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12 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 94/1998
POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), ended in Cork, Ireland, today with the adoption of an action programme to further the ICEM's aim of uniting and organising energy workers everywhere.
The conference was the biggest ever, bringing together some 300 union leaders representing about 9 million energy workers in 50 countries.
Unanimously re-elected as the chairman of the ICEM's energy section was Lars Myhre, President of the Norwegian oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF. It was agreed that the vice-chair will be a Japanese electricity union leader, to be appointed by the electric power workers' federation Denryokusoren. The ICEM energy section will also be introducing a steering committee, whose composition will reflect the ICEM's different regions.
The conference ended with a call for a halt to further privatisation and deregulation of the world's energy industries, so as to create a pause for reflection on the results of this process so far.
"There is an alternative," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe insisted. "The alternative is us."
The conference was the biggest ever, bringing together some 300 union leaders representing about 9 million energy workers in 50 countries.
Unanimously re-elected as the chairman of the ICEM's energy section was Lars Myhre, President of the Norwegian oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF. It was agreed that the vice-chair will be a Japanese electricity union leader, to be appointed by the electric power workers' federation Denryokusoren. The ICEM energy section will also be introducing a steering committee, whose composition will reflect the ICEM's different regions.
The conference ended with a call for a halt to further privatisation and deregulation of the world's energy industries, so as to create a pause for reflection on the results of this process so far.
"There is an alternative," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe insisted. "The alternative is us."