Global unions welcome Australian union merger

IndustriALL affiliated union the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and ITF affiliated union the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) have announced merger talks (see http://goo.gl/kncWni).

Jyrki Raina, IndustriALL general secretary, commented: “Strength in unity is our central conviction. I applaud the members and leaders of these two great Australian trade unions, CFMEU and MUA in their bold merger. IndustriALL and the ITF are working together on the global level to build union power through strategic supply chains. The new union in Australia will advance that work.”

Steve Cotton, ITF general secretary, added: “This is exciting news. It means Australia’s biggest union is on its way, backed by its friends and colleagues in the international union movement. This merger is potentially historic and will help guarantee a better working future for those working in Australia.”

News of the proposed merger was also applauded by the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation), whose general secretary, Sharan Burrow, stated: “This is great news for Australian workers, especially the members of the CFMEU and the MUA. Organizing maritime workers together with those in the CFMEU's sectors is a major step forward, at a time when workers' rights to union representation are under sustained attack."

World’s auto unions meet in Toronto

The meeting was hosted by UNIFOR union, which organizes the auto sector in Canada.

The Automotive Working Group is the global network of unions and work councils in the industry. Each company-based union network reported their concrete work plan, which is mostly focused on organizing non-organized plants and strengthening unions by including them into the particular networks.

Participants also heard compelling reports about the future of production and mobility.

The Industry 4.0 report addressed the challenges to trade unions posed by connected cars, autonomous driving and next generation manufacturing. It provoked a lively discussion and participants stressed the need for preparing all unions to play an active role in this development.

IndustriALL director, Brian Kohler, also spoke about sustainability and climate change, which is an important issue for the automotive industry.

At the meeting, unionists passed a resolution supporting their Mexican colleagues working at Finish auto parts company, PKC, in their organizing efforts. They also made a declaration of solidarity to colleagues at Volkswagen condemning the emissions scandal and demanding that workers do not suffer as a consequence.

Finally, participants decided to hold the Automotive World Conference in Munich, Germany in November 2016.

Maternity protection and decent work

Maternity protection is fundamental to protect the health of the woman and the child. Women need the cash benefit to enable them to meet their needs during maternity leave. Otherwise they return to work too early, risking their own health and that of their baby.

It is estimated by UN Women that only 28 per cent of employed women worldwide enjoy any paid maternity leave in practice. As a rule precarious workers have no maternity rights and do not benefit from maternity leave. Only permanent workers benefit from maternity protection.

Still women are often forced to sign pledges saying that they will not become pregnant within two years, five years, and so on. It is also not unheard of that women go through abortions to keep their jobs or to become permanent workers – as was told in India. Women are still subject to pregnancy tests for hiring, although this is almost always illegal.

Maternity leave is often regulated by law, but the law is not always enforced. In Morocco, as soon as the employer finds out the woman is pregnant, she is very often dismissed. Pregnant migrant workers in the Jordanian garment industry are sent home. In Cambodia women return to work too early because they need the money, risking their own health and that of the baby. Even where laws are in place, practical obstacles prevent women from claiming their rights.

Collective bargaining is a good tool to improve maternity rights over and above legislation. IndustriALL affiliate, SEM, in India for example managed to improve maternity leave over the legal provision at L’Oreal. Nevertheless more women have to be trained and involved as negotiators in order to avoid women’s demands being scrapped in negotiations. Women’s concerns need to be higher up on the collective bargaining agenda. And in addition trade unions, which are still dominated by men in most cases, have to start bargaining for other issues than just pay.

Extending paternity or parental leave to fathers is important to achieving substantive equality. Otherwise employers will continue to discriminate against women of childbearing age.

Maternity benefits should be financed from social security or other public funds. Maternity leave should be at least 14 weeks, and paternity leave and parental leave should be arranged in such a way that it can be shared between the parents. Informal, contract and precarious workers must be covered. All in all we need to fight for public policies for maternity protection and to ensure that society takes responsibility for maternity. Guaranteeing maternity protection was high on the agenda of the equality charter, which was adopted in September at IndustriALL’s Women World Conference.

Mexican Honda union loses hard-fought election

Victory would have made it one of only a handful of independent unions with bargaining rights in the country’s booming auto industry.

On 15 October, five years after the company dismissed 12 union leaders for forming an independent union, 2,500 workers were finally able to choose between the STUHM and the incumbent yellow union, the CTM’s SETEAMI.

A team of a dozen national and international observers, including IndustriALL Global Union and its affiliates from Unifor in Canada, the United Auto Workers Union in the US and Los Mineros in Mexico, were denied access to the polling and to workers. Also present were over fifty enthusiastic supporters from Mexico’s independent labour movement and civil society.

It had been clear from the outset that this was not going to be a fair contest, with the company, the elections board and the yellow unions colluding to deprive workers of their right to a genuine union in what is a well-worn pattern in Mexico’s dysfunctional labour system.

In the days and weeks leading up to the poll, the election board failed to provide a reliable voter’s list and called the election with only a few days’ notice. It also allowed the vote to take place inside the factory without proper guarantees for a fair process, putting STUHM at a considerable disadvantage.

On the day of the election, management delayed access to the union’s three appointed representatives, ignored the election board’s decision to allow three observers to be present and let the incumbent union intimidate workers. The deployment of riot police inside the compound – at the company’s request – also helped to create a chilling atmosphere.

In the end, the STUHM lost by a slim margin gaining 44 per cent of the valid vote. The union plans to appeal the election.

IndustriALL’s Assistant General Secretary Fernando Lopes applauded the union and the workers for putting up a good fight and the union’s many allies for their tireless support. He pledged IndustriALL’s ongoing support to the STUHM and to the rest of Mexico’s independent labour movement.

Organizing helps us reach our key goals

In these months IndustriALL prepares its strategic plans, activities and budget for 2016. Industry sector chairs and Executive Committee members are consulted, so that our decision making body can take final decisions when it meets in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in December.

Checking the plans, I am glad to see how the idea of organizing as a part of just about everything we do is going through.

Building global union power through organizing can help us to achieve our other goals such as defend union rights against violations, achieve a living wage for all workers in our industries, limit precarious work through better laws and collective agreements, and guarantee healthier and safer workplaces.

Organizing means recruiting new members, retaining existing ones and increasing the number of active members who are more likely to take action when needed. We want to build unions that are able to formulate their demands on wages and collective bargaining, and mobilize their members to reach their goals.

Today, only 7 per cent of the world’s workforce is organized in free and independent unions. And yet, IndustriALL has 600 affiliates in 140 countries. It is way too many. Divided we remain weak. More unity is better for our workers – and it is possible if union leaders show true leadership.

Therefore our union building programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America focus on organizing and building unity and joint action among our affiliated unions. We especially focus on organizing precarious workers, women and youth.

In 2014, IndustriALL’s programs directly helped our unions organize 100.000 new members. But even more importantly, they helped to reinforce an organizing culture within the unions. This contributed to hundreds of thousands of new members through unions’ own programs.

Some of our global union networks in major multinational companies have already mobilized solidarity support during organizing drives in non-union operations. More concrete action through mapping and targeting will be on the agenda.

IndustriALL has negotiated 46 global framework agreements with big corporations, putting in place a high level of labour standards for already more than 10 million workers. Now we want to use the GFAs in a more systematic way to create opportunities for affiliates to organize at the companies and their suppliers.

In the textile and garments sector, our biggest sector with 60 million workers but low union density, IndustriALL works with brands to ensure that the organizing rights of workers at supplier factories where brands buy their garments are respected. This will be a major focus for the years to come with brands such as the ACT group, where the key objective is to reach living wages through industry level collective bargaining and freedom of association.

Organizing is the base of our legitimacy as the voice of the working people. It is the job of all of us to make that voice loud and clear.

Jyrki Raina

General Secretary

Wage deal reached in South African coal sector

30,000 members of IndustriALL affiliate National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) went on strike on 4 October after negotiations deadlocked and a dispute was declared. Coal production in all major mines including multinationals Anglo American Coal, Exxaro, and Glencore was affected.

The agreement deal, which the NUM has in principle agreed to, will see entry-level underground workers receive increases of US$60 to US$80 a month in the first year and a guaranteed increase of 7.5 per cent in the second year. Higher paid workers will get increases of between 5 per cent and 7.5 per cent.

“This agreement should assist in bringing stability to the sector as NUM members face the challenges that are to come”, says Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL mining director.

Organizing non-manual workers in a digital world

The Office in your Pocket agenda covers issues including the increasing digitalization in industry, organizing and campaigning in social media, stress and connectivity, new ways of working such as crowdworking, and self-employment.

Borders are more and more blurred between manual and non-manual work because of new industrial structures. Where industry used to employ a majority of manual workers and a minority of non-manual workers, in many workplaces the situation is now just the opposite. This new type of worker also includes more women. Nevertheless all of these people are workers, and all workers need a union.

The challenge for trade unions is to be able to organize white-collar workers and highly skilled people who are not always available in the office or the workplace at all times. Nowadays people work more and more outside working hours on their laptops or their smartphones and are always reachable. This new set of realities creates different questions for trade unions when it comes to organizing members and protecting the members they have.

IndustriALL welcomes the election of Martin Linder as president of the Swedish union Unionen, Sweden’s largest private sector union. Martin is co-chair of IndustriALL’s non-manual section together with Anne-Catherine Cudennec from CFE-CGC Métallurgie, France.

For more information about this workshop please contact Rubén Ortiz Pamplin, Administrative Assistant, IndustriALL Global Union. Tel: +41 22 308 5015 Email: [email protected]

Australian unions tell Ansell AGM: protest postponed for Sri Lanka solution

The TCFUA, AMWU and CFMEU postponed a planned rally at the AGM in light of recent dialogue with the company during which Ansell committed to work together toward a solution in Sri Lanka. Around 290 Ansell Lanka workers were unfairly dismissed for union activities in 2013 and their reinstatement is needed for the dispute to be resolved.

The four participants at the AGM were Michele O’Neil (TCFUA), Andrew Dettmer (AMWU), Lorraine Usher (CFMEU) and Peter Colley (CFMEU).

The unions made it clear that their campaign would continue until the violations in Sri Lanka are reversed. The union group informed the shareholders of a disturbing pattern of disputes and poor labour relations at Ansell in Brazil, India, Malaysia and Portugal.

Michele O’Neil, representing Australian unions and IndustriALL Global Union, said from the AGM floor:

“Trade unions appreciate that the company has recently made efforts concerning the resolution of the dispute. However, we wish to see further urgent progress to a firm mechanism for reinstating those of the 290 workers who want to return the to company.

Our wish is that “Ansell Protects” will apply not only to your products but to the rights of the workers who make them.”

Andrew Dettmer of the AMWU asked:
“A substantial proportion of the company’s workforce at many locations is unionized. What processes will the company put in place to ensure that industrial disputes are either prevented, or resolved early, through active engagement with the unions representing your workers?”

Responding to the union statement and question, the Ansell management committed to meeting the IndustriALL affiliated FTZGSEU in Sri Lanka in November. The senior management also committed to continue working with the unions towards a fair solution.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina states:
“Ansell knows that we won’t go away until our members in Sri Lanka have been treated with the respect they are owed. We respect the company’s commitment to work with us. My message to the company is, let’s together make Ansell a good news story, with good products being made in good conditions, with genuine social dialogue that fixes disputes before they escalate.”

Hope for Honda Mexico workers

A legal and transparent ballot at Honda Mexico represents a significant step towards freedom of association at the plant as set out in ILO Convention 87, ratified by Mexico. After being notified the vote will go ahead on 15 October, the independent Honda Workers’ Union (STUHM) is hopeful for change.

Although jurisprudence requires that ballots should take place on neutral ground in order to guarantee a free vote, the independent union was given only five days’ notice that the ballot will take place at the company’s Jalisco plant.

Latest reports, on 14 October, are that the yellow company union, SETEAMI, part of CTM, has direct access to the three shifts of workers at the plant. Workers say that protection union SETEAMI is threatening people that if they vote for STUMH the plant will close down. CTM boss Carlos Arias has sent an audio message to be read out to all the workers in the three shifts. STUHM meanwhile is not being granted access to the workers or to the plant, which they are allowed to by law.

The STUHM requested a register of observers at the election, which will be attended by representatives of major IndustriALL Global Union affiliates. They are travelling to Jalisco to observe the conditions in which the first trade union elections at Honda Mexico will be held.

The union has called on the JFCA and the Mexican government to follow up the public statements made by the Secretary for Labour and Social Welfare, Navarrete Prida, regarding her willingness to put an end to protection contracts. The union has also complained to the ILO and other national and international trade union organizations about irregularities and constant harassment by SETEAMI, whic currently holds bargaining rights at the company.

IndustriALL and its affiliates in the sector throughout the world support and extend their solidarity to STUHM and all Honda workers in Mexico in their struggle to defend their right to choose a union to represent them at the Saltillo plant in Jalisco.

Jyrki Raina, IndustriALL General Secretary, has again written to the President of the JFCA asking him to guarantee that the election will be fair and free, with a secret ballot using transparent ballot boxes at a secure location.

In his letter, Raina emphasized that: “IndustriALL and its affiliated unions will closely follow the election. It goes without saying that the integrity and reputation of the Honda Mexico Board and that of the Mexican government itself are at stake.”

Trinidad and Tobago

The keynote address was delivered by Douglas Mendes S.C. who will speak on the recent landmark judgement awarded by the Privy Council against ArcelorMittal in a matter around the issue of contract work.