1. How does your union define organizing/what does the term organizing mean to you?

Transcription

1 Interview with Khaista Rehman Deputy General Secretary National Federation of Food, Beverages and Tobacco Workers, Pakistan 1. How does your union define organizing/what does the term organizing mean to you? a. What s your term to describe activities to grow membership? Recruitment and organizing are mainly two expressions for growing membership. When we use recruitment, it means getting those who are eligible and organizing means making those eligible who are not. And we have to consider according to legislation who is eligible and who is not. Sometimes we have to go into litigation to get interpretation of law. b. Is there any specific organizing strategy? Mainly we have three tier strategies a) organizing those where union exist b) organizing those where union does not exist but workers are eligible to form a union c) organizing casual/agency workers, which is most difficult area c. Have there been discussions/changes around the issue during the last years? Yes, during last year one discussion emerged and that happened due to our campaigns and successes. Legally casual / agency workers cannot join the union of that principle establishment s workers. Now unions are debating to recruit those casual/ agency workers as their members and have legal fight. But few unions are not interested specially in those establishments where casual/ agency workers are in majority compare to permanent workers. d. Are there any policy documents we could use for reference? Yes, the resolutions of the delegates conference of our federation can be used. 2. How does your organization implement organizing strategies/projects? Who s task is it to start and follow-through with new organizing initiatives? (specific department? Regions? Branch departments? Others?) Who take decisions about targets? What resources are allocated to organizing (both human and financial)? Which role do rank and file members and union officials play in organizing? Is the approach to organizing different by sector? what is your approach to organizing casual workers?

2 The task lies on the executive committee of the NFFBTW. Our organization is still a newly born and we don t have separate department/ branch for organizing. Truly speaking organizing any single factory is a huge task for us so we look where we have leverage. The executive committee takes decision and the resources (human and financial) depends upon the target, location and situation. Supporting the union (executive committee) decision is one of the biggest role of members because when they support means they provide funds, they participate in activities and rallies etc. Yet we don t have any sectoral/sub sectoral division for organizing. As I have said that organizing casual workers is a difficult task. One element which we discussed and discarded is to organize casual/agency workers union. Because if we organize it means we recognize casual/ agency workers. So one strategy, which we adopted on different places, we form action committees and get support from union. If union does not support, this committee run its campaign independently with the support of federation. 3. What are some examples of successful organizing drives in your union? What made them successful? a. What was the success? In last three years we had remarkable successes in two TNCs namely Unilever and Coca Cola. i. Unilever: Unilever Pakistan has changed its employment model which was based on outsourcing, now they have started recruitment of permanent workers at all its plant in Pakistan. More than 260 workers have been hired at Rahimyar Khan and 202 at Khanewal. The process to recruit permanent workers have been started at Walls Ice Cream and Unilever Food. ii. Coca Cola: we organized all six coca cola plants successfully, achieved agreements to make casual workers permanent 87 at Multan and 100 at Gujranwala. Achieved job security agreement at Karachi. Four Coca Cola plants were organized in last two years and unions are negotiating the CBAs. b. Why was the target chosen? Unilever: in 2007 the Rahimyar Khan union at that time decided to recruit temporary workers and management dismissed those temporary workers brutally through police action. We decided to start a campaign in support of those temporary workers. It was decided consciously. The RYK movement made an impact on agency workers at Khanewal and they started themselves and got support from one of affiliate so the federation had to own this movement and our executive committee decided to support this struggle. So the RYK was a proactive target but Khanewal was not Coca Cola: in 2006 we decided to organize all coca cola plants. At that time only two coca cola plants (Karachi and RYK) were organized and

3 Karachi union took the main responsibility and started contacting workers in Multan. We concluded Coca Cola successfully in c. What was the organizing strategy? At Unilever RYK and Khanewal we organized action committees and those action committees played central role to organize workers at two places. All nearby unions supported the action committees activities while the federation chalked out activity plan and mode of help for both places. At Coca Cola, initially we made Karachi union strong by having a job security agreement and increasing union dues to 1%. After that we moved to Multan where we organized union at plant and applied for registration. We faced a back fire from the management; we engaged coca cola management at Multan and moved to organize Lahore, Gujranwala and Faisalabad. d. How has it contributed to building membership in numbers and in union strength? For Unilever you can see that the company has changed its whole employment model and now started hiring permanent workers. The company where union had 350 members in 2007 now there are more than 800 workers eligible for union membership. For Coca Cola where only two worksites were organized, within two years all six have been organized, union got recognition by company even at Multan the union is not registered, secured 187 permanent jobs and negotiating CBAs. e. What was crucial for winning? Crucial winning is the recognition and respect from employers (companies). At Unilever the action committees did not have any legal recognition but company recognized and negotiating. At Coca Cola Multan the union is not registered yet but management recognize it and negotiate it. 87 workers were made permanent at Coca Cola Multan from the union list. f. What challenges/barriers did you encounter and how did you overcome them? At all locations and places we faced lot of problems which emerged time to time and did overcome by joint strategy of local, regional, national and international solidarity and support. Every location had different type of problems. Unilever RYK: Management colluded with police and terminated temporary workers. Later the management lodged application with police against union general secretary. Started harassing and pressuring union members and involving them in false cases. The management interfered the internal union election by telling workers that factory will close down and got pro-management group elected who later stopped supporting dismissed workers campaign. These all situation we faced with

4 passion, we were not panic and not in hurry to resolve immediately. We decided to deal with all situations with zeal. We used political approaches, litigation and continuous support of action committee members. At Khanewal we faced the brutal and feudal attitude of contractors who colluded with police and management and used all pressure including political, police and threats to stop our campaign. Here we used our political connections and litigation. Also we used the local style feudal including having arm guards and showed ourselves aggressive to deal with goons and contractors employed criminals. The contractors also tried to create rival workers group by encouraging some workers and giving them incentives but we continued our efforts and gave no importance to those. We also discouraged the efforts of physical clash between workers. In both RYK and Khanewal we mobilized fraternal unions, human right activists and media as well. At coca cola Multan we faced brutal attitude of management. The union officers faced intimidation, harassment. Kidnapping, death threats for union officers and their families, transfers and dismissal of active supporters. We organized more and more workers and mobilized their families, fraternal organizations including women and human right organizations and local media. We organized number of protest rallies; workers used black arm bands beside management threats and women organizations held protest and public events in Multan and Lahore. Local media was mobilized extensively during our events. Coca Cola campaign was very sensitive because of anti America sentiments religious organizations were keen to take this issue. Earlier in we had experience in Karachi where religious organizations got involved and it was very difficult for us to keep them out. So in Multan and Gujranwala and later in Lahore and Faisalabad we had strategy not to involve religious organizations. It was not easy and we had lot of pressure from religious organizations to involve them but we faced that pressure bravely and instead mobilized fraternal unions, women and human right organizations. In Multan the management also tried to divide workers and encouraged them to fight each other but we dealt with passions. g. Has the IUF in any kind be involved? Yes, IUF supported our campaigns very strongly. Truly it was not possible for us to get success without IUF support. IUF lodged complaints with OECD against Unilever and brought the company under pressure. IUF mobilized its affiliates and organized protest actions globally. The IUF team had OECD negotiations with our full mandate and signed agreements with Unilever. In Coca Cola campaign IUF again supported us by launching global campaign, mobilized global coca cola workers network, used IUF-TCCC negotiation and negotiated IUF-TCCC.CCI agreement.

5 4. What are your expectations from the organizing conference? In terms of issues: I think that we will be able to understand issues in different countries, companies and workplaces. We will be able to share our experiences and different strategies. In terms of output Hopefully we will be able to have common strategy or different strategies according to situation, regions, companies and economies. In terms of challenges/problems in organizing that should be discussed: The challenges and problems are merely same but these become different in different countries due to different social and economic setups. In different countries the labour laws also create hurdles. The managements reaction, its strategies and plan should be different and we have to understand the managements action plan. In terms of preparing congress The forthcoming IUF Congress should be prepared to give concrete action plan at local, regional and global level and this conference will be an opportunity for all of us to think debate and prepare an action plan. In terms of defining the IUF s future role? Things are changing very fast. The global labour movement should be able to respond these changes and their affiliates at local and regional level should be well prepared to counter these challenges. Understanding issues among rank and file, educating them about these changes is a big challenge for all of us specially in underdeveloped world. A global union should facilitate to train local and national leadership which is essential for organizing and improve bargaining power which will lead to increase strong dues paying membership. 4. What do you see as the IUF's involvement in enabling/facilitating/supporting / improving the chances of success of affiliate s organising? (past/future) 1. What kind of international coordination/cooperation can be useful for organizing? As we experienced in Pakistan, IUF extended full cooperation by means of fiancés, human resources, developing global campaign material, documenting evidences and negotiation on our behalf. But the main thing is that local/national affiliates should be able to sustain their campaign and for this strong communication, consultation and coordination is essential which IUF did well. It should be improved by making such structures and debate at regional levels.

6 2. How would international/regional coordination be useful for organizing? Sharing experiences, exchanging information, extending solidarity through letters and messages and at some points exchange visits should be helpful. 3. Should the IUF develop specific international organizing campaigns, if so are there concrete proposals on branches/companies/issues? We can t say anything at this point. First we have to discuss the issues, need assessments and strategies. For campaigns IUF should not take any responsibility until the regional/national requirement is not clear. 4. How do you see cooperation with other IUF affiliates concerning specific organizing targets? Depends upon the targets, information sharing, exchange of experiences and solidarity actions are essential. 5. Would you be interested to contribute to an IUF organizing network? Personally I am member of Coca Cola global alliance and our organization will be happy to contribute at any organizing network. Wrapping up: Thank you for the interview! You ll get the summary/transcript as soon as it is done We ll make sure to keep you informed about the organising conference and the publication Is there anybody in your union that we should talk to additionally? And what are their contact details? Get a picture of the person interviewed Get pictures from the campaigns mentioned, links to web stories etc. Get documents describing the organising campaigns evaluation documents publications (public, membership media) reports to decision making bodies powerpoints reports to donor organisations Output: One-Two page in English with - organising strategy - organising structure - organising case study - view on iuf role and expectations - contact information of the person interviewed for feedback