Deva Holdings must stop attacking its workers in Turkey

The latest violation committed by the company in its effort to stop its workers organizing is to ignore a direct and official edict from Turkey’s Labour Ministry. The government authority instructed the company on 14 October to recognize Petrol-Is and begin collective bargaining. Instead the company sacked three more workers for supporting the union.

IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Jyrki Raina wrote on 6 November to the Chairman and CEO of the Turkish Deva operations, Philipp Haas:

Let me tell you Mr Haas that our global organization comes across irresponsible employers around the world every day, but this corporate misbehavior by Deva Holdings represents total disrespect and disregard of your employees. This case puts Deva Holdings in breach of industry standards, OECD and ILO standards, of the Turkish labour legislation, and into the category of worst violators of labour rights.

Already in 2010 Deva used a range of union busting tactics to dismantle a 40-year industrial relations system at plants in Çerkezköy, Kartepe and the Topkapı area of Istanbul. Deva Holdings sacked 74 employees at that stage in 2010 when they refused to replace their collective agreement with individual contracts.

Deva then sacked 8 more workers on 22 July, 2014 for exercizing their right to join Petrol-Is. A total of 24 sackings had occurred in this latest union organizing process.

The Deva corporate management has been sent thousands of protest messages already through LabourStart as part of the global campaign supporting the Petrol-Is organizing drive.

Despite the mass sackings and other illegal anti union pressure, Deva employees organized the required majority to then file for and receive the official ‘Certificate of Competence’ from the Turkish Ministry of Labour on 14 October, 2014. This official directive from the Turkish government instructs Deva Holdings to begin collective bargaining with Petrol-Is as its recognized bargaining partner.

But, instead of respecting the authority and findings of the Ministry of Labour, Deva management declared to its workers that the company will never recognize or bargain with any union in Turkey. And Deva’s now-established practice of sacking employees deemed to be key union supporters was used again. Details are below of these three latest workers to be sacked for supporting a union.

1)      Ramazan Atasever: With one-and-a-half-year seniority. He was told that the reason of his dismissal was his physiological problems.

2)     Şenol Aygün: With eleven years seniority. The apparent reason for his dismissal is that he does not possess a sufficient level of academic qualifications for the technological processes required in his job. However, with eleven years service in his position, it is a non-credible excuse for sacking someone for supporting a union.

3)     Hasan Yiğit: With seven years seniority. He was told that he was dismissed because of his earlier records inside the company. This once again sent a message to the workforce that they will be sacked for no valid reason if they support the union.

Deva is also ignoring the voice of public opinion, particularly of the Association of Doctors and Association of Pharmacists who have already publicly announced that Deva workers should be able to exercise their fundamental rights without any pressure and intimidation.

Raina added in the letter to Deva:

I need to reiterate that this level of continued and blatant illegal union busting will label your company and its products as unethical in the extreme. We will be making this known widely until you recognize Petrol-Is as the union that your employees have chosen to organize into.

Collective bargaining must now begin as instructed by the Labour Ministry, and the 27 employees that your company has sacked for supporting Petrol-Is must be reinstated.

Desperate workers announce hunger strike in Belarus

At least nine activists of the Free Trade Union of Belarus (SPB) have been sacked. All the dismissed workers are highly skilled and, like the majority of employees in Belarus, were on short-term contracts despite having worked at the plant for many years. Their only fault was that they dared to be members of an independent trade union.

Some of the workers received a formal explanation about their dismissal from the director of the factory saying the reason was workforce optimization. However, at the same time local newspapers are carrying BZTDiA announcements looking for workers with similar or the same skills as those of the dismissed workers.

The hypocrisy of the factory management forced the workers to use all possible means in looking for justice including by writing an open letter to the President of the country Alexander Lukashenko two weeks ago. In the letter, workers highlight their union discrimination, but also say that the factory's difficulties are the result of the discriminatory position of the management.  Highly qualified trade union personnel are subject to threats and dismissals and eventually replaced with less qualified workers who need years to reach the level of their sacked colleagues.

When the desperate workers learnt that their letter would not be treated seriously, and would most likely would turn up in the letterbox of the director who fired them, four of them decided to go on a two-day hunger strike. The trade union is trying to provide all possible support.

Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary says: “Our solidarity support goes to the striking workers. The short-term contract system in Belarus is not only bad for workers and democracy, but also damaging the economic stability of the enterprises and consequently harming the entire economy of the country.”

Time to even it up!

The report, detailing that the collective wealth of a tiny global elite has increased by US$668 million per day between 2013 and 2014, caught the public’s imagination. In a response to this alarming increase of inequality Oxfam has launched a new campaign, Even it Up. The aim of the campaign is to show that inequality is not inevitable but a result of policy choices.

Read Executive Director of Oxfam International Winnie Byanyima's opinion piece on Equal Times. 

Cementing union power at Dow Chemical

The union leaders represent thousands of American and European workers employed at Dow Chemical and Dow Corning Corporation. Through the DNALC meeting, trends were made clear of issues common across their worksites. The unions spent three days sharing collective bargaining data, identifying mutual obstacles and brainstorming potential solutions.

Delegates also met with representatives of Dow Corning, Dow Chemical and CALIBRE Group, LLC to discuss topics such as the state of the chemical and silicon industries, strategies moving forward and the need for a collaborative safety partnership with members at both Dow Chemical and Dow Corning. 

Representatives from the United Steelworkers; the International Union of Operating Engineers; Texas City Metal Trades; the International Chemical Workers Union Council/United Commercial Food Workers; the Dow Chemical European Employee Forum; the Dow Chemical-Stade Works Council, belonging to IG BCE of Germany; and UNITE the Union (Great Britain) participated in this year’s event.

The meeting also served to strengthen international connections and increase mutual respect and understanding across Dow’s unionized worksites.

“The DNALC is doing a fantastic job”, said IndustriALL Global Union Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan. “Trade union networks of workers throughout a company’s international operations are a bedrock of our power and solidarity building. This ground work laid by the DNALC will be a backbone of the future global network among the unions organizing Dow employees worldwide.”

Facing the challenges to sustainable industrial policy

At a workshop in Tunis on 30 – 31 October,  IndustriALL Global Union affiliates from Morocco and Tunisia discussed how they can better influence industrial policy making in their countries. Affiliates from France and Germany shared their experiences in mobilizing on industrial policy issues.

Unionisation is growing in Tunisia, but there are still many rights violations in the private sector. The unions have been continuously engaging with government and the political parties but there is no clear sustainable industrial policy. Many multinational companies (MNC) are present in Tunisia and employment is the primary concern.

In Morocco, there is employment in factories connected to MNCs, particularly in the garment and electronics industries, but working conditions are poor and there is not strong government control over conditions. Most companies breach environmental legislation.

Participants agreed that unions need to engage with governments and employers to have more control over the development of the industries where their members work. Unions from France and Germany gave examples of how they have been able to work with their members on these issues. Campaigning starts with training members on the issues, developing union policy positions and proposals through discussion and mobilizing support for the proposals. Working at local level to save threatened plants through mobilizing members, working with the local community and making alternative proposals has been particularly successful.

In Germany, several offshore wind companies have relocated to Bremerhaven where shipbuilding collapsed, taking with it several thousand skilled jobs. Now employment is increasing to service the developing industry. In France, a new owner took over a Marseille shipyard after a strike lasting more than 500 days. The workers had argued that the business was viable and should not shut down and now the order book is full for 3 years. Further examples of union action include German union cooperation with chemical industry employers that is delivering reduced energy consumption while increasing production and a mass mobilization of 20,000 workers in Paris that achieved a national tripartite body dealing with the future of industry.

Participants concluded that unions have the right to be part of the decision-making for the industries their members work in. There is an urgent need for unions to build their capacity to be able to engage with governments and employers to influence the future direction of industry. This will require unions to develop their own perspective and proposals and involving their members. Unions will need to engage politically to achieve their aims and working with civil society is essential.

A key demand from the unions is for tripartite sectoral social dialogue that will enable their members to help shape the future direction of their industries.

Building women’s power in the Philippines

The first formal strategic meeting of the IndustriALL Philippine women’s committee, the Women’s Unity Group was held on November 4. The aim was to assess the recently held national and sub-regional women’s conference in Manila and to build a strategic action plan towards realizing women's full potential in unions and society.

Rosalinda Manabat, chairperson of the committee, proposed to formalize the body and take active part in dialogue with government and other stakeholders in asserting women’s rights not only at the workplace but also in communities and society at large. She says:

We must show our leadership capability in these modern times, women should be at the forefront of every policy change at different levels to protect our rightst.

As a starting point, the committee members agreed to formalize the structure of the women’s unity group, to strengthen respective women’s committee at the federation level and creation and a reviving of women’s committee at the plant level. The body reiterated their intention to launch a coordinated campaign in order to contribute for the ratification of ILO Convention 183 on Maternity Protection.

BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata workers in Peru prepare for strike

This will be the first strike at Antamina, in which BHP Billiton Ltd and Glencore Xstrata each have a 33.75 per cent stake. The mine is located at 4,300 metres above sea level in the Central Andes.

The FNTMMSRP, affiliated to IndustriALL, announced that the Antamina union’s more than 1,600 members voted to strike at six meetings because of discontent about problems at the company.

The federation said that the workers are unhappy about health and safety at the mine:

The workers are also asking for fair payment for holidays and overtime; the inclusion of workers in the Complementary Miners’ Pension Fund scheme; and company compliance with the collective agreement, especially with regard to work permits, transport during emergencies, multi-use rooms for meetings and participation of the union in recruitment.

IndustriALL Global Union will be following events closely during the strike and offering solidarity to the miners’ federation and workers at Antamina in their just struggle for their labour rights.

Scabs cause suspected chemical leak while skilled steelworkers still locked out

Photos and video footage of the facility in the evening of 26 October show a vapour cloud coming from the factory. The strong suspicion is that this was a dangerous leak of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas. UF6 is a highly corrosive and reactive substance used in the uranium enrichment process. When it comes into contact with skin it can cause sever burns and serious radiation.

Locking out the 150 skilled workers from the uranium conversion plant has meant that temporary labourers are running the operations without sufficient experience dealing with dangerous chemicals.

IndustriALL Global Union fully supports the USW in calling for an investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC).

“It is time for Honeywell to end this senseless lockout, return these 150 experienced workers to their jobs, and come to terms on a new, fair contract agreement,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard.

Although Honeywell is vehemently denying the leak, an NRC representative blamed the leak on a failure of equipment that was installed by outside contractors, work that was previously done in-house by USW members.

“There was a systematic breakdown in the response to the emergency. It wasn’t just our people; local citizens called 911 and were told that the company has reported the situation to be under control, all while they watched the gaseous vapor leave the building and the site,” said USW Local 7-669 President Stephen Lech, who was on the scene during the incident. “A company spokesman in New Jersey and an NRC office in Georgia were reporting on events in Metropolis while we watched the reality of the situation unfold.”

“By continuing this foolish lockout, Honeywell is putting not just employees but an entire community at risk of disaster,” said USW Health, Safety and Environment Director Mike Wright. “This situation has to end.”

IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan stated:

“We stand firmly alongside our brothers and sisters of USW Local 7-669 in their fight for a fair contract at Honeywell. The vindictive lockout sends a terrible message to the local community in Metropolis, Illinois, that this company is prepared to risk releasing skin-burning chemicals into the atmosphere before talking to the union.”

The Steelworker campaign organized a large manifestation on the streets of Metropolis on 11 October, and a day of organized mass telephone calls into the company’s New Jersey headquarters which blocked their lines.

This is what exploitation looks like

The Daily Mail exposé found that women garment workers producing a T-shirt with the slogan “This is what a feminist looks like” for upmarket UK fashion chain Whistles, were earning just 1 US$ an hour and sleeping 16 to a room in bunk beds.

Union leader Jane Ragoo from IndustriALL Global Union Mauritian affiliate, CMCTEU, says: “It is outrageous. Just because a t-shirt is expensive and bears an ethical message, doesn’t mean it is made ethically. Garment workers in Mauritius, who are mostly women, are working very long hours on very low pay.”

A garment worker toiling six days a week will earn only 6,000 rupees (US$190) per month. Like anyone working in the export sector in Mauritius, they are bound by law to work 45 hours per week plus compulsory overtime of ten hours per week.

An estimated 65,000 people work in the textile sector in the country, of which around 15,000 are migrants. Many of them come from Bangladesh where wages are some of the lowest in the world.

Exploitation of migrant workers is particularly bad, says Ragoo:

“Migrants are forbidden to join a union so they can’t stand up for themselves as a group.  If they become ill and need surgical treatment, they are immediately sacked and sent home, even though there is supposedly free health care in Mauritius.  The Ministry of Labour sanctions their dismissal by withdrawing their working permit.  There is no possibility to appeal before a court of law.”

Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile (CMT), the textile company implicated in the tabloid story, employs 10,000 workers, of which many are migrants.

“Authorities inspect the company lodgings for migrant workers, granting permission for a limited number of people per dwelling. The problem is that the textile companies will then overcrowd the dormitories, meaning the women lack any privacy or even space to put their clothes and belongings,” reveals Ragoo.

Unions in the country are campaigning for a national minimum wage of 9,000 rupees (US$284) a month for all workers. However, even this is way below the estimated monthly living wage is 14,500 rupees (US$458).

Minimum wage increases in Mauritius are made at the discretion of the labour Minister and have not been updated in most industries for many years.

An estimated 100,000 of the 550,000 working population in Mauritius earn below $130 per month, which means they are living in extreme poverty. Of these 100,000, 85 per cent are women.

Jenny Holdcroft at IndustriALL Global Union, which represents garment workers at the international level, said:

“Exploitation of garment workers is rife, not just in Mauritius but the across the developing world. Fashion retailers make massive markups at the expense of workers while claiming to be socially responsible. The only way pay and conditions will improve for garment workers is if they have better rights and stronger employment laws – and that’s what unions are fighting for in all countries where clothes are made." 

Union glass networks reinforce cooperation

On 29 – 30 October, representatives from IndustriALL Global Union affiliates in the glass sector met for a vivid exchange about their experiences with global MNC’s and to develop action plans for trade union network. Participants developed action plans for the three major groups present (Owens-Illinois, Owens-Corning and Saint-Gobain). Delegates also call upon Saint-Gobain to enter into social dialogue with Indian trade unions.

The use of various forms of precarious work in the sector is widespread; outsourcing, subcontracting and agency work are common both in the sheet glass and container glass. Hazardous working conditions are another major issue for unions in the industry, like the exposure to carcinogenic substances without proper protection equipment in India.

The participating trade union representatives agreed that the existing European Works Councils (EWC), acting within all major glass groups, need to have a central role and link Europe, the Americas, India and Latin America.

An important part of the network meeting is bringing delegates from all over the world together to support them in developing their own network. As one delegate says:

“This is our meeting, WE have networked with each other and made new friends so that now I know whom to call if we need international coordination and joint action. We have developed a specific work plan for our group”

The delegates also adopted unanimously a declaration of solidarity with Indian glass workers at Saint-Gobain Crystals, where trade unions are not respected, activists suspended or even dismissed (see the declaration on the right hand side)

IndustriALL director, Matthias Hartwich, states with a view to the action plans adopted:

Glass workers from Asia to the USA made a good start, now we have to ensure that these plans are put into practice. We need strong trade union networks in the glass sector in order to tackle the challenges in the sector in the future. Hazardous working conditions and precarious work are today’s main concerns for glass workers all over the world. We support the work to make workers and their trade unions respected partners in the sector.