BER 2013 O T C O 2 No. THE BIANNUAL MAGAZINE OF INDUSTRIALL FEATURE The Middle East and North Africa SPECIAL REPORT Rio Tinto’s unsustainable corporate behaviour PROFILE Angeline Chitambo Welcome to Struggle for dignity We are determined to give all it takes to produce a profound change in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as at Rio Tinto, In the Middle East and North Africa IndustriALL Global Union is leading (MENA) region, IndustriALL is supporting the development and growth of free and the struggle of workers for dignity independent unions. In this issue of Global and respect. Worker, we tell you how. In April, the eight-storey Rana Plaza In January 2011, Tunisian people overthrew building collapsed near Dhaka in the regime of president Ben-Ali in an uprising Bangladesh, killing 1,129 garment that marked the beginning of the Arab workers. This industrial homicide expedited Spring. Unrest, revolutions and even wars negotiations on a legally binding Accord on followed in several countries in the region. Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh in the retail sector, led by IndustriALL and our People had clearly had enough of poverty, sister organization UNI. unemployment, social injustice, lack of democracy and lack of hope for a better Following the first signatures by H&M, life. They were angry and took to the Inditex and C&A, more than 100 leading streets to demand a change. brands and retailers of the world have signed the historic Accord that will help Today, more than two years after the make the Bangladeshi garment industry Arab Spring, we have seen changes safe and sustainable in a major five-year in the Middle East and North Africa project. (MENA), but also deep frustration and disillusionment among people because of The participating companies have high expectations and broken promises. committed themselves to exhaustive Dictatorship is not automatically followed inspections, finding funding for the by democracy. In a number of countries, necessary repairs of dangerous factories, the freedom of association is under threat. and training for management and workers. Jyrki Raina IndustriALL is therefore taking very General Secretary It will be a long and winding road, as concrete action to safeguard union problems with factories that have already rights and help independent unions build been identified as unsafe show. Many capacity to grow in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia and difficult and impopular decisions lie elsewhere in the region. “We are determined ahead. But we have to get rid of lethal factories making cheap t-shirts for Western In this issue of Global Worker we expose to give all it takes consumers. Indeed, we hope that the human and trade union rights abuses to produce a ongoing compensation negotiations after by mining giant Rio Tinto. IndustriALL is Rana Plaza, Tazreen Fashions and Aswad building a counter-power through a global profound change could be the last ones. union network to make the company in Bangladesh.” respect its workers. The struggle for dignity IndustriALL will also continue to exert around the world will never stop. pressure to raise the US$38 monthly minimum wage towards living wages; insist Jyrki Raina on an ILO-compliant labour law reform; General Secretary and launch a major organizing project in cooperation with our partner organizations. @JyrkiRaina IndustriALL Global Union Represents 50 million workers across the supply chains in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors at the global level. HEAD OFFICE SOUTH ASIA OFFICE LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN 54 bis, route des Acacias No. 5-E, Rani Jhansi Road Avenida 18 de Julio No 1528 CH 1227 Geneva New Delhi, 110 055 India Piso 12 unidad 1202 Switzerland Tel: +91 11 4156 2566 Montevideo Uruguay Tel: +41 (0)22 308 5050 Email: [email protected] Tel: +59 82 408 0813 Fax: +41 (0)22 308 5055 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] SOUTH EAST ASIA OFFICE Website: www.industriall-union.org 252 Tembeling Road 03-07 Tembeling Centre AFRICA OFFICE 423731 Singapore Published twice a year in English, French, Spanish and Russian Physical address: Tel: +65 63 46 4303 by IndustriALL Global Union. North City House Email: [email protected] Office S0808 (8th Floor) Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily 28 Melle Street, Braamfontein CIS OFFICE represent the views of IndustriALL Global Union. Str. 2, d 13, Grokholsky per., Room 203. Johannesburg 2001 South Africa President: Berthold Huber Tel: +27 11 242 8680 12090 Moscow Russia General Secretary: Jyrki Raina / [email protected] Email: [email protected] Tel: +7 495 974 6111 Email: [email protected] Editor: Petra Brännmark / [email protected] Postal address: P O Box 31016 Cover photo: IndustriALL Braamfontein 2017 South Africa Design: Nick Jackson / www.northcreative.ch 2 Contents Page 05 Tackling the precarious situation of garment workers in Bangladesh PAGE 18 Page 09 Merger in Canada creates super union Page 10 Marcio Pochmann on industrial development in PAGE 5 Latin America and the need for a common strategy Page 12 Feature on the Middle East PAGE 23 PAGE 9 and North Africa, a priority for IndustriALL Page 18 Angeline Chitambo speaks about her struggle at ZESA Page 19 Special report on the PAGE 10 PAGE 19 unsustainable business practices of Rio Tinto Page 23 Georgia: successful organizing in difficult conditions PAGE 12 Our t-shirts are produced by unionized labour Workers organized by IndustriALL affiliate, the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU), and employed at a Mazpah clothing factory in Cape Town produce IndustriALL’s t-shirts. “We are proud to say that it is the SACTWU members that have manufactured our IndustriALL t-shirts.” Jyrki Raina 3 Over to you... Join IndustriALL on facebook, twitter, YouTube and flickr and share with your friends. Check out industriALL’s regional Facebook pages Follow IndustriALL and Jyrki Raina on Twitter @IndustriALL_GU, @JyrkiRaina Jyrki Raina @JyrkiRaina Jyrki Raina @JyrkiRaina Six months after #RanaPlaza - Sweatshop owners in #Bangladesh may start to sweat as workers Brands must pay compensation get organized @IndustriALL_GU thespec.com/news-story/415... via NOW | #Industriall #UNI @thespec industriall-union.org/six- months-aft... Jyrki Raina @JyrkiRaina Unions mobilize around the world against #precarious work #Industriall #WDDW industriall-union.org/unions-mobiliz... Find IndustriALL’s most recent Flickr sets at www.flickr.com/photos/industriall_gu/sets Pictures of meetings and events can be found in their original size and can be downloaded free of charge. Please acknowledge their source in your materials. global worker | report MAIN PHOTO: Garment worker in Accord factory in Gazipur. Abir Abdullah IndustriALL leading the struggle for Bangladeshi report TEXT garment workers Tom Grinter The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh is an historic breakthrough covering more than 2 million garment workers. Breaking from failed corporate-led social auditing of the past, under the Accord trade unions and multinational companies are working together to improve the precarious situation of garment workers in Bangladesh. 5 global worker | report Over 100 brands and retailers, covering over Bangladesh. As the death toll mounted On the day of the factory collapse, 2 million workers in 1,600 factories, are now each day to a final 1,129 the world’s IndustriALL General Secretary Jyrki working together with IndustriALL Global workers, consumers and media demanded Raina said: Union and UNI Global Union. This broad change. The scale of Rana Plaza coalition constitutes a critical mass of the commanded systemic change, further than “ This terrible tragedy highlights the garment sector. Together they have worked the usual call for local justice and strict urgency of putting a stop to the race to hard to set up the foundations to the Accord sentencing of the local factory owner. the bottom in supplying cheap means for the work on the ground in Bangladesh to of production to international brands, a be up and running by December 2013. The industrial tragedy occurred at 9am, race in which hundreds of workers have 24 April. The collapsed building, illegally lost their lives. Global clothing brands A number of key factors make this broad constructed, contained five garment coalition new - its size; the seriousness of factories employing 5,000 workers. The and retailers have a responsibility the legally binding commitments; and the five factories were Ether Tex, New Wave for their full production chains. Now central role of national and international Bottoms, New Wave Style, Phantom it is time for them, suppliers and the trade unions. Trade unions as partners Apparels and Phantom-TAC, producing for Bangladeshi government to sit down are the only actors able to ensure several well-known western brands. with IndustriALL and its affiliates to accountability and reliable monitoring of agree on a safety program that will On 23 April, the day before the collapse, conditions and the inspection process. For ensure this will never happen again.” too long the industry publicly relied on one- large structural cracks appeared in the off safety audits in its factories, conducted supporting pillars of Rana Plaza. But by auditing companies that are created the building owner Sohel Rana and the Major brands joined, and funded by the brands themselves. garment factory owners ignored local Strong industrial relations in the industry authorities when they instructed a full more are following can replace this model and conduct evacuation. Workers were instead ordered In a rapid response to the Rana Plaza constant safety inspections in a context to be at work early the following day in disaster, IndustriALL worked in a supply where workers are empowered to refuse order to be at their workstations before the chain alliance with UNI Global Union dangerous work.