AkzoNobel Latin American trade union network builds joint demands

The AkzoNobel trade union network is a leading example of workers coordinating throughout a company’s operations. The network produces a printed magazine regularly and participants communicate electronically between meetings.

Trade unions participated from Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, and IndustriALL Global Union. Hosted by IndustriALL affiliate FEQUIMFAR, unions informed the network of current progress and problems at the company. IndustriALL presented a global panorama of the company’s operations, and of the industry as a whole.

The network conducted a plant visit in Mauá, São Paulo, and held a joint social dialogue session with AkzoNobel management. The network raised particularly the concerning on-going case of union busting at the company’s operations in Colombia, and a plant-level issues in Brazil and Argentina especially.

AkzoNobel’s Brazilian country director Francisco Varia led the discussions from the company side. He said:

“It is an enormous pleasure for to have this space to meet our trade union partners and interchange information. The trade union is not the enemy.”

IndustriALL Global Union Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan stated:

“This network is a standard setter. The participants now have good experience and understanding of the company’s operations throughout the Latin American continent. The network’s high level of coordination and organization is reflected in the respect it has from the company. IndustriALL will always support and celebrate this network.”

Ukrainian coal miners protest across the country

Protesters also demanded that authorities reject the draft of the new Labour Code. The following day, several unions picketed the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev with the same demands.

Miners launched short-term warning strikes and picketed state authorities not only to achieve the payment of wage arrears, but also to draw attention to the problems in the coal mining industry and to prevent its complete destruction due to the end of state support. They blame Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Minister, Volodymyr Demchyshyn, for the decline in domestic mines and for purchasing coal abroad. They are demanding his resignation.

In Pavlograd, more than 1000 miners of the West Donbass region, accompanied by the town residents, went on a protest action in front of the town council. They demanded that the President and the Prime Minister withdraw the new Labour Code draft, increase living wage from 1 January 2016 in accordance with the inflation rate, abolish the pension tax, lower utility charges and improve social guarantees.

In the Volyn region, miners went on a warning strike and stopped operation of all mines for one hour on 10 December.  On the following day, around 200 Volyn miners, members of the Coal Mining Workers’ Union of Ukraine and the Independent Trade Union of Coal Miners of Ukraine, both affiliates of IndustriALL, blocked the road to the Yagodinsky customs point for a few hours demanding payment of wage arrears. At Novovolynskaya Mine No. 1, miners have not been paid their wages for four months. According to Mikhailo Volynets, the chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Coal Miners of Ukraine, the total wage arrears in the coal mining industry exceed 700 million hryvnia, an equivalent of US$29.4 million.

Around 100 miners rallied in Lviv in front of the regional administration. In the Donetsk region, miners marched along the central street to the main square in an attempt to meet Dobropolye city authorities representatives, who failed to go out. 

Miners of another Donetsk region mine, Krasnoarmeyskugol in the town of Dimitrov, stopped operations for one hour demanding the payment of wage arrears now amounting to around 120 million hryvnia, an equivalent of US$5 million.

According to Alexander Abramov, the local union chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Coal Miners of Ukraine at Krasnoarmeyskugol, the lack of state support meant the mine only achieved 33 per cent of the planned coal production volumes in 2015, and even this amount of coal has not been taken away on time.

The enterprise owes millions of hryvnias to the city budget, the pension fund, and the social insurance fund.

“Reduced production volumes lead to reduced wages and headcounts. Dismissed workers and their family members are no longer able to ensure their children have a decent life and future,” said Abramov. “Social and economic problems at Krasnoarmeyskugol, the town’s main employer, increase in the price of goods utilities, and a lack of retraining programs for ex-miners will result in a mass unemployment, poverty and a rise in crime. We are fighting the closure of the mines and for support of the domestic coal mining industry to ensure Ukraine’s energy independence.”  

Miners have promised to stage further protest actions in Kiev if their demands remain unheard.

Thai government meets IndustriALL following complaint to ILO

It follows IndustriALL’s official complaint to the International Labour Organization (ILO) against the Thai government in October for its failure to protect worker and trade union rights in the country.

Raina, who was joined by representatives from IndustriALL trade union affiliates at the meeting in Bangkok, told Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Labour Puntrik Smiti:

“We want Thailand to offer millions of good quality jobs for workers. We love Thailand, we just don’t want Thailand to destroy its workers.”

He added that there are many conflicts in the workplace and it is difficult for workers to join a trade union, leading to the lowest unionization rate in South East Asia at 1.5 per cent of the workforce.

Even as the meeting was taking place, workers from Japanese technology company, Sanko Gozei, were demonstrating outside the ministry building. The workers, who are affiliated to IndustriALL through Thai trade union, TEAM, are protesting at being paid only 75 per cent of their wages as the company claims financial difficulties.

However, management and supervisors’ wages have not been reduced. At the same time, Sanko Gozei is demanding employees work overtime and recruiting subcontract and migrant workers. IndustriALL will be raising the matter with the company’s headquarters in Japan, said Raina.

Raina also urged the Thai Government to ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98, related to freedom of association and collective bargaining. He added that the deep flaws in both the State Enterprises law and Labour Relations Act are a key obstacle to better worker protection in Thailand. The Permanent Secretary said that the laws are currently under review by government law agency, the Office of the Council of State.

Raina raised the issue of Thailand’s preferential trade status with the USA, which will be subject to a hearing by the US Congress on 14 and 15 January.

The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade status is worth an estimated US$2 billion to Thailand every year. The petition has been submitted by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and alleges that Thailand is not meeting the GSP programme’s country eligibility criteria on worker rights with respect to freedom of association, collective bargaining, acceptable conditions of work, and forced labour, including with respect to migrant workers. 

The European Union stopped all GSP privileges for Thailand on 1 January 2015.

Prior to the meeting at the Ministry of Labour, IndustriALL’s seven Thai affiliates convened to discuss their most pressing grievances. Labour leaders complained of a lack of assistance from the Ministry of Labour, “If we can’t go there, where can we go?” asked one.

Many said that labour violations are increasing, while the Assembly Act is being used to control trade union gatherings, with the courts becoming the instruments of employers.

The unions agreed to focus on Thailand’s ratification of ILO Conventions 87 and 98, to press for stronger labour laws, and to organize more workers particularly in Thailand’s industrial zones.

IndustriALL together with the Solidarity Center in Thailand have hired seven members to organize and train more workers in the country.

Robert Pajkovski from the Solidarity Center, who was also at the reunion, described the labour situation in Thailand as ‘dismal’.

“Thailand has a labour market designed to promote conflict and frustrate workers all the way. Every week a union is being destroyed,” said Pajkovski.

IndustriALL was last in Thailand in May 2014 for the Asia-Pacific Regional Conference. Just days later, a military junta seized power in the country and labour relations and human rights violations took a turn for the worse.

IndustriALL Global Union takes action in Cambodia

Trade union struggles around the world, living wages, collective bargaining and expressing support for the Cambodian workers, were on the agenda for IndustriALL's Executive Committee meetings in Phnom Penh in December. And on 10 December, International Human Rights Day, IndustriALL took to the streets to support affiliates' manifestation for a living wage.

Check out IndustriALL's flickr page for the full visual story.

IndustriALL welcomes new Somali oil union

Somali Union of Petroleum & Gas Workers (SUPEGW) currently has 1484 members, of whom 539 are female workers. 97 delegates from Southern and Northern regions of Somalia, including 44 women attended the founding congress.

The first elected SUPEGW national president Mohamed Mohamud said, “Now that I have the skills and I am part of a trade union, I feel confident in negotiating better wages and terms and conditions for work. Over the next few weeks and months, we are going to step up the campaign to give workers their voice.”

Mohamud also added, “We came together to organize, promote and defend the socio-economic and political interest of the petroleum and gas workers in Somalia. We shall strive to ensure fair labour practice between workers and management.”

Minister of Somalia petroleum and mineral resources who attended the founding national congress as an observer committed to be working closely with the new union.

Oil and gas sector is of vital importance for Somalia. The country has a huge onshore and offshore oil and gas potential, a number of transnational companies are present in the country including Conoco-Phillips, Shell, British Petroleum, Amoco, Eni, Total and Texaco.

Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL Global Union assistant general secretary said,

The fight for decent working conditions and wages, job security and benefits in oil and gas industry is paramount for Somalia workers. IndustriALL Global Union welcomes the birth of a new force in Somalia trade union movement and will render all possible support to the newly formed Somali Union of Petroleum and Gas Workers.”

Trade union alliance established at Smurfit Kappa

Meeting in Warsaw, Poland, the affiliated unions of UNI Europa, UNI Global and IndustriALL Global Union in 10 countries shared experiences and strategies on 13-14 December. The company employs around 40,000 workers worldwide and is growing aggressively.

Working conditions differ from fairly good in Sweden and Denmark, to the malpractice of ‘Pacto Colectivos’ in Colombia, whereby the company offers higher wages to all workers who leave the union.

In Poland, UNI’s affiliate ZZP has successfully organized the five Smurfit Kappa plants in the country. While the union is growing and progressing into good dialogue with the company, workers still complain of highly flexible hours, punitive distribution of overtime, and gender discrimination.

The group of unions had requested to meet with Polish management of Smurfit Kappa while in Warsaw, and to conduct a plant visit. However the company refused the request. IndustriALL and UNI then sent a joint letter stating:

“On behalf of all the unions who attended the Warsaw meeting, we therefore urge you again strongly to enter into dialogue with the Smurfit Kappa Trade Union Alliance.”

Simon Dubbins, Chair of UNI Europa’s Graphical section told the meeting:

“As unions in the sector, we have established 55 European Works Councils of the 70 companies. We use all of these platforms for union exchange, but Smurfit Kappa is vital as it sets the standard for the sector.”

IndustriALL Global Union Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan said:

“The IndustriALL and UNI trade union families both believe in trade union networks inside key companies. Together we will demand dialogue and respect from Smurfit Kappa for all its workers worldwide.”

Unite lobbies UK government to ratify Hong Kong Convention

Unite the Union is the UK's largest trade union and represents tens of thousands of men and women engaged in the UK's shipbuilding and ship repair industry.

Read the full letter to Prime Minister Cameron from Unite’s National Officer for Aerospace and Shipbuilding, Ian Waddel, here.

JYRKI RAINA: Welcome to Global Worker

I think most of us have enjoyed a voyage onboard a ship. But have you ever wondered what happens to these shiny vessels at the end of their journeys?

In this issue of Global Worker, we expose shipbreaking as the world’s most dangerous industry.

Working for poverty wages, 130,000 workers toil in hot weather conditions to tear apart luxury cruises amidst toxic chemicals, oil and asbestos.

The good news is that IndustriALL affiliates in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are organizing workers and fighting for living wages and proper health and safety conditions.

IndustriALL will continue to campaign for the ratification of the Hong Kong Convention and for making shipbreaking jobs safe and sustainable.

In the electronics sector, I am impatient to see our Malaysian affiliates tap into the potential of organizing many more of the 350,000 people working without representation or with a tame in-house union.

Change is an omnipresent, dynamic element in our industries. Production methods develop and industries move from one country to another, in the search of new markets and higher profit margins.

Check out how the South African Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) has coped with the challenge of cheap imports, turning the tide from job losses into the creation of new employment, while maintaining strong industry level collective bargaining.

No wonder that IndustriALL’s black t-shirts like mine in the photo are proudly made by SACTWU members in factories that pay a living wage.

But another industrial change is underway, the fourth industrial revolution coined as Industry 4.0. It talks about smart production, robots carrying out complex tasks without the need for human involvement. There will be need for more high-skilled workers, but low-skilled may lose out.

It is clearly time for reflection, research and action. We want to be ready for another form of just transition.

For that, we need a new generation of union leaders. Have a look at IndustriALL’s wonderful youth project in Latin America, which helps to grow labour leaders of the future, many of them women.

We have seen that young workers of today understand the challenges of a globalized world, and suggest innovative ways of organizing and mobilizing workers.

So let us combine the strengths of experienced trade unionists with the enthusiasm of young workers to create stronger and more dynamic unions.

Otherwise, the youth may just throw us old guys out, and perhaps rightly so.

Jyrki Raina

General Secretary

SPECIAL REPORT: Cleaning up shipbreaking the world’s most dangerous job

In an environment where there are often toxic chemicals, asbestos, and oil, workers use gas blowtorches and sledgehammers to dismantle the ship in a process that takes six to eight months, and up to a year for big tankers. Moving cranes, falling steel plates, gas explosions and metal coils snapping are all constant risks at the yards. Twelve-hour days are the norm and wages are as low as US$2 a day.

While official figures are unknown, unions in the region expect that hundreds are killed or seriously injured every year at work in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. In Bangladesh, the real figure could be 20 times higher than what is reported, according to the unions and NGOs.

The world’s ships are built at sophisticated yards in the developed world. After an average of 25-30 years, maintenance becomes expensive and they are sold for scrap. Sold either directly to the ship recycling companies or via a broker in Singapore or Dubai, more than 70 per cent of the ships make their final journey to beaches in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan.

At the ship graveyards in those three countries, workers first strip the vessels of all reusable parts, feeding a downstream industry that sells components such as engines, fridges, ladders and gas canisters through the region.

Then the process of dissecting the enormous ocean liners begins. Around 80 per cent of shipbreaking profit is made from selling steel, which is cut by hand in a labour intensive process.

Around 1,000 ships over 100 grosstonnage are broken each year

Where ships were broken/recycled in 2014:

> India 29.8 per cent

> Bangladesh 24.2 per cent

> China 21.9 per cent

> Pakistan 18 per cent

The dangerous job is done by migrant workers, young men from poor rural areas of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Most shipbreaking workers have never seen the sea before they are hired by labour brokers who transport them from their villages to the shipyards. Living in very basic accommodation next to the yards, normally without clean drinking water or proper sanitation, the workers will often never visit the local city.

Bangladeshi shipbreaking union leader Nazim Uddin says:

"Without a voice in the workplace, daily abuses go unchallenged. Shipbreaking workers have miserable conditions. Workers are paid daily; no work, no pay. They receive no paid leave at all, no bonus, no gratuity, and have no job guarantee."

"Eight workers have been killed here in the last two months. Employers pay no compensation to the killed workers’ families. The High Court rules that each killed worker’s family should be compensated 500,000 Taka (US$6,400), but employers do not respect this."

Organizing is key

Trade union organizing in these conditions is tough but vital. With IndustriALL support, Indian affiliate SMEFI has organized the largest shipbreaking yard in the world, Alang. While IndustriALL affiliates are present in the Bangladesh and Pakistan yards, union density there is very low.

V. V. Rane, Vice-Chair of the sector and leader of the world’s biggest shipbreaking union in Mumbai and Alang, India, says:

“The Chittagong shipbreaking yards look like Alang did before we organized the workers there. We stand with the shipbreaking workers in Bangladesh.”

The successful unionization of Indian ship breakers was first made possible in 2003 when Mumbai’s strong dockworkers’ union targeted the neighbouring shipbreaking yard for organizing. Before recruiting members, the union provided drinking water and first aid to ship breakers. Despite the 12-hour days this was not provided by the employers.

Mumbai ship breakers now report the most important changes brought by the union to be getting a voice at the workplace, awareness of health and safety, awareness of labour laws, getting basic needs provided and getting the employer to provide protective equipment.

From 2004 the union turned its organizing attention to Alang, aiming to replicate its successful organizing in Mumbai at the much larger site 680km north, up the western coast of India.

The union spent a year mapping and providing basic needs to workers before starting to recruit members. Drinking water, an ambulance, basic health and safety and first aid training were provided, and the union held regular gate meetings with workers.

With workers afraid of losing their job, the union had difficulty at first in identifying dedicated activists at the Alang yards. Now that the union is 15,019 strong there is no fear of dismissal.

One important basic provision from the union at the yards is to conduct blood tests for new members so that their union membership card includes their blood group. Workers know that this is often vital information after an accident. The union membership card is usually also the only form of ID that the workers have.

Another important addition the union has brought to both Mumbai and Alang yards is basic health and safety training for every new worker.

Many of the employers in Mumbai were also present in Alang, and in both locations a majority of the land is owned by the authorities and leased to shipbreaking contractors, meaning greater oversight from the government. In Bangladesh and Pakistan many of the shipyards are privately owned.

Environmental damage

Shipbreaking on a dry dock allows for all pollutants from the ship to be safely drained and disposed of, however, dry dock facilities require major investment to build. Smaller ships are broken in Turkey under these conditions.

In Alang, ships are broken on the beach, after being hauled onto the sand with the tide. This is less damaging to the environment than the process in Chittagong, Bangladesh, where ships are broken directly in the sea just off the beach, so that oil and chemical toxins wash away into the Bay of Bengal.

Under pressure from environmental campaigners the Indian Ministry of Shipping is currently considering closing its Mumbai shipbreaking yard. However, the strong union insists that no closure can happen until all workers at the yard are secured employment elsewhere, with equal pay.

Along with trade unions, environment campaigners are helping to create pressure on governments and shipping companies, pushing them to support the Hong Kong Convention. Compliance with the convention will dramatically improve workers’ health and safety, as well as the environment.

Pakistan’s dangerous yards

The Gadani yard in Pakistan is the world’s third largest, employing an average of 10-15,000 workers. Workers normally work seven days a week, often at least 12 hours a day, with no paid holidays, no benefits, and salaries of PKR 12,000 (US$113) per month, equal to half of a living wage.

Almost no safety equipment is provided in Gadani. There is no training, no clean drinking water, and no first aid. Workers who are cutting on the ship are not provided any climbing equipment or safety harness, resulting in many accidents of workers falling from the ship’s deck down to the beach. Asbestos and toxic chemicals are prevalent and not disposed of safely.

IndustriALL’s affiliated NTUF reports up to 19 deaths at the Gadani yards per year, but the real figure is feared to be much higher. There is no functioning hospital for 50km. The union reports that workers know they will be dismissed if they join the union.

IndustriALL campaigns to make the Hong Kong Convention a reality

The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) of the UN in 2009. IndustriALL campaigns for ratification of the comprehensive convention as its proper implementation will make the dangerous job of shipbreaking much safer.

Occupational health and safety provisions in the convention include control of hazardous materials on the ships, and control of risks at the shipbreaking sites, ensuring safety training and protective gear for workers.

Conditions to be met before the convention enters into force are that 15 countries must ratify, and ratifying countries must cover 40 per cent of the world’s merchant ships. Currently only Norway, Congo and France have ratified. While not yet fully ratifying, these countries have also signed the convention: Italy, St Kitts and Nevis, Turkey, and the Netherlands.

The first condition is more easily achieved than the second. Achieving ratification from countries representing 40 per cent of the world’s fleet by gross tonnage will require the support of major shipping and shipbreaking states like Japan, Korea and China, plus one or more of the top five open registers, Panama, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Singapore, and the Bahamas. Ship owners use flags of convenience to register ships in one of these five countries to avoid regulations and tax.

Two of the ship recycling facilities in Alang were awarded compliance with the Hong Kong Convention in September 2015, namely Kalthia and Priya Blue.

Once the convention comes into force all countries that are members of the IMO will be required to have their ships recycled in yards complying with the convention.

Strong shipbuilding unions stand with shipbreaking workers out of solidarity and also because sustainable shipbreaking is needed for a sustainable shipbuilding industry.

IndustriALL affiliates are leading lobbying efforts towards ratification of the Hong Kong Convention by governments in Japan, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Norway and India.

At the IndustriALL World Conference on Shipbuilding-Shipbreaking, November 2014, unions from the sector in 19 countries resolved to campaign for ratification of the Hong Kong Convention.

This commitment was made in light of the fact that:

“Every year, hundreds of shipbreaking workers lose their lives facing serious occupational accidents in the shipbreaking yards of the South Asia region. The incidence of occupational diseases is largely unknown but believed to be extremely high. It is only a dream for most workers to live or survive until the age of 60.”

The campaign was fully launched at IndustriALL’s Executive Committee meeting in May 2015. And the IndustriALL shipbuilding-shipbreaking Action Group meeting in Chittagong in November 2015 reaffirmed its commitment to worldwide action on the ratification of the Hong Kong Convention.

IndustriALL Director for the Shipbuilding and Shipbreaking Industries, Kan Matsuzaki coordinates the campaign to clean up the industry:

"This industry as a whole has a responsibility to provide workers their right to safe, healthy, clean and sustainable jobs. We are determined to build strong unions at the yards, and combat the unacceptable working conditions.

IndustriALL Global Union demands that all member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) ratify the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships NOW!"

Satoshi Kudoh, President of the Japanese Federation of Basic Industry Workers’ Unions and also Co-Chair of the IndustriALL Shipbuilding-Shipbreaking sector has led the lobbying effort in Japan. In September 2015, Brother Kudoh directly demanded Akihiro Ohta, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to expedite the ratification of the Hong Kong Convention by the Japanese Government. The minister responded positively that Japan would ratify.

IG Metall’s Coastal Region called for action from the German government in September 2015. The union’s regional secretary Meinhard Geiken made a high-profile handover of demands on a large placard to Germany’s Maritime Coordinator, flanked by shipyard workers in Hamburg. Parliamentary State Secretary Uwe Beckmeyer committed in writing to achieving the swift ratification of the Hong Kong Convention.

Australian affiliate AMWU has lobbied its government and moved a resolution inside the Australian Labour Party to support the Hong Kong Convention.

In Denmark, CO-Industri linked up with the Danish Shipowners’ Association in September 2015 to write to the Danish Minister for Environment and Food, and ask the government to ratify the Hong Kong Convention as soon as possible.

The letter also urges the Danish government, together with EU member countries, to take the lead in dialogue with the South Asian countries on ratification of the Hong Kong Convention.

The Alang shipbreaking workers’ union is also lobbying the Indian government to ratify. The issue was a central demand of the union’s public campaign on 7 October, World Day for Decent Work.

The Indian government is also under pressure from the Japanese government and companies to ratify the convention. Japanese funding has been offered to improve yard facilities in Alang, including half-dry docks with proper waste disposal and treatment facilities. A high level delegation of government officials, trade union, shipping industry representatives and experts from Japan who visited Alang in early 2015, said that: “Japan can help if India is ready to ratify the Hong Kong Convention.”

An IndustriALL delegation met the Bangladeshi Ministry of Industries in November 2015 to lobby for ratification of the convention. Sector Vice-Chair V. V. Rane handed over the demands of the campaign explaining, “Bangladeshi ratification would be mutually beneficial to all parties. As shipping companies are under increasing pressure to have their ships recycled in a responsible manner, compliance with the Hong Kong Convention would bring investment, health and safety training, and business to Bangladeshi shipyards.”

The Ministry Secretary told the delegation that a Ship Recycling Act would be presented to parliament at the end of 2015, leading to ratification of the convention.

A number of other governments are working towards ratification. Pressure inside the European Union is expected to deliver ratification by Belgium, followed by other European governments. European ships make up 20 per cent of the world’s ships and most are reportedly broken in Bangladesh.

China and Turkey already have ship-recycling industries that are largely compliant with the technical requirements of the convention. The two countries are moving towards ratification.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina prioritizes this campaign:

"Ship building for 130,000 workers in South Asia is predominantly done in medieval conditions. It is shameful that five years have passed since the Hong Kong Convention’s adoption and only three countries have ratified. Major shipbuilding and shipbreaking economies are yet to ratify and we will not stop campaigning until they do. Of course our campaign to clean up the world’s most dangerous job is wider than this convention and IndustriALL is committed to strengthening unions throughout the industry, but the Hong Kong Convention will change lives."

IndustriALL's initial reaction to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change decision CP.21 and Paris Agreement

First, and importantly, the Paris Agreement is not simply a new version of the Kyoto Accord. It takes a fundamentally different approach. The Kyoto Protocol was a “top down” system that imposed emissions targets and included systems for verifying them. However, developed countries considered it unfair and many simply failed to meet their targets or withdrew from it entirely, without any effective consequences. The Paris Accord, on the other hand, is a sort of “bottom up” system that encourages countries to set their own targets and embed those targets in their own legislation. Even if some countries do not make them a legislative commitment, this approach made Paris Agreement politically achievable.
 
Recall labour's three top demands going into these talks:

 
Just Transition is incorporated with clear language: “Taking into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities” but unfortunately in the preamble to the Agreement rather than attached to Article 2 where we hoped to have it. Signatory Parties must now accept that they have made a political commitment to Just Transition, strengthened by the ILO's recent Guidance document on Just Transition.
 
One question has always been, will a Paris Agreement be legally binding? What do the words “legally binding” mean in this context? The Paris Agreement meets the criteria of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, so in this sense it is as legally binding as any other international treaty. That does not make every clause in it enforceable, since the wording can be vague and unhelpful. Enforcement of an agreement of this nature is always problematic: the Kyoto Accord was supposed to be legally binding, except that it turned out not to be. The core of the Paris Agreement is legally binding in international law. The details of what countries must do to be in compliance are often missing, and some of the text is clearly aspirational. Therefore, although the Agreement is a legal document, in practical terms enforcement of it will be difficult or impossible without the political will of the Parties to make it effective. The wording of the Agreement certainly provides the space for Parties to do the right things; but provides little resembling penalties for Parties that do not. “Enforcement” will largely result from political pressure exerted by citizens, stakeholders, and other countries. Legal actions, if any, will be rare.
 
If the ingredients are there, the pathway to implement them is often missing or is to be defined by decisions taken at the next COP. Many have expressed disappointment at this outcome, but the reality is that this may have been the only possible outcome other than no outcome at all. We will have to maintain pressure on our governments to elaborate on the necessary mechanisms and verification procedures over the next couple of years.
 
The Paris Agreement may be the best that can be politically achieved at this moment in time. The French Presidency has worked hard, and effectively, to prevent a catastrophe such as Copenhagen's COP15. The credibility of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been preserved, at least for now. As a political document, it sets out a process: not only does it create an institutional framework based on international negotiations, which has been in question during the discrediting of the Kyoto Protocol; but sets a tone for a positive path forward. The framework has flexibility and universal application; although it is an unfilled vessel with respect to many of the specifics we would like to see.
 
Crucial to future success will be the adoption of clearly defined mechanisms for measuring, reporting, and verifying the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), commitments made by countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
 
An extremely important effect of the Paris Agreement will be in the signals it sends to the global economy. Kumi Naidoo, International Executive Director of Greenpeace has said “The wheel of climate action turns slowly, but in Paris it has turned. There’s much in this deal that frustrates and disappoints me, but it still puts the fossil fuel industry squarely on the wrong side of history.” This may not be an understatement, as it will become increasingly difficult for investors or insurers to justify the risks of putting their money into fossil fuels. This will not change the financial world overnight, but it will change it.
 
The Paris Agreement must be seen as a starting point, not a finish line. It creates an institutional framework that has all the necessary ingredients to succeed. Whether it actually does, or not, is now up to us. IndustriALL must be ready to lead the way forward.