Unions united against privatization
The Third All Workers Conference held in Mauritius on 21st November united the 21ct Novemher united the trade union movement in a stand against privatization. Lindsey Collen
A majority of the 700 delegates, representing trade unions from most of the country's 300 traditionally disunited unions adopted a 40-page "White Paper" document that had been prepared with input from about 30 unions in sectors faced with privatization.
The Government had promised in the Budget speech in May that it would bring out a White Paper on privatization, but it has still to come up with one. Now, the united trade union movement has brought out its own "White Paper" ", which is a profound onslaught against privatization, from both a philosophical and down-to-earth point of view. In effect, a national campaign against privatisation has been launched.
In a population of 1.2 million, the response to the three successive All Workers Conferences has been suprising.
The first All Workers Conference, held in April, was on the impact of IMF, World Bank, WTO and government policies on working people. It attracted 1,200 delegates. The second, in June, was on the Government Budget. Once the delegates start to become active, as they have since about March this year during preparation for the first Conference that was attended by 1,200 delegates, this involvement then, in turn, works towards further unity of the trade union movement. Delicious Mautitius?
The Republic of Mauritius, already portrayed for some fifteen years by the international media and by tourist advertisements as a multi-island paradise state, has for the past five or six years got a new identity. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have decided to call Mauritius a "model" for other African and Asian states. "The Mauritian miracle" they call it. And proceed to tell how Mauritius was a country that was submerged in problems like over-population and unemployment, and has been transformed by the Washington-based money-lenders into a modern wonder of full employment, high average wages and fairly steady economic growth
True, until recently there was full employment in Mauritius. Why? For the simple on that protectionist measures (the very le of the IMF and World Bank philo-
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- © Stue fell 1996 - 325-39-N-
Britain severed the Chagos and Diego Garcia Islands from Mauritius territory before allowing independence. Now Britain rents the islands to the US Armed Forces, which has used Diego
Garcia to launch bombing raids on Irag. sophy) kept the sugar industry and the free zone textile factories in business.
Wages, it should be mentioned, are not high in paradise: in free zone factories are $US 100 per month for machinists and less for unskilled workers. For hotel workers, the wages are similar, and for agricultural labourers around $120-150 per month. Conditions are not good either: overtime is compulsory, and there is a generalized, if illegal practice whereby bosses make new recruits sign forms that they will not join a union. In addition, all strikes are illegal.
Average wages are as high as $300 per month partly because of social inequality. It recently became known that a restaurant manager who took an industrial dispute against her boss to a Court had been earning US$6,000 per month, for example. Proud tradition
Mauritian workers have consistently opposed and rejected the IMF and World Bank conditions. Until today, for example, flour and rice are subsidised. The government removed these food subsidies in 1992 under pressure from the IMF and World Bank, lost a by-election, and had to reinstate the subsidies. Health and medicines are still universal and free. Education up to university level is still free. The Government has not had room to manoevre.
This resistance to the destructive conditions and dictates of the IMF and World Bank seems to be what has kept Mauritian society going relatively well.
Nevertheless, there is a great deal of poverty. Successive Governments have, as a result of their own politics and the pressures in the same direction from the IMF and World Bank, gone ahead and closed down the social housing programme set up in 1960, even before Independence. And the new profit-making housing programme means that monthly rentals are higher than peoples whole monthly incomes, as defined by government legislation.
One in five head of household is a woman, and women's wages are often less than $100 US per month. Prices are as high as any capital city in Europe. This means that more than half of the country's people live below the poverty datum line, a minimum to stay alive, calculated by a church organization.
The full employment depended on exceptional protectionist measures, like those introduced by other countries that split at the time of gaining independence Such protectionist measures, whatever their historical reason are measures that the WTO will not tolerate.
And so, it is very important that the trade union movement in Mauritius has started to mobilize its entire working class base, to build up a national challenge to the conditions of the Washington based institutions and to the supposed logic of the WTO and its politics of "free trade" and "markets" and "economic growth". "* The author is a member of the Lalit revolutionary socialist group, and a supporter of the workers education organization Ledikasyon pu Travayers.
January 1997 #284 7
* Mexico Transformation and regroupment
Ath Congr of the Fourt International The collapse of Stalinism and the continuing capitalist crisis has contradictory effects. Myths and illusions connected to the restoration of capitalism in the post-Stalinist societies have dissipated, faced with the actually existing market economy. But reactions to the socio-economic crisis all too often take the form of reactionary tendencies of an ethnic, nationalist, racial or religious character. Hence the urgent need to rebuild a world-wide movement of anti-capitalist struggle, taking account of the recomposition of the workers' movement which is underway as a result of the double failure of social democracy and Stalinism. Regroupments of forces determined to learn the lessons of the historical abomination that was Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and the tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a number of countries. In all the countries where such possibilities exist, the organisations of the Fourth International are ready to be part of the re-groupment process. We consider this as an important step towards the recomposition of the anticapitalist left on a world scale. At the international level, the Fourth International is an active participant in regroupment, bringing with it the advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and Stalinism. * Price: E5/$10/60FF plus 10% postage charge for orders of 1-4 copies. Order from your local agent, or directly from International Viewpoint, RP 85 75522 Paris cedey 11 France BP 85, 75522 Paris cedex 11, France 8 International Viewpoint
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