17 November, 2008
In Madrid, Spain, on 4 November, a protocol agreement was signed that provides management recognition of the ICEM-supported Latin American/Spanish Repsol-YPF Trade Union Network. Management of the Madrid-based oil and gas company agreed to recognise the workers’ network as a collective body to represent the trade unions in the countries where both Repsol and its 85% owned subsidiary, YPF, operate.
The agreement is the result of three years work. The Spanish Peace and Solidarity Foundation of one of Spain’s national labour centres, CC.OO, promoted the project to bring together the trade unions representing workers of Repsol and YPF. Meetings in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Lima enabled the trade unions to establish themselves as a viable entity, as well as to prepare for recognition and social dialogue with Repsol-YPF senior management.
Both the trade union network and management signed the protocol agreement early this month, expressing a will to discuss labour issues important to men and women employed by the company, as well as questions involving global corporate policies in Latin America and Spain.
The network is composed of trade union representatives of branch federations at Repsol and YPF workplaces, as well as ICEM representatives. The trade union network elected a coordinating body of ten people, whose role is to manage union activity and prepare the meetings of the entire network. The meetings see active exchanges of information, and serve to analyse working conditions at Repsol and YPF worksites in the countries.
The annual meetings now will include full-day discussions with the group’s management to deal with concerns put forth by the unions, and then Repsol and YPF’s industrial situations will be reported, including results and investments broken down by country.
At the meeting in Madrid, held from 3-4 November, the trade unionists decided to increase communication and the flow of information by providing more content to a website that was created last year. Specifically, they will prepare a report on working time at all worksites and the elements relevant to that, including weekly or annual working time, shift systems, schedules, and overtime.
At the 2009 meeting in Colombia, the network’s Madrid deliberations resolved to deal specifically with problems that workers employed by contractors encounter.
The signing of the protocol agreement with Repsol-YPF is a major progressive step involving trade union coordination. The agreement is sure to make it possible to improve future working conditions for all. Moreover, it is a step toward creating unified trade unionism in an age of globalisation in which working conditions in one country are shaped and determined by those that occur in other countries.
Trade unions taking part in the Repsol Workers’ Network include: FASPyGP-CGT and SUPeH-CGT, Argentina; FSTPB, Bolivia; FUP-CUT, Brazil; USO-CUT, Colombia; Federación Sindical Trabajadores del Petróleo, Ecuador; FITEQU-CC.OO and FIA-UGT of Spain; SUT RELAPA, Peru; Oilfields Workers’ Union of Trinidad and Tobago; and SINUTRAPETROL, Venezuela.