Working People Around the World Meet for a Workers International
by Millie Phillips
IT MAY NOT BE HEADLINE NEWS in the main-stream press, but history
continues to be made by working people around the world who have united
in the International Liaison Committee for a Work-ers International. This
organization, known as the ILC, was formed 5 years ago at its first Open
World Conference in Barcelona, Spain. The 3rd conference was held in October
in Achères, France, a small suburb of Paris. Delegates from 70 countries,
including 17 African countries, most of South America, almost all of Eastern
and Western Europe, and several Asian countries, gathered to discuss an
agenda of action. The ILC is a broad coalition of socialist and anarcho-syndicalist
parties and groups, union federations, and individuals united to support
independent politics-political organizing independent of big business and
ruling classes, in opposition to the "structural adjustment" programs
of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank & World Trade Organization.
Members range from the multi-tendency Workers Party of France, who hosted
the conference, to AZAPO in South Africa, to peace activists in ex-Yugoslavia,
to British Members of Parliament.
Over the three days, almost 70 people took the floor to discuss conditions
in their countries resulting from structural adjustment. Some accounts brought
tears to the eyes of participants: starvation and genocidal war in several
African countries, human rights abuses against women workers in Vietnam,
the tragedy of ex-Yugoslavia. Even in more affluent countries, conditions
are rapidly worsening as the result of massive privatization and deregulation.
All delegates spoke of unemployment, declining health care, union-busting,
and loss of social safety nets. On the other hand, they also heard inspiring
stories of resistance. So many, diverse speakers saying essentially the
same thing produced an overwhelming indictment of global capitalism and
what the ILC calls "senile imperialism."
In addition to the main conference sessions, where all participants had
equal speaking rights in an unusually democratic procedure, there were separate
evening commissions dealing with specific issues. I attended a women's commission
where I reported in detail on the recent "welfare reform" in the
U.S. and how it will be a death sentence for millions of women and children.
I also attended a commission on the Balkans that discussed the history of
the war in detail. For example, the Serbian government actually staged TV
shows, presented as fact, showing fake attacks on Serbian villages to stir
up ethnic animosity. Workers before the war were uniting across ethnic divisions
to fight the devastating IMF programs imposed on Yugoslavia. ILC peace activists
believe the real cause of the war was to crush and divert this resistance.
They also pointed out that the peace and labor movements have much greater
support than is reported in Western media. At this conference workers of
almost every race treated each other as comrades and equals with a sincerity
I have never experienced elsewhere. The contrast with the United States
was saddening. The U.S. ILC will have to resist and organize against racial
divisions that are potentially more explosive than the ethnic divisions
in the Balkans.
The French ILC and the Workers Party arranged for all the delegates to speak
at report-back meetings throughout France following the conference. Despite
significant labor unrest that continues in France, e.g., a one-day general
strike of transportation workers the day before we arrived and the increasing
dissidence within the traditional French social democratic and communist
parties, ILC delegates were well-received. For example, even though the
Communist Party, which runs many city administrations in France, has been
hostile to the Workers Party, which is mostly Trotskyists and anarchists,
a delegation of Lybon Mabasa-a leader of South Africa's AZAPO-a Yugoslavian
peace activist, and myself were warmly received by Communist Party city
officials in a Paris suburb that is facing 25% unemployment. Many members
of the social democratic Socialist Party are also open to new approaches
as the crisis for French workers increases and their own politicians have
failed to resist. Conference delegates also had time to eat, party, and
sing with each other throughout the conference, and many of us have made
life-long friendships as well as political connections through the ILC.
Recently, supporters of the ILC in the United States, including myself,
started an ILC chapter in San Francisco and hope to expand into several
cities in the near future: Portland, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, Madison,
Santa Cruz and San Diego. A delegation of over a dozen ILC members attended
the Third World Open Conference from the United States, mostly from the
Bay Area, but also from Decatur, Illinois; Boston; and New Jersey. Among
our delegation were Mike Griffin, a central leader of the Staley workers
struggle in Decatur, Illinois, and director of the War Zone Education Foundation;
Camron Austin, a Caterpillar worker and former strike leader, also from
Decatur; Eddie Rosano, a leader of the recent Chronicle strike in San Francisco
and vice president of San Francisco Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
(LCLAA); as well as most of the staff of The Organizer (which makes building
the ILC a central focus); and activists in the Labor Video Project, the
ILWU, and the recently formed Labor Party.
We are hoping that readers of the North Coast XPress will support the various
campaigns we agreed to build at the conference. The main proposal, supported
unanimously, was to hold an International Days of Action, May 30-31,1997,
to protest structural adjustment, privatization, deregulation, and destruction
of social services and to support expanded democracy throughout the world.
The San Francisco ILC welcomes suggestions on how best we can build actions
in California. In some countries where major labor federations support the
ILC, the action may take the form of a one-day general strike; in others,
like here, demonstrations and teach-ins are more likely. Specific issues
we hope to take up here include the "welfare reform" travesty,
utility deregulation, and prison labor.
Other campaigns were discussed and supported by the conference. There is
international support for the Liverpool, England, dockers, on strike now
for 14 months in an absolutely solid strike, all the more impressive because
it is illegal under current British anti-labor law. The ILC is determined
to see the Liverpool dockers win. We are working with the longshore unions
here, especially the West Coast ILWU, to make sure this battle results in
a victory.
Especially inspiring are the Women of the Waterfront (WOW), a group formed
by the dockers' (long shoremen's) wives to provide support for families
during the strike. Many WOWs were housewives with no political experience
before the strike. Now, they are traveling around Europe organizing strike
solidarity, and some have become powerful public speakers and organizers.
I interviewed two "WOWs" who attended the Open World Conference.
They spoke eloquently about what the struggle had done for them as women
as well as about the hardships they had suffered. Even the children of strikers
have organized and are represented at rallies.
ILC member Eddie Rosano, in his capacity as vice president of LCLAA, introduced
a motion to the California State Federation of Labor Convention to build
a hemispheric conference against NAFTA. The motion passed the State Fed
convention unanimously and has support from the outgoing head of the State
Fed, Jack Henning, Dolores Huerta, and other important union officials.
This conference will be held in October 1997 on Columbus Day (deliberately
chosen for its significance as a day to protest imperialism) in San Francisco.
Among those building the conference are the Mexico City bus drivers union
SUTAUR 100, who have fought a bitter battle to stop privatization of the
Mexico City bus system. SUTAUR affiliated to the ILC after the ILC organized
a dramatic level of international solidarity for locked-out SUTAUR members
and their jailed leaders. Though the struggle has been largely defeated,
ILC solidarity enabled the workers to continue their struggle more effectively
and was instrumental in getting illegally jailed leaders of the union released
from prison after one year. At the Third World Open Conference, a caucus
of Western Hemispheric workers met to discuss how to build this anti-NAFTA
conference. It will be a major effort of the U.S. ILC. Workers in Europe
will be organizing a similar conference to fight "Maastricht,"
a European agreement similar to NAFTA. African workers will also be holding
a conference.
The ILC will follow up on its major campaign against child labor, for peace
in the Balkans, and to continue its significant role in the labor unrest
in France. Prior to the Open World Conference, another conference of youth
was held and formed an International Youth Liaison Committee which will
take up education issues, job training, and opposition to drug trafficking
as central areas of work.
Please contact the San Francisco ILC for more information on how to help
with these activities and to join the ILC. Contacts: Robert Irminger, chair
SF ILC, (415) 285-3935, or Millie Phillips, (415) 821-9683, or write to
the ILC at P.0 Box 40458, San Francisco, CA 94140, e.mail ivpsf@igc.apc.org.
-Millie Phillips is a member of the San Francisco chapter of the International
Liaison Committee
May 1997 - - Archives
- - HOME- - Electrons
to Editor
