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On February 15, trade unions across Europe will take to the streets of major cities to demonstrate against the imminent war that Bush and Blair intend to launch against Iraq, to prevent a "bigger" war, as they claim.

The political leaders of eight European countries who recently signed a letter in support of the American Administration's position will face tough questions from their own people. Demonstrations, surveys and polls show that European public opinion is definitely and increasingly against the war. 

Actually, antiwar opinion is growing all over the world, including in the USA.

Participants in the recently concluded World Social Forum in Porto Alegre expressed a unanimous antiwar view at practically all events, small and large alike. It was not an expression of pacifism, but rather a broad rejection of this particular war prospect.

It was a strong signal to the USA that world security must be governed by the United Nations, and not unilaterally by a "superpower".

Expressing this opinion against a war in Iraq must not be confused or mixed up with the battle to defeat terrorism, by all means, including war if necessary. 

The UN must be the only authority to decide what and when action is necessary. Also, the UN must ask the influential Arab countries to put pressure on Saddam Hussein to comply with the resolutions which have been adopted by the UN but ignored by the Iraqi government.

Saddam Hussein is a terrible dictator and, like with all dictators, must be removed, but we cannot accept that millions of innocent civilians in Iraq and elsewhere will have to pay the price for the atrocities he has committed.

On February 15, in Bern, the Swiss trade unions and other NGOs are organising a demonstration.

I am going to join it.

I hope you have the chance to do the same in your country.

No to pre-emptive war against Iraq

BELGIUM: The trade unions represented at the Arcelor Cockerill-Sambre plant in Liège have called for a 24-hour strike to begin on February 6 at 9 p.m. The FGTB Metal and the Christian Metalworkers CCMB, both of which are affiliated to the IMF, say their walkout is in protest at the decision by the steelmaker to freeze investment at the plant.

This will be the first in a series of strikes being planned since the January 24 announcement by the steel group of restructuring plans which would see a freeze on investment at four of its European blast furnaces and a decrease in steel-producing capacity of 8 million metric tons by 2010.

Arcelor, the world's largest steelmaking group, was formed in 2002 with the merger of Luxembourg's Arbed, Spain's Aceralia and France's Usinor. It has a workforce of 106,000 worldwide and a production in 2002 of approximately 44 million metric tons of steel.

Steel group is cutting back its production and freezing investments.

Belgian metalworkers to strike at Arcelor

USA: In a major recruiting victory in the U.S. South, the IMF-affiliated United Auto Workers union has won the right to represent 3,100 workers at two plants in North Carolina operated by DaimlerChrysler's Freightliner unit. The UAW has long campaigned to represent workers at the two DaimlerChrysler-owned factories.

A majority of workers at the plants -- in Cleveland and Gastonia -- approved a "card check" voting process, in which they signed a card indicating support for unionisation. UAW president, Ron Gettelfinger, said that "card check elections are a fair and democratic way to find out whether workers really want a union."

Workers at Freightliner's truck assembly plant in Mount Holly, North Carolina, who have been UAW members since 1990, played a key role in supporting the organising drive in Cleveland and Gastonia.

Source: UAW, Detroit News, just-auto.com

DaimlerChrysler Freightliner workers in North Carolina show their support for the union.

UAW in southern victory

CANADA: Reacting to the decision announced on May 22 by DaimlerChrysler to drop plans for a new assembly plant for pickup trucks in Windsor, Ontario, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers union, Buzz Hargrove, expressed anger and deep disappointment. 

In a press statement released by the CAW, the union's president said that the new plant could have been a "major decision to reverse the downward trend of auto, the most important industry in the country," but he blamed the federal and provincial governments for not doing enough to make sure the plant became a reality.

Although the automaker said the project for the Windsor plant would not be economically viable, the union believes the two issues standing in the way of implementing the investment agreement, which had been reached during bargaining in the fall of 2002, are lack of federal and provincial government support, and the rising value of the Canadian dollar.

The CAW president has written to Canada's prime minister, Jean Chrétien, to urge him to convene a meeting of the key stakeholders in the project for the Windsor plant, in order to consider the economic hurdles to the project and work together to see if the obstacles can be overcome.

Windsor is just across the border from Detroit, USA. According to the Detroit News and just-auto.com, the Chrysler group is trying to cut costs and boost revenues at a time when U.S. car and truck demand is down 4 per cent so far this year, and its own sales reduced 7.2 per cent.

Canadian auto union is deeply disappointed and blames the government.

News item on CAW-DC bargaining agreement

DaimlerChrysler drops plan for new plant

USA: The IMF-affiliated IUE-CWA reports that, on May 19, the first union proposal was made in national negotiations as the 14-member Coordinated Bargaining Committee of General Electric unions opened bargaining with General Electric in New York City. 

The IUE-CWA president, Edward Fire, who also chairs the CBC, proposed that GE reinstate two workers who were fired at the GE-owned Johnson Technology for their organizing activity. The National Labor Relations Board has issued charges in both cases. Saying that this issue had to be dealt with and resolved in these negotiations, Fire said that "at its core, General Electric has always been and remains, anti-union." 

Fire and IUE-CWA/GE Conference Board chairman, Art Smith, outlined the major issues in the negotiations. Key among them are pension increases and job security. Fire called for "substantial" pension improvements for current and future retirees, as well as improvements in health care with no cost shifting.

"There will be no givebacks in the new IUE-CWA GE three-year contract," Fire stated. "If General Electric continues to insist that IUE-CWA members accept the massive concessions in health care cost shifting GE has talked about, our members are prepared, and will strike."

The 14-member CBC unions open national negotiations with General Electric.

GE negotiations get underway

CHINA: The China Labour Bulletin reports that on May 9, 2003, a court in Liaoyang, northeastern China, handed down harsh prison sentences to Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang, the two independent metalworker activists who were arrested in March 2002 and kept in detention since then for their part in a peaceful workers' demonstration. Yao, 52, has been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, and Xiao, 57, to four years.

At their trial, which took place on January 15, 2003, both men were charged with "illegal assembly" and "subversion of state power" for leading a mass protest against alleged corruption at the Liaoyang Ferro-Alloy Factory, which led to the plant's bankruptcy, and against missing and unpaid wages and other benefits, including pensions. 

In late March 2002, the IMF joined the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in filing a formal complaint with the International Labour Organisation's Committee on Freedom of Association against the government of the People's Republic of China for violations of the principles of freedom of association. Since then, the IMF has written protests to the president of China and to the government-sponsored All China Federation of Trade Unions. In March 2003, the Governing Body of the ILO, of which China is a member, called upon the Chinese authorities to release all Liaoyang workers still in detention and to drop any outstanding charges against them.

Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang receive long prison terms for their participation in a peaceful workers' protest.

Background information

Chinese metalworkers sentenced

DENMARK: 530 delegates at the recent Extraordinary Congress in Odensee of the Danish Metalworkers' Federation (Dansk Metalarbejderforbund) unanimously voted for a merger with the Danish Telecommunications Federation.

The newly-amalgamated union, which keeps the name Danish Metalworkers' Federation, has 150,000 members, of whom 137,000 come from the metalworkers and 13,000 from the telecom union. Previous to the merger, Dansk Metal already had among its membership 12,000 in the IT and electronics sector.

The new federation has set up an IT secretariat, as well as a permanent department for equality issues.

Commenting on the merger, Dansk Metal's president, Max Baehring, said that "this measure will give us a stronger negotiating position and point of departure for improving working conditions in the branch."

The telecommunications union has been incorporated into the Danish Metalworkers' Federation.

Union merger in Denmark

GERMANY: In a bid to gradually introduce the 35-hour workweek for its members in the metal and electrical industry in eastern Germany, IG Metall staged walkouts in four auto plants on May 5. Targeted were three Volkswagen plants and one Opel plant. 

IG Metall, the IMF-affiliated German metalworkers' union, says that 13 years after the country's reunification, it's time for further steps to be taken towards realising the same working and income conditions for employees in the eastern part of the country as their counterparts in the west. Although weekly base pay is the same, the 310,000 metalworkers in the east have a 38-hour workweek, as opposed to the 35 hours worked in the west.

Contract negotiations between IG Metall and employers in the eastern German metal and electrical industry will begin in mid-May, but the union is nevertheless preparing a vote for a possible strike in early June.

Warning strikes kick off IG Metall campaign to put metalworkers in the east on par with those in the west.

East German metalworkers seek shorter workweek

GERMANY: Among steps being taken by the German metalworkers' union IG Metall against Gerhard Schroeder's "Agenda 2010" reform plan is its participation in an action week, from May 12-17, organised by the German trade union confederation DGB with its member unions. 

The announced reforms contained in the German chancellor's programme, which was presented to Parliament in March, caused an uproar among the country's trade unions due to the planned dismantling of three major elements of German social security:
<ul>
<li>unemployment benefits to be levelled down to welfare and shortened,
<li>protection against dismissal to be reduced,
<li>health-care costs to increase.
</ul>
The unions have strongly condemned Agenda 2010 as an attack on what has been achieved in more than a century of combined efforts by the trade unions and social democracy. A spokesperson for IG Metall said reforms were needed that would bring growth and contribute to job creation, but this was not the case with Agenda 2010.

In a letter to the Social Democratic and Green members of Parliament, IG Metall president, Klaus Zwickel, has accused Schroeder of breaking promises not to touch such social measures, made at IG Metall's Future Congress in June 2002, in discussions with trade union presidents immediately after last September's elections, and in a meeting with the IG Metall Executive in February 2003.

In addition to the upcoming Action Week, IG Metall and other unions made their objection to Agenda 2010 the focus of their protests during May 1st marches throughout the country. Many more rallies, petitions, distribution of information, Internet discussion between union members and members of Parliament are being organised, and alternative proposals are being put forth. The culmination of trade union protest will take place on May 24 with a nationwide action day by all DGB member unions.

The German trade union movement plans protest action and alternative proposals to the chancellor's reform agenda.

Unions battle Schroeder

GREAT BRITAIN/USA: Although the vote in favour of enhanced executive pay won a majority at the April 17th annual general meeting of the British-based news agency Reuters, the unions report the 22 per cent negative vote they achieved was "definitely a good result, especially for a first attempt."

A spokesperson for the British TUC said that the vote came at a time in the UK when institutional investors are under a great deal of pressure to prove they will stand up to investee companies where necessary over governance issues like executive pay.

Also, direct approaches to shareholders seem to be paying off. In one letter sent to Reuters shareholders before the annual meeting took place, the president of the IMF-affiliated Communications Workers of America, Morton Bahr, called for opposition to approval of the enhanced executive pay plan. "Executive pay," said Bahr, "is not simply a cost issue, but also an issue of corporate performance."

Proposal in favour of enhanced executive pay wins the majority at the annual meeting, but unions achieve a high vote against.

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