Every four years, the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) sets up World Company Council meetings for workers from the same transnational company to come together and exchange information. There are big changes in the auto industry worldwide so these meetings are very useful for workers from the big companies like Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi.

Here are extracts from a document of the joint council which was convened for these three big companies.

We 165 trade union delegates coming from 15 countries met on July 25, 1996, in Tokyo, Japan, to discuss the situation in our companies and the changes in the world economy. Although the performance of these companies and global business and industrial relations strategies differ in certain respects, workers are often confronted with very similar challenges. In large measure, this is due to the economic globalization process to which all enterprises are forced to respond.

We identified several company strategies:

• Auto companies are building up production facilities around the globe. As a result, increasing proportions of the companies' output, more than half for some, is produced overseas.
• They also intend to increase their total vehicle output.
• In spite of differing business results, the restructuring of operations, cost cutting, rationalization of product lines and the introduction of new technologies and work organisations continue.
• These policies are both a result and cause of the economic globalization process which continually intensifies an already fierce competition in the world auto industry.

Competitive pressures and company responses affect workers and unions in a number of ways:

• New jobs are created along with new production facilities, but overall world auto employment appears to decline.
• It is often more difficult for workers in new locations to win decent working conditions and a fair share of the value that is produced.
• In a number of countries attractive to the auto industry, such as China, Vietnam and Indonesia, there is outright repression of independent and democratic unions.
• Even in the less repressive states to which auto capital is expanding, labour laws and industrial relations often do not conform to international standards. Consequently, unions are either totally absent or less strongly organized than in existing plants.
• In spite of these difficulties, unions are present in the great majority of our employers' global operations -- but there are exceptions.
• Although much of the capacity expansion is undertaken to exploit new market opportunities, world-wide overcapacity is increasing.
• Under the increasingly vicious competition, unless sales increase, the building of additional production capacity will over time necessitate the reduction of existing capacity.
• The attempts of companies to cut labour costs are increasing pressures on workers to work for longer hours and for more slowly increasing or even declining pay and benefits.
• Although trends differ from country to country, working hours are often far too long, reaching 2500 hours per year and more in certain cases.

These trends and strategies represent important challenges for unions and workers. In order to meet these challenges, we believe:

• that unions must act in solidarity to prevent competition in our plants which is based on terms of employment and to maintain or improve wages and working conditions.
• that companies should respect the essential worker and union rights spelled out in ILO Conventions, and we will demand that they do so.
• that unions should demand that their companies build constructive labour-management relationships in all countries where they are present, including consultation with unions in advance whenever decisions that could affect employment, wages and working conditions are considered; in particular, on vital decisions involving investment, workforce reduction, relocation of production, and the introduction of new technologies and work organisations.

But, especially, we demand that companies do not interfere when unions try to organise their workers.

• that unions should support the creation of a European Works Council through negotiations with a joint union body that includes the IMF's European affiliates.

In 1993 the IMF adopted an Action Program at its Congress to attain these goals. We therefore pledge:

1. to strengthen the international linkages and cooperation within our councils and to improve their work.
   
2. to assist IMF affiliates and IMF-Country Councils in building strong plant and higher level union structures in the countries where our companies are building production capacity.
   
3. to inform each other fully and promptly on the economic, social and trade union issues that affect our members, and to communicate essential information on the companies' plants and, activities as rapidly as possible.

In addition to,, the steps we will take towards these ends as individual affiliates, we urge the IMF Automotive Department to:

1. maintain a list of one contact person from every union who will be responsible for information exchange and emergency communications.
   
2. convene meetings of IMF Action Group for each of these companies as needed; this group should be small enough for effective decision making, but include representatives of all countries with major production locations.