Global unions welcome release of Cambodian protestors

After considerable pressure and campaigning both locally and internationally by IndustriALL Global Union, the ITUC and UNI Global Union, as well as support from NGOs and fashion brands, the 23 workers were released following a Phnom Penh court verdict on Friday 30 May.

The 23 men, 21 of whom had been denied bail and detained since January, were given suspended sentences ranging from six months to four-and a half years. In a separate verdict, two trade unionists charged in November 2013 in relation to the SL Garment strike were also released, bringing the total to 25. Charges included instigating a crime, intentional violence with aggravating circumstances, and intentional destruction of property. Four of the men were ordered to pay fines of about US$2,000 each.

IndustriALL’s general secretary, Jyrki Raina, who also represented ITUC and UNI at a high-level meeting with brands and government ministers on 26 May, said:

“We are immensely relieved that the detainees have been released and are reunited with their families after five long months in prison. The harsh but suspended prison sentences doled out by the court were an attempt to save face after serious criticism by a number of international observers about a lack of direct evidence against the accused and serious irregularities in their trial.”

Ath Thorn, President of IndustriALL affiliate garment workers’ union, C.CAWDU, said:

“This victory is the first step. The trade union movement will continue to fight for a minimum wage of US$160 for garment and textile workers and to ensure the protection of workers’ rights, decent work and dignity.”

IndustriALL, ITUC and UNI will now focus on the continuing battle over the minimum wage and trade union law process. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has issued a stinging critique on the latest draft of the trade union law, which according to ILO appears to “ignore requests from ILO’s committee of experts on the application of conventions and recommendations”.

The Cambodian government, meanwhile, confirmed that the background research into a new wage setting mechanism will be completed and presented to the unions and the garment manufacturers’ association, GMAC, by mid-June so that minimum wage negotiations can re-start.

Philip Jennings from UNI said:

"We welcome news that the 23 workers who were wrongly imprisoned for standing up against injustice have been released. We now ask the Cambodian government to do the right thing and recognize global labour standards and resolve the issue over the minimum wage. Across the world there is a new recognition that decent wages will be one of the foundations of a global recovery. Cambodia is a mature country and should act as one."

ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow said that joint campaigning had yet again delivered for workers:

“International solidarity works! Our global trade unions have mobilized together in major cities across the world and constantly lobbied the Cambodian government, manufacturers and international clothing brands to reverse the unacceptable situation of early January. The treatment of Cambodian garment workers in early January when they protested for a living wage included police brutality, arrests and outright union busting. There is no way that ITUC, IndustriALL and UNI would allow that treatment to continue. The campaign continues for worker justice in Cambodia."

“IndustriALL will continue to work with the brands, Cambodian government, unions and employers to get these reforms right to make the Cambodian garment industry sustainable, with living wages, freedom of association and functioning industrial relations,” said Raina.

Ends.

For more information, please contact:
Leonie Guguen, Communications Officer, IndustriALL Global Union.
Tel: +41 22 308 50 23
[email protected]
www.industriALL-union.org
Switchboard: +41 22 308 50 50

IndustriALL joins calls for urgent support to flood-hit Balkans

The highest in the last 120 years rainfalls are over and water recedes, but resources are needed to help people in the hardest hit Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and parts of Croatia.

According to various reports landslides represent an important danger after the water receded. Only in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Tuzla Canton alone some 2,500 landslides have been recorded. In some areas there is an increased risk of infectious disease coming with the warm weather.

IndustriALL hopes the governments of the affected countries will provide every possible help and assistance to the families suffered from the natural disaster.

Upon consultations with the affiliates in the affected region together with sympathy and solidarity message IndustriALL also appeals to all affiliates asking for help and support to our brothers and sisters in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia.

Campaign for mine safety in Turkey targets precarious work

Joint union mass demonstrations together with miners who survived Soma have been conducted in several Turkish cities, most notably Istanbul.

The primary demands have been on the government to account for the murders and injuries at Soma, a large percentage of miners are precarious workers, and abolish the dangerous subcontracting system in Turkey. As legislative protection of workers’ rights have weakened since 2002, and the government even intends to open sub-contracting to main industrial and mine production through a new legislation, the total number of temporary workers in Turkey has today risen to 2.5 million.

Precarious workers in Turkey’s mines are vulnerable and underpaid. Their right to collective organizing and bargaining is blocked, they are unskilled and inexperienced, and mine employers pay temporary workers low wages and no overtime or health insurance.

In the meantime, instead of confronting the abusive corporate behaviour in Turkey’s mining industry to avoid a repeat of the Soma disaster, the government and employer has conducted a large campaign to shift blame onto the union movement to run away from main responsibility of the Soma carnage.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan stated: "This false and malicious campaign just aims at diverting the attention of public opinion from those trully responsible."

IndustriALL campaigns under the belief that: “The stronger the union, the safer the mine”. According to official figures, there are 48,706 mineworkers in Turkey who deserve to work in safety and this would best be achieved by Turkey ratifying and implementing ILO Convention 176. A draft law on working conditions in the mining industry is currently being drafted.

A joint IndustriALL Global Union and industriAll Europe mission will visit Soma on 19-20 June to assess and plan the work toward implementation of C176 together with local unions and the mining community.

On 22 May leaders of IndustriALL Global Union and industriAll Europe delivered their message and demands to the Turkish Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels, Mr. Selim Yenel.

The IndustriALL affiliated mineworkers union is directingsolidarity payments for the families of killed miners of Soma to a special bank account opened by their national trade union centre Turk-Is. Turk-Is is a member of the ITUC and ETUC.

Details of the Soma solidarity bank account:
Name of Bank: Vakıfbank
Branch: Turk-Is
IBAN: TR72 0001 5001 5800 7289 9943 61
Bank account in the name of Turk-Is Confederation

Address of the relevant branch of the bank:

Vakifbank Turk-Is Branch
Cumhuriyet Mahallesi, Tuna Caddesi, No:9
Cankaya 06420 Ankara Turkey
Phone: +90-312-435 2081
Fax: +90-312-2083

International solidarity helps FIRST Union win at Toll New Zealand

FIRST Union members ratified the new collective agreement with Toll Carriers on 27 May, following the deal being reached in mediation on 26 May.

IndustriALL intervened with BP on 13 May to call for them to force their contractor to the negotiating table with FIRST Union and reach a fair agreement in line with the national standard for the industry.

Hundreds of supporters sent messages through the IndustriALL online solidarity tool to Toll management.

FIRST Union general secretary Robert Reid reported:

Toll remained an aggressive employer right to the end, even beginning the mediation session arguing against a Collective Agreement. However with the strike, pickets of BP petrol stations and international solidarity work continuing, Toll finally agreed to a settlement.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan congratulated FIRST Union general secretary Robert Reid:

IndustriALL Global Union is happy and proud to have contributed to the solution of this problem. This is our raison d’etre and we will continue to do so.

FIRST Union organizer Jared Abbott said that workers were happy with the settlement and were looking forward to getting back to work.

In the end the workers were happy to achieve a new collective agreement that included a decent wage increase.

Jared Abbott said the workers were very thankful for all the local and international community support they had received over the past month.

IndustriALL publishes new issue of “Global Worker”

Unions in the automotive industry have been at the forefront of the strategy of building genuine union power and uniting workers in networks for solidarity and joint action, including global level corporate campaigns. Global Worker feature “Building global union power in the auto industry” highlights the developments in the auto sector where the first union networks were set up more than 40 years ago.

The benchmark model of a successful Global Framework Agreement (GFA) established in the garment sector back in 2007 between IndustriALL Global Union (then International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF)) and the world’s largest fashion retailer, Inditex, are described in the special report “Inditex and IndustriALL Global Union: Getting results from a global framework agreement”. The agreement has helped to reinstate workers expelled for being union activists, raise salaries and promote freedom of association in countries where unionization has traditionally been weak.

Our readers will find a number of profiles and reports from different parts of the world talking about trade union solidarity and unity, challenges and fights faced by unions in former Soviet Union countries, Colombia, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) profiling Josée Shimbi Umba, first deputy general secretary responsible for women’s issues at the Council of Metalworkers unions of the DRC (CSC) talking about her union fight for the rights of women in an environment of extreme exploitation and abuse.

Sign up to receive copies of Global Worker in English, French, Spanish or Russian online or by writing to [email protected]

Also read and download the Global Worker online version here: http://www.industriall-union.org/globalworker.

IndustriALL Global Union family coming together

Almost two years have passed since the founding congress of IndustriALL Global Union in June 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Two more years to go before our worldwide family gathers for a second congress in October 2016 to evaluate how far we have managed to launch a new era of global solidarity.

At the four major regional conferences this year, where we set out how we will promote IndustriALL’s five strategic goals, I was happy to see the energy and willingness of union leaders from all different industry sectors to work together and build union power.

Middle East and North Africa (MENA) opened the game in March in Amman, Jordan. We have seen revolutions and wars in several countries of the region, and major upheavals within the unions. The road from dictatorship and oppression towards democracy and people’s power is not straightforward. A lot of work lies ahead.

But I was happy to see the determination of the MENA union leaders to fight for a better life. Independent unions are gaining strength in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and elsewhere. Tunisia remains a star example of how unions, with the leadership of UGTT, can play a key role in building new democratic societies.

Latin America and the Caribbean followed in early May in Bogotá, Colombia. We combined the regional event with a women’s conference and youth workshop. What an energy, what a feeling of workers’ power and positive attitude: yes we can, another world is possible!

The conference agreed to give more space to women and youth. This is the face I would like to give to IndustriALL. Unanimous support for minimum 40 per cent women’s representation in the global leadership and Executive Committee shows the way. Unions need to build a new generation of leaders, women and men equally.

The Asia-Pacific conference in mid-May in Bangkok, Thailand, was equally energizing. In this region unions are growing, and they are mobilizing for living wages, universal social protection and against precarious work. The conference also supported minimum 40 per cent women’s representation.

The European regional conference in Brussels, Belgium, highlighted the need to continue modernization of unions in the CIS countries, where workers’ rights are increasingly under attack.

Two more regional events in Africa and North America will follow later this year.

What we see already is that the IndustriALL Global Union family is uniting. No matter whether you work in manufacturing, energy or mining, we realize that with our new global muscle and by working together with the ITUC and other global unions, we can change the world.

By joining forces, we are fighting for a world where all workers can join a union freely, get the protection of a collective agreement, and work in good jobs in safe and healthy workplaces. That is our historic mission.

Jyrki Raina

General Secretary

Brands ready to incorporate higher wages in Cambodia

IndustriALL Global Union, together with eight international brands, including H&M, GAP, Puma, Levi’s and Inditex, met with the Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon, four senior ministers and other government officials for talks at the Peace Palace in the capital Phnom Penh on Monday 26 May.

IndustriALL’s general secretary, Jyrki Raina, who also represented the ITUC and UNI Global Union at the meeting, said:

For the first time global brands have acknowledged that they are prepared to cost in the price of higher salaries in Cambodia. The ball is now in the court of the government and factory owners to get round the table and agree on a new wage setting mechanism.

Cambodian garment unions are fighting to increase the minimum wage from US$100 to US160 per month.

IndustriALL and brands also called for clear timelines in relation to the new Trade Union law as well as the wage setting mechanism, as the government revealed that new research on the process will be released mid-June.

Unions and brands reiterated their desire for a positive future for the Cambodian garment sector, which employs around 500,000 people and generates revenues of US$ 5 billion a year. However, they warned that continued sourcing from the country would depend on stability, transparency, predictability and the rule of law.

One major clothing brand revealed that it had cut its sourcing from Cambodia by 50% in the past year due to concerns about political instability and human rights violations in the country.

Brands and unions also expressed their concerns that the trial of 23 protestors arrested during the January wage demonstrations must be based on evidence and stand up to international scrutiny.

There is a question mark over evidence of direct links to damage to property by the 23 detainees, while IndustriALL sources have cast serious doubts about the impartiality of judicial proceedings in their trial.

Furthermore, sources say the detainees are set to receive prison sentences of two to three years when they are sentenced on Friday 30 May.

Jyrki Raina said:

“If these rumours are true it will seriously damage the reputation of Cambodia’s judicial system internationally and who knows what reaction it will generate on the streets of Phnom Penh.”

Brands and unions also called for the catalogue of anti-union lawsuits to be dropped to allow unions to play their full role in social dialogue.

“If GMAC are serious about functioning industrial relations they must get rid of the court cases. Brands and unions want to see a thriving garment industry in Cambodia but with living wages and union rights,” added Raina.

Ends.

For more information, please contact:
Leonie Guguen, Communications Officer, IndustriALL Global Union.
Tel: +41 22 308 50 23
[email protected]
www.industriALL-union.org
Switchboard: +41 22 308 50 50

IndustriALL solidarity campaign continues for ExCo member Angeline Chitambo’s reinstatement

She updated delegates to the recently held IndustriALL World Energy Conference on her situation. The conference brought together over 250 delegates from energy industry trade unions representing members in 48 countries in Madrid, Spain on 10-11 April, 2014. Delegates were appalled to hear of her continued struggle for justice and reinstatement and unanimously expressed full support and solidarity to her fight.

Angeline was dismissed for allegedly disclosing confidential information at a press conference damaging the image of the company. She was dismissed without a fair hearing, which took place in her absence and in the absence of her legal and union representatives in September 2012. Since then, despite court findings in her favour, the company has refused to reinstate her. Cases continue which appear to be focussed on the payment of damages rather than the reinstatement she demands.

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary, Jyrki Raina, has again written to the Zimbabwe government calling for her immediate reinstatement:

“It is clear that the case is a blatant attack on an effective trade union leader and an attempt to remove her from her trade union position as well as her employment. As such this situation is in total violation of core ILO Conventions and damaging the international reputation of Zimbabwe.”

The next stage in this long saga will be a further court hearing on 29 May, 2014. IndustriALL Global Union demands that the Ministers of both Labour and of Energy intervene and instruct ZESA to immediately engage with the union in constructive dialogue and to stop the victimization of Chitambo.

We will continue to support ZEWU and Angeline Chitambo until this matter is successfully resolved.

Unions create global network of SMURFIT KAPPA workers

Trade unions representing workers employed by paper multinational Smurfit Kappa created a global network in Madrid, Spain, on 18-19 May 2014 at a meeting organised by IndustriALL and UNI.

The network aims to help affiliated unions confront company policies detrimental to workers’ interests, by maintaining permanent contact and promoting a united response to counter arbitrary actions against workers in any part of the world. This global initiative to promote unity and solidarity is in response to the increasingly arrogant behaviour of multinational companies, which disregard the need to consider the environment, respect national sovereignty, provide decent work and comply with national and international standards.

According to participants from IndustriALL’s Colombian affiliate Sintracarcol Ricardo Rueda and Arturo Cajamarca, "delegates attending this meeting were able to get to know more about the problems at plants in various parts of the world, such as outsourcing, plant closures, dismissal of workers who join unions, company attempts to promote their own benefits plans rather than reach collective agreements and disregard for trade unions. In the future, coordinated global action will allow us to express our disagreement".

The new support network is open to other Smurfit employees in any part of the world who want to contribute to promoting this united struggle.

The network formed a coordinating committee composed of six representatives, two each from Europe and Latin America and a representative from both IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union.

Representatives of the European Works Council (EWC) attended the meeting in support of the creation of the network.

Indonesian cement workers to benefit from OECD settlement

Representatives from IndustriALL Global Union, IndustriALL affiliates Indocement Union (SP-ITP) and the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (CITU-KSPI), and Indocement/HeidelbergCement reached an agreement over a long-lasting conflict which was signed in Berlin, Germany on 21 May under mediation from the German OECD National Contact Point (NCP).

Matthias Hartwich, IndustriALL director, stated:

This agreement opens the door to better cooperation between unions and management in Indocement. But to be clear: this is not the end but the beginning of a cooperation process between the parties. IndustriALL, the German OECD NCP and all participants in the mediation have done their share. Now the local partners in Indocement have the chance and also the duty to bury the old conflicts and come to a new means of cooperation for the sake of the workers.

Relations between company and the union at the Indonesian plant, which is the second largest producer of cement in the country, deteriorated drastically after several incidents stemming from a dispute in 2012 connected to collective bargaining issues.

As local management at Indocement, which is owned by German parent company HeidelbergCement, had not been willing to solve the conflict, even going as far as supporting anti-union activists, the Indonesian IndustriALL affiliates together with IndustriALL lodged an OECD complaint in May 2013, seeking mediation from the German NCP.

The German NCP insisted on not “judging” the past but rather looking into the future by achieving better cooperation between Indocement and the unions, and helping employees overcome possible scepticism about involvement in a union or possible fears of union membership.

At the same time the signatories agree to “bury the past” and work jointly together for a better outlook for Indocement workers.

The OECD guidelines for multinational companies are binding, even when operating outside the OECD area. If a company violates the guidelines, stakeholders including trade unions, are entitled to lodge a complaint and seek for neutral mediation by OECD NCP.

In this case, the OECD NCP in Germany was in charge of mediation, as Indonesia does not belong to the OECD.

Participants in the Berlin mediation process, which was steered by the German ministry for Economic affairs and assisted by ministry for labour and foreign ministry, included representatives from IndustriALL Indonesian affiliates, IndustriALL Global Union, the HeidelbergCement global HR director and the Indocement HR director.