ITALY: Italian metalworker union FIM-CISL issued a preliminary report on the working conditions at Italian transnational companies operating in Guangdong, China.

The report available in English and Italian was produced as a result of joint work of FIM-CISL and ISCOS (The Trade Unions Institute for Development Co-operation) in cooperation with an independent Chinese institution (Ico), which conducted a survey of working and union conditions at ten transnational metalworking and mechanical-engineering firms operating in Guangdong under the control of Italian parent companies.

This year world mass media made a substantial coverage of scandalous situation about suicides at both Foxconn factories in Shenzhen and a wave of strikes at Honda in Foshan involving at least 70,000 Chinese workers in 73 companies in Guangdong outraged with their poor working conditions and low pay.

FIM-CISL decided to find out what working conditions are like at Italian giants operating in China such as Piaggio, ST Microelectronic, the Fiat Group’s Magneti Marelli, subsidiaries of Cogne, De Longhi and different mid-size companies, like Bottero, Compel, Megadyne, Sacmi Ceramic Machinery, Somacis, Util Auto Parts, present in China which are not very well known in Italy itself, but have however an international profile.

According to the report after the strikes the provincial government proposed two bills, Provisions Concerning the Democratic Management of Guangdong’s Businesses and Provisions Concerning Collective Bargaining. Unfortunately, reads the report, "none of these will be debated and approved in the near future due to the pressure exerted by transnational companies operating production facilities in this province of China".

The report comes to the conclusion valid not only for Italian but also other unions as well that "it is fundamental that each union pursue the action that it can and must take in regards to its nation’s transnational companies that operate in China and that exploit a "regime" in which fundamental labour rights, such as the freedom to organize and collective bargaining, are suspended."

Summary of collected data is available in the overview of working conditions published in English and Italian languages. The union is preparing a larger detailed version of the report in the coming months.

SOUTH KOREA: The Seoul High Court issued a ruling on November 12 in a case brought by seven former in-house subcontracted workers at Asan Plant of Hyundai Motor. The ruling is in line with previous court rulings, which state that in-house subcontractors’ employees, who worked continuously for two years or longer, are in fact illegal dispatch workers and instead should be treated as the employees of the contractor company.

On July 22, the Supreme Court ruled on a case filed by the former in-house subcontracted workers at Ulsan Plant of Hyundai Motor that "when an in-house subcontracted employee had been employed for longer than two years and had been practically under the contractor employer’s instruction and control while at work, he/she shall be treated as being directly employed by the contractor employer (Hyundai Motor) even if an unlawful practice of employee leasing was involved under the former law on employee leasing," and sent the case back to the first-trial court.

These rulings are particularly significant as they confirm the contractor employer’s responsibility to employ in-house subcontracted workers directly.

Shortly after the ruling in July, the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) representing the in-house subcontracted workers at Hyundai Motors asked the company for collective bargaining on direct employment, but Hyundai Motor has refused to conduct collective bargaining, saying that the union is not its bargaining counterpart.

On November 4, KMWU filed a lawsuit against Hyundai Motor demanding that in-house subcontracted workers with the service period of two years or longer should be moved to a regular job and compensated for the differences in lost wages. The in-house subcontracted workers on average earn less than 50 to 60 per cent of the wages of direct employees.

On November 5, KMWU submitted an application for mediation of an industrial dispute over collective bargaining with Hyundai Motors to the National Labor Relations Commission.

The union also conducted strike votes among the unionized non-regular workers at Ulsan and Asan Plant on November 11 and 12, and an overwhelming majority voted for the strike. Another strike vote at the Jeonju Plant will be completed by November 18.

RUSSIA: Members of the Russian parliament Andrey Isaev and Mikhail Tarasenko, president of the MMWU, introduced for consideration by the Russian parliament a bill banning agency labour.

Agency and contract labour as a form of precarious work is a global problem. It’s on the rise both in developed and developing nations. This type of employment relations allows an employer to avoid its direct responsibilities, particularly in the area of occupational health and safety. Workers put in this situation are often deprived of their labour rights and social protection. In Russia an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people are employed on these conditions.

A bill proposed by Isaev and Tarasenko prohibits the use of civil-law agreements when there is a reasonable basis for regular employment relations. Employers diverging from signing a regular contract when there are signs of real employer-employee relations will be punished by law.

The bill also includes amendments to the Russian Labour Code ruling out so-called "triangular industrial relations": if a contract is not signed with a direct employer, but with an agency, which, in turn, serves an employer on the basis of civil-law agreement, the real employer should be considered that which directly uses the work of an employee and not a middleman, an employment agency.

Thus the bill forces employers to sign regular job contracts with employees in all cases when real work relations are present. If the bill passes the Parliament, a normal situation will be restored in Russia where employers can not avoid their responsibilities towards their workers.

USA: Forty two international trade union delegates from 13 countries met in Detroit, in the U.S. to discuss the major issues confronting auto workers throughout the world. The delegates represented workers from nearly all the auto companies worldwide.

During the meeting, which took place on November 8 and 9, the participants discussed the development of the global auto market and production. China is now the second largest (after Europe) auto market of the world and the auto industry is extremely dependent on this market and on the Latin America market as well.

It was commonly agreed to strengthen networking at the company level, but also at the international level between the different companies. The meeting decided to re-establish the GM/Opel trade union network and the Fiat/Chrysler trade union network in 2011 with two meetings organized by the IMF.

During the discussion delegates emphasized the need and the use of International Framework Agreements (IFAs) and union representatives from Daimler and VW underlined this with practical examples.

The UAW gave an impressive report on their organizing activities regarding the transplants of European and Asian auto companies in the U.S. This was followed by an intensive discussion praising their success, but also stating that this strategy needs close cooperation with the unions and works councils of the "Mother Companies".

A report of the BMW Works Council lead to a discussion about the need to establish relationships with workers’ representatives in China and the delegate of the VW Works Council commented on their experiences in this regard.

Each company representative announced their next steps regarding strengthening the international union work, with some reporting a focus on developing their efforts in Russia, India and China.

All participants were in complete agreement that the meeting was a good platform not only for discussions but also for decisions to bring the union work forward and to give mutual support in organizing workers all over the world. On this basis it was decided to continue with a similar meeting next year.

At the end of the first day after a very intensive discussion about the development of the labour market the delegates passed a resolution on precarious work. The dramatic increasing of precarious work needs high attention and this issue has to be on the top of the agenda of the entire union work.

text / Valeska Solis
translation / Chris Whitehouse

Jairo del Río, 37, is president of Sindicato de Trabajadores de Tubos del Caribe (SINTRATUCAR), the union organizing workers at the Tubos del Caribe plant in Cartagena, Colombia. He is an industrial instrument technician with experience in oil refineries and has been working for eight years for Tubos del Caribe.
He began to get involved in the trade union movement when the Tenaris Group bought Tubos del Caribe three years ago. "I saw how Tenaris immediately began to violate workers’ rights, for example, by imposing a working day of 12 hours or more and not allowing a rest day after a 48 hour working week; carrying out mass sackings of employees who had worked for Tubos del Caribe for more than ten years or who had occupational diseases; and ignoring disciplinary procedures that are supposed to allow workers to defend themselves. All these things encouraged me and a group of colleagues to form a trade union on March 15, 2009."
SINTRATUCAR, which is affiliated to IMF affiliate FETRAMECOL, began with 25 members but had 70 by the following day. The union now has 243 members. Jairo has been president since the union was formed although he says, "I really had no experience, so I have had to study hard and seek out good advice from lawyers and friends in other trade unions."
Violation of trade union rights at Tubos de Caribe, especially the death threats to union leaders, including Jairo del Río, have not gone unnoticed. The IMF has written to the government and the company repudiating the death threats and demanding respect for human and trade union rights.
"As is well-known, Colombia is number one in the world for killing trade union leaders, including 49 in 2009 alone. Most of these murders remain unpunished. Investigations are currently being made into allegations that some multinational companies are paying paramilitary groups to kill trade union members. As leaders of SINTRATUCAR, we have not been immune to this phenomenon. We and our families have received death threats since August 31, 2009."
The dispute, explained Jairo, began in July 2009 when the union presented a list of demands and the company refused to negotiate and threatened to close the factory. "This showed us just how intransigent the company is. It has not forgiven us for organizing ourselves to demand our rights and for frustrating their plan for mass sackings," he explained.
Jairo appreciates the importance of global trade union networks within companies, such as the one at the Tenaris Group. "The World Council was the best thing that could happen to us as a union and every day we are grateful to colleagues on the Council and the IMF for their support and solidarity. The Council allows us to interact with workers from other factories and learn from their experience and it is also a very good tool for denouncing the company internationally."
In April this year, the Tenaris Workers’ World Council met in Colombia. One of its objectives was to mediate in the dispute at Tubos del Caribe and seek dialogue with the company’s management, which refuses to recognize the Council.
"Although management refused to speak with us, it was a tremendous experience for the workers. We organized activities and were able to learn about the strategies being used to negotiate agreements with the company. In addition, the Council has actively participated in the campaign to denounce the company at the national and international levels regarding the death threats we have received," explained Jairo.
Jairo believes in the importance of trade union solidarity. "Workers’ struggles must be international. Only in this way will we be able to confront the multinational companies that exploit us every day and that bleed our economies to death. They claim to create jobs but they leave misery and illness in their wake when they go."

text / valeska Solis
translation / Chris Whitehouse

María Soledad Perez, a health sector worker, takes the bus from Concepción, in the south of the country and arrives six hours later in Santiago, capital of Chile. Emilio Páez, a miner, gets ready to board an aircraft in Calama in the north of the country, on his way to Santiago. If Emilio took the bus, his journey would take 24 hours. Meanwhile, Sergio Sanches, a metalworker, boards a microbus at the company where he works 40 kilometres from Santiago. His journey to the centre of the capital takes one hour.
These three workers have the same destination, a national trade union training meeting that is taking place as part of a project organized by the International Metalworkers’ Federation for affiliates in Chile.
Emilio, María Soledad and Sergio are trade union leaders. They live in different places, work in different sectors and belong to different trade union confederations, CONSTRAMET, CONSFETEMA and FTC, all affiliated to the IMF. The three leaders would not have met if it were not for the trade union meetings organized by the IMF two years ago, as part of a project to strengthen metalworkers’ trade unions, increase cooperation between affiliates at the national level and strengthen trade union unity.
At the meeting, each union representative talks about the problems faced by his or her union and sector. They discuss and analyze different perspectives, recognize their weaknesses and agree on action. At first, participants in the project had different objectives and perspectives that reflected the needs of each worker, each company and each union. As time has gone by, the situation has changed. Although they still work in different sectors (mining, metalworking and services), they have begun to talk in general terms about strengthening the unions, about equal pay and working conditions, gender issues and collective agreements at the sector level.
Emilio Páez, 39, is a control room operator at the primary crusher at Minera Gaby S.A., owned by Codelco, and is currently president of the union that organizes workers at the company. The union is affiliated to the Federación de Trabajadores del Cobre – FTC (Copper Workers Federation). "I was a neighbourhood and community leader in Calama when I was only 20 years old. I was chair of the health and safety committee at various companies where I worked and I have been a union leader at Gaby for four years. The company was formed four years ago. I was one of the founding members of this union. We had to organize in secret and organize meetings in the toilets to get the quorum necessary to form a union and also to write the union’s statutes."
Sergio Sanches, 49, is a maintenance worker at the multinational company Assa Abloy, formerly Cerraduras Poli, which makes locks. He has been working for the company for 20 years. He is president of the union at the company and the union is affiliated to the Confederación Nacional de Trabajadores Electrometalúrgico, Mineros, y Automotrices – CONSFETEMA (National Confederation of Electrical, Metalworking, Mining and Automotive Workers). "I joined the union when I started work at the company and it was only many years later that I put myself forward for election. That was two years ago and I was elected President of the Sindicato de Trabajadores Assa Abloy Chile (Assa Abloy Chile Workers’ Union)."
María Soledad Pérez works at the Diagnomed Laboratory and has been union treasurer since 1993. She began to participate in the trade union movement three years ago: "I was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the union; I used to be union secretary and now I am the treasurer. We affiliated the union to the southern district of the Federación de Trabajadores Metalúrgicos, Industrias y Servicios, FESTRAMET (Federation of Metalworkers, Industries and Services), which is affiliated to CONSTRAMET."
Her rise in the union has been rapid and she is grateful that gender issues have not stood in her way. She has held leadership positions ever since she joined a union. One year ago, she was elected president of FESTRAMET and gradually began to participate in CONSTRAMET activities.

AN ATOMIZED TRADE UNION MOVEMENT
According to research conducted by the Centro de Estudios Nacionales de Desarrollo Alternativo – CENDA (Centre for National Studies on Alternative Development), the current situation in Chile is not favourable to equity and respect for workers’ rights. Distribution of income is unequal, with the 20 per cent highest paid receiving 13.1 times more than the 20 per cent lowest paid.
Sergio says that, "although the country has progressed, the gap between the rich and the poor is very wide and, of course, it is the great majority of workers who are the poorest. The differences are reflected in access to health and education. Those with money can buy a good health service for their families and pay for a good education for their children. Wage rates have fallen. Companies usually look first at cutting wages and employee benefits when they want to reduce costs, as you can see if you follow what happens in negotiations at the company level. Although the law grants the right to strike, in practice, it is difficult to go on strike and workers usually lose out. The situation is even worse for workers who are unorganized because it is very difficult for them to bargain collectively."
The Chile trade union movement is weak and atomized. This is reflected in the presence of more than one trade union in the same company; trade union statutes that do not prioritize a collective approach in the workplace, the sector or nationally; different collective agreements within the same company; and above all, the lack of trade union unity.
To complicate the situation further, even within a small company union, it is not uncommon for the leaders of that union to be divided, each negotiating and reaching separate agreements for one group of employees that supported their election over another.
The Chilean Labour Code establishes that union membership is voluntary and that workers can only belong to one union. The country’s Constitution recognizes the right to freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. However, as the code was written during the dictatorship, it places strong restrictions on trade unions and does not recognize union federations and confederations as interlocutors for bargaining purposes. In addition, the law states that if workers want to strike, this has to take place in the context of a process of collective bargaining. The law only endorses strikes once there has been direct negotiations between the parties.
The freedom to join a union, the multiplicity of unions at the company level, collective bargaining restricted to the company level, the possibility for groups of workers to negotiate outside the union, employers able to replace workers on strike, employers’ broad scope to decide on working conditions, employment contracts, dismissals and the state’s reduced capacity to intervene in labour disputes reflect the trade union situation in the country.
Union membership density currently stands at between 11 per cent and 15 per cent because of the legal flexibilities and the operation of the labour market. In Chile, workers may form a union with a minimum of eight employees and as long as no other union already represents the workplace.
María Soledad explains that, "not everyone in the sector is a union member, unions only operate at company level and are therefore atomized, which means they are not very strong, and therefore not always able to get a positive response to their demands. Finally, employees of public sector companies do not have collective bargaining rights."

WORKING CONDITIONS
"All workers in Chile suffer more or less the same problems: a lot of overtime, poor working conditions, precarious work. Some earn a little more than others but the demands made on them are the same. The issue we must address as soon as possible is how do we build a movement of united workers with common objectives and how to make our unions strong enough to make the government listen to them," says Sergio.
Differences in working conditions reflect the level of worker organization, says Emilio. "We have to remember that only 11 per cent of the 6.6 million Chilean workforce is unionized. It obviously makes a lot of difference when unorganized workers seek a pay rise because they are at the mercy of the employer. Eleven per cent may be unionized but what can we say when only 7 per cent have collective bargaining rights."
With regard to the situation of workers in the mining industry, Emilio says that you first have to divide the industry into three categories: small, medium and large companies. Small companies have very poor safety standards and low pay and benefits in comparison to large companies. Workers at these companies are in a very precarious position in every sense. Although things are a bit better at medium-sized mining companies, you still can’t compare them with the big companies in the sector."
María Soledad thinks the problem is that Chileans are very individualistic and lack solidarity with each other. "They tend not to join the union so as to hang on to benefits provided by the company," she says.

THE CHALLENGE FACING THE IMF
The IMF project to strengthen unions, which is supported by the Swedish trade union IF Metall, and which is also being implemented with affiliates in Colombia, aims to consolidate and strengthen affiliates, while taking into consideration the situation facing workers in those countries regarding the construction of trade union unity.
Chilean unions know they have to recruit more members, organize at the national and sector levels and strengthen their organization and that is why they joined the IMF project, which provides them with the tools with which to face this challenge.
Marino Vani, Education Officer of the IMF in the Latin American and Caribbean region and project coordinator, explains that at first the meetings sought to monitor progress in collective bargaining, assess the situation in the country and develop proposals to deal with problems that affect the trade union movement at the national level.
He adds that shop floor union leaders are clear about the importance of collective agreements at the company or sector levels and the need to negotiate a national collective agreement in the metalworking sector. They hope to achieve these objectives by strengthening unions but changes are needed in both union structure and culture as well as amendments to national legislation that guarantee national collective bargaining, the unrestricted right to strike and an end to laws that promote the atomization that characterizes the trade union movement at present.

VALUING WORKERS
Emilio, María Soledad and Sergio are keen to continue working with the project and recognize that training is firstly "an essential tool to develop capable union leaders". Secondly, "the participation of representatives from various confederations not only creates links and allows us to share experiences but also encourages us to unite and fight for the same cause," says María Soledad.
"This has a lot to do with the needs that we have as trade union leaders to train ourselves on a continuous basis in a dedicated and responsible way and this is one of the strengths of this project. We have some very good leaders and the project is a really important contribution to developing these leaders," says Emilio. "What motivates me is, firstly, the need to get a national collective agreement. We are preparing ourselves for this by learning more and by participating in this project," says Sergio.
These three workers participate actively in regional and national meetings organized by the IMF. Their perseverance and professionalism at each one of the meetings has already brought some success. In August this year, Emilio was appointed as FTC Coordinator of National and International Relations with the IMF. "I’m very proud of this position," he says. María Soledad was elected to CONSTRAMET’s National Council last October and was elected as president of the Federation last year.
They both say that they reached their positions thanks to their participation in the project, their perseverance and their commitment to project objectives. They feel more capable of taking on senior positions in trade unions thanks to two years of participation in the project. Previously, they only focused on trade union action at the local level but are now open to the idea of building the trade union movement at the regional and international levels. They are aware of the weaknesses of their country’s trade unions and want to continue participating in the task of strengthening the unions.
"I think that we just have to be believe in the work, complete the project and stay united and committed to our fight as workers and leaders," says María Soledad. "I am committed because I believe we can get to a position where we can negotiate a national collective agreement for the sector. Union unity is definitely possible in Chile," says Emilio.

Text / Anita Gardner

As metalworkers explore a new form of internationalism through the creation of an organization unifying workers across the industrial sectors of the global economy, Sharan Burrow, the newly elected General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, shares her views on how to build a strong international trade union movement.
In recent decades the labour movement has been confronted with an increasingly hostile political, economic and social environment. Corporations have built an international system of production and distribution that links together workers across national borders, but in which workers have no control over the wealth they create.
Corporations have led this process with the support of many governments and international institutions through neo-liberal policies that feature deregulation of capital and labour markets, privatization of public services and assets, a reduction in employment growth, an erosion of social protection and frequent denial of human and workers’ rights.
At the same time, the international trade union movement has increased in its scope, representing far more workers today than 20 years ago, particularly through the inclusion of unions from the developing and emerging-economy countries. However this growth in membership has not necessarily been equalled with the strength required at the international level to push back on some of the neoliberal policies that dominate world politics today.
Sharan Burrow, elected as General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) at its Congress in June this year, is well aware of the challenges that trade unions face and has a clear vision of how the international labour movement can and does act with strength. Sharan takes up this leading position after serving ten years as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions playing a key role in the Australian unions’ national political campaign that saw a conservative government thrown out of office largely for its anti-union stance.
ANITA: What is the future of the international trade union movement and how can we strengthen our position?
SHARAN: This point in time, with the current convergence of global issues that we face, is a good point to stop and reflect even as we push back against a globalized world that is not working for working people.
The question of what does the international union movement do to strengthen capacity is one that is multifaceted and involves the individual global union federations and union centres both nationally and internationally. Because if we work in isolation then we do achieve things that are good for workers on a daily basis, but we probably don’t realize our potential.
ANITA: How can we build strength through organizing?
SHARAN: Organizing workers is clearly our core business – recruiting members, growing the unions. But if we are going to be successful on the basis of that strength then you do have to have the structures and the capacity to act in ways that engages those members and builds the success of campaigns or bargaining or lobbying of governments, whatever the activity, off the back of that engagement and therefore constructs the power to win.
Organizing is at the centre of everything we do. It is not mutually exclusive to politics. Therefore in progressive governance structures, whether it’s elections in national countries or the role of the United Nations (UN), politics sit at the heart of our capacity to influence an agenda. And organizing, whether we are bargaining with a company or delivering that progressive governance, is absolutely at the heart of our power. You can’t have union strength and influence – you can’t build a new internationalism – if you are actually not organizing to generate the outcomes you want.
ANITA: What is the role of Internationals in this, given global unions are not directly organizing members?
SHARAN: If you’re in an exploitative supply chain in a poor and vulnerable country, or you are in a developed country where the employer is simply anti-union, then you are going to suffer exploitation, disproportionately of course in terms of the circumstances in which people are located.
If you think about this from a practical workers’ point of view, the piece of dignity that sits at the heart of people’s capacity to survive is wages. And the profit take is now seriously disproportionate to wages, which are at an all time low. In terms of the part of the "corporate-take" wages are probably down to 1930’s levels. This is a very serious challenge for the union movement.
Equally with wages, the employment challenge is just enormous. We have 34 million more people unemployed than at the start of the crisis. There is about 220 million in total. We have about 100 million people pushed into extreme poverty living on less than two dollars a day. And you don’t only have to find jobs for those 220 million, but 45 million young people are entering the labour force every year and we have already got a problem with youth unemployment in every country, disproportionately again in developing and emerging economies.
Precarious employment is becoming the norm for too many people, particularly women and young people. In many, many areas across the world now, both in developing and developed countries, the employment relationship is increasingly abused with fixed term contracts or casual work with no certainty of hours. It is a form or work that has no capacity to generate an annual income.
So even on these fronts, jobs and decent work, if we don’t have global strength we are not going to turn around the agenda.
ANITA: Where have we gone wrong? How is it we have got back to wage versus profits levels last seen in the 1930s?
SHARAN: I don’t agree that unions are weak. Unions’ structures were geared up for national work. And to the extent that the international unions have had a very important place, it has been about international solidarity, but often only on the basis of a transfer of wealth from developed countries to developing country unions.
It has been very recent that we have come to terms with the fact that everything you do nationally now you must do internationally. There is no point in three countries having a collective agreement for their members if you are constantly at risk of having that undermined at the next bargaining round because the company is anti-union everywhere else it has a footprint.
There is no capacity to generate income distribution that is equitable if you don’t have collective bargaining rights, based on a minimum wage and underpinned by social protection.
If we are simply transferring jobs backwards and forwards, or we fill jobs by transporting migrants backwards and forwards, rather than the settled migration that we support, then you have a world of precarious employment, precarious income. That is not about dignity, not about respect and certainly not about rights.
ANITA: How can we be more effective in defending rights in the workplace?
SHARAN: If workers are on their own in a corporate structure that does not respect collective bargaining or occupational health and safety standards then they are in a vulnerable environment.
If though, you have a global strategy, backed by national trade union centres, on labour law if it is weak, or the abuse of labour law because governments aren’t actually monitoring the victimization or discrimination of workers or are co-opted by the corporate boardroom, then the national campaigns can be successful, absolutely – there are lots of examples of this. And it will be easier if you are driving this everywhere. Are we making progress? Yes, we are.
ANITA: How do you see the role of the International Metalworkers’ Federation in this work?
SHARAN: The IMF is critical in this endeavour because it is not only about traditional coverage, but with the potential merger with ICEM (International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions) and Textiles (International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation), you will have across that spectrum access to any and all global supply chains. At one level they will either be brand manufacturers, contractors of brand name products that work with their own manufacturing companies and supply chains, and the supply chains of big retailers. This is a central piece, like middle management, at the heart of the entire organization of global work. Even services hang off this complex jigsaw puzzle. So IMF sits at the centre of a lot of these questions about workers’ justice.
ANITA: Why have wages fallen?
SHARAN: Because in many ways our structures were just national and not international. So the dominant American corporate model was driving profits up and wages down and that became more dominant than the European social model. We have seen emerging economies fight to get the basic minimum standards in place. Even where governments have ratified international labour rights conventions we have still seen them not implemented.
Then you have companies now emerging from the developing world: I am thinking of Vale, out of Brazil. Even with all the pro-labour policies of the government of Brazil, here is a private company that was actually privatized from government ownership and its attitude to workers’ rights around the world is shocking. We are only going to tackle that when we tackle it in every country, when we hurt their profit base and when the management has a rethink about what it is they should be doing to shore-up productivity and not put themselves at risk.
ANITA: Have we relied too much on "soft" mechanisms at the international level, such as International Framework Agreements or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines for multinationals?
SHARAN: It is not an either or. We have always employed tactics wherever they work. And sometimes you have to employ a number of tactics at the same time. It seems to me if we have got a complaint on the International Labour Organization’s application of standards, then we also ought to make sure that there is a parallel complaint to the OECD, that we are pushing the ILO’s multinationals committee, that we are using the UN declaration on multinationals, that we are pushing the company into dialogue to resolve the issues. We should even see if we have got a government who will stand by us and take the dispute to the World Trade Organization’s disputes tribunal.
All of these strategies are absolutely critical to consider and include if they will assist in strengthening our hand.
ANITA: Earlier you spoke of women being disproportionately represented in precarious forms of employment. What is the significance of you being elected the first woman as General Secretary of the international confederation and do you think this is an important part of strengthening our movement?
SHARAN: Well I hope that it is a symbol for women that they do have a role in the leadership of their unions. There is no doubt that our unions are stronger when women are incorporated and included in all the decision making structures of our unions: when they are in equal numbers with men in the governing bodies.
But it goes way beyond that. When you recruit a woman, because she is frustrated about her working world, then there is an understanding of not just those issues for herself, but she’ll understand what they mean for her children. So you usually recruit a woman and keep her for life. That natural collective instinct women bring to the trade union movement is absolutely incredible. Particularly given that women are overly represented in precarious employment along with young people. Women are overly represented in terms of discrimination; the pay gap is still an appalling story of the lack of capacity of a male-dominated world of work to value women’s skills and to recognize them as independent workers who deserve equal treatment.
These are absolutely the main issues, and organizing women is not just a joy because it works, but it is all about strengthening the union movement.
ANITA: What about the question of inclusion of trade unions from the South in international trade union structures? With the decline of membership and power of unions in the North at the international level there has been a real emphasis to bring more and more unions into the structures of our international unions – but not necessarily with an equal voice. How can we address the question of international strength in relation to unions from the South?
SHARAN: If our demand is to build strong, balanced and inclusive economies where the issues of equity are addressed, then we need to make sure that the voices of the trade unions of the South can carry equal weight of those of the North.
Of course there is a resource question – but it is a question where solidarity goes beyond simply being about resources. It is about joint activity, consolidated global activity, where everybody can play their role. Nobody can doubt that many of the trade unions of the South are very, very strong – pick a country, Brazil or South Africa, the courage of trade unions in Guinea and the Congo that are standing up for fundamental rights for democracy. Or the workers themselves, like migrant workers, or workers in China standing up for issues like silicosis, or the call for the banning of asbestos right around the world.
Everywhere we go unions have a capacity to act in their own context – we now have to aggregate that capacity and of course invite young people.
We had a generation of young workers in the North who, if you go back a decade or so ago, were in good jobs and it didn’t seem to them that this struggle for rights was such a big deal. They thought they were in a decent working environment – that was at odds of course with many people in the South. But now, post-crisis – with the terrible kind of vulnerability of secure employment for young people – we want to build out of people’s frustration and anger and that is where our strength will come from.
ANITA: Do you think that the union structures at the international level are capable of taking on the neo-liberal agenda that we face?
SHARAN: I do. I think there is a convergence of strength of global unions and their national memberships because they recognize the issues are common. Whether or not you have a right to bargain collectively is a common issue where it is denied all around the world. Whether you have a minimum wage, which is a living wage, is a common issue whether it is in America or Brazil, Egypt, Argentina or Colombia. There is no question that workplace rights are being abused in all parts of the world by too many corporations. And overwhelmingly governments are not standing up to them.
We are at a point in time where there is a convergence of all of those things: the corporate abuse of workers’ rights, the failure of government to stand up to the neo-liberal model of the Washington consensus, and that growth was the target at all costs, irrespective of whether you got jobs out of it. Added to this is the distribution of wealth through wages that are fair in terms of profits. All of these things are both in the workplace and political, and they are national and they are global, requiring us to act now across the union movement nationally and internationally.
The future of the world of work, the dignity of labour and the rights base that workers should enjoy is only going to be driven by us. If we can organize around these issues and hold governments to account where there have been failures to date then we have got a chance.

text & Photos / Michael Koen
Interpretation / Kapita Tuwizana

It’s a hot day even for Mozambique’s warm tropical winter in Mofalala, a dilapidated residential area on the outskirts of the capital city, Maputo. Mofalala, once home to the former president and liberation struggle leader Samora Machel, is not far from the upmarket suburbs inhabited by nouveau riche Mozambicans, tourists, officials and a legion of aid expats. Yet the stark contrast between these areas illustrates the vastness of the wealth divide in Mozambique that continues to grow wider by the day.
As far as trade union organizing contexts go, they don’t come much tougher. Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranked 175th of 179 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index. Unemployment is at 54 per cent and 74.7 per cent of the Mozambique population fall below the US$1.25 a day poverty line while 90 per cent are below US$2 per day.
Cesa Selvestre lives in Mofalala and is a welder at a typical small to medium engineering company in Maputo. He is also the chairperson of the workplace committee at his company and a long-time member of IMF affiliate Sindicato Nacional dos Trabalhadores da Indústria Metalúrgica Metalomecánica e Energia (Sintime), organizing in the metal and electricity sector in Mozambique.

WORKING TO SURVIVE
Cesa has worked for more than 40 years, most of which as a welder. He did not receive much formal education, learning on the job to weld both ferrous and non-ferrous metals. For these skills he earns approximately US$130 per month. By Mozambican standards Cesa is quite well paid. The minimum wage in the metal industry was recently adjusted up to US$67 and some reports put the real average wage for the country at about US$37. Despite this, Cesa explains that his wages are still insufficient to meet the needs of his family.
Cesa’s home is down a narrow dirt lane with run down houses encroaching from both sides. The lane requires careful navigation to avoid an open sewer snaking its way down the centre of the road. A young girl disposes of a bucket of waste water into the ditch. The sun is already unleashing an unpleasant odour from the stagnant water and it is hard not to think of this as a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Malaria is still the number one killer in Mozambique.
Cesa has lived in this house since 1977 and raised eight children in this time, two of which still live with him. Seven people now live in the house, including Cesa’s brother. He explains it is necessary for families to assist one another to be able to meet the cost of living. Cesa spends his entire wage every month on household expenses and others make up the balance of the approximate US$300 monthly household expenditure. On a per person basis this means they live on about US$1.42 per day.
There is no running water in the neighbourhood, residents bring water by the bucket for washing and cooking and purchase drinking water. The Selvestre household is part of the fortunate six per cent of Mozambique’s population to have access to electricity, although as Cesa points out it is one thing to have access, another to be able to afford it.
Like all Mozambican’s his age, Cesa’s life has been deeply affected by 30 years of near continuous war in the country. As a teen, Cesa started work in 1964, the same year as the independence struggle started in Mozambique where the Front for Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) led an armed struggle to end Portuguese colonial rule, which had been oppressive and discriminatory. Cesa’s father was one of the many people killed during this conflict.

FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE
Independence was achieved in 1975, around the same time that Cesa began working at Forjadora where he is still employed today. The state started to take over most companies as the Portugese left, abandoning and often destroying machinery as they went. Companies were nationalized and controlled by workers and smaller companies were joined together to achieve better economies of scale.
Francesco Bambo, a co-worker of Cesa, explains how at the time he was elected by workers to manage a factory where he was working after the Portuguese owners absconded. He was later transferred by the state to manage Forjadora. He left the company in 1981 and rejoined in 1987.
Post-independence peace was short lived. In 1976, the white minority Rhodesian government attacked Mozambique in response to the new government. Independence in 1980 for Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) once again brought hope for peace, but this too was short lived. U.S. President Ronald Reagan came to power in the same year on an anti-communist ticket and intensified the Cold War being fought by proxy in Africa in Angola and Mozambique. Renewed support for anti-liberalization forces in Mozambique came from the South African apartheid government and within a year war engulfed Mozambique once more.
Cesa and Francesco recall the huge refugee camps that surrounded Maputo and that at times during the conflict there was very little food available for anyone. From 1981 to 1992 over a million people died in the fighting or from starvation. A further five million, one third of the population, were displaced to urban centres or neighbouring countries.
Hostilities finally ended when apartheid ended in South Africa and the Cold War faltered. The fighting stopped in Mozambique in 1992 and elections were won by FRELIMO in 1994. There was a rapid demobilization of forces for in truth it had been a war of external interests and people on both sides were simply sick of the fighting. However by this time, the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) had firm control over the economy and policy and a neoliberal development trajectory was ensured.

PRIVATIZATION AND JOB LOSSES
Privatization began soon after the first structural adjustment programme was implemented leading to many job losses. Wages were also depressed. For example, due to the insistence of the International Monetary Fund the minimum wage was decreased from US$40 to US$15 per month between 1991 and 1995. The privatization of metal factories between 1987 and 2005 resulted in nearly 4,000 job losses in the Maputo province alone. Many companies closed after privatization, causing even more job losses. For a long time workers could do little to improve their situation as the employers simply threatened retrenchment and the union got progressively weaker.
The liberal development path also saw the beginnings of mega investment projects such as the Mozal aluminium smelter in 2000. This US$1.4 billion investment represents a particular form of development that has had little impact on poverty in the country. Mozal represents half of Mozambique’s exports and a large share of GDP but contributes very little in the form of tax, being situated in an industrial "free" processing zone.
Ten years on, this investment and allied industries have not yet managed to create the number of jobs lost during the liberalization process despite a GDP growth rate consistently above six per cent and per capita GDP doubling over the last decade. Even though workers at Mozal are paid more than others in the sector, there are relatively few jobs because of the capital intensive nature of the plant combined with the practice of outsourcing. As a result the plant has limited economic benefit to the country, but a lot for the larger shareholders.

UNION ORGANIZING
Sintime began organizing Mozal even before the plant opened. In cooperation with the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) a joint shop stewards council between Mozal and similar smelter operations in South Africa, also with BHP ownership, was set up. This proved to be an effective strategy and at first membership rose rapidly with industrial action occurring soon after the opening of the plant. But as Sintime fell into an organizational crisis much of this progress was undone.
In Mozal and elsewhere, the union paid insufficient focus on organizing and growing an involved membership base and as a result Sintime leadership started to become increasingly unaccountable. There were conflicts among office bearers and a loss of coordination between the national and provincial offices. The union became more about fundraising than organizing. Structures were not meeting, and the ineffectiveness of the union saw members voting with their feet and leaving. Employers obviously took advantage of the situation and things got worse for workers as a result.
Adriano Manhica, chair of the workers’ committee at Mozal, and a national office bearer in the union, explains that despite the good start made in organizing at Mozal the union was not able to retain membership. By 2006 membership had dropped from over 600 to just 185. He tells how the IMF and Numsa played an important role when the union was near collapse by changing strategy and working directly with shop stewards on the ground. This helped worker leaders to galvanize efforts for change in the union to rebuild its strength.

NEW LEADERSHIP
By 2007 there had been no Congress in Sintime for more than seven years, with the same office bearers holding onto their positions and using the lack of funds as justification not to hold constitutional meetings. This was unacceptable to workers and pressure increased from workers’ committees in all the provinces. Letters were continuously sent to the head office demanding and complaining that the union was not servicing members at all. Spontaneous workers’ meetings increased and calls for change grew louder. On June 18, 2007 the national council was convened and suspended the national secretariat and elected an interim committee.
In October 2007 a Congress was convened, with the assistance of the IMF and its Portuguese affiliate Sindicato das Industrias Metalurgicas e Afins (SIMA), and new leadership was elected. Unfortunately, in a dismaying incident it was found that monies were unaccounted for by the newly elected General Secretary. In a show of firm resolve to entrench good governance the new executive committee dealt with the situation immediately and Domingos Tembe took up the position of General Secretary.
Since then the union has made good progress. A clean out of the administrative systems and sound financial management has seen the union move from a position of defaulting on accounts to breaking even and beginning payments to purchase the space occupied by the head office. Membership has grown by nearly 40 per cent thanks to workers’ renewed faith in the union and as a result of worker centred organizing campaigns emphasizing recruitment and servicing. For example at Mozal, membership has grown to 485 people. "This has not been easy as once people leave the union it is hard to get them to join up again," explains Adriano, emphasizing that for a union to be sustainable it must be driven by shop floor interests.
Nationally Sintime now has 8,466 members with a potential of 13,544 in companies where Sintime already has a presence. The metal and electrical sectors are in fact larger than this but national statistics are not reliable and unavailable by industry. Numsa assisted by taking Sintime officials on an organizing campaign in South Africa. Many of the tactics used there have now been implemented in Mozambique. Domingos comments that the union used to ignore employers where they were not allowed in, while now they wait and meet workers outside the plant to organize them.
Sintime is proud of the fact that the majority of activities, salaries and costs are now paid for through union subscriptions and not donations. "In this way the union remains accountable to workers and is sustainable, but it required discipline in spending and hard work increasing membership and collecting subscriptions," explains Domingos. The process has also been helped by holding activities in all provinces allowing members to see their subscriptions in action. 2010 sees the first national council paid for by union funds and, in an attempt to improve transparency, the finances of the union will be published ahead of this meeting in the national press.

EXPANDING TO SMALL COMPANIES
Ana Maria de Jesus is a national office bearer and Sintime’s Secretary for Social Affairs and Grievance Handling since 2007. She explains that aside from the major transformation in the head office with the office bearers now working as a team, the union focused its efforts on consolidating its position in the largest employers initially and is now expanding to cover the smaller ones.
At the large companies this includes looking at outsourced workers. For instance Mozal uses an extensive system of outsourcing making organizing more difficult. There are more than 100 workers in the plant that are supposedly "in training" and employed by another company. Outsourcing is also built into the design of the plant where machinery maintenance is often outsourced to the supplying company.
A good example is to be found in French multinational ECL, the largest manufacturer of machinery and equipment for primary aluminium smelters in the world. ECL established a Mozambique subsidiary shortly after the opening of the Mozal plant. Zimba Sergio, one of about 75 staff at ECL, explains that when Mozal maintenance workers can’t fix a problem then ECL is called. However Zimba earns US$190 a month compared to a Mozal maintenance position which pays between US$842 to US$1,195. According to shop stewards at ECL, management argues that the lower wages are necessary as profit margins are tight because of the agreement with Mozal and its tendering system for non-ECL machine maintenance work.
To improve the organizing of smaller companies Sintime has begun pursuing compliance with collective bargaining agreements and become a lot more responsive to workers calls for intervention and assistance. In this regard, the provincial offices are the life blood of Sintime and the Maputo Provincial Branch is by far the most significant with 58 per cent of Sintime’s total membership.
This office organizes 158 companies and has achieved 52 collective agreements covering 5,432 workers and an active membership of 4,975 workers. There is a total potential membership of about 9,000 workers in the province, meaning the union has a penetration rate of 56 per cent. While there is some scope for expansion, ultimately, the size of the industry is the real obstacle to growth.
Organizing in a fragmented labour market with many small companies is difficult and time consuming. There are also huge differences in wages paid by employers making sector-based bargaining strategically difficult. Shop stewards do most of the recruiting and shop floor level education is an important part of this work. Education also acts as a pull to attract young people to the union and ensure that gender issues are continually addressed in this male dominated sector. These efforts have resulted in active gender and youth structures at the Maputo Provincial Branch.
The improvement of the shop floor focus in smaller companies appears to be paying dividends for workers. By 2006, 14 years post-conflict, Cesa and Francesco were both earning approximately US$65 per month at current exchange rates. That was just over the US$2 per day poverty line for skilled artisan work. This increased to US$74 by 2008. With renewed support from Sintime and concerted shop floor action by the workers’ committee by 2010 the wage, including performance bonuses, had doubled to US$130 per month. They are now pushing for a minimum wage of US$149 at the plant where the current minimum is US$82. Francesco feels the union has improved since the Congress but the important drive for change still comes from the workers.

LOW WAGES
Other than in a handful of larger plants, which are mostly foreign-owned, the overwhelming problem confronting the majority of workers is the extremely low level of wages. At the recent tripartite sector-based minimum wage deliberations the union demanded a minimum wage of US$185 per month, which was based on a basket of goods calculation. The wage was set at less than half this at US$63.
As is the case for Cesa, long-term employment is no antidote to poverty. The story of Cesa and others serves as a strong illustration of the realities of the working poor in Africa. As he nears the end of his working life Cesa worries about income after he has retired. He does not know how much income he will receive from the social security system, but expects that things will get harder as the years go on.
A growing level of child malnutrition after 17 years of peace and significant economic growth is a worrying sign for Mozambique. A new generation has grown up without the memory of war, simply the experience of deprivation. Scarcely a week after visiting Cesa and Sintime, bloody riots raged in Maputo over bread and power price increases. Police opened fire on protestors, 13 people were killed including two children, and 27 were wounded while hundreds have been injured and detained.
Similar protests erupted in 2008 following the announcement of fuel price increases. In both cases the government was forced to back down. The actions of these thousands of protestors speak of a people on the very edge of survival. Building strong unions in Mozambique goes beyond improving conditions for workers in the metal sector; it is about strengthening the voice of the people that says the choice between working in poverty and unemployed destitution is not a development choice at all.
In addition to IMF and Numsa, CNM/CUT, CAW and FIM/CISL have provided financial and practical assistance to Sintime in Mozambique in the last two years. IMF plans to continue its union building work in Mozambique, including a particular focus on gender, through support from Numsa, CAW and SASK.


Nationally Sintime now has 8,466 members with a potential of 13,544 in companies where Sintime already has a presence.

AUSTRIA: IMF affiliate PRO-GE signed a new collective agreement, covering some 165,000 employees and workers in the metalworking and mining industry sector. This outcome was achieved due to pressure on the employers’ side after nationwide works council conferences and some 400 staff meetings had been organized to inform the workers and discuss possible industrial action.

The agreement includes a range of improvements for workers. The main aspects are:

• an increase in minimum wages/salaries by 2.5 percent
• an increase in effectively paid wages/salaries by 2.3 percent, with a minimum pay rise of 45 Euros (resulting in lower wage groups gaining increases of up to three per cent), and
• a new collectively agreed gross minimum wage of 1,515.84 Euros.

The union also said the workers will get an extra one-off payment dependent on the business performance at individual company level to be paid in March 2011.

The new collective agreement will take effect from November 1, 2010 and the deadline for renewal is 12 months.

"Negotiations proved difficult, it took us three negotiation rounds the last of which continued 17 hours to conclude a new agreement. This was due to the intransigent attitude on the employers’ side to raise their meagre offer (two per cent pay rise), put forward during the second bargaining session, unless our negotiation team would agree to withdraw their demand for reduction in working time," said the PRO-GE in a statement.

AUSTRALIA: Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and its members protested outside the gates of Caterpillar for nearly an hour on November 11, calling on management to redeploy them elsewhere in the company.

In total, 60 full-time Caterpillar employees and a further 40 labour hire workers have been told operations where Caterpillar currently assembles the big, yellow mining trucks at Tullamarine in Victoria will cease on December 15.

IMF affiliate AMWU’s national secretary Dave Oliver said, "They’ve indicated they’ll be importing the product they used to manufacture here from Mexico."

Caterpillar said in a statement that the type of work being done at the factory is changing.

"The company preaches about respecting family values. Well, where are they now?" said Dave Oliver.

 The union is currently negotiating with the company to ensure workers receive full redundancy entitlements. AMWU is also demanding greater government action in support of the manufacturing industry and sustainable jobs.