Right to strike

In March and April 2022, the Togo Teachers' Union (SET), a public teachers’ union, called a strike to demand wage and benefit increases and the hiring of new teachers. Instead of engaging in social dialogue, as was proposed by SET, the government first declared the strike illegal and arrested three SET leaders on 8 April 2022. A ministerial order on 25 April 2022 then enabled the Minister for Public Services to dismiss 86 teachers and 26 trainee teachers for their participation in the strike, and to arbitrarily freeze their bank accounts, leaving the teachers without resources since April 2022. Several dozen others were still awaiting disciplinary sanctions.

Several strike actions in Lebanon were suppressed by the police who arbitrarily detained workers, especially those from overseas.

In Jordan, at least 25 members of the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA) were arrested on 29 March 2022, as authorities tried to prevent a protest in front of the Ministry of Education. The union had planned a sit-in to protest the forced retirement of several teachers and restrictions placed by the government on the organisation and its members since 2020.

These 25 arrests come fresh off the back of a preceding wave of arrests on 24 March, in which 45 activists were detained by security forces before being released.

In Iran, thousands of oil workers went on strike in cities across the country in early October 2022. Workers at the Hengam petrochemical facilities in Bushehr went on strike on 10 October in support of the protests taking place across the country against the government. On 11 October, police violently cracked down on strikers and arrested many workers. Security and riot police maintained a heavy presence in the southern industrial sites. More than 30 workers in the oil production industry were arrested, including Hadi Moulai, Ali Mahmoudi, Mehdi Jahanbakhshi, Noorali Bahadri, Farid Koravand, Kambiz Mohammadi, Shahin Najafi, Ahmed Pour, Farshid Moradi, Ali Shapouri and Omid Kuravand. By the end of October, over 500 contract workers in the oil and gas industries of Asaluyeh and Abadan were arrested, and over 100 were sacked.

The government of Trinidad and Tobago blocked a teachers’ strike with an ex parte injunction received from the Industrial Court. Teachers of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) sought to strike on 31 September 2022 to protest stalled salary negotiations. This came after an ongoing, month-long struggle between the government and public servants of all industries, including firemen, teachers, and police officers. The unions were seeking liveable wages in line with inflation, while the government was only offering a four per cent increase in salary. The government was able to block the strike due to the classification of teachers as essential workers, forbidding them from taking part in industrial action. This classification increasingly affects many public workers. The government also threatened the union with fines and de-registration should they go through with the strike. In view of these serious threats, the TTUTA had no other choice but to call off the strike.

On 8 June 2022, Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse declared electricity and health essential public services, thereby outlawing strikes in these sectors.

The immediate aim of the decree, which was issued under the country’s draconian Essential Public Services Act (EPSA), was to stop a planned strike by Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) workers. The key sector has a more than 26,000-strong workforce. The Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers Union (CEBEU) and the Ceylon Electricity Board United Trade Union Alliance (CEBUTA) called the strike.

According to the EPSA decree, any employee of the designated institutions who does not attend work faced “conviction, after summary trial before a magistrate”, would be “liable to rigorous imprisonment” of two to five years, and would face an additional fine of between 2,000 and 5,000 rupees (US$5–13).

Further, the decree stated that the “movable and immoveable property” of those convicted could be seized by the state, and his or her name “removed from any register maintained for profession or vocation”. It was also deemed an offence for any person to “incite, induce or encourage any other person” to not attend work through a “physical act or by any speech or writing”. As a result of the decree, unions were forced to cancel the strike.

On 11 November 2022, police arrested 70 protesting community health workers, nurses, paramedics and doctors including Shamim Ara, the General Secretary of All Sindh Lady Health Workers & Employees Union (ASLHWEU) in Pakistan.

ASLHWEU had been campaigning for better working conditions and demanding the health risk allowance be restored as part of workers’ salaries. With no response from the provincial government, the workers began to march towards the Chief Minister’s House. A strong police force was deployed using water cannon, tear gas and batons against the health workers. The 70 workers arrested were held in detention overnight. All the women involved were released in the early morning of 12 November, while 12 doctors and paramedics were kept in custody until 13 November, when a magistrate ordered their release.

December 2022 marked an unprecedented attack on the right to strike in South Korea as the government invoked emergency laws, issuing ‘return to work’ orders against individual truck drivers to break a strike which had begun on 24 November.

Throughout 2022, truck drivers in South Korea had organised several collective actions in front of the HiteJinro premises in Seoul and Incheon. HiteJinro, the largest liquor maker in the country, also owns Suyang Logistics, a freight consignment company. Drivers, who are classified as independent contractors, demanded an increase in pay rates to meet the sharp increase in transportation fees due to skyrocketing fuel costs. They had been benefitting from ‘safe rates’, a landmark scheme for maintaining decent pay for truck drivers. However, the trial period was set to end in December 2022 and companies, such as HiteJinro, had been lobbying hard to stop it from being renewed.

Instead of bargaining with the drivers’ union (Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union Cargo Truckers’ Solidarity Division - KPTU-TruckSol), HiteJinro cancelled the contracts of 130 workers. The company also filed a legal action for damages of KRW 2.8 billion (US$20 million) against striking workers. Managers also called in police forces to break up the workers’ peaceful protests. In October, police arrested 15 unionised truck drivers picketing a factory in Incheon.

The government struck the last blow to the drivers’ movement with its return-to-work orders. Government agencies also used investigatory powers to intimidate union leaders and threatened strikers with criminal penalties and financial claims for damages.

On 9 December, in the face of the government’s anti-union stance, including the criminalisation of the strike and under the threat of criminal punishment for non-compliance with return-to-work orders, 62 per cent of KPTU-TruckSol members voted to end the strike. Meanwhile, the government backtracked on its promise to renew ‘safe rates’, saying that it had no intention of cooperating with opposition lawmakers to pass the proposed legislation, and that their previous proposal for an extension was only valid before workers went on strike.

In Myanmar, five unionists, including two from the Industrial Workers’ Federation of Myanmar (IWFM), were violently attacked and arrested by military security officers in Yangon on 13 September 2022. The unionists were arrested on their way to a peaceful protest, calling on the United Nations (UN) to recognise the National Unity Government of Myanmar and its permanent representative at the UN, U Kyaw Moe Tun.

A group of security officers in plain clothes appeared, using sticks to beat the protestors and firing a few shots. A total of 29 protestors were arrested. Among them were Daw Zuu Zuu Ra Khaing and Daw Yamin Kay Thwe Khaig from IWFM, U Nay Min Tun and U Than Aung from the Building and Wood Workers Federation of Myanmar (BWFM), and the driver of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) U Than Zaw.

In South Korea, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) filed a KRW 47 billion (US$ 35.3 million) damage claim suit against leaders of the Korea Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) Geoje Tongyeong Goseong Shipbuilding Subcontracting Branch on 26 August 2022, alleging financial losses incurred during a strike.

The strike had begun in June, when more than 10,000 subcontracted workers asked for a 30 per cent pay rise. The contract workers said they were only paid the minimum wage of KRW 9,160 per hour, even for critical work such as welding, and even though many had more than 10 years’ experience.

Around 100 subcontractors occupied the main dock at the shipyard run by DSME in the southern city of Geoje. The union called off the strike on 22 July after 51 days, when the workers accepted a 4.5 per cent pay rise. The deal also included better time-off, benefits and other improvements.

DSME claimed it had filed the lawsuit in order to prevent the recurrence of strikes.

In Cambodia, union representatives Noem Sokhoeun, Sean Sokleab and Pen Sophorn were briefly arrested by police on 31 May 2022 amid a strike at Can Sports Shoe Co, Ltd., in Kampong Chhnang.

At least 5,600 workers at Can Sports Shoe supported the strike, demanding the payment of delayed wages and overtime, and access to food vendors. At least 1,000 workers gathered outside the factory in Samakki Meanchey district’s Sethei commune, blocking a road.

The factory rejected workers’ claims on wages, and only agreed to address the workers’ other demands after union leaders were arrested and required to sign agreements by thumb print stating that they would not carry out any further activities that would cause “unrest” in the factory. Noem Sokhoeun, one of the arrested union leaders, said he had also been accused of incitement to commit a felony, which he denied.

In Cambodia, four female strikers at the NagaWorld Hotel and Casino complex in Phnom Penh, Sok Thavuth, Net Chakriya, Sang Sophal and Chhay Bora, could face up to 10 years’ imprisonment following a lawsuit filed in October 2022 by their employer NagaCorp, alleging charges of breaking and entering, property damage and unlawful confinement. They were issued with a summons to appear in Phnom Penh Municipal Court. The lawsuit was the first filed by NagaCorp against current and former casino employees, after hundreds went on strike in protest of mass layoffs.

For more than two decades, the management of the NagaWorld Hotel and Casino complex has refused to fully recognise the Union of Khmer Employees of Naga World (LRSU). Earlier in the year, LRSU leaders had been arrested and kept in pre-trial detention after a police raid at the union’s offices.

In Kazakhstan, 21 workers faced criminal charges for participating in an illegal strike and 12 were fired, after some 400 employees of the Kezbi LLP, an oilfield service company in Zhanaozen, took industrial action in April 2022. Their demands included fair wages and better working conditions.

On 23 March 2022, the Court of Cassation of Belgium rejected the appeal presented by the Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique (FGTB) against the unjust sentencing of 17 union members following a road blockade of the Cheratte bridge during a strike action in October 2015. In doing so, the Court confirmed the suspended prison sentences and fines already handed down.

In Belgium, article 406 of the penal code allows for prosecution and sentencing for “malicious obstruction of traffic” in the context of a strike movement. This provision severely hampers possibilities to organise strikes in the country. The FGTB has indicated that it will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

In Zimbabwe, workers at a diamond mine run by Capafare Investments, a sub-contractor of RZM Murowa Diamonds, downed tools in August 2022 to protest not having been paid for five months. The protest resulted in at least 43 employees getting fired. After a meeting on 12 August between RZM Murowa Diamonds, Capafare and workers’ representatives, the company announced that it would pay its outstanding invoices, a package totalling US$ 112,874, to ensure production continued. However, no announcement was made about the fate of the 43 workers unlawfully dismissed.

In a protracted collective dispute over wage increases and cash benefits, ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) tried to thwart workers’ efforts to organise collective action. The company applied to the essential services committee (ESC) to declare the manufacturing, supply and distribution of steel as an essential service, which would qualify strikes as unprotected and would leave workers facing dismissals. Fortunately, the committee ruled otherwise, and in favour of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA).

Earlier in 2022, AMSA had won an urgent temporary interdiction which sought to ban workers who operated coke batteries or blast furnaces, and those in some sections of steel production, from joining the strike, arguing that they were part of essential services. The Labour Court dismissed the interdiction to stop the strike at AMSA, and the NUMSA resumed the strike.

By applying to the ESC, AMSA hoped to delay the strike for six days to allow the company to shut down its two blast furnaces. The ESC found that although there were safety risks in the operations of blast furnaces and coke batteries if not shut down in a controlled and well-managed manner, the risks were not sufficient to allow such infringement on workers’ rights.

On 23 May 2022, the Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) issued a notification to the government expressing the intention to resume industrial action if the government insisted on implementing “discriminatory salary enhancements” instead of honouring commitments made in the 2018 collective bargaining agreement. UNATU recalled that, during the signing of the collective agreement, it was also agreed that negotiations for 2020/2021 and 2022/2023 would remove disparities in scales.

The industrial action followed due process and UNATU had suspended the industrial action to allow the government to comply with the provisions of the collective agreement.

In response, the government persisted in its refusal to implement the provisions of the collective agreement and instead tried to intimidate striking teachers with summary dismissals. On 20 July, the Permanent Secretary of the Public Service issued an order to all government teachers to report to work by 24 June and called upon Chief Administrative Officers and Town Clerks to submit names of teachers on industrial action by 30 June for deletion from the payroll.

Throughout 2022, trade unions in Cameroon denounced increased attempts to break strikes and collective actions. Employers often resorted to threats against workers who took part in strikes and imposed retaliatory measures, such as initiating disciplinary measures, dismissing strikers, and applying undue wage deductions.

In Angola, striking workers were replaced by new hires at Angola-Telecom and at the Caculu Cabaça hydropower plant construction site, two publicly owned companies.

In Ghana, representatives of the Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union accused the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) of attempting to intimidate teachers to force them back to work, despite an ongoing strike that began on 4 July 2022 over the cost-of-living allowance. Some teachers and non-teaching staff were being forced to remain at work by CHASS while other members were on strike. The union representatives called upon the Ghana Education Service in a press release on 8 July to order CHASS to cease its intimidation efforts.

The strike was eventually called off on 15 July, after the government agreed to pay a 15 per cent cost-of-living allowance.

In Morocco, in June 2022, workers at the company Business Casablanca 2S, a subsidiary of the multinational Comdata Group which provides services to outsource customer interactions, organised a half-day strike to express their demands about low pay and lack of purchasing power. Most of the 1,400 workers of the company are affiliated with the Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT). As a result of this strike, seven unionised employees were fired. They were also criminally charged for their union activities.

In Israel, workers of Wolt Delivery, an app-based food delivery service, had organised as members of the Histadrut HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (the Working and Studying Youth Union) and a national committee was formed. Several workers were suspended from the app for leading demonstrations to demand better and safer working conditions and one was banned from the app on spurious accusations of violence. No investigation was carried out and the worker had no means at his disposal to defend himself. The worker’s access to the app was finally restored after the Histadrut HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed interceded with the company.

On 6 April 2022, the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity privatised two power stations to the Kar company in Basra governorate: the Shatt Al-Basra gas power station and the Al-Rumaila gas power station. Kar informed the two stations that it did not require the number of workers at each station and that it had to lay off about a quarter of them.

The employees of these two stations rejected the decision and, in collaboration with the electricity sector unions, organised multiple protests, as well as picket lines in front of the two stations. This led to a clash between the protesters and security forces, injuring some workers.

As a result, the Ministry of Electricity terminated the employment contract of one of the protesters, labelling him an instigator of the strikes.

In Egypt, workers were frequently victims of retaliation and were summarily dismissed for taking part in strike actions, including at steel producer Beshay Company and Pasta Regina, a food producer.

The strike organised at Beshay was also brutally repressed by the police.

In Algeria, the employees of El Watan, a national newspaper, organised a strike in July 2022 to protest the non-payment of wages. In response, the employer called on a group of shareholders and retirees of the company to replace workers on strike. While the collective action was ongoing, the general secretary of the union section and a member of the union were physically assaulted by several shareholders. Prior to the strike, a member of the board of directors of the newspaper called several workers and threatened them with dismissal if they took part in the strike.

In Peru, on 15 August 2022, workers affiliated with the Peruvian Mining Federation (FNTMMSP) held a work stoppage and demanded that Los Quenuales, a company owned by the multinational Glencore, comply with the collective bargaining agreement, and provide adequate minimum labour safety, health and nutrition requirements in the mining camps.

In response to the workers’ legitimate demands, the company suspended the workers’ monthly payments and carried out collective layoffs.

The workers marched to Lima. In view of the company’s repeated refusal to meet their demands, the FNTMMSP asked the competent authorities to immediately address the claims of the Los Quenuales mine workers. On 16 September, with the mediation of the Ministry of Labour, an agreement was reached between the parties and the dismissed leaders were reinstated in their workplace.

In October 2022, 110 members of Unifor local 177 at the Ash Grove cement plant in Joliette, Quebec, Canada, started returning to work after more than 16 months of an illegal lockout. Workers had been locked out from the plant owned by Irish cement giant CRH, since May 2021 after they rejected the employer’s pay offer. The majority of Unifor’s members voted in favour of the wage recommendation of the Ministry of Labour and Employment conciliator and, under the new contract, workers will receive a significant wage increase.

However, this long-lasting dispute gave rise to important legal questions as, throughout the lockout, the company resorted to replacement workers (scabs). The Administrative Labour Tribunal, following a complaint by Unifor, ruled that the company employed workers who teleworked and had therefore violated the anti-scab provisions of the Labour Code, even though they were not in the locked-out establishment itself. The employer has appealed, and the case is yet to be heard.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, the provincial government forced workers back to work after a four-day strike by adopting Bill 24, the Essential Ambulance Services Act. The new bill, passed on 24 January 2023, required a hundred private ambulance workers to return to work by deeming them essential services. The bill covers paramedics and emergency medical responders who are employed by Fewer’s Ambulance Service Ltd. and represented by Teamsters Local 855.

In Canada, over 28,000 members of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), actors and other performers, were the target of one of the largest lockouts in the history of the country. Their employer, the Institute of Canadian Agencies (ICA), is an umbrella organisation representing Canadian advertising agencies. For over 60 years, ACTRA and the ICA have been parties to a collective agreement covering radio and TV advertising, along with the Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA).

Throughout almost a year of negotiations to renew the collective agreement, the ICA tried to gut the collective agreement and came to the table with proposals that would have reduced wages by 60 per cent, completely cut benefits and eliminated the retirement plan.

After imposing a lockout deadline of 26 April 2022, the ICA declared the agreement expired and unlawfully locked out ACTRA’s 28,000 members from the workplace. The ACA did not support the ICA’s union-busting tactics and later reached an agreement with ACTRA to renew the NCA for a one-year term.

ACTRA filed an unfair labour practice complaint against the ICA with the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

On 14 April 2022, Air New Zealand management responded to rolling strike action by cabin staff by selectively targeting striking workers and suspending them from duties. Some strikers were suspended for six days without pay “for taking collective action”, the E Tū union reported.

The 44 cabin crew leaders were striking for better conditions for crew members who had returned to work after a period of redundancy during the pandemic. Over 800 staff had been either furloughed or laid off during the last two years. Many of the returning workers were only being paid about the minimum wage of NZ$21.20 an hour.

The Myanmar Pou Chen shoe factory in the Shwe Pyi Thar Township dismissed 27 workers on 27 October 2022 for going on strike. The Pou Chen Workers’ Union, affiliated to the Industrial Workers’ Federation of Myanmar (IWFM), had submitted a request to negotiate a pay rise to the Labour Office under the military junta several months earlier. However, negotiations never got off the ground and they decided to take industrial action, beginning on 25 October 2022.

When they were dismissed on 27 October, workers were told it was because they had broken the factory rules by being absent from work. When the strike began, they were prevented by supervisors from entering the premises, and clashes broke out on 27 October.

Two more workers were dismissed in the following days. The workers were planning to file a complaint with the Labour Office.

In India, the management of Slam Clothing Pvt Ltd., which has a factory near Chennai, locked out 150 workers, following the demand of the Garment and Fashion Workers Union (GAFWU) for the payment of outstanding wages. Instead of engaging with the union or approaching the government for permission to close the factory as required under the law, the management chose to block workers from entering the factory. The management also forged workers’ signatures on resignation letters.

GAFWU raised the matter of the illegal lock-out with the Labour Commissioner’s office. Due to the management’s refusal to take part in the conciliation process, no agreement was reached between the management and the workers. Thus, the Labour Commissioner’s office referred the matter to an industrial tribunal for adjudication. On 6 August 2022, the industrial tribunal awarded reinstatement of the 150 workers illegally locked out by the management, along with payment of back wages and seniority benefits.

In June 2022, due to the refusal of the Ireland-based airline Ryanair to negotiate with the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) and the Independent Union of Airline Passenger Cabin Crew (SITCPLA), the workers began a strike at the headquarters in Spain. Unions were denouncing the airline’s repeated breach of the labour laws and the company’s refusal to enter into a collective agreement. Ryanair retaliated by dismissing 22 workers and opening disciplinary measures against striking workers.

In Montenegro, workers at Crnogorski Telekom, the largest telecommunications company in the country, announced collective action to protest the management’s refusal to negotiate a new collective agreement. During the strike, the employer tried to block communication between union members. Management also sent emails to all employees that contained threats of dismissals and unilaterally decided workers’ rotations, even though the union’s Strike Board had submitted a list of employees on strike, as required by law. By requisitioning workers, the company tried to break the strike. The company also retaliated against striking workers by docking their pay.

The right to strike in Hungary’s public education sector has been heavily restricted by the government in retaliation against the increasing dissatisfaction of teachers and their earlier strike actions. A temporary government decree was issued in February 2022, ordering that supervision in early childhood facilities had to be fully maintained, thereby forcing workers back in schools. Similar provisions were made for elementary and secondary schools. The decree also stipulated that workers who had declared being on strike would not receive their remuneration, despite being present. In late 2022, these temporary regulatory provisions were converted into law (Act V of 2022), thereby crushing any future attempt at organising strike action in the public education sector.

During the national strike of 9 November 2022 in Belgium, following a blockage of the company CWS, a sanitation and hygiene service provider, a formal notice was sent by the employer to two workers with a threat of dismissal and a claim for compensation of €24,000 (US$26,300) for alleged loss of earnings due to the strike. Following the intervention of the unions, the company finally withdrew the compensation claim, but maintained the disciplinary sanction against the two employees.