Intimidation and violence in Swaziland on May Day

Workers were trying to resist confiscation by police of a banner demanding the recognition of the labour federation, the Trade Union Confederation of Swaziland (Tucoswa). The second layer of leadership of Tucoswa decided to call off the rally. Why them? Because senior leadership of Tucoswa had been placed under house arrest by police for the day. 

The President of the federation Barnes Dlamini and First Deputy Secretary General Mduduzi Gina were arrested at a raid of the Tucoswa offices in the morning of 1 May, taken first to the police headquarters and then to their homes. In total five of the federation’s leaders were placed under house arrest including Secretary General, Vincent Ncongwane, Second Deputy Secretary General Muzi Mhlanga and Deputy Treasurer General Jabulile Shiba.

Police also tried to prevent workers gathering for the rally by offloading TUCOSWA supporters from buses at roadblocks set up throughout the country.

Tucoswa had gone ahead with plans for a May Day rally despite being unable to secure an urgent interdict against police disruption of the event. Leadership of TUCOSWA maintains that the court did not rule that they could not have a rally, just that the court could not give protection as the state refuses to recognize the federation, despite the court having urged government to do so.

A previous court ruling on the legality of TUCOSWA denied legitimacy to the federation on the basis of the lack of law to guide the court regarding registration of a federation in Swaziland. The ruling stated that Tucoswa should wait for amendments to the law and until such time, the government should reach an agreement for recognition with Tucoswa through a memorandum of understanding. Tucoswa leadership reports that the Swazi government has refused to enter into such an agreement. 

There has been a surge in human rights abuses in Swaziland in the last month. On 12 April, the day that the Swazi King declared a state of emergency now 40 years old, Wonder Mkhonza a trade unionist and political activist was arrested on charges of sedition for allegedly being in possession of pamphlets promoting the banned political party Pudemo. Mkhonza has been denied bail and is being held in a lengthy pre-trial detention at a maximum security prison. There are fears for his safety as the Swaziland police are known to use excessive force including torture.

At least three other political activists have also been arrested in April on similar charges. Also in the same month, Swaziland Independent Publishers and its editor Bheki Makhubu have been fined about Euro 40,000 or a two year prison sentence for scandalizing the court in two articles criticizing the judiciary on its treatment of fundamental rights. 

Valentin Urusov receives international rights award

“Urusov has become symbolic of the struggle for workers’ rights and freedom of association in Russia,” says Leif Sande, committee chair of the award and head of the IndustriALL’s Norwegian affiliated trade union Industri Energi.

Urusov was jailed in 2008 under what many call a fabricated case in reprisal for his successful attempts to organize workers at diamond mines in the northern province of Sakha in Russia.

In March 2013 the local court in Sakha, Russia, ordered Valentin Urusov to be freed from prison. He will pay a fine and do community service instead of serving the rest of his 5-year term.

While Urusov was still in prison, IndustriALL joined the IUF in asking the jury to nominate him for the Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights 2013 for his courageous and praiseworthy union work.

The Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights is awarded to individuals who, or organizations which, have made noteworthy efforts to promote the work of trade unions and workers’ rights nationally and internationally.

IndustriALL congratulates Valentin Urusov, a heroic Russian trade unionist, in receiving this prestigious international award, and thanks all the organizations and individuals who contributed to the campaign for his release from prison.

Help the humanitarian relief effort in Savar

IndustriALL’s affiliates and supporters can make solidarity contributions for the humanitarian relief effort for victims of the Rana Plaza tragedy through the bank details below. The account has been expressly set up by the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council, through which all affiliates in the country coordinate their joint work. This follows numerous requests received by IndustriALL from those wanting to provide support to the victims and their families of the Rana Plaza industrial homicide.

The IndustriALL Bangladesh Council reports that the conditions on the ground and of the injured workers are beyond belief, as unions and NGOs participate in the effort to supply drinking water, food and medical care in extreme circumstances.

While urgently required, this humanitarian relief does not and will not remove the need for the Western apparel brands, local employers and Bangladeshi government to provide compensation to the over 427 dead and 2,500 injured and their families.

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Jyrki Raina told Al Jazeera on 31 April that “There is blood on these cheap t-shirts and it is time for change now”.

Raina told Al Jazeera:

This latest tragedy just illustrates the completely unsustainable business model that the international brands and retailers have been driving in Bangladesh based on extreme exploitation of workers, wages of US$38 a month, long working hours, lack of freedom of association, and over 1,000 workers who have died in factory fires and collapses during the past seven years.

IndustriALL Global Union will continue to fight for the payment of compensation for the affected workers, as in the cases of the recent Tazreen Fashion and Smart Fashion disasters. But it will also continue to fight for proper trade union rights in the Bangladeshi garment industry to empower organized workers to force improvements in safety, conditions and wages.

In May Day marches in Geneva, India and Uruguay IndustriALL rallied behind the call for justice for the over 427 murdered garment workers in Savar, Bangladesh. The May Day march in Dhaka combined mourning and anger, after garment workers took strike action last week demanding improvements in safety and justice for those directly responsible for the Rana Plaza collapse.

The bank details for solidarity contributions:

Account name: IndustriALL Bangladesh Council
Account number: 0010-0210020054
Bank name: NCC Bank Ltd.
Branch name: DHANMONDI
Swift code: NCCLBDDHDMB
Email: [email protected]

Address of the Bank

National Credit and Commerce Bank Ltd.
Dhanmondi Branch
Quality Center (1st Floor), 744 Satmasjid Road,
Dhanmondi R/A
Dhaka 1209, BANGLADESH

Address of the Account Holder

IndustriALL Bangladesh Council
House # 20, Road# 11, (Old) 32,
Dhanmondi R/A
Dhaka 1209, BANGLADESH

The Future of Trade: business as usual

Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary was a member of the panel. She concludes that while the report acknowledges growing inequality and extreme levels of unemployment, it fails to acknowledge the role of trade, looking elsewhere for policy solutions and continuing pressure for trade liberalization.

In a statement on the report, Burrow says that while the report acknowledges the challenge of development, it has little to say about the need for policy space for industrial policy and structural transformation. Furthermore, it makes the case for trade having contributed to specialization without acknowledging how specialization in many developing countries has been in low value-added production, which is contrary to the need to diversify production in order to develop further.

On labour standards, the report recognizes the need for convergence with respect for core labour standards and the need to establish such standards along supply chains, yet, according to Burrow, the rise of value chains is treated as a positive without analysis. "The lack of recognition that these supply chains are dominated by MNEs of industrialized countries, and that the alarming growth in oligopsonies with associated market behaviour is a large driver of inequality, is disturbing. There is recognition of competitive pressures on costs and prices but not a direct analysis of cost down pressures", said Burrow.

The fact that trade both creates and sheds jobs is recognized along with the need to look at investment in job creation but it sits in isolation and the research to effectively predict the impact of trade agreements on jobs is totally inadequate.

She concludes, "This report has no binding capacity and it is not a unanimous view of the panel’s members, including labour's. We will, as always, fight for a fair and just system based on a floor of rights."

Airbus refuses to respect workers' rights in Tunisia

On 29 April, IndustriALL affiliate the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), representing the workers of Latélec, demonstrated in front of the French Embassy in Tunis to demand the respect of trade union rights at Latélec.

On 15 April, five workers were dismissed illegally; three of them were active union representatives. "We want to keep our work without losing our dignity," said Sonia Jebali Secretary General of the UGTT company union at SEA Latelec Fouchana.

SEA Latélec relocated part of the production from France to Fouchana in the suburbs of Tunis in 2005. Since 2010, the workers got organized and ever since have been exposed to systematic anti-union repression including layoffs, attempted bribery, insults, abusive sanctions, isolation, sexist remarks and death threats.

When the workers refused to bow their heads, the French managers imposed a lockout for a month in September 2012 and the temporary transfer of production to France. 200 temporary jobs were lost between October 2012 and April 2013 and 200 more will be made before the end of the year.

The company now threatens to leave Tunisia as it refuses to obey Tunisian labour laws and to allow any trade union activity in the plant. 

15 May deadline set for Bangladesh safety plan

IndustriALL Global Union and its NGO partners Clean Clothes Campaign and Workers’ Rights Consortium met on 29 April in Eschborn, Germany with a group of international brands and retailers sourcing from Bangladesh and with the ILO to outline an agreement on fire and building safety in Bangladesh. The parties agreed on a 15 May deadline to finalize the text and commitments.

The meeting was hosted by the German Agency for Development Cooperation, GIZ.

The agreement will support the national action plan that was confirmed on 24 March by the Bangladeshi government, employers and unions.

Talks in Eschborn follow the collapse of a building near Dhaka which contained several garment factories. So far more than 400 bodies of workers have been dug out of the rubble, but the final number of casualties is likely to be much higher.

The agreement, building upon an earlier memorandum of understanding, will include principals on governance, inspections, remediation, training, a complaints process, transparency and reporting, supplier incentives, financial support and dispute resolution.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina stated in Eschborn that brands and retailers had to develop mechanisms for paying more to their suppliers to guarantee living wages and enable technical upgrades. He demanded the participants to renegotiate their supplier contracts so that they would include a requirement for raising wages considerably from the 3000 taka (38 USD) minimum wage.

Bangladeshi garment producers’ association BGMEA today agreed to cooperate with IndustriALL on the sustainability issues including safety and living wages.

Raina also demanded that the brands contribute to freedom of association in the garment industry where union presence at the local level is virtually non-existent because of government and employer resistance:

You cannot create a safety culture and functioning labour-management relations without worker participation and union presence.

The US$24 billion garment sector accounts for 80 per cent of the country’s exports. Suppliers to international brands and retailers employ four million workers in almost 5,000 factories.

African unions commit to prioritizing sustainable industrial development

Participants recognized the particular challenges facing African countries including conflicts, lack of respect of workers’ rights and the fact that Africa has a wealth of mineral resources yet many people are living in poverty.

Development is constrained by a continuing reliance on mineral extraction, but the urgent need to diversify economies to add value is not being tackled by many governments in the region which still do not see industrial policy as a main concern.

Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of COSATU, addressed participants and shared some of the lessons learnt by trade unions in South Africa. He called for a change to the growth model of reliance on the export of raw materials which supports continuing inequality and poverty: the only way to drive economies is through industrialization, particularly manufacturing, and creating decent jobs. Critically, Vavi told affiliates that South Africa cannot be successful if there is not industrialization in the rest of the continent.

Unions identified a number of key industrial policies to promote in the region. These include beneficiation of mineral resources, trade policies that support industrialization and development, investment in infrastructure, education, training and R&D, and support for skills transfer.

Affiliates gave examples of existing strategies that they are using. In Zambia unions engage with government on industrial development to maximize the benefits of natural resources, for example transforming copper into copper wires instead of exporting copper and importing wires. South African unions have worked with government to produce an industrial policy plan which identifies key sectors for job creation and puts in place job stimulation programs.

Having committed to prioritizing industrial development, affiliates identified actions to take. These include:

Strengthening unity in IndustriALL in Asia

The metalworker unions were gathered together for the 6th Asian Metalworkers’ Liaison Conference (AMLC) on 22 to 23 April in Singapore to share their experiences and discus priority issues and union activities in the region.

Koichiro Nishihara, president of the Japanese Council of Metalworkers (JCM), executive committee member of IndustriALL Global Union and chairperson of IndustriALL in the Asia Pacific region, insisted that the metalworkers’ unions have an important role of extending solidarity using the platform of the newly created IndustriALL Global Union. The meeting then heard and discussed reports from the countries of the region, examining the priorities and challenges in each of the respective countries.

During a plenary discussion on organizing and union building in the region, all the participants agreed on the importance of active involvement by IndustriALL and its affiliates for supporting union building activities i Burma (Myanmar) in cooperation and coordination with the activities of other Global Union Federations and non-governmental organizations.

The meeting shared experiences of concrete actions on strengthening unity among unions at the national level, such as the historic two days general strike in India on 20 to 21 February and the regular meetings and efforts being made by the Japanese affiliates to develop a consensus based on the IndustriALL Action Plan and its future activities.

Improving minimum wages in many countries in Asia Pacific was also discussed. The past experiences of the Japanese affiliates suggests that a substantial improvement in minimum wages and standards of living requires a level playing field among countries in Asia so as to avoid the negative effects such as the transfer of employment to low wage countries.

In Thailand, TEAM has established a call center to provide advice on minimum wages when issues arise between labour and management and the union has been monitoring compliance with minimum wage requirements by the companies present in Thailand.

The AMLC, organized and sponsored by JCM, is not an IndustriALL decision-making body, however it plays an important role in building solidarity among metalworker unions in Asia Pacific and complements the regional activities of IndustriALL Global Union. The conference confirmed that AMLC will continue during the transitional period of IndustriALL until 2016. Meanwhile JCM will discuss the possibility of promoting joint meetings and cooperation with other Japanese affiliates (UA Zensen and IndustriALL JAF) who are conducting similar activities in Asia Pacific.

The next AMLC is scheduled to take place in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in mid-April 2014.

Make garment factories in Bangladesh safe

Join the campaign and add your voice of protest on the LabourStart campaign calling to make garment factories in Bangladesh safe here: http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=1813

The protest in Dhaka was in response to the worst ever industrial accident in Bangladesh where already more than 300 workers have died, thousands are injured and many more remain trapped and unaccounted for in the rubble of the collapsed 8 story building.

Roy Ramesh, IndustriALL Bangladesh Council (IBC) General Secretary, presiding over the protest in Dhaka, demanded the severest punishment under the law, including the death penalty, to all those responsible for the mass murder and injury of the workers.

“No words can describe the horror of the criminal action of the manufacturers, brands, employers’ groups BGMEA and BKMEA, and the regulatory authorities for their greed for profit, at the cost of precious human lives, injuries and misery to thousands,” said Ramesh.

The leaders of the rally demanded the immediate arrest of the owners of the building, the manufacturers and the regulatory and inspection authorities, pointing out that no one involved in the numerous building collapses and factory fires in the past have yet been punished.

“In this case, the workers had refused to work, but the employers had threatened to remove them from rolls and deny their wages for the whole month. As this happens to be the last week of the month, workers could not afford to live without their wages, forcing them to work, literally pushing them into the jaws of death!” they said.

The IBC has put forward a Charter of Demands to the Bangladesh government consisting of 5 major demands among many:

In addition the unions are demanding changes to Labour Law so as to guarantee workers decent work, a living wage and freedom of association and collective bargaining rights at the plant, industry and national level.

“IndustriALL Global Union fully supports the IBC and their demands for justice, safe workplaces, union rights and improved working conditions and wages,” said Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union.

Join the campaign and add your voice of protest on the LabourStart campaign calling to make garment factories in Bangladesh safe here: http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=1813

Rubber unions strengthen global networks

“With this Conference, let us show that we are able to create concrete programs for workers’ solidarity against the negative effects of globalization in our sector,” were the opening remarks of Tamas Szekely, President of the Hungarian Chemical and Energy Workers’ Federation (VDSz) that hosted the Conference. The participants conducted discussions through company break-out meetings covering Bridgestone, Goodyear, Michelin, Continental and Pirelli to discuss particular situations in their respective countries.

The Conference overwhelmingly discussed challenges and union actions in the global rubber industry with a perspective over the future of auto and auto supplier sectors with tire and non-tire segments. The delegates explained developments in individual countries after the major crisis of 2008-2009. It was reported that even though crisis conditions have now passed, workers continue to suffer deteriorated working conditions. The European and North American representatives reported ongoing cases challenging unions and workers.

The reports from the break-out meetings formed a genuine base for union networks in the rubber industry. The participants appreciated a continuing of the global network activities with Japanese-based Bridgestone. The Secretary of European Works Council of French-based Michelin briefed participants about the efforts towards the creation of Michelin’s global network with a positive development that the company management already announced its readiness for a global framework agreement. Having concerns about the future of the company, participants coming from US-based Goodyear expressed their views of the importance of reinforcing union networking, as did the participants from Italian-based Pirelli. The delegates also shared experiences over the difficult situation at German-based Continental’s operations. The Conference underlined the importance of working with non-tire multinationals such as Hutchinson, Trelleborg, and Freudenberg.

Union organizing and the fight against precarious employment were also major agenda items discussed. More joint work with the Auto Section has been defined as a priority in union campaigns in the rubber industry within the supply chain strategy of IndustriALL Global Union. Even though precarious employment is not identified among the major problems in the tire industry in developed countries, it has been defined as a burning problem in developing countries, particularly in Asia. Examples from union recruitment and achievements through collective bargaining processes were exchanged with interest. The participants also debated health and safety conditions in the sector, and attached great attention to sustainability in the sector.

The Conference unanimously adopted a plan of action over the points raised. (For the action plan, please click here). The delegates re-elected Stan Johnson, International Secretary-Treasurer of USW, as Chairperson of IndustriALL Global Union’s Rubber Section while Linda McCulloch, National Secretary of Unite the Union has been elected as Vice-Chairperson. “This successful Conference has given us a clear road map for our future activities in building up genuine union power in the rubber industry” said Johnson at his final speech.