Alive and Well, the Unions Roll Out a Vision for Life After the Crash

The unions are not dead. They are frustratingly old fashioned, still led by gray-haired middle-aged men, and sentimentally attached to political friends who have generally betrayed everything they stand for, but they are alive and, interestingly enough, well worth listening to. Later in March the G20 club of big-shot nations will meet for the first time under Obama's watch. They will be expected to provide some answers to questions on how to rebuild the world economy in the face of financial collapse, global recession and massive social dislocation.

The bankers' lobby have already rehearsed their lines -- the system is inherently stable they say. Of course, we can do with a bit more regulation, but hold off on any serious state intervention beyond bailing out the banks to get money flowing again. Once the wheels of private enterprise are suitably greased, the invisible guiding hand of global capitalism will soon get us back on track. When that happens, so the line goes, the state can move back into the shadows from whence it emerged.

Many western governments will go along with this because it is what they have grown up with. They have no alternatives. Even social democratic governments fool themselves into believing that they manage capitalism better than conservatives; that the system can be patched up and made to work; that they can tame the beast.

But the realities of the last six months -- and the hardships yet to come -- tell another story. This crisis is the worst for half a century. It is about to get much worse. Countries are on the verge of bankruptcy. Millions of workers are crossing continents -- some on the move to try to work their way out of poverty, others are being sent back by the plane and busload to their countries because migrant labour is no longer wanted. The chasm of inequality between rich and poor is widening dangerously by the day.

It's time for change say the unions. It is not just a matter of tinkering with systems of regulation or capping bonuses, or throwing money into a few public infrastructure projects. The major depression of the Twentieth Century lasted more than a decade and was finally extinguished on the back of massive investment in the economics of war.

This time around there needs to be a wholesale redrawing of political and economic architecture based upon a fresh vision of social relations, and rooted in respect for public service values, redistribution of wealth, and social equality. That is what unions are calling for:

Regulation and social and economic policy shaped by a global administration with the power to act, that is inclusive of voices from the south as well as the north and that is transparent in its work. What they have in mind is something like the United Nations Security Council, but that is not an exclusive club for the nuclear elite and former colonial powers, and which has a mandate to shape and dictate global development and investment strategies. In short, the first steps towards a new landscape of democratic global governance;

Invigoration of the public sector with more investment in health and education, less privatisation and a commitment to building healthy and thriving communities through, initially, actions over climate change and the Millennium Development Goals;

Redistribution of the world's wealth by releasing the workforce from the scourge of poverty and denial of human rights and giving them the chance to form unions and to bargain for better wages and conditions. Today this remains the most efficient and effective way of challenging social inequality and ensuring a fair distribution of wealth.

These pillars of policy are being shaped by the unions at international level for presentation to world leaders at the next G20 meeting. They will argue for conviction politics to deliver a future for world trade and development based upon respect for rights and elemination of social inequalities.

Of course, the unions support extra regulation of banks and new forms of international supervision of financial affairs, after all who can argue against it? But this will not provide a durable solution.

Having tried the disastrous model of capitalism nourished and cultivated by neo-liberal economists in the Reagan and Thatcher years, few will contest the need for a complete change of direction.

After years of stagnation, the global union movement has found new energy and fresh enthusiasm based upon a traditional vision of their virtues -- community, humanity and decency. The major question now is whether political leaders are ready to listen.

Oscar and Friends are no Match for the Real Thing

It's Oscar weekend, a time for fantasy and fairytales. In the week that has Kate, Angelina, Brad and Sean making mental notes for acceptance speeches before an anticipated audience of one billion, it's worth recalling that their stories, full of texture and well-crafted though they are, are made small by enduring images of real life. The simplicity of a job well done, like that of Captain Sully and his crew when they ditched in the Hudson saving 155 other ordinary lives, or the matter-of-fact death-defying performance of Jade Goody who has exposed media hypocrisy in class-stricken Britain, or the news that Tiger is coming back to reinvigorate the tired world of sports all reveal how drama, tragedy and passion and extrordinary events are all around us. That's not to say the Oscars do not have their place, but I went out today and bought Visconti's La Terra Trema for the wonderfully chubby girl I hang out with, and realised I'm an old sentimentalist at heart. And that's not so bad after all. Is it?

Justice for Anna and Dawit -- is it Really too much to Ask?

Two cases to make you weep. The Russians promised they would do everything to nail the killers of Anna Politkovskaya. They failed abysmally. The recent trial has been chaotic and confused. The jury unanimously threw out evidence, much of it contradictory, against four men accused of killing a courageous investigative reporter who accused Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin mafia of appalling human rights abuse in Checnya.

Politkovskaya was shot dead at 4pm on 7 October 2006. I was called by a friend in Russia an hour later. He told me she had been gunned down as she lugged her shopping bags up to her flat in a Moscow apartment block. Ever since that day I and others have waited patiently for justice for Anna and her family.

Prosecutors said the defendants were part of a criminal gang, but they have never identified who ordered the assassination. Everyone with half a brain understands that the orders came from a senior figure in Russian politics and probably linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, the hoodlum Chechen president who was a target of Politkovskaya's trenchant reporting.

Politkovskaya's supporters say there is no doubt that her murder has been covered up. Some of the crucial evidence in the case mysteriously disappeared. Investigators found computer drives and SIM cards gone from the computers and telephones of key suspects. Their telephone records days before the murder are missing.

The journalists' union say it is a shameful affair. Given the Kremlin's record the suggestion of official manipulation is well founded. The judge himself tried to keep media out of the trial (probably under instructions from elsewhere) and the investigation was subject to infighting between rival Kremlin agencies. Ten original suspects were mysteriously reduced to four.

At the same time Politkovskaya's newspaper Novaya Gazeta carried out its own investigation. Its editor, Dimitry Muratov, says he knows who ordered the killing, but refuses to go public because of lack of proof.

I have no doubt. I was a speaker at a meeting in the Frontline Club a few weeks after the shooting when Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer stood up and denounced Vladimir Putin as the man responsible for Anna's death. Three weeks later he was killed himself, succumbing to poisoning from a radio-active substance likely to have come from a Russian state-controlled plant.

All of this is proof enough that notions of democracy and respect for human rights are wilfully ignored at the highest levels in modern Russia. That may be so, but for many of us the campaign for justice in the case of Anna Politkovskaya is far from over.

Equally distressing is the news that Dawit Isaak, the journalist held for seven years without charge or trial in the twilight world of Eritrea, is in failing health. This brave young man was jailed by the bullies and thugs who run this sad state because he edited a newspaper calling for justice, decency and reform. He has suffered from high blood pressure, is thought to have been tortured and now, according to his family, has been diagnosed with diabetes, raising fears that his life is in danger.

Today I wrote to Carl Bildt, Foreign Minister of Sweden, because Dawit has taken Swedish nationality and asked him to intervene with the rulers of this one-party state, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice. In a country where private newspapers have been shut down and any journalists who criticise the president or his regime are immediately put into prison it is difficult to see where there is any justice or democracy. So far at least four journalists have died in detention.

We don't want Dawit Isaak to be another victim, so we are trying to get his release on humanitarian grounds. Fingers crossed and watch this space.

Up Union Street and Down Revolutionary Road

Two books I've just finished -- Union Street by Pat Barker and Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates -- made me think afresh about myself, my friends and neighbours. They are worlds apart -- Yates unpicking pompous liberalism in 1950s suburban New England while Barker in her first book explores the raw and poignant working class experience of post-war Britain. These are good texts to have about as we mull over how to reconnect with values and honesty and, less grandly, are just a bloody good read about the sort of people we are.

1809 -- Welcome to Charles and Abe, but say farewell to Tom

1809 was some year. It was the year history-makers Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born, and we will hear a lot in the months to come about the bicentenary celebrations and achievements of these pioneers of politics and science. But we should also recall another event in this momentous calendar -- the death of Thomas Paine, who faded away alone and in poor circumstances in New York in June of that year.

Paine's legacy is as important to humanity as that of Lincoln and Darwin. His trenchant writing and radical thought left an indelible mark on the the great events of his time including the American war of independence, the French Revolution and the birth of the industrial age.

He was never rewarded. Cheated by the Americans, sentenced to death by the French and outlawed by the British, he died an outcast and lived his last years filled with bitterness over his poor treatment. Yet as an activist journalist there are few to match him. His call to arms to rebellious America in Common Sense was the publishing sensation of the age and the dignified ideas set out in the Rights of Man provide the outline for our modern humanitarian landscape. Let's drink to him this June. His spirit is truly missed in these dark and troubled times.

Reporting Europe: Propaganda, Espionage or Real Journalism?

European Union leaders have never had a good relationship with journalists. They have always been irritated by reporters who ask searching questions, demand access to secret documents or express scepticism over the policies and programmes flowing from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

Six years ago they were so frustrated by one journalist who was on their tails over internal corruption -- Hans Martin Tillack of Stern magazine in Germany -- that they laid bogus charges of bribery against him and got the Belgian police to raid his offices and home. The European Court in Strasbourg condemned them for it and last month he was finally cleared of all charges, without one hint of an apology from Brussels.

Now according to a German newspaper insiders in the Commission have smeared the entire community of investigative journalists by suggesting some of them are engaged in espionage.

While it's a painful reality that the European Union is not in step with the citizens of its member states, and this may may be hard to bear for the bureaucrats, it's a pity to take it out on the journalists who are reporting European Union affairs.

It's bad enough that media employers are cutting down on decent journalistic work to save money without having those who are trying to do a decent job smeared as potential spies by public officials. Investigative journalism may resemble spying -- its about asking tough questions and getting documents that others might like to keep secret -- but it's an essential component of democratic society.

As usual the European Union gives the impression that it wants only tame journalists, ready to be spoon-fed propaganda by their political masters. What they don't understand is that their lack of real respect for journalism not only further damages the European project in the public mind, it also undermines democratic values.

That's one reason why the Commission's approach to media should be one of the issues to be put on the agendsa of the new team that is going to be appointed later this year.