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Economic Social & Labour Policy Coherence Key to the Race to Top
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Financial crisis which originated from USA was mainly due to the collapse of the middle class whose paltry income was inadequate to pay their debts. Neo liberal policies dominated in the past few decades created working poor classes whose wages and income have been continuously spiraling down. Saving more and spending less traditional Asian values; have not contributed to the current global financial and economic crisis as perceived by some analyst. Response to the crisis; finally comes in the form of governments giving back money to people to spend as economic stimulus packages. It is the right time by the governments and employers to re-think and allow workers through their trade unions to collectively bargain to ensure fair return for labor. To secure an equitable and sustainable return for labor, trade unions need to organize and strengthen their bargaining power said Christopher Ng, UNI Apro Regional Secretary in his opening remarks, at the inauguration of 3rd UNI Apro Finance Sector conference in Bangkok. Furthermore Christopher in his opening remarks said; building a socially responsible ASEAN economic community is one of the key priorities for UNI Apro. Engaging in the process of building ASEAN economic community through tripartite social dialogues is the first step in that direction. For this purpose a first tripartite meeting in the forty two years history of ASEAN was held in Bangkok prior to the UNI Apro Finance Sector conference. Seven ASEAN member governments nominated ministry of manpower officials together with two employer organizations for the tripartite meeting which was co-hosted by UNI APRO and FES together with ASETUC, BWI and PSI in Bangkok on 23-24 October 2009. ASEAN community has now acknowledged that trade unions have an important role to play to reverse the race to the bottom putting people before profits and socialize the regional economic integration process. Christopher said trade unions need to adopt innovative strategies to organize members in to trade unions as role of trade unions are relevant and all the more important today. Rolling back the race to the bottom: our response to the global financial crisis was the theme of the 3rd UNI Apro Finance Sector Conference held on 25- 26 October 2009 in Bangkok, Thailand. Profit is first no care for people; this includes customers and employees as well. Rights of the society is not even a concern of the finance industry which has created devastation in the global economy under the neo liberalism said Oliver Roethig, Head UNI Finance global union at the inauguration. Rolling back the race to the bottom is the break through and fits in with UNI global unions Nagasaki 2010 congress theme “Breaking Through”. Best deals are for banks and not for the customers; this is the attitude of many top bank managers in Europe. They are also of the opinion that; providing proper financial advice to customers is not a duty of a bank employee they only suppose to sell products to customers. Responsible finance industry with proper regulation and supervision and ethical sales financial products are the key priorities for UNI Finance global union said Roethig in his opening remarks. Low interest rate regime paved the way for financial engineering to increase the fee based income of the banks. Rating agencies rated for a fee high yielding products without any professional ethics. Regulatory inaction triggered the financial crisis which led to a global economic crisis; Koji Ishikawa President of UNI Apro Finance analyzed the trends of the crisis in his opening address. Ishikawa invited the delegates to contribute at the discussion of the conference as the responsible sales of financial products and establishing a responsible financial system in the region is a priority of UNI Apro Finance. Jayasri Priyalal UNI Apro Director for Finance Sector Activities welcomed all delegates and participants for the conference appreciating their cooperation by readjusting schedules within a short notice. Dr. Rene E Oferneo, from University of Philippines presented an overview of the lessons learnt from the Asian financial crisis in 1997 to date. He analyzed the causes and effects of the financial crisis and listed ten key points as lessons to link the connections between 1997 Asian financial crisis to the current global financial crisis. Liberalization without regulations and direction created mega institutions now labeled as “Too Big to fail” and rescued with tax payer’s money. Dr. Oferneo appreciated the pro-active role UNI Apro studying on the impact of GATS and its cloned version AFAS on employment conditions in finance industry in Asia & Pacific region. In his conclusions, Dr. Oferneo said that trade unions must have a voice in development, and in policy forums and extending the house of labor for all. He emphasized that decent work agenda put forward by ILO need to be supported by trade unions. Global architecture of economy need to be revision as lack of policy coherence is the challenge for transforming the race to the bottom to top. Putting banking back to its original purpose linking savers and investors, supporting all types of businesses whether they are big or small should be one of the priorities of UNI Apro Finance. UNI Finance as a global union should push the G20 to abandon one size fits all policy doctrine of Washington Consensus. Dr. Oferneo reminded as to how institutional economics and the industrial relations discipline came in to being as a response to the great depression in 1930 with the introduction of social security systems backed by strong trade unions. The deliberations at the conference focused on following topics; Responsible and Sustainable Financial System Responsible Sales Practices in Banks Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Insurance Industry in Asia & Pacific Trade union agenda to promote gender equality at workplace Conference adopted a new UNI Apro Finance Sector Rules in accordance with the UNI Finance global rules. As per new rules one third of the steering group members should be women. Koji Ishikawa President of FNIU Japan was elected as the UNI Apro Finance President for the new term. New work plan for UNI Apro finance for 2009-2013 was also endorsed by the conference. Thirty delegates [26 Males + 4 Females],(8) Eight observers[6 Males+2 Females], (23) twenty three guest [13 males+10 Females] from 28 unions representing 14 countries in Asia & Pacific region attended the conference. There was one observer from People’s Democratic Republic of Laos also at the conference. |
