English

Español

Français

Русский

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Action Plan 2021-2025

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

Women

Youth

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected Officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Press

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390" />

	In the ILO&rsquo;s annual report on global labour conditions released early this week, the UN agency predicts that European social unrest will heighten this year as governments continue to forge ahead with ill-advised austerity policies. It also forecasts that over 202 million people worldwide will be unemployed in 2012.

	<a href="http://www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/world-of-work/">The World of Work Report 2012</a> states that 2012 global unemployment will increase to 202 million from 196 million in 2011. The report says this figure is likely to increase by another five million in 2013, and up to 210 million by 2016.

	&ldquo;Four years into the global crisis, labour market imbalances are becoming more structural, and therefore more difficult to eradicate,&rdquo; the report states. &ldquo;Certain groups, such as the long-term unemployed, are at risk of exclusion from the labour market.

	&ldquo;For a growing proportion of workers who do have a job, employment has become more precarious. In advanced economies, involuntary part-time employment and temporary employment have increased in two-thirds and more than half of these economies.&rdquo;

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 348px;height: 154px" width="390" />

	The ILO report condemns the austerity policies in many industrialised countries, making the inevitable obvious: employers gaining greater latitude to sack workers, lower pay and corresponding social benefits, with an effect of reducing &ldquo;job stability and exacerbate inequalities while failing to boost employment levels.&rdquo;

	The result has been vast increases of long-term unemployed, with upwards of 40% of job seekers in developed nations between the ages of 25 and 49 not having worked in more than a year.

	The ILO said societies are &ldquo;becoming increasingly anxious about the lack of decent jobs.&rdquo; It says that 106 countries surveyed that have available data, 57 of them indicate an increase in the Social Unrest Index for 2011 over 2010.

	&ldquo;The two regions of the world that show the most heightened risk of unrest are Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa but there are also important increases in advanced economies and also in Central and Eastern Europe.&rdquo;

	The ILO report expressed grave concern at the way young people are being shut out of labour markets, as well as the rise of short-term contracts, which, it says, affect young adults and women the most. &ldquo;Youth unemployment rates have increased in about 80% of the advanced economies,&rdquo; the report says.

ILO Report Says Joblessness, Social Unrest Will Persist in 2012

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390" />

	Daniel Aguirre Piedrahita, the General Secretary of SINALCORTEROS, Colombia&rsquo;s Nation Union of Sugar Cane Cutters, was assassinated last Friday night, 27 April, as he accompanied his wife, Helena, to make a telephone call in their Casilda neighbourhood of Florida municipality, Valle del Cauca department in west-central Colombia.

	He was shot twice in the head by a cowardly assassin only 70 metres from his home. In a statement, SINALCORTEROS said the cold-blooded murder occurs in a continued context of violence and intolerance of trade union work in Colombia. It urged members and activists not to let this &ldquo;reprehensibly violent action torpedo our union&rdquo; and derail activities, but rather to &ldquo;reaffirm our actions and our mission.&rdquo;

	The government of Colombia did put out a statement early this week condemning the killing. Deputy Minister of Labour David Luna Sanchez said the ministry supports the Interior Ministry&rsquo;s Protection Unit director&rsquo;s call for an investigation to determine if the killing was related to union activity.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 213px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Aguirre, 35, was a stalwart leader of sugar cane cutters and their fight to bust the chains of servitude inflicted by sugar mill employers who considered them self-employed independent contractors.

	He was instrumental in 2005 in forming SINALCORTEROS, now an affiliate of the International Food and Agricultural Workers&rsquo; Association (IUF), through strikes. He also led strikes of 18,000 sugar cane cutters in 2008 in both Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments that two years later resulted in collective agreements, labour pacts he instituted that in part made recruitment less cumbersome.

	More recently, he had been advocating revisions to Colombia&rsquo;s labour statutes to bring them up to ILO standards and he was a fierce opponent of the Free Trade Agreement with the US, something he felt would lead to exploitation of workers and the product that they harvested.

	Daniel Aguirre becomes the seventh Colombian trade unionist killed this year, and the 61st since Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos took office in August 2010. He is survived by his wife and three daughters, ages 14, 10 and 4.

	A <a href="http://www.rel-uita.org/internacional/ddhh/Rel-sinalcorteros_asesinato_daniel_aguirre.htm">letter of condolence</a> (in Spanish) from the IUF to SINALCORTEROS President Alfonso Viafara can be viewed here.

Coward Guns Down Colombian Sugar Cane Cutters’ General Secretary on 27 April

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390" />

	Warning strikes in German metalworking, engineering and electronic sectors will broaden beginning today with the break-down last week of third round bargaining between IG Metall and employers&rsquo; associations in several states.&nbsp; Upon expiration of a labour peace accord on 28 April, 2,500 German metalworkers began the warning strikes at select locations, taking creative and imaginative actions.

	Talks for 3.6 million German workers represented by IG Metall began in several states in late winter. Bargaining was stalemated in the last state talks, on 26 April, after employers put forth a less than satisfactory salary offer. They also refused to agree to union demands assuring full work guarantees for apprentices once their training tenures are over and more job rights for contract and agency workers.

	The offer put forward by employers&rsquo; association Gesamtmetall through its state chapters on 24 April was termed &ldquo;a provocation&rdquo; by IG Metall, thus causing mobilisation over the weekend when the peace accord expired. The proposal saw employers offering a 3% increase over 14 months, of through June 2013. The union is seeking a 6.5% pay rise over 12 months.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 216px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	The union&rsquo;s goal is based on a run-up in productivity development, as well as projected inflation in 2012 and 2013. Guaranteed opportunity for apprentices and contract workers is also based on the fact that Germany currently experiences a shortage of skilled workers.

	The 6.5% wage proposal is indicative of German industrial workers being the driving force in a nation that is Europe&rsquo;s biggest industrial power and strongest economy, with high pay and workers&rsquo; savings being the wellspring of that strength.

	Last weekend&rsquo;s warning strikes began on 28 April in the eastern city of Zwickau in Saxony state, where hundreds of young metalworkers conducted a motorcycle parade. Other demonstrations over the weekend occurred in Bavaria, Berlin, NorthRhine-Westphalia, and Nordenham in northern Germany, where workers from several plants held a protest and mass breakfast early on Sunday morning.

	In Ingolstadt in Bavaria, some 80 apprentices gathered the night before and flashed a light-projector against the wall of a factory expressing their demand for job guarantees. Workers from a TDK factory in Munich held a torchlight parade that same night, and autoworkers from a Daimler Mercedes-Benz plant in Rasiah, Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg state, protested on Sunday.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 272px;height: 160px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;

	The actions continued on 30 April with loud protests in cities and streets near a Daimler Mercedes-Benz factory in W&ouml;erth-am-Main in Rheinland-Pfalz, at a MAN diesel plant in Augsburg, in Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg in Bavaria, where lead talks will resume on 8 May.

	Yesterday on May Day in Hamburg, IG Metall President Berthold Huber pledged that the union will not be deterred from its agenda, and will bring the dispute into June if employers do not adhere to union demands. If upcoming talks do not produced the desired results, IG Metall is planning continuous strike actions commencing on 16 May.

	Besides a number of further warning actions today, mass demonstrations tomorrow, 3 May, are set at an Audi factory on Neckarsulm and a Porsche plant in Stuttgart. Some 900,000 of the 3.6 million workers affected are employed by Germany&rsquo;s primary auto-makers.

German Warning Strikes Begin in Metals, Electronics Sectors

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 77, February 2012

<img alt="" height="59" src="" width="120" />

	Warning strikes across Austria&rsquo;s electric energy sector slated for tomorrow, 15 February, brought a national labour agreement to 21,000 workers over the weekend. ICEM affiliate PRO-GE and GPA-djp, the Salaried Employees, Print, Journalism, Paper Union reached accord on 12 February after the third round of bargaining last week failed.

	In keeping with a decision made in worksite meetings after the second round of talks failed, late in January, the two unions got strike endorsement from the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions (&Ouml;GB) and were to start manifestations today, with warning strikes commencing tomorrow.

	Instead, the employers&rsquo; association moved a previous 3.6% wage offer to over 4%, with the minimum level of wages in the utility sector lifted to 4.2%. Higher-level wages will be increased by 3.8%, while those of apprentices will be hiked by 4.2%.

	The two unions took the stalemate in 2012 wage negotiations to union memberships at the shop-floor level because employers were refusing to come close to wage level increases reached in Austria&rsquo;s metal sector last October, or to account for a 2011 inflation rate of 3.2% that continues to rise. The unions also cited rising company earnings as reason why electric generating and distribution companies could pay what was achieved in the nation&rsquo;s metal sector.

	In a statement issued yesterday, PRO-GE&rsquo;s Manfred Anderle and GPA-djp&rsquo;s Karl Proyer jointly said: &ldquo;Our great thanks go to all employees and to the shop stewards, who made this possible through their solidarity and readiness for action.&rdquo;

Threat of Strikes in Austria’s Electric Sector Brings National Accord

<img alt="" height="59" src="" width="120" />

	The Australian High Court last week refused to hear an appeal by Rio Tinto over the company&rsquo;s illegal non-union collective agreements imposed on iron ore miners in West Australia. The denial is a victory for ICEM affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), which took the case forward, and a victory for legitimate collective bargaining rights.

	It also stands as a rebuke to Rio Tinto in its efforts to avoid 2009 changes in Australian labour law.

	The 10 February ruling not to hear Rio&rsquo;s appeal to a 25 July 2011 determination by the full bench of the country&rsquo;s Federal Court means Rio&rsquo;s sham labour agreement from July 2008 is not a genuine collective agreement. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4571-Australia-s-CFMEU-Wins-Major-Bargaining-Ruling-Against-Rio-Tinto">ICEM report</a> on Federal Court decision from 1 August 2011.)

	It also serves as an invitation for iron ore miners &ndash; and others &ndash; in West Australia&rsquo;s rich Pilbara region to take membership in the CFMEU, with the aim to negotiate real enterprise labour agreements through the union.&nbsp; The High Court ruling will also negate other mining firms such as BHP Billiton, which also converted individual work agreements into non-union labour agreements that were intended to keep trade unions away from workers and workers without a union voice.

	In Rio Tinto&rsquo;s case, it brought ten new hires of its Pilbara Iron Company Pty. Ltd. subsidiary into a bogus Pilbara Iron Employee Agreement for a five-year duration that was meant to include all other new hires during that time. The ploy was done to avoid changes in law that took effect with the July 2009 effective date of the Fair Work Australia law.

	Some 20 such delusionary labour agreements are said to have been put in place to avoid the Fair Work law, and Rio Tinto&rsquo;s legal failure last week is expected to strike the ones that are still in effect null and void.

	&ldquo;Rio Tinto made a cynical attempt to circumvent their obligations under the Fair Work laws,&rdquo; said CFMEU Mining General Secretary Andrew Vickers. &ldquo;It has tried to dodge its obligation to recognise the rights of its workers to genuinely collectively bargain for future pay increases and improved conditions.

	&ldquo;It has been a long legal battle, but it&rsquo;s been worth it to safeguard the rights of our members in the Pilbara and demonstrate that Rio Tinto is not above the law,&rdquo; added Vickers.

Australian High Court Denies Rio Tinto’s Appeal to Evade Union Contracts

USW Local 9700, one of the first unions to respond at the time of the 30 December lockout and representing Alcoa ABI workers at B&eacute;cancour, Qu&eacute;bec, voted unanimously to draw C$25-per-week from their paychecks, donating C$25,000 weekly to Local 9490.<img alt="" src="" style="width: 140px;height: 68px" width="390" />

	Locked-out members of Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos &nbsp;d&rsquo;Alma Local 9490, the United Steelworkers (USW), took their fight against Rio Tinto Alcan to Qu&eacute;bec&rsquo;s largest city, last Friday, 17 February, where Alcan CEO Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute; was part of a spurious forum on youth in employment, sponsored by the Board of Trade Metropolitan Montr&eacute;al.

	Some 200 of 780 metalworkers from Alcan&rsquo;s Alma aluminium smelter in the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region, Qu&eacute;bec, boarded buses and travelled 460 kilometres to Montr&eacute;al for a noisy protest at this business luncheon, their first manifestation away from the 488,000-tonne-per-year smelter. They were joined by another 100 steelworkers from Montr&eacute;al, and some 100 college students who joined the USW rally in mocking protest to a future&nbsp;youth theme that now sees business teaming with the Liberal provincial government of Qu&eacute;bec to raise their university tuition fees.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 248px;height: 161px" width="390" />

	17 February Manifestation, Montr&eacute;al

	This &ldquo;Hot Issues@Lunch&rdquo; theme was billed to &ldquo;foster the success of the next generation of Qu&eacute;becers.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma found deep irony in Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute; participating, since Alcan in Alma is using a lock-out to replace C$36-an-hour permanent jobs with outsourced and presumably younger workers at C$16-an-hour.

	C&ocirc;t&eacute; was not expected to address the lockout at the hot-plate lunch, but when pressed by reporters on the sidelines, she called the dispute a &ldquo;regional issue&rdquo; and &ldquo;it will be settled in Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean&rdquo; by managers who &ldquo;have my full confidence.&rdquo;

	Earlier last week, when the lockout entered week seven and with the remote mining and manufacturing region starting to feel the economic effects of a lost wage base, one such manager told Reuters he &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t put a timeline to (talks restarting) right now because nothing is scheduled.&rdquo;

	&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 199px;height: 159px" width="390" />&nbsp;

	Dan Roy and Marc Maltais

	foto: France Paradis/Le-Lac-St-Jean

	With aluminium prices hovering now at very low, the Alma lockout serves as a convenient strategy to restrict supply to lift prices. It also fits Rio Tinto&rsquo;s strategy of divesting and devaluing Alcan by C$8.9 billion in view of its US$39 billion purchase of the Canadian company in 2007, although the modern and high-tech tooled Alma smelter, with its low-cost hydroelectric supply, will not likely be jettisoned.

	Perhaps this should have been a more apt business theme to the Board of Trade elite last week, and it certainly best explains the anger of metalworkers and students alike gathered on the other side of the barricades. In this vein &ndash; with Rio Tinto&rsquo;s share price dropping &ndash; it is worth mentioning that C&ocirc;t&eacute; herself exhibited a timely corporate mentality last week by shedding 3,671 shares of Rio Tinto to pocket US$213,500, money not likely to find its way to Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean.

	USW District Five Director Daniel Roy addressed the disparity between full-time, family-supporting jobs in the region to the sub-contract and lower-wage jobs that Rio Tinto is trying create with the. &ldquo;Accepting this would cause a dramatic downward spiral not only for the workers but for members of the community, which would see income, local business sales and tax revenues drop precipitously.&rdquo;

	USW Local 9490 President Marc Maltais added, &ldquo;By using subcontractors to do the work of union members, we are asked to concede on behalf of future generations. This is an attack on our children and grandchildren.&rdquo;

	The buses departed Montr&eacute;al late on Friday afternoon for the return trip to Alma, but first stopped at a plant-gate demonstration in Sorel, Qu&eacute;bec, where workers and members of ICEM-affiliated FIM-CSN (Conf&eacute;d&eacute;ration des Syndicats Nationaux) at a Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium metal powders plant lent their support. This stop again depicts the long-erected barriers between Canadian trade unions that Local 9490 is erasing inside this lockout.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 114px;height: 160px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

	Rio Tinto Alcan CEO, Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute;

	With Canada currently undergoing an unprecedented rash of corporate hostility, it is notable to witness trade unions and other groups galvanising behind victimised union workers.

	Last week, members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 2301 at a Rio Tinto Alcan aluminium smelter in Kitimat, British Colombia, voted to take C$1-an-hour of their pay and donate it to &nbsp;Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos&nbsp; d&rsquo;Alma Local 9490. That represents C$60,000 per month.

	On 8 February, the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada contributed C$25,000 to the Alma metalworkers, and a day later the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) contributed C$10,000. USW Local 9700, one of the first unions to respond at the time of the 30 December lockout and representing Alcoa ABI workers at B&eacute;cancour, Qu&eacute;bec, voted unanimously to draw C$25-per-week from their paychecks, donating C$25,000 weekly to Local 9490.

	Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos&nbsp; d&rsquo;Alma&rsquo;s&nbsp; journey to Montr&eacute;al to confront Rio Tinto Alcan CEO Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute; is just the first sally outward. This week Local 9490 leaders will visit Rio Tinto&rsquo;s borax miners in California, where members of ICEM affiliate International Longshore &amp; Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 30 defended themselves courageously in a Rio Tinto-imposed lockout. And they&rsquo;ll follow that solidarity visit with to Australia to meet with unions represented Rio Tinto there.

	On March 31, a day after the ICEM North American region meets in Alma, a manifestation will occur there with scores of global trade union leaders attending. And on 1 April, a workshop will occur in Alma to verse an exact fightback strategy against Rio Tinto on the global level.&nbsp;

Locked-out Alcan Workers Take Dispute to Canadian Business Doorstep

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 140px;height: 68px" width="390" />

	&nbsp;

	Job security and job creation was the foundation behind a new two-year national labour agreement between social partners in Denmark. That came together in marathon bargaining over the weekend, 11-12 February, in framework talks for 240,000 Danish manufacturing workers and 6,000 enterprises, the latter represented by Dansk Industri.

	The trade unions, led by the eight making up Co-Industri, including 3F, Dansk Metal and HK/Pivat, in concert with the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), set an agenda of wage moderation, instead focusing on winning excellent and precedent-setting job preservation protections such as training, seniority, and reduced work hours at full pay for both old and young workers.

	This industrial social accord now establishes the parameters for other work sectors. The agreement will run from 1 March 2012 to 1 March 2014. The national industrial agreement did establish minimum wage guideposts, but exact wage increases will now be negotiated at local levels and inside company agreements.

	The framework agreement grants training at full pay with business downturns and when reductions in work time occur, and it also allows older workers to reduce their working time within five years of retirement by continuing their income levels through salaries and partial pension benefits. Workers will also have the option to tap into current pension plans as a supplement to salaries.

	A key element in the new agreement is an additional &euro;.05-per-hour worked will be added to the national Industrial Training fund.

	Employee discretion in taking training options increases from two weeks to six weeks, in some cases, and full seniority is granted to workers when they are called back from lay-offs within nine months. Previously, it was six months. As well, paid sick leave occurs after six months on a job rather than the previous nine months.

	The new pact is also kinder to lower-income earners and gives better pay-outs when such workers are laid off. Parental leave was made more flexible and added pension accrual was put in place for weekend, holiday or extra work performed.

	The recommended minimum wage increase is &euro;.18-per-hour effective 1 March, and the same amount again on 1 March 2013. A pay supplement of 1.4% each year is available for performing difficult work, and apprentices, trainees and interns will get a 2.25% pay hike in each year.

	The bargaining, which began in early January, nearly reached dispute when HK/Privat , the Commercial and Clerical Workers&rsquo; Union, sought to drop the 50% benchmark regarding number of staff needed before a collective agreement takes effect. A compromise was struck that gives employers the opportunity to sign labour agreements without the 50% threshold and HK/Privat coverage also was expanded to include administrative staff working as trainees and college students.

	The agreement was widely praised in Denmark as the necessary building block to restore some 80,000 industrial and manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the country since the onset of the financial crisis.

Enlightened Industrial Labour Pact Set in Place in Denmark for 240,000 Workers

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 120px;height: 59px" width="390" />

	&nbsp;

	The ICEM &ndash; along with the European Mine, Chemical, Energy, Federation (EMCEF) &ndash; will march in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, tomorrow, 16 November, in support of 5,200 British workers who are seriously threatened by Unilever with closure of a final salary pension scheme. The ICEM and EMCEF will join European workers of the world&rsquo;s third largest consumer goods company in protest at the company&rsquo;s Rotterdam headquarters.

	The message &ndash; Unilever, Don&rsquo;t Make Workers Pay for Your Profits &ndash; will specifically target Unilever CEO Paul Polman for his 2010-11 salary and bonus pay-out of &euro;8 million. Unilever is out to slash between 20-40% of pension earnings to UK workers represented by trade unions Unite the Union, GMB and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers&rsquo; (USDAW).

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 141px;height: 159px" width="390" />

	Jennie Formby

	&ldquo;Executive greed and compensation must be challenged,&rdquo; stated United National Officer Jennie Formby. Polman saw a 50% increase in his total earnings from 2010 to 2011, some 285 times that of the average Unilever worker.

	The Rotterdam manifestation comes just days two weeks after Unilever posted a strong set of financial numbers in its latest results and three weeks after UK workers from several Unilever sites descended on Davos, Switzerland, where Polman served as one of the co-chairs at the World Economic Forum.

	The three British unions have engaged in two rounds of industrial actions against Unilever at 11 plants, the latest coming with 11 days of rolling strike actions that ended on 28 January. Unilever UK management did finally agree to meet with the unions on 9 February with the assistance of UK&rsquo;s Advisory, Conciliation and Mediation Services (ACAS), but the company is still adamant on closing the final salary pension scheme effective 1 July 2012.

	Unilever instead intends to implement a pension scheme based on career average earnings. Formby said Polman&rsquo;s vision of doubling Unilever&rsquo;s revenue stream over the next ten years and creating &ldquo;sustainable living&rdquo; is disingenuous in view of cutting workers&rsquo; pensions.

	Tomorrow&rsquo;s manifestation will begin at 12h00 at Unilever&rsquo;s offices at Weena 455, Rotterdam. The ICEM also will raise concerns over the 5 February closure due to a labour dispute at Unilever&rsquo;s Basamadi, Nepal, factory. The dispute at that facility, which produces Lux and Lifebuoy soaps and Pepsodent and Close-Up toothpastes, is close to a resolve this week after intervention from the Nepalese government.

Unilever Rotterdam Protest Pits Corporate Compensation vs. Workers’ Pension Cuts

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
Disappointed with a draft of the UN Global Compact document &ldquo;Corporate Sustainability Leadership: A Framework for Action at Rio+20 and Beyond,&rdquo; global labour&rsquo;s two representatives on the body &ndash; ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings &ndash; worked to get stronger trade union language adopted by the Global Compact for the UN&rsquo;s June 2012 World Summit on Sustainable Development, dubbed &ldquo;Rio+20.&rdquo; 
 
That effort succeeded last week when the Global Compact accepted inclusion of a better accounting of the social dimension of sustainability. All UN agencies, including the Global Compact, have been preparing their input to that summit. 
 
At the insistence of Warda and Jennings, the document now calls on businesses fully respect human rights, including the rights of workers. Governments are called on to guarantee a high standard of social protection, and to establish programmes that support a Just Transition to a future with sustainable jobs and decent work in both existing industries and in new and greener ones. 
<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="86" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" width="51" height="100" />
ICEM and UNI worked to get reference to fairness, equity, justice, social dialogue, and Global Framework Agreements in the document. 
 
The document, while a compromise, is a significant step forward that will allow further elaboration on these ideas at future Global Compact meetings. In addition, these words will support and strengthen other trade union inputs for Rio+20. 
 
The <a href="http://unglobalcompact.org/docs/news_events/9.1_news_archives/2011_11_1/UNGC_Rio+20_Submission.pdf ">full document</a> can be read here. 
 
The Global Compact was started by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the year 2000 to motivate businesses to work towards a sustainable future and now includes ten principles. 
 
Among the ten are two related to basic human rights, four regarding labour rights (freedom of association/right to collective bargaining; abolition of child labour; elimination of forced and compulsory labour; and elimination of employment discrimination), three on environment (businesses supporting a precautionary approach to environmental challenges; undertaking initiatives for greater environmental responsibility; and to encourage the development and diffusion of environmental friendly technologies), and an anti-corruption principle.

Explicit Trade Union Language Adopted by UN’s Global Compact for Rio+20

Archive