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East Asian unions say organising non regular workers is a priority



The UNI East Asian Telecom Forum which included unions from Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong identified the rise in the use of non regular workers in the telecom industry as a priority for their organising efforts. These workers need union representation to ensure their wages and conditions re maintained at the same levels as regular workers. The forum identified the risks for all workers if these workers remained not organised into the unions and it agreed to increase the unions efforts to organise these workers.



The forum also discussed UNI’s efforts to gain workers rights for agency workers and the upcoming UNI Temporary Work Agency global union meeting where UNI is developing work to try and organise these workers and make a global agreement with the main multinational temporary work agencies to ensure they respect workers rights and union rights throughout the world.



The unions also recognised to the need to increase their organising efforts in the software industry which is now increasingly becoming an integral part of the telecom industry. The workers in this part of the industry are often subjected to conditions of work with long hours for poor payment and limited social benefits. This was also seen as being an area where the unions could become more active with their organising efforts.



Marcus Courtney, the new Head of UNI Telecom, told the forum about how the union Washtech he had formed had worked to organise non regular workers and the ways they had built membership and services that attracted workers to want to join the union. He said that a key to this activity was communicating publicly the frustration the workers had about their job conditions such as no sick leave, no pensions, and a total lack of social benefits. This highlighted the fact that these workers were employed by one of the wealthiest companies in the world, Microsoft, but that their working conditions didn’t reflect the profitability and wealth of the company. Marcus explained that Washtech had extensively used the Internet as an organising tool.



The forum passed a resolution and produced a statement on these issues which are attached.

Marcus Courtney, new Head of UNI Telecom, addressing the forum