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5 November, 2007
A year’s worth of steady pressure by the ICEM and the Flint/Glass Industry Workers’ section of the United Steelworkers (USW) of America produced an important initial result. The US-based company that manufactures metal moulding for the Colombian glass industry agreed to joint social dialogue at three plants with ICEM affiliate Sintravidricol.
Talks did begin on 24 October at Ross-owned companies Moldes Medellin Ltda., Andes International Tooling, and Andes Cast Foundry Metals. The plants, in total, employ 220 workers. Workers hope a common collective agreement can be achieved at a single bargaining table.
The company’s acquiescence and decision to hold joint social dialogue with workers of the three plants is an important milestone in Colombian labour relations, the ICEM said.
Ross has already agreed that, effective 21 November 2007, workers at Andes Tooling and Andes Cast Metals will receive the same extra-legal conditions that exist at Moldes Medellin, a plant in Sabaneta where currently the only collective agreement exists.
Sintravidricol organised this Ross International plant in 2004, but the company attempted to avert the unionisation and bargaining with the union by opening new plants staffed by short-term contract workers. By combining the union’s organizing outreach at the new plants with relentless intervention by ICEM and USW’s Flint/Glass section, the company agreed to begin the joint talks.
“This is an important step, but negotiations are just beginning,” stated ICEM Colombian Coordinator Carlos Bustos. “We must remain alert, continue to reinforce the unity that has developed between workers here and workers at Ross plants in the US, and keep the willingness to fight until bargaining goals are met.”
Bustos singled out ICEM staff in Brussels, as well as the USW’s Flint/Glass Chairman Tim Tuttle for their steady efforts over a two-year period. He also singled out workers at Ross’s US plants in Washington, state of Pennsylvania, and Brockport, Pennsylvania, for their “constant support and solidarity.” USW has taken the struggle in Colombia inside the Ross plants in the US, as well as to local branch unions of glass-maker Owens-Illinois in the US, Ross’s largest customer in Colombia at the company’s Peldar subsidiary.
Sintravidricol already has successfully negotiated conversion of 40 jobs from contract status to full-time and permanent status at the three plants, and further progress on that is a central goal in ongoing bargaining.
The union, the ICEM, and its US partner, the USW, will continue to press for unionisation and inclusion in talks for 115 mostly contract workers at two other Ross start-up companies in Colombia. Those businesses are Ross Sand Casting Industries and Ross International Design and Machining.