Give workers a vision and they will help with solutions

That is the central argument coming from the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU), whose organizers are grappling with a question that global policy forums rarely answer. Specifically, how do you make a Just Transition relevant to workers who have never of heard the term? Simon Eppel, SACTWU research director who was in the room when the Just Transition manifesto for the textile and garment supply chain was launched, knows the gap between policy and factory floor.

“The Just Transition stuff right now is like preaching. You’ve got to do something about climate change. But there’s no incentive for workers to take the risk. Give them an incentive,”

he says.

The problem with reskilling in an economy without jobs

The Just Transition manifesto calls for reskilling and redeployment as central pillars of a Just Transition. SACTWU broadly supports these demands. However, they raise a critical challenge that is often overlooked in global policy discussions: reskilling only works where there are jobs to reskill into.

“Traditionally the most prominent part of the Just Transition concept is about reskilling and replacing workers. And that works in an economy of full employment. It just doesn’t work as well in the Global South,”

Simon Eppel explains.

In South Africa, unemployment is among the highest in the world. Therefore, asking workers to accept job losses on the promise of future opportunities is asking them to gamble with their livelihoods. SACTWU’s argument is to broaden the Just Transition vision beyond jobs. They want to include giving workers a stake in the assets required for decarbonization and sustainable production.

“Poverty is not only income-related. It is also asset-related. In a future of economic, climate, technology shocks and more we need to think about how to make workers more resilient, including by having assets that earn workers incomes, not only jobs.”

A practical vision: workers as co-owners

SACTWU is already developing models. The union is building an education programme that starts with problems workers already understand, like coal-fired boilers in textile factories that damage their health. Then it aims to build toward collective solutions.

“You start with the coal-fired boiler. Workers breathe that in every day. You make the link between their health, their community and the broader climate challenge. Then you come with solutions,”

Simon Eppel says.

One such solution involves replacing coal boilers with solar thermal technology, dramatically reducing fuel consumption. But crucially, SACTWU argues that workers should benefit not only from this change, but from owning a share of it.

“Why is the union movement not conceiving models where workers are enabled to buy machines, the boss rents it from them and they earn a nominal rent every month? This model could be marketed to European buyers as sourcing from factories who practice sustainable green growth,”

Simon Eppel challenges.

This is a vision the union believes workers could get behind. Not sacrifice, but shared opportunity.

What the Global South needs from the Global North

South Africa’s retail-textile value chain moves at a different pace from Europe’s. Local retailers are not yet demanding sustainable fibres or circular production models. This means the market pressure driving transition elsewhere simply does not exist here yet. But SACTWU is clear that this cannot be an excuse to wait.

“Left to its own devices, our local system will push us slowly. If we want to take advantage of the opportunities, we must push the system to move faster,”

Simon Eppel says.

To do that, the Global South needs three things from the Global North: recognition that different contexts require different pathways, affordable financing and more crucially long-term purchase commitments from global buyers.

“If buyers say, we’ll give you orders, not for six months, but a three-year commitment and here is money and exposure to technology then factories can make the changes. That is what you need to build businesses and jobs and to enable the transition,”

he adds.

Without that demand signal from Northern buyers, even willing factories cannot justify the investment in green technology.

Moving from defence to offence

Historically, unions have been defensive by nature, protecting what exists. It is a shift that Simon Eppel, who has spent years working with garment workers on the Cape Flats, believes unions cannot afford to avoid.

“You can’t purely be defensive. You need to be offensive too. If we simply defend against risks, the nature and direction of change will be defined for us and we will lose the chance to shape the future as different from the present. To be offensive, you need an alternative world you are putting forward,”

he explains.

That means experimenting, sharing what works across unions globally and being willing to take risks even when the outcome is uncertain. SACTWU is now raising funds for an education and pilot project programme and identifying factories where new models could be tested.

A transition that works for everyone

The Just Transition manifesto sets out bold demands for brands, employers and governments. SACTWU supports the direction but insists that unless those demands are grounded in the lived reality of workers in the Global South, they risk remaining exactly that: demands on paper.

“You don’t have to learn basic human behaviour and human need. You just need to think about workers as people rather than as policy,”

he says.

For SACTWU, a Just Transition is not a compliance exercise or a green marketing opportunity. Instead, it is a chance to build a new relationship between workers, technology and ownership. This is one where the people who make our clothes also have a stake in the future of the industry that depends on them.

Hormuz crisis exposes energy skills gap

The European Commission has already fast-tracked its AccelerateEU package, bringing forward electrification targets and grid investment plans. Across Asia, governments are rushing to expand solar, wind and battery capacity. These are not transition plans developed through social dialogue. They are emergency responses to a supply shock, and the workers who will build and operate the new system are not at the table.

That is not a new problem. It is an old one, moving faster.

The IEA’s April Oil Market Report sets out the scale of what has already happened. Global oil supply fell by 10.1 million barrels per day in March, the largest disruption in the history of the global oil market. Petrochemical plants across Asia have cut operating rates by between 10 and 30 per cent, threatening supply chains in manufacturing, textiles, construction and packaging. Governments across four continents, from Argentina to Ethiopia, from Pakistan to the Philippines, have introduced emergency measures to reduce fuel consumption. And the IEA is unambiguous about what restoring the energy system requires. The IEA’s own April Oil Market Report lists “the mobilisation of skilled labour and contractors” as a precondition for supply recovery, alongside political stability and the reopening of the strait itself.

Workers already knew the energy system was fragile. They knew the transition was coming and that too little was being done to shape it around their needs. What the Hormuz crisis has changed is the speed. Decisions that were supposed to take years are being made in weeks.

What IndustriALL president said and why it matters now

When IndustriALL president, Christiane Benner visited IndustriALL’s Geneva headquarters in March, she was direct about what Just Transition actually requires.

“To find common ground, our union needs one thing above all else: clarity on what decarbonization actually means for individual workplaces.” That means jointly analyzing which locations will be significantly affected, what skills will be needed and where jobs are at risk or new ones will be created. “Such a shared framework of facts lays the groundwork so that employees do not feel steamrolled.”

The Hormuz crisis has not changed that argument. It has made the consequences of ignoring it visible to everyone. Industry observers have warned that the world is going to get the energy transition forced on it in a very painful way, very quickly. That is precisely what IndustriALL and many other global unions have spent years trying to prevent.

The question is no longer whether the transition happens. It is whether workers help shape what replaces the system that just failed, or have that decision made for them by governments and employers responding to a crisis with no plan for labour.

The scale of the skills gap

The IEA’s World Energy Employment 2025 report put numbers to what workers on the ground already know. The energy sector now employs 76 million people worldwide, up more than 5 million since 2019 and has accounted for 2.4 per cent of all net new jobs created globally over the past five years. Energy employment grew at 2.2 per cent in 2024, nearly double the economy-wide rate.

But inside that growth story is a crisis in the making. Out of 700 energy-related companies, unions and training institutions participating in the IEA’s Energy Employment Survey, more than half reported critical hiring bottlenecks already threatening energy infrastructure delivery. To prevent that gap widening further by 2030, the number of qualified new entrants into the energy sector would need to rise by 40 per cent, requiring an additional US$2.6 billion per year in training investment globally. That is less than 0.1 per cent of world education spending.

The Hormuz crisis has not created that gap. It has exposed it. Rebuilding energy supply chains, in whatever direction governments now choose, will require the workers, the skills and the training institutions that barely exist. Knowing where they are, and where they are not, is the starting point.

Why unions cannot sit out the IEA survey

That is what makes the IEA Employment and Skills Survey, closing 15 May, more urgent than it has ever been.

Diana Junquera Curiel, IndustriALL’s director for Just Transition and industrial policy, is direct about what is at stake:

“the Hormuz crisis has done in weeks what we have been arguing for years: it has made the connection between energy security and workers impossible to ignore. The data from this survey is how we turn that moment into leverage, in every negotiation, every policy discussion, every conversation with governments and employers about what rebuilding actually requires. Without union voices in it, those arguments are weaker. It is that simple.”

Christiane Benner has been clear on what makes a Just Transition work in practice. It is not grand policy commitments. It is concrete tools: collectively bargained training programmes, transformation funds that workers help design and binding employment prospects that give people a reason to trust the process.

IEA Employment and Skills Survey 2025 — Source: IEA labour and Employment survey 2025

Those demands only carry weight when they are backed by credible, internationally recognized data. The IEA Labour Employment Survey , gathering responses from workers and their representatives across 65 countries, asked what makes a job decent. The answers were unambiguous: fair pay (90 per cent), employment security (73 per cent) and a safe working environment (71 per cent). These are the fundamentals that collective bargaining delivers. Yet the same survey found that only 35 per cent of workers classified clean energy jobs as quality jobs with both good conditions and good pay. That gap, between what workers say a decent job requires and what the energy transition is currently offering, is precisely what unions exist to close. Those priorities, recorded in a report read by governments and employers worldwide, put workers’ demands on the table in rooms where unions are not always present.

The 2026 survey can do the same. But only if affiliates show up.

Fill in the survey before 15 May

The IEA Employment and Skills Survey 2026 closes on 15 May 2026. It covers employment trends, skills needs and training capacity across the energy sector.

Every response from a union, a worker representative or a training institution makes the final report harder to ignore. It makes the skills gap harder to dismiss. It makes the case for collectively bargained training easier to win.

The energy shock has arrived. The question now is whether workers’ experience is counted in what comes next, or whether governments and employers rebuild the system without them, again.

You will find the link to all of the surveys here

Deregulation drive weakens worker protections across South Asia

Trade union leaders from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka came together for a webinar on labour laws reforms, organized by IndustriALL on 4 May. Discussions highlighted how this shift is being operationalized. Wages remain stagnant, fixed-term employment is normalized and contracting expanded, reducing employer accountability.

Labour law reforms undermine rights

Governments are using legal reforms to narrow definitions of workers, making it harder to claim rights and protections. Union registration is becoming more restrictive, while surveillance and data exposure deter organizing. Joining a union is increasingly becoming a risk, weakening collective power and discouraging resistance.

Increased participation of women and young workers is often presented as progress. However, speakers warned about the dangers of this expansion taking place through precarious and low-paid work, without corresponding protections, job security or safeguards against exploitation.

Speakers highlighted a striking pattern of weak implementation of labour laws. Widespread labour law violations, ineffective inspection systems and increased barriers around organizing consistently undermine enforcement, even where formal protections exist.

This raised a critical question: when non-implementation is this widespread, does it cease to be a gap and become a strategy?

Building a collective response

Systematic documentation of violations and use of international mechanisms were identified as key tools. India’s inclusion in the preliminary list for ILO Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) under Convention 081 offers a opportunity to push accountability, but sustained collective resistance will be essential to defend worker rights.

Unions stressed that growing informalization, labour deregulation and exclusion of workers from policy-making reflect a systemic shift across South Asia. These developments cannot be addressed in isolation. Unions must build stronger regional solidarity to develop common strategies, increase pressure and confront cross-border drivers of deregulation.

Kemal Özkan, assistant general secretary of IndustriALL says:

“Across global governance spaces, labour protections are treated as obstacles, collective rights as rigidity and precarity is repackaged as opportunity. What we are witnessing is not just economic change, but a deliberate weakening of democratic institutions and worker power.”

Ashutosh Bhattacharya, regional secretary of IndustriALL South Asia adds:

“In the name of consolidation and deregulation, hard-won rights are being systematically rolled back. This is why strengthening international solidarity and collective action is no longer optional, it is essential.”

Workers the last to know: KONE’s mega-deal with TK Elevator

If approved by regulators this takeover, the largest in Finnish corporate history and one of Europe’s biggest private equity exits, would create the world’s largest elevator and escalator manufacturer. Key topics of discussion include the KONE TK Elevator acquisition and its potential effects on workers’ rights. In doing so, it would employ more than 100,000 workers in over 100 countries.

Workers and their representatives found out when everyone else did through the financial press. Furthermore, they were informed by an email sent by the CEO after going public.

This is unacceptable. The announcement constitutes a serious breach of the GFA signed in 2021 between TK Elevator, the Group Works Council, IG Metall and IndustriALL. This agreement is one that TKE itself describes as key to safeguarding human and employee rights globally. Moreover, it also clearly violates the EWC and Global Workers Council agreements, signed in 2022 and 2024 respectively. These lay down information and consultation rights.

A betrayal of trust

The reaction from labour representatives was immediate and unambiguous. Knut Giesler, deputy chairman of TKE’s supervisory board and IG Metall district leader for North Rhine-Westphalia, described the announcement as outrageous. Additionally, he called it a direct attack on workers’ co-determination rights in Germany, Europe and globally. IG Metall demanded an extraordinary supervisory board meeting.

The planned €700 million (US$824 million) in annual synergies represents the language financial markets use for job cuts. This represents a direct threat to tens of thousands of TKE workers worldwide.

Christiane Benner, president of IG Metall and IndustriALL Global:

“The sale of TK Elevator to KONE must not be carried out at the expense of the employees. We will not accept the sacrifice of thousands of good jobs under the guise of synergies. Anyone who supports this merger must also guarantee that jobs and locations will be secured, co-determination will be respected and opportunities will be created for the workforce, anything else will meet with our resolute opposition.”

And that is why we will fight that:

No location stands alone.

No country is pitted against another.

No employee is left behind.

“From a European perspective, this announcement represents a clear breach of both the spirit and the letter of the European Works Council agreements at KONE and at TK Elevator. More than 45,000 workers in Europe are directly affected by this planned acquisition, yet their elected representatives were completely sidelined. That is not acceptable. Before any further step is taken, both KONE and TK Elevator must fully comply with their existing information and consultation obligations. If this deal is to proceed, it must be a growth project that also benefits workers, through secure jobs, respect for collective bargaining and full prior information and consultation,”

says Judith Kirton-Darling, general secretary, industriAll European Trade Union.

The question KONE must answer

KONE has made no public commitment to honour the existing TKE agreements. The merged entity will be headquartered in Finland. TK Elevator’s current co-determination architecture includes the supervisory board structure, the Group Works Council, the European and Global Works Council (GWC) and the GFA itself. However, this faces an uncertain future under new ownership unless KONE explicitly and formally assumes all obligations.

IndustriALL general secretary, Atle Høie, said:

“The announcement of KONE’s acquisition of TK Elevator is a direct violation of the GFA and GWC agreement that IndustriALL signed with TK Elevator in 2021 and 2024. These agreements are not a formality, they are a binding commitment to consult workers before decisions of this magnitude are made, not after. More than 100,000 workers around the world learned about the biggest change in both companies’ history from the financial press. That is unacceptable. There will be no union cooperation with this transaction unless our agreements are honoured in full.”

Taking immediate action

Both IndustriALL Global Union and industriAll Europe are coordinating with affiliates, including IG Metall and Finnish affiliates, to ensure workers on both sides of this transaction have a voice.

The antitrust review process for this transaction is expected to last at least until mid-2027. That window is not merely a regulatory formality; it is an opportunity. The unions will use every day of it to fight for their jobs.

Private equity bought TK Elevator in 2020. Workers already paid a price for that transition. They will not be left behind again.

The world’s largest elevator company should not be built on the backs of workers who were never asked.

Employees are not the subject of this deal, they are its foundation. After all, they are the ones who have created the value and must be treated with appreciation and respect.

African trade unions seek a seat at the climate table

The initiative was developed with IndustriALL Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regional office and the Sub-Saharan Africa energy network. It also involved IndustriALL affiliates in Ghana, ITUC-Africa, the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Ghana Trade Union Congress. The aim is to embed workers’ safeguards more firmly into Africa’s climate policies.

The workplan for the subsidiary body (SB64) sessions and COP 31 includes several steps. These include establishing an AGN-trade union Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) liaison group with formal terms of reference. Moreover, they involve compiling sector-specific evidence briefs on employment, reskilling, critical minerals and informal workers. They also involve delivering joint pre-sessional briefings. Further, submitting joint evidence to the secretariat’s mapping process on sovereignty-designed pathways is scheduled. Developing a unified African labour position paper on the JTWP, border adjustment mechanisms and equitable value chains is also planned. Additional activities include convening a COP 31 side event on African workers and the just transition. Another step is reviewing and institutionalizing the AGN labour liaison mechanism.

The meeting heard that finance lies at the heart of the grievances. SSA receives less than 3 per cent of global climate finance annually. Much of it comes in the form of loans rather than grants. Trade unions rejected the use of loans as climate contributions. They argued that they risk deepening the continent’s debt crisis. Interest rates in the region are roughly seven times higher than those in Organization for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries. To close this gap requires serious reform of multilateral development banks. This was argued by unions.

Drawing on the African mining vision, participants demanded that critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt be processed locally. This would generate decent, job-rich growth instead of raw exports.

Trade as a tool of exclusion

Unions raised concerns over the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, arguing that it risks shifting the costs of the energy transition onto African producers and workers. They also rejected product bans and green subsidies that function as trade barriers. Instead, they insisted on national rights to build regional value chains under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Protecting workers and gender justice

Influenced by South Africa’s Just Energy Transition experience, unions called for negotiated transitions featuring five-year notice periods for fossil-fuel phase-outs and wage parity for affected workers. A recurring theme was the need to protect the continent’s large informal workforce. They pushed for International Labour Organization(ILO) standards to be explicitly linked to climate finance. In particular, unions want attention to opportunities and rights for women and youth in the green economy. Unions also called for the full funding of the Gender Action Plan to address the disproportionate impact of climate disasters on women.

The meeting, convened with support from IndustriALL, Danish trade union 3F and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Senegal, brought together 20 participants from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Civil-society delegates from Gambia and Senegal also attended.

“AGN commits to the systematic integration of labour, deepening of open conversations, engaging key stakeholders and providing a platform and guidance during negotiations,”

said Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, AGN chairperson.

Paule-France Ndessomin, SSA IndustriALL regional secretary emphasized:

“The conversation on climate change is shifting to the protection of workers and community interests. For African trade unions, the just energy transition is a fight against new green extractivism.”

Deaths in certified shipbreaking yards expose enforcement failures

On 28 April, a fitter foreman at Janata Steel in Sitakunda suffered severe injuries to his chest, neck and head while dismantling a giant gang stair. He returned to work after just five days. This raises questions about whether workers can take adequate time off without fear of repercussions.

A few weeks earlier an electrician at NB Steel Recycling Yard, operated by KR Ship Recycling Yard, died from an electric shock at work. IndustriALL affiliate Bangladesh Metal Workers’ Federation (BMF) intervened to ensure that the deceased worker’s family received compensation above industry standards. However, the incident highlights deeper systemic failures.

Safe working conditions must be non-negotiable and employers who fail to ensure them must be held accountable. There is a need to establish mechanisms that guarantee long-term support for affected workers and their families.

Transparency and accountability remain weak

KR Ship Recycling Yard recently received a government Green Factory Award for safety, yet it is not compliant in practice. These accidents show that the Bangladeshi government has yet to ensure effective enforcement of the Hong Kong Convention’s standards. Therefore, urgent state intervention is needed.

Even with a framework that mandates audits, training and time-bound oversight, repeated fatalities in certified yards raise serious questions about how these standards are being monitored and enforced in practice. The issue is no longer if standards exist. Instead, it is whether workers have any real power to stop dangerous work before it turns fatal.

IndustriALL director for shipbuilding and shipbreaking, Walton Pantland, says:

“It is heartbreaking to hear of two more accidents in Bangladeshi shipbreaking yards in April, including a fatality. This is the third fatality this year at KR Ship Recycling, a company that is supposed to be HKC compliant and is certified by the government with a DASR. There have been three deaths and 17 injuries in Bangladesh this year, at a time when yards are not particularly busy. This is absolutely unacceptable and shows that no lessons have been learned by the industry.

“It is also tragic that although the EIS scheme is ready to be implemented, it is not in place yet, meaning that the family of the worker who died will not receive a pension. This avoidable death needs to be the catalyst that brings change to the industry. This cannot go on.”

IndustriALL affiliate BMF adds:

“The recent accident in Bangladesh’s ship recycling industry is a tragic reminder of the urgent need for transparency and accountability. A full and independent investigation must uncover the causes of this disaster and workers themselves must be empowered to shape safer futures through active participation in joint OSH committees and by exercising their fundamental right to refuse unsafe work.”

Asia Pacific unions tackle low wages in the garment sector

Despite real wage increases in many economies, working conditions have remained poor and characterized by widespread informality and vulnerability. Trade union representatives from across the region met in Penang, Malaysia this week for a two-day workshop on wage setting mechanisms, organized by IndustriALL Global Union and Japanese affiliate UA Zensen. The workshop brought together affiliates to share strategies and build collective capacity to tackle low wages in the sector.

Participants from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam shared experiences and strategies on wage setting mechanisms, collective bargaining and organizing. Drawing on examples from across the region, the workshop aimed to strengthen their collective capacity to win better wages for garment workers.

Setting the scene: the ILO perspective

Wage policy is the framework through which governments, employers and workers collectively shape wage outcomes. When it functions as a coherent system, it can make an enormous difference. Across Asia, that coherence is often missing. The region has more than 5,000 minimum wage rates; only India has more than 2,000. Yet in countries like Pakistan, one in four workers does not receive even the minimum wage to which they are legally entitled. Informal workers across the region earn roughly half of what formal workers earn.

ILO senior wage expert Xavier Estupinan stressed that setting a minimum wage is only the first step. The real question is whether it is adequate, regularly reviewed, effectively enforced and supported by strong social dialogue.

The ILO’s living wage programme builds on this foundation by bringing together governments, employers and workers to advance effective living wage policies and practices. It rests on two complementary pillars: first, the estimation of living wages and the development of a global wage data hub; and second, the operationalization of living wages in practice, including through technical assistance to countries and sectors ready to act.

IndustriALL’s gender director Armelle Seby warned that wage-setting systems can entrench inequality by institutionalizing the undervaluation of women’s work. Pay transparency and gender-neutral job evaluation are key tools to ensure gender-transformative wage systems. A gender-transformative approach is not an add-on. It must be built into the design of wage policies from the outset, based on gender analysis. Without this, minimum wage frameworks risk replicating, or even widening, the gender pay gap already prevalent in the sector.

The ACT agreement and collective bargaining in practice

The ACT initiative and its work on supply chain industrial relations was presented and discussed. Cambodian affiliates shared their experiences on renegotiating the template CBA, which will be valid for the next three years. They also presented their work on increasing the number of factories signing the agreement.

Wage setting in Japan: lessons from UA Zensen

The workshop also heard from UA Zensen on wage setting in Japan. Union density is shrinking, nearly all unions are company-based and women account for fewer than 30 per cent of union members. Since 2022, the annual Shunto spring wage offensive has delivered general wage increases of around five per cent. However, structural challenges remain. UA Zensen has focused on strengthening bargaining power through leadership training and frameworks for joint action, targeting legislative reform and industry-specific fair labour standards.

“Wages in the garment sector have been kept artificially low for too long. This workshop is about building the union power and knowledge to change that. Because without strong unions at the bargaining table, workers will continue to bear the cost,”

said IndustriALL textile and garment director Christina Hajagos-Clausen.

The regional meeting of IndustriALL’s TGSL network opened the week, before delegates moved into the wage setting workshop. Affiliates from across Asia Pacific came together to share updates and coordinate priorities for the sector.

Hard as steel: workers stand firm at ArcelorMittal AGM

Workers travelled from across Europe, Brazil and Mexico to make their voices heard. At the heart of their demands was ArcelorMittal workers safety social dialogue, emphasizing the need for real commitment and action. They demanded investment in people and the planet and respect for workers’ rights. For them, ArcelorMittal workers safety social dialogue means investment in people, the planet, and respect for rights. They also called for genuine social dialogue. Their lives, their dignity and their futures, they said, must come before profit.

The demonstration comes against a backdrop of deepening crisis. Over 300 workers have died at ArcelorMittal in the past decade. Thousands of jobs are being cut without consultation, climate commitments are being abandoned and trade unions are being systematically silenced. At the same time, the company has returned billions to shareholders. Yet, investment in safety, jobs and a just transition has fallen critically short.

The human cost is not abstract. It’s felt in every plant, on every shift, by every worker who clocks in. Sadly, they do not know if they will return home safely.

A pattern of failure, not isolated incidents

Flavio Cordeiro De Paiva, from IndustriALL affiliate CNM-CUT (Confederação Nacional dos Metalúrgicos da CUT), in Brazil described the daily reality inside ArcelorMittal’s plants:

“We are facing increasing fatigue from imposed schedules, wage stagnation, unsafe equipment conditions and mounting pressure. Clearly, the lack of ongoing ArcelorMittal workers safety social dialogue continues to put workers’ lives at risk. In just twelve months at my plant in João Monlevade, we have recorded twenty accidents and numerous near misses involving cranes, molten steel and heavy loads. Weakened social dialogue must be restored. We call for negotiation, respect and dignity. Our message is clear: workers’ lives must take priority over financial targets.”

In Mexico, the consequences of deferred investment have already proved fatal. In June 2025, a preventable boiler explosion at ArcelorMittal’s power plant in Lázaro Cárdenas – the result of years of deferred maintenance – killed a supervisor and seriously injured a worker. The company had repeatedly patched boiler leaks rather than addressing underlying equipment failures. As a result, production was halted for over six months.

Francisco Galiana Mejia of Mineros de México, an IndustriALL affiliate, told those gathered outside the AGM:

“In 2025 a supervisor was killed after a boiler exploded. This is due to the company’s failure to invest in the plant. Production was then stopped for seven months and this caused so much hardship for our families, because incomes were cut in half. But thanks to leadership and global solidarity, people were able to push through. If we remain united, we will be victorious in the end.”

The pattern extends far beyond the Americas. In Liberia, when workers employed by ArcelorMittal’s security contractor, SEGAL, staged a peaceful protest in October 2025, sixteen of them were beaten and arrested on SEGAL’s orders. Workers who organize, who speak up, who demand what is rightfully theirs, are being met with repression.

In Europe, the company has repeatedly sidelined its European works council (EWC). It failed to consult it on major restructuring decisions in violation of both EU law and its own EWC agreement. The situation became so untenable that in March 2026 the EWC was forced to demand mediation. European trade unions describe the company’s approach as gaslighting, claiming to inform the EWC while not doing so at all.

Shareholders rewarded, workers sacrificed

A 2025 study by SteelWatch found that despite receiving over €3 billion in public subsidies for decarbonisation across Europe and beyond, ArcelorMittal “has not taken a single final investment decision on any of its five announced Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) projects in Europe and Canada.” SteelWatch accused the company of backtracking on its climate commitments and abdicating its role as an industry leader. Between 2021 and 2024, the company spent only US$800 million on decarbonisation. However, it returned US$12 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks during the same period.

The world’s steel cannot be made on promises. It is made by workers, workers who deserve safety, fair wages and a seat at the table.

“Yesterday’s action proved that solidarity knows no bounds! ArcelorMittal does not invest in decarbonization and new technologies. It puts profits over people and the planet. Instead of creating new jobs in Europe through decarbonization, they are planning to relocate one third of the European workforce.

It is unacceptable that ArcelorMittal receives 3.5 billion dollars in public subsidies worldwide. Meanwhile, their workers are suffering and dying in poorly maintained factories.

With the EU Steel and Metals Action Plan in place, there is a supportive policy framework, solid financial results and massive public support. As a result, ArcelorMittal has no justification for standing still on investment in decarbonization. Investing in decarbonization means investing in decent union jobs and skills. In addition, it secures the long term future of steel in Europe, and the company must now do its part.

Workers and the environment are paying the price of ArcelorMittal’s decisions and enough is enough,” said Judith Kirton-Darling industriAll Europe’s general secretary.

“ArcelorMittal signed a global health and safety agreement in 2008. Eighteen years later, workers are dying from preventable accidents and being beaten for peaceful protest, while 450 of our brothers and sisters in Ohio were forced to strike for over two months to get a fair contract. IndustriALL is calling on the company to account for the implementation of that agreement at every plant worldwide. We also call on the company to sit down with us and strengthen the existing agreement with binding targets, transparent fatality reporting and real consequences for non-compliance. The framework already exists, what is missing is the will to implement it,”

said Alex Ivanou, IndustriALL base metals director.

Young workers in Latin America build regional voice

Young workers from IndustriALL affiliates in Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Uruguay met at the regional office in Montevideo on 28-29 April. They reviewed changes approved at IndustriALL’s 4th Congress and discussed how to strengthen coordination and representation of trade union youth across the region.

The Congress in November 2025 approved the creation of a global youth committee and the possibility of regional committees. This will expand young workers’ participation in IndustriALL’s decision-making bodies.

Welcoming participants, IndustriALL assistant general secretary Christina Olivier said:

“Setting up youth structures should not be seen as symbolic, but as a necessity. In a world marked by precarious work, transformation and the climate crisis, organised youth structures ensure young workers have a collective voice, the power to influence, and the space to build leadership today, not tomorrow, not in the distant future.”

Participants defined the committee’s terms of reference and set priorities for 2026. There were also discussions on how to raise the profile of trade union youth across the region. Isaac Vásquez Bejarano, from Fesitex Nicaragua, was appointed co-chair and will represent the region on the global youth committee:

“It was two days of hard work but we achieved everything we set out to do. We formed a working group to map how to achieve the goals we have as young people from Latin America and the Caribbean. We hope to see greater youth participation at regional and global levels, particularly from women and people from diverse backgrounds.”

Tiara Amigorena, from CNTI in Argentina, was elected as the second co-chair:

“We are very proud because we believe this initiative expands the rights of young trade unionists. We are set for a lot of hard work to secure greater rights.”

IndustriALL youth and projects officer Sarah Flores stressed that the committee is a means, not an end:

“Establishing this committee is a major step towards greater diversity and representativeness. However, it is merely a tool, not an end in itself. The challenge now will be to bring to life the proposals and strategies developed by its members, together with the affiliates in the region.”

ArcelorMittal: enough is enough

A new investor brief, based on worker testimony from multiple countries and recounting company failures in Kazakhstan, Mexico, Brazil, Liberia, the USA and across Europe, exposes a stark and consistent gap between what ArcelorMittal says and what workers experience. This brief highlights ongoing ArcelorMittal worker safety failures. The picture that emerges is not of isolated failures but of a company-wide pattern of putting short-term financial gain above the safety, rights and futures of its workforce.

A decade of preventable deaths

Central to the day of action is ArcelorMittal’s catastrophic safety record. Between 2013 and 2023, over 300 workers died at ArcelorMittal operations worldwide. The investor brief makes clear these deaths are not the unavoidable result of working in a dangerous industry, they are the consequence of a company that consistently fails to invest in its infrastructure, engage meaningfully with trade unions on occupational safety and learn from tragedy.

In October 2023, a fire at ArcelorMittal’s Kostenko coal mine in Kazakhstan killed 46 workers, the country’s worst industrial accident since independence. SteelWatch later reported the company left Kazakhstan with billions of dollars in unresolved health damages, having faced demands to compensate victims and families for nearly 30 years of deaths and injuries. An investor report at the time called the fire: unfortunately not surprising, given the company’s record.

In June 2025, a preventable boiler explosion at ArcelorMittal’s power plant in Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, the result of years of deferred maintenance, killed a supervisor and seriously injured a worker. The company had repeatedly patched boiler leaks rather than addressing underlying equipment failures. Production was halted for over six months.

In Brazil, IndustriALL affiliate CNM-CUT reports 22 workplace accident reports registered with the local union in the past year alone, alongside numerous near-misses including crane failures, molten steel spills, ruptured pressurised pipes and falling heavy loads. Workers describe a culture of fear, stagnating wages and deteriorating equipment across multiple plants.

This is not a new crisis. In 2024, IndustriALL and industriAll European Trade Union staged a global day of action calling on ArcelorMittal to stop deaths at work.

The situation has not improved.

Silencing workers’ voices

The investor brief documents a consistent pattern of union avoidance and disregard for social dialogue across ArcelorMittal’s global operations.

In Europe, the company has repeatedly sidelined its European works council (EWC), failing to consult it on major restructuring decisions in violation of both EU law and its own EWC agreement. The situation became so untenable that in March 2026 the EWC was forced to demand mediation. European trade unions describe the company’s approach as gaslighting, claiming to inform the EWC while not doing so at all.

In Liberia, ArcelorMittal has failed to hold its security contractor SEGAL to basic labour standards, despite SEGAL workers joining IndustriALL affiliate United Workers Union of Liberia (UWUL) in April 2025. When SEGAL workers staged a peaceful protest in October 2025, 16 of them were beaten and arrested on the SEGAL’s orders. Twelve security guards fired weeks after joining the union have not been reinstated, despite a ministry of labour order to do so.

“You allow someone in your house to violate laws and you don’t take action; you are complicit in that,” United Workers Union of Liberia.

In the USA, members of the United Steelworkers were forced into a 69-day strike , the longest in Local 3057’s history at ArcelorMittal’s Shelby, Ohio facility before securing a fair agreement on wages, retirement benefits and healthcare. As the union pointed out, the strike was not about wages. It was about quality of life.

Cutting jobs in profitable operations

Despite its European operations making a major contribution to group earnings, with steady sales performance between 2022 and 2025 and a low debt ratio, ArcelorMittal has been rolling out sweeping job cuts across the continent.

In a first wave of restructuring in 2025, between 1,145 and 1,400 full-time equivalent positions were offshored to the company’s AM/NS joint venture in India. In January 2026, ArcelorMittal announced a second wave of 5,000 to 6,000 additional support jobs to be offshored. IndustriALL estimates that country-level production job cuts across Europe add a further 3,000 positions. This means up to nearly one-third of ArcelorMittal’s entire European workforce is at risk.

These changes are being made without genuine consultation with trade unions or the EWC. And the offshoring destination, ArcelorMittal’s AM/NS joint venture in India, is itself characterised by union avoidance, heavy reliance on subcontracting and persistent resistance to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Abandoning climate commitments

ArcelorMittal’s carbon footprint is comparable to that of a small country such as Belgium. The brief argues that the company has a critical role to play in the transition to clean steel and that it is choosing not to play it.

Despite receiving over €3 billion (US$3.24 billion) in public subsidies for decarbonization across Europe and beyond ArcelorMittal has, according to SteelWatch, not taken a single final investment decision on any of its five announced direct reduced iron (DRI) projects in Europe and Canada. In 2025, the company withdrew from a decarbonisation project in Germany that had €1.3 billion(US$1.4 billion) in state subsidies attached to it.

At the same time, the company spent only US$800 million on decarbonization between 2021 and 2024 while returning US$12 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. SteelWatch has accused the company of backtracking on its climate commitments and abdicating its role as an industry leader.

“ArcelorMittal could be leading the way instead of blaming economic uncertainty for its delay. This is not climate leadership, it’s a strategic retreat,” SteelWatch

A message to investors

This brief is directed not only at the public but at ArcelorMittal’s shareholders, who the union argues have both the right and the responsibility to hold the company to account.

It identifies seven areas for investor engagement, including social dialogue, the EWC, occupational health and safety, job cuts in Europe, decarbonization, transparency and reporting and the equal treatment of contractors. It argues that the company’s failures in each of these areas expose it to significant legal, operational, financial and reputational risks.

IndustriALL general secretary, Atle, Høie says:

“ArcelorMittal is a profitable company making deliberate choices: to cut jobs, ignore safety and walk away from its climate commitments. Workers are paying the price. Enough is enough.”

“With the EU Steel and Metals Action Plan in place, a supportive policy framework, solid financial results and massive public support, ArcelorMittal has no justification for standing still on investment in decarbonisation. Investing in decarbonisation means investing in decent union jobs, skills and the long‑term future of steel in Europe — and the company must now do its part,” says Judith Kirton-Darling, general secretary, industriAll European Trade Union.

Taking the fight to the AGM

To demand action, IndustriALL Global Union and industriAll European Trade Union will be present at ArcelorMittal’s AGM in Luxembourg on 5 May 2026, staging a global day of action. Trade unionists and worker representatives from across the company’s global operations will be there to make clear that these failures can no longer be ignored, by the company or its investors.

The action is backed by the detailed investor brief outlining seven key areas for shareholder engagement.

Global day of action: 5 May 2026, 10:00 CET | 24–26 Boulevard d’Avranches, Luxembourg