19 May, 2010Organizing the electronics industry has long proven to be a difficult challenge for trade unions. Unionization rates remain extremely low in an industry where precarious employment is rife and labour abuses abound. To make matters worse, the electronics industry has been one of the hardest hit by the economic crisis, bringing job losses and additional downward pressure on pay and conditions. But at IMF's recent conference for the ICT, Electrical and Electronics industries on 'Organizing, Trade Union Rights and Sustainability', IMF affiliates reasserted their commitment to organizing electronics workers and improving their working conditions.
19 May, 2010According to official data, in Russia, a country with a population of over 140 million, in 2009 there was a grand total of one strike. Of course, this reflects not the actual situation, but rather the unjustifiably strict legal requirements for holding strikes. The unconvincing figures from the Russian Federal Statistics Service (Rosstat) conceal the real story of labour conflicts: hundreds of collective disputes, a multitude of clashes with management and government, which both are often prepared to go to any lengths to destroy active and combative unions.
20 May, 2010Documentary on Turkish women workers' struggle features at Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival 2010, which brings the voices of workers to light in the face of the financial crisis.
20 May, 2010Workers at Renault, Bosch, Volvo and Volkswagen assembly plants in Greater Curitiba demand a bigger share of company profits.
4 November, 2011The professional and managerial staff organization YTN turned down the employers' proposal and called a strike for 10 000 members, starting November 1, when they were refused a similar wage increase model as the Metalworkers' Union and the salaried employees' union Pro obtained on October 25.
25 October, 2011Members of the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM) began strike action on 10 October at a Honeywell nuclear parts manufacturing facility in Kansas City, Missouri. The 850 members of IAM Lodge 778 begin their third week today on picket lines at a US government-owned site following a 79% contract rejection on 9 October.
25 October, 2011By a 61% vote on October15, members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1005 in Hamilton, Ontario, ended U.S. Steel's chokehold on the livelihoods of 900 Canadian workers. Union members accepted a three-year labour agreement that ended a 49-week lockout at the steel mill.
25 October, 2011In a statement to the G20 leaders meeting in Cannes on November 3-4 the Global Unions assert that good jobs are the only successful recipe for recovery and sustainable growth, that employment creation must be placed at the centre of macro-economic policies and fiscal policy adjusted to support growth and employment creation.
