Organizing a union of more than 200 factory workers in an economic processing zone is a feat in itself, but doing so in just nine months amid management intimidation proves the power of solidarity.
On September 3, more than 60 percent of rank-and-file workers from Hyde Sails Cebu, Inc., a sail manufacturing company, voted union yes in their certification election, with high hopes of negotiating for better benefits and wage increases.
Lucil T. Loquinario, president of the Progressive Labor Union of Hyde Sails (PLUHS-PIGLAS), said earlier this year, “In a union, you will know the true stand and strength of a person,” adding that, “We want to dispel the myth that unions are bad or illegal.”
Fast forward to today, Loquinario noted constant education and pooling strength from each member as the main drivers of their victory. “It is better that all workers know their right to organize and know what we rightfully deserve as written in law. Since management does not let us know, it is only through this endeavor that I know the due process and defense we have as workers.”
The idea of forming a union came to Loquinario in December last year, when she was inspired by a friend who informed her of her rights as a worker. She started getting curious about the benefits her co-workers could be entitled to, along with the automatic 30-day suspension they are bound to when damages are found on manufactured sails.
Loquinario said their organizing started in January—with education seminars and friendly fireside chats with co-workers through May, when the majority of workers was already pro-union. However, word of a budding union reached management.
Loquinario detailed how management started calling them rebels, even installing a security camera in the workplace canteen a few days before the election date to allegedly intimidate workers who planned to vote union yes. She added that management appealed to the Labor department and accused the newly formed union of vote buying for passing out slices of bread to hungry voters after the election.
“It’s worse now,” she said. “Even with a five-minute lapse in break time, they sent a memo to my co-workers.”
Loquinario detailed how, after the election, management started increasing surveillance and demanding written explanations from workers who returned from break a few minutes late. “It is an unreasonable and unfair labor practice,” she said.
While these actions have caused delays in securing their collective bargaining agreement, Loquinario and the union remain hopeful, stressing the importance of having “lakas ng loob,” a Filipino adage for courage.
“We hope this has a good result where we can achieve our goals as workers in proper communication with management,” she said. “Because my co-workers are there, I have more courage to fight for what is right.”
Workers suffering from heat and other environmental stresses are best able to address the effects of climate change when they do so collectively, such as through their unions—especially when they can bargain collectively, according to Laurie Parsons of Royal Holloway, University of London.
“People are experts on their experience with heat,” said Parsons. “A key neglected area is to adapt to the challenge by acknowledging workers are their own experts.”
Studying garment workers, street vendors and informal economy workers, the report concluded that unionized workers are better able to mitigate heat stress at work than workers without a union.
Rising temperatures are significantly affecting workers. More than 70 percent of workers worldwide are at risk from severe heat. While outdoor workers—such as those growing food or building communities—are among those most affected, workers suffer from heat exposure in factories, warehouses and during daily commutes.
The study finds that 55.5 percent of those surveyed report experienced at least one environmental impact in their workplaces in the past 12 months, with air pollution the most common (30.5 percent), followed by extreme heat (25.5 percent) and flooding (9 percent).
The report shows that unionized workers experience half as much heat stress as nonunionized workers, and found that collective bargaining is the most effective form of collectively protecting workers from heat stress.
Workers whose unions bargained over heat experience 74 percent fewer minutes at dangerously high core body temperatures.
As a result, Parsons demonstrates that detailed attention to workers’ bodies to monitor heat “doesn’t cost a lot of money.”
But up to now, heat stress has not been addressed primarily because workers in Cambodia and elsewhere often find it difficult to form a union.
Overcoming Challenges to Joining a Union
“Workers face real obstruction,” said Somalay So, Solidarity Center senior program officer for equality, inclusion and diversity in Cambodia. So shared with panelists the ways in which employers deter workers from forming unions, the difficulties in obtaining union status to negotiate and, when workers win a union, the challenges they face when attempting to negotiate their first contract.
Yet, “despite all these challenges, workers try to achieve smaller agreements,” So said.
She described five innovative heat stress agreements that unions achieved in which a factory agreed to turn on its cooling systems and fans if the factory temperature rose above more than 35 degrees celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), and assigned mechanics to investigate, suggest and implement other measures if this is ineffective. To ensure companies do not argue that it is not too hot for employees to work, unions have negotiated a clause in which the factory installs a thermometer.
Union leaders also convince employers to protect workers by pointing out that it benefits the bottom line: “It is good for their reputation,” So said, adding that heat not only causes heart and lung problems and lower incomes for workers, it slows workers and their productivity.
Climate Change and Work
Workers experiencing forced migration or who work at informal economy jobs such as food vendors and waste pickers are significantly affected by heat stress because they have little or no formal protection under the law, said Nash Tysmans, organizer for Asia at StreetNet International.
“Some 61 percent of the global workforce are informal workers, yet over half of workers are the most underrepresented” by collective bargaining agreements, she said on the panel. The report found that informal economy workers are in unions experience less exposure to extreme heat.
Women workers are especially vulnerable. In Cambodia, where 85 percent of garment workers are women, heat stress can lead to gender-based violence, So said. Heat stress leads to workplace violence and harassment, with employers often responding to falling productivity leading to violence and harassment rather than addressing heat stress issues.
“When their income drops because of climate change, it translates into domestic violence and trafficking,” she said. Workers experiencing violence may leave their area or country to make a living, and can become targets of unscrupulous labor brokers. “Violence and harassment happens more with heat stress. When there is heat stress, women and children are vulnerable even at home.”
Parsons, a professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, and expert on the social, political and economic aspects of climate change, previously researched a 2022 report for the Solidarity Center in Cambodia.
“When people can exercise their rights as workers without repression, not only can they improve their own working conditions, but they can raise standards across workplaces, industries, and across society more broadly,” said moderator Sonia Mistry, Solidarity Center climate and labor justice director.
Said So: “A strong union is when you are able to organize,” so “unions can be at the negotiating table to resolve issues of workers.
Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau mourns the passing of AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Bill Lucy.
The word “giant” is thrown around so often that it can seem meaningless. But I can’t think of a better word to describe Bill Lucy.
Bill was a giant in the U.S. labor movement—as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and founder of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU). He was a giant in the civil rights movement and a once-in-a-generation leader whose impact will be felt forever. He was famously with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was assassinated in 1968, there in support of striking sanitation workers, the majority of whom were Black. His work was about forging a deep connection between the civil rights and labor rights movements in the United States.
We were honored that Bill, or “Mr. Lucy,” as so many of us fondly called him, was a founding board member of Solidarity Center. He was also an elected leader for many years at Public Services International (PSI). Our connection as Solidarity Center and our global union partners to the CBTU in the United States was Bill Lucy’s vision. He was a committed internationalist who believed in human rights and democracy for all.
Mr. Lucy championed the cause of many trade unionists around the world. He was among the first U.S. union leaders to build bridges to the Brazilian labor movement after the founding of Solidarity Center. He went to Zimbabwe in the early 2000s in solidarity with the trade unions who were facing repression, and was confronted by that same repression, but never stopped shining a light on that movement for democracy. A decade ago, while still with AFSCME and PSI and as a Solidarity Center board member, he received the first Palestinian labor delegation to the United States in our offices. Bill was also a mentor and friend to so many of us. We will miss him dearly.
There are many tributes to Mr. Lucy’s life and great works—here are a few.
In Cambodia, workers health and safety and climate change are linked. This report details the results of surveys, interviews, and thermal monitoring conducted in the garment, delivery, and informal food sector that display the negative effect that heat has on workers, and give insight on how unions are an effective solution for positive change. “Workers whose union negotiates with their employers over heat mitigation experienced 75% less working time under stress.”
Nearly two dozen participants from three countries joined in a recent leadership seminar in Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan, to discuss strategies for labor relations in inspectorates, unions and NGOs to fight labor corruption.
The seminar provided a deep understanding of basic labor rights and enabled participants to apply valuable lessons. Credit: Solidarity Center
“I didn’t know that this was such a relevant topic,” said Eshmurodova Sevara, a participant from Uzbekistan. “Corruption exists in our everyday life. As a student, I would like less of it in my life.”
The seminar provided a deep understanding of fundamental labor rights and also enabled participants to apply valuable lessons by utilizing effective tools to combat such corruption in labor as misappropriated funds, or personal gain at the expense of workers.
The regional seminar, part of a Solidarity Center school that facilitator Mukha Kazakhstan described as “very high,” builds on the success of the Annual School of Young Leaders in Kyrgyzstan, a country-wide program launched in 2019. The first Regional Youth School involved civil society and union members and leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Combining practical learning, including simulation exercises and gamification, the hands-on activities enabled participants to better understand the role of key institutions in addressing corruption in labor relations. (A video captures some of interactivity.)
Aliya Narbai, a participant from Kazakhstan, said he not only gained valuable insights, but practical tools he can apply. “After returning to Kazakhstan, I plan to initiate a campaign to raise public awareness about labor rights and corruption,” he said.
Equipped to Go Forward
“The school showed us how similar our challenges are. Now, we understand that we must act together, combining our efforts,” said Umar Zhaliev, a representative of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kyrgyzstan.
The program’s primary goal—to equip young leaders with the knowledge and tools to take action—developed through sessions in which participants created action plans to implement after returning to their countries. Through an emerging youth activist network, participants can develop mutual support and collaboration to advance labor rights and combat corruption throughout the region.
“Organizing the youth school on labor rights was vital because it empowered young people with essential knowledge and fostered community engagement,” says Solidarity Center country program director Lola Abdukadyrova. “By equipping them with this knowledge, we’re nurturing informed advocates who can effectively engage in labor rights discussions and drive positive change in their communities.”
As Sevara said, when I return “to my home city, I will try to study it even more deeply in order to eradicate it, at least in small parts.”
In a precedent-setting case before the International Court of Justice, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) provided written comments last week in a legal dispute over the right to strike.
The dispute, filed in 2023, is the first submitted by the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It arises from the refusal, in 2012, of the ILO Employers Group to recognize that the right to strike is protected by ILO Convention 87, as the ILO supervisory system has recognized since the 1950s.
On September 13, 2024, the ITUC filed its written comments. Oral arguments are expected to begin in the coming months. The ICJ’s advisory opinion is expected in 2025.
“This case is consequential, as the protection of the right to strike is essential not only for workplace democracy, but for democracy as a whole,” says Jeffrey Vogt, Solidarity Center rule of law director, co-author of the book The Right to Strike in International Law and member of the ITUC’s legal team. “The right of workers to withdraw their labor is so fundamentally intrinsic to the exercise of freedom of association and the right to organize that, without it, their very survival and the protection of their dignity as workers is at stake. We hope that the ICJ will agree with our reasoning as contained in our brief and affirm that the right to strike is protected under international law, including ILO Convention No. 87.”
The filing was made on behalf of ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle and Paapa Kwasi Danquah, ITUC director of legal and human and trade union rights, and supported by members of the ITUC legal team, including Vogt, Catelene Passchier, workers vice-chair of the ILO Governing Body, and Monica Tepfer, an ITUC lawyer.
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