Promoting labour rights in Bangladesh

The Executive Committee of IndustriALL Global Union listed Bangladesh as one of the priority countries for action. Almost half of the population of 160 million live under the national poverty line.

The government is betting on the future of textile and garment industries, which employ 3.5 million workers. This figure could double by 2015 and triple by 2020. Last year garment exports amounted to 20 billion dollars, or 80 per cent of total export income.

IndustriALL supports the goal of finding a sustainable growth path for the Bangladeshi garment industry and the creation of millions of good quality jobs. This future is under serious threat.

During the past years, media reports in Europe and North America have drawn the consumers’ attention to problems with labour rights, extremely low wages, long working hours, and fire safety.

Visiting Bangladesh in February, I found out that there is a functioning and registered local trade union only in a couple of dozens of garment factories out of 5000. As a result of intimidation and problems with registration, less than 1 per cent of the workforce is unionized.

Following reprimands from ILO’s Committee of Experts and pressure from the US government and the European Union, the government has now announced that the Labour Act will be revised by April. Recently, ten new local level union organizations have been registered.

Wage systems in most factories are based on the national minimum wage of 36 USD per month, which is about a third of a living wage. In a factory I visited, workers were working 12-18 hours overtime on top of the 48 hour working week, just to make ends meet.

IndustriALL is demanding a considerable raise of the minimum wage towards a living wage, followed by annual revisions. Minimum wages in nearby India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, China and Indonesia have been raised considerably, leaving Bangladesh lagging clearly behind.

Improving fire safety requires urgent measures. Since 2006, almost 600 workers have died in factory fires. 50 to 90 per cent of garment factories are estimated to be dangerous.

No wonder that major brands and retailers are feeling the pressure. The biggest companies sourcing from Bangladesh include H&M, Inditex, Walmart, Gap, C&A, Tesco, Marks&Spencer and El Corte Inglés.

In January, 24 chief executives wrote to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, communicating their concern of the future success of Bangladesh’s garment sector, if fire safety and its underlying causes were not addressed. “These issues threaten to further damage the sector,” said the CEOs.

An important step forward was a tripartite fire safety agreement signed by the Bangladeshi government, employer organizations and IndustriALL Bangladesh Council of unions in January, followed by a National Action Plan at the end of February.

IndustriALL is now continuing discussions with different stakeholders on how to combine various fire safety initiatives, including a memorandum of understanding signed by ourselves, into one coordinated approach. Increased inspections, training, setting up local health and safety committees and upgrading dangerous facilities are urgently required.

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 by fire. There is still a long way to go.

Jyrki Raina
General Secretary

Chileans mark Mexico days of action

Guatemalans mobilize outside Mexican Embassy

Mexico Days of Action in Colombia

IndustriALL marks Global Women's Day

Women of Steel has more than 5,000 activists across North America. More and more women head USW departments. Women are still behind in earning power and economic security. Nevertheless women get more college and graduate degrees than men. In 2010 the wage gap was 77 cents out of every dollar earned by men, and the gap even widened in 2012. Two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women. This translates into a staggering 17 million people who would directly benefit if the minimum wage rose. 60 percent of social security recipients are women. All of this indicates why austerity and budget cuts affect women first and worst.

The conference was conducted mostly in workshops which ranged from topics relating to political influence to union contracts to making the union more inclusive. The United States is one of the countries in the world with the highest rate of infant and maternal mortality. This could be remedied by allowing women to take paid maternity leave. Maternity leave and family benefits can be achieved through collective bargaining, and USW has sample language on these issues.

The USW invited women to the conference where the union has built alliances around the world. These included women from Unite the Union, UK, NUM, South Africa, the FMM-CFDT, France and the AWU, Australia. The women all took part in an international panel on the last day which was facilitated by USW Vice-President Carol Landry.

When it comes to gender equality, Germany lags behind. The pay gap in Germany averages 23 per cent. The reasons for it are manifold – women often work part-time or in mini jobs or in sectors which pay less and where the outlook is not so positive, it is still women who do the lion’s share of household chores, and they interrupt their paid jobs to look after children or elderly relatives. The result is that women are rarely able to stand on their own two feet economically, to support their own families or to accumulate a pension to live in dignity in old age.

That is why IGBCE and IG Metall demanded this year on 8th March:

IndustriALL participated in Women’s Day events in Kathmandu, Nepal on 8 March. National centre GEFONT organized a 600-participant gathering marking Women’s Day with new policy prioritizing the empowerment of women.

On 7-8 March all IndustriALL’s Colombian affiliates celebrated Women’s Day in a national conference. The major trend facing women workers in Colombia is an increasing amount of women working from home. This recent shift is seen as a new tactic by capital to reduce women workers’ ability to organize and struggle collectively.

Simultaneous activities were carried out at the Associated Labor Unions (ALU) national and regional offices in the Philippines on 8 March 2013 in observance of International Women’s Day. A total of 610 men, women and children from the National Capital, Southern Mindanao and Central Visayas regions participated.

ALU has been involved in women empowerment for years and has actively participated in policy formulation and advocacy work, together with coalition partners from all fronts. Information and experiences from members and communities are used to support ALU’s advocacy campaigns. Policy gains are returned to the ground in the form of programs and direct services, where possible, as a matter of policy. 

And finally, women’s organizations in Egypt celebrated International Women’s Day with events that included a march to demand a halt to violence in general and against women at demonstrations in particular, as well as calling for support for women in political life and including them as partners on an equal footing. 

Mauritian unions mobilize against increasing casualization of labor in the private sector

IndustriALL affiliate the CMCTEU (Chemical Manufacturing and Connected Trades Employees Union) has launched a campaign to recruit precarious workers in all manufacturing sectors. Within two years the union has managed to triple its membership by recruiting 3,000 contract workers. The CMCTEU and the CTSP (Workers Confederation of Private Sector) have become key players in Mauritian social dialogue.

We have developed creative strategies to organize precarious workers in order to be more representative and bargain effectively. Yet the battle is not over. Our torturers are actively organizing against us. Our success lies in our capacity to organize workers.

Reeaz Chutto, CMCTEU

In 2010, the CMCTEU amended its status in order to be able to recruit contract workers who represent the majority of private sector employees. The union, which has participated in the IndustriALL precarious work project since 2009, has developed innovative initiatives to overcome casual workers’ fear of joining a union. Fifteen volunteers were trained to go to workplaces and approach precarious workers who began to discretely contact the union to get more information. The CMCTEU meets with them during the weekends and has developed specific services. Two new staff members have been employed to mainly deal with precarious workers’ issues. The membership fee for precarious workers has been set at a symbolic 1 Rupee (instead of 50 Rupees). The union has also created community banking services, accessible to contract workers and their families. Free computer training is also offered to precarious workers.

The CMCTEU denounces particularly the feminization of precarious work in Mauritius. Precarious work is more prevalent in sectors such as the textile industry where female labor predominates. Therefore the CMCTEU have trained many female union leaders to respond adequately to the needs of women precarious workers. To date, 24 per cent of union members are women. The union also works with foreign workers who account for more than 35,000 of workers in Mauritius on precarious contracts, without social protection.

The increase in the number of union members and its ability to mobilize thousands of workers to demonstrate in the street has considerably strengthened the CMCTEU’s bargaining power. Since October 2011, no less than 15 collective agreements have been signed by the CMCTEU and its sister unions also affiliated to the CTSP, securing equal pay for contract workers doing similar work to permanent workers. One of the main preoccupations of the CMCTEU has been the health and safety of precarious workers who represent the majority of the victims of work accidents in the manufacturing sectors. In 2011, the union secured an agreement with several employers stipulating that workers with 12 months or less of service should not be exposed to very hazardous work, unless trained by a competent person.

Their increased strength has helped the CMCTEU and the CTSP to achieve positive results not only for precarious workers. In December 2012, thanks to an important mobilization, trade unions succeeded in postponing the adoption of a government proposal to further deregulate the labor market and undermine the power of unions. The fight continues. Major mobilizations are planned in March against the “anti-worker laws” in Mauritius.

IndustriALL in India for days of action

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina Projects & Rights' Officer Suzanna Miller participated in a meeting of around 400-500 workers in Calcutta marking the international Campaign. The Indian affiliated unions conducted a meeting the following day with the Mexican ambassador.

32,000 Indian steel workers organized since 2010

The Project Advisory Committee (PAC) Meeting of the India Steel project, held in Kolkata on 25-26 February 2013, commended the hard work of both INMF and SMEFI to organize over 32,000 steel, iron ore and sponge iron workers in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarhi and Orissa between 2010 and 2012 and recommended to continue supporting and consolidating these remarkable results.

The India Steel Organising project is supported jointly by IndustriALL Global Union’s Swedish affiliates IF Metall and Unionen through donor the LO-TCO and Finnish affiliates Metalli and Pro through the donor SASK. The project is built around three central principles: Non-competition; Building cooperation; and Building sustainability. 

The project target for 2010-2012 was to recruit 20,000 members, at the end of December 2012 over 32,000 new workers had been organized, a majority of these being precarious or contract workers. As one of the affiliates pointed out during the meeting “even though these workers have precarious work contracts and may be dismissed tomorrow, now that they have understood the benefits the union can get for them, when they find a new job they will seek us out to organize their new workplace”.

Furthermore all these new members are now organized in companies where there were no unions before, so now there is only one union representing all the workers, thus also complying with the project’s aim to have “more members, fewer unions”.

In India the main steel and iron ore companies are established in the conflict areas, called the Red Corridor and one of the major factors contributing to the success is the solidarity and involvement of IndustriALL’s affiliates at every single level of the implementing structure put into place, meaning that all project interventions at District, State and National levels are carried out by the affiliates’ members and union leadership. Clearly only strong unions can enter these regions to organize, directly confronting the local mafias and employers.

Despite this huge achievement in organizing, INMF and SMEFI consider that 90% of the current workforce in this industrial sector remains unorganized and the PAC meeting strongly recommended continuing the organizing drive during the 2014-2016 project period.  

IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki Raina stated:

The achievements of INMF and SMEFI prove that cooperation and non-competition can lead to great results on the ground, as IndustriALL we must now extend this effort to the extractive and energy sectors in India and build up our affiliates’ capacity to progress workers’ rights in more industrial sectors.

South African state utility hit hard by strikes

Poor industrial relations are contributing to the already long delays in completing Medupi needed to address power supply concerns in the country, with the first power from the station still expected to come on line by the end of the year. Strike action started in January when some workers protested the calculation of their year end bonuses. Workers are also unhappy with some of the terms of the project labour agreement.

Eskom responded by closing the site shortly after the strike started, which worsened the situation as others joined in aggrieved by the lockout, an action that was challenged in court by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa). The strike has had some violent protests and a number of workers have been arrested.

Unions organising at Medupi, including the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Numsa, reached an agreement with site contractors, through the intervention of the Minister of Public Enterprises Malusi Gigaba. Eskom ended the lockout on 6 March. However failure to meet the terms of the agreement resulted in workers downing tools again, days after the agreement which was signed on 8 March.

Eskom’s power supply is facing a more immediate threat, having to rely on coal stockpiles as a result of unprotected strikes at six coal mines of one of its major suppliers Exxaro Resources. More than 3,500 coal miners have downed tools as they did not receive their bonuses, usually paid in February, on the basis that production targets have not been met.

The NUM supports the demands of striking Exxaro workers as they were not made aware of production targets and bonuses at the company have never been linked to targets in the past. The strike, if not resolved quickly, could affect three stations that generate 20 per cent of South Africa’s power. 

Social dialogue and trade union networking at Unilever

IndustriALL Global Union and the International Union of Food Workers IUF met Unilever senior head office management on 4-5 March. That discussion was mainly about precarious workers and union rights. Occupational health and safety was also discussed. Within the Unilever family, some plants operate with zero contract and agency labour, and others are almost entirely staffed in that manner.

Union recognition issues were discussed, with indications that Unilever was willing to investigate and address some of them. Employment of women was also discussed. A working group on this, and on occupational health and safety, was proposed for further discussion at future meetings.

Recent events and meetings, including the Unilever meeting referred to above, confirm that supply chains issues are not just a Unilever problem. Indeed, it is clear that loss of control by multinational companies of their incredibly (and unnecessarily) complex networks of suppliers, contractors, subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, and so on has reached a critical point. It is questionable whether corporate head offices really have the capacity to find out what is going on in their supply chains – even within those companies that care to know.

The Unilever Union Networking Meeting in Eastbourne followed the meeting at Unilever House, and confirmed that the increasing use of precarious work arrangements continues within Unilever. This is a company that needs strong unions and a strong global union network, whether it is to respond to union busting in Colombia, plant closure in Brazil, contracting out of work in Indonesia, or outsourcing to Sodexo in the Netherlands.

The most important outcome of the networking meeting was the closing Declaration (follows):

Representatives from Unilever unions around the world, meeting in Eastbourne, UK on 6-7 March 2013 have confirmed the alarming increase of pressure on our workplaces and on our trade union organizations. While Unilever grows its sales, profits, and returns to shareholders, we experience continuous restructuring, continuous pressure on jobs, pay and benefits, continuous insecurity, continuous outsourcing and continuous pressure on trade union rights. Workers and their communities have been brutally left out of the company's “sustainable living” plan.

We insist on sustainable workplaces, sustainable employment and guarantees of rights for current and future Unilever workers. We have therefore agreed to strengthen our solidarity and mutual support, and have agreed on a series of practical measures to build that solidarity through international trade union organization so that workers may share in the benefits of the company’s growth, rather than paying for it with the loss of our jobs, our health and our rights. And we have today pledged to begin this work now.