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Campaign against climate change - trade union conference

The ‘campaign against climate change’ held its 2nd trade union conference on Saturday 7 March 2009, in London and was well attended by members from GMB, UNITE, PCS, CWU and the TUC, as well as environmental groups and activists.

Other than the main plenary session the conference took the form of workshops and forums. The workshops were dedicated to issues such as Environmental Workplace Reps, Sustainable Transport, Food Production, Diets and Climate Change etc. The forums focussed on such issues as the Future of Aviation, and the Future for Coal and Nuclear Power.

Overall there was support for union members to take up the issue of climate change with management and negotiate energy-saving measures, as well as unions developing their own environmental policies. 

The urgency of climate change was emphasised with union leaders calling for immediate action including the mapping of union alternatives for decent green jobs and workers’ rights, before the UN climate change conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December 2009.  There was concern that some new green jobs are not decent jobs such as those in the recycling sector which are characterised by low pay, lack of safety standards and not unionised. 

There were calls for unions to lobby governments to reduce CO2 emissions, encourage green development, invest in research for greener fuel and the transfer of technology to the global south. For example, high-speed rail networks must use renewable energy and unions can be instrumental in achieving this. 
Hence the support for links to be built between the labour and environmental movements. 

The forum on transport focused discussion on the third runway expansion at Heathrow and called for the development of an integrated transport system inclusive of the other London airports and the train and bus networks. Questions were raised over the type of work that will be created with the third runway, and whether there was a risk of jobs being insecure, low paid and short-term. 

The discussion also included the problem of ‘pollution displacement’, where old planes are sold on to countries in Africa, effectively exporting environmental problems from the North to the South but not addressing the global impact of climate change. 

Overall the conference concluded by proposing a mapping exercise of alternatives to current governmental policies, as well as, the creation of a network consisting of environmental groups, academics and trade unions.  However given that this was not a decision making forum it is unclear how far forward some of these proposals and calls for support and action will go. Ali Howes, Assistant to ITF Assistant General Secretary.

For more information: http://www.campaigncc.org/
 

ITF Education Annual Report 2008

Throughout 2008 the department was involved in the implementation of new initiatives as well as continuing with pre-existing areas of work. Some of the new areas include the work on climate change and transport, a regional summer school, strengthening industrial organising, bargaining and coordination in the aviation and ports sections and the Caribbean subregion, and contributing to the ITF women’s school.

Climate change and Transport

The education department, in close coordination with ITF industrial sections, has continued to collect and analyse information on climate change and transport. Sessions on climate change were run at several ITF events in 2008 including the Executive Board, road transport conference, railway conference, women’s committee and the civil aviation and climate change conference. To increase awareness amongst affiliates, articles have been prepared for Transport International. Alana Dave participates on behalf of the ITF in the Global Unions working group on climate change.

ITF summer school 2008, India

The department held the first ever-regional summer school, hosted by NUSI in India and actively supported by all ITF Indian affiliates. 39 delegates representing 30 unions attended. The themes and issues covered by “Organising Globally” were linked to the actual experiences and priorities of unions in the Asia-Pacific region. Discussions and activities were focused on developing organising approaches in the context of industrial developments and employment changes. Participants developed skills in mapping, defining organising goals, identifying direct and indirect targets, and formulating campaign strategies and tactics to deal with existing situations and problems.

The department also assisted in the preparations and facilitation of the first ever ITF women’s summer school held in Maryland in June.

Organising in LAN

The department together with the ITF Civil Aviation section and ITF Americas office has an education project to strengthen union organising and networking in the regional airline LAN.  Four countries are involved.  Thus far two seminars have been held to build links between the unions and to identify common problems and issues.

Strategic campaigning in ports

This project has been developed together with the ITF Dockers’ Section. The activities of the project aim to strengthen the knowledge, campaigning capacity and bargaining power of ITF unions in individual ports and terminals in selected countries where target global terminal operators are active.

Collective Bargaining in the Caribbean

A project to strengthen collective bargaining capacity of the Caribbean affiliates has been developed together with the ITF Americas office and CAW in Canada. So far affiliates have had training in collective bargaining, workplace campaigning and dealing with the Caribbean single market.

Ongoing areas of work

Global ITF Educators’ Network

The Education Department has continued to support educators/trainers in ITF affiliates. Four sub regional educators’ seminars were run in the Caribbean, Arab World, East Africa and West Africa. A global educators’ seminar was also held in Sofia, Bulgaria hosted by the FTTUB. All the seminars focus on education as a tool to implement the objectives of Organising Globally and building the role of educators in supporting organising and campaigns.

Strengthening industrial organising, bargaining and coordination

The Education Department continues to work closely with Sections to strengthen the capacity of affiliates to respond to industrial restructuring, and to support organising, bargaining and solidarity.  Road transport  and  rail restructuring education activities were held in Africa, Asia and Latin America and a South East Asia fisheries seminar in the Philippines.

HIV/AIDS and transport workers

The education department continued the global project on HIV/AIDS, which began in 2006 and is managed by a fulltime project coordinator based at ITF headquarters, Dr Asif Altaf from Bangladesh. The project continues to produce an annual publication “Agenda”, a fortnightly e-bulletin and campaign materials.

A sub regional seminar was run in Europe bringing unions from Ukraine, Russia, & Azerbaijan. Since these countries have had no previous ITF HIV activity, the seminar aimed to build capacity amongst unions in this sub region to address HIV as a workplace issue.

The project coordinator continued to build a wide range of partnerships with other organisations and stakeholders including taking up a seat on the board of the North Star Foundation (set up by Dutch owned multinational TNT to combat HIV/AIDS in the transport sector). Together with the ITF Road Section and Rail Section, joint projects with the ILO and the employers’ organisations IRU and IUC were undertaken to develop a HIV/AIDS toolkit for each sector.

Other activities in 2008 included: coordinating a symposium on HIV in the workplace at the XVIII ILO World Congress on health and safety at work in Korea; participating in the UN international conference on AIDS in Mexico.

The ITF continued to participate in the Global Unions campaign to fight HIV/AIDS. Asif now also represents the labour constituency on the global steering committee of the World AIDS Campaign.

Strengthening the participation of women workers

Together with the ITF’s women department, education programmes for women transport workers have been run in all regions. During 2008, planning seminars were held for women in Africa and Latin America . A FES/ITF women’s seminar was run in Jordan in August 2008, focusing on building women’s organising and campaigning skills.

Building capacity to develop trade union responses to transport restructuring

The first year of this project has built upon the work of the previous FES funded project on the international financial institutions and transport restructuring. The project is coordinated by Brendan Martin from Public World and has three main elements: research and analysis, toolkit development, and training and capacity building. In 2008, the development of the web-based toolkit began using existing material related to railway restructuring, and the international financial institutions and transport restructuring.

Arab world

The Education Department has continued to provide support to unions in the Arab world. A variety of sector based and cross-sectional education activities have taken place, including a capacity building seminar for ITF unions in Iraq, education activities to strengthen union organising in Bahrain and Oman in Aviation and Ports.

In the main the above initiatives have been supported by affiliates and solidarity support organisations. The ITF would like to thank the following organisations for providing financial support for education activities in 2008: CAW (Canada), Vida (Austria), SEV (Switzerland), Transnet (Germany), 3F (Denmark), ISCOD (UGT-Spain), FNV Mondiaal (The Netherlands), FNV Bondgenoten, FES (Germany), SASK (Finland), AKT (Finland), LO-TCO (Sweden), SEKO (Sweden), Swedish Transport Workers’ Union and ACILS (United States).

A copy of the detailed report can be downloaded from the link below:
http://www.itfglobal.org/education/index.cfm
 

ITF Regional summer school 2008: My experience of the summer school

What do a wharfy, bus driver, cabin crew member, ITF Inspector, air traffic controller have in common? These were some of the people that came together during the first ITF Regional Summer School for unions in the Asia/Pacific region, held in Panvel (India) on 22-26 September 2008.

The theme of the Summer School was ‘Education for Organising’ and the sessions during the week covered different aspects of organising including the changing nature oftransport and challenges faced by  unions in the region, as well as how unions can develop strategic organising campaigns in response to these changes and challenges.

 

 “I am very happy that I got the opportunity  to attend the Summer School as I shared my experience with the participants throughout the Asian region, particularly those participants from the ports sector.  I was able to know more about different working systems, facilities, organising and mapping activities of other unions. The Australian Dockers and the solidarity among them was fantastic and  a good thing to learn from them. Regarding the membership strategy adopted by Singapore seafarers of attracting membership by giving workers gift items for joining the union is very interesting.


Also the summer school focused on union strategies to improve our knowledge on organising and empowering unions.  We were also able to think about organising strategies for unorganised transport workers and cargo-handling. I will be trying some of these things/strategies to organise and strengthen my union.

I express my thanks whole heartily to ITF on behalf of my union and comrade S. R. Kulkarni chairman Asia pacific ITF dock section. And to the entire ITF family for organising such a fantastic and useful summer camp”.  D. Subramaniam., vice president Transport and Dockworkers’ Union, Mumbai

“Restructuring me!” was one of the feedbacks received mid-way through the Summer School and one which I think is apt in describing the experience.  The different participants, who were a mixture of union officials, organisers, worker representatives and activists all had different experiences and were faced with different challenges, but were united by the effects of globalisation and the need to organise. 

Through discussions and group working we were asked to consider the new challenges that exist as well as possible future ones, for example the changing forms of work from permanent to casual and the increasing use of outsourcing and subcontracting, to the development of transport chains and their increasing importance.

With the ongoing development of globalisation and blurring of boundaries, geographically and between the different transport sectors, working with representatives from all sectors of the ITF during the Summer School provided a practical and important opportunity to consider the experiences and issues of workers and unions in all transport sectors.

We had to think “outside the box” and despite some barriers such as language, participants were not afraid to take on this challenge and look at the wider picture, generate new ideas and challenge the status quo.  The exchange of information and experiences between unions and participants as part of this process was vital.

From my perspective of working in one of the ITF Sections, participating in the Summer School has added to my understanding of the global issues through a practical focus on issues and challenges being faced by different transport unions.  The Summer School has given me a wider perspective of how local issues are linked to the international platform but also how the international is linked to the local.

The Summer School was a positive experience and two months after, I still feel the same inspiration and motivation that I felt during the week.

Claire Clarke
ITF Inland Transport Sections 




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A new agenda for education | Informal employment in Benin | Reaching out to informal workers

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06/12/06
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