General Strike in Turkey against Government’s continuous brutal violence

The peaceful demonstrations since 31 May in Istanbul and other Turkish cities continue to face excessive brutal violence by police forces. Coordinated by the group called “Taksim Solidarity” composed of 117 different constituents, including trade unions, the grass-root actions started with peaceful sit-ins to save the famous Gezi Park from being destroyed and turned into yet another shopping mall or so-called historical Artillery Barracks, or a city museum.

Under rampant pressure from civil society, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with representatives of the platform several times, the last time being on Friday morning, and the spokesperson for the government stated that they would respect the final court decision which already suspended execution of the Municipality’s decision to construct a shopping mall in Gezi Park, and conduct a referendum if the final verdict would say otherwise. Following the meeting with the Prime Minister, Taksim Solidarity called on all constituents to meet at Gezi Park to discuss the meeting and decide on how to move forward. It was finally decided on Saturday, 15 June, that the struggle in the park will continue until the demands are met.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Erdogan gave an ultimatum to the demonstrators to evacuate Gezi Park within 24 hours; otherwise the government would do the necessary. On Saturday night, contrary to early announcements, police forces came to the park, blocking all roads to Taksim Square, and began to attack the crowd with water cannons and tear gas fired by tanks. They charged into the park which was shrouded under white clouds of gas. While the news spread out, people of Istanbul took to the streets, on both the Asian and the European sides of the city, and began to walk towards Taksim, in large groups that blocked highway traffic. Police continued to gas bomb enclosed spaces, such as hotels and field hospitals.

The excessive violence resulted in deaths and injuries of many people. While 55 people have severe injuries, 91 are suffering from head trauma, and there are five people in critical condition in Ankara, Istanbul, and Eskisehir. Fifteen people have lost an eye, and one person had to have a spleen removal. According to the Association of Turkish Doctors, “a total of 7,478 people in 13 provinces have applied to public or private hospitals, medical centers, or makeshift clinics set-up close to conflict areas”.

Also concerning is that thousands of people have been taken into custody, and the whereabouts are unknown for many of demonstrators since police took them without giving any proper information. In all cities millions of people poured into the streets demanding the resignation of the government. The number of people to have joined this mobilization is estimated to be almost 10 million by the press but the figure may be higher. The Government halts any mobilization towards Gezi Park, and is labelling demonstrators as “marginal, illegal groups" and even “terrorists”.

On 16 June, five major trade union centers and professional organizations, DİSK (Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions), KESK (Public Employees Unions’ Confederation), TMMOB (Turkish Union of Chambers of Engineers and Architects), TTB (Turkish Association of Doctors) and TDB (Turkish Association of Dentists) decided to go on general strike to protest the government’s repressive attacks on peaceful demonstrations that clearly violate fundamental rights.

IndustriALL Global Union sent a letter of protest to the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and a letter of solidarity to the President of DİSK.

To Prime Minister Erdogan, Raina wrote:

It is with deep outrage that we have followed the violent crack-down by your government on peaceful protestors since 31 May. This brutally authoritarian reaction from your government has been broadcast all over the world and IndustriALL members everywhere are disgusted and increasingly concerned about the safety of their fellow workers in Turkey.

To the DISK General President, Raina wrote:

IndustriALL Global Union continues to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the grass-root mobilizations conducted by widely-attended civic society platform, including trade unions, since late May. 

IndustriALL supports international appeal of Hyundai Unions

In a joint letter to the Korean-based company, the Korean, German and Czech trade unions told the company’s board:

Hyundai Company’s Core Values clearly state that your company supports a culture of a cooperative relationship with the employees and a respectful approach in a global context.
Unfortunately, we, the Unions with members in Hyundai companies, have to note that Hyundai’s management globally violates repeatedly these core values by trying to undermine the rights of their employees and their legitimate employees’ representative bodies at many of the sites. Furthermore, these serious violations are accompanied by management’s illegal methods aimed at overriding the rightful decisions by the employees’ representatives.

The unions specifically demanded that Hyundai begins to respect national and international law, begins to respect labour standards especially recognizing trade unions, and demanded immediate discussions toward establishing a Global Framework Agreement.

IndustriALL Global Union’s General Secretary Jyrki Raina wrote to Hyundai CEO Mr. Mong-Koo Chung, conveying IndustriALL’s support for the three unions’ demands:

In order to achieve the full implementation of internationally recognized workers’ rights at Hyundai, we urge you to sit down with workers’ representatives to start a meaningful dialogue towards the establishment of a Global Framework Agreement.

STOP Precarious Work Materials

Precarious Work video (English)

If you wish to use or translate IndustriALL's STOP Precarious Work video please contact: [email protected] we can send the entire video and also the transcripts in English to facilitate translation.

Leaflets

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Together we can STOP Precarious Work

On 7 October all IndustriALL affiliates are strongly encouraged to join the global union fight against the spread of precarious work.  “Let’s show the world that we will not stand by and watch as precarious work destroys our hard-won employment rights” said Jyrki Raina, IndustriALL General Secretary.

Unions all over the world are in the frontlines of the battle against precarious work. Companies are replacing their full-time workforces with temporary, part-time, agency and on-call workers at an alarming rate. Governments are bringing in legislation that makes it easier for companies to rely on precarious forms of employment rather than employing a stable and secure workforce.

Global mobilization by affiliates is an important component of IndustriALL’s STOP Precarious Work campaign, bringing visibility to the problem and strengthening efforts on the ground. It enables affiliates to link their struggles at national level to a global campaign and encourages more unions to take up the fight. Importantly, mass action by affiliates strengthens IndustriALL’s position in challenging the global institutions (ILO, OECD, IMF), MNCs and governments on precarious work.

IndustriALL has produced a short two-minute video to promote this mobilization. Feel free to use the video to promote the campaign and encourage members to take action.

The video can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUTYLMAcv4E). If you wish to receive a copy please contact [email protected]

A new leaflet has also been produced, focusing on union battles with governments and employers to stop the rampant spread of precarious work. You can find the leaflet as well as the campaign poster to download and print here (http://www.industriall-union.org/stop-precarious-work-materials-2013 ).

We can incorporate additional languages into the design of both the poster and the leaflet if you send us your translation of the text to [email protected], and also add your union logo if you choose. Also available on the site is artwork that you can use to produce stickers and t-shirts (http://www.industriall-union.org/stop-precarious-work-materials-2013 ).

IndustriAll constitutes Women’s Committee

The following work program was adopted to be pursued until the next Congress:

In addition the integration of the gender perspective in other ongoing work has to be reinforced such as in the precarious work campaign. Precarious work is a fundamental issue where women are clearly the most affected.

The work program emerged on the basis of the action program adopted at the 2012 Congress as well as the Executive Committee’s program of activities. Moreover the two regional conferences held up to now in Singapore and Buenos Aires also developed their priorities which have been integrated into the work program. These efforts are important because the regional structures need to feed into the international structures.

In addition to the women who are members and substitutes of the Executive Committee, affiliates are also welcome to send members to attend the Women’s Committee on a regular basis.

Women and gender issues must be included at all IndustriALL meetings and conferences. And furthermore the women in IndustriALL must create networks in order to stay in permanent contact with each other.

It was decided that the Women’s Committee will meet before each Executive Committee meeting. Thus the next meeting will be 3 December in Tunis. The members of the Women’s Committee should send in by 1 October 2013 their suggestions for campaign themes as well as for activities for 2014 to Carol Bruce, IndustriALL’s Director for the Women’s Section at [email protected].

Finally, the women were reminded that IndustriALL will organize a World Women’s Conference in 2015. Those organizations interested in hosting the conference should make themselves known to the Secretariat as soon as possible.

Campaign for workers’ rights continues in Bangladesh

The process leading to the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh was not easy. Still in March, as the world’s ten leading clothing brands and retailers accepted the invitation of IndustriALL Global Union to come and discuss in Geneva, there was an amazing level of complacency among them. I saw no sense of urgency, despite the deadly factory fires and building collapses in the past.

Then the Rana Plaza building came down on 24 April. Again, the first days of rescue work and death toll reports produced no change. Only after the tragic magnitude and circumstances around this industrial homicide attracted an unprecedented global public and media reaction, clothing brands and retailers started to feel the heat.

It was then, in the early days of May, when IndustriALL Global Union and our sister international UNI Global Union told the clothing brands that we would not accept anything but a legally binding agreement for producing a lasting change. After hectic negotiations, hope and despair, intrigues and watering down attempts, Sweden’s H&M and Spain’s Inditex opened the way and announced on 13 May that they would sign. All the others followed.

Well, not all. We knew that US retail giant Walmart was never going to sign anything with unions. With another US company GAP we tried hard, but the management finally said they could not accept paying for the necessary safety upgrades.

The good news is that with 50 companies on board and more joining every day, we now have the critical mass for producing a real change on the ground during the years to come. A joint union-company team is putting together an Implementation Plan by 8 July. Then inspections and trainings of management and workers will start.

One of our major challenges is to convince the Bangladeshi garment owners that the days of contempt for human life are over. We are just working on a case where an inspection team of brands found a factory with an imminent danger of collapse. Shockingly, the owner refused to evacuate the workers, claiming the building was safe. The brands immediately terminated their business relationship with the factory.

We will face difficult decisions when going through Bangladesh’s 5,000 garment factories which employ four million workers. But IndustriALL wants the brands and retailers to stay in the country and provide safe and good quality jobs.

However, the Bangladeshi garment industries will only become sustainable when the workers have the right to freely set up unions, earn a living wage and work without fear of getting killed.

We are now pushing for a labour law reform to guarantee freedom of association. The Bangladesh unions have rejected the government’s proposal as inadequate. IndustriALL will work with the ITUC and the ILO to continue to put pressure on the political decision-makers.

Also the minimum wage needs to be raised from 38 USD per month step by step to reach a living wage by 2015. The consumer reaction has been clear. They are prepared to pay the few extra cents per t-shirt required to get rid of what Pope Francis called “slave labour”.

Jyrki Raina

General Secretary

Bangladeshi unions reject inadequate labour law changes

At the end of May, the Executive Committee of IndustriALL Global Union adopted a four-point action plan for Bangladesh:

Following international pressure and a high-level ILO mission to Bangladesh in May, the Bangladeshi government adopted a proposal on a labour law reform to be presented to the parliament. However, early positive signs have all but evaporated and the package has proved to be a deception. Respect for the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, in particular the rights to organize unions and bargain collectively, is severely lacking.

As an improvement, a former provision that factory owners be given the names of workers wishing to join unions may disappear in the new law. However, Bangladeshi union leaders point out that severe obstacles to unionization, registering of unions, collective bargaining, and the right to conduct strikes remain. In addition, the 360,000 workers in Bangladesh’s eight export processing zones will remain excluded from protection under the labour law, instead relegated to a separate law that prohibits workers from forming a union.

Also the campaign for an increase in the minimum wage from 38 USD a month for four million Bangladeshi garment workers remains stalled, as a result of employers’ resistance.

With so many factory owners holding seats in parliament, it is no surprise that workers’ rights are still being stifled,

said Sharan Burron, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Burrow called upon the US and EU to step up pressure for real reform.

Rana Plaza and other industrial homicides have demonstrated why Bangladeshi garment workers need strong national unions and local level union and safety representatives. A labour law reform that guarantees the rights enshrined in ILO Conventions is a necessary starting point for that,

said Jyrki Raina, general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union.

Egyptian trade union leader facing jail

Yousri has already been sentenced to a three-year jail sentence by a penal court and international expectation is now turning to next Monday’s Supreme Court session to overturn that repressive ruling.

Yousri led dockworkers at the Alexandria Container and Cargo Handling Company in Al-Dekheila Port on the Mediterranean coast. The struggle for decent employment conditions at the company dates back to 2011, two years before the 25 January revolution in Egypt, and to the time of the Mubarak regime’s archaic labour law 12-2003.

The dockworkers’ protests forced management to stand by previous agreements and led to improved employment conditions for all workers at the company. From this point onward Brother Yousri and the other leading trade union activists at the company were persecuted by management and the authorities.

Persecution against Yousri was escalated as he continued to flag corruption in the management of the company. The company chairman threatened to sack Yousri and lodged a criminal complaint against him with the Attorney General. Yousri was docked wages and continually transferred to different departments to move him away from workers.

Yousri led 1,500 workers in a strike on 1 October 2011 and brought the port facility to a standstill. The current charges facing Yousri stem from inciting workers during this strike. Yousri was successful in uncovering corruption at the firm and says that prison will not stop him in leading the EDLC. IndustriALL will campaign to stop him having to lead from jail.

In writing to Brother Yousri, IndustriALL General Secretary Raina stated:

We, and all our member unions, are horrified to hear of the continual harassment, victimization and outright persecution that you have faced from both your employer and the authorities as you bravely defend workers’ rights and working conditions, as well as protest against widespread corruption that has come to light.

We assure you that we are following the situation closely and the next court case on 16 June, 2013, in particular. We offer you all our support and solidarity and are prepared, if necessary, to campaign publically and globally against the continued harassment of an important trade union leader.

The founding congress of EDLC took place in Cairo on 24 April 2013, and was attended by IndustriALL. The representatives of more than 186 independent unions elected Yousri Maarouf as President through a direct secret ballot. 

Unionists of the world ride for workers’ rights

The event has been organized and led by members of the global union federation Public Services International (PSI), representatives of IndustriALL also joined the ride.

The ‘Route of Shame’ was planned in conjunction with the 102nd International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva. A major focus of the annual ILC is to determine whether countries are upholding their obligations to respect the rights of workers and their trade unions under International Labour Organization conventions. Numerous delegates participating in the ILC sessions were also invited to join the tour, in fact the organizers provided bicycles for those who did not have them.

The ride highlighted violations in Belarus, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Canada, Nigeria, Iran, Paraguay, Tunisia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Cameroon, Honduras, Dominican Republic and South Korea.

The ‘Route of Shame’ speakers spoke among others countries about Egypt where independent unions are being denied the right to strike or protest to silence their demands for a just society, abouton-going gross human rights violations in Turkey; about South Korea, where democratic unions are constantly denied recognition and workers are pushed into precarious employment; about Belarus, where consistent violation of freedom of association and collective bargaining still goes on, the case is being considered by ILC since 2000 and the Government fails to apply numerous ILO recommendations.

As part of the ‘Route of Shame’ action the participants of the rally delivered letters to the missions and embassies of the above mentioned countries denouncing on-going violations.

Annual ITUC report published on Trade Union Rights Violations

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) issues an annual call for compilation of all trade union violations occurring country-by-country. The confederation of national labour centres annually publishes its Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights.

The 2013 ITUC Report “Countries at Risk-Violations of Trade Union Rights” was officially launched on 12 June at the International Labour Conference.

This report points at key findings in 87 countries with a special focus on the seven countries where the existence of trade unions and other democratic institutions are under extreme risk: Burma/Myanmar, Bahrain, Fiji, Guatemala, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Georgia. 

Marking the publication of the report, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow stated:

“Hundreds of millions of working people, in developing and in industrialized countries, are denied the fundamental rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining,”

“For many, especially those in precarious employment, this denial wreaks havoc on their lives, as they work extremely long hours in hazardous or unhealthy situations with incomes so low that they are unable to support themselves and their households properly. Lack of respect for workers’ rights has increased inequality around the world, and that inequality helped trigger the global economic crisis and stand in the way of recovery.”

See the report in full on the ITUC website here. (http://www.ituc-csi.org/countries-at-risk-2013-report-on)