Violence against union leaders has reached dizzying levels in Colombia. The Ombudsman's Office of Colombia recently reported that 343 social leaders and human rights activists have been murdered across the country since the peace agreement was signed in 2016.

IndustriALL Global Union continued its trade union building initiative in Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, with a collective bargaining workshop for its Rio Tinto QMM-based affiliates, Sendika Kristanina Malagasy (Sekrima) and Syndicalisme et Vie des Sociétés (SVS) on 26-27 September 2018. 

An official partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, Mitsubishi Electric subjected locked-out union members at its plant in Thailand to degrading and humiliating treatment and is now refusing to reinstate 26 union leaders and members.

Over 80 delegates representing 40 of IndustriALL affiliates from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) met on 1 -  October in Baku, Azerbaijan, to discuss effective trade union response against the challenges in the regions.

Meeting in Istanbul on 28 September, GFA partners Inditex, H&M and ASOS pledged to continue with IndustriALL Global Union and industriAll Europe on building collective bargaining and better conditions for over 600,000 garment and footwear workers in South-East Europe.

Casual, temporary, indirect, zero-hours contracts, are all terms that describe precarious work. This type of work is increasingly being used to replace direct, permanent jobs, allowing employers to reduce or even abandon their responsibility to workers. 

Mineworkers at a Lanxess chrome mine in South Africa are striking against union bashing and strongly condemn the management’s refusal to recognize the union. They are also protesting the company’s denying of organizing rights.

Around 130 union leaders from Turkey and Bangladesh met in Istanbul, Turkey, to exchange experiences and knowledge on union organizing, collective bargaining agreements and social dialogue within the context of the implementation of global framework agreements (GFAs).

Approved in the bicameral committee conference on 1 October, the Philippines are now moving towards 14 weeks paid maternity leave. The law, known as the 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave Law of 2018, increases the current paid maternity leave from 60 or 78 to 105 days. Yet to be signed by the President, the bill is the result of an intense campaign led mostly by IndustriALL affiliated unions and partners.

Unions in Pakistan held a day of mourning and protest on 28 September at the continued death toll in the country’s mines, and called for the ratification of ILO Convention 176.

To improve negotiations with employers, shop stewards are learning Mandarin Chinese so that their demands are easily understood without ambiguity by using a common language.

The IndustriALL Bangladesh Council has called for an immediate review of the new minimum wage, saying it fails to meet workers’ expectations. They demand that the new rate be doubled.

In an historic moment for Mexico's union movement, the Mexican Senate has unanimously ratified International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 98, which guarantees the right to organize and collective bargaining.

Contract work and casualization of the oil and gas industry is having a dire impact on trade unions and the lives of workers in Nigeria, according to IndustriALL Global Union’s affiliates in African’s largest oil producing country.  

IndustriALL Global Union and its Turkish affiliate Petrol-İş jointly organized a programme of capacity building in Istanbul for affiliated trade unions in Palestine with activities to strengthen cooperation, support and solidarity.

Workers fired two months ago by Goodyear for setting up a trade union are still fighting to get their jobs back.

Global social dialogue between IndustriALL Global Union and Rio Tinto took a significant step forward when both parties undertook a joint mission to Rio Tinto’s massive Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold operations and underground expansion in the remote South Gobi desert of Mongolia.

IndustriALL affiliates from the energy, mining and base metals sectors came together as a macro sector to discuss strategies for increasing their union power and building stronger union structures in a globalized world in constant flux.

IndustriALL has signed Memoranda of Understanding with PVH and zLabels, bringing the number of ACT member companies to 20.

35 young trade unionists in Textile, Garment, Shoes and Leather (TGSL) industries from IndustriALL Cambodian affiliates held a workshop in Phnom Penh on 14-15 September on the increasing young workers’ participation in trade unions.