To eradicate poverty is in the heart of trade union agenda but the situation is worsening Md Mojibur Rahman Bhuiyan

Trade unions all over the world are celebrating the May Day this year in a globalized economy with a call to eradicate poverty from the world and to create decent jobs. Globalisation continuous to be the number one challenge facing the trade union movement Worldwide.

Bangladesh is not an exception. We must admit the fact that globalisation has the potential to raise the living standards of working people by ensuring the improvement of the level of employment, workers right and better working conditions at the work place.

I believe Globalisation could benefit workers throughout the world. But globalisation has badly affected the workers specially the poor people around the globe. The growing inequalities in the global economy between and within the countries show that workers and their communities, particularly those most in need of industrial and agricultural development, are not receiving equitable share of the wealth they help to create.

The international financial institutions like IMF, World Bank, WTO and ADB are working for the rich people and rich countries. The poor has become poorer, rich become richer. That is gap is widening. Most of the goals of the millennium development goals specially to eradicate poverty and hunger by 2015 seems to be unachievable. To eradicate poverty is in the heart of trade union agenda but the situation is worsening.

Food crisis and incredible price hike due to food shortage in many countries had made the situation worst for the fixed income group specially the poor and working class people. Recent price hike of food and essential commodities in the international market resulted in unprecedented food crisis in developing and poor countries.

The poor people and working class people are the worst victim of this food crisis. People believe that this food crisis is due to the wrong prescriptions of international financial institutions like IMF and the World Bank.

The prescribed many governments to invest industrial sector and withdrew subsidies from agricultural sector where rich countries continue to grant subsidies to their agriculture. In 1970 the number of poor countries in the world was 24 and in 2007 it was 56. 1.2 billion people still live on one US dollar a day or less.

Three billion people earn 2 US dollars a day or less. About 35 percent of the working population lives under poverty line in developing countries. The wealth of one percent rich people is more than that of 57 percent poor people. They are called the working people. One billion workers have lost their jobs while 1.85 billion people are unemployed, 245 million children engaged in hazardous jobs. They work form 5 to 17 hours a day.

Nearly 1I million children under five die each year, most form easily treatable diseases. 860 million aged people are illiterate. About 114 million children can not go to high school after primary education. 1.3 billion people have no access to the pure drinking water. Every year five hundred thousands women die during pregnancy.

This is in short the global picture. Trade unions believe this situation is created by IMF, World Bank, WTO and MNCs that is by human beings, which is unacceptable. Now IMF and World Bank even influence the government’s policy in developing countries. They are more powerful than the UN and its specialized agencies.

TNCs/MNCs are continuously accumulating wealth by any means and control the world economy and trade. After the meeting in Seattle, the collapse of the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico and Hong Kong has clearly demonstrated the inability of the international trading system to tackle the basic issue of sustainable development and address the needs of workers, poor people and underdeveloped countries.

It has created a crisis of confidence among the WTO’s member countries, while leading to questioning of the organizations credibility and legitimacy among general public. The WTO’s rules are widely seen as being geared towards the interests of rich countries and Multinational Corporations as favouring the strong against the weak.

The fundamental mission of the labour movement is to improve workers, working and living conditions, and to ensure that workers rights are respected. But it should be openly admitted that Trade Unions have failed to face the challenges and also failed to make economic globalisations serve the people of the world specially the workers and poor people.

Trade Union movement at national and international level can not remain silent to face this difficult situation. It might be very difficult job to face the enormous challenges of economic globalization but of course, it is not an impossible task.

In this critical juncture, the world’s largest Trade Union organization, International Confederation of Free Trade UnionICFTU and World Confederation of Labour -WCL together created a new confederation namely International Trade Union Confederation- ITUC to better serve the interests of workers.

While at the international level, trade unions have been unified, here in Bangladesh multiplicity of trade unions continues and we have now 33 national centers where only 3 percent of the total workforce are organised into trade unions.

How weak we are? The trade unions have become more political than ever before. Even we the trade unions could not organise a grand rally against the onslaught of globalisation on workers and their families.

Workers in informal sector can not form union. many industries have been closed and workers lost their jobs. Workers in many sectors including garment are compelled to work for even more than 10 to 12 hours a day.

Where as the spirit of May Day is that working time should be 8 hours. Challenges are mounting , they are complex and complicated, ever growing and we are watching silently. To face the enormous challenges trade unions in Bangladesh, we need to build one strong unified democratic trade union federation at national level which should be independent of any political parties and the government.

Only one national center in only a one step forward to reach to our goal to protect the workers rights. There are plenty of works to be done after the creation of one national centers such as organising the unorganised, education, training of workers and leaders, building alliance with friendly organisations etc. to face the enormous challenges of globalisation and to reap the fruit of globalisation.

So on this great occasion of May Day, I humbly appeal to the understanding and wisdom of all trade union leaders to forge unity, to build one democratic independent national trade union federation in Bangladesh to better serve and protect the interest and rights of workers of Bangladesh. There is no time to wait. — The writer is General Secretary, Bangladesh Mukto Sramik Federation