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Press

Krasimir Krastev 
President 
National Labour Federation of Chemistry and Industry 
1, Macedonia Square 
Sofia 1000 
BULGARIA 
 
Brussels, 24 May 2006 
 
 
Dear Brother Krasimir, 
 
The 20-million-member ICEM has learned of your Trade Union’s participation in a national demonstration in Bulgaria on 30 May 2006. 
 
We understand this protest to be over lack of responsible dialogue on the part of the government of Bulgaria and employers to address the real income needs of Bulgarians. We also understand the protest to be over prohibitions that still prevent workers to engage in strikes, a constitutional right in Bulgaria, and also limitations to all citizens of Bulgaria of health care, energy and transport services, and telecommunications. 
 
On behalf of our 389 Trade Union affiliates in 122 countries, the ICEM fully endorses and supports this protest and national demonstration on 30 May. We also encourage workers across all of Bulgaria to stand with the Trade Unions of your country on this day of meaningful assembly to ensure real increases in wage levels are met, as well as workers’ rights and heightened living standards are realized. 
 
As always, the ICEM stands ready to assist your Trade Union in any way possible to meet its important agenda on behalf of Bulgarian workers. 
 
Fraternally, 
 
Fred Higgs 
General Secretary

ICEM support letter National Labour Federation of Chemistry and Industry

Click <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0511drugtesting.ppt" type="internal">here</a> for an ICEM Powerpoint presentation on Drug Testing in and around the workplace.
The presentation offers an international overview on current regulations and practices in the area of work related drug testing. It discusses, amongst others things, the different rules and legislations that apply, providing a large number of country overviews. It also takes a look at the ILO's position on the subject and, towards the end, talks about the role of civil society. 
The presentation was made in October 2005 at a Special Energy Conference, organised by the CEP, ICEM affiliate in Canada, in Vancouver.

ICEM Powerpoint presentation on Drug Testing

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South Korea’s business-oriented government has set its agenda for industrial relations reform, including weakening the regulations on use of irregular, or contract and agency workers. 
The ruling Uri Party has defined 24 issues that are contained in four bills now in Parliament. The proposed legislation will meet a crucial test in an extraordinary session of Parliament scheduled for February. The reforms, if passed, would allow multiple unions on a jobsite, give employers the right to use temporary workers during strikes, and grant bosses longer time periods for contract and agency workers. 
The government on 26 October erroneously reported that the number of non-regular workers this year over last decreased to 5.03 million, or 33.6% of the Korean workforce. Two days later it retracted those statistics and said the figure, in fact, was nearly a half-million workers more—5.48 million, or 36.6% of the workforce. The number of irregular workers this year had grown by 90,000 over 2004.

Fate of Contract Labourers Before South Korea’s Parliament

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Members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union (EPMU) of New Zealand staged a two-day strike on 7-8 November at Carter Holt Harvey’s (CHH) Kinleith pulp and paper mill. 
The strike by the mill’s 270 production workers was over CHH’s refusal to meet the country’s recognised wage standard this year of 5%, and a demand by the company to cut annual leave time for shift workers. EPMU and CHH were scheduled to resume talks this week. 
CHH is now 70% owned by Graeme Hart’s Rank Group Investments, an Auckland-based trader that has a NZ$3.3 billion hostile bid in play for the company. US-based International Paper Co. has divested its 50.3% stake in CHH to Hart.

New Zealand Workers Strike Carter Holt Harvey’s Kinleith Mill

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Heavy-handed tactics by management of Stora Enso ended an 11-day strike by workers at a newsprint and publications mill in Gent, Belgium, 8 November. 
Local managers at the company’s Langerbrugge paper mill refused any honest discussions on workplace issues, and succeeded only in placing 330 angry and victimized workers back on paper machines and other equipment. 
ICEM Belgian affiliate ABBV-FGTB, though not the largest union in the mill, led the strike for better pay and dignity on the job. Fifty-six percent of workers voted to continue the strike on 8 November, but a rule called for at least 60% strike approval if the walkout was to continue.

Stora Enso Managers Break Belgian Paper Strike

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A 12-day hunger strike by five members of Colombian oil workers’ union Sindical Obrera de la Industria Del Petroleo (USO) ended 3 November. 
The hunger strikers ended their fast after winning assurances from the archbishop of Cartagena and the governor of Bolivár state that they would present a public proposition to the national government to prohibit privatisation of state-run Ecopetrol’s oil refinery in Cartagena. Archbishop Jorge Enrique Giménez and Gov. Libardo Simancas have committed to present the plan within 30 days. 
The Uribe government has plans to sell 51% of Colombia’s second largest oil refinery. The hunger strikers of USO, which solely represents Ecopetrol workers in Colombia, included Rodolfo Vecino, Hernando Meneses, Rafael Cabarcas, Édgar Mojica, and Jorge Ortega.

Hunger Strike in Colombia Over Refinery Privatisation Ends

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ICEM affiliate National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) won a labour court ruling late last month against Continental Tyre. The court ruled the company must reinstate 40 workers who were retrenched at a Port Elizabeth factory in July. 
The unilateral decision by the company to curtail weekend shift operations and manpower in some areas of the plant last summer brought ICEM intervention with the German Works Council of Continental. 
In a separate decision also issued in late October, a South African Labour Department inspector determined that Continental violated the Employment Equity Act that seeks to correct racial imbalances left over from the apartheid era. The inspector found that Continental’s policies have failed to assimilate blacks and whites into common work practices. The Port Elizabeth tyre factory employs 1,200. 
Meanwhile in Germany, IGBCE has won a year’s reprieve for 500 Continental Tyre workers at the Stücken plant in Hannover. The plant was scheduled to close at the end of 2006, but ICEM’s German affiliate convinced the company to keep the plant operating until December 2007.

NUMSA Wins Court Ruling in Continental Tyre Dispute

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A four-hour general strike across Italy is scheduled for 25 November in protest to the Berlusconi government’s proposed 2006 budget. 
All three major trade union federations—CGIL, CISL and UIL, numbering 11.2 million workers—have called for the strike.
The Berlusconi budget, which must be approved by Parliament by year’s end, calls for US$24 billion in spending cuts, plus regressive revenue-raising measures. Among the proposed cuts are US$2.4 billion in social security costs that companies now must pay for the welfare of workers.

Italy Poised for General Strike on 25 November

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Workers at Mauritanian contractor El Majabaat El Koubra Tours (MKT) remain on strike due to the oil services firm’s sacking of union activists. 
The Energy and Petroleum Workers’ Union (CGTM) of Mauritania conducted a march and demonstration against MKT on behalf of the strikers on 18 November in the capital city of Nouakchott. The event drew over 1,000 protestors. 
The ICEM brought the dispute to international attention and on the day of the rally, MKT, a transport and logistic provider to Australian-based Woodside Petroleum, directed a four-page letter to the global union federation. The company admitted to the firings, but failed to justify reasons why the workers were sacked. 
In early October, MKT and the union reached a protocol agreement over terms, which included union elections for workers. But within days, the company sacked 16 workers, provoking the start of the strike on 14 October. A day later in efforts to reconcile the dispute, MKT agreed to take back ten workers, but not six others who were counted on by fellow workers to stand for election to union positions. 
The ICEM will continue to press MKT and Woodside for justice and recognition of legitimate trade union rights.

Contract Service Workers Remain on Strike in Mauritania

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Protests in Thailand against contract and agency labour continue in efforts to amend the New Labor Protection Act of 1998, which disproportionably created a mass of contract workers that possess no rights and no direct employee-employer relationship with the actual companies for which they work. 
On 20 November, 1,000 workers protested in front of Government House in Bangkok and, on 24 November, a similar protest in front of the Labour Ministry in the Dindaeng section of Bangkok occurred when Prime Minister Thaskin Sinawatra visited the ministry. This latter rally, attended by 500, called attention to Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s misdirected decision to shift contract workers in its rubber stock and warehouse operations from its own employment rolls to a contract agency following months of pressure by the ICEM. 
The two protests were preceded by a forum sponsored by the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee entitled “An Unjust Labour Contract: Stop Contract Labour System and Poverty.”

Thai Workers Protest to Government on Contract and Agency Labour

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