12 June, 2012The successful organizing of steel workers in India, the epic struggle of Hanjin workers and an interveiw with Koichiro Nishihara-san, President of IMF-JC and JAW, are all featured in the latest issue of Metal Asia-Pacific, produced by the IMF South Asia office.
ASIA-PACIFIC: Since 2009, IMF Indian affiliates, Indian National Metalworkers' Federation (INMF) and Steel Metal and Engineering Workers Federation of India (SMEFI) have successfully organized 24,868 steel workers in three states, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa, with solidarity support from SASK (Finland) and LO-TCO (Sweden). The feature article, "Organizing together: An experiment in unity", vividly tells of the factors that contributed to the success of these organizing initiatives.
The second feature article "Workers win epic struggle at Hanjin Heavy Industries", captures major events of the valiant struggle, which will go a long way in strengthening the Korean trade union movement, international workers' solidarity and workers' resolve to protect their rights to organize and collective bargaining.
The magazine also includes an interview of Kochiro Nishihara-san, President of IMF JC, and JAW, in which he shares his views on challenges arising from the merger of three GUFs, IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF, initiatives of IMF-Japan Council including solidarity with workers in Japanese TNCs, building trade union networks and promoting women's participation in trade union activities.
You can download a copy of the journal here: http://www.imfmetal.org/files/12061315525079/Metal_AP_Issue_2_2012.pdf.