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ICEM’s affiliated trade union in Indonesia’s pulp, paper, and packaging sector, Federasi Serikat Pulp dan Kertas (FSP2KI), conducted its Third Congress in Bandung, West Java, from 22-24 April. The union, with some 20 branches and 15,000 members, amended its structures at this Congress and made the decision to affiliate with Indonesia national labour centre KSPI, the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation. 
 
The Congress pledged to continue growing in the burgeoning Indonesian pulp and paper industry, and it resolved also to work to eliminate temporary or precarious labour in favour of full-time employment in the sector. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.indoFSP2KICongress.JPG" width="251" height="161" alt=""/>
Re-elected President of FSP2KI was Irzan Zulpakar, while Etin Rodiana was re-elected General Secretary. Guests to the Congress included Somahsundram Bala of the Malaysian Pulp and Paper Products Manufacturing Employees Union (PPPMEU), Mikale Lilja of the Swedish Paperworkers’ Union, Pappers, and Bambang Surjono of Indonesian SPKEP-KSPI. 
 
FSP2KI holds membership among workforces of a number of companies, including Asia Pulp and Paper’s (APP) PT Pinto Deli mills in Karawang, APP’s Kiat tissue mill in Tangerang, West Java, Asia Pacific Resources International’s (APRIL) PT Riau mills, the PT Lontar tissue mill in Jambi, Sumatra, and Japanese-based Marubeni’s mill in Kab. Maura Enim, South Sumatra.

Indonesian Pulp, Paper Union, FSP2KI, Holds Congress

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The already-limited freedoms of association in Iraq are under further attack. Last month, the Cabinet arbitrarily dismissed the executive board of the country’s largest trade union organisation, the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), and established a new committee to take over all union structures and assets, oversee and control upcoming union elections. 
 
Cabinet Decrees 95 and 96 were issued on 17 April, withdrawing recognition of the GFIW and appointing a “Ministerial Preparatory Committee” (MPC), consisting of un-elected, politically bias officials, mostly from the Sadrist Party. MPC employees have already begun distributing union membership cards, arbitrarily choosing members favourable to their faction. Further to this, union offices have been taken over with support from police and military personnel. Upcoming union elections are expected to be held inside the Sadrist Party offices. 
 
The deeply concerning developments follow a recent distribution of government ministries between the various political factions of the coalition. The carving up of responsibilities saw the labour ministry taken over by the small, Shia sectarian Sadrist movement, followers of Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. 
 
Eight years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his regime’s regressive labour laws have not been replaced, meaning all public sector employees have no right to organise or bargain collectively. The vast majority of workers in Iraq are affected by this law. But this latest attack is even in breach of the Saddam legislation. 
 
The TUC in the United Kingdom has been on the front line of a global union backlash, calling on the Iraq government to back down. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber wrote to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki explaining that the TUC will exercise its veto right to block the government-nominated workers’ delegate to the ILO Annual Conference (ILC) in June, unless the attack is reversed. 
 
Support the <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=917">Labourstart campaign</a>, and send your protest message to Iraq Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki here. Also send your opposition to this attack on the GFIW to the Iraqi Embassy in your country. International pressure has proved effective in Iraq over recent years. The labour ministry decree has been publically condemned by the Minister of Civil Society in Iraq. Build the pressure, join the campaign. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.iraq oil workers basra.jpg" width="210" height="158" alt=""/>
Oil workers protest in Basra for fair wage
Iraqis continue to bravely organise in face of the government attacks. Oil workers in Basra last week, 10 May, walked out and threatened to stop production at the state-run South Oil Corporation, demanding fair salaries and benefits to match those of oilworkers at the international corporations operating in Iraq. Foreign workers were to be blocked from entering oil fields yesterday, but Basra Governor Khalaf Abdul Samad Khalaf agreed to meet the unions and averted the escalation of the protest, for the time being.

Iraqi Government Moves to End Free Trade Unions, Remove Recognition of National Centre

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The result of long-running consultations with trade unions, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have been updated and improved, representing a positive opportunity to force global capital to respect workers. Stronger clarification that companies’ must ensure compliance throughout supply chains is a significant improvement, as is a new chapter on human rights which requires multinational companies to respect human rights of all workers, in line with the Guiding Principles for Implementing the UN Framework, Protect, Respect, Remedy. 
 
The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are a strong international instrument for promoting corporate social responsibility. In practice, however, their implementation has encountered limits. In this regard, the Update will create a number of improvements in the Procedural Guidance including provisions for: indicative timescales for the completion of cases; and stronger cooperation between home and host country NCPs (National Contact Points). 
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The new developments to the text must now be effectively implemented and respected by national governments. 
 
Other important advances include language on outsourced and temporary work, providing a tool for problematic precarious work to be addressed; and provisions for workers to receive a decent wage or “at least adequate to satisfy the basic needs of the workers and their families”. 
 
The updated Guidelines will be adopted at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting on Wednesday 25 May, and will be immediately in effect. 
 
The ICEM participated in dialogue over the past year with OECD governments. Centrally important in those consultations was TUAC (Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD), with the ITUC, GUFs, BIAC (Business Forum), and OECD Watch also partners. There remains more room for improvement of the Guidelines, and dialogue will be ongoing. 
 
The OECD Guidelines hold the potential to promote corporate social and environmental responsibility worldwide and to make an effective contribution to sustainable development and to the social dimension of globalisation. Potential is increased through this update.

OECD Guidelines Improved

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Poland’s trade unions at the state-run coal company, Jastrzębska Spolka Weglowa (JSW), gave their consent to a 30% float of JSW shares on the Warsaw bourse through a deal reached with the government early this month. The unions, including Solidarność, gained a ten-year guarantee of employment for 22,000 workers. 
 
Negotiations continue today, 23 May, over specifics reached in the 5 May framework agreement, and conclusions must also be reached over pay increases. JSW and the unions had been engaged in a four-month dispute over job security and the effects of the stock listing. 
 
Poland’s Treasury Ministry now will list a 30% stake of Europe’s largest coking coal company in July, instead of the 30 June date as originally planned. The government will maintain 51% stake in JSW, but the possibility exists that future sales of shares will occur. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.polish mine.jpg" width="200" height="133"/>
The government offered a five-year guarantee of employment, while the unions maintained and won ten years. They have retreated some on wage demands totalling 10%, but common agreement is expected to come on that issue. What still must be negotiated is the shape and structure of free-of-charge shares to staff, which will not be bound as an entitlement, certain provisions inside a 2007-2015 strategy plan of JSW, and the appointment of board members to the partially privatised company. 
 
JSW is the first of Poland’s major coal producers to list on a bourse. Next year, the thermal coal producer Katowicky Holding Weglowy (KHW), numbering 19,200 employees, is expected to merge with the state-run logistics and export company Wegokoks, with initial public offering (IPO) to follow. Solidarność is supporting the merger of the companies. 
 
In another mining area inside Poland, high tensions in wage talks at the state-run copper company, KGHM Polska Miedz SA, turned to unruliness on 5 May when angry copper workers tried to storm union-management pay negotiations at the company’s center in Lubin. Workers attacked private security guards and broke windows in trying to enter the premises. Three workers involved in the melee were sacked for the disturbance and 12 others are under investigation. 
 
Workers want more than the 4.5% offer on the table from Europe’s second largest copper producer, which has seen profits double to £1.9 billion in 2010. Some 18,500 KGHM workers have been waiting for fair wage gains since bargaining began in mid-April.

Tentative Accord between Coal Unions, JSW in Polish Privatisation

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ICEM’s North American affiliate, the United Steelworkers (USW), signalled its intent to join a federal lawsuit with two US NGOs against Omnova Solutions for alleged failure to report toxic chemicals. 
 
The USW, the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League fulfilled a 60-day requirement providing notice of intent to file in US Federal District Court over alleged insufficient reporting of storage and release of toxic chemicals into the environment from Omnova’s performance chemicals plant in Chester, South Carolina. 
 
Omnova Solutions, based in the US, is a global producer of specialty chemicals, emulsion polymers, and decorative products. Its performance chemicals division provides binders, coatings, adhesives, and additives primarily for the paper, textile, and carpet industries. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904.poison.jpg" width="120" height="105"/>
The suit by the three parties would fall under the US Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986. It will allege that Omnova, active in Europe, Asia, and North America, failed to accurately complete and submit required toxic chemical release forms for 2008 and 2009 to report releases of potassium permanganate and toluene diisocyanate. The groups also allege that the company failed to report its 2008 releases of isopropyl alcohol. Under the law, Omnova could be subject to civil penalties up to $US32,500 per violation, per day with liabilities that ultimately could reach millions of dollars. 
 
While all three chemicals can irritate the nose and throat, health warnings advise that toluene diisocyanate may cause cancer, lung irritation and an asthma-like allergy. Potassium permanganate may decrease fertility and affect the liver and kidneys. 
 
“We have found that employers who disrespect workers often treat the environment with the same contempt,” said USW Special Counsel Lynn Agee. “Until OMNOVA starts obeying our laws and respecting workers, we’ll continue in our efforts to bring the company to justice.” 
 
The Chester facility is one of six OMNOVA plants that stores large volumes of extremely hazardous chemicals in quantities that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems a potential public risk and subject to risk management planning.

USW Joins US Environmental Groups in Lawsuit Against Chemicals Company Omnova

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In March, the ICEM had the assistance of the IMF in a public campaign in support of ICEM affiliate Petrol-İş in Turkey to get Standard Profil, a manufacturer of rubber products, to begin bargaining. Petrol-İş had gained well past the necessary 50% of Standard Profil’s 2,300 employees workers seeking union representation, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security certified that the company’s product line fell into the Petrol-İş negotiating jurisdiction of petroleum, chemicals, and rubber. 
The purpose of the public campaign, which included global letters of endorsement to Petrol-İş by unions and Works Councils representing Standard Profil customers in the automotive sector, was to dissuade the company from appealing the Ministry’s industrial sector determination. The union called on the company, in the words of Petrol-İş President Mustafa Öztaşkin, to “start with mutual good will and consideration of mutual interests.”
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.petrol is president.JPG" width="217" height="201"/>
 Petrol-İş President Mustafa Öztaşkin
The maker of rubberized automotive sealing systems had already engaged with the union over freedom of association and workers’ rights training through intervention by the Multinational Investment Guarantee Agency, a monitoring agency of the World Bank’s International Finance Corp (IFC). The IFC has loaned Standard Profil development money at its two factories in Düzce and Bursa and criteria for the loan compels the company to foster proper social and environmental conduct. 
In April, the company ignored the workers’ olive branch made by Petrol-İş and filed an appeal with the government. The company claims its jurisdiction is in the metal industry. Such an appeal in Turkey is meant to thwart union recognition and negotiations by tying the matter up in court procedures for two years or more. And following jurisdiction outcome, an appeal on the 50% plus one is automatic, which further binds the hands of legitimate workers’ rights to join a union and bargaining collectively. 
This is a main reason why Turkey’s archaic labour code is currently under scrutiny at the ILO. 
Despite Standard Profil’s labour rights training in 2008-09 under its IFC responsibilities, the company signalled ill-will in sync with its appeal last month by sacking five union activists, including one who is a disabled worker. 
In fact, ICEM and Petrol-İş developed the public campaign with a back-up strategy in the event Standard Profil turned hostile. The Istanbul-based company manufactures rubber sealers for doors, boot, engine covers, and other seals for automobiles. It was owned by Bancroft Private Equity LLP but in early May was sold to the Pawan Ruia Group of India. 
The Ruia Group is heavily involved in the rubber industry and holds big equity stakes in Dunlop Tyre, Monotana Tyre, and Falcon Tyre of India. It also holds a big share of the automotive fastener market, making it a strategic company in the automotive supply chain. ICEM and Petrol-İş will now focus on that fact.

ICEM at Standard Profil: Halting Union Avoidance in Turkey’s Rubber Sector

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On 24 February, Juan Linares was released after spending two years in jail. His release came just days after worldwide mobilization of unions in the 14-19 February global days of action demanding trade union rights in Mexico. Linares has been a member of SNTMMSRM (or Los Mineros) since 1972 as a mine worker at the ArcelorMittal Sicartsa steel mill. 
 
Why were you imprisoned and what was the impact of this on your union? 
 
I was imprisoned under false charges of fraud, on which no evidence was ever presented. This is clearly an anti-union measure taken by the government of Felipe Calderón to undermine and attack the Miners' Union. There was an investigation and an audit was carried out which shows that there has been no embezzlement of funds at all. The anti-union attacks from the government have been constant, firstly starting with the accusations against the General Secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia; secondly, the freezing of the bank account and thirdly, imprisoning me. This just serves the government’s intention to finish off our union. 
 
How did you manage to secure your release after two years in jail? 
 
International support, particularly from the IMF, ICEM, AFL-CIO, and the United Steelworkers, that mobilized international opinion about my case and in particular the global days of action held in February had considerable impact on my release. I was imprisoned for two years, two months and 20 days. 
 
Is the government persecution of Los Mineros continuing? 
 
Yes, the government continues daily to persecute Los Mineros and this is because it is a right wing government. This already started in the time of Vicente Fox and is now continuing with Felipe Calderón. Persecution is particularly harsh from the Minister of Labour. 
 
What is the situation for Los Mineros and the independent trade union movement in Mexico today? 
 
I think that things are slowly improving. The questions that we are discussing today on the merger at the global level will be particularly beneficial for Mexico. For example, another union under attack - SME - will soon be together with us and I think that we could achieve a really strong and independent labour movement in Mexico. 
 
How can international solidarity support Los Mineros and other independent unions in your struggle? 
 
One thing in which we need the support from the international organizations is to be able to continue organizing and recruiting new members in our union and that is what we would ask the international organizations to which we are affiliated. I also would like to share with you my great joy because we just heard on 25 May that our leader Napoleón Gómez has now been cleared of all accusations against him and we are looking forward to having him back with us in Mexico and to continue our struggle. We believe that the union movement in Mexico is really advancing.

Interview: Juan Linares, National Mexican Mine and Metal Workers Union (SNTMMSRM) 

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The ICEM expressed satisfaction today that the Kumho Tyre subsidiary of Kumho Asiana Group lifted its eight-day lockout on 3,400 rubber workers, members of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU). Korea’s second biggest tyre maker locked out workers on 25 March at factories in Gwungju and Gokseong following a one-day warning strike. 
 
The lockout ended at 14h30 today. The company rescinded its demand that workers sign individual work agreements promising not to engage in further work stoppages. In return for lifting the lockout, the Kumho Tyre Workers’ Union said it would end its industrial actions in front of the two plants. 
 
The union executed the warning strike on 25 March because Kumho refused to engage in dialogue over relevant issues in the middle of a two-year labour agreement. Those issues included giving workplace union leaders the right to maintain their union representation duties while on the job, revisions to severance packages, and health factors inside the factories. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4347-Warning-Strike-Leads-to-Lockout-at-Kumho-Tyre-Factories-in-Korea" type="internal">ICEM report</a> from 28 March.) 
 
In lifting the lockout, the Kumho Tyre Workers’ Union recognised the company’s fragile financial and market situation. The ICEM is encouraged that the two sides engaged in meaningful dialogue to end the mid-term dispute.

Kumho Tyre Lifts Lockout on Metal Workers Union in Korea

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 67, April 2011 

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A long and drawn out court battle in Chhattisgarh state, India, saw exploited contract workers of Holcim Cement again win regularisation of their jobs in March through a High Court appeals ruling. But Holcim Cement of Switzerland is refusing to implement the court’s order. 
 
The result is that hundreds of contract workers at one of Holcim’s Indian subsidiaries, Associated Cement Co. Ltd. (ACC), and supporters are staging an ongoing “dharna,” or strike at the Bhilai Industrial Estate statue of Shankar Guha Niyogi, the legendary workers’ leader and founder of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM) political party who was assassinated in 1991. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.shankar Guha.jpg" width="120" height="150"/>
Shankar Guha Niyogi
The CMM-associated labour union Pragatisheel Cement Shramik Sangh is carrying the struggle for the contract workers, much like Niyogi did for irregular workers in mining, metalworking, and textiles three decades ago. 
 
The rightful fight for contract workers at ACC Jamul Cement to gain full wages, provident fund benefits, and even proper safety equipment dates back nearly 20 years. Holcim bought controlling interest in ACC and Ambuja Cement in 2006-2007 and has continued resistance to the legitimate rights of contract workers at its Indian cement plants. 
 
In 2006, an Industrial Court ruled that some 573 contract workers at ACC Jamul, many subsequently fired, must be made regular employees, with their wages and working conditions tied to the Cement Wage Board, or the Nevatia Award. Holcim, Lafarge, the Aditya Birla Group’s Ultratech, and other major cement producers are tied to the Wage Board by hard fought strikes of the past. 
 
The Wage Board agreement has tight restrictions on the use of contract labour, limiting it to loading and unloading raw materials but with pay at the same rate as permanent workers. 
 
Holcim defied the Industrial Court’s ruling by paying only between two-to-five days salary per month – at US$2 per day – because that is how few days contract workers were on the job at the time of the Industrial Court filing because Holcim was trying to get them to resign. 
 
Pragatisheel Cement Shramik Sangh filed a writ petition with the High Court, and that portion of litigation is still pending. However, on 21 March, the High Court did rule that the paper arrangements between irregular workers and Holcim are “sham and bogus” and directed management to regularise over 100 contract workers. However, the ruling neglected to recognise the rights of about 400 who were coerced into accepting voluntary resignations. 
 
India is the world’s second largest cement producer behind China. The country has an annual growth rate in cement of 11%, which has seen the leading cement producers make major investments and acquisitions. 
 
But multinationals like Holcim and Lafarge are doing nothing to stabilise employment and bring decent work to rural people who are recruited and then exploited as contract workers. Alone in Chhattisgarh state in central India, it is estimated that 3,200 permanent workers are employed in the cement industry, while 11,000 others toil as short-term, expendable contract workers.

Holcim Defies India Court Ruling on Rights for Contract Workers

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