting. Such regional understanding and co-operation will go a long way for protection of the workers job and rights in our respective countries. We in the CITU have always aspired for building up of an Asian Confederation of Trade Unions, where trade unions of all affiliations could work together on common goal of protecting the workers rights. In the present situation such an organization has become a necessity as we apprehend that with accentuating of economic crisis, attack on the workers will intensify particularly in the Asian region.
ACFTU has the strength stature and the wherewithal to help building up an Asian Confederation of Trade Unions. We look forward for the day when such an initiative is taken by the trade unions in different countries and ACFTU takes an appropriate lead to fulfill the important international task.
Our greetings to ACFTU from Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).
(Speech by Ardhendu Dakshi in Beijing Conference of Trade Unions in South Asia)