News

The Seminar was opened by the President of FSP2KI Bro Irzan Zulpaker who spoke of the importance of building strong networks, sharing information and increasing our knowledge to make our Union stronger.

He said while it is difficult to form Unions in Indonesia we must continue to work in partnership with each other to achieve that goal.



Bro Tarihoran gave a presentation on the structures and membership of the Union and advised that the Executive Committee had established positions for Organising, Gender and Education to ensure the focus continues on these issues.



KSP2KI were first registered as a Federation in April 2007.



In TetraPak, Amcor and Kimberly Clark there is potential for growth, within other packaging companies research shows that there are at least 80 companies with a possible membership of over 68,000 workers.



While the labour laws do not support workers he said the Union must continue to develop strategies to improve the organization particularly in areas of bargaining, recruitment and education.





The Head of Department Steve Walsh gave a presentation on the key issues for packaging workers and the importance of organizing in multi-national companies such as TetraPak, Kimberly Clark and Amcor. He encouraged the work of the union and said that there was a clear commitment to organizing. He noted the commitment of the Executive Committee by establishing leadership positions in those 3 vital areas.



During the plenary session a number of activists raised the difficulty of recruiting members due to the fear campaign that companies ran about the Union.



In response the HOD said this was an issue in most parts of the world and that highlighted the importance of developing these networks in the multi national companies. He referred to the Global Dialogue Agreement with Kimberly Clark that acknowledge it was the workers decision to join or not join a union and that those decisions would be taken in an atmosphere free of intimidation or harassment.





Industry Plan

Arising from the presentations and the debates the following problems were identified

· Workers are afraid to form unions because of the fear of termination (especially in Amcor)

· Workers don’t understand how to organise and then communicate and gain recognition

· There is a low knowledge about the role of trade unions



Future activities were then identified around

· Must maintain contact with the workers

· Education of workers on how to form a trade union

· Develop campaigns and maintain that regular contact

· Education on the benefits of trade unions

· Training for activists on developing good relationships and forming trade unions in those companies.



The HOD in his closing remarks congratulated the delegates on their participation and commitment to growing the union.



He said clearly the FSP2KI is very much committed to organizing workers across the packaging industry and there is enormous potential for recruitment.



There are many challenges, the fear that workers have about joining unions and Companies have made it an art form to spread that fear and concern about workers jobs if they join a union. These same companies then continue on their way by exploiting their own workforce.



This type of behaviour must be exposed to our brother and sister unions in other countries particularly where we have strong unions. It is this reason why strong networks are so necessary in our MNC’s.



Unfortunately countries in their quest to attract investment are reducing the rights of workers through changes to labour laws on such things as making it easier to sack workers, we must continue to campaign against these type of laws.



The President in closing the Seminar said that

· We must continue the hard work

· The union is committed to organizing and we will continue to develop our strategy



He thanked all the participants for making the effort to attend and for their support in organizing in the sector



Contact steve.walsh@uniglobalunion.org