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<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
Some 1,000 German coal miners will convene in Dresden tomorrow, 28 November, to lobby the Christian Democratic Party to preserve federal coal subsidies. 
 
Miners will handbill the CDU’s Congress with a leaflet entitled “We Fight for Germany’s Energy Future”, aimed at reminding German Chancellor Angela Merkel of promises she made to the preservation of the country’s coal mining industry. 
 
The action is supported by ICEM German affiliate IGBCE. 
 
Some 700 miners will arrive from the Ruhr region and from Ibbenbüren, some 300 others from the province of Saarland. The miners and their union are reacting to motions passed by CDU’s North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland regional delegations to reduce the current level of coal mining in those areas, as well as proposing to phase-out mining subsidies by the first half of the next decade. 
<img height="62" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/GermanyFlag.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
The miners contend that domestic coal is necessary in a balanced energy mix, and argue that Germany has become too dependent on imports of both coal and natural gas. 
 
The handbilling campaign also seeks to remind Merkel, as well as North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers and Saarland Prime Minister Peter Müller, of pledges they made that any adjustments in the coal mining industry would be socially acceptable, and occur without closures to existing mining operations.

German Coal Miners Take Protest to CDU Congress on 28 November

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The worst Polish mining tragedy in three decades claimed 23 lives on 21 November, as a methane gas explosion struck deep inside the Halemba mine in Ruda Slaska in Poland’s southern Silesia industrial region. The mine, which had not been operating since March 2006, is owned by the state-run Kampania Weglowa (KW), the EU’s largest mining company. 
 
The miners were some 1,000 metres underground when the methane gas ignited. They were sent into the 50-year-old mine to retrieve equipment, valued by the company at US$23 million. The shafts in which they were working had been closed last spring, due to dangerously high concentrations of gas. 
<img height="63" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/PolandFlag.gif" width="100" border="1" alt=""/>
Poland’s President, Lech Kaczynski, visited the area and declared a three-day national period of mourning from 23-25 November. All cultural and sports events across the country were cancelled. The government also announced a special fund totalling US$234,700 for family members of the victims. 
 
Some 60 persons, including 23 surviving children, will share the compensation award, expected to amount to about US$10,000 per person. 
 
Poland’s Higher Authority for Mining set up a special commission to investigate the tragedy, with work beginning on 24 November. The KW supervisory board will meet on 11 December to take up the reasons and consequences of the catastrophe. Meanwhile, KW has dismissed general directors at all 17 of its collieries in Poland, and the mines will be managed by technical and administrative personnel.

23 Miners Killed inside Poland’s Halemba Coal Pit

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Reminder to ICEM Affiliates 
 
In our November e-bulletin we have encouraged you to join the campaign on 
World AIDS Day, 1 December 
against stigma, discrimination and victimisation, and for prevention, care and support and treatment. 
 
Please, report back to <a href="mailto:hiv.aids@icem.org">hiv.aids@icem.org</a> on any actions you have taken. 
<img height="28" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids%20ribbon.jpg" width="20"/>
ICEM HIV/AIDS Workshop in India 
 
21 participants from four ICEM affiliates in the mining, diamond, cement and chemical/electricity sectors participated in a workshop in Puri, Orissa, 16-19 November. The workshop was held at the Gandhi Labour Foundation, which is part of the network of Institutes for Miners and Metalworkers Education (IMME) of the Indian National Mineworkers’ Federation (INMF). 
 
The workshop was inaugurated by veteran trade union leader, former General Secretary and President Emeritus of the INMF, long-time member of the ILO Governing Body and former Vice President of the MIF, Kanti Mehta. 
 
The objectives of the workshop included the achievement of a solid knowledge about the HIV/AIDS epidemic; the introduction and advocacy of the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work; the development of workplace policies and of a work plan of activities with sustainable funding sources. 
It incorporated a baseline survey of what policies exist and what activities have taken place. IMME had run an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in the Korba area of South Eastern Coal Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited from December 2004 to April 2006 with the support from the Catholic Relief Services. 
 
The workshop answered the question why unions should get involved in HIV/AIDS activities and how they could get involved. Participants drafted a workplace policy which includes non-discrimination and non-victimisation, confidentiality and care and support and came up with an action programme. 
<img height="28" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids%20ribbon.jpg" width="20"/>
Focus on India 
 
The Indian national response to HIV/AIDS is led by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), a department of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NACO was created in 1992 and provides the strategy and direction for the whole country. India is a decentralised federation and in each state, a State AIDS Control Society is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the national strategy. 
Besides general awareness, information and behaviour change communication, the strategy is based on targeted interventions aiming at high-risk groups, providing access to VCT, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and, since 2004, access to antiretroviral treatment. 
 
According to the UNAIDS/WHO 2006 Epidemic Update, India is experiencing a highly varied HIV epidemic which appears to be stable in some parts while growing in others. Approximately 5.7 million people, of whom 5.2 million were adults aged 15 to 49 years, were living with HIV in 2005. This is the highest absolute number of HIV infections in the world although the prevalence rate at 0.9% is relatively low due to the large population of more than 1.1 billion. 
 
The majority of HIV infections occur in a few regions. About two thirds of reported infections have been in six of the country’ 28 states – mainly in the industrialised south and west and the north-eastern tip. On average, HIV prevalence in those states is 4 to 5 times higher than in the other Indian states. 
 
The bulk of HIV infections in India happen during unprotected heterosexual intercourse. Consequently, women account for a growing proportion of people living with HIV (some 38% in 2005). A large proportion of women have acquired the virus from regular partners who were infected during paid sex. 
In Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra state, for example, 54% and 49% of sex workers have been found to be infected. In such a scenario the likelihood of transmission between sex workers and their clients and their other sex partners is extremely high. Prevention efforts have been started by organisations of sex workers themselves in the state of West Bengal but condom use is still inconsistent in other parts of India. 
 
Injecting drug use is the main risk factor for HIV infections in the north-east and in major cities. In Chennai (formerly Madras), 31% of injecting drug users were found to be HIV positive. 
 
The report states that above all, more must be done to combat stigma, which remains rife in all walks of Indian society and to reduce gender and other inequalities which make HIV prevention and treatment such a huge challenge. 
 
The 3rd Five-Year Plan (NACP III) is currently under preparation. In early November, one of the largest Global Fund HIV/AIDS grants for US$ 259 million over the 5-year grant period was approved for India. 
 
(Source: UNAIDS/WHO AIDS 2006 Epidemic Update and UNAIDS country profile) 
<img height="28" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids%20ribbon.jpg" width="20"/>
The Gates Foundation in India 
 
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given a US$ 200 million five-year grant to operate an HIV prevention programme on a scale never done before. The Foundation’s prevention efforts, known as Ahavan – a Sanskrit word meaning “call to action” – target the commercial sex trade, which is a main transmission route for the infection. 
The challenge is complex. Often the sex trade is nearly invisible with sex workers working out of truck stops or even in small village homes. 
 
One of India’s hardest-hit areas, the remote northeast, has an entirely different problem. There, most HIV transmissions come from needles shared by hundreds of drug addicts. 
 
All these problems are confounded by the stigma attached to AIDS in a very conservative society. 
 
Ahavan’s strategy has been to adopt a business-style structure. The product is prevention, and the Foundation formed a pyramid structure to get to its consumers. It contracted 15 other organisations which, in turn, work with about 150 grass-root groups. They engage some 5,000 sex workers, many of them HIV-positive, to get the message about condom use out. 
 
(Source: Abbreviated article by Gavin Rabinowitz, AP US and WorldMonday, 3 July 2006) 
<img height="28" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids%20ribbon.jpg" width="20"/>
NUM Calls for Accelerated Conversion of Hostels 
 
The ICEM affiliated National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) called upon the South African mining industry to accelerate the conversion of single-sex hostel accommodation to decent family housing. 
 
Speaking at the 2nd Mining Industry Tripartite HIV/AIDS Summit, NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni reiterated that doing away with single-sex hostels would go a long way in dealing with HIV, AIDS and TB. He said that migrant labour travelling between their communities and the mines was fuelling the epidemic and added that a mineworker housing scheme would establish a family environment, which was more likely to deal with the spread of HIV. 
 
Baleni also urged the mining industry to extent antiretroviral treatment to the partners of mineworkers and singled out AngloGold Ashanti, Anglo Collieries, Gold Fields, Harmony and De Beers as firms only treating their workers. 
 
He told the summit that little progress has been made in prevention since the first summit held in 2003. Baleni called on employers and the government to create a more supportive environment for voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and said that the peer group support system should be improved. 
 
(Source: Mining Weekly, South Africa, 6 November 2006)
<img height="28" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids%20ribbon.jpg" width="20"/>
AIDS in Zimbabwe – Facts and Fiction 
 
In its latest report, UNAIDS cites Zimbabwe as an example of successful prevention measures. Between 2002 and 2005, the prevalence rate among pregnant women has dropped from 29.6% to 20.1%. That would make Zimbabwe one of the most successful countries in the world in the fight against the epidemic. 
 
There are, however, strong indications that government-supplied statistics are more based on fiction than on facts. The almost complete collapse of the health system in the wake of a long and severe economic crisis and an absence of prevention campaigns make it hard to believe that prevalence rates have come done. Furthermore, according to the government’s own figures, only 23,000 persons received anti-retroviral treatment at the end of 2005 when 321,000 needed it. 
 
If the prevalence rates among different groups have come down, it is due to other factors such as persons living with AIDS simply dying or that HIV-positive people have left the country in search of work elsewhere. It is estimated that two to three million Zimbabweans have emigrated, mainly to South Africa. 
 
(Source: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland, 20 November 2006) 
<img height="28" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids%20ribbon.jpg" width="20"/>
Global AIDS Epidemic Continues to Grow 
 
The global AIDS epidemic continues to grow and there is evidence that some countries are seeing a resurgence in new HIV infection rates which were previously stable or declining. However, declines in infection rates are also being observed in other countries, as well as positive trends in young people’s sexual behaviours. 
 
According to the latest figures published in the UNAIDS/WHO 2006 Epidemic Update (www.unaids.org), an estimated 39.5 million people are living with HIV. There were 4.3 million new infections in 2006 with 2.8 million (65%) of these occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and important increases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where in some countries infection rates have risen by more than 50% since 2004. In 2006, 2.9 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses. 
 
(Source: UNAIDS/WHO Press Release, 21 November 2006)

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 15

Today, on World AIDS Day, 1 December, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs announced the collapse of talks on a promising global HIV/AIDS initiative which had the potential to save countless lives of those living with HIV/AIDS in the world’s least developed countries, and improve their quality of life. 
 
The announcement was made in Trinidad and Tobago on the final day of the Global Union Federation’s World Conference for the Chemicals Industries. 
 
Much to his personal regret, Higgs declared that the proposed ICEM - Pharmaceutical Industry HIV/AIDS initiative, which he had hoped would develop into a highly visible and effective partnership, is now as good as dead. The initiative, which had developed following discussions with the pharmaceutical industry, would have opened the door for more affordable medicines for tens of thousands of poor people living with HIV/AIDS. 
<img height="275" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/FredHiggs.jpg" width="300"/>
ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs
Higgs stated, “This initiative would have given access to affordable drugs to individuals living with HIV/AIDS in all 50 of the United Nations-listed Least Developed Countries, including many in sub-Saharan Africa.” 
 
The draft agreement, held in confidence by Higgs during the whole of the discussions, would have included the following statement: 
 
“Leading companies in the research-based pharmaceutical industry pledge to provide high-quality HIV/AIDS medicines and related products for impoverished people in sub-Saharan and other least-developed countries at no-profit prices, through donation programs, and through alternative methods that include deeply discounted prices and licensing of propriety technology on mutually agreed concessionary terms.“ 
 <img height="35" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids ribbon.jpg" width="25"/>
Lost Opportunity 
 
The ICEM first engaged with the industry on this matter in 2003. Throughout the process, Pfizer was the only company that continued to recognise the need for a new substantive industry initiative, and supported further debate on the ICEM-led initiative. 
 
According to Higgs, the ICEM had to overcome its initial hesitation at getting involved in a partnership since “we might have been seen as defending the industry against an un-defendable track record.” 
 
“But, as a global trade union organisation, we represent both union members employed by pharmaceutical companies, and members in sectors with high HIV infection levels. Also, many of our affiliates are trying to deal with HIV/AIDS in the developing world. So, we believe we have a responsibility to seek to persuade the industry to do more to meet the challenge related to HIV/AIDS.” 
 
Higgs added: “The ICEM recognises the fact that GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Roche, Abbott Laboratories, Gilead Science, and Boehringer Ingelheim, through the Accelerating Access Initiative (AAI), an organisation formed to coordinate individual company initiatives in the area of HIV/AIDS, do valuable work to assist people affected by the Aids pandemic.” 
<img height="239" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMlogos/ICEM_AIDSlogopale.jpg" width="180"/>
“Although substantial, what they do via the AAI is not sufficient to either keep pace with the increasing numbers of those infected who have, due to cost, no access to the drugs they need. Nor does it help change the public perception of the industry from being part of the problem, to being part of the solution.” 
 
Higgs reported at today’s conference in Port-of-Spain on the early discussions with representatives of three AAI member companies – Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Abbott Laboratories – in a meeting hosted by Pfizer, which is not a member of the AAI. 
 
“It was agreed at the time to discuss the ICEM proposal, as well as each company’s programme to provide access to affordable medicines and treatment on an individual basis with each AAI member company, to satisfy antitrust concerns.” 
 
Individual company meetings were held between December 2003 and April 2004, which expanded to include GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, and Merck. A meeting with Boehringer Ingelheim was scheduled, but did not occur. Meetings also took place with representatives of the US industry trade association, the European industry trade association, and the International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. The initiative’s draft text was substantially amended to reflect concerns raised during these meetings, including those related to anti-trust implications. 
<img height="35" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids ribbon.jpg" width="25"/>
The Road to Nowhere 
 
In September 2004, Higgs wrote to the CEO of each AAI member company asking for a response to the redrafted document, and requesting a meeting with each of them to discuss the proposed initiative and its possibilities. 
 
Disturbingly, Higgs received almost the same response from each CEO, directing him back to the staff executives that he had spoken with earlier. No CEO directly addressed the proposal, or offered to meet. 
 
The AAI did, however, start to take an active interest in other ongoing ICEM HIV/AIDS projects. As welcome as that was, Higgs made it clear that the two issues must be kept separate. 
 
In July 2005, Higgs got back to the AAI, asking for a decision by 30 September 2005, on whether a meeting could be arranged with AAI CEOs to further discuss the ICEM proposal. The AAI failed to respond to the request in time. In April 2006, an AAI representative indicated that an AAI meeting would be arranged to chart a path forward with the ICEM. 
 
Following four months of further delay, a brief e-mail was finally received indicating that the AAI would not be able to proceed on the draft ICEM initiative. 
<img height="35" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids ribbon.jpg" width="25"/>
The Future 
 
According to WHO and UNAIDS, the AAI companies are providing nearly 430,000 people in the developing world with Anti-Retroviral (ARV) medicines. Another 440,000 are reportedly receiving generic ARVs under the full international effort. In total, only around 15% of the estimated 6.5 million people in immediate need are getting treatment.  
 
This means that some 5.5 million people are still in immediate need of affordable medicines, with the price of those medicines continuing to be a major obstacle. 
 
“The failure of pharmaceutical company leaderships to sit down with international labour and talk will remain a shameful episode,” stated Fred Higgs. “It is all the more sad when you realise that, at no time during the three-year-long discussions, did any representative of any one of the companies indicate that the initiative would be too expensive or unrealistic. No one ever said it wasn’t possible. They just didn’t want to do it.” 
 
“In the future,” continued Higgs, “ICEM will focus on working on with international organisations and employers that understand labour’s capabilities to move HIV/AIDS treatment programmes forward in developing nations.” He noted that he has had positive discussions with officials of the United Nations, with the ILO, and with certain pharmaceutical companies, including the Chief Executive of Pfizer. 
The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) represents 20 million workers from 384 industrial trade unions in 125 countries.

Pharmaceutical Industry Fails in Developing Industry-Wide HIV/AIDS Initiative

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The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) filed, at the request of the All-India Council of Unilever Unions, a complaint last week with the OECD National Contact Points in both the UK and The Netherlands. Unilever, the third largest global food company, is an Anglo-Dutch conglomerate. 
<img height="100" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/IUF.jpg" width="100"/>
The OECD complaint is on the appalling behaviour by Hindustan Lever, an Indian Unilever subsidiary, who, as described in a prior ICEM InBrief article, last year sold its Mumbai factory in order to have it closed down by another enterprise. In doing that, the company not only wanted to avoid paying taxes, the effort was also meant to escape duties to its own workforce. 
<img height="361" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0610HindustanLever.jpg" width="350" alt=""/>
The ICEM, together with the IUF, seeks the major global corporation to set things right, and calls on Unilever to respect both the relevant international standards, as well as the national law in India. The two GUFs believe that Hindustan Lever must immediately start fair and honest negotiations with the Hindustan Lever Employees’ Union (HLEU), the trade union representing its workforce. 
 
More on the dispute can be found on the IUF’s web-site <a href="http://www.iufdocuments.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=3745&view_records=1&ww=1&en=1 ">here</a>.

OECD Complaint Filed on Unilever India

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Global multinational, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., has suddenly become protectionist in its US rubber business, or so it would seem from reading the company’s strike weeklies, which are aimed at softening 15,000 American workers into giving back more of their hard-earned incomes. 
 
The strike by ICEM affiliate, United Steelworkers (USW), of 16 Goodyear plants in the US and Canada passed the three-week mark on 26 October. The company has expressed its scorn at striking union members, who are trying to protect their livelihoods, by very publicly pronouncing that 300 auxiliary workers will get the sack due to the strike. These workers are USW members that were only recently organised at a steel-thread plant.
The same scorn is heard in the truth-defying words of North American Goodyear President Jon Rich, in his weekly missives. 
 
His message is clear: loyal “associates” of Goodyear are invited to abandon the strike, abandon the USW as the last front on job protections, and join the corporatist mindset in which security, retirement, and hope will not be part of any equation. “As the strike continues,” Rich wrote last week, “it’s tempting to start shifting the focus from ‘what are we trying to achieve?’ to ‘when will this be over?’” 
<img height="100" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMrubber.JPG" width="100"/>
It’s abundantly clear what Goodyear is trying to achieve: the flexibility to slash jobs, cut incomes, and play the hand that it so quickly played at the steel-wire plant just days into the strike. 
 
When will it be over? It is becoming evident by the strikers’ resolve and their anger at being asked once again to concede to the company’s agenda, that it will be over once Goodyear retreats from its concessions and begins treating the last stakeholder in a resounding three-year success story with the dignity and respect it deserves. 
 
“Hasn’t everyone but our members benefited from the turnaround since 2003?” asks a USW spokesman. “Despite the innovations we brought to the table and the sacrifices we made, the company is demanding more closures and more concessions.” 
USW made contract concessions and agreed, in 2003 negotiations, to one US plant closing in exchange for job security and job-retention policies at the other North American plants. This occurred with Goodyear teetering on bankruptcy. Now, with a 17% global market tyre share and nearly one-half of the company’s 2005 revenues, totalling US$19.72 billion, derived from North American operations, Goodyear seeks to unravel those 2003 job-security guarantees, as well as proposing that salaries be cut and retirement benefits slashed. 
Rich said in last week’s report that Goodyear is “trying to save American manufacturing.” In an earlier one, in describing that negotiations are not about “labor versus management” but rather “Goodyear versus the competition,” he supplies deplorable protectionist rhetoric, aimed at driving a wedge between US workers and Goodyear workers worldwide. 
 
“Let’s not lose sight of the bigger flag – the stars and stripes – as we are fighting to preserve American jobs and American manufacturing,” said Rich in a 13 October letter to striking workers. 
<img height="53" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/USAFlag.gif" width="100"/>
Current bargaining proposals to close two US tyre plants that provide liveable incomes for nearly 15% of the 15,000, and ripping the living standards out from under the rest is not preservation, but rather, destruction of quality American jobs. “How can you talk about saving American manufacturing when you look to close plants and downsize domestic production?” adds the USW spokesman. 
 
Goodyear and Rich lay a heavy burden on US workers in these anti-worker messages. In order to gain the requested givebacks, the company continually uses terms such as “global competition” and “competitive disadvantages” to describe the global marketplace. But truth be told, Goodyear has been a global leader in driving down labour costs and attempting to achieve bottom-piercing labour precedents by attacking all workers’ gained rights. 
 
In Turkey earlier this year, it was Goodyear which forced a lockout of its workers in a failed effort to get work-rule concessions from all Turkish rubber workers, including those at two of its competitors. Union members, behind ICEM affiliated union Lastik-Iş, resisted the cuts, and retained their work rights by getting workers to stand shoulder to shoulder at all three tyre-makers. 
 
In Thailand, Goodyear continues to resist placing long-term contract workers in full-time positions, something that the ICEM affiliate pushes as a matter of fairness and dignity for the contract workers. In Malaysia, Goodyear has broken quota levels by employing low-wage foreign nationals in order to drive down Malaysian labour rates. 
 
Goodyear’s protectionist cry to American workers rings hollow when the company is busy steering the competition on this downward spiral. 
 
The strike by USW members in the 12 US plants and four in Canada is strong. Strikers see past the company’s fear-based rhetoric, and know in their hearts that since they figured strongly in Goodyear’s great turnaround, they deserve to be rewarded, not punished. 
 
That sentiment also stands with the people who live in the middle-class towns and communities surrounding the Goodyear plants. They know of the hardships and despair that come to all in the race to the bottom. 
 
Support also came from members of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), who turned out in mass on 25 October to boost USW picket lines at a Goodyear plant in Tonawanda, New York. The same occurred a day later when 100 union members from across Canada gathered at a Goodyear picket line in Owen Sound, Ontario. 
 
Goodyear can wax on all it wants about “serving our customers,” hinting endlessly that this strike must be broken, and then openly wondering when it will happen. But with steadfast resolve only mounting, and with Goodyear losing production revenues at a rate of US$38 million per day (as estimated by one rubber analyst), an end to this strike appears to be Goodyear’s call.

Facts Contradict Goodyear’s Anti-Worker Strike Messages in North America

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Nigerian oil workers’ unions again are spearheading the call for security, as well as meeting the challenges inherent in oil and gas production in a developing country. Two weeks ago, the unions PENGASSAN and NUPENG conducted a three-day workshop in Ibadan, Oyo State, to train union members to the multi-faceted changes taking hold in Nigeria’s oil and gas fields. 
 
Those changes include outsourcing, reliance on fixed-term employment, privatisation of government assets, and de-unionisation. The government’s inability to deal effectively with the Niger Delta’s natural resources is also cause for great concern. 
<img height="116" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaNupeng.gif" width="112"/>     <img height="105" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaPengassan.JPG" width="100"/>
The workshops produced a long list of necessary reforms that would help remove corruption from government agencies and bring economic opportunities to the indigenous peoples of the Niger River Delta. 
 
“The kidnapping and killing of workers in the Niger Delta Region continues to pose serious threats to the security of our members and other workers in the region,” said PENGASSAN President Peter Esele. “The vandalizing of oil pipelines by economic saboteurs has continued to keep our refineries without crude, leaving the entire nation to depend on imported petroleum products.” 
 
The workshops also painted a critical picture of the Nigerian government, from the Oil and Gas Committee Report that has brought on privatisation and casualisation to its handling of the kidnappings and killings so common in the Delta this year.
The conference was held during a three-week period in which seven foreign nationals, all employed in the oil industry, had been kidnapped by an unknown youth militia group. The seven were abducted on 3 October from an ExxonMobil residential compound in Eseakpan, southern Akwa Iborn State, which is used to house contract workers. The seven were released more than a fortnight later following negotiations between the industry and group. 
<img height="101" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMOil.JPG" width="100"/>
Esele pledged to the trade unionists in attendance that the unions would act as a legitimate “pressure group,” and that “no stone will be left unturned in our efforts” to bring economic dignity and opportunities to Nigerian citizens. 
 
In a separate trade union gathering occurring in Akwa Iborn State at the same time, the quarterly meeting of PENGASSAN’s Producers’ Forum called on the Nigerian national assembly to amend the statutes governing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The body says the commission has failed to address the development needs of citizens in the region. 
 
The Producers’ Forum suggests that the 3% funding of the NDDC that comes from oil prospecting companies should be directly used by the communities in which these firms operate. The forum proposed that monitoring of such projects be undertaken by the National Petroleum Investment Agency. These recommendations, as part of a seven-point action plan, were passed on to PENGASSAN’s national secretariat.

Nigerian Oil Workers’ Unions Offer Common Sense Reforms

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The two Spanish ICEM affiliates in the oil and gas sector, FIA-UGT and FITEQA-CC.OO., jointly issued a call for a two-day general strike of all gas and petrol station workers, set for 7-8 November. In total, the strike would affect 41,500 workers, spread over some 8,700 petrol stations across Spain. 
 
The unions are protesting against a series of bad working conditions. Workers often work extra hours just in order to cope financially; they earn only €800-900 euros a month, before taxes. They also face “excessive rotation and temporary work,” including shift and weekend work. Other issues include dangerous working conditions, specifically regarding frequent robberies, and the fact that workers are expected to perform extra shop duties without extra pay. 
<img height="80" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SpainFIAUGT.jpg" width="80"/>        <img height="81" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SpainFITEQA.jpg" width="100"/>
UGT and CC.OO. want a new three-year collective agreement to include a substantial salary increase and a reduction in average working hours. The unions say their demands are very reasonable, certainly given the current profits by the multinationals that control the distribution sector. 
 
And they remain open to negotiations with the employers. A meeting last week, however, failed to bring parties closer to an agreement. The unions and employers are meeting again tomorrow, in a last attempt to avoid a strike. Hopes are not that high though, since negotiations for this sector have been stalled since March.

Spanish Petrol Station Workers Threaten Two-Day Strike

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Neo-conservative Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, issued sharp criticism at China last week for the way in which the country runs its investment projects in developing countries. According to Wolfowitz, Chinese banks should stop their current practice of ignoring workers and human rights when investing abroad. 
 
A key point in Wolfowitz’s assertion was the fact that Chinese banks fail to adhere to the international Equator Principles. 
 
Earlier this year, dozens of commercial banks and lenders signed up to a revised version of the Equator Principles. These principles are a voluntary benchmark for the financial industry, consisting, among other things, of a set of environmental and social standards that should be met by banks when they fund global projects. To date, some 80% of all commercial banks have adopted the guidelines. 
 
Trade unionists everywhere might take an interest in this, since the Equator Principles are partially based on the social and environmental loan conditions of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s lending arm for the private sector. Cause for some optimism is that the IFC, earlier this year, also adopted a new of social standards. These new IFC standards now include a commitment to respect all ILO's core labour standards, including the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. 
 
When all is tallied, this means that a majority of the world’s operating banks, of whom many are involved in mining, oil, gas or other extraction projects in developing countries, have now declared, albeit voluntarily, to demand the respect for the core ILO standards in their projects. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0610ICEMRegGreen.jpg" width="100"/> 
 
Reg Green, ICEM’s Health, 
Safety and Environment Officer
In reacting to a Financial Times article on this subject, Reg Green, ICEM’s Health, Safety and Environment Officer, wrote in a letter-to-the-editor that the World Bank’s quest for further endorsements of the Equator Principles a sound idea. However, in addition to endorsing the principles, he said that countries could, and should, go a step further. 
 
Green wrote, “The single most important asset that African countries currently possess is their mineral wealth. It is also well known that where mineral wealth is concerned there are major temptations to corruption.” 
 
Green said more African countries would do well to commit themselves to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) principles, an international effort to “improve governance in resource-rich countries through the full publication and verification of company payments and government revenues from oil, gas and mining.” ICEM has been supportive of the EITI initiative. In his Financial Times letter, Green describes the EITI as a promising development, even though it is still very young. 
 
Finally, and ironically, the World Bank, which criticises Chinese banks for not abiding by the Equator Principles and the ILO standards, recently issued a highly-circulated publication entitled “Doing Business,” which encourages violation of a number of ILO Conventions by countries in order to make their economies more "investment friendly." 
 
For more information: 
EITI : <a href="http://www.eitransparency.org">http://www.eitransparency.org</a> 
Equator Principles: <a href="http://www.equator-principles.com">http://www.equator-principles.com</a> 
IFC adopting ILO standards: 
<a href="http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991223448&Language=EN">http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991223448&Language=EN</a>

On International Social and Environmental Principles

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Seven trade unions representing Continental AG rubber workers in six countries gathered 18-19 October in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to discuss the German manufacturer’s labour practices. The meeting was hosted by the independent SNTGTM in Mexico. 
 
A declaration resulted from the conference on undertaking future work, including a Day of Action at Continental’s global worksites on 13 December 2006. The declaration includes a call to IGBCE of Germany, as the major trade union of Conti workers there, to conduct a meeting of Continental trade unions in order to work toward creation of a global union network. 
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Continental Tyre unionists 
in front of the San Luis Potosi plant
Trade unionists from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Germany, Mexico and the US attended the meeting in San Luis Potosi. The host union described how management at this plant sacked some union leaders, with SNTGTM taking the matter to court in order to get reinstatements. With that successful, the union has still found it difficult to bargain with the company each year. 
 
Mark Cieslikowski, a local union leader from US affiliate United Steelworkers (USW), told delegates of the harsh manner in which Continental closed a tyre factory in Charlotte, state of North Carolina, this year. Brazilian trade unionists told how, despite a collective agreement in place, managers at a facility in Canaçari block union representatives from entering the plant to speak with or organise workers. 
 
Jörg Schustereit, IGBCE member and member of the works council of ContiTech, called “Euroforum,” spoke about the process and workings of that council, while ICEM’s Rubber Sector Officer, Michael Wolters, reported on Conti’s economic situation, as well as the company’s current business strategy. 
 
The ICEM will update Rubber Sector trade unions about developments at Continental, as well as alert unions at Continental worksites about the Day of Action, 13 December 2006.

Rubber Unions Gather to Discuss Continental; Issue Declaration

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