IndustriALL Global Union’s Mexican affiliate, Los Mineros, filed a legal claim to represent workers at LafargeHolcim’s Apasco plant in Hermosillo, Sonora state of Mexico. Workers, supposedly represented by the management-controlled CTM union, claim this organization does not defend their rights.

“Welcome to the land of cedars and resistance!” was the message to the affiliated unions from eleven countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who came to Beirut, Lebanon, for the regional conference on 23 and 24 April 2019.

The Mexican Senate has approved a new Labour Bill. While the new legislation will be a step forward for union democracy, it does not cover key issues such as outsourcing.

IndustriALL Global Union strongly condemns DowDuPont’s callous lock-out of 228 USW members at its Rohm and Haas Texas Inc plant in Deer Park, USA.

To counter mass unemployment and precarious work, unions in Sub Saharan Africa see job creation and decent work as critical. The unions also recognize the pivotal role of international trade agreements in providing the much-needed jobs. 

Beyond the usual sound bites and press statements, there is a danger that the mining industry might have gone numb, unfeeling and almost unresponsive, to the avalanche of deaths in the mining industry. These sound bites and press statements, by governments and mining companies referencing both public and private policy statements seem at odds with the reality experienced by mine workers and society.

Workers in the pulp, paper, graphical and packaging sectors, represented globally by IndustriALL Global Union and UNI, are using this 2019 Workers Memorial Day to kick off a yearlong campaign around the three fundamental worker rights needed to make work safe:

IndustriALL Global Union affiliates at the Volkswagen plant in Kaluga, Russia, have developed a joint action plan to increase their negotiating power as a stalemate with the company over wage increases is due to become a collective dispute under Russian law.

IndustriALL Global Union affiliates in Kyrgyzstan are demanding the  withdrawal of a draft law on trade unions, which significantly undermines independent trade unions.

IndustriALL Global Union strongly condemns the brutal and inhumane treatment of the president of its Algerian affiliate by police and demands that bogus charges against the union leader are dropped.

On 23-24 April, a network of women from across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) met in Beirut, Lebanon to identify challenges, distinct issues and opportunities around women’s participation and representation in unions and the workplace.

Representatives from Middle East and North Africa (MENA) oil and gas unions met for the fifth time in Beirut, Lebanon on 23-24 April, as part of a network supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Delegates from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia attended, with guests from Norway.

The IndustriALL Bangladesh Council called for the continuation of the Accord in Bangladesh in a demonstration today to mark the sixth anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster.

Six years after Rana Plaza, the deadliest disaster in the garment industry, independent and transparent fire and building inspections by the Bangladesh Accord have transformed the safety of thousands of garment factories in the country, writes Jenny Holdcroft, assistant general secretary, IndustriALL Global Union.

Unions in Sub-Saharan Africa face economic recession, deindustrialization, and precarious work coupled by high unemployment and poverty. Human and workers’ rights violations are common, including unfair retrenchments when mines and companies are closed. 

Representatives from Swedish unions IF Metall and Unionen met with IndustriALL Global Union leaders in Uruguay to plan the project to build union power in Latin America.

Representatives of governments, employers and workers from around the world gathered at the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss current and emerging issues related to the promotion of decent work in the management of e-waste. 

More than 1,000 workers at the Ford-Sollers plant in Vsevolozhsk, Russia, will be laid-off in July 2019 due to the closure of the plant. Their unions demand the continuity of the plant under a new owner and a fair distribution of the funds allocated for compensation.

As part of the ongoing implementation of the global framework agreement (GFA), IndustriALL Global Union and H&M met to establish a national monitoring committee (NMC) in India.  

In a national unity meeting in Malaysia on 6 – 7 April, IndustriALL Council and union leaders demonstrated a strong commitment to build union power by increasing union membership power in the country’s various industries.