Driving the women’s agenda in MENA

In Egypt, the participants selected coordinators and created a national women’s network. According to the independent unions there is a need for more education for women and women’s structures at workplaces would be useful.

The Lebanese women identified the challenges as being low participation on the part of working women in union work and low awareness and knowledge about what unions do. They intend to overcome these by improving communication with working women, networking with civil society organizations and launching a national campaign to promote women’s participation in union work.

Next will be the women’s turn in Iraq and Kuwait. In connection with Iraq, IndustriALL nominated Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi, the President of the Electric Power Workers Union of Basra and member of the Executive Committee of IndustriALL Global Union for the Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights. Since her election as union president, she has faced constant harassment and attacks from the government, politicians and employers alike. Even more worrisome, on numerous occasions she has been subjected to serious threats from armed militia groups in Basra.

Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi ran for office in the recent parliamentary elections, receiving several death threats. Seeing that the acts of aggression would not deter her from keeping her promise to run for office, the death threats were extended to members of her family, including her son. Although not obtaining a seat in the parliament, she finished the election campaign unscathed.

Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi is also an effective trade union leader. A woman leader at the helm of a union in the Middle East is an accomplishment to be celebrated and replicated. It is of fundamental importance to promote women to leadership positions as part of a much larger process of empowerment of women.

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina calls Hashmeya Muhsin al-Saadawi “one of the bravest persons I have ever met in my many years’ experience in the international labour movement.”

Trade unions are working to put an end to violence and all kinds of discrimination against women and demand the full respect of their human and trade union rights. One of them is the Union of Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran (UMMI). They published a special edition end of last year in which they asked the following questions:

“Is it not violence, when Reyhaneh Jabbari is executed for defending her honour by killing her rapist? Is it not inflicting violence when Nasrin Sotoudeh is arrested and jailed for protesting in defense of her rights? Aren’t the cases in Esfahan of women victims of acid attacks violence against women? Is it not violence when the wives of striking Bafgh coalminers are threatened by the security forces because of supporting their husband’s actions? Is it not violence against women when trade union activists are arrested in front of their wives and children in the early hours of the morning? Is it not violence when women are killed or raped in Iraq, Syria and Kobane by those mercenaries that have been parachuted into the war in the Middle East? Aren’t the commercialization of women and the sex trade the largest form of profiteering and violence against women?”

The MENA region will be a priority for IndustriALL in 2015, we will continue to support women’s structures.

Miners protest against destruction of coal mining in Ukraine

Workers are demanding that the government reviews the state budget for 2015 and includes the necessary funding to pay wage arrears, save mining operations, improve health and safety, and restore social guarantees for workers and retirees in the industry.

Social benefits such as miners' preferential taxation and free domestic fuel, have already been abolished, and a lower threshold for the pension taxation has been introduced. Some workers have not received their wages since August 2014. Wage arrears now amount to 600 million hryvnia (USD 38 million) and keep rising.

At the same time, the state budget is earmarking the closure of coal mining enterprises. The government’s decision to withdraw financial support will result in mass unemployment in the industry. More than 50,000 workers could lose their jobs and as many as 150,000 people, including workers' families, could be without any income at all. Towns and villages where coal mining enterprises offer the only place to work, will be thrown into decline.

Jyrki Raina, general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union urged the Prime Minister of the country to review the state budget of Ukraine for 2015 in line with the demands of coal miners.

Citizens’ initiative to end zero-hours contracts in Finland

Behind the initiative are young trade union activists. “Zero-hours contracts and part-time work are a reality for many young workers,” says Tatu Tuomela, Youth Secretary of the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions, SAK.

These are contracts where the weekly working hours vary from zero to 40, and give employers the possibility to hire staff with no guarantee of work. Employees therefore work only when they are needed and don’t usually know in advance how many hours to expect.

Young activists have started Operaatio vakiduuni (Operation steady job) to fight against zero-hours contracts. They are demanding that zero-hours contracts are outlawed and that part-time jobs should guarantee at least 18 hours of work per week.

Other demands include more advanced notice on working hours, better unemployment benefit for part-time workers and more rights for people working for temporary work agencies.

The citizens’ initiative is one part of the campaign. If a minimum of 50,000 Finnish citizens of voting age submit an initiative to the Parliament to pass an act. The initiative must include a bill or a proposal to start drafting legislation and the reasons for the proposal. There is a six month time period to collect signatures.

IndustriALL Global Union has an on-going campaign to STOP Precarious Work – to combat the growing trend of full-time workforces being replaced by temporary, part-time, agency and on-call workers.  

Philippine unions unite for year ahead

Leaders from 14 trade union affiliates gathered in Quezon City on 23 and 24 January for a joint meeting organized by IndustriALL and Swedish trade union organization LO-TCO.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Fernando Lopes and Erik Anderson from Swedish trade union IF-METALL discussed the key achievements of the union building project in the Philippines as well as strategies to improve activity implementation.

With more focus on organizing workers in 2015, the participants devised a concrete action plan of activities guided by three golden rules for organizing – increasing capacity, improving financial structures and strengthening democracy in each organization.

Leaders committed to conduct national joint activities complementary to organizing drives and vowed to sustain a unified campaign on critical issues such as the fight against precarious work and supporting legislative measures securing workers’ rights.

To complete the mission in the Philippines, IndustriALL Geneva and South East Asia officers visited affiliates from the metal sector on 26 January 2015 at their respective offices.

Coinciding with the council of leaders meeting of the Philippine Metalworkers Alliance (PMA), the federation leadership provided an update on the struggle of their five local union affiliates who are facing harassment and grave violations of workers’ rights by their employers.

Fernando Lopes expressed his solidarity on behalf of IndustriALL for PMA affiliates and committed to support the campaign launch at the national, regional and global level.

In the meeting with Metalworkers Alliance of the Philippines (MWAP), the discussion focused on the recent success at NXP as an outcome of the global campaign last year. NXP local union officers revealed there will be significant positive changes in the coming days. However, Lopes warned against complacency following the victory: “Let us guard our ranks so that what happened in the past shall be avoided,” he said.

Mexican authorities bully Bata workers

Epifanio García Carrillo, an executive committe member of the Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de Calzado Sandak, was taken into custody on 20 January. The independent union represents workers at Bata's subsidiary in Tlaxcala, where members have been blockading the Calzado Sandak plant since August 2012. Unionists want to prevent the company from removing machinery and illegally shifting production from the unionized plant to unregulated home-based workshops.

As if it wasn’t already hard enough for workers to stand up for their rights in a country known for its rampant violation of freedom of association and its perverted ‘protection contracts’, it seems that the authorities and the government are getting the courts on side to make the situation even harder. This latest move sends a chilling message to workers: ‘if you occupy your factory, albeit legally, we will have you arrested’.

IndustriALL Global Union continues to lend its support.

UPDATE: After eight days in detention, Epifanio García Carrillo was released on 28 January. All charges against him have been dropped. 

Unions mobilize globally for workers’ rights at Holcim Lafarge

On this day the message of “No merger without workers’ rights!” resonated globally. The campaign is in response to the failure of the two largest cement companies in the world to engage with trade unions on the effects of the merger on workers.

Over 7,000 protest messages with workers’ demands have already been delivered to the leadership of both companies through the web-based resource LabourStart. More electronic petitions in support of workers’ demands to the leadership of Lafarge and Holcim can be sent via www.labourstart.org/go/nomerger.

A number of trade unions in Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Uganda, and Zimbabwe used the opportunity of the global action day to outreach to workers at the various cement plants operated by Lafarge and Holcim.  Union leaders distributed flyers and explained the implications of the merger on the workers’ future. 

In Colombia, France, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Philippines, and Romania unions mobilized workers and conducted pickets and rallies in front of the Lafarge and Holcim plants.  Following these actions, some of the unions held work stoppages surprising the company management.

Press conferences were organized by unions in Egypt, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Serbia resulting in significant national press coverage. Other countries where actions took place include Cambodia, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and Thailand.

The strong global mobilizations are indicative of the anger and frustration of the workers and trade unions at Lafarge and Holcim plants in being side-lined and not consulted throughout the entire merger process,”

stated Ambet Yuson, General Secretary of BWI.

Workers are demanding respect and the first step would be for the Holcim and Lafarge management to include workers and trade unions as the merger moves forward.”

Jyrki Raina, general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union commented,

We fully support the workers’ demands on guaranteeing the respect of existing collective agreements, and the conditions of workers in parts of the business that will be sold off, as wel as maintaining global level social dialogue and a framework agreement.”

The three unions will continue to coordinate further actions until their key demands are met by the Lafarge and Holcim. 

NUM strike upholds rights at Northam Platinum

Protesting workers at Northam’s Zondereinde mine in South Africa were unhappy at management plans to unilaterally change recruitment and sick note policies. 

"There were clear indications to divide, weaken and reverse all the progressive policies that are regulating the employment relations at Northam Platinum Mine. (For example) workers discovered that a white female employee was employed without following proper procedures. When management was alerted to this malpractice they tried to justify it. Employees further demonstrated against this practice. Management responded by threatening disciplinary action without dealing with the actual issues," said NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, NUM, says the company also attempted to discipline workers who had valid sick notes and force them to work while they are injured or unwell.

"Workers were also subjected to unfair dismissals for being on valid sick leave. We suspect that management wanted to alter these policies for intentions known to them without informing the union leadership and without following the due processes," Baleni added.

As a result of negotiations, a draft memorandum of understanding was accepted by the workers, in which the parties have agreed the following:

Northam Platinum produces around 1,000 ounces of platinum group metals per day, which is 65 per cent of the mining company’s total output.

Why won’t Roche stop the abuse of workers making their product?

Pharmaceuticals giant Roche has failed to intervene and stop its Turkish business partner, Deva Holdings, carrying out an aggressive attack on workers’ attempts to form a union.

IndustriALL Global Union called on Roche to intervene at a critical juncture at the end of November when a response to the Labour Ministry edict was needed.

Roche sent its Turkish management to meet Deva in mid-December. Roche concluded however that Deva was acting in compliance with Turkish law, regardless of international law and Roche’s sustainability and compliance commitments. Roche failed to address the mass sackings and other grave labour rights violations.

Since the Turkish Labour Ministry instructed Deva to begin collective bargaining with Petrol-İş as its recognized bargaining partner on 14 October, the company management has continued sacking trade union members, given pay rises to workers leaving the union, threatened further action against anyone refusing to quit the union, tampered with Labour Ministry classifications to skew the bargaining unit, and built up a climate of fear and intimidation inside the workplace.

IndustriALL affiliated Petrol-İş has filed a court case against these actions, but during the delay Deva continues to sack union members and offer pay rises to those who quit the union. The first court hearing of this case will be 1 April 2015.

Deva began the year 2015 with the same behaviour, sacking union members Sercan Kambur and Can Topçu on 8 and 9 January respectively. See the table of all 32 Deva employees who have been sacked since 20 June simply for being members of the union.

IndustriALL general secretary Raina wrote to Roche on 20 January:

“The simple fact is that a considerable portion of Deva’s workforce is being treated without dignity and respect, and aggressively denied their right to join and be represented by a union. This situation should be unacceptable to Roche, both instinctively and in compliance with your company’s sustainability and compliance commitments.

IndustriALL will be forced to escalate a public campaign if the situation is not remedied by the end of February.”

The Deva management has been sent thousands of protest messages as part of a global LabourStart campaign supporting the Deva workers.

In the years following Deva’s 2010 union busting of Petrol-İş at the three sites in Çerkezköy, Kartepe and the Topkapı area of Istanbul, working conditions have deteriorated. Workers have suffered non-payment of wage increments, harassment, wrongful dismissals, and poor occupational health and safety. These worsening conditions moved the workers to rejoin Petrol-İş in 2014.

IndustriALL signs global union agreement with Total

As part of the agreement with IndustriALL, Total, which employs 100,000 workers in more than 130 countries, pledges to:

Furthermore, Total agrees to promote the agreement among the many suppliers and contractors in its supply chain, even going so far as to terminate contracts with those who do not comply.

Jyrki Raina stated:

“We applaud Total for its commitment to better rights and conditions for workers. IndustriALL’s agreement with Total makes it clear that trade union rights and freedoms must be upheld across the company’s operations and throughout its global supply chain. Total promises to act in strict neutrality in its relations with unions and is prepared to terminate contracts with suppliers if they breach the agreement. It sends a strong message to Total’s suppliers and provides new levels of protection for workers.

A committee including representatives from Total, IndustriALL and its trade union affiliates will meet annually to ensure the agreement is implemented.

“I am pleased to sign this first agreement with IndustriALL Global Union, which is designed to extend the Group's tradition of corporate social responsibility to all of our operations around the world through quality social dialogue and insurance coverage for employees,” said Total’s Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Pouyanné.  

The agreement also abides by the guiding principles on Business and Human Rights approved by the United Nations Human Rights Council, as well as key ILO Conventions on freedom of association, equal pay, discrimination and child labour.

ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, praised the agreement between IndustriALL and Total:

“I am pleased to witness the signature of this agreement between Total and IndustriALL Global Union, an organization that represents millions of workers around the world and that contributes extensively to the fight for better working conditions and for the respect of labour union rights. Companies such as Total have a major role to play in promoting decent working conditions in their host countries and in ensuring that their employees benefit from tangible measures to improve their work life.”

Contact: Leonie Guguen, Communications and Media Officer, IndustriALL Global Union. Tel: +41 (0)22 308 50 24 Mobile: +41 (0) 79 137 54 36. Email: [email protected]

www.industriall-union.org

What is a global framework agreement?

Multinational companies operate in many locations with many fully or part-owned subsidiaries, and often rely on hundreds or even thousands of suppliers.

Global framework agreements are negotiated between IndustriALL and multinational companies to protect the rights and working conditions of people at all stages of a multinational company’s global supply chain, including people working for suppliers and contractors.

Framework agreements signed by Polish miners and government

After 11 days of protests, Poland’s Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz and representatives from all trade unions in the mining sector signed the framework agreement. It guarantees the involvement of the energy sector in restructuring the mining sector, the transfer of four mines to a mine restructuring company, as well as the possibility of selling the mines to investors.

The agreement also opens for talks on a new collective bargaining agreement for the mining sector, state aid for energy-intensive industries and the reindustrialization program for the Silesia and Malopolska Region. There will also be negotiations on the future of Polish industry and jobs.

Social dialogue between the government and the trade unions will continue.

Dariusz Trzcionka, President of IndustriALL affiliate KADRA said:

“The success of the negotiations would not have been possible without the support and solidarity of workers, residents, local governments, European and international trade unions, IndustriALL and the Polish trade unions. We thank you for supporting the miners in these difficult times!"

Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said on the agreement:

“I wanted to thank you for a good, healthy compromise. Good is not for us, but for the future of Polish mining.”