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americas info Electronic Bulletin
Natural disasters continue in the region: Eruption of the Pacaya Volcano and Tropical Storm Agatha hit Guatemala
Guatemala City. On the past May 28th, the Papaya volcano erupted in Guatemala, which together with the devastating effects of the Tropical Storm Agatha, left a wave of death and destruction in this Central American nation. This subject is dealt with in the presentation attached in “related files”, where you will be able to see images that will illustrate the magnitude of the catastrophe. UNI America expresses deep sorrow for the 174 fatal victims and solidarity with the thousands of damaged. This situation aggravates the situation of poverty affecting great part of the Guatemalan population.
Contact: uni-americas@uniglobalunion.org
CUT Chile denounces dismissals without cause before the ILO
Santiago.-The Unitary Central of Workers (CUT) denounces before the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the unjustified dismissal of more than 1500 public workers, taken place during the first months of the development of the new Government headed by Sebastián Piñera.
Source: Diario El Mercurio (EFE) www.emol.com.
Female workers in Brazil gathered for “Decisions for Life” Programme
Caraguá.- More than 50 women from UNI Telecom Sector held meetings during May 29th and 30th at SINTETEL Vacation Centre (Caraguá, Brazil), to share experiences and reflect on important issues like shared family responsibilities and inequality between men and women in our society, issues that form part of the contents of the Project Decisions for Life (DFL), which is being developed by 14 countries, Brazil among them. During the development of the two-day sessions, the union leaders showed their interest and wish to learn about the project and its objectives. SINTETEL’s Vice-president, Gilberto Dourado, welcomed the participants and congratulated UNI for the project’s initiative, highlighting that Brazilian Telecommunications’ sector has visibly grown and that more than an 80% of its labour force is mostly made up of young women at call centres.
Contact: briceida.gonzalez@uniglobalunion.org
The coordination with Private Security Guards in Uruguay is reinforced.
Montevideo. Alberto Barrow, UNI Americas Cleaning and Security Services Regional Director, held important meetings with the management of Prosegur Workers Unions (SITPRO); the Unique Union of Securitas Workers (SUTRASE), and Wackenhut Union of Workers (SITWA), all of them affiliated to FUECI, with the aim of generating an approach between those unions and UNI Global Union. The meeting took place on May 27th, in the city of Montevideo. Members of the unions SEGURA and LUNDAR participated at the conversations, and also other two private security companies. Alberto Barrow also contacted Mauricio Ibañez, President of the Uruguayan Union of G4S Workers, organisation affiliated to UNI Global Union.
Contact: alberto.barrow@uniglobalunion.org
Unions of UNI americas Electricity hold meeting with the company Gas Natural-Fenosa
Bogota. In the framework of the II Meeting of Spanish Transnationals’ Unions, taken place in Colombia, on June 2nd, a delegation of UNI Americas, headed by the Regional Secretary Raul Requena, and the Regional Director Fernando Mc. Master, was received by the executives of Gas Natural-Fenosa, Mr Victor M. Cruz Vega, Regional Administrator for Central America, and César Borras Gómez, Human Resources Regional Manager, to discuss urgent issues related to this Spanish multinational’s policies in relation to workers and unions. The issue of the problem union-workers prevailing in Colombia, Nicaragua and Panama, was discussed at the meeting. UNI Americas expressed the necessity of a more permanent dialogue and offered support to the unions in conflict.
Contact: fernando.mcmaster@uniglobalunion.org
UNI americas Telecom and UGT Spain hold meeting with Telefónica manager
Bogota. In the framework of the II Meeting of Spanish Transnationals’ Unions, carried out in Colombia, the participants from UNI Americas Telecom, accompanied by the union representatives from UGT- Spain, were received by the Vice- President of Human Resources of Telefonica Colombia, Mr. Juan Carlos Alvarez. During the meeting, Alvaro Molina, president of USTC, described the situation undergone by workers from Telebucaramanga and Telefonica. At the same time, he confirmed that there will not be massive dismissals in Telefónica Colombia companies. He also committed to carry out a phone conference with Alvaro Molina and Cenise Monteiro in order to analyse the possibility that UNI Americas Telecom should develop a presentation on UNI and the Framework Agreement subscribed with Telefónica for Colombian Telefónica workers.
Contact: cenise.monteiro@uniglobalunion.org
Electricity Workers protest in El Salvador
San Salvador,- Affiliated workers of the Electricity Industry Union of El Salvador (SIES), from the company Empresa de Electricidad del Sur S. A. (DELSUR), property of the multinational Ashmore Energy International (AEI), were able to foresee serious complications in the distribution of electrical energy in El Salvador and expressed against the intentions of the company to modify its Social Agreement, which would supposedly enable the diversification of the investment through the creation of companies called “vampires”. This multinational from the USA is known for its bad handling of labour relations, and for their harassment and repression to unionised workers.
Contact: fernando.mcmaster@uniglobalunion.org
II Meeting of Spanish Transnationals’ Unions in Latin America
Bogota. A meeting was celebrated in Bogotá during the first three days of June 2010, with representatives of unions from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panamá and Peru, which actively participate in the actions developed in the framework of the Agreement subscribed between UNI and the Labour Institute of Cooperation for Development (ISCOD) from UGT, Spain. This Agreement promotes permanent actions oriented at the improvement of labour conditions among workers of Spanish Transnational companies, such as Telefónica, ENDESA Gas Natural-Fenosa, BBVA, Banco de Santander and REPSOL, among others. This also enables to enhance the ability of unions to follow up on companies’ evolution in different aspects, and to reinforce their capacity and political presence in their relationship with their respective company management.
Contact: jose.molina@uniglobalunion.org
World Bank points out that informality generates contradictions in social security
Rio de Janeiro. - According to a new report issued by the World Bank, as the economic recovery increases its pace, Latin America and the Caribbean face important challenges as regards social security cost. The report points out that even if most countries of the region have developed conditioned cash transfer programmes with well defined objectives to protect the needy, pensions, unemployment and health insurances only cover a small fraction of the working population. Besides, the 2009-2009 financial crisis has revealed that the systems designed to offer support and social services for the more vulnerable, continue to be ill-equipped to grant an appropriate protection against crisis in most cases, especially for workers in the informal sector. The report, denominated Achieving Effective Social Protection for ALL in Latin America and the Caribbean: From Right to Reality, indicates that countries still have to face a low contributive pensions’ coverage because recent reforms have not provided a solution to the problem.
Source: www.worldbank.org/lac
UNI Cleaning and Security Services celebrate Justice Day 20th Anniversary
Nyon. - June 15th is the day in which cleaning and security workers commemorate the struggle for justice and equality throughout the world. The date was established for this celebration after a group of janitor’s were beaten by the police force in Los Angeles, United States of America, during a pacific demonstration organised to protest against a cleaning service multinational. It was celebrated for the first time in 1990 in the United States. The pressure held by workers of the sector affiliated to unions in other countries, helped Los Angeles janitors to achieve justice. UNI Global Union Cleaning and Security Services, encourages all the affiliates to never forget this date and to stay in permanent campaign.
Contact: nigel.venes@uniglobalunion.org
UNI americas electricity trains new union organisers
Panama.- As a part of the activities of UNI LO/TCO 400959 project, a training course for union organisers was carried out in Panama City on June 7th to 9th , whose objectives were, among others: labour actors’ training and equality campaigns. The meeting gathered union organisations from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panamá, and enabled the analysis of different organising strategies developed in American multinationals of the Graphic and Telecom sector. Afterwards, the delegates debated and presented proposals based on action strategies such as: a) to promote social dialogue with transnational companies – to resume the issue of health and security with a focus on the environment; b) to reinforce union alliances - through the exchange of information and the discussion of common issues to elaborate proposals of strategic solutions, and c) to improve collective bargaining and gender equality - through the definition of negotiation strategies and in order to impel a global framework agreement, apart from encouraging and supporting the equal participation of female workers in union activities.
Contact: fernando.mcmaster@uniglobalunion.org
Postal Workers in action: Campaign in support of the Postal Law in Paraguay
Asuncion.- UNI Americas Post and Logistics started a campaign at a regional level in support to the quick enactment of the new Postal Law in Paraguay, which creates the National Post Direction, DINACOPA. Postal workers from Paraguay have struggled for more than 15 years to achieve the enactment of a new body of laws to regulate this important activity. The campaign consists in sending the President Fernando Lugo a note, requesting his signature to ratify the measures of the National Parliament. We kindly request all the affiliates to send messages in this direction.
Contact: cenise.monteiro@uniglobalunion.org
UNI americas Colombian women’s Network against Child Labour
Bogotá.- UNI Americas Women’s Network of Colombia, joined a World Journey on June12th against child labour, as a part of the labour movement they committed to continue to struggle against it and to achieve the children’s right to play and study. According to ILO, a 20% of working children in Colombia (the children of more than 3 million of displaced people among them), working in agriculture, mining, flower industry, informal commerce, construction, services, domestic work, or suffering sexual exploitation. A key stage in their lives is denied to these children: the infancy, with the games, the laughter, happiness, tenderness, the discovery, sharing with their friends at school. This social plight has been deepening at the same pace everywhere, with the implementation of neoliberal policies, work precarisation, and the development of economic crisis.
Contact: briceida.gonzalez@uniglobalunion.org
Outsourced Movistar - Chile workers conclude strike
Santiago. The Inter Company National Union of Telecommunications of Chile, SINATE, has expressed its gratitude to UNI and its affiliates for the support received during the conflict the union faced with Movistar and workers from that multinational contractors, which extended from May 17th to June 4th 2010, concluding with the application of the Article 369, subsection 2 of the Labour Code, which forces the company to respect the economic and labour conditions in force at the moment of the negotiation, for a period of 18 months.
Source: SINATE sinate@ctcinternet.cl
Contact: cenise.monteiro@uniglobalunion.org
Wal-Mart could face its first legal strike in Chile
Santiago. Workers from the company SAITEC, property developer branch of Wal-Mart in Chile, will vote for a legal strike after receiving the last company’s offer. The Leader Inter Company Union, in representation of the workers of that company, delivered a two-year project, requesting a wage settlement higher than the Consumer Price Index (CPI); the payment of a productivity bonus agreed with the company; vacation bonus and a temporary leadership position bonus, plus an increment in existing bonuses. In its last offer, the company directly rejects the whole of the workers’ petitions, and presents a project which includes only a readjustment according to CPI, establishes a 4-year contract and refuses to give a bonus for conflict termination, which deeply damages the Leader Union workers’ interests.
Source: Leader Union sindicatoliderprensa@gmail.com
Contact: marcio.monzane@uniglobalunion.org
UNI americas in defence for life: Not taking action makes us accomplices
Panama. All Panamanians are witnesses of the dramatic situation the private security workers are undergoing in the country: they are being killed in their work places. It seems that by subscribing their work contract they are at the same time signing their own death sentence. In the last 18 months, more than 29 security guards have died during the exercise of their working duties. In this context, statistics reveal that from 2000 so far, 106 security guards have been victims of homicide, in most cases, to be taken their firearms away. Besides, there have been hundreds of wounded workers and a great number who resulted irreversibly crippled. Mourning and pain have increased in private security guards’ homes. And as many companies deduct the Social Security fees and do not report it to the corresponding state entity, the families of the deceased are left in complete defencelessness. UNI Americas joins the voices of those who demand the National Government to start this discussion, and the approval of a law to regulate the private security industry in Panama, which may guarantee a significant improvement of the labour conditions with which these workers are forced to develop their duties.
Contact: alberto.barrow@uniglobalunion.org
Conference on sales and financial assessment defines strategy
Copenhagen.- The Conference on Sales and Financial Assessment took place on June 9th and 10th in Denmark, in the framework of the meeting of the UNI Global Union Finance Steering Group. The discussions involved different social perspectives, such as consumer’s defence organisations, government agencies and mainly the presence of many union leaders from Europe, Asia and America, and the Group’s head of UNI finance, who presented and approved a model letter which shall be used by our affiliates in the concrete elaboration of proposals to improve the worker’s life in their work sites.
Contact: marcio.monzane@uniglobalunion.org
Labour evaluation on the impact of postal liberalisation
San Salvador. The Workshop Seminar “Postal liberalisation and its impact on workers: a union perspective on how to face the changing postal industry” funded by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) took place in El Salvador on June 22nd, 23rd and 24th. A total of 19 participants from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, debated the objectives of the workshop which were: a)To analyse the changes derived from the process of liberalisation of the sector, and its impact on workers; b) To analyse the union’s role and strategies in the face of the processes of liberalisation, and c) to promote organising strategies in a changing postal industry, mainly at new postal companies. As the result of this experience, once the activity was concluded, the participants could elaborate a regional action plan for the sector in order to be able to more effectively face liberalisation and privatisation of Post in countries where this process has not yet started.
Contact: cenise.monteiro@uniglobalunion.org
The council of Global Unions adopted TWA principles
Geneva. On June 14th, GUFs published a series of principles to protect worker’s rights with a focus on the impact of Temporary Work Agencies (TWA). The principles treat the issue of exploitation and abuse to ATT workers, as well as the damage to regular relationships caused by the misuse of these agencies. In recent decades, the progressive use of TWAs to hire workers has spread throughout the world, extending to sectors and occupations which in the past depended on direct employment. It is not only that the workers provided by TWAs perceive lower salaries and less benefits, but also that the financial crisis developed into an employment crisis, and the workers hired through TWAs have become its first victims. Many companies plainly terminated their contracts with the TWAs, and in this way, the workers did not receive the minimum compensation, or the social benefits they could have acquired as direct employees.
Contact: briceida.gonzalez@uniglobalunion.org
Panama: Telecom workers protest against antiunion law
Panama City. After the approval of the controversial antiunion Law 30 – known better as the “Sausage Law”- voices have been incessantly heard as well as expressions of rejection from the labour movement and different sectors of the Panamanian society. On 21st June, Tuesday, around 150 workers from the telecom multinational Cable & Wireless protested in front of the headquarters of this company located in one of the main streets of the Panamanian Capital. The demonstrators, carrying posters, chanted slogans against the recently approved law. By Law number 30, the Labour, Judicial and Criminal Codes were reformed, as well as other six laws. With regard to Labour Law, the reform markedly affects the right to strike, and introduces elements which become a serious threat to the exercise of labour freedom.
Contact: alberto.barrow@uniglobalunion.org
Spanish CCOO and UGT Workers’ Manifesto
Madrid. The Union Confederation of Worker’s Commissions (CCOO) and the General Union of Workers have adopted the decision of initiating a process of mobilisations which will conclude with the celebration of a General Strike that will take place on September 29th, in which male and female workers of this country will express their conclusive rejection towards salary reduction policies and suppression of worker’s rights decreed by the Government, under the protection and with the excuse of European guidelines. The Spanish Government and the Europeans have disappointed the citizens whom they represent. The policy of tremendous economic adjustments that is being implemented as a shock therapy to recover from the economic crisis are socially unfair, regressive in labour terms, and mistaken from an economic point of view, because they compromise the possibilities of economic growth and employment creation.
Contact: uni-americas@uniglobalunion.org
Salvadoran Graphic Union defends legitimate Rights
San Salvador. Members of the Union of Public Employees of the National Print (SEPIN), expressed to UNI-Americas Graphics Regional Director, Marvin Largaespada, that their demands for establishing a fair Work Contract for female and male workers of that company are not being heard; they declared that their intention is that this important document should be elaborated in accordance to national and international current legislation; the objective is that workers should achieve labour stability as established by the Labour Code and the recognition of labour liabilities, as well as protection . In their quality as unionised public employees, these workers request to be incorporated to the “Salary Law”, which implies that they will be granted guarantees as workers of the Administrative Career, the same as postal workers and fire fighters, because according to what they declared, they are all under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Government.
Contact: marvin.largaespada@uniglobalunion.org
P&MS work in the Americas moves forward
Buenos Aires. As a part of the work actions proposed during 2010 for the group of Professionals and Management Staff in the Americas, during the work mission carried out by the responsible of that group from June 21st to June 24th in Argentina, a series of extensive work meetings were celebrated with professional’s unions and management staff unions from electricity sectors and telecom. The Association of University Professionals of Water and Electric Energy (APUAYE), the Association of Metal Mechanic Supervisors of the Argentine Republic (ASIMRA), and the Union of Technology, Information and Communication Workers (CEPETEL), all members of UNI, participated in those meetings. Take a look at the complete report by clicking on the article’s title.
Contact: jose.molina@uniglobalunion.org
The G20 does not respond to the challenges raised by employment
Toronto. The G20 leaders run the risk of sleepwalking into a double recession as a result of their hastiness to reduce fiscal deficits in half by 2013 or even before, according to the statements of an international labour delegation present in Toronto by the end of the G20 Summit. ”Employment and higher salaries are the cornerstone of economic recovery, and last year, the G20 Leaders gave signs of having acknowledged this”, stated Saran Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC. “This year they are delivering contradictory and ambiguous messages which run the risk of undermining the weak shoots of recovery” This is how the ITUC Press Department Bulletin begins in relation to the issue of G20 agreements. You can see the complete press release by clicking on this article’s title.
Contact: raul.requena@uniglobalunon.org
New Executive Committee for the Bank Workers Confederation of Chile, CSTEBA
Santiago. On June 17th, 2010, the Chilean Confederation of Unions of Bank Company workers and Allied activities, CSTEBA, under the National Assembly’s mandate, proceeded to elect the new authorities that will rule the organisation’s destiny during the period 2010-2014. The main positions are: President, Andrea Riquelme; General Secretary, Luis Mesina; Vice President, Ulises Vega; Treasurer, Mario Mayer and International Relations Director; Rubén González. The Regional Secretary of UNI Americas, Raúl Requena, delivered the following message to the new Committee: “On behalf of UNI and our affiliates of Americas and the Caribbean, I send our best wishes for success to the new authorities of CSTEBA. As always, our Regional Office, the Director of UNI Americas Finance and I, will be willing to collaborate myself with whatever you might consider necessary. Receive our fraternal greeting”
Contact: marcio.monzane@uniglobalunion.org
UNI americas/ Twitter
We kindly invite you to join us and send us your comments and opinions to http://twitter.com/uniamericas, The Twitter logo will soon be found in our website.
Contact: mario.sanchez@uniglobalunion.org
Contribution
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