English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy 

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2021-2025

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL 

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Job cuts caused by the financial meltdown are not uncommon. But in Zambia, mining companies are cutting some jobs and holding others hostage in an attempt to overturn higher taxes and payment of higher royalty fees. And they’re citing the economic crisis for the job cuts, and threats of more job cuts have become common. 
 
Zambia’s rich copper and cobalt reserves – as well as other minerals such as iron ore, manganese, and soon uranium – are primarily owned by companies composed of investor groups. 
 
In April 2008, Zambia government passed mineral royalty increases to 3% from 0.6%. The corporate tax rate increased from 25% to 30%. Since, foreign-based mining companies such as Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, India’s Vedanta Resouces, and others claim the country must revert to old development pacts when the Zambian Consolidated Copper Mines was divested, or further retrenchments will occur. The royalty and tax issue will be taken up in the courts. 

<img style="WIDTH: 179px; HEIGHT: 175px" height="203" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMminingsector5.jpg" width="200"/>
The Chamber of Mines denied it was “arm-twisting” the government over jobs, and said dropping copper prices and the world recession was having an impact. The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions challenged the mining companies to stop using the economic crisis as the excuse for retrenchments. First Quantum, which holds huge cooper assets at Bwana Mkubwa and Kansanshi, and Chinese-based Chambisi Metals, owner of the biggest cobalt mine in Zambia, have recently sacked workers and cited the economic crisis. 
 
President Rupiah Panda, who took over for Levy Mwanawasa following his August death and was elected on 30 October, called on investors with mining stakes to engage in meaningful dialogue with the government and unions in order to prevent retrenchments. Mining investors have tentatively agreed to sit and talk. Meanwhile, Mines and Minerals Development Minister Maxwell Mwale has called for calm in the fierce public debate, falling just short of accusing certain mine industry players of creating panic. 
 
Central to the issue, however, is the question: should massive profits made in the recent past, when copper and mineral prices were at historic highs, have any bearing on jobs now? And Zambians ask: should it not be a matter of social responsibility to keep workers employed even in hard times? Now it is up to the Panda government to strike a social commitment deal with the many stakeholders that hold equity in the country’s rich mineral grounds.

Job Cuts in Zambia’s Mining Industry Causing Aggravation

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Early in 2009, collective agreements will expire for 30,000 downstream oil workers in the US. In a 45-day period from mid-September to 27 October, local branches of the United Steelworkers – representing those production workers – ratified a 12-point national pattern bargaining programme, in addition to granting the union strike authorisation. 
 
That bargaining agenda will aim to gain a share of oil industry’s vast profits, which would help ease a US recession by putting money in the pockets of working families. It also is intended to address health, safety, and environmental requirements, grant adequate pensions, and give sufficient medical coverage to workers, their families, and retirees. 
<img height="202" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0811GaryBeeversUSW.jpg" width="140"/>
USW Vice President Gary Beevers 
“This strong ratification of the oil policy and strike ratification shows how united and determined the membership is in getting a fair contract,” stated USW Vice President Gary Beevers, who heads the union’s oil bargaining programme. “By adopting the policy, the local unions agree that their contracts will not conflict with it.” 
 
Most of the collective agreements between the USW and oil companies expire 1 February 2009. With last month’s overwhelming ratification, both national and local branch bargaining will begin in December with an exchange of proposals. The USW will negotiate with the industry to set a national pattern on wages, benefits, and working conditions.
The union is seeking term limits of three years, until 2012, and substantial wages increases, in addition to cost-of-living adjustments. It also seeks increases in shift differential, two added holidays, and no regression on previously agreed terms and conditions. 
 
USW will also be negotiating for union neutrality at non-union worksites, renewal and expansion of successorship language regarding new companies taking over enterprises, and additional occupational death coverage. In mid-September, the union’s National Oil Bargaining Conference was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and shaped the agenda, which then went to branch unions for ratification, and granting of the strike sanction. 
 
The union represents workers at scores of US and Caribbean refineries, as well as pipeline, transportation, and marketing staff in the downstream sector. Employers include Shell, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, BP, ExxonMobil, and other refiners us Tosco, Tesoro, Sunoco, and LyondellBasell.

US Steelworkers Ratify Oil Bargaining Platform

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
On 26 October, ICEM Asia-Pacific Region’s Working Women’s group met in Jakarta, Indonesia, to continue its work on maternity protection. This work has been ongoing for at least a year, and was reflected from the seven points that arose out of the 2007 Women’s World Conference. 
 
The meeting was attended by women from ICEM affiliates in Indonesia, Japan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Australia. The women came from different industries – mining, cement, chemicals, glass, pharmaceuticals, and electric power. 
 
Pregnant women and new mothers continue to face discrimination in most countries of the world. The global financial crisis just makes this discrimination more acute. 
 
Women’s needs for maternity protection, or parents’ rights, differ greatly in the Asia-Pacific Region. Due to the ageing societies and skills shortages in Japan and Australia, for instance, it is dawning on decision-makers that providing women with incentives to bear children may provide the solution. In other countries, women’s rights are under threat due to outsourcing. 
 
It was decided to campaign for the ratification of ILO Convention 183, the Maternity Protection Convention, since no country in the region has ratified it. Nevertheless, many unions have successfully achieved some level of maternity protection through collective bargaining, and these efforts must be continued and strengthened.

 Maternity Protection Theme of ICEM’s Asia-Pacific Working Women’s Group

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
In Madrid, Spain, on 4 November, a protocol agreement was signed that provides management recognition of the ICEM-supported Latin American/Spanish Repsol-YPF Trade Union Network. Management of the Madrid-based oil and gas company agreed to recognise the workers’ network as a collective body to represent the trade unions in the countries where both Repsol and its 85% owned subsidiary, YPF, operate. 
 
The agreement is the result of three years work. The Spanish Peace and Solidarity Foundation of one of Spain’s national labour centres, CC.OO, promoted the project to bring together the trade unions representing workers of Repsol and YPF. Meetings in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Lima enabled the trade unions to establish themselves as a viable entity, as well as to prepare for recognition and social dialogue with Repsol-YPF senior management. 

<img style="WIDTH: 104px; HEIGHT: 70px" height="60" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Argentina.YPF.png" width="60"/>
Both the trade union network and management signed the protocol agreement early this month, expressing a will to discuss labour issues important to men and women employed by the company, as well as questions involving global corporate policies in Latin America and Spain. 
 
The network is composed of trade union representatives of branch federations at Repsol and YPF workplaces, as well as ICEM representatives. The trade union network elected a coordinating body of ten people, whose role is to manage union activity and prepare the meetings of the entire network. The meetings see active exchanges of information, and serve to analyse working conditions at Repsol and YPF worksites in the countries. 
 
The annual meetings now will include full-day discussions with the group’s management to deal with concerns put forth by the unions, and then Repsol and YPF’s industrial situations will be reported, including results and investments broken down by country. 
 
At the meeting in Madrid, held from 3-4 November, the trade unionists decided to increase communication and the flow of information by providing more content to a website that was created last year. Specifically, they will prepare a report on working time at all worksites and the elements relevant to that, including weekly or annual working time, shift systems, schedules, and overtime. 

<img height="163" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Spain.png" width="160"/>
At the 2009 meeting in Colombia, the network’s Madrid deliberations resolved to deal specifically with problems that workers employed by contractors encounter. 
 
The signing of the protocol agreement with Repsol-YPF is a major progressive step involving trade union coordination. The agreement is sure to make it possible to improve future working conditions for all. Moreover, it is a step toward creating unified trade unionism in an age of globalisation in which working conditions in one country are shaped and determined by those that occur in other countries. 
 
Trade unions taking part in the Repsol Workers’ Network include: FASPyGP-CGT and SUPeH-CGT, Argentina; FSTPB, Bolivia; FUP-CUT, Brazil; USO-CUT, Colombia; Federación Sindical Trabajadores del Petróleo, Ecuador; FITEQU-CC.OO and FIA-UGT of Spain; SUT RELAPA, Peru; Oilfields Workers’ Union of Trinidad and Tobago; and SINUTRAPETROL, Venezuela.

Repsol Management Formally Recognises Workers’ Energy Network of Spain, Latin America/Caribbean

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
A recent workshop in Buenos Aires, Argentina, saw workers’ representatives from 18 labour organisations, representing 50,000 rubber workers, come together to shape an action plan for the region’s rubber industry on Contract and Agency Labour. The ICEM and FUTINAL, the Latin American Rubber Unions’ Front covering trade unions in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay organised the event. 
 
It was hosted by SUTNA-CTA, the Rubber Workers’ Union of Argentina, and 35 delegates attended. 
 
Following a presentation on the general, regional, and national trends in the rubber sector by ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Officer Kemal Özkan, workshop participants heard about the ICEM’s global campaign on Contract and Agency Labour, as well as examples from different industries throughout the world. 

<img style="WIDTH: 359px; HEIGHT: 162px" height="172" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0811ArgentineKemal.jpg" width="380"/>
 

The issue inside the Brazilian rubber industry exists in the areas of maintenance, warehousing, security, cleaning, and catering. Brazilian labour agreements in the sector do have strong language preventing outsourcing, or the use of contractors or agency labour in production. In Argentina, the rate of outside labour during the 1980s was low, but in the 1990s, with the liberalised policies of then-President Carlos Saúl Menem, employment flexibility flourished, particularly concerning employment practices with use of short-term contract workers. 
 
In Argentina’s rubber industry, there now is a trend, led by SUTNA, to roll back that labour liberalisation. With a new collective agreement recently put in place, tyre producers have agreed to reduce the number of agency workers, much to the credit of SUTNA bargaining on the issue. 

<img height="164" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/People/0811PedroWasiejkoArgenSutna.jpg" width="149"/>
SUTNA General Secretary Pedro Wasiejko
“In a globalised tyre industry, we must react globally to the challenges in our respective countries,” said SUTNA General Secretary Pedro Wasiejko. “The kind of detailed cooperation displayed here is an important base for international trade union solidarity.” 
 
Özkan said the ICEM has now put together viable rubber workers’ networks in the Asia-Pacific and Latin American/Caribbean Regions, and that recent meetings provide “much hope for future activities,” including the ICEM’s World Conference for the Rubber Industry, to be held in 2009.

South American Rubber Workers’ Develop Joint Work Plan to Address Contract and Agency Labour

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Two fresh law suits under America’s Alien Tort Claims Act were filed last week in US federal courtrooms. In the state of Alabama, Drummond Coal was again hauled to the dock for its complicity with right-wing death squads in Colombia, and in New York state, Shell Oil will have to answer to its alleged conspiracy with Nigerian security forces in the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wira. 
 
The Colombian case against Drummond is the second such case against the US-based coal producer. Drummond’s alleged involvement in the 2001 assassinations of union leaders Valmore Lacarno, Victor Oracasita, and Gustavo Soler, all leaders of the mining union Sintramienergética, was the first Alien Tort Claims Act case to reach trial. In 2007, after key Colombian witnesses were prevented from testifying, a federal judge dismissed the case against Drummond and an appeals court failed to reverse that decision in December 2008. 
 
This time Drummond, between 1999 and 2006, is accused of complicity with right-wing paramilitary squads in the murders of 63 men and four women. The suit, filed by a state of Florida law firm on behalf of 252 relatives of the slain, who are entitled to compensatory damages from Drummond if the company is proven guilty. The lawsuit claims Drummond specifically paid millions to the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC), who “terrorised” women and children “in their homes, on their way to and from work, and often murdered” others “on behalf of Drummond.” 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Nigeria.png" width="180" height="83" alt=""/>
Ken Saro-Wiwa is a martyr because, as leader of the non-violent Movement for the Survival of the Ogani People (MOSOP), he was among the first Nigerians to stand up against environmental degradation and human exploitation in the Niger Delta. His strong voice earned him a hasty trial and execution by the repressive regime of General Sani Abacha. The New York suit will attempt to prove that Shell was complicit in a campaign of terror undertaken by Abacha’s security forces. 
 
The Alien Tort Claims Act, on US law books since 1789, allows non-Americans access to US civil court action in order the hold accountable US-based or other corporations to violations of international law. Because of the US’s historic economic power throughout the world, Alien Tory Claims cases are seen as a leading way in which human rights conduct gets heard in America.

Drummond, Shell Called to US Courts to Answer on Human Rights Charges

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Labour unrest by French, Spanish, Italian, and other workers at French MNC Saint-Gobain continued last week, with the heaviest coming in France. This follows a European-wide manifestation at Saint-Gobain’s head office in Paris on 20 May, which occurred during Saint-Gobain’s social dialogue meetings. 
 
European trade unions at Saint-Gobain, a glass and building materials manufacturer, are protesting further restructuring, which to them means job loss and social dumping. The resulting industrial actions inside Saint-Gobain factories attest to collective rejection of both. 
 
Strikes inside a factory in the Charente region of France have crimped production and interrupted orders. Workers feel cheated because “efficiency bonuses” have not been paid as promised, at a time when Saint-Gobain is coming for another round of restructuring. Protests have spread to Vauxrot and Châlon-sur-Saône in France in a show of visible frustration and worker rebellion. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0906.saint.gobain.jpg" width="256" height="192" alt=""/>
In Spain, at Sekurit worksites in Avilés and Arbós, local managers are skittish following a furnace accident and blame the French corporate group for mandating further the social cuts that nobody wants. Spanish unions point to management ineptitude on the part of both local and Paris levels, and worry that research and development in Avilés might be in jeopardy. 
 
In Italy, unions in all three federations – FILCEM-CGIL, FEMCA-CISL, and ILCEM-UIL – jointly manifested at Saint-Gobain’s regional office in Milan, while jointly conducting timely four-hour work stoppages at Italian plants. They reject the company’s decision to close a Sekurit plant in Savigliano, northern Italy, cut in half the number of staff at another Cuneo region plant, this time in Cervas, a glass-to-appliance factory, and workers at the Flovetro plant in Chieti, central Italy, have serious concerns over continued production. 
 
Nationally in France, similar to union convergence in Italy, the CFDT, CGT, and FO have teamed to pressure the Saint-Gobain Works Council to look first at workers’ interests. That happened again last week, on 26 May, and the bond between French unions has gotten stronger, providing the needed pressure point on both Saint-Gobain and the WC. 
 
In Liverdun, along the French Moselle, the mayor of that city recently stricken by Saint-Gobain’s factory cuts said it strikes fear in him each time he thinks of the difficulties that the discarded workers of Saint-Gobain now must face.

European Labour Unrest Spreads to Saint-Gobain, Glass Sector

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Australian trade unions have won a first round by stomping on a Rudd government plan to raise the pension age to 67 by the year 2023. This story serves as a global reminder that Australian trade unions will not let down their guard and will prevent a labour government from rolling back into the Howard era. 
 
The plan came inside a Treasury budget proposal to gradually increase the pension age beginning in 2017. Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), and other unions, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), posted immediate challenges and Kevin Rudd backed down. 

<img height="93" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/AUSTRALIACFMEU.gif" width="90"/>
But the plan will likely re-surface in coming years, and trade unions now are well placed for full engagement. CFMEU, AMWU, and others correctly label the measure, “a path to the false economy” and point out that the proposed retirement system unfairly affects low-paid, blue-collar workers, particularly those doing physical labour in construction and industrial sectors. The government’s plan disregards future health-care disabilities and the needed funds to maintain an effective and inclusive medical social net. 

<img height="132" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0906.sharon.burrow.jpg" width="100"/>
ACTU President Sharon Burrow
ACTU President Sharon Burrow aptly stated that workers’ bodies are “broken way before” they reach age 67. Research polling showed that 72% of Australians think the Rudd government plan is unfair to labourers, while 61% think it is unfair to trades and crafts workers. 
 
Separately and a fairer proposal, in a joint letter to Rudd by CFMEU National Secretary John Sutton and AMWU National Secretary Dave Oliver, they said roll-backs of tax concessions on superannuation accounts should be a priority in order to raise revenue. By raising the eligibility threshold at which tax relief is granted on superannuations, the unions maintain, Australia creates equality and fairness for all. 
 
The ICEM commends the CFMEU and AMWU, and all Australian unions, for leading a rapid vanguard over this issue and supports future efforts of trade unions to block similar regressive and anti-people policies.

Australian Unions Push Back Over Pension Age Issue

Sappi: pulp & paper/pâte et de papier/pulp y papel 
Urgent Alert, Sappi/South Africa: Voice Opposition, Support CEPPWAWU 
 
ICEM is calling for immediate action to a union-smashing affront by Sappi at its Enstra mill in Springs, South Africa. Sappi suspended 19 shop stewards and 23 other workers due to their union affiliation with Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU), a longtime ICEM affiliate. 
Starting on 6 May, SAPPI systematically and maliciously began taking disciplinary actions against CEPPWAWU leaders inside the 650-worker Enstra sulfate pulp and printing papers mill. The allegations: inciting workers (90% of whom are CEPPWAWU members), harassment, and use of company property for union purposes. At a 28 May meeting, SAPPI said it would start disciplinary hearings on them, hearings that will be one-sided and unfair. The ICEM urges that messages get sent and that this posting gets wide attention: union bashing will not be tolerated in South Africa! 
 
ICEM finds it reprehensible that SAPPI refuses meeting participation by CEPPWAWU’s National Coordinator for Sappi branches, and called it “a blight on Sappi everywhere,” in a letter to SAPPI house in South Africa. The ICEM calls it a blatant violation of basic trade union rights and this union-bashing merits immediate condemnation. Respond! 
 
Take the message below, and send to Enstra manager Dave Glazebrook at <a href="mailto:dave.glazebrook@sappi.com">dave.glazebrook@sappi.com</a> and <a href="mailto:Wikus.van.Zyl@sappi.com">Wikus.van.Zyl@sappi.com</a>, <a href="mailto:Jan.labuschagne@sappi.com">Jan.labuschagne@sappi.com</a>, and then pass it to others to do the same: 
 
Sappi: Hands Off Union at Enstra. 
 
NO!!! … Union Bashing in South Africa! 
No … no suspending Union Rights in South Africa! This is malicious, anti-democratic, and anti-people … there is no room for it in economic recovery. Sappi cannot afford disrepute now or ever in its paper businesses. Reinstate the workers’ representatives and others at Enstra Now. These trade union members have been incriminated because they represent Sappi’s biggest trade union in South Africa. It is deplorable labour-relations and employment conduct … and a cancer inside South Africa. Trade union rights at Enstra – anywhere at Sappi … Europe, North America, or in South Africa – are guaranteed and will never be denied! 
 
 
Please send solidarity messages to CEPPWAWU: <a href="mailto:secretariat@ceppwawu.org.za">secretariat@ceppwawu.org.za</a>

SAPPI: Act Now!!

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Instead of facing testimony in a US federal court over the complicity its Nigerian subsidiary played in the 1995 executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni rights activists, Royal Dutch Shell made a US$15.5 million payout to the nine defendants – relatives of the martyrs – and the Ogoni people. 
 
Shell’s announcement came at the outset of a federal court case in New York under the US’s Alien Tort Claims Act, an effective global instrument to bring social justice and payment damages to non-American victims of crimes or violations committed by companies. Shell said it would pay US$10.5 million to the defendants and US$5 million for an Ogoni trust fund. 
 
Shell termed it a “humanitarian settlement” and proclaimed innocence over the 1995 complicity with the Abacha regime’s round-up and execution of the land and environmental rights activists, who were leading the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta. 
 
The civil lawsuit in the US, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and EarthRights International, lingered on for well over a decade. One US writer, labour rights activist Phil Mattera, wrote, “It is understandable why the plaintiffs … would feel a need to settle a case that had dragged on for 13 years and provide some financial assistance to the Ogoni community. Yet it is frustrating to see Shell trying to turn an outrage into an opportunity to burnish its image.” 
 
Shell was charged with crimes against humanity, and being complicit with arbitrary arrest, torture, jurisprudence negligence, wrongful death, and emotional distress. Saro-Wiwa and the others faced hasty trials and immediate execution by security forces of General Abacha in November 1995.

Shell Pays Nigeria’s Ogoni People, Avoids Tell-tale US Court Case

Archive