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	&nbsp;

	Job security and job creation was the foundation behind a new two-year national labour agreement between social partners in Denmark. That came together in marathon bargaining over the weekend, 11-12 February, in framework talks for 240,000 Danish manufacturing workers and 6,000 enterprises, the latter represented by Dansk Industri.

	The trade unions, led by the eight making up Co-Industri, including 3F, Dansk Metal and HK/Pivat, in concert with the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), set an agenda of wage moderation, instead focusing on winning excellent and precedent-setting job preservation protections such as training, seniority, and reduced work hours at full pay for both old and young workers.

	This industrial social accord now establishes the parameters for other work sectors. The agreement will run from 1 March 2012 to 1 March 2014. The national industrial agreement did establish minimum wage guideposts, but exact wage increases will now be negotiated at local levels and inside company agreements.

	The framework agreement grants training at full pay with business downturns and when reductions in work time occur, and it also allows older workers to reduce their working time within five years of retirement by continuing their income levels through salaries and partial pension benefits. Workers will also have the option to tap into current pension plans as a supplement to salaries.

	A key element in the new agreement is an additional &euro;.05-per-hour worked will be added to the national Industrial Training fund.

	Employee discretion in taking training options increases from two weeks to six weeks, in some cases, and full seniority is granted to workers when they are called back from lay-offs within nine months. Previously, it was six months. As well, paid sick leave occurs after six months on a job rather than the previous nine months.

	The new pact is also kinder to lower-income earners and gives better pay-outs when such workers are laid off. Parental leave was made more flexible and added pension accrual was put in place for weekend, holiday or extra work performed.

	The recommended minimum wage increase is &euro;.18-per-hour effective 1 March, and the same amount again on 1 March 2013. A pay supplement of 1.4% each year is available for performing difficult work, and apprentices, trainees and interns will get a 2.25% pay hike in each year.

	The bargaining, which began in early January, nearly reached dispute when HK/Privat , the Commercial and Clerical Workers&rsquo; Union, sought to drop the 50% benchmark regarding number of staff needed before a collective agreement takes effect. A compromise was struck that gives employers the opportunity to sign labour agreements without the 50% threshold and HK/Privat coverage also was expanded to include administrative staff working as trainees and college students.

	The agreement was widely praised in Denmark as the necessary building block to restore some 80,000 industrial and manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the country since the onset of the financial crisis.

Enlightened Industrial Labour Pact Set in Place in Denmark for 240,000 Workers

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	&nbsp;

	The ICEM &ndash; along with the European Mine, Chemical, Energy, Federation (EMCEF) &ndash; will march in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, tomorrow, 16 November, in support of 5,200 British workers who are seriously threatened by Unilever with closure of a final salary pension scheme. The ICEM and EMCEF will join European workers of the world&rsquo;s third largest consumer goods company in protest at the company&rsquo;s Rotterdam headquarters.

	The message &ndash; Unilever, Don&rsquo;t Make Workers Pay for Your Profits &ndash; will specifically target Unilever CEO Paul Polman for his 2010-11 salary and bonus pay-out of &euro;8 million. Unilever is out to slash between 20-40% of pension earnings to UK workers represented by trade unions Unite the Union, GMB and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers&rsquo; (USDAW).

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	Jennie Formby

	&ldquo;Executive greed and compensation must be challenged,&rdquo; stated United National Officer Jennie Formby. Polman saw a 50% increase in his total earnings from 2010 to 2011, some 285 times that of the average Unilever worker.

	The Rotterdam manifestation comes just days two weeks after Unilever posted a strong set of financial numbers in its latest results and three weeks after UK workers from several Unilever sites descended on Davos, Switzerland, where Polman served as one of the co-chairs at the World Economic Forum.

	The three British unions have engaged in two rounds of industrial actions against Unilever at 11 plants, the latest coming with 11 days of rolling strike actions that ended on 28 January. Unilever UK management did finally agree to meet with the unions on 9 February with the assistance of UK&rsquo;s Advisory, Conciliation and Mediation Services (ACAS), but the company is still adamant on closing the final salary pension scheme effective 1 July 2012.

	Unilever instead intends to implement a pension scheme based on career average earnings. Formby said Polman&rsquo;s vision of doubling Unilever&rsquo;s revenue stream over the next ten years and creating &ldquo;sustainable living&rdquo; is disingenuous in view of cutting workers&rsquo; pensions.

	Tomorrow&rsquo;s manifestation will begin at 12h00 at Unilever&rsquo;s offices at Weena 455, Rotterdam. The ICEM also will raise concerns over the 5 February closure due to a labour dispute at Unilever&rsquo;s Basamadi, Nepal, factory. The dispute at that facility, which produces Lux and Lifebuoy soaps and Pepsodent and Close-Up toothpastes, is close to a resolve this week after intervention from the Nepalese government.

Unilever Rotterdam Protest Pits Corporate Compensation vs. Workers’ Pension Cuts

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The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM) today signed a Global Framework Agreement (GFA) with Petr&oacute;leo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, the world&rsquo;s third largest energy company. The agreement, the 20-million-member ICEM&rsquo;s 16th since 1998, was signed at the Brazilian company&rsquo;s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, and Petrobras Director for Gas and Industry, Maria Das Gracas Silva Foster, Executive Director for Human Relations, Diego Hernandes, and Joao Antonio de Moraes, General Coordinator of FUP (the Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Unified federation of Brazil). 
 
A GFA is a social pact between a multinational company and a Global Union Federation that puts in place the very highest standards regarding trade union and human rights, health, safety, and environmental practices, and quality of work principles across all of a company&rsquo;s global operations. 
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ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda signs Petrobras GFA
&ldquo;This is ICEM&rsquo;s fourth such agreement with an oil and gas concern,&rdquo; said Warda, &ldquo;and it embodies many of the social principles that we expect companies in extractive industries to adhere to.&rdquo; The ICEM has previously negotiated GFAs with Statoil of Norway, Eni of Italy and Lukoil of Russia. 
 
The agreement was signed with approval from ICEM Brazilian trade union affiliate, the Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Unified Federation (FUP), whose leaders were present at the signing together with ICEM Latin America/Caribbean Regional Vice President Sergio Novais of Brazil. Support from both FUP and Sergio Novais was important in reaching the agreement. 
 
The agreement commits Petrobras to recognizing the right of freedom of association and to bargain collectively for all employees, as well as establishing formal dialogue channels between staff and management. It also promotes working conditions that are favorable to a balance between work, personal, and family life. 
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ICEM, Petrobras, FUP
The GFA states that Petrobras &ldquo;will strive to get all service providers to comply&rdquo; with nine labour relations points contained in the agreement, including health and safety and providing necessary equipment, permanent institutionalization of negotiation channels, and equal opportunities and promotion of training opportunities. 
 
The agreement also recognizes global standards contained in the ILO Tripartite Declaration on Principles for Multinational Corporations and Social Policy, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Corporations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UN Global Compact. 
 
Warda and Petrobras CEO Jos&eacute; S. Gabriella de Azevedo initiated talks on the ICEM-Petrobras GFA as board members of the Global Compact some three years ago. 
 
Petrobras, 56% owned by the Brazilian government, has 80,500 employees and operates in some 30 countries. The company is a leader in exploration and production of oil, and operates 16 refineries as well as numerous petrochemical, biofuels, pipelines and other installations. The ICEM is composed of 255 national trade unions operating in 94 countries.

ICEM Signs 16th Global Agreement with Petrobras of Brazil

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The manufacturing sector in the United Kingdom is under attack from the Tory government and its destructive policy of austerity cuts. ICEM&rsquo;s UK affiliate Unite at its National Sector Conferences last week set out a new strategy to revive and rebuild the industry. 
 
The strategy document, put forward by Unite Assistant General Secretary Tony Burke, underlines the vital importance of the manufacturing sector to the British economy, a sector built on a highly skilled workforce. The strategy paper calls for investment in skills, apprenticeships and for full utilization of modern technologies, for a long-term solution. 
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Tony Burke, Unite
The need for this investment is even greater, according to Burke, as Tory Chancellor George Osborne&rsquo;s austerity cuts are crippling consumer domestic demand. Government policy which seeks to shift the bill for economic failure onto the working men and women of Britain is hitting Unite members across its sectors. At last week&rsquo;s National Sector Conferences, examples were discussed from Aerospace, Shipbuilding, Engineering, Chemicals, Sciences, Print, Paper, IT, Vehicle Building, Motor Components, Steel, Servicing, Communications, Electronics and Electrical Engineering. 
 
In the document Unite proposes ten pillars upon which a manufacturing revival should be based: 
&bull; Build a framework of policies to defend strategically important industries. 
&bull; Continued financial support through interventionist policies. 
&bull; Targeted support for small and medium sized enterprises. 
&bull; Better use of government purchasing power to secure manufacturing jobs in the UK. 
&bull; Maximising the opportunities that the low carbon revolution offers. 
&bull; Delivery of an education and skills framework, which meets all industry&rsquo;s needs. 
&bull; Creating a university structure, which builds on the science base so necessary to secure high skilled jobs. 
&bull; Create right investment environment for research and development. 
&bull; Creation of a level playing field to deliver security and fair pricing for energy. 
&bull; A framework of legislation, which promotes transparency and engagement for all stakeholders in the future of manufacturing. 
 
&ldquo;Manufacturing should be driving our economy, but the government has no strategy for UK manufacturing. This Tory-led government is doing more damage to UK manufacturing than any previous Conservative government,&rdquo; stated Burke, &ldquo;If this government is serious about rebalancing the economy, we need to invest in the UK&rsquo;s manufacturing skills base with a long-term solution.

Unite’s 2020 Vision Calls for Investment in Skills to Protect UK Manufacturing

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The US-based International Association of Machinists &amp; Aerospace Workers (IAM) gave full proof last week that collective bargaining is value-added, and Boeing workers no doubt in South Carolina took notice of pay, pension and job security provisions won by 28,000 aircraft manufacturing workers primarily in the state of Washington. 
 
IAM District Lodge 751 reached terms in a ten-months-early labour agreement in US states Washington, Oregon and Kansas with Boeing that not only gives machinists improved work and life stability, it deflates a political flashpoint that became the biggest threat to the independent integrity of the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the government agency&rsquo;s 76-year history. 
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The award-winning IAM contract, which will receive wide acceptance when workers vote on it on 7 December, means the IAM will withdraw a vile discrimination complaint issued by the NLRB against Boeing for public statements it made when opening a production line of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft in North Charleston, South Carolina, this year. 
 
The NLRB determined that Boeing violated US labour code by boldly stating its anti-union bias in opening a factory in union-repressive South Carolina. Boeing&rsquo;s action unleashed a political venom by Republican Party politicians both nationally and in South Carolina that turned into nothing less than a witch hunt to destroy the NLRB as the governing agency for American US labour law. 
 
The IAM agreement now closes that debate and a new discourse should begin on the benefits and values of a collective agreement, particularly for Boeing workers in South Carolina right now who do not have one and will see their numbers increase from 1,500 to 5,000 as production on the 787 Dreamliner ramps up. 
 
Pacific Northwest IAM Lodge 751 President Tom Wroblewski said the early agreement &ldquo;secure(s) thousands of jobs while raising machinists&rsquo; pay and pensions.&rdquo; The agreement preserves jobs by guaranteeing that Boeing will make the 737, 747-8, and US military aircraft tanker aircraft in IAM-represented shops in Washington and Oregon. 
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IAM Lodge 751 President Tom Wroblewski
In recommending the four-year contract extension to 28,000 skilled workers, IAM Local 751 said to membership: &ldquo;What has resulted is an unprecedented commitment by Boeing to Puget Sound and Portland for the 737 MAX and the related manufacturing that&rsquo;s currently being performed here. This will generate long-lasting security for our members. It also resulted in a Boeing commitment to the success and continuation of the other airplane programs where our members have shown time and again their expertise, productivity and quality, resulting in increased profits for the company.&rdquo; 
 
The agreement contains 2% yearly wage increases, and a US$5,000 ratification bonus, as well as continued cost-of-living escalators in the four years. It includes pension enhancements that will lift the monthly retirement benefit by US$91 through the life of the agreement. 
 
And perhaps most significantly &ndash; and especially noteworthy to newly-hired South Carolina Boeing workers &ndash; the IAM negotiated and won job and work rights&rsquo; protections at full benefit levels for all future Boeing employees. 
 
IAM and Boeing agreed to continued dialogue by creating bi-lateral committees to address opportunities and conflicts. IAM Vice President Rich Michalski predicted such an &ldquo;approach and these committees can guide the new relationship going forward.&rdquo; 
 
Boeing&rsquo;s main Puget Sound facility, in Renton, Washington, is the world&rsquo;s longest-tenured aircraft factory, and the new labour contract will ensure 737 production and associated parts work in the area for two decades to come. 
 
Boeing&rsquo;s move to South Carolina and the NLRB&rsquo;s labour law complaint saw Republican lawmakers spew unseemly rhetoric against both US trade unions and the US regulatory framework that governs labour-management relations. 
 
The Republican-dominated US House of Representatives passed in September the reactionary &ldquo;Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act&rdquo; that if enacted would de-fund the NLRB and strip the agency of remaining powers. The IAM labour agreement effectively blocks this draconian bill from getting heard in the US Senate.

Early Boeing Accord Eases US Labour Law Tensions

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A three-week strike by 4,000 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) spilled into the streets of Johannesburg this week, as workers at Xstrata&rsquo;s Boshoek and Wonderkop ferrochrome smelters near Rustenburg took a protest to the Swiss company&rsquo;s Alloys headquarters. NUMSA members presented a petition to company managers demanding wage parity with workers employed at the Xstrata Lion ferrochrome smelter in Tubatse, Mpumalanga province. 
 
Both operations are undergoing big expansions. Xstrata owns 79.5% of the ferrochrome complexes in South Africa, while publicly-listed Merafe Resources holds a 20.5% stake. Both companies also mine chrome in South Africa. 
 
The strike by NUMSA in the North-West province began on 24 October after conciliation efforts by the country&rsquo;s Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) failed. NUMSA and Xstrata Alloys met two days earlier, but a revised pay offer by the company fell short and workers rejected it. 
 
NUMSA is seeking an immediate 10% pay increase for Boshoek and Wonderkop metalworkers and a reduction of job grading systems from eight to five. That would close the wage gap with workers at the Lion smelter and equalize the grading system. Currently, Boshoek and Wonderkop workers earn 14 to 39% less than at Lion, depending on pay grades. 
 
NUMSA is also seeking a housing allowance of R3,500.
<img alt="" src="" width="255" height="169" />
&nbsp;NUMSA President Cedric Gina (rear) has&nbsp;Xstrata's Edwin Hlatshwayo&nbsp;Sign Receipt of Petition
The petition handed to Xstrata Alloys management on 15 November states: &ldquo;(The company) has angered workers and instead of focusing on negotiations, they have decided to apply cheap apartheid-era tactics of bashing members through police intimidation of the strike. NUMSA is very angry that workers who went on a legal and protected strike have been treated like common criminals.&rdquo; 
 
NUMSA President Cedric Gina and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Second Deputy Vice President Zingiswi Losi led the march and handover of the petition. The petition asks the company to respond within 48 hours. 
 
Xstrata is world&rsquo;s largest producer of metal alloys, which besides ferrochrome includes vanadium and platinum, and accounts for one-third of total global production. The Boshoek smelter is currently seeing an expansion that will lift production to 240,000-tonnes-per-year by the end of next year. A second smelter, meanwhile, is now being constructed at the Lion operation that will see production double from the current 360,000 tonnes when it goes on line in the first half of 2013. 
 
The Xstrata-Merafe joint venture in South Africa will then yield 2.3 million tonnes yearly of ferrochrome, which is used in stainless steel production.

NUMSA Protests Pay Disparities at Xstrata’s Chrome Smelters

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN

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From the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation 

In a unanimous vote, the 300-member Central Committee of the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF) moved to convene an extraordinary Congress in June 2012 to create a new global union for industrial workers. The action occurred on the second day of the Central Committee&rsquo;s meeting in Jakarta on 8 December. 

The new global union organization will unite workers of metal, mining, chemicals, energy and textile industries, and will bring the IMF together with the ICEM and the International Textile, Garment, Leathers Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITGLWF). The new global union, which will represent 50 million workers in 140 countries, will be launched on 18-20 June 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Introducing the discussion on creation of the new global union, IMF President Berthold Huber said: &ldquo;Many of our members are working in companies that cut across different industrial sectors. We need to bundle up our forces to speak with a single voice of workers in the manufacturing industries.&rdquo;
<img alt="" src="" width="142" height="158" />
Berthold Huber
In a lively debate, delegates expressed hope about building a stronger counter-power to transnational corporations, and more focus and resources for organizing, fighting precarious work and defending trade union rights. Speakers emphasized the need to further improve gender balance in the different structures, including a 30% minimum share of women on statutory bodies and other forums. 

The Central Committee returned the proposal on presidents of IMF&rsquo;s industrial departments back to the Executive Committee in order to find a better gender and north-south balance.

IMF Central Committee Moves on Dissolution, Merger Congresses

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Like past years, the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada held its bi-annual Women&rsquo;s Conference in the days around National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada on 6 December, the fateful date in 1989 when 14 young women were massacred at &Eacute;cole Polytechnique in Montreal in an anti-feminist rage. 
 
Some 350 women attended the CEP&rsquo;s 9th Women&rsquo;s Conference in Canada&rsquo;s national capital, Ottawa, from 4-6 December. The conference, entitled &ldquo;Imagine,&rdquo; included workshops on cyberstalking, gun registry, and street-proofing as deterrent for crime and violence against women.
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CEP Women&nbsp; 
 

On the morning of the conference&rsquo;s final day, former Governor General of Canada Micha&euml;lle Jean spoke and told of battered women&rsquo;s shelters in Quebec and the urgent need to engage young Canadians on the degradation that violence against women brings on societies. Following her address, delegates marched from the Westin Hotel in Ottawa to Parliament Hill, where a mass demonstration was occurring for gun control in Canada and the National Day of Remembrance of the Montreal Massacre. 
 
&ldquo;The gun control law is a monument erected in the memory of our daughters,&rdquo; said Suzanne Laplante-Edward, mother of Anne-Marie, who was slain at &Eacute;cole Polytechnique by a lone gunman. The CEP&rsquo;s Western Region Administrative Vice President, Wendy Sol, also spoke at the Parliament Hill manifestation. 
 
In an ICEM letter to delegates at the opening of the CEP&rsquo;s Women&rsquo;s Conference, the federation reminded Canadian women that the Montreal Massacre is rightfully marked in global observance of &ldquo;16 Days Against Gender Violence,&rdquo; as designated by the Global Campaign for Human Rights. Those 16 days began on 25 November with the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and continued across World Aids Day (1 December), the Montreal Massacre (6 December), and finally International Human Rights Day (10 December). 
 
The ICEM letter read: &ldquo;With the CEP Women&rsquo;s Conference occurring within these globally recognized 16 days, please tell your delegates that the ICEM is using this time frame and indeed, the entire new year, to remind all that gender equity will remain a major global priority.&rdquo;

CEP Holds 9th Women’s Conference in Ottawa, Canada

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Members of the United Steelworkers Local 207L numbering 1,050 are livid that management of Cooper Tire and Rubber in Findlay, Ohio, broke good-faith negotiations and locked them out on 28 November. They showed their anger on Saturday, 17 December, by manifesting strongly with other state and regional trade unionists in the northern Ohio town. 
 
To be sure, descendants of the founders of the company that gave birth to Cooper Tire are also unhappy with current management over the lockout. In a letter to top executives of America&rsquo;s fourth largest tyre maker on 9 December, Janet Clinger and Lingel Winters wrote that their grandfather &ldquo;Claude Hart adhered to the standards &hellip; believ(ing) that the company had a responsibility for the well-being of not only the shareholders, but the workers and the community.&rdquo; 
 
The <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4808-Cooper-Tire-and-Rubber-Locks-Out-Steelworkers-at-Ohio-Factory">lockout began</a> after workers rejected a concession-loaded proposal in late November and after the USW requested to continue work and continue bargaining. Cooper&rsquo;s lockout was sudden, unprovoked, and now damaging both to labour relations and workers&rsquo; lives. Within days of the lockout, the company proudly announced it would re-start production with managers and temporary scab workers.
<img alt="" src="" width="75" height="75" />
Lockout: War on Families
Cooper&rsquo;s war on rubber workers at its flagship factory was evident at the 17 December manifestation. USW Local 207L President Rod Nelson lamented misguided managers who weathered the 2008-09 US manufacturing downturn with no small help from workers&rsquo; pay-check concessions, and now return for more economic cuts from workers when profits are good and executive bonuses are back. 
 
&ldquo;Cooper hasn&rsquo;t been fair with us at the bargaining table,&rdquo; said Nelson, refuting a management that has lost touch with the company&rsquo;s founding principles. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t lock people out of their jobs, we work through our problems.&rdquo; 
 
USW Secretary-Treasurer and ICEM Rubber Sector Chairman Stan Johnson told the rally that the union has responded globally and immediately received support from Serbian union Nezavisnost. That came within days of Cooper&rsquo;s 8 December announcement that it would buy early next year a tyre factory from Trayal Korporacija AD near Krusevac, Serbia. 
 
The USW also received an assist from its trans-Atlantic partner Unite the Union in bringing the lockout to the attention of workers at Cooper&rsquo;s Melksham, Wiltshire, UK. Unite has flooded the shop floor of former Avon Tyres Ltd., which Cooper bought in 1997, with leaflets, posters and details of the American lockout.
<img alt="" src="" width="110" height="136" />
Stan Johnson
&ldquo;This lockout is about greed and gluttony,&rdquo; said Johnson at Saturday&rsquo;s rally. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about a shiny new jet (Cooper&rsquo;s new purchase) and it&rsquo;s about multi-million-dollar bonuses.&rdquo; 

It is also about abandoning the traditions of social responsibility, judging from the letter by descendants of founders Claude Hart and John Schaefer. Expressing disappointment, Clinger and Winters wrote, &ldquo;Locking out employees who helped the company during hard times and hiring scab workers to replace them subverts the purpose of collective bargaining. &ldquo; 
 
USW Local 207L and Cooper did return to the table on 13 December in talks supervised by US federal mediator Kevin Moyer. But those negotiations produced no trace of Cooper reconciliation, or rescinding of harsh contract terms. 
 
The stakes will now get higher between the USW and Copper as a contract expires on 20 January 2012 between USW Local 752L in Texarkana, Arkansas, and the Findlay-based company. The 1,500 workers there have voted to give their union committee a mandate to strike if necessary.

Steelworkers in Lockout Manifest against Copper Rubber in US

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