Globalization a threat to workers and to democracy,
says Steelworkers President Leo Gerard
Globalization and North American integration have created an economic
elite at the expense of workers, said Leo Gerard, International
President of the 700,000-member United Steelworkers of America.
Mr. Gerard addressed nearly 100 attendees at the 2003 Don Wood
Lecture on March 6, organized by the Queen’s Industrial
Relations Centre and School of Industrial Relations.
Mr. Gerard painted a gloomy picture of globalization’s effects
internationally—drops in per capita income in Latin America
and Africa; a widening gap between rich and poor, both within
and among nations; and financial instability, as evidenced by
the East Asian crisis, economic collapse in Russia, Argentina
and Ecuador, and global recession.
In North America, free trade agreements are exacerbating these
problems, resulting in “obscene wealth” for the few
and harsh economic realities for workers, he added.
“CEOs in Canada and the United States are rewarded for moving
jobs offshore, for laying off workers,” he said, “for
terminating pension plans and retiree health care coverage, for
ravaging the environment and for violating workers fundamental
human rights—especially the right to freedom of association,
to organize and bargain collectively with their employers. In
its present form, NAFTA would extend those perverse incentives
throughout the North American continent.”
Reversing this, Mr. Gerard said, “is the challenge placed
before the labour movements of Canada, Mexico and the United States—and
since our political leaders seem determined to duplicate the most
objectionable features of NAFTA in the Free Trade Area of the
Americas, before unions in Central and South America as well.”
Further, a global social movement is needed to ensure that the
concentrated wealth created by globalization does not compromise
democracy, he added. “That, in a nutshell, is the most serious
implication of globalization and North American integration—not
just for the labour movement, but also for every citizen on our
continent, and in our world.”
The Don Wood Lecture brings to Queen’s distinguished individuals
such as Mr. Gerard who have made an important contribution to
industrial relations in Canada or abroad. The son of a Sudbury
miner and union organizer, Mr. Gerard grew up in the company town
of Creighton in northern Ontario, started working at Inco’s
smelter when he was 18, and rose steadily through the ranks of
union leadership to become a key figure in the international labour
movement.
