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.

BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto workers in Chile on 24 hour strikes

Escondida Union Number 1 called out its 2,800 members for 24 hours on both days, including all shifts and involving both miners and workers at the company port of Coloso.

"We took the decision in the light of the inflexible attitude of the Escondida management, which systematically breaks labour laws", said the union. The workers are against the extension of working time and want improved health and safety measures, including steps to protect against working at high altitudes.

The strike is a warning and an appeal for an end to breaches of the law and other irregularities. Union representatives met company executives on Wednesday 17 September and reiterated the need to address these issues.  However, the meeting failed to produce any practical proposals to resolve the dispute anytime soon and so the union decided to continue with its plan to mobilize the workers and confirmed the strike call.

BHP Billiton has a 57.5 per cent controlling interest in the mine, while Rio Tinto has a 30 per cent stake. Rio Tinto mining operations are often the scene of major labour disputes and IndustriALL has emphatically denounced the company for its bad employment practices.

UN body criticizes free trade

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, has released its latest Trade and Development Report. Contrary to the prevailing free market ideology, the report argues that trade constraints are due to weak global demand, rather than to high trade barriers so efforts to spur exports through wage reductions will be counter-productive. What is needed is robust domestic-demand-led recovery at the national level.

In his overview of the Trade and Development Report, UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi sounds a loud alarm bell about the erosion through trade agreements of policy space, defined as ‘the freedom and ability of governments to identify and pursue the most appropriate mix of economic and social policies to achieve equitable and sustainable development.’ He notes that ‘Provisions in regional trade agreements have become ever more comprehensive, and many of them include rules that limit the options available in the design and implementation of comprehensive national development strategies.’

The report notes a resurgence of interest in industry policy and highlights the importance of industrial policy that is focused on development. Developing countries must have the widest possible room to develop policies that work in their particular conditions and ‘not be subject to a constant shrinking of their policy space by the very international institutions originally established to support more balanced and inclusive outcomes.’ It urges governments that are aiming, for example, to maintain macroeconomic stability by re-regulating their financial system, to carefully consider the risks in entering into bilateral and plurilateral trade and investment agreements which reduce policy space.

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina says:

It is reassuring to know that the UN body responsible for identifying the true relationship between trade and development agrees with IndustriALL about the primary role of industrial policy in job creation, growth and development and is a strong advocate for more policy space for governments to enact laws in the interests of their own people.

UNCTAD’s head of globalization, Richard Kozul-Wright, told the Financial Times that free trade will not return the global economy to growth and that developing countries in particular need more freedom to conduct their own economic policies outside the restrictions imposed by bilateral, regional or global trade agreements. He mentioned Brazil as a country that has managed to use “vertical” industrial policies to promote individual sectors, along with minimum wage legislation and income distribution programs.

The UNCTAD report argues that countries that sign trade agreements in order to take part in global supply chains reap little, if any, benefit from these deals. Indeed it may lock them into low value-added activities due to competition on low wages, while tight control over intellectual property and branding strategies of MNCs prevent them moving up the value chain.

Affiliates take action on 7 October

Unions are organizing protests and rallies to mobilize their members and bring visibility to the fight to STOP Precarious Work. In Uganda, as part of the activities on 7 October 2014 IndustriALL affiliates are planning to hold a workers' protest rally with a subsequent press conference under the theme: "Sustainable Industrial Policy is a key to Elimination of Precarious Work”. In Indonesia, where the National Women Council is planning to launch a campaign aiming at improving the working conditions of women precarious workers, IndustriALL Indonesian Council is organizing a rally in front of Bundaran HI with at least 500 (half of them women) workers. In Colombia, IndustriALL affiliates alongside with the trade union centrals will participate in a rally protesting against the current government economic measures.

In countries where the legislation on precarious work is about to be modified, affiliates will articulate the global campaign to their national fight for a better legislation. In Philippines, where there are numerous abuses of contracting out of work, IndustriALL Philippines affiliates will hold a conference on security of tenure which was proposed by the Philippines trade union movement aimed at curbing agency labour. IndustriALL affiliates in Zambia are planning to submit a petition to the Labour Commissioner requesting the government to put an end to the use of precarious work. This action will be in support of the labour reform bill, which in part deals with reforms on precarious work.

In Norway, unions will focus their action on migrant workers. The Norwegian national confederation together with its member unions, including IndustriALL affiliate Fellesforbundet, will arrange a conference on 7 October on precarious work with a special focus on major sports events. In 2014, the Norwegian unions have been drawing attention to the precarious conditions faced especially by migrant workers in constructing infrastructure for major sports events.

Affiliates will also mobilize through their networks in multinational companies. Rio Tinto workers will take action at their worksites, while unions attending a meeting of the SKF World Union Committee will debate the issue and consider a resolution for action within SKF.

These are some of the activities already planned by IndustriALL affiliates.

Mauritius: planned actions 2014

In Mauritius on 7 October Confederation des Travailleurs du Secteur Prive whose member Chemical Manufacturing and Connected Trades Employees Union (CMCTEU) is also an affiliate of IndustriALL is organizing a candlelit march to the Workers' monument at Rose Hill. Workers are expeceted to join the march at the end of their working day, press is also invited. A meeting will be held next to the monument where workers will deliver testimonials about their suffering.