SOUTH AFRICA: According to a press statement issued today, August 6, 2001, by the IMF-affiliated National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), the first day of strike action in the South African car manufacturing industry has seen a 100 per cent stayaway by the workers. The strike, says Numsa, “proves once again that workers cannot be treated with utter contempt. It further proves that wages and working conditions cannot be disregarded on the whim of the employer body.”
The union’s position is that the workers are making a significant contribution to the auto companies and must be paid accordingly. In recent years South Africa’s car sales have gone up tremendously and car exports have boomed. The auto manufacturing industry is one of the country’s leading earners of foreign exchange and directly employs some 30,000 people.
Involved in the crippling strike action are 21,000 Numsa members working at the car assembly plants of: DaimlerChrysler, Delta and Volkswagen SA, in the Eastern Cape; Toyota in Kwazula Natal; and Nissan, Ford Samcor and BMW in Gauteng.
The union is asking for a 12 per cent pay increase across the board and a two-year wage agreement, but the employers have limited their offer to 7.5 per cent.
Numsa says the average monthly wage of a worker in the U.S. producing the same car with the same skills is R29,853 ($3,592), in Japan it is R27,467 ($3,306), but in South Africa the car worker’s monthly pay is only R3,658 ($440).

KOREA, REP: On August 2, 2001, the KCTU’s leaders – President Dan Byung-ho, General Secretary Lee Hong-woo, KPSU-KCTU President Yang Kyung-kyu, Korean Association of Government Employees Works Council President Cha Bong-cheon – announced the end of their 35-day sit-in at Myongdong Cathedral in Seoul and went directly to metropolitan police headquarters. They had sought sanctuary at the cathedral after becoming the target of continued government trade union repression, highlighted by a police manhunt.
Dan Byung-ho was immediately imprisoned as the parole he was given upon his release from jail in August 1999 was cancelled on June 14. He will be forced to serve out the two months remaining in his previous sentence, related to his trade union activities, and will face fresh charges regarding trade union campaigns he has organised as the head of the KCTU. The other KCTU leaders are also being questioned by the police and face possible charges.
The goal of the sit-in by the KCTU leadership was to stem the massive repression of the trade union movement by the Kim Dae-jung government, which has seen the arrests of 179 trade unionists. Currently, 105 are still in prison, charged and facing trial or serving prison terms.
The KCTU will continue its campaign to bring about:
– an end to neoliberal structural adjustment and mass layoffs;
– improved legislation guaranteeing basic workers’ rights and protections;
– reduction of working time (the five-day workweek);
– social reform for medical and health services, education, media, taxation.
The KCTU demands led to a multi-industry and multi-enterprise joint strike on June 12, a general strike on July 5, and a national mass rally on July 22. The confederation will hold a special National Congress in August to discuss and adopt a campaign plan for the remainder of the year.

GERMANY: IG Metall, the 2.7 million-strong German metalworkers’ union, reports that on August 1 a recognition agreement was concluded and signed between the union and management of Philips Semiconductor. The accord, which covers 3,060 workers, thus solves the conflict which arose when Philips announced it would outsource its two semiconductor plants in Germany. This “outsourcing” would also have meant that the collective agreement for the metal industry would no longer have been applicable for the two plants and that Philips was only willing to pay wages and benefits on the basis of the collective agreement in the chemical industry.
The just-concluded agreement, which was reached with massive pressure and the overwhelming support of the workforce at the two plants (since the conflict started IG Metall got 700 new members in the two plants), recognises that the metal industry collective agreement will continue to be the basis for wages and other benefits in the semiconductor sector of Philips in Germany.
The agreement additionally includes working time regulations which facilitate handling of production peaks more adequately and in a shorter time period and give the possibility to compensate overtime and additional shifts either in pay or in leisure time within a period of 3 years. The time account of a single worker must not exceed 150 hours.
The deal also contains a clause that future collective agreements concluded for the metal industry will automatically apply to the Philips semiconductor plants.

GERMANY: Volkswagen, the German-based transnational car producer, is facing major conflict with the IMF-affiliated German metalworkers’ union IG Metall.
Contrary to other auto producers in Germany — like DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Ford and Opel — which are covered by regional agreements for the metal industry, VW has an enterprise collective agreement for Volkswagen AG (excluding Audi and VW Saxonia). The conflict with VW started when the company publicly announced a proposal which became known as the “5,000 times 5,000”, meaning VW wanted to create 5,000 new jobs at an average monthly pay rate of 5,000 German marks (US$2,255). As part of the project, the company’s personnel director, Peter Hartz, is pushing for weekly working time of up to 48 hours, with no additional pay, for these jobs, but IG Metall president, Klaus Zwickel, wants no more than 40 hours per week, plus training during working time.
Although the media praised the so-called “magic” formula, while not taking into account what VW workers currently earn, IG Metall rejected the carmaker’s proposal, at grassroots level to start with, as such an offer would undercut existing wages and working conditions. IG Metall has informed the public that “5,000 times 5,000” is anything but a progressive offer, that it is even a provocation in view of what the union has achieved in many years of tough bargaining with VW.
After a halt in negotiations, the bargaining may start again after mid-August if, as IG Metall chief negotiator Hartmut Meine states, “the project can be realised with reasonable conditions.”

GLOBAL: The Steering Committee of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions has taken a unanimous decision to hold the first-ever “Global Unions’ Day of Action” on Friday, November 9, 2001. The objective of this campaign, which will see a range of actions staged on that day in workplaces throughout the world, is to demonstrate the determination of the international trade union movement to stop destructive globalisation.
The ICFTU says it supports a “globalisation underpinned by solidarity and justice, not one that undermines the values and working and living conditions of the workers of the world and their communities.”
November 9 is the first day of the 5-day meeting of the 4th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation, being held in Qatar.
For additional information on the Global Unions’ Day of Action access the associated link on the ICFTU website.

AUSTRALIA: The IMF-affiliated Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union (CEPU) is currently engaged in a dispute with Nestlé Australia over the issue of collective bargaining and forced weekend work. Since June 19, says the union, the transnational food company has locked out all food and maintenance workers — members of CEPU and other unions — at its Echuca site, located in southeastern Australia on the border between the states of Victoria and New South Wales.
The basis for the lockout at this plant, which produces dairy swirl ice cream and yoghurt for the Australian market, originated with the company’s decision to introduce a 7-day operation. Thus, the present workweek, which is Monday to Friday, with non-voluntary weekend work arranged on a compulsory regime, has made a significant change in the lifestyle of not only the workers but also their families.
CEPU reports that other issues central to the dispute are pay rates for those working the new schedule, as well as the expiry date of the collective agreement. There are currently six Nestlé sites in Victoria, of which three have a common expiry date of June 2003. The members at the Echuca plant also want their agreement to expire on that date so as to negotiate on a true collective basis with the other three, but the company, wanting to keep Echuca isolated, is opposed. The union says that part of their drive to have common expiry dates is to reverse the enterprise-by-enterprise approach which allows companies like Nestlé to lock out workers individually and thus increase company bargaining power.
The IMF is calling on its affiliates, in particular those with Nestlé units, to contact Peter Tighe, national secretary of CEPU, to see how you can help support the workers in Echuca in their struggle with Nestlé. Tighe can be reached by phone on: (61/2) 9597-4499, fax: (61/2) 9597-6354 or e-mail: [email protected]

SWITZERLAND/GLOBAL: As reported on this website on July 24, after declaring a total freeze in hiring of new personnel just a few weeks ago, ABB, one of the world’s most well-known electrical engineering companies, announced it would reduce its current workforce by 12,000 jobs worldwide within the next 18 months (see associated link). These planned job cuts were announced without any consultation or even information to the workers’ representatives and their unions. Neither the European Works’ Council nor its Select Committee received any information before the company publicly disclosed its plans.
Once again a transnational company has shown that the shareholders’ interests get high priority while the stakeholders’ interests are simply neglected, even though many of them can expect to lose their jobs within the upcoming months.
In a letter to the president and CEO of ABB, Jörgen Centerman, the IMF demanded an emergency meeting between the management and an IMF delegation in order to discuss the effects of the announced job reductions on the workplace in the different countries and to look at possible alternatives to the company’s plans.
The IMF’s general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, also reminded Mr. Centerman of the discussions which took place at the IMF World Conference for ABB at the end of March 2001 in Mannheim, Germany, where all workers’ representatives asserted the necessity for earlier information and closer cooperation to overcome the problems within the company. These problems, says the IMF, can only be solved in common and with the support of the workforce and its representatives, and not against them. The current attitude of ABB can clearly not be seen as an attempt by the company to develop closer cooperation and to increase the confidence of the workforce in the company and its management.
“Announcing job reductions and cost cuts cannot be considered as creative and socially responsible concepts,” continued Malentacchi. This only imitates a policy many managers believe will pacify analysts, shareholders and stock exchanges. However, it’s such unilateral company decisions which bring people to believe that globalisation has to be fought totally.”

AUSTRALIA: The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union has sent an open letter to request solidarity with their 210 members employed at Maintrain, in Sydney. The workers, who are responsible for the maintenance of the New South Wales State Rail trains, are in the third week of a strike in which Manusafe — a trust fund established by the AMWU and other industry unions to protect workers’ entitlements — is a central issue.
According to the AMWU, Maintrain workers, along with hundreds of thousands of others, are concerned at the recent spate of company collapses in Australia that have seen many millions of dollars of workers’ entitlements disappear overnight. The Manusafe scheme requires the employer to pay these entitlements as they accrue into a jointly managed trust fund, and the AMWU argues that the entitlements should be “protected from incompetent or unscrupulous employers, and from the workings of the boom-bust cycle.”
The workers at Maintrain say they are determined to win their claim. A rally was staged in front of headquarters of the employers’ organisation — the Australian Industry Group — which has been vigorously campaigning to prevent employers from agreeing to join Manusafe, and a steady escalation in disputes around the Manusafe scheme is expected in the coming weeks.
Go to the associated AMWU website link to see how you can help.

CANADA/CHILE: After the Chilean government recently decided to ban the use of asbestos in that country, Canada’s prime minister, Jean Chrétien, lobbied Chilean president Ricardo Lagos on behalf of Canadian asbestos producers to get the ban rescinded. When demonstrations took place in Santiago to denounce the Canadian government’s behaviour as immoral, an editorial in Canada’s national daily newspaper, The Globe and Mail (“Why Ban Asbestos?”, July 13, 2001), claimed it was “nonsense”. Referring to the asbestos type called chrysotile, the newspaper declared that “asbestos as it is currently employed by Canadian manufacturers poses no threat to human health.”
Numerous were the shocked responses to the above, among them a letter written by the president of the Canadian Auto Workers, Buzz Hargrove, who said the newspaper was reckless in supporting the prime minister’s advocacy of asbestos use in Third World countries, as nearly all developed countries, including Canada, have almost entirely quit using all types of asbestos and many European countries, including the UK and France, have totally banned the use of every type of asbestos.
Countering the Globe and Mail editorial, Hargrove referred to the many deadly cancers caused by exposure to asbestos and said most scientific evidence demonstrated that chrysotile, or white asbestos, also caused cancer. In Canada alone, asbestos had caused extensive loss of life and sickness, and not only workers have been affected but family members as well, via even minimal quantities of fibres carried home on workers’ clothing.
“The reality,” went on Hargrove, “is there is no known safe level for exposure to asbestos, chrysotile or otherwise… You say that Prime Minister Chrétien has ‘every right to call Mr. Lagos and make Canada’s case for asbestos’. He may have every right to call Mr. Lagos, but he has no authority, moral or otherwise, to promote the use of a deadly material in the name of Canada. And Chileans have every right to protest his attempt to do so.”
Almost 100 per cent of Canadian asbestos is exported to developing countries.

SWITZERLAND/GLOBAL: After reporting two weeks ago a total freeze on hiring, ABB, Europe’s biggest electrical engineering group, announced today, July 24, 2001, that “to counter difficult market conditions” it planned to cut 12,000 jobs or over 8 per cent of its workforce.
The Swiss-Swedish transnational company, formerly known as Asea Brown Boveri, says it will implement the job cuts over a period of 18 months, with approximately 8,000 jobs eliminated through outright dismissals, and 4,000 through natural attrition.
With half-year profits at $626 million, representing a drop of 21 per cent on the same period last year, the company claims that these results “reflect uncertainty in the investment climate as the U.S. slowdown spreads into Europe and Asia.”
The IMF will be following the situation at ABB very closely and will provide an update as soon as possible.