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Global worker No1 2022

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What is your experience with contract and agency labour in Denmark? 
 
Firstly, the Danish Trade Unions are organised by trade. This means, for example, that you can have five different trade unions representing the employees in a power plant. The Danish Union of Electricians organises all skilled electrical workers in Denmark. We have collective agreements with most companies in the country, with some dating back to early in the 20th century. 
 
Secondly, contract and agency work is still a growing phenomenon in Denmark. Our union has three strategies for dealing with the issue. First of all, we try to agree on equal rights and equal pay for agency workers in the collective agreements. Already 10 or 15 years ago, we agreed on an appendix in the largest collective agreement between Danish Industries (DI) and CO-Industry, covering 9 unions, with regard to agency workers that are employed in blue-collar jobs. Through this appendix, agency workers in power plants receive the same rights and benefits as their permanent colleagues from day one. 
 
This appended agreement, unfortunately, only covers the blue-collar workers, not white- collar, or professional or technical workers. This is something we are still fighting for, and we hope that the new European Directive on Agency Work will help in this. Even though blue-collar agency workers have, at present, equal rights from day one, there still are some problems. Many of the social rights, such as the right to full sick pay, or the right to training and education, call for a minimum employment period of 6 or 9 months. Agency workers often don&rsquo;t work long enough to get that far.
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&nbsp;Dansk El-Forbund Gen. Sec. J&oslash;rgen Juul Rasmussen 
 
 


What is your union&rsquo;s experience on how employers handle their responsibilities regarding agency workers? 
 
Danish employers try hard to find different ways to ignore these agreements. A few years ago, for example, we saw a sudden increase in the use of electricians as agency workers in the construction sector. In our agreement that covers this work (DEF-Tekniq), agency work is not mentioned. This is where our second strategy takes hold. We take the employers&rsquo; organisation to court to enforce our contracts and the law. And so far, we have always won. In this particular case, the court decided that the agency workers should be paid according to the general stipulations within the DEF-Tekniq agreement. If not, it would have been seen as a violation of the agreement. They hold that it is the responsibility of primary employers to treat contract or agency workers the same as the permanent employees. 
 
Now, employers will try to circumvent this. They will claim that the workers they hire are subcontractors themselves, or self-employed people. We continue to bring such claims before the courts and so far, we have been winning.
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How difficult is it to organise contract or agency workers into your existing union structures? 
 
This is exactly the third strategy. We are very pro-active in organising agency workers or so-called subcontractors into our existing unions. We approach these workers inside their companies and on building sites. The problem we encounter is that contract workers of a specific company might be spread out widely over a geographic area, and oftentimes they switch between company to company, so the problem of reaching them is hard. 
 
In the near future, we will keep taking employers who attempt to avoid their responsibilities to labour court; we will continue to organise contract and agency workers; and where we can, and we encourage more unions in Denmark to actively organise these workers as well. Until now, we are the only union in Denmark to do so. But we hope that more unions in Denmark will join us.

Interview with Jørgen Juul Rasmussen, General Secretary, Danish Union of Electricians (Dansk El-Forb

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What has been the impact of Contract and Agency Labour Work in Brazil and Latin America? 
 
The impact of outsourcing is felt in all sectors in Latin America. Of those sectors covered by the ICEM, it is probably the energy sector which has been hit hardest because of the mass privatisations in the 1990s. We are currently doing a study on the situation of contract workers in the energy sector to get more and better data on the present situation. 
 
Subcontracting is everywhere. It is not limited to catering, or security, or transportation. It now goes right to the core of business in most companies. Oil companies subcontract maintenance, development, even production in the refineries. And, of course, at many companies, contract workers are involved in drilling and on offshore platforms.
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ICEM Latin America/Caribbean Vice President S&eacute;rgio Novais&nbsp; 
 


Has outsourcing caused a general trend of reduction in the salaries and benefits of permanent workers? 
 
Outsourcing has led to a drastic reduction of salaries and in secondary benefits, since many workers go uncovered by collective agreements. Another aspect is health and security, in spite of the fact that, on paper, when we are engaged in dialogue with the bigger companies, everything appears fine. But in reality, we find many situations where there is a lack of proper training and adequate equipment. The proof comes in the fact that the highest number of fatalities, particularly in the energy sector, occurs among contract workers. 
 
Are contract or agency workers more difficult to reach in terms of organizing? 
 
The increase of contract and agency workers on any particular job makes the work of unions very difficult. When jobs are outsourced, you inevitably lose a number of full-time, permanent workers. This, in turn, makes negotiations that much more difficult. And then there also is the difficulty to contact and gain access to contract workers. And when you do, they are not always interested in joining an organisation that enters into a dialogue and negotiate with their company. 
 
So, it places pressure on representation and that, in turn, places a diminished capacity to mobilize contract or agency workers toward the union. And in some cases, at least in Brazil, it makes trouble for the central unions, because workers might be represented by other unions who negotiate at different times with different agendas. 
 
What is it like dealing with a primary company over subcontracting? What kind of legal challenges does it present? 
 
Brazil is one of the countries where a primary company can be held legally responsible for the violation of labor laws by a subcontracting company. And indeed, sometimes primary employers are taken to court over infractions by a subcontractor. But this always occurs after an accident, or after an instance of polluting has taken place, or after a labour infraction has occurred. Further, it is only case by case, so it doesn&rsquo;t solve the bigger problem of regulating and making an employer accountable on the front end.
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What would you say on networking between unions, or sharing information on contracting practices? How important is that for success? 
 
The consequences of the increase in use of contract and agency labour, and outsourcing in general, can be managed better if unions start cooperating. Creating national and international networks is important. We are making good progress with our regional BASF company network of labour unions, an ICEM network. The company has agreed that contract work is an important subject for permanent social dialogue. Imagine, the company recently admitted that even they didn&rsquo;t know the number of contract workers present at any particular chemical worksite. We are now in a position where we are able to monitor the situation, learn from the monitoring, and hopefully pass this on to other BASF unions worldwide. It has also vastly improved our discussions with this particular company. 
 
There has been a steep reduction in contract workers at Petrobras due to union action. Can you explain what was done? 
 
This is another good example. Being a state-owned company, Petrobras, as a primary employer, was relatively easy to engage, particularly with a change of government in Brazil. It has led to better relations between the company management and the FUP, the national oilworkers&rsquo; federation. In a period of six years, this has resulted in a reduction of the ratio of contract workers to Petrobras workers from 4-to-1 to 2.2-to1. However, we&rsquo;re not there yet. There are still many, many contract workers on oil rigs.
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&nbsp; 
 
What are the next steps in Brazil regarding contract and agency labour? 
 
Here in Brazil, we must find a way to get legislation adopted which enables contract workers to be represented by the majority union on any give jobsite. However, it is not likely this will happen with the current Parliament. Many Latin American governments have recently adopted legislation in one form or another on contract labour. The best legislation might be in Argentina. There, the Federaci&oacute;n Argentina Sindical del Petr&oacute;leo y Gas Privados managed to use it to negotiate that all contract workers are covered by the collective agreement. 
 
What can you tell us about the upcoming Day in Latin America for Contractors? 
 
On 28 July, we will campaign throughout Latin America to call for attention to the health and safety risks involved with subcontracting. The date has been chosen as a memorial to the 200 contract workers who lost their lives in Colombia while constructing a hydroelectric dam 25 years ago on this day. We will use this day as a regional call to all trade unions and trade union networks to include contract work in their agendas for dialogue and negotiation with the different companies.

Interview with Sérgio Novais, National Chemical Confederation of Brazil and ICEM Vice President, Lat

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At the ICEM&rsquo;s World Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2007, a resolution was adopted in support of the World Day for Decent Work. This global day of action and mobilisation &ndash; 7 October 2008 &ndash; is organised by the Decent Work, Decent Life campaign, led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Council of Global Unions, Solidar, the Global Progressive Forum, Social Alert International, and the European Trade Union Confederation. 
 
ICEM has a special interest in Decent Work, particularly in view of the Global Union Federation&rsquo;s strong work over the past several years on Contract and Agency Labour (CAL). For this reason, the ICEM is focusing its 7 October action day events, and the period to follow, on CAL. ICEM is also working together with the other Global Union Federations, through the Council of Global Unions, on the CAL issue.
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As part of ICEM&rsquo;s overall campaign, we will intensify our activities on this date to ensure equal rights and equal treatment for temporary and agency workers. The ICEM will use the Global Day of Action as the start of a global push to organise contract and agency workers. This campaign will run until December 2008. 
 
Affiliates will be asked to give special attention to contract and agency workers during this period, as well as to give priority to the issue as a whole. 
 
Campaign materials will be published to help affiliates address the issue at local, national, and international levels. With this special InBrief newsletter, we would also like to call your attention to the issue of Contract and Agency Labour globally, as well as also within particular work sectors. The aim of distribution the information is to share and to learn from experiences.
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In the upcoming months, further useful materials will be published and distributed, and we will also send you information on how you and your union can become active on this issue as the 7 October World Day of Action arrives. 
 
Activities that affiliates can consider doing, include: 
 
&bull; Issuing press communications, highlighting 7 October as a the start of a campaign on organising contract and agency labour workers; 
&bull; Active distribution of the ICEM campaign material; 
&bull; Organising workshops with members discussing the CAL issue, and coming up with union responses; 
&bull; Organising public debates on CAL; 
&bull; Go out and start organising campaigns that specifically target contract and agency workers. 
 
The ICEM also continues to call on all its affiliates, and their members, in both developing and developed countries, to sign the call to action at <a href="http://www.decentwork.org">http://www.decentwork.org</a>.
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In addition, in the last several weeks, the ICEM has invited all affiliates to fill in an online survey. Through this survey, we aim to gather information on CAL in your industrial sectors and countries. Is CAL a growing phenomenon? How does your union respond? What means and methods are you using to organise temporary workers? The answers will give us valuable information &ndash; information to inform other affiliates on best practices and successful strategies used by fellow unions. 
 
Many of you have already filled in this survey, and we would like to ask others who have not, to do so in the near future. If you have not received an invitation to participate in the survey, please send an e-mail to <a href="mailto:contract.labour@icem.org">contract.labour@icem.org</a>.

ICEM’s Focus on 7 October World Day for Decent Work: Contract and Agency Labour

ICEM Contract and Agency Labour Newsletter

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Negotiations concluded on 19 June in Baku, Azerbaijan, between ICEM affiliate Oil and Gas Industry Workers&rsquo; of Azerbaijan (OGWUA) and the Caspian Shipyards Co. Ltd., producing wage gains and health and safety improvements for some 1,000 contract employees. 
They work in the construction of offshore rigs for Agip, a subsidiary of Italian energy firm Eni, as well as repairing and upgrading other offshore equipment.
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The mostly Azeri workforce staged a wildcat strike on 11 June over disparate pay and unfair working conditions. 

The workers at Caspian Shipyards, majority owned by Keppel FELS of Singapore, will now have a legitimate workplace organisation under OGWUA. The negotiations result in a US$78 increase to offset inflation, as well as a 6% wage increase retroactive to 1 June 2008. Minimum salaries have also been increased from a low of $US140-per-week to US$300. Further wage talks will occur annually, beginning in February 2009. 

Management at Caspian Shipyards also agreed to continue dialogue on making health and safety improvements, signing long-term contracts, annual paid leave, and reducing the disparity between foreign workers and Azeri workers.
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&ldquo;Our union views the results of these negotiations to resolve the Caspian Shipyards conflict as positive,&rdquo; said OGWUA Chairman Jahangir Aliyev. &ldquo;At the same time, we fully realise that not all of the issues have been resolved. However, the work to resolve the social and economic issues will now continue and appropriate monitoring and implementation has been put in place.&rdquo;

Azerbaijan Oil and Gas Workers’ Union Again Wins Recognition, Pay Gains for Contractors

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A second four-day strike by contract drivers of Royal Dutch Shell in the UK was not necessary for 20-23 June. ICEM affiliate Unite, representing 600 tank-truck drivers of Hoyer and J.W. Suckling Transport Ltd., won a two-year, 14% pay increase for the drivers instead, thanks to a strike two weeks ago that pressured Shell. 
 
The agreement came in the days following the end of the first industrial action on 17 June. Drivers voted by a 453-56 margin to accept a pay package that will give them a 9% this year, and 5% in 2009. The wage gains met Unite&rsquo;s goal of lifting drivers&rsquo; gross pay to &pound;36,000 per year.
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A strike from 13 June to the early morning hours of 17 June stopped petrol supplies at Shell&rsquo;s 950 retail stations in the UK, and severely impacted delivery of fuel for BP, Total, and Esso. Most drivers for those companies refused to cross picket lines at Shell depots and terminals. 
 
The dispute was unique for contract workers, since it saw a union successfully bring pressure on a primary company over low contract fees paid to service providers. Unite&rsquo;s pressure on Shell brought the wage increases for drivers, who are directly employed by Hoyer UK, a transport company based in Germany, and J.W. Suckling, wholly owned by the UK equity firm, Harris Holdings.

Tank-Truck Contract Drivers’ Dispute Ends in UK with Pressure Against Shell

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The seven unions representing more than 3,000 workers at a Michelin tyre plant in the northern Spanish province of Alava have united behind a comrade stricken with Mesothelioma. The unions last week sent a petition to both the company and to the regional Institute of Work Security to trace the presence of asbestos in the 42-year history of the plant. 
 
The Michelin plant is in the city of Vitoria and manufactures 36,000 units per day of car and heavy equipment tyres. In early June, the regional health and safety authority reopened an investigation after a worker employed by Michelin for 30 years was diagnosed with the cancer caused by asbestos exposure.
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Workplace representatives of ICEM affiliates CCOO and UGT were joined by five other unions in the call to clarify the causes of the illness. Michelin denies that it currently uses or has any form of asbestos in the plant, but the company did import the product in years past to insulate the factory&rsquo;s heating pipes. 
 
The Vitoria workers, through their union representatives, sent a pledge of solidarity to the stricken worker, as well as committed to conduct voluntary tests of other workers and to assist in the investigation in any way possible.

Unions Mount Pressure on Cause of Asbestos inside Spanish Michelin Plant

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A workers&rsquo; ballot over work time restructuring at the Goodyear-Dunlop twin plants in Amiens, France, apparently passed on 27 June, but controversy remains because the majority union &ndash; CGT &ndash; boycotted the vote. 

In balloting overseen by the regional employment bureau, 72.8% of rubber workers accepted the company&rsquo;s social plan, which would reduce weekly rotation teams from five to four, as well as make other costs savings related to weekend work. Just over 54% of 2,700 workers at the southern Dunlop and northern Goodyear plants voted on the restructuring, which also is aimed at integrating work at the two factories. 

The restructuring of work time, scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2009 with last week&rsquo;s balloting, also prevents 402 staff from being sacked. It also commits Goodyear to make a &euro;52 million modernisation investment over the next three years in order to produce high-performance tyres.
<img height="93" src="" width="100" alt="" />
&nbsp; 
ICEM affiliate CFDT and French union CFE-CGC endorsed the re-negotiated social plan, while CGT called on its members to boycott the ballot. An initial plan put to ballot in November 2007 failed with a 65% rejection. 
 
The three unions are now expected to confer on the matter in July to determine if the social plan will be jointly signed.

Restructuring Plan Passes at Goodyear’s Amiens Plants, But French Unions Split on Ballot

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The ICEM is proud to play a role in the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union&rsquo;s second effort to stem the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Nigeria. Through the Canadian union&rsquo;s Humanity Fund, CEP is contributing half of a C$20,000 budget to train HIV/AIDS counsellors within ICEM&rsquo;s two oil and gas union affiliates, NUPENG and PENGASSAN. 
 
The project will extend ICEM&rsquo;s work in Nigeria in training peer counsellors to provide AIDS awareness, education and testing for workers and their families. The CEP&rsquo;s fund is also partner with the Canadian Labour Congress&rsquo;s Labour International Development Programme, on another Nigerian HIV/AIDS project. That project also has financial support from the federal Canadian International Development Agency.
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CEP&rsquo;s Humanity Fund is unique in that funding comes through negotiated agreements with Canadian employers. Local unions negotiate either an employer contribution of C$0.01-per-hour; C$0.02-per-hour, which includes an employee&rsquo;s matching contribution; or the CEP local branch union can vote to make the contribution. To date, some 100 CEP locals, numbering 30,000 workers, have successfully negotiated payments into the Humanity Fund with employers. 
 
In 2007, contributions to the Humanity Fund increased by 30%. 
 
At the union&rsquo;s 2004 National Convention, delegates pledged to raise C$500,000 to assist in the fight against HIV/AIDS through the Humanity Fund. The CEP currently is also funding a project in partnership with the F&eacute;d&eacute;ration des Travailleurs de Qu&eacute;bec on HIV/AIDS awareness with an oil workers&rsquo; union in Chad.
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In 2008, the fund&rsquo;s directors have approved humanitarian aid for victims of the earthquake in China, funded a programme for the Canadian Friends of Burma, and lent support to workers&rsquo; and women&rsquo;s rights programmes in the garment industries of Mexican, Central America, and Asia. The Humanity Fund also spends 15% each year on domestic projects. 
 
CEP heralds the fund as not charity, but rather solidarity in &ldquo;building partnerships with workers&rsquo;, community, and women&rsquo;s organisations in developing countries.

Canadian Affiliate’s Humanity Fund Teams with ICEM on Nigerian HIV/AIDS Awareness Efforts

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ICEM Peruvian mining affiliate, Federaci&oacute;n Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros Metal&uacute;rgicos y Sider&uacute;rgicos (FNTMMSP), began a national strike today over the National Assembly&rsquo;s inactivity on two key pieces of labour legislation. 
 
Despite President Alan Garc&iacute;a signing into law on 24 June a measure which gives new rights to contract workers, legislation remains stalled on raising the national threshold for profit-sharing plans and on improvements to pension schemes.
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The union had twice previously &ndash; in May and again on 16 June &ndash; postponed strike actions by its 28,000 members in hopes that the government would act on all three issues to avert a national mining strike. The indefinite strike began at midnight today by several of FNTMMSP&rsquo;s 70 branch unions, and is expected to spread over the next few days. 
 
&ldquo;There is a total lack of political will by the government to solve the demands of miners,&rdquo; said FNTMMSP Secretary-General Luis Castillo Carlos late last week. &ldquo;Many miners Exist on starvation wages, they do not have access to health benefits, nor do they have the right to retirement benefits for their service work.&rdquo; 
 
On 28 May, the National Assembly passed an outsourcing law that affects 85,000 contract workers in the mining sector. Garc&iacute;a had 30 days to sign it into law and did so three days before it was to expire. The law places stricter regulations on contract employers, including adherence to the nation&rsquo;s labour code. It also grants contract workers the right to grieve adverse work conditions to the primary employer, and sets up an agency to monitor such abuses. Employers with contract workers can now face first-time sanctions. 
 
The FNTMMSP had been the driving force inside Peru for the law, which was ardently opposed by business groups on the basis on restricting labour market flexibility.
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Today&rsquo;s strike is expected to hit Peru&rsquo;s copper, gold, silver, zinc, and iron ore production, as well as send prices upward on world markets for those commodities. The strike will also again close Grupo M&eacute;xico&rsquo;s Southern Copper mining and smelting operations in Peru&rsquo;s southern Moquegua province. 
 
Southern Copper was closed for ten days in mid-June as roads were blocked in a regional dispute with the central government over tax revenue sharing. That dispute saw mayors of several towns in the south embarking on hunger strikes in Lima.
&nbsp; 
And Peru&rsquo;s largest national labour centre, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), has called a strike of its member unions on 9 July over rising food and energy prices, as well as on the legislative inertia over the profit-sharing and pension issues.

Mining Strike Begins in Peru over Government Inaction on Pension, Profit-Sharing Issues

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