13 September, 2011Organizing new workers is never easy but in the United States it's tougher than most places. Participants at an Alcoa Global Unions meeting got to experience first- hand the challenges facing the US unions. The attendees from unions in Australia, Canada, Iceland, Brazil, Suriname, and United Kingdom, took part in an organizing drive assisting the United Steelworkers (USW) as part of their activities. The target company Traco is a subsidiary of Alcoa and employs around 450 workers. Incidentally "Here we go again" was the title of union busting materials Alcoa used in one of its plants and seems apt to use during this organizing drive.
17 August, 2011Swiss trade union UNIA has achieved significant steps in the campaign to save the jobs of 470 workers at Swissmetal, a company on the verge of bankruptcy. The first victory was ensuring all staff received salary payments for the month of July. This was achieved through pressure on Switzerland's Secretary of State for the Economy, and on the cantonal governments of Soleure and Berne.
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.
5 June, 2012For the first time in the history of the International Labour Organization, the employers' group blocked discussion on June 4 on some of the worst cases of workers' rights violations at the annual ILO conference in Geneva.
4 June, 2012Metalworkers from Asia and the Pacific countries met in Kaohsiung, TAIWAN-R.O.C to discuss the ongoing process to build stronger unity among affiliates of IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF in their respective countries before and after the creation of IndustriALL Global Union.
3 June, 2012Dismissed women workers call on Volkswagen to intervene in their dispute with Flex-N-Gate. They are fighting to establish a democratic union. The IMF repudiates the company's refusal to recognise the freedom of association and criticises the heavy workloads and ill-treatment of workers.
31 May, 2012Three weeks before its creation, the flag of IndustriALL Global Union was installed on Mount Everest by the courageous climber Dorje Khatri, member of the central committee of the Union of Trekking Travel Rafting and Airline Workers in Nepal.
31 May, 2012New report of SACOM makes evident that nothing changed in the bitter situation with violations of workers' rights at Foxconn, major supplier of Apple Inc.
12 June, 2012The successful organizing of steel workers in India, the epic struggle of Hanjin workers and an interveiw with Koichiro Nishihara-san, President of IMF-JC and JAW, are all featured in the latest issue of Metal Asia-Pacific, produced by the IMF South Asia office.
6 June, 2012Report finds that in 2011, at least 76 workers died directly as a result of their trade union activities - in addition to those killed during the repression of the Arab Spring protests.
