Issue No 5 | 19 March 1999 | |
NewsKelty Sees Global Minimum Wage On Horizon
ACTU secretary Bill Kelty has predicted the development of a global minimum wage as an inevitable consequence of the rise of an international labour consciousness.
Addressing this week's FIET World Congress, Kelty said unions would increasingly act across national borders to match the power of global capital. This would transform bodies like the ILO from protectors of developing nations to major players in the economy of the new millennium. "For a great part of the last generation of Australian union leaders, we believed that the ILO was an organisation that gave protection to those developing countries which needed it," Kelty said. "We understood and appreciated that that was its role and we contributed to that role as best we could. But we never did think that we too could be totally dependent upon the ILO and the United Nations. We have now learnt that no nation, no matter how well organised, no matter how strong their wages and working conditions are can be isolated from the rest of the world and isolated from other unions." Kelty said the notion of an international minimum wage would become a reality because unions had the capacity to undercut colleagues abroad in light of the mobility of global capital "To organise a company in this country without understanding how it operates in other parts of the world is naive and simple and wrong." And he said the Internet would be an increasingly important tool in linking up union members around the world. "I look forward to the time where every union member in the world is connected by internet and that we have a community of understanding," he said. Earlier, Kelty addressed the conference on the issue of organising and recruitment, laying out what he thought Australian unions were doing well and where he thought they could do better: Here's a summary of his address: * What has worked well: - the Organising Works program; the ACTU's Organising Unit; trade union training;the openness of senior union leadership to cultural change * Where we are waiting to see the benefits: - the central provision of services like Union Shopper; the amalgamation process(which he concedes has had mixed results) * What has not yet worked: - linking wages with education and industrial restructuring (the Carmichael plan); attempting to deal co-operatively with employers; countering the myths of unionism; achieving a fundamental cultural change within unions * The things that are being tested: - greater delegate involvement; greater use of the Internet; a new services approach After the speech, Kelty was swamped by local media more interested in when he intended leaving his position at the ACTU. Kelty fended off questions with one promise: to make any decision through the union structures and not through the media.
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Interview: Towards An Information International FIET general secretary Phillip Jennings talks about the development of the Union Network International and its potential to organise globally. Unions: The Integral Price of Loyalty Workers at Integral Energy are asking for their share of the fruits of power reform. History: A Very Public History Historian Ray Markey and Public Service Association General Secretary Janet Good take a look at the union�s first 100 years. Review: Bullworth - Beatty�s Political Rap Warren Beatty makes some gutsy calls in his new film about a politician who, when all else fails, tries the truth. Campaign Diary: The Ultimate Punt As the leaders slug it through the final weeks of the campaign, the armchair critics get their chance to work their pet election theories.
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