Bangladesh safety accord welcomes 100 brand milestone

Woolworths Australia, GEBRA, Wünsche Group of Germany, became the latest brands to sign the Accord, which aims to make the garment industry safe and sustainable for years to come. 

The signatory brands have committed to making the changes garment workers need to improve factory safety. The Accord, a broad coalition of industry-leading brands with IndustriALL Global Union and UNI, covers more than 1,600 factories and over 2 million workers in Bangladesh. 

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina said, “This milestone comes as the world’s attention focuses once again on Bangladesh. Next week IndustriALL and UNI will mark the six month anniversary of the Rana Plaza tragedy. The strength of the Accord is growing and we, and all brand signatories, are committed to improving safety in Bangladesh’s factories.” 

All companies serious about conditions in their supply chain are joining this broad alliance to change the game for factory safety in Bangladesh. 

UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings added, “We are delighted to reach this landmark figure. With this support we can make a difference on the ground. We are sending a strong message to all the companies that stand outside of the Accord: sign up and get engaged.” 

The news came as a team from IndustriALL and UNI arrived in Bangladesh to prepare for the next phase of the implementation of the Accord. High-level talks involving unions, brands, government and employers will coincide with a week of action on safety and working conditions ahead of the six month anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse on 24th October. 

Various public demonstrations are planned including by those yet to find and identify the bodies of loved-ones lost at Rana Plaza. Another will see families calling for a fair compensation settlement as compensation negotiations continue on the international level, chaired by the ILO, convened by IndustriALL and supported by UNI. 

Here is the updated list of brands which have signed up to the Bangladesh Safety Accord:

Abercrombie & Fitch
Ahlens
Aldi South
Aldi North
American Eagle Outfitters
Arcadia Group
Auchan
Belotex
Benetton
Bestseller (CHB)
Bonmarche
Brands Fashion
C&A
Camaieu
Carrefour
Casion Global
Charles Vogele
Chicca
Comtex
Colombus Textilvertrieb GmbH
Coop Danmark
Cotton On
Dansk Supermarked
Datex
Debenhams
Distra
DK Company
El Corte Ingles
Ernsting’s Family
Esprit
Fashion Linq
Fat Face
Forever New
GEBRA
Groupe Casino
G-Star
H&M
Helly Hansen
Hema
Hemtex
Hess Natur-Textilien GMBH
Horizonte
IC Companys A/S
ICA Sverige
Inditex
JBC
Jogilo
John Lewis
Jolo Fashion
Juritex
K-Mart (Australia)
KappAhl
Karstadt
Kik
Klaus Herding GmbH
LC Waikiki
Leclerc
Lidl
Loblaw
Mango
Marks and Spencer
Matalan
Metro Group
Mothercare
Multiline Group
N Brown
New Look
Next
O’Neill Europe BV
Otto Group
Primark
Puma
PVH
PWT Group A/s (Texman)
REWE Group
River Island
s.Oliver
Sainsbury’s
Schmidt Group
Scoop NYC/Zac Posen
Sean John Apparel
Shop Direct Group
Speciality Fashions (Aust)
Stockmann
Switcher
Target (Australia)
Tchibo
Tesco
Topgrade International
Uncle Sam GmbH
UNIQLO
Van Der Erve
Vaner Group
Voice Norge AS
We Europe BV
Woolworths
Wünsche Group
Zeeman

Oil refinery workers union busted in Belarus

Yuri Shvets, BITU vice-president and chairman of the primary organization at “Mozyr Oil Refinery” and Vasili Alkhovsky, his deputy, started a hunger strike in reply to constant pressure on trade union members and their union. Due to the management pressure since 2008 some 467 workers were forced to withdraw their membership from the organization. This is almost one third of it.

The union leaders decided to go on hunger strike as the last resort measure after the management of the factory has recently fired five BITU members for minor disciplinary reasons while in the same time according to the union the management winks at similar or even more serious offences of workers who are not BITU members. The management refused to meet with the trade union leaders trying to get some clear explanations. This was the last drop that forced first Shvets and later Alkhovsky to go on hunger strike. Both leaders demand:

On 16 October union representatives were supposed to meet the leadership of the concern Belneftekhim, to which the Mozyr oil refinery is an affiliate. Unfortunately, the meeting was postponed and a civilised solution of the conflict hoped by the union is not there yet. The BITU leaders promised to apply all legally possible measures for protection of the fired workers. They decided to stop hunger strike for the time being.

Unite and Ineos talks end in walk-out

The dispute at Ineos, one of the major multinational companies manufacturing petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and oil products, in Scotland, has its background in the harassment and threats of sacking of a Unite the Union elected representative. Escalating over the past weeks, the parties finally sat down to try to resolve the conflict. But after several hours of negotiations, and on the brink of an agreement, Ineos representatives walked out of the talks in the early hours of 16 October. Unite had offered Ineos every proposal they could make but were met with a list of new demands, including one for an apology to Ineos Chairman Jim Ratcliffe.

According to Unite Scottish Secretary Pat Rafferty the apology was presented as a deal breaker:

“I have never come across anything like this in over thirty years of employment relations and it is utterly reprehensible. It is absolutely incredible that the future of this site, its workforce – both permanent and contracted employees – and the national interest has been totally compromised by one man's out of control ego.“

Unite the Union has responded by calling off all industrial action by guaranteeing not to go on strike during the negotiations to protect the Grangemouth site, which is an important asset for all the parties. Unite the Union is fully committed to avoiding any damage with cold shutdown to ensure fuel production and supply across Scotland, and the safety of the site and the surrounding areas.

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Jyrki Raina says:

“It is imperative that Ineos refrain from any irresponsible behaviour that would jeopardize the future of the Grangemouth site. IndustriALL Global Union calls on Ineos to follow Unite’s exemplary responsible behavior by returning to the negotiation table and giving full consideration to the unions’ legitimate demands.”

IndustriALL Global Union stands with Unite the Union and its members in Grangemouth, and fully supports their demands for a fair and just resolution of this vicious assault over the union convener, as well as its members. We are prepared to mobilize our member unions all over the world to launch a protest campaign targeting all subsidiaries and supply chains of Ineos and PetroChina.

Global solidarity paves way for trade unions in Turkey

After a long struggle, Tumtis has managed to obtain certification from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security as an eligible union for DHL Turkey Supply Chain staff. The announcement that DHL will not contest Tumtis’ success follows two-and-a-half years of hard work by the union, which initially met with resistance and obstruction by local DHL management.
 
Along with the ITUC and other global unions, IndustriALL Global Union has given substantial support to the campaign by putting pressure on suppliers, particularly in automotive and pharmaceuticals sectors. IndustriALL Global Union approached companies including Volkswagen and Novartis and the actions of solidarity helped TUMTIS to victory.
 
Tumtis thanked all those who had supported them in their struggle. The union mentioned that the victory is not just its own, but a product of collective struggle and international solidarity.
 
“Under the difficult legal framework in Turkey, the only way for union organizing can be through global union solidarity” said IndustriALL Global Union’s Assistant General Secretary Kemal Özkan. “The victory of DHL workers is an excellent example on how to move forward.”
    
Read more on Tumtis' two-and-a-half-year struggle and the resounding international solidarity on www.respectatdhlturkey.org
 
 

Turkish mine and energy workers march against privatization

In a series of joint actions over the past months, mine and energy workers in Yatagan, Yeniköy and Kemerköy thermal power plants have been campaigning against privatization of their workplaces. 

In mid October, 200 miners and power plant workers launched their march  in Yatagan, a mining county of the Mugla province. They walked a long route via Aydın, İzmir, and Afyon towards Ankara. In every city along the way the marchers stopped for local actions as well as press conferences. The events were supported by the local communities and trade unions.
 
When arriving in Ankara the marching mine and energy workers knocked on the door of the Turkish Parliament. Workers, together with leaders of Maden-Is and Tes-Is, publicly expressed their concerns and demands to the political representatives about the privatization. Both unions underlined their determination for continuing the campaign until future of the mines and power stations is secured.
 

U.S. workers protest against closure of GE plant

The workers and representing them Local 332 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), a U.S. affiliate of IndustriALL are worried that the closure of the capacitor plant and its transfer to Florida will have catastrophic consequences for 200 employees, their families and even more harmful to the local community through destruction of local businesses working with GE and leaving many more people without income.

However, this is not the only concern of the workers and their union, GE leaves a very bad environnemental heritage to the Fort Edward community.

According to the union from 1940s to 1970s the GE Fort Edward plant has poured some 1.3 million pounds of highly-toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River. The GE has tried to escape the responsibility for the damages and currently a multi-year project to clean the river is taking place. The consequences are still impacting both the environment and people’s health.

Commenting on the closure Scott Gates said, “It would be a gross injustice to all the people of our region and of New York State, for GE to take away these jobs and leave us nothing but polluted land and a poisoned river. GE owes us much more. At a minimum, GE has an obligation to keep these jobs here.”

IndustriALL expressed its full solidarity support to the Fort Edward plant workers, their families and local communities. In his letter to Local 332 members Jyrki Raina said, “We strongly believe that General Electric has a social responsibility to protect the livelihood of General Electric employees and its 200 families in the community. Furthermore, General Electric should strictly abide by EPA’s regulations concerning the clean up of hazardous waste sites, including the dumping of millions of gallons of PCBs into the Hudson River. General Electric must take full responsibility for the harmful impact of its actions on the environment and human health.”

Mexico Actions

On 8 and 9 October in Mexico City, protests were held in the framework of the World Day for Decent Work, outside the corporate headquarters of Grupo Modelo AB IN-BEV, showing the struggle of workers and the union's strength on the demands to reinstate workers since 2008.

Regional commitment to sustainable industrial policy grows

Meeting in Montevideo, Uruguay on October 16-17, affiliates from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay discussed how IndustriALL affiliates can work together to influence governments and industry at national and regional level.

The meeting was joined by two representatives from the Uruguayan Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mines. Lucia Pitaluga, responsible for industry policy, emphasized the importance of union participation in the sector boards which discuss industry-specific plans while Alicia Torres, responsible for environmental issues, outlined the responsibilities of the different actors, workers, companies and governments and the need for involvement of ministries of environment and labour, not just industry ministries.

Participants discussed the need for greater regional integration of state policies, particularly on tax and social and environmental planning, and for further development of productive complementarity to add value locally and increase employment. There was agreement of the need to strengthen the role of IndustriALL in the region to influence governments and corporations and for IndustriALL to be a visible presence in delegations to governments to explain this work. Political will from governments is crucial and affiliates agreed to work together towards Mercosur and Unasur to secure this.

An IndustriALL strategic plan should be developed for the region, incorporating concrete actions plans for lobbying on sustainable industrial policy. Priority sectors were identified as mining, energy, pulp and paper, metal, steel, textiles, chemicals, and electronics. As a first step, the Chilean unions will hold a mining and metalworkers open forum  in December to which government and business will be invited.  The plan will be to host similar events in each country.

The South Asian workshop held in Delhi, India on September 26-27 was notable for being the first meeting of unions in India on industrial policy which was previously assumed to be prerogative of government and industry.

The workshop was mainly attended by affiliates from India with representatives also from Nepal and Sri Lanka. In recognition of the importance of working together with national centres, several Indian confederations also joined the meeting. IndustriALL Executive Committee member Sanjeeva Reddy emphasized the importance of the issue to the national centres and reported that the IndustriALL discussion paper had been circulated and discussed by 9,000 delegates at the INTUC congress.

He went on to state that the challenges involved go beyond ideological differences between unions and that industrial growth has no meaning without addressing unemployment, poverty, inequality. The next step will be to make sustainable industrial policy a joint demand of the national centres of India which have now been working together on common issues for several years. 

Inputs to the debate were also made by the Indian Minister of Coal, the ILO and a number of local experts, including Prof. Lawrence Surendra from The Sustainability Platform which seeks to bring together the 3 pillars of unions, government and industry in order to progress sustainability issues.

Participants concluded that there is significant scope for unions to work together in India to promote sustainable industrial policy to government and industry. They will continue to work closely with the IndustriALL regional office to develop concrete plans and strategies.

Honda workers meet in Mexico City

Jose Luis Solorio, the dismissed General Secretary of STUHM, explained how the independent union was first formed to demand an improvement of working conditions at the assembly plant, to negotiate increase in wages and demand improved OHS preventive measures.

“I worked for over 10 years in Honda de Mexico without ever seeing a union representative, and without any mechanism to negotiate or dialogue with management. The several CTM unions and SETEAMI union and employer protection contract only appeared once STUHM came out publicly, then management informed us that the collective agreement had been signed.”

Luis Gerardo Rodriguez Luna, one of the workers dismissed in April, explained how the company exerted permanent surveillance and pressure on the workers to resign from the independent union. In his case threatening workers with dismissal if they were found leafleting in the plant.

The representative of JAW asked very detailed questions regarding the dismissal of the whole Executive Board of STUHM, the unfortunate death of Armando Araña at the Honda plant, the work stoppage in April 2013 and subsequent dismissal of 11 workers in April, as well as regarding the problems of intimidation and harassment denounced by STUHM. An update on the legal situation and several technical aspects of the complex legal system was provided by Pati Juan Pineda from FAT, who assists STUHM.

As Helmut Lense, IndustriALL Director for the Automotive and Rubber sector highlighted: “ We warmly encourage and welcome this frank and open discussion between representatives of Honda workers from Mexico and Japan. It marks a first very important step to hopefully resolve the problems in the Honda plant in Jalisco, Mexico.”

The JAW representative said ‘‘It is greatly meaningful that Japanese union representatives listened to the voice of STUHM members, in order to meet Honda management from now on and seek for solutions’’.

IndustriALL-FO Final Workshop 'Training of Trainers'

The Ukrainian delegation was led by Valery Gavrilenko, assistant president of the union. During his opening speech he said that 80 per cent of union activists who took part in 'training of trainers' workshop now conduct workshops themselves. The participants presented the workshops they held and then discussed the difficulties, shared experiences and teaching techniques.

The delegation visited Peugeot plant in Poissy, which produces cars under Peugeot and Citroen brands. The participants learned about all the phases of production and then met “Force Ouvrière” activists from the plant. While in Paris, Ukrainian activists also visited the Eiffel tower, which has its own “Force Ouvrière” local union.

Closing the workshop, Frederique Gomez, FO general secretary, confirmed his intention to continue partnership with IndustriALL in organizing training seminars for CIS unions in different forms. Those participants who completed the two-year training course received certificates in Russian and French.