GLOBAL:  Under the slogan "No to austerity, priority to jobs and growth" the European Day of Action took place mainly in the streets of Spain and Belgium, and Ireland, Italy and Poland, to demonstrate the workers’ concerns and to fight for jobs in European manufacturing industries.

The current austerity measures threaten the fragile recovery in the industries and are leading to greater deindustrialization in Europe and a deep social recession. The European Metalworkers’ Federation called for a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) for investment and jobs to keep industries afloat.

Many governments across the 27-member bloc have imposed punishing cuts in wages, pensions and employment to deal with spiraling debts.

The protest included the Spanish trade unions’ general strike – the first in eight years. They are protesting against a five per cent average reduction in wages this year, part of the Spanish government’s austerity cuts worth 15 billion Euros, passed by a very small majority in Spanish government this year.

In Spain, 10 million people, more than 70 per cent of the workforce was on strike, said IMF affiliates UGT and CCOO. They were protesting in the streets of several Spanish cities.

The secretaries of the Organization of the CCOO and UGT, José Antonio del Campo and Javier Cubillo, have criticized the "brutality" of police raids on union picket lines, something that has not happened in previous strikes. In total, more than 40 people have been arrested. Some have been released, but others remain in police custody waiting to testify.

In Brussels at least 50,000 workers took part in the ETUC’s demonstrations. About 50 trade unions from around Europe sent representatives to the Brussels march, as many as from 30 countries, with the demonstration culminated in the city’s European quarter near the headquarters of the EU Commission and the European Council.

Some workers were dressed in black suits with black face masks, carrying umbrellas and briefcases, acting as the head of a funeral cortege mourning the death of Europe. EU workers may become the biggest victims of a financial crisis set off by bankers and traders.

Other actions also happened in Portugal, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Serbia, Romania, Poland, Ireland and France.

EMF reports on the day can be seen here.

AFRICA/CANADA: The ICEM’s Sub-Sahara Africa Regional Organisation (SSARO), at its Executive Committee Meeting in Mauritius, September 27 to 28, adopted a resolution affirming continued commitment to challenge mining multinational Vale in Africa. "SSARO affiliates will oppose all Vale investments in Africa and those of its surrogates until Vale demonstrates a willingness to drop its anti-union behaviour," states the resolution.

The resolution was adopted unanimously by the ICEM African affiliates, building on their commitment of April 6 during the ‘Week of Action on Vale’ when SSARO’s Executive Committee denounced Vale’s attacks on workers in Canada and throughout the world, and resolved to oppose the investment of Vale in Africa.

Vale continues hostile demands on workers at Voisey’s Bay, Newfoundland, Canada, to accept large concessions and worse terms than those agreed in settling the bitter disputes at Sudbury and Port Colborne. The corporate management of Vale maintains the unacceptable position that they cannot intervene in the dispute, instead settlement must be reached by local management and workers.

The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) and the IMF have been fighting a global campaign against Vale’s anti-union practices and efforts to spread their intolerable treatment of workers to Africa and throughout the world.

"The ICEM affiliates of Africa have shown their strength in unity by confronting the second largest mining company in the world, and refusing their anti-worker practices. We salute them for this and pledge our full continued support to the campaign," stated ICEM general secretary Manfred Warda.

The opposition to Vale in Africa includes the 50/50 joint venture between Vale and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), a South African mining company that acts as a gateway for Vale to Africa’s mineral resources.

Vale has begun construction of the Konkola North Project in Zambia, where the Brazilian multinational plans to invest US$400 million in the copper mine. This is strongly opposed by the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ), who have questioned the legality of the mine’s lease.

View the Resolution in its entirety here.

BRAZIL: On September 23 and 24 an international seminar on forming union networks in Latin American TNCs took place in Rio de Janeiro, representatives of the global federations representing the workers in metallurgical, chemical, construction and wood sectors took part.

Supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), the aim of the meeting was to exchange experiences on existing networking activities and joint planning of actions in these companies. GUFs and unions provided information on several companies, as well as on the relationship (or lack thereof) that currently exists between companies and unions.

The companies reviewed were Vale, WEG, Votorantim, Petrobras, and Arauco Odebrecht. All of the companies are involved in more than one sector, and some engage in unacceptable anti-union practices.

"Unfortunately, we have suffered so much abuse by foreign TNCs. But today we see that the Latin American TNCs are no different. Our experience also shows that the anti-union practices and disregard of workers’ rights by some companies are even more fierce in the countries where the company has opened new operations than in their home countries," said IMF assistant general secretary Fernando Lopes.

During the meeting, all participants decided to support the workers struggle at Brazilian TNC Vale’s operations in Voisey’s Bay, Canada, where roughly 200 workers have been on strike since August 1, 2009, after the company would only accept to renew the collective agreement if the workers represented by USW agreed to a drastic reduction in conditions and increased job insecurity.

IMF regional representative for Latin America and Caribbean, Jorge Almeida said, "This meeting was also a first step in the region. In a few years we will work on a global scale with the merger of three confederations overall: IMF (Metalworkers), ICEM (Chemical) and ITGLWF (Textiles)".

The meeting included affiliates from Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru affiliated to IMF, ICEM and BWI and were joined by representatives from IG Metall, Germany and the Solidarity Center of AFL-CIO, USA.

INDIA: Foxconn India management’s defiance to recognise the demands of the Foxconn India Thozhilalar Sangam (FITS) union affiliated to the Centre of India Trade Unions (CITU), on wages and reinstatement of 23 workers, caused workers to commence an industrial struggle on September 22, 2010.

On September 8, FITS, claiming membership of around 1,500 workers out of the 1,800 total of regular workers, gave notice to strike to Foxconn India management demanding wage negotiations. However, the management entered in to an agreement with Foxconn India Thozhilalar Munnetra Sangam (FITMS), a union affiliated to LPF workers wing of ruling DMK party.

From the early hours of September 22, 2010, FITS commenced its "sit-in" strike, around 1,500 workers participated and half of them are women workers. Around 6,000 contract workers and trainees were also not allowed to work by the strikers. In the evening of the same day workers called off the strike as the Foxconn India management promised to discuss with the FITS union in the presence of District Labour Commissioner on September 27, 2010.

However, on September 23, Foxconn India informed the workers that it already entered in to a memorandum of understanding with the FITMS union, hence no negotiations with FITS and announced the imposition of eight days wage cut for workers who participated in the strike.

Protesting against the management action, FITS resumed the sit-in strike on  September 24. The management used police to arrest 1,500 workers and suspended 23 activists.

Consistent pressure by the union forced the Foxconn India management to come to negotiation table with the FITS union on September 27.  However, management’s refusal to consider FITS’s demands has resulted in the union continuing its struggle.

The major demands of the union include:

• CITU union is demanding basic pay of Rs10,000 (US$221 approx) for the regular workers. Currently a regular worker with four years of experience receive only Rs4800 (US$106 – approx) on CTC basis.
• Reinstatement of 23 workers.

UKRAINE: Seeking to increase trade union influence and visibility, communicators of trade union organisations in the CIS countries agreed on September 28 to step up efforts to report on union actions in the region.

The unions committed to working closely with the IMF Regional Office in Moscow to regularly gather and report on union actions and issues taking place in the region.

The IMF CIS Communicators’ Forum brought together communications professionals and union leadership to look at how to improve union communications, particularly in the context of building international solidarity.

The meeting included a review on the role of communications in the respective affiliated organisations, an outline of IMF communications work, a workshop on writing news for the internet and information about internet tools available to trade unions for strengthening communications capacity.

Representatives of SPM and REPAM from Belarus, FNSM from Moldova, Profavia, MMWU, EWU and ITUA from Russia, and TUAB, AAMWU, Mashmetal, MMIWU, TUDIW and REMWU from Ukraine participated in the meeting with IMF head office and CIS regional office representatives.

The presentations given at the meeting are published here on the IMF website.

The meeting was the second regional communicators’ forum held by the IMF this year, following an earlier meeting in South Asia, and is part of a strategy to strengthen IMF and union communications working closely with affiliates and building a Communicators’ Network.

GERMANY: A new employment pact was concluded on September 22 by the Works Council, IMF affiliate IG Metall and the Siemens Managing Board. It is unlimited and includes an agreement that layoffs in Germany and relocation cannot be enforced without consultation with the workers. The agreement provides employees substantial guarantees in terms of job security and joint management.

IG Metall president and IMF president, Berthold Huber, states that the agreement creates an important basis for future developments at Siemens. "The new agreements provide the employees of Siemens security and job protection for future changes and Siemens continues to show social responsibility towards its employees."

In addition, the agreement strengthens information and consultation rights of workers’ representatives, representing a remarkable development of the participation rights of workers, said Huber.

The newly reached unlimited agreement builds on an earlier agreement signed in 2008, which will expire on September 30, 2010, and includes issues such as the relocation or closure of sites at least until 2013. In addition, it provides extensive information and consultation rights to the employees in investment decisions, any proposed restructuring and location decisions.

The scope of the agreement has also been improved, with the scope no longer restricted to Siemens AG, but now extended to the whole group, covering a total of 128,000 workers.

GLOBAL: At a meeting in Brussels last week, the International Metalworkers’ Federation and its affiliates committed to giving renewed impetus to global trade union work in the Mechanical Engineering sector including holding a global conference on the subject in 2011.

At the working group meeting on September 23, the participants assessed the situation in mechanical engineering in light of the financial crisis and defined priorities for the sector as part of the implementation of the IMF Action Programme.

Given that Mechanical Engineering is not a uniform sector, the participants recommended to focus on three sub-sectors:

• Construction equipment and machines
• Agricultural implements
• Machine tools

Although Mechanical Engineering is characterized by a large number of Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), often acting as suppliers to industries as diverse as automotive, aerospace, transportation or food, there are also a few TNCs in this sector that could be targeted for networking, in addition to Caterpillar. These include, for example, Case New Holland (CNH), John Deere and Komatsu. Therefore there is need for a two-tier approach, building networks at the company and the sub-sectoral levels.

The participants identified a number of key issues that should be addressed in future IMF work: precarious work, training (Mechanical Engineering employs a large number of skilled workers), health and safety, green technologies and organizing/union-building. The IMF and European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) also committed to work together to advance workers’ rights in this sector.

Participants included representatives from IG Metall, UAW, FO-Metaux and FGMM-CFDT, UNIA, Unite, PRO-GE, IMF-JC/JAM and the EMF.

AFRICA: The leaders of metalworkers’ unions affiliated to the IMF in Europe and in 14 countries of English- and Portuguese-speaking Africa, and the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) met in Johannesburg, South Africa, on September 21 to 23 to discuss the repercussions of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and African countries on jobs and industrialization in developing and emerging countries.

The role of Africa in world trade as a key provider of commodities – energy and minerals – and as a great market for the increasing expansion of China was analyzed. Concerns were expressed by the African participants about the pressure put by the EU on African governments in the ongoing EPAs negotiations to obtain market openings in sectors either with high labour intensity or of strategic importance for their social and development policies. The predictable consequence would be a serious loss of policy space for the African countries, and their employment and industrial development policies would thus be severely undermined.

Interestingly participants from industrial countries, such as Canada, pointed at similar concerns behind the trade unions’ negative assessment of the potential impact of an FTA between their country and the EU. Also India’s experience with trade liberalization was thoroughly analyzed with conclusions about a possible EU-India FTA that echoed the concerns expressed by African and European participants.

Criticism was expressed for the EU insistence on the introduction in EPAs of clauses, e.g. the MFN (most favoured nation), that would seriously undermine Africa’s prospects for South-South cooperation and its choice of other trade partners. Furthermore, the EU strategy to negotiate separately with African countries is undermining Africa’s efforts towards a much needed regional integration that is crucial in particular for the integration of productive chains and for industrialization. In this respect a thorough analysis of the experience of trade unions in Latin America with regional integration processes was presented.

At a round table with the South African Government the representative of the Department of Trade and Industry presented the new trade policy framework that focuses on the strategic integration of targeted trade liberalization measures with industrial policy objectives. Tariff policy, in this context, becomes an instrument of industrial policy. The framework, based on the safeguard of South Africa’s policy space in multi- and bi-lateral negotiations, on South-South relations, and on the objective of decent work, is inspired by an integration model of developmental regionalism. The development of regional value chains with the building of industrial complementarity is still possible for Africa in the globalization era. A new approach is being put in place in the economic relationship with China. The representative of the Department for Economic Development underlined the successful creation of two million new jobs; these however are not in manufacturing but in services, that are accessible to the rich. This reflects a growing income disparity that needs to be addressed urgently. Furthermore social measures must be adopted together with industry development policies to ensure an income to the unemployed while industry jobs are created – which takes time. All development policy measures need to be thought of in an integrated manner and inequality has to be addressed at the same time. Regional development objectives cannot be addressed by slogans and realistic measures have to be adopted  to manage the transition without loosing jobs.

All participants, particularly from African and European countries, agreed on the need to establish a permanent dialogue between the metalworkers in countries involved in EPA negotiations  to urgently address all aspects that are potentially detrimental to workers and to look jointly for fair compromise solutions to possible conflicts of interest between the workers of the concerned countries. Regional and international trade union bodies were asked to facilitate such search for solidarity. The African delegates proposed that their European counterparts support with concrete initiatives the African countries’ right to self-determination and that joint actions be put in place.

The texts of all the contributions will be available soon.

GERMANY: Forty delegates representing the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) met on September 20-21 in Bad Münder, Germany. This was the first meeting of a joint task force set up by the decision making bodies of the three global union federations.

IMF’s Executive Committee nominated in June its representatives to this preparatory working group. The task force was asked to look at the political project, structures, finances, and a possible timeline for uniting the 55 million workers represented by the three organizations into a unified global union federation.

Task force members from five continents acknowledged the rationale of the unifying process to create a united voice of the industrial workers of the world, and a strong counterpower to major multinational corporations. Unions want to underline the role of manufacturing industry as the locomotive of national economies and as a creator of good quality jobs with decent working conditions and trade union rights.

The meeting decided to set up a working group to look at the financial questions and to start drafting the statutes for a new organization for a continued discussion on decision-making, regional and sectoral structures. The task force will report back to the Executive Committees of the three federations and will meet again in the beginning of December in Geneva.

INDIA/SLOVAKIA: The Tamil Nadu government in India has deferred a decision on reinstatement of 35 dismissed workers of Hyundai Motor India Ltd for the fourth time, despite promising a decision on September 20, 2010.

After a four day strike at Hyundai Motors in Chennai, India from June 6 to 9, 2010, a tri-partite committee consisting of two representatives from the union, company management and the labour ministry was established to review and decide on the case for reinstatement of the workers that were dismissed following the formation of the Hyundai Motor India Employees’ Union (HMIEU), which is affiliated to CITU, at the plant in 2007.

While the representatives of HMIEU and the company have submitted their arguments on the reinstatement, the labour commissioner officials have to give their recommendation, which is binding on both the parties.

The ongoing dispute at the Chennai plant was one of the subjects discussed at a second IMF Hyundai/Kia global union network meeting held in Bratislava, Slovakia from September 14 to 16, 2010.

Participants at the meeting came from trade unions representing Hyundai/Kia workers in Korea, the home country of the company, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, India, Turkey, Germany and the U.S.

After a detailed report by the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) representatives on the company, including issues of employment, precarious work and unionization, each of the other delegates reported about the situation in their country.

The main focus of the meeting was to strengthen the global network of trade union representatives in the company and to make sure that a good working information system will be installed. Participants at the meeting decided:

• To do a survey to collect and distribute all the necessary information and trial the agreed communication system,
• That until a key coordinator is identified from Korea, Helmut Lense, the director of the IMF Automotive Department will organise the information exchange, and
• To name a "contact person" from each country who will be responsible for maintaining contact with the network and collecting and distributing information and demands at the national level.

At the meeting a decision to explore establishing a European Works Council within Hyundai/Kia was also taken. The Slovak contact person was assigned to research and report on the first steps in consultation with the European Metalworkers’ Federation.

The meeting was hosted by OZ KOVO, the Slovak union which organised the Kia plant in Slovakia. On the final day of the meeting, all the delegates visited The Kia plant in Zilina, Slovakia.