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9 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 19/2001
Efforts to secure a global union-employer agreement for the chemical sector have failed, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) announced today.
Speaking in Washington, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs expressed "profound concern" over "what may turn out to have been a two-year charade masquerading as serious dialogue between the world chemical industry and the ICEM."
Detailed negotiations between the ICEM and the companies' International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) had seemed close to success. Now, however, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) - a major member organisation of the ICCA - has decided to "take no position" on a proposed memorandum of understanding covering health, safety and environmental issues between the ICCA and the ICEM. This seriously jeopardises the prospects of the hoped-for ICCA/ICEM agreement.
The scuppering of the worldwide agreement would pose a particular threat to the chemical industry's Responsible Care programme.
Responsible Care aims to portray the chemical sector as applying uniformly high occupational health and safety and environmental standards wherever the industry operates. It has been the industry's main response to critics of its social and environmental record. Responsible Care programmes have been introduced in many parts of the world, often backed by lavish advertising campaigns.
However, Responsible Care long lacked public credibility. A survey published by the ICEM in December 1997 showed that chemical workers were neither particularly involved in, or even aware of, Responsible Care. 35 percent of the chemical unions surveyed did not know what Responsible Care was. Among those that did, many regarded it as little more than a public relations exercise. One union called it "window dressing."
In February 1999, all this looked set to change. A meeting of the world's governments, chemical employers and chemical unions decided to establish a formal dialogue between the ICEM and the ICCA - notably in a bid to inject some real content into Responsible Care.
Organised by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), the meeting was hailed at the time by the companies and the unions as a major step forward in the promotion of Responsible Care.
Among the ILO meeting's conclusions:
- Internationally comparable systems of performance indicators should be developed and maintained to track chemical enterprises' performance on workplace health and safety and on environmental protection. Workers and their representatives should be involved in the development and use of these systems.
- Workers and their representatives should be actively involved in identifying training and education needs and in designing and implementing training programmes.
At the time, this and the meeting's detailed agreed principles for worker involvement seemed to offer new hope for Responsible Care and the industry's other "voluntary initiatives". The thinking was that careful monitoring by chemical workers and their trade unions, from the workplace right up to the global level, could give more real substance to these programmes and so boost their credibility.
It was not to be.
"We had supposed that the industry was discussing in good faith," Higgs said today. "That was clearly not the case. Whilst I am inclined to believe that those with whom we were negotiating under the auspices of the ICEM/ICCA Joint Advisory Committee were sincere, I am forced to conclude that we were not talking to the real decision-makers and that, furthermore, those making the final decision never had any intention of reaching agreement with the ICEM."
And he left no doubt as to the villains of the piece.
"It is appropriate that I am making this announcement in Washington," Higgs said, "because it is the US chemical industry - or at least one or two powerful voices within it - which deliberately destroyed this international process. The consequences will be extremely damaging, perhaps fatal, for Responsible Care and the industry's other voluntary initiatives worldwide.
"Ironically," Higgs added, "the US chemical companies have made this move at the precise moment when their own reputation is in tatters. The programme 'Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report', televised by PBS here in the States on 26 March, demonstrated just how badly the American chemical industry has behaved in the past, the tactics it uses to silence or neutralise its critics and the widespread public mistrust and anger directed against it. In particular, the progamme chronicles the US chemical manufacturers' very well-funded fight against the 'precautionary principle' for the regulation of toxic chemicals. Long used and accepted in, for example, the European Union, this principle says that, in case of doubt, government regulators should opt to regard a chemical as toxic, thus protecting public health and safety. Due to sustained lobbying by the US chemical companies' trade association, Americans still do not have the basic protection of the precautionary principle.
"When the PBS programme was made, and when we were negotiating with the ICCA, the US chemical manufacturers were grouped in a body called the Chemical Manufacturers' Association (CMA)," Higgs said. "Now, it is called the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Frankly, I'm not surprised that they had to change its name.
"What other ICCA member associations have to decide now," Higgs said, "is whether they want to be identified with the blinkered attitude of their US counterparts. That is, of course, a difficult choice, but unless they isolate the American companies, the chemical industry worldwide will risk a serious loss of social and environmental credibility. Both for labour relations and for the environment, the present political climate in the USA is anything but good. The White House is clearly at the beck and call of America's most reactionary boardrooms. So on chemical safety, as on other issues, the world may just have to get on with its own agenda and, reluctantly, leave the USA to one side for the moment.
"That is the challenge now facing the ICCA," Higgs concluded. "If you want to keep talking to us, if you want to salvage the chemical industry's global reputation, prove to us - now, without any more doublecrosses or doubletalk - that you are no longer the hostages of your most backward US member companies. It's entirely up to you."
Speaking in Washington, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs expressed "profound concern" over "what may turn out to have been a two-year charade masquerading as serious dialogue between the world chemical industry and the ICEM."
Detailed negotiations between the ICEM and the companies' International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) had seemed close to success. Now, however, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) - a major member organisation of the ICCA - has decided to "take no position" on a proposed memorandum of understanding covering health, safety and environmental issues between the ICCA and the ICEM. This seriously jeopardises the prospects of the hoped-for ICCA/ICEM agreement.
The scuppering of the worldwide agreement would pose a particular threat to the chemical industry's Responsible Care programme.
Responsible Care aims to portray the chemical sector as applying uniformly high occupational health and safety and environmental standards wherever the industry operates. It has been the industry's main response to critics of its social and environmental record. Responsible Care programmes have been introduced in many parts of the world, often backed by lavish advertising campaigns.
However, Responsible Care long lacked public credibility. A survey published by the ICEM in December 1997 showed that chemical workers were neither particularly involved in, or even aware of, Responsible Care. 35 percent of the chemical unions surveyed did not know what Responsible Care was. Among those that did, many regarded it as little more than a public relations exercise. One union called it "window dressing."
In February 1999, all this looked set to change. A meeting of the world's governments, chemical employers and chemical unions decided to establish a formal dialogue between the ICEM and the ICCA - notably in a bid to inject some real content into Responsible Care.
Organised by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), the meeting was hailed at the time by the companies and the unions as a major step forward in the promotion of Responsible Care.
Among the ILO meeting's conclusions:
- Internationally comparable systems of performance indicators should be developed and maintained to track chemical enterprises' performance on workplace health and safety and on environmental protection. Workers and their representatives should be involved in the development and use of these systems.
- Workers and their representatives should be actively involved in identifying training and education needs and in designing and implementing training programmes.
At the time, this and the meeting's detailed agreed principles for worker involvement seemed to offer new hope for Responsible Care and the industry's other "voluntary initiatives". The thinking was that careful monitoring by chemical workers and their trade unions, from the workplace right up to the global level, could give more real substance to these programmes and so boost their credibility.
It was not to be.
"We had supposed that the industry was discussing in good faith," Higgs said today. "That was clearly not the case. Whilst I am inclined to believe that those with whom we were negotiating under the auspices of the ICEM/ICCA Joint Advisory Committee were sincere, I am forced to conclude that we were not talking to the real decision-makers and that, furthermore, those making the final decision never had any intention of reaching agreement with the ICEM."
And he left no doubt as to the villains of the piece.
"It is appropriate that I am making this announcement in Washington," Higgs said, "because it is the US chemical industry - or at least one or two powerful voices within it - which deliberately destroyed this international process. The consequences will be extremely damaging, perhaps fatal, for Responsible Care and the industry's other voluntary initiatives worldwide.
"Ironically," Higgs added, "the US chemical companies have made this move at the precise moment when their own reputation is in tatters. The programme 'Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report', televised by PBS here in the States on 26 March, demonstrated just how badly the American chemical industry has behaved in the past, the tactics it uses to silence or neutralise its critics and the widespread public mistrust and anger directed against it. In particular, the progamme chronicles the US chemical manufacturers' very well-funded fight against the 'precautionary principle' for the regulation of toxic chemicals. Long used and accepted in, for example, the European Union, this principle says that, in case of doubt, government regulators should opt to regard a chemical as toxic, thus protecting public health and safety. Due to sustained lobbying by the US chemical companies' trade association, Americans still do not have the basic protection of the precautionary principle.
"When the PBS programme was made, and when we were negotiating with the ICCA, the US chemical manufacturers were grouped in a body called the Chemical Manufacturers' Association (CMA)," Higgs said. "Now, it is called the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Frankly, I'm not surprised that they had to change its name.
"What other ICCA member associations have to decide now," Higgs said, "is whether they want to be identified with the blinkered attitude of their US counterparts. That is, of course, a difficult choice, but unless they isolate the American companies, the chemical industry worldwide will risk a serious loss of social and environmental credibility. Both for labour relations and for the environment, the present political climate in the USA is anything but good. The White House is clearly at the beck and call of America's most reactionary boardrooms. So on chemical safety, as on other issues, the world may just have to get on with its own agenda and, reluctantly, leave the USA to one side for the moment.
"That is the challenge now facing the ICCA," Higgs concluded. "If you want to keep talking to us, if you want to salvage the chemical industry's global reputation, prove to us - now, without any more doublecrosses or doubletalk - that you are no longer the hostages of your most backward US member companies. It's entirely up to you."