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ICEM Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs Joe Drexler reports that progress is being made with Russian and Ukrainian governments by ICEM-affiliated mining affiliates in promoting the ratification of the ILO Convention 176 on Health and Safety in Mines. 
 
Russia experienced a major mining disaster last week when 12 people were killed at an apatite mine near Kirovsk, in the Murmansk region, and Ukraine has the most dangerous coal mines in Europe. Apatite is used in fertilizer production. 
 
In a week-long trip that included stops in Moscow, Russia, and Kiev and Donetsk, Ukraine, Drexler met with union leaders, employers, and government officials including the Deputy Minister of Health and Social Development in Russia and the Minister of Coal in Ukraine. The meetings with the ministers were set up by Ivan Mokhnachuk, President of the Russian Independent Coal Employees’ Union, and Victor Turmanov, Chairman of the Trade Union of Workers’ of the Coal Industry of Ukraine. 

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Left, Joe Drexler, ICEM Director for Industry and Corporate Affairs; right, Ivan Mokhnachuk, President of the Russian Independent Coal Employees' Union (Rosugleprof)
In Russia, the Chemical and Allied Industries Workers Union, which represents some 50,000 largely phosphate and potash miners, and the Russian Trade Union of Metal Workers in the Nickel, Cobalt, and Platinum Industries, representing miners at Norlisk Nickel, offered strong support for the ratification of ILO Convention 176. Valery Glaskov, president of the metal mining union, also said he would open direct talks with Norlisk about a Global Framework Agreement. The talks will include the ICEM and trade unions outside of Russia. Norlisk has mining operations in Africa and the US.
It is in Ukraine where the prospect of achieving ratification of ILO Convention 176 in the near-term appears most likely. Victor Turmanov, who is also a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, has been leading the effort along with Mikhail Volynets of the ICEM affiliated Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, and also a member of Parliament. A meeting was also held with Vasyl Khara, President of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, and yet another member of Parliament. Although much of the research and proposed changes to mining laws and regulations have been prepared, unified political pressure will be required to ensure ratification. 
“I think we can say with confidence that Ukraine will become the 23rd nation to ratify ILO 176,” said Turmanov after a meeting with Viktor Poltavets, the Minister of Coal, who gave his whole-hearted commitment to push for ratification in 2009. 
 
The ICEM has been lobbying the ILO to step up its own efforts to promote the ratification of the convention. The ILO is setting up workshops about ratification in India and Mongolia, but after several months of discussion, no meeting dates have been set. 
 
Indian unions have grown frustrated over the slow progress by the ILO and are actively engaged in lobbying efforts with government and employers. The Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia has received a commitment from the new Labour government that it will also proceed next year toward ratification. 
 
Ratification of ILO Convention 176 will result in needed improvements in mining regulations and laws in most countries which have not yet ratified. Experience has shown that good mining laws and regulation will make mines safer.

ILO Mine, Safety Convention 176 Moves Closer to Realty in Russia, Ukraine

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On 1-2 December, in Bogotá, Colombia, union leaders of ICEM affiliate Sintracarbòn delivered a list of demands to management of Carbones del Cerrejón, the world-class coal mining operation owned by BHP Billiton, AngloAmerican, and Xstrata. The workers are seeking solutions regarding serious problems in health, education, low wages, outsourcing of labour, and effects on the local community. 
 
Preliminary discussions were carried out on 3-4 December at company headquarters in the city of Barranquilla, where a course was set forth for the negotiations to continue. The direct settlement stage of discussions began 9 December, where both parties again agreed on the required methodology in approaching negotiation of the union demands. 
 
This massive open-pit mining enterprise in the northern state of Guajira produces highly desirable low-carbon thermal coal. The mine produces 32 million tones annually, with a majority of that shipped to Europe, with exports to North America second in scope.
<img height="252" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805COLOMBIA3.jpg" width="300" alt=""/>
Miners of Sintracarbòn in Colombia  
 

Since January 2007, when the ICEM assisted Sintracarbòn in achieving its current and now expiring labour contract, the number of health problems of workers has increased dramatically, up to 700, leading to the demand for a better health care system for both workers and their families. Aims to reduce the numbers of outsourced workers at the mine would develop economic stability for miners and their families, as well as efficient unionization of the workforce enabling collective bargaining. 
 
The union represents some 4,500 full-time Carbones del Cerrejón workers, with another 4,000 employees working for service providers. Sintracarbòn is requesting solidarity again from its global affiliation, as well as from national level unions in Colombia as the talks progress in December.

Sintracarbòn Enters Critical Talks with Carbones del Cerrejon in Columbia

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Pulp and Paper trade union leaders of the ICEM concluded their World Conference on 10 December in Piriápolis, Uruguay, with delegates forging a clear and concise solidarity action plan. With that, ICEM’s Pulp/Paper Work Group activities will be extended and expanded to other leading affiliates. 

The conference featured a work plan, built around collective bargaining and other important work, and it took on issues of debt collapse, global growth slowdowns in the south, and pricing and labour costs from region to region.
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The conference heard a thorough and first-of-its-kind mapping of Mercosur unions in the pulp and paper sector and the companies that these unions are present at. The mapping came way of Brazil’s Instituto Observatório Social, through funding from Finland’s SASK, the global solidarity arm of the country’s national labour centre. 
Delegates heard comments from Argentine trade union leader Blas Juan Alari, President of FOEIPCyQ, that a cold-war dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over a pulp mill did not take into account the sentiments of Argentine workers. The conference also heard moving presentations about workers’ rights in Uruguay from leaders of the national labour centre, PIT/CNT. 
They also heard from Ilkka Hämälä, President and CEO of Metsa-Botniä Oy, whose pulp mill in Fray Bentos has brought controversy between Argentine and Uruguyan governments, and from Jeronimo Ruiz, Director of São Paulo State’s BRACELPA employers’ grouping, who also heads collective bargaining for Brazil’s pulp and paper employers. 
Workers’ representatives queried the industry leaders on several things, including wood supply issues; pulping, delivery, and labour costs, and questions on social responsibility records, a sharp challenge that was put forward by ICEM Pulp and Paper Charman Jouko Ahonen, President of Paperiliitto of Finland. He said the precedence of profits to investors over society’s interests is the foremost affront to a company’s social responsibility record.
<img height="107" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812Uruguay2_edited.jpg" width="240"/>
Trade Union leaders on panel, from left, Jan-Henrik Sandberg, Sweden; Blas Juan Alari, Argentina; and Fred Wilson, Canada 

The conference also heard from Uruguay Industry and Energy Minister Daniel Martinez and Labour and Social Security Minister Eduardo Bonomi. Martinez, a former trade union leader in Uruguay, gave an impassionate speech on the need to uphold high labour and social standards in all industrial development. Bonomi gave a vivid account of a crumbling civilian government giving way to military in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as proclaiming that Uruguay’s cuurent plans for industrial growth will better integrate the Mercosur countries. 

President of the host union, CUOPyC’s Walter Silva, reminded trade union guests that any financial crisis inevitably harms workers first and the hardest, and said the most recent economic collapse must be the call for deepening democratic trade unions, opening of workers’ channels to investment decisions, and an absolute end to “any type of social dumping.” 

Silva also called the Argentine-Uruguay dispute – now in the World Court – regrettable, stating “our opinion wasn’t taken into account, although we had the ability to offer experience and knowledge” to calm the political difficulties of the Fray Bentos mill. The mill has now been operating for one year and produces 100,000 metric tonnes of pulp annually, 70% of which is bought by Metsa-Botniá’s three paper-making owners. 

ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda told delegates the neo-liberal model of economic structures has failed. “It is not a time to heal a system that has failed, but rather a time to forge a sustainable future built on justice and equality.” 

He said Uruguay was the right place to hold this conference, considering the dark days of repression in the 1970s and 1980s, with the ICEM purposely scheduling the conference on the 60th Anniversary of signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

The three-day ICEM forum was preceded by a two-day conference, 6-7 December, on forest certification programmes sponsored by the global union federation, Building and Woodworkers’ International (BWI). That forum proved highly successful and afforded.ICEM affiliates the opportunity to learn about forest certification programmes.

ICEM Pulp/Paper Conference Held in Uruguay

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With less than 18 months in existence, the Latin American trade union network of Belgian-based Solvay has taken important steps in expanding to other employees in the region. 
 
The third meeting of Brazilian Trade Union Network of the chemicals, pharmaceutical, and plastics multinational was held in São Paulo on 1-3 December, with trade union participates coming from Argentina, Belgium, and the European Works Council of the company, as well as from five Brazilian unions. The meeting was also attended by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Chemicals and Rubber Industries Officer Kemal Özkan. 
 
The participants discussed the importance of international trade union networking, especially in the face of the global financial crisis and its possible consequences in the world of work. The precariousness of labor relations, such as outsourcing and subcontracting, and the need to ensure the health and safety of workers in all localities were priorities at the meeting. 
 

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"This network has shown a great willingness to grow, adding strength of colleagues from different Latin American plants, so that together we can initiate dialogue with Solvay in order to improve working conditions and the lives of workers,” said Juvenil Youth Nunes da Costa, coordinator of the network. 
 
”I am very happy to take part in such an important initiative, which is becoming a model for workers’ solidarity,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “This network has become a success in a very short period of time, and it is clear that we must unify our efforts to combat common problems." 
 
Among the major decisions taken at the early December meeting was to strengthen the role of representation of the network, along with the role of workers in Solvay’s direction in Brazil; disclosure of the network in Argentina so that further extension can occur in other Mercosur countries; dissemination of the commitments on "Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility," as made by the company to workers in Argentina and Brazil; and drafting a proposal related to a Communication Policy Network. 
 
The next meeting is scheduled to be held in July 2009. The Network of Workers at the Solvay-Brazil Group was created in September 2007, and representation covers the 14 units of the group in the country.

Brazilian Network of Solvay Eyes Latin Expansion

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Union and community leaders in the UK’s northeast have mounted a campaign to save over 100 jobs at a chemicals plant. UK-based Elementis Plc., the EU’s only producer of chromium chemicals used in superalloy production, timber treatments, and metal finishing, is currently in a 90-day consultation period with ICEM affiliate Unite the Union and workers at a plant in Eaglescliffe, near Teesside. 
 
In February, the specialty chemicals company – the world’s largest producer of chromium chemicals – announced the plant was under “a strategic review” that could lead to a shutdown by July 2009. 
<img height="138" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMchemical.jpg" width="140" alt=""/>
Workers and community leaders are petitioning MPs and engaging in other activities to keep the profitable plant operating. Elementis, which also produces surfactants and specialty chemicals for paints, coatings, inks, and cosmetics, saw its chromium chemicals business post an operating profit of £27.7 million in 2008, compared to a £14.2 million profit in 2007. Sales in the division rose to £168.6 million in 2008 from £115.9 million in 2007. 
 
Unite Regional Secretary Bob Bolam stressed that production from the plant was crucial for the EU. “If this plant were to close, the EU would be reliant on Kazakhstan and China. We intend to put together a case for the (Elementis) board to keep this site.” 
 
The company’s other chromium chemicals plants are in the US – Corpus Christi, Texas, and Castle Hayne, North Carolina. Raw materials used by Elementis come from South Africa and other parts of Africa, and are processed at the Eaglescliffe plant before being shipped to US facilities and other locations. The company’s chromium chemicals business produces dichromate, chrome sulphate, chromic acid, chromic oxide, chromide hydrate, and sodium sulphate. 
 
Elementis senior executives have stated that no final decision on closure has been taken. The ICEM supports workers in the Teesside and Wilton area in their buoyant efforts to preserve jobs in this sector.

UK Workers, Community, Unite the Union Fight to Protect Jobs at Elementis Chemicals

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The union that won a long battle to represent Firestone Rubber Plantation workers in Liberia has now won a Labor Ministry-supervised vote to represent workers at ArcelorMittal’s mining development in Liberia. 
 
On 11 April, ICEM-affiliated Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers’ Union of Liberia (FLIWUL), greatly assisted by the United Steelworkers (USW) of the US, easily beat a yellow union in a representation election that took place in Nimba County on the Liberian-Guinea-Côte d’Ivoire border and at Buchanan, a port city on the Atlantic Coast. 
 
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel-maker, is undertaking a US$1.5 billion re-development of iron ore mining operations near Yekeba in Nimba County and a 250-kilometre railroad line to Buchanan. 
 
The union vote, however, encountered flagrant interference by a company official and a Liberian legislator, despite both an ICEM letter (found <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/6%20letter%20to%20Bernard%20Fontana%20-%203%20Feb09.pdf" type="internal">here</a>) and a USW letter warning ArcelorMittal not to interfere in the election. But an ArcelorMittal boss and a national lawmaker showed up in Buchanan several hours after voting began and demanded a halt to balloting. 

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FLIWUL activists in Harbel
On the eve of the vote, the yellow union used a radio broadcast to discourage workers from voting. Election observers also reported that whoever was behind this group had pressed members of the Liberian Parliament to intervene with the Labor Ministry to cancel the vote. 
 
The ArcelorMittal official was Arthur Massaquio, who earlier on 11 April was the company’s designated election observer, but left the polling area soon after balloting began. When he returned several hours later, he was with Representative Gabriel Smith. The lawmaker began questioning workers on why they felt the urgency to have a union vote, before ordering workers back to work because he was canceling the election. 
 
Despite this, and the fact that several workers did leave the Buchanan polling area without voting, FLIWUL won the fair, government-supervised election. FLIWUL got 198 votes, the yellow union 19, and the “no union” option on the ballot received one. In Buchanan, the FLIWUL got 59 votes and the company union 15. The ICEM had an observer present for the vote through a designated representative from the Ghana Mineworkers’ Union. 
 
FLIWUL Secretary-General David Sackoh told the ICEM following the vote that an investigation into the Buchanan interruption is underway, but that he is confident the vote will stand. 
 
ArcelorMittal is developing Nimba County’s one billion cubic-metre iron ore reserves in a 25-year concession that will see the Liberian government receive 30% of the net profits, plus 4.5% in royalty fees. Some 2,000 Liberian workers are expected to be employed in the mining enterprise and the rail link and port hub. This northern Liberia mining area was originally operated by the Liberian American Swedish Chemicals Company (LAMCO), but production ceased in 1989 with the outbreak of civil war.

Despite Interference, FLIWUL Wins Union Rights for ArcelorMittal Workers in Liberia

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28 April is Workers’ Memorial Day, or more formally, the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers. It is the day that trade unions across the world mourn the dead, but pledge even harder to wage the fight for safe, healthy, and risk-free workplaces. 
 
The commemoration day is rooted in the Canadian labour movement, whose unions worked for several years before the country’s Parliament in 1989 passed Bill C-223, adopting 28 April as the official “Day of Mourning.” While labour groups in several countries began commemorating the day soon thereafter, it became a global day of health and safety recognition and a vivid reminder of the ever-present risks and hazards inside worksites when the UN lit a Commemorative Candle in 1996 for the victims of the Kader toy factory fire in Thailand three years earlier. 
 
Some 188 mostly young women workers perished in that fire and another 500 were severely injured. Now, 20 countries officially recognize the day, with Croatia being the latest, moving in recent weeks to designate it the National Day of Occupational Safety and Health. 

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(The others: Argentina, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Luxembourg, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Venezuela.) 
 
The day also is marked by labour unions and workplace health and safety groups in over120 countries. It is more than just a memorial day to remember the estimated two million workers who die each year from workplace accidents, job-related injuries, or occupational illnesses. It is a day of renewal and action for positive change to make worksites safer and risk-free. 
 
ICEM trade union affiliates are encouraged to find an activity next week to take meaningful action. Use the day, for example, to work in your community and within your union to engage your government on ILO Convention 176, the Health and Safety in Mines Convention; or any of the other ILO Conventions which your government has not ratified, such as Convention 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention; No. 162, the Asbestos at Work Convention; No. 148, the Work Environment Convention; No. 174, the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents Convention; No. 119, the Guarding of Machinery Convention; and No. 136, the Benzene Convention. Only through direct action will change occur.

28 April, Day of Mourning: History is Recent but Roots are Growing

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The ICEM condemns the police violence taken against Trinidad and Tobago trade union leader David Abdullah and others on 18 December. Abdullah was one of the organisers of a peaceful protest outside Parliament. He was detained by riot police and charged with “obstruction of free passageway.” The protest was part of the campaign against a proposed Property Bill in the Caribbean islands nation. 
 
A number of other demonstrators, including members of ICEM affiliate Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU), suffered injuries during the mid-December demonstration, as police attacked with batons. 
 
The movement opposing the property tax bill, called People’s Democracy, is an umbrella group of trade unions, NGOs, and others in civil society. It organised the 18 December protest outside Parliament to coincide with deliberations on the bill inside the Lower House. OWTU President-General Ancel Roget also participated in the organization of the protest. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1001.david.abdullah.jpg" width="147" height="205" alt=""/>
David Abdullah centre (Photo T&T Newsday)
Several international groups have also condemned the unprovoked police attacks and arrest of Abdullah. UK Trades Union Congress General Secretary Brendan Barber, in a letter to the country’s authorities, urged that “the charges against Mr. Abdullah are dropped and that all citizens are allowed the free exercise of their democratic rights without interference from the State.” 
 
Roget told police, who demanded the manifestation stop any noise making, that they were doing nothing illegal. It was then that police became violent, using batons against protestors holding only placards. Abdullah complained about the violence and was thrown into a police vehicle, while government police beat OWTU members who tried to follow. 
 
Following Abdullah’s arrest on 18 December, four members of the opposition in Parliament came out and joined the march around the Parliament. 
 
Upon release, Abdullah said, “This will further strengthen the resolve of those who are interested in (our country’s) future because we saw physical evidence today of the dictatorship in Trinidad and Tobago. The right to peaceful picketing is a right we will never, ever give up. We have not and will not engage in anything illegal. And even the police could not tell us that we were violating any law by communicating our message by singing, chanting, and clapping our hands.” 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/People/AncelRogetOWTUgenpres.jpg" width="130" height="162" alt=""/>
Ancel Roget
Roget accused the government of beating citizens into submission. 
 
Court action against David Abdullah will continue on 13 January and People’s Democracy members intend to turn out at the court proceedings in support of their leader. The movement picketed the offices of Prime Minister Patrick Manning on Thursday, 7 January. 
 
The campaign against the Property Tax, seen as an ill-advised national policy to offset government shortfalls and wasteful spending, will continue. The campaign can be viewed <a href="http://www.peoplesdemocracytt.org/ ">here</a>.

Trinidad/Tobago Police Use Brutality to Stifle Free Speech, Assembly Rights

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On 14 December 2009, the Supreme Court of Namibia struck down a two-year-old government law that banned labour hire agencies. In a unanimous, five-judge decision, the court said that government must first try to regulate irregular work imposed by labour hire firms before imposing a ban on them. 
 
The court’s decision also cited the law as unconstitutional because it fails to protect the right to practice “occupation, trade or business.” In 20-year-old Namibia, images of an entrenched contract labour system through apartheid are recent, and this labour issue has both the emotions and the memories to make it a leading story in all of Africa. 
 
The Supreme Court itself called it “an emotive and politically charged” issue, and both opponents and proponents of agency labour expressed sharp differences on the court’s ruling. 
 
The decision was the second time within a year that the High Court in Namibia has taken up the case. It had earlier upheld the ban on labour hire agencies, contained inside Section 128 of the 2007 Labour Act. But Namibia’s largest temporary employment agency, Africa Personnel Services (APS), appealed the constitutionality of this section of the labour code on the eve of it taking effect. The 14 December ruling overturns the High Court’s earlier decision, and now places responsibility on the government and civil society to implement stringent regulatory measures on the operations of labour agencies. 
The head of the Namibia Employers’ Federation, Tim Parkhouse, heralded the court’s decision, calling it an investment attraction. 

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But the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) reacted angrily to the court’s decision, while Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Immanuel Ngatjizeko, said that although the government must abide by the decision, he pledged the government of President Hifikepunye Pohamba will not allow the labour-hire system to continue in its current form. 
 
Ngatjiseko, in a Windhoek newspaper, said: “It is ironic that a provision of the Namibia Constitution that was intended to eradicate apartheid practices that subjected black workers to the injustice and humiliation of job reservation, influx control and the like has now been interpreted to turn a blind eye to commercial arrangements for the rental of human labour in order to avoid the protections afforded to workers by the labour laws.” 
 
Ngatjiseko said the current system in Namibia, where labour hire firms are allowed to employ people who then provide these people to clients, is exploitative and reminiscent of the apartheid contract labour system because workers in Namibia with few or no other options for gainful employment fall into the clutches of labour agencies. 
 
The NUNW, linked in history with the ruling South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) 
political party and a union itself banned in the pre-Namibia days of the 1970s and 1980s because it dared to challenge the apartheid labour system, was more blunt in its assessment of the court’s decision. “We firmly believe that one cannot regulate slavery and thereby give it a human face,” said the federation. 

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The court’s decision last month provoked wide opinions, proving again the intensity of the labour hire issue inside Namibia and in all of Africa. 
 
The New Era, a Windhoek publication, predicted, “There is no denying that labour hire is a niece of the contract labour system that we have supposedly got rid, but when weak regulations are approved, the Supreme Court would be left with no choice but to stick to what is lawful on paper.” 
 
An editorial in The Namibian, another Windhoek newspaper, stated, “The principal of labour hire may be an important one, especially in a country with a very high unemployment rate, but it cannot be allowed to perpetuate exploitation of workers to the benefit of middlemen; to provide ways around employer adherence to the Labour Code; and to shut out unions.” 
 
On 5 July 2007, the country’s National Assembly passed an amendment to the labour code stating that “no person may, for reward, employ any person with a view to making that person available to a third party to perform work for the third party.” The law was to take effect on 1 March 2009. But on 27 February, the High Court suspended implementation of the law to hear APS’s appeal.

Namibian Supreme Court Strikes Down Labour Hire Bill

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The ICEM’s new global Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) Coordinator/Consultant began work in her new duties last week. Ashling Seely comes from the International Textiles, Garment, and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) and will continue working for the ITGLWF part-time as coordinator for the Global Union Federation’s Sportswear Project and as Policy Assistant to the General Secretary. 
 
Through her work as the new global Coordinator/Consultant on CAL, it is anticipated that more will be done, including support work to affiliates of ICEM, ITGLWF, and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) in their daily struggles and solidarity actions on CAL and precarious work. 

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New ICEM Global CAL Coordinator, Ashling Seely
Other work at this level will include preparing interviews and newsletters for the ICEM’s special CAL website, preparing country reports, assisting other ICEM staff on the issue of short-term and irregular work, and assistance in work related to the Council of Global Unions. 
 
All affiliates are encouraged to directly contact Ashling Seely with any issues they have over CAL. She can be reached <a href="mailto:aseely@itglwf.org">here</a>. View the ICEM CAL website <a href="http://cal.icem.org/">here</a>.

ICEM Welcomes New Global CAL Coordinator, Ashling Seely

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