Union gears up to battle in court for recognition in SFI

KOTA KINABALU: A 24-year fight by workers of Sabah Forest Industries (SFI) for their right to union recognition may come to a head soon.

The High Court in Kota Kinabalu will hear on June 19 whether to grant the company leave for application for a judicial review on the matter.

SFI filed a judicial review on May 14, this year seeking to quash a ministerial order on the eligibility of employees who can vote in a secret ballot election on whether or not they wanted to be represented by the Sabah Timber Industry Employees Union (STIEU) following the latter’s second bid on March 17 last year to gain the company’s recognition.

STIEU is working closely with the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) to face the legal challenge brought by Sipitangbased SFI.

“We’re pushed to shove because of the entrenched anti-union stance of the company. We have tried mediation, but the SFI management has ultimately retaliated with yet another judicial review,” said MTUC Sabah secretary Catherine Jikunan in a statement yesterday.

“MTUC is giving STIEU full support in this legal battle as SFI has disregarded the workers’ wish to be affiliated to STIEU for too long.”

SFI workers had filed thrice for their union to be recognised in 2003 under the now-defunct Sabah Forest Industries Employees Union (SFIEU); and in 2010 and on March 17 last year under STIEU.

The SFI management had successfully filed for judicial review pertaining to the matter twice.

“We had been hopeful that SFI would proceed with the secret ballot election, as ordered by the Human Resources Ministry after STIEU’s latest claim for recognition. Instead, this judicial review – SFI’s third – was the response.

“A judicial review is a costly and intimidating process for the workers, but it is SFI’s comfort zone as it has all the resources for it,” said Jikunan.

Meanwhile, STIEU, as an affiliate of the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI), supported a complaint filed by the latter with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) against SFI’s parent company BILT Graphic Paper Products for possible breach of association in relation to SFI’s anti-union practices.

The FSC is one of the global certification systems that set standards under which forests and companies are certified.

The standards include compliance to International Labour Organization (ILO) core conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining, respectively.

The complaint against BILT is on non-compliance as workers in its India subsidiaries are allowed to form unions, but not those in its Malaysia subsidiary.

As a result of the BWI complaint, the FSC is reaching out to SFI for mediation.

However, for mediation to work, STIEU general secretary Engrit Liaw said, “It should target SFI’s compliance to ILO core conventions, rather than address a ‘communication’ gap between the two conflicting parties”, as how the FSC had apparently seen it.

“It should start and conclude on or before the upcoming judicial review hearing. The judicial review leave application must be withdrawn,” said Liaw, who has been working in the company since 1991.

She revealed that BWI had also submitted a similar complaint to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) regarding this matter as the latter gives financial support to SFI.

Adherence to ILO Core Convention 87 is mandatory of IFC Performance Standard 2.

However, Liaw added despite an IFC mission to the company on April 29, the management has not taken any steps to comply with it and is proceeding with the judicial review next week.