IndustriALL suspends global agreement with Volkswagen

At IndustriALL Global Union’s executive committee in December last year, there was a unanimous decision to suspend the global framework agreement, called the Declaration on Social Rights and Industrial Relations at Volkswagen, safeguarding workers’ rights, if the German car giant continued to refuse to allow workers at its plant in Chattanooga to join a union.

“We regret Volkswagen’s behaviour and as long as the company refuses to honour its 2002 commitment with IndustriALL we see no other alternative than to consider the agreement suspended as of today, while we consider further actions together with our affiliated unions,” says Valter Sanches, IndustriALL general secretary.

Skilled workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga voted in December 2015 to join US union UAW. Not only has the democratic election result not been recognized in the workplace, Volkswagen is actively fighting it in court, trying to stop the workers from joining a union.

Volkswagen has appealed against a ruling of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in August 2016, which ruled in favour of the UAW, to stop the workers exercising their fundamental right of freedom of association.

In a letter to IndustriALL dated 15 January this year, the company states that it will accept the final ruling of the NLRB, but makes no reference to withdrawing its appeal from the NLRB’s previous ruling in favour of the UAW, which IndustriALL is demanding.

“We have good working relations with Volkswagen elsewhere in the world and suspending the GFA is unfortunate. But the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining is central to us,” Sanches continues.

“The vote held by the skilled workers at the Chattanooga plant is in accordance with ILO Convention No. 87 as well as US law, and Volkswagen must respect the right of the workers to freely choose their union.”

In a meeting in December, 2018 the World Works Council of Volkswagen Workers unanimously declared full solidarity with the VW workers in Chattanooga and defended their legitimate right to join the UAW.

Stop the war on wages and close the wealth gap

The report Public Good or Private Wealth shows the gap between rich and poor is growing as billionaires’ wealth increased US$2.5 billion a day in 2018.

The Oxfam study is timed with the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos this week, where every year the global elite says more must be done to create a fairer society, but does absolutely nothing about it.

Low taxes and offshore holdings are making companies and individuals rich beyond imagination and yet the desire to squeeze every last penny of profit is insatiable. This month, garment workers in Bangladesh have been protesting in their thousands calling for better wages as they earn a pittance making clothes for global brands, whose owners are among the top billionaires.

At Shell, one of the world’s biggest companies, a recent mission by IndustriALL found contract workers in Nigeria living in poverty and unable to pay for basic healthcare, despite working decades at the oil and gas giant.

In many countries, such as Brazil or Hungary, labour legislation to protect workers is being undermined or overturned.

Trade unionists fighting for better wages and safe working conditions are under attack, often with the complicity of the judiciary, as seen in Zimbabwe, Belarus and Algeria.

Industry 4.0 and energy transition are new threats to workers and the present model will only concentrate wealth into the hands of a smaller minority. The surge in contract, temporary and agency work further weakens workers’ bargaining power.

Unless governments protect workers, stand up to multinational companies and listen to trade unions, nothing will change.

After the first industrial revolution, trade unions fought for and won higher wages, safer conditions and social benefits. Now as the Fourth Industrial Revolution gathers pace, with rights eroded and real wages falling, trade unions must be ready to bargain for a just world of work.

It’s no surprise that the Spice Girls T-shirt was made by workers on poverty wages

A report in the Guardian has revealed that a charity T-shirt promoting women’s equality is made by Bangladeshi women earning well below a living wage. Sold for £19.40 for Comic Relief’s “gender justice” campaign, the women make just 35p per hour. The factory is part-owned by a government minister.

This follows a number of other sourcing scandals, including a case in 2015, when it was revealed that a campaign T-shirt with the slogan This is What a Feminist Looks Like was made by women on low wages in Mauritius. The workers were beaten by police for protesting against their working conditions.

This shows a failure in ethical procurement processes which should be standard in any charity – but it also reveals the difficulty of doing due diligence properly. Supply chains are opaque by design. Hiding the circumstances in which products are made allows retailers to claim plausible deniability. To put it simply, we cannot trust what retailers say about their sourcing practices, and self-regulation has no credibility.

We need transparency, strong unions and clear sourcing guidelines. This can only come about with a structural change in the relationships between production, sourcing and retail, with a clear role for workers’ representatives. IndustriALL Global Union has done a significant amount of work in changing these relations through developing binding agreements with global companies.

This work is most advanced in the ACT initiative, which is developing a new way to ensure accountability in supply chains, and guarantee that workers’ voices are heard.

IndustriALL is also calling for a UN treaty and an ILO Convention on supply chains. This work needs to go further, and crucially, more brands need to come on board and support initiatives that deliver true accountability.

Belarusian trade union case raised with the EU

Representatives of the international trade unions were received by Luc Devigne, Deputy Managing Director for Europe and Central Asia and Director for Russia, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia and OSCE and his team.

The union delegation expressed their anger and concerns over absence of democratic standards in Belarus resulting in demolition of civil society, including independent trade unions.

Belarussian authorities systematically deny registration of structures of independent trade unions under invented pretexts in violation of national legislation as well as international standards.

For years Belarus remains under special scrutiny almost at every International Labour Conference. The ILO Committee on the Application of Standards cited Belarus in special paragraph of its report a number of times. This is a procedure reserved for consistent and serious violations of labour rights, including those enshrined in core labour standards.

"We expect that the European Union will continue to put human, trade union and workers' rights first in their conversations with the Belarusian government. The situation in Belarus is highly critical and the European Union has the key in hand to change the reality for Belarusian people and workers", said Luc Triangle, General Secretary of IndustriAll European Trade Union.

The international organizations raised the “Trade union case” where in an unfair trial and in the absence of convincing evidence, two union leaders from Belarus Radio & Electronics Industry Workers’ Union, Gennady Fedynich and Ihar Komlik, were convicted for large-scale tax evasion and ordered to pay a large fine. Both are subjects to a four-year suspended imprisonment, and a ban on holding senior positions for five years.

In their joint letter, ITUC, IndustriALL, ETUC and IndustriAll Europe wrote to Vice-President Mogherini, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union condemned this court’s verdict, and the decision to reject the appeal.

The international union organizations believe the verdict is politically motivated and done in retaliation to the union for its active stance within the society. The verdict is an attempt to seed fear among activists and block them from resisting the inhuman Decree “On promotion of employment of population” also known as the Decree on social parasites.

Fedynich and Komlik became prisoners in their flats, their moving around is undermined, and certain hours of the day, on weekends and public holidays they cannot go out.

“They are clearly political prisoners of conscience,” said Kemal Özkan, “We once again urged the EU to raise the issue of political prisoners in Belarus with the authorities of the country and support our demand to review the verdict, and provide a full and unconditional acquittal for Fedynich and Komlik.”

The international unions expect that respect to democracy, human and trade union rights must be part of the priorities of the intended Partnership between the EU and Belarus, and jurisprudence of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights must be among the references.

In the meantime, as of 1 January 2019, the notorious Decree 1 entered into force. It contains elements of forced labour and creates supplementary ways to manipulate workers’ rights in addition to fixed-term contracts system. In order to implement the new decree a special data base was set up, however a lot of concerns are risen due to its non-transparency.

Workers at Turkish Saint-Gobain subsidiary strike for a fair contract

Workers have begun an indefinite strike today demanding better pay and working conditions after failure to agree a first contract between the Kristal-İş union and İzocam management. IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Kristal-İş represents some 180 İzocam workers in two workplaces, the Tarsus, Mersin plant, which produces glass wool, and the Gebze plant, which produces mineral wool.

Kristal-İş gained legal recognition as the union representing workers at İzocam in May 2018, after a four-and-a-half-year organizing campaign and legal battle, and commenced collective negotiations in August 2018.

During the campaign, company management took a hostile anti-union position and attitude against workers who joined the union, a basic right guaranteed by the Constitution of Turkey, as well as international labour conventions. Soon after Kristal-İş first applied to the Ministry of Labour for recognition, company management became aware of the drive and dismissed four organizers.

To establish mutual trust during the contract negotiations, Kristal-İş offered a reasonable transition process envisaging a steady increase in real wages, social benefits, overtime and night work, paid holidays, and improved health and safety measures through a two-year collective agreement. In return, the company offered a three-year contract with below-inflation pay increases, described by the union as “a mockery of İzocam workers who have been patiently waiting for their first collective bargaining agreement for five years.”

The company also refuses to rehire the four workers unjustly laid-off for leading union organizing almost five years ago.

There are 21 articles of the collective agreement subject to disagreement, 20 of them regarding wages and benefits.

Matthais Hartwich, IndustriALL director for the materials industries, said:

“I think it is unworthy of a company like Saint-Gobain to tolerate this kind of delay in its Turkish operation İzocam. Kristal-İş has struggled for years for recognition and for fair negotiations, and again local management is playing tricks and trying to delay the process.
“It is high time to come to a fair agreement. IndustriALL stands in solidarity with the men and women working at İzocam and organized in Kristal-İş.”

İzocam is jointly owned by Saint-Gobain and Kuwaiti investment company Alghanim.

Russian unions join forces to negotiate collective agreement at Volkswagen

In January 2019, the two largest trade unions at Volkswagen – the Automobile and Farm Machinery Workers' Union of Russia (AFW) and Interregional Trade Union "Workers Association" (ITUWA) – united more than 50 per cent of plant workers as a result of active campaigning, which lasted for five months. ITUWA has increased its membership from 865 to 1,760 and the AFW from 420 to 883 members. According to Russian law, trade unions covering more than 50 per cent of workers have the right to initiate collective bargaining.

The new collective agreement aims to significantly improve the position of employees. The main issues for negotiations with the employer will be a wage increase of more than 20 per cent, as well as the creation of a permanent worker’s representative body drawn from the two trade unions.

The president of ITUWA Dmitry Trudovoj said,

“Despite the fact that the threshold of 50 per cent has finally been achieved by two trade unions, we urge the labour collective not to rest on its oars. This has only given us the opportunity to begin the procedure of negotiations. We expect strong resistance, so negotiators will need support, including possible collective action”.

Previously, trade unions competed for a long time at the enterprise level. Positive changes took place last summer. IndustriALL Global Union invited the presidents of its affiliates to a dialogue, which laid the foundation for further cooperation.

President of AFW Andrey Fefelov stated,

“All that has been achieved now happened largely due to the efforts of IndustriALL and IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches. We have come to understanding that we need to stop the information war and to move to social partnership. It brought a significant result”.

The next important step for the trade unions will be the creation of a single representative body. It will include activists of both trade unions.

Vadim Borisov, regional secretary of IndustriALL, comments:

“We welcome the fact that our affiliates have found common ground. For Russia and for the entire post-Soviet space, we have received a unique experience of a joint organizing campaign”.

Tunisian unions strike against IMF austerity

The strike, which covers 670,000 workers, follows a one day stoppage in November 2018 and has hit airports, ports, schools, hospitals, state media and government offices, with many Tunisair flights cancelled. Wages have failed to keep up with rising prices, leading to a decline in purchasing power.

The UGTT announced yesterday that after “painful” negotiations consisting of more than 100 sessions, the strike would go ahead. Despite concessions made by the UGTT, the government had “stubbornly failed to address major economic and social issues such as tax evasion, the huge deficit of social security funds, the informal economy, inflation and the decline of purchasing power of Tunisians.”

The government said it cannot agree to pay raises due to its commitment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cut government spending and balance the budget. Tunisia receives vital aid from the IMF contingent on economic reforms.

During negotiations, the government delegation withdrew many times to consult with the IMF, thousands of miles away, leading some in the UGTT to propose that the union negotiate directly with the IMF, given the government’s lack of competence. The UGTT says that the government is being dictated to by the IMF, shows an unwillingness to address burning issues, and lacks a comprehensive economic and social vision.

The UGTT dismissed a government offer of an 80 dinars ($27) per month wage rise, calling for a rise of 270 dinars ($91). A last minute attempt to break the deadlock on 16 January lasted only a few minutes.

In a letter to the UGTT and IndustriALL Global Union affiliates, general secretary Valter Sanches said:

“It is regrettable to hear that the last minutes negotiations with the government have not reached any agreement on a wage increase for public sector workers.
“We share with the UGTT the firm belief that public sector workers are entitled to and deserve a decent wage increase, similar to the agreements concluded with the private sector and workers at state-owned companies. Public sector workers face the same challenges as purchasing power erodes rapidly due to soaring prices.”

PROFILE: Belarusian electronics union is no stranger to struggle

Union:
Belarusian Radio and Electronic Industry Workers’ Union (REP)

Country:
Belarus

Text:
Alexander Ivanou

Belarus has traditionally had a strong radio and electronics sector with highly qualified staff. Nearly 30 years ago, many of them, union members by default in the past, chose to cast their votes in favour of creating their own new, independent union.

The union united some 275,000 members and became the largest union in industry in Belarus. The union also joined what was then only trade union centre, the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FPB).

While the country transitioned from a planned economy to a market oriented one, many companies had to seek new markets and build up new distribution networks. A series of economic crises followed. Salaries plummeted, and in the absence of orders, factories reduced the number of staff, which led to a decline in union membership.

“These were very challenging times, but together with other unions, REP never stopped fighting for working people,”

says Gennady Fedynich.

In the early 1990s, trade unions were directly involved in mass protests.

Thousands of people were saying “No to the impoverishment of the people” in the central squares in Minsk. The protests forced the government to react and helped to stabilize the situation in industry, at the same time as new independent unions began to appear in Belarus. In 1993, the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions was formed.

Restrictions on freedom

With the election of Lukashenko as President in 1994, many civil society institutions were put under increasingly firm state control; freedoms became even more limited than during Soviet times.

For trade unions it became increasingly difficult to escape state control.

In 2000, REP was one of the initiators of a complaint to the International Labour 1 Organization (ILO) on violations of trade union and workers’ rights in Belarus (the country has since been under constant ILO scrutiny).

The response from the government was quick: instead of rectifying the situation, in 2003, Lukashenko’s administration made the deputy head of the presidential administration the new leader of the union federation. Through manipulation and administrative pressure, the newcomer replaced the most challenging independent leaders in the national unions affiliated to the FPB.

REP withdrew from the FPB in protest.

The authorities’ response was to create an industrial union, fully controlled by the authorities. Through pressure from both the administration and factory directors, this so-called union absorbed most of REP’s member unions. In a major blow, the REP was left with only 630 members.

“Organizing in conditions with such heavy pressure on workers is extremely difficult, but it is still the main focus of REP,”

says Gennady Fedynich.

“And despite all the efforts of the authorities, our trade union has managed to grow to 2,500 members.”

In 2009, REP joined the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions.

Currently, REP is present in 28 larger towns in all provinces of the country, as well as the capital Minsk. The union is building up its presence at production sites across the country.

Towards the end of the 1990s, President Lukashenko introduced a decree on fixed-term contracts. The entire workforce of the country was gradually put on one-year, or at most five-year, contracts. Once expired, workers could be out on the street without any severance pay or compensation.

The REP rushed to protect the workers and organized a number of legal advice centres where union lawyers would help workers to protect their interests. Although this made the union activists the targets of threats and abuse from employers, Fedynich says that providing this service to all workers gave the REP a good opportunity to organize more members.

Belarus does not attract a lot of foreign investment. In an attempt to raise income for the state, authorities introduced the infamous Decree no. 3, which effectively penalized the unemployed, making them subject to a high tax. The decree was immediately dubbed in public as the “Decree on social parasites,” in reference to similar legislation that had existed in the Soviet Union.

On REP’s initiative, comprehensive work was launched to abolish the decree. At the beginning of 2017, union members were very active in mass protests against the decree. As usual, authorities replied with a wave of repression – 36 members of the REP were fined a total of BYN 8,027 (US$4,292) and many were arrested.

Union members spent a total of 225 days in jail, and were also subjected to an additional fine of BYN 2,600 (US$1,380).

Fearing further protests, Belarusian authorities withdrew Decree no. 3, only to reintroduce a modified version under a different name a few months later. The new decree enforced the same principle of penalizing the unemployed for their inability to find a job in the country. The new version of the decree is heavily criticized both inside and outside of the country for elements of forced labour, but the government plans to bring it into force in 2019.

The active role of the union and fear of further mass protests are very likely what was behind another major attack on REP by the Belarusian authorities.

Early in the morning on 3 August 2017, the offices of several IndustriALL affiliates, REP and the Belarusian Independent Trade Union of Miners, Chemical workers, Oil-refiners, Energy, Transport, Construction and other workers, as well as their leaders’ homes, were searched as part of a criminal investigation against Gennady Fedynich and Ihar Komlik, REP’s chairperson and chief accountant, for alleged large-scale tax evasion.

Ihar Komlik was arrested and spent two months in prison. The investigation lasted an entire year and investigators interrogated more than 800 union members as witnesses. According to reports, during the interrogations investigators were particularly interested to know more about the trade union and its activities, rather than about the accused leaders and their supposed crimes.

The trial finally took place in August 2018.

It was closely followed by IndustriALL Global Union both through observers from affiliates in the region, as well as media.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan was present in the court as the verdict was announced.

“IndustriALL believes that even though the criminal case was brought against two individuals, it is clearly against the trade union itself and in a broader sense against the rights of independent unions,”

Özkan said.

“Together with our affiliates, we will continue to support the REP, Gennady Fedynich and Ihar Komlik in their struggle to defend and advance workers’ rights in Belarus.”

UPDATE: Since this article was published in IndustriALL’s magazine Global Worker, Gennady was forced to step down as chairperson of the union after the court found him guilty. The union committee has now created a special position of a union advisor for Gennady.

The authorities have imposed impossible conditions on Gennady Fedynitch and Ihar Komlik. They are de facto imprisoned in their flats; even visiting a doctor is a problem. Their freedom of movement is seriously restricted; on weekdays, they are allowed only to go to work and back, and on weekends they must stay at home. Police can come and check on their presence several times per night.

Gennady and Ihar are clearly political prisoners. But together with their union, they continue to fight against injustices in Belarus.

Rubber glove workers in Sri Lanka protest unjust terminations

The workers have been demonstrating at the Katunayake Export Processing Zone since 11 January following the dismissals, leading the company to stop production.

The terminations took place even though the five union members are all involved in an arbitration process with the company that has not yet concluded.

In response workers of ATG Ceylon launched protest at the Katunayake Export Processing Zone (EPZ). Subsequently the company stopped production until further notice.

The arbitration relates to an incident in September 2015, when pamphlets were placed without permission on the company noticeboard announcing a blood donation camp organized by the union with the health minister, to mark the second anniversary of the union.

As a result, ATG management issued charge sheets against 30 employees. Subsequently, seven employees including union officers, were placed under disciplinary proceedings, while a warning letter was issued against other employees.

ATG has orchestrated a relentless campaign of discrimination against the union which is affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union through the Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees Union (FTZ & GSEU) in Sri Lanka.

In February 2017, the company forced the union to hold a vote to represent workers, despite already having a mandate to do so. The union easily achieved above the required 40 per cent majority with a turnout of 95 per cent. Nonetheless the discrimination continued.

In a particularly petty act to demoralize employees, ATG refused to give gold medals to union members who had worked longer than five years, even though they were given to non-union members as part of the company’s silver jubilee celebrations. When one of the workers resigned from the union, he duly received his medal.

As the union tried to resolve the issue of numerous suspensions and dismissals at the company through the arbitration process, management went ahead in terminating five union members with immediate effect on 11 January 2019.

Anton Marcus of FTZ & GSEU, said:

“The ATG management acted unfairly without respecting the ongoing arbitration process and in violation of the Industrial Dispute Act. All benefits due to workers, irrespective of their involvement in union activities, should be provided to them. We demand the terminated workers are reinstated immediately. We call upon the ATG management to constructively engage with the union towards resolving the dispute as soon as possible.”

In a letter on 16 January, IndustriALL’s general secretary, Valter Sanches, said:

“Your company’s continual disrespect of fundamental labour rights brings shame to your customers, partners and the Sri Lankan authorities. The FTZ&GSEU is a responsible trade union, with international standing, and it should be treated with respect, as ATG’s relevant bargaining partner.”

Unions respond to reform of Malaysia's Industrial Relations and Trade Union Acts

As Malaysia's Minister of Human Resources, YB M. Kulasegaran, announced that the government will make changes to the Employment Act 1955, a first consultation meeting on reforming the bill was organised by IndustriALL and the Decent Work Working Group in December last year.

An action plan came out of that meeting, deciding on completing a list of demands by the end of December 2018, to meet with the Minister of MOHR in the first week of January 2019, and to send a delegation to Parliament in March 2019, when the reformed Act is set to be tabled.

The second consultation meeting of IndustriALL and the Decent Work Working Group was held on 13 January, with more than 60 participants from 31 unions, global unions BWI and UNI, as well as from MTUC and other NGOs.

Among the main principles on the amendments discussed were freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, relating to the sections focusing on the formation of trade unions and recognition for collective agreements.

In order to prevent a delayed registration of unions, participants suggest to amend section 12(1) of the Trade Union Act in order for the Director General (DG) in charge will complete the registration within the stated thirty calendar days of submission.

The working group is proposing further amendments to strengthen the unions' position when it comes to cancelling and suspending unions, demanding such a decision to be referred to a court, as well as demanding that various restrictions on strikes must be lifted, including the DG's power to declare a strike invalid.

The meeting, which was officiated by Datuk Abdul Halim Mansor, president of MTUC and moderated by Bruno Periera and Gopal Kishnam, will submit the amendment to the Minister.