Mexico. Health and safety at work is once more under the spotlight in Mexico after the death of four miners last week, in Lázaro Cárdenas, in the state of Michoacán, and Sabinas, Zacatecas.
 
The mining-metalworking companies responsible are Mittal Steel and Peñoles. The National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union of Mexico (SNTMMSRM), led by Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, said that these regrettable deaths "justify the national union’s request to the National Congress to punish company negligence."

On Tuesday 10 March, Luis Alberto Santana García, a rigger, was killed. He was a member of Section 274, at Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán and employed by SADCON, Servicios Administrativos de Occidente. Santana was climbing up a ladder alone when the ladder slipped. He fell to the floor and sustained head injuries that led to his death. Workers doing this task should be supervised. 

Two days later, two more workers, Edson Enríquez Martínez, 25 and Gustavo Navarro, a furnace operator, lost their lives. They were employed by CCIndustrial, a subcontractor providing services to Mittal Steel. A supervisor ordered the injection of nitrogen into a pipe to check for possible leaks, but the pipe had not been fully drained, which led a cap on the pipe to fly off, causing the workers to fall a distance of 20 m.

Another miner, Reynaldo Monreal Guerrero, died on Saturday 14 March. He worked for Minera Sabinas, part of the Peñoles company. He was assistant driller and responsible for packing explosives into blast holes to help fragment the rock. The rock he was working on fell on his chest, causing serious injuries, leading to his death a few hours later. Another miner, Rogelio Carrillo Acuña, 21, died in the same way at the same workplace on Monday 2 March.

The union said the companies have a duty to protect the lives of their workers and that it is urgent for them to establish health and safety systems to prevent more deaths happening. Napoleón Gómez Urrutia has called for a law to punish companies for this type of accident, which should not occur in the 21st century because the technology and prevention methods in this area are very advanced.

RUSSIA: At night from 9 to 10 March Alexander Negrebetskikh together with a group of mill operators of the rolling-mill shop of the Zlatoust Steel Plant in Chelyabinsk region restarted their earlier suspended hunger strike to protest against the sharp decrease of wages at the enterprise.

The situation at the plant escalated after the management issued the provision concerning the wages abolishing all bonuses stipulated by the collective agreement. In result workers’ gains decreased in average by two times and amounted to slightly more than 5 thousand roubles (110 Euros) per month. 16 February two mill-operators Alexander Negrebetskikh and Andrey Shugin refused to sign the notification regarding their wages decrease and declared a hunger strike.

The strikers met the enterprise management, deputies of the city assembly and the chairman of the IMF affiliated Miners and Metallurgical Workers’ Union (MWWU) local at the enterprise. The employer promised to deal with the situation and to restore the wages, however instead a new order appeared decreasing working day to 6 hours and reducing wages by third. In reply the desperate workers together with their colleagues from other shops started new hunger strike.

The main demands of the strikers are to restore normal working hours and their wages equal to at least three minimum subsistence levels. They are sure that the economising should not be done at the expense of workers. The strikers underline that they do not refuse fulfilling their duties and work, nevertheless the management calls their actions “illegal” and accuses workers of “extremism” and “fomentation of social unrest”.

The trade union committee negotiates wages with the management. The ZSP union organisation together with the MMWU regional committee appealed to the State labour inspectorate. In result the management abolished the order on wage decrease. The public prosecutor’s office of Zlatoust imposed penalties on the enterprise for violation of the labour legislation.

However, workers are concerned about the destiny of their enterprise. They knew that the company is going to submit for a long-lease or sale a considerable share of the enterprise assets, that can result in mass redundancies and unemployment in the city of Zlatoust.

Zlatoust Steel Plant was founded in 1902 and is the oldest and unique enterprise producing over 1000 special types of steel and alloys. Since 2005 the enterprise is owned by the steel making company Estar.

INDONESIA: FSPMI is calling for the Indonesian President to intervene to ensure the release of shop stewards Evi Risiasari and Yuli Setianingsih, who are in prison as a result of their union activities.

The sisters have been fighting to secure ongoing employment for all 152 employees at PT Takita Manufacturing, where less than half of the workers have permanent jobs.

PT. Takita Manufacturing has seriously violated both Indonesian Labour Laws, and ILO Conventions 87 and 98 by attempting to prevent the women from organizing precarious workers, targeting them with false charges and forcing them to sign fake declarations which have been used to imprison them.

The FSPMI is holding daily protests with other workers in front of the factory in Cikarang, Bekasi, around 50 kms from Jakarta.

Management of the Japanese company targeted the sisters for their union activities and accused them of falsifying medical leave.

When the sisters denied the accusation, they were threatened with immediate dismissal and forced to sign written statements agreeing to the charges.

They were then arrested after management took the forced statements to the police and despite representations to the Public Prosecutors office by FSPMI, both sisters were remanded in prison on March 3.

Mother of a six year old son, 34 year old Evi was in tears when visited by the IMF and FSPMI Secretary Iqbal Said, FSPMI President Eduard Marpaung and other shop stewards.

27 year old Yuli fears she will have to cancel her wedding which is planned for July if they are not released soon.

Both are determined to continue fighting for their rights and are angry they were tricked by management.

As is common practice in the region, corrupt Human Resource management at the company take bribes from labour suppliers to continue hiring contract workers.

FSPMI Secretary Iqbal Said said corruption within the judiciary also made long prison terms for the sisters a very real possibility.

FSPMI are asking IMF affiliates to write to the President of Indonesia to request he ensures the immediate release of Evi and Yuli and Freedom of Association for trade unions in Indonesia.

BULGARIA:  On 10 and 11 of March the IMF affiliated metalworkers’ union ‘Metallicy’ organised protest actions in the centre of Sofia. The workers demanded from the Prime Minister to finalise negotiations with the Brazilian company CSN interested in acquisition of the Kremikovtzi plant.

At the same time the workers also insist on development by the government of an alternative program including restructuring and a compensation scheme based on retraining, early retirement and severance payments in the amount of 30 monthly salaries to the workers who would lose their jobs.

The workers are also demanding an immediate investigation into the reasons and persons responsible for the company’s collapse after its privatisation in 1999.

The union decided to renew protests following the Government’s failure to take proper decisions regarding the future of the plant for more than 4 years.

Last autumn following the news of a potential closure of the troubled plant in Kremikovtzi which was announced insolvent in August 2008, workers staged a number of protests demanding to pay out their wages. So far only half of the Kremikovtzi workers have received their wages for November 2008, the remaining nearly 5000 workers are still waiting for their earned money.

GENEVA: The International Metalworkers’ Federation invites affiliates to nominate participants to the IMF Summer School that will take place 28 June-09 July 2009 at the ILO Training Centre in Torino, Italy and also in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Summer School aims to familiarise emerging leaders from IMF affiliates with the challenges facing unions at the global level and to equip them to use this knowledge to build the unions in their respective countries. Through participation in the Summer School, affiliates will strengthen their capacity to respond to globalisation and build international trade union solidarity.

Topics covered during the two weeks include:

• globalisation
• international solidarity
• the International Labour Organisation
• the World Trade Organisation
• trade unions and other social movements
• IMF activities

Affiliates are asked to nominate young emerging (preferably under 40) trade union leaders, international secretaries, educators and organizers whose tasks in the union are related to the above issues. The IMF actively encourages applications to the Summer School from women.

The Summer School will be taught in English. While participants are not required to thoroughly master English, they should be able to easily understand and speak it.

The course will be limited to 15 participants so we may not be able to accept all applications. Selection will be made according to the above criteria and on the basis of proportional regional and sectoral representation. Participants will be expected to do preparatory work, make presentations and report back to their unions after the Summer School.

Applications must be completed and returned to the IMF by 30 April 2009.

For more information, contact Magnus Palmgren, IMF Director, Education at [email protected].

ITALY: IMF Assistant General Secretary Fernando Lopes met with Tenaris workers in Dalmine as part of a global effort to force the company to negotiate an International Framework Agreement.

International Framework Agreements set out rules of conduct for transnational companies on a global level. 

Tenaris metalworkers in Romania, Canada, Italy and Argentina took part in a global action day on March 3 to demand the company address the financial crisis by negotiating an International Framework Agreement.

The Luxembourg based company is refusing to recognize the Tenaris Workers’ World Council.

The global day of action follows an October 2008 meeting, where 35 union leaders and IMF representatives adopted the Tenaris Workers Unity Accord.

The meeting in Calgary Canada agreed on a common action plan focused on preventing Tenaris from forcing workers to pay for the impacts of the global financial crisis.

Cut backs are already hitting workers at Tenaris plants across the world, including Tenaris Algoma Tubes in Canada and Tenaris Siderca in Argentina.

Delegates from the meeting wrote to Tenaris Chairman Paolo Rocca requesting the company initiate a dialogue with unions on their demands.

As well as recognition of the World Workers Council and an IFA, unions are calling for the company to maintain a neutral position in relation to union organizing activities and to support better health, safety and environmental standards.

Precarious work is the biggest threat to wages and working conditions that workers face today. Workers in temporary, casual and contract jobs have fewer rights and are less likely to become members of a trade union.  

Throughout the world, women are increasingly finding that their only employment options are through precarious work, in jobs which are insecure, temporary and give no rights to social security, pensions and other conditions. Women’s overrepresentation in precarious work means that they have fewer possibilities to obtain regular, ongoing employment. This is as true in the metal sector as it is in other areas of the economy.

Women are already disadvantaged in employment, receiving significantly lower wages for the same work and being systematically denied access to promotions and better paying jobs simply because they are women. 

Because of this ongoing discrimination, women are more likely to end up in precarious work. But forcing women into precarious work is not in anyone’s interests, not those of women themselves, nor those of the families and communities that they support.

We all know that it still women that shoulder the primary responsibility for raising children, caring for the elderly and providing other community services that keep society functioning. When women’s only access to employment is via precarious jobs, the impacts are necessarily felt by those that depend on them.

Numerous studies have shown that improving the economic situation of women is a key factor in reducing poverty worldwide. For this to work, women need to have access to well-paid, secure jobs that give them the capacity to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Regular jobs with a steady income help give women the kind of autonomy and economic empowerment that enable them to take decisions about their lives – whether to get married, when to have children – decisions that help shape societies. According to the ILO*, good jobs give women control over income and resources, ensuring they have a greater say in family decision-making, including fertility decisions. Women become less dependent on their children for security in their old age or in adverse economic conditions and families are more likely to see the value in educating girls.

Precarious jobs, on the other hand, confine women to continuing insecurity, which in many cases discourages them from participating in the labour market, leading to increased poverty for them and their families. Precarious employment prevents women from making long-term plans for their families’ future. Financial commitments like signing a housing lease, taking out a bank loan, or even sending children to school are impossible without some form of income security. Precarious work really does equate to precarious lives.

This International Women’s Day, IMF is working to raise awareness of the broader impacts of precarious work on all our lives, in order to strengthen our actions against it.

GENEVA: In a statement issued today to mark International Women's Day, IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi makes the link between women's overrepresentation in precarious work and negative impacts on families and communities.

Calling attention to continuing discrimination against women that forces them into substandard employment, Malentacchi states that "Throughout the world, women are increasingly finding that their only employment options are through precarious work, in jobs which are insecure, temporary and give no rights to social security, pensions and other conditions."

He goes on to point out that women continue to be discriminated against in employment, receiving lower wages for the same work and being denied access to promotions. This same discrimination results in women being pushed into the most precarious jobs with the worst pay and conditions.

But it is not just women themselves that suffer the consequences of their precarious work.  As Malentacchi observes, "We all know that it is women who are primarily relied on for raising children, caring for the elderly and providing other community services that keep society functioning. When women's only access to employment is via precarious jobs, the impacts are necessarily felt by those that depend on them."

As part of its continuing actions against precarious work, IMF is working to raise awareness of the broader impacts of precarious employment on families, communities and society in general. On March 18 in Frankfurt, a joint IMF-EMF meeting will take place on the theme "Precarious work = Precarious lives: how women's precarious employment impacts on families and communities". The meeting will provide a first opportunity for unions to share experiences of the broader impacts of women's precarious work and to develop strategies to address these issues through their union campaigns against precarious work.

This theme will be taken up again at the next IMF Women's Conference to be held in Gothenburg on May 22 in conjunction with the IMF Congress.

KOREA: A global union mission to Korea jointly sponsored by the International Metalworkers' Federation found that labour conditions have grown worse, not better, since the OECD monitoring process was lifted in 2007 and despite repeated ILO recommendations calling for urgent labour law reform.

The mission, which took place February 23-25, held a series of meetings with labour, government and employer representatives regarding the labour rights situation in Korea, with a particular emphasis on the implementation of recommendations for labour law reform put forward by both the OECD and the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Governing Body.

Unions are calling on the OECD to consider reinstating the monitoring process and are calling on the ILO to take further steps to press the Korean Government to implement key labour law reform in an effort to stop the growing number of labour rights abuses, including mass arrests of labour leaders and the denial of collective bargaining rights for a growing number of precariously employed workers.

According to a statement released by the mission, there is growing international concern that "prosecutors are using the legal framework, namely Korea's unique obstruction of business clause (penal code 314) much more broadly and severely to limit trade union activity. This is occurring despite repeated ILO recommendations dating back to 2000 calling on the Korean government to bring the obstruction of business clause and other stipulations in Korea's labour law in line with ILO convention principles, specifically ILO Convention 87, Freedom of Association."

The mission will report their findings to the OECD and ILO.

The global union mission was jointly sponsored by the International Metalworkers' Federation, the International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee of the OECD (TUAC) with participation from Public Services International (PSI), and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).

UKRAINE:  Workers at a harvesting machine plant in Kherson, in southern Ukraine have taken over their factory. The plant seizure is the culmination of a two week protest which began in January when management tried to close the factory.

Besides payment of their wages, the workers are calling for state authorities to nationalise the enterprise and to freeze the bank accounts of its owner.

They also want the state to guarantee an order of product from the plant so that they can keep the factory running.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the factory has changed hands and gone into arrears on wages many times. Workers have borne the brunt of failure of different owners to keep afloat the 120 year old machinery plant with a rich history.

In 2006 a worker hung himself at the plant after a succession of struggles with management over unpaid wages. It was only after his death and the angry reaction of other workers that management paid wages.

At the end of 2007 a new owner Alexander Oleinik bought the plant. The enterprise in Kherson became a subdivision of the other plant owned by Oleinik in Bila Tserkva (central Ukraine). Despite a promise to pay out arrears in wages the new owner decided to sell off Kherson enterprise piece by piece.

In March 2008 new arrears in wages appeared and in October management put workers onto a three day week and proposed them to sign their letters of resignation.

The IMF affiliated Automobile and Agricultural Machinery Workers’ Union of Ukraine is supporting the workers, however current Ukrainian legislation limits their abilities.

The Ukrainian Government is discussing the possibility of leasing 50 harvesting machines.