Forty-two trade unionists from Myanmar gathered in Yangon on 16 and 17 November for a workshop on how to effectively implement global framework agreements (GFAs) in the textile and garment industry. 

Strengthening social dialogue, unions and employer structures on a path towards industry-level collective bargaining and living wages in the Bulgarian garment and footwear industries, was the main message at a seminar on 14-15 November 2018 in Sofia, attended by 40 national and local-level union representatives, industry associations, major brands, key suppliers and the Deputy Minister of Economy.

Members of IndustriALL Global Union affiliate the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) joined the KCTU general strike today calling for reform to chaebols and to labour laws.

Condemnation of the attacks on trade union rights and the crisis in the oil and steel industries in the Caribbean were high on the agenda of IndustriALL Global Union’s Caribbean meeting held in Paramaribo in Suriname on 12-13 November.

Unions reject government plans to close five coal-fired power stations and award renewable energy contracts to independent power producers (IPPs) without a Just Transition plan in place. They say this will put close to 100,000 workers out of work.

An IndustriALL delegation has met with ministries in Bangladesh and India to accelerate the process of ratification of the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) for safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships.

IndustriALL Global Union’s assistant general secretary, Jenny Holdcroft, was in London last week to give evidence on the sustainability of the fashion industry at the UK’s largest-ever audience for a parliamentary Select Committee.

As Suriname’s parliament prepares to discuss a controversial agreement on Alcoa’s withdrawal from the country and the handover of its hydroelectric dam, IndustriALL and its Caribbean affiliates are calling on legislators to send the agreement back to the drawing board.

IndustriALL Global Union and industriAll European Trade Union met with Bulgarian affiliates in Sofia on 13 November to strengthen union power and enhance organizing strategies against a background of declining membership and growing hostility to unions in the country. 

Workers and unions in Myanmar often face difficulties in terms of union busting, low pay and rampant precarious work. IndustriALL’s union building project focuses on strengthening unions to fight back.

IndustriALL Global Union strongly urges the government of Bangladesh to petition the High Court to lift a restraining order that seeks to expel the Accord from the country on 30 November. 

Over 150 delegates gathered in Perrysburg, Ohio, on 12 and 13 November 2018, and held the first ever meeting of the Owens-Illinois network in conjunction with the global glass alliance of the Glass, Molders and Pottery (GMP) council of the United Steelworkers (USW), and the USW glass workers.

On 14 November 2018, 30 representatives from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Canada and the USA, the United Steelworkers (USW) in Canada and the USA, and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers in Canada and the USA, met with representatives from Los Mineros from Mexico in order to improve networking and coordination in multinational cement corporations.

Thousands of people gathered for the funeral of Turkish union leader, Abdullah Karacan, the day after he was fatally shot during a visit to meet workers at a Goodyear tyre factory in Adapazarı.

Building a membership base through recruiting and organizing is a key strategy for strengthening union power to confront Glencore in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Thembisile Lucia Yende, who worked for power utility Eskom, was murdered at work at a substation near Springs in 2017, and the main suspect was arrested but later released. The case has been provisionally withdrawn until more evidence is available.

In a declaration published today, Industriall Global Union and industriAll European Trade Union have strongly condemned the sentencing of 26 Renault workers and trade union officials from the car manufacturer’s Oyak plant in Bursa, Turkey.

IndustriALL Global Union is horrified to hear that Brother Abdullah Karacan, general president of our Turkish affiliate DİSK/Lastik-İş (Rubber and Chemical Workers’ Union) was assassinated today, 13 November, while visiting union members at a Goodyear factory in the city of Adapazarı.

Two workers have died and seven have been injured in a series of accidents at the Sitakund shipbreaking yard in Bangladesh. 19 people have been killed in Bangladeshi shipbreaking yards this year, the highest number in eight years.

The city court of Minsk decided on 09 November to uphold the guilty verdict against two trade union leaders in Belarus, which has been widely condemned as unjust.