18 May, 2009
The global recession’s impact on the rubber industry, collective bargaining, work relationships, health and safety, global solidarity, and a plan of action to address these issues were key topics discussed in the US at the ICEM’s World Conference for the Rubber Industries in Nashville, Tennessee, 12-13 May.
The conference, which was hosted by US-based United Steelworkers (USW), attracted some 90 trade unionists from throughout the world. The swine flu epidemic and visa problems into the US prevented the conference from having even more participants.
USW Secretary-Treasurer Stan Johnson, who leads the host union’s rubber sector, opened the conference. A 22-year veteran of the tyre industry, Johnson led a successful strike as a local branch president against Italian tyre-maker Pirelli at a Nashville plant in the mid-1990s. He was unanimously elected as ICEM’s permanent chairman for the Rubber Industry at this conference.
USW Secretary-Treasurer Stan Johnson
Johnson painted a picture of the current global economic crisis—a halt in the auto industry, collapse of the tyre market, and factories operating at low capacities. “Our opportunity lies in making sure that work and the value of workers is once again important,” he said. “It is our responsibility individually and collectively to step forward and change our future.”
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda pointed out that bad policies allowed irresponsible corporate conduct to occur. He said corporate greed was behind “casino capitalism,” and that national solutions alone will not work to end the crisis. A global response is needed with unions playing an integral role.
“Recovery cannot mean the status quo,” said Warda. “A sustainable economy must be created. There is a great need to build trade union unity to combat the excesses of unregulated globalization.”
Warda also presented a resolution on the US Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), important legislation currently before the American government that would eliminate the unfair advantages that employers commonly use to restrict workers from organising. (See the Resolution here.)
USW scribe Lynne Baker (left) interviews Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers’ Union of Liberia’s (FLIWUL) Austin Natee and Edwin Cisco. At right, USW’s Marilyn Brown
Photo: Kenny Carlisle, USW Communications Department
But the conference centered primarily on the global economic crisis. Presenters mapped out the problems confronting rubber workers throughout this crisis and the opportunities for positive change. The problems cited were common to all: layoffs, reductions in pay and hours worked, outsourcing to low cost countries, leave without pay, wage freezes, use of contract and agency labour, shutdowns, production declines, and lack of investment, all factors leading to increased family and community stress.
Presenters told how some employers were using the economic crisis to avoid their commitments to workers, and rather to create new work structures, including the use of non-regular and short-term contract workers.
“Trade unions need to be at the vanguard of developing a new model that guarantees globalization of rights, an agenda to decrease poverty, and to better regulate the financial sector,” said Fabio Lins from Brazil’s CNQ/CUT union in Brazil.
Fabio Lins of CNQ/CUT, Brazil
Peter Bakvis, director of the International Trade Union Confederation/Global Unions office in Washington, D.C., presented a five-point strategy for the ICEM and other global unions to tackle the economic crisis and build a fairer and more sustainable world economy.
The strategy focuses on job creation through public investment, including active labour market policies and protection of the most vulnerable; nationalization of insolvent banks and new roles and mechanisms to control global finance; extension of collective bargaining coverage and strengthening of wage-setting institutions; negotiation of an ambitious international agreement on climate change; and governance reform of the global financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation.
ICEM Rubber Conference participants
At the conclusion of the conference on 13 May, Chemicals and Rubber Industry Officer Kemal Özkan presented an ICEM action plan that included campaigning for basic trade union rights and union organising; providing immediate solidarity during conflicts; providing effective and active solidarity for collective bargaining; striving for decent work in the rubber sector, meaning campaigning for sector-wide standards on use of contract and agency labour, equal pay initiatives, and use of Global Framework Agreements to address such issues.
ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Industry Officer Kemal Özkan
Photo: Kenny Carlisle, USW Communications Department
As well, the work includes improving, strengthening, and creating new workers’ networks; creating a global level of industrial relations through existing instruments; establishing industry and company-wide standards for health, safety, and sustainable jobs; seeking to improve cooperation between Global Union Federations in the auto-parts and auto supply industries along the global production chain; and providing special solidarity to US unions for passage of the EFCA, to tyre workers at Hankook and Bridgestone in Hungary, to French and German workers of Continental AG, and to Mexican miners.
To view the action plan in its entirety, as well as to see the presentations made by speakers, click here.
Special thanks to Contributor Lynne Baker, USW Communications Department.