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All News:
Protection
for the new workers of the new economy
09.09
Maj-Len
elected 2nd UNI President
09.09
UNI
Solidarity: Zimbabwe & Argentina 09.09
No
racism here says youth 08.09
Call
to end repression in Burma
08.09
Share
power can re-shape globalisation
08.09
Union
alliances key to countering multinationals
08.09
Annan
and Riester back union rights
08.09
Workers
rights endangered in Colombia
07.09
Impact
of UNI’s launch
07.09
Congress
gets down to organising, organising, organising
07.09
Long
petition highlights imprisonments of trade unionists in Korea
07.09
Unions
can stop merry-go-round says Frank
06.09
Congress
call to free imprisoned trade unionists
06.09
People
lose out in unstable new economy 06.09
‘Freedom Roll’
highlights human rights at UNI Congress 05.09
We are
all UNI family 05.09
World
needs UNI says Kurt
05.09
Millions
paying price for unstable New Economy 05.09
Saturday 8th September News:
No
racism here says youth
Call
to end repression in Burma
Share power can
re-shape globalisation
Union
alliances key to countering multinationals
Annan
and Riester back union rights
No
racism here says youth
'No racism here' - in an impressive presentation, young workers from
all over the world appealed to participants oat the UNI World Congress in
Berlin in September to be relentless in the fight against racism,
xenophobia and all other forms of discrimination.
UNI-Europa Youth used the presentation to also unveil its theme for the
next year : young people and discrimination at the workplace.
At the Estrel Conference Centre in Berlin in front of around 1500
delegates and observers, UNI Youth presented an exciting multimedia show.
This climaxed with young delegates assembling on stage with blinking UNI
hearts.
Under the motto ‘Stay on-line, join a union’, UNI Youth called on
affiliates and trade unionists of all ages to join a common effort to
organise more young people.
‘For the future of the trade union movement, it’s indispensable to
recruit more young workers,’ UNI’s Youth
Coordinator Oliver Roethig told UNIinfo after Congress.
’We have to address their concerns better and to improve their
integration into trade unions.’
Getting young members in all affiliates on-line is a key objective for UNI
Youth.
As a small step toward this end, UNI-Europa Youth presented a symbolic
cheque of CHF 2001 to their counterparts in UNI-Africa during Congress.
The amount was raised during an earlier UNI-Europa Youth Committee
meeting.
During Congress, youth representatives from all UNI regions came together
to launch their global network.
The purpose is to enhance co-operation and co-ordination of youth
activities between the regions.
The first regional youth conferences have already been already in Europe
and Asia-Pacific.
In Americas and Africa, they are planned for 2002 - with the first global
UNI youth conference scheduled for 2003.
(For more information contact: oliver.roethig@union-network.org)
Call
to end repression in Burma
Maung Maung
UNI’s World Congress in Berlin unanimously condemned
the continuing military repression in Burma and called for pressure on
companies - including German companies - who still do business with the
regime.
Delegates gave exiled Burmese trade union leader Maung Maung a standing
ovation for his address to Congress in which he talked of workers on 15
cents an hour and trade unionists in fear of losing their jobs and their
liberty.
Increased European Union sanctions to include a ban on investments by EU
companies in Burma and complaints against companies through the new
multinational guidelines drawn up by the Organisation for European
Cooperation and Development are among the measures being urged by UNI.
UNI and affiliates are also to make direct approaches to companies still
doing business with Burma.
The 1990 electoral victory of the National League for Democracy has been
thwarted by the military and its leader Aung San Su Kyi placed under house
arrest and harassed.
Maung Maung, who is General Secretary of the Federation of Trade
Unions-Burma (FTUB) has been in exile since 1988 after being fired from
his job for being a union member.
"Workers are not only denied freedom of association and the right to
collective bargaining - we are also treated as criminals and jailed for
life," he told delegates.
Some multinationals have taken advantage of the situation, hence the
poverty wages, no maternity leave and the rest.
The continued use of forced labour in Burma has led to its isolation at
the International Labour Organisation - there are thought to be several
hundred thousand men, women, children and old people being forced to work
against their will on any given day.
Maung Maung appealed for international protection for those who testify to
an ILO high level team due in Burma just after Congress for a three week
fact finding mission on the forced labour issue.
"When the ILO delegation leaves Burma what happens to those who
testify?" he asked.
With help from the
international trade union movement FTUB has computers to spread their
message and a website - visit it at www.tradeunions-burma.org
and give your support.
"Very few of us will
ever face the difficulties you face in countries like Burma," said
Tony Lennon, UNI Vice President, presenting Maung Maung with a UNI crystal
ball.
Joe de Bruyn, UNI-Asia & Pacific President, who moved the statement on
behalf of UNI, detected signs of the Burmese regime being on the run.
"We must increase the pressure so that the fight for freedom and
democracy can be won."
Joe also called for a ban on any merchandise from Burma in Australian
stores.
See
UNI's statement on Burma here
Share
power can re-shape globalisation
Unions have been silent partners in writing the rules of globalisation
that are bad for workers, Eliseo Medina, of American affiliate SEIU told
Congress.
He was talking of the $17 trillion workers capital tied up in pensions
funds - money invested by fund managers in the stock markets of the world.
"It is our pension money that helps finance the multinationals and
local companies that we struggle to organise and where we fight to improve
workers’ lives," said Eliseo.
"It is our pension money that helps finance the pharmaceutical
companies that sell AIDS drugs at exorbitant prices.
"It is our pension money that helps finance the oil companies that
invest in Burma.
"It is the banks and financial firms that manage our pension funds
that are participating in the restructuring of the Korean economy – with
the consequences we have witnessed at this Congress.
"If we don’t start to make our money work for us I assure you
somebody else will make it work against us."
Congress adopted an action programme to insist that investments of workers
capital are ethical and socially defensible and endorsed close cooperation
between UNI’s own Pensions Working Party and the Global Unions/ICFTU/TUAC
Committee for International Co-operation on Workers’ Capital.
Congress also agreed to defend well functioning public pension schemes.
Joe Hansen, of the UFCW, told delegates that where corporate decisions are
anti worker and anti-union "we must vote our shares – vote them
against unacceptable management practices. We will vote them to insist
that global corporations will act in acceptable ways."
Union
alliances key to countering multinationals
The growth of global union alliances
in the giant corporations is a key objective in the UNI response to the
increasing domination of the global economy by ever-bigger multinationals.
And, where appropriate, UNI Multinational Alliances will work hand-in-hand
with other global unions that cover different sectors of the global
economy.
The aim is to ensure a united union approach to the big corporations.
A blueprint for strengthening the unions response to the concentration of
corporate power and increasing domination of globalisation was approved in
a lengthy Congress debate on Networked solidarity - multinationals and
workers capital.
"As corporations become larger global entities that coordinate their
actions around the globe, we must coordinate our actions and efforts as
well," Joe Hansen, from American affiliate the UFCW, told delegates.
UNI wants a World Competitions
Authority with the power to prevent the emergence of global monopolies and
ensure the good behaviour of the big corporations.
UNI wants the regulators to take
into account the social implications of mergers and acquisitions and
consult trade unions.
And UNI was urged by Congress to develop a Charter for workers caught up
in mergers and take-overs and to defend key cultural areas like public
service broadcasting and minority publishing.
We are working for fewer – but larger and stronger - employers and
unions need to act collectively on an international level. That was the
message to Congress from Joe Hansen opening the debate.
"Ten years ago the largest ten employers accounted for less than 40%
of food sold in North America. Today they account for more than 60% of the
North American market," said Joe. "The strength of these
employers has grown in tandem with their growing market share."
But unions have become a smaller piece of a larger pie "less able to
offset the power of the employers" and "their assault on our
wages, benefits and working conditions will be successful if our unions
don’t change along with them".
The creation of UNI has given unions the vehicle to accomplish
international union coordination.
UNI is:
- launching a programme to build
global councils on the experience of the European Works Councils;
- signing global agreements with
the multinationals to tie them to core labour standards;
- backing the United National’s
Global Compact;
- coordinating the work of unions
to use pension fund money held on behalf of workers to improve the
behaviour of companies.
Annan
and Riester back union rights
In a written message to Congress UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan said his Global Compact initiative aims to
weave universal principles – like the ILO’s core labour standards –
into global corporate behaviour.
German Labour Minister Walter Riester
And German Labour Minister Walter Riester won applause from delegates when
he revealed that his Ministry had been talking to the International Labour
Organisation over making labour rights a core battle.
He urged unions to organise world-wide campaigns several times a year to
defend trade unions rights.
"Trade unions should show they have the right to organise – and I
know in industrialised countries there are many places where trade union
rights are very difficult. Unless we can achieve that we will have
difficulties getting our demands met."
The UN’s Global Compact was launched 18 months ago and aims to sign up
leading companies to observe global standards of behaviour.
They are not binding but, said Mr Annan in his message, the Compact is:
"a real contribution to our efforts to promote prosperity, justice
and peace".
He thanked UNI for its backing for the Compact.
"Countries with strong trade unions and healthy industrial relations
have higher growth rates, more equity and better observance of human
rights and democratic principles. Working with their business
counterparts, the ILO and others, trade unions can build strong pillars
for globalisation."
Mr Riester – who has a
distinguished trade union history – outlined the work of the German
government in reducing unemployment from a peak of more than four million
when they took office.
Two billion Deutsche marks are targeting youth unemployment and the
government has just announced a programme to integrate 50,000 people with
serious disabilities into the workforce.
New co-determination laws give workers the right to demand re-training of
the workforce when technological changes begin to outdate their skills and
qualifications.
One controversial new measure in Germany is a second, top-up scheme for
pensions.
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