Capital should not be left unchecked, and labour not to be left on the mercy of the market!

May 26th, 2014

As a vibrant union movement in our part of world, we in GEFONT urging our transitional state to balance between labour and capital, if not worker at least neutral with assurance of minimum wages, social protection and welfare measures. Pity to mention that among the two investors of our world of work, most of the states machinery including ours, have always stood in favour of former, while abusing the later!  It must be checked and a bring into balance!

Dear Comrades, Sisters, Brothers, Colleagues and Friends,

Let me salute you from the country of high Himalayas and share you the greeting which I carried from the workers world who are creating wealth for the society ranging from Afghanistan to Zambia And from cold north to extremely hot gulf- states!

Berlin and Germany – we remember you in various ways!

• We learn you by great Karl Marx & Engles to Karl Kautsky & Bernstein! Red Rosa Luxemburg to moderate Willy Brant!
• We remember you under the dark shadow of devastating World War I, WW II, You with extreme pains, dividing your own people by creating long wall in Berlin!
• We remember you again, as the unifying element when you dismantled Berlin Wall over 25 years back!

We salute you today as the host of this August assembly. Thank you DGB, thank you Berlin!

Listening to ITUC General Secretary Cde Sharan Burrow, I have no issue left to contradict with her, but few points to supplement!

We are thankful to ITUC for recognizing tireless effort of Nepali Sherpas, in campaigning to save climate and our beautiful planet! Establishing award in the name of a fallen Nepali comrade- Dorjee Khatri, who was killed just 1 month back by an avalanche in Mt Everst, it is an honour to our heros and their sacrifice for the common cause!

In bullet point, let me second the report of General Secreatray-

• Does GEFONT support- Count us In, a campaign for gender parity in our union movemnt? Yes, undoubtly!
• Do we ready to join in a campaign to end modern day slavery against migrant workers in Gulf States and plus? Yes we do!
• Do we agree with campaign of union growth? Yes, of course Yes!
• Do we fight for to ensure human dignity? Yes, we are fired up!
• Do we favour Climate campaign? Absolutely, yes! We echo the slogan: Job and Job! There is no job in dead planet!

How to work forward these tasks then?

I would just say in a sentce- it can be attained by Building Workers’ Power !

Just 2 months back GEFONT convened its 6th national congress and we echoed with ITUC theme Build Workers Power! Our theme says- Transformation: By Building Workers Power!

What do we mean transformation and the building workers power?

• Establishment of a state that would free from the clutches of over voiced and bring itself down to voiceless
• Building a society in which the weak and marginalized would not further weaken but would have an opportunity to climb up the ladder of progress, a society that would open door to dignified, prosperous and creative life for the workers

As workers, our dreams are very simple

• Some savings from our earning after the fulfillment of daily needs – to address emergencies, which actually is the state responsibility, but it doesn’t fulfill
• A piece of encouraging news, about the redress for pregnancy related deaths in rural Nepal or dowry deaths in plain south, not just the news of VIPs being taken aboard for treatment in an air ambulance

Thirty persons per hundred are unemployed and some 30 percent of the total population is poor in my country. We want to tell the world, we wish to see the progress of our society measured against the income of the working class not against the names of the those billionaires listed in the Forbes magazine!

We want the concerned ones to be reminded once again that unequal society stunted under the shadow of high-rising buildings is not what we are struggling for. And we do not call any show of progress built on the deprivation of the weak!

Thus we are demanding balance between those who get sick because they consume more, more than their need, and most of those who get sick because they lack even the minimum, which they extremely need to survive!

If we emphasis the Growth, we think it is insufficient; Equal distribution as a must to make our society healthier! We need to transform our society – The society, which has just made its departure from agrarian character to a new track of possibilities.

Comrades,
Building worker power is key for the transformation! And the issue which am mentioning here are the key to build workers power!

As a vibrant union movement in our part of world, we in GEFONT urging our transitional state to balance between labour and capital, if not worker at least neutral with assurance of minimum wages, social protection and welfare measures. Pity to mention that among the two investors of our world of work, most of the states machinery including ours, have always stood in favour of former, while abusing the later!

It must be checked and a bring into balance!

Collegues,
Our society is at the crossroad ! Where to go, one leads us to hell of market fundamentalism and next definitely guides us toward at least coordination between two forces! We want, at least, the state to stand as a fair regulatory mechanism between two investors of world of work- the capital and the labour!

Capital should not be left unchecked, and labour not to be left on the mercy of the market!

The fight for a better Nepal will continue simultaneously with the fight for better world. Let us move ahead together in solidarity with determined efforts.

Thank you very much!

(Bishnu Rimal, President- GEFONT; address to the 3rd World Congress of ITUC;  May 20, 2014-Berlin, Germany)