GREAT BRITAIN: The Transport and General Workers’ Union (T&G), a member of the IMF British Section, has hailed their new contract settlement with Ford Motor Co. as a “benchmark for British industry”. Negotiations were completed on November 19. The 22,000 Ford UK workers covered by the deal will receive a wage hike amounting to 7.1% over two years and will benefit from an enhanced final salary pension scheme and improved family-friendly policies. Pay will increase by 4 per cent in the first year of the contract, and 3 per cent or the rate of inflation plus 0.5 per cent, whichever is higher, in the second year. The T&G was particularly pleased with improvements to what was already considered a top-class pension scheme. The union announced that by consolidating the lower earnings limit, employees’ pension pay each month will be increased. In addition to these gains, family-friendly improvements include maternity leave at 52 weeks on full basic pay, paternity leave at 2 weeks on full basic pay, and adoption leave of a minimum of 2 weeks on full basic pay.

AUSTRALIA: The IMF-affiliated Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union joined in a peaceful protest rally on November 14 in Sydney, where the Australian government was hosting an informal meeting of World Trade Organisation trade ministers from 25 countries. Speaking to several thousand participants attending the rally, the union’s general secretary, Doug Cameron, said that the international trade regime based on the WTO was in disrepute, with a collapse of public confidence in the WTO. He said that what his country needed was “fair trade not free trade.” Politicians needed to put their communities before the ideological nonsense of free trade. Addressing a forum prior to the start of the Sydney WTO meeting, the AMWU president, Julius Roe, said that the WTO “is about the interests of the transnational corporations.” Australia was one of the developed countries whose economy was totally dominated by the global corporations. The WTO agenda, including privatisation, contracting out, temporary work and deregulation of working hours, had had devastating effects. There was no international regulation of labour standards, and trading regulation through the WTO, World Bank and International Monetary Fund actually encouraged the undermining of labour standards. “This is why,” insisted Roe, “the international trade union movement wants enforceable labour standards.” Just this time a year ago, during the IMF’s World Congress in Sydney, thousands of members of Australian trade unions were joined by 800 IMF Congress delegates for a rally to protest against the negative effects of corporate globalisation.

ITALY: Joint action is underway by the IMF’s three Italian metalworker affiliates FIOM, FIM and UILM, together with their respective trade union confederations CGIL, CISL and UIL, in response to the industrial restructuring plan at the financially troubled Italian carmaker Fiat Auto. The company is predicted to make a 2 billion euro loss this year. In a joint communiqué, the unions confirmed their negative assessment of the company’s restructuring plan, which includes a call for 8,100 job reductions – mainly through 12-month layoffs spread over the period from December 2002 to July 2003 – and some plant closures. They insist that such a plan would lead to dramatic social consequences and, in all probability, to the gradual disappearance of not only a strategic industrial sector, upon which depends the survival of approximately 100 other companies, but also the competitive capacity of the Italian economic system. Before they will accept to negotiate any social or economic agreements with Fiat, the unions are demanding a new plan which will boost the economy of this sector. The possibility for public intervention in a new Fiat management should be assured, and stockholders also had to assume their responsibilities such as to rethink the funds necessary to finance Fiat Auto’s recapitalisation and future investments. The unions are requesting meetings with the national government as well as those regional governments affected by the crisis, in order to get answers to their demands for intervention. To back up these demands, the metalworkers’ unions are calling on all their members to participate in a general strike planned for Friday, November 15. The IMF is fully supporting the struggle of the Italian metalworkers and would also ask its affiliated unions to send messages of solidarity to:

• FIOM – e-mail: [email protected]
  fax: (39/06) 85303079
  
• FIM – e-mail: [email protected]
  fax: (39/06) 85262464
  
• UILM – e-mail: [email protected]
  fax: (39/06) 85262203

USA: The recently launched USWA website, www.InsideAK.org, details various facets of AK Steel Corporation’s operations, such as management credibility, customer and supplier developments, environmental and litigation risks, earnings quality, and executive compensation. Current features include in-depth analysis of the company’s pension fund accounting and improper executive bonus compensation. InsideAK.org provides up-to-date details about selected legal battles in which AK and its officers are involved, as well as the corporation’s ongoing clashes with environmental enforcement agencies over the company’s alleged failure to comply with pollution control regulations. This includes analysis of environmental matters at four facilities, focusing on the growing risk of environmental liabilities. The USWA has a struggle with AK Steel which is now entering its fourth year. In September 1999, the company (then Armco), instead of accepting the union’s offer that workers remain on the job during their contract negotiations, used armed paramilitary security guards and locked out 620 union members at its plant in Mansfield, Ohio. Since then, the mill has been run with replacement workers. In February 2002, AK refused an offer by the USWA to submit outstanding issues to arbitration. Although in September 2002, in a good faith effort to end the lockout, union negotiators accepted a comprehensive contract proposal from AK Steel, the company conditioned acceptance of the contract on a demand that the union accept dismissals of its members based only on company claims of alleged misconduct. The USWA has now filed a series of federal unfair labour practice charges against AK Steel with the National Labor Relations Board, challenging the company’s demand that the union abandon its right to defend its members. The union accusation also states that AK refused to execute the contract accepted by the union in September and discharged 29 employees in support of its illegal bargaining demand. Such conduct, states the union’s filing, renders the lockout illegal, which could mean full back pay from the date of the company’s unlawful conduct.

INDIA: Research initiated by the IMF in order to obtain accurate and up-to-date information on the composition and location of the metal industry in India and on the unions in this industry has now been compiled and published by the IMF’s South Asia Office in New Delhi. The study, entitled “Metal Industry in India – A Survey,” shows that concentration of the workforce in the metal industry in India has shifted from large – mainly state-owned – companies to small and medium-sized enterprises, or from the so-called formal to the informal sector. Therefore, it is extremely important for the survival of the trade unions that, in order to counter the reduction in membership that has followed this trend, they concentrate organising efforts on the workers in the smaller industries. One of the recommendations of this study is the need to organise contract workers and safeguard their rights. The report says that contract workers represent 30 per cent to 35 per cent of the declared workforce in the sectors surveyed and are not eligible for any welfare or other benefits. In most of the Indian states, they receive about one-third of the wages paid to the regular workers. At the same time, contract workers do not have a major role in the trade unions and are rarely members. This and much more information is available in “Metal Industry in India – A Survey”. The 225-page report has been published in English, Hindi, Kannada and Telugu and can be downloaded in English on the associated link. A limited number of hard copies are available from the IMF in Geneva. The results of the research will be used in the organising project launched in India in 2000 with the IMF affiliates SMEFI and INMF-Mines, with the support of the IMF’s Danish affiliates CO-Industri and Danish Metal through the LO-FTF Council.

KOREA, REP: After one day of strike action yesterday by approximately 120,000 workers – mostly members of the IMF-affiliated Korean Metal Workers’ Federation in the auto and metal industry, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has called on its members to return to work today (November 6). The KCTU’s decision to end the walkout comes as the government announced it would delay until sometime next year new labour legislation on the introduction of the five-day workweek in South Korea. Although the unions have campaigned for the shortened workweek, they say that the bill drafted by the government contains issues which would downgrade conditions for workers, such as cuts in wages and in monthly and yearly paid leave. Read the background information concerning this strike on the associated link.

AUSTRIA: On October 18, after relatively swift but difficult contract negotiations, the IMF-affiliated blue-collar Austrian Metalworking and Textile Union (GMT), and the white-collar Private Sector Employees' Union (GPA) successfully concluded joint collective bargaining talks with the employers. The GMT and GPA, who are scheduled to merge in 2005, have held joint negotiations since 1993, with the same list of demands but separate collective agreements.

The new agreement for the metalworking sector covers more than 210,000 employees and took effect from November 1, 2002.

Results with regard to pay increases include:

• an increase in minimum wages/salaries of 2.3 per cent, with the new monthly minimum rate to stand at 1,215.24 euros (US$1,207.41);
  
• an increase in effective wages of 2.2 per cent;
  
• an increase in apprentice pay of 2.3 per cent;
  
• a one-off payment of 110 euros (US$99.38), to be paid by March 30, 2003.
  

A separate agreement, also valid as of November 1, was negotiated for approximately 60,000 workers in the electrical and electronics industries, with identical minimum and effective wage increases.

Both agreements provide improvements for night work legislation and for the changeover to the new statutory severance pay system.

The trade unions commented that the new settlement was an acceptable result in view of the unfavourable economic situation and high unemployment. The pay increases should add to the strengthening of purchasing power and stimulate the economy.

AUSTRALIA: Good news from the IMF-affiliated Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union. Their dispute at Dayson has been settled. When the company – the Australian subsidiary of American Standard/Trane – failed to recognise and deal with the AMWU, despite the workers’ desire to have the union negotiate an agreement on their behalf, workers began strike action. This was in early June 2002. After over four months, the dispute has now been resolved with the company forced to recognise the union and to negotiate an agreement with the union. The deal includes a very good separation/redundancy package for the workers in the event of redundancy or a plant closure. The AMWU Dayson members are quite pleased with this outcome, and they and the union believe that international as well as national solidarity was very important in this successful result. The company, due to a range of economic and market factors, has decided to close the Australian plant, and following careful examination, the AMWU says there is an inadequate basis economically to be able to sustain a dispute to keep the plant open. The AMWU says it considers American Standard/Trane as a growing force internationally and that their anti-union attitude is not just confined to Australia. The union believes the action of the workers in Australia has opened up the question of a more coordinated approach to organisation in this company internationally. The IMF would like to take this opportunity to thank its many affiliates who took solidarity action in support of the Dayson workers during this conflict.

USA: The United Autoworkers (UAW) reports that its members at International Truck and Engine (formerly Navistar) have voted by a 55-45 per cent margin to ratify a new five-year labour agreement with the company. The contract covers more than 7,000 UAW members at International Truck and Engine facilities in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Georgia and Texas. UAW vice-president Nate Gooden, who directs the union’s Heavy Truck Department, said the negotiations “were some of the most difficult the UAW has experienced in recent memory. Due to the downturn in the heavy truck industry, a sluggish economy and the impact of new environmental regulations on diesel engines, our priority during these negotiations was preserving jobs for our members and helping International find ways to succeed in the present environment.” But despite the challenges, Gooden stated that the agreement offers important gains for both active and retired UAW International Truck and Engine members and their families. The new contract provides lump-sum payments equal to 3 per cent of wages in the first, second and fourth years, and 3 per cent wage rate increases in the third and fifth years. There have also been significant increases in pension benefits, improvements for workplace health and safety, and implementation of a new health plan for UAW members and their families which will emphasise preventive care. Very significant, as well, is the inclusion in the new contract of an agreement by the company to remain neutral during union organising drives, and to accept card-check recognition procedures at the company’s non-union manufacturing facilities, meaning that the company will agree to recognise and bargain with the UAW when a majority of workers in a plant sign union authorisation cards.

TURKEY: The 400 workers at Ditas, a company producing automotive spare parts and situated in Nigde, Central Anatolia, have been on strike since July 2002. The workers are all members of the IMF-affiliated Birlesik Metal-Is trade union. The main reason for this industrial action is the employer’s refusal to respect trade union rights at the workplace, and to bargain with the union. Since the beginning of the strike, the company has been attempting to destroy the union in the plant by offering increased wages to the striking workers, but with the condition that they quit the union. Of significance, also, is the fact that the union has been the first in Turkey to organise workers at a subcontractor. Such anti-union behaviour on the part of the company and its major shareholder, the Dogan Group, is blatant, even though the Turkish Constitution, Article 52, stipulates that organising in a union is a fundamental right of all Turkish workers and no one can be forced to resign membership in a trade union. Also, the government of Turkey has ratified ILO Convention No. 87 on the freedom of association and the right to organise in 1993, and Convention No. 98, on the right to organise and bargain collectively in 1952. The International Metalworkers’ Federation has stated in letters to government officials and to the Dogan Group that “the trade union movement will not stand idly by and watch the blatant disregard of the Ditas management for internationally-established fundamental human and trade union rights.” The company’s actions will only bring the government considerable embarrassment if it does not fulfil its responsibility to uphold these rights, says the IMF, even more so in view of Turkey seeking membership in the European Union. “Such an EU integration will not only be economic, but it will have to be accompanied by social and labour rights as well,” states the IMF. The IMF is asking its affiliates to join in protesting the anti-union behaviour of Ditas.