Workers at the railway workshop at the ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih steel plant have begun industrial action against unsafe working conditions and low wages. 

IndustrtiALL Global Union‘s textile and garment affiliates from MENA region’s main producer countries Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco reported tangible progress in organizing and collective bargaining at a meeting at Tunisian capital, Tunis, on 3-4 May 2018. With renewed determination, affiliates developed further plans for important actions in the textile and garment supply chain. 

IndustriALL Global Union and its affiliates throughout the world call for support in demanding chemicals giant DowDuPont to respect workers’ rights through its current spin-off process.

Recent strike action by 30,000 Iraqi electricity workers employed on precarious contracts has lead the government to concede and provide 150,000 public workers from all sectors with the same pension and social security rights as permanent workers.

On 8 May, the criminal investigation against Belarussian trade unionists Gennady Fedynich and Ihar Komlik was concluded. Both union leaders are accused of large-scale tax evasion.

Pan African Resources’ Evander gold mine in Barberton, Mpumalanga Province, has given notice to retrench 95 per cent of its workers – 1722 workers out of 1812 – by the end of May. IndustriALL affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is asking that the Department of Mineral Resources intervene to save the jobs, even if it means that the government revokes the mining licence.

After joining IndustriALL affiliate Petrol-Is, Oil, 85 workers at the Turkish subsidiary of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher, Kosan Kozmetik Pazarlama ve Ticaret AS, were dismissed.

Trade unions representing workers at General Electric from across North America, Europe and Asia have pledged to make workers’ voices heard at the company, at a meeting of the IndustriALL’s General Electric Trade Union Network in Toronto, Canada, from 7-8 May 2018.

Two factories in San Luis de Potosi, one of Mexico’s main indudstrial centres, produce tyres for major multinational companies, Continental Tire and Goodyear. Only a few kilometres separate the two plants, but the way they operate couldn’t be further apart. Much of that comes down to a question of union representation. 

As the 2013 Accord prepares for its expiry this month and its replacement by the 2018 Transition Accord, the occasion was marked by a joint press conference between the Accord and the Bangladesh association of factory owners (BGMEA).

Wages as low as 600 Ethiopian Birr  (ETB) per month (US$20) continue to haunt workers in Ethiopia’s textile and garment sector. Salaries are not enough for workers, over 90 per cent women, to pay for transport, food and housing orsupport a family. These workers are part of Ethiopia's working poor, while making clothes for brands from Europe, the US and Asia including H&M, Tchibo, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein.

More than 30 trade union representative (locals, works councils, shop stewards and trade union officials), representing workers from three continents employed at John Deere operations, came together to exchange on present challenges in their respective countries and the ways to move forward the union network. They met at the headquarter of Deere & Company in Moline, Illinois, USA. Deere and Company is one of the leading multinational companies, producing agricultural, building and forestry machines, with the main brand name of John Deere.

A strike by workers at Tecnocap SpA in Glen Dale, West Virginia, is entering its second month, as the company refuses to bargain with IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).

Precarious work is deeply rooted in India’s automotive industry. Almost every major auto company in the country employs large numbers of precarious workers with low wages, poor working conditions and workers lack job security.

Workers at the ArcelorMittal-Kryvyi Rih steel plant with the support of the IndustriALL affiliate Trade Union of Workers of Metallurgical and Mining Industries of Ukraine (PMGU) want to sign a new collective agreement ensuring wage increases and safe working conditions.

Trade union leader Amin Yeleusinov is to be released on 21 May, provided the prosecutors’ appeal of the court order from a regional court on 4 May is not successful. However, the day before the encouraging news, another regional court commenced a hearing about the dissolution of the Oil Construction Company (OCC) workers’ trade union, which was chaired by Yeleusinov before his imprisonment. The next hearing in that case is planned for 22 May.

Unions protested outside Swiss company LafargeHolcim’s annual shareholders meeting near Zurich today, demanding that the cement giant keeps its word and signs a global framework agreement safeguarding workers’ rights at its operations worldwide.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), to which IndustriALL Global Union affiliates - the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union, the National Union of Mineworkers, and the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union - belong, recently launched a young workers forum to promote peer-to-peer recruitment and organizing, build leadership capacity of youth in unions, promote health and safety training, and fight precarious work.

In separate incidents on the same day, a staggering total of 23 mine workers were killed and 11 injured in horrific mine accidents in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on 5 May.

Four workers have died and three are trapped underground as rescue efforts continue at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Masakhane Shaft in Westonaria, Johannesburg, which has been closed. This follows seismic incident causing a fall ground on 3 May that saw 13 mineworkers trapped underground. Six have since been rescued and are recovering in hospital.