call of the millions 1 summer 2012

7/29/2019 Call of the Millions 1 Summer 2012

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we are nothing but we should be everything

this is the call of the millions...

Work is a four letter word. Most of us cannot live without it. Many - too many -struggle to survive it. From Manhattan to the Maquiladoras, between Londonand Shenzen, low pay and dangerous working conditions, temporaryemployment with no trade union rights scar our lives day after day in today'sglobal economy.

A living wage; safe workplaces; permanent jobs; the ability to form

independent trade unions. These are simple demands, growing from needs andrights we all share. Because workers rights are indivisible, across economicsectors and national borders.

We support these rights and those struggling to claim them everywhere.

FEATURES:

Olympic Spotlight P2-3

Rio Tinto Blues P4

Work By Numbers P4

The Millions In Action P5Solidarity Interview P6-7Frontiers Of Control P8

Contact us:[email protected]


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An Olympian Moment

But if we look behind the media circus,something less joyful and more mundanecomes into view. We are talking about thework that props up the whole show from theconstruction of its stadia,the manufacture ofmerchandise and of the sportswear thatathletes don in their quest for glory.

Over the past two years a campaignlaunched by the Playfair movement andsupported by trade unions and NGOs hasdrawn our attention to the dark side of theOlympic dream.

Focusing mainly on the sportswear industry,Playfair 2012 has engaged with major

sportswear brands (like Nike and Adidas), theLondon organisers (LOCOG) and theInternational Olympic Committee, calling onthem to help improve the situation.

We are pleased to say

some progress hasbeen made.

LOCOG have signedthe first ever agreementon workers rights in theOlympic supply chains,disclosing the locationof supplier factories

The next phase of theinternational Playfaircampaign, Brazil 2014and 2016, will takeforward this agreement.Organisers from Brazilare already working withPlayfair 2012.

In Indonesia anhistoric agreement in2011 to allow unionsinto local sport factoriesmarked a big stepforward in the strugglefor workers rights.

The Olympics are coming to your region. Not aneveryday thing, something special...

Adidas factory in China

Contact us: [email protected]


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Having said that there's still along way to go.

Recent research on Olympicsportswear and merchandiseproduction shows the familiar

story :

low pay and forcedovertime;

irregular work with no jobsecurity;

dangerous workingenvironments;

sexual harassment of femaleworkers;

a lack of legal rights.

Those Olympic mascots,Wenlock and Mandeville arealso part of this story. They arepart of a race. The race to thebottom that drives downworkers pay and conditionsacross the global economy.

Check out the report 'Toying

with Workers Rights' athttp://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/play_fair_en_final.pdf

Lets leave the last word tothose on the front line.

As the representatives fromIndonesian and Sri Lankangarment workers unions told us

on theirtour ofthe UK:

'only workers selforganisation can effectivelyclean up garmentproduction and deliver fairand decent workingconditions'

For more on all this seewww.playfair2012.org .

The international Playfaircampaign itself will continue,heading off to Brazil. We will bekeeping up to date with its

progress.

Nike factory in Vietnam

http://www.playfair2012.org/http://www.playfair2012.org/


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Rio Tinto A World of DiscontentRio Tinto A World of Discontent

The closure of the

Alcan plant inNorthumberland,

largest employer inthe county, hascreated a big hole inthe region thatwon't be easilyfilled. People are

angry, clearly so.Workers in Quebec protest against Rio Tinto.

For Rio Tinto, owner of Alcan,this isn't the only controversycurrently on its horizon. Themulti-national now has aninternational campaign rangedagainst it, protesting at its

status as an official Olympicsupplier it is contributing themetal for all the medals.

And here's some of its trackrecord:

in Utah USA Rio Tinto's mineis cited as a source of air

pollution and cause of hundredsof premature deaths aroundSalt Lake City;

in Indonesia, the companyhas been accused of humanrights violations;

at its Quebec plant, around800 workers have been locked

out since December 31 2011 ina dispute over subcontracting.

So the pressure is growing onRio Tinto. Addyour voice viathe new campaign website 'offthe podium' launched by theUnited Steelworkers of America(USW) www.offthepodium.org

In the words of the GeneralSecretary of the InternationalMetalworkers Federation, JyrkiRaina:

'In a strong field of anti-worker,anti-environment companies in

the global mining industry RioTinto is the worst of all'.

THE WORLD OF WORK IN

NUMBERS...

Apple is now the world's

most valuable company, withan estimated worth of half a

trillion dollars.

There are around 3 billion

workers in the global

economy

http://www.offthepodium.org/http://www.offthepodium.org/


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The Millions In Action: Mayday 2012he Millions In Action: Mayday 2012Mayday Rallies In Spain, Turkey, Philippines & Indonesia



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In the Spotlightn the SpotlightWe hope to feature a leadinginternationalist in each edition ofthe call of the millions. Kickingus off here's Eric Lee, from theLabourstart project.

WHY DOES INTERNATIONAL

SOLIDARITY MATTER?

International solidarity mattersbecause in the age of globalisation,

unless workers can work together

across borders, we are no match for

transnational corporations for whom

borders don't exist.

International solidarity isn't about

helping poor people out of a feeling

of charity - though that's to be

commended. It's about our self-

interest in the fight to prevent a

global race to bottom, as employers

seek out cheaper and cheaper

labour to protect their profits.

Without international solidarity,

employers can use the classic tacticsof divide-and-conquer to keep us

weak, which is what they do every

day.

HOW DID YOU BECOME INVOLVED?

I have been active in the labour

movement since the early 1970s(and yes, I was VERY young back

then). But I became an active

proponent of using computer

communications in the service of

global labour solidarity about 20

years ago when working with

workers' education associations

around the world. That lead to my

book, The Labour Movement and theInternet: The New Internationalism

(Pluto Press, 1996) and from that to

the LabourStart project, launched in

1998.

YOU ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON

THE LABOURSTART PROJECT

HOW DO YOU SEE ITS FUTURE

PROSPECTS?

LabourStart has become the newsand campaigning website of theinternational trade union movement.

Increasingly, global union

federations (GUFs) use it as their

primary platform for online

campaigning and for nearly 100,000

union activists on our mailing lists, it

has become an online home. In the

future we hope to see it expandeven further with many more

languages (we already appear in

nearly 30), much larger campaigns

(breaking the 10,000 mark

regularly), and much more original

content produced by workers who

are reporters, writers,

photographers and film-makers.

The annual LabourStart global

solidarity conferences (first held inCanada and Turkey) will continue

and grow, with the next twoscheduled ones in Sydney (2012)

and Berlin (2014).

WHAT ARE THE MAJOR OBSTACLES

TO INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY?

Language is a big one - as anyone

who has tried to work in the fieldknows. Not everyone speaks

English, machine translation isn'tyet perfect, Esperanto sadly did not

catch on, and translators and

interpreters are incredibly

expensive; but probably a bigger

barrier is consciousness.



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Many workers and their unions

remain in a 20th century mind-set,

and see that they have some sort of

"national interest" which puts them

at odds with fellow workers in other

countries. The slogan "British jobsfor British workers" (uttered,

amazingly, by a Labour Party prime

minister - not David Cameron)symbolises this problem.

And old ways of thinking in some

unions mean that "international

work" is still seen as something

done by a handful of bureaucratswho get to fly off on junkets to

exotic lands -- rather than as

something integral to trade union

work, something done by rank and

file workers in their thousands,which is what LabourStart does.

CAN THE WORKERS OF THE

WORLD RECLAIM THEIR RIGHTS?

They can and they are.

We've had some big victories -- such

as the passing of the Domestic

Workers' convention by the

International Labour Organisation

last year -- but the best signs that

our movement is doing well is the

growth of institutions that can serveas a counter-weight to transnational

corporations and international

financial institutions such as the

World Bank, WTO and IMF.

I'm thinking in particular of the

global union federations (GUFs),

three of which are merging in June

to form "IndustriALL", a mega-GUFrepresenting tens of millions of

workers in manufacturing around

the world.

In the Spotlight:In the Spotlight: continued from page 6

And of course the increasing

strength of the online activist

network at LabourStart, with its

ability to campaign in real time in

defence of workers anywhere, is

also a hopeful sign.

ANY ADVICE FOR ACTIVISTS

LOOKING TO GET INVOLVED ININTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY?

1. Learn about what's going on by

visiting LabourStart every day (

http://www.labourstart.org).

2. Sign up to each and every one of

the online campaigns we run onbehalf of unions.

3. Forward on the emails we send

you to help grow those campaigns.

4. Help collect labour news by

becoming a volunteer LabourStartcorrespondent. Tell the world about

what's happening in your region,

workplace and union.

5. If you know languages other than

English, help us translate our newsand campaigns. There are 5,000spoken languages out there; 30 is

just the tip of the iceberg.

6. Get your union to make asubstantial donation to LabourStart.

Without that support, our work

cannot continue.

7. Come to our conference in

Sydney this November. If youcan't, plan on Berlin in May 2014.

8. Listen to Radio Labour (

http://www.radiolabour.net) - itsdaily 5 minute show is essential.

9. Sign up on the TUC website to

get alerts(http://www.tuc.org.uk/mediacentre

/register.cfm)

10. And never, ever believe peoplewho tell you trade union

internationalism is a thing of the

past.

http://www.labourstart.org/%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blankhttp://www.radiolabour.net/%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blankhttp://www.radiolabour.net/%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blankhttp://www.radiolabour.net/%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blankhttp://www.labourstart.org/%22%20%5Ct%20%22_blank


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The Frontier Of ControlThe Frontier Of ControlTake a look at this building.Nothing remarkable.

Inside however...

This is the Johnson Controls Inc.

Interiores auto parts plant in Puebla,

Mexico. It is just one of many sites

used by US firms who shift work

across the US Mexican border totake advantage of low wages, lack

of trade unions and other corporate

desirables.

The workers at the plant have been

fighting a long battle for

independent union representation.

They had come under the

'protection contract' regime widelyused in Mexico where employers

sign contracts with 'official' unions

to buy labour peace, ensuringthere'll be no effective

representation at plant level.

A year ago the workforce achieved a

notable victory, joining an affiliate of

'Los Mineros', the National Union of

Mine and Metalworkers, and signeda collective bargaining agreement

with JCI Interiores.

Now however JCI have announced

the closure of the plant, and its

relocation elsewhere in Mexico for

'financial and logistical reasons'. 400jobs are on the chopping block.

Los Mineros say this is simply an

attack on independent trade

unionism in Mexico. The plant was

profitable and overall JCI sales and

profits stood at record levels for the

first quarter of 2012.

The background to the JCI Interioresstory can be found on the website of

the Maquila Solidarity Network:

http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/John

sonControls

We will return to Mexico and LosMineros soon

THE WORLD OF WORK IN

NUMBERS...

Wal-Mart is the largestprivate employer in the

world, with a estimated 2.1

million workers in its

supply chains.

The world's average salaryis $1,480 (928) a month,which is just less than

$18,000 (11,291) a year.

The Minimum Wage in the UK

is 6.08 an hour: in

Bangladesh it is the

equivalent of 7.16 a month

There are 164 million trade-union members worldwide:

just over 1 in 20 workers.

C ll f h illi @ il k

call of the millions 1 summer 2012

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