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31 January, 2011
Trade unions organizing employees at the German-based industrial gas company Linde in ICEM’s Asia-Pacific Region creates a workers’ network at a first-ever meeting, held in Singapore on 13-14 December 2010. The meeting was realized with political and financial support provided by ICEM’s long-standing project partner Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (FES)
Union representatives from Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, and Vietnam attended the meeting while Michael Wolters, International Secretary of ICEM German affiliate IGBCE, Kemal Özkan, ICEM’s Chemical and Rubber Industries Officer, Dr. Stefanie Elies, FES Office for Regional Cooperation in Asia, André Edelhoff, FES Office Singapore, Yoon Hyo-Won, ICEM Asia-Pacific Project Coordinator, and Indah Saptori, ICEM Indonesian Project Coordinator, also participated.
The objective of this regional network meeting was defined as a first exchange of experiences in order to build a foundation for a steady network of unions representing workers at the Linde’s regional locations. It was pointed out that it would not be possible to solve individual or local problems by this network meeting.
ICEM’s Özkan presented information on the gas industry in general, while IGBCE’s Wolters told of Linde’s industrial structure in Germany and Europe. Specifically, Wolters defined the work of the Works Council system in Germany and the work of the European Works Council of the company.
The participating union representatives gave information about the situation in their home countries, which varies from country to country. In Indonesia, labour relations for unions follow a high standard of regulations, and stable situations also exist at Linde plants in Singapore and Vietnam. But in Thailand, there are big problems and conflicts with the management, while the situation of the union in South Korea is extremely difficult.
Özkan gave a perspective on the issue of Contract and Agency Labour, or “precarious work.” This was then discussed by participants regarding use of non-regular or short-term contract workers at Linde plants in Asia. At all of the locations have some variations of precarious work, such as broad outsourcing of work, use of temporary agency workers, or non-regular casual workers. In Thailand, logistics will be completely outsourced until 2012 with the effect of a wage reduction for workers affected. Global Framework Agreements and union networks were also discussed at the meeting.
The participants of the meeting agreed to set up a regular e-mail communication system among them. Kelvin Tang from Singapore was given responsibility for forming the communication network. The participants committed to inform their local and national unions about the results of the meeting, and will as well address their local managements. One result of the December meeting is to organise a special meeting regarding the situation in Thailand.