"IndustriALL must lead in women’s representation"

Monica Veloso from IndustriALL affiliate CNTM Brazil said that IndustriALL had an opportunity to present a pioneering vision. “We are constructing a new organization on the basis of equality,” she said.

“IndustriALL was founded just two years ago. Change has to start from the national level but the global level can give a good stimulus,” said IndustriALL’s general secretary Jyrki Raina.

IndustriALL’s Assistant General Secretary Monika Kemperle said:

“We must set an example and ensure women are represented appropriately at all levels of IndustriALL Global Union.  We have to inspire our affiliates that 40 per cent participation by women at the decision-making level is possible as shown by many of our affiliates.”

The extensive debate on quotas stemmed from two recent regional conferences (Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific) where participants adopted a resolution for a 40 per cent women’s quota at all levels of IndustriALL. This refers to the Congress, the Executive Committee, the President and Vice-Presidents, the General Secretary and Assistant General Secretaries.

Despite reservations from some affiliates about achieving 40 per cent representation, there were some positive examples of union experiences. Delegates heard that Brazil’s CNQ-CUT recent women’s conference, attended by 400 members, initiated a demand to employers that 30 per cent of new hires must be women. Brigitte Capelle from French metalworkers’ union FO, said that French company reporting now includes figures on recruiting and career development enabling unions to analyze the barriers to women’s progress at work. They have found there are too many women in some areas and not enough in others.

It was confirmed that the Women’s World Conference will take place in Vienna, Austria from 14 to 16 September 2015. The basic theme, which will be fine-tuned in the next few months, is “Transforming structures through women’s leadership”. Barrier’s to women’s representation, including sexism, and women’s leadership will also be on the agenda.

The Women’s Committee decided to continue collecting data from affiliates and urge them to complete the questionnaire on women’s presence in their unions.

The working group on women’s participation, which took place in the afternoon, asked for the following information in order for it to do justice to its tasks:

The working group also called for a debate on:

Chair, Christina Olivier, from South African metalworkers’ union NUMSA, will report back to the Executive Committee meeting, taking place in Geneva on 25 and 26 June.

Turkish glass workers striking for better pay

After months of collective bargaining, IndustriALL Global Union’s Turkish affiliate Kristal-Is, representing Sisecam Company workers, called a strike on 20 June 2014.

The strike was announced in reply to the poor offer of the top glass producer of the world suggesting 11.79 per cent hike, barely reaching the half of 23.12 per cent increase demanded by the union.

Kristal-Is wants to improve wages for lower paid and newly employed workers. So far the company has refused to meet workers’ demands preferring to face a strike, which has already paralysed Sisecam production in six provinces of the country.

The plants affected by the strike include Trakya Cam factories in Thrace and Mersin provinces, Trakaya Yenisehir Cam factory in Bursa province and three Pasabahce factories in Kirklareli, Eskisehir and Mersin, as well as a fibreglass plant Cam Elyaf in Kocaeli.

Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary, who visited the strikers, expressed the support of the 50 million member strong family of IndustriALL to their brothers and sisters in Turkey.

Özkan said, “IndustriALL is fully supporting your strike for fair wages and better working conditions for all workers. We have called on all our affiliates, particularly in the glass sector, to demonstrate their support and solidarity with Kristal-Is.”

IndustriALL urges investors to demand the truth from Rio Tinto

A group of 25 analysts and investors is visiting with Rio Tinto in North America this week. They will attend Rio Tinto presentations and tour some of company’s mines and smelters.

“Rio Tinto has established a pattern of  conflict with key stakeholders at its operations in North America and around the world,” said IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan.

IndustriALL has released “Unsustainable: The ugly truth about Rio Tinto” which documents Rio Tinto’s failure to live up to its own sustainability claims. The report is available at http://www.industriall-union.org/riotinto.

“Rio Tinto brands itself as sustainable in order to maintain access to profitable opportunities. Its failure to live up to its own sustainability claims potentially jeopardizes that access and is of material concern to the investment community,” added Özkan.

The report documents how Rio Tinto’s conflictual approach to labor relations provoked prolonged labor disputes at two of the sites the analysts and investors will visit, the Boron borate mine and the Alma smelter.

The report also documents how Rio Tinto has alienated a broad array of stakeholders through uranium spills, worker deaths, environmental violations and a lack of respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, including at its Resolution Copper project in Arizona.

IndustriALL Global Union represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors, including thousands of workers employed by Rio Tinto in nineteen countries.

Unions back the auto agreement between Argentina and Brazil

Leaders of the Confederación de Gremios Industriales, led by Ricardo Pignanelli (SMATA) and Antonio Caló (UOMRA), both affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union, met the Argentina industry minister, Debora Giorgi and expressed their support for the agreement, which tries to stabilize the auto industry at a time when the economy is slowing down.

Also present at the meeting were the general secretaries of the following affiliates: Federación Obrera Nacional de la Industria del Vestido, Romildo Ranú; Asociación de Supervisores de la Industria Metalmecánica, Luis García; Asociación Obrera Minera, Héctor Laplace; Sindicato de Obreros Curtidores, Walter Correa and Federación Argentina de Petróleo y Gas, Alberto Roberti.

In their joint press release Brazil and Argentina governments said the agreement reduces the number of tax-free vehicles and auto parts that Brazil can export to Argentina and establishes that for every US$1 of automotive products exported to Brazil, Argentina will import US$1.5 of automotive products from Brazil. The ratio, in what is known as the Flex clause, was previously US$1 to US$1.95.

Ricardo Pignanelli told the media that the agreement with Brazil "helps a lot because it will allow us to sell 40,000 units more than last year" and "focus on auto parts".

This will relieve the critical production and employment situation in the sector. It could reduce the price of some models by 10 per cent and new models by 7 or 8 per cent.

The agreement is valid until 1 July 2015 and negotiations will continue on a new agreement for the period 2015-2020.

Employers deny the international right to strike

The Conference Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) is a tripartite body of the ILC consisting of employers, workers and governments. It has the mandate to scrutinize measures taken by member countries to observe ILO Conventions and make recommendations to governments, aiming to improve the implementation of the Conventions they have ratified. Each year, the Employers’ Group and the Workers’ Group negotiate a shortlist of 25 countries to examine during the ILC, which must come to consensual conclusions on the recommendations it makes.

The attack on the right to strike started at the International Labour Conference in June 2012, when the spokesperson of the Employers’ Group unexpectedly announced that the Employers would refuse to agree to a negotiated short list of countries that included any case where the right of strike was involved. This intransigent statement provoked a deadlock and completely blocked the discussion of cases in the CAS.

The Employers’ Group argues that in the absence of any explicit reference to the right to strike in the actual text of ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, the internationally accepted rules of interpretation require Convention 87 to be interpreted without a right to strike.

“The Employers’ Group’s argument relies on a deeply-flawed understanding of the right to freedom of association. They take a deeply conservative view, where freedom of association is a self-contained, individual right, wholly divorced from the context of industrial relations,” argues Jeff Vogt, legal advisor for the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). “However, the right to Freedom of Association has long been understood as a collective right, particularly in the context of industrial relations, and indeed is a bundle of rights, which includes the right to strike.”

Unfortunately after the Workers’ Group agreed to make a one-time concession in 2013 in order to prevent the recurrence of the 2012 failure, the Employers’ Group again demanded in 2014 that a disclaimer outruling the right to strike be added to the conclusions relating to three countries (Algeria, Cambodia and Swaziland) where C87 was under examination. But this time the Workers’ Group unanimously refused to accept this demand, which compromises the work of the Committee.

As the Workers’ Group explained to the plenary, the CAS conclusions need to provide clear guidelines to governments to adjust and improve implementation of ILO Conventions – today there is disagreement on three cases, but tomorrow these could become four, five or six depending on the number of cases relating to C87 under discussion.  As no agreement was reached at the ILC in June 2014, all 19 cases under examination by the CAS remain without approved conclusions.

The Workers’ Group’s main concern is that the employers are now increasingly disputing other major Conventions such as C98 “Right to Collective Bargaining”; these insidious and persistent disagreements on the interpretation of fundamental ILO Conventions are undermining and paralysing the work and credibility of the Committees.

The conflict over the right to strike has been referred to ILO’s Governing Body, which could call on the International Court of Justice to produce an advisory opinion and put an end to the dispute. A decision is expected in November 2014.

The Workers’ Group is standing firm and trade unions have pledged to defend the right to strike as one of the major instruments of workers worldwide.

Ukrainian miners demand wage increase

EVRAZ is a steel and mining company with operations in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, USA, Canada, Czech Republic, Italy, Kazakhstan and South Africa. On 13 June, workers in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, launched a protest in front of the company’s office, demanding a doubling of wages as of 1 May 2014.

A rapid rise of prices for basic goods and services, as well as a devaluation of the Ukrainian currency, are the main reasons for workers' demands. One of the protesters said he is earning 8 000 hryvnia. This amount used to equal US$ 1000, but with the current exchange rate only amounts to US$ 700.

Igor Naumenko, the company’s human resource director, said that the wages at EVRAZ Sukhaya Balka JSC are already higher than average in the industry, but that management is planning further increases. Promising to share the workers’ demands with management, he also committed to reporting back in a week what wage increases will be effective as of 1 June.

Aleksander Bondar, local chairman of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate the Independent Trade Union of Coal Miners of Ukraine:

The union is ready to negotiate, but we will go on strike if an agreement is not reached within a week.

A solidarity action supporting miners at EVRAZ Sukhaya Balka JSC took place on 12 June at the Chelsea Football Club stadium in London, where EVRAZ was holding its shareholders’ annual general meeting. Demonstrators picketed one of the main entrances to the stadium, distributing information on the Ukrainian miners’ demands.

In May, more than a thousand workers at the Jubilee and Frunze mines of EVRAZ Sukhaya Balka JSC protested against the reduction of wages and demanded a double wage increase. However, a month later management has yet to meet the workers' demands.

Strike action called off as workers agree a deal

Further industrial action and a march and rally due to take place this weekend have been called off after members endorsed a deal which sees a compromise one week shutdown this year, an extra half day holiday and a cash settlement for the workers.

Members of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Unite the Union, had taken two days of strike action and put in place an overtime ban over the company’s plans to shut its site in Shelburn, in Elmet Leeds for two weeks in August.
The move by the company would have forced workers to take their annual leave in the height of summer season when the price of a family holiday can be up to 92 per cent higher.

Commenting, Unite national officer Tony Murphy said:

“Our members showed great determination in fighting for a deal that they found acceptable. They have remained steadfast throughout the past few weeks and put forward a number of proposals and compromises which the company had rejected.Industrial action was due to be stepped up over the coming days, but the company finally recognised they had to reach an agreement with the workforce."

Moving forward, there is a need to build a better relationship with Optare and Unite will of course provide help and assistance to do this when required.

Unions seek deferral of Brazil Mining Code

That Brazil needs a new mining code is not in question. In the 47 years since the code was revised by the then military regime, mining has been one of the fastest growing sectors, and the impact on communities and the environment has grown equally rapidly.
 
Critics, however, decry both the process and the content of the law, criticizing the fact that a code aimed at regulating a non-renewable commons resource is being pushed through without public debate. Add to that the fact that the content of the law protects the vested interests of corporations, while failing to recognize the social and environmental impact of mining.
 
The revised draft was discussed behind closed doors for four years before being sent to Congress on a ‘legal urgency’ basis, allowing only 90 days for public debate. The ‘legal urgency’ was subsequently withdrawn under pressure from unions and NGOs, and the current timeframe for adoption is now unclear.
 
Unions and civil society groups, including IndustriAll Global Union affiliate CNQ-CUT, have submitted 53 proposals dealing with decent work, health and safety, the social and environmental impact, the involvement of social actors and industrial sustainability. A further 250 or so proposed amendments reflect the interests of the industry.

Unions are asking the government to defer the vote until 2015.

In the meantime convene a national mining conference aimed to develop a regulatory framework, reflecting the diversity of interests of Brazilian society.

Brazil has over 7,000 active mines yielding 80 different minerals. It is one of the world's largest producers of iron ore, bauxite, gold, nickel, manganese as well as the rare mineral niobium. The sector provides over 900,000 formal sector jobs.
 
 

Glass workers strike over ‘paltry’ pay offer

About 112 employees at Tyneside Safety Glass started their seven days of strike action on 16 June. The strike is from 05.00 to 19.00 each day and also includes a continuous overtime ban.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Unite, said that the company could  afford to be more generous, especially as it awarded the highest paid director a 14 per cent pay rise last year, and shifted £750,000 from the company’s account to the owner’s trust fund.

The company, who makes makes laminated glass for bus windows and windscreens, had offered a three-year deal; three per cent in the first year, and then two per cent in the two subsequent years. Unite said  this deal had strings attached to make the deal self-funding.

Unite regional officer Fazia Hussain-Brown says:

“Our members rejected the paltry and insulting ‘strings attached’ deal by more than 90 per cent as the company was giving with one hand and taking with the other. Our hardworking members and their families are faced with the continuing cost of living crisis, with household bills going through the roof and they deserve a more generous pay deal."

"The management’s plea of poverty does not ring true and we urge them to get around the table urgently to negotiate a fair and equable settlement, so our members can continue to contribute to the prosperity of the company."

 

Have your say on international trade

The WTO is a worldwide forum for governments to establish rules and agreements on trade.   

Although a feeble attempt at public inclusion, the survey is an important opportunity for people to let the WTO, a powerful international organization, know what they think.

The WTO frequently negotiates trade policies that put investors and multinationals first at human cost. While trade across borders can benefit workers and society, it should not be done at the expense of workers’ rights and the environment. 

IndustriALL is committed to confronting global capital and challenging the power of multinational companies through promoting the rights of trade unions and workers.

Many of the WTO’s survey questions are loaded but it does give you the chance to have your say.

Take part in the WTO poll.