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Russian unions took to the streets 10 June in dozens of cities to demonstrate against proposed legislation to replace health care, utility and transportation benefits for retirees and disabled citizens with nonindexed cash payouts. Hundreds of concerned groups, led by the Federation of Independent Unions, fear the proposed added monthly supplement will be eaten away by inflation and price hikes to essential services. The measure will receive a first reading in the State Duma 2 July, and more protests are assured including a possible national strike in September if the proposal isn’t defeated.

Russian Unions Protest Social Cutbacks

Also in New Zealand, a chlorine spill 11 June at Carter Holt Harvey’s Kinleith paper operations created a huge cloud of gas and caused some evacuations and major traffic tie-ups in the town of Tokoroa. No injuries were reported. CHH, majority owned by US International Paper Co., had just days earlier escaped prosecution over a dam collapse last December resulting in the spill of 5,000 cubic metres of sludge and sediment containing PCPs into nearby waterways. A local regulatory committee rejected court action.

Chlorine Spill at Paper Mill Causes Evacuation in New Zealand

Industrial action by Transport & General workers at a Michelin tyre plant in Stoke, UK, ended last week when union members voted 75% to accept a revised pay offer from management. But the union warned that Michelin would now have much work to do to regain the trust and respect of workers. Managers raised threats on the future viability of the plant at the time workers took decisive industrial action. And after revising the pay offer two weeks into the job action, the company tried to impose a voting deadline on T&G’s branch, prompting the T&G to call it “an attempt to bully our members.” Some 500 T&G members engaged in the industrial action at the tyre plant in the Midlands.

Settlement Ends Industrial Action at Michelin in UK

The Botswana court case in which diamond-mining company Debswana pressed forward in order to extract maximum punishment on some 450 workers who struck last August was dismissed 24 March. An Industrial Court judge issued a detailed, 79-page ruling that said the court had no jurisdiction over criminal matters. Debswana, jointly owned by DeBeers and the government of Botswana, is on a ruthless campaign to destroy the lives of these workers who struck after the company used a new labour law to declare any strike at the 6,000-worker mining operations illegal. Debswana has forcefully evicted the strikers from company housing, and has closed educational opportunities to children of strikers in company-sponsored schools.

Mining Union Wins Court Case Against Debswana in Botswana

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NUPENG and PENGASSAN, ICEM affiliates in Nigeria’s energy sector, reached agreement with oil companies and the country’s Ministry of Labour and Productivity on 6 April, five days ahead of a threatened three-day warning strike. 
The signed accord compels all parties to monitor compliance of quotas on expatriate workers in the oil industry, as well as regulating casualisation and contract workers, redundancies and pensions.

Nigerian Unions, Government Reach Accord Over Issues

After losing a contempt of court case against leaders of the Botswana Mining Workers Union (BMWU) last month, diamond-mining monopoly Debswana has chosen a different retaliatory route following a 13-day strike late last summer: internal disciplinary measures against BMWU leaders. Debswana, a joint venture between DeBeers and the government of Botswana, has summoned individual leaders of the union for hearings on the spontaneous strike action that broke out in only a few areas of the company’s wide-ranging operations. Despite company rhetoric calling for healing and reconciliation over the August-September strike that saw participation by 450 of the firm’s 7,000 workers, this latest action is proof that the company has no intention of forgiving and forgetting.

Debswana Continues to Retaliate Against Botswana's Miners

A five-GUF project kicks off this week, thanks to FNV Mondiaal of The Netherlands, the international arm of the national union confederation. It is a three-year union modernization effort on behalf of several affiliated unions in five countries: Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan by ICEM, IFBWW, ITF, IUF and UNI. The project will provide selected unions with strategic managing and organizational development skills.

Multi-GUF Union-Building Projects Begins for Eastern Europe

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Spontaneous solidarity strikes crossed the Finnish paper sector last week in support of paperworkers locked out at Stora Enso's Anjalankoski mill. Some 29,000 workers represented by ICEM affiliate Paperiliitto are staging industrial action due to anti-worker demands of the Forest Industries Federation of Finland. Stora Enso used the industrial action to lock out workers at that paper mill. 
The employers' group is now engaged in wage talks with Paperiliitto but it also is seeking increases in outsourcing and reduction in paper mill shutdown holidays. All of UPM Kymmene and Stora Enso's mills saw strike action last week and a number of M-Real mills also were temporarily shut.

Strikes Begin in Finnish Paper Sector

Scores of miners were trapped at the Tengda coalmine in Jiaohe city, Jilin province, China, on 24 April after flooding swept into mine shafts from the adjoining Ji'an mine. Some 39 miners were rescued due to a ventilation system that still worked in the Tengda mine, but 30 other miners perished. On Monday, 25 April, four miners died following a gas explosion at the Duzhai mine in the northern province of Shanxi.

Mine Accidents Continue to Occur in China

ICEM affiliate General Workers' Union (GWU) of Malta is using the 1 May celebration to protest that government's elimination of all public holidays that fall on weekends. A legislative change enacted earlier this year means that workers will not get a day of entitlement for holidays that occur on weekends, such as this 1 May holiday. The CWU is considering launch of a referendum to reverse the new legislation.

Affiliate in Malta Protests Government’s Holiday Elimination

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