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4 October, 2005ICEM Press release No. 20/2005
The ICEM took a major stride in its long-term and unprecedented campaign to curb Contract and Agency Labour in global workplaces with a major conference in Brussels on 15-16 September. The conference was attended by 120 trade union leaders from 41 countries.
It marked the second such conference by the 20-million-member ICEM, the leading Global Union Federation for the energy, mining, chemical and processed industries' sectors. An initial working conference in September 2004 developed a set of strategies, including the right by trade unions to consultation, negotiation and, ultimately, agreement prior to any primary employer engaging a commercial contract that affects the status or working conditions of permanent employers.
The 15-16 September conference drew marked differences over the effect Contract and Agency Labour brings to permanent employment in various parts of the world. For example, while trade unions in developed countries of the west have faced the issue for some time, unions in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as Central Asia have not encountered such rampant use.
But delegates from those countries openly recognise that rapid globalisation, privatisation and economic transformation possibly will soon follow the trend of using non-permanent employment and contract labour in developing regions. Trade union leaders attending from those regions stressed the importance of establishing legal guidelines and regulations on contract and agency labour at national levels in preparation of employers choosing against structured, long-term employment that sustains communities.
Another of the ICEM strategies adopted from last year is to take the campaign to global standard-setting bodies. Leaders of ICEM affiliates on 16 September heard from Vladislav Egorov, a senior labour law specialist of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Social Dialogue, Labour Law and Labour Administration Department. Egorov outlined the last attempt at an ILO Recommendation or Convention on the employment relationship in 1997-98. That effort failed when the Conference failed to agree on basic terminology of the employment relationship.
"There is no question that labour legislation is lagging behind labour market changes in this area," stated Egorov. Another speaker was Veronica Nilsson of the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The ICEM's agenda also includes lobbying the OECD for a guideline on contract and agency labour.
The conference examined case examples of where the issue is a current flashpoint. In Korea, legislation entitled an "Act on Protection of Fixed-term and Part-time Employees" and a revision of a law on "Protection of Dispatched or Agency Workers" is now before the National Assembly. But Young-sam Park of ICEM affiliate Korean Chemical and Textile Workers' Federation said the proposed legislation does not "protect" such workers, but rather grants employers more extended use of contract workers and agency labour.
Juha Koivisto of Finnish affiliate Paperiliitto told delegates how the issue was central among issues in the May-June lockout of 25,000 paperworkers in the Nordic country, and how the union defeated the proposal by the paper employers' association that would have left up to one-quarter of that number victimized by contractors.
Delegates to the conference also heard about a situation at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. factory in Bangkok in which the American company's use of long-term contract workers has been challenged in court by the Tyre Makers' Union of affiliate Petroleum and Chemical Unions' Federation of Thailand. The case is precedent-setting in Thai labour law in terms of whether or not contract workers can unionise. ICEM delegates passed a resolution supportive of the union and calling on Goodyear to recognise contract workers as part of the in-plant union, and to ensure that their full rights, pay and benefits are met accordingly.