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Settlement has been reached in a Canadian mining dispute that had cut world nickel supplies. 
 
Members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in Thompson, Manitoba, yesterday voted to accept a new agreement with Inco. The vote - 66 percent in favour - ends Inco's 12-week lockout of 1,100 employees at its Thompson nickel mine. 
 
The three-year agreement, which will run till Sept. 15, 2002, is a victory for the union in that it addresses the wage and pension issues that Inco had refused to negotiate when negotiations broke down in September. The agreement maintains the pattern of increases established among USWA members in other Inco Canadian operations. 
 
The settlement includes wage increases of over 5 per cent, and 13 per cent in pension improvements. Along with an immediate signing bonus of 1,000 Canadian dollars, wage increases over three years will bring the average wage up to C$24.48 an hour by the end of the contract, up from C$23.31. 
 
Pensions will increase so that the minimum monthly benefit for a retiree with 30 years of service will be C$2,675 by the end of the contract. 
 
A negotiated Success Sharing Plan will divide the positive results of a co-design programme aimed at improving efficiencies in the operation. That plan, along with a Savings Fund Plan and the maintaining of the Nickel Price Bonus, could mean a payout over the life of the agreement of as much as C$9,000 per employee. 
 
"The support of the membership for this agreement is proof of the workers' resolve to settle this dispute on their terms," said Bob Desjarlais, President of the union's local in Thompson. "We are equally determined to work with the company in a way that will maximise the potential benefit to our members during the next three years." 
 
Lawrence McBrearty, the USWA's National Director in Canada, added that maintaining the pattern of bargaining with Inco in Manitoba "is an important building block in upcoming negotiations with Inco in Ontario." 
 
At McBrearty's request, the USWA campaign for a just settlement at Inco had been supported by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the USWA is affiliated.

Canadian Nickel Dispute Settled

Australian trade unionists picketed Germany's consulate in Sydney this morning as part of a growing worldwide campaign to secure justice for US employees of global tyremaker Continental. 
 
The Australians called on the German government to press Continental to resolve the long-running dispute at its General Tire plant in Charlotte, USA. Continental is headquartered in Germany. 
<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/sydn1.JPG" width="390"/> 
 
Today's demo in Sydney was organised by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. 
 
The CFMEU and the US tyreworkers' union, the USWA, are both affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The ICEM is currently coordinating a worldwide action week in support of the US Continental workers. 
 
Continental's Charlotte plant in the USA is the site of a strike, begun on September 20, 1998, by 1,450 members of USWA Local 850 over the company's unfair labour practices. Continental, which has already been indicted by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board on five counts of violating US federal labour laws, contends it has hired 800 "permanent replacement" workers at the Charlotte facility. 
<img height="261" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/sydn2.JPG" width="390"/> 
 
In 1995, after Continental bought General Tire, the workers there bailed out the Charlotte plant by "giving back" about 90 million US dollars in pay and benefits cuts. Charlotte is now showing a healthy profit, but the company is still refusing to bring its pay and conditions up to standard. Continental has also been accused of trying to break the union local in Charlotte. 
 
Yesterday, eight hundred South African Continental workers held a two-hour strike in solidarity with their US colleagues. The South Africans then marched to the office of Continental's local CEO. He immediately agreed to forward to the company's world headquarters in Hanover the South African workers' demand that Continental settle the Charlotte dispute. 
 
Other activities this week include protests at Ford Motor Co. dealerships in 61 US cities. Ford fits General tyres as original equipment on several of its models in the US. Also scheduled are protests at German consulates in several US cities. 
 
Protests have also been lodged in Belgium by ICEM affiliate the Centrale Générale/Algemene Centrale, the union representing Continental's Belgian workers, and in France by ICEM affiliate the FCE-CFDT, which organises Continental workers there. 
 
The ICEM and the USWA recently filed a complaint with the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) concerning Continental's violations of basic worker rights in Charlotte. 
<img height="261" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/sydn3.JPG" width="390"/> 
 
Leading the demonstrators in Sydney today was John Maitland, who is the CFMEU's National Secretary and Vice-President of the ICEM. 
 
"Australian workers and the whole of the ICEM pledge our full support for the Charlotte workers and the USWA," Maitland declared. "A major multinational like Continental will not get away with applying different standards in different parts of the world. It must reach a fair and just settlement with its workers in Charlotte and cease its futile attempts to break union organisation there." 
 
"Now is the time for Continental to show some sense and finally resolve the Charlotte dispute," agreed ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe in Brussels. "Justice and Continental's own best interests demand no less. We will maintain our worldwide campaign until Continental reaches an equitable, lasting settlement with the Charlotte workers and their union, the USWA." 
 
"We are extremely grateful for the acts of solidarity by our brothers and sisters worldwide," commented George Becker, USWA President and chairman of the ICEM's global rubber section. "They have given new meaning to the old union adage that 'an injury to one is an injury to all.'"

Conti Tyres Global Campaign: Australians Picket German Consulate Over US Dispute

About 3,000 South Africans suffering from asbestos-related diseases are pressing for their compensation claims to be heard by courts in Britain. The claims are against British-based asbestos multinational Cape. 
 
"These claims should be heard in Britain and should be settled quickly," said Fred Higgs in Durban today. Higgs, who is General Secretary of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), is himself a British citizen. He is in South Africa for the ICEM World Congress, which ended yesterday. 
 
"It is a disgrace that Cape is even contesting the claims," Higgs said. "It treated these people atrociously, and it should pay up immediately and in full." 
 
Many of the compensation claimants were employed in Cape's mining and milling operations in South Africa when they were children. That was during the apartheid era, and the children were forced to work in appalling conditions, with no protection against the deadly asbestos. 
 
In the latest round of the long legal battle between Cape and its victims, a British court ruled last month that the claims could not be heard in Britain. However, the claimants are now likely to take the matter to the House of Lords, Britain's highest court of appeal. "We believe that the rights of the victims have been ignored in favour of commercial interests," their British lawyer said in London. 
 
The child labourers who survived Cape's ill-treatment are now adults, and many are desperately ill. This week, South African TV showed pictures of their emaciated bodies. 
 
The case took a macabre new turn on Thursday, when between 200 and 250 unmarked graves were discovered next to a mine dump in Prieska, near Kimberley. South Africa's ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which is backing the claimants, believes the graves are those of asbestos workers who died during the apartheid era. 
 
"Delegates to our World Congress were outraged to hear about this case and about the latest discoveries," Higgs said today. "There were immediate consultations between British delegates and the NUM, and they agreed that the cases must be heard in Britain without further ado." 
 
Both British and South African ICEM delegates went on South African TV last night to call for the immediate hearing of the claims in Britain and the payment of full compensation. 
 
The asbestos victims and their supporters in the Northern Cape are planning a protest march to urge the House of Lords to allow their case to be heard in Britain.

Asbestos: South Africans' Case Should Be Heard In Britain

South Africa has signed up to a key international mining safety standard. 
 
The country's Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana announced the good news in a fax received today by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
ILO Convention 176 on safety and health in mines has now been ratified by the South African parliament, Mdladlana told the ICEM. Parliament also approved the accompanying Recommendation 183. 
 
On 4 November, the ICEM asked South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to promote South African ratification of Convention 176. President Mbeki, who was the guest speaker at the ICEM World Congress in Durban, promised to raise the matter at the next meeting of the South African cabinet. 
 
Approved by the world's government, trade union and employer representatives within the ILO, Convention 176 sets out international standards for ensuring health and safety in mines. The ICEM played a major role in its drafting and adoption. 
 
The Convention came into force in 1995 and had already been ratified by 12 countries. Ratification by South Africa, one of the world's biggest mining nations, will send an important signal to mining countries worldwide. 
 
ILO Conventions are ratifiable by states and binding upon them. The related ILO Recommendations set out further detail on implementation of the Conventions. 
 
"We wish to thank you for raising this issue with us," Labour Minister Mdladlana wrote to the ICEM, "and to assure you that we indeed take the matter of health and safety of all workers, including those in mines, very seriously."

South Africa Signs World Mining Safety Norms

South African affiliate NUM had a successful conclusion to a Special Congress 6-8 May in Midrand, near Johannesburg. The Congress aim is to embark on a course of organizational restructuring and realignment.

South African NUM’s Congress Issues Call to Restructure

The European Works Council of French firm Saint-Gobain strongly condemned the company’s anti-union behaviour in the US state of Massachusetts. Meeting in Paris 12 May, the Saint-Gobain Convention for European Social Dialogue stated, “The attitude of Saint-Gobain Norton USA management is in total disaccord with the Charter adopted and encouraged by Group management … This Charter is not a ‘variable geometry’ document. It must apply everywhere, in every country and in every situation.” US managers are engaged in surface bargaining for an initial collective agreement being negotiated by affiliate United Auto Workers for 800 workers. The UAW organized the Worcester, Massachusetts, plant in August 2001 but after 120 bargaining meetings, workers are no closer to a first contract than when bargaining commenced in 2002. Employee representatives on the EWC, in concert with French affiliates FCECFDT and CGT FO, expressed their continued solidarity with American workers as part of the statement.

EWC of Saint-Gobain Condemns Firm’s US Union-Busting

Despite a complete and full victory by Kristal-Is at Sisecam Group glass plants in Turkey, ICEM affiliate Maden-Is—the General Mine Workers’ Union—is still in dispute with the glassmaker. Fifty-five miners at Sisecam’s Cam-Is Quartz Mining operations in Yalikey, Istanbul, were sacked one year ago for becoming members of Maden-Is, and 16 others have been on strike at the mine since last August. Sisecam has shown no willingness to recognize the rights of the miners to join the union.

Turkish Maden-Is Union Seeks Rights for Glass Workers

South Africa’s NUM and Harmony Gold Mining Ltd., along with two other unions, agreed to establish a task force composed of geologists, financial experts and labour and management officials to ward off the company’s announced intent to shutter six mine shafts that could have cut the jobs of 5,000 workers. The compromise centers on the principle of saving jobs and not closing the shafts, and the task force will deliver its assessment on 3 May. “We are pleased that a process to ensure we meet these objectives is in place and acceptable to everyone,” said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe.
But strikes due to retrenchments and pay could occur by the NUM at two other firms in South Africa’s gold and platinum sectors. Goldfields has indicated it intends to reduce its workforce at the Driefontein gold mine, and talks have failed over economics at Modikwa Platinum, a joint venture between AngloPlatinum and African Rainbow Minerals. NUM states it would like Goldfields to follow Harmony’s approach by getting all parties seriously engaged to find a collective means to save jobs.

NUM of South Africa and Harmony Will Evaluate Job Cuts

ICEM affiliates in Colombia are on course to a unified strategy on how best to organize and face the many obstacles of building free and democratic trade unions in the war-torn country. After three weeks of meetings through April, leaders of the affiliates working with ICEM resource people have identified a number of hurdles including contract labour as major threats to organizing.

Colombia Affiliates Dialogue Under ICEM Education Project

US affiliate United Mineworkers of America is standing firm behind 73 non-union miners in Huntington, Utah. The 73—mostly Mexican nationals—were sacked last year for protesting horrid coal-mining conditions during a recognition strike. Family-run Co-op Mine pays miners US$5-8/hour, 40% the average US mine wage, and three of the last eight mine fatalities in Utah State occurred at the Kingston family’s Co-Op Mine. “We’re committed to this until they win,” said UMWA’s Mike Dalpiaz. “These people need justice. Nobody should be exploited the way these people have.”

US’s Mineworkers Union Backs Striking Utah Miners

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