IAM President Tom Buffenbarger (center) and members of the Executive Council lead members at the November 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas demonstration in Miami, Florida.

Trade & Globalization — 3

Solidarity Activities

The IAM also continues to build on its strong relationship with several unions. For example, our work with Svenska Metall (Swedish Metalworkers) continues to grow. Since the last convention, there have been several bilateral exchanges focusing on the IAM’s High Performance Work Organization work sites and locations where there are common multinational employers.

The IAM has also strengthened its relationship with IG Metall, one of the largest metalworkers unions in the world. In October 2002, IP Buffenbarger addressed the union’s Executive Committee and last winter the IAM and IG Metall engaged in meetings to plan several future activities together.

The IAM has also moved to establish its own direct relationships with other unions in the civil aviation sector to formulate strategies for the growing globalization of the transportation industry. The IAM’s efforts culminated in two symposiums of International Transport Federation Workers.

At both sessions, held in 2001 and most recently in 2003, workers throughout the world attended IAM coordinated meetings that were convened at the William W. Winpisinger Education and Technology Center. For over two days in each session, workers had the opportunity to discuss difficult questions dealing with outsourcing, cutthroat competition, airline alliances and their effects on workers.

As a part of their collaborative work, computer models on problem solving were developed by the WWW staff and used in actual exercises in solidarity. The meeting in 2003 culminated in the Placid Harbor Understanding, an international agreement. Versions of this memorandum of understanding are now being incorporated in some of the International Transport Workers’ Federation’s own activities.

Over the past four years, the IAM has hosted over 200 trade union visitors from outside the United States and Canada. In the next four years, the Trade and Globalization Department will continue to work with IAM Territories, Districts and Locals to facilitate these important exchanges.

The IAM has worked very hard to educate its officers and staff about the realities of the global economy. In July 2002, the Eastern Territory staff toured the maquiladora area in Tijuana, Mexico. This inspection completed a series of visits to the region that has now been seen by most of the full time staff in the Machinists Union. It has been a sobering experience to encounter first hand the living conditions of workers that labor in the state-of-the-art factories run by multinational corporations whose names are familiar across the United States and Canada.

These trips have been recorded in numerous District and Local Lodge newsletters, have been shared with IAM families and discussed in the communities that are home for our members.

A New Millennium

As this report is being completed, the IAM has firmly stepped into a new century. The challenges facing both the leaders and members of our union are difficult, but must be decisively dealt with. In the new era of a global economy, there are no easy solutions.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has passed its 10th anniversary and the negative economic aftershocks continue to be felt. Negotiations are under way for the Free Trade Area of the Americas that would expand a NAFTA-type agreement to all of Central and South America and the Caribbean region (with the exception of Cuba). In addition, the United States government continues to expand its efforts in negotiating these types of trade agreements with other countries.

At the same time trade agreements are being negotiated, fundamental human rights, including core ILO labor standards, are under attack throughout the world. Efforts to weaken basic rights through privatization, outsourcing and assaults on current worker protections and trade union activities are occurring on an unprecedented scale.

What this means for the IAM and its members are unceasing threats of job loss and economic disruption. The Trade and Globalization Department will continue to address these issues by developing innovative strategies and programs and by coordinating its efforts with other IAM departments as well as with our trade union colleagues and other allies throughout the world.

The IAM will keep demanding that trade organizations and agreements reflect basic trade union principles of fairness, justice, transparency and democracy. For us, the choice is not free trade versus protectionism. Rather, it is a choice between a trading system that ignores the interests of IAM members and other workers throughout the world in favor of a handful of the world’s richest multinational corporations.

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