Young workers find their voice at IndustriALL

The landmark meeting represents the culmination of years of work to give young workers a formal voice within IndustriALL structures. Faye Dagman from the Philippines was elected female co-chair for 2026-2027, with Tiara Amigorena from Argentina as her substitute. The two will switch roles for 2028-2029, when Tiara Amigorena takes over as co-chair and Faye Dagman becomes her substitute. Andrea Megazzini from Italy was elected male co-chair for the full 2026-2029 term, with Kelvin Ayemhenre from Nigeria as his substitute for the entire period. Isaac Vasquez from Nicaragua was elected secretary, with Lesedi Seboni from South Africa as his substitute.

Leadership: the time for youth is now

IndustriALL assistant general secretary, Christina Olivier, opened with a strong message of support, pointing to serious challenges facing young workers globally: high youth unemployment, particularly in the Global South, the spread of precarious work and short-term contracts and the rapid transformation of work through digitalization and automation.

“If we are unable to organize young workers, very soon we will talk about IndustriALL Global Union as an organization that existed a few years ago. That is why organizing young workers into our unions remains one of our key priorities,”

said Christina Olivier. 

IndustriALL general secretary, Atle Høie, noted that youth work across all regions had made the breakthrough possible. “The Congress finally gave youth a formal place in this organization,” he said. 

Two youth representatives will now sit permanently on the IndustriALL Executive Committee as official members, with the first meeting taking place on 11-12 June 2026 in Geneva. 

“The whole point of trade unions is that we need to be representative. If we’re going to make the right decisions, we need to listen to all voices,”

said Atle Høie.  

Regions report

Regions gave brief reports on their current work and future priorities.

Sub-Saharan Africa has had a youth committee since 2019 and is currently researching the impact of platform work on young workers in the mining and energy sectors. 

The Middle East and North Africa are preparing for its first in-person meeting in Morocco, focusing on leadership development and youth participation, including amplifying the voices of workers in Palestine. 

Latin America and the Caribbean held its founding meeting in Uruguay in April 2026, prioritizing new organizing strategies, mobilizing unionized workers and building capacity. 

Europe has had a youth structure for several years, currently holding two non-voting seats on the IndustriALL Europe Executive Committee, with the goal of securing voting rights at the next Congress. 

Asia Pacific recently merged two sub-regional working groups into a single regional youth committee, with a two-year transition period agreed to integrate the structures. 

New co-chairs ready to act

Both Faye Dagman (PIGLAS, Philippines) and Tiara Amigorena (CNTI CTAA, Argentina) called for strong teamwork and expressed their commitment to securing better conditions for the next generation of workers.

What next?

The global youth committee will meet again on 9 July and 8 September 2026, with the primary task of reviewing and finalizing the IndustriALL draft youth policy for submission to the IndustriALL Executive Committee in November. The committee adopted its terms of reference, which sets out its working method. The global youth committee will meet in person every two years and at least once a year online.

The union busting playbook: exposed

The scale of the industry is staggering. A recent article in The Guardian quoted a 2026 report by the Economic Policy Institute which found that US employers spend more than US$1.5bn a year on union opposition efforts. This includes US$442m annually on specialist union-avoidance consultants alone. Amazon spent US$26.6m on such consultants in 2025. A previous EPI report found that US employers are charged with violating labour law in 41.5 per cent of all union elections. Union density in the US has fallen from 20.3 per cent in 1983 to ten per cent today. The union-busting industry bears significant responsibility for that decline. As one of the report’s authors put it, this is millions or even billions of dollars that is not going towards workers or investing in their workplace.

The tactics and why they are wrong

Anti-union campaigns follow a recognizable pattern of tactics designed to suppress workers’ free choice through fear, misinformation and pressure.

Mandatory captive-audience meetings. Employers force workers to attend meetings during working hours where management delivers one-sided anti-union messaging. Workers cannot leave and there is no right of reply. At Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, this was one of the tactics so egregious that IndustriALL withdrew from its global framework agreement with the company. In the agreement Mercedes-Benz had explicitly committed to neutrality.

Scripted one-on-one pressure. Supervisors, coached by outside consultants, are deployed to have individual conversations with workers. The message is always the same: a union will put your job at risk, damage your relationship with management, threaten investment.

Paid consultants and surveillance. Specialist firms are brought onto company premises. Workers often do not know who these people are or who is paying them. Increasingly, digital surveillance is deployed alongside them: monitoring social media, flagging workers who discuss union matters and infiltrating online groups to track organizing activity.

Dismissal of union activists. Firing workers for union activity is one of the most powerful weapons in the playbook. It sends a clear message to every other worker watching. At the Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama, a 25-year employee with a spotless record was disciplined for telling colleagues he had union cards. The leading organizer, Jeremy Kimbrell, who had worked at the plant for 26 years, was fired in February 2025 on what the UAW describes as a fabricated pretext.

Law firms as instruments of union avoidance. The law firms and consultants at the heart of this industry openly advertise their services. Their own promotional materials describe “defeating a union” as “gratifying,” promise to help employers maintain “union-free workplaces” and offer to get workers “to vote non-union.” Several have documented records of unlawful conduct in previous campaigns. These are findings by federal labour judges that were publicly available before the companies that hired them signed the contracts.

A global problem in our sectors

Union busting is not isolated to the US. IndustriALL affiliates around the world encounter it.

Türkiye is one of the worst environments in the world for union organizing. Unions document dismissals, threats and employer interference across manufacturing and garment sectors. Workers at Digel Textile joined the garment workers union TEKSIF after it was confirmed as the legitimate collective bargaining agent. The company responded by dismissing four leading union members and threatening workers with factory closure if they did not resign. Metal-workers’ union Birleşik Metal-İş was certified as the official bargaining agent at SAG Hidrolik. The company dismissed three union members without cause and threatened workers that the factory would close if they stayed in the union.

In Germany, Adidas left the sectoral collective bargaining agreement by downgrading its industry membership to avoid collective bargaining obligations — a decision whose repercussions extend across its global supply chains.

In Malaysia, IndustriALL filed a formal ILO complaint in March documenting union busting across twelve companies in the electronics, semiconductor, aerospace, automotive and paper sectors. Workers at Nexperia voted for their union with nearly 96 per cent support. At Boeing Composites Malaysia, 85 per cent voted in favour. Yet winning the ballot was not the end of the struggle. Companies dismissed workers and threatened migrant workers with deportation. Companies weaponized the courts, filing challenge after challenge to delay union recognition by years, in one case more than a decade.

Workers have the right to know

ILO Conventions 87 and 98 enshrine the right to organize and bargain collectively. IndustriALL embeds it in the global framework agreements it negotiates with multinationals. Those companies have committed, in writing, to uphold it everywhere they operate.

Says IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie:

“Union busting violates those commitments. When a company signs a global framework agreement promising neutrality and then deploys tactics designed to defeat union campaigns, it is not navigating a legal grey area. It is breaking its word and undermining a fundamental human right. Freedom of association is not optional and it is not a local exception.”

Trade unions demand a voice in Africa’s industrial future

Presidential panel

The annual meetings also gave neighbouring heads of state a platform for bilateral talks. Presidents Denis Sassou N’Guesso, Faustin-Archange Toudera and Brice Oligui Nguema, of the Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Gabon respectively, used the occasion to advance discussions on economic co-operation, renewable energy and regional integration.

A delegation comprising representatives, from IndustriALL Global Union Sub-Saharan Africa, the International Trade Union Confederation Africa (ITUC-Africa) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Trade Union Competence Centre for Sub-Saharan Africa, called on the AfDB to embed the ILO decent work agenda items like job creation, rights at work, social protection and social dialogue into every project the bank finances.

They also demanded stronger enforcement of the bank’s existing labour safeguards, which already oblige borrowers to comply with ILO core labour standards, protect workers’ rights, maintain occupational health and safety protections and extend those obligations to subcontracted workers. On paper, the framework exists. In practice, unions argue, it is implemented inconsistently.

The delegation also backed formal integration of economic, social and governance (ESG) criteria into lending decisions, a position that aligns with AfDB president Sidi Ould Tah’s own strategy, which includes harnessing Africa’s demographic dividend as one of his four cardinal priorities. With the continent adding roughly 20 million young people to its labour force every year, the unions argued that the decent work agenda is not a distraction from these ambitions but a precondition for them. Africa’s youth bulge needs decent jobs to be created. An industrialization drive that generates precarious employment or suppresses collective bargaining will not create decent work.

Economics of resilience

The AfDB’s chief economist and vice president, Kevin Urama, presented the 2026 African Economic Outlook at the conference. The headline finding that African economies projected to grow at 4.2 per cent in 2026 before rebounding to 4.4 per cent in 2027 told a story of resilience against considerable adversity. At the same time, the broader economic narrative cannot be separated from the African Development Bank’s commitment to supporting decent work principles in member states.

Yet the meetings’ theme, Mobilizing Africa’s development financing at scale in a fragmented world, reflects a sharper external reality: financial resources are tight, official development assistance has declined and supply chains are less predictable. Against this backdrop, the union delegation’s push to embed social standards into the bank’s project pipeline is important. Indeed, driving African Development Bank decent work policies is a vital ingredient of financial resilience.

Unions’ demands on labour standards

One of the unions’ critical engagements was a meeting with Kevin Urama, focused on developing a formal dialogue framework around evidence-based approaches to industrialization. This will provide a mechanism for giving organized labour a voice in how the bank thinks about growth, not just how it implements projects. The importance of African Development Bank decent work initiatives was a central point in these conversations.

The unions were alert to being brought in only at the end of the pipeline. This reflects why African Development Bank decent work must be prioritized earlier in project planning phases.

“We don’t want to be called in through the Independent Review Mechanism of the AfDB when things have gone wrong. We want to be at the table when decisions are being made,”

emphasized Joel Odigie, ITUC-Africa general secretary.

As emphasized, a partnership between African Development Bank and decent work advocates can only strengthen outcomes.

A follow-up meeting is scheduled for July in Abidjan to work through a more substantive engagement framework. The focus will remain on how African Development Bank decent work values can be embedded in ongoing labor dialogues.

Discussions also turned to Mission 300, the joint AfDB and World Bank initiative to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030. Unions questioned whether ambition will be matched by meaningful changes in delivery and raised concerns on privatization and job creation for the youth. Crucially, Mission 300 was framed within the context of African Development Bank decent work goals for job and social outcomes.

A meeting with Francisca Tatchouop Belobe, the African Union commissioner for economic development, trade, tourism, industry and minerals, underscored the strategic importance of beneficiation of critical energy transition minerals and the need for trade unions to engage actively with the African Minerals Development Centre. The green economy’s mineral backbone which includes lithium, cobalt, manganese and graphite is concentrated in Africa and processing those resources locally rather than exporting them raw is one of the most direct routes to creating the quality industrial jobs that young Africans need, argued unions. Equally, African Development Bank decent work priorities support resource beneficiation for local employment.

In parallel civil society meetings the union delegation argued that Just Transition, anchored in the ILO’s Just Transition Guidelines, carries specific obligations: skills retraining, social dialogue, community consultation and equitable distribution of gains from the green economy. For a continent where the median age is under 20, those retraining and skilling provisions are not a safety net for workers being displaced; they are the foundation for a generation entering work for the first time. African Development Bank decent work principles can help ensure this future is equitable and inclusive for all youth.

“The AfDB is Africa’s most powerful development finance catalyst. Decent work must be its compass. This is why we are asking for a formal labour forum,”

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

The AfDB was founded in 1964 with 81 member countries and has grown its capital from US$94 billion in 2014 to US$318 billion in 2024.

Asia Pacific unions push labour reforms and workers’ rights

The military conflict involving the USA, Israel and Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, have disrupted energy supplies across the region. Electricity and energy sectors have been severely affected. As a result ordinary workers, particularly in oil-importing countries such as India, are bearing the brunt of rising oil prices. Delegates underlined the importance of solidarity. They also called for regional energy network meetings to be held every two years.

IndustriALL vice president and Asia Pacific co-chair, Akihiro Kaneko, said:

“The rising tensions in the Middle East are directly impacting Asian manufacturing and export industries through the instability of energy supply, the stagnation of maritime transport and rising logistics costs. The risk of spillovers to economic activity and employment represents a serious challenge that could shake the foundations of workers’ livelihoods.”

Global uncertainty is also being driven by unilateral trade policies imposed by major economies. These tariffs are having far-reaching consequences for global supply chains.

IndustriALL general secretary, Atle Høie, said:

“IndustriALL affiliates will continue the debate on what kind of trade system is beneficial to workers and should be promoted by the organization.”

In South-East Asia, Malaysian unions are engaging with the ministry of human resources to deepen labour law reforms.

In Indonesia, unions are urging the ministry of manpower to ratify the ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment. They also seek to strengthen social security and introduce a living wage.

The regional women’s committee is formulating a strategy to implement the IndustriALL feminist resolution and gender transformative agenda. Key priority areas include pay equity, safety and health, reproductive health and mainstreaming gender across supply chains.

The Asia Pacific regional youth committee was formed on 15 May 2026. It is comprised of five youth delegates from the South Asia youth working group (SAYWG) and five youth delegates from the South-East Asia, East Asia and Pacific youth working group (SEA2PAC). The two existing subregional youth working groups will be phased out at the end of 2027.

The meeting concluded with a call for nominations of members to the steering committee of the global multinational committee. The next regional executive committee meeting will take place in October in Bangladesh.

ICJ rules the right to strike is protected under international law

IndustriALL, together with the ITUC and other global unions, has been at the forefront of defending this right since 2012, when employer representatives at the ILO began challenging the longstanding interpretation that Convention 87 protects the right to strike. In February 2015, IndustriALL joined a global day of action in more than 60 countries, pressing governments to defend the right to strike. Years of deadlock followed, with employers refusing to engage on freedom of association cases where the right to strike was at issue.

In November 2023, after nearly a decade of persistent pressure from workers’ representatives, the ILO Governing Body took the unprecedented step of referring the question to the ICJ. IndustriALL responded by mobilizing affiliates and launching a global petition, making clear that the right to strike is not a privilege to be negotiated away. It is a fundamental pillar of freedom of association.

Today’s ruling by the ICJ settles the dispute in favour of workers. While advisory opinions are not legally binding, they carry significant authority. Convention 87 has been ratified by 158 countries and is embedded in UN labour standards, OECD guidelines and international trade agreements. This gives the ruling far-reaching implications for labour law and industrial relations worldwide.

IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie says:

“We have always been convinced of this outcome, but at the same time the opinion is a big relief. The right to strike is now once and for all confirmed as protected by ILO Convention 87. It is a big day for the world of work.”

Building inclusive and sustainable youth structure in Asia Pacific

Participants stressed that the youth structure must represent young unionists across South Asia, South East Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, while ensuring gender balance and strong leadership. It was agreed that the sub-regional youth working groups, the South Asia youth working group (SAYWG) and the South East Asia and Pacific youth committee (SEA2PAC) will be phased out and will be integrated into APRYC by the end of 2027. Over the next year, the APRYC will make new proposals on the nomination and selection process. This will happen in consultation with IndustriALL Asia Pacific leadership. All APRYC members commit to continue actively advocating for the rights and interests of young workers.

Prior to the APRYC meeting, the sub-regional youth working groups conducted a meeting on 28 April. They met to discuss and decide what representation structure would best represent them at the Asia Pacific level. Both working groups concluded that the APRYC should be composed of five members from each sub youth structure. These would be two co-chairs, a secretary and two bureau heads.

The 10 APRYC members elected their youth official. They also decided that the co-chair would represent their region in the global youth committee:

Jean Faye Daguman, APRYC co-chair, said:

“Building an inclusive and sustainable youth structure in Asia Pacific means creating spaces where young workers are empowered to lead, organize and shape the future of the labour movement. I am committed to advancing just and equal representation, promoting evidence-based approaches and ensuring fairness in strengthening youth organizing and solidarity across the region.”

Bhanu Pratap Singh, APRYC co-chair, said:

“Strong coordination among young workers across Asia Pacific is essential to building a united and forward-looking labour movement. I will help strengthen collaboration, develop new generations of youth leadership and create meaningful connections between young trade unionists across sectors and sub-regions so that collective action and solidarity can grow stronger throughout the region.”

IndustriALL assistant general secretary, Christine Olivier, said:

“Young workers are not just the future, they are an important voice for change, bringing energy and a growing commitment to inclusion and equal opportunity. Building an inclusive youth structure in Asia Pacific helps to ensure that their voices are heard and their rights are represented.”

Botswana diamond firm trampling on workers’ rights

The union, an IndustriALL affiliate, says management is pushing through job cuts while refusing to bargain honestly with unions. Talks collapsed in mid-March. The union is now negotiating under protest as it believes the process is being abused but will not walk away and leave its members unprotected.

Management is hiding the books

At the heart of the dispute is a simple demand: show us the numbers. The union says management has refused to hand over audited accounts, wage records, company structure details and board minutes. Without this information, workers cannot assess whether the job cuts are genuinely necessary or whether alternatives exist. Section 25 of the Trade Unions and Employers Organizations Act requires management to share this information. Genesis HB is not doing so, making meaningful negotiation impossible.

Are union leaders being targeted?

Seven workers face retrenchment. Four of them sit on the union committee. The union believes this is no coincidence. Targeting union representatives to weaken workers’ collective voice is union-busting and it is illegal. The BDWU is putting management on notice that it will not let this stand.

A crisis made worse

The job cuts come at the worst possible time. Botswana’s diamond industry generates roughly 80 per cent of the country’s export earnings and funds a third of government spending and pays for schools, hospitals and public services that millions of Batswana depend on. That industry is now under severe pressure from laboratory-grown diamonds: synthetic stones that are chemically identical to mined gems but cost a fraction of the price. In just a few years they have captured an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of the global jewellery market, hitting hard on demand for natural diamonds.

Even De Beers, one of the most powerful companies in the diamond trade and Botswana’s most important industry partner, recorded a sharp drop in rough diamond sales in 2023 and has started selling laboratory-grown stones itself. This is a clear sign that the industry’s problems are deep and lasting, not temporary. In this climate, every job in the diamond value chain matters. The BDWU says management should be working with workers to find solutions not retrenching them.

What the union is demanding?

The union is calling on Genesis HB to stop the retrenchment process immediately and sit down with workers to develop a fair redundancy policy that genuinely explores alternatives to job losses. If management refuses, the union will take the dispute to the Commissioner of Labour and Social Security or apply to the Industrial Court for an urgent order to halt the process.

Workers will not be silenced

“Genesis HB thinks it can silence workers by targeting union leaders, but the union will fight back,”

said Dominic Mapoka, chairperson of the BDWU.

Paule-France Ndessomin, IndustriALL Sub-Saharan Africa regional secretary, placed the dispute in its wider context.

“Diamond-dependent countries are already bleeding jobs to synthetic stones. Companies that respond by crushing unions are adding injustice to injury. Retrenchments must be handled transparently, in a way that protects both unions and jobs.”

Mauritius slowly moves to demolish asbestos legacy

However union leaders are cautious. A parliamentary declaration is not a demolition order. The struggle over Mauritius asbestos houses, they say, is not over yet.

According to historical records, when cyclones Carol and Alix tore through Mauritius in 1962, they left devastation on a scale the island had rarely seen with eight people dead, over a hundred injured and 100 000 people left homeless. Nearly all the workers’ settlements in their path were flattened. The government’s response was swift: 3,113 social houses were immediately built to resettle the displaced.

However, the material chosen was a mixture of cement and asbestos which was cheap, durable and widely used across the British colonies then. Sixty years later, the people living in those houses are still paying for that decision with their lungs. In Mauritius, where residents of the social estates have lived alongside deteriorating asbestos panels for six decades, the full toll of the 1962 construction programme may not yet be visible in the mortality data.

Although Mauritius has banned asbestos imports through the Consumer Protection Act, the Dangerous Chemicals Control Act and the Constitution the restrictions have since been waived by law amendments, a move that unions have condemned. Further, Mauritius has not ratified International Labour Organization (ILO) Asbestos Convention 162 which calls for the substitution and elimination of asbestos, medical surveillance and compensation for workers exposed to asbestos, the right of workers to information about asbestos hazards, safe removal and disposal procedures and the responsibility of employers and states to prevent exposure at source.

The IndustriALL executive committee supported the call, by 12 African countries, to amend the Rotterdam Convention to include chrysotile asbestos on the list of hazardous industrial chemicals and has demonstrated against the asbestos trade.

A death that changed everything

The unions’ campaign origins lie in a case that exposed the scale of what the authorities had ignored. Claude Marguerite, a union member and resident of one of the asbestos estates, died of mesothelioma, in 1999, an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lungs and chest wall caused by asbestos exposure. After his death, the CMWEU went to the Supreme Court of Mauritius to obtain permission to exhume his body. It was a legally and emotionally tense decision, but the union’s leadership judged that without hard scientific evidence, the authorities would continue to look away.

Working with the University of Manchester, researchers conducted an asbestos fibre count on 10 grams of Marguerite’s lung tissue. The results were stark: 86,000 asbestos particles were identified. The findings gave the union the evidence it needed and ignited a mass public awareness campaign that would force the government to act.

A disease that does not forgive

According to the World Health Organization and International Agency for Research on Cancer guidance, asbestos is not a single hazard but a cluster of them. Prolonged exposure to its microscopic fibres, which lodge permanently in lung tissue and cannot be expelled, causes a range of serious and fatal conditions. Mesothelioma is the most feared: it typically presents decades after exposure, responds poorly to treatment and carries an average survival rate of about a year from diagnosis. Asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung tissue, causes progressive breathlessness and has no cure. Lung cancer risk is significantly higher in those exposed to asbestos.

Two decades of silence

In 2001 the government persuaded in part by the union campaign agreed to commission a national investigation into the adverse impact of asbestos. A Commonwealth asbestos expert, John Addison, was brought in to lead it. He had previously worked alongside Reeaz Chuttoo, then CMWEU’s technical adviser, on the decommissioning and asbestos removal at a sugar factory in Beau Plan in the Northern district of Pamplemousse.

The report has never been made public. No government, in 24 years, has dared to table it in parliament. The reason, union officials say, is that the report’s findings would expose the state to substantial civil damages claims from the asbestos houses’ residents, as well as from the thousands of workers who spent careers in sugar factories, hospitals, schools and other public and private sites where asbestos was usually used. The liability calculation, rather than the public health imperative, has driven successive governments’ approach to making the Addison report public.

“This is a declaration of good intentions by the government of Mauritius. We will be watching every step of the implementation. A vote is not a bulldozer. We will be in the streets, in the courts and in parliament until the last asbestos panel comes down and the families and communities are compensated,”

said Chuttoo, now CTSP president.

Paule-France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub-Saharan Africa emphasized:

“Convention 162 on asbestos is clear that states must protect workers from exposure, compensate those harmed and eliminate the hazard at source. Mauritius has an obligation, not a choice, to demolish these houses and be accountable to the affected families and communities and release the Addison report.”

IndustriALL withdraws from human rights agreement with Mercedes-Benz

The decision follows years of documented anti-union conduct by Mercedes-Benz at its plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, confirmed by the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and the company’s failure to address the violations despite repeated opportunities to do so.

In a letter sent to Mercedes-Benz Group CEO Ola Källenius on 11 May 2026, IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie set out four grounds for withdrawal: the company’s failure to remain neutral during union organizing at Tuscaloosa, its refusal to engage constructively with IndustriALL on solutions, its 2025 unilateral update of the agreement without resolving the Alabama situation, and its continued use of law firms whose stated business is opposing unionisation, including the firm managing MB’s own whistleblower channel in the US.

“Mercedes-Benz has broken every rule in the book. They committed to respecting the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining and neutrality. At the same time, at their plant in Alabama, they paid more than US$650,000 to bring union-busting firms onto their own site to pressure workers into voting against a union. That is not neutrality. That is not even close to neutrality. When Mercedes tells the outside world that it is neutral, it is not telling the truth. The workers in Alabama should continue their fight for a collective agreement,”

said Atle Høie.

A commitment made and broken

The Principles of Social Responsibility and Human Rights were signed by Mercedes-Benz and IndustriALL on 1 September 2021. The agreement stated that MB’s labour standards were “binding around the world for all managers and employees” and that “in the event of organizing campaigns, the company and its executives shall remain neutral.”

In January 2024, workers at the Tuscaloosa plant launched a campaign to join IndustriALL affiliate the United Auto Workers (UAW). What followed was one of the most aggressive union-busting campaigns in recent US history.

Mercedes-Benz hired at least five anti-union consulting firms, spending a documented US$659,116 to oppose the workers’ organizing drive. The most notorious was Road Warrior Productions, which advertises its expertise in getting workers “to vote non-union.” The company held mandatory captive-audience meetings, threatened workers with plant closure and loss of benefits if they voted for the union, and brought a minister onto the shop floor three days before the election to urge Black workers, who make up roughly 60 per cent of the workforce, to vote no.

Workers were told unionizing would be pointless. A 25-year employee with a spotless record was disciplined for telling colleagues he had union cards. The leading union organizer, Jeremy Kimbrell, had worked at the plant for 26 years. He was fired in February 2025 on what the UAW describes as a fabricated pretext.

The NLRB investigated and found merit in multiple charges that Mercedes had violated US labour law. In March 2026, Mercedes settled those charges. As part of the settlement, an official notice, signed by an HR manager and bearing the seal of the US government, was posted on the walls of the Tuscaloosa plant. It reads: “WE WILL NOT threaten you with the closure and/or relocation of the facility to a non-union location, like Mexico, or anywhere else, if you choose to be represented by a union.”

Mercedes did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

Refusal to engage

Despite the NLRB findings, Mercedes refused to engage with IndustriALL on how to move forward. The company cited ongoing legal proceedings as justification for declining all attempts at dialogue, what Atle Høie’s letter describes as a “flimsy excuse.”

In 2025, Mercedes unilaterally updated the Principles of Social Responsibility and Human Rights without addressing or acknowledging the Alabama situation. IndustriALL considered this an attempt to reset the agreement’s credibility without earning it.

“You rejected all our attempts to jointly elaborate constructive solutions. You updated the Principles of Social Responsibility and Human Rights in 2025 without clarifying the incidents in the US, making it impossible for IndustriALL Global Union to continue as a signatory to the agreement,”

Atle Høie wrote to Ola Källenius.

The consultants hired by Mercedes compound the problem. The firms engaged to fight the Alabama organizing drive openly advertise their union-avoidance services. Their own promotional materials describe “defeating a union” as “gratifying,” offer to help employers maintain “union-free workplaces,” and promise to get workers “to vote non-union.” Several of these firms have documented records of unlawful conduct in previous campaigns. US federal labour judges found their principals had violated workers’ rights, before Mercedes hired them. These records were publicly available before Mercedes engaged them.

Under Mercedes’ own Integrity Code, the company is required to ensure its business partners comply with its principles. It did not.

The hearing

On 26 May 2026, the NLRB opens a formal hearing in Birmingham, Alabama, on UAW objections to the conduct of the May 2024 election. A regional director has found that five of those objections raise substantial and material issues of fact that could be grounds for overturning the election result. The hearing will examine, among other things, Mercedes’ mandatory captive-audience meetings and its discriminatory application of workplace policies against union supporters. It will also look at whether the company compelled workers on sick leave to attend and vote. The central question is whether this conduct prevented workers from making a free choice. In 2024, workers voted 2,642 against the union and 2,045 in favour, a margin of 597 votes out of approximately 5,075 eligible voters.

A different road is possible

IndustriALL has not closed the door. Should Mercedes change course, the agreement can be renewed.

The example of Volkswagen demonstrates that a different approach is possible. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, VW adopted genuine neutrality during the UAW’s 2024 organizing campaign. Workers voted by more than two to one to join the union. VW and the UAW subsequently reached a collective bargaining agreement. That is what the Mercedes Principles were supposed to guarantee for workers in Alabama.

“We once again call on Mercedes-Benz to cease its anti-union behaviour in the US and urge you not to cede the field to law firms and other opinion formers,”

Atle Høie wrote to Ola Källenius.

MENA youth take their seat at the table

The committee was founded following ten working sessions held remotely between February and May 2026. These sessions brought together representatives of the MENA youth network, affiliate leaders from across the region and members of IndustriALL secretariat and Regional Executive Committee. On 5 May 2026, the committee elected its founding leadership. There are eight members, including at least four women, drawn equally from MENA.

The committee’s establishment builds on more than a decade of youth organizing in the region. Since 2014, IndustriALL has worked with MENA affiliates to build the capacity of young workers. It established the MENA youth network and a series of national youth networks. In 2016, they held the region’s first youth conference. They launched a five-year empowerment project between 2018 and 2022.

The move from network to formal committee marks a deliberate shift in ambition from participation to leadership. The goal is to move away from tokenistic youth inclusion toward youth readiness. It aims to equip young workers in industrial sectors, multinational companies and global supply chains to genuinely influence decision-making.

Young workers in the MENA region face a complex set of pressures: precarious employment, high unemployment, accelerating digital and climate transformations, industrial automation and the challenges of the energy transition. All this takes place against a backdrop of limited youth representation in trade union structures.

The IndustriALL 4th Congress, held in Sydney in November 2025, created new institutional space for youth leadership. The Congress adopted statutory amendments to strengthen youth integration across IndustriALL governing bodies. It set a target of 30 per cent youth representation at all levels and activities. Additionally, it provided for the establishment of a global youth committee with regional committees feeding into it. The MENA committee’s two co-chairs automatically become members of that global body.

The committee is co-chaired by Sihame Elmazini of Morocco, youth and women’s coordinator at the Syndicat Nationale des Industries de la Métallurgie et Electromécanique (SNIME-CDT). Its other co-chair is Amjad Shehab of Iraq, president of the Basra Branch of the Iraqi General Federation of Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Unions (IGFOGPU).

The committee’s mandate includes strengthening union organizing among young workers. It also includes supporting affiliates to establish their own internal youth structures and developing training and mentoring strategies that keep pace with technological change and the shifting demands of the labour market.

The committee is not conceived as a standalone youth space but as a pathway into the wider movement. It aims to build a generation of young trade unionists capable of taking on leadership roles at local, national, regional and international levels. Moreover, it seeks to ensure intergenerational continuity within trade union work.

“Experience has shown that, despite the challenges, young trade unionists in the region are capable of taking on responsibility. The regional youth committee is a new initiative designed to support young people’s causes and utilize their energy and enthusiasm in trade union work,”

says Ahmed Kamel IndustriALL MENA regional secretary.

Organizing for a just future

The establishment of the MENA regional youth committee reflects IndustriALL’s broader commitment, affirmed at the 4thCongress, to the systematic integration of young people within its governing bodies and day-to-day activities. Young workers are not simply the future of the labour movement. Instead, they are active agents of change within it today.

By involving young people, the movement ensures the continuity of trade union work. Additionally, it builds a stronger, more socially just future for workers across the region. 

“This committee is about more than representation. It is about building a generation of young workers who are equipped, confident and ready to lead. IndustriALL is committed to ensuring that young trade unionists in the MENA region have the structure and support to drive real change in their workplaces, their unions and across the movement,”

says Christina Olivier IndustriALL assistant general secretary.