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]).

Text / Kristyne Peter  
Photo / Anne Lewis

====================================================

 On May 1, 2008, Morristown: In the Air and Sun, was screened in a crowded little cinema in downtown Geneva. The film was part of the Night of Labour Film Shorts film festival hosted by the IMF and the international labour movement and Morristown was the feature presentation.

The film, shot in the mountains of east Tennessee, interior Mexico, and Ciudad Juarez, examines the relationship between American and Mexican workers, government, corporations and the rise of temporary work. What makes Morristown so powerful is that the story is carried by the unique voices of ordinary people affected by globalisation, a technique that Anne Lewis, the filmmaker says is integral to "authentic documentary filmmaking".

"My purpose is to tell the truth. I want to understand, to explore and tell the truth as powerfully as I can."

At 59, Lewis has been making films for 40 years. A Washington DC native, she studied filmmaking in New York City and was active in the civil rights movement and anti-war movement, which evolved into a deep interest in political filmmaking. In 1972 Lewis was working with Barbara Kopple on a piece about rank-and-file rebellion in a small Kentucky mining town. The union leadership had been going against the membership on important issues such as black lung, mine safety and democracy in the union. The rank-and-file put forward a candidate to take control of the union, and won. Lewis and Kopple captured that struggle. Months later the United Mine Workers (UMW) contacted the crew asking them to return to Harlan County and film a brutal strike "or someone will get killed". Tensions between strikers, local police and company thugs had reached breaking point. Because of their relationship with the UMW, Kopple, Lewis, and the crew were granted unprecedented access, the result was the film, Harlan County USA, which went on to win an Academy Award for Best Documentary.

"That experience invested me in a profound way," says Lewis who explained that by becoming part of that struggle, she was better able to tell the story authentically. With her films, Lewis does not script or outline, she lets the story unfold through the voices of the people impacted most, and from both sides of the issue.

"Sometimes unions make films and they seem to be less effective than those who make them independently," Lewis says, pointing out, "unions will make a film about themselves and they usually don’t expose their own negatives or shortcomings and very rarely allow the other side to have a voice or even explore that content. This can compromise a film’s impact."

Lewis recommends that unions and labour organizations talk with filmmakers, initiate partnerships with them, engage filmmakers to learn about their campaigns and provide access to the heart of workers’ struggles so that filmmakers can tell their story.

"Unions need to let social action filmmakers know more about their struggles and include them in the organising as well as provide them access. These relationships are important, filmmakers won’t be able to get this kind of access without the help of the unions involved," she said.

I asked Lewis if she thought we are starting to see more and more films about workers and the working class struggle as well as an increase in the distribution given the growing number of labour film festivals sprouting up around the world.

"It’s astonishing just how little labour films are out there," Lewis said adding, "I think there have been important labour films made, but we aren’t seeing more of them, in fact we are seeing less." For Lewis, while there might be an increase in films that address globalisation, outsourcing or downsizing, most of these films lack real characters and real responses. "What is lacking in contemporary labour filmmaking is that there are not enough films about collective action, the ones that inspire people to come together and move forward."

Lewis argues that films can be a tool to further change, but mobilisation is fundamental. "Sometimes people get the illusion that a film can change things in and of itself, it can’t. Change can only come from collective action."

Please visit www.annelewis.org for more information or to order a copy of Morristown: In the Air and Sun. Bulk rates are available to unions.

Here you may download the pdf file of the story with illustrations.

Text / Jeremy Vermeesch

====================================================

Even anti-labour strategists have acknowledged that the Your Rights At Work campaign, coordinated by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), played a major role in the loss of the 11-year-old conservative Liberal government of ousted prime minister John Howard, delivering national power to the Australian Labor Party (ALP) for the first time since 1996.

Tactics in the campaign (previewed in Metal World No. 3, 2006) included detailed opinion polling and public message development, unparalleled commercial advertising, four mass public rallies, the mobilisation of union members and community campaigns in 24 marginal conservative-held electorates. Contemporary media including websites, email, mobile phone SMS messaging and automatic "phone trees" were widely used.

While the campaign was triggered in 2005 by the former government’s introduction of union-busting legislation known as Work Choices (which took effect from March 2006), senior union leaders say its success had its origins in the gradual erosion of workers’ rights and job security over more than a decade, particularly through individual contracts.

The Labor Party’s victory also came despite the former government spending around A$200 million (US$187 million) on advertising to promote its new industrial laws, as well as major employer groups’ TV advertisements portraying unionists as threatening thugs.

At the Australian federal election on November 24, 2007, voting swings against the conservatives in electorates targeted by the union campaign were around 3% higher than the national average swing of 5.4%. Extraordinarily, for only the second time in Australian history, the then prime minister (Howard) lost his own seat in parliament.
A union exit poll on election day found eight out of 10 Labor voters said the workplace laws were a major priority in their decision, while a News Corporation newspaper survey showed 52% of all voters said it was a priority issue.

In claiming victory on election night, new Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd acknowledged the role of "the great Australian trade union movement". Howard’s replacement as Liberal leader Brendan Nelson soon after declared that "Work Choices is dead".

The campaign was led by ACTU and International Trade Union Confederation President Sharan Burrow and former ACTU Secretary Greg Combet, who was voted in as a Labor member of parliament at the election.

The ACTU funded the campaign through a special A$5.50 a year levy per member from unions, providing more than A$20 million (US$18.7 million) for advertising. No decision has yet been made on whether to continue the levy after it expires in July 2008.

TRADE UNION UNITY
Union leaders agree that the success depended on a combination of unity, sophisticated advertising, activation of members and community campaigning – particularly in former conservative-held electorates which the Labor Party won at the election.

Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) National Secretary Paul Howes said the campaign "redefined the issues in the lead-up to the election" after a period when "the labour movement really was at its lowest ebb".

"I think the important lesson out of Your Rights at Work was that we were actually able, in a very short period of time, to redefine the national debate, and to focus the debate onto workplace relations, which really hadn’t been such a significant issue in Australian political and social life since 1929," Howes said.

"The campaign wouldn’t have been successful if it wasn’t for the fact that the union movement was united in a way that (it) has never been before," he said. "That’s now led to a new spirit of cooperation."

Apart from the 24 ACTU-targeted seats, the AWU additionally supported the successful election campaigns of its former national secretary Bill Shorten (who won a Labor-held seat in Melbourne) and former industrial officer Yvette D’Ath (who won a Queensland seat from the Liberals).

"What that involved was dedicating a huge amount of our money but also our resources and our people. . . we also viewed this as a real opportunity for us to activate our membership politically, to having every single union member in the country viewed as a soldier in fighting this war and to win that election," Howes said.

Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) National President Julius Roe said the victory depended on "careful planning and good leadership by the ACTU in conjunction with key union leaders, and a strategy which combined industrial, political, communications and community activity."

"The key factor was the way in which we initially undertook a major exercise to educate thousands of rank and file union delegates and officials, and then secondly sought to educate the public through an advertising campaign," Roe said.

"Also important were the four nationwide days of action, in which we managed to mobilise huge numbers of workers on the street, and where – in the manufacturing industry – virtually the entire industry closed down because our members all walked off the job, even though it was illegal to participate in the mass rallies. It created a lot of public attention, and also sent a very strong message to employers."

"That reduced the extent to which employers were able to destroy our organisation, because the Howard laws had the potential to destroy union organisation through crippling fines and the dismissal of union activists," Roe said.

"The other key aspect was the development of the community level campaign where we put full-time activists to be employed in each of the marginal electorates. What was unprecedented in this campaign was the extent to which every union was united in a common strategy," Roe said.

CEPU National Secretary Peter Tighe said there "was an element of peer pressure" in developing that unity, requiring some unions – particularly those not affiliated with the ALP – to be encouraged to support what could be seen as a partisan strategy.

"They had to be convinced that this was about the survival of the trade union movement and ensuring members had a system to collectively bargain, that this was not a political campaign as such, it was an industrial campaign with a political focus," Tighe said.

In addition to the ACTU levy, the CEPU introduced a A$1 a week special fee for members, and spent nearly A$5 million (including more than A$500,000 in donations to the federal ALP) on the strategy. This included backing the successful election campaigns of former CEPU organisers Mike Symon in Melbourne and Jim Turnour in Queensland.

The CEPU’s electrical linespeople erected billboards on power polls around the country, despite the objections of many conservative local government authorities who were powerless to remove them because of safety laws.

COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY
Essential Media Communications (EMC) was hired by the ACTU and AMWU to develop the communications strategy for the campaign in 2005 – some two-and-a-half years before the federal election, and EMC Director Tony Douglas says starting the campaign early – even before the laws were introduced to parliament – was important in its success.

He points out that workplace relations then was not even in the top 10 political agenda items according to public opinion polls, but by the 2007 election was the second most important issue (second only to health care), and also the main vote-switching issue.

Douglas says controlled focus group polling of average workers in 2005 was critical in developing an understanding of the target audience – who overwhelmingly identified themselves as "working people" or "working families". At the time, the Labor Party leadership was instead referring to "middle Australia".

"For a lot of people earning under A$60,000 a year in Australia, when you put terms like ‘middle class’ to them, they thought that was doctors and lawyers," Douglas said. The research also showed that nearly all average-income workers regarded themselves as "just keeping their heads above water".

"We knew that we were connecting with at least 80% of employees, and therefore the most important group in the electorate, and we knew that their economic situation, while not disastrous, was a bit fragile and vulnerable," Douglas said.

Despite "a lot of pressure to run the campaign around the idea of fairness", Douglas said EMC’s studies showed working people found the concept of fairness to be "relative and subjective" and "didn’t relate to it that well".

"But when we talked about rights, rights were concrete and ascertainable – things you had under law that were being taken away. And so the frame of rights was central to how we prosecuted this campaign: that you have rights to be treated fairly in the workplace and these are based on law and they are being taken away," he said.

The research informed EMC’s eight TV commercials for the campaign, which began in 2006 with advertisements exemplifying the vulnerability of a working mother threatened with dismissal over last-minute roster changes and a working man aged over 45 forced onto an individual contract that cut his conditions.

Polling showed that before those first two TV commercials aired, about 35% of people knew something about the new industrial laws, but after the advertisements ran this increased to 77%. Similarly, opposition to the laws increased from 38% before the advertisements to 64% afterwards, a position that stuck for most of the campaign.

The second phase of advertisements targeted particular aspects of the legislation, especially how the new individual contract system "took away all the powers of workers and their rights", Douglas said.
A poll in March 2007 found 69% of voters agreed that individual contracts gave too much power to employers, and 71% agreed that "collective bargaining gives power back to workers, which is a good thing".

In terms of changing votes, EMC estimated that of the 37% of Australian so-called "battlers" on lower incomes (median annual salary of A$40,000-A$45,000), about half identify generally as ALP voters, and about one quarter identify as Liberal voters.

"It’s that quarter of Liberal voters that deserted them (the Liberals), and all the Labor identifiers voted ALP this time, whereas a significant proportion were in fact voting Liberal at previous elections," Douglas said.

The key "vote-shifters" were among working people with children at home, aged between about 30 and 55 years-old, he said. Kevin Rudd adopted the term "working families" and used it relentlessly during the election campaign. "Micro-targeting" of particular groups, including parents and grandparents not directly affected by the laws but concerned about their children and grandchildren, was used in subsequent TV commercials, such as one featuring three generations of a family.

Finally in 2007 the TV campaign "tarnished the Liberal Party brand" by associating the new laws with the interests of big business. A humorous TV and radio advertisement portrayed male bosses in a boardroom celebrating their executive bonuses at the expense of employees’ pay and conditions.

Polling of members of 10 unions since the election showed the "clear cut" success of their internal communications campaigns, with an average shift of around 12% in members’ votes from Liberal to Labor, meaning around 70% of members were voting Labor and only 8% to 10% voting Liberal.

Paul Howes said polling of AWU members showed that at the previous election in 2004, almost 40% of voted Liberal, but at the 2007 election, around 88% voted against them.

GRASS ROOTS CAMPAIGN
CEPU training manager Jacqueline King was the Community Campaign Coordinator in the conservative held seat of Bowman, near Brisbane in Queensland, where the campaign won an 8.86% swing against the government – just a handful of votes short of victory, and above the average statewide swing of 7.53%.

She said it was vital "to actually cut straight through to the community" – including to non-union members and even non-working people – firstly through the media advertising and secondly through the grass roots campaigning.

"I wanted to promote just local people who were there…and I think that was one of the key strengths in the end, with local people taking responsibility for their issues, it was their campaign," she said.
People who would normally not be involved in politics were motivated by the extremity of the Work Choices laws, which were "really starting to bite in many non-union and low-paid areas, such as casuals and young people, and overwhelmingly the thought of ‘is this what our children and grandchildren are going to inherit’" was important, King said.

Her campaign involved extensive door-knocking, leafleting, community meetings, alliances with Aboriginal elders on nearby Stradbroke Island, market and roadside stalls, protests outside the local politician’s office, family picnics, fun days, street theatre, local newspaper advertising and lobbying of other organisations – "anything that would give us visibility," she said.

"I had a grandmother involved whose 16-year-old granddaughter was ripped off and she had no way of expressing that anger until we started advertising locally and holding community meetings," King said.

King stressed that the campaign was not a typical political exercise because its objective was to replace the Work Choices laws with fair legislation, not simply to elect a Labor Government, and local volunteers were now looking for leadership.

LESSONS FOR UNIONS
Sharan Burrow said the main lesson from the campaign was "the old adage that ‘united you win’".

"If you can focus on one single ambition, be disciplined enough to direct your resources to that ambition until it’s won, and do the research around strategy and appropriate communications for the audience that you need to reach, then the campaign will succeed. The difficulty unions have is that there is so much work, so many issues, and so many individual interests that our capacity to focus becomes dissipated," Burrow said.

Tony Douglas said, "unions can, if they use these kind of (communication) techniques, shape the political environment and the political agenda in their countries."

"These techniques now need be thought of as central to the work that unions do, not just an add-on at times of stress when you’re under attack, but something that you can use positively to shape the future of your societies and deliver benefits to your members," he said.

Paul Howes urged "other unions from across the world to take note of what we did and to come over here and see how it worked, because it built our power and our ability to affect the national way of life so incredibly and so quickly."

Julius Roe said that, "even in the most difficult circumstances, when you have legislation that’s designed to destroy the trade union movement, fighting back does make a difference, and it is possible to defeat neo-liberal ideas and neo-liberal political organisation."

"Effective campaigning does mean you have to go beyond just the industrial aspect in the workplace, and have to look at the use of the media and developing alliances with the broader community, as well as mobilisation of the members and industrial action. A modern campaigning method is essential," said Roe.

Peter Tighe also stressed the importance of building an industrial strategy into a broader political campaign, including by tapping into the social justice priorities of other groups in the community, including churches of all denominations, charities and activist organisations.

The New Zealand trade union movement is already heeding the lessons of the Australian success, with the CEPU sending a staff member to work with the NZ Council of Trade Unions on their campaign for the national election later this year.

THE NEXT STEP
The ACTU has decided to resume a commercial media advertising campaign to ensure the new Labor Government introduces new laws that protect workers’ rights, particularly collective bargaining.

While the Government has legislated to phase out statutory-based individual contracts, unions want to ensure its substantial labour legislation scheduled for next year also restores unfair dismissal laws, abolishes the construction union watchdog (the Australian Building and Construction Commission) and enshrines International Labour Organisation Conventions on the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association, including by restoring union rights to organise, negotiate and take industrial action.

Peter Tighe said the Rudd Government should not yield to pressure from some employer groups to limit the scope of workplace bargaining to defined conditions, but rather leave it open to workers to decide what was relevant for them.

"We’ll never do politics again quite the same way, we’ll always have an independent voice and we’ll always have a conversation now with Australia about the issues that matter to working families," Burrow said.

"We won’t do industrial campaigns the same way either. While the old tactics of collectivity and resistance where necessary are critical, they need to be managed in a much more integrated and sophisticated way."

Australian unions will also use lessons from the campaign to help rebuild membership levels, including through the proposed idea of Unions Australia as a national membership centre that could maintain members as they change jobs or industries.

"Every week there are tens of thousands of new union members recruited, but when they move from job to job or from industry to industry, then of course we have to go all over the process again. It should be our job to find the union for the working person – not their job," Burrow said.

Tony Douglas estimates that Australian unions would achieve real membership growth if they could reduce "the churn factor" (from high levels of labour mobility) by between 30% or 40%.

He recommends a mass media campaign "to fill the information gaps about what unions do, to make stronger, idealistic and values-type connections between unions and people."

"The unions themselves have to look at new approaches to actually going out face-to-face recruiting to get people to sign on, but it’s pretty clear from the polling that people don’t understand what union covers their work, think they’re not relevant, and don’t understand what unions do – and many are never asked to join," Douglas said.
Paul Howes said the focus of the union movement should now be on increasing membership by building on the Your Rights At Work campaign’s earlier themes of "worth fighting for" and "worth voting for", by adding "worth joining for".

THE MEASURE OF VICTORY:
As part of the Your Rights at Work campaign, Australian unions targeted 24 conservative-held electorates in six States around the country in the lead up to the federal election on November 24, 2007. The Australian Labor Party won 20 of those 24 electorates from former government incumbents, with mostly significantly higher than average voting swings.

The average swing against the former government in the successful 20 union-targeted seats was 7.26%, compared to the national average swing of 5.44%.

The following table compares the voting swing away from the conservatives in each of the 20 union-targeted electorates won by the Labor Party with the average swing in the particular State.

Successful voting swings in union targeted electorates, November 2007 Australian election:

Target Electorate	Swing in Labor win	Average State swing
Dobell (NSW)	8.74%	5.61%
Eden-Monaro (NSW)	6.67%	5.61%
Lindsay (NSW)	9.7%	5.61%
Macquarie (NSW)	6.57%	5.61%
Page (NSW)	7.83%	5.61%
Blair (Queensland)	10.17%	7.53%
Bonner (Queensland)	5.04%	7.53%
Dawson (Queensland)	13.2%	7.53%
Leichhardt (Queensland)	14.29%	7.53%
Longman (Queensland)	10.32%	7.53%
Moreton (Queensland)	7.58%	7.53%
Solomon (Queensland)	3%	7.53%
Corangamite (Victoria)	6.17%	5.27%
Deakin (Victoria)	6.38%	5.27%
Kingston (South Australia)	4.49%	6.76%
Makin (South Australia)	8.63%	6.76%
Wakefield (South Australia)	7.26%	6.76%
Hasluck (Western Australia)	3.08%	2.14%
Bass (Tasmania)	3.63%	2.02%
Braddon (Tasmania)	2.57%	2.02%

                                        (Source: Australian Electoral Commission)

Here you may download the pdf file of the story with illustrations.

Text / Norbert Hüsson
Photos / Manfred Vollmer
Translation / Mark Slay

==================================================

Margarete Nebe feels like the ground is giving way under her feet. It is Tuesday January 15, 2008, shortly after 9am. Margarete, 46, has just learned that the Nokia plant in Bochum – a town in west-central Germany – will be closed at the end of June. Two thousand three hundred people will lose their jobs! Like in a horror film, thoughts of what awaits her shoot through her mind, "First a year unemployed, then social assistance!" Margarete Nebe, a blue-collar worker and member of IG Metall, has worked at Nokia since 1989.

Margarete had plans – a new apartment, a few purchases. Suddenly that simply disappears. "It’s all gone!" She is furious: the decision to close was like a "slap in the face".

Ute Beer, 46, has received the bad news by SMS. At first she thinks, "This must be someone’s idea of a joke." Although she is ill, she goes immediately to the plant. She is also worried about the future, "I don’t know how I’m going to manage…", she says, her voice failing. In the plant, people are speechless and outraged. Many embrace to console each other, men weep. But Margarete Nebe is a fighter by nature. "We’re not giving up. We have to continue!"

Fifty kilometers away in Düsseldorf, the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Nokia holds a press conference. Executive Vice President Veli Sundbäck alleges that the Bochum location is "internationally not competitive". Yet wages account for not even five per cent of the total production cost. The Bochum plant’s figures are very definitely in the black. According to the business magazine Capital, in 2007 every employee in production produced a profit of 90,000 euros – thanks to overtime and weekend work. Management and the Works Council had even prepared joint plans to make the plant even more profitable. Only an investment of 14.3 million euros was necessary and it was to be approved by the supervisory board in mid-January. Instead, Veli Sundbäck read out the death sentence for Bochum. Gisela Achenbach, chairman of the works council, is "surprised, shocked and totally depressed". She feels "like in a marriage in which you find out that you have been betrayed for years". Now she wants to "save what can be saved".

Destroying the Bochum location is an "absolute obscenity", says the regional director of IG Metall NRW, Oliver Burkhard. He accuses Nokia of being "greedy for profits" and vows the company’s plans would be opposed. Ulrike Kleinebrahm, the president of the IG Metall local in Bochum, announces: "We will fight for the plant and for every job."

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in NRW starts up an internet site where people can add their names to the list of those protesting the closure of the Nokia Bochum plant: http://nonokia.nrwspd.de./ IG Metall creates an action platform at: www.igmetall-nokia.de: "No Nokia – Not with Us!"

Over the next few days hundreds of solidarity declarations are received from all over Germany – from the works council of the firm ABB to the works council of the firm ZF Sachs. José Manuel Barroso, the President of the EU Commission, says, "I understand the employees’ concerns, and I assure you of our solidarity. Where necessary, we will help." Federal Consumer Protection Minister Horst Seehofer exchanges his Nokia mobile phone for another model. Calls are heard for a boycott of Nokia. IG Metall rejects that approach, saying that boycotting Nokia would not help the employees affected. The illustrated magazine stern publishes a poll: 68 per cent of those questioned say the planned plant closure hurts Nokia’s image, and 54 per cent will not buy another Nokia mobile phone.

The German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) condemned Nokia’s move as "unacceptable" – and demanded more worker participation in order to prevent future corporate decisions geared exclusively to maximizing profits. "We demand that a two-thirds majority in the supervisory boards must vote in favour if plants are to be transferred or closed," DGB states. The economy must put people first. Big corporations, it said, are not just the property of anonymous shareholders; the employees and civil society also have a stake. Nokia wants to transfer its mobile phone production from Bochum to the region of Cluj in Romania. But even Manager-Magazine has doubts as to whether the transfer "was a smart and correct business decision".
The magazine supposes that Nokia must have miscalculated. Precisely because in Romania, Manager-Magazine reports, many international corporations such as Continental had had a "bitter experience", among other reasons due to a labour shortage there. The managers in Continental responsible for the move had since been "completely replaced".

Nokia ignores all the protests. Top management does not react. It is "ice-cold", criticized Finland’s biggest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel intervenes in the conflict by speaking to Nokia chief Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, saying, "I made it clear that I find the whole communication and related actions around it [the closure] incomprehensible."

Gisela Achenbach, the works council chairman, and Ulrike Kleinebrahm, the president of the IG Metall local in Bochum, fly to Finland to meet with the Nokia Board and speak with Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. The talks end without result.

On January 22, 15,000 people flood into the Market Square in Bochum in response to IG Metall’s call for a demonstration. IG Metall President Berthold Huber calls upon the company to rescind its decision. Huber shouts, "I accuse this global corporation of destroying the existence of thousands of workers and their families out of greed for profits!” For such an offense, he says, there is "no acquittal". The demonstrators applaud. Among them are many school children, auto workers from Opel, Ford and VW, construction workers, miners and members of the service union ver.di, representatives of all parties and churches. On that cold, sunny day the square was a colourful sea of flags. One banner – alluding to Nokia’s advertising slogan "Connecting People" – reads: "Nokia – Disconnecting People". Ulrike Kleinebrahm asks everyone to close ranks, and she is extremely happy. "This day shows that we know the meaning of the word solidarity!" she says.

Nine days after the announcement of its plans to close the Bochum plant, Nokia publishes its 2007 balance sheet: a record profit of 7.2 billion euros, an increase of 67 per cent. Later it is revealed what Nokia chief Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo earned in 2007: 3.4 million euros. The first victims of his corporate strategy were 757 subcontracted workers of Adecco and Randstad, of whom many had been working for Nokia for years – they were simply fired. They were followed by hundreds of employees of service enterprises; Nokia’s departure has also cost shipping and cleaning workers their jobs.

On January 30 the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) and the European Works Council (EWC) of Nokia meet on the 10th floor of the International Trade Union House in Brussels. Following that meeting, EMF General Secretary Peter Scherrer issues a press release whose first sentence reads: " ‘Nokia is no longer a social company’, trade unionists acknowledged at today’s coordination meeting." And further: "Retracing the way Nokia announced, on 15th January, its intention to close the Bochum site, workers’ representatives came to the conclusion that Nokia made a mockery of its obligation to inform and consult its employees in line with the EU Directive on European Works Councils and German law." During the meeting, however, the EWC does not demand that the Nokia Board withdraw its decision to close the Bochum plant. Nika Paukkeri, chairman of the EWC, says that the situation throughout Europe, not just in Germany, must be taken into account. Gisela Achenbach is disappointed – and leaves the meeting early.

What happened? IG Metall advisor Martin Bartmann, a sociologist, offers two explanations: first, the Nokia works council members do not meet very often, and thus they know too little of one another and have not been able to build a basis for confidence. Second, in Scandinavia plant closings are not as controversial as in Germany, since there the chances of finding another job are better.

On the evening of Sunday February 10, almost 7,000 people with burning torches in their hands surround the Nokia plant in Bochum – the "ring of fire" is 3.8 kilometers long. The protest action was called by IG Metall. It is a day of protest by families which began in the afternoon. The parking lot in front of the plant, big as a football field, is full of people. Live music plays from the stage, at the back children frolic on an inflatable castle, in between is a snack booth, several beer wagons and tables with coffee and cakes – the atmosphere is almost that a festival under a clear blue sky. A gigantic banner has been placed on the plant fence reading: "One staff, one city, one struggle". The regional director of IG Metall NRW Oliver Burkhard, assesses the situation and says, "Nokia did not expect this resistance and this solidarity." He warns the top management that they are completely ruining the company’s reputation.

The next day Nokia starts up the new plant in the Romanian region of Cluj. The day after that, the Bochum Works Council travels to Finland and presents proposals to increase productivity. Nokia rejects them and insists on closing the plant, but says it is ready, together with the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, to help new companies locate there and to create new jobs. Four weeks of public pressure have an effect when Nokia accepts responsibility for further development of the location. And the unions keep up the pressure. In the "Helsinki Declaration" the Finnish unions Metalli, TEK, UILry and TU together with IG Metall and the EMF on February 13 state, "It is unacceptable for Nokia top management to announce plant closures and mass redundancies without a satisfactory prior information, consultation and negotiation procedure." That was an "attack on the basic rules of the European social model". The unions demand "a future for the Nokia Bochum workers". On February 20 negotiations begin on a reconciliation of interests and a social plan. In the meantime the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia increases its pressure on Nokia, demanding that the company returns government subsidies of 41 million euros plus interest, bringing the total to 60 million euros. The reason: Nokia has created fewer jobs than agreed.

The DGB’s Hans Böckler Foundation commissions an expert report. The result surprises even the author of the report, Hamburg labour law professor Ulrich Zachert, who writes, "In Germany it is possible to close a corporate location substantially faster and at lower cost than in other European countries." Zachert compared ten countries. In most of them the State intervenes much more strongly in cases of plant transfers, for example in Portugal, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Only in Denmark and the United Kingdom do companies enjoy even more freedom than in Germany.

The Federal Statistical Office of Germany has determined that in recent years some 180,000 jobs have been transferred abroad, while 105,000 were created at home, that is only 56 per cent of the lost jobs were replaced. But of the 125,000 low-skill jobs lost, only 37 per cent were replaced. Bottom line: the higher a worker’s level of skills is, the better his or her chances are of finding a new job after their old job is transferred away.

"It’s done," says Ulrike Kleinebrahm (IG Metall Bochum) on April 8, after the social plan negotiations with Nokia have been concluded. The company will pay 200 million euros to settle the closing of the Bochum plant on June 30 – almost three times what was originally planned. The 2,300 employees affected will receive compensation. After their period of notice, those who so desire can move to a transfer company which will take charge of finding them another job by early 2010. Two business areas are being sold, the auto accessories department and part of software development. That will save 300 jobs. More investors are being urgently sought. Blackberry maker RIM has announced that it intends to create as many as 500 jobs in Bochum – good news for engineers and IT specialists. Oliver Burkhard (IG Metall NRW) says, "We can only be satisfied when all employees have new prospects."
With a brand equity of US$44 billion, Nokia is among the top ten brands. The company accounts for 39 per cent of the world market for mobile phones, and employs 116,378 people. In the first quarter of 2008 its profits rose again – up 25 per cent to 1.2 billion euros. But for the year as a whole the firm expects a decline in sales in the mobile phone sector. As soon as that pessimistic forecast becomes public, Nokia’s shares drop by more than five per cent.

RESULTS
What lessons can be learned from the Nokia case? For EMF General Secretary Peter Scherrer, one thing is clear, "Solidarity cannot work by merely pushing a button!" For that reason unions and works councils must cooperate more closely to prevent multinational corporations from playing them off against each other. That is also the view of the General Works Council chairman for Nokia Germany, Werner Hammer. "We Works Council members must get to know each other better and develop more understanding for each other," he says, because what happened in Bochum can happen anywhere, anytime.

Ulrike Kleinebrahm says, "With a new form of struggle we have achieved something – we didn’t strike against Nokia, but rather we mobilised public opinion and cast doubt on Nokia’s image."

And what about Margarete Nebe and Ute Beer, whom I met three months ago? Margarete sounds depressed, she wavers between the hope of finding a new job and the fear of remaining unemployed. "I’ll do anything, it doesn’t matter what!" Ute is optimistic and full of drive: she wants to do everything she can to work again. "I don’t let it get me down!"

To get the full story with illustrations, please download the pdf file.

NORTH AMERICA: General Motors announced at its annual meeting on June 3 the closure of four truck plants employing 10,000 workers in North America..

GM said it would stop making trucks at plants in Oshawa, Canada, and Toluca, Mexico, as well as at U.S. plants in Moraine, Ohio, and Janesville, Wisconsin. The announcement came at a time of falling sales of pickup trucks and SUVs and GM said its plans would cut US$1 billion from its structural costs by 2010.

The CAW, UAW and the IUE-CWA are fighting the closure of the plants and acting to protect workers and families in the affected communities. Unions from outside America have also sent letters of solidarity to the workers affected by the threatened closures.

Responding to global auto industry restructuring is the main issue that will be discussed by trade unions representing auto workers from around the world at the World Auto Council meeting of the International Metalworkers’ Federation in São Paulo next week.

SOUTH KOREA / SINGAPORE: The Korean Metal Workers' Union (KMWU) reports that 15 shipbuilding workers lost their lives in the last year due to industrial accidents. Five of the fatalities occurred this year, including the most recent death on May 22 due to a forklift accident at the Daewoo Shipbuilding yard.

At a time when employers in the Korean shipbuilding sector are enjoying high profits from the currently booming industry, workers producing the wealth and feeding this industrial boom are suffering and dying from industrial accidents due to the insufficient attention to the health and safety at shipbuilding yards.

The union claims the situation is due to the Korean government deregulating minimum health and safety standards and ceding responsibility for health and safety inspection on the ground when it adopted the "Shipbuilding sector Self-Regulatory Safety Management System". The problem is compounded by the increased use of subcontracted labour, making it difficult for the union to carry out proper safety training for the subcontracted workers.

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 Korean 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 the Government and the shipbuilding employers and ILO representatives 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 in Korea.

GLOBAL: Workers and unions were shocked at the start of this year when Nokia management announced it would close its plant in Bochum, Germany by the end of June 2008. In this issue of Metal World the feature, Nokia: "Solidarity doesn’t work by pushing a button", reports on the events as they unfolded at the plant, the impact on the workers and the trade union response to the closure of the plant.

Metal World’s special report provides an in-depth analysis on how unions united to change Australia’s labour laws, outlining the strategy behind the successful trade union Your Rights at Work campaign, which played a major role in the change of government at the end of last year.

Following on from the Night of Labour Film Shorts, hosted by the IMF and the international trade union movement in Geneva on May Day, activist filmmaker Anne Lewis discusses the art of storytelling and recommends that unions develop partnerships with filmmakers to produce more effective labour films.

Metal World also includes all the latest news and photos from IMF and its affiliates around the world.

The magazine is available as a pdf download on the IMF website in English (Russian and Japanese editions will follow) and is available in print by sending subscription details to: [email protected]

USA:  United Auto Workers (UAW) members at five American Axle Manufacturing locations in Michigan and New York voted on May 22 to ratify a new four-year labour agreement by a 78 per cent margin, ending a three-month strike. The agreement covers 3,650 workers.

According to press reports, the agreement involves buyouts with reduced wages, a freeze of the pension plan and the closure of three plants, resulting in about US$300 million in annual structural cost reductions.

"Our members have had to make some tough decisions for themselves and their families," said UAW President Ron Gettlefinger.

The agreement was reached at a time of falling sales of pickup trucks and SUVs. Nevertheless, American Axle’s CEO Richard Dauch received US$10.2 million last year in compensation.

American Axle is a Detroit-based auto parts supplier created in 1994 when General Motors spun off five U.S. plants. Last year the parts supplier posted a US$37 million profit.

LUXEMBOURG: The agreement, the first of its kind in the steel industry, recognises the vital role played by trade unions in improving health and safety. It sets out minimum standards in every site the company operates in order to achieve world class performance. These standards include the commitment to form joint management/union health and safety committees as well as training and education programmes in order to make a meaningful impact on overall health and safety across the company.

Also included in the agreement is the creation of a joint management/union global health and safety committee that will target plants in the group in order to help them to further improve their health and safety performance.

The agreement was signed on June 3 by ArcelorMittal, the European Metalworkers’ Federation, the United Steelworkers and the International Metalworkers’ Federation.
 
Commenting, ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO, Lakshmi N. Mittal said: “This agreement will build on the important work that we have already undertaken to date. Health and safety is our number one priority and in signing this agreement we hope to set a new benchmark for the industry. Innovation and a willingness to make bold decisions have been at the heart of our success. We are pleased to join our union partners and apply that same philosophy to our approach to health and safety”.

Peter Scherrer, General Secretary of the European Metalworkers’ Federation, explained “We look forward to turning this agreement into more than just a piece of paper but a reality. Social dialogue and mutual respect are the foundations to any successful initiative and this agreement contains those principles”.

Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers, added “Signing this agreement should act as a signal to other companies in the industry that unions are the solution to health and safety concerns, not the cause. Health and safety is the single most important issue for workers. It is satisfying that we have delivered this approach in the world’s number 1 steel company”.

Marcello Malentacchi, General Secretary of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, concluded “In signing this agreement we are signalling our commitment to make a meaningful impact on current health and safety standards in the company.
The success or failure of the agreement will depend on our continuing efforts to achieve our goal of every worker, whatever their position in the company, returning home safely at the end of each day”.

JAPAN:  Preparations for the global mobilization of IMF affiliates against precarious work in September and October were high on the agenda of the IMF Executive Committee meeting held in Kyoto, Japan on May 29 and 30.

Participants at the meeting reported on the various actions being prepared in different countries and regions around the world for the global week of action against precarious work from September 30 to October 7.

Participants were welcomed to the meeting by Nobuaki Koga, the General Secretary of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), who spoke about the massive increase in the number of precarious workers in Japan leading to a widening gap in how workers are treated. A point that was further emphasised in a presentation given by Professor Ken'ichi Yasumuro on economic growth and workers' rights in Asia.

The Executive Committee also adopted a discussion paper on global union federations and the future of the international trade union movement setting out IMFs long-term vision for strengthening the global trade union movement.

Berberi Tahar, the General Secretary of the FGME-UGTT in Tunisia was accepted as a new member of the Executive Committee.