support McKinney debt-relief bill Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Labor Alerts: a free service of Campaign for Labor Rights To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to . Web site: Phone: (541) 344-5410 Fax: (541) 431-0523 Membership/newsletter: Send $35.00 to Campaign for Labor Rights, 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. Sample newsletter available on request. SUPPORT MCKINNEY DEBT-RELIEF BILL posted June 14, 1999 In this alert: Unlocking the gates: background on the McKinney bill ACTION REQUEST: Contact your representative now Second installment of organizing packet almost ready New resource: The Maquiladora Reader <><><><><> UNLOCKING THE GATES background on the McKinney bill, from Campaign for Labor Rights The peoples of the poorest nations are confined to a debtors prison. They are held responsible for debts run up by the elites of their own countries, in collusion with some of the most powerful institutions on the planet. They labor away, making payments on a debt which increases year by year. The inmates of this prison are most aptly represented by those who toil in miserable conditions, for miserly wages, in sweatshops around the world. Indeed, with barbed wire, armed guards and restrictions on workers' movement, many sweatshops bear a strong resemblance to prisons. How would the world be different if the most impoverished nations were released from this debtors prison? <><><><><> Thanks to an important new debt-relief bill proposed by Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, we can begin to imagine a world without massive debt and without the sweatshops which are the appropriate symbol of the global debtors prison. McKinney's bill makes no mention of sweatshops, but it has everything to do with how sweatshops re-emerged in our time - and everything to do with how to consign them back to the history books. At the heart of the McKinney bill are two areas of action: (1) Cancel debts owed by the world's 42 most impoverished countries (except in cases of failure of democratization), and (2) Get the IMF out of imposing structural adjustment on impoverished countries. Let's take a look at: * How the modern debtors prison came into being, * Why the global debtors prison is a sweatshop, * Who are the jailors and the inmates of this prison, and * Alternatives for the world's working poor - and for ourselves - once we have abolished the global debtors prison. * * * * * How the Modern Debtors Prison Came into Being: the debt crisis Beginning in the 1970s, the World Bank led the way in dramatically increasing lending for ill-conceived projects in what is now referred to as the Global South. Those projects arose out of negotiations between Bank officials and often corrupt leaders of Southern governments. Even the Bank admits that - on its on terms - a stunning 37.5% of its projects were failures. However, the World Bank and its employees escape accountability ... while the world's poorest countries are left with economic havoc, environmental destruction, displacement of populations and debts amounting to $371 billion, of which $160-300 billion should be considered unpayable. By the early 1980s, many countries had gone so far into hock as to be unable to keep up even with the interest payments on their debts - hope of paying off the principle being long since abandoned. * * * * * The Rules of the Global Debtors Prison: structural adjustment as a precondition for sweatshops As default loomed for a growing number of countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in with offers to restructure debts and to provide additional loans dedicated to debt servicing. Such loans were conditioned on compliance with IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs. Structural adjustment requires participating governments to: * Slash support for health care, education, electricity, water, sanitation and other people-based services essential for developing and sustaining a modern industrial workforce. * Eliminate loans for small and medium-sized businesses, resulting in massive unemployment and - with the destruction of the local middle class - an increasingly polarized economy. * End price supports for locally grown food and permit importation of cheap grains. (The low price of such grains often results from government subsidies in their countries of origin. This is but one of the double standards of the global economy.) These policies contribute to driving farmers off the land and into the cities, where they join a desperate army of the unemployed. * Dismantle governmental programs to promote and coordinate the development of a national industrial base. * Privatize state-owned industries, even those which are highly profitable, preparing the way for busting of strong public-sector unions. * Establish free trade (sweatshop) zones to produce goods for foreign-owned corporations and for export to countries of the Global North. Factories in these zones enjoy infrastructure provided by host governments, while receiving tax exemptions. Corporations are lured to free trade zones by promises that labor and environmental law will not be enforced, wages will be low and officials can be counted on to side with the company whenever workers become restive. Typically, the factories in free trade zones require low capital investment and contribute nothing to the development of a substantial industrial base. Far from being a formula for development, proliferation of sweatshops depends on the prior destruction of what is viable in a country's economy. Sweatshops are a debtors prison - and the creditors have thrown away the key. * * * * * The Jailors of the Modern Debtors Prison: the World Bank, the IMF and the G7 Global creditors include an array of international financial institutions - the multi-lateral (multi-country) lenders. Setting the tone and establishing the policies for all of them are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Often in coordination with the World Bank and the IMF, the richest and most powerful industrial nations (the "G7") make bi-lateral (country-to-country) loans to the countries of the Global South. This massive web of multi-lateral and bi-lateral debt ultimately serves the interests of the largest corporations in the G7. It is for their benefit that structural adjustment programs are imposed. And it is for their benefit that the G7 governments have promoted trade bills such as NAFTA and GATT/WTO, so that corporations can avoid import restrictions on the goods they have produced in sweatshops around the world. By setting the terms of structural adjustment, the World Bank and the IMF truly act as the jailors of the global debtors prison. * * * * * The Inmates of the Global Debtors Prison: the 42 most heavily indebted and impoverished countries Angola, Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Congo Republic, Ctte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Sco Tomi and Prmncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen and Zambia. The McKinney bill would exclude from debt-relief any country where an elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree - such as Burma (renamed Myanmar by the dictatorship), Niger, Guinea-Bissau and Congo Republic - unless the President of the United States determines that a democratically-elected government has taken office. * * * * * Unlocking the Gates: labor in a world without debt Working people around the world - and right here in our own country - have a big stake in debt relief and ending structural adjustment. Passage of the McKinney bill would be an important step toward unlocking the gates of the global debtors prison and releasing the world's poor from sweatshops. Debt relief could: * Provide an opening for the world's poorest countries to begin developing their own industrial base, to produce for the needs of their own people. * Remove the incentive for runaway corporations to desert their workers in higher-wage countries where unions are permitted, in search of low-wage havens of repression. * Undo the dead-end economics driving workers out of their own country, to seek employment in the Global North. * Promote harmony among diverse peoples, instead of the instability and violence which arise from desperate poverty. * Allow countries to make social policy based on caring for the environment, the well-being of people and the preservation of culture - rather than serving the needs of endlessly greedy corporations owing allegiance to no one. * Replace sweatshops with jobs offering dignity and justice. A world without massive debt would make a world of difference. It's past time that we unlocked the gates of the global debtors prison. <><><><><> ACTION REQUEST: Contact your representative now! So far, the following Representatives have endorsed the McKinney debt-relief bill: McKinney (Georgia), S. Brown (Ohio), Kucinich (Ohio), Hilliard (Alabama), Delahunt (Massachusetts), Carson (Indiana), Stark (California), D. Davis (Illinois), Evans (Illinois), Rush (Illinois), Woolsey (California), B. Thompson (Mississippi), Sanders (Vermont), and Meek (Florida). If one of these is your Representative, please call and congratulate her/him for endorsing the McKinney bill. If your Representative has not yet endorsed the McKinney bill, please call today and ask that s/he sign on to this important bill to unlock the global debtors prison. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121. <><><><><> SECOND INSTALLMENT OF ORGANIZING PACKET ALMOST READY Work on the second installment of the 1999 Sweatshop Activist Organizing Packet is well underway. We hope to be ready to put it in the mail on June 22. Everyone who ordered the first installment automatically receives subsequent installments throughout the year. Everyone ordering the packet now will receive the second installment, plus all materials which are still timely from the first installment. The 1999 Sweatshop Activist Organizing Packet is a multi-theme, multi-campaign packet for local activists who are organizing around sweatshop issues. Order by email or phone (541) 344-5410. Include your postal address: Packet is in hard copy. Packet includes a donation form and a return envelope. Suggested donation: $10.00. <><><><><> NEW RESOURCE The Maquiladora Reader: cross-border organizing since NAFTA produced by the American Friends Service Committee: American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, (215) 241-7000, , . Globalization is one of the most talked-about phenomena of the 1990s, but little information is available on how those who are most involved - the communities and working people affected by globe-trotting corporations - are responding to its challenges. The Maquiladora Reader explores how grassroots activists are facing one of the most important trends in the globalization of production: the proliferation of maquiladoras, the foreign- (mostly U.S.-) owned assembly plants along the Mexico-U.S. border. Through more than two dozen readings culled from a variety of sources, The Maquiladora Reader reveals the determination and creativity of maquiladora workers as they seek to improve their wages and working conditions, protect their communities from health and environmental hazards and build cross-border relationships with unions, religious groups, community organizations and others. Includes chapters on: Women in the Maquiladoras Health and Environmental Concerns Cross-Border Initiatives NAFTA - And Beyond Resource Directory & Bibliography And more Please send me _____ copies of The Maquiladora Reader @ $14.95 US ($22.50 Canadian). Discount of 30% for 5 or more copies. Trade discounts available - call (215) 241-7059 for information. Shipping & handling: Add $3.50 for first copy, $2 for each additional copy ($5 and $3 Canadian). Overseas orders will be billed for actual postage costs. Total enclosed: $ Order from Literature Resources, AFSC, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102. Make checks payable to AFSC. All orders must be prepaid or include an organizational purchase order number. Allow 3 to 4 weeks for delivery. To use Mastercard or Visa, call toll-free 1-888-588-2372. 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