English

Español

Français

Русский

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 2021-2025

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

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

Ukrainian nuclear workers' wages have been paid in full for the past three months, and reimbursement of the wage backlog owed to them is about to get under way. 
 
Alexander Jurkin, President of the nuclear workers' union ATU, confirmed this to ICEM UPDATE today. 
 
The back pay owed to Ukrainian nuclear workers is put at over 15 million US dollars. This March, the union threatened an indefinite strike at Chernobyl and Ukraine's four other nuclear power stations unless measures were taken to pay this debt. As a result, Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma ordered the government to settle the dispute and put the country's debt-ridden energy sector back on a sound financial footing. 
 
Jurkin had further talks this Monday with Deputy Prime Minister V. Kurachenko, at which it was agreed that the National Bank would provide the security for new private bank loans to the Ukrainian energy ministry. These funds will be used to pay off the outstanding wage debt. 
 
Jurkin is now in Brussels for the Executive Committee meeting of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the ATU is affiliated. This morning, his union confirmed that the agreed process is getting under way. A planned protest march on Kiev has therefore been cancelled. 
 
"I told the government exactly where I would be this week, that I would be in meetings with our International, and that the situation must not deteriorate again in the meantime," Jurkin commented this morning. "The government took the point." 
 
The ICEM had organised strong international backing for the Ukrainian nuclear workers' campaign. 
 
"This is an important victory for trade unionism in Ukraine and beyond," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe emphasised. "In many transitional economies, the scandal of unpaid wages has driven workers and their families into deepest poverty. The Ukrainian nuclear workers, through their strong but responsible campaign, have secured a repayment plan for what they are owed. The ICEM will be watching to see that this promise is kept. And we will continue to press the governments and employers of Ukraine, Russia and other countries to ensure that all workers receive - in full and on time - the wages that are rightfully theirs."

Ukrainian Nuclear Wages Paid

Nigerian oilworkers may pull out of the country's oil-producing region unless steps are taken immediately to ensure their safety. 
 
That is the warning from oilworkers' union PENGASSAN, which at the global level is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions. 
 
The union gave Nigeria's brand-new democratically elected government one month to tackle the root causes of violence in the oil-producing areas. Otherwise, oilworkers may stop work and move to other parts of the country. 
 
Communities in the oil-rich Niger Delta say they have borne the negative effects of oil extraction, such as the pollution of fishing grounds, without reaping any of the benefits. Dissent in these areas was severely repressed by Nigeria's military dictatorship. The frustrations that this has produced, added to ethnic tensions, have fuelled violence in which oilworkers are frequently targeted. 
 
PENGASSAN's National Executive Committee was meeting today in Warri, at the heart of the troubled oil-producing region, to decide further action. 
 
The union's President Shina Luwoye emphasised that PENGASSAN will not leave the area for as long as its members continue working there. However, he warned that oilworkers would no longer put up with being the targets of violence. 
 
"Apparently, the safety of our members can no longer be guaranteed, as continued cases of arson, tribal killings, hijacks and hostages have threatened both the safety and the security of jobs, personnel and families," Luwoye said. "In the last three months, for example, operations in Shell, Chevron, Mobil and Agip were most times below 50 per cent of available capacity." 
 
He said Mobil workers had been reportedly locked out and abducted by community protesters this May, and that seven Chevron staff may have been killed in Warri earlier this year. Two Shell staff had "sustained gun wounds from a shoot-out between soldiers and aggrieved youths in the Western division of the company." There had also been "cases of arson against facilities and community assistance projects of Chevron, Elf and [national oil utility] SPDC." 
 
Luwoye said the new government should give high priority to a "legislative and economic framework for the permanent solution of the Niger Delta crisis." It should also implement "feasible economic and social development initiatives and projects for the Niger Delta", including "integrated and sustainable agricultural development." Consideration should be given to establishing a university in Bayelsa state. 
 
Meanwhile, Luwoye insisted, the new government should "immediately set up dialogue and arbitration processes to resolve all conflicts and guarantee immediate restoration of law and order in the Niger Delta." In the longer term, "the importance of true federalism" for Nigeria "can never be overstressed," Luwoye said.

Nigerian Oilworkers Warn New Government : End Violence Or We Leave

Australian affiliate CFMEU strongly opposes the Howard government’s plan to dissolve the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission in favour of a stripped-down ministerial advisory panel. The tripartite NOHSC coordinates campaigns to prevent workplace deaths, injuries and illnesses, and its research is vital in setting national health and safety standards. Many employers have joined CFMEU in lodging protests against the government’s cost-cutting measure that is sure to undermine initiatives for health and safety standards.

CFMEU Opposes Howard Government’s Health/Safety Plans

The South African task force set up between NUM and Harmony Gold Mining Ltd. to curb redundancies established an initial framework with re-skilling and redeployment at its core. The dialogue also hopes to identify growth points and points of decline inside the company, and continuous operations will be discussed within the context of creating new jobs. The task force was set up to avert a strike last month after Harmony’s announcement that it would close six mine shafts affecting 5,000 workers.

NUM and Harmony Gold Make Progress to Curb Redundancies

The ICEM has issued a circular calling on affiliates to again protest directly to Saint-Gobain CEO Jean-Louis Beffa over continued intransigence in bargaining at a US abrasives plant. A majority of some 800 workers in Worcester, Massachusetts, voted for ICEM affiliate United Auto Workers in August 2001 but after 121 bargaining sessions, workers and the UAW are still without a collective agreement. Protest letters can go to Beffa at Saint-Gobain, 18 avenue d’Alsace, 92096 La Défense, Cedex, France.

ICEM Protests Saint-Gobain’s Union-Busting in the US

ICEM sent condolences to Pakistan affiliate WAPDA Labour Union over a gas explosion 25 May that killed 17 miners at the Sunjidi coal mine in Balachistian province. The area is rich in coal reserves, but the mines have notoriously poor safety records. A private company which leases land from the government operates the Sunjidi mine. ICEM is calling on the Pakistani government to put in place more stringent health and safety controls.

Gas Blast in Pakistan Coal Mine Kills 17

ICEM affiliate FNV Bondgenoten of The Netherlands is in dispute with French-based BSN Glasspack at three plants just as Europe’s second largest glassmaker has been bought by Owens-Illinois of the US. The employer is seeking to escape pension obligations, raise the retirement age from 62 to 63, and cut a profit-sharing plant for 200 workers at plants in Leerdam, Maastricht and Schiedam. Workers are steadfast against BSN’s concessionary proposal. The collective agreement expires 1 July.

FNV Bondgenoten in Glass Dispute in NL

Russian unions took to the streets 10 June in dozens of cities to demonstrate against proposed legislation to replace health care, utility and transportation benefits for retirees and disabled citizens with nonindexed cash payouts. Hundreds of concerned groups, led by the Federation of Independent Unions, fear the proposed added monthly supplement will be eaten away by inflation and price hikes to essential services. The measure will receive a first reading in the State Duma 2 July, and more protests are assured including a possible national strike in September if the proposal isn’t defeated.

Russian Unions Protest Social Cutbacks

Also in New Zealand, a chlorine spill 11 June at Carter Holt Harvey’s Kinleith paper operations created a huge cloud of gas and caused some evacuations and major traffic tie-ups in the town of Tokoroa. No injuries were reported. CHH, majority owned by US International Paper Co., had just days earlier escaped prosecution over a dam collapse last December resulting in the spill of 5,000 cubic metres of sludge and sediment containing PCPs into nearby waterways. A local regulatory committee rejected court action.

Chlorine Spill at Paper Mill Causes Evacuation in New Zealand

Imerys, the ceramics and construction materials multinational, has just given itself a new name and a new image. But it already risks seeing them tarnished by an international dispute over its anti-union stance in the USA. 
 
In Brussels today, the American Imerys workers' union joined with Belgian unions and a global trade union federation in launching a world campaign to win full trade union rights throughout Imerys' operations. 
 
Belgian financiers the Frere family are major investors in Imerys, and the unions insisted that the Frere group must intervene to ensure that Imerys' American plants immediately cease anti-union practices that would not be tolerated in Europe. 
 
Known until recently as Imetal, the company claims to be the world leader in refractory raw materials, paper pigments, white pigments and high-purity graphite. 
 
The US Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers union (PACE) is fighting anti-union campaigns by Imerys at its plants in Georgia and Alabama. The restructuring that led to the formation of Imerys last year included the merger of unionised and non-unionised production plants in the USA. PACE now wants the chance to represent workers throughout the newly merged Imerys operation there, but the company has hired professional "union-busters" to discourage union organising and is blocking all attempts to plebiscite its workers on whether they wish to be represented by the union. 
 
At the global level, PACE is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
ICEM Belgian affiliate the Centrale Générale-FGTB/Algemene Centrale-ABVV has also declared its full support for the American trade unionists. 
 
At the Centrale Générale headquarters in Brussels today, the following statement was issued by Michel Nollet, President, Belgian General Labour Federation (FGTB/ABVV); Paul Lootens, General Secretary of the Centrale Générale; Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary; and Joe Drexler, Special Projects Director of PACE: 
 
The FGTB, Centrale Générale, ICEM and PACE condemn the continued refusal of the American management of Imerys to permit a free and fair determination of its US employees' wishes concerning trade union representation. 
 
We note that PACE has charged Imerys with seven serious violations of US labour law. The US National Labor Relations Board is currently investigating the accusations, which could lead to prosecutions. In particular, PACE charges that the employer has threatened and harassed pro-union employees because of their activities, and that the company has financed and otherwise supported an anti-union campaign group known as the "A-team." 
 
We also note that Imerys has hired professional "union-busters" to advise it on methods of pressurising its employees to reject trade union representation. Methods employed by the company so far include meetings which employees are obliged to attend and at which anti-union videos are screened. Among other things, these videos equate trade unionism with the mafia. Employees are not permitted to ask questions at these meetings. 
 
23 percent of the shares in Imerys are in the hands of the Frere group's financial holding company. It is wholly unacceptable that Belgian shareholders should support a company involved in anti-union practices. 
 
We call upon Imerys to agree, without further delay, to a "card-check" procedure in order to determine whether the majority of its US workforce wishes to be represented by PACE. If a majority does wish to be so represented, we call upon Imerys to recognise PACE for collective bargaining purposes immediately. We insist that Imerys management should maintain an attitude of neutrality throughout this procedure and during any subsequent union elections, and should not seek in any way to pressurise or intimidate its employees concerning this matter. 
 
We further call upon the Frere family and their financial holding company to ensure that Imerys, in which they are major investors, fully respects human rights, including trade union rights, throughout its worldwide operations. 
 
Imerys is headquartered in France. Trade unions there have pledged full support for the campaign, as have unions in Britain, where Imerys has major manufacturing operations.

Imerys US Dispute Goes Global

Archive