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 2025-2029

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

Press

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The main points at the ICEM Latin American and Caribbean Regional Conference, held on 27 and 28 June in Salvador, Brazil, were presentations on the different industrial sectors and regional networks, on Contract and Agency Labour, and on women issues. 
 
The BASF South American network was a particular highlight. The network has regular meetings at regional level, and all its costs are borne by BASF. Also, Elena Gutierrez from ICEM affiliate SITRAPEQUIA in Costa Rica reported on the workshop on HIV/AIDS and women workers held in May in Sao Paulo. 
<img height="236" alt="" src="" width="236" />
Re-elected ICEM Vice President Sergio Novais 
from CNQ/CUT Brazil
A new and expanded regional committee was elected which includes all countries and industries, as well as 30% women members. Certain amendments to the regional statutes were also approved. The region welcomed the prospect of new energy, women's and mining projects, as well as the continuation and expansion of the work on networks. Sergio Novais, CNQ/CUT of Brazil was re-elected as regional vice president. 
The ICEM regional conference was preceded by the regional Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) conference on 25 and 26 June, also in Salvador, organised with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES). The conference was attended by some 60 representatives from ICEM affiliates in Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil. 
<img height="142" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The main conclusions of that meeting included that: 
&bull; a company's core functions must not be outsourced; 
&bull; the number of contract workers should be limited, and the terms of their contracts have to be limited; 
&bull; trade unions must be consulted in contracts that affect permanent workers' terms and conditions; 
&bull; contract workers should have the same terms and conditions as permanent workers; 
&bull; outsourcing must not lead to redundancies of permanent workers; 
&bull; contract workers must not finish work started by a permanent worker; 
&bull; collective agreements must include mechanisms for trade unions to monitor the use of contract workers; 
&bull; international organisations such as ILO, OECD, Global Compact, the Interamerican Court can be called for issues relating to Contract and Agency Labour; 
&bull; trade union representation of contract workers in the main company must be guaranteed; 
&bull; CAL must be included in networks, global agreements and social dialogue, and 
&bull; ICEM should launch a campaign against outsourcing permanent jobs.

ICEM Latin American and Caribbean Regional Conference held in Salvador, Brazil

<img height="40" src="" width="100" alt="" />
China's second worst coal mine disaster in modern history came on 17 August 2007, when 181 miners were trapped and died inside two mines in the Shandong Province. The tragedy was the result of both flash flooding and negligence by privately-owned Huayuan Mining Co. when a levee broke on the nearby Wenhe River. 
 
Two smaller mines in the same area were evacuated due to heavy rains near the town of Xintai, in this eastern Chinese province. But Huayuan company officials kept mining operations going in crowded mine shafts, some 860 metres below the surface. A total of 584 miners managed to escape the flash flooding, after a 50-metre wide gap in the levee gave way adjacent to the mine. 
<img height="88" src="" width="200" alt="" />
It is believed this mine disaster only trails a February 2005 gas explosion at the Sunjiawan coal mine in Liaoning Province, killing 214 miners, as China's worst mining tragedy. 
 
In the days following the Huayuan coal mine disaster, at least three other mining accidents in China claimed the lives of another 22 miners. 
 
On 23 August, a water break at a coal mine in Panzhihua city, in the south-western province of Sichuan, drowned eight miners. A gas explosion on 24 August at the Xinglong Mine in Chongqing claimed the lives of seven miners, while 18 others escaped. 
<img height="101" src="" width="100" alt="" />
And on 25 August, another gas blast killed seven. That occurred at the Liyuan coal mine in Huolin city, Inner Mongolia. The Liyuan mine was undergoing reconstruction and should not have been producing coal. 
 
China's State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) Director Li Yizhong has targeted closure of another 1,000 small mines by the end of the year, bringing up to 10,000 the number of such mines officially closed. These mines are defined as producing less than 30,000 tonnes per year, and are generally considered as unsafe or operating illegally. 
 
In contrast, the Huayuan mine in Shandong Province, which was state-owned until 2004, produces between 600,000 and 700,000 tonnes of coal per annum.

Floods Kill 181 in China&#039;s Second Most Deadly Mine Disaster

<img height="40" src="" width="100" alt="" />
Occupational health and safety, as well as environmental protection, are fundamental areas of work for the chemical industry. It is with this in mind that the ICEM&rsquo;s German affiliate IGBCE, already in August 1987, reached an agreement with German Chemical Employers&rsquo; Federation BAVC on protection of the environment. 
 
Through the agreement, GIBUCI (Joint Initiative for Keeping Works Council Members Informed about Environmental Protection in the Chemical Industry - www.gibuci.de) was born, the first common mechanism of social dialogue in the industry. It was the partner&rsquo;s conviction that co-operation between workers and trade unions would lead to a better safeguarding of the environment. 
 
So far, about 4,000 works council members have been trained through GIBUCI on environmental issues, including Responsible Care, laws on environmental issues, industrial safety, water protection, and environmental management. 
<img height="143" src="" width="164" alt="" />
GIBUCI - Commitment for Environment 
GIBUCI was celebrated and evaluated, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary in Berlin, on 23 August 2007, in the presence of about 150 participants, representing the social partners. Participants included representatives from IGBCE and BAVC, but also from companies. A number of politicians were also present. The ICEM was represented by its Chemicals and Rubber Industry Officer Kemal &Ouml;zkan. 
 
Hubertus Schmoldt, IGBCE President and Vice President of ICEM, in his speech, called the agreement &ldquo;a milestone&rdquo; for German industry and social history, and said &ldquo;GIBUCI has showed that, through partnerships and a trusted co-operation effort, important things can be realised.&rdquo; He added that &ldquo;co-operation between works councils and managements on environmental protection is a cornerstone for the social dialogue in the chemical industry.&rdquo;

GIBUCI, 20-year Old Social Dialogue in German Chemical Industry, Celebrated and Evaluated

The 86-day strike by members of the United Steelworkers (USW) at 12 Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. plants in the US ended 29 December, after rubber workers voted to approve a new accord at America&rsquo;s biggest tyre producer by a two-to-one margin. USW announced yesterday that 10,000 of 14,000 striking union members voted in balloting, and that approval of the new three-year labour agreement was gained by a majority of members at all 12 branch locals.
<img height="66" alt="" src="" width="120" />
Some 500 Canadian USW members at four rubber accessory plants in the province of Ontario are voting on a separate contract proposal. Both the US and Canadian Goodyear workers have been on strike since 5 October 2006. 
 
&quot;It took a strike, but we achieved a fair and equitable contract that protects quality health care for active and retired members,&rdquo; said USW Executive Vice President Ron Hoover. &quot;And by winning major capital investment expenditures, it secures our jobs for the future.&quot; 

The strike in the US centered on heath care coverage and job security. USW won a guarantee from Goodyear that it would commit US$550 million in capitalisation investments at the 12 plants over the next three years. 

The union also pushed Goodyear in week-long talks beginning on 19 December to increase a health care trust fund for active workers and retirees. The US-based company agreed to place US$1 billion in a Voluntary Employees&rsquo; Beneficiary Association, from which medical and prescription drug benefits for current and future retirees will come. Future contributions into this fund will include diverted cost-of-living payments and profit-sharing plants. 
During the strike, Goodyear announced that it would close a tyre plant in Tyler, Texas, in 2007, thus making 1,100 workers redundant. USW and Goodyear agreed in the December talks that closure would occur no sooner than 2008, and the union won sizeable retirement buy-outs, enhanced severance packages, and medical coverage for Texas workers for a full two years beyond closure of the private-label tyre operation. It also won a guarantee that future manufacture of such tyres will be done in a plant that had been on strike. 
<img height="100" src="" width="100" alt="" />
The 12-week strike was marked by the company circumventing the union and appealing directly to USW members to abandon the walk-out and return to work. But there were few defections among the nearly 15,000 strikers, and that fact no doubt forced Goodyear to compromise its original demands. 

&ldquo;The credit really belongs to our members and their families, whose solidarity prevented the company from short-changing them, despite all of its attempts,&rdquo; stated USW President Leo Gerard. 
 
This week&rsquo;s contract ratification means workers will return to work on 2 January at both tyre and engineered rubber product plants in Akron, Ohio; St. Marys, Ohio; Marysville, Ohio; Gadsden, Alabama; Buffalo, New York; Lincoln, Nebraska; Topeka, Kansas; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Danville, Virginia; Tyler, Texas; Sun Prairie, Wisconsin; and, Union City, Tennessee.

USW Ends US Goodyear Strike after Membership Vote Approval

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN N° 18

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
ICEM affiliate FUB/FS, Brazilian rubber workers union, invited delegates from several Latin American rubber workers&rsquo; unions to the recent conference of FUTINAL (Frente &Uacute;nico de Los Trabajadores en Las Ind&uacute;strias de Neum&aacute;ticos y Afines de Latinoamerica) at Praia Grande/Sao Paulo, from 5 to 7 December 2007. 
 
Roughly 100 delegates, mostly from ICEM affiliates, including from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and the USA held discussions,&nbsp;among other things&nbsp;on the need to set up more trade union networks for multinational companies. The USW explained&nbsp;the situation surrounding the Goodyear strike in the US and Michael Wolters, ICEM Rubber Industry Officer, reported on the last developments in the rubber sector as well as on the main strategies by the major global tire companies. 
<img height="106" alt="" src="" width="380" />
Unions organising Continental AG plants in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and USA, used the time to coordinate their ideas and activities for the coming International Action Day for all Continental tyre unions from the western hemisphere (13 December 2006) 
 
At the end of the conference, an action plan was adopted for future work. 
<a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/0612pptMichaelSaoPaulo.ppt">Click here for the ICEM's Presentation at the conference</a>

Latin American Rubber Workers Hold Conference

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
In Iran, Mansour Osanloo was arrested again, on 19 November. Osanloo is the head of the trade union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company,. 
 
He was detained outside his home, by plain-clothed security officials, a day before he was summoned to appear in court. Officials beat him and forced him, at gunpoint, into a car. Osanloo is said to be held at the Evin Prison, where he may be in need of urgent medical treatment. He had had eye-surgery only days before he was detained, the result of injuries suffered during his previous arrest, earlier this year. 
<img height="56" alt="" src="" width="100" />
On 26 November, Osanloo appeared before an Iranian court, in the absence of his lawyer. No specific charges were cited, however. Osanloo had been released in August 2006, after an international campaign led by the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF). See: <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/1661-Iranian-Bus-Drivers-Given-Global-Union-Support">/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/1661-Iranian-Bus-Drivers-Given-Global-Union-Support</a>. 
 
According to a press communiqu&eacute; by the Tehran union, also known as Sherkat-e Vahed, three other unionists were also arrested on 3 December: Seyyed Davoud Razavi and Abdolreza Taraazi, members of the Executive Board, and Gholamreza Gholam-Hosseini, a union activist. The three men were detained as they were distributing leaflets. The first two were released later the same day. Gholamreza Gholam-Hosseini was only released this weekend. 
 
The three men are among the 50 bus workers that are currently still without pay since a January 2006 strike. In July, the ITF and the ITUC already lodged a formal protest before the ILO over Osanloo&rsquo;s initial detention, and over the crackdown on the union Sherkat-e Vahed.
<img height="92" alt="" src="" width="200" />
The ITF has called the re-arrest an &ldquo;outrageous attempt to crush both a brave individual and all attempts to assert basic trade union rights in the country.&rdquo; The ICEM fully supports the call of the ITF to continue to apply pressure on Iranian authorities over human and labour rights. 
 
For more information, including the possibility to take action, please click here: 
<a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/solidarity/Osanloo.cfm">http://www.itfglobal.org/solidarity/Osanloo.cfm</a>.&nbsp;

President of Tehran Bus Company Union Arrested Again

<img height="40" src="" width="100" alt="" />
The paper sector caucus for eastern Canada of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers (CEP) Union has resolved to hold intact the pattern sector labour agreement without granting concessions to employers. Meeting in Montreal on 4-5 December, local branch leaders of the CEP&rsquo;s paper industry sector adopted a strong anti-concession stand to preserve the current agreement. 
 
&ldquo;Our local union leaders are telling us to draw a line in the sand,&rdquo; said CEP President Dave Coles. &ldquo;And that is exactly what we intend to do. I will be in touch with the major players in the (paper) sector, including Abitibi Consolidated and Bowater, to let them know we have no intention of negotiating concessions to our existing wages and benefits.&rdquo; 
<img height="102" src="" width="100" alt="" />
The CEP will instead call on forestry companies to join it in its pronounced campaign before the federal government, calling for real and meaningful answers to Canada&rsquo;s forest products crisis, a crisis that finds the government short on ideas, and lacking in economic initiatives to stem both the mass job losses and resulting rural destruction. 
 
Some 7,000 CEP members have lost their jobs over the past two years, with some 40 full or partial mill closures occurring in that period. 
 
Coles said that the wage and benefit portion of operation costs in any given mill is among the lowest of cost items faced by employers. &ldquo;We have had more than one employer tell us we could work for nothing and he would still close his mill because the union contract was not the problem,&rdquo; said the CEP&rsquo;s president. 
<img height="92" src="" width="200" alt="" />
CEP has engaged a national campaign inside Canada, calling on the federal government to adopt a national forest strategy. Stated goals are money for research and development, creation of alternate end uses for fibre resources, investment in initiatives to ensure sustainability of resources, and accelerated adjustment programmes for workers, their families, and the communities at-large, which have been the hardest hit by this national crisis. 
 
The CEP is currently in the middle of a five-year labour accord with pulp and paper manufacturers operating in the eastern half of Canada, covering some 25,000 paperworkers.

CEP Says ‘No’ to Weakening of Paper Sector Pact in Eastern Canada

Estonian trade unions scored a major victory last week when the country&rsquo;s Parliament accepted all revisions made by the unions in the proposed Employees&rsquo; Representatives&rsquo; Act. The legislation, if passed, would have severely weakened trade union protections, including exclusion of union stewards from shop-floor information and consultation processes, and stripping union representatives from unfair dismissal protections. 
 
Instead, during a second reading of the bill on 6 December, the unions successfully inserted language into the proposed new statute calling for shop stewards to be formally characterised as &ldquo;employees&rsquo; representatives,&rdquo; with full rights and guarantees, and they must be included in all information and consultation matters over workplace or worker concerns. 
<img height="150" alt="" src="" width="150" />
Additionally, amendments to the law will prohibit shop stewards from being discriminated against, and they will retain paid time in the performance of their duties. 
 
A third and final reading of the bill will take place on 13 December, and since procedure disallows further amendments to it, it is certain to be passed this week. The law will take effect in Estonia on 1 February 2007. 
 
Harri Taliga, President of the Estonian national labour centre EAKL, said the statute now conforms to ILO Convention 135, the Workers&rsquo; Representatives Convention. He said that although the country&rsquo;s labour unions are not entirely happy with the new law, the success they had in rolling back the draconian aspects of the bill is commendable. 
<img height="86" alt="" src="" width="106" />
Estonian trade unions had the help of Industrianst&auml;llda I Nordic (Nordic IN), the five-nation trade union federation of chemical, energy, paper, and metal unions, in mounting a campaign against the worst provisions in the bill. &ldquo;This victory is a result of systematic and intransigent work by the Estonian trade unions,&rdquo; said Nordic IN General Secretary Jyrki Raina, who also credited an international solidarity campaign, as well as timely and expert help from the ILO in convincing parliamentarians to adopt the pro-worker amendments.

Estonian Unions Turn Back Anti-Worker Revisions to Country’s Labour Code

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
ICEM Australian affiliate National Union of Workers (NUW) informed the ICEM that their dispute with French Materials multinational Saint-Gobain is over. Workers in Australia had been on strike at two Saint-Gobain Abrasives Pty. Ltd sites in the Sydney area, Lidcombe and Wetherill Park. 
 
The company backed down from its original agenda, when it refused to negotiate with the NUW, and, instead, wanted to implement a provision of the regressive WorkChoices law to offer individual contracts. Saint-Gobain has now reached an in-principle agreement with the NUW on a new enterprise agreement. 
<img height="50" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Saint-Gobain had also illegally terminated the jobs of two NUW delegates. The two workers, Jeff Gearin and Tony Seymour, were both reinstated. 
 
The ICEM and its French affiliates pressed senior leaders of the company to step in to get Australian managers to respect freedom of association and collective bargaining. The NUW expressed, in its letter to the ICEM, sincere gratitude for the assistance, including from the French trade unions, CGT Verre C&eacute;ramique, F&eacute;d&eacute;chimie CGT-FO and FCE-CFDT.

ICEM, French Unions’ Pressure Helps Moving Saint-Gobain Away from Howard Agenda in Australia

Archive

ICEM Latin American and Caribbean Regional Conference held in Salvador, Brazil

Floods Kill 181 in China's Second Most Deadly Mine Disaster

GIBUCI, 20-year Old Social Dialogue in German Chemical Industry, Celebrated and Evaluated

USW Ends US Goodyear Strike after Membership Vote Approval

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN N° 18

Latin American Rubber Workers Hold Conference

President of Tehran Bus Company Union Arrested Again

CEP Says ‘No’ to Weakening of Paper Sector Pact in Eastern Canada

Estonian Unions Turn Back Anti-Worker Revisions to Country’s Labour Code

ICEM, French Unions’ Pressure Helps Moving Saint-Gobain Away from Howard Agenda in Australia

About IndustriALL

Follow us

Contact us