Jobs Study calls for more and better jobs

The World Bank's private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), launched Jobs Study on 14 January 2013, the culmination of 18 months research to understand how private sector activity and IFC loans contribute to job creation.

http://www1.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/Topics_Ext_Content/IFC_External_Corporate_Site/IDG_Home/JobCreation

The study found that IFC investments do very little to create direct jobs, but claims the multiplier effect in creating indirect employment is significant. The study found that the investment climate, infrastructure, access to finance and skills & training are critical factors for job creation in developing countries, and that labour regulation is not a major obstacle according to enterprises that responded to the survey in this study.

One of the conclusions of the study is that formalizing informal economy activities is the path to higher-quality employment creation, which is an effective way of attacking poverty. The study also identified the positive impact resulting from respecting workers’ rights on reduced accidents, reduced worker turnover and improved product quality. Respect of these rights is now a formal requirement of all IFC borrowers through IFC Performance Standard 2 (PS 2) on labour and working conditions.

Reviewing the report, Peter Bakvis of ITUC/Global Unions Washington Office, writes, “the Jobs Study provides only fragmentary and approximate assessments of the jobs impact of IFC loans and investments, and in a few cases seems to gloss over valid critiques of some types of IFC investments… Despite this, the report provides several analyses and recommendations that are supportive of "quality jobs" where the ILO's core labour standards are respected.”

Bakvis also notes that while the requirement of IFC borrowers to respect workers’ rights is a positive development and is recognized as such in the study, “the report does not refer to weaknesses in the IFC's enforcement mechanisms for PS 2; the gaps in application created notably by IFC's lending through private financial intermediaries; and the fact the Equator Principles, based on PS 2 and other standards and adopted by 77 private financial institutions, are devoid of any monitoring or reporting requirements.”

A 47-page summary version of the IFC Jobs Study is available on-line in English only here:

http://www1.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/5c201d004e2c09d28d32ad7a9dd66321/IFC_Job+Study+Condensed+Report..pdf?MOD=AJPERES

The full 148-page report is available here:

http://www1.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/0fe6e2804e2c0a8f8d3bad7a9dd66321/IFC_FULL+JOB+STUDY+REPORT_JAN2013_FINAL.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

Millions march against violence against women in India

The brutal gang rape of a young medical student in a moving bus in Delhi on 16 December 2012 and her eventual death on 28 December triggered widespread outrage in India. In the brief time she lived after the horrible attack, she told the world of the suffering she had undergone. In an unprecedented display of anger, spontaneous enormous demonstrations appeared throughout the country. The marches demanded that law enforcing authorities act swiftly to arrest and punish the perpetrators of the heinous crime, and called for better policing and harsher punishments for rapists in general.

The crime exposed the lackadaisical attitude of the Indian political class, law enforcing authorities and justice system towards issues of sexual crimes against women and the deep rooted malady of the country’s patriarchal society. According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) from 2009-2011 about 25,392 women lost their lives in dowry related harassment and 282,722 women were subjected to cruelty by their husband or relatives. There are 95,065 pending trial cases of rape in India. Owing to gaps in the criminal investigative system nearly 75 per cent of those accused are not convicted in rape cases.

The anger displayed by young people in the Delhi streets signified the alarming proportion of sexual crimes and called for the immediate attention of the government to revamp the system to address violence against women. In response to the protests the Government of India formed a three-member committee of jurists headed by the former Chief Justice of India, J.S. Verma, to suggest amendments to criminal law to sternly deal with sexual assault cases. The accused in this case, including a juvenile, are now facing trial in India’s fast-track court.

Addressing sexual harassment at workplaces is also an important issue that requires immediate attention as a large number of India’s women are entering the workforce. After a long delay, the Government of India on 3 September 2012 passed the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Bill introduced in 2010 in Lok Sabha. However it still needs to be passed by the Rajya Sabha (Upper House).

The Bill seeks to provide protection to women against sexual harassment at all workplaces including those organized and unorganized in the public and private sectors. It provides for prevention and redress of complaints of sexual harassment. Women who are employed as well as those who enter the workplace as clients, customers or apprentices besides the students and research scholars in colleges and universities are sought to be covered under the legislation.

Until now, directives issued in the Supreme Court ruling in 1997, in the case of Vishaka and Others vs. the State of Rajasthan (AIR 1997 SC 3011) constitute a first major step in India to address sexual harassment at the workplace. However, the experience shows that in a large number of workplaces women did not even know that such a redress mechanism exists; neither do managers on the shop-floor. Equally concerning, labour administration officials do not know either how to use the directives to address sexual harassment at the workplace.

Trade unions and civil society activists called for sincere government efforts to address violence against women through strengthening legislation, swift investigation of sexual crime and more importantly increasing the number of women police personnel and a sensitization of law enforcing authorities. Employers should also take genuine steps to address sexual harassment, which is one among many gender discriminatory issues faced by women at workplaces.

The situation is also truely globally. Persistent discrimination constitutes the root cause of violence against women. This culture of discrimination should be stopped. According to a United Nations report up to 70 per cent of women experience violence in their lifetime. World Bank data highlights that women aged 15 to 44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria. It is also a well-documented fact that armed forces in some conflicts consciously use sexual violence against women to humiliate opponents.

World governments should come forward to create political will, public awareness, enact and implement appropriate legislation and commit more resources to address violence against women and girls.

Thank you Hans

Starting in 2007, Hans, who had been Assistant General Secretary of UNI in a previous life, worked as the global coordinator – and later global consultant – of this project for 6 years, ensuring the coordination between the different regions where the project operated, lobbying international institutions on the issues of HIV/AIDS and actively taking part in numerous HIV/AIDS activities around the world, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Through this work, ICEM, and later IndustriALL, aimed and aims to combine trade union work with the issue of HIV/AIDS. This is done through various activities including organizing voluntary counselling and testing campaigns and bringing in the issue of HIV/AIDS to collective bargaining, all this mostly in countries where trade unions are among the very few organisations that have the trust of workers and can convince them to get involved.

Though the bulk of his work was in Sub-Saharan Africa, Hans also assisted the ICEM in setting up smaller and larger additional HIV/AIDS projects in countries such as Jordan, Mongolia, India, Trinidad and Tobago and Colombia.

As the IndustriALL HIV/AIDS project is now concentrating fully on Sub-Saharan Africa, Hans ended his involvement. IndustriALL thanks him for the years of dedicated support and wishes him a wonderful time enjoying life.

Colombian workers unite to build a stronger union

The demand calls for sub-contracted workers to receive the same treatment and salaries as directly employed workers performing the same tasks at the company, a joint venture of three multinational mining conglomerates, BHP Billiton, Xstrata and AngloAmerican. In 2012, 6,000 out of a total of 11,000 workers at Cerrejón were precariously employed by contractors.

Sintracarbón has been organizing precarious workers at Carbones del Cerrejón since 2010. Organizing contract workers had become a necessity for the leadership of the union since contract workers had come to represent the majority of the workforce but had considerably lower standards of employment and no collective agreements.

The first attempts by the union to organize these workers failed. In 2010, Sintracarbón supported fixed term workers of the company that provides transportation to the mine workers, SOTRANS, to create a company-based trade union, SINTRANS. SINTRANS leaders were rapidly subjected to harassment and intimidation by management, which did not renew the contract of 30 members of the trade union and succeeded in obtaining the dissolution of SINTRANS after several months.  Sintrachaneme, another contractor company-based trade union, faced a similar strategy of harassment.

At this point Sintracarbón decided to change strategy and its congress voted to change the organization’s statutes to allow the inclusion of outsourced workers. After a labour conflict, Sintracarbón obtained a clause in the 2011 collective bargaining agreement with Carbones del Cerrejón expressing management’s commitment to ensuring respect for the unionization of all workers, including subcontracted workers. This clause has given the union good leverage, enabling it to denounce a breach of the collective agreement and the non-validity of the relationship between the user undertaking and the contractor whenever management of subcontractors denies trade union rights to their workers. To date, Sintracarbón has succeeded in signing 5 collective bargaining agreements with subcontractors.

Working conditions of the precarious workers have substantially improved. The common practice of hiring staff for six-month periods has been abolished by the subcontracting companies which are now required to hire their employees for the duration of their contracts with Carbones del Cerrejón.

One of the main lessons learned by Sintracarbón is that it is more effective to bring precarious workers into the regular union structures than to create separate structures.  Contract workers had very little experience in negotiating, despite the support and training providing by Sintracarbón, and, with more than 300 subcontractors providing services to Carbones del Cerrejón, the creation of company-based trade unions would have critically fragmented their bargaining power.

Sintracarbón activists operate under the notoriously violent anti-union environment in Colombia. On 6, 7 and 8 January 2013, Sintracarbón’s President and Treasurer received telephone calls at their homes delivering death threats to them and their families because of their trade union activities.

Today, Sintracarbón has 4,500 members, of which 2,000 are contract workers. Belonging to the same trade union has brought more unity and solidarity among the workers. The international support to Sintracarbón’s fight has been a determining factor behind these results and IndustriALL continues to closely monitor the continuing negotiations with Carbones del Cerrejón.

Acerías Paz del Río workers in Colombia demand improved working conditions

On 28 December 2012, the Sintra Paz del Río Union, affiliated to Utrammicol and IndustriALL, presented a list of demands for improved living and working conditions for workers and their families, decent wages and the recruitment of more staff. The company has adopted a contemptuous and intransigent attitude.

On 16 March 2007, Votorantim acquired 52.1 per cent of Acerías Paz del Río, S.A. and won control of this large Colombian company, formed in 1948 on the Colombian government’s initiative under the name of the Paz de Río National Steel Company. In that same year, 1948, it began exploitation of the iron and coal mines in Boyacá, as well as the construction of the country’s first steel plant with a blast furnace and rolling mill. On 14 March 2008, Votorantim increased its stake in the company from 52.1% to 72.67% after a formal takeover bid submitted through the Stock Exchange.

 Votorantim is a very powerful company and has succeeded in restricting tax reform and reducing its own tax liabilities in Colombia as well as receiving a 35,000 hectare concession of land rich in high quality industrial coal from the Colombian government. However, it pays very low wages, imposes long working hours and precarious work and outsources work.

IndustriALL and its worldwide membership of more than 50 million members demands that the company stops persecuting unions, violating collective agreements, imposing precarious working conditions and immediately resolves the issues presented by the union. We are asking our affiliates in Brazil to make representations to the company’s head office as a way of countering the global power of transnational companies with global trade union action.

It declares its solidarity with its colleagues at Paz del Rio and the people of Boyacá and supports their action to secure respect for their rights and a response to their demands.

Paraguayans oppose Rio Tinto plans

On Friday 21 December 2012, the Paraguayan government signed an MOU with Rio Tinto Alcan for the development of an industrial  park where the company will build an aluminium smelter.

Paraguayans have been closely following negotiations between the government and Rio Tinto and there is a campaign called “No to the Rio Tinto coup”. A 25,000 signature petition called on the government to end negotiations with the company. On Thursday 20 December, before the signature of the MOU, a demonstration was held in front of the Ministry of Trade and Industry to protest at the planned construction of the smelter, because of its environmental  impact and because of Rio Tinto’s history of violating labour and trade union laws.

Five memorandums have to be negotiated before the government gives its definitive approval for construction of the plant, which will cost US$4 billion and have capacity for producing 674,000 tonnes of aluminium per year. Memoranda on the environment, infrastructure, taxation and energy prices are on the agenda.

Negotiations began four years ago, but stalled under the Fernando Lugo government. However, negotiations resumed after his removal from office and replacement by Federico Franco. The government that takes office on 15 August 2013 will have the final decision on the industrial park and candidates will have to make their minds up on this matter. 

Some business sectors have opposed the project because of a lack of interest in investing in the planned industrial park. Only six of the 55 companies contacted by the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s  Technical Negotiating Group (GTN) expressed an interest in building plants in the park that will have Rio Tinto smelter as its centre-piece.

The media has reported public and business opposition to Rio Tinto’s planned investment in Paraguay.

Meanwhile, the Anglo Australian mining group Rio Tinto lost US$14 billion (€10.525 billion) as a consequence of asset depreciation in Mozambique and trading in aluminium. The company dismissed its chief executive officer as a result.

IndustriALL Global Union is campaigning to shine a light on Rio Tinto’s unethical behaviour around the world. IndustriALL supported the workers at Rio Tinto Alcan’s facility in Alma, Quebec during a six-month lockout that ended in July. It will continue to support Rio Tinto employees around the world.

Intimidation of leaders during collective bargaining at Carbones del Cerrejón

Negotiations between Sintracarbón and Carbones del Cerrejón have been accompanied by threats against union leaders and their families. The interim deadline for completing negotiations was Saturday 19 January and there is still no green light for negotiations to continue.

On 6, 7 and 8 January, unidentified individuals phoned the home of Aldo Raúl Amaya, union treasurer, and warned him to be careful. Members of his family have also been threatened in this way. In addition, he has seen armed individuals in the proximity of his home.

On 10 January, the wife of Igor Kareld, who is national president of Sintracarbon and a member of the World Executive Committee, received a call on his mobile phone. The person calling addressed Igor by his name and said he knew the daily routines of his daughters. Igor had already received a direct threat at a working session of the negotiating committee on 18 July 2012, when he was curtly told to leave the country along with his family by a certain date.

All these threats have taken place at the same as negotiations have proceeded between Sintracarbón and the mining company. The interim deadline for completing negotiations was 19 January. This is followed by 20 days for voting. The workers will go on strike if no agreement has been reached within this period.

Sintracarbón said it cannot sign an agreement based on the conditions that the company is imposing. The company is owned by the transnational companies Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Xstrata-Glencore and is refusing to offer fair terms to the very people who guarantee the mine’s profitability by working daily shifts of 12 hours in a difficult environment.

The company has made three proposals, none of which have acceded to union demands for a 3% pay rise. Acceptance of the company proposals would mean giving up the just demands presented on 29 December 2012, which were mainly focused on improving conditions for outsourced workers and the community.

IndustriaALL has written to the Colombian president, José Manuel Santos, expressing its concern about the repeated acts of violence against members of Sintracarbón. The letter calls on the competent authorities to identify those responsible and guarantee the right to life and the freedom of association of workers at Carbones del Cerrejón. It also asks Carbones del Cerrejón Limited to provide the necessary guarantees to the affected workers and explicitly declare its support for free collective bargaining in peaceful and free conditions.

European Parliament adopts resolution on factory fires

The European Parliament passed the resolution on 17 January 2013 against the backdrop of the frequent killing of hundreds of workers in South Asia’s garment factory accidents. Notably in Bangladesh alone an estimated 600 garment workers were killed since 2005 in factory fires. In Karachi, Pakistan at least 289 people perished in a factory blaze in September 2012, and at least 112 people died at the Tazreen factory fire, in the Ashulia district, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 24 November 2012.

The resolution states that many of these accidents could have been prevented had the factories followed safety standards. It criticizes the lack of respect for labour rights, fire safety standards and governments’ inaction to punish factory owners, who are responsible for criminal negligence.  It underlines the escalating tension between trade unionists, labour activists and Bangladeshi government over poor wages and working conditions. Importantly, the resolution urges the Bangladeshi government to investigate the torture and murder of labour rights activist Aminul Islam in April 2012.

European parliamentarians also expressed regret over some of the brand’s initial denial of their connection with Tazreen factory. The resolution welcomed the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement between trade unions, NGOs and multinational textile retailers and the called upon the textile brands to support this effort. It urged all stakeholders to combat corruption in the supply chain including collusion between safety inspectors and factory owners.

It welcomed some of the European retailers’ contribution to compensation schemes and called for free medical rehabilitation of the injured and care for deceased workers' dependent family members. It called on all stakeholders, including the European Commission, “to work together to look at developing a voluntary labelling standard certifying that a product was manufactured in accordance with the ILO's core labour standards.”

It calls on the Commission to actively promote mandatory responsible business conduct among EU companies operating abroad, with a special focus on ensuring strict compliance with all their legal obligations, in particular international standards and rules in the areas of human rights, labour and the environment. Further the resolution called for training of EU trade officers on CSR issues and in particular with respect to the implementation of the UN ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework, and for EU delegations to function as EU contact points for complaints concerning EU companies and their subsidiaries.

The resolution notes the important role that can be played by workers and trade unions, for example through the continued development of worker-led safety committees in all factories, and the importance of access to factories for unions in order to educate workers on how they can protect their rights and their safety, including their right to refuse unsafe work.

Mobilizing for social justice

In a global poll commissioned by the International Trade Union Confederation ITUC last year (http://www.ituc-csi.org/poll-only-one-in-ten-in-g20.html ) , respondents from different parts of the world gave a clear message of what they want from their governments:

In a world where 80 per cent of the population have no health insurance or pension and 40 per cent are living on less than 2 USD per day or 730 USD a year, unions have to be political actors and mobilize to fight for a fair social and economic model that puts people first.

It does make a difference who sits in government and parliaments. They define policies, they make laws. Failed neoliberal policies have increased inequality, poverty and unemployment. Alternative policies based on social justice are possible – and that is what the citizens of the world want. It is a question of political will.

In Brazil, governments led by Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff have during the past ten years lifted 20 million people out of absolute poverty, created 12 million jobs and raised the purchasing power of the minimum wage by 50 per cent.

Obviously, facing rising unemployment, the absolute priority of the global union movement is job creation (http://www.ituc-csi.org/new-ilo-report-shows-global ) This requires urgent government measures to adopt policies focused on the creation of more and better jobs. In addition, in the developing countries, we need to act now especially on 3 major issues:

  1. Raise minimum wages
  2. Ensure social protection
  3. Formalize informal workforce

In too many countries of the world, minimum wages are well below living wages, which have sufficient income for a worker to meet basic needs. Governments are using low minimum wages as a means to attract foreign investment in labour intensive industries.

An extreme example of exploitation is Bangladesh, a country of 150 million people where half live under the national poverty line. 3.5 million textile and garment workers of whom less than 1 per cent are unionized, mostly work on the national minimum wage of 36 USD per month, which is about a third of a living wage.

In Indonesia unions have obtained major gains after massive mobilization. Last year, the government was forced to raise minimum wages by 40-60 per cent to reach for the first time over 200 USD per month in major industrial areas. Outsourcing was limited by government regulation to certain functions, which will bring almost 20 million contract workers into permanent employment. A year earlier, a long campaign led to an expansion of health care and pension coverage to all citizens by 2015.

Over 40 per cent of the world’s workforce is in the informal sector. In the formal economy, contract and agency work is increasing and often replacing permanent employment. IndustriALL’s global campaign to STOP Precarious Work will therefore continue to promote legislation, collective agreements and global agreements to limit precarious employment. The global Charter signed by Volkswagen serves as a ground-breaking example for IndustriALL’s other union networks in multinational companies.

Another world is possible. But it requires from us political action and mobilization all over the globe, taking care of not only our members, but fighting for a fair and secure society for all citizens.

Mexico Days of Action 18-24 February 2013

The date marks the terrible Pasta de Conchos mine accident in 2006 that killed 65 miners. The refusal of the Mexican government and employer Grupo Mexico to recover the bodies of 63 miners who remain entombed is widely known to be an effort to cover up the real causes of the disaster and the inadequacy of rescue efforts.

The 65 Pasta de Conchos miners killed by “industrial homicide” symbolize the government-employer complicity in Mexico that is abusing workers’ core rights daily.

The systematic violation of workers’ rights occurs across all industrial sectors and regions of Mexico. The international trade union movement mobilizes each February to inform members and policymakers in their home countries of the need for change.

During the upcoming Days of Action trade unionists will revisit the Mexican Ambassador to their country and push for action on:

Actions will also include mobilizations, awareness raising activities, and letter writing to the new Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Expectations are heightened inside Mexico of positive changes that the new Peña Nieto government can bring for workers and trade unions in the country. The international call in February will echo this call.

Peña Nieto must intervene to ensure the swift and safe return of Los Mineros General Secretary Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, also a member of the IndustriALL Executive Committee, to Mexico from Canada where he is in exile due to bogus legal charges supported by the outgoing Calderón regime. Peña Nieto must also intervene to bring labour peace and justice to key strikes at Grupo Mexico mines in Somberete, Cananea, and Taxco, where the company has forced Los Mineros members to strike for over five years.

The SME trade union of electricians is still fighting for reinstatement for over 16,500 workers in Mexico City following a Supreme Court ruling in their favour.

IndustriALL members in the energy, petroleum, glass, shoe, and auto industries also need government intervention to end unjust attacks from employers who prefer to establish protection contracts with yellow unions and bypass the industrial relations system to further exploit their workforce.

It is time for the Mexican authorities to respect and act upon the recommendations of the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association, approved by the ILO’s Governing Body in June that call on the Mexican government to examine the issue of Protection Contracts.

The ILO Committee “firmly expects that a dialogue will take place with the most representative national workers’ and employers’ organizations, as well as the six organizations that are complainants in this case or that have supported it,” stated the Committee’s recommendations adding that the Committee “trusts that legislative and other measures will be taken in the near future to strengthen protection against anti-trade union practices in breach of collective bargaining principles.”

The Finnish research-focused NGO Finnwatch concentrating on corporate responsibility this month published a report in conjunction with Finnish trade unions revealing that several Finnish companies restrict their workers' right to join and form organizations freely in Mexico. In so doing the companies act against their own codes of conduct and violate human rights.

Finnish-based auto parts multinational PKC last week sacked four members of the Executive Committee of Section 307 of Los Mineros in Ciudad Acuña. The aggressive union-busting move included the dismissal of 120 workers seen to support the union, and is retaliation for their organizing.