Trade unions in South Africa are calling for an urgent review of safety after almost 1,000 miners were trapped underground for more than 24-hours at the Sibanye-Stillwater Beatrix gold mine in Free State. 

Trade unions in Finland took to the capital Helsinki’s Senate Square today, to oppose the Government’s new legislation aimed at cutting unemployment benefits.

73 union leaders from 39 countries addressed a joint letter to CEO, Jan Jenisch, demanding the company honour its commitment and sign a global framework agreement.

Expert representatives of governments, employers and workers from around the world gathered at the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, from 22 to 26 January, to improve and adopt a revised code of practice on safety and health in shipbuilding and ship repair. 

As Royal Dutch Shell Plc is expected to announce its biggest profits since the oil market collapse, IndustriALL Global Union is calling on the company to create permanent jobs for its workforce, the majority of which are contract workers.

Protesting against unfair terminations and the intransigence of the Bajaj Auto management in collective bargaining negotiations, the union launched an indefinite hunger strike on 29 January in Pune.

The US-based multinational personal care company unilaterally announced a massive cut of 5,000 to 5,500 jobs on 23 January. The cut of 12% of the global workforce will mostly come through closing 10 of Kimberly-Clark’s 91 factories. Which 10 factories has not been announced. 

Despite their strike being banned by the government, Turkish metalworkers have won a wage increase of almost 25 per cent as part of a new collective agreement.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliates in Russia issued a joint statement against the dissolution of the Interregional Trade Union "Workers Association" (ITUWA). The Russian trade union centres the Confederation of Labour of Russia (KTR) and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), IndustriALL affiliates in the CIS region and global unions strongly oppose the court decision to dissolve ITUWA.

A contract worker lost his life in an accident on 27 January 2018 in the Chandrapur district, at the Maratha Cement Works plant of Ambuja Cement Ltd, owned by the cement giant LafargeHolcim. The company is yet to release the fatality figures for 2017, but in 2016, 86 workers were killed at LafargeHolcim operations worldwide.

Glencore has locked workers out of the Oaky North mine in Queensland, Australia for 200 days in an ongoing industrial dispute.

Global unions have condemned the inhumane treatment of more than a thousand protestors detained by Algerian police, and are calling for an end to the escalating repression of trade unions and trade union leaders in Algeria. 

Is the right to strike is still in place in Turkey? The answer is clearly NO. A strike of 130,000 workers at 179 workplaces across the metal sector in Turkey, including all major multinational companies, scheduled to begin on 2 February 2018, has been banned by the Government on the grounds of being “prejudicial to national security”.

IndustriALL Global Union is calling on Mexican senators to vote against proposed labour reforms that will increase outsourcing in the country and endanger the safety of workers. 

More than a thousand members of United Steelworkers Local 9700 have been locked out of Aluminerie de Bécancour Inc (ABI), in Bécancour, Quebec, Canada.

IndustriALL Indian affiliate Chanda Cement Works Employees Union have signed a wage agreement covering over 1,000 contract workers at, a Lafarge Holcim plant.

IndustriALL affiliates FIOM-CGIL, FIM-CISL and UILM-UIL organized a rally and one-hour strike across the Lombardy region to attract public attention to the problem of poor health and safety at work, following four recent tragic fatalities at Lamina spa in Rho, Milan and Elettronica LG in Rovato, Brescia.

After the recent tragic deaths of six mine workers in Pakistan, with many more injured, IndustriALL Global Union affiliate the Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF) staged a protest action in Quetta to demand the government address the problem of poor working conditions and ratify ILO Convention 176 on Safety in Mines as a matter of urgency.

IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union have reached a US$2.3 million settlement with a multinational apparel brand to remedy life-threatening workplace hazards. The settlement, reached through an arbitration process under the legally-binding Bangladesh Accord for Fire and Building Safety, represents one of the largest payments made by a brand to remedy workplace dangers in its supply chain.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliate, the Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland (ATUSWA), has welcomed the readmission of Swaziland as a beneficiary to the US’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).