Down Rio Tinto, down!

The rally culminated outside the Cape Town Convention Centre, where the world’s largest congress on mining, the Mining Indaba, was on its last day. Members of mining unions, as well as members of NGO’s, came together to point the spotlight on workers’ struggle for decent work at Rio Tinto plants across the world.

Kemal Özkan, assistant general secretary of IndustriALL, said that the race to the bottom must stop.

”As Rio Tinto is generating enormous profits from its operations, workers are struggling with unsafe, precarious work. The benefits from the mines should be shared with everyone and not only used for increasing company profits. Today’s situation is un-acceptable.”

The rally through Cape Town marked the end of a three-day long meeting of the IndustriALL’s Rio Tinto Global Union Network and the official launch of its campaign to increase unionisation at Rio Tinto.

Thanking everyone who attended the rally for their support, Andrew Vickers, general secretary of Australian affiliate CFMEU and chair of the IndustriALL mining section, said:

“Thank you for your support to launch this campaign to stop Rio Tinto – to stop Rio Tinto disrespecting trade unions, workers, agreements, and to stop terrorising and displacing communities.”

While people turned out in numbers to show their support for the mineworkers, Rio Tinto flatly refused to meet with representatives of the network to receive a memorandum of demands.

In the memorandum IndustriALL Global Union demands from Rio Tinto, the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, and the International Council on Mining and Metal to, among other things, stop interfering in the collective bargaining process and to ensure that workers at their operations have a right to refuse unsafe work.

Rio Tinto also needs to commit to engagement with workers and their trade unions, and to minimize precarious work while maximizing permanent, full-time employment at their operations.

“This is a struggle for workers everywhere. The campaign against Rio Tinto is dedicated to strengthening our workers and we will continue the fight”, said Senzeni Zokwana, president of NUM and vice president of IndustriALL. 

IndustriALL Global Union to target Rio Tinto in campaign for workers’ rights

The rally is set to take place on the last day of the 2014 African Mining Indaba, on 6 February at 11 am. Hundreds of participants are expected to march from St George´s Cathedral to the Cape Town Convention Centre, demanding an end to Rio Tinto’s bad corporate behaviour.

Claiming to abide by good corporate practice, mining and metals giant Rio Tinto’s conduct includes major disputes with trade unions, communities, indigenous peoples and regulatory authorities.

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan says that with the campaign, IndustriALL Global Union aims to build union power at Rio Tinto plants around the world, uniting workers in the struggle for decent work:

“Rio Tinto has extensive experience in causing one conflict after another with trade unions, indigenous organizations, environmental groups and other key community stakeholders. Unions and civil society are coming together in an unprecedented way to push back against Rio Tinto for the benefit of workers, the environment and communities.” 

Learn more about Rio Tinto’s history of conflict at http://www.industriall-union.org/riotinto

For more information please contact:

Livhuwani Mammburu, NUM Spokesperson, +27 (0)838093257

Petra Brännmark, Communications Director IndustriALL Global Union, +41 79 198 69 13
[email protected]

IndustriALL Global Union represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors and is a force in global solidarity taking up the fight for better working conditions and trade union rights around the world.

African unions confront precarious work

The IndustriALL Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Precarious Work Conference, which took place at the ITUC training centre in  Lomé, Togo on 27-28 January, enabled affiliates to identify regional objectives, strategies and priorities on precarious work leading to 2016 as well as strategies and actions for 2014, within the framework of IndustriALL’s global goals and strategies.

Participating unions painted an all too familiar picture of precarious work spreading throughout the region. In the mining and manufacturing industries it is being driven particularly by multinational companies to reduce wages and conditions and to exclude trade unions. Global employment agencies continue to pressure governments to allow them to extend their operations and replace permanent employment with temporary agency work.

Precarious workers in the region are generally excluded from social security provisions and health and safety protections and are subject to lower salaries and conditions than permanent workers. In Mauritius it is a government strategy to replace local workers with migrant workers on wages that fall way below the poverty level.

Affiliates from the DRC, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Ghana, Cameroon, Mauritius, Nigeria, Niger, Togo, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal and Guinea described what their unions have been doing to confront precarious work. Hostility of employers and workers’ fear continue to be major barriers to organizing. Nevertheless, many were able to point to successes in organizing precarious workers, converting their status from precarious to permanent, and signing collective agreements that have same conditions for permanent and contract workers. For example, SUTIDS in Senegal has amended its statutes to make it easier to recruit precarious workers and as a result has gained 450 new members.

Unions have also been pursuing legislative changes to protect precarious workers and reduce the incidence of precarious work. In Mauritius, the union has achieved amendments to the labour law that stipulate that all contract workers with 6 months service qualify for leave provisions, all contract jobs of more than 2 years must be converted to permanent and all workers, including contract workers, must receive and end-of-year bonus (13 month salary). In Senegal, legislation that regulates agency work has been passed.

Raising awareness among workers and the general public of the consequences of precarious work continues to be an important strategy for all unions. Affiliates in Ghana and Senegal have successfully used media campaigns to this end.

The meeting formed part of the IndustriALL precarious work project for sub-Saharan Africa which is supported by IndustriALL affiliates in Finland and Belgium. This project is now entering a new phase. In 2013 the unions collected data in order to establish a baseline of the number, distribution and situation of precarious workers which will enable them to measure progress and to better target their actions. In each country affiliates are now working together to develop an agreed action plan that will be implemented by all affiliates, working together. 

IndustriALL Caterpillar Network Meeting

On 2 and 3 April, thirty Caterpillar union representatives from four continents met in Orlando, Florida, to strengthen their network activities and to link with other company networks. The participants had a vivid exchange overcoming political and company barriers.

The Caterpillar trade union chair, UAW secretary-treasurer, Dennis Williams, made clear that “For the employees within Caterpillar the global network is a means to improve the workers’ situation within the group.”

For two days the 30 delegates from seven countries discussed the situation and the future activities of the group. Besides, they used the chance to interact with the over 60 delegates of the “UAW Agricultural Implement Council”.

The participants in both meetings had a close interaction and learnt a lot from each other. With reference to the situation in the South of the USA, one delegate stated: “The so called “right to work” in some Southern states is just a right to work more for less pay and less favorable conditions”.

The delegates discussed not only the general situation and dismissals within Caterpillar, but also joint future activities. At this occasion they adopted a working plan with a strategic approach in order to achieve a better dialogue. During the exchange with the USA Agricultural Implement Council with reference to the global strategy of the MNC, IndustriALL’s director for mechanical engineering Matthias Hartwich stated, “As the companies today organize their activities on a global level, we as trade unions will also find our answers globally. We are a global family of brothers and sisters.”

At the end of the network meeting, delegates promised to come together again next year and to even broaden their basis with organizing activities in different countries.

Global Labour University announces new Master programs

 For application and programme details, please visit http://www.global-labour-university.org/

The Global Labour University is a collaboration between the ILO, universities and trade unions and offers postgraduate programmes on labour policies, economics, workers’ rights, globalization and development to trade unionists around the world.  The GLU invites applicants to become part of a global network of scholars and activists to debate and shape the future of the global labour movement.

The final deadline for applications is 1 March 2014.  At both campuses a limited number of scholarships will be awarded to qualified applicants in need of financial support.

2013 – A Year of Struggle and Victories

The industrial homicide which killed 1,130 garment workers at Rana Plaza in April expedited negotiations on a legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. 

Today, more than 120 leading brands and retailers of the world have signed the ground-breaking Accord with IndustriALL and our sister organization UNI to help make the Bangladeshi garment industry safe and sustainable in a major five-year project. The participating companies have committed themselves to exhaustive inspections, finding funding for the necessary repairs of dangerous factories, and training for management and workers.

IndustriALL will continue action to reach a living wage after the 77% increase to the minimum wage in December in Bangladesh, and launch a major organizing project in cooperation with our partner organizations.

On Mexico, global solidarity was put on full display at IndustriALL’s Executive Committee in December. For the first time since he was forced into exile in 2006, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia travelled outside of Canada to participate in the meeting, receiving a standing ovation. IndustriALL will continue the campaign for democratic unions and against protection contracts in Mexico.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, IndustriALL is supporting the development and growth of free and independent unions with concrete programs and campaigns. The focus countries are Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia and Morocco. In December, we again delivered our message to the Iraqi government on the need to pass new, modern trade union legislation to guarantee union rights.

An increasing number of multinational companies are engaging with IndustriALL to improve conditions of work in a constructive manner in all their operations. After the Bangladesh Accord with 120 companies and the global framework agreement with electric power giant Enel of Italy, Belgium’s chemical company Solvay lays new ground with an accord that will become a living reality for the improvement of conditions of work.

Our web site www.industriall-union.org will tell you more of our struggles and victories around the world. Issue number 2 of our journal Global Worker delves deep into a wide range of issues from a worker perspective.

But the fight continues all around the world. Trade union leaders are under arrest in Colombia, oil workers are detained in Kazakhstan, chemical workers are locked-out in the USA.  And so on.

IndustriALL Global Union will relentlessly continue its mission in 2014 to promote workers’ rights worldwide. Join the struggle!

Jyrki Raina

General Secretary

African Development Bank adopts labour safeguards

In adopting  "Operational Safeguard 5: Labour Conditions, Health and Safety" (OS 5), the AfDB requires that all bank borrowers comply with the ILO core labour standards, provide written information to workers about their working conditions and rights, comply with basic occupational health and safety standards, and take responsibility for the conditions of "third-party" (subcontracted) workers.

The adoption of the new safeguards culminates a four-year process to which trade unions contributed recommendations. It follows the example of the labour performance requirements adopted in 2006 by the World Bank’s private sector lending are, the IFC. While largely similar, the AfDB policy appears to put a stronger requirement on borrowers to ensure that its contractors also comply, instructing that "the borrower or client incorporates these requirements [of OS 5] in contractual agreements with its contractors, subcontractors and intermediaries". The IFC requires only that borrowers ‘use commercially reasonable efforts’.

The AfDB has announced that it will develop assessment procedures and a tracking system to enable it to monitor implementation of the new requirements.

Jenny Holdcroft, policy director at IndustriALL Global Union, says that monitoring by trade unions has played an important role in ensuring compliance with the IFC labour safeguards.

It will be important for African trade unions, the ITUC and Global Union Federations to comment on the effectiveness of the assessment and tracking procedures as they are established, and to monitor AfDB projects regarding compliance with the safeguard on an ongoing basis.

Two other major regional development banks — the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank — have so far taken no action to adopt a labour safeguard.

IndustriALL tribute to Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the greatest statesman that ever lived, is a world icon and yet he symbolised different things to different people. He is a symbol of triumph, where a village herd boy can grow up to challenge a repressive government and change the course of history. A symbol of struggle; organising for political change through the formation and leadership of structures of the African National Congress, including its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. A symbol of courage; having spent his early life enduring harassment and incarceration, yet even whilst in prison on a life sentence his name rallied people to fight for freedom. A symbol of reconciliation; when after spending 27 years in prison he delivered a nation out of an oppressive bloody regime on the power of forgiveness. A symbol of hope; using his powerful voice to speak out against injustice, human suffering, and to promote peace and wellbeing.

Mandela was not always universally respected. There was a time when the Tories in Britain publicly called for his hanging; he remained on the US terrorist watchlist until 2008; he was scorned for speaking out on the war in Iraq; for embracing Fidel Castro and acknowledging Cuba’s role in the struggle against apartheid; and for speaking out in defence of Palestine, saying that freedom in South Africa was incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

A political giant, Mandela remained a man of the people. He acknowledged the role that organised labour palyed in ending apartheid, not only in South Africa but throughout the world. He understood that it was ordinary workers that stood up, stood together and stood in solidarity that created the masses to defeat apartheid.

Compromise for a new South Africa came at a price. Whilst Mandela believed in the rights of workers to prosper and lived dignified lives, the unstable macroeconomics left behind by apartheid required sacrificing the aspirations of the working class for economic stability. The newly democratic South Africa embraced neoliberalism and grounded its tenents in the economic framework adopted in 1996, the Growth, Employment and Redistribution policy, widely acknowledged to have entrenched inequality, unemployment and poverty that plagues South Africa today.

Yet he remains loved and honoured by the working class because he was a man of humility and principle. He acknowledged that the struggle of the working class was not over with the dawn of a new South Africa, and encouraged workers to hold the state accountable and fight for a more just South Africa.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) bestowed on Mandela in 1980 the title of Lifetime Honorary President of the NUM. Today the NUM mourns “Mandela who has throughout sacrificed and dedicated his life for the good of the people of South Africa and the world will be solely missed as a global icon, a peace maker and a freedom fighter of note.” On his passing the NUM stated “he has been an inspiration through and through and has on many occasions motivated mineworkers to take education seriously as he believed that it is through it that their children will head mines.”

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) says “President Mandela will forever be admired and adored by the militant and fighting metalworkers of our country… President Mandela’s life touched many South Africans, young and old, black and white, because his life shone through our shared aspirations of a life of full human equality enshrined in the Freedom Charter. His outstanding contribution to our struggle for liberation, freedom, democracy and people’s power will be celebrated by many generations to come.”

Mandela’s death comes at a time when there is more than grief in the dark clouds that have gathered in the South African skies. There are divisions and disillusionment in many quarters, yet the country remains deeply democratic. Mandela’s legacy is the legacy of millions of South Africans that contributed to its making.

Numsa calls for renewed struggle to honour him; “The passing on of President Mandela marks the end of a political era in our journey towards full freedom. To truthfully and fully honour Mandela and his Comrades, President Mandela’s passing on must herald the birth of our renewal to intensify the struggle for full economic sovereignty, for complete economic freedom of the working class and the rural poor.”

The future is where we need to look to, says Frans Baleni, the NUM General Secretary; "As we dip our banners and celebrate the life and times of this stalwart, it is time that as South Africans we reflect on the legacy he left behind and the future we have to craft for generations to come".

As IndustriALL pays tribute to this great man and joins the world in mourning his death, we give Mandela the final word.  “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk has not ended.”

Rest in peace our great struggle hero

ITUC holds women’s organizing assembly in Dakar

To tackle gender inequality and injustice in the world of work, unions need to organize women around their priorities and aspirations, ensure they get into leadership and recruit many more young women. To provide for unions’ growth women can take the organizations beyond their traditional fields of recruitment such as the informal economy and precarious work and non-standard employment. Women leaders ensure women’s issues are reflected in unions’ activities, in bargaining agendas and in policy demands. Mentoring younger sisters is essential to take them from membership to grow into leadership. The ITUC campaign on women’s leadership is called COUNT US IN!

The Count us In! campaign engages unions to bring about change to bring more women into leadership positions and to make concerted efforts to organize more women in unions. The reasons behind the campaign are the following:

The ITUC also has a campaign called Decisions for Life which is geared to young women. Trade unions need to become more responsive to young women and to take their needs to heart. Getting a job, securing a permanent contract, earning a living wage, starting a family, becoming an activist are all challenges that need to be taken seriously by trade unions. Social media can also be used as a mobilization tool. Through this campaign women are meant to feel more confident about taking decisions and standing up for their rights at work and playing a more prominent role.

The conference had sessions on the informal economy, HIV-AIDS and violence. The importance of organizing women around HIV-AIDS was stressed. Especially women in communities can be reached by this type of work.

In connection with violence the session focused on the proposal under discussion at the ILO to adopt a Convention on gender-based violence. A majority of government members on the ILO Governing Body need to be persuaded to support the adoption of such an instrument. Such a convention would address the sexual harassment, violence, threats and bullying which are still commonplace on the job. The enforcement of adequate laws is essential for preventing gender-based violence at work. An ILO convention could cover a definition of gender-based violence at work, provisions to prevent the violence, measures to protect and support workers affected by the violence and a description of the groups most affected by gender-based violence, namely LGBT, indigenous and migrant workers, workers living with HIV/AIDS and disabilities and people trapped in forced and child labor. Ministries and members of the ILO Governing Body should be contacted to push for such a convention.

At the conclusion of the ITUC conference the Senegalese Family Minister committed to ratifying ILO Convention 183 on maternity protection in the near future.

Ugandan unions commit to unity

The General Secretaries of the four IndustriALL affiiliates in Uganda, NUCCPTE, UTGLAWU, UMMOGAWU and UCPAWU were joined by the General Secretary of UHFTAWU, which has applied for affiliation, in signing a memorandum of understanding. The agreement aims to create increased cooperation and unity by means of joint action. The signing of the MoU was witnessed by IndustriALL representatives from the sub-Saharan Regional Office and the Head Office.

The cooperation will be known as the IndustriALL National Coordinating Council in Uganda (INCC-U). Several areas are identified for cooperation, with organising and recruitment as the number one objective. The unions also agree to cooperate on negotiation of collective agreements, training and capacity building, agitating for the rights of workers, grievance handling and dispute settlement, as well as working together on local and international policy campaigns such as a precarious work campaign launched in October.

While maintaining their independence and autonomy, the unions that are party to the agreement agree to develop and implement joint actions in all the identified areas of cooperation. A Management Committee comprising two officers from each of the signatory unions will meet at least four times a year to plan and oversee the operations of the programs and activities of the INCC-U. A Technical Working Committee comprising three members of the Management Committee will meet more often to deal with communication and implementing activities, and a Finance Committee comprising all General Secretaries will manage the finances and bank account.