Capacity building to increase women participation

Participating in the protest movement placed women at the front line of the struggle in the MENA region. However, women involvement on an institutional and representation level after the Arab Spring is still low. In line with a policy to enhance women participation in the global decision making process, IndustriALL recently conducted two seminars on promoting the capacity of female trade unionists in Tunisia and Morocco.

‪

On 6 June, 18 women from IndustriALL Moroccan affiliates, together with counterparts from potential affiliates, participated in the national seminar on Promoting Women Participation in Trade unions in Casablanca. Participants identified key challenges, such as violence against women and the non-implementation of the women-related article of the Labor Law.

Women leaders from the six Moroccan unions affiliated to Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT) and Confédération Démocratique du Travail (CDT) formed the Moroccan Women Network, to serve as a platform for advancing women national cooperation, addressing challenges and planning activities.

‪On 9 June, 22 women trade unionists, representing IndustriALL affiliates from the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT) attended the National Seminar on Women Involvement in Trade Union Work. Participants emphasized the need for more involvement at the institutional level of union work, as well as contributing to the UGTT current discussions on enhancing women position at union decision making process nationwide. Discussions were dominated by issues such as the lack of necessary protection for working women, and the deterioration of working conditions in subcontracting and precarious work.

The Tunisian Women Network was founded, calling for organizing a national conference on obstacles that face women union work, as well as discussions on the conditions of voluntarily retirement of women at the age of 50.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Monika Kemperle said on the seminars:

The commitment of our sisters in Tunisia and Morocco puts IndustriALL in a better position to further enhance our ongoing support for working women in the MENA region. 

Prestigious Norwegian award for Mexican trade union struggle

Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, the heroic head of the Mexican mineworkers union, Los Mineros, won this year’s Arthur Svensson International Prize for trade union rights. The prize is awarded by IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Industri Energi.

Following the advice from his lawyers after a new arrest order and death threats,  Napoleón Gómez Urrutia stayed in Canada. Industri Energi president Leif Sande presented the prize to Napoleón’s wife Oralia Casso.

Since 2006 and Napoleon’s strong condemnation of the industrial homicide at Pasta de Conchos, the mineworker leader has been persecuted by the corporate-government alliance and forced to lead the union from exile in Vancouver, Canada.

As the jury writes, "Gómez Urrutia plays a leading role in the struggle for democratic unions, free of government and employer control in Mexico.”

In her acceptance speech on behalf of her husband, Oralia Casso said:

Napoleon has always been a fighter for social causes and trade union freedom. His strategies are based on peace, justice, respect, and dignity.”

IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Jyrki Raina said at the prize ceremony in Oslo:

This is a great acknowledgement of the on-going struggle by Napoleón Gómez and the brave members of Los Mineros for dignity and social justice. And it shows that the trade union world will continue to support free and independent unionism in Mexico. La lucha continua!”

Following the prize ceremony there was a panel discussion on Dirty Investment.

The Government Pension Fund of Norway is the largest pension fund and one of the biggest investors in the world. Industri Energi president Leif Sande pointed out that the Fund had invested one billion Norwegian crowns in anti-union mining group Grupo Mexico, which has refused the rescue the bodies of 65 miners who died in an explosion in 2006 and fights against independent unions with violence.

Sande said:

This is a company that gambles with people's lives and principles of freedom and justice that we in Norway takes as an obvious right. It is our obligation as union colleagues and as fellow human beings to speak out loud and clear: the Government Pension Fund of Norway must get out of Grupo Mexico. We will not be involved in dirty business.”

IndustriALL and IUF join BWI and demand a “Red Card” for FIFA

IndustriALL and the food, farm and hotel workers' union, IUF, joined the Building and Wood Workers' International (BWI) to take advantage of the ILC and organize a side event dedicated to decent work and sport, giving a red card to FIFA for workers’ rights abuses during the World Cup. 

The cases of Poland-Ukraine (UEFA Euro 2012), South Africa, Brazil, Russia and Qatar (FIFA World Cup 2010 – 2014 – 2018 – 2022) were analysed from the point of respect of workers’ rights.

Ambet Yuson, BWI General Secretary, said “How is it possible that FIFA, which is registered as a non-profit organization, had a net income of US$3 billion from the South-Africa World Cup?"

Commenting on the action Fernando Lopes, Assistant General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, said, “We all love football, it is a great game that unites people of different nationalities across the globe, but no mater how good the game is we can’t accept the violation of workers’ rights linked to it. No World Cup without workers’ rights!”

World-sporting events generate billions in revenue for corporations, while the working conditions of building and construction workers behind the scenes remain dire. Workers, especially migrant workers, make a huge contribution to large events and yet receive extremely low wages and are vulnerable to sub-contracted employment and dangerous workplaces. In these cases, trade unions remain the only goalkeepers preventing a violation of workers’ rights.

It appears that the preparations for the Brazilian World Cup, despite all the negative stories in the media, have the least bad record in comparison to others. The only explanation is a strong trade union presence in Brazil. Since the announcement of Brazil hosting the FIFA World Cup, trade unions have made an agreement with the Government to ensure workers’ rights have to be respected. Many improvements in working conditions happened through collective bargaining e.g. the first ever national sector based tariff agreement for construction workers, a minimum wage increas and compensation for night shifts. 

Nevertheless, global capital power is so strong that investors and employers still exerted a strong influence, undermining the achieved agreements in some cases.

The consequent violations provoked a number of strikes in Brazil from 2011. As many as 128,750 workers participated in 26 strikes. On average some 5,000 workers participated in each strike.

It should not be forgotten that nine workers died during construction works for the World Cup in Brazil. However, in comparison to Qatar, where according to the recent report of the International Trade Union Confederation the death toll among the workers has already passed 1,000 lives, Brazilian workers clearly enjoy much higher protection because they are organized.

The population of Qatar, which is hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022, has the highest migration workforce in the world at 88 per cent of workers. Qatar, with its Kafala system demanding all unskilled workers to have an in-country sponsor which creates an evil system of potential abuse and manipulation of workers’ rights, has been denounced for being a slave state. The country has no union presence, which is why it is of utmost importance to start organizing all those migrant workers and promote respect through global campaigning. 

IndustriALL President honoured by UAW

Outgoing UAW president, Bob King, presented the prize to Berthold Huber at the annual UAW convention in Detroit, USA, on 2 June for his role in helping to build global alliances between worldwide labour organizations.

Huber told delegates the fight for workers’ rights is never over and continues for every generation: “People are still working in deplorable conditions around the world,” said Huber, reminding delegates about the mass deaths of workers in the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh and the Soma coal mine in Turkey. “In both situations owners knew about safety problems for a long time, and so did governments. All are responsible for the deaths of those workers,” said Huber.

“It is our duty to protect workers against these conditions and support each other in our fight for people and employee rights. Capitalism and financial markets have dragged the world into a financial crisis and now the middle class is eroding, the poor are getting poorer and precarious work is on the rise,” he said. “Globalization means unions have to be concerned with conditions in other countries. It will affect all of us eventually,” said Huber.

The 36th UAW Constitutional Convention also saw president Bob King step down. Dennis Williams was elected in his place with an overwhelming 3,215 votes out of a total of 3,270 cast. Williams previously served as the secretary-treasurer of the UAW, and has been a member of the union since 1977. Following his election, Williams told reporters: “It’s humbling. I’m excited for our union. I feel the energy, the power of our unity, I’m looking forward to the challenges we have.”

Also elected were Gary Casteel as secretary-treasurer and Cindy Estrada, Norwood Jewell and Jimmy Settles as vice presidents.

The struggle for union representation by workers at the Chattanooga Volkswagen assembly plant in Tennessee was a hot topic at the convention, while delegates also made a strong commitment to international solidarity. 

Garment industry sourcing model fundamentally flawed

The report, ‘Stitched Up’, released 11 June, surveyed garment workers in Turkey and Eastern Europe producing clothes for labels such as Hugo Boss, Adidas, Zara and H&M in 10 different countries.

It found that garment workers in the area were subject to poverty wages, poor working conditions and long working hours, mirroring the experiences of workers in other parts of the world.

Some three million people are employed in the garment industry in Turkey, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovakia.

Jenny Holdcroft, policy director at IndustriALL Global Union, which represents garment unions in the surveyed countries, said:

It comes as no surprise that workers in Turkey and Eastern Europe are subjected to similar poor wages and working conditions as those in countries such as Bangladesh or Cambodia. The sourcing model for the garment industry is based on paying the lowest possible wages and so is fundamentally flawed. Made in Europe is not a guarantee of better rights or wages for garment workers.

The survey found a considerable gap between the legal minimum wage and the estimated minimum living wage in all the countries. The report said:

Jobs with such a tremendously low wage create poverty rather than fighting it.

A seamstress in Belarus spoke of working 0.45 Euro per hour embroidering blouses for Zara for a contract that had been outsourced by a Greek agent. In some cases, workers told of growing their own vegetables and doing a second job in order to survive. Others complained of damage to their eyesight after sewing for long days without breaks.

The report also found that garment workers, the majority of whom are women, suffer sexual harassment, discrimination in pay and treatment, and limited union representation.

A Croatian unionist stated that “unions do not have the opportunity to bargain for higher wages since they have to constantly fight illegal practices such as long-term unpaid overtime and unpaid social contributions or long-term unpaid wages.”

Holdcroft said:

“The report’s findings are a reflection of the endemic practices throughout the global garment industry. Wages are squeezed through brand purchasing practices and furthermore the absence of collective bargaining leads to a reliance on the legal minimum wage, which is in many cases a poverty wage."

Read the report.

Intensified strike in South Africa’s footwear sector

Last week 70 per cent of workers gave their support for a strike through a ballot. This allowed SACTWU to join another trade union in the sector, the National Union off Leather and Allied Workers, that had already commenced strike action. SACTWU’s members joining takes the the total number of workers on strike to about 8,000. 

Workers from the 40 companies that are covered by the bargaining council and some companies outside of the council are demanding a 10 per cent wage increase. Employers are offering 7.75 per cent. Wage increases are due on 1 July 2014.

Unions are due to sit down with employers on 12 June 2014. “Hopefully employers will review their stance tomorrow because there are no winners if it takes too long to resolve, says SACTWU’s National Footwear Sector Co-ordinator, Nazier Armoed. “Both parties are losing, employers and workers but it is also important for workers to win a decent wage increase”.

NXP workers fight for illegally dismissed colleagues

A number of organisations expressed support for the workers’ fight to reinstate the 24 union officials, illegally dismissed in May. Barbed wires, padlocked gates and the presence of police and emergency response teams met protesters. Undaunted, the workers and their supporters determinedly asserted their right to protest.

Children of illegally dismissed workers joined their parents in calling on the DOLE to act decisively on the labor dispute. They urged the NXP management to reinstate the 24 union officials and get back to the negotiating table.

In the afternoon, protesters rallied in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ), where the NXP plant is located. At the same time as this protest took place outside, workers inside the plant conducted successive noise barrage during lunch and snacks break.

Reden Alcantara, president of the NXP Semiconductor Inc. Workers Union (NXPSCIWU) and National President of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate Metal Workers Alliance of the Philippines (MWAP), condemned the NXP management for continuously refusing to settle the dispute and consistently harassing the workers.

In a bid to win public opinion, NXP had published an open letter in one of the country’s leading newspaper, claiming to be prepared to settle the issue.

Alcantara says:

“On the contrary, the NXP management has already suspended the CBA talks despite the union’s willingness to resolve the dispute. Management is campaigning for individual ratification of the CBA in an effort to break the unity of the workers.”

He vowed that the union would continue to fight until they win.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina says:

“We strongly support of our affiliate in fighting back against NXP’s illegal dismissal of 24 union officials. It’s time for NXP to reinstate the union officials and enter into good faith negotiations with MWAP.”

Show your support!

Sign the LabourStart campaign: Stop union-busting at NXP Semiconductors

Like the Facebook page BringbackNXP24. Take a selfie and/or groupie photo expressing your support for the NXP workers. Post them using the hashtag #bringbackNXP24.

Birlesik Metal-Is fights against union busting by M&T Reklam

The pickets are in protest at the unlawfully dismissal of 45 union members at M&T Reklam’s plants in the cities of Gebze (22) and Duzce (23).

M&T Reklam began union busting after Birlesik Metal-Is, an IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, conducted a successful organizing campaign at the companzboth plants. This was in total compliance with national legislation which resulted in certificate of competence issued by the Ministry of Labour in Turkey in favor of Birlesik Metal-Is confirming the union represents majority of workers for bargaining a collective agreement.

However, instead of negotiations in good faith, workers exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of association faced extreme hostility from the company, which has turned against its own workers after they dared to organize a union.

The company’s management has threatened workers at both factories with closure should they decide to join Birlesik Metal-Is, arguing that M&T is not financially strong enough to deal with a union and therefore would need to shut down.

M&T Reklam is a company serving to major customers in the USA, Germany, Denmark and elsewhere. Its main clients are VKF Renzel GMBH in Germany, George Patton Associates Inc in the USA and Dadansk Skilte Inventar A/S in Denmark.

IndustriALL Global Union and Birlesik Metal-Is have started an online LabourStart protest campaign to pressure the employer to reinstate the sacked workers and start constructive dialogue with workers’ representatives. To support Turkish workers and send on-line message of protest to the M&T Reklam follow below the link to LabourStart campaign.

http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=2328

"M&T Reklam must recognize Birlesik Metal-Is as bargaining partner and re-instate 45 dismissed workers without any delay" said Kemal Ozkan, Assistant General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union. "Otherwise we will continue to advertise union busting of the company to whole world."

Union mobilizes against BHP Billiton job cuts in Colombia

The union representing workers at the mine, Sintracerromatoso, says the company is protecting the interests of shareholders at the expense of workers, their families and communities.  Union leaders accuse local management of hiding behind jargon like ‘restructuring’ , ‘disinvestment’ and ‘cost cutting’ while ignoring the trauma faced workers who are threatened with losing their livelihoods. The company is offering barely 30% of the compensation provided for in the collective agreement.

Sintracerromatoso, which is a member of IndustriAll Global Union affiliate Utrammicol, is linked to efforts to build a strong and united mining and energy union in Colombia, CUSME.

Nobody is asking BHP Billiton to reinvent the wheel.  The company could start by boning up on ILO Convention No. 158 and Recommendation No. 166 concerning termination of employment as well as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, not to mention the slew of best practices that exist. All of these instruments provide valuable guidance for dealing with restructuring and potential redundancies.

Nor is it rocket science to implement the basic principles that emerge:

In considering changes in your company’s operations, provide reasonable notice and engage in meaningful consultations with unions and government as early as possible. Justify why you are proposing such measures.  Be collaborative in finding solutions and bear in mind that workers and their unions can often provide important insights and propose alternatives to avoid job losses. If redundancies are inevitable, negotiate with workers and unions in order to minimise the impact on the workforce as much as possible.

Failing to abide by these standards is not only callous and irresponsible, it is also a violation of the tenets of good management.

IndustriAll has offered its support.

Organizing efforts in Ethiopia’s textile sector stepped up

Ethiopia has a large and growing textile sector employing about 45,000 workers. Its strategic advantage is its closeness to the European market that provides quick turnaround production times. The Ethiopian government has identified the textile sector as a key priority for economic development and has attracted more than USD3,5 billion in investment in the last three years.

The 43 worker leaders that participated in the workshops at the end of May 2014 came from five factory based unions that employ about 17,000 workers of which just over half are union members. The workshops were held in the capital Addis Ababa and in Mekelle, 800 km north of the capital.

“We need to strive for fully organized workplaces in Ethiopia, with factory based unions this leads to greater unity at the workplace and strengthens the position of workers, while contributing to the organized power in the sector as a whole,” says IndustriALL regional officer Thabo Tshabalala.

Tshabalala and the national organizer of the Ethiopian Textile and Garment Union (ETGU), Ayalew Ahmed facilitated discussions with affiliates to identify problems they face in union building at the factory floor level. Organizing strategies to overcome challenges were shared and confidence was built by discussing how unionized workers could take forward worker’s rights at the shopfloor. 

Participants were assisted with developing factory based plans to organize non-unionized workers, including setting goals and objectives in an ambitious recruitment programme. The programme will be evaluated every three months and progress will be reported to the ETGU that committed to providing support to the unions for the initiative.