Engineering covers many sectors, including the manufacturing of jet engines and tooling machinery and the production of machines for the recycling sector.
IMF activities in this sector aim to bring trade unions in these areas together to improve the exchange of information and to develop common positions and strategies.
Anne-Marie Mureau, [email protected], is director for this sector.
Workers in the world's iron and steel industry are severely affected by the cyclical nature of this sector. Through trade union strength at national and international levels this department advances workers’ rights. In order to do this we facilitate meetings, undertake research and challenge companies who fail to recognise that trade unions often hold the solution to workplace problems.
Rob Johnston, [email protected], is director for this sector.
This department deals with a wide range of companies, for example producers of consumer electronics and computer hardware and software. Companies include GE, Philips, Siemens, Infineon and Intel.
The department aims to develop trade union strategies for the sector and improving and strengthening the information exchange in transnational companies.
Jenny Holdcroft, [email protected], is director for this sector.
The Aerospace department aims to coordinate affiliates’ policy in the sector and to develop a common strategy for unions to address developments and challenges in the industry. The work is carried out through a Steering Committee. There is also close cooperation with the European Metalworkers’ Federation and its Aerospace working group.
Jenny Holdcroft, [email protected], is director for aerospace.
The IMF Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean has been located in Montevideo, Uruguay, since March 2008. It represents trade unions in many Latin American countries in the metalworking, mining, automotive, steel, electrical and electronics, aerospace, shipbuilding, mechanical engineering sectors.
The IMF Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean represents affiliates in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Curaçao, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The regional office team provides advice and education services on trade union issues and organises sector activities and meetings for members of affiliated unions in the metalworking and related industries with a view to contributing to the development of international trade union policy and international solidarity, promoting the involvement of unions in trade agreements and analysing trade union structures in order to improve them so they are able to meet the challenges they face today.
In addition, the office channel's international experience on labour and trade union rights to trade union leaders during disputes with multinational companies and governments.
The regional office also implements projects and activities in cooperation with trade unions, especially in the automotive, mining and metalworking sectors.
The regional office has staff for financial administration, education and projects, the organisation of conferences and meetings and communications and press. The regional office has been previously located in Caracas, Venezuela; San Jose, Costa Rica; Mexico City and Santiago, Chile.
The Regional Officer is Jorge Almeida, an Argentinean national, a trade union leader in the automotive industry from a young age and specialist in the area of trade union education.
The regional office has a quarterly publication called Mundo Metal, which reports on the activities, programmes and projects of the IMF and its affiliates and discusses issues of regional importance.
In the year 2000, a year after the first seven unions from the former Soviet Union joined the IMF, the International Metalworkers' Federation decided to open an IMF project office in Moscow for the CIS countries. That decision was a logical extension of the work the IMF and its affiliates had begun in the post-soviet area to help unions of the region strengthen and reform their organisations in order to more effectively represent the interests of metalworkers in the context of the increasing importance of the post-soviet countries in the world system of industrial production and trade.
The IMF presently has 17 member unions in the CIS countries: eight in Russia, six in Ukraine, and one each in Armenia, Belarus and Moldova; their number may increase in the near future. The IMF also maintains partnerships with a number of organisations in the region.
The processes of union modernisation, exchange of information and experience, elaborating a common discourse, developing systems of union training and contacts among workers' organisations in various parts of the world – these are the main issues which are dealt with by the IMF regional office in Moscow. Recently the office has been giving priority to such questions as protecting workers in the context of the spread of precarious employment, assistance to sectoral unions in developing their organisations and attracting new members, including at enterprises of transnationaL corporations, whose importance in the metalworking sector of the region has been constantly increasing. The IMF office conducts informational and consultative activities, and carries out union research and training programs.
In 2006, Russian became one of the official languages of the IMF. Since then the office has been translating all the main documents of the Federation into Russian, as well as IMF publications and documents from the IMF official website. The IMF's quarterly magazine Metal World is published in Russian.
Vadim Borisov ([email protected]) heads the small team at the IMF Moscow. He is assisted by Natalia Afonina ([email protected]).
GLOBAL: May Day is not just a day off. Its meaning has deep roots for all workers.
For young people it is worth reminding them that workers celebrate May Day in commemoration of the 11 American workers killed in Chicago on May 1, 1886 who together with thousands of other workers went out to the streets demanding an eight hour working day. This happened to be on the first day of May which today is celebrated as the Worker's Day or Labour Day.
It is important to remember this each year when on May Day all workers walk hand in hand to make their voice heard in every city of the globe.
"The IMF is fighting for the respect of workers' rights in many countries of the world. And today on May Day we send the message of solidarity to all our brothers and sisters, but especially to Indian autoworkers fighting for union recognition and a collective bargaining agreement at Hyundai; Indonesian workers facing intense union busting from the company Toshiba; Korean workers who are fighting to block new legislation extending the period for precarious workers to become permanent from 2 to 4 years; Mexican miners who have been on strike for 21 months and are being threatened with termination only to be rehired on a non-union basis; workers in Turkey at Sinter Metal fighting for the reinstatement of more than 300 workers dismissed for union activities; Steelworkers in Bulgaria who are fighting for their jobs and unpaid wages and many others who are fighting for their right to decent and respectful workers' lives," said Marcello Malentacchi IMF general secretary in his May Day address to metalworkers.
"This is a good reason to go to the streets and demonstrate on May Day and fight for those who are not allowed to join us. So let us celebrate May Day and wherever you are, join the demonstration and make your voice heard!"
GLOBAL: After years of strong criticism by trade unions, the World Bank has finally instructed its staff to stop using the labour indicators of its "Doing Business" flagship publication that gives higher rating to countries with the lowest workers' protection. These have been used to push developing countries to adopt strict labour market deregulation policies as recipe for development and conditions for eligibility for loans and grants.
At a time of global crisis, with the institutions of finance being severely criticised as part of the causes of the present problems that hit most severely workers in all countries of the South and the North, the World Bank is making a significant move that, if concretely translated quickly and effectively in its policy recommendations, can mark an important change with positive effects on employment policies in developing countries.
The World Bank communiqué issued on April 27 stresses the importance of "development goals" such as "social safety nets to shield vulnerable parts of society from intolerable risk and protection of rights for workers and households as well as for firms".
The Bank is also scaling up its work on social safety nets, on "issues of access to benefits such as unemployment insurance and social security".
With regard to the Doing Business indicators, the Bank will adjust the scoring in its annual report "regarding provisions for fixed term workers and standards for severance payment, mandatory days of rest and night work and holidays, and minimum wage levels, in order to accord favourable scores to worker protection policies that comply with the letter and spirit of the relevant ILO Conventions, recognizing that well-designed worker protections are of benefit to the society as a whole".
Furthermore "a guidance note will be issued clarifying that the indicators do not represent World Bank policy and should not be used as a basis for policy advice or in any country program documents that outline or evaluate the development strategy or assistance program for a recipient country. The note will emphasize the importance of regulatory approaches that facilitate the creation of more formal sector jobs with adequate safeguards for employees' rights and that guard against the shifting of risk from firms to workers and low-income families…..We will convene a working group including representatives from the ILO, as the international standard setting body, trade unions, businesses, academics and legal experts…..to advice on revising the EWI and on the establishment of a new worker protection indicator…….and on labour market and employment protection issues — with a view to creating regulations that help build robust jobs with adequate protection in the formal sector that can withstand future crises. The development of a new worker protection indicator (WPI)…….could cover such matters as how a country is adhering to core labour standards and using law, regulation and other instruments of government to ensure that workers are adequately protected, including in the event of unemployment".
The International Metalworkers Federation will actively monitor, together with the other global unions, the translation of these welcome developments into practice.
A three year women’s organizing project, developed by the International Metalworkers’ Federation has led to greater increases in the number of women members, shop stewards and leaders of Serikat Pekerja Metal Indonesia (SPMI).
Widespread precarious employment conditions has resulted in rapid turnover of women workers. However, SPMI managed to increase the number of women members from 29,780 in 2003 to 42,272 in 2006 by organizing new plants and enlisting others into the union.
SPMI also focused on changing its union structures to enable increased participation of women. At its Congress in December 2006, SPMI adopted new rules to allow for a minimum of 30 per cent representation of women at all levels of the union and elected women onto its National Board for the first time.
The number of women leaders at the branch level also increased from 18 per cent in 2003 (8 out of 43) to 25 per cent in 2006 (27 out of 108). In addition, SPMI established a Women’s Directorate to cater for the needs of women members.
This IMF project was funded by the Swedish trade union centre LO-TCO and supported by IMF affiliates Sif and IF Metall.
