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<img height="48" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="120"/>
Miners of the United Steelworkers (USW) in Canada are on strike at the Iron Ore Co. of Canada for better workplace protections and reductions to subcontracting. The strike, by 1,300 USW members at a mine and pellet plant in Labrador City, Newfoundland, and an export water facility at Sept-Iles, Quebec, also involves wages and benefits. 
 
Major mining house Rio Tinto owns 59% of Iron Ore Co. of Canada.
<img height="138" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Canada.png" width="300"/>
USW members in Labrador City, over 1,000 strong, walked out on 8 March, while port workers of another USW branch union joined the strike last week. The two sides have not held talks since the strikes began. 
 
Management forced the strike with an inadequate pay package, and refusal to address the contractors’ issue, a matter that has brought hundreds of grievances by maintenance staff and production workers alike. 
 
“The tipping point in this dispute included such fundamental issues as seniority rights,” stated USW District 6 Director Wayne Fraser. “It’s all about corporate control. Workers deserve to have their most basic rights respected.”
<img height="141" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0703WayneFraser.jpg" width="140" alt=""/>
USW Disrtict 6 Director Wayne Fraser
Just minutes after the strike deadline on 8 March, management slid a revised offer under the office door of the branch unions’ bargaining committee. The company did move some on wages, and dropped its unfettered right to contract out any job at the mine site and pellet plant. But it was too little to stop the strike. 
 
The two USW unions in Labrador City, Locals 5795 and 6731, have 500 grievances pending for arbitration. Many of these grievances involve work being performed by contractors, work that could be done by USW miners. Despite movement on the wage and benefit package, the company’s 8 March offer still falls short of what other mining companies in eastern Canada pay. 
 
“This fight is about recognizing the intrinsic value our members bring to this operation,” stated USW Local 5795 President George Kean. The year “2006 broke all production records and our members gave the company the biggest profit in its history.” 
 
Kean said employee morale is at an all-time low, citing a company survey of workers revealed that 87% of them felt they were not treated with respect and dignity. Management has turned a deaf ear to the survey. 
 
USW Locals 5795 and 6731, on 1 March, voted by 98% to strike. The 250 port and dock workers at Sept-Iles, represented by USW Local 9344, voted to strike on 14 March, also with a 98% ballot. 
 
The grievances and subcontracting issues date to 2004, when workers at the two locations undertook a 12-week strike to win a renewal labour agreement.

Work Issues, Subcontracting Cause Mining Strike at Canadian Rio Tinto Subsidiary

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A Unity Accord was developed 19-21 March in Canada for unions representing workers at Brazilian-based Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD). Last year, the giant Brazilian iron ore, coal, and metal mining company took over Canadian-based, the western world’s leading nickel producer. 
 
Signing the accord, which contains six priorities for the trade unions, were the United Steelworkers (USW) of Canada, host of the unity event in Sudbury, Ontario, and trade unions from Brazil, Mozambique, and New Caledonia. ICEM Vice President Ken Neumann, USW’s National Director for Canada, opened the conference.
<img height="157" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0605KenNeumann.jpg" width="140"/>
USW Canadian National Director Ken Neumann 
The unions participating include the National Confederation for Workers in the Mineral Sector (CNTSM) and Sindi-Metals (CNM-CUT) of Brazil, the National Union of ConstructionWorkers (SINTICIM) of Mozambique, and Union des Syndicate d'Ouvriers et Employés de Nouvelle-Calédonie (USOENC) of New Caledonia, the largest mining union on the French territorial islands. They were joined by branch unions of the USW from five CVRD/Inco locations in Canada.
<img height="77" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/USAUSW.jpg" width="140"/>
USW President Leo Gerard, a former miner at Inco in Sudbury, said the Unity Accord was not signed in an adversarial or confrontational manner. “When there are companies as big as CVRD, it is tremendously important that workers come together in solidarity and unity, in order to build on each other’s victories and to minimize each other defeats,” said Gerard at a press conference, as reported in the Sudbury Star newspaper. 
 
Added USW District Canadian District 6 Director Wayne Fraser, “As companies become more global, it’s no longer a matter of flag-waving for your union. You need to be a global union network, because you are dealing with a global, transnational company.” 
 
The six priorities of the CVRD Unity Accord include: stronger collective agreements; pushing for more capital expenditures to ensure job security in mining communities; safe and healthy workplaces, and environmentally sustainable operations; respecting the human rights within communities, including the right to organise and bargain collectively; full access from CVRD on acquisitions, mergers, or other reorganizations; and eliminating outsourcing and contract labour.

Union Mining Alliance Comes Together Around CVRD of Brazil

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A report issued by the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA), an employers grouping, says that reversing the Howard government’s WorkChoices law related to individual work agreements will reduce mining productivity, and cost Australia A$6 billion in exports. 
 
But labour unions contest that assertion, claiming mining employers are “scaremongering” while anticipating that a victory by the Labour Party in federal elections this year will reverse Prime Minister John Howard’s radical changes to industrial relations law. The worst of those changes, called the Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), or individual work pacts that replace enterprise agreements, took effect a year ago. 
 
The erroneous report, issued at the AMMA’s resources conference in Perth last week, states that 80% of all workers in the resource sector are on AWAs. It also falsely claims that AWAs have not been detrimental to workers’ employment conditions.
<img height="155" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0703GregCombet.jpg" width="120"/>
ACTU Sec. Greg Combet
“The AMMA’s arguments don’t stack up,” said Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Greg Combet. “The suggestion that getting rid of AWAs will hurt the economy is scaremongering, and all that we’re seeing is big business getting between the Howard’s government’s industrial relations laws.” 
 
Combet refuted the AMMA study by stating that the coal sector, which is overwhelmingly comprised of enterprise or collective labour agreements, has far outpaced productivity in metals mining over the past ten years. 
 
“We are opposed to AWAs for a very good reason,” said Combet. “They have been used to exclude people being represented by a union.”

Mining Bosses ‘Scaremongering’ to Preserve Australian Individual Work Agreements

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A scheduled strike was set to begin this morning, 26 March, by union members of Le Syndicat National des Agents du Secteur de l’Electricité (SYNASEG), ICEM’s electric affiliate in the Ivory Coast. The strike is against CIE, the country’s electricity operator and a subsidiary of French-based Bouygues Group. 
 
The dispute is over pay. SYNASEG and CIE last negotiated on 20 March, with officials of the Labour Ministry, Mines and Energy Ministry, and a representative of Ivory Coast’s work inspectorate mediating. When the company did not provide a response to the union’s ultimate proposal by late last week, the strike was called for early today. A meeting is scheduled for 15h00 today in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast.
<img height="171" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/FrancoisYao.jpg" width="120" alt=""/>
SYNASEG Gen. Sec. François Yao
“We agreed to lower our salary demands from 25% to 15%,” stated SYNASEG Gen. Sec. François Yao. “We consider this our final offer.” 
 
CIE and government officials held a private meeting late last week on the dispute, but did not inform the union of the contents of that meeting, an obvious breach of common social dialogue. 
 
Besides a 15% salary hike for workers, SYNASEG is demanding 12% for supervisors. CIE’s did increase its salary proposal in talks prior to 20 March, but only to 7% for workers and 5% for supervisors.

Electric Workers Strike Set to Begin Today in Ivory Coast

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Another victory for workers in Iraq was won last week with major significance. A sit-in by street vendors in the southern city of Nasiriya produced a compromise by authorities in negotiations. Street vendors are represented by the Union of Unemployed in Iraq (UUI), part of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI). 
 
On 22 March, scores of street vendors staged a sit-in and protest aimed at municipal and occupational authorities, who previously have evicted the vendors under a “reconstruction plan of cities” dictum. Last week’s action forced negotiations with street vendor leaders, the UUI, and authorities. The compromise gives street vendors “an alternative location to set up their kiosks/carts on which they depend to support their families,” according to UUI Nasiriyah Branch President Almad Salem. 
 
“This agreement is a first-timer in the recent history of our class struggles with the governorate and will mobilise more of the exploited and oppressed to come forward in unified ranks around their real representatives in order to demand their rights,” he added.
<img height="165" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0703Iraq 1.jpg" width="220" alt=""/>
Iraqi street vendors' protest on 22 March 
Stated FWCUI Nasiriya Branch Head Ahmad abdel-Sattar, “Authorities did not move towards solving the problem or planning in any way to rid the hundreds of thousands of the unemployed from this decades’ old situation (of poverty). Moreover, they have deepened the crisis by dividing work opportunities among sectarian and political party groups. These authorities further exposed their irresponsibility when they announced their plan of eviction of all street vendors.” 
 
Last week’s breakthrough is only the initial victory in the long fight for Iraqi workers in their attempt to live and earn decent livings under dire and frightful circumstances. The FWCUI has issued a call to all the people of Nasiriyah to support the street vendors’ just and humane demands, and the ICEM supports that call to trade unions everywhere.

FWCUI in Iraq: Sit-in Action Moves Nasiriya Authorities to Respect Street Vendors

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The International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) is heading a global union campaign to draw attention to occupational cancer, the most common work-related cause of death. Titled “Occupational Cancer/Zero Cancer,” the campaign is endorsed by all Global Union Federations, as well as the ITUC, and contains materials and useful information for preventing cancer in the workplace. 
 
Those materials, and background information, can be found at <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/cancer">www.imfmetal.org/cancer</a>. 
 
An IMF cancer prevention guide, for instance, states that an occupational cancer death occurs once every 52 seconds. The IMF maintains that one in ten cancer cases can be prevented because that percentage, at the very least, is due to predictable workplace exposure. 
 
“Asbestos alone accounts for an estimated 100,000 deaths each year and yet there is not a worldwide ban on its use,” said IMF Gen. Sec. Marcello Malentacchi. The IMF says too little attention is given to preventing workplace hazards by employers and government regulators, and Malentacchi points to the fact that “only a small minority of countries have signed up to the ILO conventions on occupational cancer and asbestos.”

IMF Spearheads Global Campaign on Occupational Cancer

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Nigeria’s two oil workers’ unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, expressed dismay that no representative from either state or federal government institutions attended last month’s funeral of PENGASSAN trade union leader Nelson Ujeya. Ujeya, who was murdered on 20 August 2006, when government forces engaged in a shootout with militants at the time he was to be released, was buried on 16 December in his home town of Uhgelli, Delta State. 
 
Comrade Ujeya was abducted by youth militia on 8 August 2006 in Letugnene, Bayelsa State, and while in the company of senior state authorities. A community liaison officer of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Ujeya and the state officials were inspecting a community development project in Letugnene at the time. 
The circumstances of the kidnapping and murder remain clouded. These circumstances were just one issue in a strike by NUPENG and PENGASSAN last September, a strike that was suspended after two days when, among other promises, the government pledged to conduct a full inquiry into Ujeya’s kidnapping and murder. Such an investigation has not yet commenced. 
<img height="115" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaPengassanPeterEsele.jpg" width="113" alt=""/>
PENGASSAN President Peter Esele
“We are very sad there were no representatives from the government, especially the Bayelsa State government, at the burial,” said PENGASSAN President Peter Esele in a published report. “It confirms our long-held argument that our government does not care about us, the ordinary citizens.” 
 
Esele added that leaders of the two unions were surprised that not a single representative from either the petroleum or labour ministry paid their respects to Comrade Ujeya. Such absence, Esele continued, reflects the true feelings of top-level governmental officials regarding the promises made to end the September strike. 
Esele did recognise the respect given by SPDC during the aftermath of the murder, in which 10 others were killed, as well as at the funeral. “SPDC has provided a lot of assistance, financially, morally, and otherwise to the family to ensure that things are all right,” Esele said. “So, to SPDC, we appreciate what they have done, but to the government of Bayelsa in whose delegation he was with when abducted and eventually killed, we are very disappointed.” 
<img height="101" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMOil.JPG" width="100"/>
Esele delivered a moving eulogy at Comrade Ujeya’s funeral: “You were, indeed, courageous both in your official duties as a Shell staff member and as a vibrant PENGASSAN activist. Who will ever forget your contributions to the contract staff unionisation and benefits enhancement struggle? Under thick and thin, and under unfriendly and hostile elements, you stood firm with other comrades in 2001 at the height of the contract staff struggle until success was achieved. Today, the lives of contract staff have been improved as a result of the struggle for which you stood firm.” 
 
Comrade Ujeye was a Pengassan committee member during a six-week strike that began on 10 May 2001. The strike gave contract staff for SPDC regularised employment with full and vested benefits.

Nigerian Government Ignores Funeral of Nelson Ujeya

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Last month, North American ICEM affiliate United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) negotiated the biggest pay and benefit increase in the US coal industry since 1974, winning a 32% wage and pension increase over a five-year period. The union negotiated the agreement with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA), which will establish the pattern for several US coal operators in the coming months. 
 
UMWA membership of some 20,000 miners ratified the contract with 80% approval on 21 December. The contract took effect for 3,200 actives miners and 10,000 retirees in six US states at Consol Energy Inc. on 1 January. It includes a 20% across-the-board wage increase over the five-year period, and a future retiree benefit hike of $10-per-month for every year of service. In addition, UMWA’s members at Consol received a US$1,000 bonus at the first of the year. 
 
“There are no concessions, no givebacks in this agreement,” stated UMWA President Cecil Roberts. “There are only gains for current members, retirees, and their families.” 
<img height="98" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/USAUMWA2.jpg" width="150"/>
“This is the largest wage increase we’ve negotiated since 1974. Over the life of the agreement, a miner working at the top rate will see over US$32,000 more in his paycheck for just working straight time,” said Roberts in a statement. A mineworker represented by the UMWA had been averaging US$20.42-per-hour prior to this contract taking effect. 
 
Coupled with funds guaranteed through the US government’s renewal of the federal Abandoned Mine Land Fund, the new contract assures that health care coverage, with all benefits included, will be maintained with no cost increases to workers for co-payments. Roberts said that other coal companies will be bound to the new BCOA contract’s pension provisions, since they are part of the UMWA’s 1974 Pension Fund.

UMWA in US Negotiates Highest Gains with Coal Companies since 1994

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Polish mining unions stood their ground with the country’s Economic Ministry over total privatisation of two coal mining companies, as well as the sale of several mines of Europe’s largest coal producer, Kompania Weglowa (KW). A compromise agreement was reached late on 22 January between 12 miners’ unions and Economy Minister Piotr Wozniak, an agreement which halted a planned 24-hour warning strike, scheduled to start on 24 January. 
 
Coal miners balloted to strike on 18 January after 62% of the country’s 122,000 affected miners voted by 97% in favour of industrial action. A general strike was to follow the warning strike on 1 February if the privatisations and a plan to link miners’ salaries with production were not reached. 
 <img height="53" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Polandsolidarnosc.jpg" width="100" alt=""/>
The compromised consensus agreement states that the privatisation of mines will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and on condition that the government retain a majority stake in the coal sector. The Economic Ministry last September proposed the sale of state-run companies Jastrzebska Spolka Weglowa (JSW) and Katowicki Holding Weglowy (KHW), as well as selling some of KW’s 17 pits, as part of the government’s mining sector reorganisation strategy for the years 2007 to 2015. 
 
The trade unions, including the ICEM affiliate Miners’ and Energy Workers’ Section of Solidarnosc, have been critical of the government’s minimum investment programme for coal mining, and feel that partial privatisation or management buy-ups of some mines could inject the necessary capital. 
 
The issue of the remuneration-to-productivity ratio is still unresolved, and the mineworkers’ unions are hopeful that continued dialogue with the government will solve this important issue.

Strike Threat Curbs Polish Government’s Privatisation of Coal Sector

In the name of God the most merciful and graceful 
From: Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions  
 
 
His Excellency The Oil Minister, 
Subject: Entitlements 

Sincere Salutations,
It was our hope, after the fall of that statue, to witness the dawn of a new era marked by the recognition of the legitimate rights of our members in the oil sector. This sector that for so long has suffered injustice and been denied equity. 
Since the advent of this new era, we focused our efforts into effectively thwarting all attempts to exploit this sector and tamper with our resources. You have been informed of how we stalled foreign companies in their attempts to control our oil fields and refineries, and how we forced them to leave. 
In addition, we worked hand in hand with the ministries and agencies to accelerate the pace of oil production, and to safeguard the means of production, and raise awareness amongst workers of investing to boost the chances of success for the new era. 
Unfortunately, our demands for entitlements were ignored, despite four years of continued promises by ministry and government officials. In fact, we took our demands to the highest levels of the government. We kept the prime minister apprized of our demands, but were disappointed when we came to realize that our demands fell on deaf ears. 
Throughout this period we worked to defuse anger and resentment and address criticism leveled by our members who mistakenly thought of us as the ones failing to put forth their legitimate demands. Henceforth: 
 
After extensive deliberations, and based on the resolutions that came out of an Executive Board meeting with broad member representation on Thursday 26 April, 2007 at the Gas Corporation's premises in Basra, a strike was unanimously adopted, scheduled for May 10, 2007 in all the company's branches in the south and in the following provinces Basra/Missan Dhi Kar/Al Mouthnana. 
The strike will go ahead, should the following demands not be completely met: 
1. Make a determination on land allotment in the Shiite Province 52 and land distribution owned by oil companies, and the parcel in the Tannouma area, a property of the Southern Oil Company.
2. Make a determination on oil companies' profits margins on the basis of the amendments to which you agreed and to determine those margins according to the certification/attestation from the south region financial/tax jurisdictions, not according to the formula adopted by the Minister that has been deemed detrimental to our membership. 
3. Approval of accumulated ordinary unused vacations, and all vacations outstanding for more than 180 days. There is no justification for withholding any of these vacations. We also believe that the resolution issued by the State Advisory Council is not binding, for lack of legal foundation. We empathically insist that there be no salary deductions over the next few years for granted vacations days. 
4. Granting full time status to temporary workers, notwithstanding the length of service but rather apply a more humanistic approach with those workers who are Iraqi nationals and who deserve a life in this country. 
5. To hire new graduates of the last two classes.
6. Rescind the new unified payment schedule which benefits only a very small number in the sector.
7. Promote holders of elementary certificates to the next grade on par to their dismissed colleagues (for political reasons) and address the issue of stalled promotions for workers and others. 
8. Rescind the 20% deduction from profits paid to the army and recovery of previous years' deductions.
9. We ask that those premises become employee-run, similar to other state-owned agencies. We deem the wait and see policy inappropriate, and we are wondering why the oil sector is treated so unfairly. 
 
As we are stating the legitimate demands of our membership, it is our hope to obtain the support of those on whom we rely, and whom we supported with our blood in making the political process succeed. 
It is our hope to reinstate the rights of those who were aggrieved by Iraqi government officials, and eliminate the injustices bestowed on the southern region. 
We feel, up to the moment of this statement's drafting, that discrimination is continuing, and that the south is treated as the cash cow of Iraq. 
Our region gave so much to Iraq, but gained little in return. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that pollution in oil facilities has reached a peak, and the incidence of cancer has topped exceeded predictions. We also note, that the ministry pays little to no attention to these incidences that primarily impact the inhabitants in the southern area. 
We feel as if they are predestined to such a fate - to always give in vain. We are cautioning, that there is a limit to our tolerance. 
We ask that our demands be met. We feel that enough is enough. 

Peace and grace be upon you. 
Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions 
4/27/2007 
To: Top executives of oil companies 
CC: all media

Letter by the IFOU to Iraqi Oil Minister

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