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Brussels, April 28, 1998 (ICFTU OnLine): "I had a one-month contract during the end-of-year period, followed by another one-month contract in January," says Franck, who is employed by a large department store in Brussels. "At the end of January, I went to see the shop steward of my company who advised me to demand a fixed-term contract, since my two contracts were consecutive and for less than one month. Thanks to him, I am still with the company."

Stories like Franck’s abound. A secretary who was obliged to take her annual holidays at Christmas every year because her boss went on his winter sports holiday; a worker swindled by an employer who skimped on the payment of overtime; a woman made unfairly redundant at the beginning of her pregnancy, and so on. These are some of the many cases which, from Brussels to Melbourne to Caracas, will be solved without conflict in the plants and companies where trade union representation keeps its weather eye open to protect the rights of working men and women.

As the AFL-CIO points out, studies show that the image of the trade union that workers have usually depends on their relationship with their shop steward. "The members of a trade union rarely know the name of the president of that union and few of them attend trade union meetings on a regular basis. But they do know their shop steward. And if he or she represents the interests of workers intelligently, they will have the same opinion of the trade union," adds the American organisation (1).

Actually, whether appointed by his or her federation or elected by his or her colleagues, the shop steward is the essential link in the trade union movement. Called upon – depending on the industrial relations system in force in his or her country — to negotiate collective agreements or to monitor compliance with labour legislation, the shop steward provides first and foremost the link between workers and the trade union federation. And the more effective the shop steward is in defending the rights of union members in the company, the stronger that link will be.

"You have to earn the trust of workers," says Vladislav Zebelin. A trolley bus driver in Tula, a town 200 kilometres south of Moscow, Vladislav joined the trade union movement in the early 1990s. "At the beginning there were 15 of us trolley bus drivers who wanted to organise a trade union," he recalls. "Our colleagues would look at us with suspicion. But the hostile attitude of management helped us break the ice. They used all possible means to silence us, separated us in different breaks, and refused to recognise us."

Vladislav went on to learn about social legislation on the job by defending colleagues victimised by discriminatory measures before the law courts. Twenty-seven court appearances since 1992 and twenty-seven victories. And as case after case was successfully resolved, membership increased. Of the 800 drivers of the TulaGorElectroTrans company, nearly 200 have joined the union. In 1995, Vladislav managed to recover six days off for employees of the transport company exposed to hazardous work, and one year later he won a case before the Tula court that ordered the company to comply with the terms of the agreement on wages in the transport sector. To complete his training, Vladislav attended accountancy courses at first and is planning to take evening courses that count towards a university degree. For their part, a number of his colleagues will attend training seminars organised in Russia by the ICFTU or Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

As is the case with many Russian companies, TulaGorElectroTrans has fallen behind in wage payments. At the end of 1997, the company owed its workers up to three months’ wages. Last January, Vladislav had had enough. Negotiations led nowhere. So he decided to act. On 19 January, he chained himself to a trolley bus in the centre of Tula with sign on his stomach that read: "The trade union demands payment of the wages of public transport workers." When management was notified, they called in the police who asked a psychiatric hospital to send an ambulance. The doctors dispatched to the site had not been paid for months either. They sympathised with the trade unionist. The affair caused a great sensation in Tula, and Vladislav’s photograph was featured on the front page of the newspapers the next day. That was all it took to get the company to cough up one month’s wages. Today, Vladislav has lost none of his enthusiasm. "We have some good ideas," he says. "We intend to cover all the trolley buses of Tula soon with posters announcing "a hungry driver is a potential hazard."

Mockery? Hardly. There are millions of people like Vladislav around the world, on the front line of trade union battles. Since 1973, ILO Convention 135 has sought to provide protection for the exercise of their duties. Such protection, though proven necessary, is often circumvented or challenged by employers. Only around sixty countries have ratified this ILO convention, and national legislation or collective bargaining agreements that complete the range of protection for workers’ representatives in companies still do not prevent abuses (2). In France for example, the CFDT recorded more than 1,200 requests in 1996 to dismiss shop stewards which must necessarily be submitted to the labour inspectorate. Provisions prohibiting discrimination against shop stewards in Australia are regularly flouted by employers endeavouring to "de-unionise" the workplace. Some one hundred cases were recorded last year, and according to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) the numbers are rising. Similarly, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) reports that most wrongful dismissals of shop stewards occur in export processing zones. In Fiji and in Morocco, which have not ratified Convention 135, there is no legislation to protect shop stewards. "Workers have to rely on their solidarity to protect themselves against acts of discrimination against trade unions," explains the Moroccan Union of Labour (UMT). The UMT recorded nearly 1,200 dismissals of activists in 1997, of whom 242 had trade union responsibilities.

Whereas in most countries trade unions endeavour to get the dismissed trade unionists reinstated, they usually obtain financial compensation at best. "Employers ready to pay up to get rid of trade unionists still exist," the General Federation of Labour of Belgium (FGTB) recently noted. Here, the workers’ representatives on works councils and on committees for the protection of labour and prevention are protected by law. Except in cases of serious offences or redundancies for economic reasons, they are entitled to two types of compensation for dismissal, one in connection with their seniority in the company, and the other equal to the salary due for the period up to the expiry of their term of office. In plain language, whereas getting rid of a trade unionist is expensive, the bill gets lighter as elections for shop stewards approaches. "This is often the very moment that some employers choose to conduct a witch hunt," notes the FGBT, which says that the only effective solution would be to force the company to reinstate those dismissed.

In Belgium, as elsewhere, employers often resort to the "serious offence" trick to avoid the financial penalty. The case of Ghislain Henderickx speaks volumes. A shop steward and works council secretary at the Belgian press group Médiaxis, Mr Henderickx has been hounded since last 20 March with dismissal proceedings for serious offence: he is accused of disclosing confidential information. In this case, a redundancy plan to lay off 40 people was somehow mentioned during a works council meeting. Médiaxis, which controls several Belgian weeklies, justifiably expressed disapproval with the legal actions taken against some of their journalists, accused of having violated the confidentiality of investigations into the paedophilia cases which continue to make headlines in Belgium following the murders of several children. The group however seems to have a different notion of transparency when information that concerns them, and especially their workers, winds up in the public domain.

In light of the foregoing, the image of the mollycoddled shop steward who has landed himself a cushy job is far from the truth. And yet, most shop stewards are devoted to their "job." "I have very good memories," says Guy Dumoulin, shop steward at GMIC-Rentokil, a security firm transporting money in Belgium. At the beginning of the year, the killing of three security guards by gangsters unleashed anger in a sector where employers are planning to cut down the teams in the vans and to use "smart bags" instead. "Even though the murdered security guards worked for another firm, we went on strike as a show of solidarity," Guy Dumoulin recalls. The strike lasted six weeks. "During the strike, you see your colleagues from a different angle, you get to know them better, there are contacts between families outside the company, and you feel supported by your union," he explains.

Like many shop stewards in companies, Guy Dumoulin devotes a great deal of time to his trade union work. "Two to three days a month on average, but most often all this is done after working hours," he confides. Like many shop stewards, he regularly attends training courses organised by his union: "in order to be able to provide better advice and guidance to people, save time, learn how to react to the employer or to the person who has a problem in the company."

Most trade union organisations see the training of the representatives as a matter of priority. This effort is difficult to measure with precision, but it is huge. The ICFTU alone manages training programmes in 90 countries totalling US$ 5 million annually (3). Add to these the training programmes organised in different countries by the confederations and unions, and that makes an army of more than a million militants throughout the world who undergo trade union training. Given the trend towards globalisation, this training is taking on an "international" dimension. "In the age of relocation and in view of the clout of multinationals, the prime concern is employment, and consequently shop stewards naturally become more aware of international problems," Marc Vandercammen, head of training at the FGTB, recently noted.

In any event, in the view of most trade union organisations, the game is worth the candle. Shop stewards are not only the first link with "the rank and file," but their work will also be crucial to the recruitment of trade unionists in the next millennium. A study (4) has recently concluded that whereas the British trade union movement staggered under the blow of Thatcherism, its representatives in companies showed remarkable stability during those years and managed to maintain both their role and influence in the workplace.

(1)    AFL-CIO Manual for Shop Stewards.
(2)    Results of a survey carried out by Trade Union World and information obtained from trade
	 union confederations in 30 countries.
(3)    Free Labour World, ICFTU July 1994.
(4)    Shop Stewards in the 1990s, Industrial Relations Journal, December 1996.