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In the 1990s, the ICEM led the global labour movement by innovative use of the early Internet for instant and effective solidarity. The Wall Street Journal, in a front page 1999 article, said the ICEM &ldquo;is changing the face of traditional labor protests by moving strikes, pickets and other union actions into cyberspace.&rdquo; A mining house spokesman admitted in the same article it was the advent of labour activists &ldquo;trying to globalize via the Internet.&rdquo; 
<img height="86" src="" width="100" alt="" />
The 20-million-member Global Union Federation launched a new and improved website this past weekend, effectively and seamlessly tying together countless struggles, issues, and worker-related facts on all things relevant in the ICEM&rsquo;s six major industrial sectors as well as the world of labour with a new website that replaces the global labour movement&rsquo;s initial, trend-setting static website. 
 
The new site maintains the same address as the old: http://www.icem.org, and visitors are welcome to explore the ICEM&rsquo;s topical website. 
 
The site provides information in ICEM&rsquo;s seven statutory languages&mdash;English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish and Russian. 
 
&ldquo;We are proud to present our affiliates, firstly, with a practical and useful website as an aid to built strong trade union structures,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &ldquo;The new website takes full advantage of the most modern communication technologies to support and advance our work with our affiliates.&rdquo; 
 
The ICEM website contains a wealth of materials and documents on current ICEM projects and campaigns such as Contract and Agency Labour, HIV/AIDS relief, Gender Issues, Health/Safety and Sustainable Development, Global Framework Agreements and Global Union Networks. In easily accessible archives are all ICEM News Releases, InBrief newsletters, Circulars (direct action calls), and other ICEM documents and information from past events. All materials are indexed by ICEM regions and major industrial sectors, and by individual country as well. 
 
ICEM sectors: Energy including Oil, Gas and Nuclear; Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals; Mining/Diamonds and Gems; Pulp and Paper; Rubber; and Materials, which includes Glass, Ceramics and Cement. 
 
ICEM&rsquo;s website design is compatible with the many and varied web browsers available. This means the site can also be read on small-screen and mobile information technology. Conversely, the website has been deliberately designed to allow easy access and easy download for the many workers of the world in regions where only slow internet service exists. 
 
The ICEM, based in Brussels, has 420 affiliated trade unions in 125 countries.

ICEM Introduces New, Advanced Website

The ICEM-hosted International Nuclear Workers Unions&rsquo; Network (INWUN) will meet in Brussels on 8-10 November. INWUN and the ICEM are encouraging nuclear workers&rsquo; trade unions worldwide to participate and further information can be obtained by contacting chairman Dave Shier of the Canadian Power Workers Union at dshier@pwu.ca. INWUN currently has ten trade unions as members from eight countries.

Nuclear Network Meeting Coming to Brussels in November

Hundreds of trade union members of an unaffiliated electrical workers&rsquo; union in Costa Rico marched on the country&rsquo;s Legislative Assembly 26 September in protest against CAFTA, the free trade agreement between the US, Central American nations, and the Dominican Republic. The workers of Instituto de Electricidad (ICI) presented a petition to the Assembly during the manifestation calling for it to invoke terms of a 1988 law that protects the autonomy and independence of ICI against multinational companies. It also called on Costa Rico not to impose capitalization limitations on the public utility in order to attract transnationals.

Costa Rican Union Protests CAFTA

Colombian oil workers&rsquo; Union Sindical Obrera de la Industria Del Petroleo (USO) held a day of manifestation 22 September calling for workers and citizens of the South American nation to resist privatisation of Colombia&rsquo;s second largest refinery, a state-run Ecopetrol refinery in Cartagena. 
The Uribe government has received letters of interest from three multinational oil companies to invest S$850 million for expansion of the refinery, which would effectively transfer 51% ownership to the winning bidder. In it&rsquo;s call to resist privatisation, USO demands greater unity between workers and the public in Colombia to protect the interests of the nation and it&rsquo;s citizens for generations to come.

Colombia&#039;s Oil Union Rejects Refinery Privatisation

ICEM&rsquo;s Global Network of ExxonMobil Workers&rsquo; Solidarity is spotlighting recent deaths and physical abuses to protesters among 4,000 contract workers who have been denied overtime pay by Chad-Cameroon Constructors (TCC), a pipeline-building consortium led by Esso-Tchad, Chevron, and Petronas of Malaysia. 
<img height="80" src="" width="120" alt="" />
On 18 September, national gendarmerie of Chad violently broke up a peaceful sit-in, leaving three dead, three with serious injuries and 30 arrested. Workers have been protesting in the capital of N&rsquo;djamena and in the southern oil regions of Chad. 
The network&rsquo;s attention on the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, opened in 2003 and now carrying 200,000 barrels-per-day, comes just months after Amnesty International issued a comprehensive report on how commercial contracts between Chad&rsquo;s government and private-sector interests have destroyed human rights for both workers and civilians. 
Contract workers are owed some US$12 million in overtime wages collectively for completing the US$3.7 billion pipeline ahead of schedule. Visit the website of the ExxonMobil workers&rsquo; network at www.ExxonMobil-solidarity.org.

Two Dead Among Contractors on Chad-Cameroon Pipeline

Fourteen workers were hospitalized and 30 treated for injuries following a 24 September hydrogen sulphide leak at Caltex Australia Ltd.&rsquo;s refinery in Sydney. Less than a week later, on 29 September, another suspected gas leak forced evacuation of hundreds of oil workers at the country&rsquo;s second largest refinery. The incidents occurred near a new, A$395 million clean fuels plant inside the Kurnell refinery, a major producer of transport fuels in Australia. Caltex, 50% owned by US-based Chevron, is behind schedule and has been burdened with unplanned maintenance and outages at the 124,000 barrel-per-day refinery.

Leak Hospitalizes 14 at Caltex Refinery in Australia

New Zealand paper workers at a Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) converting factory in Auckland have won a 5% pay hike, but CHH workers in the woods sector are still staging industrial actions to get similar pay increases. On 23 September, 200 workers at a laminated veneer plant at Marsden Point in Whangarei began a week-long strike aimed at achieving affiliate Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union&rsquo;s (EPMU) goal of 5% in 2005. The EPMU has succeeded in getting 5% hikes in 269 collective agreements since it&rsquo;s Fair Share Campaign began in February 2005, 85% of all contracts open this year. The &ldquo;5% in &lsquo;05&rdquo; Campaign prompted an industry association spokesman to remark, &ldquo;If you get the message out there, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.&rdquo;

New Zealand Affiliate Succeeding at 5% Wage Hikes

French ICEM affiliate F&eacute;d&eacute;ration Chimie Energie CFDT is calling for a tripartite commission to be established to resolve wage talks in the paper carton industry of France. The trade union rejects the inferior minimum levels put forward by the trade industry grouping Nationale des Industries Papeti&egrave;res pour les Affaires Sociales (l&rsquo;Unipas). FCE-CFDT says the heavy pressure to hold down wages will not be good for this papermaking sector since workers will become reluctant to take promotions into jobs requiring higher technical skills.

French Affiliate Seeks Wage Hikes in Paper Sector

Tomorrow, a general strike will occur throughout France, called by the nation&rsquo;s five major trade union confederations. French workers are saying no to privatisations, no to the new jobs contract proposed by the government, no to erosion of job security, and yes to public service investments and fair pay gains. Some 140 public demonstrations will be held across France, and a weekend opinion poll says 74% of French citizens support the day of actions. The strike has postponed&mdash;at least temporarily&mdash;a government campaign to promote partial privatisation of Electricit&eacute; de France (EDF). Release of analysts&rsquo; reports of EDF&rsquo;s initial public offering commissioned by the government have been ordered delayed until after 4 October strikes.

French Trade Unions Stage 4 October Actions

The Canadian government was target of a 9 September International Day of Protest against the export of asbestos products. Unions in Australia, Asia, India, Africa and Latin America joined the protest against Canada&rsquo;s government, which bans the sale of asbestos products to its own citizens yet profits by export of it. Canada is the world&rsquo;s third largest exporter of asbestos products. Demonstrators gathered in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Australia, demanding a ban, and Canadian embassies in 12 countries were delivered strongly-worded letters asking for Canada to stop its asbestos exports. In Japan, where 60% of all asbestos comes from Canada, three unions sent a high-level delegation to the Tokyo embassy of Canada formally requesting that its export promotion policy be terminated.

Global Unions Protest Canada&#039;s Asbestos Exports

Archive

ICEM Introduces New, Advanced Website

Nuclear Network Meeting Coming to Brussels in November

Costa Rican Union Protests CAFTA

Colombia's Oil Union Rejects Refinery Privatisation

Two Dead Among Contractors on Chad-Cameroon Pipeline

Leak Hospitalizes 14 at Caltex Refinery in Australia

New Zealand Affiliate Succeeding at 5% Wage Hikes

French Affiliate Seeks Wage Hikes in Paper Sector

French Trade Unions Stage 4 October Actions

Global Unions Protest Canada's Asbestos Exports

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