We don’t stay young forever: why I keep making space for young workers

My father was a truck driver. My mother was a domestic worker for the same white family. As a child growing up under apartheid in South Africa, I watched the way they were treated, the deference expected of them simply because of the racial and social realities of the time. Those experiences planted the seeds of resistance.

When I started working in a small electronics company where most of the workers were women, I recognized the same power dynamics on the factory floor. I asked difficult questions. I pushed back when consultants were brought in to time workers and squeeze out more production. Because of that, I became a shop steward as a young woman, stepping in for a colleague on maternity leave. I never looked back.

I tell this story on International Youth Day for a simple reason. When I look at young workers now, I see a reflection of myself: curious, questioning, determined. Someone made space for me. That is the debt every generation of trade unionists owes the next.

We don’t stay young forever

Here is the hardest truth about renewal in any movement: none of us stays young. A union that treats its young members as the leaders of some distant tomorrow will wake up one day without leaders at all.

And let us be honest: making space is not always comfortable. Every generation worries about losing influence, about handing over things it built. I understand that fear. But leadership is not diminished by sharing responsibility. It is strengthened by it. The alternative is not holding on to power. It is watching the movement shrink around us.

Young workers are not waiting for us to resolve that discomfort. In July, out of a youth academy in the Philippines, came a plan for a regional labour education campaign on TikTok and Instagram, aiming to reach 4,000 young workers and recruit 700 new members across seven countries within six months. It is led by young unionists like Jean Faye Daguman, co-chair of our new Asia Pacific regional youth committee. That is not the future of organizing. That is organizing.

What young workers bring

This is why youth representation is a strategy, not a demographic exercise. Young workers are organizing in sectors unions have often struggled to reach. They understand digital organizing, platform work and new forms of precarious employment because they live them every day. They bring new tools alongside the values that have always defined our movement. If we are unable to organize young workers, very soon we will talk about IndustriALL as an organization that existed a few years ago.

From demand to structure

Young workers in IndustriALL have been building patiently for more than a decade, from the first regional youth networks to the 2021 Congress resolution that declared: “The future is ours, the future is now!” At our 4th Congress in Sydney in November 2025, affiliates answered. We amended our statutes, set a target of 30 per cent youth representation at all levels and created a global youth committee fed by regional structures.

Within months, young workers founded regional committees in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa and Asia Pacific, joining long-standing structures in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. The United Nations theme for this International Youth Day is “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations,” and I can think of no better illustration: a young miner in South Africa, a garment worker in Cambodia and an apprentice in Argentina live very different realities, yet they are building the same movement.

On 28 May 2026, the global youth committee met for the first time, and two youth representatives now sit on our Executive Committee as full members. Nobody handed them this architecture. They built it.

I am especially committed to young women finding their rightful place in our unions. I know the barriers they face because I faced them myself. When young women lead, entire communities benefit.

What comes next

The global youth committee meets again in September and its first youth policy goes to our Executive Committee in November. My message to affiliates is simple: open your structures, share your resources and trust young workers with real responsibility.

For me, leadership has never been about position or status. It has always been about service. The strongest legacy any of us can leave is a movement in better hands than we found it.

We don’t stay young forever. The movement does, if we let it.

Combating forced labour in the electronics sector through social dialogue

Under the ElectroPower project, around one hundred participants took part in three multi-stakeholder round tables. They included trade unionists, migrant worker representatives, employer representatives, government officers and ILO representatives, meeting in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok in July and August.

Unionists and migrant workers gave testimony on forced labour in the industry. They described retention of identity documents, excessive overtime, and withholding and unlawful deduction of wages. They also pointed to excessive recruitment fees and abusive working and living conditions.

Indonesian unionists pointed to risks further upstream. Long-running labour disputes have hit the nickel operations in Morowali, a key source of material for batteries and components. They have exposed frequent workplace accidents and excessive working hours. Gender-based violence and harassment have also come to light.

Malaysian union leaders from the electronics industry called on employers and government authorities to address employer interference in the right to freedom of association. They stressed that a union presence is what makes rights enforceable and forced labour preventable at the workplace.

In Thailand, migrant workers in electronics face heightened risks: short-term contracts, gaps in social security registration, exposure to chemical leaks and unfair dismissal.

Participants agreed that stronger labour inspection is needed. They also called for joint training on forced labour indicators to improve monitoring across the industry and its supply chain. They welcomed further social dialogue with stakeholders across the sector.

Alexander Ivanou, IndustriALL director for ICT, electrical and electronics said:

“Workers are usually the first to see a problem, but the last to be heard, which is why IndustriALL is calling for a worker-driven approach to remediation — their voices have to be part of the solution, not something added at the end. That means workers must be able to raise concerns without fear of retaliation. Every worker in this sector, local or migrant, woman or man, should be able to work in conditions of dignity, safety and freedom.”

The ElectroPower project is co-funded by the European Union. It aims to prevent and remedy forced labour in the electronics supply chain through responsible employment practices and stronger institutional responses.

IndustriALL condemns dismissal of union representatives at Yokohama Tire Manufacturing Mexico

The dismissals of Miriam Alejandra Alducin Sánchez, José Julián Martínez Núñez and Arturo Luna Peña have raised serious concerns about respect for freedom of association and protection against anti-union discrimination during workers’ efforts to choose their union representation.

IndustriALL has written to Yokohama’s global leadership expressing concern over reports of procedural irregularities during the representativeness process. These include delays, unequal treatment of trade unions and the dismissals of Liga representatives.

IndustriALL has also written to the Centro Federal de Conciliación y Registro Laboral (CFCRL), with a copy to Mexico’s Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare. The letter calls on the authorities to safeguard the integrity of the representativeness process and ensure that workers are able to exercise their rights free from intimidation, discrimination or retaliation.

The dispute concerns the process through which workers at the new Yokohama tyre plant in Saltillo choose the trade union that will represent them. According to reports received by IndustriALL and its Mexican affiliates, the Liga Sindical Obrera Mexicana successfully obtained the number of worker signatures required under Mexican labour law to request a Constancia de Representatividad.

However, the union has reported a series of irregularities during the process. These include delays in the handling of its application, the company’s failure to post the required official notice, unequal treatment of trade union representatives and the denial of reasonable access for Liga representatives to communicate with workers. Most seriously, three Liga representatives have now been dismissed during the representativeness process.

IndustriALL calls for respect for workers’ rights

The tyre manufacturing sector in Mexico is covered by the national Contrato Ley de la Industria Hulera. This establishes minimum wages and working conditions across the sector. The current representativeness process concerns which trade union will represent workers at the Yokohama facility for collective bargaining purposes.

IndustriALL has called on Yokohama to immediately reinstate the dismissed representatives, ensure strict neutrality throughout the representativeness process, provide equal treatment to all trade unions and fully respect workers’ rights to freedom of association.

The global union has also urged the Mexican labour authorities to ensure that the representativeness process proceeds in accordance with Mexican labour legislation. Workers should be able to exercise their right to choose their representatives freely and without intimidation, discrimination or retaliation.

“Workers must be free to choose their union without fear of discrimination or retaliation. We urge Yokohama to reinstate the dismissed representatives and to ensure that the representativeness process proceeds in a manner that fully respects workers’ rights and Mexico’s labour legislation,”

said IndustriALL General Secretary Atle Høie.

IndustriALL will continue to monitor developments closely in cooperation with its affiliates in Mexico and internationally. The global union will continue to support workers in their efforts to exercise their fundamental trade union rights.



FESITEX Nicaragua secures benefits for 249 workers

The textile screen-printing company had dismissed most of its staff without paying severance and other benefits required under Nicaraguan labour law. In March 2026, IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie wrote to BTF’s management, denouncing the breaches. BTF managing director Giljoo Han replied, acknowledging the outstanding obligations. He attributed the delays to a difficult economic situation and presented a new payment plan drawn up with the Ministry of Labour.

Social dialogue resolves the dispute

In April, company and worker representatives met at BTF’s premises. They confirmed that 249 workers were owed payments. They agreed a phased settlement based on the Ministry of Labour’s official calculations and relevant court rulings. Despite a temporary closure due to a lack of orders, BTF made its first payment, to 61 workers, on 5 May.

On 31 July 2026, BTF, the former workers and the Trade Union Confederation of Free Zone Workers, CST-ZF/CST, signed a settlement agreement. The agreement formally recognizes that social dialogue delivered the solution. BTF made full, individual payment of all benefits owed to 188 former workers. This included length-of-service pay, holiday pay, thirteenth month’s salary and outstanding wages. Together with the 61 paid in May, this resolved the claims of all 249 workers.

FESITEX general secretary Pedro Ortega said:

“We would like to thank everyone for their international support and solidarity. Without that backing it would not have been possible to reach this agreement. Social dialogue is a tool to achieve satisfactory solutions when labour disputes arise. We also thank the company for its willingness to reach this solution.”

BTF will resume operations from 20 August, hiring 36 workers under a new production order. The company hopes to expand this in the coming months, gradually reopening fully and creating up to 300 jobs.

IndustriALL’s regional secretary, Marino Vani, said:

“Despite the long road to this agreement, we welcome it with great satisfaction. It is the result of FESITEX’s perseverance and the commitment of those who never stopped pushing for a fair solution.

“We are confident the commitments made will be fully honoured, and we thank everyone whose collective effort made this progress possible. This agreement stands as an example of organisation, solidarity and the defence of workers’ rights.”

NUMSA strike forces First Battery to review retrenchments

For 125 workers at First Battery’s East London plant, the retrenchment letter was blunt: a standard severance package, a fixed date, and little room for negotiations with the union. 

However, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which represents the majority of the plant’s workforce and an IndustriALL affiliate, immediately issued a 48-hour strike notice on 2 July. Seventeen days later, on 22 July, First Battery’s owner, Metair, signed a memorandum of agreement. This document improved the terms workers had been offered and committed management to review how retrenchment selections were made.

The revised package improves the retrenchment terms. Severance rises to three weeks’ pay per completed year of service for the first six years and one week thereafter, on top of a R70 000 (US $4292) ex-gratia lump sum for every retrenched worker. Workers will remain on the books and receive full pay until 31 July. In addition, they are entitled to pro-rata bonuses, accumulated leave, long-service awards and severance pay. Metair has committed to speeding up these payments.

Two provisions reach beyond the immediate retrenchments. First, management must investigate specific grievances about how workers were selected for the cut, including the application of “last-in, first-out” principles and claims that skills-retention criteria were not done fairly. Second, should the company contemplate further job cuts after a two-month operational review, it is bound to offer any future voluntary severance process on the same improved terms as per memorandum of understanding.

The agreement also commits senior Metair leadership to a two-day workers’ indaba(conference) with NUMSA. Ideally, the meeting will take place over a weekend so as not to disrupt production. At the conference, the company will set out its strategy and hear proposals from the shop floor. There is also the possibility of an external facilitator.

With the settlement signed, NUMSA suspended the strike and workers returned to normal shifts by 23 July. Those who returned by that date qualified for a R2,000 (US$123) advance to cover transport costs. As majority representative at the plant, NUMSA’s agreement binds all affected workers as per Labour Relations Act. This applies regardless of individual union membership.

NUMSA general secretary, Irvin Jim, said the outcome is a result of collective action. 

“Through the unified, militant action of workers, combined with unwavering solidarity, together we have forced management to concede,”

he said, adding that the union “will fight relentlessly to defend and advance the interests of the working class.”

“We support NUMSA for fighting for jobs. Saving jobs is critical at this moment when South Africa’s automotive component sector is under sustained pressure from weak domestic demand, competition from imported parts and the slow pace of local value addition,”

said IndustriALL Sub-Saharan Africa regional secretary, Paule-France Ndessomin.

Sintracarbón signs labour transition pact with Colombian government

More than 3,000 workers were made redundant in 2021 following the closure of the coal operations of Prodeco, a Glencore subsidiary, in the Cesar mining corridor. For years, the National Union of Coal Industry Workers (Sintracarbón, an IndustriALL Colombian affiliate) and the families affected by the redundancies campaigned for support. Their efforts led to collaboration with Gustavo Petro’s government to launch a Labour Retraining Programme for the Cesar Mining Corridor. The programme aims to tackle the unemployment crisis.

New opportunities for mining workers

As a result of this initiative, 104 former workers took part in the programme, where they acquired the necessary skills to enter the electricity and renewable energy sectors, opening the door to new opportunities for formal employment.

On 25 July 2026, in Valledupar, they received their professional registration certificates from the National Council of Electrical Technicians (CONTE), which certify their skills as electrical technicians specialising in photovoltaic energy and facilitate their entry into the labour market in this new sector.

The presentation of the certificates took place during a ceremony that also marked a further step forward in the country’s energy transition policy.

The president of Sintracarbón, Jaime López García, stated:

“Sintracarbón is moving in the right direction. Vocational retraining must be provided today to those who urgently need it, because multinationals and previous governments have left them without jobs in the coal mining sector. The administrations in La Guajira and Cesar, still stuck in the old political mindset, are failing to develop economic plans that generate the same number of job opportunities in other productive sectors.

The achievements we have witnessed today with these groups of men and women during this event allow us to affirm that we are on the right track. Sintracarbón will continue to promote this policy to as many people as possible, always with the people, the region and better social conditions for our regions in mind.”

A pact for a just energy transition

At the same event, the ministry of mines and energy, the ministry of labour, the ministry of the environment, the national learning service (SENA), CONTE and the trade union organizations signed the Grand Pact for Labour and Productive Restructuring.

This is a government commitment developed in collaboration with workers, trade unions and communities to consolidate a just energy transition that protects jobs, drives economic diversification and strengthens governance in mining regions.

The Grand Pact forms part of the Colombian government’s just energy transition strategy to ensure that no worker is left unprotected during mine closures and decarbonisation processes. To this end, the comprehensive model for labour and productive transition comprises three instruments:

Through these measures, the Colombian government aims to ensure that the closure of the mines does not merely mark the end of an economic activity, but rather the beginning of a transformation based on labour justice, social dialogue and the creation of new opportunities for mining communities.

IndustriALL Latin America regional secretary, Marino Vani, said:

“We congratulate the leadership of Sintracarbón. These advances represent much more than a regulatory victory: they are the result of years of collective struggle, organization and commitment by workers in the mining sector in Colombia.

The losses, the social and environmental impacts, and the burdens arising from mining activity cannot continue to fall, as has so often been the case, on the shoulders of the workers and the affected communities.

Today we celebrate this step forward, but we also know that every right we have won must be defended. That is why we must remain united, organized and strengthened within our trade union to ensure compliance with this decree and prevent future governments from rolling back these achievements. Similarly, it is essential that we remain vigilant, mobilized and committed to demanding that companies respect and implement these advances.

The struggle of those who defend justice continues. Let us continue to forge that path together.”

Pakistan coal mine explosion renews calls for stronger mine safety

Rescue operation and rising death toll

Rescue teams are still recovering bodies following the explosion, with casualties currently considered to be 34, while investigations into the cause of the disaster continue.

The explosion is the latest in a series of fatal mining accidents that have continued to claim workers’ lives across Pakistan. Despite sustained efforts by trade unions to improve occupational safety and health, miners continue to lose their lives in preventable incidents involving gas explosions, roof collapses and other workplace hazards, highlighting the urgent need for stronger enforcement of mine safety standards.

Following the completion of a nearly 45-hour recovery operation, all miners trapped in the disaster have been accounted for, with no survivors reported. The Balochistan government has ordered a high-level inquiry, sealed four mines and announced compensation for the affected families.

Unions demand accountability

IndustriALL affiliate, the Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF), has called for an independent judicial investigation, accountability for negligence and stronger mine inspections. Both PCMLF and the Pakistan Mine Workers Federation (PMWF) have also called for the immediate ratification and effective implementation of ILO Convention No. 176 on Safety and Health in Mines.

Calls for stronger safety measures

The mining affiliates recently reported that their monitoring indicates that mining fatalities have declined by approximately 50 per cent over the past two years. However, they stressed that every preventable death underlines the need for continued and stronger action to improve mine safety.

They have also called for expanded mandatory safety training and measures to ensure that every mine is equipped with modern gas-detection, ventilation, communication and emergency-rescue systems. They have demanded greater accountability wherever negligence contributes to workplace fatalities, as well as the full participation of workers’ organizations in mine-safety governance.

This accident is yet another reminder that safe and healthy working conditions are a fundamental right. Effective mine safety depends not only on technical measures but also on strong labour inspection systems, social dialogue and workers having the freedom to organize and raise safety concerns without fear of reprisal.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary, Kemal Özkan, says:

“Compensation cannot replace the lives of miners or ease the profound loss suffered by their families. The mining industry can only be sustainable when every employer, every authority and every stakeholder treats the protection of workers’ lives as a non-negotiable responsibility rather than a cost to be managed.”

IndustriALL energy and mining director, Emmanuel Adjei-Danso, adds:

“The people who understand the risks better than anyone are the miners themselves. When workers are free to organize, speak up about unsafe conditions and participate in safety decisions, tragedies become less likely. Listening to workers is one of the most effective safety measures any mining sector can adopt.”

India: workers and farmers reaffirm united action

Trade unions and farmers’ organizations from across India reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening joint action at a national convention held in New Delhi on 29 July. The convention was jointly organized by India’s Central Trade Unions (CTUs) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). It adopted a declaration committing to closer coordination on issues affecting workers, farmers, and rural communities. Additionally, the declaration outlined a strategy for future collective action.

The convention reflected the growing cooperation between the trade union and farmers’ movements since their first joint convention in 2023. It emphasized that the challenges are increasingly interconnected.

Speakers highlighted that workers and farmers share not only common struggles but common roots and play an essential role in nation building. They emphasized that organized collective action remains the most effective way to achieve lasting change.

They also underlined the importance of addressing youth unemployment. In addition, they recognized the contribution of women workers. They stressed the need to ensure that technological advances, including AI, reduce human hardship as opposed to human rights.

Many welcomed the growing participation of young people in democratic movements and stressed the importance of building solidarity across generations to advance common demands.

The declaration adopted by the convention sets out a broad range of demands, including stronger labour protections, expanded social security, decent wages and employment creation. Furthermore, it calls on India to ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining. It also asks for ratification of Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work. In addition, it supports Convention 189 on decent work for domestic workers, underscoring the continued importance of international labour standards in advancing decent work.

Looking ahead, the organizations announced nationwide decentralized protests on 10 August to commemorate the colonial era Quit India movement. They also pledged continued solidarity with each other’s campaigns and preparations for broader joint actions should their demands remain unaddressed.

Kemal Özkan, assistant general secretary of IndustriALL added:

“ILO’s fundamental principles recognize that sustainable economic progress depends on respect for workers’ rights. Social dialogue and collective bargaining are not obstacles to development; they are among its strongest foundations.”

Ashutosh Bhattacharya, regional secretary of IndustriALL South Asia reflected:

“This convention proves that the commitment to sustained solidarity will remain essential in advancing policies that place people at the centre of economic development.”

African mining unions launch network to defend workers’ rights

On 27 July, more than 50 delegates from 12 African countries agreed during an online meeting to build a common platform for mining unions. Trade unions in mining still organize mainly within national borders. Mining companies, by contrast, operate across borders with ease.

AMNet priorities 

According to discussions in the meeting, AMNet will build union power through regional and global organizing including union-to-union solidarity and commodity-based company networks. It will also defend workers against precarious work, promote freedom of association, collective bargaining and living wages. The network will confront casualisation, subcontracting and migrant-labour exploitation. Further, it will advance a Just Transition in coal and critical mineral regions through reskilling, social protection and worker participation. 

Further, it will hold capital accountable through due diligence frameworks and coordinated campaigns against multinationals that violate workers and human rights. AMNet will carry this mandate through research, organizing and policy advocacy. The network will engage with governments, the African Union, regional economic communities and multilateral development banks.

Participants identified precarious contracts, weak health and safety enforcement and the growing footprint of Chinese mining firms as challenges no single IndustriALL Global Union affiliate can tackle alone. They also highlighted the increasing demand for critical minerals caused by the global energy transition including copper, cobalt, lithium, platinum group metals and rare earth elements.

The Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia dominate global cobalt production, while South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Ghana anchor platinum, lithium, diamond and gold value chains. Additionally, the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea has the largest high grade iron ore project globally. Yet pressure to extract quickly rather than beneficiate, create decent jobs and tax fairly is sacrificing workers’ rights and risking Africa’s lock-in to low-value extraction while decarbonization gains accrue elsewhere.

Precarious work, critical minerals and mine safety

The meeting stated that Africa supplies the raw materials for global decarbonization but remains largely confined to extraction, with limited industrial upgrading and weak links to domestic transformation. This enclave model creates mineral wealth with few spillovers into jobs or diversification. Subcontracting, labour broking and informalization have further eroded standard employment relationships and weakened collective bargaining, while artisanal and small-scale mining remains largely informal.

Health and safety risks remain severe, especially in underground and poorly regulated operations. Ratification and enforcement of the ILO Safety and Health in Mines Convention (C176) are uneven, leaving African mineworkers exposed to fatalities, injuries, and occupational disease.

The meeting heard that multinational corporations still dominate production and value distribution. Voluntary ESG and human rights due diligence frameworks have had limited impact, particularly where enforcement is weak and binding accountability is absent.

Multilateral development banks financing mining infrastructure and green-transition reforms have adopted Just Transition language, but their investment-friendly approaches sometimes violate workers’ rights where labour flexibility is treated as a condition for capital.

These concerns echoed IndustriALL’s 2025 Sydney global mining conference, which called for stronger organizing across multinationals, sharper Just Transition frameworks, better safety and firmer supply-chain accountability. 

Leadership structure and regional organizing

The proposed AMNet leadership includes two co-chairs and a secretary. It also includes Francophone and North Africa representatives and a representative for women and youth, with thematic subcommittees to follow.

Speakers argued that the network needs leaders who are able to engage governments and multinationals directly. Delegates also agreed to organize around focused themes, rather than try to cover every issue at once.

“Africa could control a significant share of global platinum supply if the continent organized to capture the value, for example, in South Africa and Zimbabwe’s platinum resources rather than simply exporting the ore,” 

said Mpho Phakedi, general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Platinum and diamond supply-chain accountability

Participants agreed that the network success will be case based. The first is Impala Platinum’s supply chain, which runs from mines in Zimbabwe and South Africa to Volkswagen factories in Germany. Unions plan to use that chain as leverage, working with the Human Rights Due Diligence Competence Centre and German supply-chain law to seek remedy where violations are found.

The second is diamonds. An August meeting in Botswana will examine the global diamond sector, with producers such as De Beers invited, as affiliates build a collective union response to market volatility affecting cutters and miners. On health and safety, affiliates continue collecting country-level data to give the network’s arguments an evidence base.

“This is an important network which must be a platform for building trade union power: defending workers’ rights, building union strength, holding capital accountable and shaping a Just Transition that works for Africa’s mineworkers,” 

said Kemal Ozkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary.

Mine workers prioritize health and safety

The Sector Strategic Response and Action Plan was adopted by the World Mining Conference in November 2025. It commits IndustriALL to mainstream occupational health and safety in the mining sector, particularly through the campaign for ratification and implementation of International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 176 (C176), Safety in Mines. The plan also commits IndustriALL to co-operate across international borders to identify health and safety best practice and continually raise safety standards in the sectors.

Why it matters

“Every 15 seconds, a worker dies somewhere in the world from a work-related accident or disease. Every week, thousands more die from lung disease or cancer linked to exposure to asbestos and other hazards,”

said IndustriALL assistant general secretary, Kemal Özkan.

Mining remains one of the most hazardous sectors in the world and one of the few with its own dedicated ILO convention.

“Occupational health and safety is a workers’ issue and a priority,”

Kemal Özkan said, calling on employers to accept responsibility for making work safer rather than blaming workers for accidents.

Trade unions and risk assessment

Stephen Smyth, vice president of the Mining and Energy Union(MEU) and co-chair of IndustriALL’s mining sector, presented on risk assessment and the role of trade unions. He urged affiliates to press for adoption of C176 as a starting point for building strong workplace health and safety committees and for securing workers’ rights to information, training and the right to refuse unsafe work.

Stephen Smyth also highlighted the Australian coalmining model, under which unions elect full-time safety representatives with powers similar to those of government inspectors, including the power to stop unsafe work. Independent reviewers rate the model as among the strongest in the world.

Key barriers to union participation in health and safety, he said, include: anti-union cultures that fail to recognise workers’ representatives, exclusion of union representatives from consultation processes and reprisals against workers and representatives who raise safety concerns.

New convention on biological hazards

Glen Mpufane, an occupational safety and health consultant and former IndustriALL’s sector director, presented on Convention 192 and its accompanying Recommendation 209, adopted at the International Labour Conference(ILC) in 2025. The convention is the first global standard aimed at preventing exposure to biological hazards, including bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. It covers every worker, not only those in mining.

Glen Mpufane set out the close links between silica dust exposure and tuberculosis in mining and described how the new convention builds on the general principles of Convention 155 to provide more detailed protection. He urged affiliates to campaign for ratification of Convention 192 in their own countries and to embed its protections in collective bargaining agreements, even where governments have yet to ratify.

The case for ratifying C176

Camila Meireles, of the ILO’s sectoral policies branch, outlined the ratification process and the ILO’s supervisory mechanisms. ILO C176 currently has 37 ratifications, including two new ones this year: Mexico and Côte d’Ivoire.

She cited Chile as an example, where a tripartite mining sector commission brought government, employers and workers together for the first time, leading to a unanimous commitment to ratify the convention and a national OSH policy shaped by regional consultations.

Workers’ organizations in countries that have not yet ratified C176 can still act, Camila Meireles said, by requesting a written explanation from their government, calling for tripartite consultation at national or sector level and building national campaigns and coordinating with other worker organizations.

Voices from affiliates

Representatives from Mexico, Morocco and Pakistan described the health and safety challenges facing their members.

Raphael Zuñiga Carmona, from SNTMMSRM Mining General Trade Union of Mexico, said that although Mexican law guarantees workers’ participation in risk assessment, many workers remain reluctant to raise safety concerns or stop unsafe work in practice.

Boutayeb Bouchkhach from SNIME-CDT Morocco called for stronger ratification campaigns, better harmonization between international conventions and national law and increased workplace inspection.

Abdul Haleem Khan, from the Pakistan Central Mine Workers Federation (PCMLF), described mines operating without updated safety practices and appealed for training programmes to build a stronger safety culture among mineworkers.

What happens next?

Kemal Özkan pointed to new data from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s transition minerals tracker, which recorded 835 allegations linked to mining in 2024, of which around one fourth were raised to labour matters where more than 80 per cent of them are related to occupational health and safety. IndustriALL will continue to raise health and safety across its mining sub-sectors, regional networks and in company-level networks.