FNTG White Paper on Responses to the Global Economic Crisis 2010

Contents

PREFACE

I. INTRODUCTION

II. CASE STUDIES

Case Study #1: Bank Accountability

Case Study #2: Financial Speculation Taxes

Case Study #3: Commodities Speculation

Case Study #4: International Financial Institutions

Case Study #5: Building Grassroots Alternatives

III. FUNDING NEEDS

IV. FOR FURTHER READING

NOVEMBER 2010

Civil Society Responses

to the Global Financial and Economic Crisis

FNTG White Paper

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II.  Case Studies (continued)

Case study #5: Building Grassroots Alternatives: the Inter-Alliance Dialogue

As we’ve seen over the past two years, systemic change does not happen overnight.  There is a strong need in the United States for long-term social movement building to build a stronger counterweight to entrenched powers.  This case study focuses on a new network of networks called the Inter-Alliance Dialogue (IAD) that came together in December 2008 to help combine their grassroots efforts to build movement infrastructure and push bold solutions to the crisis over the short- and long-term. 

Who’s involved:

IAD network members are: Grassroots Global Justice, Jobs with Justice, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Pushback Network, and Right to the City.   Collectively, these networks represent hundreds of thousands of poor, working class members from predominantly people of color and historically disenfranchised communities throughout the United States.

Goals:

IAD seeks to: 1) Respond to the current economic and environmental crises by developing a bold agenda for change founded on a vision of just, equitable, democratic and sustainable recovery, 2) Ensure that base constituencies are united at the forefront of efforts for transformative social change, 3) Achieve a level of scale and impact beyond the reach of the separate national networks/alliances, and 4) Develop local, regional and national capacity.

Key activities in 2009-2010:

• Response to the economic crisis, including membership education on the root causes; a hearing with the Congressional Progressive Caucus to provide grassroots testimonies on the impact on low-income families; and development of a set of representational values and prospective national policy demands.

• Collaboration on immigration, including creation of a national strike fund for IAD groups for rapid response needs; national support to NDLON and grassroots organizations in Arizona in the wake of the passage of Arizona anti-immigration legislation; and hosting a National Organizers Summit to Turn the Tide on Criminalization and Enforcement in New Orleans.

• Leadership in the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in June, including: organizing a delegation of 1,000 grassroots members and three Peoples Movement Assemblies on Excluded Workers (see more detail below); urban employment and housing; and alternatives to the economic and ecological crises.

June 2010

IAD’s work is currently focused on three tracks:

1.  Addressing Immediate Economic, Immigration, and Climate Crises:

Turning the Tide on the Economic Crisis and Building a Movement for Full and Fair Employment: This component (anchored by Jobs with Justice) seeks to address the unemployment crisis, prevent the erosion of the public sector, and hold both private/public interests accountable to both the economic collapse and the responsibility of recovery.

Turning the Tide on Criminalization and Enforcement and Building a Vision of Inclusive and Participatory Communities NDLON is the anchor lead network on this effort, which is focusing on three primary strategies:

• Front-line states – Developing the capacity of state-based coalitions to take on anti-immigrant policies through grassroots organizing of community defense councils, at the legislative level, and in the courts.
• Beacon cities – Deepening activity among IAD local affiliates and allies in strategic municipalities that are choosing to opt out of particularly harmful anti-immigrant policies, such as the “Secure Communities” program and 287g agreements.
• Cross-sectoral work – Strengthening collaboration between the immigrant rights movement and other sectors, including organized labor and women’s organizations.

Turning the Tide on the Climate Crisis and Building a Movement for Resilient communities and Global Well Being:  This initiative is currently focusing on ensuring a strong presence of grassroots voices in solidarity with organizations from the Global South (such as Via Campesina) at the Cancun global climate talks, as well as decentralized local actions to educate the public about the catastrophes of the ecological crisis and positive alternatives.  

2.  Long-Term Policy Demands:  After consultations within IAD and with progressive economists and other technical experts, IAD set two priority two long-term policy goals:

National Inclusion Act to:

• expand the right to organize to all workers. Many groups of workers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, such as farm workers and domestic workers, as well as groups of workers who are effectively excluded from the right to organize by “right-to-work” laws or by virtue of the nature of their work as guest workers or day laborers.  This legislation would offer a rewriting of labor law to ensure everyone’s right to organize as a basic human right, and a constitutional right to be free from slavery.

• include communities in the regulation of banks and finance and decisions on government dollars, particularly those going to corporate interests.  This could be based on the Section 3 example in U.S. housing law, which requires consultation with communities on housing dollars spent.  

As noted above, IAD convened an Excluded Workers Congress at the USSF as a first step towards the Inclusion Act.  The Congress included domestic workers, taxi drivers, workers from “right-to-work” states, day laborers, restaurant workers, formerly incarcerated workers, farmworkers, welfare/workfare workers, guestworkers and others who do not have full rights under U.S. law.  At a follow-up meeting in late September they identified three key campaigns:

• Establishing an Excluded Worker Task Force within the Department of Labor to ensure effective enforcement and to strengthen workplace rights of excluded workers. 
• Demanding a meaningful minimum wage to raise and index the minimum wage and including workers who are excluded.
• A campaign to win the P.O.W.E.R. Act, which will give legal status to workers who are fighting for their labor rights, protecting them from threats and retaliation.

The campaign also seeks to build meaningful relationships with partners in the trade union movement both within the United States and internationally. Building off of the work, expertise and relationships that the National Domestic Workers Alliance has developed through working on the “Decent Work for Domestic Workers” international convention on domestic work at the ILO, the Excluded Workers Congress will seek to work in partnership with global labor movements and use the vehicle of the ILO to collaboratively build an international framework and movement to expand the right to organize as a human right.

Ashim Roy of the New Trade Union Initiative in India, a leader in the regional Asia Floor Wage Campaign to establish a regional floor wage in the garment industry in Asia and a global bargaining structure to bring garment worker unions together across borders into joint negotiations with brands, was invited to participate in the inaugural congress.  One item on the Excluded Workers Congress agenda for 2011 is to organize an international conference on the human right to organize to continue and strengthen collaboration internationally.

The National Community Reinvestment Bank

The proposal is to create a national bank with federal dollars with a community Board of Directors to support local community-run economic development initiatives.  IAD networks used the USSF to lay the groundwork to launch a more fully developed campaign around the National Community Reinvestment Bank in late 2010.  The Steering Committee is working with both the base of its membership to lift up ideas/concepts that resonate with the base while simultaneously engaging with academics, economists and policy analysts to assess opportunities and conceptual frameworks.

3. Building Political Unity: The IAD has created space for members of its six founding coalitions to discuss common strategy, shared language, and common approaches to social change.  The goal is to both build the power necessary to influence local and federal policies, but also to develop a shared language around a positive agenda. 

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