Reflections: Readers’ thoughts on organising and solidarity

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Education programmes of the ITF have played a vital role and many trade union educators are now leaders of their organisations. Education programmes should have a synergy between the formal and informal sectors and should be directed towards organising the unorganised. It’s a Herculean task.
Shiv Gopal Mishra, All India Railwaymen’s Federation, India

A weak union facing a strong company can benefit when other unions in the country strike in a show of support. When you apply this globally, this will be even more effective. Unions should also use the influence of the media to promote their cause and to help win workers their rights. A single union cannot face the challenges by itself.
Mokhtar Hili, Fédération Nationale des Transports, Tunisia

We must organise globally. If we don’t understand each other and work together, there could be fights between unions and even between ports. Capital is already driving the agenda. At our union congress in February, the main theme was the involvement of young people and how to sell unions to young people who are bearing the brunt of a liberated, deregulated workplace with almost no rights.
Gianfranco Conti, dockers’ section, FILT-CGIL, Italy

Capital is globalising. The trade union movement needs to be doing the same thing. We’ve got a very hostile conservative government at the moment. Any sort of international capacity we can build is absolutely essential for us, and we hope to be able to offer assistance to other trade unions in countries that have it worse than us.
Jamie Newlyn, branch secretary for South Australia, Maritime Union of Australia
Today competition is used as pretext for curtailing our rights. It has now become imperative to fight. We need a worldwide effort to stem the tide of deregulation.
Eric Falempin, FO Cheminots, France

Investors are being given a free hand in bringing in bad practices. We can fight this by coordinating and comparing collective bargaining agreements in their home countries with our own.
Jimi Masege, Aviation and Allied Workers’ Union, Kenya

On key national concerns…

In the aviation safety chain, all professionals are licensed – but cabin crews are the exceptions. The licence has to be issued by the state authority, so you can take your licence when you leave one airline. That means you don’t lose all your qualifications and have to do your training again. So we are looking at a common European licence for cabin crew.
Joseph Maurer, Transport Workers’ Union, Czech Republic

Most of the airlines are or may be outsourcing. Workers are losing their jobs or being transferred to jobs with very bad conditions, losing seniority, losing wage levels and working conditions, and all this impacts on safety. We believe the airline business is getting more and more insecure because of the social dumping that is going on. We need solidarity and a strong union to fight this. It is not going to be only a lobby matter, it has to be a fight.
Olivier Sekai, Fédération Nationale des Syndicats de Transport-CGT, France

Our government’s deregulation policy threatened taxi drivers’ welfare. Young people have started to choose not to become taxi drivers. We took the issue to court. Now the government is forced to rethink its direction.
Masaru Abe, Zenjiko-Roren, Japan

On political challenges…

In Mexico we are opposing electoral fraud, committed by the President in our latest national elections. We are also strongly opposing a proposed reform of the labour law, which would take away many of the historic achievements won by and for Mexican workers.

The problems we have are the result of neoliberal policies across Latin America. We unions are fighting for changes across the continent. Happily, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela have seen political changes. This is good news.
Benito Bahena, ATM (tram and bus workers’ union), Mexico

There will be no workers’ rights without economic rights. Africa has been devastated both politically and economically, not because we are poor, but because we have been exploited.
Benson Ngula, Railway Workers’ Union of Zambia

Trade unions should not focus on all activities. They should mainly focus on salaries, working conditions and safety conditions. When unions try to work on everything, they can do nothing.
Savelijs Semjonovs, Chairman, Latvian Rail and Transport Industry Trade Union

On women’s rights…

As someone once said, “Women are like tea leaves. You don’t know their strength until they are in hot water.” A positive attitude may not solve all our problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Mary Liew, Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union

Our managers are changing our working conditions without consulting with the union. Our benefits are worsening. I am a young mother, I am entitled to fair leave to spend time with my children. But the message from my employer is: “Either work with these conditions or get out.
Seema Rawat, Air Cabin Crew Association, India

Women and trade unions

Do women in your sector see trade unions as relevant to them?
What workplace issues has your union dealt with to benefit of women members?
If none, what do you feel is preventing women’s concerns from being represented as workplace issues in your union?

If you have a view to share with TI readers, please send your brief comments to:
parris_kay@itf.org.uk

Letters may be edited.

Out of 5,300 workers in the railway sector in Tunisia, less than one per cent are women. Some of the men are supporting women’s rights, defending their position and employment conditions and working on areas such as leave and discrimination. One of the main challenges, however, is that they sometimes don’t accept having a woman in trade union leadership. In our union there are two women shop stewards out of all 5,300 workers and I am the only woman on the
board.
Kalthoum Barkallah, ITF Women’s Committee and a board member of the Fédération Nationale des Chemins de Fer Tunisiens

We cannot afford to pussyfoot around this issue (HIV/AIDS). We have to empower women, ultimately in the bedroom, to say no to unsafe sex.
Jane Barrett, Satawu, South Africa

Union bosses’ mentality sometimes needs to change. If we are talking about organising more women, trade unions need to be clear about the benefits to women of joining a union.

Sometimes women are not active because they are afraid to express themselves. Trade unions can help by providing information and education to help women engage more widely.
Buyanaa Shanjmyatav, Federation of the Mongolian Railway Workers’ Trade Union

Women are having a hard time keeping positions in transport because they are being driven away by the introduction of cheap labour from overseas.

Due to a merger, our women’s committee was disbanded in 2001/2002. We lost a lot of people in our union and so there was not enough time to carry out women’s committee work in transport. But we will be restarting the committee in September to look at all the key issues.

We should have equal opportunities. We have a long way to go but we can’t wait until the men are ready. They always have reasons why women shouldn’t progress.
Brigitta Paas, FNV Bondgenoten, Netherlands

These comments were collected from trade union delegates attending the 41st ITF Congress in Durban, South Africa in August.

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Issue 25 October 2006

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