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<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Nigerian oil workers’ unions, steadfastly acting as NUPENGASSAN, met in a Joint National Executive Council (NEC) on 30 August and issued a mandate to both government and energy companies that violence must stop and that the unions’ longstanding demands must be seriously implemented. ICEM affiliates NUPENG and PENGASSAN plans a three-day warning strike, starting 13 September across all oil and gas installations of the region if immediate action is not undertaken. 
 
If the government fails to provide a peaceful and safe working environment for oil and gas workers in the region following the warning strike, the unions would call an indefinite strike. 
<img height="114" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaNupeng.gif" width="110"/>        <img height="105" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaPengassan.JPG" width="100"/>
Following the day-long meeting in Benin City, a communiqué was issued containing harsh words for both the Nigerian national government’s “poor response” to the rash of kidnappings along the Niger Delta as well as to state governments, which have displayed a “hypocritical and non-chalant attitude … in the deteriorating state of insecurity and criminality which now pervades the entire region.” 
 
The statement says that the recent federal policy by President Olusegun Obasanjo to meet force-with-force has only created “deepening insecurity” in the region. NUPENGASSAN’s complete NEC communiqué can be read <a href="/index.php?id=25&doc=1943&la=EN" type="internal">here</a>.
The two unions also condemned governmental handling in the release of a kidnapped PENGASSAN member last month. Comrade Nelson Ujeye was killed on 20 August when joint military and police troops ambushed a militant youth group on Niger Delta waters as he was about to be released. The communiqué called it “a grievous fratricidal sacrifice that arose from applying a negative approach.” The story of Comrade Nelson Ujeye’s abduction and subsequent death, including the ICEM’s statement on the incident, can be found in a recent InBrief Alert <a href="/?id=77&doc=1927&la=EN" type="internal">here</a>. 
 
The NEC also took note of the increasing number of cases of expatriate quota abuse inside the employment ranks of energy companies doing business in Nigeria. 
 
NUPENGASSAN, also at the meeting, reiterated its incriminations against the government’s privatisation authority in the sale of state-owned Eleme Petro Chemical Ltd. Due diligence was not done in investigating the buyer of the Port Harcourt olefins refinery, the three-year-old Thai company Indorama. The enterprise is vastly under-valued, according to the two unions. 
<img height="101" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMOil.JPG" width="100"/>
The NEC also condemned pipeline vandalism, as well as the fact that the government allowed the nation’s five refineries to become mere transport “conduits” of imported petroleum products, rather than emphasizing local refining of such products to meet Nigeria’s domestic needs. 
 
And finally, the unions’ grievances include strong objection to merging the Petroleum Training Institute, established by law to provide mid-level Nigerian staff to the oil and gas industries, into the University of Benin, and calls on the government to grant full autonomy to the Department of Petroleum Resources, so that it can effectively serve as the oil and gas regulator. 
 
The ICEM strongly supports the unions’ warning strike next week, as well as their other demands. The ICEM also calls on oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria to apply the same efforts and resources in securing a safe work and living environment for Nigerian oil workers, and their families, as they do for foreign national employees.

Violence-Plagued Niger Delta Must Heed Oil Workers’ Unions Call

The month-long strike by Norway’s NOPEF union that is beginning to cripple energy production across the country’s oil patch will get an airing today before a state mediator. It will be the government’s second attempt to resolve issues that prompted NOPEF to strike a selective list of oil service companies on 21 June. 
 
Efforts just prior to the start of the strike by the state mediator failed.
<img height="90" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NorwayFlag.gif" width="120"/>
  
The strategic strike by 87 NOPEF trade unionists is aimed at normalising the national oil services’ work agreement with other national contracts inside Norway’s energy sector. Work schedules and working terms and conditions common to other staff inside the sector remains the central issue to the strike. 
 
The striking NOPEF members are employed by Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Weatherford and Oceaneering. Other oil service companies such as Aker Kvaerner, Geoservices, and Acergy are also affected. Major oil companies that are losing time and money on well development projects, new drilling exploration, and maintenance include Statoil, ConocoPhillips, Norsk Hydro, Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron. 
 
Work has been interrupted at Statoil’s Snorre and Stratford platforms, and at the Norwegian state company’s northern Snøhvit and Kristin oil fields, while the strike has slowed work at Norsk Hydro’s Heidrun and Oseberg platforms, and at ConocoPhillip’s Ekofisk platform.

Mediation Today in NOPEF’s Oil Services Strike

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Industrianställda I Norden, or Nordic IN, is the new name of a merged labour union federation covering five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Two federations—Nordic Metal and NIF, representing workers in chemicals, paper and textile industries—merged 1 January in a move bringing 22 national unions into a single Nordic industrial federation.
Nordic IN intends to safeguard the Nordic social model, characterized by modern and efficient social security systems, equality, democratic influence, and bargaining structures at both the local and national levels. Former ICEM Officer Jyrki Raina is the general secretary of the new federation.

Five-Country Nordic Industrial Trade Union Federation Forms

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Contract maintenance workers at BP’s Kwinana refinery, who are members of ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), won a five-week strike in mid-December 2005. The 86 workers, employed by United Group, won their full pay demands of nearly A$10 per hour over three years, which will give them parity with BP’s maintenance workers. 
The strikers along with other United Group contract workers at both the Alcoa refinery in Wagerup and the Ravensthorp nickel project were targeted by the Howard government’s watchdog Building and Construction Commission for conducting unprotected strike actions under the government’s new and regressive Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act.

Maintenance Contractors End BP Australian Strike

Nepal’s despotic monarchy ordered a day-long curfew on 20 January, which prevented planned demonstrations in Kathmandu and neighbouring Lalitpur by pro-democracy political parties, including trade union federations GEFONT, DECONT, and NTUC.
Instead, protests sprang up across the capital city on 21 January and were met with excessive force by police using tear gas and brandishing firearms instead of bamboo batons. Some 300 demonstrators were arrested, and many of those remained in custody this morning. In addition, police arrested another 150 political and human rights activists on 19 and 20 January.
<img height="159" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0601NepalBinod.jpg" width="139"/>   <img height="157" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0601NepalMukunda.jpg" width="122"/>
Gefont's Secretary General Binod Shrestha and 
 Chairman Mukunda Neupane 
Senior GEFONT leaders—Chairperson Makunda Neupane and Secretary-General Binod Shrestha—were arrested on 19 January and remain in police custody. Leaders of a seven-party political alliance not already under arrest have called for a general strike across Nepal on 26 January in protest to King Gyanendra’s absolute rule.
More: 
<a href="/index.php?id=7&doc=1630&la=EN" type="internal">ICEM letter to the King of Nepal</a>

Nepal’s Pro-democracy Groups Call for 26 January General Strike

Miners at a uranium mine in Namibia won a 2006 salary agreement from Rössing Uranium after interrupting work for four hours on 10 January to deliver a petition to company management.
<img height="66" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NamibiaFlag.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
Some 450 miners of the Rössing Branch of ICEM affiliate Mineworkers’ Union of Namibia won an 8% pay hike from the mining concern that is 68.6% owned by Rio Tinto, plus a one-off bonus of N$1,000 and substantial housing allowances. When senior managers at the mine where unavailable to accept the petition at the mine’s main entrance, miners boarded buses to Swakopmund, some 70 kilometers away, to present the petition to senior management.
Rio Tinto announced in December that it was investing US$112 million in Rössing Uranium, a move that would extend the life of the mine from 2009 to 2016.

Rio Tinto Miners in Namibia Win Pay Gains

Another mining disaster happened 10 January in South Africa at AngloGold Ashanti’s TauTona gold mine near Carletonville, just outside of Johannesburg.
A rock slide caused by an earth tremor killed three workers, and injured five others, two of them seriously. An investigation into the accident is being jointly conducted by the Ministry of Minerals and Energy, ICEM affiliate National Union of Mineworkers, and AngloGold Ashanti South African Mines. 
<img height="103" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SouthafricaNUM.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
A similar earth tremor at the TauTona Mine last July killed two miners, while a rock fall at AngloGold’s Mponeny Mine in South Africa in October also killed two miners.

Earth Tremor Kills Three at AngloGold South African Mine

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
The United Steelworkers (USW) in Canada has endorsed the mega-mining merger of Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Inc., two Canadian mining houses that combined would comprise the world’s largest nickel producer.
The C$13 billion friendly takeover was given approval at a USW press conference in Sudbury, Ontario, on 7 December with the announced formation of a Steelworker Inco/Falconbridge Council made up of 8,500 workers at 15 USW bargaining units.
USW said the merged company will be “good for Canada, good for communities and good for building bargaining power across the continent.”
The merger is threatened by a possible hostile bid by Swiss-based Xstrata Plc., the Glencore International-controlled mining giant which purchased a 20% stake in Falconbridge in August. Inco has extended to 27 January its offer to Falconbridge shareholders, who must sell at least two-thirds of the company’s outstanding shares to Inco before the deal becomes final.

USW in Canada Endorses Inco, Falconbridge Mining Merger

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
The issue of changing the work schedule for contract employees of Esso Australia Resources Ltd. and BHP Billiton Resources in the offshore oil and gas industry will likely reappear in talks now underway between employers, including the ExxonMobil subsidiary, and Australian unions.
In spring 2004, Esso and the contractors locked out workers for a three-week period in an attempt to terminate the enterprise labour agreement in order to impose a two-week on, two-week off work schedule. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission rejected the application, and Esso and contractors, led by Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary, the joint venture of Worley Group and ABB, and Corke Instrument, appealed the decision.
The current work schedule is a seven-day roster, which workers and their unions contend is more family friendly. Esso and BHP operate oil and rigs in waters of the Bass Straight off Victoria, and Esso also runs energy processing plants in Longford and Long Island Point, Victoria.

ExxonMobil and Contractors in Australia Return to Bargaining

The ICEM expresses sadness and grief on news of the death of PENGASSAN President Uche Okoro in an airline crash Saturday, 10 December, in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Comrade Okoro was one of the 108 passengers killed when a commercial airliner crashed on approach to the Port Harcourt airport. 
 
Having the distinction of serving as president of both Nigeria’s white-collar oil and gas workers’ union, PENGASSAN, and the blue-collar union, NUPENG, Okora was a grass-roots organizer and activist who stood for free and democratic trade unions in Nigeria. His life-long dedication to democratic principles and fairness to workers, particularly during the Abacha military regime, proved invaluable in building Nigeria’s oil unions, as well as today’s Nigerian labour movement.
<img width="120" height="126" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaPengassan.JPG" alt=""/>
He became president of PENGASSAN in 2005. He left the blue-collar ranks of NUPENG when he was promoted to senior staff of the oil company employing him. He was seen as a unifying force between PENGASSAN and NUPENG, as well as all of labour in Nigeria. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs, in a letter to PENGASSAN, called Okora a “fierce defender of workers’ interests in Nigeria and all of Africa. I am sure that both (PENGASSAN and NUPENG), and civil society as a whole in Nigeria, will miss Comrade Okora’s presence.”

ICEM Mourns Tragic Death of PENGASSAN Leader in Nigeria

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