USA: The USA will require tariffs of 8 to 30 per cent on most imported steel. The action, announced by President Bush, will block billions of dollars worth of steel from the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Russia from sale in the world’s largest market.
The European Commission will defy the U.S. trade restrictions in the World Trade Organisation. It plans to create barriers around its own steel market if it detects any danger of imports from third countries being diverted to it as a result of the U.S. measures.
The U.S. argues the action is legal under world trade rules which allow countries temporarily to protect industries being damaged by a flood of imports.
Asked to comment the action taken by the USA, the IMF’s general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, says that the IMF cannot take a position on this issue. But he refers to the IMF World Steel Conference which took place in Washington, D.C. in April 2000. The conference agreed on a declaration which addresses issues like world trade, state aid, import duties and the liberalisation of the world steel market.
The full text of the “Washington Declaration”, adopted by 155 delegates representing IMF-affiliated trade unions from 37 countries, including Germany, USA, Australia, Belgium and Sweden, can be downloaded on www.imfmetal.org/publications. It is available in five languages.

SWITZERLAND: If the referendum held last Sunday (March 3, 2002) regarding Switzerland joining the United Nations did manage to finally slip through, with 54.6 per cent of Swiss voters approving official membership in the UN, the vote for a 36-hour workweek unfortunately did not pass.
Unemployment in Switzerland, while comparatively low, is nevertheless on the increase – from 1.6 per cent in June 2001 to 2.4 per cent in December, and expected to reach 3.5 per cent this year. The shorter working time initiative, which would serve to create new jobs and offer extra leisure time, was led by the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions and supported by the IMF-affiliated metalworkers’ union SMUV. Among demands in the trade unions’ proposal were:

• a progressive reduction of working time (staggered over a period of 8 years) to arrive at 1,872 hours per year, or an average 36-hour workweek – ideally a four-day week;
• a maximum workweek of 48 hours, including overtime (today in Switzerland this limit is 66 hours per week);
• a reduction in overtime working hours, from today’s 170 hours to 100 hours per annum, in general to be compensated by time off;

Switzerland has one of the longest legal workweeks in Europe at 45 hours, and varies between 40 to 42 in most sectors where there is a collective agreement.
Reduction of working time, in whatever form, has since long been high on the IMF agenda.

In December every year, The Financial Times, the well-reputed English newspaper, publishes a list of the world’s most respected transnational companies (TNCs). Twenty of them operate in sectors covered by the IMF.
Obviously, we are very happy to see that companies for which our members work are in good shape and are making profits. What I am not so happy with is that all the credit for their good reputation is shared just among management and shareholders. No credit whatsoever is given to the workers who are actually largely contributing to make this possible for the companies.
Maybe the readers of the Financial Times should know that when doing such a hit parade, not all relevant parameters are taken into account. I believe that in order to bring justice to such a list, we should also ask TNCs about their social policy and their social behaviour.
Among the top six TNCs, at least four are in various metal sectors. Incidentally, all of them have been laying off workers the last few years. Or, as the people say on New York City’s Wall Street, they have been restructured.
I just wonder what reputation the companies have now among the thousands and thousands of workers who have lost their jobs there. Restructuring means, in most cases, laying off people.
The tragic thing is that every time a company announces a restructuring plan, the value of its shares gets a boost on the stock market, and the CEO gets credit and new confidence.
The top four TNCs and many of the others also have a mixed record on industrial relations. IBM and Toyota in the USA have spent millions of dollars to keep the trade unions out. GE would very much like to see the IUE, IAM, and UAW in the USA out of business.
Not to talk about the level of moral, or more adequately the lack of ethics among CEOs, the latest ones being the former CEOs of ABB who granted themselves golden checks before leaving the company and laying off thousands of workers.
I have a suggestion to make to the Financial Times and the company which made the top TNCs’ list, PriceWaterhouse:
Let’s do a black list together for next December.

GENEVA: In his latest website opinion column, the IMF general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, says that a list published every December by the Financial Times of the world’s most respected transnational companies – many of which are in the metal sector – gives no credit at all to the workers who contribute so largely to making the companies successful.
Not all relevant factors are taken into account either. Malentacchi writes that “in order to bring justice to such a list, we should also ask TNCs about their social policy and their social behaviour.”
Click on the associated link to access the full text of this latest opinion column.

SERBIA, REP. of YUGOSLAVIA: The Nezavisnost Metalworkers’ Union has appealed for international solidarity support from the IMF and its affiliates regarding the repeated and serious violation of trade union rights at two factories of Ikarbus – AD and IMT – in Novi Beograd, a district of Belgrade.
According to Nezavisnost, Ikarbus – a bus and specialised vehicle assembly plant, the biggest manufacturer of buses in Yugoslavia – is actively trying to destroy the trade union by preventing all union activity in the two factories, including not allowing the collection of union fees or the use of any facilities at the plant for trade union work. Constant harassment of trade unionists, through such means as dismissal and job transfer, is another tactic of the company to discourage the trade union, as well as management’s refusal to provide any information to the union about the general work of the plant.
In support of Nezavisnost, the IMF is asking its affiliates to condemn these violations of trade union rights at Ikarbus and write letters of protest to company management and to the government of Serbia.

JAPAN: Due to the persisting recession in Japan, the Japanese Electrical, Electronics and Information Union (Denki Rengo) and the Japan Federation of Steelworkers’ Unions (Tekko Roren) have both announced that they will not call for a basic wage hike in the upcoming 2002 “Shunto”, or spring wage negotiations. Priority, instead, will be placed on safeguarding and stabilising jobs and maintaining current wage levels. The Japanese Association of Metal, Machinery and Manufacturing Workers (JAM) said that it, too, plans to pursue a similar policy.
The autoworkers’ union (Jidosha Soren) and the union representing shipbuilding and engineering workers (Zosen Juki Roren), however, are expected to request an increase in basic pay in their negotiations, although they are demanding a record low of 1,000 yen (US$7.47) per month.
The above-mentioned federations are affiliated to the 2.5 million-strong Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions – IMF-JC.

SLOVENIA: After putting considerable pressure on employers during recent collective bargaining for Slovenia’s electrical industry, the IMF-affiliated SKEI, which represents workers in this sector, has agreed in principle to a wage increase of 2.7 per cent, from January. The deal must still be ratified by both the trade union members and the employers’ organisations.
As employers had resisted the wage increase, SKEI organised media coverage, a protest meeting, a 2-hour warning strike at state level on January 30 and had planned a four-day general strike for the entire branch beginning February 19.

USA/FRANCE: At the initiative of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, its U.S. affiliate, the IUE-CWA, met with the IMF and its three French affiliates – the FGMM/CFDT, FO Métaux and FTM/CGT – in Paris on February 18 to discuss the critical situation faced by workers at the Rochester (New York) subsidiary of the French-based autoparts supplier Valeo. The company is in the midst of a number of restructuring operations affecting plants in the U.S., Latin America and Europe, and the IUE-CWA is particularly concerned with what is happening at the Valeo plant in Rochester.
According to the IUE-CWA, which represents 3,000 workers at the Rochester plant, Valeo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2001, although the company has few creditors, minimal debt and a healthy balance sheet. The company then proceeded to change its name to Valeo Electrical Systems Inc. The union says that by abusing U.S. bankruptcy law, and using it as an “offensive weapon”, it is attempting to back out of legal commitments it made in the collective agreement signed in August 2000.
Following the meeting in Paris, the three French metalworkers’ unions issued a joint press statement on February 19 condemning Valeo for trying to break the contract at its Rochester plant and affirming their full support with the U.S. union’s struggle to keep the plant open and to protect the workers’ jobs there. The FGMM/CFDT, FO Métaux and FTM/CGT stated they would call on the Valeo group management to ensure that the workers’ rights in Rochester are respected, and in particular those covered in the collective agreement. The French unions said they reject the Valeo group’s call for global competition between plants and workers.

NABLUS: The International Metalworkers’ Federation was appalled to learn of the air attack by the Israel Defence Forces of the headquarters offices of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in Nablus on February 17. Miraculously, no one was killed, but the building, which was erected with the support of the international labour movement, suffered heavy damage.
In a protest letter to Ariel Sharon, prime minister of Israel, the IMF’s general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, expressed strong concern at the attack and the destruction of buildings belonging to trade unions and other civil society organisations. “The damages caused by the Israeli airforce to the PGFTU building,” declared Malentacchi, “will not help restore the climate of reciprocal trust which is necessary for a peaceful development in the region.”
The IMF has called on the Israeli government to investigate all the circumstances behind this air attack on the PGFTU and to take immediate action to compensate the organisation for the damages to their property and head office.

INDIA: The IMF South Asia Office reports sources stating the Steel Authority of India, the world’s 13th largest steel company, is planning to slash its workforce by over 16,000 by the end of March 2003 in a bid to reduce manpower costs. The 10 million-tonne state-owned steel producer employs 148,000 workers at its four manufacturing facilities and other plants across India.
The company has been trimming its huge workforce in stages through voluntary retirement schemes. In the past three years alone it has already cut manpower by 26,000, and a top management official stated the company is aiming for a workforce of 100,000 by the year 2005.