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	Following renewal of the Global Framework Agreement (GFA) between ICEM, the International Metalworkers&#039; Federation (IMF), and the Belgian company Umicore last September, the Monitoring Committee conducted a visit to one of the company&rsquo;s US operations in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That monitoring mission occurred 6-7 March 2012.

	Umicore is a global materials and technology firm that focuses in four business areas, Catalysis, Energy Materials, Performance Materials, and Recycling. The Umicore Group has industrial operations on all continents and serves a global customer base. It generated turnover of &euro;14.5 billion (&euro;2.3 billion excluding metal) in 2011 and currently employs some 14,600 people.

	Umicore Autocat USA Inc.in Tulsa was purchased from Delphi in 2007 andis organized by the IMF affiliate Union Auto Workers (UAW) through its Local 286. Geographically close to major auto assembly plants in the US, the plant produces catalysts used in automotive emission abatement systems for both light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 137px;height: 159px" width="390" />&nbsp;

	Umicore Monitoring Committee

	Along with the Umicore Monitoring Committee members, Ignace De Ruijter, Senior Vice President of Human Resources; Guy Ethier, Senior Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety; Mark Dolfyn, Director of Corporate Human Resource; Kemal &Ouml;zkan, ICEM Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs (who represented IMF as well); Peter Kamm, Umicore&rsquo;s European Works Council and member of ICEM German affiliate IGBCE, the visit was joined by local company managers and UAW local representatives.

	The Monitoring Committee followed the same pattern of work as in three previous missions to China, Brazil, and South Africa. A wide range of information regarding employment, training and education, health and safety, environmental issues, social policies and working conditions, social dialogue, and relations with the local community was delivered and discussed during the visit.

	Since the plant supplies major auto producers, the plant suffered severely during the financial crisis period starting in 2008 with a substantial decline in jobs. However when recovery in the US auto industry started in 2009, Umicore&rsquo;s Tulsa plant began seeing an uptick in business and some jobs were restored, although still far below the level of the pre-crisis period.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 227px;height: 159px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

	Kemal Ozkan,&nbsp;UAW Representatives

	Local management and UAW local union representatives explained how the crisis period was handled through the industrial relations system at the plant. It was further reported that during collective bargaining negotiations in 2009, a more institutionalised procedure for conducting such periods was defined and agreed.

	&Ouml;zkan and Kamm, together with UAW local shop stewards and James Cyr, Bargaining Chair; Warren McKinley, Co-Chair; Lance Boyd and Curtis Storey, both UAW Representatives, met in a separate union meeting to exchange information and discuss the labour situation at the plant. The union meeting examined current working conditions, the collective agreement and social dialogue at the plant, which was followed by a briefing on the nature and content of the GFA. It was agreed that communication would be continued between the UAW local union and the European Works Council.

	In evaluating the visit, the parties jointly committed to quality labour relations and social dialogue at the plant. Particular attention and appreciation was expressed for high quality health and safety practices conducted by joint union-management committee for safety inside the workplace. The Monitoring Committee will finalize its report at a meeting scheduled for the end of May.

Umicore Monitoring Committee of Global Agreement Visits US Plant in Oklahoma

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	The ICEM is following with concern the implementation process of the new Industrial Relations law in Pakistan, a process which should include trade unions. Writing to Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani on 13 March, the day before the Industrial Relations Bill went before the National Assembly, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda urged against further delays to the process

	&ldquo;The five ICEM affiliated trade unions in Pakistan have the support of an influential network of trade unions in 132 countries. These unions and all workers in Pakistan are entitled to proper legislation protecting their basic human and labour rights, legislation that provides proper industrial dispute adjudicating mechanisms, and most importantly the right for trade unions to exist,&rdquo; stated Warda. (See the full <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/27.ICEM%20Pakistan%20Labour%20Legislation.pdf">ICEM letter</a> here.)

	The urgency was due to the pending expiration of the promulgated Industrial Relations Ordinance 2011 on 17 March. In a legal vacuum following earlier expirations of labour legislations, labour issues were devolved to the provinces by the subsequent 18th Amendment to the Constitution. A 2 June 2011 ruling by the country&rsquo;s Supreme Court abolished the role of the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) because the relevant federal legislation no longer existed.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" height="185" src="" width="246" />&nbsp;

	Leaders&nbsp;of ICEM&#039;s&nbsp;Pakistan Affiliates

	The legal existence of trade unions in Pakistan was thus threatened. Encouragingly, the new bill was passed by the National Assembly on 14 March without amendment, as it was by the Senate on 7 March. The Pakistani government announced the new legislation as a landmark achievement that will promote harmonious employer-employee relations and protect the rights of the labour community. Politicians across political parties agreed that mature systems of industrial relations in Pakistan will contribute to industrial and economic growth.

	The ICEM hopes that the new law will effectively rationalise the labour law in Islamabad and at the trans-provincial level with regards to formation of trade unions, trade union federations, and to regulate employer-worker relations.

	A key stipulation of the bill instructs the government to constitute a NIRC with the power to adjudicate and rule on industrial disputes in the capital and at the trans-provincial level, also on industrial disputes of national importance. Local level industrial relations will remain covered by provincial labour governance.

	Elsewhere in Pakistan, yesterday, 20 March, the Labour Appellant&nbsp;Tribunal dismissed appeals of local Syngenta management and ruled in favour of the ICEM-affiliated Pakistan Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Union (PCEM) in declaring all 50 workers of a factory as permanent&nbsp;employees of Syngenta Pakistan. The ICEM salutes the PCEM in its victory in regularising these workers to permanent employee status.

	Shockingly, the Swiss-based agrichemicals multinational Syngenta has ignored past court rulings in favour of the contract workers&rsquo; right to full time employment. The Syngenta Employees Union Pakistan, belonging to PCEM, has faced serious violations, including unjustified dismissals of its leaders. See last year&rsquo;s <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4219-ICEM-Fights-for-Reinstatement-of-Union-Leader-in-Pakistan-">ICEM report</a> here.

Pakistan Enacts New Labour Legislation with Pressure from Unions

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	What does precarious work look like in Australia?

	One of the things that has characterised clothing workers in Australia over many decades has been that companies manufacture goods through very long, complex and broad supply chains. The supply chains in numerous cases have multiple levels and often at the end of those supply chains you find someone working at home &ndash; these are predominantly women, mainly migrant women in the Australian context; they don&rsquo;t have English as a first language and they are working in very isolated circumstances; they commonly work 7 days a week and when there&rsquo;s a rush for orders they&rsquo;ll work throughout the day and night. It&rsquo;s also common that they&rsquo;ll involve other family members including children to try to get the work done and part of the other aspect that characterises these workers is that they&rsquo;re often told that they&rsquo;re not employees, that they&rsquo;re not workers, and the people who give them the work require them to have some sort of company name or corporate structure to be able to give them the work. This is a sham arrangement &ndash; they&rsquo;re not genuine contractors and have no genuine independence at all. This is an attempt by the company and the brand to distance themselves from their employment responsibilities.

	What action has the Textile, Clothing &amp; Footwear Union of Australia taken?

	More than 20 years ago we succeeded in having a legal set of award conditions that said that if you are a worker in a factory in our industry or at home you are entitled to the same pay and conditions &ndash; this along hasn&rsquo;t fixed the problem. So, what we are now doing &ndash; and have had some success &ndash; is with different state governments in Australia introducing state legislation.

	Our unions campaigned for many, many years on this issue, and we don&rsquo;t do it alone we&rsquo;re part of a broader campaign called the &lsquo;Fairwear&rsquo; campaign which is&nbsp; made up of unions, church groups, student groups, community organisations and activists who for more than 15 years have had a campaign which focuses publically on companies who don&rsquo;t take seriously their responsibility to workers in their supply chains, and pressures them to become accredited with a voluntary scheme which makes the whole supply chain transparent. The accreditation scheme is based on Australian legal minimum standards being met, so through the campaign and the unions&rsquo; exposure of many examples of exploitative behaviour of workers working from home we got some state governments to introduce laws and now we&rsquo;re just at the point of having the federal government introduce a national legislation which picks up on what we achieved at the state level and makes it nationally consistent. It&rsquo;s now gone into the Australian Parliament and will be voted on in the next couple of weeks.

	The proposed legislation does 4 keys things. The first thing is it deems all outworkers &nbsp;(our terminology in Australia for these workers working at home is outworkers)&nbsp; to be employees, it says regardless of whether you are required to have a business name or company structure you are an employee. Secondly, it allows those workers to recover unpaid money up the supply chain, so if the person who gave them the work disappears they can go to the next company up the supply chain, or the next company above that, to recover unpaid wages and it includes the notion of the &lsquo;apparent employer&rsquo; so it allows you to recover money from the apparent employer as opposed to only the actual employer. The third thing it does is allow the government to introduce a mandatory code to complement the voluntary code that I spoke about before, and that mandatory code would put obligations not just on the manufacturers but on the retailers &ndash; so it would require retailers by law to make their whole supply chain transparent. The forth thing it does is gives the union greater right of entry powers &ndash; not into homes, we already have right of entry powers in relation to the records etc. about homeworkers and we don&rsquo;t want to be able to enter into someone&rsquo;s home without their permission, but it gives us far greater powers to enter what we describe as sweatshops than apply to most other unions under Australian law - most other unions under Australian law have to give 24 hours&rsquo; notice of entry, and are only able to look at their members&rsquo; records. What this law will do is allow us to not give any notice so we&rsquo;ll be able to go straight into the workplace without giving them any prior notice, and it will also allow us to check all of the workers&rsquo; records, not just the union members.

	How does your union organise homeworkers?

	We&rsquo;ve tried a variety of different methods and are still trying new things all of the time because they are, from our experience, the hardest group of workers to organise. Because of the level of pressure that they&rsquo;re placed under they are very fearful of seeing to be associated with the union, otherwise they lose work. But the method where we&rsquo;ve had some success is that for&nbsp; many years we&rsquo;ve run free English language classes that are targeted to outworkers in their community so in the regions and suburbs that they live in. Those classes deal with English languages and literacy, but also with rights and the role of the union. We also visit workers and try and establish new networks of connecting these workers, often using social occasions as a way of bringing workers together. One of the things that characterises this work is that it is really isolated so we try and find opportunities to bring them together. We do things like a trip to a garden show &ndash; a range of activities where they and their children can come. The other thing we do is employ organisers who have done outwork themselves and also speak the language &ndash; the majority of these workers currently are Vietnamese, so we&rsquo;ve got a strategy of employing Vietnamese organisers in the union that can deal directly with people in their first language and also organisers who have had the experience of doing that sort of work themselves.

	More information on this campaign is available <a href="http://tcfua.org.au/outworkers/union-campaigns">here</a>.

	Since the interview took place the bill has been passed by the Senate and will now be discussed at the House of Representatives.

Interview with Michele O Neil, National Secretary of the Textile, Clothing, Footwear Union Australia

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	In February the Play Fair campaign &ndash; a coalition of trade unions and NGOs including the ITGLWF and the International Trade Union Confederation - published a report highlighting code of conduct abuses in factories producing merchandise for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Play Fair researchers interviewed a range of workers from two factories in China &ndash; one producing pin badges and the second producing stuffed toys of the Olympic mascots.

	The organisers of the London Olympics &ndash; LOCOG &ndash; have a code of conduct which states that &ldquo;To every extent possible work performed must be on the basis of recognised employment relationship established through national law and practice&rdquo; and &ldquo;Obligations to employees under labour or social security laws and regulations arising from the regular employment relationship shall not be avoided through the use of labour-only contracting&hellip;&rdquo;.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 112px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Despite the strong language in the code, Play Fair&rsquo;s researchers found that workers in one of the factories had no idea of the terms of their contract, and had never been provided with a written contract of employment. Not a single worker interviewed for the research was employed on a permanent contract.

	At a second factory researchers found that core workers were employed on five-year fixed term contracts and that during periods of high orders the factory hired about 300 temporary workers, more than doubling the workforce. These temporary workers were employed on a daily wage and received only 40 CNY rather than the statutory minimum of 50 CNY per day. Temporary workers were not provided with social security payments.

	The full report is available <a href="http://www.play-fair.org/media/wp-content/uploads/play_fair_en_final.pdf">here</a>.

Toying with Workers’ Rights

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	The Global Unions Research Network (GURN) is collating information, links and publications on precarious work and making the information available through its <a href="http://www.gurn.info/en/topics/precarious-work">website</a>.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 362px;height: 103px" width="390" />

	The website has been developed as part of the follow-up to the International Workers&#039; Symposium on Policies and Regulations to Combat Precarious Employment which took place in Geneva from 4 &ndash; 7th October 2011, and will be regularly updated.

Global Unions Research Network web resource on Precarious Work

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	More than 200,000 workers dressed in yellow and red took to the streets in 32 city centres in South Africa in an extraordinary show of worker power against labour brokers.

	A general strike against e-tolling and labour brokers organised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) on March 7, 2012 was a resounding success.

	Addressing tens of thousands of people that gathered in Johannesburg, COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the protest was not a march, but &quot;an occupation of the city of Johannesburg by the workers&quot;. South African unions are resolved to bring an end to the use of labour brokers. &quot;This is a class battle. This is a class war. Labour brokers do not create jobs - they destroy the agenda of decent work,&quot; said Vavi.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 241px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), Irvin Jim addressed thousands of strikers in East London in the Eastern Cape. &quot;Decent work is a right. Labour brokering is just like slavery and is causing major problems for the working class,&quot; Jim said, &quot;They are taking up jobs from us and I am raising my finger at them. We must take a firm stand and see them banned for good.&quot;

	The strike was also organized to protest e-tolling, a toll road system that is being implemented in Gauteng province in April this year which Vavi called &quot;a new apartheid&quot; as the increased cost to travel would restrict people&#039;s movement, especially the poor working class.

	Vavi warned that labour was prepared to take action again on the issue. &quot;If they say they will go ahead with the tolling, we will take all the people here, and more, and put them on the highways of Joburg,&quot; he said. &quot;If they insist we pay for public roads then, just as we made the apartheid system unworkable, we will make this system unworkable.&quot;

	The protest against labour brokers and e-tolling had wide popular support and many civil society groups and ordinary South Africans spoke out in support of the strike. (Story provided by the IMF).

Strike Against Labour Brokers in South Africa

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	As the use of CAL continues to grow around the world more and more unions and their members are taking to the streets to protest against the degradation of employment relationships.

	An all-India general strike was held on 28th February which brought together workers from various sectors to oppose the neoliberal policies of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh&#039;s government. One key demand of the action was to ensure that contract workers are award the same rights and protections as permanent workers.

	The Indian Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act stipulates that contract workers who perform the same or similar work as permanent workers will be entitled to the same wages and conditions. Under this Act, contract labour ought not to be permitted for permanent or core functions.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 245px;height: 160px" width="390" />&nbsp;

	However, as regularly reported by the ICEM, this Act is widely violated and contract workers in India habitually receive inferior terms and conditions of employment despite performing core tasks. On 12 January, the ICEM joined a complaint to the OECD submitted by its local affiliate Pragatisheel Cement Shramik Sangh (PCSS) regarding the illegal treatment of contract workers in India by the Swiss multinational cement company Holcim. Further information on the complaint is available <a href="/en/7-Asia-Pacific/4900-Holcim-s-Violations-in-India-Taken-to-OECD">here</a>.

Indian Workers Mobilise to Protest Against Neo-liberal Policies Including CAL

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	IndustriALL Global Union, which will be established in June 2012 and will bring together affiliates of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM), the International Textile, Garment, Leather Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITGLWF), and the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), will prioritise the fight against contract and agency labour, and other forms of precarious work.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 120px;height: 125px" width="390" />

	IndustriALL will build on the work which has been done through the ICEM&rsquo;s Contract and Agency Labour campaign, the IMF&rsquo;s &lsquo;Precarious Work Affects Us All&rsquo; campaign and the ITGLWF&rsquo;s work on insecure employment in countries such as Peru, Cambodia, India and Turkey.

	The campaign against precarious work will be launched by IndustriALL at its founding congress in June, and the new Global Union will call on all affiliates to mobilise around this issue on the World Day for Decent Work on 7thOctober.

IndustriALL to Prioritise Fight Against Precarious Work

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	At a general membership meeting and news conference today in Qu&eacute;bec, 780 union members of Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma were told that the lockout imposed on them &ndash; in its 11th week &ndash; by Rio Tinto&rsquo;s Alcan aluminium subsidiary now has the undivided attention of key workers&rsquo; groups connected to the mining giant.

	United Steelworkers (USW) Local 9490 President Marc Maltais and USW Deputy District Five Director Guy Farrell told a packed news conference of their two-week mission through the US West and then on to Australia and New Zealand, where the trade union Mining and Maritime Initiative brought this piece of corporate terrorism front and centre before the company&rsquo;s most militant workers and unions in Oceania.

	Maltais and Farrell also laid out plans for the mass rally in Alma, a city of 30,000 in the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region of Qu&eacute;bec, a manifestation expected to draw 5,000 to 10,000. Earlier at the membership meeting, USW District Five Director Dan Roy told victimised metalworkers that they are up against one of the most egregious examples of corporate crime ever committed in Canada.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 320px;height: 141px" width="390" />

	&nbsp;USW&rsquo;s Guy Farrell Speaks at Brisbane Manifestation

	The lockout came ostensibly over the union&rsquo;s contract demand to stop the continual erosion of permanent jobs by establishing limits on outsourcing. And it occurred even before several other issues were tabled in bargaining.&nbsp; Alcan prematurely locked workers off their jobs on 30 December, a day before the prior five-year agreement had expired.

	With aluminium prices on the London Metal Exchange down more than 25% from spring 2011 and inventories high, the opportunity to reverse that by bringing one of the world&rsquo;s premier and low-cost smelters down to one-third operational capacity was too much to resist.

	And Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma learned this month what they feared had been happening since the lockout began: Rio Tinto, under an opaque agreement signed with Qu&eacute;bec in 2006 when Alcan was a stand-along Canadian company, is selling unused hydro-electric power back to the province of Qu&eacute;bec because Alma is operating only 122 of 432 electrolytic production cells. The company is pocketing C$15 million per month at taxpayer expense, while holding a community&rsquo;s top-paying jobs hostage with a lockout. Worse, the province does not need the excess power but is obligated to buy it due to the 2006 agreement.

	&ldquo;These are the people&rsquo;s resources,&rdquo; said Farrell. &ldquo;The atrocities this company is committing against Qu&eacute;bec and Quebecers is incomprehensible, yet they are happening right before our eyes.&rdquo;

	The 31 March manifestation will occur a day after the ICEM&rsquo;s North America affiliates meet in Alma in the first of two bi-annual meetings. Protestors will assemble at 13h30 at the Galeries Lac St-Jean shopping mall and march to Parc le Festiv Alma for the manifestation that begins at 15h. (See <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/RTA_CARD4ENG_high.pdf">full manifestation flyer</a> here.)

	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 87px;height: 155px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

	Local 9490&rsquo;s Marc Maltais at MUA Forum

	Maltais and Farrell reported today on their two-week mission that saw them get support from Rio Tinto&rsquo;s borax miners in Southern California. International Longshore &amp; Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 30 faced its own lockout from the world&rsquo;s second largest resources company, and USW Local 9490 was keen to learn their fightback strategy.

	From those late February meetings both in Boron and Los Angeles, Maltais and Farrell journeyed to the state of Utah where they met with USW local union leaders at Rio&rsquo;s Kennecott Copper mines. Some 1,000 steelworkers and members of other unions, including the International Association of Machinists (IAM), waged a bitter six-month strike there in 2002-03.

	From 4 to 9 March, the Canadians were in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, their message was heard by hundreds of delegates at separate forums of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers&rsquo; Union (AMWU) in Brisbane. On 5 March, Australian supporters including members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the MUA, AMWU and Australian Workers&rsquo; Union (AWU) joined Maltais and Farrell in a protest against Rio Tinto on Queen Street in Brisbane.

	At the mass MUA meeting there on 6 March, the two were surprised to see the MUA selling Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma&rsquo;s trademark orange shirts, emblazoned &ldquo;Australia and New Zealand Mining and Maritime Union Fight War on Rio Tinto&rsquo;s Workers.&rdquo; Proceeds and other donations were give the two, including from a stop at Rio Tinto&rsquo;s Bell Bay, Tasmania, aluminium smelter that was hosted by the AWU, the union fighting for a first enterprise agreement there.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 345px;height: 161px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

	ICEM Turkish affiliate Maden-İşDisplays Long Distance Solidarity with Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma

	In New Zealand, the visit from 7-9 March sponsored by ICEM affiliate Engineering Printing &amp; Engineering Union (EPMU) and the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ), included a meeting with Rio Tinto aluminium producing workers at the Tiwai Point smelter in Invercargill. It also included another demonstration, this time on 9 March in front of Rio Tinto offices in Wellington.

	Throughout the western US trip and the Australia/New Zealand union-building visits, Maltais and Farrell had along a union banner to which trade unionists signed their name and pledge to join the Alma lockout fight. That banner was unfurled and hung in Local 9490&rsquo;s union hall this morning.

	While the two were concluding their trip in New Zealand, back home in Alma, on 8 March, International Women&rsquo;s Day, women&rsquo;s-only forum was held attended by 100 spouses and women workers. The event was billed as a unique chance to share experiences of the then 68-day lockout, the hardships, the loss of income and the emotional turmoil inflicted by a rich multinational on citizens of Qu&eacute;bec Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region.

	With a call two weeks ago by provincial Premier Jean Charest to return to bargaining still unheeded by the company, the experience of pain, sacrifice and uncertain futures is sure to continue for the 780 families and for even more in the wider community who depend on the family-supporting pay days from the Alma smelter.

	To read further information on this corporate attack on working families, click <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4908-Locked-out-Alcan-Workers-Take-Dispute-to-Business-Doorstep">here</a>, <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4875-Rio-Tinto-s-Euro-Works-Council-Irate-over-Québec-Aluminium-Lockout">here</a> and <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4837-USW-Affiliate-in-Québec-Locked-Out-by-Rio-Tinto-at-Aluminium-Plant">here</a>.

Locked-out Canadian Steelworkers Build Global Unity as Mass Rally Nears, 31 March

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	On the morning of April 16, 2012 thousands of Palestinian workers demonstrated in front of the Palestinian cabinet offices to demand passage of the law of the minimum wage as well as lower prices of consumer goods and increased basic support. At the head of the demonstration was the PGFTU Secretary General, Shaher Saad, together with leaders of other PGFTU unions including Mohammed Abu Adwan, Secretary General of the ICEM affiliated Petrochemical Workers Union. The demonstration followed a union-researched comprehensive and in-depth study on the situation of workers and the scale of the suffering which they suffer in the light of the rapidly deteriorating economic and social conditions compounded by prohibitively high prices throughout Palestine.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 285px;height: 160px" width="390" />

Thousands of Palestinian workers meet the call of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions

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