FEATURE: Putting profits over people, Turkey’s treacherous mining industry

Feature

Country: Turkey

Text: Leonie Guguen

Mining coal remains one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. Besides explosions or fires, miners daily face the possibility of tunnel collapse and entrapment, burial under loose coal or rock, poisonous or asphyxiating gas release, hazardous chemicals, or mutilation by heavy equipment, to name a few.

Private mining companies obsess over production and profits. This was extremely evident at Soma, where the private mining operator Soma Holdings took over the mine from the Turkish government in 2009.

With the state a guaranteed buyer for its output, it had every incentive to maximize production at any cost. Soma Holdings tripled production to what had originally deemed possible. By May 2014, the company had been able to extract a massive 15 million tonnes of coal, three years ahead of schedule.

However, while Soma Holdings enforced rapid expansion of the mine underground, it failed to increase and maintain the mine’s ventilation systems, vital to provide clean air to miners.

In complete contempt for worker safety, managers at the mine continued production for two hours after heat and smoke began emerging at the main entrance on 13 May 2014, attempting to tackle the problem without evacuating the mine.

After a massive explosion ensued, the inadequate ventilation system failed to pump the poisonous carbon monoxide out of the mine creating a death chamber for the miners.

A damning independent report into the disaster cited this as a “very negative” factor in rescue efforts.

The 126-page expert report also found that safety readings were routinely fabricated and many of the carbon monoxide sensors were broken. The report clearly states that the Soma disaster was “preventable”.

A further study by the Turkish association of chambers of engineers and architects TMMOB, stated: “The reason for the carnage (at Soma) is privatization, marketization and the outsourcing policies over the past 12 years in the mining sector and also in the area of health and safety.”

Soma

Global union victory – Turkey ratifies C176

It took the tragedy at Soma, Turkey’s worst-ever mining disaster, one of many, for the country to finally approve ratification of Convention no.176, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention on Health and Safety in Mining.

C176, which sets international guidelines for the mining industry, was adopted by the ILO in 1995 and initiated by an IndustriALL Global Union predecessor.

In fact, the victory for Turkish miners in approving ratification of C176 came after years of campaigning led by IndustriALL with its Turkish mining affiliate Maden-Is, and with support from CFMEU in Australia, NUM in South Africa, USW in the USA, ROSUGLEPROF in Russia, and IG BCE in Germany.

IndustriALL was determined that 301 lives would not be lost in vain. In the immediate aftermath of Soma, IndustriALL’s assistant general secretary, Kemal Özkan, and mine sector chair, Andrew Vickers from CFMEU, led a solidarity mission to scene of the disaster with mining affiliates from around the world.

Once again, IndustriALL lobbied the ILO, calling on the organization to step up pressure on Turkey to ratify C176.

After 18 miners were killed in another preventable mining accident at the Has Sekerler coalmine near Ermenek on 28 October 2014, IndustriALL immediately wrote to all 535 members of the Turkish Parliament demanding ratification of C176.

Less than six weeks later, on 4 December 2014, the Turkish parliament finally approved ratification of the ILO’s Convention on Health and Safety in Mines Convention number 176. “It never would have happened without the unions,” says Özkan.

After the Soma disaster, 60 mines closed down for economic and safety reasons after the government hastily increased the number and diligence of its inspections.

Around 6,000 miners were laid off but many of the mines that were closed down have reopened and the workers have got their jobs back.

For Soma survivors, the situation is worse. On 1 December last year, some 2,800 miners at the ill fated mine were laid off. They are still waiting severance payments with no guaranteed job to secure their future.

Turkey’s killing coalfields

The success of C176 lies in its implementation and enforcement in a country where even the President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has publically stated that coalmining accidents are inevitable and that is a miner’s ‘destiny’ to die at work.

Every day, some 50,000 miners risk their lives working underground. There have been 1,500 deaths in Turkish mines since 2000. A staggering 13,000 miners were involved in accidents in 2013 alone.

Statistically, Turkey’s miners are among the most likely to be killed on the job, according to the ILO.

Mining accidents accounted for 10.4 per cent of all work-related accidents in Turkey last year.

Privatization at their peril

Turkey’s privatization drive that began in the 1980s has been a catastrophe for the health and safety of miners in the country.

“Every privatized mine is another Soma waiting to happen,” says Kenan Dikbiyik, a mining engineer and technical adviser to Maden-Is. “Underground mines should not be rented out to private operators.”

“The private mining companies are there for ten years, forcing the mines to produce more, knowing that the government will buy all their output,” adds Dikbiyik.

“They don’t even implement the minimum of health and safety requirements because it all costs. They want to maximize production in the quickest time possible.”

Ninety per cent of all miners in Turkey are now working for private employers, compared to 15 per cent in 1981.

“Private companies are ignoring engineering principles and safety measures to decrease costs and increase production. They don’t understand old coal producing areas like Soma and Ermenek and underestimate the possible dangers,” says Dikbiyik.

While many countries are trying to cut their consumption of fossil fuels, Turkey is turning to coal to reduce its reliance on external energy suppliers.

Coal made up for 53 per cent of the country’s total energy source in 2012 and accounts for 28.3 per cent of total electricity generation. However, at present, Turkey has to import 95 per cent of its hard coal.

Hence the government is offering incentives to private mining companies to capitalize on the country’s vast coal reserves.

Turkey has an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of hard coal reserves and 11.5 billion tonnes of lignite (brown coal) of which 500 million tonnes and 9.8 billion tonnes respectively are proven.

And although the quality of Turkey’s coal is poor, it is still cheaper to burn than imports.

The stronger the union, the safer the mine

“Only two things stand between a coal miner and early death: the government and the union,” says Brian Kohler, IndustriALL’s director of Health and Safety.

Enshrined in C176 is the right of workers to collectively select safety and health representatives. Workers must be involved in reporting accidents and taking an active role in the health and safety of the mines where they work.

“Freedom of Association must be in force for C176 to function,” says Özkan. “Turkey has to be more open to union rights and freedoms.”

Unions in Turkey face a constant struggle. Turkish metalworkers have recently been banned from striking and union busting is common practice.

Last year, Human Rights Watch criticized the Turkish government for being “increasingly autocratic”. A report by the rights organization said: “In office for three terms since 2002, and enjoying a strong parliamentary majority, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has demonstrated a growing intolerance of political opposition, public protest, and critical media.”

However, the industrial homicides at Soma and Ermenek have propelled the government into making improvements to legislation. In January this year, a Parliamentary Commission passed a new draft mining law that will result in changes to the transfer of mining licences and establish a permanent supervision system to improve health and safety in mines.

The government has admitted that technical inspections in the past were carried out too quickly without examining safety conditions properly. With the new act, the government has agreed to provide qualified mining engineers as permanent monitors for all mines.

“It all looks good on paper,” says Dikbiyik who was on the special commission tasked with drawing up the new mining act. “The challenge will be implementing it.”

PROFILE: Myanmar the new union frontier

PROFILE

Country: Myanmar

Text: Petra Brännmark

Unions: Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar (IWFM) and the Mining Workers Federation of Myanmar (MWFM)

Myanmar is under transition from a military junta, which seized power in 1962. A constitutional referendum in 2008 allowed for general elections in 2010, and since then the government has launched a number of democratic and economic reforms. In 2012 trade unions became legal, and union leaders in exile were allowed to return to the country.

In December 2014 the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar (IWFM) and the Mining Workers Federation of Myanmar (MWFM) joined IndustriALL Global Union. Both trade unions are affiliated to the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM), one of three central confederations in the country.

So far in 2015, the IWFM has increased its membership from 3,500 to 5,000. The IWFM has almost 7,000 members and is aiming for 20,000 at the end of 2015.

Khaing Zar Aung is Assistant General Secretary of IWFM, as well as treasurer of CTUM. She became involved in the trade union movement in 2007, while working in garment factories on the Thai-Myanmar border.

Leaving school at 16 to help support her seven siblings, Khaing Zar Aung got a job in a textile factory in Myanmar by lying about her age. When the employer fired her for being under-age (the legal working age in Myanmar is 18), Khaing Zar Aung found work in the factories on the other side of the border in Thailand.

There, she was working alongside children as young as 13 and 14 who wanted to go back to school.

I was struck by the poor living standards, how workers were exploited, and how little or no chance they had to improve their lives. So I went to a trade union training session and since then I have not stopped.

Back then we informed migrant workers in Thailand of their rights, and as trade unions were illegal in Myanmar, we invited workers to come to Thailand for training.

Hurdles on the way

Although trade unions are legal today, Khaing Zar Aung says that changing people’s behaviour takes time. Many people are still afraid to join a union for fear of repercussions.

“Parents don’t want their children to join a union and the laws protecting workers are very weak. So we need awareness training for the workers, to teach them about their rights.”

Employers are often not used to collective bargaining and workers’ rights. There is a great need to build functioning labour-management relations at factory level, which will require training of both union and management representatives.

It is illegal to dismiss a worker who joins a union, and yet the IWFM is constantly seeing such cases. A proposal to impose jail sentences for this offence was rejected by Parliament; instead the penalty was increased from US$100 to US$500.

We are seeing cases where union leaders are put under pressure and harassed in the workplace. For example union leaders are not given leave for the two paid days to organize, which they are legally entitled to. And sometimes company management encourage unionists to quit union work.

Forming and officially registering a union in Myanmar is not straightforward. According to the law, a minimum of 30 workers can form a union. In addition to that, ten per cent of the workers have to vote in favour of the union.

The Labour Ministry has the task of registering new unions, which should be done within 60 days. With the current backlog more than 1,000 unions are pending registration – some have been waiting for more than a year.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina, who visited the country in March this year, says:

Myanmar needs solid, durable labour-management structures at local and national levels, as essential pillars of the future democratic society.

Nevertheless Khaing Zar Aung is optimistic about the future, where she sees the unions speaking with an ever-stronger voice.

We need to increase awareness of workers’ rights and train our members in collective bargaining. We are fighting for a living wage and laws that protect the workers.

Minimum wage on its way

At the moment there is no set minimum wage in Myanmar. The average salary is around US$100 per month, with big sectoral differences. Apart from the basic wage, a living allowance, overtime bonus, attendance bonus, skill bonus, and finally a sum depending on the length of employment is added.

Overtime requires an extra 12-16 hours per week, in addition to the 44-46-hour working week.

“Our members are fighting for a living wage,” says Khaing Zar Aung. “The salary is so low that the workers are suffering – we demand basic wages and proper working hours.”

The government in Myanmar is in the process of setting a minimum wage and hopes to have it ready this spring. Jyrki Raina stresses the importance of setting a basic minimum wage that is sufficient to live on.

“In order to prevent social unrest it is important to confirm a sufficiently high minimum wage as soon as possible and to promote collective bargaining. Workers must have reasonable working hours, a healthy and safe workplace, and the right to join a union.”

Successful collective bargaining

Members of IWFM at Japanese owned garment factory, Sakura, managed to secure a one-year collective bargaining agreement with an 18 per cent wage increase. After two weeks of silent protests where the 688 workers wore red armbands every day, the union signed an agreement increasing the basic wage from US$110 to US$118 per month.

SPECIAL REPORT: Industry bargaining is an essential tool in the fight for living wages

Special report

Text: Jenny Holdcroft

Today the world’s richest one per cent own 50 per cent of the world’s wealth. Staggeringly, the richest 85 people in the world possess the same amount of wealth as the world’s poorest 50 per cent.

Since 1990, the share of GDP (gross domestic product) from wages has fallen steadily across the world. Workers are being squeezed while global corporations chase bigger and bigger profits. Apple recently announced the highest-ever quarterly profit by a public company – US$18 billion. It is sitting on cash reserves of US$142 billion. Meanwhile workers are paid only US$7 for making an iPhone that will sell for hundreds of dollars.

The widening gap between productivity and wage growth is highlighted in the ILO Global Wages Report 2014/15 and is directly linked to a decline in collective bargaining. Workers worldwide are being denied access to the mechanism that was expressly designed to promote social stability by enabling unions to negotiate a fairer distribution of the wealth generated by their members.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has found countries with a large proportion of workers covered by collective agreements have lower wage inequality. But the impact depends on the level of centralization of the collective bargaining system. Under decentralized systems, such as that of the United States, collective agreement coverage is lower and wage differentials are higher. The reverse is true in systems with more industry agreements that cover more workers.

Industry bargaining under attack

Market fundamentalism, that destructive ideology which still dominates policy making despite its role in causing the global economic crisis, remains the major driver of labour market deregulation and decentralization of collective bargaining. These policies have led directly to the decrease in collective bargaining coverage, and the consequent increase in income inequality.

A 2013 report by the European Commission found that bargaining with multiple employers was the best guarantee of broad bargaining coverage. It also found overwhelming evidence of a trend towards decentralization of collective bargaining, beginning in the 1980s and accelerating during the economic crisis.

The advice given by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Greece, Portugal and Spain during the economic crisis was to allow employers to opt out of sectoral collective agreements and to decentralize collective bargaining to the level of the individual enterprise. It reinforced this advice by making labour market deregulation a condition of its loans to Portugal and other European countries in economic difficulty. In May 2014, a report by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) found that in the countries hardest hit by the crisis (Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain) the decentralization of collective bargaining was accelerated.

Massive declines in collective bargaining coverage have been witnessed in the UK, Australia and New Zealand where right-wing governments introduced legislation designed to curb union power by dismantling industry bargaining.

After the introduction of the Employment Contract Act in New Zealand in 1991, multi-employer agreements fell from 77 per cent to 20 per cent of all agreements. By 2000, multi-employer bargaining had collapsed. Bargaining coverage decreased from 61 per cent in 1990 to 18 per cent in 2010. Wherever industry bargaining is replaced by enterprise bargaining, coverage nosedives as employers take the opportunity to avoid bargaining and unions completely.

Protecting more workers

Negotiating and reaching an agreement with a single employer continues to be an important part of trade union work. It enables productivity and efficiency gains made by workers to be shared and can regulate a whole range of employment conditions that are specific to the enterprise. But if not underpinned by an industry-wide floor, individual employers will continue to avoid trade unions and bargaining to undercut wages and conditions.

Company agreements tend to cover only a small percentage of non-unionized workers (7 per cent on average). Under industry agreements, this rises to over 40 per cent, providing much needed protection to workers who do not have the possibility to join a union.

However, according to the ILO, countries with multi-employer bargaining systems and mechanisms that allow collective agreements to be extended to cover additional workers and employers, have higher collective bargaining coverage rates.

In countries such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Italy and Portugal, multi-employer bargaining and the extension of collective agreements mean that more non-unionized workers than union members are covered, so ensuring that the most vulnerable workers are able to benefit from wage increases that they would not otherwise have the industrial strength to negotiate in their workplaces.

Living wages in supply chains

In a world of global supply chains, industry bargaining is more important than ever.

In many garment producing countries, collective bargaining structures are weak or absent, and levels of unionization are low. Over 90 per cent of workers in the global garment industry have no possibility to negotiate on their wages and conditions – and cannot claim their fair share of the value they generate.

A typical pair of jeans made in Bangladesh retails for anywhere between US$30 and US$50, or more for a prestige brand. But the worker who makes them only receives 10 cents. And this can’t be explained by differences in the cost of living. Garment sector minimum wages in Bangladesh are currently US$68 a month, unions say they need to increase wages to at least US$120 for workers to be able to support themselves and their families adequately.

The almost total absence of industry wage bargaining in the garment industry has left workers reliant on ineffective minimum wage mechanisms for any pay increases. While minimum wage fixing at least establishes a common floor, the wages that result are well below the level of a living wage in most major garment producing countries like Cambodia and Bangladesh.

Where bargaining does take place in the garment industry, it is primarily conducted at the level of the individual factory. This puts an enormous burden on unions that lack strength and resources to conduct negotiations one factory at a time – in Bangladesh alone there are more than 4,500 factories producing for the export industry.

Particularly in supply chain industries like garments and electronics, bargaining at the level of individual factories will never be enough to drive up pay and conditions when demands by multinational corporations (MNCs) for ever lower labour costs suppress wages and conditions in a race to the bottom. There are limits to how far an individual factory or business can step ahead of its competitors and unscrupulous MNCs will simply move to suppliers with lower standards and lower labour costs. Likewise, efforts by individual MNCs to raise standards, particularly when these do not include reform of purchasing practices, will meet with opposition in their supplier factories which have to compete with other factories on labour costs.

Industry-wide agreements, particularly those with extension provisions, make it very difficult for employers to escape their obligations. They effectively take labour costs out of competition by creating a level playing field that enables conditions to improve for all workers in an industry, regardless of who they work for.

South African textile and garment union SACTWU organizes over 80 per cent of textile and garment workers in the country. The fight for living wages is at the core of SACTWU’s work and the union prioritizes centralized bargaining as the mechanism to achieve the best wage outcomes for workers. SACTWU negotiates in three national bargaining councils for the clothing, textiles and leather sectors and the outcomes affect over 100,000 workers. In 2014 sectoral wage increases were above inflation. But this well-functioning system is under threat. The corporate-sponsored Free Market Foundation is challenging the constitutionality of extending collective agreements to non-parties in court. If the case is successful, workers whose employers are not members of the bargaining council will be left out in the cold.

Protection for precarious workers

Increasingly, a worker’s employment conditions are no longer under the control of a single employer. Through their use of sub-contracting and agency work, employers are outsourcing their employment responsibility, creating multiple employment relationships and fracturing bargaining units. MNC buyers at the top of global supply chains do not directly employ workers in the factories that produce their goods, but their purchasing decisions have a powerful influence over wages and working hours.

For precarious workers, even identifying their legal employer can be difficult, while bargaining is likely to be impossible. Indeed, triangular employment relationships are being used by employers precisely to avoid unions and collective bargaining.

This makes industry bargaining particularly important for precarious workers. By negotiating agreements that cover all employers in an industry, including agencies and sub-contractors, or by extending the coverage of existing agreements to encompass workers employed by them, unions can ensure that precarious workers are protected, whether or not they have been able to join a union.

Bargaining at industry level can play an important role in regulating the use of precarious work, as well as the working conditions of precarious workers.

What needs to change?

There is overwhelming evidence that industry-level bargaining plays a vital role in reducing inequality and raising the wage floor. Governments need to encourage and facilitate industry bargaining in order to extend collective agreement coverage and protection to workers who are effectively excluded from bargaining and need it the most. This will require significant political will, particularly in those countries that supply cheap labour to global supply chains. It will also involve the construction or improvement of industrial relations structures, including development of representative employers’ associations where these are absent. The ILO has a key role to play in promoting the benefits of industry-level bargaining to governments, employers and workers, as well as providing assistance to governments to make the needed legislative and administrative reforms.

IndustriALL will continue to demand a return to industry-wide bargaining as the primary means for setting wages. Only through industry bargaining can we level the playing field and make sure that all workers, including precarious workers, are guaranteed a fair share of the wealth that they generate.

Good for employers

Industry bargaining takes wages out of competition and sets a level playing field for employers. The incentive then is to compete on the basis of efficiency, skills and upgrading rather than by undermining wages and working conditions. Companies have a collective interest in ensuring that they are not undercut by unscrupulous employers paying wages lower than the prevailing rate. This is particularly true in labour-intensive industries such as the garment industry. Industry bargaining takes conflict out of the workplace and is more efficient requiring fewer resources for employers as well as trade unions. Industry agreements provide the certainty to business it needs for investment and growth.

PROFILE: fighting for rights in Hungary

PROFILE

Country: Hungary

Text: Tom Grinter

Union: VDSZ Szakszervezet – Federation of Chemical Workers of Hungary

The Federation of Chemical, Energy and General Workers of Hungary, VDSZ, actively struggles on many fronts for its members. Mobilizing and organizing brought gains for VDSZ workers a century ago and continues to do so at multinationals, such as Hankook Tyre.

The union’s 109-year history has been strongly influenced by Hungary’s role in the World Wars and Cold War of the 20th Century. Founded by workers in a Budapest pub on 16 April 1905 and officially recognized by the Hungarian government on 22 April 1906, the union grew steadily in the period up to the second world war (WWII).

In the early period, strikes were conducted against the extremely poor working conditions in chemicals factories, and collective agreements were reached between VDSZ and the first employer associations in Hungary.

Early achievements of VDSZ included reducing the working week for the industry to 48 hours, negotiating improved wages, and instituting paid leave.

Following WWII the union worked together with the state authorities to build production in the industry. VDSZ especially focussed at this time on occupational health and safety and worker education.

In 1989, Soviet Union influence in Hungary eased, and VDSZ changed its priorities. Since then the union has focussed on social dialogue, and campaigning for stronger worker protection and representation.

VDSZ President Tamás Székely, Substitute Member of the IndustriALL Global Union Executive Committee, sees united action as the most important tool in the fight to protect VDSZ members:

The VDSZ of today believes in uniting workers and unions to achieve more in the spirit of solidarity. This is true inside Hungary and also internationally.

VDSZ has become well-known in Hungary over recent years for unified workers’ actions against bad labour laws, unfair tax rules, and government attacks on our right to strike.

VDSZ is working on building dominant representation on Works Councils at companies employing its members. Organizing to protect members through fast privatization, the union strives for effective wage negotiations in all collective agreements, as well as bargaining for job security, social security, and good occupational health practices.

Now 21,000 members strong, VDSZ is also prioritizing community organizing, increasing women and young members, and doing professional training for union staff.

In the fight against the anti-worker labour code of 2012, much public pressure has been generated through media work, and social media information campaigning. This is also true of the 2014 campaigns against union busting at Hankook Tyre, and for workers’ rights at EVM Chemicals.

Since opening the Rácalmás factory near Dunaujváros in 2007, Korean-based Hankook resisted VDSZ organizing the plant’s 1,800 workers. Plant management was found guilty of numerous violations and fined by the Labour Inspectorate for obstructing VDSZ’s legitimate duties in representing the workers.

When management illegally sacked the plant union president on 21 July 2014, VDSZ led large mobilizations outside the plant, together with over 60 Hungarian trade unions.

The Labour Code brought in by the current right wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán not only seriously undermines workers’ ability to fight for decent working conditions, it also empowers companies to reopen old conflicts and punish trade unionists for actions taken under the previous legislation. VDSZ President Székely faced penal procedure by Japanese multinational Bridgestone because of this.

IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Jyrki Raina concludes:

This active trade union affiliate of IndustriALL faces tough obstacles in Hungary. VDSZ is now a well-established counterpart to the multinational companies operating in the upper-middle-income Hungarian economy. We will continue to support VDSZ in its fight for the rights of its members.

Workers protest against dismissals at Holcim Indonesia

Holcim, one of the world’s major cement companies, is going through a merger process with another huge cement producer, Lafarge. Holcim shareholders have already approved the merger at their extraordinary annual general meeting.

IndustriALL Global Union, Building and Wood Workers’ International and European Federation of Building and Woodworkers have a joint international campaign “No merger without workers’ rights”, seeking to secure workers’ rights and interests during and after the merger.

A number of activities including protest actions and information distribution were part of the campaign. Both companies were recently shaken by a global wave of protests on 28 April, where unions in different countries demanded an improved occupational health and safety policy within Holcim and Lafarge.

In late April, the union representing workers of Holcim Indonesia and the company made an agreement on voluntary early retirement. However, neither this nor another agreement proposed by the company and approved by the union with an early retirement scheme for all workers between 53 and 55, has ever been implemented.

Instead, Holcim has without further consultation with the union unilaterally decided to fire all workers under 45. The layoffs would affect 350 workers out of 2,600 employees of Holcim Indonesia, or more than 10 per cent of all Holcim workers in Indonesia.

The company announced the layoffs after Indonesia division of Holcim faced a decrease in net profit to Rp 33 billion (US$2.51 million) during the first quarter of 2015.

According to the trade union despite an unfavourable conjuncture in the local market the company was experiencing normal conditions with no financial evidence of bankruptcy from public accountants.

Holcim Indonesia workers have received strong solidarity support from their brothers and sisters at Lafarge Indonesia. 

Mexico – important legal victory for autoworkers

The workers in Arneses y Accesorios de México, owned by the Finnish auto parts Company PKC, have been fighting since 2007 to organize and officially form Section 307 of Los Mineros, seeking to leave the CTM company union led by Tereso Medina

Under the control and complicity of the yellow CTM union, management has got away with paying poverty wages of less than 100 Mexican pesos a day (6 Euros) to over 7,000 workers, running illegally long work shifts of ten hours a day with five minutes break, abusing workers’ leave and other benefits and ignoring cases of sexual harassment that workers have denounced.

After a long trial, persistently obstructed and delayed by CTM leader Tereso Medina, the President of the Special Board 15 dismissed as unfounded and unsubstantiated the allegations of the CTM representatives saying that the four workers had been dismissed for  "dereliction of duty". The Court recognized that the workers were fired as a joint reprisal by the company and the corrupt union, to intimidate workers and discourage them from wanting to exercise their right to Freedom of Association, protected by ILO Convention 87.

IndustriALL Global Union’affiliate, the Mineros Union, led by Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, and their lawyers who took up the defense of the Arneses workers, have played a key role in this result. Above all, the resistance and struggle of more than 7,000 workers at Arneses made this triumph possible –hopefully leading soon to effectively reinstate the dismissed workers and to hold a free union election..

Mineros have been calling for the union election (recuento)  to be held, to give the workers the right to determine which union the workers of Arneses y Accesorios de México want to join. This would give control of the collective bargaining agreement to the Mineros, on behalf of the 7,000 workers in Ciudad Acuña who have affiliated to their Section 307.

Crucial to obtaining this result has been the active solidarity of IndustriALL affiliates, such as the United Steelworkers in Canada and the U.S, the United Automobile Workers (UAW) in the U.S, as well as the Finnish Metalworkers.

IndustriALL joins Los Mineros in celebrating this legal victory for Alejandro Ojeda Ramírez, Javier Díaz Gómez, Ana María Méndez Pacheco and María de la Paz Solano Calvillo.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina says:

We applaud this landmark legal victory for Los Mineros at PKC in Mexico and for all the workers in Arneses who continue to fight back and resist despite constant pressure and intimidation by the company and CTM union. We will not let PKC off the hook now, as we have this decision from the Mexican authorities.

“We will continue fighting together to demand that the workers be reinstated as soon as possible, receive the back pay from the day of dismissal and demand that the union election (recuento) be held in the Arneses plants to allow workers to choose their union.”

Crown campaign: “Stop a new era of union busting in Canada”

IndustriALL gives a strong support to 120 steelworkers in Toronto forced on strike over 20 months ago because they would not accept a demand by Crown Holdings, one of the largest can manufacturers in the world, for further large concessions including decrease in pay by 42 per cent for doing the same job.

Back in 2012 the company made double profits and honored the plant in Toronto with the company’s award to the best plant in North America.

To add to the pressure on workers who already going through an extreme hardship over the last 20 months, now Crown management has said that even if all the workers take wage cuts of up to 33 per cent, most of them will not get their jobs back.

Kemal Özkan, assistant general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union says:

We extend our the strongest support to courageous steelworkers in Toronto. We also support them because the future of this strike has long standing consequences for everybody in Canada. These workers exercised their fundamental right to strike and cannot be punished for this. We cannot lose this battle. No to union busting!

Send your letter to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Labour Minister Kevin Flynn asking them to take further action on the side of workers and stop a new era of union busting in Canada. The online action is available on LabourStart

Open Letter of the Metallurgical and Mining Industry Workers Union of Ukraine calls to establish peace

395 members of the regional and local unions of the Metallurgical and Mining Industry Workers Union of Ukraine from the Vinnitsa, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Zhitomir, Zaporozhye, Kiev, Kirovograd, Lugansk, Lviv, Nikolaev, Odessa, Poltava, Kharkov and Cherkassy regions participated.

The Congress reviewed the performance of the union's Central Committee from May 2010 till April 2015, adopted a Plan of Actions for the next five years and released an Open Letter "We demand to establish real peace"; the latter text is published below. Earlier, this text was also published by the Mining & Metallurgical Workers' Union of Russia, an affiliate of IndustriALL, on its web-page.

OPEN LETTER

of the 6th Congress of the Metallurgical and Mining Industry

Workers Union of Ukraine

We demand to establish real peace

The Sixth Congress of the Metallurgical and Mining Industry Workers Union of Ukraine draws the attention of the Ukrainian authorities and the entire global community to the quite literally catastrophic situation in the social, humanitarian and production spheres which was created as a result of the military and political conflict in the east of the country.

The great grief and the pain of loss have already come to thousands of Ukrainian homes. Dozens of thousands of families lost their dwellings which were damaged, burnt by explosions and fires. The war destroys enterprises and workplaces, hospitals and schools.

The metallurgical industry of Ukraine also experienced heavy loss due to the military operations in 2014 and at the beginning of this year.

As of 01 April 2015, 20 out of 30 functional blast furnaces (67 percent), 6 out of 9 open-hearth furnaces (78 percent) and 14 out of 21 converters (67 percent) were operating. The largest enterprises in the east of the country did not operate for a long time: Donetsksteel, Enakievo Metallurgical Plant, Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant, Donetsk Electrometallurgical Plant, Donetsk Metalworks, Alchevsk Coking Plant, Donetsk Coke Plant and Yasinovskiy Coking Plant.

In 2014 the losses of metallurgical enterprises reached 23.7 billion Ukrainian Hryvnia, and export of steel products decreased by 7.6 percent. In January and February this year export decreased by 32 percent, and currency revenue from it decreased by 40.2 percent in comparison to the same period of 2014.

There is a threatening situation in the sphere of employment. In 2014 the industry lost about 25 thousand workplaces. Dozens of thousands of steelworkers and miners were forced to idle or work reduced working hours. The real wages sharply decreased.  

We know well that there is no bigger tragedy, bigger injustice, than a war. It is necessary to stop it!

We stand for a comprehensive ceasefire in eastern Ukraine in order not to spill more blood, for a genuine disengagement of military forces to the safe distance, for an unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to the affected regions, for a withdrawal of all illegal armed groups, for ensuring the control over frontier and for a restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, the Minsk Agreements did not bring a stable peace. It means the politicians did not do everything they could to achieve it.

We call the presidents of Ukraine and Russia, leaders of the USA and the European countries to do everything possible to develop and implement the plan of peaceful settlement of the military conflict and to stop death and destruction.

Working man does not need war!

We demand to establish peace!

Global union action against asbestos

***UPDATE: On 14 May 2015, four countries spoke out against listing chrysotile asbestos on Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention: Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Zimbabwe. In a surprise move, Brazil supported a listing.***

IndustriALL affiliates from Australian unions AMWU and CFMEU, as well as Unite in the UK, joined forces with victims’ groups and the Building and Wood Workers International union to protest outside the United Nations building on 12 May.

The demo took place as government representatives from over 160 countries are participating in a UN conference to decide whether to list chrysotile asbestos as a dangerous substance under the Rotterdam Convention.

“Do not be deceived by the lies of the ‪asbestos industry – all forms of asbestos kill,” said IndustriALL’s director of health and safety, Brian Kohler, in a powerful appeal to delegates taking part in the meeting.

A listing under the Convention would mean that countries importing chrysotile asbestos are made aware of its deadly properties.

However, asbestos producing countries such as Russia, Brazil and China are expected to veto a listing, as is major importer, India.

Speaking at the conference on 13 May, AMWU’s national president Andrew Dettmer, said:

It is a moral failure of significant magnitude that chrysotile asbestos is not listed under the Rotterdam Convention.

A strong pro-chrysotile campaign lobby, funded by Russia, is attempting to claim chrysotile asbestos is safe, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), that it is not.

An estimated 300 million people are being exposed to asbestos in countries where it is still being used, according to WHO.  

Sharad Sawant, an asbestosis sufferer from India brought to Geneva by the Australian affiliates, made a gripping intervention at the conference, providing first-hand testimony of the real dangers of chrysotile.

India has over 600 asbestos factories and many thousands of sufferers from asbestos-related diseases, which have no cure.

IndustriALL is running a two-week long publicity campaign on Geneva transport to remind conference participants and the wider public that asbestos is still in production and responsible for killing at least 100,000 people a year.

“The global labour movement has looked at the science, has looked at our dead and dying sisters and brothers, and we demand a global ban on all forms of asbestos,” says Kohler.

IndustriALL gives voice to workers at OECD Steel Committee

IndustriALL Global Union representatives at the OECD Steel Committee, IndustriALL assistant general secretary Fernando Lopes and Rob Johnston, industrial director at Community the union UK, highlighted the importance of considering the impact on workers in addressing these issues.

IndustriALL drew attention to workplace developments in the industry, underlining the importance of giving workers and their unions a voice in the workplace. There is a wealth of literature demonstrating how workers having a voice and engagement are good for business.

Rob Johnston says:

Bad examples such as Tata Steel UK’s decision to close its pension scheme casts a shadow over the whole industry. This undermines its own internal values and undermining its claims to be the worlds most ethical company.

Equality continues to be a major challenge in the steel industry. Opportunities for women vary from employer to employer, but the industry could do better in having more women in senior positions. Women must not be under-utilised in the workplace, which is not only unjust but also unfair and a loss to the industry.

Fernando Lopes concludes:

A proactive industrial policy to promote the continuous improvement of infrastructure is fundamental to increase the consumption of steel and to underpin employment security within the industry.

The Committee consists of 25 OECD member countries, plus associate members and other invited government participants. The Committee provides a forum for governments, producers and unions to address the evolving challenges facing the steel industry and to identify political solutions to encourage open and transparent markets for steel.