AMERICAS
Solidarity versus competition The following interview with Hector de la Cueva, adviser at the Centre for Research on Labour and Trade Union Aid (CILAS) in Mexico, was conducted by Gonzalo Molina in February 1991.
HAT will the "Latin W
American Initiative Plan" (LAIP) proposed by Bush mean concretely for Latin America, and more particularly Mexico?
The United States is seeking to respond to growing world economic competition and to assert its hegemony at all levels. Europe is going forward in the constitution of a more united entity and Japan has formed a block around itself in Asia, the United States is thus trying to create another in the American continent.
The LAIP is intended to overcome the existing obstacles which would prevent the multinational companies and the US government from organizing the economy of the whole of the continent according to their needs. When the United States speaks of "free trade" agreements or of the creation of a "big market" with the Latin American countries, this has nothing to do with the accords signed in Canada; the initiative is not going to create a big market, because the relations which exist between the United States and Latin America are marked by inequality. • What is the real goal of the US government?
First, it wants to control the future potential market. Then, and this is essential, the US wants to be able to count on cheap labour to be able to compete with the other economic blocs; in other words, it is not about winning new markets, but primarily about being in a better position to compete economically. Finally, the United States wants to exercise a downward pressure on the standard of living and the gains of the working class in Canada and in the United States itself. The Free Trade Agreement signed between the United States and Canada has already meant unemployment for thousands of Canadian workers (15,000 redundancies 10 are spoken of). The Canadian bourgeoisie has taken advantage of the signature of International Viewpoint #205 • April 29, 1991 this agreement to make attacks on the standard of living of the workers, their gains, benefits, social security and so on, which were better than those of the US workers. We are witnessing then a process of levelling down of the standard of living which, with the Free Trade Agreements, will descend from the north towards the south.
The multinationals exert blackmail against the workers; the Canadians will be forced to accept worse working conditions, otherwise — and this is where the blackmail comes in - the factories will close and go south to the United States. If the US workers do not accept lower wages, the firms will close down and move out, and transform themselves into maquiLadoras?, in northern Mexico or wherever the labour force is cheaper — the Americas initiative has a tendency to become continental. • If this agreement has already been turned against the interests of the workers of two of the seven most powerful countries of the western world, what will happen to the Latin American workers?
In Mexico, as elsewhere in Latin America, the signing of the free trade agreements will underpin the maintenance of a very low standard of living, for the only way a country like ours can enter into competition on the open market is through the availability of a cheap labour force. Our government thus tries to keep wages very low.
The workers of the industrialized contries will see themselves forced to accept worse working conditions, and those of Latin America will hardly be able to survive.
This deterioration is the direct consequence of the economic projects being applied in Latin America - with the multiplication of the maquiladoras in Mexico (in a few years, the number of workers employed there has gone from 100,000 to 500,000), where the workers have no social protection and very bad working conditions, the level of trade unionization being very weak. The Mexican workers have despite everything extracted some gains — it is necessary to fight for these to be extended to this sector.
The free trade agreements also affect the small and medium bosses. In Mexico, some industrial branches like those of toys, shoes or textiles have suffered since the beginning of the 1980s because of the changing of the law on foreign investments and the opening of our frontiersother countries have been able to penetrate our markets. With the Free Trade Agreements this situation is going to worsen; the big multinationals and their local associates will be the main beneficiaries of it. • This offensive obviously takes other forms...
We are seeing the emergence of other phenomena, such as privatization on the grand scale. In Mexico, nearly 85% of nationalized enterprises have been sold or put up for sale. There is also the "national agreement on productivity" , which seeks to impose norms on the trade unions to increase productivity without wage rises. The labour laws are also being reformed.
At the same time, in some countries some kinds of "social programmes" are applied which, beyond their political objectives, seek to replace rights gained and established by laws and institutions by public charity, with state expenditure supposedly being directed to the aid of the most deprived sectors. This is part of the logic of the dismantling of the benefactor state and its replacement by what is called in Mexico the "solidarity state" — a state which is supposed to channel its resources to those most in need. In Mexico there is already a National Programme of Solidarity and in Peru a Social Compensation Programme.
In sum, the United States is trying to put all America on the same level; equalizing of levels of productivity, work methods, and so on. Only the workers will be differentiated; the Mexican workers will still earn 11 or 12 times less than the North Americans. • But at exactly what stage is this process of economic integration?
In certain countries, such as Mexico, the negotiations are going forward very quickly. The objectives are well defined; in the last report of his government, Presi-
dent Salinas de con de sa. dent Salinas de Gortari defined things very clearly; "We want Mexico to be part of the 'first world', not the third world" But it is attempting to get there not through the independent development of the country, but, on the contrary, through a total and absolute subordination to US imperialism.
Mexico is trying to enter the first world" by the same path as Puerto Rico, which is a totally dominated country. The free trade negotiations are a violation of national sovereignty. Mexico also serves as a platform to advance the LAIP in the rest of the continent. Negotiations have recently begun with the countries of Central America; Salinas has travelled in South America to encourage free trade agreements with the countries of that region.
The Mexican government paved the way for the United States, but it hopes also to become a bridge for trade between imperialism and the rest of the continent.
This "free trade" zone has nothing in common with the project of European economic unity. If it is true that in Europe there are also hegemonic temptations on the part of certain countries, the inequalities are not so marked and the countries have a similar level of development — in America this "unity" would be between some industrialized countries and others which are extremely backward, it would be subordinated to the big multinationals of the United States and Canada.
At this level, it is necessary to differentiate between the defence of the rights of workers, even those of Canada and the United States, and the appearance of chauvinist manifestations — campaigns of this type have already been seen, and they certainly do not represent an alternative. So far as Canada is concerned, we can agree with the numerous trade unions which are opposed to integration, but we are not in agreement with opposing "Canadian nationalism" to "Mexican nationalism". • Concretely, what should be the response of workers and trade unions to Bush's project?
Contacts, links and meetings between workers and trades unionists of different countries — notably with those of North America, with which the negotiations are most advanced — are beginning to spread; this is the way to find an alternative to respond to the process of integration. In 1990, a meeting of Mexican and Canadian trades unionists took place, ending with a common communiqué concerning the Free Trade Agreement. There has also been a meeting between US and Mexican trade unionists, with some Canadians also present.
In 1991, a Canada/US/Mexico meeting should take place; some meetings of branches or service sectors are planned to seek common solutions and above all to break the competition that the multinationals and imperialism attempt to sow tionals and imperialism attempt to sow between the interests of the North American workers and those of Latin America.
The response which the workers must make can be situated at three levels. First, they must show a clear political opposition to the Bush project, for it is by its nature totally antidemocratic - in Mexico, for example, the agreement has never been submitted to the population, or to its political or social representatives; it has been negotiated by the governments, the multinationals and their local acolytes.
Then, it is necessary to underline that this process of integration subordinates the national economies to the big multinational companies. This does not mean having an autarkic position, saying that each country should go its own way, but rather preventing these agreements from blocking the possibility of an independent development of the Latin American countries.
Mexico, for example, could demand that measures of compensation are established in relation to its foreign debt or other elements which have aggravated its economic backwardness; such conditions could be imposed in all the negotiations which are undertaken with other countries.
The economic subordination imposed on Latin America vis-a-vis the United States affects its sovereignty; this could have repercussions in the political domain.
However, to the extent that this project of economic integration advances, and to the extent that the relationship of forces today does not allow its defeat, it is necessary to prepare a practical response.
The social organizations must make concrete propositions for negotiation, for example concerning the labour force. The US is trying to put pressure on Mexico for the agreement to include oil — up to now the Mexican government has refused.
The problem of immigration of Mexican workers to the United States also fits into this framework. It is necessary to fight so that wages are levelled up, not down. If there are agreements on free trade and productivity, it is necessary that the wages go up and that the conditions of work and standard of living are raised to the level of the north. The same goes for the rights of workers and for problems like those of the environment.
Foreign companies subject to severe environmental protection legislation in the United States often shut down and move to Mexico where they dump their toxic waste and contaminate the environment.
The laws should be the same, so that the US bosses cannot escape their own rules and go to pollute elsewhere. Labour legislation and human rights also are more and more violated in our country; the social organizations and the trade unions must demand that they are respected. But all this can only be achieved through strug gle. gle.
AMERICAS
Everything that is happening in our country is part of a strategy designed by the multinationals; the trade unions and the workers must oppose common strategies to this project. The "multinationalization" of the trade unions has even been suggested, going beyond frontiers. • But in the current situation that is not easy....
Effectively, this would be difficult and complicated. In the United States and in Canada, there have already been some experiences of this kind and the results have not been very good - the auto trade union in Canada ended up by separating from its equivalent in the United States. But we can go forward with common actions, common demands, common platforms, cooperation agreements; all this is possible and necessary.
We have already made some steps forward in this direction culminating in the meetings I mentioned. What has been done in relation to Ford is a good example. The Canadian trade union, some sections in the United States and Mexican Ford workers decided that January 8 would henceforth be the international day of Ford workers (on January 8, 1990, the hired thugs of the Mexican Confederation of Workers - CTM - attacked the Ford workers of Cuautitlan, in Mexico, leading to nine injuries and a death. This date has become a symbol and Ford workers in Mexico, the United States and Canada put on a headband with the name of the dead worker; Cleto.
Such an action shows that very concrete international workers' actions can be taken; this case could be extended to different branches and to other countries.
From this we could go forward to symbolic demonstrations and more important actions, and a greater coordination in the sense of meetings between branches. A meeting of the car workers of other countries of the continent, like Brazil, is already planned, as well as in the telecommunications sector; such coordinations could end up with engagements, agreements, declarations or joint actions. It is essential to develop this type of initiative; from this a concrete alternative could emerge, which is not merely ideological.
The workers of the United States and Canada are becoming conscious of this necessity. During a meeting in Minnesota, in the United States, an appeal was launched "For solidarity and against competition". North American trades unionists have understood that the best way to defend all workers is to defend the lowest; only in this way can we defend living standards, and stop blackmail and lockouts. * 1. See International Viewpoint no. 191, October 1, 2. Sec International Viempoint no. 196, Docember 10, 11 1990. April 29, 1991 • #205 International Viewpoint