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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL_en.jpg" style="width: 110px; height: 50px;" width="390" />

	Sintracarbón at Carbones del Cerrejón is held up as a strong example of positive industrial relations, with tough collective bargaining achieving considerable protections for 4,000 direct employees at Colombia’s largest coal mines, and stable communications channels between workers and management. Sintracarbón’s fight now is over the basic rights of outsourced contract workers at the largest set of coal mines in the world, a joint venture of three multinational mining conglomerates, BHP Billiton, Xstrata and AngloAmerican.

	First adopting a policy to fight outsourcing in 2008, Sintracarbón’s initial research noted the strategic policies of multinational corporations (MNCs) to increasingly outsource employment and weaken workers’ job security, social benefits, wage levels, and ability to organise and bargain collectively.

	The research also discovered that over 50% of workers at MNCs operating in Colombia are employed through contract companies, and that these workers had considerably lower standards of employment and no collective agreements. Almost every attempt by Contract or Agency Labour (CAL) workers to reach a collective agreement in Colombia prior to 2008 had been met with mass dismissals.

	<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1203-colombia-mining.jpg" style="width: 201px; height: 135px;" width="390" /> 

	At Cerrejón, 6,000 of the total 11,000 workers are precariously employed by contractors. In the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, Sintracarbón achieved a clause stating that Carbones del Cerrejón management is “committed to ensuring respect for the unionisation of all workers, including CAL workers.”

	The first attempt to organise CAL workers, in 2010, was at the company that provides transportation to the mine workers, SOTRANS. The effort of 500 members of SINTRANS was crushed with mass dismissals and harassment.

	The second attempt was at Chaneme, a company conducting maintenance of heavy machinery. This effort was successful and 50 workers remain under a CBA as members of Sintrachaneme.

	Through Sinaltrainal, a national union, employees of food supplier Aramark won a collective agreement for 200 workers in March 2011.

	Over recent months, mechanics at EPROFQ and ASEOCOLBA also have won struggles and achieved collective agreements. In the case, of EPROFQ the convention was signed after an eight-day strike.

	ICEM affiliates at glass supplier Ross and at Prodeco have also won victories over short-term, casual employment, bringing the total to 1,560 CAL workers organised in Colombia in ICEM sectors.

Sintracarbón, Colombian Unions Make Big Strides in Organising Against Outsourcing

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	A Charter of Demands by the Coats Employees’ Union, part of the Bangladesh Garment, Textile & Leather Workers’ Federation (BGTLW), in turn affiliated to the ITGLWF, was agreed to last month after intense pressure was placed on British-based threads maker Coats by the global textile federation and its Asian regional body, the Textile Workers’ Asia Regional Organisation (TWARO).

	The agreement comes after a 13 to 29 February strike against Coats Bangladesh Ltd. in the Tejgaon Industrial Area of Dhaka, and following several earlier months of fruitless bargaining. That bargaining reached a low on 12 February when union leaders, attempting to once again negotiate with factory mangers, had their mobile telephones confiscated by bosses and were forcibly detained overnight in company offices. (Read the <a href="http://www.itglwf.org/lang/en/UnionLeadersHeldCaptivebyFactoryManagersinBangladesh.html">ITGLWF release</a> here.)

	The Charter of Demands reached includes pay upgrades in job grades that will at least lift workers’ salaries to what is considered by the BGTLWF to be the bare living wage in Bangladesh, BTK 7,000 (US$85.60) per month from a previous pitiful quarter of that.

	<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Bangladesh.png" style="width: 180px; height: 83px;" width="390" />

	The wage increase is retroactive to October 2011. In addition, BGTLW’s perseverance in this dispute won increases in a host of other areas including housing rents, lunch allowances, medical and hospitalisation betterments, and education allowances.

	The agreement also ensures that striking workers will not be retaliating against, and that salaries during the strike will be paid. The Charter also addresses contract workers, stating that they will not be retaliated against for joining the strike, and grants them first priority for permanent jobs when such positions open up.

	In a message to the ITGLWF, BGTLF General Secretary Mohammad Abu Taher expressed gratitude to both the Brussels-based federation and TWARO for its “accelerating interventions” to solve the dispute.

	“We believe that peace and tranquillity are the only elements to make an industry more productive, profitable and vibrant and management eventually understood this and signed the agreement,” stated Abu Taher.

ITGLWF Intervention with UK Firm Coats Delivers in Bangladesh

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" style="width: 100px; height: 39px;" width="390" />

	Over 8,000 trade unionists and supporters rallied in Alma, Québec, Saturday, 31 March, on behalf of locked-out workers belonging to Syndicat des Métallos d’Alma Local 9490, an affiliate of the United Steelworkers (USW). Some 780 workers at an aluminium smelter of Rio Tinto’s Alcan subsidiary have been ruthlessly locked out of their livelihoods now for 14 weeks, and the economic stranglehold Rio Tinto has on the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region of Québec is clear to all.

	Bus-loads of union militants from across Québec converged on Alma, a community of 30,000, to stand with the victimised Alma steelworkers. And the USW organised convoys and buses as well from elsewhere in Canada, including Toronto, Hamilton and other industrial cities in Ontario province.

	Some 50 international trade unionists also attended, representing workers employed at Rio Tinto or Alcan in Australia, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, US, and other nations. A day prior to the manifestation, the ICEM held its bi-annual North American regional meeting in Alma as a global signal to the 780 Alma workers that they are not alone in their struggle for fairness on the job.

	<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1204-manfred-alma.jpg" style="width: 190px; height: 143px;" width="390" />   <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1204-jyrki-alma.jpg" style="width: 190px; height: 143px;" width="390" />

	Manfred Warda, Jyrki Raina Address Rally

	The well-organised rally started with speeches at an Alma shopping mall, before a march complete with sound truck playing working-class music wound its way through the streets of the city to an amphitheatre. There, political and union leaders continued to chastise the world’s second largest resources company for delivering economic devastation to workers’ doorsteps in central Québec.

	ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda pledged that global labour will mobilise Rio Tinto workers across the globe in this struggle.

	“If the ruthless social agenda of Rio Tinto cannot be defeated here in Québec, there will be little hope that it can be stopped when others face company attacks,” Warda said. Rest assured, “we will take the indignities committed by Rio Tinto Alcan here throughout the world until this company agrees to stop the attacks against your community and your union.”

	Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), said, “If Rio Tinto wants to prosper, it cannot break the delicate balance that connects it to the community.”

	<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1204-alma-stadium.jpg" style="width: 239px; height: 159px;" width="390" />

	ICEM Vice President and USW Canadian National Director Ken Neumann had a message for the Conservative government of Stephen Harper in his country, where the federal government has turned a deaf ear to several attacks by multinationals on Canadian workers.

	“Stephen Harper clearly fell short of his task by failing to impose conditions on the sale of Alcan to Rio Tinto in 2007 and to protect jobs,” said Neumann. “For someone who is so bent on involving himself in labour relations, why doesn’t he intervene with Rio Tinto to put an end to this abhorrent lockout?”

	That lockout was brought about by Local 9490’s rightful effort to stop erosion of permanent jobs that pay a living wage of C$34-an-hour against Alcan’s labour plan, which is aimed at replacing those jobs with outsourced work that pays half that amount.

	    <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1204-alma-turk.jpg" style="width: 212px; height: 159px;" width="390" />    

	Turkish Mineworkers Expressed Solidarity for Locked-out Steelworkers

	By late afternoon on Saturday, about an hour after the final speeches were given at Parc le Festiv Alma, Rio Tinto Alcan issued a defensive statement criticising the  USW event, and saying  a “calmer climate” was necessary in order to carry on with negotiations.

	But for nearly three months – until 19 March when Québec public pressure mounted primarily because Alcan was capitalising on the lockout by selling excess hydro-electric power back to the province – the company shunned bargaining, preferring instead to operate the modern and low-cost Alma smelter at reduced capacity while waiting for global aluminium prices to rise. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4943-Negotiations-Restart-between-USW-Rio-Tinto-Alcan-in-Canadian-Lockout" type="internal">ICEM report</a> from 21 March.)

	Syndicat des Métallos Local 9490 and Alcan did return to talks for two days in March, with the help of provincial mediators, and two more days of negotiations occurred on 28-29 March. The two sides will in all likelihood meet again this week.

	But ever since the company prematurely halted negotiations and imposed the lockout on 30 December before a majority of workplace issues could even be tabled, Rio Tinto has been content to rob the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region of C$1.8 million per week in lost salaries and benefits.

	With or without a settlement to the Alma lockout, the 31 March manifestation will stand as the prelude to a global fight against Rio Tinto to resist its anti-social agenda that has become all too common everywhere it does business.

Mass March, Manifest Lifts Locked-out Steelworkers in Alma, Canada

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The Asia-Pacific Regional Materials Union Network of the ICEM held its third meeting in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on 10-11 October. The meeting was attended by 34 trade unionists from 14 unions in the cement, glass, and ceramics industries of Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, India, and the Philippines. 
 
This meeting agreed to set up a Saint Gobain Network in the Asia-Pacific Region, with affiliates in Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand joining the network. Unions in the region are currently running networks at Lafarge and Holcim in India, Korea, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.vietnam HCMC Group Photo hcm 153.JPG" width="372" height="144" alt=""/>
The meeting was also joined by union leadership from Nippon Sheet Glass (NSG) and Taiheiyo Cement of Japan, who expressed support for networking in their subsidiaries. 
 
The Vietnamese General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) and the Vietnam National Union of Building Workers (VNUBW) hosted this meeting of the Network, supported by the German Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FES). The meeting also welcomed the ICEM Secretariat and the Japanese Affiliates’ Federation (ICEM-JAF). 
 
“I am very impressed with the young and talented union representatives with research capacity and language skills in the region,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “This participation guarantees a positive future for the trade union movement.” 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.HCMC Manfred -1 hcm 180.JPG" width="214" height="160" alt=""/>
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda
ICEM Materials Industries’ Officer Phee Jungsun presented major developments and challenges in the global materials industries and profiles on multinational companies. 
 
Participants then gave country reports with pre-arranged survey details on working conditions and occupational safety and health. For the cement unions of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, performance of union activities is still difficult due to weak labour legislation. It was reported that both Lafarge and Holcim hire an increasing number of contract workers – averaging about 60% – with offers of voluntary retirement schemes to reduce permanent workers with long seniority. 
 
The meeting adopted a resolution to support contract workers at Swiss-based Holcim in India, who fight constantly for freedom of association rights. Also, support was extended to workers and unions at Lafarge in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. The establishment of a Saint Gobain Network on the national and regional level is seen to coordinate with French trade union affiliate CFDT-FCE, which heads the Saint Gobain European Works Council. This Asia-Pacific network will work alongside a newly-planned North America Saint Gobain Network and hopefully build toward creation of a global network. 
 
The meeting also received a detailed report from ICEM-JAF General Secretary Yoshio Sato on the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Sato thanked all ICEM affiliates who showed solidarity to Japanese unions by sending messages and donations.

ICEM’s Asia-Pacific Materials Sector Network Meeting Held in Vietnam 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Swiss trade union UNIA is fighting across the country to reverse the decision of Novartis to “restructure,” meaning close plants and dismiss 1,100 workers. Mass mobilisation campaigns to fight the decision are gathering momentum and wide support from regional communities, politicians, and international trade unions. 
 
The ICEM marched with 300 Novartis workers of Nyon on 4 November. The march, led by regional UNIA Industry Secretary Yves Defferrard, received extremely strong support from Nyon residents as it passed through the town centre. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1111.yves defferard unia.jpg" width="150" height="136"/>
Yves Defferrard
Many local businesses depend on the wages generated at Novartis. It is predicted 2,000 jobs in Nyon will go if the company closes the plant, ending over 90 years of drug production in Nyon. 
 
What leaves a particular sour taste is the company’s long standing emphasis on a positive social impact, portraying itself as a “carer” and “healer.” But the restructuring comes at a time of considerable profit for the firm. Novartis workers in Nyon are proud of their work, proud of the products they have discovered, developed, and produced. 
 
Management’s shock decision, announced 25 October, to close significant sections of the Nyon and Basle plants came only weeks after Novartis posted third quarter net sales up 18% to US$14.84 billion from US$12.58 billion in the same period in 2010, with net income increasing 7% to US$2.49 billion, from US$2.32 billion in 2010. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1111.icem flag at unia.jpg" width="184" height="161"/>
Novartis plans to cut 2,000 jobs internationally, with 760 at its Basle headquarters and 320 in Nyon. 
 
The ICEM Global Pharmaceutical Unions’ Network, meeting in Geneva 28 October, conveyed solidarity and support to the UNIA members at Novartis, and this message was announced at the 4 November rally. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda wrote to company CEO Joseph Jimenez communicating the anger of ICEM affiliates at the decision, and demanding good faith dialogue with UNIA. 
 
The role of local and federal politicians in the process is vital, especially as it is speculated that a major factor in management’s decision to close is an angry retort at Swiss authorities’ price cutting of pharmaceutical drugs. Even though the Swiss market represents only 1.15% of turnover for Novartis, the company management had reacted angrily to the persistence of Swiss federal councillors in this regard. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1111.unia flag.jpg" width="221" height="144"/>
UNIA achieved a small victory on 3 November in bargaining by pressuring management to publish a detailed audit report for the Nyon site, as figures put forward by the company are questionable. Novartis moved immediately to bring in a high level financial expert from the US to present the numbers. 
 
The next major mobilisation is planned for 12 November in Nyon, if the company continues to pursue its irresponsible redundancy plan. 
 
Novartis Chief Executive Daniel Vasella is the highest paid person in Switzerland, with an annual salary of CHF 40 million. 
 
Sign <a href="http://www.unia.ch/Novartis.6010.0.html?&L=1">UNIA’s petition</a> against the Novartis job cuts here.

Swiss Pharma Workers Mobilise Against Novartis Plant Closings

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Negotiations to end the eight-week strike by 10,000 workers of the PT Freeport Indonesia Workers’ Union (SP KEP SPSI) at Freeport-McMoRan’s Papuan mine complex called Grasberg got back on track today. But union and management at the world’s largest recoverable gold and copper deposit are far apart. 
 
Production at the 175,000-ton per day operation has completely ceased due to a road blockade by strikers and family members. The blockade has prevented the US-based company from getting construction crews to a set of slurry pipelines that were ruptured by vandals. 
 
The pipelines carry gold and copper concentrate 114 kilometres from the Grasberg mine 4,200 metres high in the Sudirman Range to the port city of Timika, where today’s bi-lateral talks are being held. A diesel fuel line running from the Timika airport up to the mine also has been slashed. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1111.grasberg reuters photo.jpg" width="288" height="160"/>
Last week an ICEM-led global trade union delegation met separately with both the union and mine managers doing the bargaining. The delegation successfully convinced the union (see <a href="/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/4747-Global-Trade-Union-Delegation-Urges-Restraint-Good-Faith-Talks-to-Resolve-Grasberg-Mine-Strike" type="internal">ICEM news release</a>) to return to talks, while PT Freeport Indonesia tried unsuccessfully to get the ICEM team to have SP KEP SPSI lift the blockade.  
 
The company said it was stockpiling ore with some 3,000 temporary workers and contractors’ employees, which is a violation of Indonesian labour law. The ICEM met as well with Indonesian ministry officials and an MP from Papua. In another meeting with a commissioner of the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights, the delegation was told the strikers are within their rights to engage in strike activity at the blockade points. 
 
But the situation is tense at Miles 27 and 28, the points near Timika were the blockade is in force. Twice last week local police issued 24-hour ultimatums for the strikers and their families to move, or be met with police force. Both times the warnings passed and nothing occurred. The ICEM delegation was told by multiple sources, including members of the union committee, that workers will not be moved and will fight in resistance. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1111.indo mile 28.jpg" width="241" height="160"/>
Mile 28 Blockade
On Friday, 4 November, police did approach the blockade. Skirmishes broke out and police fired over the heads of strikers before retreating. The stand-off is compounded by mass media reports last week that Freeport-McMoRan was subsidizing local police in the amount of US$14 million for mine security. 
 
When confronted with this by the ICEM, management said it has been completely transparent on these costs and that figure was for 2010. Managers said 2011 security payments to public law enforcement have yet to be calculated. They also said 80% of such costs are for in-kind services, including all-terrain vehicles, food, fuel and other necessities for police. 
 
On 1 November, ICEM North American affiliate United Steelworkers (USW) lodged a complaint with the US Department of Justice over such payments being illegal under America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (The <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/usw%20fcpa%20freeport%201%20Nov%202011.pdf " type="internal">USW letter</a> can be seen here.) 
In Timika, in Indonesia’s eastern-most Papua province, the two sides are wide apart. When bargaining halted on 27 October, the company had increased a prior 25% wage offer first to 28% and then to 30%. The union is seeking an average hourly wage of US$7.50, which is some 250% above the current rate US$2.13 for non-staff miners and US3.54 for staff. Some seven other issues also need to be negotiated, including educational assistance, dependent care, housing loans and assistant, and aspects to a savings plan programme. 
 
The PT Freeport Indonesia Workers’ Union is supporting the 10,000 strikers and their families with five mass open-air feeding kitchens some 500 metres in distance. But supplies are running short and the union’s Solidarity Fund is low. This week the ICEM will put a call out to affiliates to replenish that fund in order that the union can continue nourishing strikers and their families.

Grasberg Talks Resume, But Tensions High in Papua, Indonesia

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM North American affiliate, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), issued a report on 25 October accusing Massey Energy and its managers of “industrial homicide” in the 5 April 2010 explosion that killed 29 non-union miners at Upper Big Branch in the state of West Virginia. 
 
In the 90-page report, the UMWA said that Massey management “deliberately flouted” well-established safety and health laws in the US even after the mine was cited multiple times for violations by state and federal agencies. 
 
The union cites many factors throughout the report that led to the deadly explosion, but concludes in stating “there is only one source for all of them: a rogue corporation, acting without real regard for mine safety and health laws and regulations, that established a physical working environment that can only be described as a bomb waiting to go off.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1107.boilermakers%20cecil%20roberts.jpg" width="327" height="161"/>
The full UMWA report, called “<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/134334-Upper-Big-Branch.pdf">Industrial Homicide</a>,” can be accessed here.  
 
The UMWA demands criminal prosecution for some 18 Massey Energy managers, including CEO Don Blankenship, who retired in December 2010, two months before the thermal coal company was sold to Alpha Natural Resources for US$8.5 billion. The report also recommends over a dozen changes in both state and US federal mine safety laws, mainly concerning tougher penalties on deviant mine operators and stronger protections for whistleblowers who report safety infractions. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/KaneDanUmwa.jpg" width="120" height="172"/>
Dan Kane
“Don Blankenship knew exactly what was going on at that mine,” said UMWA President Cecil Roberts. “He got production reports several times a day. He saw the levels of safety citations and (safety) orders going up. But instead of taking the needed steps to correct the problems, they just kept on running coal.” 
 
Added UMWA Secretary-Treasurer and ICEM Executive Committee Member Dan Kane: “It is unconscionable in the 21st Century for a mine to be operated in the manner that Upper Big Branch was.” 
 
A <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/UMW%20UBB%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf " type="internal">fact sheet</a> on the Massey’s horrid Upper Big Branch mine disaster of April 2010 is here.

Massey US Coal Mine Deaths Termed ‘Industrial Homicide’ by UMWA

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The Norwegian trade union Fellesforbundet has announced that Norway, in cooperation with the European Union, has created a “Fund for Decent Work and Tripartite Dialogue” targeted for 12 Eastern Europe and Mediterranean countries. The Norwegian Financial Mechanism is calling for applicants by social partners in the European Economic Area, with a deadline for applying of 31 March 2012. 
 
Fellesforbundet put the call out through the European Mine, Chemical, Energy Workers’ Federation (EMCEF) and <a href="http://emcef.org/database/uload/pdf/PA22call-20111020.pdf">details of the project</a> can be found here.  
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NorwayFellesforbundet.gif" width="325" height="70" alt=""/>
Innovation Norway, the sponsoring agent, said the total available for the 12 states is €8 million, and a grant will cover 90% of approved project costs, and range from €20,000-40,000 per project. The sponsor is seeking project proposals that promote decent work and/or tripartite dialogue; bilateral activities based but not mandated on the Norwegian model; partnership building between social partners; and other suggested proposals. 
 
Trade unions and employer organisations are encouraged to apply, as are public authorities and entities or social partnerships at the national, regional, or local level. Further details from <a href="http://emcef.org/database/uload/pdf/NorwegianFund20111020.ppt ">Innovation Norway</a> can be found here. 
 
The 12 countries covered under the call include: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Funding is available for each.

Norway Seeks East Europe Proposals for ‘Decent Wage, Tripartite Dialogue’ Fund

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda conveyed the condolences of the organisation to its Turkish affiliates following the deadly earthquake that hit eastern Turkey on 23 October. The 7.2 magnitude quake killed at least 530 people, injured over 1,600, and destroyed well over 2,000 buildings. 
 
Warda expressed deep regret for the terrible events, especially in Van province and Ercis county, which bore the brunt of the quake, “On this occasion on behalf of the ICEM family which represents 20 million workers around the world, I convey condolences and best wishes to the people of Turkey, and wish speedy recovery for those who are injured”. 
 
ICEM affiliates and supporters are urged to donate to international humanitarian agencies in their own country, towards much needed recovery efforts. Hundreds of families rendered homeless by the quake now have their situation worsened by bad weather, including heavy snow and continued aftershocks.

ICEM Saddened by Disastrous Turkey Earthquake

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN

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