international union for trade union rights - … · union for trade union rights ... for discounted...

I N T E R N A T I O N A LVolume 22 Issue 4 2015

INTERNATIONAL CENTREFOR TRADE UNION RIGHTSunion

rights

■ ACFTU and independent activists pursue collective bargaining

■ Labour NGO staff arrested

Focus on

Labour situationin China

CONTENTS

INTERNATIONAL union rightsPage 1 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015

Volume 22 Issue 4 2015Journal of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights

● Centro Internacional para los Derechos Sindicales● Centre International pour les Droits Syndicaux

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

unionrightsEditor

Daniel Blackburn

Editorial Board

David Bacon, Colin Fenwick, Kally Forrest, Steve Gibbons, John Hendy QC, Carolyn Jones Chair, Eric Lee, Pascal Lokiec, Sindhu Menon, Elizabeth J. Molinari, Jill Murray, Rory O’Neill, John Odah, Tom Sibley, Rita Olivia Tambunan, Charles Woolfson

Legal Editor

Professor Keith Ewing

ICTUR International

UCATT House177 Abbeville RoadLondon SW4 9RL020 7498 4700Fax 020 7498 0611e-mail [email protected] site www.ictur.org

President

John Hendy QC

Vice Presidents

Jan Buelens, Anita Chan, Ericson Crivelli, Fathi El-Fadl, Professor Keith Ewing, Esther Lynch, Lortns Naglehus, Yoshikazu Odagawa, Jeffrey Sack QC, Jitendra Sharma, Jeff Sissons, Surya Tjandra, Ozlem Yildirim

Director

Daniel Blackburn

Subscriptions

Four issues: £20/US$30/€25Cheques should be made payable to IUR and sent toICTUR, UCATT House, 177 Abbeville Road, London SW4 9RL, UK

Printed by The Russell Press, Nottingham

INTERNATIONAL union rights

ISSN 1018-5909

2 Editorial

3 Labour under threat: The rise and (possible) fall of ‘collective bargaining’ in South ChinaTim Pringle

6 China’s Migrant Workers’ Legal Rights Awareness on the RiseAnita Chan

8 Occupational health and safety in ChinaCathy Walker

10 The ACFTU’s collective bargaining agendaDaniel Blackburn

12 Sacked labour activist continues to push for workers’ trade unionsChina Labour Bulletin

14 InterventionsChina, Costa Rica, Estonia, Greece, India, South Korea, United States, Uzbekistan

16 Trade Unions of the WorldDaniel Blackburn

18 We have not abandoned our fightJaqui MacKay

20 Joe Hill: Red November, black NovemberBrian Latour

22 Organising Migrant Domestic Workers in LebanonFarah Kobaissy

24 Blacklisting: admissions & an apology, but the fight goes onDave Smith

26 WorldwideCambodia, Climate, Coutrs: ILO Standards, Essays: Do Unions Matter?, Finlamd, Labour Rights are human rights, Migrant rights are human rights, Nobel Prize, Qatar, South Africa, UK

28 Trade Unions of the WorldOrder Form

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 2 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015

IUR ❐ EDITORIAL

Editorial: Labour situation in China

Trade union rights in China was last discussedas a ‘focus’ topic in this journal more than 10years ago, in 2004. We return to the theme

11 years later curious (about the potential whichthe ACFTU seems to believe is offered by theimplementation of a vast collective bargainingprogramme) and concerned (by a sweepingcrackdown on labour NGOs in the Guangdongprovince). Opening this edition, Tim Pringlereports on collective bargaining in Guangdong,and laments the implications of the crackdownfor China’s human rights situation, while empha-sising the important assistance that these NGOshave provided to workers. Pringle also notes thatthe regional ACFTU, at least at provincial and citylevels, has announced a willingness to experi-ment with various reforms with the potential tofacilitate limited forms of collective bargaining,but the results of this, he says, have been ‘mixed’.

Anita Chan examines the economic grievancesthat are fueling worker discontent, indicating thatin large part it is the rapid closure of huge privatecompanies and their failure to meet wages andsocial security payments that is generating wide-spread labour discontent. Anita looks specificallyat the emergence of these NGO labour serviceorganisations, suggesting that they are modernday ‘barefoot lawyers’ providing a much neededand useful service to the workers concerned.Giving us a more personal insight into the situa-

tion the China Labour Bulletin profile for us oneof the NGO staff members, arrested in the crack-down, who, at the time of writing, has been sep-arated from her one-year old nursing baby and isbeing refused bail.

While such a shocking story drives us to viewthe NGO crackdown as a thuggish assertion ofpower over the population it is helpful to inquireinto the thinking behind the crack down: why isit taking place? Although giving the idea littlecredibility in her piece, Chan hints at what maybe the nub of these concerns, a fear that NGOsmight be the vehicle for a ‘colour revolution’ inChina. And these seem to be the same fears thatare behind a planned Foreign NGO ManagementLaw, which legislation indicates that the authori-ties have been spooked by a fear of the poten-tially unchecked influence of foreign donors inpolitically sensitive areas.

But, whatever their motivations, there areessentially two major flaws with the way that theauthorities have responded to these concerns.Firstly, the harassment and arrest of NGO staff onvague charges is of itself deeply problematic:there is both a lack of clarity with regard toalleged conduct and a strong tide of informedopinion indicating that these activists wereinvolved in legitimate labour rights work.Secondly, despite the professed ambitions of theACFTU to massively roll out collective bargainingcoverage (also discussed in this edition), hugenumbers of workers remain without any effectivetrade union support and are reliant entirely onthe support of these NGOs when their employersdisregard their rights. Where the ACFTU has notyet provided effective bargaining and representa-tion the Government may actually be shuttingdown a vital safety valve for cooling down over-heated disputes.

Cathy Walker offers a more obviously opti-mistic piece, noting the grave health and safetyproblems still present in China but taking theview that ongoing reforms are improving the sit-uation. What progress is taking place, Walkerreminds us, is happening at a breathtaking pacecompared to industrialisation in Europe.

Also in this edition of IUR we welcome reportson migrant worker organising in Lebanon, wehear an update on the UK blacklisting scandal,we talk with a union organaniser in Guatemala’sbanana sector, and we commemorate the life andstruggle of labour organiser Joe Hill, executed byfiring squad in November a century ago.

Daniel Blackburn is Editor of IUR

Next issue of IURArticles between 850 and 1,900 words should be sent by email ([email protected]) andaccompanied by a photograph and short biographical note of the author. Photographs15 August 2015 if they are to be considered for publication in the next issue of IUR.

Subscribe to IUR / Affiliate to ICTUR

Print only £20, electronic only £50, print and electronic £75Branch / local union affiliation £75 (includes three print copies and electronic access to IUR)

National union affiliation £750 (includes 25 print copies and electronic access to IUR, plusdiscounts on ICTUR advisory and research services)

Name/Organisation

Address

Email

Payment on invoice / Payment enclosed

For discounted rates please contact IUR’s Editor Daniel Blackburn on [email protected] subscription services are available via our website: www.ictur.org/affiliation.htm


FOCUS ❐ LABOUR SITUATION IN CHINA

Labour under threat: The rise and (possible) fall of‘collective bargaining’ in South China

After at leastthree years of delay, theGuangdongRegulation on CollectiveConsultation and CollectiveContract cameinto force in 1 January 2015

in this phenomenon has been on-going labourmilitancy and its role as a driver of state policy.

Consequently, state policy has not been static inrecent years. After at least three years of delay, theGuangdong Regulation on Collective Consultationand Collective Contract came into force in 1January 2015. The ILO described the new regula-tion as heralding a ‘good year for business inGuangdong’ and argued that the new regulationsprovided a framework for collective bargaining.After years of lobbying aimed at reducing theimpact of the regulations on Hong Kong businessinterests in Guangdong, The Hong Kong GeneralChamber of Commerce congratulated itself on get-ting all references to sector- and industry-level bar-gaining removed from the Regulations and raisingthe trigger threshold for demands for collectivebargaining from a third to a half of all workers inan enterprise. The ACFTU has also been underpressure to react to labour unrest. Following thewatershed 2010 strike by auto-parts workersemployed in a Honda factory in Foshan, provincialand city levels of the organisation in Guangdongannounced a willingness to experiment with vari-ous reforms with the potential to facilitate limitedforms of collective bargaining. The two mostimportant were pilots in the election of enterprisetrade union committees that are largely appointedby management or higher trade unions; and thecautious emergence of annual collective bargain-ing in key industries, notably the auto industry andto a lesser extent at port terminals.

Results to date have been mixed. In October2013, university student researchers workingundercover in factories wrote an open letter to theShenzhen Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU)claiming that only two out the five factories theyhad worked in had effective elected unionbranches. Annual collective bargaining inGuangdong’s auto sector has been more interest-ing. Former chairman of the GuangzhouFederation of Trade Unions Chen Weiguangreported that the median negotiated pay rise in sixGuangzhou-based wholly-owned auto parts facto-ries was 15 percent for the period 2011-2012 andan average wage of RMB 3256 for frontline shopfloor workers – excluding deputy supervisors andabove – in 2013. In larger, more capital-intensivejoint venture auto assembly plants, the medianwage increase over the same period was 19 per-cent – but with higher differentials – and an aver-age wage of RMB 5834.

However, something of a stalemate hasemerged over the last two years as state policyhas swung back towards prioritising stability inthe face of a generalised economic slowdown. Onthe one hand, the more repressive organs of thestate have launched campaigns of intimidationand arrests against civil society actors such as the

On 3 December 2015, police began raidingthe homes and offices of labour rightsactivists across the city of Guangzhou and

the Pearl River Delta in China’s southernmostprovince of Guangdong. At least 21 people weretaken in for questioning. Six have since beencharged with gathering crowds to disrupt publicorder and one with embezzlement. They are facingprison sentences. Worse, there are rumours of theaccusations being ‘upgraded’ to the much moreserious charge of ‘threatening state security’. It car-ries a sentence of up to fifteen years in prison.

In response, trade unionists, labour organisa-tions, activists and academics have written articlesand signed petitions calling for the release of thedetainees. National union federations, GlobalUnion Federations and the ITUC have contactedthe party-led All China Federation of TradeUnions (ACFTU) expressing concern and callingfor the organisation to intervene on behalf of thelabour activists. Given the absence of transparen-cy in China’s judiciary, the denial of regular accessto lawyers and general climate of fear that thisand previous crackdowns on lawyers and humanrights defenders has created, on-going interna-tional solidarity is going to be a key resource forboth detained activists and operational labourNGOs (LNGOs) in coming months.

The coordinated police ‘sweep’ has ominousimplications for the on-going decline in theChina’s human rights situation. But the storybehind the sweep is equally important to thefuture of labour relations in the country not leastbecause of all of the detained have been involvedin promoting forms of collective bargaining.While genuine collective bargaining is premisedon the protection of the right to strike and free-dom of association that do not exist in China,strikes in Guangdong in particular have generateddirect collective negotiations between labour,capital and on occasion the state. The key factor

DR TIM PRINGLE is SeniorLecturer in the Department ofDevelopment Studies at theSchool of Oriental and AfricanStudies (SOAS) in Londonand author of Trade Unions inChina: The Challenge of LabourUnrest (Routledge, 2011)

‘Where has my money gone?’, banner displayed at the QLT dispute.

Fourth, LNGOs increasingly organise training ses-sions in collective bargaining skills as a precursorto negotiation.

This pattern is by no means liner or universaland of course the development and outcomes ofstrikes and collective negotiations are inherentlyunpredictable, especially in the absence of a tra-dition of collective bargaining. This can rendernegotiations more dependent on external factorsthat may – at the risk of appearing naive – seemunfamiliar to trade unionists where collective bar-gaining is established. For example, if a factoryhas a trade union, the relationship between theunion and workers’ reps must reach some sort ofarrangement that at least prevents the union fromconstraining worker participation in the negotia-tions and ideally provides some of sort of positiveinput for workers. Furthermore, experience hasdemonstrated that employers are more likely toagree to negotiations when the local governmentis aware of the dispute. It may be willing to disci-pline employers into agreeing to negotiations inorder to reduce the possibility of a disputespreading beyond a single factory. Third, in thecase of factory closures, the likelihood of workerstaking more direct forms of action such as block-ing a public highway is significant and this in turnwill provoke the authorities into making arrests.There is also the ever-present threat of the rela-tionship between employers and the local gov-ernment being close enough to precipitate thedetention or dismissal of workers representatives.

Over the past five years the intervention of anLNGO has often been crucial to the outcome ofcollective negotiations. For example, strikingworkers at the Taiwan-owned QLT Golf SuppliesFactory in Shenzhen returned to work on 22 July2014 following a successful collective bargainingsession with their employer. The latter had initial-ly refused to negotiate with 200 striking employ-ees but the threat of the strike spreading to therest of the 2000-strong workforce and pressurefrom the local government persuaded QLT man-agement to negotiate. The bargaining coveredincluded issues such as wages, high-temperaturesubsidies, trade union representation as well ashousing provident scheme payments and socialinsurance premiums. Underlying these demands –especially arrears in social insurance payments –was the strong suspicion that QLT managementplanned to relocate to Jiangxi province followingthe workers’ discovery that the factory hadalready set up a new production line there.Assisted by a Shenzhen-based LNGO, the workerselected their own representatives to form a work-ers’ committee at the factory. During the bargain-ing, management eventually agreed to formalisethis into factory-wide elections for a trade unioncommittee. In the context of a threatened reloca-tion, the workers’ key demand was for the com-pany to pay arrears in social insurance premiums.

Workers havegradually

discovered thatstrike action and

collectivenegotiation have

proved moreeffective than

long drawn outjudicial forms of

dispute resolution


anti-discrimination NGO Yirenping, human rightslawyers and labour NGOs. On the other hand, thestrike-related activity over the last decade has pro-duced a layer of LNGO-supported workers’ rep-resentatives with experience in accountable col-lective bargaining and the capacity to pass thisknowledge on to other workers. It is these peopleand the nascent labour movement they are part ofthat the Guangdong authorities are targeting inthe most recent clampdown.

Industrial Upgrading and ‘Relocation Bargaining’The isolated cases of forms of annual collectivebargaining over pay and conditions Guangdonghave been confined, unsurprisingly, to sectorswhere workers possess high levels of structuralpower. However, a more common form of col-lective negotiation has occurred in relation to theclosure or relocation of factories. Disputes oftenarise over the terms of closure and workers havebeen anxious to ensure that employers do notleave owing wages, social insurance premiums orcontributions to the statutory housing providentfund. As Guangdong’s upgrading has deepened,increasing numbers of workers have contactedLNGO centres for advice either prior to, or duringstrikes. On occasion, LNGOs have taken the ini-tiative and visited picket lines and protests publi-cised by workers on social media.

The strategy of the more effective LNGOstowards collective disputes has changed as work-ers have gradually discovered that strike action andcollective negotiation have proved more effectivethan long drawn out judicial forms of dispute res-olution. Indeed, registering a grievance with thelocal Labour Dispute and Arbitration Committeefollowed by legal action in the courts is of little usewhen an employer has either shut a factory or relo-cated to another site in China or beyond. The chal-lenge for LNGOs and workers has been in the suc-cessful prosecution of collective bargaining in theabsence of either a legal framework or representa-tive primary trade unions. Something of a patternhas emerged in how workers and LNGOs cooper-ate to bring employers to the bargaining table.First, demands are re-organised into a coordinatedpackage that has the support of as many workersas possible in a given workplace. Second is build-ing solidarity between workers across different sec-tions, shops and departments in the workplace.While many workers have direct experience ofshort strikes, most are less cognisant of collectivebargaining procedures and the extended solidaritythat drawn out negotiations require. Third, theelection of workers’ representatives prepared to actas negotiators with employers. This can be a riskybusiness as employers will often attempt to bribeor threaten elected reps into making concessionswithout seeking agreement from the workforce.



Indeed, the workers strung up a banner on whichmissing payments was graphically tabulated on amonthly basis. In bold characters next to the tablewas the question: ‘where has my money gone?’.

During the QLT dispute, workers’ militancyinformed by LNGO experience in collective bar-gaining was crucial to the outcome. The LNGOrecognised that the militancy of the workers wasconfined to the polishing department of the fac-tory. As a consequence, the original formulationof the strikers’ demands focussed on the situationof polishers and did not adequately reflect thedirect interests of all the workers. By holdingtraining sessions in collective bargaining for over60 QLT workers, the LNGO was able to facilitatethe building up of solidarity between a dividedbut angry workforce and assist in the re-organisa-tion of the demands into a package that formedthe material basis for a stronger solidarity. Whileit still took a short strike to persuade managementto recognise the workers representatives andnegotiate, the seeds of collective negotiation wereput in place with the potential to negotiate theterms of relocation – if it is to go ahead – orimprove pay and conditions incrementally.

The capacity of workers and LNGOs to influ-ence the terms or relocation were dramaticallyillustrated by a long-running series of strikes andnegotiations at the Lide Shoe Factory. The initialdispute was triggered in April 2014 by concernsover the factory’s planned relocation and subse-quent attempts by management to force workersinto signing new contracts in order to avoid socialinsurance arrears dating back to 1995. During thefollowing six months, increasing numbers ofLide’s 2,500 workers took part in three strikeswith the third strike involving just over 1,000workers in December 2014. By working with alocal LNGO from the summer of 2014 onwards,the workers organised the election and recall oftheir representatives and had access to training incollective bargaining. They also found the spaceto discuss strategy and tactics throughout the dis-pute. During the third strike, workers representa-tives established a solidarity fund, a social mediablog and appointed picket marshals and mediacoordinators. Despite temporary detentions ofstrikers, issues with accountability of reps and fre-quent bargaining manifestations of bad faith bymanagement, workers were able to overcomesplits and maintain solidarity throughout a five-night and six-day picket of the factory gates by300 workers and their representatives in April2015. This last action was mounted to preventmanagement from moving equipment and goodsto another location. Following 20 rounds of col-lective bargaining over three strikes over a one-year period, the local Party Committee intervenedto discipline Lide management in to making anoffer acceptable to the workers. Lide managementand workers agreed on a timescale to pay all out-

If the Statecontinues to moveagainst activistswho challengetheir employers,their anger andfrustration ofworkers may bere-directedagainst the State


standing social insurance payments as well asrelocation compensation in accordance with thelegal stipulations on length of employment.

Where next? While the levels of organisation of Lide workerswere exceptional, the case nevertheless fits into abroader pattern of closure or relocation bargain-ing that has been repeated many times acrossGuangdong over the last five years. It has gener-ated considerable debate over the ‘state of labour’in China. Activists and labour scholars alike haveargued that a labour movement is emerging in theprovince although this view is contested.Advocates of the labour movement hypothesis –including the present author – point to labour mil-itancy, labour shortages, cautious trade unionreform, the emergence of a layer of ‘battle-hard-ened’ workers representatives and the presence ofsophisticated LNGOs. Forms of collective bargain-ing are presented as evidence of a nascent collec-tive labour movement. The sceptics generallyacknowledge these advances but have highlight-ed the absence of an independent trade unionand workers’ general focus on economic ratherthan political demands to argue that there is norecognisable labour movement. Both sides agreethat forms of collective bargaining have emergedas an outcome of increasingly collective andorganised forms of labour militancy and mostwelcome this a positive development.

This progress is looking increasingly shaky inthe light of the recent repressive measures. Whilestrikes have been an integral part of the processof both unifying workers and bringing employersto the negotiating table, the role of LNGOs hasbeen to channel the anger of workers fearing fortheir livelihoods into accountable collective bar-gaining. It is therefore somewhat ironic that thecurrent charges against LNGO activists focus on‘gathering a crowd to disrupt public order’. Infact, the forms of collective bargaining that haveemerged recently have led to the precise oppo-site. To be sure, the results of these interventionshardly replicate the collective bargaining envi-sioned by the ILO’s Convention 98 on the Right toOrganise and Collective Bargaining. But the col-lective agreements sometimes reached are never-theless distinguishable from the classicHobsbawm characterisation of ‘collective bargain-ing by riot’ deployed by some commentators tosummarise extra-juridical dispute resolutionbetween 2002-2010 in Guangdong and elsewherein China. If the state continues to move againstactivists and militants with the skills to developforms of accountable collective bargaining, theanger and frustration of workers who have takenthe courageous step to challenge their employersmay well be redirected towards the state itself.Such a situation is unlikely to be resolved by col-lective bargaining of any sort.


Guangdong’sindustrial citiesare undergoing

deindustrialisation,leaving workers

stranded withunpaid wages

and years ofentitlements

Protests over social insurance and housing fundsIn April 2014, another new type of demand erupt-ed—protests over unpaid or underpaid socialinsurance and housing fund contributions byemployers. More than 40,000 workers went onstrike at a huge factory complex in GuangdongProvince owned by the Yue Yuen company. Thisis the world’s largest footwear manufacturer,which makes running shoes for most of the bigbrands. It was the largest strike action recorded inGuangdong in the last three decades since Chinaopened its door to foreign investors. The strikelasted for seventeen days, after a worker discov-ered that the company had not been contributingenough toward her retirement. The Chinese law isquite generous to employees: employers’ contri-bution to a retirement fund should range from 12percent to 18 percent of the employees’ totalwage depending on the locality. The local gov-ernment, the official trade union and the policejoined forces to suppress the strikers. The policebrought police dogs into the factory and dormito-ries to force workers back to the assembly lines

A year after the Yue Yuen strike, 5000 workersat another shoe factory demanded a different typeof management contribution worth 5 percent ofsalary – toward a housing fund mandated by law.Together these two types of accumulated debtsowed to thousands of workers run into many mil-lions of dollars, and have serious implications fora company’s finances. For many years the workershave not paid much attention to these two funds,but as the workers age (until a dozen years agoalmost all of them were in their 20s), they increas-ingly are concerned about being short-changed.

DeindustrialisationThe strikes in Guangdong have been exacerbat-ed by the troubled economy of Guangdong’sindustrial cities, which are undergoing deindus-trialisation, with empty factory and commercialbuildings marring some cities. The soaring cost ofliving in this southern province necessitates aminimum wage higher than in the rest of China,and foreign companies that rely on cheap labourhave been relocating to less expensive inlandprovinces or have moved their factory operationsoverseas to South and Southeast Asia. Vietnam,for instance has overtaken China as the numberone exporter of garments to the US market. Asinvestors in Guangdong move their factory pro-duction elsewhere, some simply refuse to honourtheir obligations, leaving workers stranded withunpaid wages and years of entitlements. Theworkers’ only solution is to take to street actionbefore the companies leave.

Mass protests of all types have beenincreasing in China. Labour protests takeup about a third, and the number of these

protest actions has been rising sharply, but theyhave all been isolated plant-level incidents. Mostof these are staged by workers from China’s coun-tryside or small towns who have migrated to citiesin search of work. They make up about 60 per-cent of China’s non-agricultural workforce, pro-viding almost all the workers in the export indus-tries that fill our shops with goods. GuangdongProvince, just north of Hong Kong, has the largestnumber of migrant factory workers and has wit-nessed the largest number of protests.

Protests over bread and butter issuesDuring the past two decades, these protests havebeen sporadic and comparatively peaceful—untilrecently. The vast majority of their demands havebeen over management violations of China’slabour laws—unpaid wages, under-paid wages,or poor and unsafe work conditions. Workersusually first try to reason with management; andwhen stone-walled, they send representative tolocal government authorities to seek help. Onlywhen they are still ignored do they take to thestreets, blocking highways, because traffic dis-ruption is one sure strategy to force the authori-ties to pay attention. Often the police getmobilised, and scuffles and arrests follow.

Compared to workers in other Asian countriessuch as Cambodia, Indonesia and Bangladesh,Chinese workers have been comparatively com-pliant. They have not targeted the governmentfor an increase in the legal minimum wage. Theyhave not asked to eliminate China’s householdregistration system that consigns migrant workersto temporary residence in cities and denies themaccess to public services. They have not demand-ed a right to set up alternative unions to replacethe inactive government-run trade union staffedmainly by management personnel. Few of theworkers know what trade unions are supposed todo, and until recently practically none have heardof collective bargaining.

Since 2010, however, the labour scene hasbegun to undergo a transformation. Some work-ers collectively have started demanding that man-agement increase their wages way above thelegal minimum wage. Some have agitated for rep-resentation, and an increasing number of labourprotests now tag on a new demand to holddemocratic union elections in the workplace toreplace the management-controlled union.


China’s Migrant Workers’Legal Rights Awareness on the Rise

ANITA CHAN is Visiting Research Fellow

at the Australian NationalUniversity in Canberra and

Vice President of ICTUR


The workers’ new confidence to raise theirdemands is aproduct of thechange in thedemographiccomposition of the migrantworkforce

The local authorities constantly harass the NGOs,inviting them to ‘drink tea’, a way of letting themknow they are under surveillance, barging intotheir offices at odd hours, ransack their office andinterrogate them about their activities and con-tacts. The phones and computers of NGO staffersare tapped and their movements are monitored.Landlords who rent out office space to NGOs arebeing ordered to drive them out. Some NGOshave had to move office numerous times, makingit difficult for them to maintain stable grassrootscontact with workers.

Harassment during the past two years has esca-lated into violence. Masked thugs in vehicles withcovered-up licence plates have been deployed tobeat up workers and NGO staff. As just one exam-ple among many, in early April 2015, violenceerupted outside of a Japanese-owned factory, andwhen an NGO staff member paid a hospital visit toone of the injured workers, he was manhandled bya group of thugs outside the hospital, thendetained and beaten by police, and when released,was attacked again outside the door of the policestation by masked men who emerged from a vehi-cle with a covered licence plate. A number offriends from other NGOs came to pay him a visitin hospital, and they posted a blog with the namesof all the visitors listed. This amounts to an openchallenge to the authorities to come to get them.The labour movement in China is entering a newstage. Tensions and anger are running high.

Cross-workplace collective actionFor the time being, almost all strikes and protestsare still confined to individual factories. Workersdo not yet have the awareness, the wherewithalor experience to begin organising beyond theirown place of work. But there has been an indi-cation that this is beginning to change.

A prime example involves a group of migrantworkers that I have focusing on for some years:those who work in the Walmart megastores spreadacross China. Several Walmart store workers in dif-ferent cities of China last year set up a website call-ing itself the ‘Walmart Workers Social Association’as a platform for fellow Walmart workers toexchange information and air grievances. Many ofthese stores’ union committees were set up in2006/2007 under an ACFTU initiated top-downcampaign, and are due for re-election. Theseunion branches today are all monopolised bymanagement staff, which is condoned by the offi-cial local union. A few worker activists in a storein Shenzhen city, Guangdong began planning torun as a slate a few months before the unionbranch election is due. Management has been try-ing all means available to disqualify them fromregistering as candidates. But these activists insistthey have the right to run as representatives. Theyemailed the ACFTU, the provincial trade unionand the city union, but these different levels ofunions argue that no election procedure has beenbreached. They also emailed to the AFL-CIO forinternational solidarity support but have not heard.At the time of writing the odds are stacked againstthem. Management can fire them at the slightestexcuse available. Their project is likely to fail, butthe very fact that they are Walmart workers andthat there is an international workers movementtargeting this biggest corporation in the world aresignificant—for the first time Chinese workers aretaking the initiative to join the international tradeunion movement without ACFTU representationnor labour NGO assistance.

The workers’ new demands are also products ofa change in the demographic composition of themigrant workforce. The popular image of young,inexperienced, poorly-educated, unmarried, sub-missive young women no longer applies to today’smigrant workers. Young women used to make upsome 80 percent of the manufacturing workforcein the labour-intensive industries and in the grow-ing service sector. Up till the mid-2000s employersavoided hiring men because they were regardedas less dextrous and less obedient. Men were hiredmostly to do heavy physical labour, loading,stamping, welding and construction. But a short-age of young women workers became evident inthe mid-2000s, and employers had to drop theirdiscriminatory hiring policy and began hiring men.

Until a decade ago, the great majority of themigrant workers went back to their villages whenthey were no longer in their physical prime, butmore recently some have managed to stay andcontinue working. These forty year olds, experi-enced and urban savvy, want their fair share ofsocial insurance and housing subsidies beforeretirement. They, not the young better educatedworkers, are the main drivers behind the currentstrike wave. Having spent their youth in sweatedlabour, they are determined to get what they areowed. As retirement or unemployment loomslarge, there is little to lose by going on strike tosalvage something for old age. Thus many of therecent protests, such as the strike at Yue Yuen,have been led by these older workers.

Labour NGOs and labour activismAnother reason why Guangdong’s labouractivism is the most vibrant in the country isGuangdong’s proximity to Hong Kong. Twenty-some years ago Hong Kong labour NGOs quiet-ly crossed the border into Guangdong and set upChinese labour NGOs. They tried to remainunder the authorities’ radar while advising work-ers about the illegality of companies’ labour prac-tices. Since then, indigenous Chinese-run labourNGOs, workers centres and pro bono advisors onlabour law have sprung up in large numbers inthe province. They teach workers how to readtheir payslips and how to calculate their overtimepay and help them seek redress of their griev-ances through the legal system.

Many of the NGO staff today are in their thir-ties and forties. Quite a number are men whohad previously worked in jobs susceptible toindustrial accidents. After losing fingers, hands orarms they had battled through the court systemfor workers compensation. The protracted legalprocess has turned them into legal experts, andhardened them to fight back. Among them arehundreds of ‘barefoot lawyers’ spread throughoutthe province, helping workers to fight for com-pensation and unpaid wages. Today, the work ofmost of the labour NGOs is entirely law-abiding.But they have become more outspoken, and thegovernment has begun to crack down on theNGOs. In interviews, staff members do not hidetheir fear about the pressure. Those who cannotbear the tension have left. Those who persist dis-cuss contingency plans in case of arrests.

Increasing suppressionTo local government authorities and the statesecurity bureau, these NGOs are instigators oflabour instability, bearers of a ‘colour revolution’.

Volume 22 Issue 4 2015INTERNATIONAL union rights


Workers’ Rights

The 2002 Work Safety Law provided for signifi-cant worker rights including the right to knowabout hazards and to suggest remedies, the rightto inform against, criticise and accuse, the right torefuse unsafe work, to stop dangerous work andleave the workplace, the right of protection fromdiscipline, the right to compensation, and theright to education and training.

The Work Safety Law specifies that all labourcontracts must clearly identify and cover work safe-ty issues, including references to measures to pre-vent occupational hazards and details of any statu-torily required insurance program relating to work-place injuries.Expanded requirements for workereducation and training are in the amendments.This education and training must be conductedand logged (content, time, attendees and evalua-tion) by the safety supervisor so governmentsupervisors can evaluate compliance. Employersare required to ensure dispatched workers andinterns receive education and training.

Role of Trade UnionArticle 7 of the Work Safety Law stipulates thetrade union’s role in safeguarding the legitimaterights and interests of workers in work safety andin supervising work safety by making arrange-ments for employees to participate in the democ-ratic management of and supervision over worksafety in their workplace. Employers must solicitopinions from their trade unions in formulating orrevising rules and systems related to work safety.

Article 52 of the statute gives extensive rights tothe union to participate in and have input into thedesign, construction and commissioning of safetyfacilities and construction projects. When unionsdiscover life-threatening situations they have theright to put forward suggestions for remedies andthe employer must respond in a timely manner.They have the right to demand employers set righttheir violations of work safety laws and regulationsand infringements of workers’ rights. The unionhas the right to advise the employer to rectify dan-gerous situations, rectify orders or directions thatviolate safety rules or regulations or create risk andrectify hidden dangers that may lead to accidents.The employer must give a timely reply to theunion’s advice. If workers’ lives are threatened, theunion has the right to suggest organised evacua-tion of the workplace and the employer must dealwith such situations immediately.

The new amendments expand the union’s role toparticipate in accident investigations and to suggestthe authorities investigate the people involved.

The industrialrevolution that

took Europecenturies to

develop, took onlydecades in China,but at what price?

CATHY WALKER, retiredOccupational Health and

Safety (OHS) Director,Canadian Auto Workers Union

(now Unifor)

China’s ‘economic miracle’, which began in1979 with the ascension of Deng Xiaopingas head of the country, has been achieved

with great cost to China’s workers. The industrialrevolution that began in Britain with theEnclosure Acts forcing peasants to the cities tobecome the new industrial proletariat was at asnail’s pace by comparison. What took Europecenturies to develop, China took only decades.But what a terrible price to pay for the more than250 million Chinese peasants who migrated tothe cities in search of work after the end of thecommune system in the countryside in 1980.

We have all heard how many Chinese workersare killed at one time in coal mine explosions, fac-tory fires and the like. The statistics mirror theearly days of industrial development in Europeand North America. According to SAWS (StateAdministration of Work Safety), in 2013 there weremore than 270,000 accidents in which 2,549 peo-ple died. SAWS also reports that the death rate forevery million metric ton of coal produced in 2013was 0.288, 10 times higher than the death rate indeveloped countries. The death rate from cata-strophic incidents is dwarfed by deaths from occu-pational disease, especially from coal miners’pneumoconiosis (black lung). According toChina’s Ministry of Health, between 2005 and 2010there were 750,000 cases of occupational disease.And occupational disease is notoriously under-reported in China as it is in every country.

New OHS Laws and AmendmentsIt is therefore heartening to see that there havebeen significant achievements in OHS laws,though not as fast or as comprehensive as is need-ed. The Prevention of Occupational Diseases Lawwas promulgated in 2001 and amended withimprovements in 2011. The Work Safety Law waspassed in 2002 and strengthened with amend-ments which took effect December 1, 2014.

Input from the All-China Federation of TradeUnions (ACFTU) helps to ensure such laws areintroduced and strengthened. The final push forthe recent Work Safety Law amendments wassecured by public outcry in China about the June2013 Jilin poultry factory fire in which 121 work-ers perished and the August 2014 Kunshan disas-ter in which 75 workers were killed in an explo-sion in an automotive components plant.

The new amendments to the Work Safety Lawstrengthen requirements for employer responsibili-ties, provision for and protection of safety person-nel, state enforcement powers and penalties, andeducation and training requirements for workers.

Occupational healthand safety in China

Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 INTERNATIONAL union rights

China hasunacceptablerates of death,injury andoccupationaldisease in itsworkplaces, butamendments tothe Work SafetyLaw provide forsignificantimprovements

Safety SupervisorsEmployers with more than 100 staff members(was 300) are now compelled to have a full-timesafety supervisor or a dedicated work safetydepartment. The number of employees nowincludes dispatched workers. Companiesengaged in mining and construction must meetthese requirements, regardless of size and metalsmelting, road transport and hazardous sub-stances facilities have been newly added to thisrequirement. Companies engaged in mining,smelting or manufacturing or storage of haz-ardous substances must employ certified safetyengineers to conduct the work safety manage-ment. Other smaller workplaces must have apart-time safety department.

The safety supervisor creates the work safetyrules, which must be posted. The safety supervi-sor must be present at any company meetingsthat involve safety and the safety supervisor mustdevelop an emergency evacuation plan. Localgovernment safety officers may attend safetyrelated meetings as well.

The law now prohibits companies from retali-ating against safety supervisors for performingtheir duties, including prohibitions from firing,reducing the salary or benefits of the safetysupervisor. Companies engaged in mining, metalsmelting and the production, selling or storage ofhazardous substances are required to inform theauthorities of any appointment or dismissal of thecompany’s safety supervisors.

Workplace Safety FundsThe amendments require companies to set asidespecial funds to be used exclusively for improv-ing workplace safety and working conditions.Expended funds must be included as costs in thecompany’s accounting system. SAWS and theState Council’s Finance Department will setrequirements for assigning, using, monitoringand managing the funds. In the case of insuffi-cient funds being provided to meet the require-ments, managers and decision-makers can beheld accountable and liable.

Construction CompaniesConstruction companies that take on projects in thearea of mining, smelting, or the manufacture, stor-age and transport of dangerous goods must carryout construction according to safe design whichmust be approved by the government authoritiesbefore proceeding, and will be held responsible forthe structural quality of the building.

EnforcementEnforcing the Work Safety Law presents the sameproblems as elsewhere. Lack of governmentinspectors, lack of the will to prosecute and mod-est penalties for offenders all contribute to non-compliance. Amendments to the law improvepenalties both in magnitude and in scope.

Increased Powers to SAWSThe new law expands regulatory power. SAWSand other relevant government agencies haveexpanded powers.

During an inspection, the regulator may enterthe production facilities’ premises for inspection,receive access and view relevant materials and

interview staff. If a violation of work safety rulesis discovered, the inspector may rectify the situa-tion or demand rectification with a certain timeframe. The inspector may impose administrativepenalties. The inspector may eliminate latentdangers encountered and if it is especially seriousevacuate staff from the dangerous area and tem-porarily halt production. If there is evidence tobelieve they do not meet national and industrysafety standards, they may close facilities andseize equipment, tools and goods. If the produc-tion enterprise refuses to cease operations, theregulator may order other entities to cease theprovision of electricity and other utilities or thedelivery of dangerous goods to the enterprise.

Additional improvements include increasedfines for failing to provide safety training foremployees and not abating hazards after beingnotified of them. The government will prepareannual supervision and inspection plans for dif-ferent categories of industries and conduct super-vision and inspection in accordance with theplan. The government will also set up a databaseof violations and disclose serious violations to thepublic and other relevant authorities.

Government regulators now may blacklist largecompanies that may not be deterred by fines. Bypublicising the blacklist, it is hoped that suchlarge companies will be shamed into compliance.

Significantly Harsher Penalties on OffendersThe amended law imposes significantly harsherpenalties for violations than the 2002 law. Underthe 2002 law, fines were capped at RMB 100,000(currently there are 6.9 RMB to the Euro) or fivetimes the income earned from operations in vio-lation of the law. Under the amended law, enter-prises responsible for any serious workplacesafety accidents will be subjected to fines rangingfrom RMB 200,000 to RMB 20,000,000. For bothcompanies and individuals, fines vary accordingto the number of deaths and severe injuries andeconomic losses.

The penalties significantly increase the previ-ous levels of managers between RMB 20,000-200,000. Moreover, if the person in charge isfound to have failed in his or her duty to ensureworkplace safety, thereby causing a workplaceaccident, that person will be fined between 30and 80 percent of his or her annual income. Thenew requirements call for managers responsiblefor ‘serious’ and ‘extremely serious’ accidents tobe banned from comparable positions within thesame industry.

Serious accidents are those causing 10 to 30deaths, 50 to 100 serious injuries, or direct eco-nomic losses of between RMB 50 and RMB 100million. Extremely serious accidents are thosethat cause the deaths of more than 30 people,seriously injure 100 or more people, or result inover RMB 100 million in direct economic losses.

The head of the SAWS, Yang Dongliang, said ina statement, ‘the Work Safety Law, which tookeffect in 2002, has helped reduce malpractice, butmany problems still need to be addressed’.Specifically, government regulations and stan-dards are not being implemented at the locallevel, he said. SAWS investigated 44 seriousworkplace accidents and prosecuted about 300people for violating workplace safety laws in2013. Light punishment and lack of supervisionare believed to be among the major reasons for continued on page 13 ...


The ACFTU reports

‘inadequateparticipation’,‘emphasis on

formalities’, ‘lackof specific

content’, and‘unsatisfactory

outcomes’ – given this, what is the

future forcollective

bargaining inChina?


Over the past decade or so, the internationallabour movement has stepped up itsengagement with the Chinese State-backed

monopoly trade union federation, the All ChinaFederation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). While thecurrent wave of labour NGO arrests discussed else-where in this edition will likely temper thatengagement, at least for a while, it is unlikely per-manently to set aside what has been a clearlydeveloping policy with significant momentum overa number of years. Ultimately, greater engagementbetween the international labour movement andthe ACFTU seems the likely outcome of at leastthree complimentary trajectories: the increasinginterest of unions worldwide in the situation inChina; the huge role Chinese industry now plays inthe global economy; and the ‘big tent’ approach toorganising that the ITUC seems to be pursuing,which is bringing an ever greater share of the glob-al labour movement together.

And so IUR extended an invitation to con-tribute to this edition to the ACFTU.Unfortunately, given the current climate neitherthe ACFTU nor indeed any of the NGO workersor academics we contacted working in China feltthat this was a good time for them to contributeto an international journal. And so, unfortunately,this edition of IUR, focussed on China, is lackingthe perspective of the national trade union organ-isation, which also happens to be the largestunion on earth. Whether one supports or oppos-es engagement with that organisation, it seems atthe very least worthwhile to do what we can toexamine that organisation’s current thinking, andto try to gain some sense of what it believes arethe major challenges for the Chinese workingclass, and how it sees the evolving dynamics oflabour in China.

A reading of ACFTU’s official documentationand promotional material yields helpful insightsinto the organisation’s thinking. Over the pastseveral years, the ACFTU has emphatically stuckto a single core topic which appears to have anoverriding agenda above all others, at least if thefrequency with which the topic is discussed isany indication. And that topic is collective bar-gaining. The 2014-2018 ACFTU Plan on FurtherPromoting Collective Bargaining, gives a clearindication of the continuing focus on this agenda:

2014-2018 ACFTU Plan on Further PromotingCollective Bargaining

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) hasformulated its plan to further promote collective bar-gaining with a view to protecting the legitimate rightsand interests of workers and facilitating harmoniousand stable labour relations.

Guiding philosophyThe plan is inspired by the spirit of the 18th NationalCongress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the3rd Plenary Session of the 18th CPC CentralCommittee, and the important speeches of President XiJinping. It is based on the decision of the 16th NationalCongress of the ACFTU to ‘continue to promote collec-tive bargaining for wider coverage and better effect’.The aim is threefold:

• to give full play to the fundamental role ofcollective bargaining in adjusting labour relations,

• to enhance the quality of collective bargaining andthe effectiveness of collective agreements,

• to further strengthen confidence, build consensusand overcome difficulties in collective bargainingwork.

The 2011-2013 ACFTU Plan on Promoting CollectiveBargaining (ACFTU [2011] No. 4) had expanded thecoverage of collective bargaining. However, there arestill problems in the collective bargaining process: inad-equate participation of workers, emphasis on formali-ties rather than actual effects, lack of specific content,unsatisfactory outcome of collective agreements and soon. It is therefore necessary to form a support systemand efficient mechanism for collective bargainingwhich, with the full participation of workers, can yieldreal benefits for them. In this way, more and moreworkers will be able to feel satisfied with the results ofcollective bargaining; while trade unions can integratethe promotion of enterprise development with safe-guarding workers’ rights, thus helping workers toachieve decent and enjoyable work as well as compre-hensive development (continued…)(source: http://en.acftu.org)

This, then, tells us what the ACFTU sees hasbeen the trajectory of its plan to roll out collectivebargaining. Significant expansion has occurred, butthere remain significant problems, which the unionidentifies as ‘inadequate participation of workers,emphasis on formalities rather than actual effects,lack of specific content, [and] unsatisfactory out-come of collective agreements’. Interestingly theunion is quite upfront about the problems it facesand the difficulties that it believes need to beaddressed. The statement continues:

(…continued) Objectives

Maintain and expand the coverage of collective bar-gaining to cover over 80 percent of unionised enter-prises and over 90 percent of unionised companieswith more than 100 employees.

The ACFTU’s collectivebargaining agenda

DANIEL BLACKBURNis Director of ICTUR

One encouragingsign is that theproblem isacknowledgedpublicly (unlikethe NGOcrackdown), butcan the ACFTUdeliver realimprovements?


Improve the quality of collective bargaining with spe-cific bargaining content, regulated bargaining proce-dures, adequate consultation, full compliance with col-lective agreements, and effective results; and steadilyimprove worker satisfaction with collective bargainingand collective agreements by ensuring that more than70 percent of workers are able to participate and morethan 90 percent of workers are well informed.

Expand the numbers of collective bargaining instruc-tors. Trade unions should employ at least 180,000 ofthese, of whom 10,000 work full-time, so as to build ateam of collective bargaining specialists.

Increase training on collective bargaining skills. Tradeunions at all levels should organise training pro-grammes for members involved in collective bargainingtogether with collective bargaining instructors, with240,000 participants every year. These programmesshould include ACFTU training of trainers, with 600 par-ticipants. Each provincial federation of trade unions(FTU) should train no fewer than 300 participants; eachmunicipal FTU, no fewer than 200 participants; andeach county FTU, no fewer than 60 participants. Byexpanding the scale and raising the level of training, wecan enhance the capacity of the trade unionistsinvolved in collective bargaining as well as the instruc-tors concerned.(source: http://en.acftu.org)

What we see here is the extraordinary ambitionof the ACFTU’s collective bargaining project.There is no question that the ACFTU believesgaps in collective bargaining coverage are a keyproblem, and that formalistic bargaining, devoidof real substance, is another. The union clearlyacknowledges both of these issues. These areencouraging signs, indicating that the unionbelieves it can continue to roll out collective bar-gaining on a massive scale and, at the same time,that it can greatly improve the quality of bargain-ing that is taking place. Whether it can achieveeither of these goals (and both are necessary)remains to be seen. The following report postedby the ACFTU to its website indicates a need formore external input: the union here is clearly try-ing to challenge the production of formalisticempty bargaining but observers will be temptedto question whether a top-down formulaic impo-sition of eight procedures is really likely to cure -or may exacerbate - the problems.

Ningbo unions: Refining the management of collective bargaining

The Ningbo Municipal Federation of Trade Unions isworking to refine the management of collective wagebargaining at the enterprise level, aiming to make itmore pragmatic and targeted, together with a morestandardised workers’ congress system, more activeand extensive participation by employees in corporatemanagement and more tangible results.

Expand the scope of collective wage bargaining throughthe ‘1+x’ model. ‘1’ refers to the scope of bargainingbased on the pay systems of enterprises as a whole,including pay levels, unit prices, etc., while ‘x’ refers tosupplementary bargaining based on the specific condi-tions of individual business operations so as to ensure thepracticality and distinctiveness of the collective contract.

Standardise the bargaining process by focusing oneight procedures. These comprise the appointment ofrepresentatives, formulation of demands, preparations,the bargaining itself, review of the outcome, signature,filing and adoption. With the pay system as the focus,

enterprises should make progress on such aspects aslabour quotas, unit prices, pay levels and adjustmentmargins, so as to establish rational wage adjustmentmechanisms.

Expand in a multidimensional manner and improve thequality of industrial bargaining. First, reach out to moreindustries, so that those with regional features andfavourable conditions can be gradually brought on boardbased on current industrial collective bargaining practice.Second, achieve penetration at different levels, startingwith industrial collective wage bargaining at rural town-ship level, exploring the establishment of a multi-layeredbargaining system encompassing municipal, district andrural township (urban neighbourhood community) levelsand continuously refining the management of industrialcollective wage bargaining. Third, integrate industrial col-lective wage bargaining with the industrial workers’ con-gress, giving each the platform to promote the establish-ment and development of the other.

Strengthen training and guidance services by provid-ing menu-based bargaining guidance. The aim is toimprove the training services provided by the tradeunions at the county, industrial park, industrial and ruraltownship (urban neighbourhood community) levels. Theunion officials and part-time advisers in charge of col-lective bargaining work at the different levels shouldattend training at least once a year. The federations oftrade unions at the rural township (urban neighbour-hood community) level should provide training for thechief representatives on both sides in the enterpriseswithin their jurisdiction, and press enterprises to offertraining to employee representatives. In considerationof the specifics of enterprises, they should be providedwith menu-based services and tailored guidance so asto ensure compliance with the requirement to refine thesubject, process and contents of bargaining.

Set examples and promote them, emphasising theirexemplary role. To refine the management of bargaining,efforts should be made to develop competent enterpris-es into role models. Work should go into identifying theenterprises that exemplify good bargaining practicesand recognising them with municipal prizes for harmo-nious labour relationships, helping them continue tofine-tune their bargaining methods and collating andpromoting best practice to highlight their exemplary role.(source: http://en.acftu.org)

While those who oppose engagement with theACFTU will of course remain sceptical, there ismuch here for international audiences to reflectupon. Some have suggested that for internationallabour movements to engage in skill sharing work-shops with the ACFTU around collective bargain-ing is a futile exercise, given the scale of the chal-lenges faced by workers in that country whoremain outside the trade union movements formalstructures. Others would suggest that if the ACFTUreally does intend to extend collective bargainingcoverage massively then the international labourmovement ought to do all it can to make sure thatthe kind of bargaining that is rolled out on thisscale is effective and avoids the pitfalls whichACFTU has itself identified as being flaws in someof its early experiments with bargaining.

Union Opens First Collective Bargaining Office

When enterprises and workers in Shanghai’s Jing’anDistrict have any questions about collective bargainingor seek help in this regard, they can make a phone call

For anyone who wants to readmore about the ACFTU’s views on collective bargaining, theorganisation’s main currentEnglish language website ishttp://en.acftu.org. An olderACFTU website is still online at:http://www.acftu.org.cn, which also carries interestingearlier material.

continued on page 13 ...

oped and progressed in just a few short years:‘Since the time when I first started at Hitachi

Metals as a teenager, I have witnessed first-handhow workers’ activism has grown. Back then,most workers were from rural areas and we feltcontent just to earn more than our cotemporariesdown on the farm. When our rights were violat-ed, we didn’t know what to do or who to turn to.But today we see the new generation of workersstaging strikes, bargaining with management, anddemanding trade union elections. On top of that,they are organising and spreading news on theirsmartphones all the time!’.

One of Zhu’s key roles at the Panyu WorkersCentre is training the worker activists whoemerged from the labour disputes the centre han-dled, and helping to turn them into the tradeunion leaders of tomorrow. She explained:

‘China’s workers are learning from the historyof the trade union movement both at home andabroad. It is only a matter of time before webecome part of the history of labour movementourselves. I once told a representative of theGuangzhou sanitation workers who felt she wasnot educated enough and was not confidentenough to join the trade union leaders’ trainings:“arm yourself, so you can arm the others”.Chinese workers have huge potential. Many arestill unorganised but once we are given the righttools, such as collective bargaining and work-place union elections, we will bounce back withamazing force’.

Zhu Xiaomei is just one of a growing numberof labour activists based in Guangdong who havecome to the fore in recent years. Like Zhu, manyplayed a leading role in labour disputes at theirown workplace before being sacked or evenarrested in retaliatory attacks by management andthe local authorities:

■ Meng Han spent nine months in jail afterleading a protest by hospital security guards inGuangzhou. He now works with Zhu at thePanyu Centre.

■ Yu Wucang was sacked after lobbying for abetter deal for his fellow street cleaners inGuangzhou. Not only did he get his own jobback, he has been instrumental in organis’ingother sanitation workers in the city.

■ Wu Guijun was detained for one year by theauthorities in Shenzhen after representing hisco-workers at a furniture factory in theirdispute with management. He was releasedwhen all charges were dropped in June lastyear and has been active in helping otherworkers in Shenzhen ever since.

Today we see the new

generation ofworkers staging

strikes,bargaining with

management, anddemanding trade

union elections

Zhu was arrestedin December

(see note below)


Getting sacked was just the beginning forZhu Xiaomei. For close to two years now,Zhu has used her own struggle and expe-

rience in standing up to her former employer tohelp drive China’s workers’ movement forwardand emerge as one of most dynamic labouractivists in the Pearl River Delta today.

Zhu was fired from her job at the HitachiMetals factory in Guangzhou in January 2014after she campaigned for the establishment of anenterprise trade union. But she refused to go qui-etly or meekly accept her fate and retreat to herhometown in Henan; instead she took the com-pany to arbitration court in Guangzhou.

The labour dispute arbitration committee ini-tially ruled against her in April 2014 but Zhu keptfighting and appealed the decision. Eventually,the district civil court ruled in her favour andHitachi Metals agreed to an out-of-court settle-ment in which Zhu would get 230,000 yuan ascompensation for illegal dismissal.

Signing the settlement deal was an emotionalmoment, Zhu said:

‘It was never about the 230,000 yuan; it is aboutrespect. It is about the respect employers in Chinahave failed to show for so long. It is about therespect that I, and every worker who stands upfor their rights, deserve’. Zhou added, ‘I smiled atthe managing director on my way out. He onceyelled at me “if you hire a lawyer, we will hireten!” Well, in the end, he hired two but he wasthe one left siting on the bench with a grumpylook on his face having just lost the case’.

Not long after losing her job at Hitachi Metals,Zhu was hired by the nearby Panyu Workers’Service Centre, a non-governmental labourorganisation that promotes collective bargainingand worker participation in enterprise tradeunion elections.

Working as a labour organiser and collectivebargaining consultant, Zhu spent countless hourswith workers and their representatives andplayed an essential role in many labour disputes,involving thousands of workers. For Zhu, therewere three groups of workers in particular thatstood out: The cleaners at a military hospital inGuangzhou who held democratic union electionsand voted for their union president, the sanitationworkers in Guangzhou University Town whoelected representatives and twice bargained withmanagement and the workers at Lide shoe facto-ry who elected a new group of bargaining repre-sentatives when the old representatives failed tokeep pushing the workers’ agenda forward.

These struggles, Zhu said, demonstrated howfar the workers’ movement in China has devel-

Sacked labour activistcontinues to push forworkers’ trade unions

CHINA LABOUR BULLETIN

Editorial Notes:Since this profile was submitted to

IUR by the China Labour BulletinZhu Xiaomei has been arrested in

the crackdown on Labour NGOsthat is reported in the

‘Interventions’ section (p15).As IUR went to press CLB informed

us that Zhu was denied bail eventhough she has a one year old

baby she is nursing



www.uniglobalunion.orgOver 60 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. With the addition of new labourmarket entrants over the next five years, 280 million morejobs need to be created by 2019. Half the world’s workforceare employed in precarious work and one and three jobs payless than $1.25 per day. To just maintain the status quo 1.8 billion jobs must be created by 2030.

We are seeing levels of inequality in income distribution back to the scale of the 1920s. We are living through a boom period but only for the one percent.

There is a word missing in the world of tomorrow debate –‘solidarity’. UNI Global Union and its 20 million membersstands for solidarity in action.

Stands forSolidarity

Join with us: www.uniglobalunion.orgUNI global union, 8-10 Av. Reverdil,

1260 NYON, Switzerland

the negligence behind frequent accidents,according to SAWS. The new law also enhancesthe supervisory power of occupational safetywatchdogs and local governments, especiallythose at the township level. Most of China’s occu-pational accidents occur at small businesses inrural areas, according to SAWS.

ConclusionAmendments to the Work Safety Law provide forsignificant improvements in worker educationand training, more stringent employer responsi-bilities and penalties for noncompliance, andincreased state enforcement powers. They havebeen achieved with the input of the ACFTU andsignificant public outcry about workplacetragedies. The amendments provide an importantimpetus in reducing the unacceptable rates ofdeath, injury and occupational disease in Chineseworkplaces.

... continued from page 9 ...

... continued from page 11 ...

or just visit Jia Hongxiang in his office to get profes-sional guidance and assistance. On May 11, the Lao JiaWorkroom, Shanghai’s first office of collective bargain-ing, was inaugurated by the district’s trade union feder-ation. The office seeks to cater to the needs of grass-roots workers, provide them with guidance on conduct-ing collective bargaining and expand the coverage ofcollective bargaining.

Packed with business centers shopping malls andservice facilities, Jing’an District sits at the center of themetropolis. With a growing myriad of private enterpris-es moving their operations to the area, the trade unionfederation has felt it necessary to explore a variety ofways of conducting collective wage bargaining.According to statistics, by the end of 2014, collectivebargaining had covered more than 6,000 enterprisesand 110,000 workers in the area.

‘The office is meant to keep track of the trends of col-lective bargaining so as to deal with problems arisingthereof,’ says Ye Jianhua, chair of the trade union fed-eration.

Composed of labour lawyers and headed by JiaHongxiang, an official in charge of collective bargainingwith the Jing’an Trade Union Federation, the Lao JiaWorkroom performs a variety of services, ranging fromcounseling, evaluation and on-the-spot guidance withthe aim of enhancing the quality of collective bargain-ing and expanding its coverage. The office will soonopen a hotline to provide guidance services for workersand enterprises.

‘By setting up such an office, we aim to cultivate abatch of negotiators under Jia Hongxiang’s guidance’says Ye Jianhua. ‘Jia and his team shuttle from oneshopping mall to another to help grassroots unions toconduct collective bargaining, thus winning acclaim fortheir work.’(source: http://en.acftu.org)

The leading referencework on the internationaltrade union movement

Order online from www.ictur.org/TUW

ICTUR IN ACTION ❐ INTERVENTIONS


deprived of their freedom orbe subject to penal sanctionsfor the mere fact of organiz-ing or participating in apeaceful strike’. ICTUR calledon the government of Greeceto undertake all necessarymeasures to ensure the fun-damental freedoms of work-ers to join and form unionsand to take action in defenceof their interests.

IndiaOn 5 November 2015,Sheikh Sahabuddin, a leaderof the SAIL Durgapur SteelPant union, affiliated to theIndian National TrinamoolTrade Union Congress (INT-TUC), was shot and injuredby assailants in Amria villagein Durgapur and admitted tohospital.

ICTUR wrote to the Indiangovernment calling upon theauthorities to ensure that afull and adequate investiga-tion is carried out into thecircumstances around theattack on Sahabuddin.ICTUR recalls that the target-ing of leaders for reasonsassociated with their tradeunion activities is a seriousviolation of the principles offreedom of association,which India is bound touphold as a member of theInternational LabourOrganisation, as a signatoryto the ILO’s Declaration ofFundamental Principles of1998, and under the corehuman rights treaties of theUN, the InternationalCovenant on Civil andPolitical Rights and theInternational Covenant onSocial, Economic andCultural Rights.

South KoreaDuring November andDecember clashes betweenthe authoritarianGovernment of Park Geun-hye and the militant tradeunions associated with theKorean Confederation ofTrade Unions (KCTU)reached a critical level. Awave of arrests occurred inthe run-up to a major rallyon 14 November, which wasrepressed and in which vio-lence flared between policeand protestors. Since the

association and the right tocollective bargaining arefully respected.

EstoniaIn October 2015, trade unionshop steward SergeyMastepan was sacked byTransiidikeskuse AS, a steve-doring services companybased at Tallinn port. Aunion representative forEstonian IndependentSeamen’s Union (EISU),Mastepan was dismissedafter delivering a picket linespeech and raising aware-ness in the media aboutpoor working conditions andanti-union discrimination atthe company.

ICTUR wrote to the authori-ties to complain at thisinstance of victimisation of acommitted trade unionist.ICTUR urged the authoritiesto ensure that Mastepanshould be promptly reinstatedand protection against anti-union discriminationrespected in Estonia. ICTURurged the authorities to haveregard to the obligations ofthe European Convention onHuman Rights, Article 11, aswell as to Convention 98 ofthe ILO.Accorid

GreeceIn several incidents inOctober and November2015, striking workers atZAVEL Food Industries andat ZOURAS Food Industrieswere arrested and intimidat-ed by police. On 21November, police arrested28 strikers at the picket lines,including trade union lead-ers. These workers weremembers of the All-WorkersMilitant Front union(Panergatiko AgonistikoMetopo, PAME) and wereprotesting their employer’sfailure to pay wages.

ICTUR has written to theGreek government to protestagainst the arrest of tradeunionists for legitimate tradeunion activities. As a mem-ber of the ILO, Greece hasratified all eight ILOFundamental Conventions.According to the ILO’sCommittee on Freedom ofAssociation ‘no one should be

ers’ rights in many countries.ICTUR noted an apparentdisconnection between theformal industrial relationssystem and the ACFTU tradeunion centre and the growthof informal negotiations,strikes and protests in thecountry. ICTUR called for theauthorities to respect theprinciples of freedom of asso-ciation as an ILO memberState and further emphasisedthat trade union rights – upto and including the right tostrike - are protected alsounder Article 8 of theInternational Covenant onEconomic, Social andCultural Rights, which Chinahas ratified.

Costa RicaThe SINTRAPEM trade union(Sindicato Nacional deTrabajadores/as del SectorPrivado Empresarial) and thecoordinating body forbanana and pineapple work-ers (COSIBACR) concluded acollective agreement withthe pineapple producerAnanas Export Company(ANEXCO) in March 2015.However, SINTRAPEM mem-bers report that they havesuffered a campaign of anti-union harassment, persecu-tion and discrimination fromtheir employer. ANEXCO’sparent company, the Dublin-based Fyffes, is a member ofthe UK-government spon-sored Ethical TradingInitiative (ETI).

ICTUR wrote to the govern-ment of Costa to remindthem that Costa Rica hasobligations to protect tradeunion rights under ILOConventions 87 and 98.According to the ILO’sCommittee on Freedom ofAssociation, governments areresponsible for preventingacts of anti-union discrimi-nation and for taking suit-able measures to remedy anyeffects of anti-union discrim-ination brought to theirattention. ICTUR also wroteto Fyffes to call on the com-pany to implement necessarysafeguards and policies toensure that the commitmentsit has undertaken under theETI and to ensure that in itsglobal production and sourc-ing operations freedom of

ChinaA number of leaders andstaff members of labourrights NGOs were arrested inGuangzhou on 4 December,in what appears to be acoordinated crackdown onlabour service NGOs operat-ing in the city. Twenty ormore people have beenarrested. Among thosereported to be in detentionat the time of writing werefour people associated witha single NGO and key indi-viduals involved in a numberof other NGOs, including:

■ Zeng Feiyang and ZhuXiaomei (profiled onp12), of Guangzhou’sPanyu Da Gong ZuService Centre, and TangJian and Meng Han,former staff members ofthat organisation

■ He Xiaobo of Foshan’sNan Fei Yan Social WorkService Organization,

■ Deng Xiaoming, from theHaige Workers’ ServicesCentre

■ Peng Jiayong, who runsthe Panyu LabourerMutual Aid Group.

■ Chen Huihai ofGuangzhou’s Brother HaiLabour Service Centre

At the time of writing theChina Labour Bulletin wasreporting eight activistsbelieved to be detained,either formally or undersome kind of house arrest.The China Labour Bulletinfurther reports that theGuangzhou authorities areciting ‘national security’ con-cerns in order to preventlawyers from seeing ZengFeiyang and other detainedlabour activists, while as IURwent to press CLB informedus that Zhu Xiaomei wasdenied bail even though shehas a one year old baby sheis nursing.

ICTUR wrote to the Chineseauthorities to express its con-cern about the harassmentand detention of these labourrights activists. ICTUR drewattention to the principlesoutlined in the UNDeclaration on HumanRights Defenders andobserved that labour rightsNGOs can and do play a use-ful role in promoting work-


ICTUR IN ACTION ❐ INTERVENTIONS

throughout the country in2015. Police arrests, attackson, and intimidation of citi-zens documenting forcedlabour have also beenreported, undermining theability of the internationalcommunity to obtain allinformation concerningforced labour.

■ On October 20, policeopened charges againstDmitry Tihonov, and onthe same day his homeoffice was burned down,destroying his archive ofevidence of forced labour.

■ On November 16, policearrested Uktam Pardaev,confiscated materialsdocumenting forcedlabour, and presentedhim with charges thatcarry a penalty of up tofive years in prison.

As a member of the ILO,Uzbekistan has ratified boththe Forced LabourConvention, 1930 (No. 29)and Abolition of ForcedLabour Convention, 1957(No. 105). ICTUR wrote to theUzbek government demand-ing that they secure theimmediate and uncondition-al release of Uktam Pardaevand drop the charges againstDmitry Tihonov. The govern-ment must also addresspromptly and thoroughly allof the objections raised by theCotton Campaign withregards to forced labourpractices in order to ensurethat the national cottonindustry is in full compliancewith Uzbekistan’s interna-tional legal obligations toprotect fundamental humanrights and the freedom ofworkers from forced labour.ICTUR also wrote to theWorld Bank to express seri-ous concerns about breachesof the Bank’s own projectagreements with Uzbekistan.The Cotton Campaign hascalled for the World Bank tosuspend disbursement of pay-ments in its lending opera-tions to the Uzbek govern-ment until forced labour isabolished. ICTUR urged theBank to conduct a thoroughinvestigation of these allega-tions, with a view to ensuringthat the Uzbek governmentceases practices which use orencourage forced labour.

Massachusetts reportedthat workers had beensubject to what they havedescribed as intimidationto discourage fromunionising.

■ In December, theTeamsters Local 727union in Chicagoreported that unionmembers wereintimidated with baseballbats in the workplaceand threatened withdismissals during anorganising drive at twoCoca Cola plants. Thereports were confirmedby the Teamsters nationalunion website.

■ In a recent reportpublished by BloombergBusinessweek, based ondocuments obtained fromthe NLRB, it is allegedthat Wal-Mart undertooka catalogue ofsurveillance operations inattempts to monitor tradeunionists amid acampaign for higherwages in 2012, evenengaging the support ofLockheed Martin and theFBI Joint Terrorism TaskForce.

ICTUR wrote to the UnitedStates government to call fora thorough investigation intothe circumstances aroundthese multiple reports ofunion-busting. ICTUR furtherurged the United States tomove toward the ratificationof all of the ILOFundamental Conventions,noting that its continuingfailure to do so constitutes asignificant barrier to the fullrealisation of workers’ rights,both domestically and inter-nationally, and undermin-ing the United States’ pur-ported efforts to strengthenworkers’ rights across theglobe through multi- and bi-lateral trade agreements.

UzbekistanThe Cotton Campaign - sup-ported by, among others, theAFL-CIO and Anti-SlaveryInternational – reports thatthe Uzbek government con-tinues to force farmers to ful-fil production quotas and torequire thousands of citizensto fulfil cotton harvest quotasunder threat of penalty

counts, among otherswith violating theAssembly andDemonstration Act andGeneral Obstruction ofTraffic (Article 185 of theCriminal Code). Thecharges are said to relateto violence that flaredbetween the police andprotestors at a rally on 14November though KCTUhave described theactions as an attempt tosilence a leading critic ofthe government.

ICTUR wrote to the govern-ment of South Korea toremind it of its obligations tocomply with the rightsenshrined in the ILO coreconventions as stipulated bythe 1998 ILO Declaration onFundamental Principles andRights at Work 1998. Theseobligations are reinforced inthe 2011 EU-South KoreaFree Trade Agreement(Article 13.4). ICTUR alsourged the government tomove toward ratification ofILO conventions 87 and 98,and to fulfil its commitment,made upon joining theOECD in 1996, ‘to reformexisting laws on industrialrelations in line with inter-nationally accepted stan-dards, including those con-cerning basic rights such asfreedom of association andcollective bargaining’.

United StatesA number of incidents ofunion-busting and anti-uniondiscrimination have beenreported in the past months.

In October 2015, theNational Labor RelationsBoard (NLRB) charged theAsarco company with ‘inter-fering with, restraining andcoercing employees’ whoattempted to exercise theirrights of collective bargain-ing after the UnitedSteelworkers and otherunions representing 2000workers at Asarco’s coppermining operations in Tucsoncomplained of unfair labourpractices.

■ In November, UFCWmembers organising acampaign to gain unionrecognition at IKEA in

rally further arrests havebeen carried out and hun-dreds of arrest warrants havebeen issued against tradeunionists. Among thosethreatened with arrest wasHan Sang-gyun, thePresident of the KCTU, whotook refuge in a Buddhisttemple for 25 days beforesurrendering to police whileurging the labour movementto call a general strike.Among the numerous acts ofinterference with trade unionrights reported were:

■ On 6 November, twohundred police raidedthe headquarters of theKorean Public Serviceand Transport Workers’Union (KPTU), followinga strike. During the raid,documents andcomputers werereportedly confiscated.

■ On 11 November, severalKPTU members werearrested.

■ On 14 November, policeattacked demonstrators ata protest attended by anestimated 70,000 peopleagainst a range ofmeasures, includingproposed new labourlegislation allowing foreasier dismissals andrules requiring only state-approved history booksto be permitted inschools

■ On 17 November policeraided eight union officesincluding those of theconstruction workers’union KFCITU. Membersof the KFCITU and fivetrade union leaders ofthe Tower CraneOperators Division of theKFCITU have beenarrested. These officersare also being sued bythe tower crane rentalcompany, which hasargued that the union’srequest for collectivebargaining is‘intimidation’.

■ On 21 November, raidsby police took place ateight offices of theKorean Confederation ofTrade Unions.

■ On 13 December, KCTUleader Han Sang-gyunwas officially detainedand held for questioning,charged with multiple

REPORT ❐ NEW REFERENCE BOOK FOR THE GLOBAL LABOUR MOVEMENT

in a country-by-country guide. The Seventh Edition will be a valuable resource

with specific appeal to trade unionists, acade-mics, lawyers, and policy makers, and to studentsand specialists in the fields of: corporate socialresponsibility; industrial relations; humanresource management; and international rela-tions.

Trade Unions of the World is the essential guideto central trade union confederations of eachcountry and the varied social, political and eco-nomic contexts they inhabit. Each entry includesan overview of the history and development oftrade unionism locally and an outline of the polit-ical and economic circumstances within which itoperates. A wide range of data is provided on thehistory, structure, membership and political andindustrial role of the unions, with a level of detailin each case broadly corresponding to the scaleand level of economic and industrial develop-ment of the country concerned. A final sectionprofiles the key actors at global and regional lev-els, including the International Trade UnionConfederation and the Global Union Federations.Where available, each report provides:

■ Political and economic background■ Population and GDP■ Overview of trade unionism locally ■ Postal, email and website addresses■ Leadership details■ Membership levels■ History and character■ National and international affiliations

The new 2016 edition will prove an indispens-able tool for understanding the current state oflabour in the globalised economy, broken downinto a country-by-country guide. Accessibly writ-ten and with a directory format, the book pro-vides a contemporary snapshot of the legal andsocial structures of trade unionism, as well as adetailed history of the political and economicdevelopments which produced these structures.Each country chapter contains a list of nationaltrade union centres and all major trade unionorganisations (normally those with a membershipof over 10,000 in the large industrialised nations,but much smaller thresholds are applied for small-er and non-industrialised countries). Each entrylooks at the background of the most significantunion organisations and discusses the roles theyhave played in social and political struggles.

Pre-release advance ordersTUW will retail at £145 per copy. For a limitedtime we are offering ICTUR affiliates the oppor-tunity to place pre-release advance orders at

Trade Unions of the World

Trade Unions ofthe World - thecomprehensive

global referencedirectory of the

world trade unionmovement -returns in its

Seventh Editionafter a break of

10 years


Now well established as the objective andcomprehensive global reference directoryof the world trade union movement, Trade

Unions of the World returns in its Seventh Editionafter a break of 10 years. Vast geo-politicalchanges have taken place in this time within theglobal union movement. Two global union cen-tres have merged, with the ICFTU and WCL notonly marrying their own networks of affiliation,but also encouraging others into the fold. A newentity, the Council of Global Unions, was formed.Meanwhile the remaining international confeder-ation WFTU continued to tread its own path andsignificantly increased its activities following arelocation to Greece. Across North Africa and theMiddle East the Arab Spring had major implica-tions for trade unionism in the region. In SouthAfrica the mass shooting of striking mine workersshocked the world and exposed bitter divisionsin labour’s ranks. In the US the Change to Winfederation broke away from the AFL-CIO. TheChinese ACFTU reported phenomenal member-ship growth while outside the union’s control anexplosion of wildcat strike activity was reported.Across Europe models of austerity were declaredand long-cherished national and sectoral bargain-ing models were torn apart.

The Seventh Edition updates the highly-ratedSixth Edition (published in 2005, and co-editedby ICTUR working with the title’s founder JohnHarper of John Harper Publishing). The newEdition is now produced and published byICTUR. As well as updating each country profilewe have radically expanded the book to providemuch more detail for each country. This workwill help to raise awareness about the contribu-tion of unions to broader social and politicalmovements, by disseminating these experiencesand linking historical and current struggles fromacross the globe. It is also hoped that thisresource will provide a starting point for newcontact and cooperation, promoting solidaritywithin a highly diverse international trade unioncommunity.

Trade Unions of the World (TUW) is an indis-pensable guide to the complex structures of theinternational labour movement, providing thereader with a contemporary snapshot of the legaland social structures of trade unionism, as well asa detailed history of the political and economiccontexts within which these organisations devel-oped, and the roles they have played in socialand political struggles. TUW is both an accessiblywritten reference guide, mapping and analysingthe complex world of unions, and a unique glob-al trade union directory, providing full contactdetails for more than five thousand trade unions,and setting out the relationships between theseunions and their local and international partners,

DANIEL BLACKBURNis Director of ICTUR

The product ofmonths andmonths offocused researchby a dedicatedand experiencedteam, TradeUnions of theWorld

The bookhas been updatedbut also radicallyexpanded


heavily discounted prices. A smaller discount isalso offered for IUR subscribers. To qualify forthese discounts orders must be received by 15February 2016. Orders received after that datewith be invoiced at the full price.

ICTUR affiliates – advance purchase price:Single copy £75 / 5 copies £250.

IUR subscribers – advance purchase price:Single copy £120 / 5 copies £350.

All other purchasers – advance purchase price:Single copy £145 / 5 copies £500.

A further £5 discount is available for all orderspaid in advance placed online at: www.ictur.org/TUW.html. Please send email orders to [email protected] or write to us at ICTUR, 177 AbbevilleRoad, London, SW4 9RL, UK.

Work began on this project in January 2015and has been undertaken without external fund-ing. ICTUR, a small, non-profit organisation oper-ating on tiny budgets has invested what is, to ourorganisation, a huge amount in the production ofthis book. Updating the country profiles hasproven a mammoth task and required significanttime and commitment. We believe that the fin-ished publication (which is currently being edit-ed but which stands at a projected 800+ pages)will stand as a new benchmark for future updat-ed editions.

While we fully understand that in the informa-tion age there is a growing expectation that infor-mation will be provided free to all we are simplynot in a position to do that. Our organisation iswholly funded by subscriptions to this journal, byour commissioned work for national and interna-tional trade union organisations, and by the affili-ation fees of supporting trade unions and lawyersassociations. Over the year ahead sales of TUWwill further assist and will help us to recover part,and perhaps the full amount, of the huge sum wehave invested in producing this book.

REPORT ❐ NEW REFERENCE BOOK FOR THE GLOBAL LABOUR MOVEMENT

enables them to organise without fear. This canonly happen if there is serious and concertedinternational trade union solidarity, as has beenshown in the project of TUC Aid and Unite.

SITRABI leader report to British trade unionists

Noé Ramirez Portela, General Secretary of the IzabalBanana Workers’ Union of Guatemala (SITRABI) visitedthe UK from 26 to 28 November 2015. During his visit,Noé met with UK trade unionists, government officialsand other stakeholders and spoke at the Latin America2015 Conference in London on Saturday 28 November.

SITRABI is the oldest private sector union in Guatemalaand represents over 4000 members in Del Monte andDel Monte supplier farms on the Caribbean coast, andhas good relations with other local unions in othermultinational and national plantations. Noé was electedGeneral Secretary of SITRABI in 2000, shortly after theunion’s Executive Committee was forced at gun-point toresign their posts and call off strike action over contractviolations.

Speaking to British trade unionists at an event organ-ised by the Bananalink NGO and supported by ASLEF,GMB, TUC Aid, UCU, UNISON and Unite, Noé describedthe situation for trade union organising:

“Guatemala is an extremely violent country. Trying toorganise banana workers in this situation is like seek-ing death. I have been the recipient of death threats andI am currently under police protection.

The police themselves are not very trustworthy, they areinvolved in criminal acts, but I have to accept this.

We receive support from three international donors butwe need also more help.

The Government is unreservedly right wing.

Since 2008 we have complained to the labour ministrythat companies have been collecting workers subscrip-tions but have not been transferring them to the union.This complaint was ignored. We have also complainedthat there were companies that were collecting socialsecurity payments from the workers but were failing totransfer them into the social security system. This com-plaint was also ignored. This led to two complaints, tothe Free Trade Agreement and to the ILO.

Just a month ago two plantations were closed becausethe company didn’t want the involvement of the tradeunion that had been established there. They closed theplantations and took workers’ social security payments.

Bananaproduction has

been moving fromthe unionised

North to theviolent, lawless

and unorganisedSouth of the

country


JAQUI MACKAY is National Co-ordinator/Director

of Bananlink

Guatemala is one of the former ‘bananarepublics’ where the giant United FruitCompany once owned huge tracts of land

and called the political tune. The industry hasexpanded rapidly over the last decade and nowone in every three bananas eaten in the USAcomes from Guatemala. Most production takesplace in the Pacific South with the remainderbeing grown in the Caribbean coastal plain ofIzabal. In Izabal nearly all 5000 - 6000 workersemployed by Del Monte (Bandegua), Chiquitaand a handful of nationally owned plantations areunionised. By contrast, the Pacific South repre-sents the single biggest ‘black hole’ in the worldas far as union and other labour rights are con-cerned. Some seven percent of the world’s tradebananas are produced by 20,000 - 25,000 workers,most of whom suffer very harsh conditions.

The majority of banana plantation and pack-house workers in the Izabal province of NorthEast Guatemala are members of SITRABI, COSIS-BA or smaller affiliated sister unions. These 5500or so workers enjoy collective bargaining withtheir employers: Fresh Del Monte Produce(FDMP) subsidiary, Bandegua, Chiquita sub-sidiary, Cobigua, and Guatemalan-owned fruitcompanies under contract to FDMP.

Those working for Del Monte in particularenjoy decent wages, terms and conditions after40 years of gradual improvements achievedthrough the negotiation of 3 year-long CBAs.Although workers in the other companies earnwell above the minimum wage, they have notbeen able to secure the same level of benefits astheir union brothers and sisters employed by theother companies. Nearly 1000 workers in theIzabal banana industry are still unorganised.

The unionised workers of the ‘North’ face,however, the very real risk of losing their jobsand livelihoods in the short- to medium-term, ina region with no other major employers. Thecosts of producing a box of bananas in Izabal isalmost double the cost of producing the samebox in the large extensions of recently plantedexport bananas in the provinces along the Pacificcoastal plain in the South. Attempts to organisetrade unions in this region have been violentlyrepressed.

Guatemala now exports nearly four times asmuch from the completely unorganised planta-tions of the South as it does from Izabal. The rapidexpansion has taken place on highly productivevolcanic soils, using a very badly paid and exploit-ed workforce and in a part of the country wheregovernment services are often absent and organ-ised crime operates with total impunity.The criticalchallenge for SITRABI and the sister unions is toensure that the 20-25,000 workers in the PacificSouth have access to education and training that

We have notabandoned our fight

REPORT ❐ GUATEMALA


SITRABI want tohelp 20,000 -25,000 workers inthe South accesseducation and befree to organisewithout fear

dered. None of the murders have been properlyinvestigated by the authorities.

Despite these attacks, SITRABI refuses to bebeaten and has been able to improve the work-ing conditions of many people in Guatemala,managing to maintain collective bargaining andworkers have managed to secure many of theelements of ‘decent work’. It is now turning itsattention to the south of the country where work-ers on banana plantations face the harshest con-ditions including non-payment of the country’sminimum wage.

The TUC Aid / Unite projectThe TUC Aid / Unite funded programme to

provide training for members of Guatemala’sbanana unions and to support efforts to organisethe lawless south of the country has ended on apositive note. In 2013 TUC Aid, strongly support-ed by Unite, funded SITRABI to lead a widereaching project that would:

■ Equip union negotiators with new knowledgeand skills to maximise potential gains ofcollective bargaining in currently unionisedplantations and to minimise dispute andconfrontation

■ Help establish Guatemala’s first ever tripartiteforum to act as the primary dispute resolutionmechanism for workers and employers

■ Encourage women members take moreleadership positions within the union and

■ Establish the basis of organising union activityin the dangerous, non-unionised south

40 union reps and leaders completed the train-ing programme, 10 of them women. A dedicatedone-day workshop to promote women’s engage-ment in the unions recruited 100 participants.New young workers have been trained in tacticsand strategies and some are joining the execu-tives of the twelve unions.

Negotiators have begun the job of preparing anew collective bargaining agreement with DelMonte, seeking better social benefits, programmesfor women, time off for training, improved health& safety and minimising sub-contracting.However, due to pressure on margins from super-markets at the top of the supply chain, the unionsexpect negotiations to be very tough, with bigrises in productivity likely to be demanded inreturn. Organising in the north has brought 150new members under the auspices of the CBA andthe unions negotiating with Chiquita are alsobringing 200 new members under their CBA.

On the coast, following an attempt to organise workersthere, a comrade of ours, the general secretary of theunion, was assassinated. His daughter was raped by acompany security guard who told her that the attackwas because of her father’s efforts to form a tradeunion.

We are fighting against employers, the Government,and above all the violence in the country. We have prob-lems of gangs, narco-trafficking, and common violenceand many issues which are making our work difficult inthe south of the country. But we have not abandonedour fight. We have two trade union recruiters in thesouth and little by little we are progressing. We havebeen able to cooperate with the Catholic church andwith an organisation they call the La Pastoral de laTierra. We are now looking at capacity building aimedat community leaders who have been able to get intouch with a group of workers who have told us abouttheir conditions. To improve their conditions we need tofight to form trade unions.

There are certifying authorities, such as the RainforestAlliance, Global G.A.P. and SCS and others. How canthey check that these plantations comply with environ-mental conditions if there is no one to check that theyare complying with working conditions in this sector?So, these plantations are receiving certifications fromthese companies, but there is the same neo-liberalmodel in place on these plantations as in Costa Rica,known as solidarismo [workplace associations estab-lished by management as a barrier to independentunions]

When SITRABI organised a forum, and invited busi-nessmen and the Labour Minister, the Labour Ministersaid, in this forum, that there is no need for workers inthe south to unionise because the plantations alreadyhave solidarismo…!

Both the TUC and Bananalink have helped us but wealso need political support from TUC members andother British organisations, and from other countries.Thank you very much, Hasta La Victoria!”

Guatemala was described as the most danger-ous country in the world for trade unionists in2013 by the International Trade UnionConfederation. Between 2007 and 2014, a total of68 trade union leaders and representatives havebeen murdered, and a high number of attemptedmurders, kidnappings, break-ins, and deaththreats have been reported, along with torture.SITRABI itself has been devastated by a series ofassassinations. Since Noé’s brother was killed in2007, nine members of SITRABI have been mur-

REPORT ❐ GUATEMALA

A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over – Joe Hill

Joe Hill, born Joel Hägglund, was an IWWorganiser, songwriter, troubadour, and cartoonist.Immigrating from Sweden to the US around theturn of the century, Joe Hill travelled the land asan itinerant worker, hopping trains and pickingup jobs across the country.

At some point, he found the IWW and soonbecame a prominent member, travelling widely,organising workers, and using his music tospread the word of the IWW. He contributedgreatly to Wobbly culture, writing such songs as‘There is Power in a Union’, ‘The Rebel Girl’, and‘The Preacher and the Slave’ – in which hecoined the phrase ‘pie in the sky’, referring to theillusory promises of street preachers who dis-couraged workers from organising for better con-ditions in this life.

An immigrant, an itinerant

worker, and anIWW member,

Joe Hill was the perfect

scapegoat. Hewas convicted of

murder andsentenced to

death by firingsquad


Red November, black November,Bleak November, black and red.Hallowed month of labour’s martyrs,Labour’s heroes, labour’s dead.Labour’s wrath and hope and sorrow,Red the promise, black the threat,Who are we not to remember?Who are we to dare forget?Black and red the colours blended,Black and red the pledge we made,Red until the fight is ended,Black until the debt is paid.— By Ralph Chaplin

For Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)members and radical labour activists,November is a particularly sombre month.

And this past November particularly so, as itmarks the 100th anniversary of the 1915 execu-tion of Joe Hill by the state of Utah.

Red November, black November

IN MEMORY ❐ JOEL HÄGGLUND (‘JOE HILL’)

BRIAN LATOUR is the PressOfficer of the IWW and

currently lives in Canada

Joe Hill memorial mural, by Heidi and Josh Belka of Salt Lake City.


Eventually, Joe Hill made his way to Utahwhere he was accused of the murder of a grocer.Despite the fact that the state had only circum-stantial evidence, as an immigrant, an itinerantworker, and an IWW member, Joe Hill was theperfect scapegoat. He was convicted of murderand sentenced to death by firing squad. Manyunionists fought for clemency for Joe Hill; reso-lutions were passed urging the state of Utah tofree Hill by union bodies throughout NorthAmerica, Europe, and Australia. Even PresidentWoodrow Wilson urged the governor of Utah togrant Joe Hill clemency, but it was all to no avail.

Joe Hill was murdered by the state of Utah on19 November 1915. His ashes were sent to IWWlocals, members, and sympathisers around theworld and were spread throughout the land.

Red November,Unfortunately, Joe Hill was not the first or the lastunion organiser to meet an untimely end. Themonth of November is one where too many union-ists and IWW members became labour martyrs.

Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel,and Adolph Fischer, four Chicago anarchists wereexecuted on 11 November 1887, for advocatingfor the eight-hour day and became known as theHaymarket martyrs. A fifth, Louis Lingg, commit-ted suicide in his cell the day before. This wasfollowed a few days later by the Thibodeauxmassacre, in which anywhere from a few dozento possibly 300 striking African-American sugarcane workers were murdered in Louisiana.

The Everett massacre took place on 5November 1916, when a group of deputy sheriffsopened fire on a steamship carrying IWW mem-bers to Everett to participate in a free speechfight. 11 were killed and 27 wounded. On 11November 1919, an IWW hall in Centralia wasattacked by legionnaires. IWW members whofought back in self-defense were jailed and one,Wesley Everest, was kidnapped from his cell, cas-trated, lynched, and shot full of holes.

November 1919 was also the time of ‘BloodyBogalusa’, where, in a show of solidarity in theface of the racism of the Deep South, four whitetrade unionists were killed while defending theirblack comrades. In November 1927, six unarmedstriking miners were gunned down in Coloradoin what became known as the Columbine MineMassacre.

Black November…These are but a small sample of the many menand women who were killed by the state andcompany goons and who joined the ranks oflabour martyrs. While we take some time every

November to remember those who have comebefore us and who gave their lives to the causeof labour, we should also be reminded of the lastwords of Joe Hill.

‘Don’t mourn — organise!’ Joe Hill’s legacy is carried on by the union whichhe was a member of, the Industrial Workers ofthe World. The IWW has gone through its upsand downs over the years, but has remainedcommitted to revolutionary industrial unionismand the abolition of the wage system. The IWWhas a long history of trying to organise workersconsidered unorganisable by the businessunions, whether they are unskilled garment fac-tory workers in the 1910s or baristas and fastfood workers in the 2010s.

By building on the strong tradition of IWW cul-ture and, most importantly, organising workers tofight their bosses, we continue the legacy of JoeHill into the 21st Century.

Don't mourn,organise!

IN MEMORY ❐ JOEL HÄGGLUND (‘JOE HILL’)

Joe Hill murals

Heidi and Josh have been commissioned to paintmurals around the US. Their work can be seen on theCenter for Progress and Justice building in Santa Fe.This particular mural, made of sheet metal, painted ona union building in Salt Lake at the direction of IATSEDistrict 5, was unfortunately rejected by more conser-vative-minded members of the local concerned, andlasted just 8 days before it was painted over with anAmerican flag. IUR thought it was wrong that thisexcellent piece of artwork should disappear forever,and so it appears here for the world to see, to com-plement our Joe Hill memorial article, penned by theIWW In full colour Heidi and Josh’s work looks evenbetter. If your union wants a mural you can contact theartists as follows:

Heidi and Josh BelkaPO BOX 3055 Salt Lake City, UT [email protected]


REPORT ❐ LEBANON

The kafala is a ‘system of

control’ throughwhich the

governmentsdelegate

responsibility formigrants to

private citizens orcompanies

to organise domestic workers was compelled andsupported by the ILO Bureau of Workers’Activities (ACTRAV) in Beirut and in cooperationwith other local NGOs.

FENASOL’s involvement in assisting the organ-ising of domestic workers involves standardtrade-union concerns, such as collective bargain-ing to ensure the domestic workers’ rights for aday off, formal recognition of domestic workunder the labour law, minimum wage, and end-ing the kafala system. These are concerns thatemanate from the socio-economic injustices thatthe migrant domestic worker faces.

The kafala

The kafala, which is not limited to migrant domesticworkers, but include all migrant workers, is a ‘system ofcontrol’, according to Motaparthy, through which thegovernments delegate responsibility for migrants to pri-vate citizens or companies. The system gives sponsorsa set of legal abilities to control workers. ‘Workerswhose employers cancel their residency visas oftenhave to leave the country through deportation proceed-ings, and many have to spend time behind bars’(Motaparthy, 2015). In addition to the precariousnesscreated by the kafala system, the labour law explicitlyexcludes domestic workers from its protection anddenies migrant workers the right to establish a tradeunion. The fragile conditions of migrant domestic work-ers are further exacerbated with the discrimination theyface as poor migrant women who work in a professionthat lacks social and formal recognition.

The union organisational process focused onlivelihood and common experiences of exploita-tion, lack of social and formal recognition of thevalue of domestic work, and its exemption fromlegislation regulating workers in the formal sec-tors, which revealed a form of labour politics thatseeks to forge an understanding of shared work-ing experiences of domestic work. These con-cerns acted as a gravitational pull necessary tobring the domestic workers together from differ-ent nationalities.

However, prior to the union, Asian and Africanworkers in Lebanon used to organise by formingmigrant communities. These communities soughtto forge solidarity among community membersand to forge new modes of sociality and socialinteractions and being in a community. Thesecommunity spaces were the first instances ofpoliticisation for many migrant domestic workerswho became later union militants. These commu-nities also created, and continue, new avenues ofaccess and mobilisation and definitely provide theground for new political subjects to emerge.

Almost a year ago, on the occasion ofInternational Workers’ Day, hundreds ofdomestic workers, predominantly migrants,

and their allies in Lebanon, took to the streets thattheir union be formally recognised by the Lebanesegovernment. The union has been denounced bythe Labour Minister as ‘illegal’, arguing that it willonly ‘generate problems’ instead of solving them.The Minister suggested that the ‘protection’ fordomestic workers is best guaranteed through ‘newlaws’, not through union organising. In otherwords, rights are unequivocally the ‘governor’sgrant’, not to be claimed for or bargained. Headded: ‘protection takes place through procedures,not through the introduction of the domestic work-ers into political and class games’. The Minister’slast statement blatantly expresses the state of fearfrom workers organising, migrants in particular,who through their attempt are putting a foot out ofthe ‘zone of exception’ into the political and thesocial space of the nation.

Since the 1990, with the end of the civil warand the beginning of the so called ‘reconstructionera’, Lebanon has increasingly become a receiv-ing country of both Arab and non- Arab migra-tion. Palestinian refugees and migrants from dif-ferent ethnic belongings from Syria and Iraqcame to Lebanon long before 1990 and have set-tled in the country. Furthermore, there are largenumbers of migrant workers from Asia and Africaemployed as domestic workers. A 2011 WorldBank report states that migrant workers represent760 thousand of a total workforce in Lebanon of1.2 million (for a population of around 4.2 mil-lion) who are predominantly condensed in theinformal sector. That means that migrants consti-tute almost half of the workforce and 17.8 per-cent of the population. These figures precededthe large wave of Syrian refugees to Lebanonwho fled the Syrian regime’s war against the 2011revolution. Various sources estimate the numberof migrant domestic workers in Lebanon between150 and 200 thousands in an overall workforce of1.45 million. In a country where state provisionsfor childcare and care for the elderly are absent,the burden falls on the nuclear family, women inparticular, to cope with the organisation of careand domestic work. Cheap and precariousmigrant domestic labour represents a low costalternative to the Lebanese care deficit.

A new union2015 marked a shift in the history of organisingmigrant workers in Lebanon. It witnessed thebirth of the first trade union for domestic work-ers under the umbrella of the National Federationof Workers and Employees’ Trade Unions inLebanon (FENASOL). The Federation’s initiative

Organising Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon

FARAH KOBAISSY, is an activist and a researcher in

gender, labour and migration.She is also a member of theSocialist Forum in Lebanon.

She currently works as aresearcher at the Asfari

Institute for Civil Society andCitizenship at the American

University in Beirut


Migrant domesticworker organisingcan also beunderstood as a struggle totransform theclass processesthat shape theirlabour and tochallenge racialand genderassociation

However, when the workers’ organisation tookan open political turn of resistance and defianceto the authorities and the law, the Ministry ofLabour, was quick to declare this form of organ-ising illegal and illegitimate and threatened to usethe security forces to break their congress in 2015,and he refused to grant their trade union alicense. To fight the union, the Labour Ministerarmed himself with the labour law. However, inorder to be consistent with the law which limitsthe establishing of the union to Lebanese citizens,the union for domestic workers, established as acommittee under ‘the General Union of CleaningWorkers and Social Care’ included Lebanese citi-zens to submit a formal request to the Ministry ofLabour to have its authorisation. Still the Ministerobjected granting the union the necessary license.

Within this context, the migrant domesticworkers’ organising efforts should be seen as adefiance of the exclusionary policies and racistdiscourses on migration and as a struggle againstdiscrimination in the labour market based ongendered and racial lines. Their organising canalso be understood as a struggle to transform theclass processes that shape their labour as domes-tic workers and to challenge racial and genderassociation with such work. Their union aims totransform paid domestic labour, to displace neg-ative stereotypes and to confront the dominantideologies of race, class and gender.

A real change in the trade union approachHowever, this understanding of the complex con-struction of the experiences of domestic workersis not always recognised by labour unions inLebanon who historically mobilised over a formalclass model (the industrial/formal male worker),and are known for their nationalist and exclu-sionary practices toward migrants. Hence, the

domestic workers were not perceived by theunions historically as workers worth organising.On the contrary, they were invisible or at bestconsidered marginal temporary workers in adevalued labour process and hence their labourdimension was side-lined. At this level, there’s aneed for the trade unions to adopt alternative dis-course and strategies to deal with a growing fem-inised, internationalised and informalised labourforce. This means that, besides organisingdomestic workers, labour unions should developstrategies to organise the informal Lebanese andmigrant workers. This also means that the labourunions have to address and defend women work-ers’ specific needs and rights whilst also address-ing their concerns as migrant workers. However,women’s issues particularly those related to vio-lence are taking a secondary position, and theextent to which women workers would play aleadership role is doubtful under the current formof the Federation’s male dominated bureaucracy.Despite the fact that the Federation has offered aspace for domestic workers, to organise them isto grasp the different ways in which they arebeing exploited, not only as workers, but also aswomen and as migrants. Thus, women’s domes-tic workers’ demands for labour rights, rooted asthey are in gendered and racialised analysis ofwork, continue to pose conceptual challenges forthe labour unions which need to be addressed ifwe are to build a movement that does not seekto defend what was previously gained as rights,but that acts to deeply transform the relations ofexploitation under capitalism.

FootnoteMotaparthy, P. (2015). ‘Understanding kafala: An archaic law at cross purposes with modern development’(available at www.Migrants-Rights.org)

REPORT ❐ LEBANON

the multinational firms who orchestrated thehuman rights scandal forced to give evidenceunder oath. BSG want full public disclosure ofthe documentary evidence that the companieshave kept hidden for decades.

At a 2-day hearing from 7-8 December, theCourt heard legal argument over the use ofexpert witnesses for calculating loss of earnings.John Hendy QC told the court that the estimatedtotal damages for the 600 claimants is in theregion of £60-70million, made up of £40m in lossof earnings and £20-30m in general damages(defamation, human rights, hurt to feelings etc..).Lawyers on behalf of blacklisted workers hadapplied to use the expertise of Dr Victoria Wassfrom Cardiff Business School, one of the leadinglabour market economists in the UK who hasacted as an expert witness in numerous high pro-file cases in the past.

The firms argued against the use of Dr. Wass,arguing that the ‘regression analysis’ that she wasusing was ‘too complicated’ and could not befully understood by the court (even though virtu-ally every university student in the world istaught regression analysis as a standard statisticaltool nowadays). Dr Wass is able to provide ahigh level of precision in her estimates of lossbecause she has restricted access to micro datafrom the Office of National Statistics labour mar-ket database. Without an ounce of irony, lawyersfor the blacklisting companies, told the court thathaving access to the ONS personal sensitiveinformation could potentially be a breach ofhuman rights and data protection!

In the end, Lord Supperstone and Master Leslierefused the claimants submission - once again wefind judges making findings in favour of big busi-ness and against the interests of the blacklistedworkers. This may be a minor setback in a smallskirmish but we are still going to win the war.The next provisional hearing date is 1 February2016, and then the full trial is set to start in May2016 and will last 10 weeks. The BlacklistSupport Group would like to publicly thank thevarious legal teams for all the hard work theyhave carried out on our behalf over many years -its very much appreciated.

John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor was thekeynote speaker at a packed Blacklist SupportGroup parliamentary meeting in Westminster onMonday 7th. McDonnell described blacklisting as“a deliberate attempt to undermine trade unions byvictimising a layer of activists they could not buyoff”. He said that “Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn andmyself put in amendments to legislation on theissue of blacklisting over a period of decades” butlamented that ‘“no government took any notice”.He added “we are currently drawing up advice forLabour councils over public procurement regard-

After six years of denying

everything theeight companiesfinally admittedtheir role in the

blacklistingscandal


DAVE SMITH is Secretary of the Blacklist Support Group

and a TUC tutor, and iscurrently undertaking research

at the University of the West of England in Bristol

After six years of denying everything theeight companies being sued in a majorHigh Court action for blacklisting revised

their legal defence, finally admitting their role inthe blacklisting scandal. The High Court claimsbrought by 571 blacklisted workers and sched-uled for hearing in 2016 will now no longer needto hear arguments over the contractors’ liability: itis admitted that the 571 have a proper claim andso the argument now revolves around causationand loss: proving the links between being black-listed, subsequent employment experience, andfinancial loss. The companies’ joint statement isreproduced below:

A ‘full and unreserved apology’

‘On 7 October 2015 we, the eight companies that com-prise the Macfarlanes Defendants*, submitted a Re-Amended Generic Defence to the Court. In this docu-ment we lay out clearly a number of admissions; theseadmissions are also covered in the accompanying sum-mary which, we hope, will provide interested parties withan easily accessible reference. Both documents containa full and unreserved apology for our part in a vettinginformation system run in the construction industry firstthrough the Economic League and subsequentlythrough The Consulting Association; we recognise andregret the impact it had on employment opportunities forthose workers affected and for any distress and anxietyit caused to them and their families.

We are making these admissions now as we believe itis the right thing to do; we are keen to be as transpar-ent as possible and to do what we can to simplify theHigh Court hearing scheduled for mid-2016. We hopethat the clarity this brings will be welcomed by theaffected workers. Indeed, ever since the closure of TheConsulting Association in 2009, we have been focusedon trying to do the right thing by affected workers. Thiswas why we set up The Construction WorkersCompensation Scheme (TCWCS) in 2014 to providethose who felt they had been impacted by the existenceof the vetting system with a fast and simple way ofaccessing compensation. Currently, we have paid com-pensation to 308 people who have contacted TCWCSand we are processing 39 ongoing eligible claims’.

*Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke,Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and VINCI PLC

After making this admission the firms then sentout a revised set of compensation offers to work-ers in an attempt to settle the cases before reach-ing trial. The BSG position remains 100 percentin favour of a full trial. A few pounds compensa-tion is not justice: we want to see the directors of

REPORT ❐ BLACKLISTING

Blacklisting: admissions & anapology, but the fight goes on

Blacklistingshould be made acriminal offence


right direction and asked the audience to wait fora Scottish government announcement very soon.There have also been massive developments inScotland over the past few weeks regarding therole of undercover police spying on trade unionsand social justice activists. The Pitchford inquiryinto undercover policing has a strict remit whichonly allows investigation into the activities of thepolitical policing units in England and Wales. Butfollowing a UNITE the Union, meeting in theScottish parliament 3 weeks ago, there have beena number of articles in the Scottish press callingfor an inquiry into the role of the undercoverpolice in Scotland. Blacklisted environmentalactivist Helen Steel was another speaker at theBSG meeting and she told how she was spied onby the undercover police officer John Dineswhen a member of London Greenpeace duringthe McLibel trial in the 1980s and how she hadvisited Scotland with the police spy. Steel alsocalled for the activities of the undercover policein Scotland to be fully investigated by Pitchford.Chris Stephens MP told the BSG meeting that hefully supported the call by BSG, CampaignOpposing Police Surveillance (COPS) for there tobe a public inquiry into the activities of under-cover police in Scotland.

AustraliaFinally, in December it was my honour to repre-sent the BSG at the inaugural conference of theMaritime Union of Australia (MUA) Queenslandin Brisbane, Australia. The MUA are one of themost leftwing unions, alongside CFMEU and ETUprovide the blue collar militancy that Australianunions are famous for worldwide. Under the ban-ner ‘Educate, Agitate and Organise’ union lead-ers, rank and file activists from around Australia,and international guests, told stories of solidarity,heroism against police racism and international-ism. I spoke about blacklisting, safety and hadthe privilege to join Brisbane River Ferry workerson protected industrial action. I also met the crewof Fijian seafarers who had been knocked forwages who were occupying a ship who facebeing deported and a detention centre for stand-ing up for their rights.

CHRISTMAS ON THE BLACKLIST by Time Served Jib Electrician

I stood up for my rights,My workmates and my brothers,On bleak construction sites,I always shone a light,For safety, and for others,All these working men,Have sisters, have mothers,No work, my back a knife,What will I tell the missus,I’m blacklisted for life,And not just for Christmas.

ing blacklisting, human rights and environmentalissues”. Closing his presentation, McDonnellargued for those responsible for the invasion of pri-vacy and the damage caused to workers’ lives toreceive justice proportionate to the seriousness ofthe harm caused, saying that “company directorswho orchestrated blacklisting conspiracy shouldhave been sent to prison. Blacklisting should bemade a criminal offence”. “If we can have theLeveson inquiry into celebrities phones beinghacked”, McDonnell asked, “then why can’t therebe a pubic inquiry into blacklisting?”.

The BSG thanked McDonnell for his remarks,which we believe could have immense signifi-cance for companies involved in blacklisting.McDonnell was a founder member of the BSGand he has stood with blacklisted workers onpicket lines, in parliament and at our meetingsever since. We stand shoulder to shoulder withhim against all the attacks from the mainstreammedia and are proud to call him a comrade. Alsoin attendance at the BSG meeting were the formerleader of the British transport workers’ union T&G(now part of Unite) Sir Bill Morris, Chris StephensMP, and blacklisted activist Helen Steel. The BSGparliamentary meeting voted unanimously thatthe apology given to the women activists by theMetropolitan Police should be used as a templatefor any future apology that blacklisted workersshould expect from the blacklisting constructionfirms. It should be recalled that this apology camein the wake of huge public outrage as detailsemerged of the shocking extent of spying againstthese activists had become apparent. It wasagreed that a representative of the BSG should bepresent at any on-going talks where such mattersare being discussed.

Scotland Another speaker at the BSG parliamentary meet-ing was Chris Stephens MP for Glasgow SouthWest (SNP trade union coordinator atWestminster). Stephens was questioned by manyin the audience including UNITE EC memberFrank Morris, over why blacklisting firms werestill being awarded public contracts such asDundee Riverside and ScotRail in Scotland,despite a Scottish government procurement noteon the issue. Stephens gave positive assurancesthat behind the scenes, this were moving in the

In 2015, Blacklisted: The SecretWar between Big Business andUnion Activists, by Dave Smith andPhil Chamberlain, was publishedby New Internationalist (ISBN: 9781780262574). Copies are available fromhttp://newint.org/books

REPORT ❐ BLACKLISTING

Dave Smith at the MUA conference. © MUA


wor

ldwide Cambodia

A new trade union law wassubmitted to the Council ofMinisters 13 November 2015but unions have complainedthat they have not been invitedto any consultation sinceOctober 2014 and that a reviseddraft was only seen by unionswhen the media released it.Parliament will debate the lawbut unions are concerned aboutcontent and lack of consulta-tion. ITUC says that they draft‘hinders the process of forminga union, allows whole unionsto be dissolved if individualofficials act illegally, and impos-es onerous restrictions on theright to strike. Other provisionsinclude financial penalties forany union found to havebreached the law which are sohigh that they could bankruptthe union, intrusive governmentcontrols on union finances andunacceptable restrictions onwho can be elected as a unionoffice-bearer. While the lawpurports to stop employer inter-ference in unions, there are nosuch restrictions on governmentand political parties interferingin unions, which is a substantialproblem in Cambodia’. Unionsalso complain that the govern-ment has ignored calls to set upa labour court. Sharan Burrow,ITUC General Secretary, calledthe draft law ‘a step back-wards’. Human Rights Watchagreed that the draft should bewithdrawn and a full and inclu-sive consultation process shouldbe held.

Climate Responding to the Paris ClimateSummit Conclusions inDecember 2015 the ITUCHas indicated that the Paris deal‘recognises the reality of the cli-mate threat, but only takes uspart of the way’. Climatechange, ITUC observed, ‘isalready destroying lives andlivelihoods with more than 2.6million people displaced byextreme weather events andchanging seasons’. ‘This’, theorganisation insisted ‘will onlyget worse’. Of ITUC’s three ‘toplines’ laid out in its message tothe Summit the first was ‘miss-ing’, the second ‘weak’, and thethird ‘a first step on which tobuild’. ITUC General SecretarySharan Burrow said ‘the race tostabilise the climate has begunbut tragically, too many govern-ments still lack ambition for thesurvival of their people’.

Courts: ILOstandardsThe ILO training centre (ITCI-LO) has launched an on-linedatabase of judicial decisions inwhich domestic and interna-tional courts have relied oninternational labour standardsand comments by ILO supervi-sory bodies. The decisions arepresented in the form of sum-maries. At the end of each sum-mary the full text of the deci-sion is available in the originallanguage. The database is avail-able in English, French andSpanish at: http://compendium.itcilo.org. The ILO has urgedlawyers and trade unionistswho are aware of suitable casesfor inclusion in the database tosend them to:[email protected]

Essays: do unions matter?For more than a year nowLabourRights.ca, set up by theNUPGE union in partnershipwith the UFCW and a numberof lawyers linked to theCanadian Association of LabourLawyers, has been collectingessays from Canadian tradeunionists on the theme of ‘dotrade unions matter?’. It’s a boldquestion, and one that hasyielded an entertaining and var-ied set of responses, from theautobiographical to the philo-sophical and from the legal tothe poetic. A great set of essaysfrom union members:http://nupge.ca/content/11147/tell-us-why-unions-matter-and-you-could-win-1000

FinlandThe proposed merger of theFinnish trade union centres tocreate a new peak-level tradeunion has accelerated in late2015, with a total of 49 unionsnow having decided to join theproject so far. As part of theprocess a website -http://uusikeskusjarjesto.fi - hasbeen launched to provide con-tinuous information on thedevelopments. The new organi-sation is expected to be up andrunning by 2017. The CentralOrganisation of Finnish TradeUnions (SAK) and the FinnishConfederation of SalariedEmployees (STTK) are commit-ted to the project, while theConfederation of Unions forAcademic Professionals inFinland (AKAVA), which initially

signed a letter of intent regard-ing the creation of the neworganisation, has since said thatit believes there is a need for adedicated white-collar employ-ees’ union centre. DespiteAKAKVA’s distancing itself fromthe project at least two of itsmember unions have indicatedthey will join, as will around tenunions currently without affilia-tion to any of the three centres.The unions signed up to theproject represent around 1.7million workers. The new con-federation will be a powerfullobbying force but will be politi-cally non-aligned.

ILOThe International LabourOrganisation has published twonew reports on collective bar-gaining in the public services.Collective Bargaining in thePublic Service in the EuropeanUnion is a 37-page compilationof practices in collective agree-ments in the public servicethroughout the EU showinghow the principles ofConvention 151 have beenimplemented through legislationand/or collective bargaining.The other publication, Manualon collective bargaining and dis-pute resolution in the publicservice, is a 169-page manualshowcasing diverse successfulmechanisms to prevent andresolve labour disputes in thepublic service. Both can beaccessed at www.ilo.org.

IrelandThe Industrial Relations(Amendment) Act 2015 cameinto force on 1 August 2015 andbreathes modest but welcomenew life back into Ireland’s sec-tor level industrial relationsframework, which had sufferedsignificant set backs in 2013when a system for registeringsector-wide agreements wasstruck down as unconstitutionalby the Supreme Court. The newAct sets out a revised frameworkfor Registered EmploymentAgreements (REAs), binding onthose employers and unionswho are party to them and aregime of Sectoral EmploymentOrders (SEOs), under which theMinister for Jobs, Enterprise andInnovation may, subject toLabour Court and Parliamentaryoversight, may set minimumrates of pay, pensions, etc forworkers in a particular sector,which orders will be binding

worldw

ide

Page 27 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 INTERNATIONAL union rights

across the sector (ie – morebroadly than REOs). The Actalso grants the Labour Courtnew powers in cases whereemployers refuse to engage incollective bargaining with tradeunions.

Labour rights arehuman rights2016 marks the 50th anniversaryof two landmarks in the historyof human rights: theInternational Covenant onEconomic, Social and CulturalRights and the InternationalCovenant on Civil and PoliticalRights. On International HumanRights Day, 10 December 2015,the ILO joined UN institutions tolaunch a year-long campaignOur Rights. Our Freedoms.Always celebrating human rightsand emphasising freedom ofspeech and worship, and free-dom from want and fear. TheILO is highlighting the funda-mental connection betweenhuman rights and labour rightsand decent work in conditionsof freedom, equity, security andhuman dignity.

Migrant rights arehuman rightsOn International Migrants Day2015, the ITUC affirmed that itwas celebrating the anniver-saries of what it described as‘two key human rights instru-ments’: the UN Convention onthe Protection of MigrantWorkers, now in its 25thanniversary year and the ILOMigrant Workers Convention143, now in its 40th anniver-sary year. The instruments pro-vide a broad framework for theprotection of the human andlabour rights of migrant work-ers and provide guidance toStates on how to respect therights of migrants while devel-oping and implementinglabour migration policies.

ITUC noted that the celebrationof these instruments was tem-pered by the contemporaryproblems of hostility towardsrefugees, asylum seekers andmigrants, but added that ‘whilemany governments fail the testof humanity and solidarity, andxenophobia is prevalent inmany places, ordinary peopleare opening their homes torefugees, providing food, shel-ter and clothing to the dispos-sessed, and joining public

protests against the intoleranceof some politicians and sectionsof the media’. ‘Trade unions’,the ITUC has said, ‘are at theforefront of this solidarity, call-ing for the right to work andsocial protection for refugees,equal treatment for migrantworkers, opening up of regularmigration channels, an end toabusive recruitment practices,fair representation of the multi-ple dimensions of migration inthe media; and denouncingexpressions of racism, xeno-phobia and intolerance’.

Nobel PrizeThe Tunisian national tradeunion centre UGTT, as a mem-ber of the Tunisian NationalDialogue Quartet, alongside theTunisian Confederation ofIndustry, Trade and Handicrafts(UTICA), the Tunisian HumanRights League (LTDH), and theTunisian Order of Lawyers, hasbeen awarded the Nobel Prizefor the role that Quartet mem-bers played in upholdingnational dialogue during theperiod of crisis around and fol-lowing the so-called ArabSpring uprisings.

QatarThe ITUC has published a newreport Qatar: Profit and Lossclaiming that $15 billion profitwill be made by companiesworking in Qatar on infrastruc-ture for the controversial 2022FIFA World Cup using up to 1.8million migrant workers whoare modern day slaves. Thereport released on InternationalMigrants Day is critical of Qatarfor failing to deliver changes tolabour rights or compliance, andwarns construction companies,hotels, retail chains and UK andUS Universities the cost ofdoing business in a slave state.

The ITUC estimates 7000 work-ers will die before a ball iskicked in the 2022 World Cup,complaining that Qatar ‘stillrefuses to make public the actu-al death toll of migrant workersor the real causes of death’. Butby analysing Qatar’s own statis-tics and health reports over thepast three years, ITUC has cal-culated that projections thatassume 4000 workers would dieby 2022 are ‘a woeful underesti-mate’. Estimates for spending oninfrastructure for the 2022 WorldCup are as high as $220 billion.The report profiles the major

international construction com-panies involved in the project,from Australia, Europe and theUSA including ACS (Spain),Bechtel (USA), Besix (Belgium),Bouygues (France), Carillion(UK), CCC (Greece), Ch2M Hill(USA), CIMIC (Australia),Hochtief (Germany), Porr(Austria) and QDVC (France).The report outlines a series ofactions for the Qatar authoritiesto implement to reform the situ-ation and to repair labour lawsthat the ITUC calls ‘ruinous forworkers’.

South AfricaIn November the COSATUnational conference confirmedthe expulsion of its formerPresident Zvelinzima Vavi andof its largest affiliate, the metal-workers’ union NUMSA. WithinCOSATU metalworkers are nowrepresented by a new organisa-tion, the Liberated MetalworkersUnion of South Africa(LIMUSA). In a press statementNUMSA described 2015 as ‘adifficult year for the workers’movement’, but while COSATUpresident Sdumo Dlamini usedthe same expression in hisdescription of 2015 his organi-sation insisted that it had‘defied all doomsayers by tak-ing decisive steps to protect itsunity and cohesion’. NUMSAand Vavi both said that it wasimpossible to envisage re-unit-ing the organisations andNUMSA is now pressing aheadwith plans for what they calleda ‘Workers’ Summit’, to be heldin early 2016, with a view tosetting up a new federation.

UK Three British human rightsorganisations have criticised theConservative Government’s2015 Trade Union Bill. AmnestyInternational UK, Liberty andthe British Institute for HumanRights have raised concerns,arguing that ‘if the Bill werepassed in its current form thetotality of the restrictions placedon working people’s rights toassembly and speak out overunfair treatment would be dis-proportionately restricted’,according to a statement fromthe BIHR. The British TUC andits member unions have alreadysubmitted a complaint to theILO arguing that the draft lawwill place the UK in furtherbreach of its international legalobligations.

Pre-release advance ordersTUW will retail at £145 per copy. For a limited time we are offeringICTUR affiliates the opportunity to place pre-release advance orders atheavily discounted prices. A smaller discount is also offered for IURsubscribers. To qualify for these discounts orders must be received by15 February 2016. Orders received after that date with be invoiced atthe full price.

ICTUR affiliates – advance purchase price:Single copy £75 / 5 copies £250.

IUR subscribers – advance purchase price:Single copy £120 / 5 copies £350.

All other purchasers – advance purchase price:Single copy £145 / 5 copies £500.

The leading reference work on theinternational trade union movement

A further £5 discount is availablefor all orders paid in advance

placed onlineOrder online from

www.ictur.org/TUW

Trade Unionsof the World

I / we would like to order copies of

Trade Unions of the World, Seventh Edition.

Name

Union

Address

Country

E-mail

I enclose a cheque (made payable to 'IUR' –we cannot process incorrectly made out cheques)

Payment on invoice

Send this order form to: ICTUR, 177 Abbeville Road, London SW4 9RL, UK

PublicServicesInternational

PSI is a global trade union federation representing20 million working women and men who deliver vital public services in more than 150 countries.

PSI works with our members and allies to campaign for social and economic justice, andefficient, accessible public services around theworld. We believe these services play a vital role insupporting families, creating healthy communities,and building strong, equitable democracies.

Our priorities include global campaigns for water,energy and health services. PSI promotes gender equality, workers’ rights, trade unioncapacity-building, equity and diversity. PSI is also active in trade and development debates.

PSI welcomes the opportunity to work co-operatively with those who share these concerns.

Visit our website www.world-psi.org

Uniting Food, Farm and Hotel Workers

Worldwide

www.iuf.org

Building global solidarity

International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel,Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’

Associations

8 Rampe du Pont-Rouge, CH-1213, Petit-Lancy, SwitzerlandTel: + 41 22 793 22 33 Fax: + 41 22 793 22 38 Email: [email protected]

General Secretary: Ron OswaldPresident: Hans-Olof Nilsson

Promoting qualityeducation for all anddefending human andtrade union rights in ourunions, in our schoolsand in our societiesEI is the global union federation representing 30million teachers and education workers in 171countries and territories around the world.

To learn more, please visit: www.ei-ie.org

Education International

Also in this edition: ■ Migrant worker organising in Lebanon

■ UK blacklisting scandal

■ Banana workers struggle in Guatemala

■ ICTUR updates major global reference book Trade Unions of the World

(Seventh Edition, updated and expanded)

■ ICTUR web site:

www.ictur.org

Cover: Main Image: Shandong worker. Insert Images: A forklift driver, Yantai and Shandong workers

All © Cathy Walker.

international union for trade union rights - … · union for trade union rights ... for discounted...

Documents