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A global workers network
tie is a global grassroots network of workers active in workplaces and communities.
It includes both union and non-union activists in the formal and informal sectors.
tie aims to encourage, organize, and facilitate international consciousness and cooperation among workers and their organizations in various parts of the World.
tie was founded in 1978 through the initiative of union activists from various countries. Today, tie includes activists in every continent and has active groups in Bangladesh, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the USA. From the beginning tie has supported workers initiatives that see them- selves as part of a broader movement for social change committed to fight for a life without exploitation and exclusion – a life grounded in the dignity of human beings and their freedom for self determination.
Click on the following links to get more informations about the subjects
tie supports an international exchange of information and experiences among worker activists, women’s and human rights groups. tie takes into account that women form the majority of the global workforce. tie’s activities are geared to enable workers to engage in a process of self-organization, to develop their own strategies for better working and living conditions, and to facilitate solidarity locally and globally.
We see solidarity and self-organization as important instruments for fighting back, we understand they also enable workers to experience the empower- ment of their own world in the here-and-now and thus the world we want to build. For us solidarity and self-organization mean mutual help between equal partners, brothers and sisters explicitly aiming to overcome existing divisions such as racism and sexism.
tie is a politically independent organization that is rooted both in the global South and North. This enables us to build and mobilize ongoing links of common struggle between social movements in different countries. tie has a proven track record of facilitating both the exchange and implementation of fight-back strategies learned through international exchange projects and programs by movement activists.
tie organizes local, regional, and international conferences, exchange visits, and education seminars on a regular basis in order to:
- Help participants gain a deeper understanding of the process of globalization and the restructuring of work and production
- Support an exchange of experiences on workers’ response towards these changes.
Additionally, tie produces informational material, research, documentation, and other publications.
tie actively supports and participates in building transnational networks among workers in specific sectors, and among workers employed by the same transnational corporations or their suppliers in different countries. For example, for over 25 years tie has facilitated international exchanges of information and experiences, and common training and education among workers of Daimler in order to:
- Work out common union positions and strategies on issues such as new production methods (including work reorganization), health and safety, and racism and sexism
- Enable concrete actions of international solidarity between workers
- Organize common resistance to company strategies of whipsawing workers in different countries against each other
Neo-liberal policies, changes in mass production, globalization of work, as well as the variety of social, political, and economic mechanisms used to divide, exploit, and exclude workers demand continuous evaluation and development of strategies linking local, regional, and international unions, and workers in non-union facilities of the same sector. It is critical that workers, both em- ployed and unemployed, documented and non documented develop these strategies in the context of defending their own interests and responding more effectively to new challenges. For example, tie is facilitating an international health project VidaViva that joins workers in Brazil, Mexico, Mozambique, South Africa, and Europe to organize around health and enable workers to transform workplace conditions. tie VidaViva develops informational material, instruments of participative research, education and organizing programs, and supports national and international exchanges.
For workers worldwide "globalization" has meant not only decreased wages, deteriorating working and living conditions, but also a decrease in democratic rights. As the power of transnational corporations has increased, companies, especially in the global south, have regularly disregarded social, labor, or collective agreements and regulations. Furthermore, the risk of arrest, torture, and even death for union activists or organizers around the world has increased enormously in the last decades. tie supports both the building of democratic workers organizations that genuinely represent the interests of workers, as well as new forms of organizing. For example, in Sri Lanka tie together with other organizations has participated in the formation of the Free Trade Zones and General Services Employees Union, the first democratic and independent union for workers of the free trade zones of that country. In Bangladesh tie together with the National Garment Workers Federation supports the organizing of garment workers.
tie is firmly committed to dealing with issues of racism and sexism, and all other forms and mechanisms of exclusion – like the exclusion and oppression of ethnic minorities, workers at the margins and people on the basis of sexual orientation. A central component of any tie project is the fight for the develop- ment of women's leadership, for self-organization, and self-determination.
tie is comprised of active regional groups and projects. tie is open to all workers and activists who subscribe to tie’s programs and principles. Representatives of active regional groups and projects will meet every eighteen months at the tie global meeting. The tie global meeting will make decisions on programs, policy, and finances of tie, and select members to serve on the tie global coordinating team. The coordinating team will meet on an ongoing basis in order to support the tie global meeting and to ensure coherence of tie activities. The coordinating team will:
- Implement programs agreed at the tie global meeting and communicate with regions and projects for ad-hoc decisions
- Organize a constant debate and evaluation of all tie programs and projects
- Strengthen cooperation between regional offices and projects
- Organize regular reports on projects and activities
- Ensure information is accessible to regional groups and projects
- Visit regions for discussions on projects
- Develop and coordinate a funding strategy
Click on the following links to get information about our global activities:
Tie has had a long relationship with union activists in Africa.
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In Bangladesh the active member of tie Global is the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF). The union was founded in 1984 and organizes garment workers. The NGWF fights
- to realise garment workers trade union rights and human rights,
- to ensure fair wages and better working conditions,
- to establish equal rights- wage- dignity for woman workers, and
- works for fair wages and a fair trade
The NGWF is active all over the country and as well initiator as well member of the umbrella federation "Bangladesh Garment Workers Unity Council ". Beyond the union movement the NGWF works with different women groups, human rights organizations and labour NGOs. Internationally the union is affiliated to the ITGLWF (International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation) and cooperates with the Clean Clothes Campaign and different progressive groups.
Contact:
E-Mail: amin.ngwf@yahoo.com
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In Sri Lanka tie global has a long standing and close cooperation to the Free Trade Zones & General Services Employees Union. The union has a great record of successful organising within the Free Trade Zones and is part of the ExChains project to organise workers along the textile, garment and retail chain.
Nationally the FTZGSEU works closely together with the Women’s Centre and the Trade Union Congress. Internationally, the union has close cooperation with the Asian Pacific Workers Solidarity Link (APWSL), the Asian Transnational Network (ATNC), the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) and the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC).
Contact:
E-Mail: ftzunion@wow.lk
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In coherence with the overall objectives, tie Germany has the following work priorities and projects:
- Production of the publication Ränkeschmiede; research on social movements
- Various education programs for workers, workers representatives, and works council members
- Support of national and international workers networks in companies, industries, and sectors such as Daimler within the auto industry, the European chemical industry or H&M in the retail sector
- Support of national and international workers networks within the public sector in West Africa and France, development of grassroots education in Senegal to support independent and democratic unions and social movements in West Africa, strengthening especially women workers
- Support of various European workers’ and union initiatives
tie Germany is active within the international health project VidaViva. In Germany and other European countries tie develops health education and workers research projects (mapping) with works council members. Through these activities workers together with works councils realised major workplace changes. At Freudenberg, an international car supplier, mapping is introduced through the European Works Council at all European factories within the company.
Another key area of work is the project ExChains - Right to Organize, solidarity along the value added chain between workers from retailers in Germany and their suppliers in Asia (resp. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Turkey).
Contact:
tie Germany
info@tie-germany.org
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In Turkey tie is working with the union Birlesik Metal Is which is an affiliate union of the DISK federation. tie Turkey has a cooperation with the German IG Metall union concerning international issues of organising and is also part of the ExChains project, trying to organise textile factories in Turkey.
The goal of our work is to strengthen workers organising:
- We support international cooperation by which we can build pressure on companies. This has worked well during the last 4 years. There has been a 50 percent membership increase with the metal union. The membership has increased throughout the whole country. They are all protected by a collective agreement.
- We want to enable workers to mutually learn from each other’s experiences and develop their power for struggle on an international level.
We believe, that union organising is the only way to influence governments and the power structures backing them. Organised struggle is the only way to strive for a better world.
Contact:
E-Mail: bedoarslan@hotmail.com
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In Brazil TIE Global acts mainly through VidaViva Brazil. VidaViva Brazil is an international health project of the TIE network to improve working and living conditions of workers and to support democratic labour rights. The interna- tional project includes activities in Brazil, Mexico, Southern Africa and Germany.
The objective of VidaViva is to enable and strengthen workers and their unions in their efforts for concrete workplace intervention in order to achieve better working conditions, including the ability to detect health injuries, to relate them to working conditions and to develop action plans and lobby for change.
The local coordinating of the project in Brazil is a national union platform, consisting of 18 unions of the CUT, acting within a network structure in 8 states of Brazil and various different sectors (such as metal, chemical, oil, food, rural, banking, public service and data processing).
The project operates through unions and local union trainers, that act as local organisers and multiplicators at the work places. Till now about 130 unions of the national union federation CUT and about 20.000 workers of the states of Pernambuco, Bahia, Alagoas, Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Goiais, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul from various sectors participa- ted in various project activities between 2004 and 2008. A strong emphasis is put to the region of the north east.
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In 2003 18 unions from 6 states of Brazil started the project in undertaking a self-critical analysis in regard to their own practice on health. Union representatives acknowledged on one side that most unions react to poor working conditions (that create occupational disorders) just by supporting already sick workers by medical and juridical support. Most unions did not have a preventive approach. On the other side the unions expressed optimism about the potentials of organised labour to do something about that. This purpose comprises two distinct but overlapping terrains: that of workplaces and that of trade unions. In both, the aim is to improve capacities that promote better - that is, more effective, more inclusive and democratic - processes and relationships that affect working life.
The project’s system of objectives has centred on deepening, but also broadening, worker and union understandings of health. The aim is to test and develop strategies that engage workers and their unions in ways that deliver improvements in working conditions on their terms. Accompanying such objectives are strategies that strengthen unions by making them more responsive to rank-and-file members. These required a set of sub-objectives, chiefly to:
- Create and apply active learning methods to raise consciousness of health issues as intimately related, in a triangular pattern, to work on the one hand and life outside work on the other;
- Promote initiatives by unions, led as much as possible by rank-and-file members, to press for improvements in working conditions;
- develop means to extract and share experiences and multiply activities nationally and internationally;
- develop consultative, networked means to steer and manage the project.
Another emphasis has been to see formal and informal workplace institutions (OLT) as points of entry and means to multiply and sustain project benefits. These include the Accident Prevention Committees (CIPAs) and routine events such as the Internal Week of Workplace Accident Prevention (SIPAT). Aspirations to help establish informal Workplace Organisations that root union work inside rather than outside the workplace, are also emerging within the system of objectives.
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A series of tools have been developed since 2003. Between others these are:
- Audio-visual tools for education of workers and union leaders
- Educational tools and courses for workers health reps
- Tools of participative action research and risk assessment
- Information material on various specific health issues
- Various expositions of life stories of workers in the tradition of oral history to be used in front of factories, in community and union halls
- National and international best practice seminars, in which collective problems but also solutions can be socialised and exchanged.
Between 2004 and 2008 regional educators trained about 400 local trainers, who act as local trainers and multiplicators and implement above mentioned tools with the rank and file. As result, especially in 2007, more and more workplace negotiations, new union practices and new organisational union structures (such as union health committees or negotiation committees on workers health) and several workplace changes could be realised in various sectors and companies.
Contact:
www.projetovidaviva.com
projetovidaviva@bol.com.br
For close to two decades, tie has worked closely with union activists across North America. Currently, tie works closely in the United States building international links and perspectives for rank-and-file union movements associated with Labor Notes (link), and supporting freedom of association for workers in the US South with Black Workers for Justice. tie is also active in Mexico supports the development of the VidaViva health project in conjunction with a network of worker centers and union activists.
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States in the US South regularly deny collective bargaining rights to public sector workers, and together with Black Workes for Justice, tie actively supports the unionisation of state workers in West Virginia and North Carolina. BWFJ conducts an International Workers Justice Campaign for collective bargaining rights, and is a founder of the African American-Latino Alliance in NC, in order to build a strong rank-and-file social union movement throughout the US South, repeal the ban on collective bargaining for public sector workers in NC and throughout the South, and organize more private sector unions, especially in the hundreds of branch plants locating from northern US states and internationally to the South.
tie also works to ensure a strong international focus among the many networks of rank-and-file union reform activists and worker centres that come together around Labor Notes, one of the longest standing grassroots directed labour projects aimed at building networks of and strengthening union activists and leaders, A key role of tie is to support leadership development and outreach to immigrant worker organizations and worker centres as an organic part of the labour movement.
Contact:
tiechicago@comcast.net
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tie supports and accompanies the health work of VidaViva Mexico in its early growth and development, and seeks to expand the VidaViva project to the US. VidaViva Mexico is comprised of a nation-wide network of worker and community centres, as well as local unions active in the telecommunications, food processing, garment, and maquiladora sectors, seeking to apply a holistic approach towards health and safety organizing in order to improve working and living conditions for all workers. tie is also working to develop VidaViva among workers in the US and develop global links to compare their lives as workers and family members, and openly discuss the consequences of migration on both sides of the border.
Download our TIE Global newsletters (pdf):
| No. 2-2010 |
International Conference on Auto Crisis |
en / port / de |
| No. 1-2010 |
European Rail Unions' Network at SUD Rail Congress |
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| No. 3-2009 |
Exchange visit of Chinese Labour Activists in Germany |
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| No. 2-2009 |
International VidaViva Trainers' Meeting Mozambique |
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| No. 1-2009 |
International TIE Gobal Conference |
en / port / de |
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You
can contact us at:
transnationals information exchange (tie)
Heidestrasse131
60385 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
T: +49 - 69 - 97 76 06 66
T: +49 - 69 - 49 08 61 58
F: +49 - 69 - 97 76 06 69
E: info[at]tie-germany.org
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