Chile: atomized trade unions versus trade union unity

text / valeska Solis
translation / Chris Whitehouse

María Soledad Perez, a health sector worker, takes the bus from Concepción, in the south of the country and arrives six hours later in Santiago, capital of Chile. Emilio Páez, a miner, gets ready to board an aircraft in Calama in the north of the country, on his way to Santiago. If Emilio took the bus, his journey would take 24 hours. Meanwhile, Sergio Sanches, a metalworker, boards a microbus at the company where he works 40 kilometres from Santiago. His journey to the centre of the capital takes one hour.
These three workers have the same destination, a national trade union training meeting that is taking place as part of a project organized by the International Metalworkers' Federation for affiliates in Chile.
Emilio, María Soledad and Sergio are trade union leaders. They live in different places, work in different sectors and belong to different trade union confederations, CONSTRAMET, CONSFETEMA and FTC, all affiliated to the IMF. The three leaders would not have met if it were not for the trade union meetings organized by the IMF two years ago, as part of a project to strengthen metalworkers' trade unions, increase cooperation between affiliates at the national level and strengthen trade union unity.
At the meeting, each union representative talks about the problems faced by his or her union and sector. They discuss and analyze different perspectives, recognize their weaknesses and agree on action. At first, participants in the project had different objectives and perspectives that reflected the needs of each worker, each company and each union. As time has gone by, the situation has changed. Although they still work in different sectors (mining, metalworking and services), they have begun to talk in general terms about strengthening the unions, about equal pay and working conditions, gender issues and collective agreements at the sector level.
Emilio Páez, 39, is a control room operator at the primary crusher at Minera Gaby S.A., owned by Codelco, and is currently president of the union that organizes workers at the company. The union is affiliated to the Federación de Trabajadores del Cobre - FTC (Copper Workers Federation). "I was a neighbourhood and community leader in Calama when I was only 20 years old. I was chair of the health and safety committee at various companies where I worked and I have been a union leader at Gaby for four years. The company was formed four years ago. I was one of the founding members of this union. We had to organize in secret and organize meetings in the toilets to get the quorum necessary to form a union and also to write the union's statutes."
Sergio Sanches, 49, is a maintenance worker at the multinational company Assa Abloy, formerly Cerraduras Poli, which makes locks. He has been working for the company for 20 years. He is president of the union at the company and the union is affiliated to the Confederación Nacional de Trabajadores Electrometalúrgico, Mineros, y Automotrices - CONSFETEMA (National Confederation of Electrical, Metalworking, Mining and Automotive Workers). "I joined the union when I started work at the company and it was only many years later that I put myself forward for election. That was two years ago and I was elected President of the Sindicato de Trabajadores Assa Abloy Chile (Assa Abloy Chile Workers' Union)."
María Soledad Pérez works at the Diagnomed Laboratory and has been union treasurer since 1993. She began to participate in the trade union movement three years ago: "I was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the union; I used to be union secretary and now I am the treasurer. We affiliated the union to the southern district of the Federación de Trabajadores Metalúrgicos, Industrias y Servicios, FESTRAMET (Federation of Metalworkers, Industries and Services), which is affiliated to CONSTRAMET."
Her rise in the union has been rapid and she is grateful that gender issues have not stood in her way. She has held leadership positions ever since she joined a union. One year ago, she was elected president of FESTRAMET and gradually began to participate in CONSTRAMET activities.

AN ATOMIZED TRADE UNION MOVEMENT
According to research conducted by the Centro de Estudios Nacionales de Desarrollo Alternativo - CENDA (Centre for National Studies on Alternative Development), the current situation in Chile is not favourable to equity and respect for workers' rights. Distribution of income is unequal, with the 20 per cent highest paid receiving 13.1 times more than the 20 per cent lowest paid.
Sergio says that, "although the country has progressed, the gap between the rich and the poor is very wide and, of course, it is the great majority of workers who are the poorest. The differences are reflected in access to health and education. Those with money can buy a good health service for their families and pay for a good education for their children. Wage rates have fallen. Companies usually look first at cutting wages and employee benefits when they want to reduce costs, as you can see if you follow what happens in negotiations at the company level. Although the law grants the right to strike, in practice, it is difficult to go on strike and workers usually lose out. The situation is even worse for workers who are unorganized because it is very difficult for them to bargain collectively."
The Chile trade union movement is weak and atomized. This is reflected in the presence of more than one trade union in the same company; trade union statutes that do not prioritize a collective approach in the workplace, the sector or nationally; different collective agreements within the same company; and above all, the lack of trade union unity.
To complicate the situation further, even within a small company union, it is not uncommon for the leaders of that union to be divided, each negotiating and reaching separate agreements for one group of employees that supported their election over another.
The Chilean Labour Code establishes that union membership is voluntary and that workers can only belong to one union. The country's Constitution recognizes the right to freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. However, as the code was written during the dictatorship, it places strong restrictions on trade unions and does not recognize union federations and confederations as interlocutors for bargaining purposes. In addition, the law states that if workers want to strike, this has to take place in the context of a process of collective bargaining. The law only endorses strikes once there has been direct negotiations between the parties.
The freedom to join a union, the multiplicity of unions at the company level, collective bargaining restricted to the company level, the possibility for groups of workers to negotiate outside the union, employers able to replace workers on strike, employers' broad scope to decide on working conditions, employment contracts, dismissals and the state's reduced capacity to intervene in labour disputes reflect the trade union situation in the country.
Union membership density currently stands at between 11 per cent and 15 per cent because of the legal flexibilities and the operation of the labour market. In Chile, workers may form a union with a minimum of eight employees and as long as no other union already represents the workplace.
María Soledad explains that, "not everyone in the sector is a union member, unions only operate at company level and are therefore atomized, which means they are not very strong, and therefore not always able to get a positive response to their demands. Finally, employees of public sector companies do not have collective bargaining rights."

WORKING CONDITIONS
"All workers in Chile suffer more or less the same problems: a lot of overtime, poor working conditions, precarious work. Some earn a little more than others but the demands made on them are the same. The issue we must address as soon as possible is how do we build a movement of united workers with common objectives and how to make our unions strong enough to make the government listen to them," says Sergio.
Differences in working conditions reflect the level of worker organization, says Emilio. "We have to remember that only 11 per cent of the 6.6 million Chilean workforce is unionized. It obviously makes a lot of difference when unorganized workers seek a pay rise because they are at the mercy of the employer. Eleven per cent may be unionized but what can we say when only 7 per cent have collective bargaining rights."
With regard to the situation of workers in the mining industry, Emilio says that you first have to divide the industry into three categories: small, medium and large companies. Small companies have very poor safety standards and low pay and benefits in comparison to large companies. Workers at these companies are in a very precarious position in every sense. Although things are a bit better at medium-sized mining companies, you still can't compare them with the big companies in the sector."
María Soledad thinks the problem is that Chileans are very individualistic and lack solidarity with each other. "They tend not to join the union so as to hang on to benefits provided by the company," she says.

THE CHALLENGE FACING THE IMF
The IMF project to strengthen unions, which is supported by the Swedish trade union IF Metall, and which is also being implemented with affiliates in Colombia, aims to consolidate and strengthen affiliates, while taking into consideration the situation facing workers in those countries regarding the construction of trade union unity.
Chilean unions know they have to recruit more members, organize at the national and sector levels and strengthen their organization and that is why they joined the IMF project, which provides them with the tools with which to face this challenge.
Marino Vani, Education Officer of the IMF in the Latin American and Caribbean region and project coordinator, explains that at first the meetings sought to monitor progress in collective bargaining, assess the situation in the country and develop proposals to deal with problems that affect the trade union movement at the national level.
He adds that shop floor union leaders are clear about the importance of collective agreements at the company or sector levels and the need to negotiate a national collective agreement in the metalworking sector. They hope to achieve these objectives by strengthening unions but changes are needed in both union structure and culture as well as amendments to national legislation that guarantee national collective bargaining, the unrestricted right to strike and an end to laws that promote the atomization that characterizes the trade union movement at present.

VALUING WORKERS
Emilio, María Soledad and Sergio are keen to continue working with the project and recognize that training is firstly "an essential tool to develop capable union leaders". Secondly, "the participation of representatives from various confederations not only creates links and allows us to share experiences but also encourages us to unite and fight for the same cause," says María Soledad.
"This has a lot to do with the needs that we have as trade union leaders to train ourselves on a continuous basis in a dedicated and responsible way and this is one of the strengths of this project. We have some very good leaders and the project is a really important contribution to developing these leaders," says Emilio. "What motivates me is, firstly, the need to get a national collective agreement. We are preparing ourselves for this by learning more and by participating in this project," says Sergio.
These three workers participate actively in regional and national meetings organized by the IMF. Their perseverance and professionalism at each one of the meetings has already brought some success. In August this year, Emilio was appointed as FTC Coordinator of National and International Relations with the IMF. "I'm very proud of this position," he says. María Soledad was elected to CONSTRAMET's National Council last October and was elected as president of the Federation last year.
They both say that they reached their positions thanks to their participation in the project, their perseverance and their commitment to project objectives. They feel more capable of taking on senior positions in trade unions thanks to two years of participation in the project. Previously, they only focused on trade union action at the local level but are now open to the idea of building the trade union movement at the regional and international levels. They are aware of the weaknesses of their country's trade unions and want to continue participating in the task of strengthening the unions.
"I think that we just have to be believe in the work, complete the project and stay united and committed to our fight as workers and leaders," says María Soledad. "I am committed because I believe we can get to a position where we can negotiate a national collective agreement for the sector. Union unity is definitely possible in Chile," says Emilio.