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The labour dispute between New Zealand’s state-run coal company Solid Energy and ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) has heated up again. Some 200 union members at two of the company’s mines were locked out by Solid Energy and by one of its operating contractors for engaging in limited industrial action. Some 700 miners are seeking EPMU’s national call for a 5% pay increase and a commitment to pay parity at underground and surface mines on both New Zealand’s North and South Islands. Solid Energy, posting windfall profits this year due to high prices of coking coal, is offering only 10% over three years.

EPMU, Solid Energy Dispute Continues in New Zealand

USW members in the US at Bridgestone/Firestone tyre plants ratified a master agreement late in June with the Japanese rubber manufacturer. The agreement runs until next year, 2006, and USW won job security for workers and capitalization commitments from the company at most plants grouped in the master agreement. BSF has committed some US$200 million in capital improvements through 2006. USW took no concessions, gained value on a pension plan, and made the company pay past cost-of living advances. Some 6,000 USW members had collective agreements lapse in 2003, and a majority of union members in six bargaining units tied to the master pact voted acceptance. At two other BSF US plants not tied to the master contract, one workforce voted for the agreement while one did not.

Bridgestone Workers in US Ratify Collective Agreement

US affiliate PACE, together with national center AFL-CIO and a host of other ExxonMobil shareholders convinced the Texas-based company to include a statement of intent to uphold the ILO’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in its 2004 Corporate Citizenship Report. The union, Amnesty International and other socially concerned stockholders, owning an accumulative 7.2 million shares, agreed to withdraw a shareholder proposal mandating the firm to adopt a workplace human rights policy based on the 1998 ILO Declaration.

PACE, Others Hold ExxonMobil Accountable on ILO’s Work Rights

US affiliate PACE criticized ExxonMobil for discriminatory practices against Native Americans in the state of New Mexico at a gas production site. After organizing with PACE two years ago, workers are still without a first collective agreement. ExxonMobil has denied the mostly Native American workforce a pay raise now for the second consecutive year. “To single out Native Americans after a year in which ExxonMobil achieved US$21.5 billion in profits, its CEP garnered US$28.7 million in total compensation, and almost all ExxonMobil employees received some wage increase, to treat them differently from other workers appears overtly discriminatory to us,” said PACE Executive Vice President Jim Pannell. He cited union data that the gas workers earn US$1.30-to-$2.66 per hour less than other company workers in the US.

PACE Takes on ExxonMobil Over Native American Rights

The CEP of Canada is requesting the OECD undertake an investigation of labour practices against Finnish papermaker UPM Kymmene under the Parisbased organization’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. At UPM Kymmene’s lone Canadian mill in Miramichi, New Brunswick, the firm unilaterally announced closure of the pulp mill—chopping 400 jobs effective 31 January 2005—but also engaged in vicious anti-union behaviour. Management turned rabid after the CEP local union protested the closure on grounds the firm’s logging licenses for harvesting government lands mandates that it operate the mill. CEP charges UPM Kymmene with creating a “cold war” atmosphere of labour relations by suspending local union leaders for performing their statutory duties, monitoring and spying on workers’ activities with a hired security team, and refusing to negotiate with the union or to provide information pertinent to bargaining.

CEP of Canada Takes Paper Dispute to OECD

A court injunction 20 November ended a one-day strike by 100 oil workers, members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union (EPMU) of New Zealand. The EPMU members employed at five oil and gas rigs in Taranaki and Taupo struck over lack of progress in NZ’s Onshore Oil Exploration Drilling Rig Agreement, a multi-employer collective agreement. EPMU is seeking a 5% wage adjustment, better redundancy provisions, meal provisions, and changes to training time, which is currently done outside of regular work hours. NZ’s Employment Court will conduct a full hearing on the temporary injunction gotten by oil drilling employers on 24 November.

Oil Companies Get Injunction to End New Zealand Onshore Strike

That rebuilding effort, however, is proving as troublesome under the provisional Iraqi administration as it was under Saddam’s rule, according to the Workers’ Council of the National Company for Chemicals and Plastics Industries in Baghdad. A statement by the fledgling union says “the same fascistic policies of the former regime” are still in place including punishments, dismissals, threats and dismissals. The council is demanding raises in the minimum wage to match inflation, rescinding punishments and full pay for 25 workers, and distributing the yearly gains of the company to workers.

Iraqi Occupation Hindering Workplace Progress

Hubertus Schmoldt, president of ICEM German affiliate IGBCE, drew attention to the challenges and opportunities facing the union movement in an end-of-the-year message. Schmoldt noted that international competition has grown stiffer with no let up in sight and said global trade union work stressing solidarity is welcome, but unions are only at the beginning of such positive developments. He described biogenetics and nanotechnology as key industries for the future but—particularly in the case of gene technology— Germany may soon lose research, development and production capacities. Schmoldt stressed the importance of education and training from early childhood to university levels as key.

Germany’s IGBCE Gives Year-End Challenges

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa is targeting Hernic Ferrochrome following a 13 December underground mine disaster that crushed and then drowned seven miners in Brits, North West Province. Managers refused to allow NUM representatives to investigate South Africa’s deadliest 2004 mine disaster caused by a flood from a dislodged valve that brought a ventilation lattice wall down. “The behaviour of this company demonstrates absolute arrogance in the face of calamity,” said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe. “We will leave no stone unturned in our commitment to ensuring that families of these workers see justice being done.” The NUM will be present 15 February when an official Department of Minerals and Energy inquiry commences. Hernic, a high-carbon ferrochrome producer that is just now ramping production up at the Brits mine, is 53.2% owned by Japan’s Mitsubishi, 25% by the South African government’s Industrial Development Corp., 11.5% by Elg Hansel of Germany, and 7.5% by mine management.

South Africa’s NUM Takes On Hernic Ferrochrome Over Safety

A new website launched today highlights anti-union practices by ceramics, materials and construction multinational Imerys. 
 
American union the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) and the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), jointly announced the start-up of the website on French-headquartered Imerys. PACE is an ICEM affiliate. 
 
"The website allows Imerys workers and their unions throughout the world to communicate, share information and learn about the 'union-busting' practices of Imerys in the US," said PACE President Boyd Young. 
 
Imerys has been conducting a hostile campaign against union members and supporters at its plants in Georgia and Alabama. In Sylacauga, Alabama, Imerys management hired a professional "union-buster', held mandatory anti-union meetings, and showed a film which implied that US unions are controlled by organised crime and that they cause plants to be closed. Imerys is also using a "secret" manual, uncovered by PACE, which instructs supervisors on how to conduct the anti-union campaign. 
 
PACE has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Imerys management harassed, threatened and spied on union supporters. Excerpts from the "secret" manual, a summary of legal charges, and an interactive message board are on the website. 
 
Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary, stated: "Imerys so far has refused to stop its anti-union practices, and we will assist US workers who are battling for union representation in whatever way we can." 
 
The ICEM held a press conference on January 20 in Brussels, together with the Belgian General Labour Federation (FGTB/ABVV) and ICEM Belgian affiliate the Centrale Generale/Algemene Centrale, calling upon the Frere family to intervene. The Frere family controls 23 percent of Imerys shares through one of its many holding companies. The ICEM set up meetings with French and British union affiliates, who also represent workers at Imerys plants, and have pledged support for the campaign.

Imerys Campaign: Unions Launch Global Website

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