IndustriALL launches second issue of “Global Worker”

IndustriALL continues to support the development of free and independent trade unions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Over a year after the Arab Spring IndustriALL presents an in-depth feature in this edition of the Global Worker on this priority region. The feature includes an overview of cases in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Somalia as the struggle continues in the MENA.

A special report on Rio Tinto’s unsustainable corporate behaviour, exposes the human and trade union rights abuses that are taking place in Rio Tinto’s operations globally.

As IndustriALL continues to lead the struggle for garment workers in Bangladesh a report gives an overview of the ongoing developments in Bangladesh as more and more brands sign on to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety. (LINK accord)

IndustriALL interviewed Marcio Pochmann, an economist, researcher and professor at UNICAMP (Campinas University) on industrial policies and it’s importance in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The magazine also includes a profile of Angeline Chitambo of the Zimbabwe Energy Workers Union (ZEWU) as she fights on in the face of violations by the state owned Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA).  There are also profiles of The Trade Union of Metallurgy Mining and Chemical Industry Workers of Georgia (TUMMCIWG) and the newly formed UNIFOR in Canada.

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

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

New national industrial union takes shape in Chile

The conference opened at the offices of the Chilean central union CUT and was attended by the CUT president, Bárbara Figueroa, who described CONSTRAMET’s work in promoting unity and strengthening the union as visionary.

Horacio Fuentes, CONSTRAMET president, said:

Chile is changing and the people have gone out on to the streets to protest. Chilean society is more aware of its rights and is prepared to protest and raise its voice in support of structural changes in education, health, labour rights, environment, social welfare and the need to recover natural resources, to such an extent that all candidates in the presidential election had to respond to the demands made by the people.

At the opening of the conference Marino Vani, IndustriALL Global Union Assistant Regional Representative, who attended the entire conference, congratulated CONSTRAMET for its work on the four-year project to strengthen the union. He highlighted the need to organize outsourced and non-unionized workers and to increase trade union membership and the number of workers covered by collective employment contracts.

Our priority is to eradicate precarious work. Together we are strong, divided we are atomized,

he concluded.

The conference formed part of a trade union strengthening programme in Chile aimed at building a new trade union structure and developing new collective bargaining strategies, a process that is being spearheaded by CONSTRAMET, an IndustriALL affiliate. The project aims to strengthen the trade union movement by merging manufacturing industry unions in Chile.

The union’s eighth conference was attended by 135 leaders from 67 CONSTRAMET affiliates in all areas of the country and aimed to create the conditions and make the changes necessary to create a new trade union structure and develop collective bargaining at sector, sub-sector, geographical and holding company levels.

The second day of the conference was held at Mantagua, 149 km from the Chilean capital, where working groups discussed the statutes and structure of the new organization. Delegates met again in plenary on 23 November to finalize the conference’s conclusions.

The new union will have nine departments, including ones for retail, women, youth, metalworking, mining, chemicals, forestry and textiles and will be organized on an area and regional basis (North based in Antofagasta; South in Concepción).

CONSTRAMET said the conference's main achievements were as follows:

CONSTRAMET said it will draft a work plan in January 2014, focusing mainly on developing coordination with other industrial organizations, including the Private Sector Federation (Federación de la Minería Privada), Unionisation Mining Confederation (Confederación Minera de Sindicalización), FTC, Mining Contractors (Contratista de la Minería) and all those who want to be part of the new national union.

The union added that it will circulate the conference resolutions and that these resolutions made provision for ratification of the creation of the national union and its organization during 2014 in most towns where the main industries are located.
 

IndustriALL lodges OECD complaint against Ansell

See the full text of IndustriALL’s OECD complaint here.

The complaint, lodged with the Australian National Contact Point for the OECD, sets out breaches of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by Ansell in its operations in Sri Lanka and Malaysia, in relation to human rights, trade union rights, and occupational health and safety.

Responding to an automated reply to the LabourStart protest messages sent to Ansell, IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina said:

We were surprised to read the company’s claim that it was striving to resolve the matter in accordance with national laws. Ansell has treated every request and attempted intervention from the Commissioner of Labour in Sri Lanka with contempt and refusal to comply.

Large portions of Ansell Lanka’s products are exported to the US and Australia. Major purchasers of Ansell products include governments, military, health care institutions, correctional institutions, security agencies and companies, safety equipment supply houses, laboratory supply houses, and retailers.

Visit the “No to Dirty Ansell Gloves” campaign page to write to the union and to join the IndustriALL-LabourStart campaign by writing to the Ansell CEO Magnus Nicolin.

Since 2011 the Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees Union (FTZGSEU) and IndustriALL have repeatedly expressed their desire to convene an effective joint investigation of a number of suspicious health issues, including reproductive effects and cancer and leukemia cases at Ansell’s Sri Lanka facility.

Ansell refuses to recognise the FTGSEU, refuses to respect collective bargaining, forces workers to urinate at their work stations to maintain fast production and then blames and victimises the union for ensuing employee unrest. The workforce is paid poverty wages and undermined by an increasing number of precarious workers. Almost all branch union office bearers have been summarily dismissed.

IndustriALL Global Union will continue to stand behind its Sri Lankan and Malaysian affiliate in front of this intransigent multinational employer. The OECD complaint is just one aspect of the ongoing and evolving campaign for trade union rights at the company.

Living wage conference calls for action

The conference, sponsored by the German and Dutch governments, took place in Berlin from 25-26 November. It brought together representatives from trade unions, multistakeholder initiatives, NGOs, governments and, crucially, brands and retailers that source from countries where wages fall far below a living wage.

A large contingent from Bangladesh included representatives of the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council, the garment employers’ organization BGMEA and government. Their focus was on the responsibility of brands sourcing from Bangladesh to ensure fair pricing to enable factories to pay a living wage.

The discussions emphasized the need for collective action. In particular, brands need to work together to use their purchasing practices to ensure that living wages are paid in those factories from which they jointly source. Many participants referred to the Bangladesh Accord, signed by IndustriALL Global Union, UNI and more than 100 global brands, as an example of what is possible and a model for living wage initiatives.

There was a clear understanding that without freedom of association and collective bargaining, a living wage will not be achieved or maintained. Workers must be able to negotiate for wages that reflect their contribution to the creation of value. Governments, businesses and unions all have a role in ensuring that they have that right.

The conference also considered the role of governments in ensuring that minimum wages are living wages. Obon Tabroni, Vice President of IndustriALL affiliate FSPMI, addressed the conference and explained how the Indonesian unions were able to mobilise 2 million workers to fight for an increase in the minimum wage.

An action plan was presented to the conference, setting out the responsibilities of governments, business, MSIs, trade unions and other civil society organisations to take steps towards a living wage. The action plan puts a strong focus on the need to ensure freedom of association and collective bargaining, including through capacity building for employers in supply chains on what this means. It also emphasizes the need for buyers to team up with other buyers to create leverage towards governments in production countries and towards their own suppliers. 

Jenny Holdcroft, policy director at IndustriaALL, concludes:

The value of this conference will be if it increases momentum towards living wages. We want to see greater political commitment by governments to using their influence towards increasing minimum wages in producing countries, but also to insisting that MNCs based in their countries guarantee that all workers in their supply chains are paid a living wage.

ITUC holds women’s organizing assembly in Dakar

To tackle gender inequality and injustice in the world of work, unions need to organize women around their priorities and aspirations, ensure they get into leadership and recruit many more young women. To provide for unions’ growth women can take the organizations beyond their traditional fields of recruitment such as the informal economy and precarious work and non-standard employment. Women leaders ensure women’s issues are reflected in unions’ activities, in bargaining agendas and in policy demands. Mentoring younger sisters is essential to take them from membership to grow into leadership. The ITUC campaign on women’s leadership is called COUNT US IN!

The Count us In! campaign engages unions to bring about change to bring more women into leadership positions and to make concerted efforts to organize more women in unions. The reasons behind the campaign are the following:

The ITUC also has a campaign called Decisions for Life which is geared to young women. Trade unions need to become more responsive to young women and to take their needs to heart. Getting a job, securing a permanent contract, earning a living wage, starting a family, becoming an activist are all challenges that need to be taken seriously by trade unions. Social media can also be used as a mobilization tool. Through this campaign women are meant to feel more confident about taking decisions and standing up for their rights at work and playing a more prominent role.

The conference had sessions on the informal economy, HIV-AIDS and violence. The importance of organizing women around HIV-AIDS was stressed. Especially women in communities can be reached by this type of work.

In connection with violence the session focused on the proposal under discussion at the ILO to adopt a Convention on gender-based violence. A majority of government members on the ILO Governing Body need to be persuaded to support the adoption of such an instrument. Such a convention would address the sexual harassment, violence, threats and bullying which are still commonplace on the job. The enforcement of adequate laws is essential for preventing gender-based violence at work. An ILO convention could cover a definition of gender-based violence at work, provisions to prevent the violence, measures to protect and support workers affected by the violence and a description of the groups most affected by gender-based violence, namely LGBT, indigenous and migrant workers, workers living with HIV/AIDS and disabilities and people trapped in forced and child labor. Ministries and members of the ILO Governing Body should be contacted to push for such a convention.

At the conclusion of the ITUC conference the Senegalese Family Minister committed to ratifying ILO Convention 183 on maternity protection in the near future.

JYRKI RAINA: Welcome to Global Worker

Jyrki Raina, IndustriALL General Secretary

We are determined to give all it takes to produce a profound change in Bangladesh.

Struggle for dignity

In Bangladesh, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as at Rio Tinto, IndustriALL Global Union is leading the struggle of workers for dignity and respect.

In April, the eight-storey Rana Plaza building collapsed near Dhaka in Bangladesh, killing 1,129 garment workers. This industrial homicide expedited negotiations on a legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh in the retail sector, led by IndustriALL and our sister organization UNI.


Following the first signatures by H&M, Inditex and C&A, more than 100 leading brands and retailers of the world have signed the historic Accord that will help make the Bangladeshi garment industry safe and sustainable in a major five-year project.

The participating companies have committed themselves to exhaustive inspections, finding funding for the necessary repairs of dangerous factories, and training for management and workers.

It will be a long and winding road, as problems with factories that have already been identified as unsafe show. Many difficult and impopular decisions lie ahead. But we have to get rid of lethal factories making cheap t-shirts for Western consumers. Indeed, we hope that the ongoing compensation negotiations after Rana Plaza, Tazreen Fashions and Aswad could be the last ones.

IndustriALL will also continue to exert pressure to raise the US$38 monthly minimum wage towards living wages; insist on an ILO-compliant labour law reform; and launch a major organizing project in cooperation with our partner organizations. We are determined to give all it takes to produce a profound change in Bangladesh.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, IndustriALL is supporting the development and growth of free and independent unions. In this issue of Global Worker, we tell you how.

In January 2011, Tunisian people overthrew the regime of president Ben-Ali in an uprising that marked the beginning of the Arab Spring. Unrest, revolutions and even wars followed in several countries in the region.

People had clearly had enough of poverty, unemployment, social injustice, lack of democracy and lack of hope for a better life. They were angry and took to the streets to demand a change.


Today, more than two years after the Arab Spring, we have seen changes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but also deep frustration and disillusionment among people because of high expectations and broken promises. Dictatorship is not automatically followed by democracy. In a number of countries, the freedom of association is under threat.

IndustriALL is therefore taking very concrete action to safeguard union rights and help independent unions build capacity to grow in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia and elsewhere in the region.

In this issue of Global Worker we expose human and trade union rights abuses by mining giant Rio Tinto. IndustriALL is building a counter-power through a global union network to make the company respect its workers. The struggle for dignity around the world will never stop.


Jyrki Raina
General Secretary
 

Ugandan unions commit to unity

The General Secretaries of the four IndustriALL affiiliates in Uganda, NUCCPTE, UTGLAWU, UMMOGAWU and UCPAWU were joined by the General Secretary of UHFTAWU, which has applied for affiliation, in signing a memorandum of understanding. The agreement aims to create increased cooperation and unity by means of joint action. The signing of the MoU was witnessed by IndustriALL representatives from the sub-Saharan Regional Office and the Head Office.

The cooperation will be known as the IndustriALL National Coordinating Council in Uganda (INCC-U). Several areas are identified for cooperation, with organising and recruitment as the number one objective. The unions also agree to cooperate on negotiation of collective agreements, training and capacity building, agitating for the rights of workers, grievance handling and dispute settlement, as well as working together on local and international policy campaigns such as a precarious work campaign launched in October.

While maintaining their independence and autonomy, the unions that are party to the agreement agree to develop and implement joint actions in all the identified areas of cooperation. A Management Committee comprising two officers from each of the signatory unions will meet at least four times a year to plan and oversee the operations of the programs and activities of the INCC-U. A Technical Working Committee comprising three members of the Management Committee will meet more often to deal with communication and implementing activities, and a Finance Committee comprising all General Secretaries will manage the finances and bank account.

FirstEnergy Locks Out Utility Workers in U.S.

IndustriALL Global Union and Public Services International (PSI) are responding to this employer aggression against joint affiliate UWUA. Sign the IndustriALL-PSI-LabourStart campaign here and write your protest message to FirstEnergy CEO Tony Alexander.

(http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=2070)

Management locked out utility workers at its Penelec subsidiary in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania in order to extract huge concessions in workers’ retirement and healthcare benefits and working conditions, as well as to impose cutbacks in service standards for consumers.

FirstEnergy is demanding similar concessions from over 1,100 additional UWUA members at three other utility companies owned by the corporate giant throughout the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia.

According to the UWUA, the lockout of Penelec workers is part of a larger scheme by top FirstEnergy executives to roll back social benefits and working conditions for employees throughout the company, even as the corporation seeks to cut back on consumer services.  The locked out UWUA members are therefore on the frontlines of the union’s efforts to end the ongoing corporate assault against living standards for U.S. utility workers.

The UWUA has appealed for trade unions to condemn FirstEnergy’s anti-worker conduct by protesting directly to FirstEnergy CEO Tony Alexander and Senior Vice President Lynn Cavalier.

Please demand that these FirstEnergy executives immediately end the lockout of utility workers in Pennsylvania, and for the company to return to the bargaining table to negotiate in good faith for fair agreements for union workers at all FirstEnergy locations.

REPORT: IndustriALL leading the struggle for Bangladeshi garment workers

REPORT

Main Photo: Garment worker in Accord factory in Gazipur. Abir Abdullah

TEXT: Tom Grinter

Over 100 brands and retailers, covering over 2 million workers in 1,600 factories, are now working together with IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union. This broad coalition constitutes a critical mass of the garment sector. Together they have worked hard to set up the foundations to the Accord for the work on the ground in Bangladesh to be up and running by December 2013.

A number of key factors make this broad coalition new – its size; the seriousness of the legally binding commitments; and the central role of national and international trade unions. Trade unions as partners are the only actors able to ensure accountability and reliable monitoring of conditions and the inspection process. For too long the industry publicly relied on one-off safety audits in its factories, conducted by auditing companies that are created and funded by the brands themselves. Strong industrial relations in the industry can replace this model and conduct constant safety inspections in a context where workers are empowered to refuse dangerous work.

The work leading up to the Accord was made possible by the horrendous industrial disaster at Rana Plaza. On 24 April 2013 an eight-storey commercial building collapsed in Savar, a sub-district in the Greater Dhaka Area, the capital of Bangladesh. As the death toll mounted each day to a final 1,129 the world’s workers, consumers and media demanded change. The scale of Rana Plaza commanded systemic change, further than the usual call for local justice and strict sentencing of the local factory owner.

The industrial tragedy occurred at 9am, 24 April. The collapsed building, illegally constructed, contained five garment factories employing 5,000 workers. The five factories were Ether Tex, New Wave Bottoms, New Wave Style, Phantom Apparels and Phantom-TAC, producing for several well-known western brands.

On 23 April, the day before the collapse, large structural cracks appeared in the supporting pillars of Rana Plaza. But the building owner Sohel Rana and the garment factory owners ignored local authorities when they instructed a full evacuation. Workers were instead ordered to be at work early the following day in order to be at their workstations before the authorities arrived. A Rana Plaza garment worker had to work three days unpaid for every one workday missed, making workers reluctant to stay safe at home on 24 April. Managers at the Ether Tex factory threatened to withhold a month’s wages of any worker who stayed away on 24 April.
On the day of the factory collapse, IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina said:

This terrible tragedy highlights the urgency of putting a stop to the race to the bottom in supplying cheap means of production to international brands, a race in which hundreds of workers have lost their lives. Global clothing brands and retailers have a responsibility for their full production chains. Now it is time for them, suppliers and the Bangladeshi government to sit down with IndustriALL and its affiliates to agree on a safety program that will ensure this will never happen again.

Major brands joined, more are following

In a rapid response to the Rana Plaza disaster, IndustriALL worked in a supply chain alliance with UNI Global Union that represents the unionised retail and commerce workers at the brands and retailers in the global north, to build the Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. NGOs such as Clean Clothes Campaign, Workers’ Rights Consortium, Maquila Solidarity Network, and the International Labour Rights Forum, have also played an important role.

Two of the world’s largest clothing companies, H&M and Inditex, were the first brands to sign the Accord on 14 May. New company signatories are joining every week.

The Accord is a source of pride for IndustriALL Global Union that will always be remembered as the achievement from IndustriALL’s first year that announced to the world the power and ambition of this new trade union force,

says IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina.

Together we will make the Bangladeshi garment industry safe and sustainable.

Preliminary discussions have taken place regarding the future possibility of expanding the Accord to other countries and even to other industrial sectors. Bangladesh is unfortunately not the only country in the world where garment workers work in dangerous conditions for poverty wages. The Bangladesh Accord offers brands and retailers the opportunity to clean up their supply chain and avoid further reputational damage through other worker deaths. Successful coordination will lay the way
to similar work elsewhere.

A dangerous factory was identified in the supply chain of Accord signatory Tesco in June. The Liberty Fashions case was not handled through the Accord as it came before the Accord mechanisms were established. Tesco, one of the largest brands to have signed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, deserves much credit for its leading role in identifying the risk and cooperating with unions to ensure that workers were removed from harm’s way.

When Tesco’s inspection team discovered in June that factory 2 at Liberty Fashions was in an imminent danger of collapse, a process started to see whether the factory could be repaired and workers’ jobs saved. A number of brands and retailers worked together and secured the payment of the salaries and Eid bonuses of workers. Unfortunately, after discussions in London, factory owner Mr Huq failed to come up with a credible plan. Liberty has accumulated 18 million dollars of debt and is in serious danger of closure. Sean Ansett, the Accord interim director, conducted talks with the BGMEA and also met with trade union leaders Roy Ramesh and Amirul Amin. Liberty Fashions workers are at the time of writing demonstrating for their owed salaries from the factory owner and a solution is yet to be found.

The Liberty case was successful in terms of getting workers safely out of a dangerous factory where a disaster could have occurred at any time. Although the Liberty case was not conducted under the auspices of the Accord, the new level of coordination and cooperation created through the Accord had a positive influence on the process.

IndustriALL Global Union’s commitment to Bangladesh

In parallel to the work around implementing the Accord, IndustriALL action in Bangladesh is focussed around four other points, as committed to by the Executive Committee:

The IndustriALL Bangladesh Council (IBC) groups affiliated unions into unified action under its elected general secretary Roy Ramesh. There is an enormous potential for organizing and growth for the garment worker unions. IndustriALL will now facilitate this in a major organizing project funded partly by the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation, FNV.

IndustriALL has long supported the calls of its Bangladeshi affiliates for a rise in the minimum wage for the sector in line with a living wage. The IndustriALL Bangladesh Council (IBC) is united in its demand for an urgent increase in the minimum wage to well over US$100 per month from the current US$38. On 21 September 200,000 Bangladeshi garment workers mobilized for three days in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, calling for a living wage and strongly rejecting a derisory employers’ wage offer in negotiations.

Recent attention has focused on discussions inside the wage board created by the government to recommend an increased sector-wide minimum wage. IndustriALL has criticized the absence of a trade union representative on the wage board. One spark that ignited the mass worker demonstrations in September was the inadequate proposal submitted to this wage board from the BGMEA and BKMEA employers associations in the sector of 3,600 BDT per month, a raise of less than 20 per cent.

IBC general secretary Roy Ramesh stated:

The IBC has proposed to fix the minimum wages based on the Millennium Development Goals and
the cost of living which is equal to around US$120 per month.

Workers in the sector have directed their mobilizations’ anger in the industrial areas of Gazipur, Savar, Tejgaon, Ashulia, Mirpur, Uttara, Badda, Dhaka at the influential BGMEA and BKMEA as those blocking a significant increase.

Progress of the minimum wage board has been very slow, and the BGMEA still seems to wait until November-December before agreeing on a deal. They apparently want first to travel with the ministry of labour to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to study the question of a living wage, and they would like to be sure of the willingness of brands and retailers to pay fair prices. In IndustriALL’s recent talks with major brands such as Inditex, H&M and Primark, the brands have reiterated their clear commitment to higher minimum wages. Like many other brands they are willing to pay more, but so far there is no commitment from Walmart and its allies. Slow progress risks further unrest.
The campaign for labour law reform to make the Bangladeshi legislation ILO compliant is a vital priority. Anti-worker labour law has been a major barrier to organizing and collective bargaining. The reform process is strongly lobbied by national employers and international buyers, with constant pressure on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to keep workers’ rights at a minimum.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is leading the process to pressure the Bangladeshi government to enact proper labour law reforms. A high-level tripartite delegation of the ILO conducted an important mission in Dhaka on 1-4 May in the immediate aftermath of Rana Plaza. That mission set out an important ILO action plan including the following points:

Compensations – setting a standard for the future

Compensation is a difficult but important area of work that involves numerous actors. IndustriALL is taking the lead and was able to secure the ILO as neutral chair of the compensation process following the Rana Plaza and Tazreen tragedies. Although compensating the victims’ families and the injured workers of these industrial disasters is important in and of itself, the significance of this process is heightened by the possibility of setting a precedent for future deadly accidents.

IndustriALL has been pushing for a proposed compensation model in the negotiations with brands and retailers sourcing from Rana Plaza. There are variants of the model and a certain degree of flexibility. The priority is that a decent level of compensation be paid out as a matter of urgency, and that a mechanism and precedent can be established to avoid long delays in the future.

International experts have presented the negotiations with best practices for the establishment of a compensation fund, overseen by a multi-stakeholder committee, which could be created through an agreement by all the parties involved. A durable solution will need to be found in partnership with brands, ILO, the Bangladesh government, BGMEA, Bangladeshi unions and the NGOs. The sincere hope is for a solution to have been found by the time this publication goes to print.

A number of brands, such as Walmart and Gap, refused to come to the negotiating table, while others needed a push. So far British brand Primark has taken the lead in the response by ensuring that 3,630 families and injured will have received full six-month salaries until the end of October. Primark also made available their local banking infrastructure in Bangladesh to deliver any funds that are made available on an emergency basis.

Denouncing the absentees at the 11-12 September compensation talks in Geneva, IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary Monika Kemperle stated:

The disregard of the absent brands for the plight of workers in Bangladesh whose lives have been destroyed by the avoidable accidents at Tazreen and Rana Plaza is shocking in the extreme. Empty promises and direct untruths since the Tazreen fire and the Rana Plaza collapse all so that these Western multinationals can avoid making payments that amount to a minute percentage of turnover.

The bottom line in Bangladesh is that the multinationals can afford the small price of transforming the conditions in their supply chain. Without systemic change in each of these action areas workers will continue to toil in slave labour conditions, earning poverty wages, without the right to join a union. IndustriALL will continue to lead the fight to bring the changes that Bangladeshi workers need and deserve, and to make the industry safe and sustainable.

PROFILE: Merger in Canada creates super union

PROFILE

COUNTRY: Canada
UNION: Unifor

Text: Petra Brännmark
Photo: Jerry Dias, Unifor President, at founding convention in Toronto, 1 September 2013. Unifor

1 September 2013 saw the creation of Canada’s largest private sector union when IndustriALL’s Canadian affiliates CAW and CEP joined forces at a founding convention in Toronto to form Unifor. Unifor represents 300,000 members in a wide range of sectors including manufacturing, energy, forestry, services, telecommunications and transportation.

More than 2,500 elected delegates from the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) voted to create the new super union. The statutes received 96 per cent support from the founding convention. The convention elected Jerry Dias as national president, Peter Kennedy as secretary-treasurer and Michel Ouimet as Quebec director. Unifor’s executive board has 25 members, of which 44 per cent are women. That is well over women’s 28 per cent share of the membership.

Jerry Dias began his working life in 1978 at de Havilland Aircraft (now Bombardier Aerospace), and was elected shop steward later that year. He became the local president before moving to the national office in 1993 to coordinate the aerospace sector. Before he was elected president of Unifor, Dias was assistant to the CAW president.

We want a Canada that treats every person with decency, respect and security. A Canada that values the workers who produce the wealth, rather than devaluing and sacrificing us,

Dias said in his keynote speech.

Taking organizing policy to the next level

The convention adopted an innovative organizing policy. One new element is the introduction of “community chapters”. Through these community chapters new groups of workers may join Unifor even if they do not yet belong to a recognized bargaining unit. The new trade union has plans for structures to allow students, retirees and unemployed to become members. Unifor will dedicate 10 per cent of its income, or 10 million Canadian dollars, annually to organizing new members.

Unifor will carry on the tradition of social unionism of the CAW and the CEP. This political action means broad engagement in communities, participation in issue campaigns, and involvement in elections to raise issues and support to candidates who agree with them.
The convention gave a rousing farewell applause to CAW president Ken Lewenza and CEP president Dave Coles who both retired.
In his greeting, IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina praised the tradition of global solidarity provided by the founding organizations:

In a globalized world without borders, we need to work together more than ever. I am confident that Unifor will continue to support our sisters and brothers in Colombia, Mozambique and elsewhere.