Algeria: Crackdown on free unions taken to the ILO

As the economic situation in Algeria worsens due to the drop in global oil prices, the government is using increasingly aggressive tactics to hold onto power, according to Rachid Malaoui, President of CGATA (Confédération générale autonome des travailleurs en Algérie). “We are in a crisis situation which could erupt at any moment,” said Malaoui at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday 13 June.

During this year’s ILC, Algeria has been under examination by the Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) for breaching ILO Convention 87 on freedom of association.

In what has been described as a ‘dark year’ for unions, the Algerian authorities are declaring strikes illegal, preventing union branches from meeting, firing union leaders, and physically harassing union members.  

IndustriALL affiliate, SNATEGS, represents 35,000 workers at Sonelgaz, Algeria’s state-owned gas and electricity company. Sonelgaz employs 86,000 people and is the country’s second largest enterprise. SNATEGS president, Raouf Mellal, is contesting a six month prison sentence for blowing the whistle on corruption at Sonelgaz that illicitly inflated the electricity bills of more than eight million homeowners in Algeria for over ten years. 

Mellal has just one more chance to appeal his prison sentence and is facing a further 26 charges in the courts. He has been forced to change his address due to harassment from authorities, and so have his parents.

“As president of our union I am suffering. I am totally repressed. My career is destroyed. I lost my job three years ago,” said Mellal at the Geneva press conference.  “Now the government has even taken away my right to work as a lawyer. Why? Because I am president of an independent union.”

Since March 2017, SNATEGS has staged a series of well-supported strikes demanding better wages and improvements in health and safety, as fatalities at the company are frequent. As a consequence, 92 SNATEGS members have been fired, 12 are facing criminal charges, and more than 800 workers are facing civil charges for going on strike. Furthermore, the government deregistered SNATEGS on 16 May, breaking not only Algerian law but also ILO Conventions.

“Now it is a question of dignity. We don’t feel human anymore. We aren’t workers anymore. If you want to keep your dignity, you have to be prepared to pay the price. We are determined to do whatever it takes to get our dignity back,” said Mellal, who at 37 years-old is one of the youngest union leaders in the Arab world.

“Sonelgaz is the only provider of gas and electricity in Algeria. It is a vital sector. The workers at Sonelgaz have a lot of power if they want to. Despite this, workers’ basic salary is 200 euros a month. In contrast, the basic salary in Morocco is 600 euros, even though Algeria exports electricity to Morocco and is the main provider of energy in North Africa.

“In addition, there are not even minimum levels of safety at the workplace. We work without safety protection; we risk death. Just the day before yesterday, a worker died on electricity lines. Sonelgaz said it was the worker’s fault but that’s not true. Sonelgaz does not provide adequate safety measures. They are responsible for the deaths of their workers. That’s why the workers are determined, despite the repression, despite the legal cases, despite the dismissals, to have a big rally in July that we are calling the march of shame.”

IndustriALL spoke up against the maltreatment of SNATEGS and its members when Algeria was discussed at the ILC on 12 June. Speaking afterwards, IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary, Kemal Özkan, said:

“IndustriALL Global Union will stand by our brothers and sisters at SNATEGS until there is justice. Their fight is our fight. We urge the authorities in Algeria to immediately drop the charges against Raouf Mellal, as well as hundreds of union members whose only crime was to exercise their legitimate right to strike. We also demand that the government immediately re-registers SNATEGS and ensures that sacked workers are reinstated.”

In draft conclusions published on 15 June, the Committee on the Application of Standards called upon the Government of Algeria, without delay, to:  

The CAS also said the Government should accept an ILO direct contacts mission before the next International Labour Conference and report progress to the Committee of Experts before its November 2017 session. 

Philippine pharmaceutical unions to increase cooperation

During the meeting, IndustriALL affiliates at pharmaceutical companies like Boie Takeda, Astra Zeneca, Interphil and Johnson & Johnson, discussed and agreed to build cooperation and establish communication to share common concerns and experiences.

Carlos Urquiola, President of TF-3, stressed that with the ongoing mergers and consolidations in the industry it is necessary for unions to consolidate their power through more collaborations and strengthened solidarity.

“In these challenging times where multinational companies in the pharmaceutical industry are rationalizing operations by workforce reductions, cost-cutting measures and increasing pressure on workers, unions need to fight back and confront the situation head on and united.”

Participating unions decided to schedule regular meetings, inviting all other pharmaceutical unions, build a communication platform using social media to exchange information, workplace and collective bargaining practices.

Renault blacklisted by Swedish investment bank

In February 2016, management at Renault's Oyak plant in Bursa, Turkey, cancelled planned elections on worker representations the day before they were scheduled to take place, citing pressure from Turkey’s Ministry of Labour and Social Security who had labeled the elections illegal. In addition, the car giant immediately dismissed ten workers, including two spokespersons.

Oyak plant management then fired additional workers; 76 people lost their jobs and around 600 were asked to leave with severance packages in the days that followed. Local factory management engaged police to intervene against the peaceful protestors, intimidating workers at their homes and as they came on and off their shifts.

IndustriALL strongly condemned the actions of the plant management and Renault's blatant lack of taking action to remedy the situation in Turkey, which is in direct violation of the commitments made in the global framework agreement with IndustriALL Global Union, consolidating the company’s commitments to ILO’s labour standards, including freedom of association and neutrality.

Renault is responsible for all its units worldwide and its entire supply chain. The fact that Renault is now blacklisted by a major investment bank shows that there is nowhere to hide if you violate workers' rights,

says Valter Sanches, IndustriALL General Secretary.

IndustriALL Global Union continues to demand that Renault fulfills the commitments established in the GFA.

Workers arrested after a protest at SiderPerú Gerdau

Police unjustly detained five workers in the early hours of 7 June during a mobilization at SiderPerú, which has been part of Gerdau since 2006. Two of the workers were released immediately, while the other three were held during the night.

The march began in the center of the city of Chimbote and culminated in front of the office of the regional Ministry of Labour, where demonstrators asked that SiderPeru Gerdau negotiate in good faith.

The SiderPerú Employees' Union (which belongs to the Mining Federation, affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union in Peru) also denounced Gerdau's anti-labor policy:

"In 2016 and 2017, the anti-labor policy from Gerdau Corporation has increased against those who defend their rights, mostly union affiliates and their leaders"

said the Union in a public statement, and then reported that they already had 180 dismissals.

The Gerdau World Workers' Committee held a meeting in May in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where they approved an action plan and visited, for the first time in four years, one of Gerdau's plants in Ouro Branco.

The Committee interpreted the visit and subsequent meeting with the authorities of the company as a positive sign, meaning there is progress in their demand for Gerdau to recognize them and work together to address the workers concerns.

"IndustriALL and the Gerdau World Union Committee re-emphasize the need of Gerdau to finally recognize the Committee and together seek solutions to conflicts, such as in SiderPeru."

stated IndustriALL base metals director Adam Lee.

Turkish glass workers win large increase after unprecedented action

Almost six thousand members of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Kristal-İş have won a significant victory after staging a remarkable work-in at nine Şişecam glass factories across the country.

The union announced an intention to strike on 24 May, after failing to agree the wage offer from their employer. To support the employer, the Turkish government banned the strike, citing national security concerns.

The workers resolved to stay in their factories until their demands were met. They maintained their three daily shifts, and at the end of the shift, pitched tents on the factory grounds or slept in the canteen. They were supported by their families, who brought them food and helped to rally a huge amount of community support, with local politicians, religious leaders and small business people showing support.

IndustriALL affiliates sent messages of support and solidarity to the workers, and IndustriALL wrote to the company, urging them to refrain from intimidation and harassment, and negotiate with the workers.

After thirteen days of action, the company agreed to meet with workers’ representatives. After three rounds of negotiation, a comprehensive two year collective bargaining agreement was signed between the union and the employer on 8 June.

The agreement includes shift bonuses for night work, holiday, travel and clothing allowance, and a significant wage increase. Low paid workers got the highest increase, with the average being 16.3 per cent.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan said:

“I am very impressed with the courage and determination of the glass workers, which resulted in this impressive victory. Even in countries like Turkey, where workers’ rights to organize are restricted, if we are united and put up a strong fight, we can win.

“Şişecam are a very successful multinational who recently increased their profits by 164 per cent. They can afford to pay a decent wage.”

In a statement announcing the result, the union said:

“At the point where the contract negotiations were blocked, the employer was confronted with the strong will of the glass workers, and the contract was concluded.

“We thank all of our members.”

One of the factory workers said:

“We waited in our factory for 13 days, we didn't go home, we didn't see our children. The boss has seen our union and our determination.

“Now we understand that there is no power to stand against us if we have a conscious and organized struggle. I earned my win, but if we were even better organized, we'd have more rights.”

Southern African garment unions to collaborate on supply chains

Countries in Southern Africa are involved in all points of the supply chain in the garment sector: producing raw materials, garment  making and retail. For example, cotton lint was sourced from Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Garment factories and distribution and retail networks were found in most of the countries.

Recognizing the importance of the supply chain, the Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland, the Independent Democratic Union of Lesotho and the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) all representing over 110,000 workers agreed to fight for equal-pay-for-equal work across the national borders. This could be achieved by sharing collective bargaining agreements. Additionally, exchange programmes between unions allowed for learning from each other’s experiences.

South African brands that came under scrutiny included Edcon, Foschini, Mr Price, Truworths and Woolworths. These brands bought goods from factories that relocated production from South Africa to Lesotho and Swaziland, where wages are lower.

The factories also ignored bargaining rights, and freedom of association. Enforcement of labour laws was also weak in the two countries. When workers demanded better conditions, the employers threatened to close shop. But in South Africa, Sactwu organised the factories, watched errant factory owners and took action when workers’ rights were threatened.

The meeting adopted a plan based on ACT – the IndustriALL initiative with global brands for living wages in garment supply chains. It also drew from the Bangladesh Accord, setting health and safety standards for workers in factories.

It is important for unions to strengthen their power along the supply chain by working together in coalitions

said Paule-France N’dessomin from IndustriALL’s Sub Saharan regional office.

The meeting was supported by the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and was attended by 21 union leaders and shop stewards including ten women.

Miners in Kyrgyzstan demand wage arrears

The workers, who are members of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, the Mining and Metallurgy Trade Union of Kyrgyzstan (MMTUK), have said they will hold an indefinite protest if the debt is not paid soon.
 
TK Geo Reserve processes gold ore from the Kuran-Jailoo mine into concentrate at its factory in the Kemin district of Kyrgyzstan. The company is owned by Boratero Trading Limited, registered in Cyprus, and belongs to Russian oligarch, Dmitri Bosov.
 
At the beginning of June 2017, MMTUK held two days of meetings with company management calling on them to reimburse wage arrears from January to April 2017, which amounts to approximately US$150,000. They also asked management to provide work clothes and to conclude open-ended employment contracts instead of three-month contracts.
 
Management had originally promised to resolve the issue of the unpaid wages by 2 June. Now this deadline has been postponed until 14 June. The company’s general director has refused to fulfill the workers’ demands, citing a lack of funds from concentrate sales and the difficulty in obtaining permits.
 
However, according to the president of MMTUK, Eldar Tadjibayev, the company recently signed a major deal to sell enough concentrate to repay the wages:

“TK Geo Reserve has sold 300 tonnes of concentrate, and now it is preparing permits for another 1,000 tonnes. We talked to the management, as well as the owner, and suggested that they ask for an internal loan, as the company is part of a major Russian diversified corporation. The company could then payback the loan after the concentrate sale. We are working on this proposal.”

Non-payment of wages is a gross violation of article 157 of the Labour Code of the Kyrgyz Republic and the law "On ensuring timely payment of wages, pensions, allowances and other social payments" adopted on 26 June 1996.
 
The legal inspectorate of MMTUK has called on the company to stop the violations of labour legislation of Kyrgyzstan, which could make management subject to disciplinary and criminal charges. If the debt is not paid in the near future, more than 100 workers will stage an indefinite rally in front of the company’s office in Bishek.

US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement is bad for workers and bad for the planet

On Thursday, June 1 2017, Donald Trump announced that the USA would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. This has global implications, of course, but is also quite clearly against the interests of the citizens of the USA, including – or especially – workers, their families and their children, and the communities that depend on them.

Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement throws some red meat to the understandably angry, alienated and deliberately misinformed voters that elected Trump, and will in the very short term boost the share prices of coal companies, enriching the Koch brothers and a few other mega-billionaires who own him.

It will not create jobs, for reasons explained below. In return, it will put the health and well-being of people (and other species) – today and for unknown future generations – at serious risk.

When leaders act against the clear best interests of the people they are supposed to represent, there can be only two possible explanations: stupidity, or corruption. Take your pick.

Although announced by Trump, this is a decision of the ruling Republican party. Every leading Republican candidate and almost every Republican politician has more or less promised to do this. It has been an article of faith for many years that any aspirant to Republican Party support must deny climate change. The Republicans were, however, careful not to directly deny climate change in the announcement of withdrawal, thereby sidestepping the criticism that the announcement is based on climate denial and instead pretending that it is about the economy and jobs. But make no mistake: this decision is only possible if you do not really believe that climate change is a problem

Reaching the Paris Agreement was the culmination of over 20 years of difficult negotiating. It is an imperfect document but still a major step forward. Many of the compromises that it contains were put there by the USA, with reluctant acceptance by other countries to keep the USA in the Agreement. The idea that Donald Trump will be able to negotiate a better deal is ludicrous. When Trump says he wants to re-negotiate the deal, what he really means is that he wants to dictate terms to countries like India, and China. Unfortunately for Trump, this is 2017, not 1947, and China will not be dictated to.

Furthermore, Trump has apparently not even considered that other countries might impose a countervailing tariff on American goods for being unfairly subsidized by lower carbon costs. Being on the outside of the Paris Agreement, there is nothing to prevent that. So much for job creation.

What the USA's Withdrawal Will Not Do

This decision will not bring back coal mining jobs. Even if (at best) it results in an unlikely and very short term increased production rate, technological change has ensured that this will not result in very many, if any, additional jobs. It simply does not take as many workers to produce a tonne of coal in 2017 as it did in the 1950s.

More importantly however, the economics of energy have shifted. It is already cheaper in many cases to produce electricity from wind, or solar. Most investors are not interested in sinking their money into new coal mines, and would rather invest in renewable energy projects that have a more certain future. Banks and insurance companies are increasingly reluctant to finance or insure a technology that is seen as a “sunset industry”. Trump's announcement will not change this.

What will change for workers, however, is that the USA will no longer be committed to the Paris Agreement's expectations that governments create a Just Transition for affected workers in coal mining communities. This will weaken the ability of trade unions to negotiate good deals for affected workers when faced with the industrial transformations that are inevitable – Trump, or no Trump.

In short: no new jobs; and less protection for workers.

Abandoning the Paris Agreement won’t make the USA greater in any other meaningful sense, either. Doing so cedes leadership in tomorrow's technologies to countries that are actually prepared to invest in research and development, for example in the Asian region, and particularly China. These are countries, by the way, that are not actively engaged in tearing down public education and compromising their universities. China already owns key technologies in renewable energy. Trump's announcement ensures that the USA will not catch up.

On climate change, the science is clear, and irrefutable. The worry is not that the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have exaggerated the problem. The real worry is that they have understated the problem.

IPCC scientists are appointed by governments and they know that they are delivering a message that most of their bosses would rather not hear. Therefore if any criticism of the IPCC is valid it is that its estimates tend to be cautious – erring on the conservative side and assuming that the relationship between greenhouse gases and global warming is generally smooth and consistent, and will continue in this manner. This assumption has yielded climate models that are remarkably powerful and scientifically beyond reproach. However they do not make any attempt to predict potential climate "tipping points" – points at which the earth's climate may be transformed to an entirely new point.

A tipping point is a change of state that one cannot easily return from. Think about an egg in a bowl. If you rock the bowl you can move the egg but if you stop rocking the bowl the egg will return to its starting position. However if you rock the bowl too violently you can cause the egg to go over the edge of the bowl and crash to the floor. Now, if you stop rocking the bowl the egg will not return to its starting position – it is in an entirely new state that it cannot return from.

The earth's climate may have tipping points that we cannot predict. To take just one possible example, warming oceans cause greater and greater amounts of methane gas trapped as methane hydrates frozen in ice below polar oceans and in permafrost – to be released. Methane is itself a powerful greenhouse gas, and this release will accelerate Arctic and Antarctic warming, thereby defrosting even more methane hydrates which creates more warming and accelerates more release of methane. No-one as yet knows if this dangerous feedback loop is powerful enough to overcome other climate stabilizing factors. There are other possible scenarios that could trigger a tipping point. The IPCC does not factor these into its climate models, although they are discussed in worrying terms in its literature.

The USA's Republicans, by potentially slowing progress in addressing climate change, have put the entire future of humanity at risk.

But climate tipping points are not the only way in which this decision is terrifying. Even the USA's military has expressed fear that destabilizing the world's climate increases security risks. As the ruling Republicans busily dismantle everything from environmental protection, to education, to health care, a frightening fact emerges. The USA now leads the world in only one area: military power. An old saying is that when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

IndustriALL launches campaign as Grasberg crisis escalates

PT Freeport has broken Indonesian labour law, and its own collective agreement, by unilaterally placing workers on furlough, and dismissing workers taking strike action. More than 3,000 workers have now been fired from Grasberg mine. Several hundred more have been fired from PT Smelting, a joint venture between Freeport and Mitsubishi that processes copper from Grasberg.

IndustriALL has launched a campaign, with LabourStart, calling on the Indonesian government to ensure that Freeport complies with the law. The message appeals to the government to intervene at Grasberg and at PT Smelting to reverse the unjust dismissal of the workers.

The government must ensure that Freeport and Mitsubishi respect workers’ rights, and that Freeport returns to the negotiating table with CEMWU at Grasberg, and Freeport and Mitsubishi return to the negotiating table with FSPMI at PT Smelting. Workers' fundamental rights cannot be violated, and the government must intervene before these disputes escalate into civil unrest or violence.

Sign the LabourStart campaign

IndustriALL will be meeting with representatives of the Indonesian government in Geneva tomorrow, to stress the urgency of the crisis and press for a resolution.

In a show of defiance and termination, yesterday thousands of striking, furloughed and terminated workers held a peaceful demonstration outside the headquarters of the Mimika Regency local authorities in the administrative centre of Timika, in Papua.

Shipbuilding industry crisis in Brazil leaves 50,000 workers without a job

The golden age of Brazil’s shipbuilding industry seems a distant memory. Gone are the days when order books were full after the state oil company Petrobras discovered the Pre-Sal oilfields and the industry employed 82,000 workers.

The situation today is very different: 50,000 workers have lost their jobs. Twelve of the country’s 40 shipyards are at a standstill and the others are operating below capacity. This is the direct consequence of the whirlwind of corruption scandals that swept through the country and Petrobras.

The industry has sought to diversify into new activities and create industrial and logistics centres. Some workers are considering signing up to the Brazilian Navy’s Submarine Development Programme (PROSUB). Although the training programme began with a small group of 32 navy engineers and technical personnel, it has already expanded to include more than 300 workers and this figure is expected to rise significantly.

Meanwhile, workers are taking action to defend their industry and their rights. The Federation of Oil Workers (FUP-CUT) and the confederation to which it is affiliated, CNQ-CUT (affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union), have organized major demonstrations and the “Petrobras is Ours” campaign against the company’s privatization. The campaign has organized a major rally and protests for 8 June.

Since April, the CNM/CUT (affiliated to IndustriALL) has been pushing for the creation of a Parliamentary Front in Defence of the Shipbuilding Industry, which would support the sector’s demands, lobby the government to take measures to revitalize the industry and fight to maintain and protect jobs, investments and the local content policy.

The CNTM/FS (affiliated to IndustriALL) has also expressed its concern about the loss of jobs in the industry. The confederation opposes the commissioning of platforms from outside the country, supports investment in national engineering and the local content policy and calls for the adoption of measures to guarantee the industry’s growth and the creation of more jobs.

CNM/CUT and CNTM/FS members held a metalworkers’ national day of struggle in November 2016 to show that they are all on the same side and will work together to fight for more jobs, defend national industry and protect workers' rights.

In 2016 and 2017, workers in all sectors affiliated to Brazil’s major trade union centres organized marches in defence of their rights, for more jobs and against the Michel Temer government’s reforms. The trade union centres met in São Paulo on 5 June to agree a timetable for action between now and the next general strike.

Petrobras is responsible for 90 per cent of oil production in Brazil and is one of the main pillars of the shipbuilding industry and the Brazilian economy. The shipyards grew in response to ambitious expansion plans that collapsed in 2014 when the company became the centre of a corruption scandal.