Vavi wants ‘space’ for trade unions at Brics Summit

 TRADE unions are holding out for a seat at this week’s Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) Summit, with Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi saying on Sunday that unions want "a space" at the talks.

Mr Vavi’s comments came as the second Brics Trade Union Forum took place in Durban at the weekend, ahead of the fifth Brics summit, which starts in the city on Tuesday.

His remarks were echoed by Quintino Severo of the Brazilian worker movement Central Unica Dos Tradalhadores. "We say the only coherent thing to do is open space in the Brics Business Council to allow worker participation," Mr Severo said.

The meeting was one of many events that began in Durban at the weekend, including a maritime summit and meetings between business, civil society and political organisations, as well as a beach festival.

More than 5,000 international visitors are expected for the Brics Summit. In place on Sunday were temporary concrete and steel barriers erected around Durban’s international conference centre to seal off the event from the rest of the city.

Mr Vavi said Brics countries had to guard against being seen as another wave of colonisers seeking resources from Africa, and Brics business interests needed to be subordinate to the interests of the people.

International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said on Saturday that the conference could be a turning point, moving the world away from a "unipolar" global power model led by the US to a model balanced by better co-operation between countries in the southern hemisphere and increasing "north-south dialogue".

Mr Vavi said the Brics developing countries needed to represent the interests of smaller developing nations. Brics institutions should support alternative models of development financing and trade over current models, which were biased towards developed countries and were based on the extraction of resources from developing countries.

Trade unions did not want the proposed Brics development bank to become the same type of institution as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — it should focus on a model that prioritised the needs of the poor, said Mr Vavi.

Ms Nkoana-Mashabane also touched on this on Saturday, saying economic and financial models of the IMF and World Bank no longer worked and the Brics presented an opportunity to develop alternatives.

Mr Vavi said the Brics needed to take the lead in proposing protectionist trade models for the World Trade Organisation (WTO), as current arrangements did not support the industrialisation of developing countries.

WTO export and import policies on manufactured goods put smaller countries at a disadvantage, and even northern hemisphere trade unions backed out of talks when this issue was raised with the WTO, said Mr Vavi.

Resource extraction policies and a colonialist outlook on African development were at the centre of tension between northern and southern hemisphere unions, he said. Import substitution, along with ensuring sustainability and commodity beneficiation, should be a focus of Brics institutions.

Mr Vavi said even South Africa’s National Development Plan did not emphasise a drive towards local industrialisation or beneficiation. "In fact it invested a lesser contribution by the manufacturing sector, and therefore industrialisation, in its target to drive unemployment to 6% by 2030," he said.

"That is a very critical problem because it then says the economy must continue to be service-orientated — meaning that all South Africa is going to be about is buying goods that are already processed and produced by other countries, and … about tourism, retail and all of that."

He said the Brics summit should allow trade unions to participate in the discussions for it to be developmental.

"It has to be mutually beneficial from the trade and economic point of view. It can’t be that bigger countries will dominate the agenda and set the agenda and benefit more from smaller countries such as South Africa.

"If we don’t succeed in fighting the battle for the industrialisation of Africa we will continue to work in service industries where worker numbers are shrinking," Mr Vavi said.

 Source : http://www.bdlive.co.za