Families hold candlelit vigil at Rana Plaza site six months on

The families were joined at the site of the former factory by survivors as well as national trade unions, IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union.

Rana Plaza, a structurally flawed building containing five garment factories and seven floors came down on 24th April, killing 1,129 people. More than 300 bodies are still to be identified, whilst thousands of workers have suffered injuries. 

In the aftermath of the disaster, IndustriALL and UNI signed an agreement with international brands committing to transform the safety of the Bangladeshi garment industry. In a world first, 103 brands have signed the Accord, and 1600 garment factories are covered by new safety regulations. 

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina said, “We are lighting candles to remember more than a thousand lights that went out on this day six months ago.

“Tomorrow, with renewed vigour, we will strive to put the processes in place to ensure the safety of millions of garment workers in Bangladesh.”

UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said, “Today, we remember each of the 1,129 people who died six months ago. We stand united with families at this site, which has come to symbolise all that is wrong with the business practices of so many rich global brands. 

“The Accord now covers more than 1600 factories and will provide safety for millions of workers. This new dawn rose out of these ruins, and we will never forget it.”

UNI and IndustriALL are shocked that after six months Primark is the only brand to have paid anything to the victims. Primark worked with local trade unions, organised through the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council (IBC), to establish the mechanism for distribution of compensation payments to over 3,600 workers and families.

Russian chemical workers forced to join yellow union

According to the RCWU since last year there are two union organizations operating at the facilities of the company, one is RCWU, representing chemical workers in Russia since a long time, and the other one, is a recently created structure announced as part of a ‘Trade Union No. 1’. The workers at the enterprise say the latter is the project of the administration, which started a full campaign aimed to move workers from their genuine union to the yellow or how they call it “pocket” union.

The workers are now subject to a constant pressure. According to Vladimir Morozov, chairman of the RCWU local, the technical director received a clear order to move all workers of the plant “Monomer”, one of the factories owned by the company, to the management controlled yellow union. Failure to fulfil the order would qualify for “inconsistency with job” and subsequently meaning dismissal. 

RCWU believes the conflict is due to the intent of the management to introduce some unpopular decisions including removal of compensatory payments for harmful working conditions, as well as shift from five to four-team based schedule of work, meaning new redundancies and increased working hours for the remaining workers. RCWU would never agree to the proposal while “yellow” union is certainly easier to manipulate. 

According to the RCWU despite extreme psychological pressure many workers keep on paying their affiliation fees directly to their genuine union, so as to avoid being exposed to the management through the check-off system, their only request is to be anonymous. Vladimir Morozov is denied access to the territory of the enterprise, the financial department does not provide him with any documentation required for operation of the union and stopped accepting all applications of RCWU members for deduction of union dues through check-off system. 

The Federation of Independent Unions of Russia and RCWU addressed to the board of directors of Gazprom, the parent company, informing them of violations of workers’ rights at Gazprom enterprises to freely choose their union. They got a cynical reply stating that according to Gazprom  knowledge, “there was no confirmation of the facts expressed in the letter”, and everything is about a fight for members between two trade unions. 

The investigation of the public prosecutor’s office of the city of Salavat however found evidence of violation of workers’ rights at the enterprise.

IndustriALL is shocked with the arbitrariness happening in Bashkortostan at JSC Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat and sent a letter to Director General of JSC Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat as well as to Deputy chairman of the board of directors of OAO Gazprom demanding proper investigation and correction of the situation in their company. 

JSC Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat is specialized in production and sale of oil refinery, gas and chemical, and monomer products in the Russian Federation.

Six months after Rana Plaza – Brands must pay compensation NOW

IndustriALL and UNI, the two global unions jointly working to make the garment industry in Bangladesh safe and sustainable, will stand with survivors and families of the dead at Rana Plaza today for a candlelit vigil at sundown. The two unions are shocked that still after six months Primark is the only brand to have paid anything to the victims.

Primark worked with local trade unions, organised through the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council (IBC), to establish the mechanism for distribution of compensation payments to over 3,600 workers and families. The method of payment, through bKash, cuts out any middleman and has the full endorsement of Rana Plaza workers.

IndustriALL Global Union general secretary Jyrki Raina focuses on the Accord as the way to ensure that lasting change to the industry will be the legacy of the tragedy of Rana Plaza:

 “All actors in the supply chain in Bangladesh agree that the enormous scale of the devastation at Rana Plaza gave all involved the historic chance to fix the industry’s safety problems. The Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh answers that call. The next five years will see the Accord regularly reporting success stories of factory repairs and improvements.”

UNI Global Union general secretary Philip Jennings continued:

“The Accord will continue to be the central engine maintaining the momentum for safety reform. The only way factory safety can be monitored and verified is with worker involvement, this international industrial relations agreement is built on this sentiment.”

The stance of the buyers to compensation has been varied, some refuse to engage, others vehemently deny a connection and some deny responsibility because their production ended some time ago or was outsourced to Rana Plaza without their knowledge.

Meanwhile, two committees established by the High Court in Bangladesh have proposed levels of compensation for the Rana Plaza victims almost identical to the workers’ demand, reflected in the IndustriALL/CCC/WRC proposal, of 1.8 million BTK (US$23,000) per family of the deceased.

As talks continue on the international level, survivors and victims’ families at Rana Plaza today remember their loved ones and all ask the same question: When will we finally receive compensation for our loss?

Nissan workers denied right to organize

A report by international labour law scholar Lance Compa and the Mississippi NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) describes how Nissan violates international human rights standards of workers who want to organize and bargain collectively. Workers at the plant have been told to participate in round table meetings held by management where the message is clear, through talks and videos – if you form a union in the US, the plant will close. When workers point out that this does not happen at other Nissan plants around the world, the answer is “in the US union closes plants”.

Sheila Wilson, is a technician at the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, and says that threats also include a pay decrease.

“We as workers are asking for a fair trade union election without intimidation from the management.”

“Nissan is not living up to the standards of worker treatment enshrined in International Labour Organisation, ILO, core labour standards, UN human rights principles and other international norms. It also belies Nissan´s own public commitments to honour international standards through its memebership in the United Nations Global Compact,” says Lance Compa. “Workers´ descriptions of how they are treated behind the walls of the massive Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, affirm that Nissan is systematically interfering with the internationally recognized right to form a union.”

Sheila tells of ten-hour shift, six days a week. For the temporarily employed the working hours are twelve hours a day, seven days a week. And up until an hour before the end of a shift, workers can be told to work extra hours. These long and taxing shifts have a huge impact on family life. Workers struggle to balance work and family and divorce rates are soaring. 

“We can´t manage that balancing act,” Sheila continues. “And last week, without any discussion, we were informed that we would have to work night and weekend shifts as well. It strongly affects the children and there are a lot of health issues. It is not a safe way to be.”

Cassandra Welchlyn is on the board of the Mississippi All for fairness at Nissan. The organization was formed two years ago, as a response to the effect Nissan had on the local community in Canton.

“When Nissan arrived in Canton a little over a decade ago expectations were high that they would treat their workers correctly. And we still expect that”, Cassandra says. “The civil rights struggle in Mississippi has taught us that you can´t silently stand by when people´s rights are violated. The Mississippi workers are denied the right to organize; a fundamental human and international right.”

The Nissan plant at Canton produces 300 cars per shift, and there are three eight-hour shifts per day. And yet workers’ pensions were recently removed. Sheila Wilson earns 23 dollars/hour; including her latest pay increase in six years of 50 cents/hour. Temporary workers earn even less; 12,50 dollars per hour, and they have no health benefits. Work related accidents have increased, and workers have been fired for their injuries, only to be replaced by cheaper, temporary workers.

Says Sheila Wilson:

“We are asking Nissan to allow for a free trade union election without intimidation and without violating international labour law. We will continue to spread this message around the world: Nissan, please respect us and our rights as workers.”

IndustriALL Global Union supports the plight of the workers at Nissan´s plant in Canton, Mississippi.

“Our role is to ensure that everyone has a free choice to join a union. We stand by the workers and fully support their claims for internationally recognized labour rights such as the right to organize and to collective bargaining,” says Secretary General Jyrki Raina.

Scottish workers continue to fight against Ineos for their future

Towards the end of last week, Ineos shamefully gave workers with a ‘sign or be sacked’ ultimatum to slash jobs, pay and pensions with a deadline by 6pm Monday 21 October. As a response, Unite the Union urged Grangemouth workers not to give in to Ineos’ ‘menacing’ tactics to sign away their rights since this would create a two tier workforce and strip away collective rights. Unite also questioned the legality of the company’s actions and vowed not to allow workers being ‘menaced’ into signing away their livelihoods.

In the meantime, Unite the Union called again on Ineos to abandon its plans to impose detrimental new terms on its Grangemouth workforce and instead to reopen the plant and return to mediated negotiations to secure the site's future. At the Acas talks, Unite committed to conducting no industrial action ballots or industrial action before 31 December 2013.

Unite the Union also called on the anti-avoidance arm of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to investigate the tax affairs of the Ineos Group amid concerns that the company's arrangements ‘obfuscate the true position of Ineos' UK activities’. The formal request followed questions about apparent accounting contradictions in Ineos’ ‘Chemical’ accounts which simultaneously paint both a gloomy and upbeat assessment of the company's finances and future profitability.  
 
The Grangemouth workers and their union, together with local politicians, communities and supporters from across Scotland organized a demonstration and rally on Sunday, October 20 to urge Ineos to get the plant working and drop their tactics of intimidation. The demonstration appealed to the community and the Scottish people to support the Grangemouth workforce, warning that Ineos bosses risk destroying good Scottish jobs as they hold the country to ransom through their irresponsible behaviour.

At the end of the so-called deadline given by INEOS, 665, over 65 per cent (out of 80 per cent of the workforce represented by Unite) have rejected the company’s cynical attempt to intimidate the workforce. Unite the Union then urged the company back to ACAS talks since the resounding rejection of the company’s cynical blackmail sent a clear message to INEOS.

Along with this, INEOS has contracted a PR firm which advertises itself as having “extensive experience of dealing with crisis situations including industrial disputes, fatal accidents, profit warnings, child labour, product failures, customer service issues, redundancies and restructuring”. The firm has been running what the Unite union described as a `campaign of fear' designed to terrify the 1,400 strong workforce into believing that the site is on the verge of collapse, despite a buoyant energy market, in order to force through swingeing cuts to their pay, jobs and pensions.

Enough is enough

said Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union.

Our global union family, particularly our affiliates in the countries where INEOS has operations, will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Grangemouth workers and their union Unite.

IndustriALL calls all its affiliates to take action and send letters of protest to INEOS through the take action box on the right.

Fatal accident at Swedish steel plant

The two men were employed by a subcontractor, and on site to empty a cistern of tar as part of maintenance work carried out every six years. The men tragically fell into the cistern of tar and were later found dead.

The president of Swedish union IF Metall, and IndustriALL affiliate, Anders Ferbe says:

 “In the wake of yet another terrible accident, we feel for the families of the deceased. We can not tolerate a situation where people are risking their lives at work.”

Fatal accidents in the workplace are ultimately the responsibility of the employer, and in the last years the Swedish government has decreased support for preventive health and safety measures in the workplace.

Anders Ferbe continues:

”We now see the effects of more lax health and safety measures. We have zero tolerance for fatal accidents at work.”

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Jyrki Raina says:

”It is deep tragedy that the two men have died at work. We extend our condolances to their families. It is also tragic that people still die at work at the end of 2013. Health and safety are paramount and should never be compromised.”

Turkish and Canadian workers together call on Crown to stop busting

IndustriALL Global Union’s affiliate United Metalworkers’ Union (Birlesik Metal-Is) launched an organizing campaign at Crown operations in Turkey last year. After many difficulties in recruitment period, in November 2012 Ministry of Labour issued a certificate making the union eligible for collective bargaining negotiations.

As it is widely used tactic by employers in Turkey in order to destroy union organizing, Crown Holdings immediately challenged this certification at the local labour court by stalling the process since this kind of cases in Turkey last long periods.

Later, the local court finalized the judiciary process in the first half of this year by ruling valid the certificate issued by the Ministry of Labour in favour of Birlesik Metal-Is. However, the company management took the verdict of the local court to the Court of Cassation in Ankara. Turkish Crown workers cannot enjoy their fundamental rights for around two years. In the meantime, independent audits made at Crown operations have exposed violations of fundamental rights.

“In spite of all pressure and intimidation by Crown management, workers have chosen to have a union and the Ministry of Labour recognized Birlesik Metal-Is as the authorized union which Crown cannot pretend not to see,” said Adnan Serdaroglu, President of the Turkish Union. “Even though Crown tries to stall our bargaining process using anti-labour legislation, we do believe that workers will win, not just here in Turkey, but also in Canada and elsewhere in the world”.

“As a striking worker since the beginning of September, I am proud to see such worldwide actions,” said Mike Cruttenden, USW, who attended the demonstration in Baar, Switzerland on 18 October. “Crown management must hear this rising voice of the workers worldwide.”

“We congratulate our affiliates USW and Birlesik Metal-Is for their solidarity and joint actions against Crown Holdings” said Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary. “IndustriALL Global Union will go forward with such actions worldwide until our members win.”

Russian autoworkers celebrate victory at Antolin

According to the ITUA the strike started on 15 October after a long going bargaining, in which the management chose the tactics of procrastination and finally stoppage of the negotiations in a unilateral way in the beginning of September.

The main workers demands included increase of wages above inflation rate, improvement of working conditions, higher rate for night shift work, payment of compensations for harmful working conditions.

The union tried to renew the negotiations through a ‘work-to-rule’ action in the beginning of September. The two-day action however did not bring the employer to the table of negotiations and having exhausted all other legal means the union decided for an industrial action.

Despite psychological pressure, the management even called the riot police to be present during the strike, workers remained united and resolute. The night shift stopped the work at 22:45 and the strikers announced they would not leave the territory of the plant until their demands are met.

The strike brought management back to negotiations, which started at 6 pm on 16 October and finished almost four and half hours later. The negotiations resulted in a signed agreement among others including the clauses on:

Plastic parts production facility in St. Petersburg is part of the Spanish Grupo Antolin, major supplier of automotive companies. The plant in Saint Petersburg employs about 150 workers. Approximately half of them are members of ITUA.

Rana Plaza survivors encouraged by Bangladesh Accord

In a visit to the site of the tragedy, in which 1,129 workers lost their lives six months ago, representatives from IndustriALL and UNI, the two global unions that drove the accord, spoke to survivors and explained the series of new commitments, to which over 100 global brands have now signed.

At the site of the tragedy, families held pictures aloft of their loved ones still to be traced. Many told stories of what happened to them on 24th April this year.

Runa Rani was working in Rana Plaza when the building went down. She lost her eighteen year old daughter in the collapse and is yet to trace the body.

“We were forced to join work by our supervisor. We had been worried about a crack in the building but our supervisor said he had checked it and it was OK. After half an hour in the factory, the electricity cut out. Immediately after they started the generator, the building collapsed,” she said.

“I fell from the fourth floor. I lost consciousness and woke up four hours later. I have not seen my daughter since.”

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina said, “It is stories like Runi’s that maintain our unwavering resolve to bring justice for the workers of Rana Plaza and throughout the garment sector in Bangladesh.”

Compensation negotiations are continuing on the international level, chaired by the ILO, convened by IndustriALL and supported by UNI. Whilst Primark has lead the way by paying six months worth of wages to families, the payments run out this month and all other brands are still to follow suit.

UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings said, “These families will never forget what happened at Rana Plaza six months ago and neither will we.

“That’s why UNI and IndustriALL implemented the Accord, why 100 brands have now signed up, and why we will stand united with the workers on the six month anniversary of this terrible tragedy.”

October 24th will mark six months since the Rana Plaza collapse. Various public demonstrations are planned including by families seeking a fair compensation settlement. Many of the survivors have suffered major injuries including lost limbs and are unable to work. Many of those killed were the sole money earners in their family.

IndustriALL and UNI will mark the anniversary with workers in Bangladesh. Top-level talks involving unions, brands, government and employers, will coincide with a week of action on safety and working conditions.

Precarious Work in Rio Tinto Operation in Madagascar

No fair settlement has been reached for 300 dismissed workers after the sudden termination, by Rio Tinto in Madagascar, of the contract with a subcontractor last July. As a matter of solidarity for these precarious workers, and following the letter IndustriALL sent to Sam Walsh on this issue on 20 August, IndustriALL Global Union has written another protest letter to Sam Walsh, CEO of Rio Tinto, on the occasion of the World Decent Work Day on 7 October.

IndustriALL expressed serious concerns over the mass dismissal at Rio Tinto operation in Madagascar at QMM and the impact of this action on the workers and the community. 

On behalf of IndustriALL Global Union and its Rio Tinto Global Union Network, I urge you as the Chief Executive Officer to enter into a meaningful and genuine dialogue with the trade unions and government authorities to address the dreadful situation of the dismissed workers, and to comply with both national labour laws and international labour standards. 

said Jyrki Raina, IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary.

In July 2013, QMM ended its contract with the security company OMEGA Risk Solutions. QMM opted instead to hire two cheaper companies, naming cuts in operation costs as the reason for terminating the contract. Rio Tinto’s termination of OMEGA Risk Solutions’ contract resulted in the collective dismissal of 300 workers, terminated with only one month’s notice. IndustriALL Global Union’s affiliate, FISEMA, tried, but with no success, to engage in social dialogue with QMM to deal with the disregard for social planning commitments for the dismissed workers. 

For more on this case see full article here