ISSN 1655-5295

Education for Development

Vol. 10 No. 2 MARCH-APRIL 2011

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C OVER S TORY Time for a New Paradigm

Sharan Burrow

What does wage-led growth mean in developing countries with large informal employment?
Jayati Ghosh

A new era of social justice based on decent work

Juan Somavia

N EW S Nine months to deliver: tipping point to make development aid effective

BetterAid, OpenForum

Education for Development Magazine

is published by

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Libya Intervention threatens the Arab spring

Phyllis Bennis

Japan: vulnerability and uncertainty prevail in wake of nuclear disaster

Suvendrini Kakuchi

IBON International IBON Foundation, Inc.

IBON Center 114 Timog Avenue, Quezon City 1103 Philippines Website: www.iboninternational.org E-mail Address: ibon.international@ibon.org Tel. Nos. +632 927 7060 to 62 Local 202 Fax +632 927 6981

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Uniting to Lose Our Chains: The International Festival for Peoples Rights and Struggles
IFPRS Secretariat

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S PEC IA L FEAT URE Wisconsin Awakens a Sleeping Giant

Sarah van Gelder and Brooke Jarvis

Antonio Tujan, Jr.

International Director Editor-in-Chief International Department

Mondragn worker co-ops ride out global slump

John Ballantyne

EDSA and the Philippine Economy: 25 years after

Sonny Africa

Paul Quintos Maria Theresa Nera-Lauron

Editorial Board Cover and Layout Design
Ron Villegas

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Europes Austerity: Like Something Out of the Brothers Grimm

Conn Hallinan

Photo Credits
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MOV IE RE VIEW GASLAND

Jeff Leins

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FACT S & FIGU RES Global employment trends

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COVER STORY

Time for a New Paradigm

By Sharan Burrow

ese are truly times for anger. e world is barely re-emerging from the deepest economic crisis in a century, yet the very policies and mindset that caused the problem in the rst place are back with a vengeance. Indeed, the world economy risks sliding back into crisis as dangerously short-sighted policies are put into place. e brave words of reform from world leaders in the G20 meetings of 2009 are now largely forgo en and have been replaced with the old scriptures of scal consolidation and calls to address the fundamentals. And thus the world is fast slipping into a self-defeating round of competitive austerity where everyone seeks salvation from austerity at home through export-led growth. is is a strategy that might have worked for some for a time, but those days are gone: credit-driven consumption in a few key countries can no longer make up for the lack of wage-driven consumption worldwide. Weakness in wage growth has been shown to be a prime cause of the crisis. is should come as no surprise: with globalization there has been a growing disconnection between wage growth and productivity. Whereas worker compensation rose in parallel with the improvement of productivity until the early 1980s, overly restrictive monetary policies, trade liberalization, labour market deregulation and employers strategies have combined since then to weaken this link. e consequences are now well documented: the share of labour income has dropped in

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COVER STORY
Figure 1: Change in wage share, 1995-2005

TRADE DEFICIT COUNTRIES

Source: World of Work Report 2010, ILO.

TRADE SURPLUS COUNTRIES

most countries, inequalities have increased almost everywhere, and consumption has been maintained in large part through credit. What is worse is that since the 1990s the decline in labours share of income has been highly pronounced in countries with trade surpluses (see Figure 1). In other words, the winners of the new global trading system have not shared those gains with their workforce is is pro table for some individual companies, but it is bad for overall growth and prosperity. Ultimately it is unsustainable. With unemployment and household debt still high in some of the key jurisdictions in the world (including both the U.S. and Europe) and with governments engaging in counter-productive austerity, it is more urgent than ever to ensure that workers get their fair share. More than a moral issue, it is also the only way to extricate ourselves from the current macroeconomic mess.

We need a fundamental change in paradigm. First, jobs and decent work can no longer be some collateral by-product of economic policies geared to rolling out the red carpet to investors. Full employment has to become anew the central objective of economic policy, and it should be expected that governments use all their levers scal, monetary, regulatory and industrial to achieve it. In parallel, we need active policies to improve workers capacity to engage in collective bargaining to link wages to productivity growth once again. All of this will require new rules of the game internationally. As it stands, the current international economic and nancial system has given the upper hand to speculators and tax evaders, fostered instability and put the burden of economic adjustment on the parties that were already experiencing di cult times. As a result, the

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fate of entire societies has not improved much over the past thirty years. is needs to change. First, we need to reform the currency system to ensure that adjustment is not achieved mostly by de ating de cit countries, but through re ating surplus nations. In this way, the system would ensure that the adjustment led to more growth for all, not further wage and price depression. is idea is not new; it was rst proposed by J.M. Keynes back in 1944 and has elicited renewed interest recently. Such a system would perhaps entail capital controls of some kind, but that would remain a lesser evil than the costs of disorder. Second, we need new regulations on tax havens as well as on taxes on income and wealth. Controlling tax evasion and tax competition has to become a policy priority. At a time when the average working person is being asked to shoulder the bailout costs of the nancial system, the least that can be asked is that all pay their fair share. Eliminating these loopholes is not nearly as complicated as some make it sound and would bring much needed resources into the scal purse. In the same spirit, the establishment of an international nancial transactions tax to raise new resources would go a long way to make it possible for nancially strapped governments to fund the necessary increase in O cial Development Assistance to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as well as the mitigation costs of climate change. It has been estimated that, for the United States alone, such a tax would conservatively raise in the neighbourhood of $US170 billion, the equivalent of the entire funding of the MDG programme Last but not least, we need a renewed focus around the enhancement and respect of labour standards by all. When it comes to labour rights, the world faces a classic free rider problem. Now more than ever, it is essential to ensure a basic international social oor, that all countries endeavour to respect basic standards and that competitive advantage does not come at the expense of the overexploitation of workers. If it is true that labour is not a commodity, the manner in which we achieve economic prosperity is as important as the goal itself. None of these ideas is particularly radical. What sets them apart from the current orthodoxy is that they give prominence to workers needs and aspirations, and pragmatically de ne a high road to economic development. e experience of the last three years shows that departures from economic orthodoxy are feasible at times when the establishment is going through near-death experiences, but that this does not have a lasting e ect. In hindsight, the brief irt with Keynesianism when the nancial system was on the brink of collapse only lasted as long as it was needed to save the banks. If during the crisis workers organisations could have anticipated that a new era of dialogue had begun, the moment has clearly passed. Our social partners have le the restaurant and presented us with the bill: austerity, tax increases, wage concessions, increased precariousness, public sector retrenchment, cuts in public pensions, and so on. If much of the solution to our problem is international, trade unionists will have to nd ways to exert their power and in uence internationally as we confront the consequences of the crisis. Both opinion polls and the wave of strikes and protests in many countries show the growing discontent with one-sided and short-sighted policy solutions. In times of anger, the moment is certainly not for business as usual

Sharan Burrow is General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). This article was published by global-labouruniversity.org on 21 February 2011.

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COVER STORY

What does wage-led growth mean in developing countries with large informal employment?
By Jayati Ghosh

ips.org

he past decade has been one in which export-led economic strategies have come to be seen as the most successful, driven by the apparent success of two countries in particular - China and Germany. In fact, the export-driven model of growth has much wider prevalence as it was adopted by almost all developing countries. is was associated with suppressing wage costs and domestic consumption in order to remain internationally competitive and to achieve growing shares of world markets as far as possible. Managing exchange rates to remain competitive, despite either current account surpluses or capital in ows, became one of the major elements of this strategy. is was associated with the peculiar situation of rising savings rates and falling investment rates in many developing countries, and to the holding of international reserves that were then sought to be placed in safe assets abroad. is is related to a classic dilemma of mercantilist strategy, which is evident in exaggerated form for the aggressively export-oriented economies of today: they are forced to nance the de cits of those countries that would buy their products, through capital ows that sustain the demand for their own exports, even when these countries have signi cantly higher per capita income than their own. e ows of capital from China and other countries of developing Asia is an egregious example of this.

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e strategy also generated fewer jobs than a more labour-intensive pa ern based on expanding domestic demand would have done, which meant that employment increased relatively li le, despite o en dramatic rises in aggregate output. is is why, globally, the previous boom was associated with the South subsidizing the North: through cheaper exports of goods and services, through net capital ows from developing countries to the US in particular, through ows of cheap labour in the form of short-term migration. e recent collapse in export markets halted that process for a while. Although there has been a recovery, it is very evident that such a strategy is unsustainable beyond a point. is is particularly true when a number of relatively large economies seek to use it at the same time. So, not only was this a strategy that bred and increased global inequality, it also sowed the seeds of its own destruction by generating downward pressures on price because of increasing competition as well as protectionist responses in the North. So there are both external and internal reasons why it is hard to sustain such a strategy beyond a point. Externally, de cit countries will either choose or be forced to reduce their de cits through various means, and protectionist responses. Internally, the potential for suppression of wage incomes and domestic consumption will meet with political resistance. In either case, the pressures to nd more sustainable sources of economic growth, particularly through domestic demand and wageled alternatives, are likely to increase. e process of global economic rebalancing was initiated by the nancial crisis and is now likely to get accentuated through the current fragile recovery and potential instability of the near future. One important result is developing countries (and the surplus countries like China in particular) can no longer depend on exports to US as their primary engine of growth. e US trade de cit is set to shrink, and at a fundamental level it really does not ma er whether this occurs through exchange rate changes, changes in domestic savings and investment behavior or increased trade protectionism. So countries must diversify their sources of growth, looking for other export markets as well as for internal engines of growth. is is what makes arguments for a shi in strategy towards domestic wage-led growth so compelling. In developed countries with relatively strong institutions that can a ect the labour market, including collective wage bargaining, e ective minimum wage legislation and the like, it is probably easier to think of wage-led growth and strategies to allow wages to keep pace or at least grow to some extent) along with labour productivity growth. But what about most developing countries, where such institutions are relatively poorly developed and where many if not most workers are in informal activities, o en self-employed? How are wage increases and be er working conditions to be ensured in such cases? And what does a macroeconomic policy of wage-led growth entail in such a context? In fact, it is still both possible and desirable to get wage-led growth in such contexts. ere are ve important elements of such a strategy in developing countries with large informal sectors: Make the economic growth process more inclusive and employment intensive: direct resources to the sectors in which the poor work (such as agriculture and informal activities), areas in which they live (relatively backward regions), factors of production which they possess (unskilled labour) and outputs which they consume (such as food). Ensure the greater viability of informal production, through be er access to institutional credit to farmers and other small producers, greater integration into supply chains and marketing that improves their returns, and technology improvements that increase labour productivity in such activities.

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successful Asian industrialization from Japan to the East Asian NICs to (most recently) China. e public provision of a ordable and reasonably good quality housing, transport facilities, basic food, school education and basic healthcare all operated to improve the conditions of life of workers and (indirectly) therefore to reduce the money wages that individual employers need to pay workers. is not only reduced overall labour costs for private employers, but also provided greater exibility for producers competing in external markets, since a signi cant part of xed costs was e ectively reduced. What are the macroeconomic advantages of such a strategy? Quite apart from the obvious bene ts in terms of reducing poverty, improving income distribution and the conditions of informal workers, there are positive implications for the growth process. It allows for more stable economic expansion based on increasing the home market, and need not con ict with more exports either. It encourages more emphasis on productivity growth, thereby generating a high road to industrialization. Clearly, if countries in which the majority of the worlds population is concentrated are actually to achieve their development project in a sustainable way, new and more creative economic strategies have to be pursued. Wage-led growth, including through measures such as those outlined here, is likely to be an essential element of such strategies.
Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates (http://www.networkideas. org/). She has consulted with many international organisations and governments, and works actively with progressive organisations in India and elsewhere. This article was rst published by Global Labour University on 11 October 2010.

http://www.vosizneias.com

Protesters carry carry a mock Taiwanese banknote with a slogan Raise salary 5 percent during a march in Taipei.
Provide increases in public employment that set the oor for wages (for example, in schemes such as that enabled by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India) and improve the bargaining power of workers. Provide much be er social protection, with more funding, wider coverage and consolidation, more health spending and more robust and extensive social insurance programmes, including pensions and unemployment insurance. Increase and focus on the public delivery of wage goods (housing, other infrastructure, health, education, even nutrition) nanced by taxing surpluses. e last point is o en not recognized as a crucial element of a possible wage-led strategy, but it can be extremely signi cant. Furthermore, such a strategy can be used e ectively even in otherwise capitalist export-oriented economies, as long as surpluses from industrialization and exports can be mobilized to provide wage goods publicly. Indeed, this has been an important and unrecognized feature of

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A new era of social justice based on decent work

By Juan Somavia

It is time to build a new era of social justice on a foundation of decent work. Recent events ashing across the worlds television screens have brought into sharp focus demands that have been brewing in the hearts of people: the desire for a decent life and a decent future based on social justice. e fault lines of the global economy, apparent for a long time, are cracking open to reveal uncertainty and vulnerability, sentiments of exclusion and oppression and a lack of opportunities and jobs, made more painful by the global economic crisis. Women and men without jobs or livelihoods really dont care if their economies grow at 3, 5 or 10 percent per year if such growth leaves them behind and without protection. ey do care whether their leaders and their societies promote policies to provide jobs and justice, bread and dignity, freedom to voice their needs, their hopes and their dreams and the space to forge practical solutions where they are not always squeezed. e reality is that people commonly judge whether society, the economy and the polity are working for them through the prism of work. Whether they have a job, or not, the quality of life it permits, what happens when they have no work or cannot work. In so many ways the quality of work de nes the quality of society. Yet the world of work is in ta ers today: more than 200 million people are unemployed worldwide, including nearly 80 million youth, both gures are at or near their highest points ever. What is more, the number of workers
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in vulnerable employment 1.5 billion and the 630 million working poor living with their families at US$ 1.25 a day or less is increasing. At the same time, global inequalities are growing. e crisis has cut wage growth in half, reduced social mobility through work and trapped more and more people in low-paid jobs. Income gaps are growing in some countries. Youth face the increasing likelihood of never nding a decent job the prospect of a lost generation looms. And the middle class o en nds itself in the middle of nothing and going into reverse. Achieving a fair globalization calls for a new vision of society and economy, with a balanced approach to the role of state, markets and society and a clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations of individual action in that framework. Action must go beyond simply recovering growth we will not get out of the crisis with the same policies that led to it. We need to move toward a new era of social justice. What will it take? In the world of work the steps are clear: First, recognizing that labour is not a commodity, policies must be based on the human values of solidarity, dignity and freedom labour is not just a cost of production. It is a source of personal dignity, family stability and peace in communities; Second, make employment creation targets a central component of macroeconomic policy priority alongside low in ation and sound scal accounts; ird, provide scally sustainable social protection to the eight out of 10 people who lack any form of social security in the world today, starting with a basic oor of universal social protection; Fourth, recognize that fundamental rights at work and social dialogue which belong to the realm of human freedom and dignity are also instruments of enhanced productivity and balanced development; Fi h, stimulate investment and investors in small enterprises, employment intensive sectors, inclusive labour markets and skills development; As Tunisia and Egypt are showing us, jobs and justice, bread and dignity, protection and democracy, national and global security are not unrelated demands. What happens in the future will very much depend on whether the connections are recognized and acted upon. Decent work makes the connections. Universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice. e cautionary words of the ILOs 1919 Constitution resonate today. It is indeed time to build an era of social justice on a foundation of decent work.
Mr. Juan Somavia is Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO). This article is Mr. Somavias message on the World Day for Social Justice on 17 February 2011 (http://www. ilo.org/public/english/bureau/dgo/speeches/somavia/2011/wdsj. pdf).

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Nine months to deliver:

tipping point to make development aid effective
By BetterAid, Open Forum

Days a er o cials at the OECD made plans towards the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid E ectiveness (HLF4), more than 80 representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs) from across the globe gathered in Sweden to develop their own strategy for the forum. HLF4 will be held from November 29 to December 1, 2011 in Busan, Republic of Korea. It will assess if commitments of governments made in recent years have been achieved or not, and stands out as a key opportunity for governments to go beyond promises and to commit to more e ective, sustainable development assistance in terms of its real impact on the lives of all women and men. With global development needs rocketing following escalating global crises such as rising food and fuel prices, growing inequality, lack of sustainable jobs, and political unrest in Northern Africa, the issue of development e ectiveness cannot be ignored anymore. As a result of last weeks civil society meeting in Harnosand, Sweden, Be erAid and Open Forum identi ed key messages to national governments as well as regional and international institutions.

Central to the concerns of both platforms is the shrinking political space for civil society, the multiple a acks on freedom of association, and the lack of participatory ownership of development at the national level in a growing number of countries. Achieving full respect of human rights, gender equality, decent work and environmental sustainability should remain the ultimate goal for development e ectiveness. Development e ectiveness is about how best to help people help themselves in a sustainable way. Its not about the short-term results of stand-alone projects, said Richard Ssewakiryanga from Be erAid and the Uganda National NGO Forum. e Istanbul Principles for CSO E ectiveness, adopted in September 2010 and based on a global process of consultation in which hundreds

of CSOs participated, should be supported and governments should implement measures to create an enabling environment for civil society organisations as development actors in their own right. Governments and donors should make the strength of civil society an indicator of successful development cooperation, said Ruben Fernandez from Open Forum and Asociacin Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promocin (ALOP). With multiple and escalating political and natural crises globally, it takes forward-thinking to commit to the kind of long term and sustainable development progress that Be erAid and the Open Forum are advocating for. e voice of the people must be heard and acted on in Busan.

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Libya Intervention threatens the Arab spring

By Phyllis Bennis

Despite its o cial UN-granted legality, the credibility of Western military action in Libya is rapidly dwindling. Western air and naval strikes against Libya are threatening the Arab Spring. Ironically, one of the reasons many people supported the call for a noy zone was the fear that if Gadda managed to crush the Libyan peoples uprising and remain in power, it would send a devastating message to other Arab dictators: Use enough military force and you will keep your job. Instead, it turns out that just the opposite may be the result: It was a er the UN passed its no- y zone and use-of-force resolution, and just as US, British, French and other warplanes and warships launched their a acks against Libya, that other Arab regimes escalated their crack-down on their own democratic movements. In Yemen, 52 unarmed protesters were killed and more than 200 wounded on Friday, March 18 by forces of the US-backed and USarmed government of Ali Abdullah Saleh. It was the bloodiest day of the month-long Yemeni uprising. President Obama strongly condemned the a acks and called

on Saleh to allow demonstrations to take place peacefully. But while a number of Salehs government o cials resigned in protest, there was no talk from Salehs US backers of real accountability, of a travel ban or asset freeze, not even of slowing the nancial and military aid owing into Yemen in the name of ghting terrorism. Similarly in US-allied Bahrain, home of the US Navys Fi h Fleet, at least 13 civilians have been killed by government forces. Since the March 15 arrival of 1,500 foreign troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, brought in to protect the absolute power of the king of Bahrain, 63 people have been reported missing. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said: We have made clear that security alone cannot resolve the challenges facing Bahrain. Violence is not the answer, a political process is. But she never demanded that foreign troops leave Bahrain, let alone threatened a no- y zone or

targeted air strikes to stop their a acks.

Legality vs. legitimacy

Despite its o cial UN-granted legality, the credibility and legitimacy of Western military action is dwindling rapidly, even in key diplomatic circles. For the Western alliance, and most especially for the Obama administration, support from the Arab League was a critical prerequisite to approving the military intervention in Libya. e Leagues actual resolution, passed just a couple of days before the UN Security Council vote, approved a far narrower military option essentially only a noy zone, with a number of stated cautions against any direct foreign intervention.

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Of course, a no- y zone is foreign intervention, whether one wants to acknowledge it or not, but it is not surprising that the Arab Leagues approval was hesitant it is, a er all, composed of the exact same leaders who are facing inchoate or massive challenges to their ruling power at home. Supporting the a ack on a fellow dictator oops, sorry, a fellow Arab ruler was never going to be easy. And as soon as the air strikes began in Libya, Arab League chief Amr Moussa immediately criticised the Western military assault. Some commentators noted the likelihood that Arab governments were pressuring Moussa out of fear of Libyan terror a acks in their country; I believe it is more likely that Arab leaders fear popular opposition, already challenging their rule, will escalate as Libyan deaths rise.
Overlooking the African Union

It went further, calling for the protection of foreign workers with a particular reference to African expatriates in Libya (responding to reports of a acks on African workers by opposition forces), as well as necessary political reforms to eliminate the cause of the present crisis. So within 48 hours of the bombing campaigns opening salvos, the US and its allies have lost the support of the Arab and African institutions the Obama administration had identi ed as crucial for going ahead. Other countries turned against the a acks as well; the Indian government, which had abstained on the Security Council vote, toughened its stance, saying that it regrets the air strikes that are taking place and that implementation of the UN resolution should mitigate and not exacerbate an already di cult situation for the people of Libya. e question remains, what is the end game? e UN resolution says force may only be used to protect Libyan civilians, but top US, British and French o cials have stated repeatedly that Gadda must go and that he has lost legitimacy to rule. ey clearly want regime change. e military commanders insist that regime change is not on their military agenda, that Gadda is not on a target list, but there is a winkand-a-nod at what if questions about a possible bombing if he is

inspecting a surface-to-air missile site, and we do not have any idea if he is there or not.
What you ask for aint always what you get

ere is no question Libyas opposition, like most of the democratic movements shaping this years Arab Spring, wants an end to the dictatorial regime in their country. Unlike the democratic movements in neighbouring countries, the Libyan movement is ghting an armed military ba le, something approaching a civil war, against the regimes forces. at movement, facing a ruthless military assault, has paid a far higher price in lost and broken lives than the non-violent activists in the other democratic uprisings, and even with components of the military joining them, they were out-gunned and desperate. So it is not surprising that they pleaded for international support from the powerful countries and institutions most able to provide immediate military aid, even if that aid ultimately threatened their own independence. But, what they got was probably way more than even the Libyan opposition itself anticipated. And despite the exultation over the rst downed tanks, questions loom. What if some kind of stalemate leaves Libya divided and military a acks continuing? What if the opposition realises that

Early on, the US had also identi ed support from the African Union (AU) as a critical component. But as it became clear that the AU would not sign on to the kind of a ack on Libya contemplated in the UN resolution, the need for that support (indeed the AU itself) disappeared from Western discourse on the issue. Shortly a er the bombing began, the ve-member AU commi ee on the Libya crisis called for an immediate stop to all the a acks and restraint from the international community.

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negotiations (perhaps under the auspices of newly democratising Egypt and Tunisia) are urgently needed, but cannot be convened because the US and French presidents have announced that the Libyan leader has no legitimacy and cannot be trusted? And what if, as earlier US-imposed no- y zones (both unilateral and UN-endorsed) have experienced, the a ack leads to rising numbers of civilian casualties, killed by Western coalition bombs and an escalating, rather than diminishing, civil war? What then? e UN resolution clearly is looking ahead to just such an eventuality. It calls on the secretary-general to inform the UN Security Council of all military actions, instructing him to report to the Council within seven days and every month therea er. e UN, at least, seems to be preparing for another long war that could last far longer than this years Arab spring.
Phyllis Bennis is director of New International at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. This article was published on IPS-DC.org (http:// www.ips-dc.org/articles/libya_intervention_threatens_the_arab_spring) on 22 March 2011.

JAPAN: vulnerability and uncertainty prevail in wake of nuclear disaster

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Mar 22, 2011 (IPS) Accidents at four nuclear power reactors hit by the earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima have le thousands of residents in the vicinity facing an uncertain future as they prepare for evacuation orders to protect them from dangerous radiation contamination. Fear and anger at the growing vulnerability of their situation have also hardened public opposition to nuclear power in Japan, with more people calling for a review of Japans much touted safety technology and policies supporting alternative energy sources. Nuclear power from 54 operating reactors provides 30 percent of local energy needs. Coal, oil and other sources provide the rest. Japan, a

resource-poor country, has staked its economic future on nuclear power. Given its almost negligent carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power is becoming more important in light of climate change as well. In a blow to Japans nuclear industry, Katsutaka Idogawa, mayor of Futabacho, a hamlet that borders the Daiichi Fukushima power plant, told the press Tuesday that it is high time the local population begins to move away from its dependency on the nuclear plant that they host. e disaster has shown us we must review our policy of accepting the nuclear power plant. We must develop new ideas to have other industries to bring us a stable economy, he said in an article

published by the Asahi Newspaper, a leading daily. e 7,000 people of Futabacho are, however, involved with the Daiichi Fukushima nuclear power plant employed either as workers or in other operations. e village is located 10 kilometres away from the 20-kilometre exclusion zone demarcated by the government. e latest count of people leaving Fukushima numbers 25,000, according to local authorities. ey join the overall 350,000 evacuees leaving other badly damaged areas to restart their lives in other localities that have begun accepting the disaster displaced populations. Ayako Ooga, 38, and her husband are one of the a ected families.

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e couple who live in Ookumamachi, just six kilometres from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, said they le the night of the quake that struck on Mar. 11 mostly because of fear about radiation contamination. Our house was damaged but we have always been more concerned about safety of the nuclear plant. With the accident we face a bleak future, she told IPS. Ooga, however, says she supports the statements made by Idogawa, mostly because he voiced opposition to supporting nuclear power and illustrated sharply the anxiety and suspicion in the community that is in the process of evacuating. I found some hope when Idogawa explained he would lead the evacuation which means so much to us now, she said. Ooga is from a farming community and had just built a new home which she wonders now whether she will ever be able to visit. Idogawa said he would lead the rst batch of 1,500 people from his village who will se le down in Saitama prefecture, a northern border town of Tokyo. He also said his decision will pave the way for the rest of the community to join them and start their lives again as before till they can return together. Experts explain the relocation process is always painful for people and is especially so for the thousands who must leave for safety from the threat of radiation contamination and face the probability of not being able to return for a long time. e situation is a human tragedy, said professor Toshikata Katada, a disaster expert at Nagoya University. Katada, who has covered the earthquake prone region to develop hazard maps and other emergency measures for several decades, explained on television the experts had just not been prepared. Our preparedness showed us how knowledge is pi ed against the vagaries of nature. is time we see how nature won, he said. Reports released Tuesday indicate radiation levels are 1,600 times the normal level 20 kilometres from the crippled Fukushima plant, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). IAEA experts arrived in Tokyo Friday a er controversy erupted over di ering radiation readings released by the Japanese government and foreign counterparts raising suspicion that authorities may have created panic in some cities where people wiped out food supplies overnight. Another alarming development was released today when the government said it detected high levels of radioactive material in seawater near the Fukushima power plant fanning concern over shery products from the area. Tokyo Electric Power Company reported radioactive material was detected Monday in the seawater samples at levels 126.7 times higher than the legal concentration limit. Levels of cesium 137, a radioactive material which can be dormant in the air for over 30 years, was 16.5 times higher than the limit, while trace amount of cobalt 58 was detected in a sample of seawater near the plant as well. Already, spinach and milk from farms in Fukushima are showing high radiation levels and will not be allowed for consumer sale. e critical situation is causing anxiety in areas where other plants are located as well. Chubu Electrical Power Company that operates the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka prefecture, 150 kilometres south of Tokyo also identi ed as a quake prone area announced Tuesday that it will get an emergency diesel generator in case of power loss due to tsunami. Meanwhile, local residents express alarm at the situation which is still out of hand in Fukushima more than a week a er the earthquake hit. Minoru Ito, a local activist, told IPS that his phone keeps ringing as people keep calling him wondering what they should do now. e ongoing tragedy in Fukushima sends chills down our spines, he says.
This article was published by IPS News (IPSNews.net) on 22 March 2011.

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Uniting to Lose Our Chains:

The International Festival for Peoples Rights and Struggles
By IFPRIS Secretariat

Resistance movements are sweeping the globe in response to the global crisis of the world capitalist system. Protests and strikes against austerity measures have spread across Europe (from Greece and Ireland to France and Britain), South Africa, India, ailand, and the Philippines. Food riots and protests against rising food prices have been reported in Algeria, Morocco, Mozambique and Chile. In North Africa and the Middle East, peoples longstanding anger against repression, corruption and foreign (particularly US) intervention has combined with the economic crisis to set o popular revolts in one country a er another. e political crisis in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Djibouti, Bahrain and Libya are still unfolding with repercussions across the globe. Amidst this panorama of peoples resistance worldwide, workers, peasants, women, indigenous peoples, migrants, artists, youth and other sectors and from across the globe are gathering in Manila for the International Festival of Peoples Rights and Struggles (IFPRIS) from July 4-6, 2011. IFPRIS will be held in various venues within the University of

the Philippines Diliman campus in Quezon City. e IFPRIS is a space for peoples from Asia and the Paci c, Africa, North America, Europe and Latin America and the Middle East to learn, share and interact with one another on the issues and challenges to the livelihoods, rights and liberties that they confront. It is also an occasion to celebrate the victories and lessons of peoples struggles all over the world. e IFPRIS o ers a wide range of opportunities for learning and networking with simultaneous forums, workshops, strategy sessions, book launches, lm showings and exhibits. It is jointly organized by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan

(BAYAN), Concerned Artists of the Philippines, Habi Arts, IBON, International Migrants Alliance (IMA), International Womens Alliance (IWA), League of Filipino Students, Peace for Life, Peoples Action Network, Peoples Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS), Peoples Movement on Climate Change (PMCC), RESIST, and the UP College of Mass Communications. e Festival shall have a common opening (see program below) on the morning of July 5, with keynote addresses from Francois Houtart, Leila Khaled and Ramsey Clark, plus panels of experts on peoples rights and struggles. For inquiries please email the IFPRIS Secretariat at tlauron@ ibon.org.

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Among the Major Activities in the IFPRIS are:

Seminar on the US War on Terror and Counterinsurgency (July 5, afternoon)

is Seminar shall examine the US post-Cold War National Security Doctrine, the various dimensions and forms of US Intervention overseas, the latest version of its Counterinsurgency Doctrine and its impacts and implications on the rights of peoples in various countries.
Seminar on Peoples Resistance and Struggles for Liberation (July 6, afternoon)

as an anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, anti-racist and anti-sexist alliance is commi ed to advancing a militant global womens movement as part of the movement for national and social liberation.
International Conference on Progressive Culture: Peoples Art: Shaping the society of the future (July 4-6)

is Seminar shall feature testimonies from leaders, activists and representatives of liberation movements from around the world including Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, and others. See proposed program below.
Workshop on the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (July 6, morning)

A unique opportunity for creative people from around the world to come together, share their work, and discuss the role of art in the struggle for fundamental social change. ere will also be an exhibit, lm showing, workshops, and a Kafe Kultura -a space for jamming, mural painting, sculpting, social media, and more!
The Global Movement of Migrants: Current Situation and Resistance against Imperialist Attacks (July 5)

is workshop shall highlight recent and ongoing complaints brought to the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) regarding violations of human rights and rights of peoples. e PPT is a prestigious international opinion tribunal, independent from any State authority that examines and judges cases that are submi ed by the victims themselves or groups representing them.
Making sense of the global crisis and new world disorder: challenges and opportunities for peoples struggles and alternative (July 6, afternoon)

A forum to generate in-depth discussion on the situation of migrants around the world amidst the current global crisis. e forum also brings into light the various forms of resistance of the global movement of migrants against the a acks of the proponents of neo-liberal globalization.
International Panel Discussion on US Foreign Military Bases (July 6)

e colloquium is an opportunity for peoples movements, NGOs, activists and other progressive forces to gain a deeper understanding of the global crises in food, climate and nance amidst the shi ing international political and economic order.
International Womens Alliance (IWA) General Assembly (July 5-6)

A forum that highlights how the peoples struggle to dismantle overseas US military bases from all countries in the world has become especially important in the light of the global economic depression and the consequent intensi cation of global political con icts. Sharing from peoples actions from the Asia and Oceania, Arab region, Latin America and Europe.
Peoples Speak Out for Right to Land and Life Organized by the Peoples Coalition on Food Sovereignty (July 6 afternoon)

e International Womens Alliance (IWA), founded in Montreal in August, 2011 by 68 womens organizations, associations, alliances and individuals from across the globe will hold its First General Assembly with the theme Building a Militant Womens Alliance in the 21st Century. e IWA

e Peoples Speak Out will highlight the struggle for land and life, especially amid the food crisis and intensifying land grabbing. e Speak Out will be followed by a peoples march to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) which is the only mass action activity during the IFPRS.

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Wisconsin Awakens a Sleeping Giant

As Wisconsins attack on workers spreads to other states, so does the historic uprising that began in Madison.
By Sarah van Gelder and Brooke Jarvis

In one sense, the struggle over union rights in Wisconsin is over. It took some breathtaking, possibly even illegal, shenanigans, but the union-busting Budget Repair Bill has been passed, signed, and celebrated. In other ways, though, the weeks of historic protests in and around Wisconsins capitol were just the rst act of what may prove to be a far longer and larger struggle. Around the country, state governments are targeting union rights, workplace protection, social services, and the ability of middle-class and working poor to have a voice. But, in large part thanks to the momentum of the Wisconsin protests, theyre nding it di cult to do so quietly. In state a er state, the Americans whose rights and services are being cut are rising up against the decades-long shi of wealth and power to corporations and the very wealthy.
Wisconsin Moves on to Phase Two

Following ursdays passage of the Wisconsin bill, hundreds of students in Madisons middle and high schools walked out to join those demonstrating at the capitol. en, in the largest protest since the bill was proposed, an estimated 100,000 people lled the streets and squares around the state capitol on Saturday, March 12. e Family Farm Defenders and the Wisconsin Farmers Union joined the protests, bringing more than 50 tractors with them. is is the beginning of phase two, Fred Risser, one of the 14 Democratic senators, told the crowd. He was referring to a rapidly growing campaign to recall eight GOP senators who supported the bill; the Wisconsin Democratic Party reported yesterday that over 45 percent of the necessary signatures have already been collected. Because Wisconsin law only

e passage of Wisconsins anti-union bill on March 10 came a er weeks of protests, an extended occupation of the state capitol building, and the self-imposed exile of 14 Democratic senators, whose absence prevented a vote on the bill as it was originally dra ed.

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allows recalls of o cials who have been in o ce at least a full year, Governor Sco Walker and other supporters of the bill are not yet eligible to be recalled though opponents of the anti-union law are already laying the groundwork for a recall next year.
Other States Target Workers Rights

Other proposed measures would cut deeply into education funding, public safety, health care, and infrastructure maintenance. ese bills are presented as necessary in order to balance state budgets, but recent state and federal tax giveaways to the wealthy make that a questionable claim. Undermining the Political Power of the Working Class Instead, this may be an example of what Naomi Klein describes in her book, e Shock Doctrine: Wealthy elites o en use times of crisis and chaos to impose unpopular policies that restructure economies and political systems to their further advantage. And many of these policies are deeply unpopular with the American public. Recent polls show that more than 60 percent of Americans believe that pubic employees should have the right to bargain collectively; that states should not be able to renege on pension commitments to retirees; that the minimum wage should be raised; and that tax breaks for wealthy Americans are a bad move. According to a recent Bloomberg poll, one of the reasons that Americans reject Republican e orts to curb bargaining rights is that they widely believe that union power is is dwarfed by corporations. Of course, the proliferation of anti-union bills isnt just an economic blow. Unions are a bulwark of political power on behalf of middle- and workingclass Americans, a long-standing counterweight to the political in uence of the wealthy. Not only do they give employees bargaining power within the workplace, they allow workers to join their voices to have some say in the political debate. When union members economic power is weakened, so is their political voice a fact not lost on those leading the charge against them. As Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Sco Fitzgerald, a leading proponent of the states anti-union bill, noted in an interview with Fox News, If we win this ba le, and the money is not there under the

ough the weeks of demonstrations have focused national a ention on Wisconsin, workers rights are on the line in dozens of states across the country, and workers are ghting back. Newly elected Republicans in state legislatures and in the U.S. Congress are pressing and in some cases, passing deeply unpopular measures that target workers rights to unionize and such basic protections as minimum wage laws. e Ohio Senate has passed a bill that takes Wisconsin union-busting one step further, Reuters reports. e bill prohibits collective bargaining for nearly 62,000 workers and blocks 300,000 others (including re ghters, police, and public school teachers) from striking or negotiating about health care bene ts. In Indiana, House Democrats, taking a cue from Wisconsin legislators, have le the state to prevent a vote on a bill that limits collective bargaining rights. Idaho has approved a measure to limit public school teachers right to bargain collectively. Michigan is on track to approve a law that would allow the state to break union contracts. And union dues or collective bargaining are also on the line in Iowa, New Hampshire, Kansas, Tennessee, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Washington, Alaska, and Arizona. Nor are unions the only form of worker protection under a ack. e Missouri House of Representatives has approved a bill that caps the states minimum wage, even if the Consumer Price Index rises, essentially revoking a law that was passed just ve years ago and supported by 76 percent of voters. Seven other states are considering similar bills, according to the Progressive States Network.

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Indeed, all over the country, the a ack on union rights has awakened a dormant class consciousness. I think that whats happening in Wisconsin is sort of Ground Zero for workers, said Jane Cu er, a 47-year-old teacher who a ended a Wisconsin solidarity rally in Sea le. Its going to drive down wages and living standards for all di erent kinds of workers. In the weeks since Wisconsin teachers and re ghters began occupying their state capitol, thousands of others have been inspired to make their opposition more vocal. Protests many times the size of the Tea Party demonstrations are spreading across the nation. Some are being organized by unions and their supporters; others, by MoveOn.org and Van Jones to Defend the American Dream. Still others are part of US Uncut, which is organizing ash mobs to confront corporations that havent been paying taxes. From Indiana to Ohio and Tennessee to Texas, workers are demanding to know why corporations and the wealthy get bailouts and tax breaks while teachers and steel workers bear the burdens of budget crises they didnt cause. One of the farmers who rode through downtown Madison on his tractor summed it up on his handmade protest sign: Walker woke a sleeping giant.

Unions are a bulwark of political power on behalf of middle- and working-class Americans, a long-standing counterweight to the political in uence of the wealthy.
auspices of the unions, certainly what youre going to nd is President Obama is going to have a much di cult, much more di cult time ge ing elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.
A Sleeping Giant Wakes Up

If there is one good thing about this bill, its that it has brought middle class workers together, made our unions stronger and our relationships closer, Mahlon Mitchell, the president of the Professional Fire ghters of Wisconsin, said in an interview with YES! Magazine.

Sarah van Gelder and Brooke Jarvis wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonpro t media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world. The piece was posted on YesMagazine.org (http://www.yesmagazine.org/ people-power/from-wisconsin-a-sleeping-giant-awakes) on 15 March 2011. Photos by Jennifer Janviere (http://www. ickr.com/photos/jenniferjanviere/)

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Mondragn worker co-ops ride out global slump

By John Ballantyne

urope and the United States continue to su er levels of economic stagnation and joblessness not seen since the 1930s. But the small town of Mondragn in the mountainous Basque region of northern Spain boasts an innovative business model which has successfully weathered the global economic downturn. Todays worker co-ops produce an impressive array of goods, including foodstu s, computers, household appliances, refrigerators, ovens, vehicle parts and the celebrated Orbea bikes which won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Sixty per cent of Mondragns output is exported. is sounds almost too good to be true. Can worker selfmanagement really be compatible with a commercially competitive business operation? Some cynics dismiss the whole scheme as utopian without bothering to examine the evidence for Mondragns undeniable success. Talk to them of worker ownership and they immediately dismiss the idea as being akin to socialism or, worse still, communism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mondragn thrives in a competitive marketplace and has no government support. Its operations are

e Mondragn Co-operative Corporation is a network of co-operative rms, entirely owned and managed by the workers employed in them. It is commercially highly successful, exports quality manufactured goods around the world and boasts zero unemployment. Worker self-managed enterprises, historically, have had a very mixed track record. ey o en start life, buoyed by the vision and enthusiasm of their founders, and enjoy a measure of success for a few years. All too o en, however, the ideals of the founders fail to reproduce themselves in the next generation, and the enterprises lose their vitality. Mondragn is altogether di erent. It has been operating successfully for 57 years, its workforce having grown from its original ve founding members to its present labour force of 85,000 worker-owners employed in more than 120 co-operative enterprises.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/mondragoncorporation/

SPECIAL FEATURE
characterised by an absence of workplace con ict or strikes. Workers are not likely to take industrial action against entities they themselves own. And, unlike the post-GFC [Global Financial Crisis ed.] zombie banks of Wall Street, which have been put on government life-support to the tune of hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars, Mondragn stands on its own feet and sponges o nobody. Mondragns business model has a racted favourable notice from respectable bodies such as the Peter F. Drucker Foundation, the Harvard International Review and Britains conservative Daily Telegraph. A worker, in order to become a member of a cooperative, must invest 13,400 (AUD$18,400) in share capital. e sum accumulates interest over time and is repaid to the worker upon retirement. So, from day one, he or she has a nancial stake in the success or failure of the enterprise. Every worker has an equal vote. Joel A. Barker of the Drucker Foundation says: e workers elect the board of directors and the board of directors hires the managers. is has a positive e ect on the workers, because the people they elect are the people who hire their supervisors. e co-ops are not cast adri on the market without map or compass. Ready and eager to help them with their business plans is the Mondragn Corporations own special-purpose community bank, the Caja Laboral. It produces up-to-date marketing forecasts for co-ops, provides low-interest nance to enable new co-ops to be launched, and makes available experienced sta from long-established co-ops to be mentors for newer ones. In most of the corporate world, it is a sad fact that most new small business fail. In Mondragn, by contrast, most new enterprises succeed. Barker observes: e Mondragon bank ... always has the welcome mat out for anyone who wishes to create more jobs. Because of this a itude and the great skills Mondragon has developed in nurturing start-ups, its entrepreneurial success rate has been 80 per cent! at is the failure rate for the rest of the world! Today, the Caja Laboral which, like the Mondragn co-ops, started from humble origins has grown to become one of Spains major nancial institutions. It has branches across the country, 1.2 million clients, a sta of 2,000, 21 billion euros worth of assets and 1.5 billion euros in equity. Mondragn has its own university, made up of an engineering school, a technical school and what is now considered to be one of the best business studies programs in the Europe Union. It also owns, and invests heavily in, a number of research and development facilities. Greg MacLeod, writing for the Harvard International Review (April 4, 2009), describes the secret of Mondragns success in achieving its annual job-creation targets and ensuring job security for all its members. He writes: Most large global corporations... develop strategies to increase earnings through job reduction. Conventional corporate managers argue that a job creation strategy necessarily leads to ine ciency and losses. But empirical testing suggests otherwise. Individual co-operatives in Mondragn, observes MacLeod, are under no legal obligation to retain workers, but jobs are e ectively guaranteed. He says: If there is a redundancy in one enterprise, the redundant workers have the right to available work in the other associated enterprises. So, instead of workers being le to rot on the dole, they are speedily transferred to productive employment in other co-ops and assisted with retraining to enhance their value to the new enterprise.

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http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/

is emphasis on constantly improving labour productivity also enhances the overall competitiveness of Mondragns enterprises in the global marketplace. Mondragns global director, Mr Josu Ugarte Arregui, says: We cant o shore, so we have to keep climbing the technology ladder and improve core engineering here. In order to ensure that workers should have a true sense of ownership of the enterprises in which they are employed, Mondragns Caja Laboral bank prefers, wherever possible, to limit the size of individual co-ops. Once a co-ops membership approaches 500 worker-owners, the bank prefers to launch new co-ops rather than allow established ones to get any bigger. is is quite a contrast from the relentless process, seen in the rest of the corporate world, of economic mergers, acquisitions and takeovers. According to Australias Dr Race Mathews classic work, Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stake-Holder Society (1999, republished in 2009), studies have consistently shown that workers in Mondragn feel a loyalty to their rms and are prepared to make signi cant sacri ces where necessary in order for their co-operatives to remain in business. Greater worker contentment on the factory oor means less need for supervision. An American political commentator, Carl Davidson, once observed that self-supervision was a competitive advantage for Mondragn. He wrote: Not having a lot of supervisors to pay meant lower prices. e relatively narrow pay di erentials in Mondragn are a contrast to the vast pay di erentials in many large Western corporations, where CEOs can pocket up to 400 times the pay of the lowliest worker. In Mondragn, top management seldom earns more than six times the income of the lowest-paid worker. In reality, as Mondragns global director Mr Ugarte points out, it is just three times a er tax.

The relatively narrow pay differentials in Mondragn are a contrast to the vast pay differentials in many large Western corporations, where CEOs can pocket up to 400 times the pay of the lowliest worker.
In e ect, if the top earner wants a raise, everyone in the co-op gets a raise. It is true that some of Mondragns high- yers are enticed to work for outside corporations by the prospects of much higher salaries. However, an American writer Sergio Lub, who toured Mondragn two years ago, observed: Sometimes a Mondragon manager leaves for a few years to work in a higher paid job; they o en return. When I asked a senior executive why he stayed, he answered: It was an easy choice. Outside I may earn more money, but I would lose my community. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, international business editor of Britains conservative Daily Telegraph, in a recent article in which he praised the Mondragn model, discussed the link between increasing economic inequality and the recent global slump. He said: e solidarity ethos has its allure given mounting research by the IMF and other bodies that the extreme gap between rich and poor was a key cause of the global asset bubble and nancial crisis, as well as being highly corrosive for democracies. e GINI index of income inequality has reached

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levels not seen since the 1920s across the West. (UK Telegraph, February 16, 2011). e Mondragn Co-operative Corporation (MCC) provides a comprehensive self-funded retirement income package for its workers, paid for partly out of direct worker contributions but also from the pro ts of the co-operatives themselves. e MCC used also to provide health care for all its workers until the late 1980s, when the Basque regional government took over that particular responsibility. Who was the original brains behind Mondragns pioneering worker-owned co-operative enterprises? It wasnt some high- ying MBA graduate from Harvards business school, but a humble Jesuit priest, Father Don Jos Arizmendiarrieta (19151976).Arizmendiarrieta was a farmers son, whose studies for the priesthood were interrupted by the 1936 Spanish Civil War. He edited a Republicanleaning trade union paper Eguna, was imprisoned by Francos Nationalists in 1937 and was lucky to avoid execution. On his release he organised study groups and workshops for residents of the war-torn and impoverished Basque region of northern Spain. A er World War II, he started an industrial apprentice school and taught young men the importance of applying Christian ethics and Catholic social principles to the running of business. In 1955, he encouraged ve of his most promising students to buy a small factory that made para n-burning stoves. A year later they moved the enterprise to Mondragn, and from then onwards their pioneering experiment in Christian business practices and worker self-management began to take shape. Today, Mondragn can no longer be dismissed as some well-intentioned but impractical scheme of limited relevance to the real world. By any standard, it has been a resounding success for a period of almost six decades. A er the recent global economic meltdown, it deserves to be studied closely.
References Joel A. Barker, e Mondragon model: A new pathway for the twenty- rst century, an excerpt from Chapter 11 from Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith and Richard Beckhard (eds), e Organization of the Future (New York: e Peter F. Drucker Foundation/ San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997). URL: www.joelbarker.com/downloads/Mondragon.doc Carl Davidson, Mondragon diaries: Five days on the cu ing edge: Studying real world worker-owned co-ops, SolidarityEconomy.net, September 19, 2010. URL: www.solidarityeconomy.net/2010/09/19/ mondragon-diaries- ve-days-studying-cu ing-edge-people-andtools-for-change/ Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Spains astonishing co-op takes on the world, e Telegraph (London), February 16, 2011. URL:www.telegraph.co.uk/ nance/economics/8329355/ Spains-astonishing-co-op-takes-on-the-world.html Je Gates, e Ownership Solution: Towards a Shared Capitalism for the Twenty-First Century (London: Penguin Books, 1998). Peter Jay, St George and Mondragon, April 7, 1977. Peter Jay, Till we have built Mondragon, (London), April 14, 1977. e Times (London), e Times

Peter Jay, e Workers Cooperative Economy (1977) in Peter Jay, e Crisis for Western Political Economy and Other Essays (London: Andr Deutsch, 1984), pages 5692. Peter Jay, e Crisis of Western Political Economy (Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1981). Georgia Kelly and Shaula Massena, Mondragn workercooperatives decide how to ride out a downturn, YES! Magazine (Bainbridge Island, Washington,: Positive Futures Network), June 5, 2009. URL: www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-new-economy/ mondragon-worker-cooperatives-decide-how-to-ride-out-adownturn Sergio Lub, e Mondragon cooperatives experience, Model Economy Community, January 4, 2009. URL: h p://model-economy.wikispaces.com/ Mondragon+Cooperatives Greg MacLeod, e Mondragon experiment: e public purpose corporation, Harvard International Review, April 4, 2009. URL: h p://hir.harvard.edu/the-mondragon-experiment Race Mathews, Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stake-Holder Society: Alternatives to the Market and the State (Sydney: Pluto Press, 1999). Race Mathews: a selection of his articles and lectures is available from his website at: URL: h p://racemathews.com/index.htm

John Ballantyne is editor of News Weekly. This article was published by News Weekly (NewsWeekly.com.au) on 19 March 2011.

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EDSA and the Philippine Economy: 25 years after the Philippines created a moment of national unity and The 1986 People Power uprising in
international credibility that could have been the starting point of real economic progress.
By Sonny Africa

he anniversary of the rst People Power in the Philippines is a time to re ect on how the nation is 25 years later. e 1986 People Power uprising a er all was driven by a desire for political and economic democracy. Politically, Filipinos were emboldened to oppose the Marcos dictatorship upon years of determined struggle by Filipino activists. Economically, people saw that a handful of cronies and foreign elite were prospering amid high unemployment and widespread poverty. However outside of appearances, there has been scant progress towards this democracy over 25 long years. Economically, twenty- ve years would have been long enough for the economy to take o . e 1986 People Power uprising created a moment of national unity and international credibility that could have been the starting point of real economic progress. Sweeping genuine agrarian reform should have been done immediately while the landed families were on the defensive against a surging mass movement. is would have unleashed the countrys agricultural potential, raised rural incomes and broken the back of peasant poverty. An industrialization program should have begun that preserved what domestic manufacturing existed and that phased the steady development of key and strategic industries. Foreign debts of the Marcos administration should have been cancelled and the resources freed up poured into domestic education, health, housing and infrastructure. Even just 10 to 15 years of progressive and nationalist policies since 1986 would have been enough to start building solid domestic economic foundations. Instead, 25 years of ve post-Marcos administrations embraced and implemented free market policies of neoliberal globalization trade and investment liberalization, privatization and deregulation. Economic growth, foreign investments and exports were treated as ends in themselves rather than the mere means to development that they are. Pro ts and commerce were hyped while the States responsibility to deliver real social and economic development was disparaged.

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e 7.2% annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 and the average 4.5% growth during the previous Arroyo administration from 20012009 are considerably faster than the average 3.9% growth in the period 1986-1991 under the rst Aquino administration. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has markedly increased from US$2.0 billion in 1986 (equivalent to 6.7% of GDP) to US$23.6 billion in 2009 (14.5% of GDP). e value of exports rose from being equivalent to 16.2% of GDP in 1986 to average 46.1% of GDP over the decade 2000-2009. Yet there has also been rising joblessness, persistently severe inequality and growing numbers of poor amid economic decline. e unemployment rate which averaged 10.6% in the pre-People Power uprising six-year crisis period 1981-1986 has even risen to average 11% in the period 2005-2010, according to IBONs estimates; this increase has only been camou aged by a convenient rede nition of o cial unemployment in 2005. e 2.6 million unemployed Filipinos in 1986 increased to 4.4 million in 2010. Inequality remains persistently severe. In 1985 the top 20% of families cornered 52.1% of total family income, leaving the bo om 80% to divide the remaining 47.9% between them. is has barely changed over the last 25 years and in 2009 the top 20% of families still claimed 51.9% of total family income (with the bo om 80% dividing the
Sonny Africa is Research Head at IBON Foundation, Inc.

remaining 48.1%). Also in 2009, the net worth of just the 25 richest Filipinos of US$21.4 billion (Php1,021 billion at the prevailing exchange rate) was equivalent to the combined annual income of the countrys poorest 11.1 million families or some 55.4 million Filipinos (computed with an average family size of ve) of Php1,029 billion. e number of poor is a bit more di cult to compare because of at least two changes in the methodology for estimating poverty in the country. e government o cially counted 26.7 million poor Filipinos in 1985 rising to 30.9 million in 2000. A subsequent revision statistically reduced the 2000 estimate to 25.5 million with this rising, according to the same methodology, to 28.5 million in 2009. Yet another revision statistically reduced the o cial 2009 estimate to 23.1 million. In any case, in 2009 some six out of ten Filipinos were trying to survive on incomes of PhP82 or even much less per day for all their food and non-food expenses. e explosion of optimism for change in 1986 was followed by decades of missed opportunities. ere was likewise a burst of optimism in 2010 following the end of the nine-year Arroyo administration. Indeed the economic lessons are there to be learned and the next decades need not be more of the same. For now the optimism comes from the rising number of Filipinos wielding People Power not just in moments of revolt but also in daily and organized struggles for real social change. IBON Features

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Europes Austerity:
Like Something Out of the Brothers Grimm
http://www.first-news.blogspot.com
By Conn Hallinan

In the Greek town of Aphidal, people have stopped paying road fees. In Athens, bus and metro riders are refusing to cough up the price of a ticket. On Feb. 23, 250,000 Greeks jammed the streets outside the nations parliament. e Portuguese nominated the protest song A Luta E Alegria ( e Struggle is Joy) for the Eurovision song contest and, when judges ignored it, walked out in protest. ey also put 300,000 people into the streets of the countrys major cities on Mar. 12. Liverpool bailed from a Conservative-Liberal scheme to supplement government funding with private funding when it found there wasnt any of either, and the British Toilet Association protested the closure of 1,000 public bathrooms across the country. of bankruptcy, including Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. Now, claim the virtuous countries Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland it is time for these spendthri wastrels to pay the piper or, as German Chancellor Andrea Merkel says, do their homework. It is an interesting story, a sort of Grimms fairy tale for the 21st century, but it bears about as much resemblance to the cause of the crisis as Cinderellas fairy godmother does to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While each country has its own particular conditions, there is a common thread that underlines the current crisis. Starting early in the decade, banks and nancial houses ooded real estate markets with money, fueling a speculation explosion that in ated an enormous bubble. In climate and culture, Spain and Ireland may be

In ways big and small, Europeans from Greece to Portugal, from Britain to Bavaria are registering their growing anger with the relentless assault in icted by government-imposed austerity programs. Wages, working conditions and pensions that unions successfully fought for over the past half century are threatened by the collapse of banking systems caught up in a decade-long orgy of speculation that the average European neither took part in, nor pro ted from. Even the so-called well o workers of Bavaria, Germanys industrial juggernaut, saw their wages, adjusted for in ation, fall 4.5 percent over the past 10 years. e narrative emanating from EU headquarters in Brussels is that high wages, early retirement, generous bene ts, and a lack of competition has led to the current crisis that has several countries on the verge

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very di erent places, but housing prices rocketed 500 percent in both countries. e money was virtually free, with low interest rates on the bank side, and cozy tax deals cut between speculators and politicians on the other. at kept the cash within a small circle of investors. While Bavarian workers were watching their pay fall, German banks were taking in record pro ts and shoveling yet more capital into the real estate bubbles in Ireland and Spain. e level of debt eventually approached the grotesque. Irelands bank debts, if translated into dollars, would be the equal of $10 trillion. e Wall Street implosion in 2008 sent shock waves around the world and popped bubbles all over Europe. While nations on the periphery of the European Union (EU) tanked rst Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Romania, Hungary, and Greece, economies at the heart of the EU Britain, Spain, Italy, and Portugal were also shaken. According to the Financial Times (FT), total claims by European banks on the Greek, Irish, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese debts alone are $2.4 trillion. e European Unions (EU) cure for the crisis is a formula with a long and troubled history, and one that has sowed several decades of falling living standards and frozen economies when it was applied to Latin America some 30 years ago. In simple terms, it is austerity, austerity and more austerity until the bank debts are paid o . ere are similarities between the current European crisis and the 1981 Latin American debt crisis. In both cases debts were issued in a currency over which borrowing countries had no control, says the FTs John Rathbone. For Latin America it was the dollar, for Europe the Euro. Secondly, there was rst a period of easy credit, followed by a worldwide recession. Bailouts were tied to the so-called Washington Consensus that demanded privatization, massive cuts in social services, wage reductions, and government austerity. e results were disastrous. As public health programs were eviscerated,
EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT

diseases like cholera reappeared. As education budgets were slashed, illiteracy increased. And as public works projects vanished, joblessness went up and wages went down. It took several years to realize that de ating wages and shrinking economies were inconsistent with being able to fully pay o debts, notes Rathbone. And yet the virtuous EU countries are applying almost exactly the same formula to the current debt crisis in Europe. For instance, the EU and the IMF agreed to bail out Irelands banks for $114 billion, but only if the Irish cut $4 billion over the next four years, raised payroll taxes 41 percent, cut old age pensions, increased the retirement age, slashed social spending, and privatized many public services. When Ireland recently asked for a reduction in the onerous interest rate for this bailout, the EU agreed to lower it 1 percent and spread out the payments, but only on the condition of yet more austerity measures and an increase in Irelands corporate tax rate. e newly elected Fine Gael/Labor government refused. To pay back its own $152 billion bailout, however, the Greek government took the deal. But the price is more austerity and an agreement to sell o almost $70 billion in government properties, including some islands and many of the Olympic Games sites. But the deal will hardly repay the debt. Unemployment in Greece is 15 percent, and as high as 35 percent among the young. Wages have fallen 20 percent, pensions have been cut, and rates for public services hiked. Growth is expected to fall 3.4 percent this year, which means that Greeces debt burden is projected to increase from 127 percent of GDP to 160 percent of GDP by 2013. Your debt will continue to increase as long as your growth rate is below the interest rate you are paying, economist Peter Westaway told the New York Times. Austerity measures in Portugal and Spain have also cut deeply into the average persons income and made life measurably harder. In Spain, more than one in ve workers are unemployed, and consumer spending is sharply o , dropping by a third this past

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holiday season. Portugal is actually in worse shape. It has one of the slowest economic growth rates in Europe, a dead-in-the-water export industry, and a youth unemployment rate of over 30 percent. In Britain, the Conservative-Liberal government has cut almost $130 billion from the budget and lobbied for what it calls the Big Society. e la er is similar to George H.W. Bushs thousand points of light and envisions a world in which private industry and volunteerism replaces governmentfunded programs. e actual result has been the closure of libraries, senior centers, public pools, youth programs, and public toilets. e cutbacks have been most deeply felt in poorer areas of the country those that traditionally vote Labor, as cynics are wont to point out but they have also taken a bite out of the Conservative Partys heartland, the Midlands. Conservative voters have organized demonstrations to save libraries in staid communities like Charlbury and to protest turning public woodlands over to private developers. According to retired nancial o cer Barbara Allison, there are 54 local voluntary organizations that run programs like meals on wheels in Charlbury. Were already devoting an awful lot of our time to charity and volunteers, she told the FT. Am I not doing enough? Is [Conservative Prime Minister] David Cameron going to volunteer? In any case, as Labor Party leader Ed Miliband points out, how does Cameron expect people to volunteer at the local library when it is being shut down? U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner strongly endorsed the Cameron program last month and said that he did not see much risk that the cutbacks would impede growth. But even the IMF warns that the formula of treating debt as the central problem in the middle of an economic recession has drawbacks. is past October an IMF study concluded the idea that scal austerity stimulates economic activity in the short term nds li le support in the data. But a massive program of privatization does mean enormous windfall pro ts for private investors and the banks and nancial institutions that nance the purchase of everything from soccer elds to national parks. ose pro ts, in turn, fuel political machines that use money and media to dominate the narrative that greedy pensioners, lay-about teachers, and freeloaders are the problem. And austerity is the solution. But increasingly people are not buying the message, and from Athens to Wisconsin they are taking their reservations to the streets. e crowd in Charlbury was a modest 200, and the tone polite. In Athens the demonstration drew 250,000 and people chanted Kle es, or thieves. But the message in both places is much the same: we have had enough. A bus driver in Athens told Australian journalist Kia Mistilis that his wages had been cut from 1800 Euros ($2,500) a month to 1200 Euros ($1,660). ere are more cuts coming into e ect in the next three months, thats why the protests are heating up. I am worried that my wages will be cut to 800 Euros ($1,110) a month, and if that happens I dont know how I will survive. But he has a plan. e situation is reaching a climax, he told Mistilis, because working people know that the austerity measures go too far, and with the nal rollout, they cant survive. So there is nothing to do but protest, adding, You wait until next summer. e situation in Greece will explode. It is unlikely that Greece will be alone.

Conn M. Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. This article was published in FPIF.org (http://www.fpif.org/blog/europes_ austerity_like_something_out_of_the_brothers_grimm) on 17 March 2011.

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MOVIE REVIEW

GASLAND
By Jeff Leins

few years ago, an energy company approached Milanville, Pennsylvania resident Josh Fox with a proposition. In exchange for a cool $100,000, the company would lease his land in order to drill beneath it and tap the Marcellus Shale, the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Uneasy, Fox launched his own investigation into the ma er and uncovers a horror show of appalling imagery and gaping industry loopholes. As part of HBOs excellent Summer Docs series and now an Oscar nominee, GasLand is as much an environmental wake-up call as the personal journey of Fox, a do-it-yourself lmmaker and accidental detective who begins his mission as a concerned citizen only to become a rogue crusader for awareness. A guerrilla-style opening introduces Fox in a rural expanse plucking a banjo and wearing a gas mask between two towering drills, a provocative picture that sets the tone for a powerful message. With retro visual aids, Fox explains an extraction process that involves fracking, which sounds like Ba lestar Galactica slang but is a shorthand term for hydraulic fracturing, or manufactured minor earthquakes made underground to release natural gas. But this unnatural method results in seepage that clearly contaminates nearby drinking water and creates toxic conditions for surrounding citizens, regardless of who signed a lease contract. Some are terri ed to show their face on camera, but those who share their story, along with jars of murky drinking water, tell of excruciating symptoms, such as headaches, loss of taste, and even brain damage. Sickly animals show signi cant weight and hair loss. But the shocking smoking gun comes when a lighter ame bends hauntingly towards a faucet stream before igniting the tap water into a ball of re. Its fracking outrageous. e investigation expands to other towns across the country a ected by natural gas drilling and onto New York where Fox seeks to expose the politics behind such shameful business

practices. An anonymous whistleblower spills insider details, stealth shots reveal unchecked pollution, and excerpts from the 2005 Energy Act reveal a disturbing oil and gas exemption dubbed the Hallibur ton Loophole, implicating a recurring face of political corruption, former Halliburton CEO and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Of course, Fox is given the runaround when he probes for answers, illustrated by the end credits crawl of names and organizations who refused to comment. Anecdotal evidence is sprinkled with sound research and mixed with loving shots of lush, uncorrupted American environments, all accompanied by lulling, o en poetic voiceover that drives his points home. Foxs methods are crude, even amateurish, but the story he uncovers is compelling enough to overshadow the lms inconsequential aws. GasLand premiered on HBO in mid-2010 and was, coincidentally, timed with the BP oil disaster that spilled 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico. In the a ermath, this eye-opening documentary is part of a global problem involving unchecked, unregulated industry and the corporations who display a ippant disregard for those people and places who become collateral damage in the pursuit of pro t.

COPYRIGHT 2007-2010 NewsinFilm.com. All Rights Reserved by News in Film

This article was published by News in Film (NewsinFilm.com) on 24 February 2011

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FACTS & FIGURES

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