GENEVA: The International Labour Organisation is holding a Tripartite Meeting on Lifelong Learning in the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (MEE) Industries next week (September 23-27). The International Metalworkers’ Federation and affiliated unions organising workers in these industries, which cover a wide spectrum of activities ranging from the manufacture of heavy machinery to highly sophisticated electronic equipment, will represent the vast majority of worker delegates at the week-long meeting. Discussions will center around the need for lifelong learning and training in the MEE industries, which saw a huge increase in trade in their products in the 1990s, but suffered to varying degrees from skills shortages. Additionally, the 2001 recession in the information and communications technology sector of the industry was witness to an unprecedented number of job cuts. Specific topics proposed by the IMF for panel discussions will be:

• the economic performance of the MEE industries: 2001 recession and outlook;
• the social impact of restructuring the MEE industries;
• lifelong learning in the MEE industries: concepts and examples;
• the right curricula for the various aspects of lifelong learning;
• the roles of the social partners and governments in lifelong learning and beyond in the MEE industries – implications for the ILO.

Countries represented by IMF affiliates at the meeting are: Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Korea, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the USA. Other countries present at the meeting are China, Costa Rica and Indonesia. A report to be used as a basis for discussion has been prepared by the ILO and can be accessed on the associated link.

INDONESIA: One of the largest-ever nationwide labour rallies took place in Indonesia yesterday (September 19) in protest at government attempts to introduce labour legislation that would seriously curtail workers’ and trade union rights in the country. Reporting from Jakarta, the IMF’s Southeast Asia regional representative, P. Arunasalam, said that over 5,000 members of the IMF-affiliated Indonesian Metalworkers’ Union (SPMI) marched over 8 kilometers and demonstrated outside Parliament and the Presidential Palace. The labour bills, soon to be tabled in Parliament, consist of an Industrial Dispute Settlement Act and a Labour Protection Act. The SPMI and other unions say the proposed legislation would be contrary to ILO Conventions No. 87 (on freedom of association) and No. 98 (on the right to organise and bargain collectively), both of which have been ratified by the Indonesian government. One of the unions’ major concerns with the legislation is that employers would be granted the right to outsource production, which would affect permanent employment as well as job security. In addition, workers exposed to outsourcing would only be paid the minimum wage. A second key issue involves the right to strike: strikes would have to immediately cease once an industrial dispute has been reported to the Ministry of Labour, and the trade union would be forced into conciliation and arbitration. At present, workers can continue striking despite reference of the dispute to relevant authorities. The legislation would also prevent payment of wages to striking workers, contrary to current practices. The right to dismiss workers is yet another issue of concern. At present, employers must seek approval from the Ministry of Labour before dismissing workers, but the proposed legislation would allow the direct dismissal of workers by employers. The SPMI has presented a memorandum to Parliament demanding the proposed legislation be scrapped, and the union’s president, Thamrin Mosii, who says employers and investors are using threats to force changes in the labour law, vows the continuation of the union’s struggle to protect hard-won workers’ rights.

CANADA: Yesterday evening (September 17), just hours short of a strike deadline, the Canadian Auto Workers reached a tentative contract agreement with General Motors of Canada. The three-year deal, subject to ratification by the CAW’s 19,000 GM members, was described by the union’s president, Buzz Hargrove, as “excellent” for the membership and “responsible” for the company. A highlight of the new agreement is GM’s provision for $800 million in new investment in the company’s Ontario plants, which the union says is not only a commitment to job security for CAW members but also to strengthening Canada’s automotive industry. The proposed contract will also offer annual wage increases of 3 per cent a year for two years and 2 per cent in the third year (current hourly pay is $27.10 for assembly-line workers and $33.10 for electricians, mechanics and other tradespeople), a $1,000 signing bonus, extra time off the job including 3 additional holidays, and improved benefits for health care, retirement and child care. The CAW selected General Motors as its main bargaining target in early September, when full-time talks began. Prior to that, members at all Big Three automakers – GM, DaimlerChrysler and Ford – had voted overwhelmingly to give the union a strike mandate if union demands were not met. It is hoped the successful conclusion to the GM bargaining will set the stage for the IMF affiliate’s upcoming negotiations with DaimlerChrysler and Ford. Note (1): Figures are in Canadian dollars, C$1 = US$0.6317 Note (2): On September 22, CAW GM members voted 72 per cent in favour of ratifying the agreement.

BY MOGENS HAVNSØE PETERSEN With its tropical climate and high humidity, Thailand has for many years been a major agricultural nation. Over the last 15 years, agriculture’s position as the main export sector has been taken over by the rapidly growing manufacturing industry in the country. Bangkok, with 8 million inhabitants, is Thailand’s industrial centre. Boonwat Sodok’s workplace, Aoyama Thai Co., is an example of the industrialisation in Thailand. The factory is owned by Japanese investors and constitutes a part of a major Japanese group specialising in the supply of parts for the automotive industry. Everything from bolts, nuts and jacks to gears is manufactured at the plant. The development of the manufacturing industry in Thailand is the result of investments made by the U.S. and high-growth economies in Asia: Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. In the 1960s, the manufacturing industry only contributed with 7 per cent of Thailand’s gross domestic product. Currently, it accounts for one third. Export of rice and exotic fruits has been overtaken by car parts, electronics and other industrial products. The shift from a rural economy to an economy based on the manufacturing industry has led to major migrations from villages to the big cities. Both Boonwat and his wife Ratree come from rural districts in the north of Thailand. EXPORT MARKETS
Today, Thailand’s biggest export markets are the USA, Japan, Singapore, Germany and Taiwan. Exports, which include microprocessors, car parts, computers, garments and electrical equipment, are highest to the nearby neighbours, but Thailand is going full steam ahead as a subcontractor in many parts of the manufacturing industry. Aoyama Thai Co. is part of a big Japanese family business, in which the factory in Thailand is only one out of a score of factories, 17 of which are in Japan and one in the U.S. The company supplies a number of components to the car industry and the motorbike industry, counting Suzuki, Toyota, Kawasaki and General Motors among its customers. Boonwat Sodok joined the company in 1993. His workplace is the production hall, located a bit away from the big factory hall where a great many punching machines of varying size and machines for the making of screws and nuts generate an inferno of noise. The somewhat more advanced jacks are one of Boonwat’s work areas, and even if some of the work process has been automated, it is a job that calls for both precision and craftsmanship. Items are first turned on a good old-fashioned lathe and are then adjusted by frequent use of the slide gauge to fit precisely into the template where Boonwat ends by putting his red India-ink pen signature. COINCIDENCES
The fact that he ended up in this very job at this very factory is the final element in a number of coincidences and external events, since at the age of 14 he came with an older sister to Bangkok from Boriram province, where he was born and grew up in a family of rice peasants. “At first, when I came to Bangkok with my sister, I worked in construction, but there wasn’t work for me every day. I joined a metal processing company as a casual labourer. I spent seven months there but did not get a permanent job,” he says. Boonwat returned to construction, not only because there were jobs to be had, but also because he had a fingernail torn off in a machine at the metal processing plant, and thus feared machines. Consequently, he was really frightened when he accepted the job that one of his father’s friends spotted for him at Aoyama. “I was really scared when I started. I did not like the idea of working at a metal processing plant again. But I soon felt safe, and now I really like my work,” he says. OVERTIME NECESSARY
Boonwat and his family – wife Ratree, son Ratsapa, daughter Siriya – could not live on the money he makes working normal hours. With the help of overtime, he doubles his wage, but still barely covers their expenses. The normal working hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., from Monday to Friday and every other Saturday, but Boonwat works almost every day until after 7 p.m. – on some days even until 10 p.m. Even Sundays can be working days sometimes, but occasionally his wife asks him to stay home with the family. Holidays? Yes, they exist – 7 days in the summer and 10 days throughout the year. When an employee reaches the pension age, he receives a large sum of money (corresponding to 3-5 years of fulltime work), once and for all. However, for Boonwat retirement is far away. Before then, his children’s future must be ensured and, like most parents in all parts of the world, he wants the best for his children. “They must have a good education. I will do a lot to achieve that. They must learn more than I have. Maybe I can get some more education myself, if the money is there, when the children get bigger and my wife can start working. The way it is now, I have neither the money, the time nor the strength.” PLEASURES AND DREAMS
When Boonwat returns home from work, he plays with his children. The total number of toys they have fit into a shoebox, but they love to ride on their father’s back, pretending he is an elephant. The small rented one-room apartment is dominated by a large mattress on the floor, where the whole family sleeps. But they also have a fridge and a toilet with wash basin. Cooking and the washing of clothes are done in a small, closed yard behind the building. Other items in the room are a small folding wardrobe and a rack with a fry-cooker and a thermo flask, as well as a modest number of cutlery items. For meals, a small table is unfolded, where the evening meal is consumed – either purchased ready-made or as raw materials from a small market a few minutes away from the family’s dwelling. The other items in the room can be counted on two hands, and on the wall is only a small mirror and a poster to show that the family has donated some money to a temple. Their big dream is to be able to afford a pickup truck. “That would enable us to visit our families,” says Boonwat. An even bigger dream would be to make enough money to buy a sugar farm in his native province. “Bangkok is not my home, but right now I just think about doing as well as possible here.”

Moreover, they discussed the work and policies of the World Trade Organisation, a workshop that concluded with a visit to the WTO in Geneva. They also observed the 90th Session of the International Labour Conference at the ILO, as well as learned about the work of the IMF. The programme was carried out in cooperation with the Université Ouvrière de Genève (Geneva Workers’ University). JESPER NILSSON Wiwat Pantsra – TEAM, Thailand:
The Summer School was really an experience for me. Before, I didn’t know much about international trade union work and the different cultures in which we are acting. Irina Kirillova – Miners’ and Metallurgical Workers’ Union of Russia:
The best thing about the Summer School? Hard to say. The knowledge you acquire, the visit to the ILO and the WTO… Personally, I think that the contacts are the most important thing. Gopal Kishnam Nadesan – National Union of Transport Equipment and Allied Industries Workers, Malaysia:
This education is a very good experience for new trade union leaders. The school also helped us create relationships that I hope will stay active. These relations are also most important when it comes to tackling the transnational companies – our most important task! Dianne Köster – IG Metall, Germany:
The most important outcome is the personal contacts you establish. Talking and listening to people gives you new ideas, many of the problems encountered are similar, but you address them in different ways. The seminar on globalisation and the visit to the WTO were also most interesting. Aliaksandr Ivanou – Automobile & Agricultural Machinery Workers’ Union, Belarus:
It’s a very good idea of the IMF to organise this school. I liked the presentations of participating organisations, but of course also the ILO visit and the WTO workshop and visit. It was also nice to learn to know colleagues, for example the Russians.

USA: A contract and strike vote by IAM Boeing workers on September 12 and 13 resulted in an overwhelming rejection of Boeing’s final contract offer but did not give the required two-thirds majority to authorise strike action against the aerospace company. Thus, under provisions of the IAM bylaws, the company’s proposed contract took effect by default on Saturday, September 14. The effective date of this three-year contract, to cover 25,000 IAM members at Boeing locations in Kansas, Oregon and the state of Washington, is retroactive to September 2. Bargaining between union negotiators and Boeing had concluded on August 27 without reaching an agreement, followed by three days of mediated talks during which Boeing management refused to budge on any key union issues such as job protection, the improvement of retirement security and maintaining high-quality health care. The IAM’s lead negotiator for the bargaining, Dick Schneider, charged the company with using “scare tactics, threats and the very real economic hardships of these times to force this job-killing contract on the union membership.” The contract includes modest hikes in wages and retirement pay, pension benefit increases of 20 per cent over the three-year period, higher health-care costs, and allows for hiring subcontractors for some specialised work now carried out by union members. In the past year, Boeing has laid off some 30,000 employees.

USA: After three days of mediated talks towards a contract settlement, during which Boeing management refused to budge on any key issues, the International Association of Machinists has called for a contract and strike vote by over 25,000 IAM Boeing workers on September 12 and 13. The union is recommending that its members vote to reject the company’s last contract offer and to authorise strike action. A two-thirds majority is necessary for a work stoppage. Key contract issues for the IAM have been job protection for its members, the improvement of retirement security and maintaining high-quality health care. The IAM says that the company’s final offer would cost thousands of jobs. Bargaining between the union’s negotiators and Boeing concluded on August 27, and the collective contract expired on September 2.

SOUTH AFRICA: The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa has indicated that should mediation fail in auto industry wage negotiations, the union will embark on an indefinite strike, with approximately 70,000 workers downing their tools across the industry. Numsa is demanding a 10 per cent across-the-board pay increase, as well as an agreement on an agency shop to ensure that non-union employees pay a subscription to unions operating in a company. Union spokesperson, Dumisa Ntuli, insists that many workers in the car industry are getting poorer because companies have not adjusted wages to keep up with the rising costs in food prices, thus contributing to a steady erosion of workers’ purchasing power.

SWITZERLAND: On September 7, 2002, delegates attending the extraordinary congresses of the IMF-affiliated Swiss metalworkers’ union SMUV/FTMH and the construction workers’ union SIB agreed by a large majority the merger of their two organisations. It is expected the official launch of the new federation, to be called the Interprofessional Trade Union (Syndicat interprofessionnel, or SIP), will be in 2004. With this merger, divisions separating industrial sectors and job occupations will disappear. The metalworkers’ union says that the merged organisation will not only have a more efficient, united, forward-looking structure, but it will also be a real political and social force in Switzerland, to serve as a “counterweight to neo-liberal power” in the country. The SIP will be the largest trade union in Switzerland, with a membership of 200,000. Another trade union merger on the horizon, in Austria in 2005, is planned between the IMF-affiliated Metal and Textile Workers’ Union (already a merger) with the Agricultural and Food Workers’ Union, the Private Employees’ Union, the Print, Journalism and Paper Workers’ Union and the Chemical Workers’ Union.

ITALY: The FIOM-CGIL has announced it will stage a series of four-hour strikes this month (September 2002) at Fiat Auto to protest against the Italian automaker’s decision to extend production cuts and lay off several thousand workers. The planned strikes are expected to affect all Fiat production sites at separate times, with the first four-hour strike scheduled in Turin on September 13. FIOM, an IMF affiliate, is angry that after Fiat’s initial plan for production cuts and temporary layoffs, which was to last from August 19 to September 22, the company is now adding another cut of 13,000 units for October, which will affect thousands of workers. Fiat’s industrial plan, said a union spokesman, is “making us sacrifice more and more workers every month.” The union already organised a strike in June 2002 to protest against temporary layoffs.