Virtual COATS Union Network Meeting for the Latin America Region

25 May, 2023

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The third regional meeting for the COATS Network in the Latin America region was held virtually over zoom on 25 May 2023. The agenda of the meeting was:

  • Welcome & Introduction
  • Welcome Remarks and Update on Network works in Global Level
  • Presentations on the Company and Orientation of the COATS Network website
  • Update from the Union Network members and affiliates report on submitting new Union Demands and signing new CBA’s (Unions from Columbia, Honduras and Mexico)
  • Action Plan on working through the Network; planning for engaging COATS HQ for Global Dialogue to sign a GFA
  • Closing Remarks

 

Number of Participants: 12 (5 F, 7 M)

Laura Carter:

  • Assistant Regional Secretary Laura Carter welcomed the participants and shared the Agenda. Laura expressed apology on behalf of Marino Vani for not attending the meeting. Laura also had a brief summary and update on the recent works and intervention made by the regional office in connection with the COATS Latin America regional work.
  • For IndustriALL it is very much important to set up union networks along with big multinational manufactures and it is a good way to share actions and do communication between the different unions of a large company. The ultimate target of IndustriALL by setting up these union networks is to have GFAs. Global Framework agreements are such tools that protects freedom of association and other labour rights of the workers throughout the supply chain of a company with whom the agreement is signed.

Christina Hajagos-Clausen:

  • Christina gave her welcome remarks to the union participants and provided a brief update of the global works. According to the decision at the global meeting of the union network held last year in November, the global day of action is observed on February 11 this year. Actions took place in Europe, South Asia, Latin America, Asia Pacific where the union members posted on facebook, tweeter and instagram calling the COATS workers to join a union and join the global union network. IndustriALL through all its social networking channels shared the workers videos, posts and other action tools jointly prepared by the head office. All in all it was quite successful.
  • The second update provided by Christina was regarding the approaching to the company after forming the union network. To date there was not that much positive response from the COATS Headoffice to engage with IndustriALL after the formation of the network despite IndustriALL’s repetitive request to the company to initiate a dialogue with us. But recently the company has hired a global HR person who was directed by the company CEO to communicate with us and now the company is saying that they are interested to learn about us. We have a counterpart of the company to communicate with.
  • Lastly Christina said that we will holding such regional meetings for other regions as well and hopefully from next year we are thinking of holding a physical global meeting of the COATS network.

Raisul Islam Khan:

  • Raisul provided a brief update of the union network, union mapping that is done under the Mondiaal FNV project, a summary of the company financial performances and lastly gave a brief orientation of the COATS Network website that is under construction under the MNM project. Finally at the last slide Raisul shared a news update that is posted on the company website saying that COATS will be selling all their copany operation sin Brazil and Argentina to a local Brazilian company and requested the group to have a discussion on this. After his presentation of the union mapping the Honduras union president informed the group that there are three facilities of COATS in Honduras and all of them are unionized.

Union Updates and CBA status:

Barzil (Maria Celma from COATS Etremoz Plant)

What is going on in Brazilian plats regarding the selling of the operations:

  • We don’t know what will happen. We’ve been going in a difficult situation. We believe thatthere would be reduction of workers. May be the plants will also be reduced
  • In Extremoz plant we’ve been producing sewing threads and zipper for the regional market
  • We are prepared for the cutbacks
  • Some processes would be take part in Sao Paolo
  • Only a few days ago we got tp know that two facilities will be sold out
  • We had no meeting with COATS or the new company yet
  • There are 450 workers in our plant and in Sao Paolo 340 workers
  • We produce the finishing part of the manufacturing plants
  • No one is aware of the new company who bought the factories
  • This is a very negative news for us
  • We are waiting for a meeting with the COATS officials coming from Sao Paolo
  • I am working in this plant for the last 13 years and here there are peoples working for 20 years or more

Colombia (Loius)

  • Greetings to you all. This is a very usefull tool for our union to be part of this network.
  • Now-a-days Columbia is going through serious problems
  • The country’s domestic market lost strength due to Covid pandemic
  • There was social unrest due to unemployment and this has generated difficult situation
  • Our union is in close connection with all these difficult situation
  • Due to Covid a lot of sales could not be fulfilled and there were cancellation of orders
  • For us COATS has always been a stable company

Honduras (Marco)

  • To sum up the latest events, in last December we had a conflict with the management on giving of the December Christmas holidays. Christmas holidays has always been respected by the company but in 2021 they did not give us holidays and when we demanded they denied to give us the holidays.
  • In Honduras our CBA says that we will enjoy our holidays
  • We tried to solve this first in amicable manner
  • But the management denied. So we went to the labour office but the ruling was delayed and we were not able to come into an agreement on giving us the holidays
  • Later the labour office told that there is a breaching of the agreement
  • In 2021 our collective agreement ended and now we are in the negotiation of the second CBA that is due in July this year and now we have to get the demands
  • Thanks to comrades from Mexico with whom we got connected through this network and we got nice suggestion from them on dealing with our December holidays conflict with the factory management.
  • This year we had the May 1st demonstration from our union. Everything worked well.

Mexico (Jeronimo)

  • We belong to a national union in Mexico
  • COATS Plant is working good in Mexico. We are from Tlaxcala plant
  • The factory authority has an acceptable performance levels
  • But still we also have some problems and challenges
  • Whe any conlict of interests arises we from the union try to deal it in peaceful manner
  • Today in this meeting we have got to know that COATS is closing factories in Brazil but here in Tlaxcala they are making new investments. In April they have opened a new facility
  • We have strated organizing that facility and already 30 workers have got membership there
  • To carry on our union works generally we are facing no difficulties
  • COATS is one of the popular workplace among workers in our city. People want to work here
  • On behalf of the union we have celebrated the Children’s day recently. COATS management have rented a cinema hall for us to organize our programs and we prior to this we have also celebrated Mother’s day.
  • Right now we are reviewing our collective bargaining agreements and our next CBA is due on July 16 this year according to the federal law.

Brazil (Maria Celma)

  • We have been very good situation until now. COATS has always been a good employer to us. New we are very uncertain what will happen to us. All the workers are panicked hearing of the selling of the factory to another company
  • Our union CBA is also closing this year and we have a due negotiation meeting for the new CBA in 2 pm today. Now we are looking forward to that.
  • We hope that in this meeting today we will have someone from the new company and we hope that they will be supportive to us as COATS was.

Luis (Colombia)

  • Our last CBA was signed in 2021 and we have 32 demands fulfilled in the last CBA
  • The CBA lasts for six years and our next CBA is due to 2027. However there is a provision of reviewing it in every two years. Both the management and union sits together and do necessary amendments if neeeded
  • Our current agreement is a good one and in it we have 10.7% salary increase.

Closing Remarks (Laura)

  • Brazil issue would be priority in the network
  • An action plan will be taken if necessary for the Brazil plants if workers are in the threat of losing their jobs and arrears
  • All the network members are requested to share their valid CBAs and communicate with the IndustriALL regional office if needed in case of any workers rights violations or in any other needs.
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