JAPAN: The IMF’s affiliate in Japan, the Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Union (IMF-JC), participated in the two-day rally on April 10-11 in Tokyo called by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO). Over 10,000 workers joined the march to protest the 50-year record-high unemployment rate in the country, brought on by the government’s poor economic and labour policies. The unions, which have said that their patience has run out with a government which refuses an open social dialogue, are demanding the government implement urgent measures to stimulate the economy and improve employment opportunities. Other demands were for health and medical care reform without sacrificing workers, civil servants’ basic rights and equal treatment of part-time workers.

ARGENTINA: The participants of the April 8-10 IMF mission to Argentina have issued a statement in which they express their total solidarity and support with the IMF’s Argentinean affiliates (Aoma, Asimra, Smata and Uom) in the extreme crisis situation which has hit Argentina and its people. This situation, they said, clearly had a global dimension and necessitated a response of the same nature. The delegation denounced the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund, which had resulted in destroying the country’s productive apparatus, increasing poverty and creating an explosive social situation. Following talks held with the country’s different political, economic, social and trade union players, the IMF mission put forth a number of demands, which include:

• implementing – with active trade union participation – development and investment policies to reactivate industrial activity and generate decent employment;
• applying basic human rights-directed policies related to housing, health, education, employment;
• consolidating Mercosur;
• adopting measures to prevent the burden of foreign debt being borne by the Argentinean people.

The full text of the IMF mission’s Statement on Argentina – in English and Spanish – can be accessed via the associated link, top left, or under “Publications” on the IMF website.

GHANA: The IMF-affiliated Industrial & Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) has come out victorious following severe political harassment and intimidation by the former government of Ghana in 1999-2000. Readers will recall that in October of 1999, in attempts by that government and by employers to destabilise the union and block its democratically-elected leadership, an injunction was slapped on the ICU, forcing it to postpone its 7th Quadrennial Delegates Conference. However, due to the serious scheming and wrongful court cases brought against the union’s leadership, when the next national general elections were held, ICU members massively voted against that government, helping remove it from power. When the new government was in place, three judges over a period of two years were able – without any interference – to investigate the court cases brought against the ICU, and in separate rulings have now dismissed all the plaintiffs’ actions as “frivolous, vexatious and without any merit.” Thus, after almost four years, the ICU will finally be able to hold that 7th Quadrennial Delegates Conference. On behalf of his union, the ICU’s general secretary and IMF Executive Committee member, Napoleon Kpoh, has conveyed the union’s gratefulness to the IMF and other global union federations for the massive support they gave to the ICU in helping to defeat its adversaries. Kpoh has expressed his personal appreciation and gratitude to all IMF affiliates around the world who sent solidarity messages to the union and protest messages to the government and employers. “International solidarity works,” he stated.

BY ANNE-MARIE MUREAU Everybody knows what stress is all about. It is a common feature of modern life. Most people are exposed to daily pressures both in the workplace and outside, and are used to coping with moderate amounts without suffering any major ill effects. Some people are even more productive and energetic when they work under stress. Indeed, there are good stressors that can promote wellness and stimulate creativity.
But if stress is intense and continuous, if pressures pile up, then it can cause physical illness and psychological disorders. Numerous surveys confirm that the problem has progressively escalated everywhere ¡V in developed but also developing countries.
Stress has become a major health and safety issue across all occupations and sizes of companies, in the public and private sectors. It can no longer be ignored or merely be tackled with remedial treatment.
DEATH FROM OVERWORK
According to the Third European Survey on Working Conditions carried out by the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, work is the main cause of stress for over one-third of employees in Europe. In Japan, the proportion of workers suffering from serious anxieties or stress in their working life increased from 53 per cent in 1982 to 63 per cent in 1997, and karoshi ¡V or death from overwork ¡V continues to be a serious issue.
With firms adopting new personnel management policies on account of the recession or for the purpose of strengthening their competitiveness, this trend is bound to accelerate. In the United Kingdom, 54 per cent of the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation’s safety representatives have identified stress as one of their top five health and safety concerns and fifty-five percent of the branch secretaries have singled it out as a top priority.
WHAT CAUSES STRESS?
Generally, stress results from a combination of factors which are difficult to separate. However, as research has shown, the high-pressure environment of the modern workplace accounts for most of the problems linked to stress and burnout. The globalisation of economies has prompted significant modifications in the nature and organisation of work and brought workers under ever-increasing pressure. The work/life balance has been disrupted by job insecurity and the related hire-and-fire culture, rising unemployment, heavier workloads, more intense demands, flexible working arrangements and more technology. Although trade unions in a number of countries have been quite successful in the struggle to reduce working time, this has often been accompanied by an increase in overtime ¡V unofficial and unpaid.
Restructuring, lean production, subcontracting and outsourcing reduce the number of jobs and put higher requirements on individual workers, in terms of both quality and quantity of production. Workers have to adjust continuously to new working methods and management techniques, they have to deliver faster and make better products and services at lower prices. They have to work at high speed and tight, often unrealistic, deadlines. The nature of work is also changing and more driven by customer demand. The client is king and determining the work rhythm. With their competitive requirements, companies today have become real stress-producing factories. It is no longer machines which break down. It is the workers themselves.
THE IT REVOLUTION FUELS STRESS
The incursion of information technology is not extraneous to this development. The pressure of mastering the IT revolution fuels workplace stress. Moreover, new technology and computer science are imposing their rhythm on daily life and make the borderline between work and private life more and more blurred. Working schedules are no longer what they were yesterday.
In many companies, for certain categories of employees, time is becoming less relevant. What matters is the carrying out of projects and achieving the predetermined goals. The notion of working time is vanishing and the employee’s attitude is increasingly dictated by the need to attain these objectives. Many people are taking their work home and log in as teleworkers. Whether they have to work overtime to achieve these results is not management’s concern.
“Do whatever you like but make sure that you are profitable” is the motto in many companies. The high-return requirements imposed by shareholders take precedence over workers’ interests and exert excessive pressure on them. This pressure does not necessarily come from management alone but also from other colleagues. As expressed by the head of the IBM Works Council in Germany, “cruel mechanisms” may “take place between the co-workers. It is peer pressure aimed at those who do not go along and who do not contribute towards the survival of the business unit” (Wilfried Glissmann in the IMF Report on “Stress and Burnout”). These developments are undermining solidarity and cooperation among workers and thus contributing to tension in the workplace.
Control and autonomy are another important dimension to understand whether or not people develop stress. As research has shown, a situation of high demand combined with low worker control over the work process can lead to stress and related illnesses.
Stress is a topic that is discussed more and more in the media. In Sweden, for example, it has been given a high profile in the press and is the subject of numerous debates.
THE COST OF STRESS
Stress has a high cost ¡V a high human cost but also a high financial cost ¡V and it figures as one of the main causes of sick leave. A number of studies underline the fact that the costs of stress to society are increasing continuously.
High levels of stress have detrimental effects on workers’ health and may lead to a variety of disorders and illness, including hypertension and also alter the immune system. In addition, the loss of capacity to cope with working and social situations can lead to less success at work, possibly unemployment. It can give rise to greater strain in family relationships and even result in depression or death.
For companies, the cost of stress is multifaceted. It can be reflected in absenteeism, higher medical costs and employee turnover, with the associated cost of recruiting and training new workers. It can also take the form of diminished productivity and efficiency.
This cost factor should already be a good reason for governments and employers to act and take effective steps to improve the situation.
Cost of work-related stress:
„h In the United Kingdom, it has been suggested that over 40 million working days are lost each year due to stress-related disorders. According to one estimate, stress costs British industry two or three per cent of gross domestic product a year.
„h In Australia, the federal assistant minister for industrial relations estimated the cost of occupational stress to be around A$30 million in 1994 (US$22 million). A$55 million were paid out on stress claims in 1998/99.
„h In the United States, over half of the 550 million working days lost each year due to absenteeism are stress-related.
„h In Switzerland, the direct costs of stress amounted to about CHF4.2 billion (US$ 2.6 billion) in 2000.
Source: ILO, Safework and International Metalworkers’ Federation. For Switzerland, figures from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
When the issue is raised, employers often point at personal problems of employees. They argue that stress is primarily a matter of individual differences and the level of work-related stress cannot be correctly measured. As a result, they do not bother to question the way work is organised or what the content of tasks is. Moreover, psychology and occupational doctors are claimed to cure people, and not so much the workplace or work organisation. They encourage them to cope with stress by prescribing tranquillisers and other drugs. Not only does this not tackle the underlying cause, but there are all reasons to believe that it could lead to long-term dependence and additional health problems.
Stress needs to be controlled at the source. Stress management techniques and complementary medicine may have some positive benefits in the short term and help relieve the strains caused by stress, but they cannot remove the source of stress itself. To be successful, any strategy should not focus on the individual in isolation, but look at the relationship between the worker, his/her job context and working conditions, and incorporate changes upstream at the workplace as well.
Job stress is the result of a “mismatch” between the worker and his/her job. There is a clear linkage between stress and other workplace issues such as, for example, enterprise restructuring and employment, working time, flexibility, skills development, payment systems, control and participation. It is a topic for trade union policy and should, therefore, enter the field of collective bargaining.
Stress should also be the subject of minimum international norms Most countries have standards for health and safety provisions at the workplace, but these standards tend to focus on the physical aspects and do not clearly include the psychological or mental health aspects of working conditions. Action should be taken within the ILO to set legally binding standards in this field and devise effective implementation mechanisms.
SOME TRADE UNION RESPONSES.
As indicated above, stress emanates to a large extent from the way work is organised. It can therefore only be prevented if workers seek to have the work reorganised, collectively through their unions. In this connection, some IMF affiliates have broken new ground and started working out innovative approaches. In the Netherlands, for instance, the FNV has developed an instrument called “the Quick Scan Stress” which consists of a questionnaire and an associated computer programme to analyse the results. It has enabled unions to identify the causes of stress and put the issue on the company agenda.
In Germany, IG Metall launched an initiative in 1999 under the motto “Arbeiten ohne Ende ¡V meine Zeit ist mein Leben” (Work without end ¡V my life is my time) and opened a debate on this issue in enterprises and throughout the union structure. This initiative met with a good response both on the shopfloor and amongst the general public and has generated a great deal of debate throughout the entire country. IG Metall will pursue this campaign, enhance cooperation with practitioners of occupational medicine and researchers, and expand existing networks.
In Sweden, the SIF has produced a CD-Rom with the name “Allt har sin tid” (There is a right time for everything) which describes the balance which must be struck between work/leisure/rest, and the repercussions if the proper balance is absent.
In Canada, the autoworkers’ union CAW is carrying out a study in cooperation with medical staff and university researchers on the relationship between work organisation and blood pressure levels of autoworkers. In Japan, Denki Rengo (Japanese Electrical, Electronic & Information Union) established a “Heartful” Centre in 1999 as a concrete action policy towards providing mental health care. The Centre provides consultation to union members and their families over the telephone (toll-free dial) on matters of mental health. Services are provided by the Centre on a strictly confidential and anonymous basis.
In the United Kingdom, the issue of work-related stress has come to the fore over the past few years, and there are encouraging signs that stress will be put on a statutory footing. It would seem that the government has recognised the problem, and the trade unions are also pushing for legislation. At the moment, the Iron & Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC) is working with the Corus Group to develop an occupational health and safety training which deals with bullying, harassment and stress.
NEW ATTITUDES ARE NEEDED.
Addressing the negative consequences of changes in the nature of work has always been a key function of industrial relations. Constantly changing organisation of work and its corollary stress and burnout are challenges for organised workers and the trade unions. New attitudes and strategies are needed to tackle this new area of worker protection.
Raising awareness among the union membership is an important element in advocating stress prevention measures. Unions must promote understanding of the stress syndrome, its causes and the problems that result from it, and explain the need for early intervention. They should include awareness-building exercises in their activities to enable their members to demand that employers take the necessary measures upstream and that prevention prevails over cure.

INDONESIA: The Federation of Indonesian Metalworkers’ Unions (SPMI), an IMF affiliate, reports that during strike action at Honda Prospect Motor, in North Jakarta, police attacked the peaceful strikers, injuring 30, and leaving 5 in serious condition. In March, when negotiations concerning a wage increase resulted in deadlock, workers took strike action, on March 11-12, and again from March 19. Management reacted on March 25 by firing one worker, an Executive Committee member of the plant union, and issuing letters to 208 workers suspending them from their jobs. The police attack occurred on April 8. The IMF has asked its affiliate in Japan – the Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions (IMF-JC) – to raise the matter with the Japanese Autoworkers’ Union and with Honda management in Japan.

ITALY: Since early this year, Italy’s three largest trade union confederations – the CGIL, UIL and CISL, which include many IMF-affiliated metalworkers – have been staging mass protests and rallies to voice their opposition to controversial labour law reforms (Article 18 of the Labour Law) proposed by Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and his centre-right government. One of the more recent rallies, organised by the CGIL on March 23, saw two million people marching in the streets of Rome. However, seeing that the government, with the strong support of the employers’ association, is persisting in its plan to create a more flexible labour market and give companies much greater freedom to fire workers, the three trade union centers – with 8 million members – are stepping up their show of force in defense of job security with a general strike on Tuesday, April 16. The 8-hour nationwide strike will be the first of its kind in 20 years. According to the leadership of the Italian unions, the government’s intention is “to limit the right of collective agreement that will inevitably produce conflict, not real change. They are against the culture of contractual agreement. They are against the unions.” Although the Italian prime minister is trying to pacify the trade unions with proposals for a new system of unemployment benefits, he has not made clear who will pay for it.

NORWAY: The IMF-affiliated Fellesforbundet reached an agreement early today, April 9, with the national employers’ organisation, TBL, for this year’s collective bargaining in the metal industry, and thus averts strike action. According to the union, the pact offers a good and balanced result, with a substantial real wage increase, which was a key issue in the bargaining. The agreement, valid from April 1, 2002, to March 31, 2004, includes a general wage hike of NOK 2.75 (US$ 0.3158) per hour, or approximately NOK 5,360 (US$ 616) per year, with terms varying among sectors. The union estimates that the total value of the agreement will be in the area of a 4 to 5 per cent wage increase. Later this year, Fellesforbundet members in all workplaces in the metal sector will bargain for further wage increases locally. Although employers attempted to change normal working time restrictions, these have been kept intact. It was agreed that collective pension schemes, another key issue in the bargaining, will be discussed thoroughly at each workplace during 2002 and that results of the discussions will be taken up in a collective bargaining round in 2003. A protocol to the agreement offers a good basis for the development of a collective pension scheme according to the goals set out in Fellesforbundet’s demands. Members will vote on the agreement on April 26, with results to be announced on April 30.

ARGENTINA: Today (April 8) marks the start of a three-day IMF mission to Argentina. The decision to undertake this mission resulted from the extreme crisis situation which has developed in Argentina, and the devastating impact it is having on the country’s workers and their families. The purpose of the mission is to express the IMF’s support with its affiliates in Argentina and to denounce the policies of the International Monetary Fund, which have played havoc with the national economy. The IMF is demanding that trade unions be involved in the discussion over future economic and social policies. In addition to meeting with all IMF Argentinean affiliates and with labour centers, the group will hold talks with Minister of Labour Alfredo Atanasof, with the Chamber of Automotive Industry (ADEFA), the Centre of Steel Industrialists (CIS), the Argentine Metallurgic Industry (ADIMRA) and the Chamber of Mining Entrepreneurs (CAEM). At the time of writing, a meeting with Argentina’s president, Eduardo Duhalde, had still not been confirmed. The IMF group is comprised of representatives from IMF headquarters in Geneva, including IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi, and from the regional office in Santiago, Chile, as well as representatives from IMF-affiliated unions in Brazil, Canada, France, Spain and the USA.

GENEVA: The IMF has just published a report entitled “Metalworkers and the Free Trade Area of the Americas”, which gives an overview of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and analyses the potential impact of the FTAA on the metal industry in the Western hemisphere. The proposed agreement for the FTAA – which accounts for approximately 40 per cent of the world GNP and is scheduled for completion in 2005 – is a major challenge for the labour movement. It is part of a larger agenda of deregulation, privatisation of public services, destruction of collective bargaining and dismantling of social safety nets. Calling the FTAA “a new agreement for the rich”, IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi questions the spirit in which the agreement is being negotiated. Although he says that fair trade is one of the best instruments for development, “certain fundamental conditions must be fulfilled for this purpose, such as a clause guaranteeing minimum labour and environmental standards, and increased purchasing power, particularly in developing countries, so that people are able to buy what they produce.” Whilst recognising that the FTAA would affect all workers in the region and beyond, the IMF felt it could bring a sectoral perspective into the union debate and raise points of specific interest to the metal industry. Consequently, the IMF set up an IMF FTAA Working Group in 2000/2001, and the report is the outcome of their work. “Metalworkers and the Free Trade Area of the Americas” – available in English or Spanish – may be downloaded on the IMF website under “Publications”. Hard copies may be ordered from IMF headquarters on [email protected] or by fax (41/22) 3085055.

GENEVA: Starting today (April 4) in Turin, Italy, the IMF Fiat Auto-Iveco Council is holding a two-day meeting organised by the IMF to discuss the outlook for the auto industry, and specifically the situation at Fiat. Following presentations by the head of the IMF Auto Department, Peter Unterweger, on the auto industry economic outlook, and by Professor Aldo Enrietti on Fiat’s automotive activities, performance and restructuring, participants from six countries (Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) will report on the situation at Fiat Auto, Iveco and Magneti Marelli in their countries. Members of the IMF Fiat Auto-Iveco Council will also have the opportunity to put questions to Fiat management who will be represented, and on the second day there will be a discussion on Codes of Conduct, and reports on corporate conduct.