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Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

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PERU:  Unions have denounced the wave of sackings in the mining sector in Peru at a press conference, where they called on Congress to appoint a commission to assess whether the sackings of 3,000 miners were justified.The following attended the press conference: Jhon Guerra Poma, representing workers sacked by Perubar (who participated with a delegation of 39 sacked workers); Julio Cesar Bazan, President of the CUT Peru; Marino Ávila, General Secretary of the Siderperu blue-collar union; Secundino Torres Marin, General Secretary of Siderperu's white-collar union; Maria Sumire, member of Congress; and Janet Barzola of the CNMM. Around 3,000 workers employed by ten mining companies were sacked in the final three months of 2008, due to the effects of the economic crisis.  On 25 November, Perubar S.A., locked out 500 workers; Siderperu sacked 133 miners on 28 November and 407 on 9 December and the Aceros Arequipa factory in Pisco suspended production on 18 November and sacked 300 workers.  The company that sacked the highest number (533) of workers was Huallanca, in Áncash. Other companies that sacked workers: Cerro Verde (300), Argentum S.A.A. (200), Quenuales (62) and Santa Teresa Poroma (30).Speakers at the press conference said the companies had used the world economic crisis as a pretext for the massive wave of sackings.  They added that mining company profits had increased by more than 150% between 2005 and 2007. Janet Barzola said that: &quot;The press conference has already had results. Perubar, a subsidiary of the Swiss transnational company Glencore agreed to union demands in record time&quot;.  She added that workers at the Santa Teresa Poroma plant have succeeded in having their social welfare benefits recognized and 20 of the 30 sacked workers have been reinstated.

Around 3,000 miners have been sacked.  The unions have been organising their response and demanding a solution to the situation.

Wave of sackings in the Peruvian mining sector

GLOBAL: After years of strong criticism by trade unions, the World Bank has finally instructed its staff to stop using the labour indicators of its &quot;Doing Business&quot; flagship publication that gives higher rating to countries with the lowest workers&#039; protection. These have been used to push developing countries to adopt strict labour market deregulation policies as recipe for development and conditions for eligibility for loans and grants.At a time of global crisis, with the institutions of finance being severely criticised as part of the causes of the present problems that hit most severely workers in all countries of the South and the North, the World Bank is making a significant move that, if concretely translated quickly and effectively in its policy recommendations, can mark an important change with positive effects on employment policies in developing countries. The World Bank communiqué issued on April 27 stresses the importance of &quot;development goals&quot; such as &quot;social safety nets to shield vulnerable parts of society from intolerable risk and protection of rights for workers and households as well as for firms&quot;.The Bank is also scaling up its work on social safety nets, on &quot;issues of access to benefits such as unemployment insurance and social security&quot;. With regard to the Doing Business indicators, the Bank will adjust the scoring in its annual report &quot;regarding provisions for fixed term workers and standards for severance payment, mandatory days of rest and night work and holidays, and minimum wage levels, in order to accord favourable scores to worker protection policies that comply with the letter and spirit of the relevant ILO Conventions, recognizing that well-designed worker protections are of benefit to the society as a whole&quot;. Furthermore &quot;a guidance note will be issued clarifying that the indicators do not represent World Bank policy and should not be used as a basis for policy advice or in any country program documents that outline or evaluate the development strategy or assistance program for a recipient country.  The note will emphasize the importance of regulatory approaches that facilitate the creation of more formal sector jobs with adequate safeguards for employees&#039; rights and that guard against the shifting of risk from firms to workers and low-income families.....We will convene a working group including representatives from the ILO, as the international standard setting body, trade unions, businesses, academics and legal experts.....to advice on revising the EWI and on the establishment of a new worker protection indicator.......and on labour market and employment protection issues -- with a view to creating regulations that help build robust jobs with adequate protection in the formal sector that can withstand future crises.     The development of a new worker protection indicator (WPI).......could cover such matters as how a country is adhering to core labour standards and using law, regulation and other instruments of government to ensure that workers are adequately protected, including in the event of unemployment&quot;.The International Metalworkers Federation will actively monitor, together with the other global unions, the translation of these welcome developments into practice.

After years of strong criticism by trade unions, the World Bank has finally instructed its staff to stop using the labour indicators of its "Doing Business" flagship publication that gives higher rating to countries with the lowest workers' protection.

Surprise: labour market deregulation is no recipe for development!

A three year women's organizing project, developed by the International Metalworkers' Federation has led to greater increases in the number of women members, shop stewards and leaders of Serikat Pekerja Metal Indonesia (SPMI). <h3>Women's membership increases</h3>Widespread precarious employment conditions has resulted in rapid turnover of women workers. However, SPMI managed to increase the number of women members from 29,780 in 2003 to 42,272 in 2006 by organizing new plants and enlisting others into the union.SPMI also focused on changing its union structures to enable increased participation of women. At its Congress in December 2006, SPMI adopted new rules to allow for a minimum of 30 per cent representation of women at all levels of the union and elected women onto its National Board for the first time. The number of women leaders at the branch level also increased from 18 per cent in 2003 (8 out of 43) to 25 per cent in 2006 (27 out of 108). In addition, SPMI established a Women's Directorate to cater for the needs of women members.This IMF project was funded by the Swedish trade union centre LO-TCO and supported by IMF affiliates Sif and IF Metall.<object></object>

Organizing women workers in Indonesia

In 2002, metalworkers around the world took part in two coordinated global days of action calling for the release of more than fifty imprisoned Korean trade unionists, including Korean Metal Workers&#039; Federation (KMWF) President Mun Sung-hyan and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) President and former metalworkers&#039; leader, Dan Byung-ho. <h3>Arrested for union activities</h3>In November 2001, Mun Sung-hyan took part in the International Metalworkers&#039; Federation&#039;s World Congress in Sydney, Australia. Soon after his return to Seoul he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. His alleged crime was that he had organised strikes and taken part in other trade union activities. Other Korean trade unionists were also jailed during the government crackdown.Together with its Korean affiliates, the IMF organised two days of action calling for the release of all trade unionists from Korean prisons.<h3>IMF affiliates unite around the globe</h3>An unprecedented level of action was taken by IMF affiliates around the globe including Seoul, Mumbai, Berlin, Washington, Pretoria, Sydney, Tokyo, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro and Bangkok. In total, metalworkers in 65 countries participated.Nine weeks after the first global day of action, Mun Sung-hyan was released from prison. One week after the second day of action the president of the Korean Daewoo autoworkers&#039; union, Kim Il-sup, and vice-president, Kim Sung-gap, were also set free.Early the following year Dan Byung-ho was also finally set free.The release of these trade unionists was a victory for workers around the world who took part in solidarity actions in support of Korean trade unions. Those who were freed went back to work, planning important actions to further the rights of Korean metalworkers.

Release Korean Unionists!

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Visit the IMF website for regular updates on the IMF campaign to end labour rights abuses in Korea or sign up for <a href="../index.cfm?n=669">IMF Action Alerts</a> to be notified of urgent solidarity requests and campaign developments immediately when they arise.This page will reload to the protest letter again in 5 seconds

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Precarious work is the biggest threat to wages and working conditions that workers face today. Workers in temporary, casual and contract jobs have fewer rights and are less likely to become members of a trade union.  Throughout the world, women are increasingly finding that their only employment options are through precarious work, in jobs which are insecure, temporary and give no rights to social security, pensions and other conditions. Women's overrepresentation in precarious work means that they have fewer possibilities to obtain regular, ongoing employment. This is as true in the metal sector as it is in other areas of the economy.Women are already disadvantaged in employment, receiving significantly lower wages for the same work and being systematically denied access to promotions and better paying jobs simply because they are women.  Because of this ongoing discrimination, women are more likely to end up in precarious work. But forcing women into precarious work is not in anyone's interests, not those of women themselves, nor those of the families and communities that they support. We all know that it still women that shoulder the primary responsibility for raising children, caring for the elderly and providing other community services that keep society functioning. When women's only access to employment is via precarious jobs, the impacts are necessarily felt by those that depend on them.Numerous studies have shown that improving the economic situation of women is a key factor in reducing poverty worldwide. For this to work, women need to have access to well-paid, secure jobs that give them the capacity to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Regular jobs with a steady income help give women the kind of autonomy and economic empowerment that enable them to take decisions about their lives - whether to get married, when to have children - decisions that help shape societies. According to the ILO*, good jobs give women control over income and resources, ensuring they have a greater say in family decision-making, including fertility decisions. Women become less dependent on their children for security in their old age or in adverse economic conditions and families are more likely to see the value in educating girls.Precarious jobs, on the other hand, confine women to continuing insecurity, which in many cases discourages them from participating in the labour market, leading to increased poverty for them and their families. Precarious employment prevents women from making long-term plans for their families' future. Financial commitments like signing a housing lease, taking out a bank loan, or even sending children to school are impossible without some form of income security. Precarious work really does equate to precarious lives.This International Women's Day, IMF is working to raise awareness of the broader impacts of precarious work on all our lives, in order to strengthen our actions against it.

How women's precarious work impacts on families and communities

Travail précaire = vies précaires (Français)

Precarious work = Precarious lives

Lavoro precario = vite precarie (Italiano)

El trabajo precario significa vida precaria (Espanol)

GENEVA: In a statement issued today to mark International Women&#039;s Day, IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi makes the link between women&#039;s overrepresentation in precarious work and negative impacts on families and communities.Calling attention to continuing discrimination against women that forces them into substandard employment, Malentacchi states that &quot;Throughout the world, women are increasingly finding that their only employment options are through precarious work, in jobs which are insecure, temporary and give no rights to social security, pensions and other conditions.&quot;He goes on to point out that women continue to be discriminated against in employment, receiving lower wages for the same work and being denied access to promotions. This same discrimination results in women being pushed into the most precarious jobs with the worst pay and conditions.But it is not just women themselves that suffer the consequences of their precarious work.  As Malentacchi observes, &quot;We all know that it is women who are primarily relied on for raising children, caring for the elderly and providing other community services that keep society functioning. When women&#039;s only access to employment is via precarious jobs, the impacts are necessarily felt by those that depend on them.&quot;As part of its continuing actions against precarious work, IMF is working to raise awareness of the broader impacts of precarious employment on families, communities and society in general. On March 18 in Frankfurt, a joint IMF-EMF meeting will take place on the theme &quot;Precarious work = Precarious lives: how women&#039;s precarious employment impacts on families and communities&quot;. The meeting will provide a first opportunity for unions to share experiences of the broader impacts of women&#039;s precarious work and to develop strategies to address these issues through their union campaigns against precarious work.This theme will be taken up again at the next IMF Women&#039;s Conference to be held in Gothenburg on May 22 in conjunction with the IMF Congress.

In honour of International Women's Day, affiliates of the IMF and EMF will meet to discuss how women's precarious employment impacts on families and communities.

IMF highlights societal impacts of women&#039;s precarious work

GENEVA: The International Labour Organisation Bureau for Workers&#039; Activities ACTRAV encourages trade unionists to apply for a new masters program on labour and globalisation launched by Global Labour University in 2009. The trade unionists from all over the globe are invited to participate in four courses, which will take place in Brazil, Germany, India and South Africa.  The deadline for applications for courses organised in Germany and India is April 1, 2009. Unionists who want to enroll to the courses in Brazil and South Africa should submit applications before September 1, 2009.The courses are given in English. Detailed information about the programs and the application forms are  available at <a href="http://www.global-labour-university.org/">http://www.global-labour-university.org/</a>. The Bureau for Workers&#039; Activities and its project partners will award a limited number of scholarships to applicants from developing and transition economies. Applicants need to have the endorsement of a trade union to apply for a scholarship.  Applications for scholarship should be sent to the Global Labour University. Contact details are available at the GLU <a href="http://www.global-labour-university.org/">site</a>.

Global Labour University invites trade unionists of the world to participate in a special masters program on labour and globalisation.

GLU launches new international programs on labour and globalisation

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