BRAZIL: The International Metalworkers’ Federation has greeted the victory of Luiz Inácio da Silva – “Lula” – as the newly-elected president of Brazil with great joy, and in a message of good wishes to Brazil’s new president said that it was “a proud moment not only for you but indeed all the metalworkers of the world to savour this momentous occasion.” Congratulating Lula on his triumph, IMF general secretary Marcello Malentacchi wrote that “the fact a metalworker like yourself can and has been elected to the highest post in your country gives us all tremendous hope for the future of the labour movement.” In view of the great imbalances of distribution of wealth that previous governments of Brazil have created, Lula’s task will be daunting, but Malentacchi believed the newly-elected president and his party, the Workers Party, would have the will and capacity to deal positively and with haste to the many problems they may face, not just for the workers of Brazil, but indeed for all citizens in the country. “The Brazilian economy, along with the economy of many other Latin American countries, has been mismanaged by your predecessors,” said the IMF general secretary. “This has caused great hardships for all Brazilians, particularly the working class and peasants in your country. Your task will be enormous, but given the support of your people, you can only succeed.” The IMF pledged its support to Lula and the Workers Party and their tireless efforts on behalf of the millions of workers in Brazil. In view of its strong relationship over the years with the former metalworker, Malentacchi said the IMF would “remain willing to engage with you on any and all issues facing the metalworkers in your great country.” Lula won Brazil’s presidential election by the largest margin ever – 61 per cent, or some 52 million votes. He will take office in January.

GENEVA: Organising the unorganised is one of the top priorities of the IMF Action Programme 2002-2005. With non-manual occupations in the metal industry constantly on the increase, even out-numbering production workers in some countries, the IMF held a seminar recently focusing on the importance of recruiting these workers.

Discussions at the seminar underlined the fact that while the status of manual and non-manual workers is drawing closer, differences between the two categories exist in terms of recruitment, and even within the second category a distinction has to be drawn between professional/technical workers and those employed in administration jobs. The non-manual workers are more likely to react to an individualistic approach rather than collectivist, thus trade union programmes need also to target individual needs, and one notion which is likely to take on increasing importance is that of services provided by the trade unions.

Also emphasised in the seminar was the need for trade unions to have a focused, targeted message on issues critical to non-manual workers, such as the organisation of working time, overtime, stress, life-long learning, qualifications, career development and pensions. An important mechanism to be used as an information and recruiting tool is the Internet.

A full written report on the IMF Seminar on Organisng Non-Manual Workers is being produced.

GENEVA: Prior to the next World Social Forum, to take place in Porto Alegre at the end of January, the IMF and other Global Union Federations (GUFs), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) will be meeting to discuss and coordinate the trade unions’ stand at this all-important forum. “The IMF has been working hard to convince the other GUFs and the ICFTU to organise such an event, so we welcome this initiative and hope that its outcome will be beneficial to workers and their families,” commented IMF general secretary Marcello Malentacchi in his latest website opinion column. The World Social Forum provides various segments of civil society with a great opportunity to organise a counterweight to the Davos World Economic Forum, says Malentacchi, and find answers to concerns people have about their future. Read the full text of the opinion on the associated link.

The Global Union Federations (GUFs), together with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC), will meet to discuss how trade unions should act at the coming World Social Forum (WSF), at the end of January 2003 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. We, at the IMF, have been working hard to convince the other GUFs and the ICFTU to organise such an event, so we welcome this initiative and hope that its outcome will be beneficial to workers and their families. The World Social Forum came about as a response to the other forum – the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The objective of the WSF is to bring together organisations representing various segments of civil society and provide them with the opportunity to organise a counterweight to the economic power which is in the hands of a few people. The Forum in Davos is a highly private initiative which aims at making money by arranging discussions and seminars among those who represent the economic power in the world. They do not just represent the power; in fact, they have the economic power to rule the world. The Davos Forum would be equally important as the World Social Forum, if the organisers and participants were serious about finding the answers to questions people are asking about their future – their jobs, pensions, environment and other fundamental issues. Despite the fact that many prestigious politicians and scientists have been speaking at the Davos Forum, the outcome of these discussions is very poor in terms of concrete measures to improve the working and living conditions of workers and their families. Our organisation has taken a firm stand on this issue and decided not to participate in Davos. The IMF will be active in Porto Alegre, however, where we see a great opportunity to discuss and find, along with other progressive organisations, possible answers to the questions people are asking. The Global Unions – the GUFs, ICFTU and TUAC – have some ideas which need to be considered:

• an alternative economic programme, based on a Tobin Tax on cross-border currency transactions, cancellation of external debt for the poorest countries, a social dimension to trade, and a total reform of the International Financial Institutions;
• international Framework Agreements (codes of conduct) for transnational companies;
• the ILO declaration of basic principles.

We hope to see all trade unions in Brazil in January 2003.

JAPAN: On October 9, 2002, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three people, including Koichi Tanaka, the assistant manager of the Life Science Laboratory in the Life Science Business Unit of the Analytical and Measuring Instruments Division at Shimadzu Corporation. Koichi Tanaka is a member of the Shimadzu Workers’ Union at Shimadzu. The union is affiliated to the Japanese Association of Metal, Machine and Manufacturing Workers (JAM), one of the industrial federations belonging to the 2.3 million-strong Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions (IMF-JC), an affiliate at international level to the IMF. The 43-year-old Tanaka, along with John B. Fenn, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the U.S., received half of the chemistry prize for their development of soft desorption ionization methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules to identify and reveal the structures of such molecules. The IMF extends its warmest congratulations to Brother Tanaka, who is the 12th Japanese citizen to receive a Nobel Prize. Shimadzu Corporation, founded in 1875, is a transnational company providing high value-added products and systems, including measuring instruments, medical, aircraft and industrial equipment.

CANADA: With just minutes to go before its 11:59 p.m. strike deadline on October 15, the Canadian Auto Workers’ union reached a tentative settlement in contract negotiations with DaimlerChrysler Canada. The sticking points throughout the talks were over the automaker’s lack of commitment to save 1,275 production jobs at the Pillette Road commercial van plant in Windsor, Ontario, which it plans to close in July 2003, as well as company attempts to extract workplace concessions dealing with scheduling, overtime and seniority rules. The new three-year agreement is to include provision for an investment worth C$1 billion (US$631 million) for a new plant in Windsor, which will open in late 2005 and employ approximately 3,000 people. In the meantime, much of the Pillette Road workforce will be transferred to another plant in Windsor where production is being increased, with the remaining workforce to be offered early retirement packages. DaimlerChrysler has also withdrawn the workplace concessions it was seeking and will match the wage increase of 13 per cent over three years, as was recently agreed in contracts for CAW workers at Ford and General Motors. A ratification vote by the CAW’s 13,000 DaimlerChrysler members will be held on October 20. The CAW, with a total membership of approximately 260,000, is affiliated at international level to the International Metalworkers’ Federation. Note (1): In August 2002, DaimlerChrysler had also announced job cuts in Brazil, but following strong opposition to these plans, workers and their union, the ABC Metalworkers’ Union, reached an agreement with the company to cancel the dismissals. For more information, see associated link. Note (2): On October 20, CAW DaimlerChrysler members voted in favour of the new three-year agreement. Overall voting was 91% for production workers, 80.5% for skilled trades and 92.8% for the technical, office and professional employees.

AUSTRALIA: The International Metalworkers’ Federation has stated it fully endorses and supports “Workers Out!” on the occasion of its 2nd World Conference of Lesbian and Gay Trade Unionists, to take place in Sydney, Australia, on October 31-November 2, 2002. Topics to be covered at the meeting range from coming out to colleagues to disabilities and sexuality, transgender organising, and the role of parliamentary representatives working towards workplace rights reform. Workers Out! says that its aims are to:

• integrate defence of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers’ rights into the human rights programmes of national and international trade union structures;
• achieve representation of lesbian and gay workers’ rights in union and labour conventions at an international level, and in legislative and policy change at a local level;
• facilitate the development of workplace policies on HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases in which the rights of people with HIV/AIDS and other affected workers are protected.

In a letter to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, which is one of the sponsors for the conference, Marcello Malentacchi, IMF general secretary, said that “the IMF commends you on this extremely important initiative to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation, and it should be a commitment of the global trade union movement to fight this and other forms of discrimination.” The conference is being held in conjunction with the Sydney 2002 Gay Games. Workers Out! organised its first world conference in 1998 in Amsterdam, on “Trade Unions, Homosexuality and Work.”

Update note: 2003-01-15: See the IMF campaign website www.imfmetal.org/honda for more current information. INDONESIA: In March, when negotiations concerning a wage increase resulted in deadlock, workers at Honda Prospect Motor, in North Jakarta, took strike action. Management reacted by suspending 208 workers. Later, an additional 160 workers were suspended, bringing the total to 368. The Indonesian Labour Dispute Arbitration Committee (P4P) ordered the company to reinstate the first batch of 208 workers, citing that the strike was legally convened. The case of the additional 160 workers is pending at the P4P. Since then, the IMF, the IMF-Japan Council, the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers’ Unions and the Honda Motor Workers’ Union, with its approach to Honda Motors of Japan, have taken steps to promote a fair settlement of this dispute. The IMF general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, in a meeting with Mr. Kusnadi Budiman, vice-president and director of PT Honda Prospect, on September 5 in Tokyo, received a promise that all workers would be reinstated and negotiations at local level would be reopened. By refusing to negotiate with the local union, however, the company has now violated this Tokyo agreement. Therefore, the 68 delegates at the IMF Asia-Pacific Auto Conference, meeting in Bangkok on October 9-11, unanimously adopted a resolution demanding that PT Honda Prospect stand by its promises to the IMF and continue their negotiations with the local union to settle the dispute. “The situation is extremely serious. Hundreds of workers are without salary since more than half a year, so you can imagine what this means to their families. The IMF and its affiliates will now go ahead with even stronger measures to force a solution in favour of the dismissed workers,” said the IMF general secretary.

GREECE: The IMF-affiliated Greek Federation of Electrotechnicians reports that the government has passed sound legislative reforms for the country’s social security system which not only protect acquired pension rights, but are also more egalitarian and flexible. The last few years had been witness to strong trade union mobilisation and strikes against the Greek government’s initial anti-social proposals to reform the state pension system. This mobilisation as well as the trade unions’ efforts to create constructive dialogue with the government have now paid off. One of many points concerning the new legislation, which covers both the public and private sectors, provides for the state’s active participation in tripartite financing of the social security system. Another new provision offers the possibility of receiving full pension rights after 37 years of work, irrespective of age. The new legislation is far more flexible, for example with regard to workers’ individual circumstances, and for working mothers. The Electrotechnicians’ union has also informed the IMF that, following arbitration, they have endorsed the proposed wages and working conditions for the three collective agreements in their branch – for electrotechnicians, radiotechnicians and radioelectricians.

ASIA-PACIFIC: Against the backdrop of a gloomy world economy and the formation of global auto industry alliances, 68 trade unionists from IMF affiliates in 8 countries have come together for discussions in Bangkok, Thailand. In his presentation to the conference, the head of the IMF Automotive Department, Peter Unterweger, laid out current auto industry trends. Auto manufacturers are merging or creating global alliances to rationalise, leaving only five major worldwide car alliances today. “Alliances permit rationalisation across several enterprises internationally and allow companies to pit workers in different countries and companies against each other. Therefore, trade union information exchange and strategic coordination must be reinforced at the international level,” stressed Unterweger. With cross-border information exchange and establishing contacts being the objective of the conference, delegates reported on industrial relations, labour struggles, organising strategies and collective bargaining in their respective countries. Judging by the discussions, one of the topics raising the most interest is the status of the hired or contract workforce within plants, and how different unions tackle the issue of organising and protecting the rights of these workers. To strengthen cross-border solidarity, conference delegates are forming company workshops. For example, around 10 trade unionists from Toyota-related plants in four countries have reported on and discussed the problems and opportunities they are encountering. Represented at the conference are unions from Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. Note: Earlier this year, a regional conference for the auto industry in Latin America was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.