Workers say Dominica cuts deep to please IMF

By Peter Richards

Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Apr. 18 (IPS)— Dominica’s civil servants say they will continue to protest in the streets against the government’s International Monetary Fund (IMF)-sanctioned stabilization and adjustment program, despite threats their pay will be docked for days missed.

The Public Services Union (PSU) describes the new economic policies of the Pierre Charles administration as “overly ambitious,” and in recent days its members have taken to the streets in protest.

The union plans to stage a mass rally on May 5 to galvanize more support, while forwarding recommendations to the government for its 2003-04 budget.

“What we are hoping to do is present a shadow budget that will articulate what the union sees as the way forward,” said PSU General Secretary Thomas Letang.

Charles’ 2002 budget included a four percent levy on salaries and a six percent cut in public servants’ wages.

The austerity measures come as the country’s latest Poverty Assessment shows that 39 percent of the people on the tiny eastern Caribbean island are poor, with indications that poverty levels are likely to increase in the short to medium term.

Dominica has not been able to reduce its $18.4 million fiscal deficit and climb out of the economic rot that has made life harder for its estimated 80,000 citizens, despite receiving economic assistance last year from its Caribbean neighbors.

“The problem comes back to the issue of lack of cash and the need to deal with it,” says IMF division chief, Jorge Guzman.

The government is seeking to reduce by June the monthly public sector wage bill, which it estimates at $3.7 million.

But the PSU says it did not create the problem so its workers should not pay for the solution.
“We have always said that the union has not made demands for salary increases, so we have done nothing to increase the wage bill,” said Letang.

Dominica and the volcano ravaged British colony of Montserrat were the only two states within the sub-regional Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) not to have shown signs of economic recovery in 2002.

For the past two months, public workers in Dominica have been receiving their salaries late. The administration announced Monday that it will not pay employees who participated in protest action last week against the latest austerity measures, which include a two-day work furlough, a cut in the public service, and a system of mandatory time off without pay for all workers.

Letang said the union would fight the pay loss, although he did not say what retaliation it is contemplating.

He did say the PSU would continue to show its opposition to the government proposals with a variety of actions, including staging rallies and educational sessions to inform its members and the general public.

When the government introduced the four percent levy on salaries in the last budget, he added, the union raised the concern that people would lose their jobs “but we were told that was not the case.”

“What we are seeing now is that government does in fact intend to cut the public service and salaries. It is very difficult to understand how people will make it,” said Letang.

The PSU predicts an increase in “social unrest, malnutrition, and HIV/AIDS” if the austerity measures are fully implemented.

The Assessment is equally gloomy. “There is little prospect of recovery in the agriculture sector in the short term; tourism and manufacturing are both stagnant; government expenditure to maintain existing physical and social infrastructure and social safety nets will be heavily constrained,” said the coordinator of the assessment program, Samuel Carrette.

Despite several programs aimed at poverty reduction, more than half of the island’s children live in poor households, added the Ministry of Finance official.

Dominica’s economic problems have not affected the stability of the island’s currency, which it shares with the other seven OECS members.

Since 1976, the currency has been pegged at 2.70 dollars to the US dollar.

According to the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) most of the sub-region’s states have shown “modest” recoveries compared to the previous year, with real output in Antigua and Barbuda reaching 1.5 percent, St. Vincent and the Grenadines 0.7 percent, Grenada less than one per cent, while growth in St. Kitts and Nevis slowed to 0.8 percent.

Dominica’s economic problems are likely be discussed at next week’s summit of OECS leaders in Antigua and Barbuda, where an action plan for economic growth is one of the key agenda items.

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LABOR BRIEFS

4,000 Texas Machinists strike Lockheed
Lockheed Martin Strike Workers who assemble F-16 jet fighters at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas facility have been on strike for more than a week.  Lockheed Martin, the nation’s number one Pentagon contractor, was recently awarded the biggest defense contract in history to produce the Joint Strike Fighter. 
A strong strike vote carried International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers into a strike against Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, TX on Apr. 14.
Lockheed’s proposed shifting of health care costs onto the workers propelled the rejection. “This contract puts a huge burden on the workers,” said Pat Lane, President and Directing Business Representative for District Lodge 776. “The members are very unhappy with the company and the contract offer. They have no reason to do this to their employees.”
(www.776iam.org, www.goiam.org)

American Airlines: fat bonus for execs, pay cuts for unions
On Apr. 16, as American Airlines’ unions agreed to $1.8 billion in pay and benefit cuts to avert a bankruptcy filing, American disclosed in its year-end annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the airline funded a supplemental pension trust for its top 45 employees that would protect a portion of their retirement income if the airline were forced to file Chapter 11. The airline also offered its top six executives cash bonuses of twice their base salaries if they were to remain with the airline through January 2005. For weeks, American held off filing the report as it tried to reach agreements with its unions, and last month asked federal regulators for a two-week extension, all the while warning that if any of its three unions voted against the company’s proposed concessions, it would seek bankruptcy protection. “In light of the [SEC] disclosure… we must reconsider whether we will sign off, even if the consequence is bankruptcy,” said James C. Little, a director of the Transport Workers Union. (Washington Post)

Free trade protesters converge on US agrifirm
On Apr. 17 more than 100 people protesting free trade exploitation of farmers and the use of genetically modified (GM) products in agriculture marched through the streets of downtown Montreal from the stock exchange tower to the offices of US firm Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to mark the World Day of Farmers’ Struggle. NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) has enriched multinationals like ADM (one of the world’s largest processors of soybeans, corn, wheat, and cocoa) since it was signed in 1993, while causing an economic re-colonization of the South, say free trade critics. Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who negotiated the NAFTA deal, is now a director of ADM. Protesters also supported Canadian farmers in the province of Saskatchewan who are suing multinational seed producers Monsanto and Aventis for contaminating their non-GM canola with a GM variety, destroying the organic canola market for them. The two firms have applied to license GM wheat seeds for 2004; the crop will likely be milled by ADM. (IPS)

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