In the new millennium, the IMF is also increasingly present at the World Social Forum. At the 2005 meeting, the IMF and its major Brazilian affiliates organized a march for employment that drew more than 4,000 participants. The IMF’s Program for Social and Economic Alternatives stresses the forming of alliances with a broad range of democratic organizations that support the labour movement’s values.

Integrating new affiliates in this period of vast political and economic change also required the IMF to adapt its own structures. The IMF Regional Office for East Asia based in Tokyo was closed, and new ones in Southeast Asia and the CIS countries were opened. In addition, beginning in 1996, new regional structures for representation and coordination were created. By the end of 2002, this process was completed, resulting in four world regions (Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific) each of which has from 2-4 sub regions, which have a regular schedule of meetings.

Starting in the late 1990’s, the IMF began to focus on developing and negotiating International Framework Agreements (IFAs). TNCs and their globe spanning production chains had become increasingly important. IFAs essentially are agreements between a Global Union and a TNC in which the latter agrees to respect the ILO’s core labor standards in all of its operations. For the IMF, a requirement for contractors and suppliers to respect the IFA’s standards is also a critical provision, as is union participation in IFA implementation. The agreement may also contain other clauses, e.g. requiring a "living" wage", forbidding the hiring of replacements for striking workers, or additional clauses on implementation.

The first IMF IFA was signed in 2002 (with Merloni, now Indesit), but by November 2008, the total had reached 19 including some of the worlds major vehicle manufacturers, parts suppliers, aerospace, and steel companies. Several additional IFAs were proposed but not signed, because they fell short of the IMF’s principles or minimum standards. Considering that all seven GUFs have now signed a total of 53 IFAs, the IMF’s share amounts to a very notable success. Unfortunately, virtually all agreements are with European TNCs, which means that pursuing agreements with Asian and American enterprises remains a priority for the IMF.

IFAs are important instruments for ensuring workers’ rights and union building. There has already been several successful application uses, for example, the Daimler-Chrysler agreement helped settle a long-standing dispute at a Turkish parts supplier. The IMF has also developed guidelines for negotiating and implementing IFAs. Because the role of unions and the IMF in negotiating and monitoring agreements is crucial, a World Conference on IFAs was held in 2006 resulting in comprehensive recommendations which were later adopted by the Executive Committee in May 2007 in Spain.

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Still, in spite of successes in organizing metalworkers and bringing them into the IMF fold, only about one third of the world’s estimated 70 million metalworkers are members of a union. Even in countries that pride themselves on political democracy, such as the USA and the United Kingdom, adverse labour laws and often vicious employer opposition deprive workers of the benefits of organization. Finally, in many developing countries, there are Export Processing Zones, where too often workers’ rights are restricted and unions are non-existent. In 2005, the IMF Congress identified EPZ’s as a priority for attention and organising projects in Latin America and Indonesia have been launched.

Globalization and the IMF Action Program

The history described above took place against the background of accelerating economic globalisation. Rooted in the Reagan and Thatcher administrations, hostility towards labour and the welfare state grew, neo-liberalism promoted deregulation, smaller government, and privatization. The lowering of trade restrictions and investment controls promoted globalization, as well as larger and more powerful transnational corporations (TNCs). Outsourcing, often to the growing number of EPZs, became a powerful trend. The global financial market effectively became a casino for the biggest financial players, and a new wave of mergers and acquisitions was unleashed.

As early as 1993, the IMF developed an Action Program, which has evolved from a relatively brief document prepared by the Secretariat for the centenary Congress into a more concrete and detailed guide. The 2005-2009 program, for example, was developed by a committee of affiliate representatives and Secretariat members that met four times in a two-year period. Like its predecessor, the document contains an analysis of the challenges confronting metalworking unions, a mission statement that lays down the basic principles and values of the IMF, and set of strategies and concrete proposals that need to be implemented at local, national, regional and international levels. It addresses in detail four key aspects of union work in a global economic environment: 1. Building global structures; 2. Engaging transnational corporations; 3. Solidarity and organising; 4. Giving a social dimension to globalisation.

Implementing the Action Program

Over the last two decades, the IMF has played an increasingly active role in its cooperation with other Global Union Federations (GUFs), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) and the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF). This involvement rests on the principle that activities must go beyond lobbying international institutions and actually mobilize workers. Furthermore, joint activities must be based on agreed strategies and clearly identified objectives. When these are not clearly present, such as in the recently established Council of Global Unions, the IMF does not participate. On the other hand, there are a number of examples of joint activities. IMF is cooperating with all the GUFs in its on-going campaign against Precarious Work. The Burma boycott is a joint endeavour of the ITUC and all GUFs, as is the campaign for a worldwide ban on asbestos products and occupational cancer/zero cancer. The IMF has also cooperated with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) to support organizing Indian shipbreaking workers, and signed an International Framework Agreement jointly with International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM).

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In Latin America, unions began to see the fruits of their decades-long struggle against dictatorships. Together with political and civil society allies, unions ultimately succeeded in electing progressive governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela. At its 1989 Congress, the IMF had 19 regional affiliates, but none in the economically powerful Brazil and only three medium-sized organizations in Mexico. By 2005, the IMF counted 35 metalworking unions, including the two largest in Brazil, and seven significant unions in Mexico including the powerful mine workers (SNTMMSRM). This positive turn in Mexico was largely due to an increase in IMF activities after 2000. Nevertheless, much work remains to be done there – a conservative government and a majority corporatist union movement still inhibit the formation of independent unions.

The Asia-Pacific Region saw strong economic development during the last twenty years. For unions, particularly metalworkers, there were some important successes. There were affiliations in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal, but most notably, the large metalworkers’ organization in Korea (KMWF, now KMWU) and important unions in Indonesia (FSPMI and Lomenik-SBSI) joined the IMF. In 2000 the IMF expelled the Thai union and assisted in the formation of a new independent union called TEAM. Through workshops organised annually since 2003 for the then Vietnam National Union of Industrial Workers (VNUIW) the IMF has consolidated its relationships with the successor organisation, the Vietnam National Union of Workers in Industry and Trade (VUIT), which has recently applied for affiliation to the IMF.

The IMF’s engagement with China began with a 1994 fact-finding mission which was followed by a high-level mission to China in 2000 and 2006. After a long process of discussions, a small meeting with the Chinese Machinery, Metallurgical and Building Materials Workers’ Union (CMMBMWU) was organised at the beginning of January 2009 and a joint workshop on collective bargaining has been planned for April 2009. Nevertheless, these gains cannot obscure the enormous obstacles that independent unionism faces in Asia, including China. However, the IMF is committed for the long term, and persevering efforts are necessary to make further progress in the future.

In India, independent unionism is relatively weak in the private sector, and a number of important unions linked to Communist parties are not yet prepared to follow their counterparts in Europe and the former Soviet Block and join, or at least work with, the IMF. In cooperation with its affiliates, the IMF has launched a number of projects, which include union-building among shipbreaking workers and targeted educational activities. The IMF is also working with Indian unions to advance organising in fast growing sectors such as steel and automotive industries. Nevertheless, strengthening and uniting metalworker unions in this rapidly developing part of the world remains one of the key challenges confronting the IMF.

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Post Cold War Union Building

Under new leadership, the IMF immediately addressed these challenges. By December 1990, a "Plan of Action" identified Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary as key transition countries and focused on preparing them for the role independent unions play in democratic market-based societies. In 1991, seminars were held in the target countries as well as Romania and Bulgaria, and in December the first IMF conference in Eastern Europe took place in Brno, Czekoslovakia on the issue of migration. Starting that year, millions of metalworkers in Central Europe began to join the IMF, and by the time of the centenary congress in 1993, metalworking unions from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania were IMF members. The Slovenian metalworkers became members that same year. By 1997, IMF affiliates in this region by-and-large took over responsibilities for their own programs.

The first IMF office opened in Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest in 1997 and efforts turned to South-eastern Europe, where the rebuilding of cooperative relations after years of war and ethnic conflicts was a priority. Affiliations, mostly in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, soon followed. IMF attention then turned to the former Soviet Republics and the Baltic states. Plans for a Project Office in Moscow were developed and implemented over several years. A new milestone was passed with the affiliation of unions in Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine in 1999. In 2001, the IMF Executive was enlarged to include a representative from Central and Eastern Europe. By 2004, the 12 regional affiliates the IMF counted in 2001 had grown to 19, including a first affiliation from Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan).

Since 1989, strong metalworking unions have been built throughout the former Soviet Bloc, but many challenges remain. Entrenched regimes still regard independent unions with hostility, particularly in Belarus, where the Lukashenko dictatorship tries to crush them. Economic difficulties persist in many countries, and even where there has been some progress, metalworkers’ gains are sure to be threatened by the deepening economic crisis that began in 2008.

Eastern and Central Europe was not the only world region where the IMF and the movements it had assisted, progressed. In South Africa, combined international and domestic pressures forced the apartheid state to release Nelson Mandela, who was elected to lead the country in 1994. South African metalworkers were already well represented in the IMF in 1989, particularly by the huge NUMSA, but in the rest of Africa, there were only 13 affiliates and none in Mozambique, Angola or Nigeria. That number grew by 2005. Excluding South Africa, there were 24 affiliates in Africa, including important unions in Mozambique and Angola as well as countries on the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, despite this membership growth and a few bright spots, there was no significant economic development in post-colonial Africa.

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Text / Peter Unterweger
Photos / IMF archives
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A new era dawns

1989 was an eventful year. The participant list of the
IMF Congress in June of that year gave some clues to the events transforming the world. Trini Leung, who had been present at the Tiananmen Square demonstrations only
14 days earlier, addressed the Congress. Moses Mayekiso, General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), had recently been freed by the apartheid authorities after 3 years of detention and ultimate acquittal. Apartheid was tottering, and its rulers were turning to compromise.

Popular pressures inside the Soviet block were building. Years of Gorbachev's reforms had loosened the grip of the Communist elites on satellite states and the Soviet republics. In Poland, Solidarnosc successfully concluded talks with the Communist authorities in April 1989, and won the subsequent elections by a landslide. On August 23, the Hungarian government opened its border with Austria, and more than 13,000 East German "tourists" escaped to the West. Demonstrations began in East Germany, and by November 9th the East German government was forced to permit unrestricted visits to the West. Euphoric crowds scaled the Berlin Wall from both sides and began to dismantle it.

Aside from these momentous developments, there were still other trends changing the world. Dictatorships were on the decline, and by its long-time support for metalworkers in South Africa, Latin America, Poland, and Korea, the IMF had made important contributions. The elections of Thatcher and Reagan had signalled the start of a right-wing backlash against the welfare state and workers' gains that reverberated far beyond the United Kingdom and the USA. Under GATT, world trade liberalization continued. Eventually, even social democratic parties adopted parts
of the neo-liberal programme.

For the IMF, an important new chapter began in 1989. Since its founding in 1893, there had been only seven IMF Secretaries or General Secretaries, and in 1989 a new GS, Marcello Malentacchi, was unanimously elected. The challenges confronting the IMF and its new leadership were large:

• Millions of metalworkers in the former Soviet block needed assistance even as the struggle for democracy in South Africa, Korea, Latin America and a number of other countries still required support.
• Anti-social political and economic trends on the national and global levels had to be resisted.
• New ways of dealing with the growing power of trans-national corporations (TNCs) had to be found.

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The details of the national collective contract are key to recruitment. With shrinking membership figures, it will be more difficult to maintain the collective contract, Inga-Lill points out adding, "for that reason we must explain what a collective contract is. Many young people think that pay and overtime compensation and other working conditions are determined by law and not through negotiations between the unions and employers’ organizations.

"The more workplaces lack members, the more difficult it is to defend conditions. For that reason there is a clear connection between membership and the ability to defend working conditions."

Back to Snap-On in Bollnäs where Stefan Halvarsson, chairman of the IF Metall branch, is not satisfied that almost all metalworkers at the plant are in the union. He also participates in the union’s organizing and recruiting project.

"We travel around to workplaces, and many people think it’s fun when we come. They are happy to see us. Often it’s a matter of showing yourself. And listening. We also get an opportunity to explain why we’re here. We can inform people about the value of being in the union," Stefan says.

The Swedish trade union movement is confronted with new challenges. For Stefan it is self-evident that the fate of the Swedish trade union movement is part of the global movement. He is chairman of the Snap-On company’s European Works Council and through it he has close contacts with other European unions.

Stefan is also participating in the start-up of a union project with the metalworkers’ union in Namibia.

"International cooperation has been becoming even more important. Bollnäs and our plant are a part of the world – that has become ever more obvious in recent years, says Stefan. "It is important to organize more people, both here in Sweden and around the world."

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During the crisis autumn of 2008, the loss in members slowed down. The economic crisis has had the effect that more people are joining the union.

Inga-Lill Samuelsson thinks the project has so far yielded good results. "But it’s hard to say how many of the approximately 23,000 new members joined thanks to our efforts or because of the crisis."

The union’s 52 branches are responsible for their own recruiting. Each branch can request economic support from the union for its recruiting efforts.

"The branches have done a good job. Many have conducted training to attract more members, and to attract members who will stay in the organization," says Inga-Lill. "Our elected officials need to be strengthened through training and to receive tips on debating and reporting."

At first the project was aimed at the smallest enterprises. This is because the degree of organization in them is usually lower than in big enterprises where unions often have their own branches with outreach activities. At the smaller workplaces the union is therefore less often seen.

"The important thing is that the individual be asked: ‘will you join?’ Someone has to ask the question. Then many do join," Inga-Lill says.

That applies both for finding new sustainable work methods and rediscovering tried and true forms of work, says Inga-Lill. "We have to explain that we are stronger if more people join."

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Meeting recruitment challenges

Traditionally the rate of organization has been higher among blue-collar workers than among white-collar workers and engineers. That remains the case in the manufacturing industries. But over the last 15 years the level of union membership, both for blue- and white-collar workers, has fallen from 85 to 71 per cent. The big drop in membership came right after the conservative government came to power in the autumn of 2006.

The level of organization remains significantly higher in the manufacturing industries than for the rest of the economy. That goes for both blue- and white-collar workers. In Sweden, 82 per cent of blue-collar workers in manufacturing and 72 per cent of white-collar workers belong to a union.

IF Metall has one of the highest rates of organization of all the union confederations, close to 92 per cent. But that rate is falling.

"We sat back and relaxed, and thought everything was going well, despite the fact that the decline began ten or fifteen years ago," says Inga-Lill Samuelsson, a representative at IF Metall’s branch in Gothenburg. Inga-Lill is also the project leader for the union’s drive to organize and recruit more members.

The organising project will run for two years and began in 2008. 22,726 new members were recruited last year. But at the same time, many people have left the union. Hence overall membership in IF Metall has declined.

According to the union, one in two members who left IF Metall left due to finding a new job and for that reason moved to another union. Every fourth person left the union after ceasing to pay membership dues.

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Members not only have access to the local database, but also to a national database for Sveriges Ingenjörer throughout the country.

"The database is highly valued by our members and strongly contributes to our attractiveness as a union. Quite simply, they get a lot for their membership," she adds.

The database also contains information on current union activities at ABB Corporate Research. The board of directors regularly publishes information on its activity, and all meeting minutes are also available.

Hence, all members receive an electronic newsletter from the engineers’ corporate department in all units throughout Sweden. All totalled, Sveriges Ingenjörer has some 2,000 engineers at ABB in various locations around the country.

"We know that the newsletter is very popular. It is a way of providing important information to members on, for example, equality and pay issues. It is also a way of getting members from various parts of the country to feel involved and to feel united," Shiva says.

ABB is a global, knowledge-intensive group in the power and automation technology sector and employs people all over the world. Many engineers come to Sweden and to Västerås from elsewhere. The international character of the ABB Corporate Research Center, where some 30 countries are represented among the 180 engineers, is very much evidence.

"That doesn’t mean that everyone with a foreign background comes directly from another country. Many were raised in Sweden," says Shiva. "But more and more of them do come directly from another country. Just last year some ten foreign engineers were newly recruited at the ABB Corporate Research Center."

These foreign engineers often choose to join Sveriges Ingenjörer at ABB.

"The response has been very positive. We have gained a lot of new members," Shiva adds.

The level of organization among engineers at ABB is significantly higher than the national average. In Sweden as a whole, it is estimated that just over half – 54 per cent – of graduate engineers are members of Sveriges Ingenjörer. The total number of members is 120,000, which represents an increase of 3 per cent during the last year.

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"We had already begun to commit ourselves to membership recruitment," says Kjell Johnson, who is in charge of long-term development work in Unionen. "And then, I think that Unionen’s image may also have attracted new members. With the merger, the new union is perceived as a stronger and more attractive force."

At ABB there are many engineers. Most of them belong to Sveriges Ingenjörer (the Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers). At the ABB Corporate Research centre, union recruitment work has been quite successful. Out of 180 engineers, about 150 belong to Sveriges Ingenjörer.

"We don’t seek out individuals to try to recruit them [into the union]. We don’t believe in that model," says Shiva Sander-Tavallaey, the union representative for Sveriges Ingenjörer at ABB Corporate Research.

"For us the important thing is to show that we are attractive and accessible. We have to show that members can benefit from union membership."

Shiva explains that the union gets good cooperation from the company. Whenever the company has an introductory meeting for new employees, the union is given an opportunity to present its work for 15-30 minutes.

"That is an opportunity that my union colleagues succeeded in achieving some 30-40 years ago. Over time it has become part of the corporate culture. The company is positive toward the union," says Shiva.

The union activity of ABB engineers is adapted to the company.

According to Shiva, "ABB has an ‘activity clock’ to which we adapt. We make our own union ‘activity clock’ so our members can get the most from their union membership."

Before management meets with members to discuss salary, the union makes sure that material is available to equip members before individual meetings. To help them, the union has a local database where members can obtain current pay statistics.

"There they can see where their salaries stand in relation to the average for comparable groups, taking into account experience and educational background," Shiva explains.

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