AFL-CIO Joins Global Call for Action to Help Locked-Out Workers
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The AFL-CIO has joined with the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) in a global call to action against France-based Roquette Frères. Some 240 workers, members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 48G have been locked out of their jobs for more than two months at Roquette’s corn milling facility in Keokuk, Iowa.
The three federations are urging the United Nations Global Compact to hold Roquette accountable for failing to comply with fundamental principles of freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. The Global Compact is an initiative for businesses that are committed to following 10 universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Roquette signed the Compact in 2009 and committed to support its principles.
Roquette locked out the workers after they rejected company proposals that would cut wages, eliminate or reduce key benefits and undermine employee rights to bargain over other important terms and conditions of employment.
In Covanta Struggle, Utility Workers Go Global
In 2008, after some 140 workers at Covanta Energy Corp.’s Rochester, Mass., plant voted to join the Utility Workers (UWUA), the “green” energy company started a two-year-long campaign of delay, “intolerable” contract demands and other bargaining table stalls. As UWUA President Michael Langford says:
They thought we’d just go away.
Well, they didn’t go away. They went global. Now, UWUA Local 369 members in Rochester have a contract signed just last week and the union may be on the verge of winning an agreement that would allow Covanta workers at its 30 U.S. facilities, as well as its overseas operations, to choose to join a union without management interference (more below).
Congress Looks at Job Safety, Unions Worldwide Observe Workers Memorial Day
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With Workers Memorial Day and the recent deadly workplace tragedies that have claimed dozens of workers lives, two congressional committee hearings focused on job safety and strengthening worker protections.
This morning, the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee explored ways to protect workers who blow the whistle on unsafe and dangerous workplace conditions from retaliation, harassment and even dismissal by employers.
The hearing room was packed with workers who have been victims of on-the-job injuries and surviving family members of workers killed on the job, including many families of the 12 coal miners killed in the 2006 Sago (W.Va.) Mine explosion.
AFL-CIO General Counsel Lynn Rhinehart told the panel that “workers see firsthand the hazards posed by their jobs and their workplaces.”
But in order for workers to feel secure in bringing hazards to their employer’s attention, they must have confidence that they will not lose their jobs or face other types of retaliation for doing so.
U.S., Canada Workers Rally for Locked-Out California Borax Miners
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Workers in five cities and two nations protested in front of British consulates today to demand justice for nearly 600 members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 30, who were locked-out Jan. 31 at Rio Tinto’s Borax mine in Boron, Calif. It is the world’s second largest borax mine.
(You can help the miners and their families by making a tax deductible contribution to Labor Community Services with the notation for Boron Lockout in the memo field. Send the check to Labor Community Services, 2130 W. James M. Wood Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif., 90006.)
The protests come a day after a locked-out miner addressed shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting in London, England, asking the company to end its lockout against families in Boron.
U.S. Unionists Demand End of Saddam-Era Labor Law in Iraq
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When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, “we were told democracy would be built in Iraq” says Stan Gacek of the AFL-CIO’s International Department. But speaking at a rally today outside the Iraqi consulate in Washington, D.C., Gacek added:
There won’t be democracy in Iraq until the workers’ right to organize is guaranteed.
Every law from the Saddam Hussein regime has been rewritten—except the 1987 labor law that abolished the freedom to collectively bargain, the right to strike and a guaranteed minimum wage. That is the labor law today’s Iraqi government is using to bust the country’s union movement. Workers have been fired, harassed, exiled and even killed for forming unions and taking job actions.
Global Unions Condemn Mexico’s Move to Bust 44,000-Member Union
The global union movement is accusing Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, of systematically trying to bust independent unions and is demanding that he respect the rights of workers to form unions.
The latest example of Calderón’s anti-worker bias is the takeover last month by federal agents and police of the country’s second largest electrical power distributor, Luz y Fuerza (Central Light and Power). Calderón used an executive decree to dissolve the utility, but, in doing so, he also fired the entire 44,000-person workforce and disbanded their union, the 95-year-old Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME), a frequent critic of the government’s policies.
Global Support Growing for Employee Free Choice
Since Friday, when we wrote about international union support for the Employee Free Choice Act, more letters backing this critical legislation have poured in from around the world.
In separate letters to United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard, leaders of unions in eight countries, along with an international union federation, have expressed solid support for the bill. The latest letters come from all corners of the world: Paraguay, Japan, Ghana, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Togo, the base of the 13-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM).
