|
VOICE OF ELECTRICITY WORKERS
XVth WORLD TRADE UNION CONGRESS
THE HAVANA CONSENSUS
(Adopted by the Congress on the 4th December, 2005)
|
Sixty years ago, the international trade union movement made the historic choice
of founding the World Federation of Trade Unions. After the victory over
fascism, it had as its objective the struggle for social justice and progress,
emancipation, respect for the dignity of workers and their families, and peace.
At that time, the divergences between trade union organisations were many, but
the urgent need to respond to the colossal economic, social and human
devastation made it vital to overcome their prejudices and to rise above their
ideological and political differences. It was essential to set aside ostracism
and sectarianism of all sorts and to unite. How can what was manifest then be
less so today? Quite the reverse! The participants at the XVth World Trade Union
Congress, convened by the World Federation of Trade Union in Havana from 1 – 4
December 2005, acknowledge that these challenges are greater today and reaffirm
the objectives that inspired the international trade union movement 60 years
ago. It is our firm conviction that the unity of the international trade union
movement is a necessity that no trade union, whether local, national or
international, can deny or evade.
Who can argue that the consequences of capitalist globalisation can be
confronted single-handedly without international solidarity?
We are convinced that we can be victorious only through struggle and unity.
We can vanquish attempts by corporations to divide the workers by defending
common demands, engaging in joint struggles, and by building mutual respect
between workers and trade union organisations of the South and North, whatever
their orientation or international affiliation might be, whether they are
affiliated at all.
We do not believe that the trade union movement can play its role effectively by
defending only part of the working class when the overwhelming majority is
deprived of, or excluded from, those same rights and collective guarantees.
Who can doubt that the credibility of the trade union movement can be
strengthened without opening itself up to the society as it is?
We believe that it is vital to unite the exploited and the oppressed, workers
and peasants, jobless and landless, informal workers, and other community and
social movements, so that a strong and victorious force can emerge to make
possible the new world that we aspire to.
We cannot ignore or accept the inequalities and discrimination against women.
We cannot tolerate violations and aggressions against the dignity of the most
vulnerable groups, such as pensioners, immigrants, children, or the disabled.
We, the participants at the XVth World Trade Union Congress, affirm that the
trade union movement has a responsibility to clearly identify the obstacles to
unity and to action. Combating the consequences is one matter, combating their
causes is another! We must confront the predatory logic of the capitalist and
imperialist system, as it is an illusion to confine oneself to addressing only
its excesses! Recent experience has demonstrated that trade unionism has nothing
to gain from negotiating the demands of capital, which can only lead to social
regression and, more importantly, to weakening the trade union movement through
massive disaffiliations.
The aggravation of the economic crisis, of which financial crime is a motor,
offers no other alternative for capital than to continue to exercise pressure on
labour. In fact, the logic of profit maximization underpinning the strategy and
practices of transnational corporations, IMF/World Bank structural adjustment
programmes, WTO, free trade areas, unilateralism, coercive measures, sanctions
and blockades, and imperialist wars imposed on peoples and their States have
destabilized international relations and multi-lateralism. It has increased
inequalities to the detriment of the sovereign rights of peoples and nations,
their right to self-determination and to control over their natural wealth and
resources, their environment, their culture, and the fundamental rights of
minorities.
As happened over 60 years ago, this evolution is leading to new and greater
barbarism, entailing tremendous risks for the future of humanity. Therefore, the
participants at the XVth World Trade Union Congress declare that trade unionism
must rise to those challenges. We urgently appeal to all workers and trade
unions – at local, national and international levels – to launch ever greater,
numerous, unitary and articulated struggles, worldwide.
We, the participants at the XVth World Trade Union Congress, proclaim that we
are ready to contribute, to work, to elaborate, and to struggle toward this goal
with all those – from workplace to branches, from rank and file to leadership,
from local to international centres, beyond differences in opinions,
orientations, or history – who share this vision or who have chosen to build a
world of justice, equality, humanity and solidarity. The history of trade
unionism is inseparable from the social progress and the finest advances made by
humanity. To renounce this role and responsibility will definitively affect the
credibility of the trade union movement and amount to denying the very reason
for its existence.
We turn decisively and with confidence toward the future. All of us, without
exclusion and with modesty, must draw the lessons from our victories and our
defeats so that we can be more useful and play our role effectively. There are
great expectations for the renewal of trade union practices. Our trade union
actions cannot be restricted solely to statements, rhetoric and representations
of an institutional character that contribute only toward developing forms of
bureaucratization that detach our actions from economic and social realities and
must be transformed. None is excluded from this exigency.
Is not the paradox of globalisation having strengthened the need for greater
solidarity among workers and trade unions worldwide? To be effective, it is more
than ever necessary to build a network of strong relations between national,
regional, branch, professional and international structures, including
representations at the ILO and UN System. We consider that it is strategic to
share, to collaborate and to reach a common struggle at all these levels.
Without genuine improvement in the quality of its democratic life, there can be
no workers’ organisation that facilitates the involvement, engagement and
responsibility of each of its members. If there is to be a strong and
influential international trade union movement, no one-way action, a fortiri
international, can be conceived without rights and duties for all of us.
We wish to contribute toward advancing the resistance necessary to combat the
project of capital, as well as to open up a perspective of economic and social
transformation. There is a broad range of economic and social objectives in
respect to which trade union organisations share the same approach, and the same
actions. This is true for the struggles against unemployment and for full
employment, for the elimination of exploitation, poverty and misery, for the
nationalization and development of public services, against privatisation and
relocation, for the improvement of real wages, for a high level of social
protection, respect for collective bargaining and labour legislation, as well as
respect for labour and trade union rights.
Numerous struggles taking place on all continents have some or all of these as
their goal. They have had concrete results and influenced the content of many
decisions, demonstrating that results can only be obtained through struggle, or
at the least, contain the arrogance of the forces of capital. These struggles
and results must be popularized since they contribute to giving confidence to
collective action.
The participants at the XVth World Trade Union Congress wish to intensify their
engagement in the construction of these struggles. We express our unfailing
solidarity with all those who fight to improve their conditions of life and
work.
The politics of capital is inseparable from the aggressiveness and brutality
that characterize imperialism at the international level. The blackmail against
terrorist threats cannot mask the exactions, massacres and pillage carried out
by the first terrorist State of the world. The US Administration violates
international law with total impunity, makes unilateralism the basis of its
international relations and behaviour, engages in “preventive wars,” and overtly
threatens a number of States with military intervention. This intolerable
attitude that we condemn is increasingly and widely rejected as recently
demonstrated by the vote of the United Nations General Assembly condemning the
inhuman and barbaric blockade against Cuba.
The participants at the XVth World Trade Union Congress proclaim the right and
duty to resist for national sovereignty and the right of peoples to
self-determination. We demand the unconditional withdrawal from Iraq of the
coalition forces led by the United States, a stop to the pillage of the natural
wealth and resources of the country, and reparations due to the martyred people
of Iraq.
We have taken our place in the movement against capitalist globalisation. In our
search for alternatives, we will continue to work with all organisations that
share the same convictions with a view to better articulating action with the
needs expressed by the world of labour. We consider the action for water to be
essential to prevent transnational corporations from using this source of life
as a means for profit maximization. In the same spirit, the action for the
implementation of the Kyoto Protocol must be reinforced, as must be the
implementation of international rules against the impunity of transnational
corporations.
The participants at the XVth World Congress defend the founding principles of
international trade unionism, the principles of solidarity between workers and
peoples of the world. The international trade union movement does not exist for
itself; but in the service of the social emancipation. It is for this purpose
that it was created, and it is for this that it will pursue its long-term
struggle with determination and confidence.
The participants at the XVth World Trade Union Congress commit themselves to
widely disseminating the present Consensus so as to promote, with combativeness
and conviction, this contribution of the Congress toward building a vital
international trade union movement crucial for our epoch, for the victories of
workers struggles, and for the realization of their dreams.
|
