Fighting for a sustainable industrial policy

The workshop on sustainable industrial policy was attended by IndustriALL Global Union affiliates, national centres and civil society organisations. Low wages and the widespread use of contract labour are major challenges for promoting a sustainable industrial development.

Discussing the framework for the day, IndustriALL regional secretary Sudhershan Rao Sarde said:

“Sustainable development should promote social dialogue, including good wages, service conditions and collective bargaining.”

Many of the national centres in India are on common platform to move forward with collective action and participants pledged to minimize the contract work force in the region. On 5 December a nationwide demonstration, organized by the national centres, will be held to jointly support the struggle of the workers.

Dr. G. Sanjeeva Reddy, member of IndustriALL’s Executive Committee, concluded:

“Workers trapped in triangular employment relationships, officially employed by an agency or contractor but actually working for another company, can rarely bargain collectively on terms and conditions of employment. But the collective efforts of trade unions can minimize the triangular trap and stop this exploitation."

Plans developed to confront precarious work in South Asia

The meeting was convened as part of the joint project between IndustriALL and Dutch affiliate FNV to tackle precarious work in South Asia. Organizing activities to stop precarious work have already begun in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India. 

Sudhershan Rao Sarde, regional secretary at IndustriALL’s South Asia office, explained the growing challenges to confronting precarious work in the region. The new government in Pakistan is taking steps to privatize public sector industries such as electricity, public transport and heavy engineering. He warned that increased privatization will lead to more precarious workers and that it is essential the trade union movement takes action to organize them.

Sarde also highlighted the growing burden of legal costs in fighting trade union battles, advocating that unions should have their own legal experts to support workers in their struggles.

Mr. S D Tyagi, President of Indian affiliate, the Steel Metal & Engineering Workers Federation of Indiam (SMEFI), presented data outlining wage disparity among permanent and contract workers, and showing that contractualization causes precarious work. However, he explained that persuading contract workers to join a trade union is difficult, with fear of joining a union being the underlying cause. He also stated that convincing permanent workers to fight alongside contract workers is a tough task. Contract labour further restricts the scope of collective bargaining, making strategic confrontation against precarious work vital. He stressed that trade union unity is fundamental to fighting precarious work. 

Raghukumar, a trade unionist and a practicing lawyer by profession, explained the salient features of Contract Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act, 1970. He exposed the contradictions of the Act, showing its limitations to abolish the contract labour system and to regulate it in the interest of working class.

At the end of the meeting, participants unanimously set a target to organize more than 5000 workers within a year.       

Unions call for elimination of gender-based violence

IndustriALL affiliates in Colombia met and commemorated the day in Riohacha together with Igor Díaz, IndustriALL Executive Committee member. Women gave testimonials about their experiences with violence. Their stories ranged from harassment and persecution in the workplace to the issues faced by indigenous peoples when displaced by mining companies.

Jasmin, a Wayuu from the La Guajira Peninsula in northern Colombia, told her story about the violence the Wayuu people has suffered since the Cerrejón mine opened in the region. Cerrejón is one of the world's largest open-cast mines.

The Wayuu people were displaced and lost their ancestral lands, and the mining activities contaminated the water. Jasmin’s organization, Fuerza de mujeres Wayuu, is the only organization that has spoken out against the assaults.

A story was also told about harassment and persecution faced by women unionists at mining giant Glencore. A particularly active union leader at Glencore was asked by the company to leave the union when fell pregnant. Employers used her pregnancy as an excuse as she was seen as problem due to her activity within the union. This situation has pushed her to fight to put an end to this type of discrimination.

In South Africa, participants at the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Women's Conference commemorated the day by supporting the “16 Days of no Violence Against Women” campaign. This international campaign aims to raise awareness and to address policy issues regarding violence against women and children and also to campaign for the protection of survivors of violence.

In Turkey women from Petrol-Is launched a Twitter campaign to raise awareness on violence against women at the workplace.

The ITUC called upon all unions to continue to lobby their governments in view of adopting a proposal at the ILO Governing Body on gender-based violence. The fight to end violence against women continues.

Stronger unions fight precarious work in Latin America

IndustriALL Global Union Chilean affiliate Constramet, will at the end of November ratify the transformation of the confederation of steel workers into a national sectoral union. In the seminar on precarious work, the representatives of Constramet highlighted the importance of this transformation aiming at building a stronger union and responding to the many challenges that trade unions face in Chile nowadays, notably the explosion of precarious work.

In 2012, 17 per cent of Chilean workers were contract or temporary agency workers. Mining and manufacturing sectors are particularly affected by the expansion of precarious work with 70 per cent of the workers being outsourced.

Echoing Constramet’s initiative, Colombian affiliates USO, Sintracarbón, Sintraelecol presented the results of their efforts to unionize and internalize precarious workers. In two years, Sintraelecol has managed to organize 1,400 precarious workers. Today 80 per cent of USO’s members are precarious workers and they are part of union leadership at regional and national levels.

During recent negotiations of a new collective agreement with Ecopetrol, USO was able to mobilize Ecopetrol’s 38,000 outsourced workers during a one day strike. USO has also initiated a process to internalize much of the work subcontracted by the oil company.

To date, Sintracarbón has managed to unionize 3,200 of the 8,000 subcontracted workers at the open pit mine Carbones de Cerrejón. Since 2011 the union has managed to regularize more than 800 outsourced workers and negotiate 11 collective agreements. Today, outsourced workers have access to bonuses, social security, holidays.

At the seminar, the Constramet and the FTC (Federacion de Trabajadores del Cobre) decided to continue to support to the new bill modifying Chilean labor law on subcontracting. The modifications, proposed by the CUT with the support of IndustriALL affiliates, have been included in the new government labour policy. The bill provides for the prohibition of the use of outsourced or temporary agency workers in the core activities of a company. Furthermore, it aims to put an end to the MultiRUT’s system (multiplication of legal personality of the same company), which allows a company to ignore its responsibility as an employer.

The federations of the chemical, metal, construction and textile workers of Brazilian union CUT shared their struggle against a bill presented to Congress that would have allowed outsourcing core activities in companies. Brazilian affiliates stressed the importance of unified action in the fight against precarious work.

"Precarious work is an international scourge. These contracts are worthless as precarious workers don’t get any benefits. The unionization of precarious workers is only a stone laid on the long path toward the elimination of precarious work”,

 said Sintracarbón’s representative

Brazil: Paper industry union president murdered

According to witnesses, two armed men entered the union office on 24 November. About 20 people were present, including union employees and patients of a dentist who was treating union members.

The two men tied the hands of the hostages together and placed plastic bags over their heads. According to the police, the criminals had been at the offices for two hours before the union president arrived. They took him and the treasurer to a back room and strangled the president. The treasurer survived.

The union has said that the murder of its president was an act of personal vengeance. A hostage heard one of the criminals say they were there for one person only. When the criminals came into the union office, Ozano was not present and the killers forced his secretary to phone him and ask him to come to the union office.

Ozano had been president of the union for 29 years. He was also president of the São Paulo State Federation of Paper Industry Workers.

IndustriALL Global Union Pulp and paper director Anatoly Surin condems the murder:

"We are concerned over this violent and abhorrent act on a trade union leader. We hope that Brazilian authorities will take all the steps necessary to detain and prosecute the authors of the crime."

Nigerian unions challenge obstacles to industrialization

Over 70 participants from trade unions, industry and government came together on 19 November 2014 to discuss the national industrial plan recently launched by the Nigerian government. Discussions highlighted the progress that has been made through policies in some sectors such as automotive. However, manufacturing sectors in Nigeria face multiple challenges posed by inadequate infrastructure as well as unfavourable taxation and other hindrances to investment.

A reliable electricity supply is critical for industrialization and participants agreed that privatization had resulted in price increases with no improvement in supply. Capacity has stagnated at around 4000 megawatts after two years of privatization. The roundtable called for more strategic public investment in electricity generation.

Addressing participants, General Secretary of the National Union Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) and IndustriALL executive committee member, Issa Aremu, said:

“Sustainable industrial development is one of the primary focuses of IndustriALL Global Union. Africa is endowed with raw materials but not adding value to them. Africa should stop being an exporter of raw materials and jobs, but a producer of manufacturing goods and a retainer of jobs.”

The roundtable was followed by a rally, with support from IndustriALL Global Union Africa Region, to mark African Industrialization Day on 20 November. Over 400 workers used the occasion of to raise issues hampering development of industrial sectors, including inadequate customs controls, insufficient state investment in refineries and electricity provision, and the need to revive manufacturing in the country.

In addition to NUTGTWN, affiliates that took part in the rally were the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas, National Union of Footwear, Rubber, Leather and Non Metallic Employees, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and Chemical and Non Metallic Product Senior Staff Association. They were joined by prospective affiliates Steel and Engineering Workers Union of Nigeria and National Union of Electricity Employees as well as other agricultural and industrial unions.

Defining a labour strategy towards the garment industry

The CCC network of labour non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and trade unions held its 2014 Global Forum in Hong Kong on 18-21 November to define its campaigning strategies. More than 20 IndustriALL affiliates participated from Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America and Africa. Over the four days of meetings three key strategic themes were debated – wages, the employment relationship and worker safety – as well as a labour strategy towards Hong Kong and China.

During the discussion on strategies to increase garment sector wages, strong support was expressed for IndustriALL’s living wage campaign and its emphasis on industry collective bargaining as the key demand.

A recurrent theme at the conference was the need for unity at national level and the barriers that multiple unions create to pursuing labour’s demands.

At a union side meeting organized by IndustriALL, affiliates shared their long histories of activism within the CCC network and discussed how to more closely coordinate responses and action taken by IndustriALL and by CCC, particularly in relation to cases of rights violations and global strategies.

Eternit owners’ crime judged expired and non-prosecutable in Italy

In July 2011 at the 51st court hearing in Turin, the 67-year-old Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny, and the Belgian Baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne (since deceased in May 2013), owners of the Eternit group, were charged of wilful failure to protect their employees and factory neighbours, resulting in thousands of deaths from asbestos. http://www.industriall-union.org/archive/imf/eternit-owners-risk-20-years-jail-sentence. Eternit produced asbestos-cement and other products at plants in Europe, Africa and South America.

The court hall exploded with whistles and shouts: “Shame! Shame!” after the decision has been announced. The dismissal of the accusations against the group owners is a slap to almost 3,000 victims who according to the Turin Prosecutor’s office were either working at the four Italian Eternit plants in Cavagnolo, Casale Monferrato, Rubiera near Reggio Emilia and Bagnoli, near Naples, or lived near them. The decision also cancels the compensatory payments to the victims and their families.

The Italian affiliates of IndustriALL through their national union federations CGIL, UIL and CISL actively contributed to the hearings of the trial against Eternit and were closely cooperating with the Italian Association of Relatives of Victims of Asbestos (AFEVA).

Maurizio Marcelli, head of health and safety department of FIOM-CGIL called the decision of the Court of Cassation “a shameful page of the Italian legal system”. “The judges preferred to hide behind the “quibble” of a statute of limitations, defending an abstract right rather than do justice to many workers and citizens who died because of asbestos."

Giuseppe Farina, general secretary of CISL confederation, said, "This request for statute of limitations analysis is surreal as the harmful effects from exposure to asbestos in many cases continue for more than 40 years and therefore have nothing to do with the timing of judicial proceedings.”

Paolo Carcassi, general secretary of UIL commented, “Since 1992 our country has banned the use and commercialization of asbestos. However the asbestos related diseases have a latency of more than twenty years, therefore to invoke the statute of limitations on the basis of when the asbestos has been produced rather than when the disease has manifested itself means to declare the impunity of those who criminally knew that it was a carcinogenic material and indeed did everything to hide this fact, resulting in thousands of deaths."

The Italian unions jointly with the Association of Relatives of Victims of Asbestos are not going to give up; and will continue to pursue legal proceedings on the basis of accusations of voluntary homicide.

Unions at Tenaris and Ternium take solidarity action on Guatemala and Colombia

The meeting was chaired by Fernando Lopes, IndustriALL’s Assistant General Secretary and attended by delegates from unions in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Italia, Japan and Rumania representing employees of Tenaris and unions in Argentina, Brazil and Guatemala representing employees at Ternium. Both companies are owned by the Techint group.

The meeting began by analysing the economic situation in the world steel industry and the fight between Techint and Nippon Steel for control of Usiminas in Brazil. The trade union research institute DIESSE made a presentation, which concluded that growth is slow in the industry worldwide. However, the Techint Group continues to make important investments in several countries, showing that it is optimistic about the future. The confrontation with Nippon Steel has created a lot of uncertainty and doubts among workers at Usiminas and in the unions that represent workers in the group in general.

The meeting went on to evaluate the activities of the committee and the network since the last meeting in Argentina in 2013. Attention focused on two issues in particular. First, solidarity action taken to try and secure compensation and a pension for Rubén Montoya, a Colombian worker who was injured at work. Second, freedom of association in Guatemala, where the company does not recognize the union, Sintraternium (leaders dismissed, legal attacks, difficult to conduct trade union activity inside the plant).

Discussions showed that, in general, the two companies have similar practices and policies and that there is a greater difference between countries than between companies. Tenaris and Ternium have a more liberal attitude in countries that have stricter laws and more rigorous monitoring and inspection regimes.

The meeting discussed ways of developing a better system for comparing the situation in the plants with regard to the various issues of interest to delegates. It was proposed that the coordinator of the committee should create a spreadsheet to monitor developments and that each country should nominate a representative to provide input. The aim would be to update the information every three months.

The meeting discussed the situation at the plants, the main problems that workers have in common and opportunities for future joint  work. On the final day of the meeting, delegates discussed how to take the work forward and formulated an action plan for the period up to the next meeting.

The action plan’s main activities are solidarity with Sintraternium in Guatemala and the fight to win compensation for the Colombian worker Rubén Montoya. The unions will also focus on publicising the existence of the Tenaris Workers’ World Council and the Ternium Trade Union Network as a way of achieving company recognition.

Tense standoff at Swazi Maloma Colliery

Workers embarked on a legal strike action on 24 November, seeking to double their USD40 housing allowance. Some of the miners earn a mere USD250 a month. The mine is majority owned by South African company Chancellor House with close ties to South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress. 

The miners are organized by the Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland (ATUSWA), which was formed following a merger of nine unions in Swaziland last year. The government of Swaziland has refused to register the union along with the national centre, the Trade Union Confederation of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) formed through a merger in 2012.

Strikers have been confronted by police, despite the strike action being peaceful and this led to the retreat up the hill. Mine management is now denying the strikers water, sanitation and medical treatment.

“The workers have vowed that they are not returning to work or going back to their homes unless the company meets their demands,” said Wander Mkhonza, General Secretary of ATUSWA.

We urge the company to follow the path of the workers and commit itself on negotiations and desist from intimidating workers.