Red armbands for wage increases in Myanmar

IndustriALL affiliate Mine Workers Federation of Myanmar (MWFM) has achieved a pay rise for workers at the YangTSe, Paypauk AukShin, SinoHydro. Myanmar Wampao Copper Mines, located in Monywa, Sagaing region.

When the employer refused to negotiate salary increases in May, the workers took the decision to wear red armbands as a sign of protest. Two weeks later talks between the union and the employer started, but with no agreement reached the workers continued wearing the red armbands during their shifts.

The visual protest showed result; on 14 May, miners received a 50 per cent salary increase, as well as a back payment of incorrect calculations on overtime between January 2011 and April 2013.

Garment workers using red armbands

In May, workers at the Korean owned New Way Garment Factory in Hlaingthayar Industrial Zone, Yangon, resorted to red armbands and eventually achieved a wage increase.

More than 500 trade union members at New Way Garment Factory initiated the Workers’ Red Armband Campaign. Members of the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar (IWFM) wore the red armbands for 17 days while working. After the factory management approached union leaders, an agreement on a basic salary increase of US$0.35 per day was signed.

Fashion’s True Cost is at workers’ expense

IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Jyrki Raina said ‘This is an important film that shows that fast fashion comes at a high cost.

“The appalling treatment of garment workers in global supply chains must be changed. The massive profits made by garment brands need to be translated into higher wages that workers can live on.”

As the film points out, nothing less than systemic change is needed. The garment brands have created an unsustainable sourcing model that enables them to maximize their profits at the expense of workers. They created it and they have the power to change it.

IndustriALL Global Union is going beyond describing the dramatic imbalance between garment workers’ wages and the profits high street brands are making. It is taking concrete action with garment brands to drive a fundamental change to the way that clothing is traded, to make sure that workers receive their share of the profits in the form of living wages.

Fundamental to this change is the empowerment of workers through trade unions. With affiliates in 140 countries, IndustriALL is working to strengthen unions in every country where garments are produced.  

Jyrki Raina, one of the architects of the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, a groundbreaking legally-binding agreement signed by over 200 global fashion brands, concludes:

We are working with the leading global clothing brands towards systemic change in the global textile industry.

Strong unions demanding and achieving higher wages for garment workers will prevent the global race to the bottom that sees brands moving production from country to country in the search for ever lower wages.

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh

The Accord is designed to make safer workplaces in Bangladesh following the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed over 1,100 garment workers in April 2013. The Accord covers 2 million workers and has to date completed nearly 1,500 factory inspections and identified many thousands of safety issues to be remedied.

IndustriALL executives decide on global action

IndustriALL’s Executive Committees are always emotional events. 200 participants from all five continents spend a few days together, union leaders, men and women, debate and decide on action, and share the same fight for a better world.

In fact we did not gather for two days only, we went to Stockholm for a week. From morning to evening there were official sessions and side meetings to make use of the fact that so many people were present.

On Monday morning, the women’s committee discussed the upcoming world conference. In the afternoon, the working group on global framework agreements analysed the draft Global Framework Agreement (GFA) with Swedish garment retailer H&M. The Asia-Pacific executive members also held a session.

On Tuesday, another working group continued developing a new affiliation fee system, followed by the Finance Committee. Then the Executive Committee went through a long agenda on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Statutes and Action Plan Committees started their work towards the 2nd IndustriALL Congress that will take place in October 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. And finally on Friday, IndustriALL staff from the head office and the regional offices went through the decisions taken, agreed on follow-up action, and started the preparations for the Congress.

After such a week, I felt pretty tired, but at the same time happy and energized. This is such an amazing global union family.

The highlight of the week was a session with Sweden’s prime minister Stefan Löfven, ex-leader of IndustriALL affiliate IF Metall. Stefan addressed the Executive Committee and debated more than an hour with union leaders about how to make globalization work for workers, how to build societies based on social justice. If we could just have a head of state like Stefan, was the comment from many delegates afterwards.

I was happy to receive an endorsement from the Executive Committee for our living wage action. We will continue to support minimum wage battles around the world and train our affiliates to formulate their living wage demands and mobilize in support of them.

A major step forward is a memorandum of understanding that IndustriALL is signing with major global clothing brands on living wages. The objective is to bring trade unions and supplier factories together to negotiate enforceable, industry-wide collective agreements and to ensure that brand purchasing practices enable payment of a negotiated living wage. We have chosen Cambodia and Bangladesh as first priority countries for this new approach, and then expand to other countries.

The global textile and garment industry which employs 60 million workers has been profoundly unsustainable, with poverty wages, long working hours, unhealthy workplaces and difficulties with freedom of association. We have now started a systemic change. It will face hurdles and it will take years, but we will not stop until we have achieved living wages that every worker deserves.

Jyrki Raina

General Secretary

“Precarious work increases inequality and poverty”

Both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) report, In It Together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All and the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) 2015 World Employment Social Outlook call on governments to take measures to fight increasing inequalities. The OECD highlights that such inequality is a threat to economic growth and encourages its members to enhance job quality and tackle inequality. The ILO is urging policymakers to extend labour rights and social security to workers in less secure forms of employment.

“Employment patterns have changed considerably over the past decade. Full-time, stable employment contracts represent less than one in four jobs and that statistic is not improving noticeably. […] Furthermore, the rise in informal employment, undeclared and temporary work arrangements, as well as involuntary part-time work, has contributed to the widening of income inequalities, which have been recorded in the majority of countries over the past two decades.”, Guy Ryder, ILO Director General

Both reports say that income inequality has increased since 2000. This trend has been aggravated by the expansion of precarious work.

The OECD report shows that today non-standard work (temporary, part-time and self-employed all together) represents one-third of employment in OECD countries. Since the mid-1990s more than half of all job creation in OECD member states has been in non-standard work. More alarming is the figure presented by the ILO’s  World Employment Social Outlook: fewer than 40 per cent of wage and salaried workers are employed on a full-time, permanent basis and even that share appears to be declining. More than six out of every ten wage and salaried workers worldwide are in either part-time or temporary forms of employment. Women and young people represent a large share of these precarious workers.

Besides job insecurity, precarious workers experience lower wages and limited training opportunities. Poverty rates are higher among temporary and self-employed workers and an increased number of workers have access to low quality jobs. The OECD reports shows that precarious work can become a trap notably for part-time and self-employed workers. The report contradicts the claim of temporary work agencies that temporary work is a stepping-stone towards permanent employment. Instead, it states that in many countries younger workers, especially those with temporary work contracts, have a lower chance of moving on to more stable jobs.

IndustriALL backs metalworkers’ struggle in Turkey

Thousands of workers in the Turkish metal industry located in Bursa, Kocaeli, Eskişehir and others walked out as of mid-May demanding a living wage and proper working conditions which were not provided by the sectorial-level negotiated collective bargaining agreement, only signed towards the end of 2014. The angry worker actions were sparked when one large workplace in the sector got additional wage increases not long after the new sectorial agreement.

The companies faced by the unrest include major multinationals such as Renault, Fiat’s joint venture Tofaş, which also produces vehicles for Peugeot, Citroen, Opel and Vauxhall, and Ford, Beltan Trelleborg Vibracoustic (TBVC), Delphi, SKT, Ototrim Automotive, Rollmech, Coskunöz and Mako.

Demands included increased wages, job security, recognition of worker representatives when bargaining with the company, and assistance in eliminating fake unions in bargaining. In addition, workers from a number of companies in and out of the sector supported the walkout and showed firm solidarity.

Even though there was huge pressure from employers and government authorities, such determined industrial action brought and continues to bring new gains to the workers. For example, settlement ended the 12 day Renault-Oyak strike on 27 May, with an immediate bonus paid to all workers of 345 Euros, and a 200 Euro bonus to be paid each month to the end of 2015. Salaries without these bonuses were low at 165 Euros per month. Similar situations were the case at other factories.

The unrest also received sympathy and solidarity from every corner of the world, particularly from IndustriALL Global Union and its affiliates. IndustriALL Global Union’s Executive Committee, having met in Stockholm, Sweden on 19-20 May 2015, adopted a solidarity resolution in support of the Turkish metalworkers’ fight for union rights and fair wages in the auto sector. 

“We stand in solidarity with the metalworkers in resistance and will strongly oppose any police intervention, violence or dismissals of the workers and we will communicate with the headquarters of any companies where this occurs.”

IndustriALL Global Union already took action with the headquarters of multinational companies concerned operating and sourcing from Turkey.

IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan stated:

IndustriALL Global Union is always shoulder-to-shoulder with workers who struggle for their fundamental rights and livelihoods. These unprecedented series of actions by the Turkish metalworkers seeking much better futures for themselves and their families open a new stage in Turkish labour movement history. They showed their united power for internal union democracy. We are proud of their struggle and will always stand with them until decent wages and union rights are enjoyed throughout the sector.

IndustriALL Executive Committee in Stockholm

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, former president of IndustriALL affiliate IF Metall, addressed the participants and engaged in a discussion on globalization and social justice. A new global deal based on common respect is needed.

In the discussion on globalization, Löfven praised IndustriALL’s and affiliates’ work against asbestos and Canadian union busting.

Löfven said to the participants:

You should be proud of yourselves, you are doing a great job. 

A campaigning organization

During the two days, delegates discussed IndustriALL’s actions and achievements, including priority countries, campaigns, and Global Framework Agreements (GFA), in line with the organization’s strategic goals.

Among the countries discussed was Myanmar, which joined IndustriALL in January 2015. In a country where trade unions were illegal until 2012 there is a need to train new unionists on organizing and collective bargaining. Khaing Zar from IndustriALL affiliate IWFM said that the union aims to recruit 20,000 new members by the end of the year.

The Executive Committee endorsed action in China, focusing on the democratic development at local level particularly in companies with which IndustriALL has a GFA, World Works Council or network. 

IndustriALL’s actions to drive the establishment of industry level bargaining in garment-producing countries was endorsed by the Executive Committee. IndustriALL is working with major global clothing brands that have signed a memorandum of understanding with the organization, to bring supplier factories and trade unions together to negotiate enforceable, industry-wide collective agreements on living wages and to ensure that brand purchasing practices enable payment of the negotiated wage. Cambodia and Bangladesh were identified as priority countries for this new approach. IndustriALL will continue to support all struggles by affiliates to increase minimum wages and bargain for a living wage.

7 October is World Day for Decent Work, and a day of action for the campaign to STOP Precarious Work. The Executive Committee approved the on-going actions and the new approach to call attention to how precarious work impacts society beyond the workplace.  

Adoption of three solidarity resolutions

IndustriALL will continue to denounce protection contract practices and other labour rights violations. Two affiliated unions from Mexico were given an ultimatum to sign a memorandum of understanding against protection contracts and to demonstrated compliance, or risk being expelled by the next Executive Committee in December 2015.

UK steelworkers are fighting against one of the world’s largest steel producers, TATA Steel, as the company has decided to shut down a pension scheme. The Executive Committee adopted a resolution calling IndustriALL to engage with TATA Steel.

IndustriALL’s Executive Committee adopted a solidarity resolution supporting the struggle of metalworkers in Turkey. Several thousand auto industry workers had stopped work, demanding a living wage and rescinding their membership of the company-friendly Turk Metal trade union.

Survival of the fittest in Zimbabwe

At a leadership meeting in May 2015, Zimbabwean unions shared their challenges, including a trend for companies to not pay across membership dues after this has been deducted from workers’ wages. This further weakens the unions that are already struggling with declining membership that reflect job being haemorrhaged by Zimbabwe’s ailing industries.

Affiliates in the textile and the metal sectors are prepared to reconsider their positions on mergers as there seems little option if they are to survive in the current economic environment. Magnus Palmgren from Swedish trade union and IndustriALL Global Union affiliate IF Metall took part in the meeting and made a presentation on the trade union Swedish model.

Unions emphasized the need to organize, train paralegals to handle grievances, as well as train a pool of union negotiators for collective bargaining. Leaders were urged to be gender sensitive during the selection for more women negotiators and paralegals are needed to represent women on gender related issues at the workplace.

Women want more from Zimbabwe unions

A woman’s meeting of Zimbabwean affiliates acknowledged that their absence in trade unions structures was the root cause of their misrepresentation in decision-making structures.

Angeline Chitambo, President of the Zimbabwe Electricity Workers Union and a member of IndustriAll Executive Committee shared her experiences as a woman leader and urged women workers to support each other to be active shop stewards and use gender related issues at the workplace as tools for organizing women in Zimbabwe.

The meeting called for more participation of women in trade union structures. Participants discussed the importance of women in the union having practical knowledge of trade union issues and building their skills on leadership, collective bargaining and organizing, acquisition of knowledge on trade unions issues. The need for women negotiators was also emphasized, especially on health and safety issues affecting women specifically which are often overlooked by employers and male trade unions leaders.

Unions picket government building in Kiev

Apart from the full payment of wage arrears and compensation to the workers for the delayed wages, the unions raised a number of important demands:

On 27 April the Joint Representative Body of Ukrainian Trade Unions decided at a meeting to enter into a collective labour dispute at a national level with the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Joint Representative Body of the Employers. The government has previously avoided solving workers' social and economic problems with social dialogue. Instead unions' demands have been ignored, resulting in a national collective labour dispute. 

Several IndustriALL Global Union affiliates participated in the picket.

The picket on 27 May was in support of the demands, and several IndustriALL Global Union affiliates participated. The next pickets are scheduled for 3 and 10 June.

Unions from South-East Europe fight against precarious work

Precarious work, membership growth and unity building were key issues on the agenda of a two-day workshop held on 22-23 Mai 2015 in Croatia.  

IndustriALL Global Union’s affiliates in the region reported that temporary work has become a widespread practice, particularly in the textile, oil and auto parts sectors. And the trend is increasing.  

Employers are using loopholes in the legislation and thus generating inequalities among workers. Young people are increasingly hired on short-term contracts, without any chance to plan for the future. In addition, under pressure from international financial institutions, labour legislation in the region has been amended towards more flexible work contracts and dismissal procedures. The legislation was deemed too protective for labour and an obstacle to foreign investment.

However, in spite of the challenging political and economic environment, unions in Croatia and Serbia have been successful in negotiating limits to the use of precarious work in collective agreements and in some cases turning temporary work contracts into permanent ones.  

Slovenian unions have been part of a legislative process that has resulted in making temporary work more restrictive and more costly for employers. Participants at the workshop expressed their determination to further increase awareness of the adverse effects of precarious work on workers and society as a whole, and committed to joining the World Day for Decent Work on 7 October 2015.  

Lively discussions also took place on the issue of organizing and union-building against the background of a changing economic landscape. Restructuring and privatization in the region have taken a heavy toll on workers and unions.  The transformation of socially owned companies into private entities is still going on in some countries, and as a result more jobs are expected to be lost. Recruiting new members in the newly established companies is therefore a top priority for all unions.

Participants discussed strategies to better communicate with members and reach out to young people with little knowledge of union work. They also agreed that unions needed to cooperate more closely at all levels, strengthen their structures and join forces to advance workers’ rights to decent working and living conditions.

Kemal Özkan, assistant general secretary of IndustriALL says:

Even in adverse circumstances, our affiliates continue to fight challenges, such as precarious work. Together with our European sister organization, we will continue to give them our full support and solidarity.

To assist affiliates in their fight against the expansion of precarious work, IndustriALL Global Union’s publication “Negotiating Security – Trade Union bargaining strategies against precarious work” is available in Serbian.

Morocco: Electricity workers strike against privatization

Despite IndustriALL Global Union affiliate FNTE’s long-standing demands to keep electricity service public, authorities signed an agreement on 26 September 2014 to privatize the electricity distribution in the Casablanca region. The government ignored consultations with the FNTE, part of national center Union Marocaine du Travail, on the impact on workers and their families.

After several actions led by FNTE, the government finally engaged in negotiations with the trade union. Marathon negotiations led to a "Framework Agreement" drafted by FNTE as a platform for solutions for workers’ and employees’ problems in such substantial transformations.

But in a recent provocative action, ignoring workers' rights and social dialogue the governor of Casablanca and the general management halted negotiations and instructed the implementation of the privatization agreement by 31 May 2015.

From Mohamed Zeroual, general secretary of FNTE, says:

In addition to its legal and technical shortcomings, such agreement will have negative direct and indirect consequences for workers and employees, as well as for the inhabitants of the Casablanca region. We hold the authorities responsible for all negatives effects.

After the strike on 25 may, instead of listening to workers and reestablishing negotiations, authorities chose another provocative line of action and decided to immediately take over the sales agencies. In response to management’s escalations, the FNTE announced another two-day strike in the seven concerned sales agencies.

Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary, says:

IndustriALL is deeply concerned with the escalation and the lack of social dialogue and negotiation with workers’ representatives. Workers’ rights must be central to any decision on changing ownership of such strategic public service like electricity. IndustriALL supports the FNTE’s legitimate struggle to achieve security for all workers in the sector.