USA: On February 12, over 13,000 United Airlines mechanics and utility employees, represented by the IMF-affiliated International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), voted by a margin of 2 to 1 (68 per cent) to reject a contract offer by the company. The employer’s bid included terms proposed by the contested Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), a panel of arbitrators appointed by U.S. President George W. Bush to make recommendations in the two-year-old contract dispute at the nation’s No. 2 airline.
The IAM reported in separate voting that 86 per cent of its United mechanics have authorised strike action, which could begin as soon as February 20, unless a last-minute settlement can be reached after negotiations resume on February 15.
Although the PEB had recommended an increase in pay of up to 37 per cent for the most experienced mechanics, the IAM said that “the PEB offer contains language requiring Machinists’ participation in an unspecified financial recovery plan that could result in a substantial reversal of pay and benefits initially proposed.” Other IAM concerns with regard to the proposed contract involve insufficient retirement benefits, job security and an installment plan for retroactive pay.
Top-earning mechanics at other major U.S. airlines earn an hourly wage which is approximately 30 per cent above the rate at United Airlines, where mechanics have not received a base-pay raise since 1994 and have been working under the terms of their old contract for 19 months.
Once the dispute is settled with the mechanics, United has still to resolve a two-year contract impasse with 30,000 ramp and customer service employees.


NOTE: On February 18 a tentative agreement was reached for United mechanics and related employees. A ratification vote will take place on March 5, and the strike deadline has been extended to March 7. Details of the agreement will be forthcoming.

GENEVA: Marcello Malentacchi, IMF general secretary, comments on his recent visit to Korea in his latest opinion column. He says that although the January 22 international day of solidarity for the release of all imprisoned Korean trade unionists was a huge success, the outcome has not been so great.
Since the worldwide joint protest action, Kim Dae-jung and his government, instead of releasing jailed trade unionists, have even added more to the prison rosters. But, says Malentacchi, “the IMF is not going to let up.”
Click on the associated link to read the entire opinion.

HUNGARY/ROMANIA: Metalworkers’ trade unions in Romania and Hungary have agreed on concrete measures for mutual representation of members who become migrant workers in either of the two countries.
When the governments of Hungary and Romania recently enacted a law which facilitates the possibility for citizens of Romania to get a job in Hungary, the unions – the National Metalworkers’ Federation of Romania (U-Metal) and the Federation of Hungarian Metalworkers’ Unions (VASAS) – met to discuss the effect the new regulation might have in their respective countries. There could be disturbances, they said, in the labour market and in the established level for wage earnings.
The meeting resulted in an agreement that the two unions would insist, in their respective countries, on the basic principle that enhances the right of all workers to have a job primarily in their own country, which corresponds to their ability, professional standards and which secures a fair wage. This must not, however, deny the possibility for any worker to freely and under equitable conditions get a job outside the country, in accord with the effective rights, regulations and conditions of the given country.
Also, and very significant, in order to protect members’ interests across national borders, VASAS and U-Metal have agreed to:

• represent, just as if they were their own members, the interests of the other union’s members, where they are employed in the sector of the respective union;
  
• keep the cross-border workers provided with detailed information as to corresponding legal regulations, labour contracts, preconditions for employment, wage levels and benefits.

I have a message for everybody from Dan Byung-ho and Mun Sung-hyun. They thank all those who contributed to making January 22nd THE day in the fight for trade union rights in South Korea. They were very impressed with all the activities the world over.
I visited both of them in jail last week. They are in good health and high spirits and are prepared to continue fighting for their rights.
The first thing that struck me was that both Dan and Mun said they would never have believed that international solidarity could mobilise so many people. They asked me what they can do now to help other people. But before that, we must get them all out of jail.
If the organisation of such a forceful demonstration of solidarity was a great success, the outcome has not been so great thus far. Publicity is good, especially if it is connected with a big event like the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, but it is not enough if it does not get the expected result.
Not only are the 47 trade unionists in Korea still in prison, but while we were there to visit them, four more were put in jail without any good reason. At the same time as we were having discussions with the newly appointed South Korean minister of labour, the police were arresting four Daewoo trade union leaders because they had organised a strike against the restructuring of the company a year ago.
Organising a strike in the Republic of Korea is still a crime for which one can be convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, so now there are 51 jailed trade unionists.
This is the way the Nobel Prize for Peace laureate, Kim Dae-jung, president of the ROK, responds to international pressure. But, the IMF is not going to let up.
The day before my prison visits to Dan Byung-ho and Mun Sung-hyun, I had the honour and pleasure of meeting Mun’s wife and their eight-year-old daughter. I told the young girl that I was going to visit her father and asked if there was something she wanted me to tell him, and she said: “Tell him to come back home.”
Mr. President, Kim Dae Jung, can you look in the eyes of that small girl and tell her why you are still keeping her father in jail?
She has the right to know. We all have the right to know.
The entire world is waiting for your answer.

The fax numbers given, however, for dialling from outside Colombia contain an incorrect city code (should be “4” and not “94”), thus the numbers are as follows:

• President of Cerro Matoso, Bert Nacken, Fax: +57 4 7723612
• company negotiating commission, Fax: +57 4 7722391
  
  
• and trade union negotiating commission, Fax: +57 4 7722210
  or e-mail: [email protected]

GERMANY: The first bargaining session of the 3.6 million-strong German metalworkers’ union, IG Metall, and employers in the metal and engineering industry kicked off yesterday, February 7, in the region of Bavaria. The IMF’s affiliate officially confirmed on January 28 that its regional associations would be pushing for a 6.5 per cent wage increase for this year’s collective agreement.
IG Metall’s president, Klaus Zwickel, said that the union’s pay demand sought compensation for an expected 2 per cent inflation rate, a gain in productivity of 2 per cent, as well as several years of moderate wage gains. He contended the demand was clearly payable as company profits had increased sharply in recent years.
Wage negotiations in Germany are normally carried out by region, between employers’ associations and unions representing entire industries, and negotiating teams coordinate their positions so that pay rates vary little from region to region.
Collective agreements for the metal and engineering industry will run out at the end of February, to be followed by a one-month no-strike period if an agreement has not been reached.

KOREA, REP: Today (February 8), in Seoul, IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi visited imprisoned Korean trade unionists Dan Byung-ho and Mun Sung-hyun.
Dan, president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), said that all the attention and expressions of solidarity shown on January 22 (Korea Action Day) overwhelmed him.
According to Marcello Malentacchi, Dan was in good spirits and fairly optimistic about the future. The KCTU president said that he had many times read about international solidarity, but that it was only now he really learned about what the action could be behind the words.
The IMF delegation also visited Mun Sung-hyun, until recently president of the Korean Metal Workers’ Federation (KMWF). He was also very touched by all the solidarity actions and expressed his sincere view that the solidarity work carried out has helped the two IMF affiliates in South Korea to cooperate more closely. He also foresees that “within some years” the two unions could become one.
Marcello Malentacchi, noting that the Korea Action Day had been an organisational success but that the trade unionists were still in prison, says that IMF-coordinated activities on the Korean issue will continue. “A task force has been set up and shall examine what further steps will be taken,” said the IMF general secretary. “There are different suggestions and ideas; they shall soon be discussed with the affiliates concerned.”
NOTE (1): Mun Sung-hyun is no longer president of the Korean Metal Workers’ Federation. A new leadership of the KMWF was elected at its recent Congress.
NOTE (2): During the IMF mission to Korea, four Daewoo trade unionists, who had taken refuge in San-gok Cathedral since a year ago, were arrested.

ITALY: Interviewed by Reuters at the recent World Economic Forum in New York, Antonio D’Amato, the president of the Italian employers’ association Confindustria, stated that his country needed to reform labour laws in order to make it easier for employers to eliminate jobs. He said: “In Italy, you can divorce your wife since the 1970s even with the Vatican there, but you cannot divorce from your workers.”
Last week 600,000 members of the three largest union confederations in Italy, including many IMF-affiliated metalworkers, disrupted production when they went on a four-hour strike in the region of Milan to protest the center-right government’s attempts to change Article 18 of the country’s labour law and make it easier to lay off workers.
Under current law, workers who are dismissed without “just cause” can demand to be reinstated. However, if the proposed reform goes through, it would mean any company which has over 15 workers would no longer be required to rehire laid-off employees.

SWITZERLAND: The well-known Swiss independent consumer magazine “Beobachter” (The Observer) awarded on February 2 its 2002 “Prize for Courage” to a female metalworker for her fight for equal rights for women workers.
Malica Skrijelj, who worked as a lathe operator in a factory in the Swiss canton of Vaud and is a member of the IMF-affiliated Swiss metalworkers’ union SMUV, was earning 2,450 Swiss francs (US$1,449) per month, or 1,000 francs ($592) less than her male colleagues who were performing the same work as she.
In 1998, when Ms Skrijelj first took her case for equal pay to court, it was thrown out. However, with the help of the Swiss metalworkers’ union and her lawyer, Malica appealed to a higher court, which recently ruled that her case was clearly one of wage discrimination and ordered the employer to pay her 20,000 francs in complementary wages.
The Swiss magazine presented Ms Skrijelj, who is Serbian in origin and a single parent, with a check for 25,000 Swiss francs (US$14,790) – the “prize” for her courage in promoting equal rights for women.

USA/GLOBAL: Due to the slowdown in auto production, giant autoparts maker Lear Corp. announced on February 1 that to cut costs it will slash 6,500 jobs, or 6 per cent of its workforce, and shut down 21 plant sites worldwide. Sixteen of the facilities to be closed are in North and South America, with most of the job cuts to be completed by the end of this year.
Although a total of 9,500 jobs will be affected by the company restructuring plan, the net reduction in jobs will be 6,500.
The automotive supplier, based in Southfield, Michigan, and specialised in the production of parts such as seats, instrument panels and electronic components, already eliminated 4,800 jobs in 2001.