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In May 2007, thousands of metalworkers across South Africa celebrated 20 years of struggle and achievement of NUMSA at mass rallies organized in several provinces. Founded in May 1987, Numsa leaders paid tribute to shop stewards and metalworkers from the Metal and Allied Workers Union (Mawu), as well as unions like the Motor Industries Combined Workers Union (Micwu) and the automobile unions that came together under the auspices of the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) to form a single, united metalworkers union in the country. Past and present shop stewards and members graced the podium to recall historic moments in the union's history.  At the Johannesburg celebrations, NUMSA remembered its member, Kortman Vilakazi from Tembisa, who in that very stadium was shot dead by police at a Numsa wage negotiations rally in the 1980s. "The police came and started to provoke members outside the stadium," remembers ex-Numsa member, Alpheus Makhadi who is now a councillor. "When members ran away, the police shot at them." Vilakazi was shot dead. And just down the road from the stadium was Joko Tea hall (now a supermarket) where the first union meetings that nurtured worker control, local shop steward councils and strong shop floor structures that gave rise to Numsa, took place. While tributes poured in to honour past heroes of the union, NUMSA also celebrated 20 years of struggle and spoke of milestones in South Africa from the 1980s apartheid period to the challenges faced by the country in the new millennium and NUMSA's proactive and reactive actions in response to the political, social and economic climate and developments in the metal sector. Trade union leaders also spoke of the future and the need for a strong and vigilant union. Cosatu's general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi in his address at the celebrations in Port Elizabeth urged workers to remain united and play a leading role in all corners of society and in the fight against poverty. But the events were not all about speeches and struggle, local artists performed for the crowds keeping everyone in high spirits. The events were colourful, the crowd was dressed in NUMSA colours of black red and yellow carrying flags bearing the unions logo. Shouts of Amandla! echoed through while others blew on their vuvuzelas. Fallen heroes can rest assured that Numsa members celebrated their history that day! Constructed from reports by NUMSA reporters, Woody Aroun, Mating Mosia, Jenny Grice and Mncedisi Phaphu.

NUMSA Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary

The average Zimbabwean metalworker makes approximately 140,000 Zimbabwean Dollars per month. With inflation climbing daily, now at a world record of 1,700 per cent, workers' salaries are worth less and less each day, while the cost of basic goods continues to soar. In a country where the price of cooking oil is half a month's salary, and a bar of soap is almost a third of a worker's monthly wages, Zimbabweans must struggle more each day to survive.  Zimbabwe, once considered the "breadbasket of Africa", enjoyed a robust economy and thriving workforce in the mid-1990s. Today, the situation for Zimbabweans is dire. Chronic shortages of food, electricity, petrol and medicine has reduced the life expectancy to a tragic 34 years for women, the lowest in the world, and to just 37 years for men. Most Zimbabweans live on one meal a day, some even less. Eight out of ten workers are out of work, and the unemployment rate continues to rise. Led by Robert Mugabe, independence hero cum dictator, the country's steady decline has been punctuated by a series of bad governmental policy at best, and shocking human rights violations at worst. "Operation Murambatsvina" which is Shona for "Operation Drive Out Trash", has had undoubtedly the most devastating effect on Zimbabwe's working poor. In May 2005, Mugabe unleashed what he called an "urban renewal program" to squash illegal vendors. The result was the demolition of 94,460 urban homes which left 700,000 people homeless and affected 2.4 million people directly or in directly, according to the United Nations. Between May 2005 and May 2006, prices for accommodation jumped by 3,000 per cent. Because many of the homes destroyed were outside of industrial complexes, metalworkers were largely impacted. As in many parts of the world, the labour movement in Zimbabwe has been a leading force for change. The Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), to which the National Engineering Workers' Union (NEWU) is an affiliate, has been at the forefront in addressing the workers' suffering under Zimbabwe's economic collapse. Viewed by Mugabe as enemies of the state, members of the ZCTU have been attacked with a force that has astonished the international community, including government-sanctioned beatings, torture, abductions and arbitrary arrests. Mugabe has banned political demonstrations, he has shut down the independent press, and declared war on any and all that criticize his policies. On April 3 and 4, the ZCTU organized a mass stay away after talks broke down within the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF) regarding payment of salaries in accordance with inflation. The TNF is a joint negotiating body that comprises representatives from business, labour and the government, in which the ZCTU has played an active role. In the days leading up to the action, and those that followed, ZCTU offices were ransacked, staff beaten, and workers and trade union leaders were arrested.  Witnesses in the townships reported that people were forced to go to work at gunpoint, many of them had no "work" to go to. Helicopters hovered over downtown Harare and businesses were threatened with losing their operating licence, should they shut production down. The media was quick to call the worker action a failure, however, given the nature of the stay away, its success is hard to measure. Only 20 per cent of the country is formally employed. Of that number, 70 per cent work for the government. Journalists are denied access to Zimbabwe, so those who operate in the country risk arrest, or worse. In April, Edward Chikombo, a cameraman for the state-run broadcaster ZBC, was found pummelled to death in a shallow grave on the side of the road after he leaked images of a beaten Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and former mineworker and ZCTU General Secretary. NEWU general secretary, Japhat Moyo, who is also acting assistant general secretary for ZCTU, referred to the recent attacks as, "kicks of a dying horse," and explained the reasoning behind the stay away. "Last time we went to the streets we had our limbs broken," he said, referring to the strike on September 13, 2006 that resulted in the arrest and torture of 15 unionists, many so severely beaten they had to be hospitalised. "If you demonstrate in the streets, you are going to be butchered. We are not going to be sending other people's kids to the war front. We are supposed to be on the front lines ourselves," Moyo said. "The workers decided that we cannot risk our leaders, let's stay at home as a sign of demonstration. Every three months we are doing these activities, and we are not limiting ourselves to only stayaways. If the situation improves, if government upholds human rights principles, we will be able to go to the streets instead of sitting at home." Many workers believe collective action is the only way change will come. "I have to participate. To make sure that things get better for me, I have to take part in the action," said Brighton Munyaradzi, a serviceman for AFA PVT LTD and NEWU member a few days before the stay away. "If you want to have a better life you have to do something." Charles Chirowdza, a metalworker at CT Bolts and a member of NEWU doesn't flinch when asked if he is worried about being attacked by police during demonstrations "being beaten is okay," he says. "Because the situation is getting out of control. People are suffering, people are dying. We are suffering so much, " he said as he placed his hand on his stomach, "being beaten is better than this. At least we are trying to accomplish something." Three months from now, workers will again risk arrest and torture in a brave attempt to win basic worker rights and a living wage. The Response of IMF The IMF has taken a three-pronged approach to addressing the problems Zimbabwean metalworkers face. First, for the past 15 years, the IMF's Africa office has assisted Zimbabwean metal unions in building one strong national metalworkers union through the merging of smaller unions. Their growing strength has helped metalworkers weather the difficult economic climate. Second, the IMF regional office has been an outspoken critic of Mugabe's attacks on human and labour rights and has worked to encourage IMF affiliates to support change in Zimbabwe through their national centres. "We condemn the current government's terror campaign on the people of Zimbabwe, especially the gross violations of workers rights," said IMF regional representative for Africa, Steve Nhlapo. "The sub-regional meeting two years ago adopted a resolution calling on all of our affiliates in the southern Africa region to work with their respective national centres to put pressure on the Zimbabwe government to stop the brutal attack on workers and their leaders. We are also encouraging our affiliates in the region to participate in all campaigns that are organized by the national centres and NGO's which focus on changing the situation in Zimbabwe," Steve said, noting that international solidarity will only be as strong as the participation of the affiliates in that region. In South Africa and Botswana, national centres have demonstrated at the Zimbabwean border in solidarity with the ZCTU. Their criticism of Mugabe's actions have been key to private discussions taking place among the leaders of the Southern African Development Community. Third, the IMF has supported the International Trade Union Confederation's (ITUC) initiatives to block Zimbabwe's participation in key international summits and its work with the International Labour Organization to bring about change. The IMF regularly reports on developments in Zimbabwe, and is urging its affiliates to work through their national centres in supporting the work of the ZCTU. This article is an edited version, the full report appears in the latest Metal World available on the IMF website. The report is based on a visit to Zimbabwe by IMF Regional Secretary and  Metal World Reporter Kristyne Peter. Text by Kristyne Peter.

Dissent in Zimbabwe: Keeping the Hope of Change Alive

As employers refuse to listen and carry on doing what they want in retrenching workers we use this case study of Nissan South Africa to ask hard questions about our strategies... Read these two articles reported in COSATU news and Numsa news on-line. Article 1: Nissan 2001 "About 916 metalworkers at the Pretoria plant of Nissan-SA, the motor manufacturer, will sign voluntary severance packages agreement, ending a six-month-old retrenchments dispute at the plant between the NUMSA and the company. The union, which said it did not want to worsen the dispute on issues that can be resolved through extensive dialogue, said it hoped and trusted that workers will respond favourably to the package. "The agreement signals the reversal of unilateral trend and parties consulting time and again on all issues affecting workers. We hope this bad history of unilateralism will end the current agreement. It added that the agreement would protect workers from the tyranny of forced retrenchments, which has negative consequences in terms of pay. "We hope that the company will learn from this process, it will be possible after all, for the company to create jobs in the long term...we have broken new ground in the realm of retrenchment agreement," it said." Article 2: Nissan 2007 Nissan SA Motor which threatened to retrench 410 employees this week has been plunged into another controversy - this time after demanding to offer meagre voluntary severance packages equivalent to amounts it awarded five years ago. The furore erupted after Numsa reached an in principle agreement with Nissan to replace anticipated forced retrenchments this week with negotiations for voluntary retirement packages for longest-serving employees. Angry Numsa negotiators now have expressed "disgust and revulsion", fearing that employees who gave dedicated service to the Japanese-based car manufacturer would never accept starvation packages considering the high inflation. The union favoured the severance packages to be more than the double amounts currently offered. Yesterday Nissan management expressed grave concern over globalisation effects, increased international competition and refused to consider alternatives to reducing the high number of those earmarked for voluntary packages, Numsa local coordinator Ali Makhusha said. Nissan had earlier introduced unilaterally retrenchment packages with effect from April 12, 2007. But, it later changed its position after union staged mass demonstrations at Japanese embassy, appealing for intervention of the Japanese government." Some hard questions Other retrenchment processes have occurred at Nissan bringing the number of workers employed by Nissan down from 7500 in 1998 to about 1500 in 2007. The reality is that Nissan has employed flexible workers after various retrenchment exercises that have taken place over this period. The company retrenches not because of insufficient work but to maintain high levels of profitability. The problem is that growth and profitability is measured against the previous year so that each successful year for a company means that the pressure is even greater the following year to increase productivity and profitability. This is done through cutting costs and getting workers to work harder for less. How do you get workers to do this? You use a number of methods including replacing workers with technology, increasing workers fear, and of course keeping workers desperate and hungry through ensuring they are in precarious work. In both cases NUMSA was able to stop a unilateral retrenchment process started by the company and secure more money for workers than would have been the case if there was no union. But to do this the union was forced to fall back to the use of voluntary retrenchment packages to soften the blow of the retrenchment. Whilst NUMSA went on to secure sufficient size packages in 2007 the impact on the workers leaving and those staying behind is likely to be negative. Such packages represent a short term cost to the company but can often be a long term industrial death sentence for the workers. Often times workers that take such packages do not use the money wisely and soon find themselves penniless and outside the labour market. Worker representatives in the factory are often longer serving workers and opt for the package, breaking down leadership. In the 2007 example 5 shop stewards and the branch chair opted for the voluntary package. The union's power is undermined at the plant making it easier for the company each time they wish to make changes at the plant. In the end management get what they want; a more flexible work force. . Employers who repeatedly do the same thing and then reverse their action are either stupid or employing a strategy. It is clear that Nissan uses a cynical strategy; they declare retrenchments unilaterally placing workers and unions on the back foot where they must fight even to get to the table. In 2001 NUMSA threatened to march on the Japanese embassy and Nissan attempted to interdict the march. In 2007 NUMSA did march on the Japanese embassy. These efforts were focused on getting to the table where it was clear workers would be discussing how much severance as opposed to disputing the need for replacing full time workers with precarious jobs. Whilst we must acknowledge the difficulties of dealing with such issues and the importance  of the resistance shown by the union to these unilateral actions by profit crazy company we can learn lessons from these examples by asking some hard questions. We have no ready answers to these questions. They are asked in the spirit of being self critical and for the purpose of reflection and analysis of strategy. • What role do shop stewards play in negotiating such deals which end with them taking the very retrenchment deals they have negotiated? Does this impact on a genuine will to stop the retrenchments? • Can we ever think that a retrenchment exercise is an isolated event or part of an ongoing process? • If we knew in 1998 that Nissan planned to make 80% of its jobs redundant and employ casual and temporary workers would the fight not be different to an approach that loses a few hundred workers here and a few hundred workers there? • Is the power of the union on the shop floor greater today than it was in 1998 or has it been reduced? • What has happened to the 6000 workers since they left Nissan? • The industrial strategy for the auto sector which would have informed some of the unions long term thinking on retrenchments, was to revive the industry and create more jobs, but what kind of jobs have these been? • The reasons given by management each time use different words but amount to the same thing, so are these separate exercises or part of a longer strategic process? • Can we ever expect a different result if as labour we do the same thing in response to management's attacks? • Given that many of the jobs lost are casualised can we fight such issues at the workplace without a comprehensive strategy for organizing casual workers being given organizational priority? Think about some of these questions and respond with any answers to the editor of UMOJA.

Trrroublemaker... Retrenchments: Any Answers?

The rapid increase in precarious work is being driven both by corporations and governments. Across the world, national labour laws are being amended to better enable employers to create yet more precarious jobs at the expense of stable employment. This stands in the way of development and keeps Africa chained in poverty. In this article we take a closer look at the issue of casualisation of jobs in Africa and what unions must do to deal with this problem. We discuss three levels that we can fight precarious work concluding that unions becoming more sustainable organisations and changing how they operate is the prerequisite for really impacting on the issue. Most workers in Africa will have become used to the increasing number of casualised workers around the shop floor and often outside the factory gate. The formal sector in many countries has gotten smaller in terms of jobs while informal workers have gotten more plentiful and the informal sector as a whole has grown. Unions have stagnated or are much smaller often to the point where the number of workers in the narrow industrial sectors they organize in are not sufficient to sustain the union as an organisation. In such an environment developing and implementing a strategy for dealing with precarious work seems like an impossible task ultimately meaning that many unions will become irrelevant to most workers in Africa. Companies are continually restructuring, downsizing, retrenching and generally putting more pressure on workers. Capital used to argue that they deserve the profit because they take the risks in establishing a business and yet using precarious work passes that risk on to workers who can least afford it. Any unionist will tell you that it is a very difficult fight to win because this precarious nature happens gradually in a workplace by workplace fashion isolating workers struggles on the issue. It is also done in a specific workplace over time. Employers frequently hold the upper hand in terms of labour law that has in more recent times become more flexible to attract business investment, making it easier for employers to lay off workers and use casuals. In fighting these issues in the workplace it is critical we remind ourselves of old lessons of solidarity and ensure that all workers understand that even if they are not immediately effected by a change in the long term every move to flexibility ultimately makes their job and working  conditions more insecure and erodes the power to bargain for a better quality of work life. This is not to say that workers do not fight back and sometimes win, but the labour market statistics tell us that these victories are the exception and not the norm. Three Levels of Strategy Workplace struggles The workplace level of resistance will be very familiar to most unions who have engaged in battles over these issues. One of the principal points to remember in this arena is that restructuring to casualise jobs is never a one off process and what concessions you agree today weakens you tomorrow. Unions are pulled between two issues when engaging in restructuring. At one level the unions tries to protect the individual member through getting the best deal possible for those workers affected but also needs to balance the interests of the workers left behind whose position is almost always weaker after the loss of fellow workers to retrenchment. Some unions have tried job security agreements which have served to stall the process and technology introduction agreements have also proved useful. Where the company is not in danger of closing down more powerful forms of industrial action have sometimes stopped employers as well as tactics such as embarrassing the employer internationally or to its government. Labour law has improved in some countries e.g. South Africa in dealing with retrenchments whilst it has got worse in others but in general labour law has always proved a weak instrument in stopping retrenchments and the casualisation of jobs. In any event even if employers don't retrench at all they still introduce flexibility by allowing attrition to reduce the number of full time jobs and then using precarious work forms to do these jobs. This suggests that even the strongest of unions will battle to stem the tide of precarious work and that other forms of engagement will be necessary to deal with this issue. In fact the process of making labour more flexible and responsive to the needs of capital has been going on for so long now that already huge numbers of workers have lost full time jobs and swelled the ranks of the 'semi employed'. Development Policy and Campaigning This suggests that a single union resisting the transformation of jobs to precarious work will always be limited in what can be done about the overall problem. Solidarity for this reason alone needs to be taken more seriously and unions have to become less isolated in their approach to these issues. Failure to do this is a failure of the organisation and its leadership. Currently IMF is preparing an initiative on precarious work and it is critical that unions put their full support behind this effort. The ITUC along with the global union federations have also begun a global initiative on decent work for development. This was launched at the recent world social forum and covered in the last edition of UMOJA. Again unions must come together and build real solidarity. Behind these types of campaigns lies a call for governments to use job creation as a way of creating sustained development as opposed to the failed and discredited policies of structural adjustment and the like. Global solidarity must pressure both local governments and global bodies to rethink their development paradigm and move jobs to the top of the agenda. Other initiatives such as the decent work programme of the ILO add momentum to these efforts. This has been supported by different recommendations and conventions of the ILO aimed at controlling labour broking and the shift to precarious work forms. Unions can begin the process of involvement by looking at the questions on precarious work in this edition of UMOJA and responding to the IMF call for submissions on the issue. This process should also help focus thinking on the issue and the preparation of national demands. Lobbying other unions and national centres to  pursue the issue is a further necessary step. Organising People in Precarious Work A third level of engagement is for unions to return to what they should do best and that is organizing workers around points of collective interest. If workers in precarious jobs are organized there will be less motivation for employers to attempt to create these kinds of jobs.  When it comes to organizing casualised workers however we have often failed to achieve this objective. One of the reasons this has proved so difficult in the past is that the union can offer fairly little to such workers in the conventional bargaining sense and secondly that it is hard to collect dues and keep track of such mobile workers. This has often been because we have used standard organizing approaches and unions have failed to change their structures and methods to meet the needs of this growing number of workers. In the past more centralised or industry level bargaining mechanisms have been used to do this but establishing such mechanisms normally requires a fairly powerful position at the table to begin with and this is not the case for most unions in Africa. What we need to consider is a broad approach to draw such workers into an organised framework that will improve their collective strength. Informal workers generally must stand alone and have very little power. They also suffer a great deal as they have no job security, no way to plan and no access to social security. Where HIV/AIDS programmes exist at a workplace those engaged in precarious work are often excluded. Many women are confined to precarious work forms. These are the types of common interests these workers have and should be our starting point in developing organising tactics for such workers. A common problem which is very easy to remedy is that many unions across Africa exclude casuals as workers that can belong to the union. Unless this is changed as an organisation the union cannot even get to the starting point of addressing this issue. Secondly sub/dues collection systems and membership records systems are based on a very static model of employment. The union is often reliant on the factory to subtract dues and where services have been subcontracted cannot access such a system. When a worker leaves employment they cease to be union members. Again this is common constitutional constraint can be easily remedied. A worker could remain a member between jobs but not pay subs in this time. The use of IT for such systems perhaps linked to debit systems if members have bank accounts may be a way to deal with these logistical issues. Union officials have sometimes become office bound or are drawn into fighting legal cases as opposed to spending time with workers at the factory. In such a case waiting for casual workers to come to the union is a hopeless tactic. Organising casual workers, means being mobile and spending the vast majority of organizing time in the field. This should not be confined to main factories but take place in recruitment offices, on the streets of industrial areas where workers wait for a factory call, communities and engaging labour brokers if necessary with groups of organizers from more than one union. Union negotiations need to pay attention to casual workers and in particular their needs. Building social security systems that focus on these kinds of workers are another key area that can be used to appeal to these workers. Perhaps engaging the ILO's social protection agenda can be useful here. Unions also need to take the issue of skills development more seriously and where the union itself can become involved in the delivery of skills to workers their will better opportunities for organizing these workers. Gender and HIV/AIDS as workplace issues have enormous importance to casualised workers and therefore may provide very powerful rallying points for workers to recognise their common interests and the potential of collective action. But this would require genuine engagement on such issues on the part of the union. Unions concentrating in narrow industrial sectors is probably the fundamental hurdle to organizing atypical workers who may work in a number of different industrial sub sectors in a year. Forming broader manufacturing based unions through merger has become a strategic priority and yet unions remain isolated often to protect positions for a handful of leaders. Despite these problems the positive message is that deciding how to organise ourselves is one of the few things we as labour have complete control over. What is important to realise is that not only one tactic that will change our failures to organize these workers who if they are not already will soon be the majority of the workforce. It will require a long term strategy that first sees unions overcoming self protection and sectionalized interests, reforming of union systems and benefits, changes in how organising happens and the kinds of needs that unions service, different organizing techniques that penetrate beyond the traditional workplace and the building of alliances amongst unions, communities and agencies such as the ILO.  This all suggests that a three prong strategy has become necessary. At one level we need to continue to resist at the workplace and develop our tactics in doing this. At a second level we need to be more coordinated so as to begin to address the issue at a national, regional and global level through our engagement in policy issues. This must be directed by the understanding that precarious work undermines development. The final prong which has proved particularly difficult is to organise flexible or casualised workers. The biggest single step forward in all these areas will however occur where unions at a national level cooperate and form together into sustainable general or manufacturing unions. Until this happens many unions in Africa will be kept in survivalist activities running from project to project in an attempt to raise more donor funds making themselves more accountable to funders than workers. In such a scenario precarious work will triumph and history will hold our current leadership accountable. The question that must be asked is why are we not changing what we can as soon as possible.  &nbsp;

What Precarious Work Means For Trade Unions In Africa

GLOBAL: This October the International Metalworkers' Federation is taking the fight to governments, calling on them to ensure equal rights for precarious workers and to strengthen legislation to prevent employers from using precarious employment in place of permanent and direct employment.&quot;The economic crisis has made this demand all the more urgent, not only because precarious jobs have been the first to be lost, but because there is a real risk that employers will use the crisis as a justification to replace permanent jobs with precarious jobs,&quot; said IMF General Secretary Jyrki Raina.&quot;We have seen governments rush to protect capital by providing bailout funds. But governments must also protect workers and ensure that employers can't treat them as a disposable commodity,&quot; he argued.This October, IMF and its affiliates around the world are calling on governments to:<ul><li>Restrict temporary and contract work to cases of genuine need</li><li>Guarantee equal pay for precarious workers and their right to join a union</li><li>Require long-term temporary jobs to be converted to permanent jobs</li></ul>The massive growth of precarious employment has brought negative social and economic consequences for people everywhere. That's why workers throughout the world are uniting against precarious work. Go to: <a href="../precariouswork">www.imfmetal.org/precariouswork</a>

Metalworker unions around the world are preparing to take action against the rise of precarious employment from 3 to 10 October 2009, in conjunction with the ITUC's World Day for Decent Work on 7 October 2009, other Global Union Federations and the European Metalworkers' Federation.

Put permanent jobs first!

Still, in spite of successes in organizing metalworkers and bringing them into the IMF fold, only about one third of the world's estimated 70 million metalworkers are members of a union. Even in countries that pride themselves on political democracy, such as the USA and the United Kingdom, adverse labour laws and often vicious employer opposition deprive workers of the benefits of organization. Finally, in many developing countries, there are Export Processing Zones, where too often workers' rights are restricted and unions are non-existent. In 2005, the IMF Congress identified EPZ's as a priority for attention and organising projects in Latin America and Indonesia have been launched.Globalization and the IMF Action ProgramThe history described above took place against the background of accelerating economic globalisation. Rooted in the Reagan and Thatcher administrations, hostility towards labour and the welfare state grew, neo-liberalism promoted deregulation, smaller government, and privatization. The lowering of trade restrictions and investment controls promoted globalization, as well as larger and more powerful transnational corporations (TNCs). Outsourcing, often to the growing number of EPZs, became a powerful trend. The global financial market effectively became a casino for the biggest financial players, and a new wave of mergers and acquisitions was unleashed. As early as 1993, the IMF developed an Action Program, which has evolved from a relatively brief document prepared by the Secretariat for the centenary Congress into a more concrete and detailed guide. The 2005-2009 program, for example, was developed by a committee of affiliate representatives and Secretariat members that met four times in a two-year period. Like its predecessor, the document contains an analysis of the challenges confronting metalworking unions, a mission statement that lays down the basic principles and values of the IMF, and set of strategies and concrete proposals that need to be implemented at local, national, regional and international levels. It addresses in detail four key aspects of union work in a global economic environment: 1. Building global structures; 2. Engaging transnational corporations; 3. Solidarity and organising; 4. Giving a social dimension to globalisation.Implementing the Action ProgramOver the last two decades, the IMF has played an increasingly active role in its cooperation with other Global Union Federations (GUFs), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) and the European Metalworkers' Federation (EMF). This involvement rests on the principle that activities must go beyond lobbying international institutions and actually mobilize workers. Furthermore, joint activities must be based on agreed strategies and clearly identified objectives. When these are not clearly present, such as in the recently established Council of Global Unions, the IMF does not participate. On the other hand, there are a number of examples of joint activities. IMF is cooperating with all the GUFs in its on-going campaign against Precarious Work. The Burma boycott is a joint endeavour of the ITUC and all GUFs, as is the campaign for a worldwide ban on asbestos products and occupational cancer/zero cancer. The IMF has also cooperated with the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) to support organizing Indian shipbreaking workers, and signed an International Framework Agreement jointly with International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19217&amp;mwId=19189">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19215&amp;mwId=19189">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19219&amp;mwId=19189">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

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IMF - the last twenty years

Text / Peter Unterweger Photos / IMF archives -------------------------------------------------------------------------------A new era dawns1989 was an eventful year. The participant list of the IMF Congress in June of that year gave some clues to the events transforming the world. Trini Leung, who had been present at the Tiananmen Square demonstrations only 14 days earlier, addressed the Congress. Moses Mayekiso, General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), had recently been freed by the apartheid authorities after 3 years of detention and ultimate acquittal. Apartheid was tottering, and its rulers were turning to compromise. Popular pressures inside the Soviet block were building. Years of Gorbachev&#039;s reforms had loosened the grip of the Communist elites on satellite states and the Soviet republics. In Poland, Solidarnosc successfully concluded talks with the Communist authorities in April 1989, and won the subsequent elections by a landslide. On August 23, the Hungarian government opened its border with Austria, and more than 13,000 East German &quot;tourists&quot; escaped to the West. Demonstrations began in East Germany, and by November 9th the East German government was forced to permit unrestricted visits to the West. Euphoric crowds scaled the Berlin Wall from both sides and began to dismantle it.Aside from these momentous developments, there were still other trends changing the world. Dictatorships were on the decline, and by its long-time support for metalworkers in South Africa, Latin America, Poland, and Korea, the IMF had made important contributions. The elections of Thatcher and Reagan had signalled the start of a right-wing backlash against the welfare state and workers&#039; gains that reverberated far beyond the United Kingdom and the USA. Under GATT, world trade liberalization continued. Eventually, even social democratic parties adopted parts of the neo-liberal programme. For the IMF, an important new chapter began in 1989. Since its founding in 1893, there had been only seven IMF Secretaries or General Secretaries, and in 1989 a new GS, Marcello Malentacchi, was unanimously elected. The challenges confronting the IMF and its new leadership were large: <ul><li>Millions of metalworkers in the former Soviet block needed assistance even as the struggle for democracy in South Africa, Korea, Latin America and a number of other countries still required support.</li><li>Anti-social political and economic trends on the national and global levels had to be resisted.</li><li>New ways of dealing with the growing power of trans-national corporations (TNCs) had to be found. </li></ul><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19216&amp;mwId=19189">forward&gt;&gt;</a> </td></tr></tbody></table>

The IMF has witnessed important growth and change 
over the last twenty years, and has shaped the course of international trade unionism in the developed and developing world alike. This work is critical to meet the economic and political challenges of today.

During the crisis autumn of 2008, the loss in members slowed down. The economic crisis has had the effect that more people are joining the union. Inga-Lill Samuelsson thinks the project has so far yielded good results. &quot;But it's hard to say how many of the approximately 23,000 new members joined thanks to our efforts or because of the crisis.&quot; The union's 52 branches are responsible for their own recruiting. Each branch can request economic support from the union for its recruiting efforts. &quot;The branches have done a good job. Many have conducted training to attract more members, and to attract members who will stay in the organization,&quot; says Inga-Lill. &quot;Our elected officials need to be strengthened through training and to receive tips on debating and reporting.&quot;At first the project was aimed at the smallest enterprises. This is because the degree of organization in them is usually lower than in big enterprises where unions often have their own branches with outreach activities. At the smaller workplaces the union is therefore less often seen. &quot;The important thing is that the individual be asked: 'will you join?' Someone has to ask the question. Then many do join,&quot; Inga-Lill says. That applies both for finding new sustainable work methods and rediscovering tried and true forms of work, says Inga-Lill. &quot;We have to explain that we are stronger if more people join.&quot;<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19212&amp;mwId=19189">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19197&amp;mwId=19189">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19214&amp;mwId=19189">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

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Swedish Unions revive recruitment efforts

Meeting recruitment challengesTraditionally the rate of organization has been higher among blue-collar workers than among white-collar workers and engineers. That remains the case in the manufacturing industries. But over the last 15 years the level of union membership, both for blue- and white-collar workers, has fallen from 85 to 71 per cent. The big drop in membership came right after the conservative government came to power in the autumn of 2006. The level of organization remains significantly higher in the manufacturing industries than for the rest of the economy. That goes for both blue- and white-collar workers. In Sweden, 82 per cent of blue-collar workers in manufacturing and 72 per cent of white-collar workers belong to a union. IF Metall has one of the highest rates of organization of all the union confederations, close to 92 per cent. But that rate is falling. &quot;We sat back and relaxed, and thought everything was going well, despite the fact that the decline began ten or fifteen years ago,&quot; says Inga-Lill Samuelsson, a representative at IF Metall's branch in Gothenburg. Inga-Lill is also the project leader for the union's drive to organize and recruit more members. The organising project will run for two years and began in 2008. 22,726 new members were recruited last year. But at the same time, many people have left the union. Hence overall membership in IF Metall has declined. According to the union, one in two members who left IF Metall left due to finding a new job and for that reason moved to another union. Every fourth person left the union after ceasing to pay membership dues. <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19210&amp;mwId=19189">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19197&amp;mwId=19189">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19213&amp;mwId=19189">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

&quot;We had already begun to commit ourselves to membership recruitment,&quot; says Kjell Johnson, who is in charge of long-term development work in Unionen. &quot;And then, I think that Unionen's image may also have attracted new members. With the merger, the new union is perceived as a stronger and more attractive force.&quot; At ABB there are many engineers. Most of them belong to Sveriges Ingenjörer (the Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers). At the ABB Corporate Research centre, union recruitment work has been quite successful. Out of 180 engineers, about 150 belong to Sveriges Ingenjörer. &quot;We don't seek out individuals to try to recruit them [into the union]. We don't believe in that model,&quot; says Shiva Sander-Tavallaey, the union representative for Sveriges Ingenjörer at ABB Corporate Research. &quot;For us the important thing is to show that we are attractive and accessible. We have to show that members can benefit from union membership.&quot;Shiva explains that the union gets good cooperation from the company. Whenever the company has an introductory meeting for new employees, the union is given an opportunity to present its work for 15-30 minutes. &quot;That is an opportunity that my union colleagues succeeded in achieving some 30-40 years ago. Over time it has become part of the corporate culture. The company is positive toward the union,&quot; says Shiva.The union activity of ABB engineers is adapted to the company. According to Shiva, &quot;ABB has an 'activity clock' to which we adapt. We make our own union 'activity clock' so our members can get the most from their union membership.&quot;Before management meets with members to discuss salary, the union makes sure that material is available to equip members before individual meetings. To help them, the union has a local database where members can obtain current pay statistics.&quot;There they can see where their salaries stand in relation to the average for comparable groups, taking into account experience and educational background,&quot; Shiva explains. <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19207&amp;mwId=19189">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19197&amp;mwId=19189">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../main/index.cfm?n=103&amp;l=2&amp;c=19210&amp;mwId=19189">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

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