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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 May 1999 Issue No. 428
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Special Focus Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 'The right to live'
By Faiza RadyAcross the globe this year's traditional May Day celebrations were seriously dampened by the relentless NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the disastrous worldwide unemployment crisis resulting from last year's global stock market crashes, which has since rippled through the world's economies causing a severe recessionary cycle. Global unemployment trends are going from bad to worse as firms declare bankruptcy, plants close their doors and millions of workers lose their jobs. A staggering one billion workers, representing one third of the world's labour force, are currently unemployed or underemployed, and survive on less than one dollar a day.
Accordingly, the mood was sombre on this May Day 1999. Worldwide, workers denounced the savage NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, and demanded the right to work and the right to a decent standard of living as their unalienable human rights, enshrined in allegedly binding international treaties such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Calls to stop NATO bombs resounded across Europe, along with demands that governments address the unemployment crisis. An estimated 18 million West Europeans are jobless and live in dire poverty. "The long-term unemployed have poor prospects of finding a job even if the overall macroeconomic environment improves," stated the 1998 International Labour Organisation Report.
At Germany's biggest rally in the city of Saarbrücken, leftist former Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine -- who recently resigned due to political differences with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder -- demanded an immediate halt to NATO airstrikes. In Berlin, 5,000 police officers were deployed to prevent confrontations during the marches. The relatively strong NATO protest movement in Germany reflects the people's discontent that the newly-elected social democratic administration should have so readily joined the assault on Yugoslavia. This is Germany's first military engagement since World War II.
In the Russian capital, the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions reported that 25,000 workers demonstrated to condemn the NATO strikes and denounce President Boris Yeltsin's ill-fated neo-liberal policies and market reform programmes, which have bankrupted the country and brought Russian workers to the verge of starvation. A parliamentary commission recently voted to start impeachment proceedings against Yeltsin charging him -- among other things -- with conducting genocidal economic policies against the Russian people.
Moscow mayor and potential presidential contender, Yuri Luzhkov, blasted Yeltsin's dependence on the West as a result of his constant borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). "It's time Russia stopped kneeling down in front of the IMF, which is telling Russia what to do with our economy," Luzhkov told the cheering crowd.
In Indonesia, workers rejoiced at their first May Day celebration in 32 years. International labour day was regarded as a "communist" festival by former dictator Suharto, who banned both public marches and trade unions. This year, with both unemployment and underemployment rampant at an estimated 20 million people, an already militant working class was further radicalised as it took to the streets. In downtown Jakarta, some 1,000 workers and students marched across the city chanting "labourers unite against oppression", among other slogans demanding jobs, better working conditions and the release of political prisoners. The marchers were backed by thousands of supporters from political parties, who drove in convoys around the capital waving flags and chanting slogans.
In South Korea 30,000 workers and radical students -- surrounded by 20,000 riot police -- staged a rally in central Seoul, denouncing the underemployment of an estimated 45 per cent of the work force, in addition to creeping unemployment affecting some four million people.
"What have we done wrong? All we did was work hard and make the chaebols [conglomerates] what they are today. Now we have to pay for what the management did wrong," chanted the workers. The marchers threatened to paralyse the city, should the government continue its policies of fiscal austerity and authorise further industrial cutbacks.
In China, the government warned workers that they should stay off the streets. "All workers should fully understand that stability should take priority", warned the Communist Party's People's Daily, adding that "the stable unity of the present situation conforms with the fundamental interests of the working class." The government is especially weary of workers' protests: demonstrations have become an integral part of life in China over the last few years, with workers across the country protesting daily against lay-offs and poor wages and working conditions, as well as non-payment of salaries.
Faced with a heavy police presence around Beijing and the threat of massive repression in case of non-compliance with the government's dictates, workers and their leaders -- who are seeking to establish free trade unions -- addressed their demands to the legislature, the National People's Congress. In an open letter to the congress, the workers demanded a revision of trade union laws. All trade unions are at present government-affiliated. Denouncing the official All China Federation of Trade Unions as totally state-controlled, the workers described the federation as "having become a vassal to the central government".
But it was Japan, a country that has been locked into recession since the beginning of the decade, which witnessed the largest demonstrations of all. Some 1.9 million workers rallied at 1,100 locations across the country on Saturday, telling the government in no uncertain terms to guarantee employment security and create jobs for the 3.39 million workers currently unemployed -- a record high for the country. "We are facing an unprecedented job security crisis," declared Etsuya Washio, head of the eight-million-strong Japanese Trade Union Confederation.
Japan's decade-long recessionary impasse can be traced back to US protectionist and tariffs policies, which then president Ronald Reagan established in the early 1980s to halt the influx of competitive Japanese products from swamping the American market.
Although the US continues to protect its own manufacturing base, the Clinton administration has strongly pressured Japan to deregulate further and rid itself of its "archaic protectionism".
As more than 100,000 workers marched in Tokyo on 1 May, denouncing Japan's apparent capitulation to American dictates and the worst employment crisis in modern history, the government got the message loud and clear. Half-way across the world on a visit to Chicago, Japanese Prime Minister, Keizo Obuchi, conceded that unemployment was a direct consequence of unrestrained neo-liberalism. "Unemployment is a result of strenuous efforts at structural reform, including deregulation," said Obuchi.
At the close of this, the last May Day of the 20th century, it was perhaps Lee Kap Yong, head of the powerful Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, who best captured the demonstrators' collective purpose. In Lee's words: "We can no longer allow the government to kill our right to live."
