Enforceability key to changing Bangladesh’s garment industry

With the collapse of Rana Plaza on 24 April 2013, killing 1,134 and injuring thousands more, came an end to the tolerance of  voluntary, non-transparent, non-enforceable factory inspections in Bangladesh.

"We would not accept anything less than a legally binding agreement to make Bangladesh’s garment industry safe and sustainable," said IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina on the creation of the Accord, at the ILC side event.

Scott Nova, executive director of US-based Workers Rights Consortium, said that the challenges in Bangladesh’s garment industry were not new and not unknown for brands and retailers. Both the Rana Plaza and Tazreen factories had been subjected to numerous voluntary inspections prior to the deadly disasters.

The difference lies in the enforceability of the Accord, which to date, has been signed by 217 brands. Swedish retailer H&M was one of the first brands to sign, and H&M senior advisor KG Fagerlin said that collaboration has been a key factor behind the changes the Accord has brought to the workers in Bangladesh.

“The work doesn’t end when you sign the dotted line,” said IndustriALL policy director Jenny Holdcroft.

An inspected factory agrees a corrective action plan (CAP), together with a time plan in which to make the remedies. It is against the CAP that progress is measured.

Three years after is creation,  the Accord has inspected 1,651 factories and made more than 50,000 safety renovations but pressure needs to be maintained as many essential safety improvements are yet to be made.

“So yes, there are still challenges, but the Accord is the most successful engagement to date because it is cooperative, legally binding and transparent,” said Jenny Holdcroft. 

There is a process in place for when factories do not comply with the Accord.

So far, 26 factories that did not undertake required measures within the set time frame, have had business with Accord brands terminated.

IndustriALL has 15 affiliated garment unions in Bangladesh, who are represented on the Accord’s steering committee, and IndustriALL regional secretary Apoorva Kaiwar, said that this provides them with a platform to be part of the solution on the ground.

The current Accord is valid until 2018 – what happens after that?

UNI Global Union deputy general secretary Christy Hoffman said that keeping workers in Bangladesh safe is ultimately the responsibility of the government, but until it is ready to take its full responsibility, the Accord actors will continue their work.

“Even though great progress has been made in the garment industry, changing 30 year old ways of working takes time. We can’t collectively walk away. We need to finish the job we have started and carry on as long as it takes.”

Mining unions fight back as commodities crisis hits

110 representatives from 50 unions in 32 countries from all the continents met for the conference of the Mining and Diamond, Gems, Ornament, and Jewelry Production (DGOJP) section. A major focus of the conference was the effect of the global commodities crisis on the mining industry.
 
Speaking at the opening, IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan said:
 
“The 2008 financial crisis was followed by a commodities boom, lead by Chinese demand, which lead to irresponsible, debt-fueled boom in mining expansion.
 
“Now there has been a commodities crash, and a crisis of profitability. Mining companies are desperately looking to cut costs.
 
“The result is that thousands of jobs have been lost, there has been a increase in outsourcing, health and safety measures have been cut, and pressure on the environment and local communities has increased.
 
We need to build union power as a response, so that we can create a safe, sustainable mining industry.”
 
IndustriALL’s director for the sector, Glen Mpufane, gave a detailed overview of the state of the industry, and what union priorities need to be.
 
“The mining industry walks away from the problems it creates”, he said.
 
“Environmental catastrophe, broken communities. It externalizes. Mining companies have always behaved this way, but the commodities crisis has made it worse. This is catastrophic for mineworkers, the environment and communities.
 
“We need coordinated global union action to confront these mining companies effectively, and that is what we will achieve through this conference.”
 
The conference featured a series of panel discussions, followed by the development and adoption of an action plan, and the election of co-chairs.
 
In a panel discussion on the effects of the commodities crisis, Lú Varjão of CNQ-CUT in Brazil spoke about the collapse of the Bento Rodrigues dam in November 2015. This iron ore tailings dam on a mine owned by BHP Billiton and Vale, flooded the Mariana valley, killing 19 people and contaminating the river basin. It will take decades to recover.
 
The companies had been warned years previously that the mine was structurally unsafe, but took no action.
 
The panel on sustainability and climate change featured passionate debates about balancing the need to protect jobs with the reality of the climate crisis.
 
“This isn’t a question of climate versus jobs,” said sustainability director Brian Kohler. “This is about climate and jobs.”
 
German affiliate the IG BCE shared their experiences of the move from coal with social protection, and representatives stressed that Just Transition needs to create quality jobs.
 
"Just transition means well paying jobs, not precarious jobs, not jobs that people feel ashamed of doing,” said Andrew Vickers of the CFMEU in Australia.
 
There was a major focus on the campaign to ratify ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines. Steve Hunt of Workers’ Uniting North America recalled that he had been part of the Workers’ Group that negotiated C176 in 1995. “I am shocked at the situation today. Only 31 countries have ratified it, and miners are dying.”
 
There has been a tremendous growth in the use of precarious work, with some companies – notably BHP Billiton – employing more contractors than direct, permanent employees.

“Mining companies are becoming like textile companies”, said IndustriALL precarious work coordinator Armelle Seby. “They are global brands that outsource much of their work.”
 
The conference resolved that it is essential to build union power, both by strengthening local unions, and building global networks.
 
“We need to build an organizing culture in our unions”, said campaigns director Adam Lee. “But it is equally important to increase the activism and solidarity of our members. We can’t win with a passive membership.”
 
Representatives argued for unity in action. Where there is more than one union organizing in the sector, it is essential that they coordinate their campaigns.
 
The conference also recognized the importance of global company networks to confront global capital and build campaigns targeting mining multinationals. The progress made in the Rio Tinto campaign lead to the launch of a global union network for BHP Billiton.
 
Andrew Vickers from CFMEU Mining & Energy of Australia, and Lucineide Varjão Soares (Lú) from CNQ-CUT of Brazil, were elected as co-chairs of the section. The conference voted unanimously to adopt an action plan which contains a detailed strategy for transforming the industry. The delegates also endorsed a unanimous resolution to Spanish miners over the recent announcement made the Spanish government to stop financial aid and close down pits by 2018.
 
Around the World Conference, some side events took place. Trade unions representing workers at the operations at BHP Billiton came together before the conference, and agreed to reinforce union networking at this giant mining multinational. The BHP Billiton network will be meeting later this year. Likewise, on the basis of the conference resolution, union representatives of the Diamond, Gems, Ornament, and Jewelry Production sub-sector met after the Conference and decided to intensify IndustriALL’s activities in the period to come on a concrete plan of action.
 
“Our mining sector affiliates have again showed their firm determination for international solidarity”, said Kemal Özkan.
 
“IndustriALL Global Union will continue to champion in defending and advancing rights and interests of miners worldwide.”

FEATURE: Workers’ rights in global supply chains: holding companies accountable

Feature 

Text: jenny Holdcroft & Adam Lee

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the number of jobs linked with global supply chains in 40 countries increased from 296 million in 1995 to 453 million in 2013. This represents more than one fifth of the global workforce. For many workers, jobs in global supply chains mean precarious work, low wages and inhuman working hours.

The expansion of global supply chains has been driven by a business model expressly designed to take advantage of low wages and inadequate regulation and enforcement. Research shows that respect for workers’ rights in supply chains is declining.

In the garment industry, there was a 73 per cent drop in the workers’ rights score of the top 20 apparel exporters to the US between 1989 and 2010.
At the same time there was a 42 per cent reduction in the price paid for the clothes they produced.

The UN Guiding Principles make it clear that MNCs are responsible for working conditions in their supply chains. Yet many MNCs claim to have little control, or even knowledge, of how much workers are paid, the hours they work, their health and safety or their employment contracts. But these same companies are able to make very specific production demands of their suppliers over what materials are used, where those materials come from, production processes, delivery times and so on.

In fact, the sourcing models designed by companies to maximize their profits are the direct cause of many of the abuses experienced by workers. Short lead times, last minute changes to production specifications, ramp-ups for new product launches and general lack of consideration of how sourcing decisions impact on workers are major impediments to improving workers’ rights in global supply chains.

Workers at all stages of global supply chains can justifiably ask why their pay and conditions are so poor. They are making products or contributing services for companies that rake in massive profits and could well afford to guarantee all workers in their supply chains a decent standard of living.

In the last quarter of 2015, Apple reported the biggest quarterly profit ever by a corporation: US$18.4 billion. It is sitting on cash reserves of US$216 billion. Meanwhile, workers who make products responsible for generating these unprecedented profits receive only US$4 for making an iPhone 6 that retails in the US for US$649.

Amancio Oretga, founder of fashion- chain, Zara, is now the second richest man in the world with a personal fortune of US$70 billion (yes, billion).

MNC buyers at the top of global supply chains may not directly employ workers in the factories that produce their goods, but their purchasing decisions have a powerful influence over wages and working hours.

The failure of CSR

Unilateral, voluntary and nonbinding corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts have overwhelmingly failed to improve wages and working hours, or to ensure respect for workers’ right to join a union.

CSR has spawned a multi-million dollar social auditing industry, which means that despite the lack of results, there is so much invested that many companies will hope
to achieve incremental change through improvements to existing approaches.

But since the compliance and auditing model focuses on individual factory performance without identifying and addressing root causes and systemic barriers, these efforts will continue to be ineffectual.

There is growing public awareness of
the lack of results delivered by CSR programmes – flashy websites and reports are no longer an adequate smokescreen behind which companies can continue business as usual. Faith in the auditing model was further shaken when it became known that social auditing and certification bodies SAI and BSCI gave clean bills of health, respectively, to the Ali Enterprises clothing factory in Pakistan before it burnt down killing 254 workers and Rana Plaza before it collapsed, killing 1,134 workers in Bangladesh.

WHAT OPTIONS FOR UNIONS?

The UN Guiding Principles and the OECD guidelines that are based on them clearly establish that MNCs are responsible for abuses in their supply chains. Unions can take cases under the OECD guidelines but this does not lead to binding resolution and results are patchy.

While it is generally not currently possible to sue companies in their home countries for their actions in other countries, there are some movements towards legal requirements on MNCs. In France, a draft law is under discussion which will require the largest French multinationals to put in place a due diligence plan to prevent harm to human rights and the environment. Companies failing to produce such a plan can be required to do so by a judge and fined for non-compliance.

Meanwhile there are efforts at the UN Human Rights Council towards a binding international treaty on corporate human rights responsibilities.

Unions will be pushing for the International Labour Conference discussion on Global Supply Chains in June 2016 to lead to concrete measures to address violations of international labour standards in MNC supply chains (see box).

In line with its strategic goal of confronting global capital, IndustriALL continues to take steps towards increasing the accountability of the MNCs in the supply chains of the industries it covers.

IndustriALL has signed Global Framework Agreements with nearly
50 multinational corporations. These require the corporations to uphold workers’ fundamental rights, and they generally include a commitment that the corporations’ suppliers do the same.

Some unions are developing closer relationships with other unions present in their employers’ supply chains. Affiliates
of IndustriALL and sister global union, International Transport Workers, in Denmark, Norway and the UK are planning to systematically build their unions’ links across the oil, gas, maritime and transport sectors.

The aim is to build union power through communicating, collaborating and organizing across the supply chain.

Unions can use brand names of companies to push for workers’ rights in supply chains.

The ITUC recently released a report exposing the scandal that 50 leading brand name multinational corporations directly employ only 6 per cent of their workforces. The remaining 94 per cent often suffer from low wages and rights violations, hidden in the shadows of global supply chains. ITUC calls on these brand name companies
to take responsibility for their “hidden workforces”.

Naming and shaming companies with retail exposure can be especially powerful. While employers in IndustriALL sectors frequently do not have retail exposure, they are often linked through supply chains to companies that do.

Unions at mining and metals giant Rio Tinto have indirectly pressured the company by publicly linking jewellery retailer Signet to the poor practices of its diamond supplier Rio Tinto.

IndustriALL Philippine affiliate MWAP at first had little success in negotiating a new labour agreement in 2014 with electronics company NXP in the country. After NXP attacked the leadership of the union, focus shifted to NXP customer Apple.

Together with MWAP, protests at Apple stores were organized. A petition set
up with SumOfUs calling on Apple to demand its supplier NXP improve its labour practices gained 150,000 signatures. The result was a new labour agreement for MWAP.

SUPPLY CHAIN AGREEMENTS

The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in April 2013 marks the turning point away from the failed CSR auditing model and towards global supply chain industrial relations. It made possible the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, a groundbreaking legally-binding agreement between global unions and more than 200 garment MNCs.

The Accord identifies and addresses the underlying reasons why factories had
not been made safe despite years of auditing and CSR programs. It includes commitments by brands towards their supplier factories to maintain orders and to ensure that financing is available to factories to do the necessary renovations. If factories do not comply, signatory brands are required to end their business relationship.

The Bangladesh Accord promises to change forever the way that companies deal with abuses in their supply chains. The challenge now is to build on this model to address other systemic violations of labour rights in supply chains.

IndustriALL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a number of leading brands in the garment industry. The aim of the agreed process, known as ACT,

is to establish systems of industry-wide collective agreements supported by brand purchasing practices as the primary
means of wage-fixing in the global garment industry. The MoU is explicit in identifying the development of industry bargaining in garment producing countries as essential to achieving living wages and the need

for effective recognition of workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining in order for this to be realized.

In the context of global supply chains, where the buyers at the top of the supply chain have the greatest power to influence where value is distributed along the chain and how much of it ends up in the hands of workers, reform of purchasing practices in support of industry bargaining is essential.

By linking national industry-level collective bargaining between unions and employers to the purchasing practices of brands, the ACT process creates a framework for genuine supply chain industrial relations. Through industry bargaining, workers can get a wage that is enough to properly support themselves and their families, and at the same time the specific nature of the industry, working hours, productivity and other issues that have bearing on wages, can be addressed.

For the first time, the ACT process aims to create a system that, by addressing the structural barriers to living wages, has a genuine chance of increasing garment workers’ wages in a way that is scalable, sustainable and enforceable.

Drawing on these experiences, and those of the Bangladesh Accord, there is no reason why similar models cannot be developed to address other labour rights problems that are entrenched in the way that supply chains are constructed and managed.

This is the opportunity that unions now have to address working conditions in global supply chains, towards genuine supply chain industrial relations.

STRUGGLE FOR SUPPLY CHAIN – ACCOUNTABILITY HEADS TO ILO

Global supply chains are delivering for large corporations but not for workers. Now the struggle to defend workers in global supply chains will be taken up at the ILO.

In June, the ILO will hold a discussion at
its International Labour Conference (ILC)
on how to promote decent work in global supply chains. The ILO is the tri-partite organization tasked with setting standards for the world of work. The ILC is organized annually by the ILO to make decisions about the ILO’s general policy, work programme and international labour standards.

The global economy currently suffers from an accountability gap. Many companies claim to uphold workers’
rights in their supply chains, but fail to
take measures necessary to ensure those rights are respected. Governments take little responsibility for workers’ rights at their companies’ suppliers abroad. The countries where those suppliers are located often have laws to protect workers’ rights but are not able or willing to enforce them.

The UN and OECD have taken steps to address this accountability gap. In 2011, the UN endorsed its Guiding Principles and the OECD updated its Guidelines.

Now workers, companies and governments will discuss a way forward in the ILO.

The workers’ group in the ILO will push for conclusions to the discussion which reflect the widespread violations of workers’ rights in global supply chains and the fact that global supply chains are not benefitting workers.

WORKERS WILL ALSO PUSH FOR:

The employers’ group is expected to take a different approach to the ILO supply chains discussion, portraying global supply chains as an important tool for economic development and downplaying violations of workers’ rights in supply chains. Employers are likely to resist any measures that put demands on them for greater transparency, accountability or improved conditions for workers.

To ensure that the discussion at theILO leads to increased supply chain accountability, unions must be ready to pressure their governments to support the workers’ group’s proposals. 

Victory for striking Verizon workers

The agreement, valid for four years, was reached through the determination and courage of some 40,000 workers who participated in the strike. Workers are scheduled go back to work on 1 June.

Under the terms of the new agreement, Verizon will not outsource additional jobs overseas, instead the company will increase the number of calls routed to domestic call centres. This will create additional 1,300 new call centre jobs, including 850 in the Mid-Atlantic region and 450 in the Northeast.

Verizon also agreed to abandon initial demands on technicians to be available to travel 700 miles outside their home areas for rotating two-month shifts at a time, which would have had a major impact on workers and their family lives.

Additional gains in the agreement include:

For more details on the agreement, which will be presented to the members for a ratification vote, are found in  CWA and IBEW press releases.

IndustriALL Executive prepares for Congress in Rio

One of the key discussions regarded preparations for the second IndustriALL’s Congress in Rio de Janeiro in October, and recent dramatic political developments in Brazil.

President Berthold Huber said the recent vote by the Brazilian senate to begin impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff had set a dangerous precedent for disrespecting democracy.

The Executive Committee passed a resolution expressing its solidarity with the Brazilian people by strongly rejecting the ongoing coup in the country. The interim government has already begun to dismantle the socially progressive policies of recent years that helped lift 40 million people out of poverty in Brazil.

As part of the preparations for the Congress, the Executive Committee heard from three candidates for general secretary – Atle Høie from Norway, Kemal Özkan from Turkey and Valter Sanches from Brazil. Current general secretary Jyrki Raina will step down at Congress in October, as will President Huber and Vice President Tom Buffenbarger.

IndustriALL Global Union’s Executive Committee also called on Volkswagen to respect trade union rights at its Chattanooga plant in Tennessee, USA.

In violation of national and international labour legislation the German auto giant is refusing to bargain with skilled trades workers at the Chattanooga plant who voted in December to choose IndustriALL affiliate, the United Auto Workers (UAW), as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining.

Organizing and campaigning

IndustriALL’s organizing projects around the world have helped to add directly a quarter of a million new union members in the last two years, and helped create an organizing culture which has altogether produced even more impressive figures.

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh has been instrumental in improving health and safety for millions of garment workers in the country. The Executive Committee approved the development of a proposal for a new Accord with brands starting in 2018, when the current agreement expires.

IndustriALL is committed to the ACT initiative and a Memorandum of Understanding with 18 garment manufacturers promoting industry wide collective bargaining, considered as the first realistic mechanism to create a level playing field for garment workers’ wages.

The Executive Committee endorsed keeping up the pressure on Rio Tinto until the mining giants improves its labour practices at local levels. Talks with the mining giant over worldwide labour principles as well as global and regional structures for dialogue and enforcing such norms are ongoing.

IndustriALL has also two major campaigns against Hugo Boss in Turkey with Teksif, and Nissan in the USA with the UAW.

Unions, climate change and sustainability

The Paris Agreement, signed in December 2015 to cut global greenhouse gas emissions and limit climate change, will have a significant impact on IndustriALL’s sectors. Unions need to look at public policies at the national level and develop action to ensure a Just Transition for workers.

Industry 4.0, using smart technology and real-time data to increase productivity and reduce costs, poses challenges to workers and IndustriALL sectors. Trade unions must exert their influence to ensure that workers achieve fair conditions in the new world of work. IndustriALL will develop a corporate policy on digitization and Industry 4.0.  

Trade

In a discussion about transnational trade agreements, unions from the UK and India reported the dire affects of China’s dumping of steel on home industries.

Jamshid Ahmadi from the Union of Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran (UMMI) as a guest appealed to the Executive Committee to give further support to workers in Iran. He called on IndustriALL to pressure multinational companies in Iran, such as Peugeot and Renault, to respect trade union and worker rights in the country.  

Jyrki Raina, said:

“The positive debates in Frankfurt will guide us well in our preparations for the second IndustriALL Congress in Rio de Janeiro, where the results of our first four years of existence will be evaluated and future direction of action will be decided by well over 1000 delegates. Maintaining unity and developing concrete solidarity further will make us stronger to face the challenges of a complicated globalized world where too many governments and corporations want to deny workers their fundamental rights.”

IndustriALL’s global leaders call on Volkswagen to get in line

The meeting, gathering more than 200 union representatives from all over the world, took place on 25-26 May at the Frankfurt headquarters of IG Metall, German affiliate of IndustriALL Global Union.

The German auto giant is refusing to bargain with skilled trades workers at the Chattanooga plant who voted in December to choose IndustriALL affiliate, the United Auto Workers (UAW), as their exclusive representative for collective bargaining. Not only does Volkswagen’s refusal to bargain violate US law, it also infringes the company’s global framework agreement (GFA) with IndustriALL, as well as international labour standards.

IG Metall president Jörg Hofmann said:

“It is not acceptable that companies abide by the law in Germany but disregard it in other countries. Workers’ rights should be respected worldwide – particularly by companies headquartered in Germany.”

UAW’s secretary-treasurer Gary Casteel told the Executive Committee:

"There is a cartel of capitalists in the South of the USA working in cohesion with right wing groups and antiunion lawyers. The tricks and tactics in the south of the US won’t remain there – they will be coming to you soon.”

The Executive Committee unanimously passed the resolution that calls on Volkswagen to immediately begin negotiations with the skilled trades workers at Chattanooga.

The resolution also says that if Volkswagen has not formally agreed to begin collective bargaining with the workers by 22 June, IndustriALL shall initiate further actions, which could lead to the eventual revocation of the GFA between IndustriALL and Volkswagen. 

Global federations collaborate against job losses in the North Sea

Maritime and oil and gas unions affiliated to global federations IndustriAll Global Union and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) met in Aberdeen 19-20 May 2016 to begin development of an industrial and political strategy to challenge the replacement of quality jobs with cheap labour by employers in the North Sea. The group represents workers from Denmark, Norway and UK.

In both the oil-service sector and within the subsea-contractor segment there are still companies that are not covered by collective bargaining agreements, something the North Sea oil and gas supply chain and hubs group intends to address.

In the maritime sector, ‘social dumping’ in the region has expanded through the employment of non-European workers, resulting in unfair competition and redundancies for local workers. 

The oil service, subsea and maritime supply companies situated in the North Sea continental shelves are considered the main targets of the campaign to expose the industry’s part in the ‘race to the bottom’ which has seen the loss of thousands of British, Danish and Norwegian national’s jobs, estimated to be over 50,000.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina said: “These companies are over-eager to terminate traditional contracts. The competition to cut costs and reduce working conditions in this region is stark. The sheer level of the cutbacks being made is having a severe impact on health and safety of workers. We’re waiting to hear the outcome of the investigation into the death of a Filipino seafarer who died on Technip owned and managed vessel Deep Energy in Invergordon this month – cases like that are obviously of concern.

General secretary of the ITF Steve Cotton said: “The Oil and Gas Authority are talking about the desire to retain people and skills in the sector and to retrain and redeploy the workforce, but we need to see real commitment to that in terms of action.”

The meeting also noted Petroleum Safety Authority Norway`s annual report on safety on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Further meetings of the group are planned to progress an industrial and political campaign gathering support from the offshore workforce and political groups in Europe.

IndustriALL’s Global Worker is out now

With IndustriALL’s 2nd Congress coming up in Brazil, the profile looks at how unity between Brazil’s national centres CUT and Forca Sindical has helped to win major victories for the country’s workers.

IndustriALL’s second Congress is an opportunity to reflect on the fight against precarious work, the achievements and refocus on the struggles still to come. Global Worker’s special report takes an in depth look at this key campaign in the past four years.

Following the adoption in December 2015 of the historic Paris agreement on climate, IndustriALL’s sustainability director Brian Kohler writes an opinion piece on Just Transition and how it requires deliberate public policy choices, building on a foundation of strong social protection programmes and sustainable industrial policies.

With unions under pressure in Turkey to defend workers in a climate of consistent anti-union behaviour another profile looks at how transnational campaigns provide them with the solidarity and space they need to organize.

Globalization has further reinforced the need to regulate labour standards internationally. There has always been an important strategic objective to create a counterbalance to global capital, as globalization plays workers off against each other. We need to work together in unity,

says Berthold Huber, in an interview with IndustriALL.

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Pakistan – sacked shipbreaking workers reinstated

About 360 shipbreaking workers were sacked on 16 May, in retaliation for filing police cases against employers regarding injury and deaths at shipbreaking yards in Pakistan.

The workers were employed through contractors to perform specific tasks, locally known as ‘agreed sector’ workers.  Subsequent to two days strike, the shipbreaking owners association came to the negotiation table. Successful negotiation on 24th May led to reinstatement of all workers with wages for the days they were away from work.

While the victory is a success, the perilous working conditions at shipbreaking yards demonstrate the enormous challenges workers face.

In March, Muhammad Asif, a 28-year old ship breaker, died at work as a workstation caught fire. Another young worker Shahid Khan, 22 died on the spot when a heavy iron plate fell over him in May 2016. In March, five workers were seriously injured. In two separate accidents in April, Imran, 25, lost his leg, and Muhammad Shafiq, 38, suffered rib injury as he fell from a height. Hidayatullah, 22, lost his leg as a gas cylinder exploded.

At a press conference at Karachi in May, shipbreaking workers’ representatives highlighted the dangerous and deplorable working conditions faced by the more than 15,000 workers in the industry in Pakistan.

Workers do not have access to clean drinking water and rest rooms. Almost all of them work without a formal contract, get meager wages, are forced to work overtime and have no access to government sponsored social security provisions. They are recruited through contractors, locally known as ‘jamaadars’, with scant regard for labour laws.

All stages of breaking ships are very dangerous, involving x-ray welding, gas cutting, handling chemical substances, removal of asbestos, shifting of iron and steel sheets and discharge of poisonous gases. However workers undertake these tasks without any training and safety equipment.

And even though it is a highly accident-prone industry, there is no hospital at the Gadani shipbreaking yard that could provide basic and emergency medical care to workers. The lack of ambulance facility for immediate transport in the event of accidents, is a major cause of concern. Workers and their families live in makeshift huts in groups with no facility of electricity and water. There is no school for the children.

Kan Matsuzaki, IndustriALL’s shipbuilding and shipbreaking director, says that:

IndustriALL are outraged over the number of accidents. In terms of working conditions and health and safety, Gadani is probably the worst shipbreaking yard in South Asia.

The Pakistan government and the employers must take immediate steps to address the workers’ demands.

Workers called upon the government of Pakistan to immediately announce a shipbreaking policy in consultation with workers’ representatives. The policy should reflect the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships and Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes.

Further demands include:

STMicroelectronics workers call for the company to invest in the future

Throughout week, workers are holding alternative AGM meetings to demand that STMicroelectronics use its profits to support its employees, not shareholders. The actions take place amid a public outcry of the company’s mass firings of workers and just a few days before the AGM on May 25 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

On 23 May, Malaysian union EIEUSR called for “This year: Zero Dividends”, while French union delegation CGT-CFDT delivered a motion with the same message to the French government – a key shareholder in STMicroelectronics – asking them to present it at the AGM.

According to workers, STMicroelectronics management has promoted a business model focusing on shareholders and short-term profits. In the last decade, close to 7,000 jobs have been slashed and the company’s ranking as a microelectronics producer has plummeted.

Yet, its shareholders and CEO, Carlo Bozotti, have routinely been paid dividends and bonuses. During the same period, the company’s shareholders have received more than US$2.6 billion in dividends, while the CEO’s wage has increased by 250 per cent, to almost US$2.5 million.

This poor corporate behavior is taking place against the backdrop of a growing public awareness of CEO pay, controversial attempts to fight it, and national protests against labour law reforms.

STMicroelectronics workers are heavily protesting against austerity. The workers and their unions in France, Italy, Morocco and Malaysia have been actively collaborating against the company’s current leadership; organizing strikes in Italy, sit-ins in Morocco, and other forms of protests at jobsites in China and France. In an open letter published in April, workers insisted the company must change course and stop cutting jobs and respect union rights in all countries in which it operates.