INTRODUCTORY REPORT Of the 2nd IEMO CONGRESS 
 15-16th and 17th November 2002, Cochin  
By Alain SIMON,IEMO Secretary General

Dear Comrades,
Dear Friends,
Dear Guests,

The President and our host, the comrade Pandhe, opened the 2nd Congress of the IEMO. I am anxious to join to the greetings and to the beautiful words which they expressed in their introductory speeches.    

It is a real pleasure for me to present in some minutes our organisation which is more than 17 years old of existence. 

17 years which were not still easy because of the particular character of our organization, 

Ø       Particular due to its constitution in 1985, 

Ø       Particular due to its composition, 

Ø       Particular due to its independence towards all other trade-union, political and religious structures,  

Ø       Particular due to its functioning because it is not a centre of decisions but a structure of coordination and solidarity the members of which the driving element are.

 Yes, the IEMO wants to be an organisation to the only service of its members and not an organisation which dictates to the members what they can and have to make.

 We are this organisation which considers that every member counts for 1 and has the same rights even if it is a "small" organisation.

 We refuse at the IEMO the dictat of the big organisations. We refuse the dictat of the organisations of the countries of the North on those of the South.

 We are and we want to stay this organization which collects everybody and exceeds the North/South cleavages, that is between the rich countries and the poor countries and let us throw back(reject) all those who maintain the reflexes and the practices of the cold war.

 We want to be and to stay this organisation which takes place beside those who fight against all the forms of oppression and war.

 We are so that men and women know finally the prosperity, the freedom and peace.

 Here is in some words that what is the IEMO and that we want to stay. It is all the subject of our Congress and the discussions about these two and a half days.

 I was anxious to reaffirm it in introduction of our Congress so that you know all here presents that the 2nd Congress, it is your Congress and I encourage you to enrich the debates of your national experiences and your ideas on how the IEMO can be still closer of your concerns.

 Having said that, I would like to say to you why the Bureau decided to hold its 2nd Congress in India, knowing that the journey is long, painful and complicated.

 India is a country which more has to be known under its multiple facets to measure better its situation but also the pugnacity of unions and the NGOs to make of this country a big country which counts in the world and to make its people of his dramatic situation go out.

India is one of the most populated countries, and certainly among the poorest of the world, and this in spite of its natural resources and its enormous human and industrial potential. According to the official figures, 70 % of the Indian households have no access to the electricity at present. Considering the driving role of the energy to guarantee a sustainable development, the most optimistic projections say that India will not quickly surmount this deficit and will stay in the decades to come with the biggest percentage of people who will have no access to the energy, so compromising their development so necessary for the prosperity of the men and the women of this continent.

 It will be the occasion for all the participants to notice by themselves and to think, how we can help the unions of this country which fight for several years in a unitarian way to prevent the privatisation and protect the national patrimony and the gains.

 The joint fights in this sense of CITU, AITUC, HMS and BMS Congresses, and in particular the powerful and unitarian action of the miners in December, 2001 allowed to oppose to the privatisation of the coal which the government tries to impose for several years.

 In spite of the strong police repression and the arrest of numerous union leaders, the national strike was observed in a unitarian way in all the mineral fields.

It was successful and showed the determination of 600.000 Indian miners.

 Some months ago, more than 16 millions of employees of the public sector struck against the privatisation but our Indian friends will speak about this in their interventions there.

 We notice that the misdeeds of the liberalism, the all private and the globalisation are catastrophic and have the same effects and the consequences for the workers of all the countries of the world.

 The Congress of the IEMO in India will be an occasion to have a debate frank and opened on the economic, political, industrial and social situation in the world, as well as on the outstanding events of these last years.

 By choosing India, we did not choose the easiest solution but we considered that this country needs help. But especially, it is a country where the working class and its unions fight to take out the country of its difficult situation. Their experiences of fight can only enrich the participants at the Congress and share them with rich experiences of fight in this country.

 As example, you were able to notice the extreme poverty of this country but India counts all the same 40.000 dollar millionaires what can seem surprising in front of the misery of more than a billion men and women.

 I hope that you understand better why we were anxious to hold this Congress here in spite of the difficulties and the hesitations of some of our members.

  I am anxious to thank again the CITU and all its activists for their reception so warm.

 As for me, I like your country and I like returning there regularly. This country is beautiful and people are there very friendly and helpful.

 Since the Congress founder of the IEMO in France in 1996 which united the members of the IMO and the ETUI, the  world

 situation did not evolve in the sense which we had wished. What does not mean that nothing was made. On the contrary, otherwise the situation would be the worse.

 What happened during these 6 years? I am not going to make a detailed inventory by all the events and the actions during this period. But I shall hold the outstanding events. You can  correct me if it seems to you that I omitted an important element.

 6 years ago, we did not use still in a daily way the terms of GLOBALIZATION  in our trade-union arguments. Today, it is a daily reality for unions with all the negative repercussions of these on the life of the peoples and the employees.

 Our activity sectors are very hit by this one. Reorganisations, absorption, closing down, relocations, privatisations, dismissals are the daily consequences of the globalisation on our industries. It is difficult to calculate the consequences on the employment but we can calculate it by million lost employments.

 Only in Europe, we can speak of about 2 million mining employments killed lost in 50 years. Hundreds of thousand employments in the energy industry these last 10 years.

 In Western and oriental Europe, we see an acceleration of the closing down of mines and a reorganisation, a concentration by privatisation of the electrical and gas industries.

 The employees of Oriental Europe pay dearly their alignment on the market economy of western type. The consequences of the closing down of mines and reorganisations  are of an  incredible

 violence with consequences on the economy of whole regions which are totally destabilized with grave problems on the health, the employment, the education, the pensions and the trade-union rights but that no immediate perspective is outlined for the near future.

 Our Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Albanian, Romanian, Baltic Republics friends pay dearly the political alterations of the last decade and regrettably have still no trade-union structures prepared for such situations where from the necessity of helping them. Some people of them are here for this Congress and will explain themselves their situations.

 THE IEMO tries to make of best possible to help these countries, but the task is immense. It is also the same for the international labor union.

 Arthur SCARGILL will present in the debate a document on the globalisation and its consequences on the employees and on the pensioners. This document, as 6 others will be presented and subjected to the debate of the Congress to enrich it and serve then as base of debate in our affiliated organisations for the action to stop the misdeeds of the globalisation; while knowing how to take out the aspects which can serve us as support points for our future actions.

 For our part, we use for several years the pages of our newspaper to denounce this situation and give arguments to our members to understand better the strategy of the globalisation.

 The role of the IMF and the World Bank is not to be any more demonstrated. We are all the victims. All the social aspects are totally absent in the policies of these 2 structures. Their strategies are those of the lobbies who act for a globalisation corresponding to the expectation of WTO which rejects for the moment any social contents including the minimum, that is on the basis of the conventions and the recommendations of the ILO. It demonstrates well that this globalisation is not the one that wish the peoples but the one that wishes the capital to overcome the crisis with which it is confronted.

 This policy brings disasters not only in the poor countries but get(touch) seriously including the rich countries and the richest of them, United States of America.

Other scandal which hit this country is the bankruptcy of Enron, considered as an example in the implementation of the reorganisations in the field of the Energy, concerning the coal, the gas, the petroleum and the electricity. All the economists used and quoted the good financial results of this trans nationational company of Trading. George’s W Bush even took advantage of generosities of this company for his election campaign. He is today still a defender without defect of oil  and coal companies in the United States in defiance of rules defined to Kyoto. He even questioned the agreements of Kyoto and refuses to make them apply in the United States.

 But Enron carried in its bankruptcy along with millions of small savers and millions of pensioners who would have invested their savings in the capital of pension to make sure a small pension. All these people were deceived and are in the misery today. Here is where leads a policy which wants to be universal for the employees of the whole world.

 We have to oppose to this policy by all the means at our disposal. The IEMO denounced these 2 situations that the United States lived and even participated in conferences on these 2 subjects, organised by the Association " Right to Energy".

 We also use these situations to denounce the privatisation of the Electricity of France, in Europe and on the other continents.

 Blatant examples exist in Great Britain in Railways and in the sector of energy. Our comrades of the NUM of Great Britain will speak to us about it certainly.

 Another example of this policy led by the IMF and the World Bank is Argentina. This country and its leaders were quoted in example so that the other countries also made it. The leaders of this country were considered as the best pupils of the implementation of the privatisation. The result, you know it all: this country is in bankruptcy. The devaluation of its currency, the massive dismissals plunged a whole people into the misery.

All their savings are worth nothing more and the pensioners who had invested in the capital of pension, who had invested in the actions of private companies themselves, meet themselves without resources, without pensions today.

 It is the scandal, which the IEMO denounced and who has to exemplify not to follow this policy led within the framework of the globalisation under the dictat of the IMF and the World Bank.

Other aspect that entails the globalisation, it is the infrigement of trade union rights and the freedom to form a trade union. I am not going to extend over this subject because we are going to treat it in one of the subjects of the Congress.

 But I would like to remind some outstanding events :

First of all, I would like to approach the aspects of a strike of one year, which our comrades of Great Britain led. This strike took place 17 years ago. By returning on the history, we realise that this strike was marked by a wild repression, daily detentions, hundreds of wounded persons and several deaths. Enormous financial means were used to make the miners bend, to oblige them to accept the closing down of mines and death of several mining areas.

 These enormous financial means were given by Margaret Thatcher and by the big financial capital for a very simple reason: it was necessary to kill the syndicate of the British miners, which was an example of the trade-union forces and the fighting spirit for the whole world.

 The capital needed to demonstrate its force by refusing to give in to the miners in spite of the enormous cost of this strike for Great Britain. The capital of the whole world came to bring its support for Margaret Thatcher.

 The capital, being in crisis, needed to change strategy and for it it needed docile and comprehensive unions. The anti-trade-union laws voted in this country are even effective today. Great Britain, its trade union movement were anaesthetised for more than 15 years. No big strike took place since that of the miners in 1984/85.

 The capital could finally change strategy and this one has the name of GLOBALISATION.

 It is my analysis after 15 years of reflection to understand the impact of the fight of the British miners and the reason for which Thatcher did not give up.

 A new kind of trade-union repression was born even if this one always existed. It is a real stake under custody of the unions to whom one  made understand that it is better to negotiate than to go striking because the employer will not give up.

 No country is spared by the trade-union repression even in countries with big traditions of democracy and liberties. Only the shape and the methods change according to countries.

 Dozens thousand trade-union activists are daily assaulted and threatened. Thousands of them are killed. The statistics of the ILO are significant and dramatic.

 It is the price, which charges the TNCs to obtain an acceptance of the globalisation by the world of the work. We have to oppose to it of all our forces. I hope that the debate on this dramatic subject will be rich and with a fighting spirit.

 This violence exceeds the frame of companies today. This economic violence due to the globalisation, this violence, towards the forces which oppose to the misdeeds of this one, entails with it desperate situations and plunges whole peoples, continents in a misery and towards a world without future. It entails situations and desperate behaviors.

 September 11th is one of these forms of violence, which does not serve the peoples, on the contrary. I am anxious to condemn such acts where thousands of innocents are killed and who allow the United States and some other governments to take excuse of such acts to vote for new repressive laws of which the labor union is again the victim.

 September 11th allowed the trans national groups to dismiss hundreds of thousand employees without that the American labor union can move at the risk of being attacked for lack of patriotism to the United States. Other countries also made by taking advantage of this situation.

 The violence does not have to be our shape of fight. Let us be watchful, let us not fall in the traps which are setting to us by the architect of the globalisation.

 September 11th was also the dreamed occasion for the government of Israel to intensify its attacks against the Palestinian people. The media of the whole world were turned to the United States. Israel took advantage of it to operate its policy. The repression was wild to the Palestinian people. The deaths count by hundreds and the peace plan is seriously compromised in the big profit of Israel. We have to  express firmly on this subject and express to our comrades of Palestine our total support.

  I counted on the presence of a Palestinian comrade at this Congress to testify of the dramatic situation which bear the Palestinian people. The Israeli authorities prevented our comrade from going out the occupied territories. He phoned me to inform me about his situation and asked the Congress and the members of the IEMO to continue to support them and to condemn and denounce what takes place in his country. He wishes us big successes for our Congress.

 September 11th also allowed the United States and Great Britain to bombard daily Iraq without that the media speak about it.

  It is an intolerable situation. We condemned it during our last Congress. We asked for the levying of the embargo on this country, which makes of the Iraqi people the first victim. Its ineffectiveness was demonstrated and dozens thousand women and children died without knowing why.

 We demand the levying of the embargo and are against any military interventions because they would risk to set fire to all the region. It is moreover what the United States wish to put finally this entire region under their custody for its Oil.

 We can congratulate ourselves on our action beside our Libyan comrades who were subjected during almost 10 years to an embargo. This one was raised thanks to our actions, so giving in Libya and to its people the possibility to live normaly.

 Cuba remains for us a demand, which requires to continue our actions beside the Cuban people so that the embargo be finally raised. Our comrade of Cuba is among us but we are anxious to insure the Cuban people of our total solidarity.

 In this report, which can seem to you too long, I try to  draw up the panorama in which we evolve daily. I cannot naturally mention all the situations with which we are confronted. I am thus going to make the impasse on certain aspects by hoping that you will understand the reason because the other companions will intervene  during  this  congress to  enrich  this report and 6 big subjects of the debate go to this sense.

 I would all the same like to speak about a subject, which is of an extreme gravity and the impact of which we do not still measure. I want to speak about the AIDS and about the disaster which it entails in the poor countries but not only.

 I would have wished to make of it one of the essential subjects of this congress and to make specialists of the UNO come to make us measure the consequences but 2 and a half days of congress limit us necessarily.

 In certain countries, in Africa, 1 person on 6 is affected. The virus affects 6 million persons. 21 million persons will have died in 10 years because of this disease. In 10 years, we will see diying the equivalent of the victims of the 2nd world war.

 We cannot tolerate it, while 10 in 12 billion dollars would be enough for preventing it.

 The UNO manages with difficulty to collect capital for this cause and which would prevent such a disaster.

 Hundreds million dollars were collected in the United States after the disaster of September 11th to help the families of 2.500 victims. It is a good thing and I am pleased about it.  

And why we could not collect such funds to eradicate definitively the AIDS. I am anxious to make sensitive you because we are witnessing a real genocide.

 As union activists, we cannot stay without making anything. Let us participate in this campaign and let us create committees to collect funds.

 I congratulate our South African comrades on their fight and their victory on the pharmaceutical groups which wanted to grow rich on the misfortune of million men, women and of children affected by the virus.

 You may be assured that we are with you and that we wish that you inform us of which manners we can help you.

 To end, I would like to evoke some of our activities during these last years by reminding that our activities are not those whom we had to have.

 They are the reflection of the human  and material  means whom the IEMO Secretariat  has.

 As you know it, very few organisations pay their fees and 80 % of our fees are spent on covering the expenses of the IEMO staff and we benefit from no outside help. We live exclusively from the contributions of our members.

 We participated in the various Congresses of our affiliated organisations. These participations were always rich in lessons and allowed us to seize better the situations in the various countries.

 We continue in bringing our help to the African Organisation of the Syndicates of Mines, Metal industry, Energy, Chemistry and Allied. We participated in its congresses in Egypt, … and in the various meetings of its Executive Bureau.

 We bring our help and our support for the African countries in link with our French Union, the National Union of Mines and the Energy.

 We brought a significant help to our comrades of the SUTELEC of Senegal. Several leaders of the union were imprisoned for several months because they opposed to the privatisation and dismissed. We won thanks to the combined action of the CGT Union, of the SUTELEC, the IEMO. They found back their employments and their rights.

 We led numerous actions in link with the ILO with our Russian, Ukrainian and Rumanian comrades to demand the payment of salaries for the miners and the energety workers. These actions were beneficial because the employees had satisfaction on their demands.

 We follow with a lot of attention the situation in Iraq and we sent 2 delegations with our comrade Madjid Cherikh, to condemn the embargo and bring our support for the Iraqi people by bringing medicines.

 We organised several seminars in France with our Russian comrades. Several dozens union members were able to take advantage of it.

 We organized trade-union seminars in Africa as well as a Seminar on vocational training always in association with the French CGT Union.

 We participated in several Forums, which were held in Porto Alegre.

  We supported the creation of an Association on the right for the energy. This Association has a name, which became you very familiar: " Right to Energy - SOS-Future ". It is a non-governmental organisation, which acts for the access to the energy for all. It has its headquaters in Paris but has an international vocation. We decided to adhere to this

 Association as many of our members. The IEMO, in my person, has vice-president's position since its creation and we are one of the founder organisations.

 It is through this Association and in my vice-president's quality that I actively participated with Michel Clerc, the President, in the preparation of the Summit of the Earth in September in Johannesburg. The IEMO was represented to it by Denis Cohen, one of its  Vice-Presidents.

 The IEMO was present at the Conference of Nice on the right to energy which gathered more than 500 persons of the whole world in December, 2000.

 The IEMO was also represented to the Conference on the Right to Energy in Latin America, which was held in Argentina in October, 2001.

 The ICEM had also organized in Brazil a Conference on the Energy in Latin America, some weeks previously. The IEMO was invited there.

 The IEMO participated in all the demonstrations in Europe during the various Summits of the European Union.

 Our World Conference on the Energy,  which we held in France in Grenoble in 1999,  was a good success both by its participation and by its works. We had invited all the national organisations of the energy and mines.

 The ICEM, the PSI and the ETUI participated in this Conference and a debate with the IEMO was organized to study ground of agreement and action between our various International Organisations. The report of the works of this Conference was made public in one book translated into several languages.

 For the recent period, we had exchanges with the various International Oganisations of the sectors of the energy, the mines and  Public Services.

 We met separately in Paris the General Secretary of the of Public Services International ( PSI), then the General Secretary of the ICEM and finally during of September a delegation of Energy TUI.

 Our comrade Duteil will intervene on this subject in one of the subjects of the Congress and will clarify our conception on the trade-union unity and the conditions to reach it.

 The IEMO was invited by the PSI to participate in its Congress in Ottawa in Canada. We answered favorably this initiative and I took advantage of this occasion to meet the unions of the Energy of Quebec.

The ICEM, through its member in Australia, invited the IEMO at a Conference on the globalisation and its consequences on the mining industry and of the transport. An interesting Resolution was adopted in this occasion, which we widely spread through our  IEMO Newslater.

 The ICEM invited the IEMO at its World Conference, which will be held in Rome from 27 till 29 November. The IEMO answered it favorably. I take advantage of this occasion to greet the presence on this Congress of the representative of the ICEM, the comrade Gino Govender, to whom we shall give the opportunity to speak during some minutes.

 The leading bodies of the IEMO met regularly in France and last June in Great Britain.

 Here we are, dear Comradess, very quickly and in an incomplete way, the activities of the IEMO. I did not evoke all the meetings which I organized in the ILO nor those who took place in Paris during the visits of delegations in France.

 To end, I wish all a good debate and encourage you to participate actively in this Congress. You decided to make this length and expensive journey for, I hope for it, to inform us about your experience and the situations which you live.

 I end by addressing my sincere thanks to my Indian comrades for the organisation of this Congress, as well as to the NUM of Great Britain, to the FNME-CGT of France, to the Russian Nuclear Union, to the Association "Right in to Energy", because without their help we would never have been able to hold this Congress, quite as our Bureau and Executive committee meetings in Paris and in London.

 Sorry to have been so long to make this review of passed six years since our last Congress.