17 August, 2011The ICEM affiliate in Georgia, the Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Industry Workers' Trade Union, is again bringing dignity and job rights to steelworkers in the Central Asian country. On 2 August, after formally submitting grievances over extreme sub-standard work conditions before the managing director of Euroasian Steels LLC in Kutaisi, the company agreed to recognise the union as voice for 400 workers, and begin a process to correct problems.
15 September, 2011Fujitsu workers launch a 24 hour strike in Manchester and Crewe over pay disputes and discrimination against a union representative.
15 September, 2011On August 27-28 the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) and the National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers Union of Canada (CAW) held a workshop in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, for union activists from an array of plants in the region.
14 September, 2011A first-of-a-kind collective agreement took root in Germany's solar energy manufacturing industry on 1 September. It was then that a labour contract took effect between IG Metall and three subsidiaries of Bosch in the state of Thuringia, making it the first collective agreement in Germany's solar power industry.
13 September, 2011TVT is a television channel run by the ABC Metalworkers Union, affiliated to the CNM/CUT. TVT is the first trade union television channel in Brazil.
21 April, 2011April 12 marks the day that Swaziland declared a state of emergency in 1973, which is still ongoing 38 years later, making it one of the world's longest running state of emergencies. It has been used to suspend the human rights and political freedom of the Swazi people and includes a ban on political parties. April 12, 2011 was chosen by pro-democracy campaigners for mass protests. Yet the protests planned for three days from the April 12 faced brutal crackdown by Swaziland security forces on anti-government protestors.
21 April, 2011The international labour movement marked the 5th anniversary of the deaths of Mario Alberto Castillo Rodríguez and Héctor Álvarez Gómez with a march in Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico and the submission of new evidence to the ILO highlighting the issue of violence against members of the SNTMMSRM. The murders of Rodríguez and Gómez, named in the ILO complaint (no. 2478), remain unsolved.
20 April, 2011To assist the two unions organizing metalworkers in Angola and strengthen their closer cooperation and mutual support, the IMF held a workshop in Luanda in April 2011, that was attended by union leadership and shop stewards drawn from 12 companies in the metal, chemical, electricity, energy and light industries.
19 April, 2011During a mission to Conackry, Guinea early in April 2011, a representative of IMF Africa met with union leadership and shop stewards of Forum intersyndical des societes minieres et industrielles de Guinée (FISMIG) and visited some of the organized plants in order to better understand the labour movement in Guinea and challenges facing workers and the union.
18 April, 2011Peta Thomson and Stephanie Eastcott attended their first national union conference in February 2011 following a decision by the AWU's national executive to encourage women's participation.
