Mamisa’s expectation when leaving home in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, was to engage other young workers from Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe on Just Transition, but was instead subjected to a heart-breaking ordeal with Zimbabwe’s anti-union immigration. Two other young workers from Uganda were also denied entry under similar circumstances.

When IndustriALL’s Executive Committee on 1 June gathered more than 200 participants online, international solidarity was on the agenda.

Ensuring that workers and unions are part of the discussions around tomorrow’s workplaces is central to what we do. 

Equal pay for jobs of equal value is a recognized human right, enshrined in ILO Convention 100, adopted in 1951. And yet, 70 years after the adoption of the Convention, the gender pay gap remains a persisting and global problem and stands at an average of 20 per cent across the world. 

At IndustriALL’s 3rd Congress in September 2021, Atle Høie was elected general secretary. Høie, originally from Norway, had already been part of IndustriALL’s leadership team for five years, as he was elected assistant general secretary at the Rio Congress in 2016. 

Despite the call by Myanmar’s trade unions for comprehensive economic sanctions against the military regime, many global garment brands continue to source from the country. The response of the international community to human rights abuses in Myanmar stands in stark contrast to the situation in Russia.

Future mobility concepts in an urban environment will differ from what we know today. There will be more shared services, less individual mobility, digital connectivity between people, vehicles and infrastructure, as well as driverless vehicles.

The Finnish paper workers’ union Paperiliitto was formed in 1906 and counts 13,000 active members, 32,000 including retired members. The union represents 97 per cent of all workers in the country who manufacture paper, pulp and paperboard or work in paper processing. 

When unions go on strike, engage in negotiations, collective bargaining, social dialogue, and social security, as well as campaign for workers’ rights and workplaces free of gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH), they do so as a collective. It is this collective that builds union power and where the strength of the union lies, argues Rose Omamo, the general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Kenya Metal Workers (AUKMW), affiliated to IndustriALL Global Union. 

After a two-week strike in which workers marched on the streets and engaged in negotiations simultaneously, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) signed an above inflation agreement of 6.5 per cent with ArcelorMittal South Africa.

Amid a fuel price hike and the erosion of real wages, Philippine unions are fighting for a living wage by filing petitions with the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs).

630 members of IndustriALL affiliate Syndicat des Métallos/United Steelworkers are on strike at Glencore’s Raglan mine in Canada over the extensive use of subcontracting and a lack of respect from the employer.

IndustriALL Global Union has met with affiliated unions in Ukraine, visiting communities broken by bombing and listened to firsthand accounts of what the invasion means for Ukrainian workers and unions.

After the Labour Court dismissed the interdict to stop the strike at ArcelorMittal South Africa, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has resumed the strike for a seven per cent wage increase and for cash benefits.

Mexico’s labour law reform from 2019 opens the way to true labour relations, the chance to establish new and democratic unions and therefore improves the basis for freedom of association. The new collective agreement signed between the National Independent Trade Union of Automotive Workers of Mexico (SINTTIA) and US car giant General Motors on 10 May is a testament to that - but the road ahead is long.

Yet another worker has lost his life in Pakistan’s deadly coal mines. According to IndustriALL affiliate PCMLF, in May alone, 18 miners have been killed at work.

Under the theme - union organizing dynamics in the textile, garment, shoe, and leather industries in Madagascar - the unions that organize in the sectors met in Antananarivo 16-17 May to discuss how to sustain and build union power in a post-Covid economy.

The Mumbai Labour Union (MLU) has been organizing workers at Viraj Steel for two years. The union has regularly raised issues related to workers’ rights, working conditions and wages. In response, management has tried to bust the union at every given opportunity since it was formed.

IndustriALL affiliate, Federation des Travailleurs de la Metallurgie, De L’Or, de la Filature et du Textile, fears for the worst as there has be no contact with the eight trapped mineworkers at Perkoa Zinc mine for 32 days. Contact with the miners was lost when the Zinc mine was flooded on 16 April after heavy rains, trapping the miners 500 meters underground.

What could have been knocking off time at the end of a shift became the tragic end of the lives of seven gold mine workers who were killed when the cork skip used in hoisting them to the surface fell down a 240m depth shaft after the wire rope snapped.