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All workers should enjoy equal rights irrespective of their sex, age, nationality, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or religion.  Yet metal industry employers in many countries, including highly industrialised ones, continue to discriminate with impunity against workers precisely on those grounds. The IMF will work with its affiliates to eliminate discrimination in the workplace in all its forms. Many workers throughout the world are subjected to discrimination that deprives them of their rights to freedom of association and collective bargain.  That is why IMF will focus its efforts on assisting affiliates to develop specific organising strategies, e.g. to improve unionisation rates among women, migrant and young workers, particularly in EPZs, where labour rights continue to be abused and trade unionism is repressed. There is a clear and urgent need for unions to assess whether new approaches must be adopted to meet the needs and aspirations of women, young people, and migrant workers -  groups that are underrepresented in metal unions, but that are entering the industry at an increasing rate.  Changes need to be made to union structures, cultures and practices that discourage such workers from becoming union members to ensure that equal rights are extended to all workers.According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, discrimination occurs if persons with disabilities cannot participate as fully-fledged members in society and if their human and workers' rights are violated.  In particular, with respect to elderly workers, many countries need to intensify their struggle against discrimination and social exclusion of older, disabled and health-impaired workers from the labour market and further training.Discrimination also means that women, migrant and young workers are over-represented in precarious employment. This reaches extreme levels in the case of migrant workers, particularly when dramatic poverty leaves them without protection against unprincipled and sometimes criminal organisations that exploit their vulnerability. The IMF will encourage affiliates to share strategies for making contact with and organising migrant workers, and improving their working conditions by including them in collective bargaining.The double burden of domestic work that is placed on women can force them into precarious employment situations, with adverse consequences for themselves, their families and communities.  The IMF will give priority to highlighting the disproportionate impact precarious work has on women workers and to encouraging measures to address it, focusing in particular on the gender pay gap and the gender segmentation that leads to women being denied access to better jobs.Women's representation at all levels of trade union organisation is still too low. Efforts by unions to organise women workers are hampered by structures that do not include women as leaders.  The IMF will continue to work with its affiliates to redress this imbalance and assist them to remove barriers to women's representation in their union structures and electoral processes. An emphasis will be put on the need to encourage greater participation by young workers in union structures. The IMF will:<ul><li>Assist its affiliates in leading the fight in the workplace against discrimination in all its forms;</li><li>Support organising activities of affiliates in EPZs and encourage the exchange of successful experiences between them;</li><li>Cooperate with ITUC and other GUFs, particularly International Textile, Garment &amp; Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF), in addressing the lack of union organisation  in EPZs;</li><li>Assist its affiliates in eliminating constraints that hinder persons with disabilities to get equal opportunities at the workplace.  The IMF will also support programs that focus on issues concerning people with disabilities in all trade union and ILO activities;</li><li>Assist affiliates to identify and remove barriers to women's equal participation and representation in their unions;</li><li>Monitor and report on the impact of precarious work on women, migrant and young workers including encouraging affiliates to do their own gender analysis of precarious work and to take action to reduce the double burden of domestic work on women;</li><li>Ensure that measures taken to improve conditions for precarious workers take particular account of the needs of women, migrant, and young workers;</li><li>Provide opportunities for affiliates to share experiences and strategies for making contact with and organising both internal and external migrant workers; and</li><li>Raise awareness of the difficulties faced by young people in finding secure employment with good pay and working conditions, and support efforts by affiliates to respond.</li></ul>

Preface

3. GLOBAL SOLIDARITY IN ACTION

3.3 Defend and protect workers rights

1. OUR MISSION

2. THE WORLD TODAY

2.1 Profits over people

2.2 Unemployment and job insecurity

2.3 Unions under attack

2.4 Fundamental workers´ rights denied

2.5 Spreading influence of Transnational Corporations

2.6 World trade system in disarray

2.7 An unsustainable future

2.8 Alliances, resistance and opportunities

3.1 Build strong national trade unions

3.1.1 Organise the unorganised

3.1.2 Strive for trade union unity at the national level

3.1.3 Build unions through education, training and effective exchange of information

3.2 Strengthening collective bargaining

3.3.1 Fight for trade union rights

3.3.2 Fight for Equal Rights

3.3.3 Fight for safe workplaces

3.4 Build a counterweight to the power of transnational corporations

3.4.1 Strengthening union solidarity and cooperation across sectors and TNCs

3.4.2 Advance fundamental rights through International Framework Agreements

Achieving and strengthening collective bargaining is the core activity of trade unions and remains the best instrument for improving wages and conditions, regulating the relationship between employers and workers and solving problems at the workplace. Its impact goes beyond the workplace and affects the living conditions and development prospects of communities. Collective bargaining should be increasingly used as a tool for trade unions to engage with communities and promote the broader interests of workers as citizens and consumers.Over the past decade the trade union movement has been attacked by employers, governments and their allies who are determined to weaken collective bargaining, thereby weakening the union movement. In particular, employers are eager to eradicate national, sectoral, and sometimes even enterprise-wide collective bargaining. Using the threat of outsourcing production and services, they push for more flexibility and other concessions. New forms of employment and work practices are imposed on employees, increasing stress and insecurity. In developing countries, foreign investors in particular demand deregulation of labour law and other regulatory changes, which have negative impacts on the development opportunities for these countries.  The IMF will work with affiliates to ensure that collective agreements continue to provide a framework for intervening on all work issues including decent wages and working conditions, including working time, work organisation, pace of work and health and safety. In the long-term, and as companies increasingly operate globally, collective bargaining at the international level, while respecting the rights of national unions, must be the goal of the IMF.  As a first step, an information and coordination system should be established. To develop and strengthen global and national collective bargaining efforts, the IMF will:<ul><li>Develop ways to exchange information on collective bargaining that build on the experiences gained at the regional level in Europe and elsewhere;</li><li>Build commonality for bargaining among affiliates at the global level, e.g. by developing global union positions on issues such as precarious employment and training;</li><li>Conduct cross-border negotiations with TNC with the involvement of functioning global union networks and an IMF coordinator, based on clear case by case mandates from affiliates.  In order to have a framework of action for these cross-border negotiations, the IMF Executive Committee will develop IMF guidelines with the support of the Secretariat, which will also describe the roles of the IMF coordinators.  Not only may IFAs be negotiated, but also topics such as health and safety and training;  access to information and other issues of common interest; and</li><li>Assist affiliates in building collective bargaining capacity at the national level. </li></ul> IMF affiliates shall:<ul><li>Provide information on collective bargaining experiences to others; and</li><li>Strive to remove legal obstacles to collective bargaining at the national and sectoral level.</li></ul>

MEXICO/GLOBAL: Parliamentary and trade union leaders from 13 countries, including Jyrki Raina and Manfred Warda, General Secretaries of the IMF and ICEM, joined Mexican union leaders and legislators in Mexico City to call for an end to the persecution of the Mexican mine and metalworkers' union and its leader, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia.Jack Layton, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, raised the delegation's concerns in a meeting with Mexico's Labor Secretary Javier Lozano.  &quot;We made it clear that the government's interference in union governance, its jailing of union leaders and freezing union bank accounts, declaring strikes illegal and failing to prosecute the killers of union leaders, are serious and unacceptable violations of basic human rights,&quot; he stated.Layton, Australian Labor MP Graham Perrett, and a group of union leaders including Raina and Warda also met with Marcelo Ebrard, the Governor of the Federal District of Mexico City.  The delegation visited Juan Linares, one of the leaders of the union, in the prison where he has been held for several months without charges.Members of the delegation held meetings with the Embassies of Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United States to inform them about the Mexican government's actions.  The delegation's message, according to United Steelworkers District 7 Director Jim Robinson, was that, &quot;when NAFTA was passed, we were told that it would raise wages for Mexican workers. Now the Mexican government and Grupo Mexico are trying to destroy the Mineworkers because they are doing just that.&quot;On Sunday, the delegation joined 6,000 workers to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Los Mineros union, marching loudly through the industrial city of Lázaro Cárdenas.  &quot;The IMF and ICEM with their 45 million members worldwide, will never let you down. Your struggle is ours.  Workers fighting for free, democratic and independent trade unionism in Mexico will never be defeated,&quot; IMF General Secretary Jyrki Raina told jubilant union members, clad in red shirts to demonstrate unity and support for their leadership.

Parliamentary and union leaders demand Mexican government cease attacks on mineworkers.

Mexican government must cease attacks on mineworkers

MEXICO/GLOBAL: Trade union and parliamentary leaders from 13 countries are visiting Mexico this week to support the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers (SNTMMSRM). The delegation will be calling on the Government of Mexico to cease assisting the multinational mining company Grupo Mexico in its campaign to destroy the SNTMMSRM, release all union accounts illegally seized by the government, and prosecute in a court of law all those responsible for crimes committed against SNTMMSRM members.&quot;We are concerned that the Calderón government, which claims to be fighting for rule of law, practices impunity when it comes to the rights of the mineworkers,&quot; said IMF General Secretary Jyrki Raina.The Mexican government has twice removed the leader of the union, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, from office.  The Committee on Freedom of Association of the International Labor Organization (ILO), ruling in a complaint brought by the IMF, found that &quot;the labour authorities engaged in conduct that is incompatible with Article 3 of Convention No. 87, which establishes the right of workers to elect their representatives in full freedom.&quot;In Mexico City, the delegation will meet with Congressional and union leaders and will visit Mineworkers' official Juan Linares Montufar who has been jailed by the government. The delegation will attend the Mineworkers' 75th anniversary in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán and will visit the Pasta de Conchos mine where 65 workers were killed in an explosion in 2006.The delegation is being jointly organized by the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the United Steelworkers (USW) and the SNTMMSRM. The delegation is headed by Jack Layton, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) and includes parliamentarians from Australia and Peru. The delegation includes trade union leaders from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, Peru, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the United States.

Trade union and parliamentary leaders visit Mexico to support the Mexican miner workers' union.

Go to IMF's Mexico campaign page

Press release - Parliamentary, Union Leaders Visit Mexico To Support Mineworkers' Union

Congressional Letter to Calderón

Solidarity mission in Mexico

THAILAND: After a two week strike at a Kawasaki Motors plant in Thailand an agreement was reached between the union and management on July 3, 2009.The agreement between the plant union, which is affiliated to TAW/TEAM, and Kawasaki was reached with assistance from IMF-JC and the International Metalworkers' Federation. About 900 workers at the Kawasaki plant in Chonburi/Rayong Eastern Seaboard Industrial Zone went on strike on June 22 after management unilaterally changed the working time and then sacked all 11 shop stewards who opposed the change.Seeking to reduce costs, the company introduced a new working time on May 11, moving from 8 hours per 5.5 days a week to 8.5 hours per five days a week. While the company claimed they had a tripartite agreement for the change, no written agreement existed.  The company then dismissed 11 shop stewards accusing them of agitating the workers and the general public about the changes to the working time.Both parties have agreed on the reinstatement of all 872 workers, including the 11 union leaders, with workers returning to work on July 6. The agreement sets out further discussions on adjusting working time, subject to the approval of the workers by a vote in August.IMF representatives visited the plant on June 24 where they met senior management personnel and urged them to resolve the dispute through negotiations and in good faith. IMF-JC has also actively intervened in the dispute to assist the union and company in reaching this agreement.

Strike at Kawasaki Motors Enterprise (Thailand) ends as workers and management reach agreement.

Strike ends at Kawasaki, Thailand

<h3 align="left">Training and Education</h3>Where appropriate, the IMF will cooperate with the ITUC, TUAC, the ILO and union-friendly partner organisations to organise and provide education and training aimed at building strong national unions. The IMF Secretariat, with advice from the Executive Committee and the Regions, will prioritise this work to best meet the Action Programme objectives. Where there is cooperation with donor organisations, the primacy of the IMF objectives and the independence of the IMF will always be maintained.Education and training for union building will include topics such as:<ul><li>Globalisation, the rise of corporate power and challenging neoliberalism;</li><li>Organising;</li><li>Collective bargaining policies and effective collective bargaining skills and structures;</li><li>Health and safety issues; </li><li>Equal rights;</li><li>Introduction of new technologies;</li><li>Skills development and life long learning;</li><li>Internal and external communication strategies;</li><li>Financial union management (including effective collection of membership dues and appropriate and transparent expenditures);</li><li>Implementation, monitoring and enforcement of IFAs; and</li><li>Other trade union topics that are of interest and concern.</li></ul>Consistent with the principles outlined above in sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2, the IMF will provide resources for union building projects on the condition that they:<ul><li>Build organisations independent of employer and government control;</li><li>Enhance democracy within the organisation and encourage and enable members, particularly youth and women, to take part in the activities of the organisation. Projects should contribute to eliminating political, racial and gender discrimination;</li><li>Increase the capacity of the organisation to carry out its own core union activities, building self-reliance, particularly in the area of education;</li><li>Strengthen solidarity within the organisation, among unions in the country and/or region, and inside the IMF; and</li><li>Support independent trade unions confronting and fighting repressive governments.</li></ul><h3> Information</h3><ul><li>Information on the work of the IMF and its affiliates needs to be more systematically communicated. This information can help affiliates in the different regions to learn from one another and build up their strength.</li></ul><h3> The IMF will:</h3><ul><li>Work towards establishing a more effective internal information system, using the IMF website, newsletters, the quarterly journal and other means of communication. </li></ul><h3> IMF affiliates will:</h3><ul><li>Inform the secretariat about what type of information they are interested in; and,</li><li>Provide the IMF with information about their activities.</li></ul>

In countries where national unions are vulnerable or enterprise unions predominate, the IMF will work with affiliates to promote national unity and strengthened national structures.  This includes developing strategies to prevent workers' organisations from being played off against one another or becoming dependent on management. Using tools such as Country Councils, the IMF will work to avoid competition and encourage co-operation and solidarity between workers. Given that strong national unions are often born out of different historical backgrounds, it is necessary to seek unity of action even when unification into a single national union is not realistic. The IMF will focus its attention on ensuring that the unions we support have the capacity to organise, bargain and prioritise work on a national level, and that different unions within a country work in concert in the interests of all metalworkers.In countries where labour legislation does not permit national unions, the IMF will work with national centres, other global unions, and the ITUC to assist workers and their unions in overturning laws that prevent workers from forming national unions.To assist affiliates in achieving unity at the national level, the IMF will:<ul><li>Utilise IMF Country Council structures to build greater unity and solidarity in action; and</li><li>Focus its union building activities in countries where affiliates are predominantly enterprise-level unions in TNC's on the strengthening of national structures, and on building unity among unions by encouraging changes in union structures.</li></ul>IMF affiliates will:<ul><li>Work with other affiliates at the national level to build common positions and platforms on issues affecting metalworkers, particularly collective bargaining.</li></ul>

Given the enormous challenges working people face in today's globalised economy, organising remains a basic task for all trade unions and organising drives should be carried out by IMF affiliates themselves.The shift from secure to insecure forms of employment, the attacks on trade union rights and the fragmentation of collective bargaining systems has seriously eroded our capacity to organise and effectively represent the interests of workers.  In addition to that the structural change in employment, in particular in the developed countries has resulted in a decline in the proportion of blue-collar workers who are traditionally well organized and an increase in the proportion of highly educated and non-manual workers.  The trade unions have found it more difficult to organise these workers.To win and defend metalworkers' rights, we need strong, national unions in all countries. Therefore, one of the key objectives of the IMF is to encourage workers to build independent, democratic and representative national unions that are autonomous from employers, political parties and governments. This includes overcoming weaknesses in existing unions and, where required, building new unions capable of tackling the challenges of today.However, it is not only a question of what unions do. In some countries, such as Belarus, Colombia, Thailand and the Philippines, governments and companies actively work to eliminate trade union structures, murder and intimidate activists or alternatively to fragment union structures and encourage enterprise level unionism, which seriously undermines the possibility for trade union strength.  All workers, regardless of their status, must have the right to organize.  The IMF and its affiliates must fight for legislation that allows workers to make their own decisions regarding their representative structures, and will pressure companies to always respect workers' decisions instead of hiding behind national laws when these do not conform to internationally recognized labour rights.IMF affiliates will:<ul><li>Prioritise organising as a key means of building union strength at the national level;</li><li>Utilise organising strategies at the sectoral level and in key TNCs;</li><li>Provide practical solidarity support to unions attempting to organise workers anywhere, particularly along the supply chain of TNCs, and including in the affiliate's home country; </li><li>Fight to remove legal barriers which prevent precarious workers from joining national unions;</li><li>Step-up organising of non-manual workers, who account for a growing part of the workforce, to build greater solidarity and bargaining strength; and </li><li>Push for the elimination of legal restrictions on the right to organise for non-manual workers. </li></ul>To assist affiliates in organising, the IMF will:<ul><li>Support unions in developing their own organising campaigns and strategies, particularly for organising women, migrants, youth, and workers in precarious employment;</li><li>Strengthen its efforts to raise awareness about organising non-manual workers' in all regions, promote the exchange of information and experiences on organising tools and policies, and address topics of special relevance to non-manual workers; </li><li>Identify and develop union organising opportunities with affiliates, especially where TNC investments create new or growing concentrations of workers. The IMF Executive Committee, informed by the Regions, will prioritise the countries which should be the focus of this work. This will include countries such as China where the IMF currently has no affiliates;</li><li>Utilise IFAs or other means to develop cross-border organising campaigns;</li><li>Co-ordinate organising activities:</li><li>throughout supply chains by targetting contractors and workers in different forms of precarious employment;</li><li>in EPZs, where workers' rights are ignored and exploited; and</li><li>wherever multi-company, or multi-plant organising campaigns could be co-ordinated;</li><li>Provide forums for the exchange of information and experiences;</li><li>Provide training on issues relevant for organising and keeping members; and</li><li>Support national efforts to bring about changes in legislation to protect the right to organise and bargaining collectively by working together with other GUFs, the ITUC, the TUAC, and the ILO.</li></ul>IMF will provide assistance to trade unions that:<ul><li>are committed to activities leading to self-reliance;</li><li>have established their own priorities and identified their needs;</li><li>are working in accordance with the IMF Action Programme;</li><li>are building union structures that respond to workers' needs locally and internationally and that include women at all levels;</li><li>are able to organise activities or are prepared to closely co-operate with the appropriate IMF regional office;</li><li>are building union structures that are democratic, and independent of political parties and employers;</li><li>are ready to co-operate with other IMF affiliates at local, national and international level; and</li><li>are confronting and fighting repressive governments.</li></ul>

The IMF will only be as strong as its affiliates and will only have the power its affiliates give to it. Therefore, our priority is building strong national trade unions that, in a permanent democratic relationship with workers, are capable of achieving real gains through collective bargaining, by organising the unorganised, striving for trade union unity at the national level and building unions through training, education and effective exchange of information.

TURKEY:  Metalworker unions in Germany, Italy and the U.S. have written to four major auto companies that use components supplied by Sinter Metal, via the auto parts supplier Gertag, urging them to demand an end to the violation of workers' rights at the plant in the Dudullu Organized Industrial Zone in Turkey.In December 2008, Sinter Metal used false pretexts to fire 38 workers involved with trade union activity. Days later, the employer refused to allow the remaining workers to enter the plant, firing 312 of them, most of whom the company had learned were trade union members. The Labour Ministry in Turkey issued a report on January 12, 2009 upholding the union's assertion that the reason for the dismissal of the 350 workers was not the economic crisis as the employer attempted to claim, but rather their trade union membership.Despite repeated requests from the IMF and the <a href="http://www.emf-fem.org/Press/Labour-related-news/Affiliates-increase-pressure-on-Sinter-Metal">EMF</a>, the company has not considered the workers' demands, reinstated the dismissed workers or commenced negotiating with the union, Birlesik Metal Is. As Sinter Metal ships parts to Gertag, which in turn supplies BMW, Daimler, Ford and Fiat, IMF and EMF affiliates in Germany, Italy and the U.S. are reaching out to the first tier manufacturers urging them to seek an end to the violations at Sinter Metal in Turkey. BMW and Daimler have both signed International Framework Agreements with the IMF, which state that the companies expect suppliers to recognise workers' rights as a criteria for lasting business relationships.

IMF and <a href="http://www.emf-fem.org/Press/Labour-related-news/Affiliates-increase-pressure-on-Sinter-Metal">EMF</a> seek an end to the violation of workers' rights at Sinter Metal in Turkey as affiliates reach out to first tier companies that use Sinter Metal components.

Affiliates increase pressure on Sinter Metal

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