News
Passport make-over among Melbourne priorities
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The UNI Passport and UNI’s long running on-line rights for on-line workers campaign are heading for a make-over. Re-vamps are among nine key priorities for the next four year’s work of UNI Professional and Managerial Staff, agreed in the final session of their world conference in Melbourne, Australia. A new, proactive and much more on-line UNI Passport scheme will aim to provide union support to the increasing number of mobile professionals crossing borders and continents to pursue careers in a globalising economy. The aim is to link up union members moving into new countries with unions there - and to step up global and regional awareness of the Passport scheme that allows host unions to pick ‘n mix a package of services to help mobile professionals. A new on-line rights Code will give advice to unions and members in a world where young, computer-based professionals increasingly live virtual lives through social networking sites and electronic communication. |
New guidelines are needed to ensure that privacy is respected at a time of increasingly sophisticated email monitoring systems.
Connect UK’s Leslie Manasseh called for dialogue and negotiations between unions and employers to agree rules that are responsible and proportionate.
“Private life must remain private and youthful behaviour on YouTube should not be used by an employer to bar you from a job interview,” Leslie told the conference. “Unions should be the vehicle to negotiate agreements to protect members and help them understand what they can or cannot do.” Young workers increasingly join unions on-line and communications with them is also increasingly virtual. Connect has an agreement with BT to email new members of staff, although Leslie also urged unions to build up home email address lists for the times when relationships between union and companies are not so positive.
Other priorities identified include promoting diversity policies and mainstreaming P&MS issues across the work of UNI global union.
Delegates elected a new top team - Christer Forslund of Unionen, Sweden as UNI P&MS President and John De Payva of SMMWU, Singapore as Vice President. This follows the retirement of John Vines of APESMA, Australia who was P&MS President for eight years.
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| Presentation to outgoing P&MS World President John Vines | Closing session in Melbourne |
The global mobility of Professional and Managerial Staff and ensuring union organisation and support was a key issue for the Melbourne conference.
To underline growing trends the media reported that, while Australia remains a desirable destination for overseas workers, record numbers of Australian workers (the majority skilled) themselves took jobs abroad - 72,103 in 2006-7.
There is still net immigration into Australia and migrants accounted for 56% of the country’s population growth last year.
“The skills shortage has started to develop into a labour shortage,” Immigration Minister Chris Evans told The Australian newspaper .
In the ASEAN region some of the problems facing mobile professionals are high placement fees, discrimination and short term jobs, reported Professor Rene Ofreneo from the University of the Philippines.
“Under globalisation, labour markets are ceasing to be national in character – they are becoming regional and global with an impact on the work of unions,” he told delegates.