Thorpe's Paper on Globalization

[Steve Clem <cclem@kent.edu>]

While Vic Thorpe's piece on globalization, which was put together for the
ICEM (International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General
Workers Unions) Congress in 1999, may not take up a great deal of space
devoted to worker ownership, I think it represents an excellent statement
of support for employee ownership from a major international trade union
secretariat.  I would call your attention to the following paragraphs which
are excerpted from the piece:


"Organized labor has an important and direct role to play in bringing the
corporation back        to society.  Those who control companies have become
increasingly remote from the    process of production over recent decades.
Power has shifted from the entrepreneur boss,   the inventor and the
industrialist to banks, financiers and directors who are largely        unknown
to the workers who toil in the factories that they command.

        ..........The broader social interest is usually best served by 
investment
decisions based on      the longer-term view and by investors firmly rooted
within their community or country of    origin.  Supplements to this
investment entering from outside should likewise be required    to conform to
the longer-term interests of the community.  The danger posed by
globalization springs primarily from its tendency to encourage unstable,
flighty                 investments that switch their allegiance from country 
to country
according to their own  criteria of advantage."

     Having said this, the ICEM Congress goes on to lay out what it
considers the best way to get there:

        "The best way to ensure that investment stays loyal to its roots is to
give a solid stake in   the company to the workers and the community who
have invested their lives and the       infrastructure of their town to its
maintenance.  A new power relationship needs to be      built within the
company.  Real decision-making power, reinforced by legal ownership
rights, needs to be vested in the workers of the undertaking and in the
communities     within which they operate.  Countries that already have such
laws have a better record of    capital stability than others.  However,
these laws and advantages, achieved historically at     the national level,
are now under pressure from the force of globalization and will need a
strong defense........

        We need to recapture the moral high ground with claims that those who
are employed and        who live around the plant should have their natural
rights protected at least as thoroughly         as those who are only owners of
the property.  Workers should be recognized as those    who have made the
most personal investment in the undertaking.  Their years of labor      have
established a natural right of "work equity" within the company that is
more    fundamental and more valid that the interest of those who have only a
passing                 relationship to the value of its shares.  The local 
community
that has provided               infrastructure and support services to the 
factory has
also made an equally valid              investment in the future of the 
undertaking.
Labor needs to campaign for recognition of      these rights under the law.
For example, before companies are allowed to close a plant,     to merge it or
to sell it, why should workers and the local community not have a
recognized legal right of first option to buy it at preferential rates?
Why should              bankruptcy laws put workers and the community at the 
end of
the queue for           compensation rather than first?"


The ICEM has also been pushing in recent years for what they refer to as
global collective agreements.  They have entered into a couple of these
thus far, and they are talking with other multinational corporations.  The
ICEM is also part of the UN's Global Compact, established this past summer.