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Global worker No1 2022

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BRAZIL: On April 12, before the start of the workday, workers assembled in front of Ford's auto plant in Camaçari, Bahia, to discuss wage increases were injured in an unprovoked attack by military police wielding batons and firing teargas. Fifteen workers, including a pregnant woman, suffered injuries serious enough to require treatment at the plant's medical center, and Aurino Pedreira, president of the Bahia Metalworkers' Union, which organises the workers, had to be hospitalised.

The union, a member of the IMF-affiliated CNM/CUT, is trying to negotiate a pay hike for the workers at Ford's Camaçari plant, where an operator's monthly wage is 500 Brazilian reals (US$215), or less than one-third of the BRL 1,800 (US$773) paid for comparable work at Ford's Sao Bernardo do Campo plant, in Sao Paulo. Social benefits for the Sao Paulo workers, such as transport costs, are not offered to the workers at the Bahia plant, and Ford's workweek in Sao Paulo is 44 hours, as opposed to 48 hours in Bahia.

On April 16, workers at the Ford plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo went on a two-hour sympathy strike in solidarity with their colleagues in Bahia, and metalworkers' unions in other regions in Brazil are also supporting the demands of the Ford workers in Bahia. 

Messages of solidarity with the Ford Bahia workers in their struggle to improve wages and conditions can be sent in care of the CNM/CUT, by e-mail: <a href="mailto:cnmcut@alternex.com.br">cnmcut@alternex.com.br</a> or fax: (55/11) 3209-9524.

The Bahia plant, with approximately 600 production workers employed by Ford, plus another 1,546 by outsourcers, was inaugurated in October 2001. In May 2002, the company expects to market its first entirely assembled car in this plant, the Fiesta.

Military police, using batons and teargas, assault workers in front of the Camaçari plant in Bahia.

Attack on Ford workers in Brazil

INDIA: The IMF Regional Office for South Asia reports that the April 16 nationwide strike in protest against the government's privatisation and anti-labour policies was the largest in recent years. Approximately 10 million workers stayed off the job during the one-day industrial action.

Although the strike call was issued by trade unions operating in the state-owned public sector, the response was so quick and massive that in some states, like West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, there was total solidarity with the strike, paralysing commercial and industrial activities.

Workers are fed up with government anti-labour policies such as its attempts to liberalise labour laws and introduce "hire-and-fire" legislation and have warned of further intensification of their struggle if the government's policies are not changed. The national trade union centres will meet in early May to take stock of the situation and map out the next phase of their action.

The one-day countrywide strike paralysed industrial activity throughout the country.

10 million workers down tools in India

REPUBLIC OF KOREA: Members of the Daewoo Motor Workers' Union have approved a provisional agreement between Daewoo Motor Company and General Motors. GM, whose official takeover of the Korean carmaker appears imminent, proposed many of the conditions for the deal.

With 8,234 Daewoo union members participating in a ballot at the union's April 16 general meeting, 69.4 per cent voted in favour of ratifying the provisional agreement. According to union sources, the vote was based primarily on the workers' desire for the prolonged crisis situation at Daewoo - the company's bankruptcy and the GM takeover bid - to come to an end.

As for job security, Daewoo agrees to maintain employment not only at plants taken over by General Motors, but also those which remain with Daewoo. The new Daewoo collective bargaining agreement will be continued.

A priority task for the union and Daewoo is to draw up a long-term plan for the company's Pupyong auto plant in Inchon, west of Seoul. This plant, which formerly had a workforce of 18,000 but is now down to 7,000, will not be included in the GM takeover. A variety of conditions have been proposed and, if met, the Pupyong plant may be integrated into the new GM-Daewoo company. It was agreed that:
<ul>
<li>efforts to develop a new car at Pupyong should be made, and the model currently being produced will be continued;
<li>no measures will be taken which could cause job insecurity, such as transferring production lines from Pupyong;
<li>production of the P-100 and SUV models will be considered;
<li>Pupyong will have an independent management system;
<li>productivity and sales of cars produced at the Pupyong plant had to increase.
</ul>
An important point in the agreement is the reinstatement by the end of 2002 of 300 laid-off workers. More laid-off workers will be recruited at the end of 2004, by when production is expected to have picked up.


NOTE: On April 30, General Motors finalised its $400 million acquisition of Daewoo Motor.

A majority of the union's members vote in favour of a provisional agreement between General Motors and Daewoo Motor Company.

Daewoo union approves deal

GENEVA: In his support of the Italian unions' general strike, Marcello Malentacchi, the general secretary of the IMF, writes in his latest opinion column that when a government - no matter which way it leans - attempts to get rid of basic rights introduced into labour legislation, there is going to be a fight. 

The government of Silvio Berlusconi wants to scrap Article 18 of the hard-won 30-year-old labour law (Workers' Statute) protecting workers who have been dismissed from their jobs without just cause. Although the center-right government claims it wants to bring its legislation in line with the rest of Europe, Malentacchi suggests they take "a closer look at Article 30 of the European Union's Charter of Rights".

"The Italian unions' are fighting for all of us," says the IMF general secretary. Go to the associated link to read the full text of his opinion.

Italian unions are struggling for all workers

GHANA: The IMF-affiliated Industrial &amp; Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) has come out victorious following severe political harassment and intimidation by the former government of Ghana in 1999-2000. Readers will recall that in October of 1999, in attempts by that government and by employers to destabilise the union and block its democratically-elected leadership, an injunction was slapped on the ICU, forcing it to postpone its 7th Quadrennial Delegates Conference.


However, due to the serious scheming and wrongful court cases brought against the union's leadership, when the next national general elections were held, ICU members massively voted against that government, helping remove it from power. When the new government was in place, three judges over a period of two years were able - without any interference - to investigate the court cases brought against the ICU, and in separate rulings have now dismissed all the plaintiffs' actions as "frivolous, vexatious and without any merit."


Thus, after almost four years, the ICU will finally be able to hold that 7th Quadrennial Delegates Conference.


On behalf of his union, the ICU's general secretary and IMF Executive Committee member, Napoleon Kpoh, has conveyed the union's gratefulness to the IMF and other global union federations for the massive support they gave to the ICU in helping to defeat its adversaries. Kpoh has expressed his personal appreciation and gratitude to all IMF affiliates around the world who sent solidarity messages to the union and protest messages to the government and employers. "International solidarity works," he stated.

The ICU in Ghana has won its long fight against the former government, which tried to destabilise the union and its leadership.

Harassment of Ghana union

Anti-union tactics continue in Ghana

Union leader arrested in Ghana                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Injunction slapped on union                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

&quot;International solidarity works&quot;

KOREA, REP: The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has called a political strike for July 5, and the main force to lead the strike will be the Korean Metal Workers Federation (KMWF). 
The decision for the general strike was made after Mun Sung-hyun, president of the KMWF, strongly called for general strikes to stop the neoliberal drive of the government and to attain the KCTU's demands. Mun also added that auto industry workers from Hyundai, Kia, and Ssangyong are already taking procedures for the general strike on July 6, and union representatives for shipbuilding industry workers made resolutions to organise strikes. In response to Mun, members of KCTU Central Committee demanded leaderships to declare a general strike with the participation of all 600,000 KCTU members on the same day. 
After the unanimous decision for the political strike was made, the second agenda to step up the KCTU's campaign for the resignation of the government was discussed. At the end of the discussion members of the Central Committee requested to call a KCTU emergency National Congress to decide a possible Seoul rally with the participation of 100,000 KCTU members from all over the country in case the government continues oppressing the KCTU. 
These are the KCTU demands: 
- stop neoliberal restructuring plans and projected layoffs; 
- stop discrimination against casual and irregular workers; 
- secure the rights to form a union of public service workers and university professors; 
- extend the public education system and public medical system; 
- abolish the National Security Laws; 
- drop the warrants of arrest against the KCTU leadership and stop oppression against the KCTU; 
- resignation of the Kim Dae-jung government.

The KCTU declares strikes for resignation of Kim Dae-jung government in response to a grave provocation by the government.

KCTU goes on overall strike

The last few years front pages of the newspapers and TV- and radio news have been dominated by the so called. new economy.
What's that? 
It is simply the way stock markets brokers call new companies in the electronics, computers and telecommunication sectors. 
It is also a definition of companies which values at the stock exchanges around the world have been boasted artificially through speculation. 
The worse is that the value of the companies concerned is not a real one but is just bubble that has now busted leaving thousands and thousand of workers both blue and white collars out of job. 
News about easy money in "new-economy" companies, Microsoft, Compaq, Nokia, Ericsson, Vodafone etc, have created the wrong perception that the traditional strong manufacturing industries such as steel, automobile, white goods-companies or textile, chemicals etc are out of fashion. 
The message is simply that manufacturing is not the future of a modern economy.
But, this is just nonsense. 
Or as the new secretary of trade and industry in UK expressed at the AEEU conference in Blackpool, UK, on June 13th 2001: 
"There are not two economies, one old and a new one, there is just one economy." 
Manufacturing remains the most important factor in the economy of a modern country.
While it is true that service sector of the economy is growing faster than manufacturing, bear in mind that services are linked directly to manufacturing. 
For example, physical goods need maintenance, their production and distribution requires transport, information, communications, insurance and real estate services, etc. In other words much of the growth of the services sector is result of growth in manufacturing. 
It is true that number of jobs in the manufacturing is shrinking and will shrink even more. 
New technologies and new products will constantly change the way things, necessary and less necessary for our life, are manufactured. But the total value of this in the economic system will not be less. On the contrary it will be higher. 
The demand must increase if we want to create a sustainable growth over the whole world. To satisfy that, enormous amount of funds are to be invested in production of goods. 
At the same time the investment will create jobs and purchasing power for the workers and their family to enable them to buy what they produce and a little more. 
Economist, brokers at stock exchanges, neo-liberal politicians, they tend to forget sometime that manufacturing is needed to make necessary goods to make easier for every body to enjoy the life. 
Speculations on the other hand only create problems and wealth just for few.

The message that manufacturing is not the future of a modern economy is just nonsense.


Manufacturing is still&lt;br&gt;the most important

SOUTH AFRICA: The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) reports that the first day of strike action at the X-Strata Chrome company in Rustenburg has received overwhelming and favourable support from the 800 workers who have vowed to continue with the strike until their demands are met. 
Last week, Numsa and the chrome-making company failed to resolve the two-month-old dispute in the conciliation meeting with the Engineering Bargaining Council. The union declared a dispute against the company's voluntary separation package and the layoff of 200 workers. The company is paying laid-off workers 25 per cent of their basic salary, including attendance bonus and housing subsidy, plus 50 per cent of their provident fund contribution, and is guaranteeing insured benefits. It has suspended workers' medical aid membership. 
According to the union, the company acted in breach of its obligations by refusing to accede to Numsa demands on severance packages and layoffs. Workers are taking the industrial action because the company failed to conclude the matter through normal dialogue. 
The response of the employers has not been at all dignified, says Numsa. "The only conclusion we can draw from these illogical responses is that the company is opening up old wounds."

Numsa says that the X-Strata Chrome company is opening up old wounds.

Numsa's demands

Overwhelming support for strike action

Unsere australischen Mitgliedsorganisationen werden an 9, und 10. November einen Begrüssungsstand errichten, um die Teilnehmer am Flughafen in Empfang zu nehmen. Die Delegierten, die früher oder später eintreffen, möchten bitte notieren, dass alle 30 Minuten ein Flughafenbus fährt, der vor allen Hotels anhält, in denen die IMB-Delegierten wohnen werden. Der Fahrpreis beträgt 7 Dollar, während ein Taxi, das je nach Verkehr etwa 30-40 Minuten bis zur Innenstadt braucht, ungefähr 30 Dollar kostet.

Ankunft in Sydney

Le nostre affiliate australiane allestiranno un Welcome Desk venerdì 9 novembre e sabato 10 novembre per accogliere i delegati all'aeroporto. Per i delegati che arrivano prima o dopo queste date, informiamo che esistono servizi di Airport Shuttle ogni 30 minuti, che si fermano in tutti gli alberghi dove i delegati della FISM sono alloggiati. Il costo è di 7 dollari. Con un taxi, ci vogliono tra 30 e 40 minuti a seconda del traffico, per un costo di circa 30 dollari.

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