BRUSSELS: “There is a need to mould, re-engineer the international trade union movement to the requirements of our times and the challenges they bring”, said Mr Ryder, who was appointed to the top job at the ICFTU by its Executive Board, which is meeting in Brussels. Bill Jordan, who has served as ICFTU General Secretary since 1995, is retiring his post. The ICFTU represents 225 affiliated organisations in 148 countries and territories.

BRAZIL: Almost all the 16,000 workers from the Sao Bernardo plant voted in favour of the deal, ABC Metalworkers’ Union told The Associated Press.

The agreement was negotiated last week by union leader Luiz Marinho at VW’s headquarter in Germany. As a direct result of the negotiation, the workers ended a week-old strike on Monday, but said they needed two days to study the proposal before voting on it.

BURMA/GLOBAL: The ICFTU said publicity could help convince companies to pull out of Burma, thereby pressuring Burma’s military junta to abolish the practice of forced labour.

ICFTU points out that a recent ILO mission “fully vindicates” the organisations’ perception that forced labour is still routinely resorted to by the military. It also says the ILO report clearly demonstrates the junta’s attempts to disguise this reality.

Global Unions – IMF is one of its members – started to compile its list of companies linked to Burma last February. According to the trade unions, it is impossible to conduct any business relationship in Burma without directly or indirectly supporting the Burmese military dictatorship.

BRAZIL: ABC Metalworkers’ union and VW have negotiated an end to the dispute over 3,000 layoffs at Volkswagen’s Anchieta plant in Sao Bernardo. The agreement – if accepted by employees – will prevent massive layoffs and pave the way for modernisation of the plant. The agreement does also include reduction in employees’ salaries and work schedules. The agreement came after ABC Union president Luiz Marinho and VW management met in Germany last week. Workers will vote on the proposal this Wednesday, but have already ended their week-long strike.

SYDNEY: The 30th IMF World Congress, composed of 800 delegates from 100 countries, has adopted a statement on the struggle against terrorism. “Although not a unanimous vote, the overwhelming majority in favor of the statement shows that we are able to put aside our differences and personal views, and unite behind a call for the fight against terrorism,” IMF assistant general secretary Brian Fredricks says. “In addressing the question of terror, the Congress also – in a spirit of solidarity – addresses the issue of poverty,” Fredricks stresses. Below follows the text of the adopted statement, in English. Links to the statement in other languages can be found at the bottom of this page.

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IMF Statement on the Struggle against Terrorism The IMF and its affiliates meeting at the IMF’s 30 World Congress in Sydney, Australia from 11-15 November 2001, reiterate their outrage and condemnation of the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11, 2001 which led to the death of over 5,000 innocent American and foreign civilians, and injured thousands more. We express our full solidarity, sympathy and friendship with the families of the victims in the USA and abroad.. This unprecedented terrorist act is an attack on the fundamental human rights to freedom, security and self-determination. It is an attack on the human dignity of all peoples and the basic values of peace and democracy which the international trade union movement has upheld and fought for throughout its entire history. Terrorism such as on September 11 in the USA or in any other forms has no place in our world. The IMF and its affiliates support the global efforts to combat terrorism, and urges nations to make common cause in bringing to justice and punishing those responsible for the barbarism and cruelty of the September 11 attacks. This Congress recognizes that military actions as authorized by international law should be conducted so as to serve a primary goal to protect innocent civilian lives. That is why the IMF also calls on the international community to take all possible measures for the protection of the rights and well-being of innocent civilians and refugees in its struggle against terrorism. Moreover, the international community must address the root causes that swell the ranks of terrorists. The fight against terrorism must remove the appeal of fanatical causes by dealing with poverty and underdevelopment, displacement, desperation and bitterness that are nurtured by a fundamentally unjust global order. Poverty, injustice and policies that favor one people over another invariably provide recruits for the armies of the intolerant. The fight against terrorism is also a fight against tax havens and lax financial regulations which, in the name of liberalism, have facilitated the financing of these murderous activities. The IMF has long struggled for appropriate measures to eliminate illegitimate financial transactions. Lasting peace can only be based on social progress and the full respect of human rights and self-determination everywhere in the world. It requires a broad international commitment to fight the glaring inequalities between and within countries and the implementation of even-handed policies with respect to contending national and ethnic groups. The IMF therefore urges its affiliates to build political pressure on their governments to take specific actions to foster democracy and a balanced economic and social development for all. This must also include policy initiatives by national governments towards the United Nations and other international institutions of global governance in furtherance of these goals. ===================================== Español / Spanish Click here En francais / French Click here Auf deutsch / German Click here In italiano / Italian Clich here Svenska / Swedish Click here English Click here

SYDNEY: Today (November 14) the IMF Congress unanimously passed a statement on the giant mining and metals transnational BHP-Billiton, vowing to join in the international action against the TNC, and condemning the company for its worldwide attempts to eliminate trade union rights.
Speaking to the situation at BHP-Billiton, Doug Cameron, national secretary of the IMF-affiliated Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, said: “We thought it was tough for workers in Australia, but horror stories are coming from everywhere.” A few examples were from Mozambique, South Africa, Peru and Colombia.
As for Australia, he said that workers had struggled for the right to collectively bargain at the company’s operations in the Pilbara region of Western Australia for two and a half years. To entice workers to accept individual contracts and drop the union, the company was offering workers entitlements and annual wages worth as much as A$76,000 more than for those on collective contracts. 56 per cent of the workers, however, have stayed with the union, rejecting the individual contracts. On November 2, the workers and their unions won a great victory when Western Australia’s Industrial Relations Commission handed down a decision requiring equal pay for equal work.

Below is the full text of the statement on BHP-Billiton:

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30th IMF World Congress Statement on BHP-Billiton The 30th IMF World Congress notes the report from the affiliates’ meeting in relation to the anti-worker (union) activities of the transnational mining conglomerate BHP Billiton.
The Congress condemns BHP-Billiton for its callous disregard for workers’ collective rights and the destructive record of environmental vandalism.
The attacks by BHP-Billiton on collective rights and their attempt to marginalise or eliminate trade union activity by aggressively promoting individual contracts is a breach of core labour standards and is rejected and opposed by the IMF.
The Congress condemns and deplores the sacking of Mozambique unionists by BHP-Billiton and determines to challenge these actions. Congress expresses its solidarity with SINTIME and the Mozambique workers in their struggle to regain their jobs.
Consistent with our mission statement to:

• develop global structures;
• improve our communication and understanding of critical issues;
• organise new members and democratic workers’ unions throughout the world;
• strengthen existing trade unions;
• create a more unified metalworkers’ movement;
• strengthen workers’ rights,
  

we endorse the following:
1. An IMF International Action Committee on BHP-Billiton will be established.
2. The International Action Committee will meet once each year and be charged with the responsibility to build the strength of organised labour in BHP-Billiton.
3. Regional Committees will be established in each area where BHP-Billiton operates and will be required to report to the International Action Committee.
4. The IMF Secretariat will organise a joint meeting of the IMF and ICEM to consider joint campaign activities against BHP-Billiton.
5. Steps will be taken to improve communication, coordination and industrial activities across all BHP-Billiton operations.
6. The International Action Committee will provide regular reports to the IMF Executive.
The IMF calls on BHP-Billiton to meet with the IMF to discuss appropriate steps designed to ensure the recognition of trade union rights and core labour standards across all BHP-Billiton establishments. Failure to respond will result in increased industrial activity designed to protect and advance the working rights and conditions of BHP-Billiton workers around the world.

BRAZIL: Following the failure to get Volkswagen Brazil management to reverse its decision to lay off 3,000 workers at the company’s plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, near Sao Paulo, 16,000 workers have voted unanimously to take indefinite strike action. The workers, who are organised by the ABC Metalworkers’ Union, a member of the IMF-affiliated National Confederation of Metalworkers (CNM/CUT), also wants their union to negotiate directly with VW management at its headquarters in Germany.
The company announced on November 8 that, due to high interest rates and Brazil’s slowing economy, it would cut close to 20 per cent of the workforce at its Anchieta plant in Sao Bernardo as of November 12, unless the workforce accepted a 15 per cent cut in wages and working hours.
Speaking for the ABC Metalworkers’ Union, its president, Luiz Marinho, has said that “the workers are not responsible for the fall in the market of Volkswagen… If the company loses market share, it is because it does not launch new products.”
VW has a 28,000 workforce in Brazil, of which 16,000 are employed at the Anchieta plant.
Another 1,000 workers may be laid off at VW’s plant in Taubate, where negotiations are ongoing.

SYDNEY: A third term of the Howard government is set to push Australia even further behind the U.N.’s International Labour Organisation standards, declared Bill Shorten, national secretary of the IMF-affiliated Australian Workers’ Union, on November 12 at the International Metalworkers’ Federation 30th World Congress. He told the 800 Congress delegates that “by outlawing secondary boycotts and collective bargaining, John Howard’s 1996 Workplace Relations Act is already outside ILO conventions. More conservative changes to Australian workplace law will only serve to make our nation a pariah of the developed world.”
Key concerns for Howard’s proposed industrial reforms, which would give additional powers to employers at the expense of workers, include exempting small business from unfair dismissal laws, enforcing secret ballots and diminishing the powers and resources of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
Shorten said that the main challenge for the international trade union movement was unfettered deregulation allowing market forces to dictate the global economy with no regard for social consequences.
One of the central themes of the IMF Sydney Congress is how to deal with the challenges of economic globalisation.

GREAT BRITAIN: An explosion which occurred in a furnace at the giant Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales on November 8 has killed one worker and gravely injured 13. According to the Corus steel group, owner of the former British Steel plant, the blast and fires followed a “serious escape” of molten iron. Although there have been major incidents before at this steelworks, which has been in operation since the turn of the last century, this one is reported to have been much larger than ever before.
Because of the tragedy, the general secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC), Michael Leahy, who is also president of the International Metalworkers’ Federation Iron, Steel & Non-Ferrous Metals Department, is flying to the UK from Australia, where he was to attend the IMF’s 30th World Congress. The ISTC organises workers at the Port Talbot steel plant, and some of its members were among the injured.
The UK Health & Safety Executive is conducting an investigation into the incident.
Port Talbot, employing some 3,000 people, was among the plants affected by the job cuts announced last February by Corus. The South Wales plant has an annual production of approximately 3 million tonnes of steel.

BRAZIL: Workers at Volkswagen’s two car assembly plants in São Paulo have rejected the company’s latest proposal that they accept cuts in salaries and working hours of 15 per cent or face the possible layoff of 3,000 to 4,000 workers. A spokesman for the union representing the VW workers, the Sindicato dos Metalurgicos do ABC, a member of the IMF-affiliated National Confederation of Metalworkers (CNM/CUT), said that management’s offer had not addressed the workers’ key demand of a job guarantee for those currently employed, and that a strike would be called if the company began cutting the workforce.
The transnational car company had initially announced in late October that, due to the present decline in sales and the slowing Brazilian economy, unions had to accept its plan to cut pay and working hours by 20 per cent or face layoffs.
VW employs approximately 23,000 workers at its two car assembly plants in São Paulo and is Brazil’s biggest car manufacturer.