IndustriALL Global Union

12/10/2026

Strong unions negotiate strong agreements. 💪

Today in Dhaka, newly formed plant-level unions are training on collective bargaining together with factory management, from wages and leave to heat stress, safe drinking water and an end to harassment at work.

The training is jointly organized by Inditex and IndustriALL under our global framework agreement. A GFA gives workers in every country where a company operates the same core rights to organize and bargain collectively, and a route to global management when local dialogue stalls.

But GFAs don’t enforce themselves: they work when strong local unions use them.

So many women in the room, and so many voices ready to negotiate.

🔗 How GFAs win real change for workers: https://sl1nk.com/rqdj4gp

11/10/2026

Women in the unions of Asia Pacific are pushing for change ✊

Today in Kuala Lumpur, IndustriALL’s Asia-Pacific regional women’s committee met to share progress and plan the road ahead.

✅@ nternational Iabour International Labour Organization C190 on violence and harassment at work has been ratified in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In Indonesia, unions have campaigned since 2019, building a coalition with religious groups, employers and other unions. The government now says it will ratify before the end of the year.
✅ Unions in Cambodia are preparing a campaign for ratification, launching in December.
✅ For the first time in its history, a Japanese affiliate has elected a woman president.

🌱 Mentoring the next generation
The mentoring programme for young women trade unionists in Indonesia and the Philippines is building future leaders. Mentees learn about union leadership, women’s participation and the feminist agenda, then put it into practice in their workplaces. Their work is already showing up in gains in collective agreements.

One mentee from Indonesia is now her union’s treasurer and has led campaigns for women workers at her workplace. A young mineworker from the Philippines said the programme taught her to speak up:

🗣️ “Women and young workers should not only be present, but able to participate and influence the policies and decisions that impact them.”

Another mentee, from the textile and garment sector, said the programme helped her challenge the stigma unions still face.

The challenges are real: labour law reforms that attack workers’ rights, precarious jobs, unequal pay and male-dominated union structures. But the message from Kuala Lumpur was clear. Women must not only be in the room, they must lead.

10/10/2026

BASF trade union network meeting is meeting in Kuantan, Malaysia 🇲🇾, home to one of BASF’s biggest industrial sites in Asia. Unions representing BASF workers in Asia, Europe and South America are here with one aim: building a strong global network and real dialogue with the company for every BASF worker, wherever they are. ✊

Yesterday, participants visited the BASF Kuantan industrial site. Today, unions from Indonesia 🇮🇩, India 🇮🇳, Malaysia 🇲🇾, Brazil 🇧🇷, Argentina 🇦🇷, Germany 🇩🇪 and Belgium 🇧🇪 will share the challenges workers face at BASF and agree joint priorities for the network.

Opening the meeting, IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Ozkan said that while unions at BASF work in very different circumstances, they are united. Today is about listening to each other, and there is considerable work ahead to strengthen union organization across the company. Unions want more dialogue with BASF, beyond Germany and Europe, so that workers at every site have a voice. 🌍

“Our colleagues should leave here knowing they have an international network that supports them.” 🤝

IndustriALL sector director Tom Grinter said IndustriALL is BASF’s global dialogue partner and ready to engage, including through formal recognition. 🤝

BASF employs around 94,000 people at 234 production sites in 93 countries. The network’s priorities are clear: higher union density, mutual support, stronger social dialogue, guaranteed upskilling for workers and trained union representatives at every site.

“Yes, there are challenges, but the trade union network is equally strong and committed.” ✊

Sinischa Horvat, chairman of the BASF SE Ludwigshafen works council, the BASF group works council and the BASF works council Europe 🇩🇪, was clear: cost savings can never cost lives, and there can be no cuts to health and safety.

Two days ago, a worker lost their life in an accident at Ludwigshafen. Fatal accidents are rare, but no less tragic 💔

Horvat also described the strong co-decision rights workers have in Germany, which can inspire unions in other parts of the world.

🇮🇩 At BASF Indonesia, FSPKEP and the other unions have been building social dialogue with management step by step. The three unions meet the president director twice a year and take part in quarterly town hall meetings, where management is open to hearing from them.

The results show. Last year, the unions organized white-collar workers at the head office in Jakarta and won a national minimum wage standard across BASF Indonesia. Outsourced workers get the same annual medical check-ups as permanent staff, one month’s pay for each year of service before signing a new contract and a guarantee of continued work while the job still exists. Women workers get 14 weeks’ maternity leave and fathers five days’ leave. Next on the agenda: zero tolerance training on sexual harassment and violence at every site and the head office. ✊

🇲🇾 The union at BASF Malaysia reported that industrial relations are stable overall, but important issues remain open with management. When a change in how overtime was calculated cut several workers’ pay, the union took it through talks with management and then to conciliation at the Industrial Relations Department. The company agreed to pay back what had been deducted. ✊

Workers in Malaysia face a rising cost of living, wage increases that don’t keep pace with inflation, growing use of contract labour, difficulty keeping skilled workers and mental health risks at work. The union’s priorities to 2029 include protecting jobs covered by the collective agreement, better wages and allowances, safe and healthy workplaces, stronger consultation and bargaining rights and building membership and solidarity. 💪

🇮🇳 BASF Workers Union in India was founded in 1997 on the belief that every worker deserves respect and dignity. Its first major victory cut the working week from 48 to 42 hours, and members won the same leave, medical cover and promotion policy as management staff. ✊

Today, it is a strong factory-level union with a seat at the bargaining table. With IndustriALL’s support, members have gained the confidence to speak up for fairness and respect across the industry. 📣

But the ground is shifting. BASF has sold its construction chemicals unit in India to Sika and its automotive paint unit to Surventis. Contract workers are increasingly replacing permanent staff and automation is changing work. The union’s answer: unity, protecting employment standards and global solidarity. 🌍

🇩🇪 Alexander Bercht from IGBCE described challenging times in Germany. The chemical sector is restructuring and companies are cutting white-collar jobs to become leaner. As a result, social dialogue is changing and becoming tenser. ⚠️

The network is funded by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES). With the rise of the right in German politics, FES is likely to come under financial pressure. Funding is approved until 2029, giving the network three years to strengthen its work and to discuss with BASF how it can be financed in future. 💡

Bercht stressed the need for a common agenda for talks with the company, building on the strong connections unions already have through the works council. A global framework agreement with BASF could be the gold standard in future, but so far there has been no progress. Instead, unions need a step-by-step process to raise the standard of dialogue with the company, and a joint position on the way forward. 🌍🤝

🌎 Unions from Latin America called for a stronger BASF trade union network, with regular communication and closer cooperation with German colleagues so that workers’ concerns reach BASF’s global management. They face difficulties getting access to workplaces and company information, and want earlier consultation on restructuring and other major decisions. After big changes in BASF’s operations, including the sale of Suvinil in Brazil, unions need support to rebuild representation, train new leaders and strengthen solidarity across the region. ✊

🇧🇷 In Brazil, unions want workers to have a real say over the pension fund and credit cooperative that BASF workers pay into. Members already have formal seats on the BASF Previdência pension fund’s councils, but that representation needs to be better known, more accessible and properly accountable to workers.

“Those who help build the wealth must have a real voice in their future.” 🤝

🇦🇷 Colleagues from Argentina described a very difficult situation at their BASF factory, where drastic job cuts threaten workers’ livelihoods. Union representatives are under enormous pressure as they defend jobs and rights. They need our full solidarity, and urgent dialogue with BASF management to secure real consultation, protect jobs and respect union representation. 🤝

🇧🇪 ACV/CSC-BIE reported from BASF Antwerp, where unions negotiate a collective agreement every two years covering job security, employment, pay and working time. Site agreements turn national and sectoral rules into concrete protections on issues from psychosocial risks and bullying to part-time work and end-of-career schemes. Unions have also negotiated on bringing logistics back in-house, flexitime and commuting.

But Belgium’s strong tradition of social dialogue is under strain. Winning better working conditions and higher wages has become harder, and last year workers took action on several occasions. ✊

09/10/2026

Day 2: the air campaign ✈️

Yesterday, unions laid out how employers are busting unions across borders. Today, the global organizing conference in Kuala Lumpur turns to the answer: what tools do workers have to fight back, and what tools do we still need to build?

Today, we are discussing
✅ international instruments, from International Labour Organization Conventions and OECD complaints to standards for responsible mining and batteries
✅ unions’ own tools: global framework agreements, European and global works councils and company networks
✅ strategic corporate research, capital strategies and international financial institutions
✅ human rights due diligence
✅ binding global agreements, including the Cambodia agreement
✅ using communications to leverage your narrative

The ground campaign builds power in the workplace. The air campaign puts pressure on companies from the outside. Organizing needs both. ✊

08/10/2026

Confronting union-busting, from Alabama to Ankara
The last session of the organizing conference day 1 discussed union busting going global.

🇺🇸 Kristyne Peter from the UAW International Union described the campaign against workers at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama as one of the most aggressive she has ever seen.

She said the company ran billboards on the roads to the plant and radio ads, with politicians and community leaders weighing in. Inside the plant, workers were called into one-on-one meetings with supervisors, heard veiled threats that the plant could move to Mexico and were shown anti-union videos. In the final weeks, eleven consultants were on the factory floor around the clock.

The UAW lost the vote. Mercedes-Benz still insists it was neutral.

Compare that with Volkswagen in Chattanooga, where an agreement kept union busters out of the plant, and workers voted for the union. Now Industr iALL has suspended its global agreement with Mercedes-Benz, and the world is watching. If Alabama workers go for a second vote, will the company change course? 👀

🇩🇪 Is the US model coming to Europe? Claudia Rahman from IG Metall says it already has, at Tesla’s factory in Grünheide near Berlin.

Around 10,000 to 12,000 people work there, many of them young migrant workers with no previous industrial experience. IG Metall describes a strategy that attacks solidarity among workers, controls communication inside the factory and undermines the works council. Workers have even been handed badges reading “Giga yes, union no”. IG Metall answered with its own: “Union yes”. ✊

🇸🇪 In Sweden, Tesla met a union that refused to back down. Johan Järvklo from IF Metall explained that 90 per cent of Swedish companies are covered by collective agreements, so taking on Tesla was about defending the whole Swedish model. Local management had no problem with an agreement, he said, but Elon Musk would not allow it and never responded to the union.

IF Metall struck for over 1,000 days, the longest strike in modern Swedish history, with huge support in Sweden and around the world. Tesla brought in strikebreakers, breaking an unwritten rule that had held in Sweden since 1938. In the end, Tesla bought out the striking members, and without members on strike, the strike could not continue.

Has it changed the Swedish model? “Not at all,” said Johan. Unions have kept signing collective agreements, including with Klarna, Ryanair and gaming giant King, and public support for collective agreements has grown massively. ✊

Read more on IF Metall's strike: https://shorturl.at/brQJc

🇹🇭 In Thailand, Chinese investment is pouring into the auto industry as the government pushes to make the country a leader in electric vehicle production. Kittisak Priangkratok from Confederation of Industrial Labour of Thailand said the new EV industry is growing fast and creating many jobs, but workers are paying the price. He described big Chinese companies that resist and refuse to tolerate unions, mistreat workers and fail to pay severance when they lay people off. Workers are hired on one-year contracts, supervisors on three-year contracts, and many are employed through subcontractors. “Very cruel,” he said, “but not illegal under Thai law.” These short-term contracts discourage workers from joining unions and make them very difficult to organize. ✊

🇲🇾 Here in Malaysia, Gopal Krishnan from NUTEAIW spoke about how employers use migrant and precarious workers to weaken unions. His answer was simple: “If employers are going to use migrants to undermine trade union strength, our response must be to organize migrants.” ✊

🇹🇷 In Türkiye, firing union activists has become routine. Aykut Güneş from Selüloz-İş explained that more than 2,500 workers are fired every year for union activity, with companies targeting organizers as soon as they detect a campaign. The law adds more barriers: unions can only organize in the sector they are registered in, so a paper workers’ union cannot organize in the metal industry, and to win bargaining rights a union must organize at least one per cent of all workers in its sector nationally. In some sectors, that means more than 10,000 members.

And even when workers win, the fight isn’t over. Once a union reaches a majority and the ministry confirms its bargaining rights, employers routinely challenge it in court. The case can drag on for years, members drift away and workers end up with no collective agreement at all. The result: unions are forced to organize in secret to protect workers’ jobs.

‼ The union busting playbook: exposed ▶ https://shorturl.at/w7AHT

08/10/2026

US workwear company UniFirst Corporation has gone to court to dissolve the union at its plant in Nicaragua, after 293 members resigned in less than a week and five more were fired ‼️ Workers say management pressured them to leave the union.

The case comes as US uniform giant Cintas Corporation prepares to acquire UniFirst. IndustriALL is calling on Cintas to carry out human rights due diligence before the deal goes through, including on union-busting at UniFirst.

Read the full story below ⬇

According to IndustriALL affiliate the National Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather and Footwear Unions (FESITEX), relations with the company began to

08/10/2026

Organizing for a just future 💪

Day 4 of meetings in Kuala Lumpur 🇲🇾 and it is time for IndustriALL's first organizing conference. Around 130 unionists from around the world are here to answer one big question: how do we build union power in a changing global economy?

Setting the scene, IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kan Matsuzaki showed why organizing can’t wait: across OECD countries, union density has halved since 1985, while the richest 10 per cent now own 75 per cent of the world’s wealth.

IndustriALL’s new campaigns and organizing fund is backing projects from Indonesia’s battery supply chain to Malaysia’s semiconductors, with one goal: union power that lasts. ✊

What do we mean by organizing, and does the same model work everywhere? Claudia Rahman from IG Metall 🇩🇪, Evi Krisnawati from FARKES 🇮🇩 and IndustriALL organizing consultant Aaron Chapelle are exploring how to build a diverse and lasting movement that includes women, young, white-collar and migrant workers, combining ground campaigns in the workplace with air campaigns that put pressure on companies from outside.

Organizing starts with a conversation, and every good one follows the same path: anger, hope, action. 😠➡️🌱➡️✊

First, listen to the worker’s story and name what makes them angry. Then offer hope: a vision of what workers can win together through their union. Finally, ask them to act, because anger without hope leads to despair, and hope without action changes nothing.

Organizing also has a clear path from the first contact to a collective agreement. In the “fish tank” model, campaigns start below the surface in a quiet phase: making first contact with workers, recruiting leaders and building and training an organizing committee. Only when that base is strong does the campaign go public, with workers signing cards or voting, then taking action together, backed by pressure from outside. The goal at the end: collective bargaining.

And before any of this, one basic question: can you get access to the workers? 🐟

⏰ Where should we organize?
Panellists looked at where unions can win the most: the fast-growing sectors that will shape the economy of the future, such as battery supply chains, critical minerals, semiconductors and renewable energy, alongside traditional industries. And at how to reach the workers too often left out: migrants, women, young and white-collar workers.

🇨🇩 The cobalt in our phones and electric cars comes at a high price for the workers who mine it. Placide Adrupiako Minota from TUMEC described conditions in DR Congo: no protective equipment, a legal minimum wage of around US$9.30 a day that isn’t applied, unpaid overtime and widespread subcontracting.

The union is fighting back: pushing the government to enforce labour laws, demanding a collective agreement for miners and organizing artisanal miners and subcontracted workers. ✊

🇸🇬 Sin Hing Mun from UWEEI Singapore explained why the semiconductor sector in Singapore remains a strategic place to organize.

🇫🇷 Corinne Schewin from -CGC said unions need a clear strategy to organize white-collar workers. In many countries, union statutes don’t even allow it. But that is changing: in Türkiye, a court ruling opened the door for Lastik-İş to bargain for white-collar staff in the tyre sector, and in South Africa, NUMSA extended its scope to technicians, engineers and ICT workers.
➡ https://shorturl.at/uDaz1

🇮🇳 Dithhi Battarcharya from Unions United described how garment unions in India built power in Bangalore over 20 years, organizing first-generation workers. Now the industry is moving to rural areas, and unions are back to square one. Many workers have never heard of a union, so organizing starts with the basics: what is a collective and what is a union? Companies have also grown bigger and more powerful than when factories were small, and their attacks on unions are much harsher.

🇰🇭 Ravy Heng from CWLFU shared how the union reaches workers in Cambodia: organizers visit workers in person and hand out cards explaining what the union can do for them. Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp are used to give young workers legal advice and support. When disputes arise, the union uses national dispute resolution and, when that isn’t enough, international solidarity through IndustriALL and pressure on the brands that buy from Cambodian factories.

The afternoon continued with organizing case studies 🍃
🇮🇩 In Indonesia’s battery supply chain, many workplaces are in remote areas. Eko Purwantoro from SPN explained that the union has organized workers successfully by working with local communities, where tribal ties are strong. Workers join SPN because the union can defend them in disputes and negotiate with management, and every employee benefits. Now so many workers are joining that the union expects more disputes to handle, which takes real commitment.

🇭🇺 Székely Tamás from VDSZ Szakszervezet - Federation of Chemical Workers of Hungary said that in the battery plants built in Hungary in the last six years the working conditions are poor with a high staff turnover. Union representation and social dialogue is sparse.
In response, VDSZ has joined a project with IndustriALL and IndustriAll Europe Europe across five countries. Goal of the project: effective social dialogue and stronger unions. ✊

🇿🇼 Justice Chinhema, general secretary of ZDAMWU, explained how hard it is to organize at the Chinese-owned mines that have come to Zimbabwe, and among informal workers. His union’s answer is to put organizing at the heart of everything: “Everything we do focuses on organizing. As general secretary, I am the chief organizer.”

🇮🇳 Vidyadhar Rane, from India's first recognized shipbreaking union Alang Sosiya Ship Recycling & General Workers' Association, shared the union's journey.
Graveyard to greenyard: https://shorturl.at/2onDG

07/10/2026

✊ Young workers in Sub-Saharan Africa: The struggle for decent work 🌍

On World Day for Decent Work, young workers across the region share one experience: a gap between what decent work should mean and what they actually get. ⚠️

Young people face high unemployment, underemployment and informal work. Many enter the labour market on short-term, casual or fixed-term contracts, with low wages 💰, limited benefits and weak social protection. 😟 Many stay silent about unsafe conditions because they fear losing their jobs. In mining communities, some turn to dangerous artisanal mining because formal jobs are scarce. ⛏️

For young workers, decent work means secure, fairly paid employment 💼, safe and healthy conditions 🦺, social protection 🛡️, equality ⚖️, skills development 🌱 and a genuine voice in decisions that affect their lives. 🗣️

Young people are organizing through trade unions, youth structures, community groups, civil society and digital platforms. 🤝📱 They are mobilising on job security, occupational health and safety, gender equality, climate justice, digitalization and the future of work. 🌍

💬 "Young people should not only be seen as the future of work. We are workers and leaders today, and our voices must be included in decisions about employment, technology, climate transition and the future of the labour movement." 📢

The message from young workers is clear: we need to move from employment at any cost towards work that upholds rights and offers a real pathway to a sustainable future. 🔑 That takes stronger youth participation, stronger trade unions and policies that put decent work at the centre of economic transformation. ✊

07/10/2026

⛏️ More than 100 mine workers have died in Pakistan this year. 💔

Weeks before 36 workers were killed in Sorange, a union report warned why accidents keep happening. It did not prevent the tragedy. Now Pakistani miners and their unions are demanding that the government ratify ILO Convention 176 on mine safety and health. 📜

🚑 They are already winning change: a permanent ambulance for Shahrag Coalfield, health checks for miners and safety training on the way. ✊

Link to story in comments

07/10/2026

🇵🇭 Philippines: Young workers organizing for decent work ✊

For Jean Faye Daguman of PIGLAS and IndustriALL Philippine youth committee, decent work means 💼 secure employment, 💰 decent wages, 🦺 safe and healthy workplaces, 🛡️ social protection, ⚖️ equality, 🌱 opportunities for development and 🗣️ the freedom to organize and bargain collectively.

But for many young workers in the Philippines, employment does not always provide security. ⚠️

Young workers can find themselves in contractual, temporary, outsourced, informal or other precarious forms of work. Low wages, limited benefits, occupational safety and health concerns and uncertainty about career development can make it difficult to build a secure future. 😟

For the IndustriALL Philippine youth committee, precarious employment is therefore not only an employment issue, it is also an organizing challenge. 🤝 Workers who fear losing their jobs or frequently move between workplaces can find it harder to exercise their rights and participate in collective action.

Young trade unionists are responding through workers' education 🎓, youth organizing, leadership development, workplace and community networks, campaigns and digital platforms 📱.

They are working on issues including job security, freedom of association, occupational safety and health, mental health 🧠, gender equality, gender-based violence and harassment, digitalization and the future of work. 🌍

For Jean Faye Daguman, the goal is to change how unions see young workers: 🔑

💬 "We do not want young workers to be seen only as the future of the trade union movement. Young workers are organizers and leaders today." 📢