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American trade union activists demonstrated outside Texaco's Washington office on Friday in protest over ongoing labour and human rights violations at an Indonesian oil facility owned jointly by Texaco and Chevron. The demonstration was sponsored by the US labour confederation AFL-CIO and by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM). 
<img height="426" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/usindo3.jpg" width="276"/>
 
At issue is a strike by 8,000 oil workers at an oil rig owned by Caltex Petroleum Corp, a joint venture between Texaco and Chevron, located in central Sumatra, Indonesia. The workers are employed by a Caltex subcontractor, PT Tripatra, which violated Indonesian labour law when it refused to make those of the workers with more than two years' seniority permanent employees and pay them the compensation due to them. The Indonesian workers are members of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), headed by prominent labour leader Muchtar Pakpahan. 
 
When the company refused to follow a May 1999 directive from the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower, the workers went on strike on June 21. PT Tripatra then fired the strikers on July 6 and has been using the Indonesian army and police to intimidate and harass the strikers. On July 23, these security forces fired rubber bullets at the strikers, shooting one man in the head. They also assaulted several other strikers. 
 
"Disputes such as the one at the Caltex facility undermine the credibility of the Indonesian government in the eyes of the international community and must not go unresolved," said John J.Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO. "The Indonesian government has the responsibility to ensure that the workers’ rights are respected, and Chevron and Texaco have the obligation to ensure that subcontractors at their facilities abide by international labor standards." 
<img height="424" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/usindo6.jpg" width="277"/>
 
 
"We call on Chevron and Texaco to use their considerable power and influence to insist that these workers are treated fairly and justly," insisted Robert Wages. He is Executive Vice President of the ICEM-affiliated Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union (PACE), which represents workers employed at Chevron and Texaco facilities in the United States. 
 
"The company must call off its security forces, pay the workers the compensation that is due to them and reach an amicable settlement with the oil workers’ union," he said. Wages is a Vice-President of both the AFL-CIO and the ICEM. 
 
"We will not stand by and allow these workers’ rights to be trampled on," added Kenneth Zinn, ICEM North American Regional Coordinator. "It is appalling that, in the waning days of the 20th century, a worker anywhere in the world can be shot in the head for exercising his legitimate right to withhold his labour."

US Demo Backs Indonesian Texaco/Chevron Strikers

Materials giant Imerys was today accused of acting in bad faith over an upcoming union recognition vote at one of its US sites. 
 
"Imerys headquarters management in France had assured us that the company would not campaign against the union in the US," said Fred Higgs in Brussels today. "They have broken their word." 
<img height="263" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/syl2.jpg" width="350" alt=""/>
UNDER PRESSURE 
Imerys supervisors are pushing US workers to vote against the union. 
(photo: PACE) 
Higgs is General Secretary of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
An election is scheduled for 22 June at Imerys' Sylacauga site in the US, to decide whether workers there should be represented by ICEM American affiliate the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers' Unions (PACE). 
 
The vote follows a campaign by PACE, the ICEM and unions at other Imerys sites worldwide to secure the Sylacauga workers' right to opt for a union. 
 
Imerys corporate headquarters had promised the ICEM and PACE that the company would not campaign against the union in the run-up to the poll. 
 
On 17 May, local US manager Randy Sandrik sent all Sylacauga employees a note proclaiming the company's "commitment to a fair and prompt election." 
 
But a little further into the memo, he unveiled his real agenda: "In consideration of the relationship between the company and unions throughout Imerys, we will not campaign against unions in general. The focus of our communications process will only be union representation at Sylacauga." Sandrik also gave everybody the benefit of his own views: "I don't think the Sylacauga employees need a third party representative to manage our relationship." 
 
The results of this duplicity are already plain. 
 
Supervisors at Sylacauga are wearing "Vote NO" stickers on their hardhats and posting the same stickers around the plant. 
 
The supervisors, sometimes two together, are also taking workers one at a time into offices, telling them that unionisation would mean a loss of wages and benefits, and urging them to vote against the union. 
 
And the company is still using the union-busting lawyer Frank Parker to train its local managers. 
 
"One thing is clear," Higgs said today. "Either the Imerys corporate management in Paris is acting in bad faith - or else it is simply being fooled by its US local managers." 
 
He urged Imerys CEO Patrick Kron to write immediately to all the Sylacauga workers, assuring them of the company's full neutrality on the issue of union representation at its US site. 
 
PACE has now brought a case against Imerys at the OECD, which has a code of conduct for multinational companies.

Imerys in 'Bad Faith' Over US Union Vote

Australian trade union leaders are fine tuning a National Union Fightback Campaign against the conservative coalition government of Prime Minister John Howard’s radical reforms. Such industrial relations reforms would further weaken collective bargaining. Howard’s reforms, expected to be rushed into law after conservatives take control of the Australian Parliament’s Senate next month, will destroy the power of the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) to set minimum wage, job classification structures and minimum statutory employment conditions. 
It will abolish the IRC’s ability to judge cases of unfair dismissal of workers in businesses employing less than 100, or two-thirds of all Australian workers. If enacted, approval of enterprise bargaining agreements will pass from the IRC to an agency that now regulates the Howard creation of individual contracts between employees and employers. The draconian reforms will also strip the country’s states from employment regulation in favour of a centralized federal system. Trade unions have the support of Australian state governments in resisting the Howard plan.

Australian Unions Resist Government's Labour Reforms

Canadian-based Inco will have to declare force majeure on some of its deliveries, the company admitted yesterday. 
 
The defaults on shipments result from Inco's lock-out against workers at a Canadian nickel mine in Thompson, Manitoba. 
 
Inco's blunder in Thompson will seriously weaken its credibility as a supplier, observers predicted. The company's sales slogan is Stronger For Our Experience. 
 
"The total quantity of products that the Company is currently expected to be unable to supply as a result of the continuation of the work stoppage represents about 15 percent of the Company's average monthly primary nickel sales for the first nine months of 1999," Inco said yesterday. 
 
On its own figures, Inco supplies about 26 percent of the world's nickel demand. It is also an important producer of copper, precious metals and cobalt. 
 
1,040 workers at the Thompson mine have been locked out since 14 September. They are members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). The lock-out followed the union membership's rejection of the company's final offer. The Inco offer did not include any improvements in pensions, wages or benefits. USWA members at two other Inco Canadian operations have suspended their participation in joint labour-management design projects until the lock-out at Thompson is settled. 
 
At the global level, the USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Earlier this month, USWA Canadian National Director Lawrence McBrearty asked the ICEM World Congress to back the Inco workers' campaign. Inco's behaviour is an example of a " heartless corporate culture that puts profits before people," McBrearty told the Congress in Durban, South Africa. The USWA would take "the struggle for justice" to "the four corners of the globe," he declared. 
 
"We will mobilise our affiliates worldwide to communicate their solidarity with the USWA," responded ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs, "and we will use every means to urge Inco to reach a settlement with the union expeditiously." 
 
Inco is present in 14 countries, and has production operations in Canada, the UK, Indonesia, Japan, Guatemala, France, China, New Caledonia and the United States.

Inco Lock-Out Hits Nickel Supplies

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. 
"Not only is BHP now displaying great disregard for the right of employees to bargain collectively," Combet pointed out, "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. 
 
"If BHP Steel can work out a collective agreement," Combet asked, "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." 
 
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 "its union culture". 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's Anti-Bargaining Stance Sparks Australian Protests

Labour activist Tian Chua was released from police custody in Malaysia on 5 December. He is understood to be in reasonably good health. 
 
The news was welcomed by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which had been pressing for Tian's release (see ICEM News release 95/1998). 
 
It is not clear whether he will still face charges concerning demonstrations, publications or similar issues.

Labour Activist Tian Chua Released In Malaysia

The CEP of Canada has chosen Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. as lead company for paper industry bargaining in eastern Canada. CEP represents 4,200 workers at 14 Abitibi worksites from Ontario to Newfoundland. The agreement with Montreal based Abitibi will be used as a pattern for talks with other paper companies covering 21,000 CEP members. The current labour agreement in pulp and paper in the eastern half of the country expires 30 April.

Abitibi Chosen as Lead in Canadian CEP Paper Bargaining

The National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa has joined two other unions, including affiliate CEPPWAWU, and filed a formal application under Section 77 of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) to investigate the strong Rand and the adverse affect it has had regarding job loss. The union seeks a tripartite summit to find an intervention strategy. “The appreciating currency has had a negative impact in the mining industry. The mining sector has shed numerous jobs and is intent on cutting further,” said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe in a South African report.

NUM and CEPPWAWU in South Africa Protest Strong Rand

ICEM Vice President and Women’s Vice-Chair Binda Pandey was arrested 10 April in Katmandu, Nepal, for protesting with the pro-democracy masses against the country’s absolute monarchy. Early April in Nepal spawned several mass protests that resulted in some 4,000 arrests with royal troops and security forces using tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charges to disperse protestors. Nepal became a total monarchy in October 2002 when King Gyanendra dissolved Parliament and took absolute powers. Pandey, a leader of the Nepal Independent Chemical and Iron Workers’ Union, was released following her 10 April arrest and she thanks the ICEM and all affiliates for support. She also reports that unionists from GEFONT that were detained were also released.

Nepal Arrests ICEM Women’s Leader Binda Pandey

The ICEM sent a letter of condolences to the families and colleagues of mineworkers who perished in an 11 April gas explosion in western Siberia. The letter was sent through the Russian Independent Coal Employees’’ Union (Rosugleprof). The explosion trapped and killed 44 miners some 600 meters down a mine in the village of Taizhina, Osinniki, in Russia’s Kuzbass mining region.

Explosion in Western Siberia Kills 44 Russian Miners

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