[fse-esf] "precarity, poverty" meeting group the 22th at 11 in Berlin

[Juliana]

The next ESF will take place at Malmö, Sweden from September 19 to 21, 
2008. Within the framework of the thematic area around social rights, 
precarity and poverty, our desire is that a European working group be 
set up to prepare, in particular, the workshops and seminars on the 
theme “precarity – exclusion – poverty”.

"Precarity, Exclusion, Poverty" Meeting group in Berlin friday the 22th 
of febrary at 11 am to 1 pm

You are welcome !

Here is the call :



Precarity, Exclusion, Poverty
ESF  08 – MALMO
CAUSES

There are many direct causes of poverty, exclusion and precarity, which 
are always manifestations of inequality. But all originate in an 
inhuman ideology. This system – free-market  capitalism – claims to 
exalt individual liberty by removing any limit on it, by exacerbating 
it through the exclusive search for profit and power. Its first 
objective is speculation and the accumulation of wealth. In this 
conception, financial profitablity and economic growth are more 
important than human dignity or liberty. It transforms the emancipating 
autonomy of the individual into an obsessive individualism.Everything 
that creates society is dismantled. It’s functioning ensures that the 
rich continue to amass wealth and the poor stay poor, even though they 
may be sufficiently assisted to avoid excessive social tension.

EFFECTS

The standardisation of precarious and flexible work has led to the 
scandal of the “working poor” whose numbers are ever increasing and who 
live below the poverty line. One employee out of six in Europe is 
affected by the phenomenon of low wages.The right to live with dignity 
in decent housing is more and more trampled in Europe as a consequence 
of the unrestricted rise of rents and housing prices, of large scale 
privatisation of public housing carried out in the name of competition, 
to satisfy the insatiable appetites of speculators, large property 
owners and the banks…This situation is also the consequence of an 
evolution of the sharing of added value: the proportion of GDP devoted 
to labour has been receding continuously in favour of the remuneration 
of capital, dropping from 75% in 1970 to 66.2% in 2006.The progressive 
undermining of social right, Unemployment and the reduction of social 
protection leave an ever greater share of the population in poverty, 
depriving if of access to fundamental rights: employment, health, 
education, housing, culture. At the same time, populist ideologies 
espousing racism, law and order and/or authoritarian solutions gain 
ground. Criminalisation and the repression of the poor are the answers 
ever more frequently handed out to the poor and European movements 
struggling for their rights.The World Bank’s large scale campaigns 
promoting “the fight against poverty” or the UN’s Millenium Objectives 
are well short of what is needed to reduce the progression of poverty 
and they seem to have been drafted principally to allow their promoters 
to assuage their troubled consciences.According to official sources, 
nearly 25% of the population within the European Union is poor, with 
important disparities between northern and southern countries as well 
as between western Europe, and the central and eastern parts of the 
continent, particularly affected by poverty. The most vulnerable are 
particularly hard hit: women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, 
immigrants and all peoples referred to as “travellers”. We also observe 
a “relational poverty” which is characterised by isolation, the feeling 
of uselessness, the rupture of social and family connections and 
individualism.Poverty has become a major obstacle to normal school 
education, aggravating the phenomena of illiteracy, hindering access to 
training and culture and, as a consequence, to employmentIt is not only 
a problem of level of resources or conditions of living, but a question 
of dignity: “the hardest is not living on nothing, it’s being 
considered as nothing,” we often hear. Injustice and suffering go 
together.Europe’s opportunist immigration policies incite the trampling 
of workers’ rights and the maintenance of low wages. Illegal migrants 
are a totally pliant workforce who have no rights. Unemployment 
insurance is continually cut both in amount and in duration.The 
industrialisation of agriculture provokes rural poverty and aggravates 
migration from rural areas. Galopping urbanisation, land and property 
speculation lead to ever greater numbers of  badly housed and homeless 
people. Shantytowns and camps reappear around cities for lack of 
housing financially accessible to households with modest revenues.The 
headlong race for profit and consumption leads to a general degradation 
of the environment, to uncontrolled industrial risks and generates 
dysfunctions which lead to catastrophes. These affect primarily the 
poorest who live in the most exposed areas..

WHAT ANSWERS ? Our debates should allow us to elaborate some 
proposals.Different types of response exist: responses from the public 
sector, responses brought by structures which favour social links, 
which emphasise assistance, those that mobilise the “have-nots” and 
encourage them to struggle to conquer their rights, to found or 
experiment with alternatives, to unite and emerge from the shell of 
their isolation and poverty. For without the mobilisation of the 
concerned women and men and their associations of struggle, without the 
total involvement of the trade union movement, exclusion and precarity 
will continue to progress.We have a goal : to build a just and 
fraternal society, and also a conviction which is that each man, woman 
and child in poverty remains the first actor of her or his development. 
The goal is the same for all, the means to reach it may vary according 
to the sensibilities of each individual.A few ideas:The human person, 
as well as the recognition and implementation of her or his fundamental 
rights – and not the market place – must be placed at the centre of 
public policies as well as those of political and association leaders  
and the employees and volunteers of these organisations.Each of us must 
ensure- that informal groups of solidarity be recognised, even when 
they exist autonomously from the associative, charitable or militant 
networks (migrants from the same country, people from the same 
neighbourhood, etc…) and that they be considered partners,- that the 
elaboration and evaluation of local, national, indeed international 
policies be carried out with those most directly concerned.
The people who suffer from exclusion must be associated all along the 
process of elaborating any policy affecting them.- the intervention of 
the state and public policy is an absolute necessity to promote social 
progress and ensure a fair division and redistribution of wealth to 
benefit every woman and man.- the priority of labour over the 
renumeration of capital must be ensured, and all forms of financial, 
real estate or other speculation must cease.
We must become aware of the worldwide urgency to forge a struggle 
against the interests of certain states, certain multinational 
corporations, certain large global fortunes which mock all ethical and 
ecological principals for the sole purpose of greater profit.

The thematic pole of “precarity, exclusion, poverty” is open to all 
those who struggle to build a just world of solidarity with all the 
“Have-nots” so that they may enjoy their fundamental and social rights 
and that they may have the right to “space and speech” in the society, 
beginning with the social forums themselves. The project aims to 
mobilise more generally the civil society at large in the desire to 
create shared initiatives.In what kind of society do we want to live? 
Let us globalise solidarity and organise our struggles to globalise 
hope: this is what we wish to debate and construct at Malmö.

THANK YOU FOR CONFIRMING YOUR SIGNATURES (received following the first 
appeal launched in 2006 at the Athens ESF).  Signataries of the appeal 
launched in Athens in  2006 : No Vox Network - Secours 
Catholique-Caritas France - IPAM Network – LDH – Fédération Nationale 
Accueil-Paysan – Vamos ! – FAL (France Latin America) -  French 
committee of the homeless – APEIS – AC Act against Unemployment) – DAL 
– Hungarian Social Forum Forum – Hungarian Association of People living 
below the Poverty -  Peasants’ Rights –CEDIDELP -  Droits Devant – 
European Feminist Initiative for another Europe…

Add or confirm your signatures by e-mail : 
annie at echanges-partenariats.org or 
bernard-jean-bouchez at secours-catholique.asso.fr  or 
genevieve-colas at secours-catholique.org
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