IndustriALL condemns violence in Colombia

On 28 April, a national strike rejecting a proposed tax reform with increased taxes on public services, started in Colombia. The country’s President Iván Duque responded to the massive and peaceful demonstrations with excessive police violence.

So far, 28 people have died, 234 have been injured, 726 have been arbitrarily detained and more than 100 people are missing.

On 4 May, global union federations sent a letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, asking them to urgently intervene in Colombia to stop the brutal police violence.

They also called on the Colombian government to promote dialogue and to listen to the demands of the National Strike Committee, who called for the national protest against the tax reform, the health, economic and social crisis, which are results of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although the government announced the withdrawal of the proposed tax reform on 2 May, the National Strike Committee called for continued protests, an end to the massacre and that those responsible be held accountable.

IndustriALL affiliates in Colombia took to the streets again today. USO president Edwin Palma Egea explains:

“Our democracy is at risk; the government is creating internal turmoil to justify militarizing the  streets and to massacre our youth. We call on the government to sit down and negotiate with all social parties to resolve the situation before there are more violence and deaths."

In a letter to Colombia’s President Iván Duque, IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches says:

“We strongly condemn the brutal repression of the Colombian people exercising their right to freedom of expression, demonstrating against the tax reform bill and other harmful policies of their government.

“We support the legitimate demands of the Colombian people, and we support the strike, the peaceful mobilizations in line with the decisions of the National Strike Committee and the many social organizations that support them.”

SPECIAL REPORT: Campaigning for safer working conditions in Zimbabwe’s artisanal and small-scale mining

SPEACIAL REPORT

From Global Worker no. 1 May 2021

Country: Zimbabwe

Theme: Zimbabwe’s artisanal and small-scale mining

Campaigns by trade unions, civil society organizations and mine affected communities for the formalization of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) are meant to end the deadly working conditions of the miners in Zimbabwe. In addition, formalization will introduce decent working conditions.

Hundreds of artisanal and small-scale miners in the country are dying in flooded and collapsing mines which are trapping miners underground. Rock falls often block escape routes and toxic gases suffocate the miners in poorly ventilated mines. Most rescue operations carried out by the government’s ill-equipped teams are never completed, and only a few miners are rescued before the operations are abandoned. 

Sadly, some mines where accidents have happened are now grave sites of the mainly youthful miners. The mine accidents in the last few years include Ran Mine, Bindura where an old derelict gold mine shaft collapsed on 6 November 2020. Only six miners were rescued and 24 trapped underground when the rescue mission ended. At Cricket and Silvermoon Mine in the Battlefields area near Kwekwe over 40 miners died. Most of the accidents have happened at mines that were no longer operational and whose mining licences were in dispute. 

Commenting on the country’s quick abandonment of rescue operations, the Parliament of Zimbabwe says there is no compassion in the way the country deals with artisanal miners’ deaths with rescuers failing to save miners from shallow depths of about 60 metres.

Zimbabwe’s labour laws allow for health and safety in the mines and the country has also signed the International Labour Organization Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines. But these legal frameworks are less useful in an informal working environment that is sometimes controlled by syndicates and gangs.

With no other source of income, over one million miners, or 14 per cent of the country’s labour force, continue to look for minerals, especially gold, to eke out a living. The vicious cycle continues as accidents in the unsafe mines continue to claim the lives of the workers. With the country’s decades long economic crisis, unemployment remains high with over two million people living in poverty. Child labour is common along rivers, with some children dropping out of school to pan for gold.

Terrance Sakala (25) an artisanal miner working at a small scale mine with seven other workers near Kadoma, says: 

“My working day begins by pumping water from the 30 metre deep mine using a submersible water pump and waiting for four hours before we drill three holes into the earth using a jack hammer. After that, we put explosives and blast and wait for another four hours before we go into the mine to scoop the ore. We get paid weekly, but this depends on the gold that we get after milling. When there is no gold; there is no money. In a good week you can get as much as US$500 but in a bad one the amount can be US$100 or nothing. We live in hope and faith. Artisanal mining is about endurance. This is not large-scale industrial mining.” 

The Zimbabwe Auditor General’s report confirms that there is non- compliance with occupational health and safety in ASM. This is worsened by situations where the mining takes place at sites where there are ownership disputes and mining may be considered by the authorities as unlawful. There have also been incidents of violence when knife wielding gangs attacked some artisanal miners and communities in violent clashes over land use. 

Unions in Zimbabwe have long identified the risks of ASM as unsafe and poorly ventilated pits. Further, the shafts and tunnels are prone to collapse and flooding, especially after heavy rains. There is also lack of personal, protective equipment and exposure to dust. The miners are also exposed to other risks from hard labour as the work involves digging with picks and shovels repetitively over long hours. Most miners or their employers cannot afford to buy mining equipment and machinery. There is also exposure to hazardous substances such as mercury.

On the increasing calls for formalization of ASM, Justice Chinhema, general secretary, Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Minerals Workers Union, says: 

“As a union representing the interests of mine workers across the country, we urge the government to advance the rights of artisanal and small-scale miners by giving them mining concessions and improved access to mineral rights. The lack of such concessions, where legal titles are available for the formalization of ASM, is a major barrier. We would also like technical support to be given to ASM through regulation that will promote formation of mining cooperatives, provision of social security and the setting up of pension funds.” 

Zimbabwe is in the process of amending the Mines and Minerals Act to include artisanal miners and introduce formalization and better regulation. Further, civil society organizations and mine affected communities are calling on the country’s authorities to adopt the recommendations from the African Mining Vision on the integration of ASM as one of the strategies for resource-based development and poverty reduction. 

On illicit financial flows, there are recommendations to stop the smuggling of gold. For example, gold worth over US$1.8 billion was smuggled out of the country in 2020. An investigative report by South African’s Daily Maverick, Cartel power dynamics in Zimbabwe, concluded that gold smuggling is controlled by cartels and that most of the smuggled gold which found its way to South Africa and the United Arab Emirates is mined by ASM who “in 2019 produced 63 per cent of the gold marketed formally in Zimbabwe.” This is more than the gold produced by large scale mines.

However, the mining and working conditions of ASM in Zimbabwe mirror what is happening in most Sub-Saharan African countries where 10 million artisanal and small-scale miners dig for minerals through panning, open cast, and shaft mining. The minerals include tin, tungsten, tantalum, gold, cobalt, and other rare earth metals used in the manufacturer of electric cars batteries, smartphones, and other products.

To improve conditions in ASM, IndustriALL has facilitated meetings with affiliates in Sub Saharan Africa to discuss the implementation of ILO Convention 176 and the adoption of ILO Recommendation 204 on the transition from informal-to-informal work. Among other issues, the recommendation aims to “facilitate the transition of workers and informal units to the formal economy, while respecting workers fundamental workers’ rights and ensuring opportunities for income security, livelihoods and entrepreneurship.”

IndustriALL affiliates from Zimbabwe and other African countries including Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and South Africa, have participated in the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI), held annually in parallel to the Mining Indaba, where resolutions have been adopted to support ASM and recognize the role miners play in sustaining the livelihoods of marginalized and rural communities. 

One of the resolutions for the AMI states:

“ASM contributes to the livelihoods of millions of Africans. As such we affirm that this must be recognized in laws and policies of the countries and must not be criminalized. This includes strengthening ASM right to access and ownership of mining rights, a decent work framework aimed at ensuring fair beneficiation along the value chain, access to social protection and safety nets and decent working conditions.”

Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL director for mining says: 

“IndustriALL supports formalization of ASM to address the appalling health and safety conditions and decent work deficits in Zimbabwe and other African countries. It is distressing that miners continue to lose their lives in preventable accidents that could otherwise be prevented by national laws and international labour standards. Formalization comes with compliance, and knowledge and technical capacity on mining governance as explained in the African Minerals Governance Framework.”

Resolutions have also been adopted for better mineral resource governance at the AMI and the curbing of illicit financial flows which, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, drain the African continent of over US$88 billion dollars which leaves the continent illegally for offshore accounts.

LafargeHolcim, make a concrete commitment to workers’ rights!

LafargeHolcim recently announced hefty payouts to shareholders for good financial results in 2020. But there would be no profit without the thousands of workers toiling for LafargeHolcim every day. Many of them are not even recognized as LafargeHolcim employees, but are hidden away as subcontractors or third-party workers. 

Before the merger in 2015, LafargeHolcim’s estimated combined workforce was over 140,000 direct employees. A little less than six years later, LafargeHolcim claims to employ only 67,000 workers. An extreme use of contract work is the explanation behind this drastic reduction of the workforce. In South Asia, for one permanent employee, there are approximately nine outsourced workers. 

Despite announcing Strategy Ambition “0”, with the target of zero harm, workers at LafargeHolcim are still unsafe and losing their lives. The vast majority of the victims are subcontractors or third-party workers. 

This bad labour practice must change!

In time for LafargeHolcim's Annual General Meeting on 4 May, we demand the following:

Download flyer for our campaign below

PROFILE: Shipbreaking workers’ union moves forward in India

PROFILE

From Global Worker no. 1 May 2021

Country: India

Union: The Alang Sosiya Ship Recycling and General Workers Association (ASSRGWA)

Text: Petra Brännmark

The initiative to organize shipbreaking workers in Alang started in 2003 and a formal union with eleven members was registered in 2005. Alang is the world’s largest shipbreaking yard with 169 plots and a workforce of 60,000 when all yards are occupied. More than 100,000 people work in the downstream industry. 

The union consistently worked to create awareness on workers’ rights, trainings to address OHS concerns, win benefits and safeguard the interests of its members. The union now counts more than 18,000 shipbreaking workers as members, nearly all of which are migrant workers. 

Lending its experts on the shipbuilding sector, IndustriALL’s Dutch affiliate FNV has collaborated with ASSRGWA in conducting training of trainers on safety aspects of shipbreaking including the use of personal protective equipment, knowledge of vessel structures, machinery placements, colour coding of pipelines, handling of chemicals, gasses and hazardous waste materials, lifting weights and use of safety measures to avoid dangerous methods while breaking the ship. The training also involved supervisors and management representatives. 

The union intervention has ensured that safety training programmes are conducted by the government for large number of workers and no worker is employed without safety training. At the same time, the union has organized regular safety training of trainers, focusing on specific tasks like gas cutters and fire fighters. Now employers are also sending their experts to train workers in the trainings organized by the union. 

Vidhyadhar Rane, ASSRGWA general secretary, says: 

“The consistent support and collaboration with IndustriALL and FNV has played a crucial role in consolidating the union organizing efforts and enhancing our capacity to defend workers’ rights. Here in Alang we have developed useful working relations with the employer’s association and district administration, from whom we also received support to provide relief to workers during Covid-19.” 

As the Covid-19 has unfolded, ASSRGWA has played a crucial role in providing relief safeguarding workers interests. The union has been holding regular meetings to assess the impacts of the pandemic and to understand what support the workers need. 

When India introduced a nation-wide lockdown ASSRGWA called on employers to ensure payment of wages for the lockdown period. With the support of the district administration and employer’s association, the union provided subsidised and free food materials to over 21500 workers in two phases. ASSRGWA ensured that the authorities in Gujarat and in Mumbai sanitized the yards. It called on bank authorities to resume their services so that workers could send money to family members. 

Workers wanted to return home as the shipbreaking yards were closed during lockdown. But as there was no public transport, ASSRGWA swung into action, working with the district administration to avoid a where workers would walk hundreds of kilometres to reach their destinations. The union shared its database of where the workers were going with the district administration, enabling them to arrange buses and trains to transport the shipbreaking workers. 

As lockdown eased and the industry started to reopen, ASSRGWA, worked with employers’ representatives to help trace the workers for a return to work. The union has also been applying pressure on the employers to adopt appropriate Covid-19 safety measures at the yards. 

 

In 2019, India, the world’s largest shipbreaking country, ratified the Hong Kong International Convention for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships. ASSRGWA has played a key role in promoting Hong Kong Convention, and is now involved in framing shipbreaking rules in line with the convention. 

“We are continuing to work on the greening of our shipbreaking yards and the implementation of the Hong Kong convention, all of which will create better working conditions for workers. While we are proud of our accomplishments, we are conscious of the existing challenges for our members. Going forward, we have to strengthen membership, social dialogue and enhance sustainability,”

says Vidhyadhar Rane.

The Alang Sosiya Ship Recycling and General Workers Association (ASSRGWA) is a member of IndustriALL affiliate Steel Metal and Engineering Workers Federation of India (SMEFI) of the national trade union centre Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS). ASSRGWA has 18,295 members. 

DRC unions confront challenges of supply chain due diligence

Various OECD partner events were organized across issues in the minerals global supply chain, including side events by the Initiative for Responsible Mining (IRMA) on due diligence beyond conflict-affected and high-risk areas and the Responsible Mining Index (RMI).

IndustriALL affiliates from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) participated in the Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC) side event on Artisanal Cobalt Production: Towards a safe and Just Transition. EGC, a recently established cobalt mining company, is a subsidiary of the state-owned La Générale des Carrieres et des Mines (Gecamines). EGC holds the monopoly for the purchase, processing and sale of all cobalt produced by artisanal miners or companies involved in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). This makes EGC important to IndustriALL’s battery platform project.

“IndustriALL is giving special focus to the DRC given the importance of the country’s cobalt as a critical mineral in the transition to a low carbon economy. Additionally, the huge role of ASM in mining cobalt is another factor for the urgent need to organize the DRC affiliates around the OECD Forum on responsible minerals supply chains,”

says Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL director of mining.

Unions from DRC raised concerns on their exclusion from the developments and processes that led to the establishment of EGC and questioned the central role played by Trafigura, one of the world’s leading independent commodity trading and logistics companies.

Trafigura and its partners are solely responsible for developing responsible mining controls and traceability associated with ASM cobalt production, including the development of the first responsible sourcing standard for ASM cobalt in the DRC.

While the EGC process and governance put a premium on multi-stakeholder consultation and participation, trade unions were not consulted and are not represented in its committees, despite the huge presence and participation by non-governmental organizations. To address this, the affiliates will write letters to EGC and Trafigura expressing their concerns.

The unions committed to develop an engagement strategy on due diligence with the assistance of IndustriALL.

Sven Schwersensky, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung director for the DRC based in Kinshasa, coordinated the unions’ participation by bringing six affiliates to his office and linking them with Geneva, Johannesburg and to the forum in Paris.

“The virtual forum made it possible to participate in most sessions, creating an opportunity for capacity building and engagement for DRC affiliates,”

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

Union wins wage increase for workers in Armenia

On 8 and 9 April, miners at Kapan mining and processing plant that employs 1,200 workers, went on strike demanding better health and safety and wage increases. After the Branch Union of Trade Union Organizations of Miners, Metallurgists and Jewellers of Republic of Armenia (TUMMJRA) successfully negotiated with the employer, the company has provided improved personal protective equipment and is installing better air cleaning systems at the plant.

“The pandemic and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war has left Armenia’s mining and metallurgical industry in an unstable position. Health and safety in the workplace was downgraded and workers were discontent with a decline in earnings. In response, there was spontaneous strike action,”

said TUMMJRA chair Eduard Pakhlevanyan.

After workers demanded individual incentive wages, the wage payment system has been amended to lead to wage increases of up to 15 percent, from monthly wage of AMD380.000-410.000 (US$735-795).

Another strike was launched on 16 April, when heavy dump truck drivers at Sotk gold mine blocked the road to the mine.

Sotk gold mine is owned by the GeoProMining, a mining company which extracts and processes gold, silver, antimony and copper in Russia and Armenia. After the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, 75 per cent of Sotk gold mine was transferred to Azerbaijan. The company, that used to employ 1,000 workers, was forced to lay off 280 workers. Many workers agreed to transfer to other Armenian branches of the company.

After negotiations with TUMMJRA, on 19 April the company accepted the majority of workers’ demands, including wage increases and medical insurance.

“We congratulate our affiliate on this union win, resulting in wage increases during a difficult period for the industry in Armenia,”

said IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan.

IndustriALL and Renault sign first global agreement on telework in the industry

Although telework is nothing new, the pandemic has changed our lives and the way we work forever. For over a year, this has been the predominant way of work for many white-collar workers. The OECD estimates that around a fourth of the formal jobs are being performed remotely with a prediction that it can reach over 40 per cent very soon. This icreases the need to regulate telework through legislation and collective bargaining.

The global framework agreement (GFA), signed in 2013 with Renault, was complemented by a second GFA on the quality of working life in 2019. The agreement is called “Building the world of work together at Renault Group” and was called precedent-setting as it was the first global agreement to address the transformation in the world of work.

The GFA already contained a chapter on remote working, but as the world of work is rapidly changing, not least due to the Covid-19 pandemic, IndustriALL and Renault agreed to reinforce the principles and values.

“The pandemic has forced a significant part of the workforce to work remotely, and it is of utmost importance to ensure workers' rights are well protected. This agreement with Renault is an important milestone as it sets high global standards and offers a framework for national/local bargaining. We will address other companies about this subject in the hope they will follow this good example,”

says IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches.

The groundbreaking agreement specifies the conditions under which remote working can be carried out within the Renault Group. Among other things, it addresses:

In addition, the addendum promotes and encourages negotiations of local and national agreements at Renault to capture national laws and regulations and other items that are specific to a certain location/country.

The signing of the global agreement with Renault coincides with IndustriALL opening a consultation process with sector co-chairs for guidelines on remote work. Once the consultation process is finalized, the guidelines will be made available to all affiliates.

PROFILE: Supporting Sweden’s pulp and paper workers

UNION PROFILE

From Global Worker No. 1 May 2021

Country: Sweden

Union: Pappers, organizes workers in the pulp and paper industry

Members: 13,500

“The larger unions in Sweden traditionally have quite a lot of political influence, but our advantage is that we actually know our members,” says Pappers president Pontus Georgsson. “We work hard to stay close to them and be a relevant partner.”

Pontus Georgsson has been president of the 101-year-old union since 2019. He worked 22 years in a paper mill, many of those as a full-time union representative.

In the 1980s, the Swedish pulp and paper industry employed 50,000 workers. Today, that number has gone down to 13,000. 

“It has been a challenge for us a union to maintain and change our role to continue to represent our members as the industry has gone through a massive transformation with mill closures and redundancies,”

says Pontus Georgsson.

Since 2015, the Swedish pulp and paper industry has gone through further big transformations. It is now enjoying major investments leading to better products and increased capacity. Although the production for paper for newspapers is dwindling, Sweden is a major producer of cartons and paper for paper bags. Around 90 per cent of the production is exported to the rest of Europe or the US.

The pulp and paper industry is characterized by large machines, powerful vehicles and strong chemicals. In 2019, there were 317 workplace accidents requiring medical leave. Pontus Georgsson says that health and safety in the workplace continues to be a cornerstone of the union work.

Pappers employs 15 people at its head office in Stockholm, where the president and two other elected people also work full time. Swedish labour laws allow for union activities during working hours and most of the union work, including health and safety, is undertaken by union representatives in the workplace.

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in many industries in many parts of the world, but Sweden’s pulp and paper industry remains relatively unscathed. Pontus Georgsson mentions one example of a paper mill in Sweden that has had to close; a small mill that is one of only two in Europe that manufacture the pulp needed for beer mats. With the hospitality industry hit hard by lockdown, a consequence of closed bars is a diminished need for mats to put drinks on.

Production of napkins and paper towels has also more less stopped. Toilet paper, however, has seen a hike in production ahead of lockdowns.

“When the pandemic struck, the Swedish government introduced furlough schemes. That meant that jobs were saved at mills where production decreased,” says Pontus Georgsson.

Taking on the future

 

Pappers continues to successfully organize workers, although getting young workers to join the union is proving more of a challenge. Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Pappers had launched one of the biggest union campaigns in Sweden to organize young workers. Those plans have had to be put on ice but are planned to resume in 2022.

Pontus Georgsson

“We need to make an effort,”

says Pontus Georgsson.

“We’ve had to adapt to the circumstances and have instead engaged 80 youth ambassadors in discussions and planning for the future, in order to create engagement. We have also visited all 54 of Sweden’s paper mills to meet young workers.”

Women make up around 16 per cent of the total work force in the pulp and paper industry. However, the number is slightly higher for women under the age of 30, where it is approaching 30 per cent.

“Things are going in the right direction. But the low percentage of women is reflected among our union activists. That number needs to increase; Pappers needs to be a union that is attractive to women.

“Among other things, that means that we need to develop our collective agreements to suit modern family life. Life is more important than work and as a union we represent the entire workforce,”

Pontus Georgsson concludes.

Philippines: union leaders reinstated

In March 2019, IndustriALL affiliate Trade Federation on Garments, Textile, Footwear, Plastic, Leather and Allied Industries (TF2-FFW) established a local union at Charter Link Clark Inc., a Hong Kong-based apparel company that supplies to Lululemon, in Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, Philippines.

The new union was met with union busting by company management. Four key union leaders were dismissed, and workers were forced to take a survey to choose between a trade union or a labour management committee, favoured by the company. Workers who failed to participate were suspended without pay.

When the union had secured the majority of signatures needed to seek recognition as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent (SEBA), the company quickly formed a yellow union to compete for recognition. However, TF2-FFW won the certification election and obtained the SEBA certificate in July 2019.

In order to thwart negotiations for a collective agreement, the company used Covid-19 as an excuse to force more than 100 workers – including all union officials – to go on indefinite unpaid leave. The union lodged complaints for unfair dismissals and illegal suspensions at the department of labour and employment (DOLE).

IndustriALL wrote to the company to demand that all union leaders were reinstated. Lululemon sent an expert to investigate the unfair labour practices.

Drawn-out mediation and labour court procedures eventually led to the reinstatement of eight union leaders with back wages and the signing of a collective agreement on 26 March this year. 

“The struggle for workers’ rights at Charter Link Clark is impressive and signing the collective agreement is a big achievement. TF2-FFW is committed to continue to build capacity to attain decent work,”

says Laudica Casana, TF2-FFW president.

The collective agreement includes employment security and group accident insurance for union members. Workers will enjoy medical subsidies, perfect attendance bonus, paid union leave, personal protective equipment. The union can now legitimately use factory space for union activities.

“Workers’ strength and determination prevailed at Charter link Clark, and in addition global solidarity from IndustriALL and affiliates helped achieve this union win,”

says Christina Hajagos-Clausen, IndustriALL textile director.

Occupational health and safety must be made a fundamental ILO right

Materials (poster)

 
 

The vision of achieving zero harm and zero severe and fatal work-related accidents, injuries and diseases is proving to be a mirage. Employers continue to fail in their duty of care to their workers. The current global health and safety regimes continue to fail workers in what the ILO calls the enormous burden of poor working conditions.

The results of that burden are that:

The social and economic costs of poor working conditions are enormous:

Because of the failure of employers in their duty of care and the staggering costs, It is high time to recognize health and safety as a fundamental right at work.

As we prepare to commemorate and observe a moment’s silence on 28 April, a clarion call is made by the global union? movement for a radical, challenge to the business-as-usual approach to managing occupational health and safety – recognize and make health and safety a fundamental right at work.

IndustriALL Global Union joins the call made on the occasion of the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work in 2019 which declared, “Safe and healthy working conditions are fundamental to decent work”. The conference resolution subsequently adopted requested the Governing Body “to consider, as soon as possible, proposals for including safe and healthy working conditions in the ILO’s framework of fundamental principles and rights at work”, in the same way as the eight fundamental ILO Conventions do.

This year on 28 April, we remember the workers and their families, victimes of the following industrial homicides: