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Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

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The universal and fundamental right of workers to form and join independent trade unions and to bargain collectively with their employers is the basis of trade union organisation. The IMF has always given the highest priority to fighting against the repression of trade unions and the violations of workers' and human rights. Binding intergovernmental rules in order to implement the core labour standards remain a fundamental demand of the IMF.  The core labour standards of the ILO must be integrated both into the agreements of the WTO and in bi- and multilateral trade and investment agreements.  In order to monitor the ILO standards in the WTO agreements, the existing ILO monitoring mechanisms need to be strengthened and extended, as demanded in 2008 in the ILO Declaration on Social Justice in a Globalized World.  These demands will require stronger efforts from the IMF and its affiliates, together with other GUFs, the ITUC and TUAC. We have to become more visible, particularly in voicing our support of trade unionists who face grave risks including intimidation, assault, abduction, imprisonment, and even murder.It is the main responsibility of the community of states and national governments to finally put into practice binding and sanctionable intergovernmental rules in order to enforce and implement a social dimension of globalization.  Commitment of companies, such as IFAs, may represent an additional protection for workers.In the age of globalisation, not only has the opportunity for international solidarity action increased, but its role in the fight for the advancement of  trade union rights has become much more critical. Solidarity action is only as powerful as the collective force behind it. To be effective, it requires a two-pronged strategy, on one hand to put pressure on governments that systematically violate trade union and human rights, and on the other to take action against the anti-union behaviour of companies. For this purpose, it is particularly important to put pressure on employers along the companies' supply chain.Furthermore, employers must not be allowed to profit from labour laws that render them immune from prosecution for violations of fundamental rights, as is the case in the Republic of Korea, where the criminal code also allows companies to sue unions and seek incarceration of union leaders under the charge of &quot;obstruction of business&quot;. Such situations require carefully designed actions based on a systematic and close collaboration between the IMF, its affiliates, the other GUFs, TUAC and ITUC. Most important, however, is international workers' solidarity with a strongly committed organisation at the local level, failing which, no international solidarity action can be effective.The IMF and its affiliates must go beyond mere coordination. Campaigns to effectively respond to violations of workers' rights by TNCs or certain countries and regions must be promoted and led by the IMF. To make this possible, affiliates must be fully committed to mobilising their members and be capable of implementing common strategies in the context of their respective countries, which includes ensuring a communication flow to their members to support their mobilisation efforts. We can only respond to rights violations as soon as they arise if we have an effective system and membership support and understanding. IMF will collaborate with its affiliates and with other GUFs, TUAC, ITUC and Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) to:<ul><li>Enforce the protection of worker and trade union rights through IFAs, OECD guidelines, ILO instruments, and trade agreements that include the ILO core labour standards and social minimum standards as well as sanctions in case of non-compliance to complement mobilisation efforts on the ground; </li><li>Develop strategies and promote joint actions to achieve binding intergovernmental regulations on the enforcement of minimum social standards. This will include mobilizing and additional efforts at international and national levels to promote the universal respect in law and practice of the ILO's fundamental Conventions;</li><li>Expose governments and companies that exploit workers and violate trade union rights, and develop issue-specific solidarity actions to reduce precarious work, subcontracting, two-tier wage systems, and legislative initiatives that seek to undermine workers' rights;</li><li>Disseminate information about trade union rights abuses immediately and effectively through a rapid response system;</li><li>Establish solidarity networks locally, regionally and internationally;</li><li>Establish a solidarity page on the IMF website to serve as a resource for solidarity action and information, including ILO complaint guidelines and campaign status updates, news and other materials; and</li><li>Provide affiliates and partners with information on actions, outcomes, evaluations of achievements, and strategies for future work regarding the advancement of trade union rights.</li></ul> IMF will assist its affiliates to ensure that:<ul><li>Rapid response is organised to any TNC attack on workers' rights through information and mobilisation of the employees of the same company in all its countries of operations, and united action is taken while also pursuing cooperation among the IMF affiliates in these countries.</li></ul> IMF affiliates will:<ul><li>Mobilise their members in support of unions fighting company-sponsored unions, anti-union legislation, union-busting tactics and industrial relations disputes;</li><li>Ensure that immediate information on rights violations is fed into the IMF's rapid response system, and that there are timely updates on developments and local actions;</li><li>Commit themselves to actively participate in campaigns developed by the IMF and take joint actions with other national unions and other like-minded social actors;</li><li>Include rights issues in training and educational materials to ensure that solidarity actions and rights awareness reach the shop-floor; </li><li>Publicize rights abuses, solidarity efforts and action taken internationally; and</li><li>Ensure that no benefit guaranteed to the employees of a TNC in one country is based on an attack on the rights of its employees in another country.</li></ul>

Preface

3. GLOBAL SOLIDARITY IN ACTION

3.3 Defend and protect workers rights

1. OUR MISSION

2. THE WORLD TODAY

2.1 Profits over people

2.2 Unemployment and job insecurity

2.3 Unions under attack

2.4 Fundamental workers´ rights denied

2.5 Spreading influence of Transnational Corporations

2.6 World trade system in disarray

2.7 An unsustainable future

2.8 Alliances, resistance and opportunities

3.1 Build strong national trade unions

3.1.1 Organise the unorganised

3.1.2 Strive for trade union unity at the national level

3.1.3 Build unions through education, training and effective exchange of information

3.2 Strengthening collective bargaining

3.3.1 Fight for trade union rights

3.3.2 Fight for Equal Rights

3.3.3 Fight for safe workplaces

3.4 Build a counterweight to the power of transnational corporations

3.4.1 Strengthening union solidarity and cooperation across sectors and TNCs

3.4.2 Advance fundamental rights through International Framework Agreements

Every year more than two million people die from occupational accidents or work-related diseases. The safety of work varies enormously between countries, economic sectors and social groups. Deaths and injuries take a particularly heavy toll in developing nations.  Downsizing, outsourcing, sub-contracting and temporary labour create bad working conditions. Although the physical workplace environment has improved considerably during the course of the last decades, millions of men and women around the world are still working in hazardous conditions.  Therefore, based on the primacy of prevention, defending and promoting health and safety at work is a fundamental trade union task that all IMF affiliates should prioritise. Alongside the difficulties to ban well-known hazards, such as asbestos, the introduction of new chemicals and new technologies, without sufficient research, constitutes new threats to the health and well-being of workers.  The precautionary principle should also apply to nanomaterials, the hazardous nature of which has become more apparent in the light of many recent studies. Such precaution is all the more urgent because of the fact that these materials are used in many products, including clothes, cosmetics, composites, automobiles, spectacles, paint etc.Occupational cancer is by far the most common work-related cause of death. It is a problem that does not ring alarm bells for corporate executives who only answer to shareholders at annual general meetings. Causes are covered up, bodies are buried, companies evade legal liabilities, and the killing continues as a result of preventable and predictable work-place exposures. The IMF and affiliates must increase efforts to stop this from happening. It is essential to have effective health and safety committees in every workplace with knowledge of the workplace-specific hazards. Preventive actions must be based on research, evidence and strong health and safety laws that are properly promoted and enforced.  Health and safety is a very important issue for trade unions.  In general, organized workplaces are safer workplaces with better working conditions.The international trade union movement must work in order to ensure that ILO conventions and codes of practice are incorporated into national legislation and collective bargaining agreements, and are respected in practice. The IMF will encourage affiliates to develop organising strategies around safer and better workplaces. Such strategies can be linked to the campaign for decent work. The campaign for decent work should be extended to include the pursuit of fixed wages and permanent employment contracts, healthy and family-friendly working hours, protection against excessive demands on performance, the preservation of the workers' employability, preventive and participatory health and safety, and training and development.The IMF will:<ul><li>Co-operate with ITUC, TUAC and GUFs to ensure that the ILO assists governments, employers and trade unions to improve knowledge and information about existing legislation on health and safety at work;</li><li>Address occupational health and safety at regional, sectoral and company meetings;</li><li>Continue to build the campaign for Zero Occupational Cancer;</li><li>Keep campaigning for an international ban on the production, import, export and use of asbestos; and</li><li>Continue to put pressure on national governments to implement transition programmes for workers displaced by the banning of asbestos, and to ensure that the treatment and compensation costs of workers suffering from asbestos-related diseases are borne by employers.</li></ul>The IMF will assist the affiliates to:<ul><li>Inform and educate instructors on basic workplace health and safety, who will then teach and train stewards at plant level;</li><li>Ensure that effective health and safety committees are set up in all workplaces; </li><li>Use health and safety as a tool for organising workers and building strong unions; and</li><li>Develop strategies around HIV/Aids and other new epidemics.</li></ul>

Given past strategies of auto TNCs and the industry's globalized structure, the worldwide economic crisis has caused a dynamic that substantially escalates consolidation pressures. This presents many challenges and potential threats for workers. It is essential that trade unions are fully involved from the outset of any contemplated restructuring to guarantee that decisions represent the broad interests of workers and communities rather than narrow financial interests alone.At the close of 2008, the head of Fiat was widely quoted as saying that over the subsequent two years only a half dozen mass-volume auto companies would remain. While this specific view is not generally held across much of the industry or by many governments, a difficult and challenging process of restructuring and possible integration has begun to unfold involving a number of companies. Preliminary ground work for Fiat and Chrysler to integrate operations has been set in motion. General Motors is undergoing wrenching restructuring affecting workers across nearly every region and particularly in North America and Europe. Challenging issues have arisen for VW and Porsche, as well as for some commercial vehicle manufacturers. Other companies continue to enter into different types of limited forms of partnerships related to design, co-production and parts procurement. Supply chain consolidation is expected to accelerate. Even before the onset of the crisis, assemblers were pushing to reduce the number of direct suppliers while first tier companies tightened their rationalisation of production sites. Vast numbers of jobs are at stake. To avoid further damage, normal credit lines need to be restored and industrial policies implemented that upgrade supply chains and protect workers.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20066&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20060&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20068&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

The global crisis and restructuring in automotive and metalworking industries

Previously existing
restructuring pressures

Global downturn hits

Worldwide vehicle 
demand plummets

Effects transfer down 
the supply chain

Repercussions across metalworking

Widespread job loss and 
working hour reductions

Consolidations and mergers

Industrial policies and 
government measures

Download the pdf file of the special report with illustrations >>

Severe employment declines have affected metalworkers and their communities across all regions of the automotive sector. These have been most devastating in North America, where the crisis first erupted. Hundreds of thousands of automotive workers in the US and Canada have seen their jobs eliminated as scores of assembly and component manufacturing plants shutdown. European workers in many traditional metalworking areas have also experienced large scale employment cutbacks due to consolidations, plant closures and outsourcing, well before the global financial crisis hit. When the crisis did hit, workers across the region were forced to confront additional threats to their jobs and livelihoods. As global demand has slumped, so too has production for export. This has particularly affected workers in countries such as Japan that have a relatively high dependence on shipments of automotive products manufactured for final sale or as component inputs overseas.Workers in non-permanent jobs -- those on temporary and fixed-term contracts and those hired through dispatch labour agencies -- have shouldered a disproportionate burden thus far in the crisis. Automotive manufacturing is among the industries where precarious conditions had spread most, according to an IMF survey completed prior to the crisis. These workers have been the first to lose employment, often without income protection when out of work. Migrant workers face even greater difficulties and insecurities.Such widespread dismissals expose how the sector's employers abuse weak terms of employment and work relationships as &quot;flexibility&quot;. They have shifted responsibility, adjustment costs and risks that should be borne by principal employers onto the backs of workers whose jobs were made precarious. Effects are most pronounced in several Asia-Pacific countries where non-regular jobs came to account for a major share of total employment in the aftermath of the region's 1997 financial crisis. More recently, non-permanent jobs were on the rise in Europe's metal industry, though to a much lesser extent than in Asia.For many permanent workers, hours worked and compensation has declined due to extended plant shutdowns and down-days ranging from weeks to months. Elimination of shifts and reduced line rates has taken place in plants across regions. Paid time-off has been brought forward in some workplaces, while time-banking measures based on annualised hours have been stretched to their limits. Short-work time schemes have been implemented where such benefits are provided by collective agreements and/or government programs covering otherwise lost wages.Due to the prolonged downturn there's an urgent need to extend and strengthen income and social protections for workers. Also essential are effective stimulus measures boosting demand and industrial policies that safeguard employment and utilize productive capacity to meet and improve society's transport-related and manufacturing needs.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20065&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20060&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20067&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Widespread job loss and working hour reductions

As households and company fleets cut or delay purchases of vehicles, knock-on effects for workers in other metalworking industries have occurred. Steel and aluminium, mechanical engineering, electronics, and metal mining sectors have all seen falling demand from the global downturn, with both manual and non-manual workers affected. <ul><li>Global steel output has declined sharply from weakness in automotive, construction and household durable goods sectors. Orders from the motor vehicle industry account for about 13 per cent of global finished steel output with about two tons of steel on average used per motor vehicle built. </li><li>Machine tools and bearings were among the first mechanical engineering subsectors affected. The German-based mechanical engineering association VDMA reports that 30 per cent of Germany's machine tool production is for the automobile industry including component suppliers, citing the auto slump as a significant factor behind declining tool orders.</li><li>In electronics, companies such as Freescale, the leading supplier of semiconductors to the motor sector, and Infineon, Europe's largest, have cut working hours in automotive-related activities.</li><li>For metals, companies in South Africa have announced retrenchments in the mining of platinum, an essential material in automotive catalysts used for vehicle emission control technologies.</li></ul>Industrial inter-connections across branches of this kind and magnitude indicate the extent to which motor vehicle production has cascading effects across metalworking branches highlighting the sector's strategic position in manufacturing.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20064&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20060&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20066&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Workers in component manufacturing and ancillary companies confront even more intense restructuring pressures than those that generally exist in assembly operations. Automakers' use of just-in-time systems to cut costs and push efficiency gains means management keeps inventories tight and buffers lean to minimize working capital and increase returns. As final vehicle demand has slumped steeply, orders for auto parts have dropped in tandem. &quot;Demand-pull&quot; production systems more rapidly transmit effects of curtailed final demand across the whole value chain.For workers at suppliers large and small, employers have pushed to slash jobs, cut hours and consolidate plants. The further down the value chain, the less secure the terms of employment and the more strenuous the conditions of work, meaning the impacts of the crisis become harsher. At small and medium enterprises (SMEs) populating subordinate tiers of production chains, workers are least likely to benefit from social protections or collective agreements due to lower levels of union representation.Strategies of assemblers and major first-tier component companies have propelled supply chain consolidation in an incessant cost reduction drive to boost margins. Continued cuts in numbers of direct suppliers and a squeeze created by passing down costs while making contracts conditional on ongoing price reductions have fuelled a painful shakeout. The crisis-induced dive in parts orders combined with restricted credit availability has pushed many companies to the brink. Assemblers have been forced to extend to their suppliers financial assistance for working capital and in some cases to restore prior price concessions to keep them afloat. In the face of this, metalworkers and their unions have fought back to defend what is rightfully due to workers at companies such as Visteon, Delphi, Continental, Bosch and Valeo, among many others.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20063&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20060&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20065&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Effects transfer down the supply chain

Analysts project that global sales of motor vehicles could drop below 50 million units this year if the current pace continues. If this results, worldwide demand would be at least 10 million units lower than the peak level reached in 2007, a decline equivalent to the output of 40 or so average sized assembly plants. It would mark the lowest annual number of new vehicles sold since the late 1990s.Nearly every major automaker is affected with the largest volume declines registered by those TNCs with the most presence in the United States. General Motors, Toyota, Ford and Chrysler are counted among these companies. Significant reductions in annual unit sales from the global peak reached in 2007 are also forecast for European and other Asian-based auto assemblers.Declines have hit nearly every market both geographically and by product segment. Incoming orders for commercial vehicles virtually dried up in many areas as construction, transportation and shipping activities slowed dramatically. The least affected among the vehicle segments are smaller, less expensive, more fuel efficient passenger cars. Generally more affordable for households, such models have also benefited from successful government-funded programs providing purchasers of new cleaner cars with a subsidy if they scrap an old, higher polluting vehicle.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20062&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20060&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20064&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Worldwide vehicle demand plummets

Forecasts for what lies ahead for the global economy point to more difficult times on the horizon and therefore ongoing struggles for workers, trade unions and social allies. The World Bank projects the global economy will shrink by an alarming three per cent this year. The sharp and steep deceleration of worldwide economic activity from growth rates of 1.9 per cent in 2008 and 3.8 per cent at the cycle's peak in 2007 has led to the most widespread economic dislocation since the Great Depression as households and businesses throttle back on consumption and investment.Despite energy and commodity prices reversing course from their historic highs reached last year, workers and families continue to struggle with badly strained budgets. Downward pressures on purchasing power have accelerated as companies attempt to retrench workers, cut hours and reduce compensation, which further undermines demand and exacerbates insecurities. While impacts vary across regions and companies, ultimately all workers in the sector are affected directly or indirectly. A high degree of uncertainty exists on how severe and prolonged the downturn will be, with deflationary trends already present in some countries.While governments have injected massive amounts of capital into banks and the financial sector, loans for many enterprises and households remain difficult to access or have been blocked altogether. The financial crisis has meant cash-strapped families can't afford to buy cars while lenders restrict credit lines for working capital and deny loans to companies. This comes at a time when companies' working capital needs increase as inventories accumulate, payment schedules stretch out and capital turnover slows. The combined effects of the downturn and the credit freeze have strained the solvency of companies and contributed to potentially many more bankruptcies, putting countless numbers of workers and their families in jeopardy.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20061&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=20060&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">beginning</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20063&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Metalworkers across the automotive industry are experiencing restructuring impacts as great as any time in history, glaringly magnified by the global economic crisis. The process of automotive transnational companies' (TNCs) globalisation has led the world's productive capacity to outpace growth in demand. That demand has been constrained by insufficient purchasing power and unequal development, and is now dramatically undercut by consequences of the financial meltdown.In the two decades preceding the crisis, the industry's map and its workforce encountered unprecedented change as emergent countries became fully incorporated into the global market system. Throughout that period, employers continually pushed cost cutting measures. Not only through increased productivity of workers and more efficient methods to design and build vehicles but also through outsourcing, subcontracting and the substituting of precarious for permanent work.While automotive TNCs prioritize adoption of standardized production and quality control systems meeting &quot;global best practices&quot;, the upward harmonization of terms and conditions of work, health and safety and industrial relations have typically been treated differently. There has been a growing divergence between productivity gains on the one hand, and improvements in wages and conditions for many workers across the automotive global value chain on the other. TNCs that have established industrial relations with unions in some countries fail to respect worker and trade union rights in others.Fuelling and facilitating this dynamic over recent decades has been a mix of market fundamentalist policies, the financialisation of economic activity and rules of international trade and investment favoured by TNCs. These have tended to exert a general downward pressure on wages, conditions and social protections in many parts of the world. Income and wealth inequalities have reached extremes not seen since the 1920s, moving the world in a direction opposite to authentic sustainable development. In the same vein, the global environmental challenge to produce employment-enhancing cleaner vehicle and fuel technologies as well as revitalize transportation systems has too often been given a back seat.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td><a href="../index.cfm?c=2006o&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">&lt;&lt; back</a></td><td> </td><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20062&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

Previously existingrestructuring pressures

Text/ Ron BlumImpacts from the implosion and freezing up of the deregulated and highly leveraged global financial system continue to sweep over the productive sectors of the world's economy. Job loss and displacement confront millions of metalworkers around the world. The automotive industry was among the first branches to be hit by the financial crisis and repercussions have consequently rolled across companies, down supply chains and through communities in every region, taking heavy tolls on workers and their families.In effect, the current crisis is the first synchronised, worldwide industry downturn since the automotive sector's rapid globalised expansion began several decades ago. For metalworkers and their unions, the unfolding crisis threatens to greatly intensify and accelerate previously existing restructuring pressures.Workers are bearing the brunt of a crisis that they did not create, and for which urgent and effective responses are essential. These must come through concerted and coordinated economic, social and industrial government policies that bring about a new deal that protects workers' jobs, family income, and community well being, promotes sustainable development and moves economies to full employment. Where any form of industrial or enterprise restructuring is unavoidable negotiations between unions and companies should ensure that actions are mutually agreed upon and outcomes socially acceptable.<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" align="center"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="middle"><a href="../index.cfm?c=20061&amp;mwId=20047&amp;l=2">forward &gt;&gt;</a> </td></tr></tbody></table>

The auto industry was among the first branches to be hit by the financial crisis taking a heavy toll on workers and their families.

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