GLOBAL: On April 28, workers and trade unions around the world will observe Workers’ Memorial Day, a commemoration of the millions of workers who, each year, die due to work-related accidents or diseases, or fall ill or suffer injuries. It is not only important to draw attention to the high numbers of job-related accidents or illnesses, but also to raise people’s awareness about such issues and to promote actions to improve conditions for health and safety in the workplace. According to the International Labour Organisation, the lives of an estimated two million workers are lost every year due to occupational injury or illness – that’s over 5,000 a day. At least 350,000 deaths are caused by accidents. The ILO says that half of the deaths by accident could be prevented by safe working practices, and all accidents are avoidable. Some 340,000 workers are killed annually by hazardous substances, with asbestos alone taking a toll of 100,000. Studies show that the presence of trade unions greatly reduces the number of accidents and health problems at work. With regard to health and safety in the workplace, the IMF has recently published a report on “Stress and Burnout – a Growing Problem for Non Manual Workers”, giving an overview, general trends and the response so far of the trade unions to this increasing challenge of modern-day working life (available in English, German, French, Swedish, Spanish and Italian, under publications on the IMF website or can be ordered from IMF headquarters). The IMF has also published the pocket-sized “Health and Safety in the Steel Industry: a Workers’ Handbook”, intended to help steelworkers recognise the sources of the many different hazards they are likely to be exposed to in the course of their employment and be able to demand improvements in their health and safety provisions and conditions of work. It is available from the IMF, in English and Spanish.

SOUTH AFRICA: The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), affiliated at global level to the International Metalworkers’ Federation, has protested the laying off and subsequent lockout yesterday, April 24, of 300 of its members at BHP-Billiton’s Samancor ferrochrome plant in Witbank, Mpumalanga province. The union accuses the BHP-Billiton subsidiary of “implementing a racially motivated retrenchment policy by only targeting black workers.” Numsa has condemned BHP-Billiton – which claims to be under strong pressure to restructure operations and rationalise its workforce – for destroying jobs and not trying to find alternative solutions to retrenchments. Already last year, Samancor, using this rationale, laid off 600 workers. According to the union, the BHP-Billiton group, while making billions of rands in South Africa and across the globe, is throwing workers out of jobs in the name of restructuring, competition, outsourcing and rationalisation. Unemployment in South Africa is estimated at 37 per cent of the total workforce, and 6,000 workers in the country’s metal and steel industry have lost their jobs so far this year. “It is precisely as a result of BHP-Billiton why South Africa is sliding into great depression,” stated a Numsa spokesman. “The company has contributed to the unemployment crisis, and in this entire situation workers and the union are paying a horrendous price.” The union says that BHP-Billiton’s action of locking out workers appears to be aimed at eradicating collective bargaining and imposing their will on the workers.

GERMANY: Following the collapse on April 19 of collective bargaining talks between IG Metall, the IMF-affiliated German metalworkers’ union, and Gesamtmetall, the employers’ association for the metal and electrical industry, a strike vote will begin tomorrow (April 25) among IG Metall members in the key regions of Baden-Württemberg and Berlin-Brandenburg. The Executive Board of the 2.7 million-strong metal union gave the green light for the strike ballot at its meeting yesterday. Negotiations kicked off on February 7, with IG Metall pushing for a 6.5 per cent wage rise. However, after dismissing as unacceptable initial offers from the employers of a 2 per cent increase for this year and another 2 per cent for 2003, the union started warning strikes on March 25, which saw many thousands of metalworkers down their tools at a large number of companies. Commenting on the employers’ latest proposal of a 3.3 per cent increase for 15 months (amounting to 3.25 per cent for the year), Klaus Zwickel, president of the union, said that “such an offer is, and remains, a provocation.” The union is demanding at least 4 per cent. The strike ballot will be completed on April 30, with a three-fourths majority needed for approval. Should the result be in favour of strike action, the union’s leadership will then decide if such action will indeed be taken, and which companies will be targeted. With regard to another issue in the collective bargaining talks, the basis for an umbrella agreement bringing together blue-collar wages and white-collar salaries into one wage scale has been reached in Baden-Württemberg. There will be only one category of employee (no longer blue-collar and white-collar), upon which will depend job qualifications, job content, etc. This agreement will have an effect on other regions to find a similar settlement.

SWEDEN/GLOBAL: Faced with a continuing recession in the telecommunications industry, and a 40 per cent drop in orders in the first three months of this year, Ericsson, the giant transnational telecom company, announced yesterday, April 22, that it plans to cut 20,000 jobs, or one-fourth of its current total workforce worldwide, in a drastic cost-savings programme. The company, the world’s biggest supplier of mobile phone networks, will cut 10,000 jobs in 2002 – of which 3,000 have already been made – and another 10,000 in 2003. Many of these losses will be in Sweden. Ericsson already reduced its workforce by 22,000 jobs in 2001, or one-fifth of the workforce at that time. In a comment for the Swedish Metalworkers’ magazine “Dagens Arbete”, the chairman of the enterprise union at Ericsson, Arne Lofving, says that he cannot tell whether the announced cuts are necessary or not. But the union strongly opposes the ongoing outsourcing policy of Ericsson and says that the company has not been able to present figures showing that outsourcing is profitable.

BRAZIL: On April 12, before the start of the workday, workers assembled in front of Ford’s auto plant in Camaçari, Bahia, to discuss wage increases were injured in an unprovoked attack by military police wielding batons and firing teargas. Fifteen workers, including a pregnant woman, suffered injuries serious enough to require treatment at the plant’s medical center, and Aurino Pedreira, president of the Bahia Metalworkers’ Union, which organises the workers, had to be hospitalised. The union, a member of the IMF-affiliated CNM/CUT, is trying to negotiate a pay hike for the workers at Ford’s Camaçari plant, where an operator’s monthly wage is 500 Brazilian reals (US$215), or less than one-third of the BRL 1,800 (US$773) paid for comparable work at Ford’s Sao Bernardo do Campo plant, in Sao Paulo. Social benefits for the Sao Paulo workers, such as transport costs, are not offered to the workers at the Bahia plant, and Ford’s workweek in Sao Paulo is 44 hours, as opposed to 48 hours in Bahia. On April 16, workers at the Ford plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo went on a two-hour sympathy strike in solidarity with their colleagues in Bahia, and metalworkers’ unions in other regions in Brazil are also supporting the demands of the Ford workers in Bahia. Messages of solidarity with the Ford Bahia workers in their struggle to improve wages and conditions can be sent in care of the CNM/CUT, by e-mail: [email protected] or fax: (55/11) 3209-9524. The Bahia plant, with approximately 600 production workers employed by Ford, plus another 1,546 by outsourcers, was inaugurated in October 2001. In May 2002, the company expects to market its first entirely assembled car in this plant, the Fiesta.

INDIA: The IMF Regional Office for South Asia reports that the April 16 nationwide strike in protest against the government’s privatisation and anti-labour policies was the largest in recent years. Approximately 10 million workers stayed off the job during the one-day industrial action. Although the strike call was issued by trade unions operating in the state-owned public sector, the response was so quick and massive that in some states, like West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, there was total solidarity with the strike, paralysing commercial and industrial activities. Workers are fed up with government anti-labour policies such as its attempts to liberalise labour laws and introduce “hire-and-fire” legislation and have warned of further intensification of their struggle if the government’s policies are not changed. The national trade union centres will meet in early May to take stock of the situation and map out the next phase of their action.

REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Members of the Daewoo Motor Workers’ Union have approved a provisional agreement between Daewoo Motor Company and General Motors. GM, whose official takeover of the Korean carmaker appears imminent, proposed many of the conditions for the deal. With 8,234 Daewoo union members participating in a ballot at the union’s April 16 general meeting, 69.4 per cent voted in favour of ratifying the provisional agreement. According to union sources, the vote was based primarily on the workers’ desire for the prolonged crisis situation at Daewoo – the company’s bankruptcy and the GM takeover bid – to come to an end. As for job security, Daewoo agrees to maintain employment not only at plants taken over by General Motors, but also those which remain with Daewoo. The new Daewoo collective bargaining agreement will be continued. A priority task for the union and Daewoo is to draw up a long-term plan for the company’s Pupyong auto plant in Inchon, west of Seoul. This plant, which formerly had a workforce of 18,000 but is now down to 7,000, will not be included in the GM takeover. A variety of conditions have been proposed and, if met, the Pupyong plant may be integrated into the new GM-Daewoo company. It was agreed that:

• efforts to develop a new car at Pupyong should be made, and the model currently being produced will be continued;
• no measures will be taken which could cause job insecurity, such as transferring production lines from Pupyong;
• production of the P-100 and SUV models will be considered;
• Pupyong will have an independent management system;
• productivity and sales of cars produced at the Pupyong plant had to increase.

An important point in the agreement is the reinstatement by the end of 2002 of 300 laid-off workers. More laid-off workers will be recruited at the end of 2004, by when production is expected to have picked up. NOTE: On April 30, General Motors finalised its $400 million acquisition of Daewoo Motor.

The colour of a government does not necessarily mean that the unions have to fight harder to defend their members. But when a government, regardless of its political inclination, tries to take away fundamental rights which have been recognised and introduced into labour legislation, after decades of hard struggle, there can only be a fight. Ever since Silvio Berlusconi took over the responsibility of governing Italy, which is one of the largest economies in the world, he has been attacking the trade unions. Berlusconi’s first government fell after only 8 months, in December 1994, when he tried to change the pension system for workers. The reaction of the unions was strong, and they brought more than one million people onto the streets of Rome in protest. This time, the government is trying to deny workers their right to be reinstated in their jobs following unjustified dismissals. The fight is about Article 18 of the Labour Law (statuto dei lavoratori). The Italian government, apart from being misinformed about the legislation in other European countries, is also bluntly lying. But lies are not unusual for Berlusconi and his government. They claim that abolishing Article 18 means bringing Italian legislation in line with the rest of Europe. Nothing could be more wrong. Berlusconi should ask his Minister of Labour to have a closer look at Article 30 of the Charter of Rights adopted by the European Union in Nice just a year and a half ago. In most countries, if a court finds a worker has been dismissed for unjustified reasons, the court itself can decide to reinstate him/her without any interruption of the employment. This means that one keeps all the benefits he/she has so far acquired. Why is this so important? Because a worker who loses his/her job should not just receive financial compensation. If you lose your job because of discrimination for say political, religious or ethnic reasons, or because the employer just wanted you out, then the employer should not just buy his way out. One cannot buy human dignity, even if his name is Berlusconi. The three Italian trade union centres – the CGIL, CISL and UIL – have together declared a general strike for April 16. It goes without saying that the global unions should massively support the Italians in their struggle for the defense of workers’ rights. Their struggle is ours. Viva i lavoratori italiani.

GENEVA: In his support of the Italian unions’ general strike, Marcello Malentacchi, the general secretary of the IMF, writes in his latest opinion column that when a government – no matter which way it leans – attempts to get rid of basic rights introduced into labour legislation, there is going to be a fight. The government of Silvio Berlusconi wants to scrap Article 18 of the hard-won 30-year-old labour law (Workers’ Statute) protecting workers who have been dismissed from their jobs without just cause. Although the center-right government claims it wants to bring its legislation in line with the rest of Europe, Malentacchi suggests they take “a closer look at Article 30 of the European Union’s Charter of Rights”. “The Italian unions’ are fighting for all of us,” says the IMF general secretary. Go to the associated link to read the full text of his opinion.

GENEVA: In his support of the Italian unions’ general strike, Marcello Malentacchi, the general secretary of the IMF, writes in his latest opinion column that when a government – no matter which way it leans – attempts to get rid of basic rights introduced into labour legislation, there is going to be a fight. The government of Silvio Berlusconi wants to scrap Article 18 of the hard-won 30-year-old labour law (the Workers’ Statute), which protects workers who have been dismissed from their jobs without just cause. Although the center-right government claims it wants to bring Italian legislation in line with the rest of Europe, Malentacchi suggests they take “a closer look at Article 30 of the European Union’s Charter of Rights.” The struggle of the Italian unions “is ours”, says the IMF general secretary. Go to the associated link to read the full text of his opinion.