They came from Belarus , Kyrgyzstan , Ghana , India and all over the world. Because of the different languages that they spoke, they needed simultaneous translation into five different languages.
These were the 300 delegates who attended the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) Central Committee held in Cape Town on December 3 to 4. Despite their different backgrounds, they spoke with one voice: how to strengthen the organisation of metalworkers across the globe!
The gathering, which was preceded by an African regional conference, took place under the theme: Mobilising towards an alternative economic programme .
Introducing the draft programme, IMF general secretary Marcello Malentacchi said that “there is overwhelming evidence that globalisation’s promised benefits have by-and-large failed to follow, and that in fact adverse results are rather achieved in many instances”.
In a debate that took more than three hours, different speakers spoke passionately about the effects of globalisation on workers and their countries.
Delegates also discussed the meaning of the collapse of WTO negotiations in Cancun , Mexico . The breakdown of the talks “reflects a deep crisis in the institutions of global governance”, the meeting resolved.
The IMF was equally critical of the global unions’ strategy in Cancun . “Workers need to be mobilised, in alliance with other democratic actors in society, so that trade unions can play a key leadership role in this indispensable process of democratic reform of the multi-lateral system”, said the IMF’s highest decision-making structure between congresses.
The Central Committee mandated its Executive Committee to revise the draft alternative economic programme taking into consideration the debate at the meeting. The revision must come back to the next Executive Committee meeting.
The Central Committee which was addressed by South Africa ‘s Minister of Trade and Industry and Cosatu Western Cape’s regional secretary, adopted other resolutions on the repression of unionists in Zimbabwe and Belarus .
Other business of the meeting was to elect a new IMF president, Jí¼rgen Peters. The new president, from German trade union, IG Metall, succeeds Klaus Zwickel who has retired.
With the Central Committee now over, all eyes are on the World Congress which takes place in May 2005 in Vienna , Austria .