BELGIUM: The IMF’s Belgian affiliates – the CMB, CCMB, LBC-NVK, and SETCA-BBTK – will organise protest actions over the decision by Philips top management in the Netherlands to close its optical storage production plant in Hasselt, Belgium. The company has opted to transfer this production to Taiwan. As a result, some 1,000 workers will lose their jobs. Messages of solidarity can be sent to the unions as follows: CCMB: [email protected]
CMB: [email protected]
LBC-NVK: [email protected]
SETCA-BBTK: [email protected]

SAN DIEGO: At its recently concluded meeting in San Diego, California, USA, the IMF Executive Committee approved the proposed programme of activities for 2003. Amongst others, the Executive discussed the following issues:

• International Framework Agreements: In order to lay down rules of conduct for transnational companies, the IMF, as a major focus in the years to come, will pursue International Framework Agreements, negotiated between trade unions at a global level and company management.
• Women’s representation: The percentage of women members in the IMF is not reflected at any level of its structures, either formal or informal. For example, the IMF Executive Committee has never included a woman. The Executive therefore decided that:
  • The IMF shall reestablish a Women’s Committee.
  • An IMF Women’s Conference will be held in conjunction with IMF Congresses.
  • Affiliates shall target a 20 per cent participation by women at the IMF Central Committee meeting in 2003 and the Congress in 2005.
  • Steps must be taken to ensure that the IMF Executive includes a substantial number of women. How this will be done must be discussed at the next meeting of the Executive, and as there might be implications for the IMF Rules, probably also at the next IMF Congress.
• Belarus: The Executive issued a declaration appealing for support for the IMF’s Belarus affiliates (see separate article). Moreover, since the Congress of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FTUB) is in effect controlled by the repressive government of Lukashenko, the IMF recommends all IMF affiliates to urge their respective trade union confederations not to have any contact with the FTUB. The IMF will organise a seminar about trade union rights in Belarus in the first half of next year.

The core issues of the IMF are, of course, organising the unorganised, international solidarity, and dealing with transnational corporations. Within this context a programme of activities was decided, including:

• seminars on International Framework Agreements;
• a conference on ICT companies;
• regional conferences on export processing zones;
• an organising programme in Mexico;
• projects on training trainers in Russia and Ukraine;
• a seminar on organising non-manual workers.

The IMF also welcomes three new affiliates, adding to the more than 200 in the federation:

• Limter-Is (Turkey), shipbuilding & ship repairing sector, 1,112 members;
• International Union of Elevator Constructors (USA/Canada), engineering sector, 27,000 members;
• International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (USA/Canada), shipbuilding sector, 1,250 members (there are other sectors not affiliated to the IMF).

COSTA RICA: The IMF has been informed about a dispute taking place at Auto Mercantil S.A., a local distributor of Mercedes-Benz in Costa Rica. When 109 out of 167 workers at the company wanted to form a local of the union “ANTEP” last year, the company dismissed 16 of these workers during the recognition process, including four leaders of the new local. Writing to the president of Auto Mercantil, Eckart Puschendorf Zimmer, as well as to the Costa Rican minister of labour, Ovidio Pacheco, IMF general secretary Marcello Malentacchi has protested this gross violation of trade union rights. Costa Rica ratified ILO conventions on freedom of association and the right to organise (No. 87) and the right to organise and bargain collectively (No. 98) in June 1960. In his letter to Puschendorf Zimmer, Malentacchi reminds him that the IMF and DaimlerChrysler, whose products Auto Mercantil is representing in Costa Rica, signed an international framework agreement in September which explicitly says: “DaimlerChrysler acknowledges the human right to form trade unions. During organisation campaigns the company and the executives will remain neutral; the trade unions and the company will comply with basic democratic principles, and thus, they will ensure the employees can make a free decision. DaimlerChrysler respects the right to collective bargaining.” The framework agreement furthermore states that “DaimlerChrysler supports and encourages its suppliers to introduce and implement equivalent principles in their own companies and expects its suppliers to incorporate these principles as a basis for relations with DaimlerChrysler.”

Last week the Executive Committee of the International Metalworkers’ Federation visited the maquiladoras in Mexico. Of course there was no question of visiting a plant. As trade unionists, we had been denied access. Instead, we went to meet the workers where they live, in the so-called “residential areas”. We met mostly women. Not because they stay at home and do not work, but because they work 12-hour-long nightshifts. Yes, 12 hours for four nights and “only” six hours the fifth night – altogether 54 night hours per week. All of those whom we talked to had come to Tijuana from southern Mexico, where living and working conditions are even worse than in the maquila districts of the north. The transnational companies in the maquilas know that, and this is the reason they can continue to exploit workers. With a weekly salary of about US$50, workers have lots of difficulty just to survive… and this is supposed to be one of the richest regions in Mexico. Most of the workers and their families live in wooden shanties, providing poor and fragile shelter. There’s no electricity, no running water. Drinking water is only available from the shops at a relatively high price, and people must spend a disproportionate amount of their wages just to buy it. Drinking water is a basic human right that should be provided to everyone on this Earth by the community. The people in the communities around the maquilas are also exposed to an array of environmental hazards. An abandoned battery plant with tons of visible residue from lead, nickel and cadmium contaminates the small river that runs through the community at the bottom of the hill. And there is no union to protect them… only “protection contracts” signed by transnational companies and the mafia, which collects dues without the workers knowing it. It hurts to see kids jumping and playing in this environment. They are not waiting for Santa Claus. They are waiting for social justice and an opportunity to make a living. They dream of earning money to buy the things their parents are producing and which are exported to other countries to make other people happy. Merry Christmas to everybody.

BELARUS: During its meeting last week in San Diego, California, the IMF Executive Committee issued a strong statement (full text on associate link) in support of the IMF’s two Belarus affiliates, the Automobile & Agricultural Machinery Workers’ Union (AAM) and the Radio & Electronics Industry Workers’ Union (REI). The two unions are fighting to safeguard the independent trade union movement in Belarus. Since September 2002, when the Congress of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FTUB) elected Leonid Kozik as its new president, the situation for the country’s independent trade unions has been steadily worsening. The election of Kozik, the former deputy head of Belarus President Lukashenko’s Administration and unknown in the trade union movement, was achieved through blatant violations of internationally accepted trade union rights and any kind of conventions or principles of the International Labour Organisation. A real campaign is in action in Belarus aimed at removing from office the presidents of the AAM and REI, Aliaksandr Bukhvostau and Gennadi Fedynitch. State authorities, management of companies and the state-run mass media are putting intense pressure on the two unions and actively harassing and persecuting the trade union leaders and those who support them. The IMF is appealing to all its members to support the Belarus affiliates by sending protests to the Belarus authorities, as well as letters to their own governments to urge them to influence the leadership of Belarus to stop the violations of workers’ rights. Letters for Belarus government authorities can be addressed to:

• A.G. Lukashenko
  President of the Republic of Belarus
  Administration of the President of Belarus
  Fax: ++375/17 2260610
  E-mail (from president’s official website): www.president.gov.by/eng/president/
• Council of Ministers
  Fax: ++375/17 2226665

Kindly send copies to:

• AAM
  Fax: ++375/17 2238160
  E-mail: [email protected]
• REI
  Fax: ++375/17 2844187
  E-mail: [email protected]
• IMF
  Fax: ++41/22 3085055
  E-mail: [email protected]
  

GENEVA: This Christmas, IMF general secretary Marcello Malentacchi sends seasons greetings from the maquiladoras of Tijuana – where, in one of the richest regions of Mexico, workers, with their weekly wages of about US$50, have difficulty to survive. Living and working conditions are hard; environmental hazards abound. But it’s worse farther south, and naturally the transnational companies in the maquilas know that… and also, of course, that there are no trade unions. To learn more about the situation there, and what the children would dream of having one Christmas, read the IMF general secretary’s latest opinion column on the associated link.

TURKEY: Readers may remember that following the disastrous earthquake that hit Turkey in August 1999, the Turkish government approved a decree allowing the military to take over the country’s major shipyards, including the workforces and infrastructures. The government then declared that due to the new, so-called military status of these shipyards, workers had to give up their union membership with Türkiye Dok-Gemi-Is, an IMF affiliate. One of these shipyards was Pendik Shipyard, near Istanbul. It was taken over by the Turkish naval forces that same year, 1999, and the members of Dok-Gemi-Is working at Pendik were told to resign from this union and instead take membership in Harb-Is, the war equipment workers’ union, which refuses the right to wage legal strike action. 51 workers refused this situation and were fired. In what appears to be promising news, Dok-Gemi-Is has now informed the IMF that 18 of these 51 workers have won a legal battle in the Kartal Labour Court in Istanbul in which the court decided that they have the right to receive an indemnity of one year’s wages plus the annual interest. The legal process for the other dismissed workers is still ongoing. According to the Turkish Constitution, no one can be forced to resign membership in a trade union. The government has ratified ILO Convention No. 87 on the freedom of association.

BRAZIL: The Brazilian metalworkers’ union CNM-CUT and the Italian metalworkers’ federation FIM-CISL, both affiliated to the International Metalworkers’ Federation, met in mid-December in Belém, the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Para, in the Amazon region, to launch “Criança 2000”, a project to fight against child labour. In the last two years, the Italian union, in the framework of the IMF’s international campaign against child labour, has been running a national campaign in Italy – with seminars and meetings in local unions and plants – to collect funds in support of the project in Brazil, and during which 300 million lira (US$150,000) have been contributed so far. Also, the CNM president, Heriberto Della Bella Navarro – known as “Guiba” – visited Italy last year to discuss and present the project to union activists. Fighting child labour implies a holistic and integrated approach focused on the family. Three hundred families will be helped, with children going back to school and parents finding jobs in small community projects. The local administration of Belém still operates some projects, such as alphabetisation, educational training, sport activities, cooperative work, etc., and “Criança 2000” will be working in this integrated net. “The role of the union in society is not only to represent and defend workers, and to establish rules for international framework agreements, but also to fight poverty and exclusion in cooperation with civil society forces, in well-designed projects,” remarked Toni Ferigo, on behalf of IMF. The importance of continuing such cooperation was also stressed by the leadership of the Italian and Brazilian metalworkers’ unions.

ZIMBABWE: Nine trade union leaders who were arrested in Harare on Monday, December 9, while attending an annual meeting of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, were released yesterday, December 11, without being charged. Among those detained was Patience Mandozana, of the Zimbabwe Radio & Television Workers’ Union, a member of the IMF-affiliated Zimbabwe Metalworkers’ Federation. Protests to the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, poured in from trade unions around the world. In a letter to the Zimbabwean president, the IMF general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, wrote that “as a member state of the International Labour Organisation, we would remind you that your government has a duty to uphold internationally recognised labour standards. We strongly condemn this latest breach of workers’ human and trade union rights in your country and the detaining of trade unionists without reason.” A lawyer for the detainees said that the state had wanted to charge them under Section 5 of the draconian Public Order and Security Act (POSA), however the judge rejected the prosecutor’s plea. The arrests appear to be a continuation of the attempt by government authorities to intimidate the trade unions and their leaders and disrupt their work.

USA: The IMF has welcomed the news from its affiliate, the United Steelworkers of America, that AK Steel is ending a three-year lockout of over 600 workers at its Mansfield, Ohio plant. The struggle began in September 1999 when the company, refusing the USWA’s offer for workers to remain on the job during contract negotiations, locked out 620 union members and has run the mill with replacement workers ever since. Leo Gerard, USWA president, said it was “a tragedy that this company took three years to realize it needs the skilled and experienced work of our members to operate its Mansfield facility. The triumph for our members is that their solidarity ultimately brought about this return to work.” The union will urge AK Steel to recall USWA members as rapidly as possible and expects an orderly return to work that “respects the rights of our members in the contract that they have accepted and ratified.” In September of this year, USWA negotiators, in a good faith effort to end the lockout, accepted a comprehensive contract proposal from AK Steel. Although it was overwhelmingly ratified by union members, the company then refused to execute the agreement.