MENA women make progress in patriarchal societies

 

The IndustriALL MENA women’s network meeting opened with lively discussions, exploring the journey they had taken since the launch in 2015, and where they should go in the future. 

“We have a 40 per cent target for the representation of women within IndustriALL and our affiliated unions. But this will only work if there is genuine engagement from women, not just token participation. Women need real decision-making power,”

said Armelle Seby, IndustriALL gender coordinator.

Increasing women’s participation in unions and in leadership roles was raised by all participants as they considered how far they have come through years of work, together as a region as well as in their respective countries.

Hashemeya Alsadawe

“Despite the challenges that we face in the Middle East, including being blocked by some men with patriarchal attitudes, in 2003 I became the president of a union committee, and in 2004 I became the president of my union. But men supported me to achieve these positions, after I showed my value. We don’t have to see men as the enemy,”

said Hashemeya Alsadawe, IndustriALL MENA co-chair.

Although things are changing, women are still not fully part of economic and political life. Women face patriarchal societies with outdated traditions and norms that hold them back. The region has the lowest rate of women's participation in the labour market. Less than 30 per cent of women access the labour market, compared to 48,5 per cent worldwide. Unemployment rates reach 20 per cent, double that of men. Unions need to make the participation of women a priority. 

“Without the participation of women, a sustainable society will not be achieved. We must promote the employment of women regardless of the sector. We must create opportunity where women can participate,”

said Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary.

The meeting addressed the recurring excuses used by people, including women, to explain their low participation and engagement in unions. A frequent myth was that women fight amongst themselves and therefore are not able to attain leadership positions. 

“Unions must look at the issues that are common to the collective workforce, but they must also look at the particularities. There are demands that are specific to women. If women are not at the bargaining table and in leadership positions their issues will be dropped,”

said Valter Sanches, IndustriALL general secretary.

Participants worked on establishing and implementing an action plan for 2019. To keep the momentum, they established core themes that participants were tasked to take back to their national networks. The themes raised included: pushing for a gender perspective on health and safety, improving maternity protection, organizing and ensuring real participation of women, and pushing to stop violence against women by using the IndustriALL pledge and supporting the international campaign in favor of the adoption of an ILO convention addressing gender-based violence.

In conclusion, Armelle Seby said that

“fighting for gender equality goes to the heart of what we do as unions. MENA women's regional and national networks are important platforms to discuss this issue and develop union strategies. But it is critical that gender issues are integrated into the core work of the unions in this region, and taken up as a priority issue by union leadership.”

IndustriALL MENA Women's Network

Oil and gas unions build sustainability in volatile MENA region

Ahmed Kamel of IndustriALL opened by noting that as this was the fifth meeting, the network had become sustainable:

“We have achieved a lot since the creation of this network. We need to decide where we want to be in five years. It is up to you to identify your priorities and develop an action plan. We will support you all the way.”

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan introduced the political context, saying that the viability of different production methods is affected by the oil price, making the sector uniquely vulnerable to geopolitical pressures. The MENA region is the worst in the world for violations of trade union rights.

Kemal Özkan

Energy director Diana Junquera Curiel spoke about global trends in the industry, and the state of union organizing in the major companies.

“This sector faces a central contradiction. We need to balance the energy needs of a growing population and developing economies with the imperative to take action on climate change. Globally, there is an increase in energy demand, leading to the combined demand for more energy and less carbon. Our challenge is to ensure that it is not workers who are caught out by this contradiction.”

Lebanon country manager for Total, Daniel Alvarez, joined the meeting to express the company’s commitment to the global framework agreement with IndustriALL, and to developing healthy industrial relations in the region.

After sector co-chair Frode Alfheim of Norwegian affiliate Industri Energi explained the pressures the industry is under to become more sustainable and how this affects unions, general secretary Valter Sanches spoke about Just Transition. He said,

“The oil and gas sector is important to us. We want to retain it because it generates value, for workers as well as for society. Renewables are getting cheaper. There is now an economic incentive for energy transition as well as a political imperative. We need be part of this discussion, otherwise companies will use it as an excuse to restructure and fire workers.”

Valter Sanches

Health, safety and sustainability director Brian Kohler lead a session on occupational health and safety (OHS), which is neglected by the region's employers and governments. “This is a toxic job”, he said, “and occupational illness counts for 80 per cent of deaths. Unions can't wait for employers to identify and remedy hazards.”

Brian Kohler

“A union safety rep needs to learn to be a barefoot epidemiologist. A notebook is your most important tool. Look for patterns of diseases. Don't forget to follow up with retired workers. Identify agents known to cause these diseases. Look at the work processes and find overlaps.”

The delegates intend to create an OHS committee to share and translate material and develop a safety culture. They also expressed great interest in developing their understanding of oil and gas industry economics, so that they can counter the arguments that employers put to them.

 

Bangladesh unions call for Accord to continue on 6th anniversary of Rana Plaza

Some 150 people from IndustriALL’s trade union affiliates in Bangladesh took part in the protest in front of the press club in the capital Dhaka.

IndustriALL’s regional secretary, Apoorva Kaiwar, who was in Dhaka, said:

 “Today, we remember the victims of Rana Plaza tragedy, who perished on the darkest day in the history of the garment industry. They will never be forgotten, and we will never cease in our efforts to improve garment factory safety in Bangladesh.”

IndustriALL together with UNI global union, led the drive to set up the legally-binding Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster. More than a thousand workers were killed and 2,500 people were injured when the Dhaka garment factory complex collapsed on 24 April 2013.

"Six years on, the future of the Accord is hanging by a thread. Now is not the time to go backwards."

Jenny Holdcroft, assistant general secretary, IndustriALL Global Union

However, in recent months, the Accord has been under continuous threat of expulsion by the Bangladesh authorities. Last week, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh gave another short-term extension to the Bangladesh Accord, scheduling the next hearing to determine the safety programme’s fate on 19 May 2019. 

 “Thanks to the Bangladesh Accord, millions of garment workers can do their jobs in safety and without fear for their lives,” said IndustriALL’s assistant general secretary, Jenny Holdcroft. “And yet, six years on, the future of the Accord is hanging by a thread. Now is not the time to go backwards. Bangladesh has made great strides, but factory safety must still be maintained and improved and this requires ongoing training of workers and managers as well as an effective complaints mechanism.”

The Accord, which is signed by 190 global brands, has carried out over 30,000 safety inspections on more than 1,600 factories covering more than two million workers. Over 90 per cent of remediations of initial inspections have been completed.

“The Bangladesh Accord must be allowed to continue until the government is able to guarantee the same levels of transparency and accountability that the Accord has pioneered to give confidence to workers, brands and consumers that garments are manufactured safely in Bangladesh,” added Holdcroft.

Why transparency is key to transforming the fashion industry

Brands produce a lot of information about what they’re doing to improve conditions in their supply chains, but it’s only through transparency that this information can be verified. 

Transparency allows us to assess whether the strategies companies are using are effective, for example, checking to see if living wage strategies actually result in higher wages for workers.

This year’s Transparency Index produced by Fashion Revolution shows that just 17 per cent of brands reveal how they’re implementing their approach to paying living wages to workers in their supply chains, and only 4 per cent report on their progress.

With increased transparency, we can make the connection between corporate social responsibility policies and their impact on the ground. 

Extending transparency to cover purchasing practices is an essential next step. Whatever social responsibility measures a company is taking, these can be undermined by its own buying practices. There’s no point in brands saying they support decent working hours if they expect suppliers to meet increasingly tight lead times.

Only 9 per cent of brands surveyed by the Index have a formal process for gathering supplier feedback on brands’ purchasing practices. Transparency opens a conversation between companies and trade unions about what needs to change in the way brands do business with suppliers, to stop the downward pressure on wages and working conditions.

While an encouraging 76 per cent of brands publish a policy on freedom of association and collective bargaining in their Supplier Code of Conduct, only 4 per cent disclose the number of supplier facilities that have independent, democratically elected trade unions.

Transparency around the presence of trade unions in supplier factories, and the existence of collective bargaining agreements, will expose the devastating impact of decades of hostility to trade unions from employers and governments, resulting in extremely low levels of representation of workers.

The stark reality is that taking a supposedly neutral stance on freedom of association does nothing to remove the huge barriers to workers exercising their fundamental right to organize, and that if garment workers are to have better wages and working conditions, concrete measures need to be taken to make it easier to join a union and bargain collectively.

Unions in Sub-Saharan Africa strengthened by solidarity

During an IndustriALL mission to Nairobi, Kenya, IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Valter Sanches and regional secretary Paule France Ndessomin met the six IndustriALL affiliates to discuss issues faced by Kenyan workers, including precarious work. Precarious work is prevalent in most sectors, including the automotive, textile and garments, oil and gas, and manufacturing and is threatening the existence of the union.

Bata shoe company, Total, and Kenya Vehicle Manufacturers (KVM) which assembles cars for Volkswagen, are some examples where precarious work is found. KVM counts 39 permanent workers and more than 300 precarious workers. The latter are denied full benefits, including leave as guaranteed by the labour laws. They also work from 8 am to 5 pm without a lunch break.

Trying to put a stop to these abusive practices, the unions are organizing precarious workers. Employers often respond by dismissing workers who join a union. The unions have taken the unfair and unlawful dismissals to court in order to reverse the decisions.

Women often work in dire conditions with low wages, experience violations of maternity leave rights, and sexual harassment and rape is not unusual.

Rose Omano, the chairperson of the IndustriALL Kenya Women’s Council said:

“We appeal to IndustriALL to give more support to women activities since the Kenyan labour movement is highly dominated by men. Women issues are union issues and must be given more attention.”

Valter Sanches said,

“IndustriALL has global campaigns against multinationals to improve working conditions, respect freedom of association and improve wages. Unions must also be more involved in the legislative agenda in their respective countries to enable workers to influence policy processes,”"

Building union power in Lesotho

The textile and garment sector in Lesotho, like most countries in Sub Saharan Africa, employs mostly women, and sexual harassment is an issue.

At the Nien Hsing garment factory, the Independent Democratic Union of Lesotho (IDUL) confronted the company over a sex-for-jobs hiring scandal which resulted in the resignation of a human resources manager. IDUL also fought hard, with support from IndustriALL, to have Nien Hsing reinstate a collective bargaining agreement that it had withdrawn.

In the mining sector, IndustriALL wrote to the UK-based diamond mining company, Firestone Diamonds, to remind them of its obligation to respect workers’ and human rights. The company’s Liqhobong mine in Butha-Buthe district in the Maluti mountains is denying IDUL access to organize workers. This is disappointing from a company that is gaining a reputation for digging big stones while workers have little to show for it.

“The IDUL face a range of challenges; from precarious work, low wages, unfair labour practices, and violation of human and workers’ rights including sexual harassment. The adverse conditions caused by precarious work and union busting employers cannot go unchallenged and IndustriALL and our global diamond network will continue to support IDUL.”

Valter Sanches

Training workshops on how to counter sexual harassment will be held as part of the IndustriALL campaign to end gender-based violence in the workplace.

“The power of unions comes from fighting together”

Valter Sanches in Eswatini

“The power of unions comes from fighting together”

Valter Sanches in Eswatini

Uniting workers to fight for their rights and for living wages is important for unions in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Speaking to thousands of garment workers at Nhlangano factories, Valter Sanches, said:

“Some employers in the textile and garment sector are notorious for threatening workers in Eswatini with job losses with the ploy that they will take the production to Ethiopia.

"In turn Ethiopian workers receive similar threats when employers say they will relocate to Bangladesh. The employers do this to pay low wages, but we will not accept these games. IndustriALL will take the fight and that is why we unite workers from Eswatini, Lesotho, and South Africa. If we fight together, we will succeed.”

 The Eswatini affiliates said they were under “attack from different fronts” and welcomed the international solidarity and committed to “dirtying their hands in building a strong united workforce.”

Swaziland Electricity Supply Maintenance and Allied Workers Union is fighting for the reinstatement of four workers and the reversal of the suspension of 13 workers by the eSwatini Electricity Company who were suspended after taking part in a strike.

The Amalgamated Trade Unions of Swaziland (ATUSWA) is fighting against the victimization of its members. For instance, a factory at Fashion International at Matsapha is known to demote union leaders or threaten those that join the union. ATUSWA also faces the legal threats of being banned or deregistered.

Swedish unions help to strengthen their Latin American peers

On 8 April, Magnus Kjellson and Pamela Valenzuela from Unionen, together with Fanny Högrell from IF Metall, attended a meeting at IndustriALL's regional office in Montevideo. The aim was to assess the achievements of the “Construyendo poder sindical en América Latina” project, which seeks to build union power in Latin America, and plan the next steps.

IndustriALL's regional secretary, Marino Vani, told them about the political, economic and structural challenges facing affiliates in the region. He also explained the strategies in place to foster unity among trade unions and strengthen the voice of workers in the industry.   
The project seeks to meet the objectives set out in IndustriALL's Action Plan while also analysing and addressing weaknesses, with a view to ensuring that unions can safeguard workers' rights and help to drive change in the region.

Meeting participants highlighted the importance of working with and strengthening the regions "macro sectors", a strategy introduced by IndustriALL at its 2016 Congress. Meetings that bring together these macro sectors cover the entire supply and production chain of the multinationals present in the region, which means that most affiliates attend.

They also discussed specific capacity-building projects for affiliates in selected countries. The work of the gender working group, which comprises women managers and union leaders from more than ten countries in the region, was also a focus of the meeting.  

The Swedish union representatives shared their concerns about the rise of right-wing nationalism in many countries in Europe, including Sweden, as this has a direct impact on international union cooperation. 

Many Nordic unions are under pressure from government development and cooperation agencies to show that the projects they support deliver concrete results and to ensure that they can oversee the actions taken in implementing countries.

After taking stock of these new developments and their impact on international union cooperation, meeting participants agreed to keep working together to ensure that the project remained viable.

It is time to act on decent work for all e-waste workers

This video from the Self-Employed Women's Association in India shows the realities of processing e-waste

The Global Dialogue Forum on Decent Work in the Management of Electrical and Electronic Waste (e-waste) took place from 9 to 11 April 2019. The purpose of the Forum is to discuss current and emerging issues related to the promotion of decent work in the management of e-waste, with the aim of adopting points of consensus, including recommendations for future action by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and its members.

IndustriALL Global Union, under the auspices of the International Trade Union Confederation, coordinated the trade union experts’ participation, drawn from the following six countries; Denmark, India, Japan, Russia, Sweden, and UK.

The e-waste industry is the largest growing waste stream. It is hazardous, complex and expensive to treat in an environmentally sound manner, and there is still a general lack of legislation or enforcement surrounding it in many countries. The majority of work with e-waste in developing countries takes place in the informal economy. Under these circumstances, issues of e-waste workers such as the violation of fundamental workers’ rights, child labour, precarious working conditions and neglect of health and safety have been reported to IndustriALL, especially from developing countries.

The supply chains that feed the ICT electrical and electronics industry are getting longer and more complex as technology pervades every area of our lives, and it will continue to boost the e-waste industry. All stakeholders of the supply chain have a responsibility to provide, and workers have a right to expect, safe, healthy, clean and sustainable jobs. In the Forum, the issues and challenges of the e-waste workers were focused in the circular economy and the ways to advancing decent work in the industry.

“Workers handling e-waste have no voice, no bargaining power and they are breaking hazardous materials by their hands. ”

James Towers, the vice-chairperson representing the workers' group

“Workers handling e-waste have no voice, no bargaining power and they are breaking hazardous materials by their hands. Moreover, these workers are unaware of the many risks associated with handling e-waste”, said James Towers, the vice-chairperson representing the workers' group.

“We, the workers, want a future of work which brings fair working practices and Just Transition for the e-waste workers.”

Kan Matsuzaki, IndustriALL director of ICT, Electrical and Electronics, said:

“This is the first meeting at which employers, governments, and workers deeply shared the issues and challenges on the ground of e-waste, and seriously and constructively reached draft points of consensus which cover the workers’ concerns. This is important step forward towards a sustainable future. It is time to act to achieve decent work for all the e-waste workers!”

Related

Ford workers in Russia demand decent compensation

On 12 April, some 150 workers of the Ford Sollers plant with the support of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate the Interregional Trade Union "Workers Association" (ITUWA) and the local Ford trade union organization, held a rally with slogans “Ford:  discriminating and deceiving workers in Russia” and “Governor and Mayor, protect our rights”. 

Employees of the plant, which is located in the Leningrad region, do not agree with the Voluntary Dismissal Programme, developed by local Ford management. According to the ITUWA, 10 managers will receive as much compensation as 1,000 employees of the plant. 

Participants of the programme can count on compensation clearly above the Russian legal requirements but under conditions that restrict the employee’s rights. They should not be absent from work for more than five days due to illness and should not have disciplinary sanctions. Moreover, production targets must be met. If at least one condition is violated before 24 June, the employee will only receive three months’ salary. Trade union activists say that any employee might be groundlessly punished with disciplinary measures and deprived of their deserved compensation. 

Igor Temchenko, chair of ITUWA in the Leningrad region and Saint-Petersburg, states,

“We believe that the proposed Voluntary Dismissal Programme does not fairly allocate funds for compensation. The director and managers will receive from 4 to 10 million rubles (US$ 61,200-153,000), workers can count on 400,000-1 million rubles (US$ 6,100-15,300). During the negotiations, we would like to find an acceptable option for both sides. However, the employer refuses to negotiate with unions.”

Ford Europe management also refused dialogue with the unions, saying that enough funds have been allocated, and the distribution is an internal matter of the local management in Vsevolozhsk.

The unions have sent a letter to Ford Motor management, headquartered in Dearborn, USA, including Bill Ford, the Executive Chairman of Ford Motor company.

Georg Leutert, IndustriALL director for the automotive industry, said:  

“The closure of the plant would have dramatic social consequences for the city of Vsevolozhsk. Therefore, Ford must act quickly and gather all stakeholders – including the trade unions – around one table and initiate joint discussions that open sustainable perspectives for thousands of workers and their families."

Earlier, on 5 April, the plant workers adopted a joint statement, which entrusts the works council at Ford Vsevolozhsk to address the government of the Russian Federation in order to organize negotiations with potential buyers of the Ford plant site in Vsevolozhsk with mandatory participation of employees' representatives, as well as to employ all willing workers at a new enterprise.

Vadim Borisov, regional secretary of IndustriALL, comments,

“Ford and Ford Sollers had no strategy for the Russian market and now the workers have to pay for their inability. We support trade unions’ demands for fair payments, and we call on the government to ensure that a maximum of Ford Sollers employees can safeguard their jobs at the plant under a new owner."

IndustriALL and H&M national monitoring committee established in India.

The purpose of the NMC is to develop the national short and long term plans and strategies for implementing the GFA at H&M suppliers. The monitoring committees are composed of local trade unions as well as H&M representatives.

The Indian NMC is now the sixth country-based NMC – the others are in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and Turkey. The Indian NMC is the first to be composed of all women members.

The two-day meeting in Bangalore focused on building understanding of complaint resolutions and the NMC’s role in the process. Further discussions centred around the development of joint awareness training on freedom of association and collective bargaining for management and workers at H&M suppliers.  

IndustriALL NMC members, Prathibha R from Unions United, Rukmini V.P from Textile Workers Federation of India and Thilagam Ramalingam from IndustriALL South Asia office added:

‘’The formation of the NMC in India is a very important step to ensure that the GFA with H&M is implemented effectively. We look forward to having better industrial relations in all H&M suppliers.’’

Malaysia: building union power by more members

According to the Malaysia Department of Trade Union Affairs, the rate of unionization in the country is only 6 per cent. This year, the unions are aiming to organize thousands of workers from factories in the transport and equipment industry, electronic and electrical industries, as well as the paper industry.

“We are trying to organize workers from a multinational automobile corporation,” said Mohamad Fauzi, Chairman of IndustriALL Malaysia Council. “We need solidarity support from the union in its country of origin.”

The action plan includes producing information material on unions and organizing. Participants at the meeting also discussed a publication on latest trend of collective bargaining at the global level, which will be useful for unions when bargaining with employers.

“IndustriALL’s office has moved to Kuala Lumpur, and we will provide support for building stronger unions in Malaysia,” said IndustriALL regional secretary Annie Adviento. 

Since December last year, the IndustriALL Malaysia council is working with Decent Work Working Group to initiate a series of consultations on reforming the Employment Act 1955, Trade Union Act 1959 and Industrial Relations Act 1967.

The proposed amendments to the Employment Act were submitted to the Minister of Human Resources in January. Unfortunately, the Ministry’s latest draft of Employment Act amendments in March 2019 ignored the affiliates’ demands and backtracked several improvements stated in its initial draft from September 2018, including 44 weekly working hours and 98 days paid maternity leave.

Participants also discussed how to use ILO standards to help unions develop effective arguments to fight for labour rights, for example can the ratification of several ILO conventions show that a country is committed to higher labour standards and protecting workers’ interests. The Malaysian affiliates agreed to advocate for the ratification of more ILO conventions, in particular ILO’s fundamental conventions.