Resolution No. 5 International Solidarity WHEREAS, the global financial crisis has increased unemployment, poverty inequality worldwide, while threatening the fundamental rights of workers; WHEREAS, the mobility of capital, without effective regulation or control, enables multinational corporations wealthy investors to pit workers against each other throughout the world; WHEREAS, trade agreements have weakened, in many cases destroyed, national governments ability to regulate corporate behavior; WHEREAS, the United States Canada have lost millions of manufacturing jobs as production investment are relocated jobs are outsourced to economies where repression of labor rights keeps wages artificially low; WHEREAS, the right-wing political assault on North American labor now extends far beyond the manufacturing sector includes a systematic attack on public employee unions, multiple legislative initiatives to further weaken worker rights in the private sector; including the repeal of child labor laws efforts to deprive immigrant workers of basic human labor rights; WHEREAS, the lack of effective industrial policies has left North American workers defenseless against unfair corporate subsidies currency manipulation by some foreign governments; WHEREAS, even corporations that generally respect workers rights in their home countries increasingly violate these rights when they locate production in the United States; WHEREAS, despite the fact that the USW has consistently engaged in good-faith bargaining practices, where warranted, accommodated company dems for flexibility cost savings, multinational corporations continue in their desire to drive
down real earnings weaken health care retirement security for working people; WHEREAS, corporate-driven globalization can only be balanced by a global movement for economic social justice that democratizes economic policy-making fights for improved wages, working conditions, health care, retirement security, human rights environmental stards; WHEREAS, working people around the world are Sting Up Fighting Back against the brutal austerity policies promoted by the international financial institutions central bankers against governments that repress democracy human rights; WHEREAS, our Union continues to drive the resurgence of the labor movement in North America through political organizing activity that includes working families, students, environmentalists, civic religious leaders, immigrant communities, women s groups civil human rights activists as well as trade unionists; WHEREAS, the USW continues to organize unorganized workers employed by multinational companies in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, to strengthen national structures to coordinate bargaining within companies industries; WHEREAS, the attack of Brazil-based mining giant Vale on our members in Sudbury Labrador resulted in long difficult strikes which led the Industrial Inquiry of the Province of Newfoundl to conclude that workers need additional legal mechanisms to counterbalance the enormous economic weight of giant multinational companies, also led the USW to redouble its efforts to build a global network of workers communities to expose Vale s disregard for human rights to organize resistance on a global basis; WHEREAS, our Union has supported the efforts of the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF), the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine General Workers Unions (ICEM), the Building Wood Workers International (BWI) to further the unity of workers around the world through the organization of global trade union networks that enable workers to share information about working conditions lay the groundwork for coordinated bargaining with multinational companies, that have provided important support to our members at Gerdau, ArcelorMittal, Vale other companies; WHEREAS, our Union has played a major role in strengthening the work of the IMF ICEM in promoting global campaigns against employers who violate labor human rights as the foundation of current future international work; WHEREAS, USW campaigns against Grupo Mexico Vale have greatly strengthened cooperation among major mining unions in the world;
WHEREAS, the IMF, the ICEM, the International Textile, Garment Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) have announced that they will join together in 2012 to form a new global union representing some 50 million industrial workers, thereby strengthening labor s ability to regulate capital, coordinate bargaining with multinational companies, organize along supply chains run effective campaigns; WHEREAS, the USW UNITE in the U.K. Irel will soon hold the first Congress of the Workers Uniting Global Union, further strengthening our joint initiatives through Workers Uniting to St Up Fight Back against right-wing austerity policies on both sides of the Atlantic, to support organizing bargaining at common employers, to fight for justice in the global economy; WHEREAS, supported by Workers Uniting, the Institute for Global Labour Human Rights has initiated the unprecedented organizing efforts of shipbreaking workers in Bangladesh exposed the failure of the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement to prevent the shocking exploitation sexual abuse of migrant workers in garment factories producing for the U.S. market; WHEREAS, our Union has formed strategic alliances with labor unions around the globe, including: The Australian Workers Union (AWU)) the Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union (CFMEU) in Australia, the Unified Workers Central (CUT) the National Confederation of Metalworkers (CNM/CUT) in Brazil, the Industrial Union of Metalworkers (IG Metall) in Germany, the Authentic Workers Front (FAT) the National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic (Los Mineros) in Mexico; WHEREAS, the USW has announced a process of unification with the National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSSRM) to create a single entity representing mining metal workers throughout the NAFTA region, building on the SNTMMSSRM s achievements in bargaining the highest wage benefit increases in Mexico organizing more than 5,000 new workers in auto parts mining, our history of cooperation at common employers including American Steel Foundries, ArcelorMittal, Dana, Grupo Mexico Johnson Controls, our joint campaign to St Up Fight Back against the brutal anti-labor policies of the Mexican Government which has refused to recognize the SNTMMSSRM s elected leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, filed baseless criminal charges against Gómez other union leaders which have been dismissed by the Mexican courts, frozen the union s bank accounts, set up company unions, brutally attacked murdered striking workers; WHEREAS, the USW has provided training support in the areas of health safety, collective bargaining, membership mobilization, organizing women's empowerment through Women of Steel to support the growth of the Liberian trade union movement in the rubber, mining forestry sectors where we have industries employers in common, leading to collective bargaining agreements that have
reduced quotas for rubber tappers, helping to prevent child labor as well as introducing more humane means of transporting latex; WHEREAS, the USW has condemned the proposed U.S. free trade agreements with Colombia, where trade unionists continue to be murdered with impunity government policies systematically undermine collective bargaining; in Korea, where the government continues to violently repress workers efforts to exercise their rights to strike, bargain organize; in Panama; WHEREAS, the determined political action of the USW in Canada, working with our progressive allies, was able to delay passage of the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement for more than one year; WHEREAS, the USW has supported the Mining Maritime Initiative to build strategic links between unions in the mining maritime transportation industries around the world; WHEREAS, the USW, in partnership with the Canadian Network of Corporate Accountability, led the campaign to pass Bill C-300, a bill to hold Canadian mining companies accountable for violations of worker human rights in their overseas operations; WHEREAS, the USW backs the efforts of the Publish What You Pay Coalition to require that multinational mining petroleum companies disclose all of their payments to foreign governments; WHEREAS, Canadian Steelworkers, through the Steelworkers Humanity Fund, have played a key role in building international alliances that have strengthened labor social movements in developing countries; WHEREAS, the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center has provided critical support for the efforts of the USW the global federations to develop partnerships with unions in developing countries to defend fundamental labor rights. THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that: (1) The United Steelworkers will continue to build a global solidarity movement to St Up for economic social justice a sustainable environment Fight Back against corporations right wing governments. (2) Our Union will continue to establish mutually beneficial global alliances with key trade union partners in all sectors who share our willingness to commit resources to build workers power through organizing, bargaining political action, while we construct a new global union for industrial workers that builds trade union power to challenge multinational corporations.
(3) The USW will continue to build alliances coalitions at home abroad with activists including environmentalists, students, religious, civil human rights, immigrant, women s senior citizens groups to dem respect for fundamental human rights democracy everywhere. (4) Our Union will build alliances to guarantee that core labor stards including the right to organize or join a union without reprisal, the right to bargain collectively to strike without the threat of being permanently replaced, the prohibition of forced child labor, worker-supported stards for minimum wages, hours of work occupational health safety will be effectively enforced in all trade agreements built into the structure of the global economy. (5) We will work to educate our members about the ways in which violations of labor rights declining living stards in other countries adversely affect our workplaces communities, we will develop practical strategies to engage members in transnational organizing, bargaining solidarity campaigns.