In South Africa NUMSA and IMF Regional and head office staff participated in a blitzing campaign, the campaign included distribution of materials about the epidemic and distribution on condoms. The campaign began with all NUMSA and IMF staff members observing a moment of silence for those who died because of the diseases and all the participants preceded to a Bus Rank were they distributed HIV/Aids materials and condoms. They also spoke to many people from the public about the dangers of the unprotected sex and the urgent need that every one in the country should play in reducing the spread of HIV/Aids.

HIV/Aids is negatively affective the labour movement in the in the continent especially in Southern Africa. Many unions have lost membership and key leaders of the organisations and on daily basis union officials are kept busy with HIV/AIDS related cases. Together we can defeat this epidemic; no contribution is small in the fight against HIV/Aids     

MEXICO: On 3 December, the Mexican National Miners and Metalworkers Union (SNTMMSRM) was the victim of a further attack. Juan Linares Montufar, president of the union's Consejo General de Vigilancia y Justicia (General Vigilance Council) was arrested in Michoacán, in yet another indication of the continuing persecution of miners, metalworkers and steelworkers by the authorities. 

But that's not all. Carlos Pavón Campos, the union's Political Secretary was also detained on Thursday 4 December. Arrest warrants have been issued for at least two members of the SNTMMSRM executive committee, with more expected.

The union said the arrests are illegal and "were carried out on the instructions of Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, owner of Grupo Mexico, who has yet to be brought to justice for killing miners".

Last week, the government illegally and arbitrarily froze more of the union's bank accounts, with the clear intention of stifling the union's fight for trade union freedom and autonomy on behalf of workers at Sections 65 (Cananea, Sonora), 201 (Sombrerete, Zacatecas) and 17 (Taxco, Guerrero), who have been on strike for 16 months.

The union says the arrest of the leaders is related to the appointment of Fernando Gómez Mont as Secretary of the Interior. "He used to be an employee of Grupo Mexico, of Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, and it seems he still works for them. He was part of the company's criminal law team and is using his new position to violate the most basic legislation and to treat social groups and leaders unjustly."

The union is calling on all trade unions and social organisations in Mexico and the rest of the world, especially IMF affiliates, to protest these cowardly and malicious attacks and urges them to form a united front against this persecution, which is not directed only at miners, metalworkers and steelworkers, but against the whole of the organised workers' movement. An injury to one is an injury to all. This is our watchword at this time of government attacks on trade unionism.

We demand the immediate release of Juan Linares Montufar and Carlos Pavón Campos, a demand also made by the IMF, and the immediate unblocking of all the union funds frozen by the government.

BRAZIL: Thirty-five thousand demonstrators gathered along the Esplanade of Ministries in the capital, Brasilia, for the Fifth National March of the Working Class and a rally in support of Development and Work.

The demonstration was called by the country's trade union centrals – Força Sindical, CUT, CTB, CGTB, UGT and NCST and took place in front of the National Congress. It called for safeguards for employment, a guaranteed income and for measures to protect workers against the impact of the international financial crisis.

The demonstration also called for an increase in the minimum wage, defence of the country's oil reserves and a new energy policy and ratification of Conventions 151 (on collective bargaining in public services) and 158 (which prohibits termination of employment without a valid reason).

The march began at 9 a.m. in Mané Garrincha sports centre car park and continued to the National Congress where demonstrators held a rally led by the trade union centrals and attended by political party leaders.

The trade union centrals presented a unified list of demands to the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The document contained 18 proposals to combat the crisis, including increases in the minimum wage, income tax reductions and a reduced working week without reduction in pay.

In the afternoon, a series of meetings was held with ministry representatives and this continued until Thursday. Union leaders met the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Arlindo Chinaglia, and the President of the Senate, Garibaldi Alves Filho, to discuss the movement's demands.

The President of the CUT, Artur Henrique, said the march had been a success. "It is a major achievement to unite workers from all over the country and from different trade union centrals at this moment of crisis. It shows that Brazilian workers are ready to fight", he said.

The President of Força Sindical, Paulo Pereira da Silva (Paulinho), said: "We are going to mobilise and organise the workers and we will go on strike if they try to sack us". "Anyone who wants to make a profit should invest in production and not in speculation", he added, referring to employers.

ZIMBABWE:  Japhet Moyo, general secretary of the National Engineering Workers' Union of Zimbabwe (NEWU) and deputy secretary general of the national center, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), has been arrested after participating in a ZCTU demonstration protesting government restrictions on bank withdrawals.

According to Stephen Nhlapo, regional representative for Africa for the International Metalworkers' Federation, Japhat was arrested this morning by the police for organizing and participating in the march against the banks in the country. "While I was busy talking to him the police took the phone and I am not sure exactly what is going to happen to him," Nhlapo reported.

Zimbabwe's inflation rate has continued to skyrocket to a shocking 13.2 billion per cent a month, or 516 quintillion per cent a year, the second highest inflation rise in history. 1946 Hungary is history's worst.

One government remedy to control inflation has been to introduce measures to force employers to pay employees through the banks. The government also introduced a law that restricts withdrawals from the banks. The current maximum withdrawal per day is Z$ 5000 million which means a worker who earns Z$ 50 000 million per week needs around 10 days to be able to withdraw their salaries. "Some workers are still withdrawing their June salaries even now," Nhlapo reported, adding "in most cases when workers go to the bank to withdraw money, they find that there is no cash in the bank."

Nhlapo noted, "Transport to and from work is around Z$ 20 000 million a day, if you are lucky to get a lift, which is more than your daily limit for withdrawals and one wonders how workers are travelling to work and what are they eating?"

The ZCTU called for the one-day national protest to force the country's central bank to lift restrictions on cash withdrawals. Throughout the country workers held demonstrations at bank sites. Trade union leaders and workers who participated in the protests also called on employers to pay workers directly with cash or food parcels and demanded that they be paid in US dollars since everything in the country is sold in dollars.

Riot police armed with batons broke up many protests, arresting some 70 union leaders and members and assaulting another 10, including NEWU member Martha Kajama. Despite the violence, workers successfully delivered petitions to many offices of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, making their demands clear.

RUSSIA: On the night of Thursday November 13th 2008 Alexei Etmanov, the leader of the Ford-Vsevelozhsk trade union and co-chairman of Interregional Trade Union of Autoworkers (ITUA), an affiliate of IMF, was assaulted once again.

This latest attack on Alexei Etmanov happened late at night when a stranger armed with a metal rod was waiting for Alexei on the stairs of his apartment building. The fact that Alexei and his wife escaped what would have been a brutal assault was a mere miracle.

Thanks to brave actions of Etmanov himself and his comrades from the local trade unions' committee who were accompanying him to his house as security guards the attacker was blocked in the building and later arrested by the police.

However, just a day later the arrested attacker, who turned out to be inhabitant of Volgograd, was released "for the lack of proof of guilt" and the investigation of the case is effectively suspended. 

This is not the first attack on Etmanov, on the night of November 8th three unidentified attackers assaulted him on his way from the parking lot to his apartment building. The next day Etmanov's deputy, Vladimir Lesik – a member of the trade union's committee – was telephoned by a stranger who threatened to kill the union's leaders. Other members of ITUA have been assaulted too including the leaders of the local trade union organisation of Taganrog automobile plant, Alexei Gramm and Sergei Brizgalov. Those incidents were not investigated either.

The International Metalworkers Federation is carrying out a campaign to protect the leaders of ITUA, demanding that the Russian authorities conduct a complete investigation of all cases of the assaults and to punish the guilty ones – both those that too part and those who ordered the crimes to be committed.   

The general secretary of the IMF, Marcello Malentacci, has sent a letter with these demands to the government of Russian Federation and has called on all IMF affiliates to send letters of protest to the ITUA in support of the campaign and the call to defend trade union rights in Russia.

TAKE ACTION NOW: Join the LabourStart campaign to protest the violence against ITUA leaders.

ITALY: Six ThyssenKrupp executives from various ranks of management at the German company's Turin operations will stand trial for the deaths of seven steelworkers who were killed in a plant fire December 6, 2007.

ThyssenKrupp's CEO for Italy will face murder charges and if convicted, could face up to 21 years in prison. Five other executives are facing charges ranging from manslaughter to criminal omission of anti-accident measures.

The case is the first of its kind in Italy – workplace deaths resulting in a murder trial.

Following the plant blaze, which workers argue was due to poor health and safety standards, Italian affiliates of the International Metalworkers' Federation organized an eight hour strike at all ThyssenKrupp enterprises and proposed a National Day of Struggle of Metalworkers of Italy on December 14 to get controlled health and safety conditions at all workplaces.

The trial is scheduled for January 15, 2009.

URUGUAY:  Uruguay’s metalworkers signed a new collective agreement last week, giving them a pay rise of more than 14% over two years. 

The agreement sets the sector’s minimum wage at 9,000 pesos ($379 USD), establishes a paid holiday on 14 March and provides more time-off for union leaders to conduct union business.  

Marcelo Abdala, leader of UNTMRA, an affiliate of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, told local media: "We won a reduction in working hours without a loss in real wages for shipbuilding industry workers, who will now work 46 instead of 48 hours a week."

He added that "the electronics, plastics, glass, automotive, mechanical engineering and mining sectors also reached agreement on pay." The agreement ends tripartite negotiations in Group 8 of the Pay Councils, a fight that involved intense mobilisation by UNTMRA. The union took strike action in factories and organised massive demonstrations, after employers’ groups failed to respond adequately to union demands. 

The IMF Regional Office took solidarity action in support of UNTMRA and the metalworkers of Uruguay, calling on the employers’ organisations to reach a solution that would respond to the legitimate interests of the workers. 

UNTMRA calculates the number of metalworkers at more than 10,000 and the number of workers in the sector as a whole at 30,000.

BELGIUM: The International Trade Union Confederation's Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights Violations reveals an appalling record of union-busting, anti-union laws, intimidation, violence against workers' representatives, and an increase in precarious employment in 2007. 

The Survey, which covers worker rights violations in 138 countries, reported a number of disturbing trends, including collusion between some governments and employers to deprive working women and men of their legitimate rights to union membership and representation. 

According to the report, 73 unionists were sent to prison in 2007 and new legal and administrative measures to restrict union activities, in breach of International Labour Organisation Conventions, were introduced in 15 countries.

In Africa, employers in several countries used defective labour legislation to instigate and encourage splits in trade unions and create employer-controlled groups to displace legitimate worker representation.  Restrictions on legitimate union activities also continued in several industrialized countries as well, with workers in the public sector in particular deprived of their union rights. 

The survey also highlighted alarming developments repeated in cases throughout the report concerning wholesale moves by national and multinational employers, often facilitated by legislative provisions, to replace full-time and permanent jobs with precarious employment, by forcing workers into temporary, casual and part-time arrangements, reducing their incomes, removing job security and leaving them open to unfair and unjustified treatment, including the risk of losing their livelihoods with little or no advance notice or compensation.  Many companies have moved in this direction by replacing regular workers with "contract labour", thus avoiding duties and responsibilities which they would otherwise have to meet.

The report is available in four languages, French, English, Spanish and German and is available in hardcopy or online at: http://survey08.ituc-csi.org/.

GENEVA: Executive Committee members of the International Metalworkers’ Federation met in Geneva to discuss the global financial crisis and develop an international collective strategy for steps forward.

"There is now an urgent need to strengthen regulation and supervision of banks, rethink the rules and governance of international finance and institutions, and implement a comprehensive and coordinated recovery program that is able to steer the world economy onto a path of equitable and sustainable development and with full employment as a main policy goal," announced the IMF in a statement unanimously passed by members of the Executive Committee.

In addition to greater regulation of financial institutions, the IMF is calling for major investment programmes in infrastructure, housing, education, health and social services and the environment, noting that "fiscal monetary and industrial policies must be pursued to generate quality employment and boost purchasing power for all."

The executive also adopted a resolution in solidarity with global autoworkers calling for urgent remedial actions, but not at the expense of or sacrifice by workers. "Provision of loans to the automotive sector with public and employment safeguards is a necessary measure to address immediate financing needs for automotive companies during a period of extreme credit market dysfunction," the resolution stated. IMF Executive Committee members will hold a special discussion regarding the financial crisis in relation to the auto sector at an Extraordinary Executive Committee meeting on February 19, 2009.

Via video conference, Napoleon Gómez, general secretary of the Mexican Metalworkers’ and Miners’ Union (SNTMMSRM) and IMF executive committee member, urged the IMF to continue to pressure the Mexican government to end its attacks against the miners’ union. IMF executive members unanimously agreed to take immediate further action.

POLAND: Members of the Polish metal union, NSZZ Solidarnosc, who work at Korean-owned Dong Yang Electronics have moved into the fourth week of their strike after management terminated labour contracts with strikers and hired replacement workers.

About 200 Dong Yang Electronics workers in Mlawa, Poland have been on strike since October 16 demanding better wages and compensation. Management illegally terminated the labour contracts of some 180 strikers, including the union shop steward, and has hired replacement workers.

Management has refused to negotiate with the union and workers, despite many attempts and involvement of the local authorities and Ministry of Labour as mediators.

"These actions by the employer showed absolute disrespect for labour standards and the law granting the workers the right to strike," reported NSZZ Solidarnosc in a statement. Poland has ratified internationally recognised core labour standards including Convention 87 and 98 of the International Labour Organisation ensuring Freedom of Association and the Right to Organise and Collectively Bargain.

In a letter to Dong Yang Electronics, International Metalworkers’ Federation general secretary Marcello Malentacchi said "Workers in Poland enjoy basic labour protections outlined by the ILO. As a foreign owned company operating in Poland it is your responsibility to abide by the laws of that country and respect basic labour rights and worker protections."

Workers held a demonstration on November  14 calling for:

• basic wages to be increased by 9% for all the workers in the company and the minimum wage in the company to be set at 1500 PLN gross ( 400€);
• the increase should be retroactive to March 2008; and
• reinstatement of all workers fired for striking.

Send letters of protest to:
Dong Yang Electronics, Mlawa
Fax: +48 23 655 33 50
email: [email protected]
with copies to: [email protected]