Telecommunications workers connect internationally !
Ter the or is moth about sus 100 bilion, and the *elecommunications is one of the fastest-growing sectors constructors is worth about $US 100 billion, and the market for services (telecommunications operators an incredible $US410 billion. The three biggest constructors are Alcatel NV(French), AT&T (U.S. owned) and Siemens (German). This strong growth rate is accompanied by the development of new services, which rely on state-of-the-art technology. Beyond the humble telephone there has been an explosion in mobile communications and all those involved are interested in the next stage: 'multi-media' and wide band transmission. For large capitalist groupings and the governments, there is a great deal at stake in telecommunications. They hope the sector will work as a motor to relaunch the rest of the economy. Telecommunications has experienced two great waves of free-market reforms. The first phase of 'deregulation' began under the impetus of the USA, in the early 1970s. This meant moving from a situation where national monopolies carried out public service assignments to one where smaller state enterprises or private sector companies realise some services. In the USA, AT&T was split into 7 regional companies and competition established on inter-regional and international lines (where AT&T, MCI and Sprint compete for customers). The model was exported to Japan and to England (where the private company Mercury began to compete with British Telecom for long distance callers). Elsewhere the evolution has been more moderate, round of deregulation. But the battle is not yet over. Things are moving faster in Europe: the Completely unaccountable European Council of Ministers has adopted a project to completely open up the sector to competition from 1998. This proposal was explicity rejected by the European Parliament in June 1994. The G-7 coordination group (a meeting of the leaders of the 7 most industrial countries) will meet in Brussels on 25-26 February to discuss telecommunications. The meeting was requested by the Clinton administration, which wants Europe and Japan to open up their markets to North American telecommunications equipment producers faster than they are currently doing. In practical terms, the political significance of the summit is clear: it will speed up the privatisation and exposure to competition of the currently state-owned telecummunications companies. With further deregulation decisively blocked in Germany and Greece, the main "fat" markets are France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium. The consequences for public service telecommunications workers are plain. Even in private telecommunications companies, workforce reduction programmes and redundancy policies are on the increase The users of public telecommunication services are threatened too. The equal treatment of users is being abandoned: rural users might soon have to pay the full cost of connection to the network. The tariff structure in most countries is being recalibrated in favour of business users and at the expense of the public.
An offensive of these proportions calls for a trade
Committee to defend public services but the pattern is the same:
introduction of doses of c/o Solidarités en mouvement into competition very
Rue des Champs du Calvaire, 33 protected markets.
7110 Houdeng-Aimeries, Belgium
Today we have entered a new phase, a phase where all parts of the telephone network are being opened wide to all potential competitors. In the USA, local operators frightened of destablisation of the post-70s status quo, or the growth of new private monopolies, persuaded the Congress to give a negative first opinion to the
Clinton administration's package of measures for a second union response: a reaction that mobilises employees, and determines the way forward for a modern public service. Now more than ever, the solutions have to be built at the international level.
The G-7 meeting could be the opportunity to create the necessary union coordination. In Belgium a committee for organising a "Counter G-7" is in the process of being
* established.
French 'SUD' Union advances The SUD federation in France is one of the most dynamic elements in the movement for international solidarity of telecom workers. Solidaires, Unitaires, Democratiques -Together, United, Democratic) was created in January 1989 by CFDT-PTT militants from the Paris region, who were sanctioned by the national federation at the end of 1988 for having supported striking white-collar workers. The confederate management of the CFDT was trying to rid itself of the most combative elements among its member unions, i.e. the PTT and health unions in the Paris region.
In 1989 elections for workers' representatives, SUD won 4.5% of the vote in the Post Office and 6% in France Telecom. Over the last six years, through struggles to protect the public status of the Post Office and France Telecom, SUD ha grouped militants involved in coordination activities and the core of those militants opposed to the CFDT and the CGT. The results are clear. In similar workplace elections in 1994, SUD won 12% of the vote in the Post Office and 22% in France Telecom (second place among the unions represented). Membership of SUD has grown 400% since 1989. *
International Viewpoint #263 February 1995 36