News

Theme : UNI Apro Commerce Stepping Up!



The UNI Apro Commerce Conference brought together 68 UNI Apro Commerce delegates from 12 affiliates representing 8 countries in Kuala Lumpur from 5-6 December 2009 to determine the aims and focus of its work for another term and renew the commitment to bring decent work to all commerce workers and influence friendlier worker labour policies to benefit all workers in this region.



The panellists for the theme “UNI Apro Commerce Stepping Up!”Shared their vision and experience on 6 December 2009.



Deepa Bharadwaj, Vice President UNICOME Nepal said that it is clear that the trajectory of commercial sector development under globalization is not only anti-labour but also, to a great extent, anti-society. Tastes and patterns of consumption are being shaped by transnational retailers and giant domestic distributors, which are obsessed mainly with profits. The sense of community, solidarity and neighbourhood is being eroded by globalization-driven retailing. Since the Global Financial Crisis, the situation had changed the working patterns of this sector. In this session, they look at the trade union responses, in particular UNI Commerce Global Union’s vision and mission to bring better working conditions to workers in this sector and how the UNI Apro region could influence the changes in promoting better industrial relations in this region and the sector in general.

Christopher Ng, Regional Secretary UNI Apro speaks about the shortcomings of “solidarity” in the individual union’s campaigns against the employer as it was noted that although technically the same multinational company operating in varies countries are considered employer but the relationship between them and individual unions in each country are somewhat different. While he supports the continues need to have Global Framework Agreements, he also caution that what is required to make GFA work is the commitment both from the company and union side.

Anjali Bedekar, President UNI Apro Women was pleased to report that UNI Apro has put in anti-discrimination policies in place, focus in increasing participation of women in all its activities, ensuring that decision making bodies incorporates the needs of the women and had build cross borders cooperation that had strengthen the trade union movement. She also requested that more should be done including compiling of statistics, increase women participation in decision making bodies and gender sensitizing for all members. While UNI Apro has done a lot to try to set some standards, the individual unions must also make the effort to play an active role in this process.



Noraini, Vice President HERO Supermarket, ASPEK Indonesia was pleased that in her union, training and education played an important role in churning out active and knowledgeable women that are willing to play an active part in the trade union. Being a young union with many young trade unionists, she felt that it is important to incorporate the workers needs into the trade union agenda and provide them with a platform to take the responsibilities to raise their issues. If women and young people are integrated from the very begining into the trade unions, the segregation of these groups of workers will not arise. She sincerely hope that trade unions have an open policy to bring in these groups of people and that trainings and awareness workshop will continue.



From the floor, Arvind from METRO Bangalore highlighted that their union had been granted recognition and the union is working hard to resolve the workers issues via dialogs and communication with the management. He thanked UNI Apro in assisting the workers in METRO India to have the confidence to start the union and he also mentioned that with a union, the working conditionals and industrial relations with the management has improved. This was a far cry from the past as industrail tension were high and the working environment is hostile.



Isobelle, President NUFCW Fiji reported that it was important that women be given the chance to be provided with trade union education and training to empower them to contribute to the trade union movement. As women have multiple role, including that as a home maker, it was also important that their family support their role so that women an play a more important role.



In answering a supplementary question on organising, Anjali Bedekar replied that her union is reaching out to new recruits even before they are confirmed to their position by making sure that the contract is fair and has regular dialogs with them. She emphasized that the trade unions must be active in attracting new members.

It was clear that while the commerce sector has grow tremendously for the past few years creating jobs for workers in the region, the issue of decent working conditions and unorganised workforce has meant that there is still a lot of organising to be done especially with multinational companies. While Global Framework Agreements is a tool for unions to be organised in the unorganised companies and for the workers to negotiate for better working conditions, the lack of commitment for this GFA was rather disappointing. However a glaring point was that while women constitute almost 50% or higher percentage of workers in this sector, due to their multiple roles in the society, they had not been integrated into the trade union movement. Recommendations were that training opportunities for women be increased and for gender sensitising for all trade union officers be carried out as a shift of paradigm should now be taken place to see how the patterns of work in the trade unions can be changed. However organising continues to be the core needs of this sector and that the unions must come up with proactive and innovative ideas to attract new membership.

The UNI Apro Commerce Conference brought together 68 UNI Apro Commerce delegates from 12 affiliates representing 8 countries in Kuala Lumpur from 5-6 December 2009 to determine the aims and focus of its work for another term and renew the commitment to bring decent work to all commerce workers and influence friendlier worker labour policies to benefit all workers in this region.