7 September, 2009SKF World Council of trade unions meet and discuss the impact of the financial crisis on workers and how the unions can strengthen their global network.
ITALY: The SKF Trade Union World Council examined how the world financial crisis is impacting on workers and what measures the company had taken to minimise the effects at a meeting from September 2 to 4 in Turin, Italy.
Attended by SKF CEO, Tom Johnstone and trade unions from SKF operations around the world, the meeting heard how production has dropped by 37 per cent in the last 14 months on a global basis. Because of the decrease in demand, 3,800 workers had been made redundant and approximately 2,000 are subject to different programmes. Additionally 18,000 workers are under some form of shorter working time programme, which have been done through government programmes in some countries and through agreements with trade unions in other countries.
In June, the company announced that the factory in Fontenay, France will close and 380 employees will lose their jobs. The SKF World Council expressed their solidarity and support with the French unions on their demand to the management to review the decision.
During reports from trade union representatives from Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, UK and the U.S. the main issue discussed was how the financial crisis had hit and influenced the situation at subsidiaries in the country. Most plants have had redundancies and/or short time work to be able to handle the situation in the best way for workers.
The World Council also discussed how cooperation could be increased by strengthening the networking between the SKF unions by creating a database hosted by the IMF and administered by the network.