3.1.1 Organise the unorganised

Given the enormous challenges working people face in today’s globalised economy, organising remains a basic task for all trade unions and organising drives should be carried out by IMF affiliates themselves.

The shift from secure to insecure forms of employment, the attacks on trade union rights and the fragmentation of collective bargaining systems has seriously eroded our capacity to organise and effectively represent the interests of workers.  In addition to that the structural change in employment, in particular in the developed countries has resulted in a decline in the proportion of blue-collar workers who are traditionally well organized and an increase in the proportion of highly educated and non-manual workers.  The trade unions have found it more difficult to organise these workers.

To win and defend metalworkers’ rights, we need strong, national unions in all countries. Therefore, one of the key objectives of the IMF is to encourage workers to build independent, democratic and representative national unions that are autonomous from employers, political parties and governments. This includes overcoming weaknesses in existing unions and, where required, building new unions capable of tackling the challenges of today.

However, it is not only a question of what unions do. In some countries, such as Belarus, Colombia, Thailand and the Philippines, governments and companies actively work to eliminate trade union structures, murder and intimidate activists or alternatively to fragment union structures and encourage enterprise level unionism, which seriously undermines the possibility for trade union strength.  All workers, regardless of their status, must have the right to organize.  The IMF and its affiliates must fight for legislation that allows workers to make their own decisions regarding their representative structures, and will pressure companies to always respect workers’ decisions instead of hiding behind national laws when these do not conform to internationally recognized labour rights.

IMF affiliates will:

• Prioritise organising as a key means of building union strength at the national level;
• Utilise organising strategies at the sectoral level and in key TNCs;
• Provide practical solidarity support to unions attempting to organise workers anywhere, particularly along the supply chain of TNCs, and including in the affiliate’s home country;
• Fight to remove legal barriers which prevent precarious workers from joining national unions;
• Step-up organising of non-manual workers, who account for a growing part of the workforce, to build greater solidarity and bargaining strength; and
• Push for the elimination of legal restrictions on the right to organise for non-manual workers.

To assist affiliates in organising, the IMF will:

• Support unions in developing their own organising campaigns and strategies, particularly for organising women, migrants, youth, and workers in precarious employment;
• Strengthen its efforts to raise awareness about organising non-manual workers’ in all regions, promote the exchange of information and experiences on organising tools and policies, and address topics of special relevance to non-manual workers;
• Identify and develop union organising opportunities with affiliates, especially where TNC investments create new or growing concentrations of workers. The IMF Executive Committee, informed by the Regions, will prioritise the countries which should be the focus of this work. This will include countries such as China where the IMF currently has no affiliates;
• Utilise IFAs or other means to develop cross-border organising campaigns;
• Co-ordinate organising activities:
• throughout supply chains by targetting contractors and workers in different forms of precarious employment;
• in EPZs, where workers’ rights are ignored and exploited; and
• wherever multi-company, or multi-plant organising campaigns could be co-ordinated;
• Provide forums for the exchange of information and experiences;
• Provide training on issues relevant for organising and keeping members; and
• Support national efforts to bring about changes in legislation to protect the right to organise and bargaining collectively by working together with other GUFs, the ITUC, the TUAC, and the ILO.

IMF will provide assistance to trade unions that:

• are committed to activities leading to self-reliance;
• have established their own priorities and identified their needs;
• are working in accordance with the IMF Action Programme;
• are building union structures that respond to workers’ needs locally and internationally and that include women at all levels;
• are able to organise activities or are prepared to closely co-operate with the appropriate IMF regional office;
• are building union structures that are democratic, and independent of political parties and employers;
• are ready to co-operate with other IMF affiliates at local, national and international level; and
• are confronting and fighting repressive governments.