To commemorate the World Day for Decent Work, thousands of workers gathered outside the United Nations building in Bangkok which houses the ILO Office to demand the ratification of ILO Conventions 87 & 98, minimum wage of BHT 300.00/day (USD 10.00) and decent work. In a riot of colours, banners and placards Thai workers rose to the occasion to protest the government’s lackadaisical attitude towards workers rights and wage increases. They chanted slogans, sang songs and several speakers from the unions took turns to address the crowd on their demand to ratify the core ILO conventions, respect workers rights and raise the minimum wage.
The demonstration and march led by the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee (TLSC) which is a coalition of several unions and federations moved from the UN building and headed towards the Government house. Most of the GUF affiliates in Thailand participated in this march.
Chalee Loysong, President of IMF affiliate TEAM and TLSC reiterated that the Thai union movement would not back down from its demands. He stressed that this demonstration was larger than the one held last year, an indication that workers are realising the importance of their rights and the need to demand decent work. He called upon the government to ratify the universally recognised ILO Conventions 87 & 98 without any further delay. He also spoke on the need for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawat to honour her promises to raise the minimum wage to BTH 300.00 made during the recently concluded national election.
Thailand, a founding member of the ILO, has not ratified ILO Convention 87 & 98.
BAHRAIN: In a letter to Prince Salman bin Ham ad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince of Bahrain the Global unions highlight the deteriorating human rights situation in Bahrain, after extensive dismissals of public workers.
Over 2,600 workers in both the public and private sectors have been dismissed after pro-democracy manifestations, and hundreds more suspended from public sector jobs, the unions say in their letter. A few reinstated workers have had to agree to unacceptable, indeed illegal, conditions to get their jobs back, including agreeing not to join the union. The dismissals have not yet stopped. Government workers, especially those in health, education and municipal sectors, continue to be suspended or fired for their actual or suspected participation in trade union and political activity earlier this year. Numerous trade union leaders are also now facing criminal prosecution.
To make matters worse, the government recently unilaterally amended the trade union law in an obvious act of retaliation against the trade unions. The purpose of these amendments is clear – to further undermine the Central organization GFBTU and its affiliates, and thereby eliminate an important voice for economic and social reform in Bahrain.
See the full letter, signed by the General Secretaries of Global Unions here.
USA: Union members followed that ballot with an 85% strike vote the same day. US federal mediation a week ago failed to resolve differences, but did produce a hand-shake agreement on 18 October in which both sides agreed to refrain from airing the dispute in the local press. Two days later, a manager for Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies LLC told a television broadcast that IAM members are overpaid and should be satisfied with the company’s "last and final" offer.
That offer is a six-year proposal that does contain minimal pay gains in each year, but it also creates a two-tier wage scheme. That pay grid would see all employees hired in 2012 receive less hourly pay and come under a slower pay progression. Such a pay schedule would take new hires five years to reach only 90% of what current workers earn.
Honeywell’s proposal also attacks workers’ health care coverage, making it more costly for union members to have adequate health insurance. IAM Lodge 778 has proposed a four-year contract without the concessions.
The union awaits a decision from the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) declaring the work stoppage an unfair labour practice strike. In the days prior to the 9 October rejection vote, Honeywell management circumvented the union’s bargaining committee by express mailing a letter to all workers, misrepresenting the company’s proposal and urging them to accept the offer.
Such bad-faith bargaining runs counter to US labour statute and if the NLRB does issue a complaint, the strike takes on new meaning. Honeywell operates the US government facility called Bannister Federal Complex and produces non-nuclear components for America’s nuclear weapons industry.
The IAM strike comes a short two months after Honeywell ended a 13-month lockout against members of the United Steelworkers (USW) at a uranium conversion site in Metropolis, Illinois. ICEM reports on that can be found here and here.
UPDATE, November 2:
The IMF is calling on affiliates to send letters of solidarity to the IAM in support of the striking 850 IAM members fighting for a fair contract.
“This is a critical struggle, not only for workers in the USA, but for workers around the world. Your perseverance and success will pave the way for future generations of unionised workers. The IMF stands shoulder to shoulder with you in this fight and will take action globally if necessary,” said Jyrki Raina, IMF General Secretary in a letter to IAM members. See IMF letter here.
Click here for IAM contact details.
CANADA: The agreement meant workers began returning to their rightful steel mill jobs on 18 October for week-long health and safety training. Further recalls for the training are expected this week and next. The new pact is not altogether satisfactory because it creates a two-tier pension scheme with new hires placed in an inferior plan, and it ends cost-of-living indexing for 9,000 retirees, a key issue in the 14-month dispute.
U.S. Steel pressured steelworkers into submission by first imposing the lockout on 7 November 2010, and then supplying its Canadian customers from the former Stelco mill in Hamilton with finished steel from American mills. In the end and after nearly one year, most of Local 1005’s members were on the verge of losing unemployment insurance benefits, which coupled with the USW’s C$200-a-week strike benefit gave workers about two-thirds of their normal income.
The agreement contains a C$3,000 ratification bonus, to be paid within 60 days of the 15 October vote, and it also includes a lump sum pay-out of C$1,000 to retirees taking in less than C$1,500-per-month in lieu of annual pension indexing. Active workers will also see reduced cost-of-living annual increases.
A profit-sharing plan for active employees will be implemented in the fourth quarter 2011. It will come from a pool of money totalling 6.5% above C$25 million in earnings from the Hamilton Works and could mean an added C$3,500 in income per worker. Union members will receive credited service for the 11 months of the lockout, meaning some workers will be closer to taking retirement.
All workers will be guaranteed 26 weeks of employment at 40 hours per week. That countered a U.S. Steel proposal from mid-September in which the company sought call-back language that would have left many workers without jobs long after ratification and the end of the lockout. As it is, U.S. Steel will only re-start the coke ovens, the cold line, and the Z line. There are no plans in the near future to re-start Hamilton’s blast furnace.
Read the full ICEM release here.
G20 Finance Ministers have not included employment as one of the indicators for macroeconomic policy. Employment targets must now be incorporated into national economic programmes.
Read the full statement here.
INDIA: Amid mounting international pressure, a tripartite agreement was reached today between Maruti Suzuki management, workers, and senior officials of the Haryana government ending an intense 14-day struggle that brought the Suzuki production to a crawl and revealed an unprecedented show of worker strength and solidarity.
Workers at Maruti Suzuki went on strike on October 7 after the company broke a September 30 agreement to recognize the union, honour basic labour rights, and reinstate contract workers who had gone on strike in solidarity with permanent workers during a previous struggle. Workers at Suzuki Powertrain India and Suzuki Motorcycle India immediately laid down tools in support of their colleagues at Maruti Suzuki resulting in a total of 7000 workers taking action.
The conflict and the anti-union behaviour of the local Maruti Suzuki management created an international uproar, involving unions all over the whole world, notably in Japan, where the IMF-JC and JAW were in contact with the international Suzuki management. In India, all major Indian national trade unions condemned Maruti Suzuki’s’ behaviour, calling it "vengeful", and a Labourstart campaign delivered more than 4200 letters to local management in less than 24 hours, calling on the company to respect fundamental labour rights.
Details of the agreement, which was reached between Maruti and Suzuki managements, workers and unions of the three plants, and in the presence of government officials, includes:
Shiv Kumar, General Secretary of the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU) thanked the IMF, IMF-JC, JAW and Labourstart for their solidarity extended to the striking workers throughout their struggle. " I want to express our sincere appreciation for making our strike known across the globe. The timely support and solidarity boosted workers’ morale, strengthened their resolve to fight and gave them the feeling that they are not alone, that workers across the world are with them. This assurance was a big motivating factor."
FINLAND: A last minute proposal put forward by the National Conciliator on a new 2-year national collective agreement for more than 200,000 employees in the Finnish metal industries was rejected by both the unions and the employers’ organisations on the eve of the strike. The unions involved in the dispute are IMF affiliates the Metalworkers’ Union, the salaried employees’ union Pro, and the Electrical Workers’ Union.
On October 4, the unions had given strike notice concerning 30,000 employees in 44 export-oriented companies and declared an overtime ban in the entire metal industry.
The main disagreements concern the pay structure and paid training leave. According to President Riku Aalto, the Metalworkers’ Union wants pay rises to be general, while employers insist on local level negotiations. Pro’s President Antti Rinne said that the proposal did not guarantee equal minimum pay rises to all and that too much was left at the employers’ discretion.
The strike will last until November 7 unless the parties can reach an agreement before that date. Senior salaried employees’ organization YTN have announced that they will join the strike on November 1.
The Finnish social democratic labour minister Lauri Ihalainen appealed in morning television to the parties to continue negotiations. The disagreements cast doubt on the fate of the 25-month framework agreement agreed at confederation level, covering also issues such as unemployment benefits, paternity leave and taxation.
Miriam Chipunza, 28, joined the IMF Zimbabwe affiliate National Engineering Workers Union (NEWU) in April 2009 as an executive assistant to the General Secretary. She is responsible for organizing conferences and meetings and leads the communication work in her union. Miriam was one of participants of the regional communicators’ forum for Central and South Africa organized by the IMF in Kenya in May 2011. Since then she has been preparing updates on the situation in her union and country. Some of her stories are published on the IMF regional webpage.
Miriam describes the recent rally organized by her union together with the national centre Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) on the occasion of the World Day of Decent Work (WDDW) protest action and explains why the issue of decent work is so important for her union and the members.
NEWU has participated in every WDDW action since it was launched by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) for the first time in 2008. This year a rally was organized in Harare and the theme of the action was “Save Our Rights, Save Our Economy and Our Jobs”.
Miriam says that this action is extremely important because it concerns almost all workers in the country. “Nowadays the situation in Zimbabwe is that workers get only the basics to survive, their employers do not want to pay decent wages even if they can”, explains Chipunza.
In fact, most workers live below the poverty line in Zimbabwe not earning enough to reach the Poverty Datum Line (PDL) in 2011 defined for a family of six people at the level of US$ 505 per month; in some cases workers are paid atrociously small wages of US$ 40 per month.
At the rally, speakers raised issues of concern to Zimbabwean workers, namely unemployment, poor quality and unproductive jobs, unsafe work, insecure income, denial of rights and inadequate social protection and solidarity in the face of disability and old age.
Also, the ZCTU called for solidarity support to the Zimbabwe Domestic Allied Workers’ Union (ZDAWU), which for almost four years has not been able to conclude a collective bargaining agreement on wages, and pledged to do everything possible to make Zimbabwe ratify the Domestic Workers’ Convention 189 which was adopted at the International Labour Conference in June 2011.
Miriam says that the rally enjoyed a great success with participants coming both from trade unions and local communities, the event served a good example of unity in the struggle for decent work for all. “NEWU members are highly involved in ZCTU activities and mostly constitute about 50 per cent of total attendance in such activities”, she adds.
At the global level, the ITUC identified precarious work as this year’s primary focus of WDDW actions. The issue of precarious work remains high on the agenda for unions across the globe for more on this issue, read in the feature on social protection for precarious workers, pages 9-13.
