What can trade unions do about the international financial institutions?
When trade union leaders are asked what they think about challenging the policies of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and regional development banks (called international financial institutions, or IFIs) their first response is, “Yes we must!” Then they ask “How?” and then a little later, “Can we get anything out of it?”
These are good questions.
After all, the World Bank and the IMF are huge institutions, employing tens of thousands of bureaucrats, researchers, technical experts, and consultants to oversee their work. They have vast resources at their disposal, and they seem to be able talk directly to governments whenever they want. For over sixty years, these powerful institutions have determined the economic policies and development models that countries have to follow to win approval for loans and other forms of assistance.
Many trade union leaders are sceptical of the IMF and World Bank. Trade unionists have found these institutions unapproachable or even dismissive of the views of workers’ organizations and civil society organizations in general, in spite of the IFIs’ rhetoric about involving civil society in their work.
In numerous countries, the IMF and World Bank have disregarded the views of workers’ organizations. In the 1980s and 90s, Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) were forced upon developing countries to the extent that discussion of alternative approaches was relegated to the sidelines. Often, the staff of the World Bank and the IMF would visit countries seeking loans, staying only a few days to meet with the government and business community and then promptly returning to Washington—leaving governments to sell the “negotiated” terms of the loans to their own people. Governments repeated the slogan, “There is no alternative”, and criticized unions and civil society organizations that pointed out the consequences of adopting IFI policies. Even when a profound body of evidence indicated that the IFIs’ “one size fits all” policy recommendations were proving catastrophic for working people and the poor, union movements that tried to argue for a different approach were sometimes repressed, and nearly always attacked for being unrealistic.
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