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Germany needs a long-term, reliable consensus on energy policy, which must &quot;take just as much account of economic and technical needs as of social responsibility and environmental challenges.&quot; That is the view of the country's mine, chemical and energy workers, as set out at a press conference yesterday by Hubertus Schmoldt, President of their union the IG BCE. 
<img height="191" alt="Hubertus Schmoldt: &quot;Many jobs are at stake.&quot;" src="" width="147" />
Hubertus Schmoldt: &quot;Many jobs are at stake.&quot;

All concerned must avoid putting the energy consensus at risk, Schmoldt warned. German and foreign-based firms must be given a reliable basis for investment decisions. 
 
Germany is engaged in a major debate on its future energy options - not least due to the rise of the environmentalist Green party, which is now the Social Democrats' junior partner in the federal coalition government. 
 
In particular, the greening of German energy policy has placed a question mark over the future of nuclear power. 
 
An energy consensus could succeed only &quot;if the phasing out of nuclear energy is implemented as a longer-term change,&quot; Schmoldt insisted. Decisions on nuclear must also be placed in a broader context, he said. &quot;IG BCE supports a comprehensive energy policy whose central component is the well-tried principle of an energy mix. Native energy sources, particularly hard coal and lignite, have a full part to play in this, both now and beyond the year 2005.&quot; 
 
Plans for environmentalist energy taxes are one complicating factor in the current German discussion. Originally, exemptions had been proposed for energy-intensive industries. But the waiver plan got the thumbs-down from the EU, and German manufacturing industry could now face a uniform tax rate of 20 per cent on its energy bills. 
 
IG BCE still thinks that complete exemption for industry would be the &quot;best solution,&quot; Schmoldt said. However, the union could view an energy tax positively provided that the rate for manufacturing industry were 15 percent or less, the tax burden remained constant in absolute terms and commitments to reduce energy use were rewarded with tax incentives. 
 
&quot;Energy taxes must not increase industry's overall tax bill,&quot; Schmoldt said. &quot;Moreover, there must be a binding commitment that the already announced second and third phases of the ecological taxation reforms will be introduced only within the context of a common solution at the European level. It would be damaging for Germany to go it alone, and we would resolutely resist this. Many jobs are at stake, as are the credibility and calculability of policy-making.&quot; 
 
At the global level, IG BCE is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), of which Hubertus Schmoldt is Vice-President.

Real Energy Consensus Needed, IGBCE Says

Brazilian labour confederation CUT today launched a national campaign to ban all forms of asbestos from the country. 
 
The first goal of the campaign is to make union members fully aware of the dangers of asbestos, and CUT has prepared a full range of information material. 
 
Brazil is the world's fifth-largest producer and consumer of asbestos, and did not begin regulating its use until the mid-1980s. In recent years, asbestos use per capita in Brazil has been 14 times the US rate. 
 
The Brazilian government should offer early retirement packages to the country's asbestos miners, the CUT says. It also wants the government to invest in new industries in the mining areas. 
 
The unions believe there is a good chance that Brazil will ban asbestos in the near future. The major asbestos companies Eternit and Brasilit (a Saint-Gobain company) announced on 30 November that they would conduct research into the use of alternative materials. 
 
The CUT hopes that its national campaign will speed up progress towards a ban. 
 
&quot;There is no such thing as safe asbestos,&quot; emphasises the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). &quot;Attempts to distinguish between 'more' and 'less' hazardous types of asbestos are based on discredited science, and even single exposures to very low doses of fibres can result in harm.&quot;

Brazil Unions Seek Asbestos Ban

Several hundred union members rallied in Melbourne, Australia, today outside the headquarters of BHP, the minerals, metals and oil multinational. 
 
They were protesting over a radical policy shift in BHP's Australian iron ore operations. Management there has abandoned its traditional cooperative approach to industrial relations in favour of a hard-line policy that denies its workers the right to bargain collectively. 
 
BHP issued its 1,000 iron ore workers in the Pilbara, Western Australia, with individual staff contracts, saying it was not prepared to negotiate a new collective agreement. The company had previously operated under a collective agreement negotiated with unions. 
 
The individual staff contracts were delivered to workers' homes on November 11. BHP decreed that workers must either sign the contracts or stay on their expired agreement. Sticking with the expired agreement would mean forgoing wage and superannuation rises and lump-sum sick leave payouts. Under the individual contracts, BHP would be able to impose workplace changes and alter pay scales without having to negotiate with unions. BHP offered workers a bonus of three months' back pay if they signed by December 3. 
 
The Secretary-elect of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Greg Combet, said the BHP iron ore division had moved sharply away from its successful cooperative approach to industrial relations, and was aping the hard-nosed American-style tactics that characterised its competitor, Rio Tinto. 
&quot;Not only is BHP now displaying great disregard for the right of employees to bargain collectively,&quot; Combet pointed out, &quot;it is adopting discriminatory practices against one section of its workforce. BHP is offering these Pilbara workers 14 percent superannuation only if they sign an individual contract, and yet BHP already pays its steel workers the same amount under a collective agreement negotiated with the unions. 
 
&quot;If BHP Steel can work out a collective agreement,&quot; Combet asked, &quot;why can't BHP Iron Ore do the same? Unions and their members in the Pilbara are more than willing to talk about efficiencies and flexibility to boost BHP's domestic and international competitiveness in iron ore.&quot; 
 
BHP's individual staff contract offer came just weeks after conservative lawyers and journalists published articles in the Australian financial press urging the company to drop &quot;its union culture&quot;. Some industrial relations experts are tipping that the move by BHP is a forerunner of similar forays into other areas, such as the coal and steel divisions.

BHP&#039;s Anti-Bargaining Stance Sparks Australian Protests

&nbsp;The government in South Korea has at last legally recognised the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). The labour ministry decision on 23 November came after no less than four previous rejections of KCTU bids to obtain full legal status. 
Announcing the legal recognition at a press conference, KCTU President Dan Byung-ho said the Confederation would base its future action on &quot;the principles of independence, democracy, struggle and moral strength kept alive by so many pioneers who gave their lives in the course of our struggle&quot;. 
 
The 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) has congratulated the KCTU and all Korean workers on their achievement. 
 
&quot;The Korean government has finally recognised the long-standing truth that the KCTU is widely representative of the Korean working class and is no longer a force that can be marginalised from negotiations over social and industrial issues,&quot; commented ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &quot;The courage and perseverance of Korean workers over the past years have been an inspiration to the labour movement worldwide.&quot; 
 
ICEM member unions include affiliates both of the KCTU and of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), which was already legally recognised. 
 
In a statement, the KCTU paid tribute to the many thousands of Korean trade unionists imprisoned and dismissed from their jobs during the struggle for recognition. The new ruling &quot;is also a victory for the international trade union movement and the vindication of the standard-setting and supervisory vigilance of the International Labour Organisation,&quot; the KCTU said. 
 
But it warned that full freedom of association is still not guaranteed in the Republic of Korea. &quot;Some one million government employees are still denied the right and freedom to form or join trade unions,&quot; the KCTU pointed out. Also, &quot;many millions of workers remain outside the trade unions&quot;. And more than 50 percent of Korean workers are employed in &quot;non-standard&quot; jobs which often put them beyond the protection of current labour laws. &quot;70 percent of employed women workers are found in this category,&quot; the KCTU said. It has resolved to &quot;reach out to these workers&quot;. 
 

The KCTU will also campaign next year for the Korean statutory working week to be cut to 40 hours. 
 
And it plans to &quot;transform the current union structure, from enterprise unionism to industrial unionism&quot;. This will be &quot;a vital requirement in the KCTU's effort to reach out to a wider range of workers and to undertake its campaigns more effectively&quot;. But &quot;it may - unless the government and employers acknowledge the inevitability of the change - require continued difficult struggle on the part of the KCTU&quot;.

Korea Legalises Union Confederation

The Transport and General Workers&rsquo; Union of UK is polling 1,200 members at two Michelin plants for industrial action. Michelin&rsquo;s wage offer in December of either 3% or GBP 650 is inadequate, and separate polling of the two workforces will begin this week. The two sites are Stoke in the Midlands with 400 T&amp;G members and Ballymena in Northern Ireland employing 800.

Transport and General in UK Ready for Industrial Action at Michelin

German affiliate IGBCE proved instrumental in getting a tyre factory in Mexico reopened. The Continental AG plant in the western Mexican state of Jalisco was closed in 2001, idling 1,400. Working with several NGOs and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), IGBCE convinced Continental to sell the plant to a group of Mexican investors and workers as a cooperative. The tyre plant, now called Western Tire Corp./El Salto Tire Factory, will employ between 600 and 700 workers.

Continental Tyre Plant in Mexico gets New Life Thanks to IGBCE

The Australian Federal Court today ordered mining and materials multinational BHP to cease offering and entering into individual contracts with members of its Pilbara workforce. 
 
The decision is a stunning victory for the Australian unions and for collective bargaining, with the court upholding all three grounds in the unions' case. 
 
The unions submitted that there was a &quot;serious arguable case&quot; that BHP had breached the law through its industrial bribery in the Pilbara by: 
 
- Prejudicing employees because of their union membership 
 
- Inducing employees to leave their union 
 
- Breaching a term of the Contract of Employment which provided that BHP should honour collective bargaining and not enter into individual contracts. 
 
The court's decision is the biggest victory for the Australian trade union movement since the waterfront dispute of 1998. 
 
&quot;BHP should immediately abandon its disastrous deunionisation campaign and respect the right of Australian workers to bargain collectively through their unions,&quot; commented Australian mining and allied workers' union the CFMEU today. 
 
At the global level, the CFMEU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has been backing the campaign for labour rights at BHP.

BHP Must Halt Individual Job Contracts in Australia

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. 
 
&quot;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,&quot; 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 &quot;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 &quot;secret&quot; 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 &quot;secret&quot; manual, a summary of legal charges, and an interactive message board are on the website. 
 
Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary, stated: &quot;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.&quot; 
 
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

The All Pakistan Trade Union Federation is holding a series of rallies to protest price hikes, rising unemployment, retrenchment of workers and restrictions on trade union activity. The first rally, led by Gen. Sec. Gulzar Ahmed Chaudhry, was held yesterday at the Press Club in Lahore. Further rallies are set for tomorrow in different industrial areas of the country.

Pakistan’s National Labour Centre Rallies Over Union Restrictions

A pipeline project between Chad and Cameroon headed by ExxonMobil has come under scrutiny with a study detailing abuse of workers by two contractors, TCC and Subsahara Services. US affiliate PACE and NGOs the union is working with have brought the issue to the attention of the US supermajor in ongoing talks over human and trade union rights at company worksites. The study says contract workers are not paid for certain social benefits; violations of work rules exist regarding the number of working hours; non-payment to workers who are injured is prevalent; and the firms are absent of plans regarding demobilization, professional reconversion and social reinsertion.

ExxonMobil Stands Accused of Pipeline Abuses in West Africa

Archive

Real Energy Consensus Needed, IGBCE Says

Brazil Unions Seek Asbestos Ban

BHP's Anti-Bargaining Stance Sparks Australian Protests

Korea Legalises Union Confederation

Transport and General in UK Ready for Industrial Action at Michelin

Continental Tyre Plant in Mexico gets New Life Thanks to IGBCE

BHP Must Halt Individual Job Contracts in Australia

Imerys Campaign: Unions Launch Global Website

Pakistan’s National Labour Centre Rallies Over Union Restrictions

ExxonMobil Stands Accused of Pipeline Abuses in West Africa

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