200 Polish miners occupy company headquarters

Liquidation of Polish mining giant, Kompania Weglowa S.A. (KW), would threaten the jobs of more than 46,000 workers employed by the state-owned company.

The protesting miners, which include members from IndustriALL Global Union affiliates KADRA and Solidarnosc, have been camped out in the company’s Katowice-based offices since last Thursday.

They are refusing to leave until they can meet and hold talks with representatives from the Labour Ministry.

They want the Polish government to intervene and save the company, which has already been under a restructuring plan to reduce the workforce by 26,000 employees.  Over ten thousand jobs have been shed in the past two years.

However, last week KW’s CEO, Miroslaw Taras, told union representatives that he had been unable to obtain finance for restructuring the company after plans to raise millions of dollars by issuing eurobonds fell through.

The CEO told unionists that his only option to save the company was to dismiss mining crews and liquidate several mines. He also said that he had returned from the Polish capital Warsaw without any government support.

The company faced a similar financial crisis ten years ago. The government came to the rescue after miners occupied KW’s headquarters.

“The situation of workers is very tense and requires a strong response and specific actions on the side of the government,” said Marek Gacka, Vice President of the KADRA Alliance. “Let’s hope that the situation will end positively for Kompania Weglowa’s employees. We promise that we will stay here to the very end.”

A statement published today by a coalition of Polish unions, criticized the government over its inaction and for downplaying the problems at KW.  

“Workers feel betrayed” – Unite members on strike

Over 160 members of IndustriALL Global Union UK affiliate Unite the Union are taking part in a series of stoppages, as well as working to rule and refusing to work overtime. This follows the rejection of a 1.5 per cent wage rise for 2014 and 2015 offered by management at the Swedish-owned company.

Unite´s members have worked hard to support the company, which has just won a lucrative contract with Bombardier, and accepted a pay freeze to get it back on track last year. But despite a record year members are growing increasingly frustrated by the company’s refusal to engage in meaningful talks and address concerns over pay.

Unite regional officer Lakhy Mahal says:

“The workforce feels betrayed by the company’s refusal to recognise their hard work in getting the company back on track and achieving record sales.

“The company should be in no doubt of the workforce’s resolve which is underlined by the massive vote in favour of industrial action. Management need to engage in meaningful talks to resolve the dispute and give people a fair and decent pay rise.”

Unite senior officials are now in dialogue with the Sweden metalworkers union IF Metall about the dispute.

Trelleborg Industrial AVS manufactures specialist components for construction vehicles, boats and rail.

Messages of solidarity and support can be sent to Unite members via l[email protected]

Huhtamaki cedes under charges of unfair labour practices

The USW raised violations of workers’ rights engaged by Huhtamaki set forth in the National Labor Relations Act by changing its no-solicitation policy and enforcing that policy in a discriminatory manner to remove pro-union materials from the employee break room.

In order to settle the charges on the agreement with the Board, Huhtamaki will have to inform in English and Spanish via e-mail all of its employees and post the notice for 60 days on company bulletin boards, informing the employees about the following:

FEDERAL LAW GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO:

• Form, join, or assist a union;

• Choose a representative to bargain with us on your behalf;

• Act together with other employees for your benefit and protection;

• Choose not to engage in any of these protected activities.

WE WILL NOT remove union literature from the employee break room, except during routine janitorial services, to prevent clutter, litter, or unsafe or unsightly conditions, or to maintain a clean and sanitary facility.

WE WILL rescind the last sentence of our No Solicitation or Distribution policy in our employee handbook that states: "Literature or materials left unattended on Huhtamaki's premises will be collected and removed." The rescinded portion of the policy will be replaced with the following: "Literature or materials left unattended on Huhtamaki's premises may be collected and removed during routine janitorial services, to prevent clutter, litter, or unsafe or unsightly conditions, or to maintain a clean and sanitary facility."

WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner interfere with your rights under Section 7 of the Act.

UAW and VW one step closer to recognition

On 12 November Volkswagen announced a new policy which includes that with more than 45 percent support, a union can meet once every two weeks with VW Chattanooga’s executive committee.

The United Autoworkers union UAW and Germany’s IG Metall welcomed the step forward, but want more. UAW Secretary-Treasurer Gary Casteel stated:

“In the first conversations that will occur, we will remind them of the mutually agreed-upon commitments that were made by Volkswagen and the UAW last spring in Germany. Among those commitments: Volkswagen will recognize the UAW as the representative of our members. We believe Volkswagen made this commitment in good faith and we believe the company will honor this commitment. Additionally, we will present the Chattanooga plant management with the September letter of intent in which the influential Volkswagen Global Group Works Council expressed its desire for the Chattanooga plant to be a 'UAW-represented facility.’”

IG Metall President Detlef Wetzel said:

“We expect VW to show their true colours and accept the UAW as its collective bargaining partner, once UAW proves that they represent the majority of workers.”

The policy announced by VW on Wednesday is not perfect as it opens the possibility for more than one union to represent workers and act as the company’s bargaining partner. A small yellow union exists at the plant.

UAW Local 42 was set up in July to organize and represent workers at the VW plant in Chattanooga. It has been supported throughout their campaign by IG Metall, the Global Works Council at VW and by IndustriALL Global Union.

The Chattanooga plant is the only VW facility in the world without worker representation. Local 42 under the newly elected leadership of president Mike Cantrell and vice president Steve Cochran will take its place on the VW Global Works Council. Until now it has been the only plant not represented on the global body where workers and management regularly meet to set corporate policy.

Outside influence from well-funded anti-union lobby groups makes a free and fair workplace election impossible at VW in Chattanooga. For that reason the union is following a different organizing strategy to empower workers with a voice and industrial relations structure in their workplace.

Volkswagen is setting an industry example in defying anti-union politicians and other pressure in the Southern United States to work with the UAW and respect international labour standards. The UAW is also campaigning to organize workers in a hostile environment at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, and Nissan in Mississippi.

Metalworkers face union busting in Russia

The Turbodetal workers, who are members of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, the Miners and Metallurgical Workers’ Union, are planning a protest action in the city of Chelyabinsk on 22 November to prevent the company from destroying the union at the factory.

For more than a year now, the union has been trying to negotiate with the Turbodetal management over the problem of underpaid workers holding more than one position and the increase in the cost-of-living. Tired of fruitless talks, workers called for a general assembly on 17 October in which they demanded to be compensated for working more than one job and better pay to cover inflation.

As a consequence the factory management has set out to bust the union. According to the union committee, factory supervisors have received instructions on how to force workers to withdraw from their trade union. The supervisors and team leaders themselves have been threatened with having their bonuses cut or stopped if they fail to persuade workers to leave the union.

There are over 2000 workers at the factory, some 1100 used to be members of the union. As the result of the union busting, around 200 workers have withdrawn from the union.

At the same time, the company has blocked ten employees from work, denying them access to the factory and consequently the possibility to participate in their union work. All ten had pronounced their support of the union’s demands during the general assembly.

The Miners and Metallurgical Workers’ Union is appealing to all trade union members and organizations to support the Turbodetal workers who are fighting for the independence of their union in the face of interference from the company.

Global unions dismiss Cambodian 128 USD wage as inadequate

Since January, when the government sent troops into the streets to quell protests over the then-poverty wage of US$100, local and global trade unions, international brands and governments made clear that the garment industry cannot be sustainable where workers’ wages are set below or on the margins of poverty. The government’s decision, while slightly higher than the labour advisory committee’s recommendation of US$123, represents yet another squandered opportunity.

“A living wage is not only necessary for workers to live with dignity but it is also essential for the sustainability of the garment industry. That is why leading international apparel brands have indicated their support for a fair living wage,” explained Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of IndustriALL. “We intend to hold the brands to their word and will continue working with them on a mechanism that will extend higher wages to workers in their supplier factories.”

Speaking in Brisbane ahead of the G20 summit, UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said, “Cambodian garment workers need a pay rise. Supply chains will be examined here at the G20 and we will make clear our disappointment with Cambodia.”

Additionally, the global unions are deeply concerned with recent drafts of the Trade Union Law, which represent a major step in the wrong direction.

“Though the ILO has for years called on the government to issue a law consistent with ILO conventions, the government has done just the opposite. In its current form, the law would have a devastating impact on independent trade unions,” explained ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow. “Worse, the government added vague language that would give it sweeping powers to suspend trade unions for engaging in strikes or other ‘acts damaging to the interests of the Kingdom of Cambodia’. This is unacceptable.”

For more information please contact:

Leonie Guguen, Communications Officer, IndustriALL Global Union

[email protected]

Mobile: 0041791375436

[email protected]

Switchboard: 00 41 22 308 50 50

www.industriall-union.org

Filipino trade unions set to boost organizing campaigns

During the training workshop on enhancing skills in organizing held on 8-9 November at Quezon City, Philippines union organizers acquired a set of skills and competence to conduct massive organizing campaigns in a challenging environment.

Realizing the need to build unions in order to revitalize trade union movement in the Philippines and to strengthen organizations amid global and national challenging environment IndustriALL affiliates send a strong message to take cohesive action to meet these challenges. ”Unions have to take appropriate organizing strategies and enhance the capacity of their organizers to adop local strategies in a global integrated economy,” said one of the union organizers.

In the Philippines the unionization rate is low. Statistics show a historical decline of membership, from 3.57 million members in 1995 dwon to 1.855 million or almost 48 per cent less in 2006. This means that in 2006 there were only 9.2 per cent of full-time workers organized. This figure has been continually declining over the years and went down to 6 per cent during this year.

The workshop came up with a variety of strategies and organizing models in line with the IndustriALL Global Union’s central goal in building union power through organizing and membership growth by organizing workers covered by IndustriALL sectors and ensuring that women and young precarious workers or agency workers are organized throughout supply chains. Other methods, including “alternative labour tools” and dialogue mechanism as instruments for organizing were also explored.

At the end of the workshop the participants developed a concrete organizing plan and identified targets with detailed actions to be implemented in 2015.

Colombian trade unionist Darío Cárdenas acquitted and released

Cárdenas was acquitted of the charges brought against him by the public prosecutor in a decision taken by judge Segundo Promiscuo in Puerto López on 5 November 2014.

Cárdenas was detained at Villavicencio, Meta, on 2 November 2013 after the first criminal court issued an order accusing him of obstructing the public highway; causing damage to natural resources; and aggravated damage to private property.

USO, which is affiliated to IndustriALL, released a statement saying: “This puts a brake on attempts to criminalize and discredit USO’s leaders who were protesting against oil multinationals and poor working and living conditions, particularly Pacific Rubiales Energy in Puerto Gaitán (Meta) in 2011 and 2012.”

IndustriALL congratulates our USO colleagues on their determined struggle since these injustices were committed. It condemns the attempts to frame them with the sole aim of attacking and intimidating trade unions and anyone acting in solidarity with them.

Fernando Lopes, Assistant General Secretary of IndustriALL visited Darío Cárdenas at Villavicencio Prison in May this year and personally communicated the federation’s support and solidarity.

In its statement, USO said: “This ruling encourages us to keep on working and to insist that the government stops persecuting the country’s oil workers and the trade union and social movements. We call for the sovereignty of the Colombian justice system over transnational interests; the recognition of trade union freedoms and workers’ rights; repeal of the Citizen Security Statute and other arbitrary legislation that criminalises social protest and rides roughshod over workers’ rights, configuring what is effectively a civilian dictatorship in this country.”

IndustriALL has often expressed its concern about the persecution of the trade union movement in Colombia. It will continue to support the USO in its campaign for the release of Rafael Rodríguez Moros, leader of USO’s Centre branch who is still in detention.

Strengthening young workers and women in Mexican unions

The aim of the project, which is supported by IndustriALL, Finland’s trade unions, SASK and affiliated unions in Mexico,  is to increase the participation and organisational capacity of young trade unionists and improve and promote training at all levels of the trade union movement.

Delegates discussed the government’s attack on students from a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa in the town of Iguala, Guerrero, last September when three students and two other people were shot by municipal police officers and 43 students were kidnapped and disappeared.

Young people are demanding that the Mexican government stop its repressive policies towards social movements and trade unions. They call on the government "to present the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa alive, explain what happened in Iguala and punish all those responsible for this barbaric act".

Delegates concluded that progress towards ending the lack of quality education and stopping state repression of the working class needs more young people and women to get involved in building stronger and more democratic trade unions.

Delegates also discussed how democratic trade unions polices could be improved to encourage participation of young workers and women and, through this, empower them while at the same time strengthening the unions and increasing the impact of union action.  They outlined a proposal for a new structure for youth which will be completed and presented to union executive committees in 2015. 

Delegates returned home with the commitment to draft action plans with their colleagues, take initiatives on trade union education, organisation and communication and develop local plans to promote greater participation by young workers and women in the unions.

The project, which will continue in 2015, has already made a lot of progress and had a significant impact in the unions that accepted this challenge. Next year, participating unions will begin to implement more effective and targeted policies and develop more detailed plans on the basis of the discussions held by these young workers and their proposals for changing trade union structures and culture.

Let’s talk about Holcim

IndustriALL affiliate PCSS organizes contract workers at Holcim’s facilities in Chhattisgarh. This Swiss-based conglomerate employs almost 70,000 workers around the world.

See the background here to read about a history of exploitation, contract workers killed at work, trade unionists jailed by sham criminal charges filed by Holcim security officers, poverty wages, exploitation of local communities, and the company ignoring the union.

IndustriALL Director for Mechanical Engineering and Materials Industries, Matthias Hartwich introduces this video:

We ask Holcim to abide by their own promises, by their own contract worker policy documents, and to be the employer they claim to be. They have to treat their workers, no matter whether permanent or contract workers, no matter whether Swiss or Indian the same way, as human beings.