IndustriALL Meeting on Lifts and Escalators

On 7 and 8 October, at their first meeting ever 30 trade unionists from 11 countries, representing 200’000 workers from lifts and escalators sector met in Geneva and decided to strengthen trade union network in the sector. They demand better working conditions and more protection.
 
The representatives from the largest companies in the sector have agreed to network more intensely in the future in order to counter the pressure on working and living conditions of workers in the sector.

The participants of the meeting believe it is a historic meeting send a strong signal to the employers. Workers’ representatives from all big companies come together to counterweight their pressure and start a networking process.

In this specific context the participants discussed also the latest developments in various companies and countries. Regarding the announcement of dismissals, which was made in France a few days before, the situation in Spain and Colombia and in the Netherlands, the meeting adopted a resolution of the network.

As result of discussions at the meeting the trade unionists from four continents adopted a five-point resolution, which  includes:

• Demand of a better protection against increasing labour intensification and pressure at work.
• Rolling back all forms of precarious employment in the sector, while applying principles of equal working conditions for equal work, no subcontracting to poorer conditions, no push of colleagues into bogus self-employment!
• Expectation from the employers to improve protection against accidents at work and lack of security measures and stop shifting responsibility to the individual employee.
• Application of common standards for service and maintenance around the world
• Improvement of professional protection, good training for everyone in the industry aimed to provide more security for both employees as well as for users.

Summarizing the meeting, President of the Engineering Section at IndustriALL, Rainer Wimmer, also chairman of Austria's largest trade union Pro-Ge, stated, "It cannot be that the companies risk the health and lives of “their” engineers and workers only in order to benefit from cost saving by extending maintenance intervals and processes condense. At the same we demand from the “big four”, but also their competitors to to refrain from excessive outsourcing and subcontracting, especially when this leads to a deterioration of wages and working conditions."

The representatives also shared good experiences and examples. For instance the U.S. colleagues from this sector reported that in the USA all service engineers and other workers profit from the same working conditions because they are all working under the same collective bargaining agreement, regardless if they work for one of the well-known brands or a small and medium enterprise.

Also some European Works Councils reported about positive signals regarding an improvement of information and consultation policies and towards an exchange of experience and information between the participating countries.

However, much remains to be done: safe and fair working and living conditions for all employees in the world is the ultimate goal that should be reached for all workers in the sector. To achieve this, all participants committed to continue with the networking efforts, together with IndustriALL Global Union.