SPEAKING at the plenary session of the 89th International Labour Conference on behalf of the Trade Union International of Public and Allied Employees, representing 20 million public employees of different countries, its general secretary Sukomal Sen appealed to the ILO governing body and the conference delegates to pay proper attention to the problems raised here, so that appropriate remedial steps could be taken to set the worrying situation right.

Sen’s contention was that workers of the world are passing through an unprecedented difficult period today. Never before had the jobs of the workers and employees been so jeopardised and the workers rendered so insecure. The cause is the World Bank-IMF-dictated structural adjustment programme that has in practice proved to be definitely anti-worker. The public sector employees, either in developing or in advanced capitalist countries, have become direct victims of the neo-liberal economy and structural adjustment programme.

The basic tenets of neo-liberal globalisation, Sen elaborated, are privatisation and drastic cuts in public expenditure. Amid the heavy debt burden of the developing countries and the reappearance of recession in the developed capitalist countries, the basic tenet of the structural adjustment programme is privatisation of public enterprises and even of public services. Drastic cuts in social security measures like health care, education, housing, pension benefits, etc, and reduction of staff are also parts of this agenda.

As the public sector industries are being closed down or privatised, thousands of workers and employees are being rendered unemployed. Employees of the financial sector are hard hit as the governments in both developing and developed countries are taking mindless steps for privatisation. Workforce in this sector is being hastily reduced, there is no new employment and joblessness has assumed formidable dimensions. The deepening economic crisis is also leading to banking crashes as in Japan recently and in some south-east Asian countries.

Privatisation of other government departments and enterprises is also taking place --- from telecom to postal services to railway services. In several countries, many government departments are being privatised or simply closed down. Casualisation of staff, increase in home-based workers, steady reduction in regular and permanent employment in public services are the order of the day in all countries.

Sen further said the situation in former socialist countries --- Russia, other CIS countries and east European countries --- seems to be the worst. There is not only rampant privatisation and sharp reduction in staff; even the existing employees are not being paid their salaries.

Public sector employees have therefore started resisting this onslaught. The recent strikes of public employees and other sections of the working class in different parts of the globe are an indication that the workers are determined to resist this offensive.

Unfortunately, the governments in various, particularly developing, countries are desperately trying to stall these rising struggles through draconian anti-worker measures. In countries like South Korea, anti-employee laws have been made. In India, retrograde amendments to existing labour laws are on the agenda of the government. In Pakistan, the authoritarian regime is suppressing all trade union activities.

Sen then said that in this background the ILO director general’s report for 2001, which advocates a consensus on globalisation, seems to be unrealistic. As globalisation is directly against the working class and the poor, and serves the profit interests of the MNCs and the advanced capitalist countries, there is practically no room for consensus on it. On the contrary, the unprecedented economic offensive of capitalist globalisation has to be stopped forthwith. Sen’s hope was that the ILO would protect the workers’ interests from this onslaught.

Sen clarified that the TUI recognises the ILO’s important role today and desires its strengthening. He wanted to have an ILO that is more effective in enforcing international labour standards. The ILO’s functioning and decision making must involve all segments of the trade union movement. Like other UN bodies, the ILO is also being subjected to financial and other forms of pressure by the forces of neo-liberalism and by the governments who seek to hegemonise it. This is leading to certain negative developments to which the TUI is striving to draw the attention of the world trade union movement.