AUSTRALIA: Unions released two new television advertisements in Australia on June 21 highlighting the value of collective bargaining for workers.

The advertisements are a continuation of the Your Rights at Work campaign, which was a critical factor in changing Australia's government at the federal election last year, and are aimed at ensuring the workplace laws being drafted by the new government provide for:

• the right to bargain collectively
• protection from unfair dismissal  
• the right to be represented by a union  
• better pay and conditions  
• the right to a say in their workplace. 

The advertisements feature real workers highlighting the value of collective bargaining in delivering better pay and conditions as well as improved standards that can benefit the whole community.

Through collective bargaining workers in dangerous industries such as construction have achieved better safety standards, teachers have won lower class sizes for their students, nurses have lifted the standard of patient care through nurse-patient ratios and many women workers have achieved paid maternity leave.

Launching the advertisements, Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Jeff Lawrence said, "This week we have seen the release of new National Employment Standards by the Rudd Government that will help protect the basic rights of workers. This is another good step, but a lot more still needs to be done to get rid of Work Choices."

The ads can be viewed at: http://www.actu.asn.au/

A special report examining the Your Rights at Work campaign was published in the latest issue of Metal World, IMF's regular journal, and can be viewed at: www.imfmetal.org/sr2-2008

PHILIPPINES: Three workers died in separate incidents this month while working in the shipyard at the Subic Bay in the Philippines.

The press agency Central Luzon Desk reported that Mario Atrero, 52, an employee of Hanjin Construction Corp. Ltd. (HCCL), was hit and killed by a steel frame that collapsed due to strong winds on June 20. Earlier, Oliver Labay, 32, died on June 15 when a one-tonne bulkhead for a cargo ship hit and pinned him and Rafael Careg, died on June 11 after the pickup truck he was riding in was hit by a crane boom truck. Both Labay and Careg were working at the shipyard of Korean firm Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Philippines Inc (HHIC-Phil).

HHIC-Phil is engaged in manufacturing ships and HCCL in building the shipyard and other structures at the site. Construction activities and shipbuilding work is happening at the same time at the site.

The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) served a cease and desist work order on HCCL after the most recent fatal accident, ceasing all construction activities at the site.

 At the IMF Shipbuilding Action Group meeting, which took place in Singapore in April 2008, participants expressed serious concerns over the situation with health and safety at workplaces in the shipbuilding industry.

The IMF Shipbuilding Action Group decided it will use the opportunity of the XVIII ILO World Congress on Safety and Health at Work taking place this year on June 29 – July 2 in Korea to try and meet representatives of governments, shipbuilding employers and the ILO in order to discuss the issue, reverse the current system and to strengthen health and safety regulation systems so as to defend effectively the right to life and health of shipyard workers.

MEXICO: The Freedom of Association Committee of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has issued General Report 350, which deals with the Mexican mining dispute (case 2478) and makes nine recommendations to the Mexican government regarding the actions denounced by the National Union of Miners and Metalworkers (SNTMMSRM) and the IMF.

The first recommendation regrets the Secretary for Labour and Social Welfare's "illegal" recognition of Elías Morales and removal of Napoleón Gómez Urrutia as the union's general secretary and states that "the labour authorities' action was incompatible with article 3 of ILO Convention 87, which establishes workers' rights to freely elect their representatives."

The committee says that the Mexican government has not clarified "various irregularities" committed by the labour authorities, except for the falsification of a signature of a member of the union's Vigilance Committee. The ILO committee requests the government "to provide the information."

The committee "deplores the excessive duration" of the judicial procedures "regarding various aspects of the case and the serious prejudice caused to the plaintiff union" and asks the authorities to take "measures to guarantee prompt justice with regard to the exercise of trade union rights." The committee "urges the government to ensure the prompt conclusion of the judicial procedures."

The committee's fourth recommendation profoundly deplores the death of the worker, Reynaldo Hernández González, expresses the strong hope that the criminal procedures under way will be completed as quickly as possible and asks the government to communicate the court's sentence.

The fifth recommendation asks the government "to indicate whether the trade unionists arrested on 11 August 2007 have been released" (this refers to the workers who were attacked on the same day and place as Hernández González was killed, in Nacozari, Sonora). It also calls on the Mexican authorities to provide information about the dispute over representation rights for collective agreements at eight companies, where the SNTMMSRM has such rights. These rights are disputed by other unions. The committee also asked for information about the "violent expulsion of strikers at the entrance to the Cananea mine, and in general about the intervention of state security forces in the labour dispute in question."

The Freedom of Association Committee's final recommendation calls on "the parties concerned to continue negotiations to resolve the dispute to which the present case refers."

The committee also asks the government to respond, without delay, to allegations about death threats, illegal kidnappings and beatings of union members and their families, including the security forces' attack on the Sicartsa strikers, on 20 April 2006, and the kidnapping, beating and death threats against the wife of Mario García Ortiz, a member of the plaintiff union's executive committee."

The IMF General Secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, attended the ILO assembly on 12 June 2008 where he outlined the union's complaint.

The Mexican miners' union thinks that this ILO report obliges "the Mexican government to comply with ILO resolutions and recommendations, resulting from the condemnation it has received, and consequently take steps towards the comprehensive resolution of this dispute with the miners." The union also states that the dispute "has showed the government to be repressive, inefficient, arbitrary, despotic and unable to end this serious problem that it inherited and that it has been unable to resolve even though the dispute has now lasted 20 months."

A copy of the full report can be found at this link.

Metal World:
Our quarterly
magazine.

Follow the link to read get access to an on-line version of the magazine.

EUROPE: The European Parliament endorsed on June 18 regressive new rules on the return of irregular migrants that include tough clauses on detention and re-entry.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) wrote to the members of the European Parliament in advance of a vote expressing strong concerns that several provisions run counter to basic fundamental rights.

In particular, provisions permitting the detention of people for up to 18 months before their expulsion, the 5 year re-entry ban on the territory and forced returns to countries other than the country of origin are viewed by unions and social justice groups in Europe as unacceptable.

The ETUC argues that, "the fight against irregular migration cannot be effective without having opened channels for regular migration, clear policies against labour exploitation of irregular migrants, and providing them with bridges out of irregularity."

"The injustice of regressive migration policies, such as what has been adopted by the EU, goes against the fundamental principles of human rights and dignity," said IMF general secretary Marcello Malentacchi.

TURKEY: More than 5,000 supporters joined 300 shipyard workers in their strike action on June 16 in the Tuzla shipyards protesting high rates of work-related deaths and injuries.

A total of 99 workers have died in the Tuzla shipyards since 1992. The sub-contracting system and noncompliance with safety regulations are seen as the major causes of the deaths in Tuzla.

The workers and their supports gathered at 7.00am, closing the main street and marching to the shipyards in Tuzla. The action was organized by Limter İş, the union representing shipbuilding workers in the yards, and was supported by numerous other organisations including members of parliament, trade unions, artists, academics and international observers.

While some shipyard workers participated in the protest, the majority of workers had been picked up from their homes by the employers' service vehicles at 5am. Other workers were transported to work by the sea and therefore unable to particulate in the rally. While there was a strong police presence at the protest, they did not intervene in the strike. The action finished at 2.30pm.

Cem Dinç, head of Limter İş, gave a speech at the rally, saying, "we have been fighting against irregularity, injustice and exploitation for 16 years. Employers say that workers are illiterate and unconscious. We must ask them: If we are illiterate and unconscious, how are we making these ships? Actually employers of shipyards are illiterate and unconscious. Actually employers of shipyards must be educated."

Four days later, on June 19, the Turkish Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan met with ship building company representatives, but not the union, to discuss the deaths at the Tuzla shipyards. After the meeting the Prime Minister announced an urgent action plan including health and safety education, an increase in the number of safety inspectors and plans to declare Tuzla an industrial area with corresponding regulations.

GLOBAL:  A landmark Declaration designed to strengthen the International Labour Organization’s capacity to tackle the growing challenges of globalisation was adopted by the International Labour Conference on June 13.

The "Declaration of Social Justice for a Fair Globalization" was supported by governments, workers and employers and places social justice at the heart of globalisation.

The Declaration provides a way forward for the implementation of ILO’s agenda on decent work, making it clear that the different components of decent work are inseparable and inter-related. The Declaration challenges the ILO and all Member-states to strive for decent work and recognise the special role of freedom of association and collective bargaining in achieving this goal.

In addition the Declaration affirms the ILO’s mandate to examine economic, financial and trade policies, since they all affect employment. It is clearly the ILO’s role to evaluate those employment effects in order to place employment and decent work at the heart of economic policies.

Achieving this will require the ILO to make a strong and effective impact on the activities and policies proposed by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation.

South African trade unionist Ebrahim Patel, who led the workers’ side in the negotiations, said, "This is an excellent Declaration.  It is a statement about the present and about the future, about helping to create a world in which social justice is at the heart of the global economy and in which decent work is the tool to get it there."

"It points to freedom of association, collective bargaining and the centrality of the employment relationship as more valid than ever," said Patel.

A copy of the Declaration can be found on the ILO website at this link: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_norm/—relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_094042.pdf

ITALY:  Metalworkers across Italy will go on strike for one hour tomorrow, June 17, in support of a new law on health and safety at work. The action follows a dramatic series of daily deaths at work in Italy, including the previously reported deaths of seven workers at ThyssenKrupp in Turin in December last year.

The unions are striking in reaction to the position of the employers association, Confindustria, which is refusing to acknowledge the responsibility of employers when it comes to fundamental safety rules at work, particularly in relation to subcontractors.

Three IMF affiliates FIM-CISL, FIOM-CGIL and UILM-UIL will hold the national action from 11am to 12 noon, June 17. 

In a joint statement to the press the unions called on the government to take "immediate economic measures supporting health and safety at work" including investing in the National Institute INAIL, which is responsible for investing in prevention and compensation for damages.

"We strike for the implementation of the new law on health and safety at work, as it is, in all its parts and with the maximum of severity," stated the unions.

TURKEY: Limter İş and shipbuilding workers in the shipyards in Tuzla are taking day-long strike action today, June 16, protesting work-related injuries and deaths. The action was announced following the death of İhsan Turan, 35, who worked in Selahattin Aslan shipyards and was injured severely as a damper fell on him June 8. The number of deaths in the yards has increased to 25 in the last 11 months.

According to the Turkish Daily News, Cem Dinç, the head of the Port, Shipyard, Ship Construction and Repair Workers Trade Union (Limter İş), said, "Workers for the first time go to strike to not die," adding, "Although Sunday is the day of compulsory holiday, we work on Saturdays and Sundays too. If the regulations were implemented, İhsan Turan would be with us today."

Limter İş organised and campaigned against the high rates of injuries and deaths in the shipyards for many years. Earlier this year 70 workers were arrested after participating in a strike to protest the horrendous working conditions.

The IMF sent a message of solidarity to Limter İş and will closely follow the events in support of the union.