Zambia: Mining union on recruitment blitz

Sinazongwe is 685 km from Kitwe, where IndustriALL Global Union affiliate MUZ is based, and about 12 hours’ drive by road but this is not a deterrent to recruiting more workers. MUZ has unionized 127 workers out of 150 at Smech Engineering, which is subcontracted to maintain the Maamba coal thermal power station that produces 300 megawatts of electricity into the Zambian national grid.

The recruitment is part of the activities for IndustriALL’s union building project in Zambia. Besides Zambia, the union building project includes Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe.

Formed in 1957, MUZ is amongst the oldest unions in Zambia and recently held its 14th national congress under the theme: “Growth, retention, unity and quality service to member”. It has 15,343 members from the mining sector of whom 5,094 are precarious workers with no permanent contracts. Nationally, it is affiliated to the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions.

Says Tendai Makanza, IndustriALL regional officer for Sub Saharan Africa:

“The strength of the union comes from its members which is why it is important to continue with efforts to increase numbers. We applaud efforts by MUZ who are going the extra mile to recruit members.”

The Zambian economy is anchored on mining, wholesale and retail trade, construction and manufacturing. Recently, it was affected by low copper prices and electricity supply shortages.  Mining has also spread from the Copperbelt Province to other provinces including the North Western Province where it is said to be low cost. Nevertheless, plans are underway to increase production at some old mines including Mopani’s copper and cobalt mines in Kitwe and Mufulira where MUZ has organized many workers and is the majority union.

The government of Zambia is hoping to turn the economy around through an economic recovery “Zambia Plus” programme aimed at improving domestic resource mobilization, fiscal governance, accountability and transparency, restoring budget credibility and raising confidence in the private sector. The Industrialization Strategy (2013) aims to create more jobs and diversify the economy and thus reduce the risk caused by over reliance on mining.

Zambian unions petition Dangote on violation of workers’ rights

By so doing, the company is denying the unions freedom of association.  Even with the involvement of the ministry of labour, through current and previous ministers and labour commissioners, the cement company has not budged. Dangote’s attitude towards unions is aptly captured in the contract with one of its labour brokers, Silondwa Engineering, which says the “contractor shall ensure that its employees are not involved in union activities and strikes that leads to stopping of work.”

At a meeting in Ndola on 5 July, three IndustriALL Global Union affiliates, the Mineworkers Union of Zambia, the National Union of Commercial and Industrial Workers and the National Union of Building, Engineering and General Workers met with representatives from Dangote and presented them with a petition demanding that the company stops violating workers’ rights. They reminded the company that it is in violation of the Constitution of Zambia, the Industrial and Labour Relations Act Chapter 269 and the ILO conventions. 

The unions also called for living wages of Zambian Kwacha 4 000 (US$408) as the current wages of K1800 (US$184) for general workers, for instance, were too low. They also wanted health and safety to be improved by providing a clinic on the cement plant. 

Also, of concern to unions is that Dangote employs only 15 permanent workers and has outsourced over 1,000 workers to different subcontractors. According to the labour laws, the workers employed through contractors were doing core work that required permanent contracts. Therefore, the company, through the contractors, is promoting precarious work through short term contracts, no benefits including pension and medical insurance, and low wages.

After the meeting the unions drove to the Masaiti plant where they picketed. Workers, who joined the picket, gave testimonies on how bad the wages and working conditions were.

Kenny Mogane, IndustriALL regional officer for Sub Saharan Africa, said:

“As a multinational company, Dangote should respect workers’ rights, pay living wages and ensure the health and safety of the workers. It is unacceptable for the company to openly violate Zambian laws by not signing recognition agreements with the unions.”

Lesotho unions demand new minimum wages now

Although negotiations are taking place within the Wages Advisory Board where unions, government and employers are represented, an agreement has not yet been found.

Workers are demanding a 15 per cent increase while employers are offering only seven per cent.

For example, the minimum wages for the garment and textile sector are currently set at Lesotho Loti 1238 per month (US$89) which is not enough for workers to look after their families and pay for basics like rent, food and transport.

Unions want the minimum wage in this sector to be US$144 and are also demanding that the minimums in all sectors be revised upwards towards a living wage of over US$200.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, Independent Democratic Union of Lesotho (IDUL), and seven other unions organizing in sectors including the garment and textile, manufacturing and mining took to the streets in Maseru and Maputsoe to protest the delays and the low wages.

Petitions were delivered to the prime minister, the ministry of labour and employment, and to parliament. Unions are also demanding that the minister of labour and employment, Keketso Rantso, be removed from her position for not announcing the minimum wages on time. They say because of the delay, the minister has neglected the welfare of workers and their families.
 
Through the union building project, IDUL is also campaigning for full pay while on maternity leave for women workers from the garment and textile sector. The union also wants better health and safety at workplaces, improved job security and respect for workers’ rights.
 
With over 56 per cent of the population living in poverty, and youth unemployment at 47 per cent, better wages can improve workers lives. The opening of new factories can also create jobs and improve living conditions in the country.
 
Says Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa:

Workers end up living in poverty because of low subsistence wages. It is therefore important for minimum wages to be increased. Therefore, we are urging the government of Lesotho to urgently announce minimum living wages.

South Africa: Union demands justice for woman worker murdered at electricity sub-station

There are fears that the case might be dismissed for lack of evidence as critical information from surveillance cameras has disappeared. The court heard last year that before the murder, Yende wanted to expose a criminal gang involved in stealing copper cables from power lines for sale to scrap metal dealers.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA), where she was a member, demands justice and says Eskom is complicit by not assisting in making the evidence available to law enforcement agencies. Says NUMSA in a statement:

“Her body was found in the workplace. It is virtually impossible for outsiders to access the sub-station on their own. She did not kill and lock herself in the office. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that her killers are either employees or were assisted by employees of Eskom.”

The union wants the case to be treated just like other high-profile cases, and for the South African Police Services and the National Prosecuting Authority “to take gender-based violence seriously by prioritizing investigations into the case.”

In a tribute to Yende, NUMSA says it will not rest until the truth is known.

“She was a hard-working ambitious young woman whose life was senselessly cut down in her prime. Her young son will have to live the rest of his life without the love and care of his mother.”

NUMSA has signed the IndustriALL Pledge in which unions make a commitment to fight all forms of violence against women at the workplace and in the unions.

South African workplaces continue to be unsafe as women face sexual harassment, rape and murder. According to the Statistics South Africa report Crime Against Women in South Africa 2018, the murder rate for women in the country increased by 117 per cent between 2015 and 2016/17 while rape was more than five times the global average.

Kenya: Union success in growing garment and textile sector

Brands including Arrow, Calvin Klein, H&M, Arrow, Izod, Cherokee and VF Corporation source from Kenya.

The United Aryan factory in the export processing zone of Nairobi gets orders from H&M and makes jeans for Levi’s. The factory’s 2,800 workers are all members of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate the Tailors and Textile Workers Union (TTWU), which has entered into a closed shop agreement with the management, meaning that workers who are hired by the company become union members.

One of the results of the agreement is that most industrial relations issues at the factory are dealt with at the shop floor. With United Aryan planning to open a larger factory that could employ up to 10,000 workers, the closed shop agreement lays a solid foundation for the TTWU’s organizing and recruitment strategies.

Like most garment producing companies, 80 per cent of the workers in the factory are women and the TTWU is developing a programme to deal specifically with the women workers.

The minimum wage at the factory is 13,000 Kenya Shillings (US $127) per month, higher than other Sub Saharan African countries. This is an opportunity to increase them towards living wages.

Says Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa:

“We will continue to support the recruitment of garment workers by TTWU in Kenya as it contributes to the employment of young women and to the much-needed turnaround to the decline of manufacturing on the continent.”

Kenya’s garment and textile sector can benefit by expanding its market to free trade areas that it belongs to, including the African Continental Free Trade Area, the East African Community, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. The country has also signed Economic Partnership Agreements, the European Union African Caribbean and Pacific (Cotonou Agreement) and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). About 92 per cent of apparel from Kenya is sold in the US under AGOA.

The government of Kenya’s Vision 2030 identifies the garment and textile sector as a driver of industrialization. Currently the sector contributes to 7 per cent of the country’s export earnings.

South Africa: Unions meet to build an Africa-Europe network across the Lear supply chain

Discussions among trade union representatives and shop stewards from German union, IG Metall, and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) are focusing on wages, in particular equal pay for work of equal value; improving adherence to health and safety standards; employment equity; provision of transport; and other benefits. The meeting, which received support from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, seeks to strengthen the 30-year collaboration between IG Metall and NUMSA that can be traced back to the struggle against apartheid.

Employing over 165,000 workers globally, US-headquartered Lear Corporation manufactures automotive seats and electrical distribution systems. Of these workers over 44, 000 are from Europe and 16,600 from Africa. However, most of the African workers are in Morocco where the company employs 13,000 people mostly in electrical systems. In South Africa the company employs 3,600 workers of whom 1,552 are NUMSA members.

The meeting is a follow up to a discussion held last year to form a network that would not only share information and knowledge but also learn from the other’s experiences. The network would enable Lear workers from Africa and Europe to deal with common issues, especially the practice of lowering of conditions of service for workers in countries considered to be low cost by the company. There was also an agreement to facilitate the representation of South Africa on the European Works Council as the continents were under the same management.

Jochen Schroth, IG Metall departmental leader for shop steward policy and the union representative for Lear Corporation in Europe says:

“Transnational union activities make us stronger through joint agreements for future collaboration and learning from each other. This allows us to develop concrete steps towards building a strong network.”

Kenny Mogane, IndustriALL Regional Officer for Sub Saharan Africa, says:

“We welcome the Lear network in the motor sector as it will build solidarity between workers in Africa and Europe, as well as improve working conditions.”

South African unions reject Eskom’s zero-increase in wages

With the cost of living going up because of tax increases and fuel price hikes, unions in South Africa argue that Eskom shows little concern for the welfare of workers and their families.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliates, the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, are collaborating to force Eskom to dump the zero-increase and vowed to continue picketing nationally.

After negotiations with Eskom reached a deadlock and the issue is heading for arbitration at the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration, unions resorted to picketing. Tthe minister of public enterprises, Pravin Gordan, said in a meeting with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and other stakeholders that wage negotiations will be reopened.

The unions, who are against the privatization of the state entity which produces 95 per cent of South Africa’s electricity, say most of Eskom’s woes can be traced back to the IMF and World Bank loans, poor management and corruption, and the decision to put Independent Power Producers (IPPs) onto the national grid. Eskom is implicated in corruption in the State of Capture report by then public protector Thuli Madonsela.

In April the ministry of energy signed an agreement with 27 IPPs to produce electricity through renewable energy sources mainly solar and wind. While the unions agree on the use of renewable energy they say that there is no Just Transition plan in place to protect 92,000 jobs that will be lost if five coal-fired power stations in Mpumalanga are closed. Such a plan will also involve training and absorption of workers into the renewable energy sector.

Says the unions in a joint press statement: “It’s a fact that Eskom has a high wage bill but that can’t be blamed or attributed to poor workers who are the lowest earners”, as workers and communities were not amongst those who got renewable energy contracts.

Diana Junquera Curiel, IndustriALL energy director says:

“It’s ridiculous for Eskom to announce that workers will not get an increase when inflation is going up. Instead, the company must negotiate with unions on wage increases. There must also be dialogue with unions on the Just Transition plan and on Independent Power Producers contracts."

South Africa: Union calls for improved health and safety after four mineworkers are killed at Sibanye Stillwater gold mine

Four mineworkers were killed, and one is still missing in yet another mine accident at Sibanye Stillwater’s Kloof Ikamva gold mine, about 60km from Johannesburg. The four are said to have died from heat exhaustion.

Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL director of mining says:

The dangerous conditions which Sibanye Stillwater continue to subject workers to are not acceptable and now bordering on negligence. The company must make efforts to always ensure the health and safety of the mine workers before profits.

In a petition to the Chamber of Mines last month, after the death of seven workers at Masakhane mine, a Sibanye Stillwater operation, the NUM urged the company to come up with a plan to implement the Mines Health and Safety Council requirements.

By so doing, the company would make progress towards achieving “zero harm”. Further, the mining company must also allow workers to exercise their rights to information, education and training, representation and to refuse to do dangerous work or enter unsafe workplaces. The union also demanded that the South African mining industry must stop recalling full-time health and safety representatives as they are necessary in building worker-control on health and safety issues, as well as reducing the number of accidents and deaths in the mines.

Peter Bailey, NUM health and safety chairperson, calls on the department of mineral resources to take action against the mining company and for inspectors to make compliance visits to the mining company’s operations:

NUM is highly disturbed and angered by the deaths.  It is unacceptable as we don't sell our lives, limbs or lungs to the industry but our labour to provide for our families.

African unions condemn global trade in used clothes as it suffocates textile sector

Africa imports 32 per cent of the world’s used clothes valued at US$1 billion and the main customers are poor people who can’t afford new clothes. The global trade rakes in US $3.7 billion.

Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda are amongst some of the big markets for the used clothes. In the same countries, the garment and textile industries have either collapsed or are struggling with thousands of jobs lost.

With little success, governments have tried to ban or impose huge tariffs on the used clothes, but as often clothes are smuggled across borders, like in Zimbabwe.

IndustriALL affiliates in Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe are against importing used clothes as it threatens the growth of the garment and textile sector which suffered huge blows in the 1980s and 1990s with the adoption of the neoliberal International Monetary Fund/World Bank sponsored structural adjustment policies. They argue that the growth of the sector has potential to create jobs for hundreds of thousands of young women and other workers along the value chain. The unions also say cheap imports from China made locally produced clothes more expensive.

The East African Community announced a ban on used clothes, and Rwanda implemented the ban despite threats by the US that it was violating the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), to which it is a signatory with 40 other African countries. After the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textile Association petitioned to the US Trade Representative that the ban by Rwanda would cost 40 000 jobs in the US, the East African country was suspended from AGOA.

However, facing US pressure Rwanda insisted in April that as the ban restores the “dignity” of the country’s citizens and will create over 25,000 domestic jobs, it will not withdraw the ban. On the other hand, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda opted to retain AGOA benefits and did not implement the ban.

Says Paule France Ndessomin, IndustriALL regional secretary for Sub Saharan Africa:

We call upon governments to develop sustainable policies that promote the development of the garment and textile sector and the employment of young workers. International trade agreements should prioritize the interests of developing countries instead of promoting the dumping of used clothes on the continent.

DRC unions close ranks against Glencore

The affiliates agreed not to compete amongst themselves but cooperate and give each other necessary support in the upcoming social elections for union representatives at workplaces that are held every three years according to the DRC labour laws.

The grievances that were raised by workers to the IndustriALL fact-finding mission to Glencore’s copper and cobalt mines in the DRC which went to Kolwezi in February were read and adopted as the reality prevailing in the mines. The grievances included workers’ rights abuses through constant threats of dismissals, poor adherence to health and safety standards, occupational diseases, racism and discrimination, unfair and unjust job classifications, low pay, inferior pay for Congolese workers versus foreign ones. Further, workers complained of inadequate drinking water during shifts and that no laundry, ablution facilities and showers existed at the mines. The hospital was also too far away for workers' families.

These are the grievances that IndustriALL took to the Glencore AGM in Zug, Switzerland in May where TUMEC was joined by trade union representatives from Australia, Canada, Italy, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Zambia and NGOs who demonstrated outside and later attended the meeting.

The affiliates agreed to support CSC which is the majority union that currently chairs the ten unions represented at Mutanda Mine. They will also support each other by developing common positions at KCC and supporting the same candidates at the two mines in the social elections.

In their organizing and recruitment drives, the affiliates will also not compete for members but will instead work as a unit and collaborate to build the strengths of their unions.

The meeting set up an IndustriALL Lualaba provincial committee of six members to coordinate the Glencore campaign and other pressing issues that the unions are facing.

Says Charles Kumbi, IndustriALL Sub Saharan Africa region project officer:

“What was emphasized at the meeting is the need for the union leadership to involve workers in whatever decisions they make. It is important for workers to participate in decision making as this promotes participatory democracy in the unions which is key to building strong unions in the DRC. This will also counter the practices by mining companies to divide the workers by pitting them against the other.”