By GREGORY N. HEIRES

During the World Economic Forum, corporate chieftains met at the posh Waldorf-Astoria hotel to discuss how to hold onto their vast wealth and to maintain control over the world's resources.

But while the rich and famous enjoyed champagne and caviar at receptions and restaurants during the five-day conference that began Jan. 31, unionists joined students, environmentalists and human rights activists in the streets of New York City to demand economic justice for working families.

The protests shined a light on the dark side of economic globalization, which has drained millions of jobs from the United States, reduced incomes for a majority of the world's workers and left 2.8 billion people living on $2 a day, according to the AFL-CIO.

Demonstrators charged that the prevailing economic system - unbridled free international trade, privatization, deregulation, deep cuts in government services and the elimination of labor rights - is at the root of global inequality, job flight, child labor and persistent unemployment, poverty and hunger.

"The global economy does not work for working people," said John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, who spoke at a labor-sponsored alternative conference on Jan. 31. "We have to change the rules that were made by and for corporations, and it will be no easy or short-term task."

The AFL-CIO's "Working Families Economic Forum" on Jan. 31 presented moving testimonies about exploitative economic conditions by working people from around the world.

The panelists included a New Jersey autoworker faced with a plant closure, a Guatemalan sewing machine operator who became a union activist after she was sexually harassed on the job, a Chinese railway worker jailed for union activity, a Mexican activist who sparked a strike by walking out of a Nike contractor's plant to protest unsanitary and unsafe conditions, and a steelworker from Cleveland who was recently laid off by the LTV Steel Corp.

On the same day as the AFL-CIO forum, DC 37 members and leaders joined hundreds of protestors at a labor-sponsored "Global Justice Rally" across the street from a Gap store at Fifth Avenue and 54th Street. The Gap was chosen because it relies on cheap labor in Third World countries to produce its clothing.

Demonstrators carried signs with such messages as "Stop Corporate Greed," "Make the Global Economy Work for Working Families," "Another World is Possible," and "Gap Execs Earn Millions. Workers earn Pennies. Hey Gap! What about Workers?"

"We are not against globalization, we are for fair globalization," New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes told the lively crowd, which responded to speakers with a chant of "Human need, not corporate greed." "Everyone has the right to live in dignity," said Local 374 President Jacob Azeke, who attended the rally. "The global economy must be fairer to workers," said Local 1930 President Ray Markey, who was also there.

Ordinarily held at an exclusive ski resort in Davos, Switzerland, the annual gathering of world economic and political leaders switched to New York partly as a gesture of solidarity after the Sept. 11 disaster. The move signaled that the economic elite wouldn't allow the horrific terrorist attack on the center of financial power to deter their drive for profits.

The display of opulence at the forum provided ammunition to critics who charge that globalization fuels income inequality and gives corporations unfair control over the wealth produced by their employees.

Some 1,000 corporate leaders pay $25,000 in annual dues to the World Economic Forum and another $6,000 to attend the annual gathering. The 2,500 conferees also included heads of state, ambassadors, kings, princes and the media elite.

By one estimate, participants spent an average of $33,000 each for entertainment, food and hotel accommodations during the conference - about $4,000 more than the salary of a typical DC 37 member.
The investment bank Goldman, Sachs, paid Elton John $1 million to entertain 200 people at a party at the Four Seasons restaurant on Park Avenue. And MasterCard provided $300,000 worth of pre-paid $100 charge cards to hundreds at the conference.

The forum's theme, "Leadership in Fragile Times," tacitly acknowledged that the corporate elite could lose their grip on power if they didn't take steps to help the downtrodden. Microsoft's Bill Gates recognized that threat, saying, "People who feel the world is tilted against them will spawn the kind of hatred that is very dangerous for all of us."

Some guest speakers did offer poignant and stark criticism of the world economic order. United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan, for instance, said, "The reality is that power and wealth in this world are very, very unequally shared, and that far too many people are condemned to lives of extreme poverty and degradation. The perception, among many, is that this is the fault of the people who attend this gathering."

But while the more forward-looking participants recognized the need for government policies to protect working families and help the world's poor, a spokesperson for the Bush administration callously expressed support for doing nothing.

"Over the last 50 years, the developed world has spent trillions of dollars in the name of aid, and I would submit that we have precious little to show for it," said U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who once told an interviewer he believes government has no obligation to provide a safety net.