Three textile unions form women’s committee in Lesotho

The purpose of the meeting was to create an IndustriALL women’s committee in Lesotho, where about 14,000 textile workers belong to three different unions, FAWU, LECAWU and NUTEXT out of about 40,000 workers. These unions are likely to come together soon to form one union. The textile factories belong to South African or Chinese owners.

The women identified the following issues as being ones that need attention: insufficient toilet time, blocked or locked exits, fainting, excessive targets, sexual harassment, low pay which makes some women resort to prostitution, not enough sleep, insufficient maternity leave, HIV and AIDS. They worked on the basis of body mapping, workplace mapping, life mapping as well as visualization of dreams.

The women knew about one factory where the maternity leave went up from two weeks to 12 weeks. It is Springfield Manufacturing, a South African-owned company. The union negotiated and started by demanding a 15% wage increase. What they achieved was 8% plus the increase in maternity leave from 1 May this year. Everyone agreed on this demand. The union holds mass meetings regularly and asks workers what their demands are. There are about 1000 workers at that factory, with about 80% women. They have some women shop stewards. Everyone at the factory is on permanent contract. The employer pays the maternity benefit. In the meantime they are working on having social security pay the maternity benefit.

Six women were elected to coordinate the committee and keep contact with IndustriALL. To start with they will work to fight discrimination against men and women by:

The women understood that in the future unions must sign agreements that cover more than just money. That will make it more feasible for women’s concerns to be taken up such as maternity leave or sexual harassment or HIV and AIDS. As a first step members need to be educated about social benefits and rights. The women went home with a greater feeling of self-esteem and empowerment.

Unions criticize proposed trade deals

Among the provisions are the notorious Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions (ISDS) allowing multinational companies to sue governments over laws, regulations and even domestic court decisions that affect current or future profits. Critically the draft ignores a fundamental trade union demand that labour rights violations be subject to the same dispute settlement mechanisms as commercial conflicts.

According to Workers Uniting, Canada has been sued under similar provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) more than 20 times and has been forced to pay over USD 150 million to corporations.

“CETA sets a terrible precedent for future trade agreements, especially the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between Europe and the U.S.,” says USW International President Leo W. Gerard.

“In addition to the deficiencies we have cited in the CETA – which will likely be replicated in the TTIP – the attacks on labour rights in the U.S. threaten the living standards of European and Canadian workers.

Rather than weakening these rights and exporting lower American standards through secret trade deals, we need to look at how to expand European mechanisms to protect workers’ rights and promote worker involvement in companies.

This position is echoed by the German trade union confederation DGB, supported by IndustriALL German affiliates IG Metall and IGBCE, which has raised its concerns in the TTIP negotiation process. It says that a future TTIP must not be permitted to jeopardise workers' rights and must comply with the ILO's core labour standards and the OECD guidelines for multinational companies.

Any agreement must not affect national laws, especially those governing the labour market or social security systems, collective bargaining autonomy, the right to strike, minimum wages or collective agreements. This applies not only to present provisions, but also to future expansions of these protective rights.

Detlev Wetzel, President of IG Metall, says:

"We reject any kind of investment protection agreements and expect all ILO core labor standards be signed by the US. If even one of these points is in doubt, IG Metall will say 'no' to TTIP and CETA."

The DGB is also calling for the rejection of Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions. ‘In principle, regulations designed to protect investments are not an essential part of an agreement reached between the USA and the EU and should therefore not be introduced along with the TTIP.'

Global campaign defeats union-busting attack at NXP

Twelve dismissed members of the union’s executive will return to work, the other twelve will receive decent separation packages and become full time trade union activists, wage hikes of 12.25% over three years will be much higher than what the company previously said was possible, and a significant number of contractual workers will be regularized. But most important for the NXP workers, the company’s brutal attempt to bust the union was defeated.

See the official MWAP statement here.

Dutch multinational NXP Semiconductors sacked all 24 elected union officials at its plant in a special economic zone in Cabuyao on 5 May for taking time off on national holidays.

A number of security measures meant to intimidate workers were taken. The zone was flooded with police, shuttle buses for the workers were heavily guarded, checkpoints were put up and goons wearing civilian clothes patrolled the plant.

“It appeared that NXP and the government were colluding to destroy one of the only unions present in the special economic zone,” said IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina. “IndustriALL worked closely with MWAP and allies to mount a powerful campaign.”

An impressive local campaign by MWAP was supported internationally. Actions included large pickets outside of negotiations venues, and the NXP facility, national mobilizations, national support from all 15 IndustriALL affiliates in the Philippines, corporate customer action especially focused on Apple who received over 150,000 petitions and 14,000 official complaints through SumOfUs, a wide-reaching social media campaign flagging the labour rights flaw in the new iPhone 6, outreach and collaboration with the business and human rights community spread the news and built support for MWAP, and a LabourStart campaign targeted NXP management.

More support came from international partners in the form of demonstrations at Apple Stores by United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) in Los Angeles and Chicago, with participation from USW activists and leaders. Further demonstrations were planned had settlement not been reached.

IndustriALL outreached to unions representing NXP workers in other countries to build support for MWAP. It also worked with unions at many of NXP’s top customers to pressure these customers to demand that NXP end its attack on MWAP.

A number of IndustriALL affiliates including AMWU, IF Metall, IG Metall, Metalliliitto, Unite and USW provided critical support in the campaign. IndustriALL’s sister global union UNI also provided critical support.

“We believe that we have waged a strong battle resulting in a major victory,” said Reden Alcantara, MWAP National President and one of the 12 union leaders who will not return to work for NXP. “We encountered many difficulties in this long and painstaking struggle but we never stopped searching for solutions. We have come this far because of the unity of our members and the all-out support of our global union IndustriALL and of our other supporters and friends from the local and international community.”

The NXP management failed to bust our union. That, to us, is our biggest victory.

Victory for Foxconn workers in Brazil

The victory came in a deal between Foxconn and the Metalworkers Union of Jundiaí following a five-day strike involving 3,700 workers.

The implementation of the new salary structure will take a year to be finalized, but from September 2014 workers at plant two will get an equal wage to those working in plant one.

Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics multinational, has also agreed to give the workers full pay for the period of the strike, which ended on 18 September.

Foxconn launched its largest factory in Brazil in Jundiaí in 2007. The site specializes in manufacturing computers, notebooks and motherboards. In 2011, the company opened its second production unit in the same city, which is the only facility outside China to assemble iphones and ipads for Apple.

The Metalworkers Union, a member of IndustriALL affiliate CNTM, had been demanding that the company implement a package of wages and career plans that would benefit all workers at both plants in Jundiaí.

It is the second time in two years that Foxconn workers in Brazil have laid down tools. A previous strike took place in February 2013 for the same demands.

During the process of conciliation at the regional labour court, Foxconn agreed to immediately start implementing the new organizational structure. A meeting in January 2015 will also further examine positions and salary plans. 

Putting the spotlight on wages and working hours in garment supply chains

IndustriALL Global Union affiliates from 22 countries made their case for higher wages and shorter working hours at the ILO Global Dialogue Forum on Wages and Working Hours in the Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear Industries (GDF) held in Geneva on 22-25 September.

The unions made impassioned interventions on the need to take workers out of poverty wages that compel them to do long overtime hours to make ends meet. They testified to how these harsh conditions impact the lives of the workers and their families. The meeting was attended by a large number of government representatives, showing that these issues are of considerable international concern. In particular, the German and Dutch governments called for respect of FoA and the right to collective bargaining to enable negotiations to take place to improve the overall working conditions of garment workers. However, the perspective of multinational buyers, which play such a strong role in determining working conditions in TCLF supply chains, was notably absent from the meeting.

At the end of three days of intense discussion, the tripartite body reached consensus on future actions.

For employers and unions they include:

This has to be supported by the ILO office through:

Governments are called upon:

The meeting served to highlight once again the desperate situation of workers in these industries. But to bring about sustainable change global brands must be part of the conversation. IndustriALL will continue to reach out to brands and strengthen its action around supply chains to this end.

Directly prior to the GDF, the trade union leaders met to share experiences and devise strategies to improve workers’ conditions in supply chains.

Worldwide, the industry is plagued with the difficulty of organizing workers into trade unions, low wages and long working hours. Unions talked about how to use international instruments such as GFAs, codes of conduct, multibrands agreement and multistakeholder platforms and challenged their limitations.

The role of unions in the home countries of multinationals was also discussed in terms of how they can work hand in hand with local unions to improve working conditions. Unions from Spain, Sweden and the USA informed about their respective efforts to reach their national brands to put pressure on their suppliers while unions from production countries discussed the challenges of organizing, increasing wages and reducing working hours.

Bargain to STOP Precarious Work

Unions around the world are again mobilizing their members on the Word Day of Decent Work on 7 October. As usual, they will often combine our global message with their domestic demands. We will see colourful actions from all parts of the world.

But the campaign to STOP Precarious work is not only about one day. The IndustriALL Global Union family continues its struggle on all continents every day throughout the year – see our campaign page for continuous news on action and victories.

IndustriALL supports its affiliates in their fight to limit precarious work through legislation and collective bargaining. To make it concrete, we published in June 2014 a new guidebook entitled Negotiating Security – Trade union bargaining strategies against precarious work.

Collective bargaining plays a crucial role in limiting precarious employment and improving conditions for temporary, part-time and agency workers. Negotiating Security gives examples of creative and progressive agreements. Here are some of them.

At Bridgestone, USW in the US, SUTNA in Argentina and the Sao Paulo Rubber Workers’ Union have achieved a provision in their collective agreements that regular maintenance operations related to production will be carried out by directly hired staff.

The Sao Paulo union has furthermore agreed with Bridgestone, Pirelli and Goodyear that temporary workers should not represent more than 5 per cent of the workforce in production. In Canada, USW members at Rio Tinto in Quebec reached a cap of 10-15 per cent for outsourced workers.

South African NUMSA has achieved limits for the use of temporary workforce in the metal industry agreements 2014 and in 2011, when it was agreed that workers could not be employed through labour brokers for longer than 4 months. In some Australian and Filipino accords, a fixed-term worker becomes permanent after 12 months.

IndustriALL affiliates are in constant battles to prevent more outsourcing like the UWUA striking two months in the USA earlier this year, or converting precarious jobs to regular employment like SUTIDS in Senegal.

Equal pay and benefits have been achieved in a number of agreements by Germany’s IG Metall, Australia’s AMWU, South Africa’s NUMSA and unions in Mauritius.

IndustriALL is also looking at global agreements to limit precarious work. The strongest text so far is the “Temporary Work Charter for the Volkswagen Group” signed in November 2012 by IndustriALL, the management and the European and World Works Councils. The Charter limits temporary work to 5 per cent of the workforce and guarantees equal pay and equal treatment.

But now, prepare your banners for 7 October. And before that, help us reach 1 million pairs of hands in our Thunderclap at https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/16472-stop-precarious-work!

Jyrki Raina
General Secretary

Warning strikes at BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto mine in Chile

The union said: “this strike is a warning and is our response to the failure of talks with the company and the authorities to make any progress”.

The strike lasted 24 hours, but as the company made no practical proposals, workers went on strike again at 8am on Wednesday 24 September. Mass meetings at 8pm on Sunday 21 September and on Monday morning for workers leaving the night shift (shift D) were followed by a march by workers on both shifts through the mine’s installations.

Jorge Almeida, IndustriALL Regional Secretary, wrote to workers at Escondida before the strikes, supporting their struggle and demanding respect for their rights. The union called on the company “to take responsibility for the issues that led to the strike within a reasonable time frame and find a mutually advantageous solution to problems for which the company is entirely responsible”.

IndustriALL and CCC denounce Palla shoemaker in Sri Lanka

Palla management unilaterally stopped the long-standing practice of biannual salary increases at the factory from August 2012 onwards. When workers organised in protest of this reduction of their working conditions, management sacked 15 trade union officials in November 2013 and 179 union members the following month.

The FTZGSEU members struck in July 2013, leading to intervention from Sri Lanka’s Labour Commissioner who chaired negotiations culminating in a Memorandum of Settlement ruling in favour of the workers’ claims. Management signed this agreement to end the strike but still went on to conduct the mass sackings.

Not only were the workers sacked for joining a union but they were also blacklisted so that other employers blocked them from earning a living. The sacked workers were only allowed to return to their jobs after signing an illegal document under pressure from the management promising not to join any further union activity.

The Clean Clothes Campaign and IndustriALL Global Union have both called on Bata to act in accordance with the company’s code of conduct, however while the multinational accepts the supplier’s violation, instead of ensuring a fair settlement including back pay and reinstatement, Bata pulled out completely from Palla in late 2013.

You can write to Bata here.

You can write to Palla here.

Anton Marcus, president of the FTZGSEU and member of the IndustriALL executive committee says:

The workers have to be reinstated.  Almost all of our union members have been dismissed. Bata was the main buyer at the time that the violations occurred; Bata has responsibility for their supply chain.

We demand full reinstatement plus payment of salary arrears including the owed increments, which in total equal US$40k. 

The case of the sacked union leadership is currently before the labour tribunal, and the remaining 179 case is before an industrial court.

Palla and Company is a leather shoe manufacturer, based in Katunayake and exporting to the global market, including a major proportion to Italy. As of December 2011 the company has been part of the Indian group Ceylon Leather Products PLC, which in turn is owned by parent company Environmental Resources Investment PLC (ERI). The group is growing quickly and business is good.

Unfortunately, ERI’s social responsibility commitments do not prioritise its workers and trade union partners:

ERI is an investment company which continuously strives to be a socially responsible business entity which firmly believes in the positive and far-reaching effects of good governance policies and provides financial management, strategic guidance and strong management discipline to help re-structure companies and make good companies even better.

Precedent setting standards for responsible mining released for consultation

The ground-breaking draft standards are developed within the framework of the multi-stakeholder approach and governance of the initiative, which allowed equal representation of mining, workers, indigenous communities, NGOs, downstream users/business.
 
Since the 1st world summit on sustainable development (Rio+10) in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002, almost every sector of the global industrial economy has seen a proliferation of global standards claiming to abide by imperatives of Sustainable Development.
 
Together with the United Steelworkers, IndustriALL has been involved in an effort to create higher independent third-party standards and verification systems for almost eight years since the time when ICEM (IndustriALL predecessor) participated in the second meeting of the Initiative for Responsible Mining (IRMA) in 2007. IndustriALL Global Union and the USW are members of the IRMA steering committee.
 
The development of standards require two public consultations and review periods. The release of the current draft is the first public review and consultation period that will end on 22 October 2014.
 
A second public review and consultation will open immediately following the collation of the comments, input and feedback by the IRMA steering committee.
 
After the standards are adopted, next step will be to set up on-site verifications systems, which must engage workers and community members directly and qualitatively to assure that the adopted standards are being implemented.
 
 
IndustriALL invites all the affiliates to take part in the first public consultation phase of the IRMA standards development and to submit their feedback to the draft Standard for Responsible Mining. For this purpose an internet-based survey has been created. The survey for the July 2014 version of the draft IRMA Standard will be open for comments until 22 October 2014. The English and Spanish version of online survey are available at http://www.responsiblemining.net/the-irma-process/stakeholder-feedback/#ONLINESURVEY
 
Direct access to the English versions of the survey:
·         This version of the Survey allows one response per computer (recommended, as this version allows users to return to the survey and add or change comments at any time)
·         This version of the Survey allows multiple respondents to use the same computer (each respondent must complete survey in one sitting)
 
More information about IRMA and its work is available through link http://www.responsiblemining.net/

Turkey: Deva Continues to Sicken Union Members with More Dismissals

Deva Holding is a Turkey-based pharmaceutical company, however EastPharma Ltd., established in 2006 and incorporated in Bermuda, is the indirect holding company of Deva. The investment firm GEM (Global Equities Management) owns about 65% of EastPharma while about 15% of the company is publicly traded along with 15% of its Deva Holdings subsidiary.

Such complicated ownership structure has rebounded negatively onto labour relations. As a matter of fact, four years ago, the company management used different tactics to demolish a 40-year-long union existence, contractual labour relations and mature social dialogue with Petrol-Is at Deva Holding plants located in the production facilities located in the provinces of Tekirdağ, Kocaeli and Istanbul.

At that period, Deva management had announced that there would no longer be a collective agreement using the pretext of high production costs and government policies in the pharmaceutical industry. They had exerted pressure on workers to sign individual labour contracts in place of the collective agreement and then dismissed 70 employees because they had refused to sign individual contracts. The local labour courts have ruled that Deva terminated employment contracts of the dismissed workers on unjustified grounds and all of them must be reinstated. However not one sacked worker has been able to return.

Over the years, working conditions for Deva workers have deteriorated with low wages, insufficient social benefits, continuous threat of dismissal, mobbing, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. In June this year, an overwhelming majority of Deva workers started to re-join Petrol-Is. However the answer from Deva Holding was again harsh with dismissals. The 24 dismissed workers were simply exercising their legitimate fundamental rights to freedom of association, guaranteed by international labour conventions of the ILO, as well as Turkey’s Constitution and national trade union legislation.

“We have lost our patience. Don’t forget that we are a 50-million power,” said Kemal Özkan, Assistant General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, in a recent demonstration held in front of the premises of Deva Holding in Istanbul. “Deva cannot stop us in defending our rights. They will sign the collective agreement, otherwise we will challenge them wherever they are”.

EastPharma claims that it wants to be the place where east meets west. It also intends to open more plants and obtain FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) and European Medicines Agency (EMEA) certification for its manufacturing facilities.

Earlier this year, IndustriALL Global Union approached the CEO of Deva Holdings urging the company to immediately re-instate the eight dismissed union members; withdraw all pressure exerted over the union members; and enter into constructive dialogue with Petrol-Is since the workers have a legitimate and legal right to choose their unions freely. For more information.

As the company is unresponsive, even escalating it’s anti-union campaign, IndustriALL Global Union has launched an electronic campaign in cooperation with Labourstart for re-instatement of the dismissed workers and recognition of Petrol-Is. Please join.