INDIA: The MSIL management locked its gates on August 29 and declared that only those workers who sign the ‘Good Conduct Bond’ (GCB) will be allowed to enter the factory. As workers refused to sign the GCB, the management’s anti-worker measures continued and total number of workers subjected to disciplinary actions reached 62. It included dismissal of 15 and suspension of 29 regular workers and termination of 18 trainees.

It is significant to note that earlier in June 2011, MSIL Manesar plant workers launched a 13 day sit-in strike to fight for union rights and against unfair labour practices. Subsequent to this struggle, the MSIL management started victimizing workers through suspensions and dismissals. The management imposed an unfair GCB on the workers on August 29, alleging that workers engaged in go-slow tactics and hampered the production process. The situation forced Maruti — Suzuki workers to launch a massive struggle against the management, which was supported by contract and casual workers, trade unions in Gurgaon region, university students, civil society groups and international trade union movement.

The IMF and its affiliate IMF Japan Council together with Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers’ Unions (JAW) extended solidarity to the struggle and called on the Maruti Suzuki management to negotiate with the workers in good faith. Representatives from IMF South Asia office held a number of meetings with the Maruti Suzuki workers and addressed gate meetings to help them to protect their rights.

Subsequently, on September 30, a settlement was reached between the MSIL management and Manesar plant workers and MUKU in the presence of Minister for Labour, Haryana Government and labour department officials under the Section 12 (3) of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947. The details of the settlement are as below: 

1. 15 workmen who have been dismissed shall be reinstated and placed under suspension and impartial inquiry will be initiated against them.
2. 18 trainees who have been terminated will be reinstated.
3. 29 workmen placed under suspension will remain under suspension and face impartial inquiry.
4. On the principle of “no work, no pay”, no workman shall be eligible for wages from August 29 until the day of reporting for duties. In addition, a penalty of “deduction of wage for one day” shall be imposed upon them.
5. All workmen shall sign the revised good conduct bond and join duties with effect from October 3.
6. The management agreed not to indulge in any acts of vindictiveness against the workmen.
7. Any disputes arising in future will be settled through negotiations.
8. Both parties agreed to respect fundamental rights of each other.

In the spirit of solidarity Maruti Suzuki workers agreed to contribute every month part of their salaries to meet the shortfall of wages of the 44 suspended workers.

The IMF notes with concern, that both A and B shift contract and casual workers were not allowed by the management to enter the factory when they reported for duty on October 3. The Maruti Suzuki workers are very much concerned and approaching labour authorities for intervention. Contract and casual workers stayed away from work along with regular workers. Not allowing contract and casual workers is construed as revengeful and vindictive by the Manesar workers.

MEXICO: On 28 September, a group of workers organised by Grupo Peñones occupied the La Sierrita mine in Mapimí, Durango. The mine is at a standstill and its 130 workers, all members of Branch 309 of the National Miners’ Union led by Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, are waiting for the site to be vacated so they can continue working, said the union.

The union explained that the mine, which is owned by the Canadian company Excellon, San Pedro Resources, SA, "was seized by pro-management personnel organised by Carlos Pavón, alias La Marrana, from Zacatecas, and employed at the Naica mine in Chihuahua and the Torreón mine in Coahuila, which are not even from the area".

The union said: "we know that Pablo Gurrola, Excellon’s human resources manager at the mine, is directly responsible for organising the occupation, and it is therefore a completely illegal lockout".  The union also denounced the government’s complicity with Grupo Peñones and pointed out that heavily armed federal troops have been deployed in support of the illegal occupation.

Workers at the Excellon mine have been involved in a hard struggle to defend their human and labour rights since 2010. The company dismissed and harassed workers after Branch 309 of the union was formed and workers asked the company to recognise the branch and negotiate a collective agreement. The workers went on strike in August of this year and the union reached an agreement with the company on 18 August, after mediation by the Durango State governor, Jorge Herrera Caldera, and senior Labour Department officials. The agreement recognised the union branch and opened up the way for further negotiations on a collective agreement.

Excellon is violating the Mexican Constitution, the Federal Labour Law, the autonomy and freedom of association of workers of Branch 309 at Sierrita and ILO Convention 87, which establishes the freedom of association and was signed by Mexico in 1960.

The miners are calling on the company to honour the agreement reached in August and to comply with Mexican legislation and ILO Convention 87, and immediately end the illegal occupation of the La Sierrita mine. The union holds the Minister of Labour, Javier Lozano Alarcón, Excellon and the state and federal police and security forces deployed at the site, responsible for the occupation and any ensuing acts of violence and disorder.

KAZAKHSTAN: IMF general secretary Jyrki Raina and ICEM general secretary Manfred Warda sent a letter to the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev, demanding that the persecution of striking oil workers in Mangystau Province stops immediately and the cases of violence, threats and murders are fully investigated.

In May 2011 oil workers of Karazanbasmunai in western Kazakhstan decided to go on strike demanding the employer to improve working conditions and pay additional compensation for the work in bad conditions. Workers of Uzenmunaigaz and other operations in the region joined the strike later on. Instead of engaging in good faith negotiations with the workers the employers recurred to tactics of pressure. This led to the aggravation of the social situation in the region.

At this stage the strike has apparently stopped. According to different sources, more that 2,000 workers were dismissed. During the strike oil workers faced violent persecution from the employers and the authorities.

On August 8 Natalia Sokolova, a union lawyer, was sentenced to six year imprisonment for alleged offence of ‘inciting social hatred’. A number of other workers and activists involved in the strike were also accused of participation in illegal protests and spent some time in prison and/or were ordered to pay substantial fines.

On July 8 and 10 workers’ rally in Aktau was stormed by riot police.  The participants of the rally were violently beaten.

The region was hit with a wave of murders. On August 2 Zhalsylyk Turbaev, 28-year old drill operator and a union activist, was killed right at his workplace. On August 24 Zhansaule Karabalaeva, 18-year old daughter of the president of the union committee at Uzenmunaigaz, was found dead on the outskirts of Zhanaosen.

‘Mr. President, we urge you to start immediate investigation of the facts of persecution and violence in Mangystau province, and take all the necessary measures to stop the suffering of the workers,’ states the letter.

Full text of Jyrki Raina and Manfred Warda’s letter to the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev is available on the IMF website.

You can express your protest against the persecution of oil workers in Kazakhstan by sending a letter from the campaign page on LabourStart.

INDONESIA: Three Indonesian unions, together with the FES office in the country got together on September 19 in Jakarta to share union strategies to combat the fast growing atypical forms of employment in the manufacturing sector. The unions were FSP-KEP (Indonesian Chemical, Energy and Mine Workers Federation), FSPMI (Indonesia Metalworkers Federation) and SPN (Indonesian Textile Workers Federation). Also participating in the event were the FES officer in Indonesia and ICEM project coordinators. The joint IMF-ITGLWF-ICEM Conference was organized in the framework of the ICEM Global CAL Project.

The Indonesian national trade union centre KSBSI says that outsourcing and the contract system has sharply reduced the number of permanent workers in the country, from 67% of the total formal labour workforce in 2005 to only 35% in 2011, also citing reports from the World Bank and the ILO.

The main strategies discussed at the conference were organizing contract and agency workers into trade unions and ensuring CBA coverage, law advocacy and labour inspection, and national campaigns against precarious work.

FSPMI has set an example by recruiting contract workers who are directly employed by the principal companies into plant level unions and initiating collective bargaining for the workers. FSP-KEP has unionized agency workers in the mining sector.

Social security protection for contract workers has been a major campaign in Indonesia. The campaign was launched by a coalition of trade unions and NGOs under the leadership of FSPMI.  

The Indonesian union movement has also established the Komite Aksi Melawan Outsourcing (Action Committee to fight Outsourcing). There are plans to hold workshops to enhance understanding on issues related to outsourcing, and media campaigns.

A concrete demand is that the labour law No. 13/2003 is revised, to improve regulation on the use of contract and agency labour.

HUNGARY: The proposed bill includes serious roll-backs in worker’s rights, VASAS says. It makes it easier to terminate employees, cuts down on the number of vacation days and allows employers to vary work schedules between 36 and 44 hours per week.

The government wants the state to withdraw from the regulation of the labor market. Not only state-imposed "bureaucratic" measures, but collective bargaining rights would be removed. VASAS rejects the proposed legislation, saying it would pose a serious threat to the basic rights of Hungarian workers and their social protection.

Furthermore the proposed amendments would be incompatible with, as well as being below the social standards laid down in the European Social Charter.

At the request of Hungarian and European trade union leaders László Andor, European Commissioner responsible for employment and social affairs met the presidents of six Hungarian trade union confederations and Bernadette Ségol, secretary general of the European Trade Union Confederation on September 2. The union leaders informed the Commissioner about their objections, stressing that if the Parliament adopts the present proposal, it will seriously threaten the basic rights and social situation of Hungarian workers, and clash with the standards set in the European Social Charter and the democratic practice of European countries.
 
On September 12, thousands of union protesters took to the streets around the Hungarian Parliament to express their opposition against the proposed amendment of the Labour Code.
 
A petition signed by four Hungarian national union confederations has been sent to all Hungarian members of parliament:
 
"You are pushing the employees into a downgraded, subjugated situation. Should you vote in favour of this bill, it would mean falling salaries, increased working time, that employees will be left unprotected, and that protection of the collective agreements will cease. It will leave the workers to the mercy of the employers, and forced agreements will be brought on."

The IMF lends its full support to the Hungarian metalworkers in their struggle.

USA: In a recent release, Caterpillar reported that demand growth and its investments through the end of June 2011 had resulted in more than 27,000 additional people in its global workforce since the beginning of 2010.   About a third were in the United States and two-thirds outside the USA.

However a large part of the new jobs created are temporary, part-time and agency work.   Caterpillar is shifting from secure to insecure employment, forcing workers to bear the risk of any downturn in business.  Between June 2010 and June 2011, the number of flexible workers doubled, reaching 24,064.  As a result, the proportion of flexible workers in Caterpillar’s global workforce went up from 14% in June 2010 to 18% a year later.  While temporary work jumped by half, full-time employment grew by only 16%. Most of the increase in the number of flexible workers took place in the USA.

During that period, Caterpillar posted a 37 per cent increase in total sales and revenues.  Profit per share was up 39% from the second quarter of 2010.

The global expansion of precarious work is a major preoccupation for workers and trade unions. Not only is it driving down wages and impacting on workers’ access to social protection.  It is also weakening the social fabric and democracy, and the institutions that are necessary to sustain it.  "While we are encouraged that Caterpillar has continued to be successful over the past year, and that success has resulted in additional hiring, we have a growing concern about the increasing percentage of precarious positions that Caterpillar has added" said Dennis Williams, UAW Secretary-Treasurer and Chairperson of the IMF Caterpillar trade union network. "Precarious work does not contribute to the creation of good, secure jobs and undermines the economic stability needed to boost demand in the world economy".

The IMF together with other global union federations has made the fight against precarious work in all its forms one of its top priorities.  They will continue to mobilize against the race to the bottom and push for economic and social policies that put permanent jobs first and restrict temporary and contract work to cases of genuine need.

ROMANIA: The participants at the Tenaris Workers’ World Council meeting assessed the action plan approved at the last meeting in Brazil in 2010. They recognized the effectiveness of the World Council responding in solidarity with workers in other countries. An example of that solidarity was the action taken around the world when a Brazilian trade unionist was disciplined by management for publicly denouncing the "blame the worker" health and safety policy of the company. The pressure exerted on Tenaris management at the Cartagena plant in Colombia was bearing fruit. The union is currently bargaining its first collective agreement.

During the meeting delegates discussed the results of a survey on employment and workers’ rights. The research showed that women employed by Tenaris are still mainly performing office work. The Council stated they should be supported to work in any position in the plant. Although the number of women workers within the company worldwide is low, the participants believe that  women representation should be encouraged in the Council.

The Council also debated the issue of contracting out and outsourcing at Tenaris facilities around the world. It concluded that this is company policy to reduce cost, increase flexibility and weaken trade unions. This issue should be addressed at international level as part of the IMF global campaign against precarious work.

The Unity Pact "Building Global Trade Union Power in Tenaris" adopted in 2008 was reviewed, and council members reconfirmed their commitment to work together for the improvement of working conditions and dignity of Tenaris workers around the world.

The action plan for the next year includes:

• Solidarity support to Canadian workers at the Calgary plant facing restructuring of the shifts and the threat of outsourcing;
• Supporting each other during bargaining;
• Finalizing compilation of collective agreements and circulating the data to the members of the network;
• Establishing a research group to carry out a comparative analysis of production, type and range of products, employment, health and safety, and other information in each of the plants;
• Declaring once more April 28 as day of health and safety in Tenaris. As in previous years, leaflets will be prepared and distributed locally;
• A quarterly newsletter in multiple languages.

The next Council meeting will be on September 2012 in Cartagena, Colombia.

The Tenaris Workers’ World Council meeting was hosted by the local union of the IMF Romanian affiliate METAROM and benefited from the financial support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The meeting ended with a visit of the Tenaris Silcotub plant in Zalău. 1,000 people work in the plant, 85% of them organized.

INDONESIA: With only a few months to go until the International Metalworkers’ Federation Central Committee meeting in Jakarta, union leaders from FSPMI, LOMENIK and LEM met at a national  strategy and planning workshop as part of a project supported by SASK. The outcome was a joint organizing plan for 2011 which will see 6,000 workers join FSPMI and Lomenik before the end of December, and a future organizing plan for 2012-2014. The unions are also developing joint solidarity actions, a written statement on non-competition when recruiting new members and national cooperation.

Initially the SASK project is for 3 months but a further project for 2012-2014 will be developed and proposed. The challenges facing the unions are Indonesia being spread across 17,000 islands, low union density in the metal sector, fragmentation of the unions and restrictive labor laws. The extremely high number of workers on short term contracts make it difficult to recruit and retain members.

FSPMI and Lomenik are affiliates of the IMF, and LEM participated as an observer. The 3 unions between them cover around 300,000 metalworkers. The main focus of the project will be to build the union’s membership base in the industrial areas where metal transnational companies are operating.

Said Iqbal, General Secretary of FSPMI, told the participants "This project will give us a new dimension to consider in our future sustainability.  We are committed to achieving this".

Participants in the meeting agreed to create national structures to improve communications between the 3 unions, and to develop a common action plan to build mutual respect. In a new approach to make these structures sustainable the unions will take on more individual and collective responsibility each year of the project. At an IMF project meeting due to be held in Jakarta on December 4 the unions will present their action plan and progress to date. The three unions will also work together on an organizing strategy that will see activities carried out in Aceh, North Sulawesi, North Sumatra, and South Sulawesi.

Rob Johnston, IMF Executive Director, concluded the meeting saying "The union leaders in Indonesia have a vitally important role to play in the region. Leading by example and developing a strong national voice for workers is an important first step – I believe we have the basis of an agreement that will achieve that".

UKRAINE: On September 14 roughly 80 workers of the Zaporozhye Ferroalloy Plant held a picket in front of the Ukrainian government office in Kiev protesting against massive job cuts at the plant. Their union, Metallurgical and Mining Industry Workers’ Union of Ukraine (MMIWU), an IMF affiliate, works closely with local and national authorities to find a solution to the acute jobs crisis.

The layoffs began on August 23. They were triggered by falling production rate due to the hike in electricity prices. 600 workers have lost their jobs to date. The initial plan was to cut 1000 jobs.

In May 2011 the MMIWU wrote a letter to the president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich and the prime-minister Nikolay Azarov, demanding immediate action to restore the capacity of the Zaporozhye mining and metallurgy industry. A number of plants cut production due to high electricity prices, hundreds of workers have lost their jobs.

“Since May, the union took all possible steps to bring on a solution, ranging from public action, in which 5,000 metalworkers from different Ukrainian regions took part, to issuing calls to all relevant authorities, including the president of Ukraine,” said the MMIWU president Vladimir Kazachenko.

“The gravest crisis is still at the Zaporozhye Ferroalloy Plant. This is the second time its workers picket government offices. The first action of such kind was carried out in June,” added Kazachenko.

At the meeting between union leaders and the head of the regional administration Boris Petrov on September 16 it was decided that the working group would be established with representatives from the union, local authorities, relevant government agencies, the Cabinet of Ukraine and the Ukrainian parliament. The group will meet in early October.

According to the latest reports, the administration of the Zaporozhye Ferroalloy Plant may re-launch a number of furnaces and reinstate 600 workers. The IMF will watch the situation via our affiliate, the MMIWU.

SWEDEN: Several bankruptcy petitions, from suppliers like japanese Takata-Petris in Germany, Romania and Poland and from the Swedish unions Unionen and Ledarna are already pending.
 
– It is a very painful decision, but we must protect our members’ salaries, and cannot wait any more, said IF Metall president Stefan Löfven and the IF Metall SAAB section chairman Håkan Skött. 1,500 IF Metall members have not recieved their salary for August, and September 23 the salary for September is due.

SAAB has appealed against the petitions, instead applying for legal protection against creditors during reconstruction, hoping for new investments from Chinese autobuilder Youngman and distributor Pang Da.

– We hope that the court of appeal gives SAAB a possibility to reconstruct. Both Youngman and Pang Da considers SAABs problems to be temporary, said Stefan Löfven and Håkan Skött.

On September 21 a divided court of appeal granted the company’s application for reconstruction for Saab Automobile AB, Saab Automobile Powertrain AB and Saab Automobile Tools AB. That means that salaries will be guaranteed by the state, and IF Metall’s bankruptcy petition is a non-issue.