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The ICEM&rsquo;s ongoing Turkey Organising and Social Dialogue Project, supported by the Dutch trade union confederation FNV, took an important initiative toward mobilizing young unionists in starting organizing drives last month. The two-year project saw a seminar on 21-22 October in the Aegean town of Kusadasi. 
 
The workshop was organized at the education and holiday facility of one of ICEM&rsquo;s Turkish affiliates, Belediye-İş, the General and Municipal Workers&rsquo; Union. The hotel is the Grand Belish, which hosted some 7,500 union members with their families in the summer of 2010. 
 
The facility also welcomes ICEM affiliates from around the world (for information on the union&rsquo;s hotel, click <a href="http://www.grandbelish.com">here</a>).&nbsp;&ldquo;Hosting such an important event for youth organizing at our facility gives us a great honour and motivation,&rdquo; said Nihat Yurdakul, President of Belediye-İş, at the opening of the seminar. &ldquo;Thanks to international solidarity and co-operation, active involvement and increasing the union density of young people is a priority for us. 
 
&ldquo;The ICEM project is a driving force to all of us in this direction,&rdquo; he added. 
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Belediye-İş President Nihat Yurdakul
With a population of 75 million, Turkey has a workforce of 22 million that includes 16 million men and six million women. An important statistic is that 65% of all Turkish people are under age 30. 
 
But regarding work, four million out of 5.5 million employed in various industries work, on average, over 45 hours per week. For the rest, the average work-week is more then 60 hours. The proportion of workers employed in the informal economy is larger than that of the formal one. 
 
The youth seminar in Kusadasi was attended by 60 young militants, shop stewards, and local officers, with women comprising 40% of the participants. 
 
The seminar also hosted a large group of international participants: Paulo Lage, Sergio Novais, Juvenil Nunes, Fabio Lins, and Nilton Freitas from the ABC Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union of Brasil; Liv Christensen and Anders Lapon from Dansk El-F&ouml;rbund of Denmark; Celil &Ccedil;oban and Mail &Uuml;rker of FNV Bondgenoten in the Netherlands; Philippe Gousenbourger, Youth Officer of International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Brussels; and Dick Blin, ICEM Information, Campaigns, and Pulp &amp; Paper Officer, and Kemal &Ouml;zkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries&rsquo; Officer, from Geneva. 
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Guest speakers exchanged their knowledge and experiences with the participants, particularly on youth organizing. 
 
The seminar also gave support and solidarity to a 27-year-old trade union woman named M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal, an activist for the Turkish paper and packaging affiliate Sel&uuml;loz-İş. She was fired for initiating a union organising drive at a paper company in the city of Torbali. 
 
Her situation clearly demonstrates the difficulties that Turkish trade unions face in organising. (For further information, click <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4100-Turkish-Woman-Fired-for-Union-Organising-at-Izmir-Packaging-Mill ">here</a> to see how you can assist M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal.) 
<img alt="" src="" width="90" height="106" />
M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal 
As a regular exercise during the FNV Mondiaal project, Turkish trade union expert &Uuml;zeyir Ataman, Director of Education and Collective Bargaining of Lastik-İş, also presented union history and the current labour relations situation in Turkey. Later, the seminar focused on Power and Weak Points, Challenges and Opportunities, and Concrete Organising Targets Inside Turkey, with contributions and inputs by participants from different sectors and regions. 
 
Participants also created an e-mail group for continuing communication among future leaders of the unions, which will allow them the opportunity to exchange information, as well as to further solidarity. 
 
&ldquo;The Kusadasi Seminar gives us great hope and motivation for the future of our Turkish unions,&rdquo; said &Ouml;zkan, coordinator of the two-year project. &ldquo;We now feel more obliged to do more work towards organising young workers, not just in Turkey, but also throughout the world.&rdquo; 
 
The project will conclude with an Evaluation Seminar scheduled to occur late this month, 29-30 November, in the Turkish capital Ankara.

ICEM, FNV Mondiaal Turkey Project Mobilizes Young Unionists to Organise

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ICEM Australian affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Construction Union (CFMEU) won a precedent-setting case last week before the full judicial panel of Fair Work Australia. The matter involves global mining house Xstrata&rsquo;s redundancies at the Ulan coal mine near Mudgee, New South Wales, and whether or not those sackings were &ldquo;genuine redundancies,&rdquo; or if the employer had first to deliver alternative jobs at other company enterprises. 
 
On 12 November, the full bench of Fair Work Australia rejected an Xstrata appeal and ruled that the company had an obligation not just to make vacancies at other company enterprises known to the dismissed workers, but to offer positions and facilitate transfer to those worksites. 
 
In effect, the ruling establishes concise guidelines regarding &ldquo;genuine redundancies&rdquo; and ensures that employers can be held liable if they do not fully offer and then redeploy sacked workers in all reasonable circumstances. 
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In 2009, Xstrata Coal Pty. Ltd. made redundant over 100 workers at its 500-worker Ulan mine. The CFMEU claimed the company would replace many of those workers with contract employees. Last week&rsquo;s ruling covers six of ten miners whose rights, under Australia&rsquo;s new labour statute, were violated because the dismissals were not &ldquo;genuine redundancies&rdquo; since their jobs were still being performed. 
 
The other four were found not to have reasonable redeployment options due to light-work injury status or unwillingness to travel. 
 
Last week&rsquo;s full bench ruling stated: &ldquo;Where an employer decides that, rather than fill a vacancy by redeploying an employee into a suitable job in its own enterprise, it will advertise the vacancy and require the employee to compete with other applicants, it might subsequently be found that the resulting dismissal is not a case of genuine redundancy. This is because it would have been reasonable to redeploy the employee into the vacancy.&rdquo;

CFMEU Wins ‘Fair Work Australia’ Case Involving Xstrata’s Illegal Dismissals

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In the first bi-lateral bargain since a 2006 binding government-arbitrated labour agreement, 420 offshore oil workers on the Hibernia platform in the North Atlantic scored a remarkable first-year pay gain in a four-year contract through their union, the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada. 
 
The oil workers, employed by 14 separate oil-servicing companies under a common labour agreement led by ExxonMobil-controlled Hibernia Management Development Corp., won a minimum 8% pay gain and adjustment that is retroactive to 1 July 2009. 
 
The first-year increase actually ranges from 4.5% to 12.5%, but for workers employed by companies on the platform in which the negotiated backpay increase was 4.5% to 7%, a lump sum payment was negotiated bringing the total pay gain to 8%. Noble Drilling, Weatherford Wellhead, Schlumberger Ltd., and Petroleum Geo-Services are just a few of the 14 companies that are signatory to CEP Local 2121&rsquo;s common agreement. 
 
In the second (2010), third, and fourth years of the contract, offshore workers will see wage increases equal to what the CEP negotiated in its national energy and chemicals pattern agreement in Canada. Those increases are 2.5%, 3%, and 3.25%. 
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CEP National Representative Brian Campbell
&ldquo;We recouped in retroactive pay what the arbitration award did not give us,&rdquo; said CEP National Representative Brian Campbell, referring to a 38-month initial agreement delivered through first-contract arbitration by the Labour Ministry of the province of Labrador/Newfoundland. 
 
&ldquo;There were some workers who were underpaid in the arbitration deal,&rdquo; Campbell added, &ldquo;and the 2009 pay gains and lump sums adjust that.&rdquo; Campbell said other highlights of the new contract, approved by a 68% vote following a final ratification meeting on 5 November, includes increased day rates for salaried workers and a first-ever supplementary paid vacation. 
 
Four of the service companies operate with salaried staff, and the day rate &ndash; or actual work days on the rig &ndash; was increased in the second and fourth years. Hibernia staff work a 21-day on, 21-day off schedule, and the new vacation scheme will allow workers to take a total 63-day hiatus each year. 
 
Hibernia is located 315 kilometres southeast of St. John&rsquo;s, Newfoundland. It is 33.1% owned by ExxonMobil, 26.9% by Chevron, 20% by Suncor Energy, 8.5% by the government&rsquo;s Canadian Hibernia Holdings, 6.5% by Murphy Oil, and 5% by Statoil. In early November, reserve estimates of Hibernia&rsquo;s fields were adjusted upward by 12% to show a reservoir of 1.395 billion barrels of oil. 
 
In the offshore waters of North America, including the Gulf of Mexico, only two platforms are unionised &ndash; Hibernia and Terra Nova, also off Labrador/Newfoundland. Oil workers there are also represented by CEP Local 2121. The 180 workers of Terra Nova, in which the licensed operator is Canadian-based Suncor, are in the early stages of renewal bargaining on a contract which expired 1 October 2010. 
 
Besides Suncor, which owns 34% of Terra Nova through its 2009 purchase of PetroCanada, other stakeholders include ExxonMobil (22%), Statoil (15%), Husky Energy (12.5%), Murphy Oil (10%), Mosbacher (3.5%), and Chevron (1%).

High Pay Gains Mark Hibernia Offshore Pact for CEP Members

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Leading negotiations from exile in Canada, General Secretary of ICEM-affiliate Los Mineros of Mexico, Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez Urrutia achieved wage gains for four locals of the union. Direct salaries were increased by 8% in each, apart from Section 269 in Guerrero, Mexico, where Los Mineros members saw their overall income increase 10%. 
 
The negotiations were conducted in direct dialogue with company management, with no involvement by the Federal Ministry of Labour, a further indication that the Ministry is not regarded as able to fulfil its role as a fair adjudicator. 
 
The 10% gains for Section 269 were achieved through bargaining with Canadian-owned Gold Corp, a producer of gold and silver. Direct salaries were increased 8% and additional social benefits were improved by 2%, including scholarships for workers&rsquo; children, among other advantages. 
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Los Mineros General Secretary Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez Urrutia
The 8% salary increases were achieved for members of Fraction 1 of Section 269 with employer Mineral Raw Materials in Puebla; members of Section 247, Western Jalisco, at Minera El Pilon; members of Section 16 in Coahuila, employed by coal producer Industrial Materials; and members of Section 274 at the Port of L&aacute;zaro C&aacute;rdenas at the Sadcom de Occidente company. 
 
The ICEM salutes these significant advances by Los Mineros for its members, in the face of continuing persecution by the government of Felipe Calder&oacute;n. 
 
Elsewhere in Mexico, last week the ICEM-affiliated United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) launched a legal campaign, calling on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHCHR) to investigate the continuing violation of Mexican workers&rsquo; rights to free association. The UE, together with the National Lawyers Guild and Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers, are soliciting letters of support from labour, legal organizations, and law firms. See more <a href="http://www.nlginternational.org/action/current.php#134">here</a>.&nbsp; 
 
The letters will be filed to coincide with the 100th Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, on 20 November. 
 
View the ICEM&rsquo;s letter <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/138.ICEM.Mexico.OHCHR.15Nov.pdf">here</a>, which can serve as a model letter.

Mexico’s Los Mineros Achieves Wage Gains Despite Persecution

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The copper-mining strike by 1,551 members of Sindicato de los Trabajadores de Collahuasi in Chile enters its second week today, with miners emboldened by both fervent loyalty among union ranks and knowledge that company rhetoric concerning ongoing production is a deception for the benefit of world copper markets. 
 
The company is Do&ntilde;a Ines de Collahuasi, the world&rsquo;s fourth largest copper producer, owned by global mining giants Xstrata and AngloAmerican, with a smaller share held by Japanese industrial conglomerate Mitsui &amp; Co. 
 
Since the strike began on 5 November, the Collahuasi Workers&rsquo; Union has been united in a stand that most assuredly will bring them a fair share of the mine&rsquo;s profits and more importantly, improved social provisions for their families. The ICEM has pledged global support to the union (see <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/19%20Collahuasi%20ICEM%2013%20Nov.b.pdf">letter in Spanish</a>)&nbsp;and commends Chilean mining unions for doing the same inside the South American nation. 
<img alt="" src="" width="224" height="149" />
Just One of the Daily Manifestations in Iquique
The union asked management to resume negotiations last week but the company refused, saying it would not re-enter talks without assistance from government mediators. 
 
Even though Do&ntilde;a Ines de Collahuasi managers say publicly the open-cast Rosario mine is operating normally under a strike contingency plan, union spokesman Luis Espinoza Garrido told the ICEM the fallacious contingency plan consists of 300 scab workers from outsource companies providing output of no more than 18% of total production. 
 
&ldquo;Three hundred inexperienced workers cannot do the work of 1,550 miners,&rdquo; said Espinoza. &ldquo;This is unsustainable and the company will come to realise this.&rdquo; 
 
Espinoza said the strike is about far more than just pay and bonuses. He said key issues include health benefits, education for miners&rsquo; children, and work schedules. Considering Collahuasi vast profits &ndash; net earnings last year totalled US$ 1.56 billion &ndash; the union wants company-paid health costs raised from the current 80% to 100% and education costs hiked from 50% to 100%. 
<img alt="" src="" width="195" height="146" />
Strikers are Living in Santa Mar&iacute;a School
A major concern is the health of miners. The Collahuasi mine, located in the Atacama desert in Chile&rsquo;s remote Region I, finds miners working at an altitude of 4,000 metres where oxygen levels are low and stress levels on the body are high. A US$750 million mine expansion is also underway that will lift production from 550,000 tonnes per year to a million tonnes annually, with altitudes expected to reach 5,000 metres in new mining areas. 
 
Another concern is silicosis. Because of massive dust clouds at the mine containing crystalline silica particles, miners are endangered by the deadly lung disease. 
 
Miners work seven days on, seven days off, and a further point of contention is management&rsquo;s proposed changes to exceptional days off. 
 
Since day one of the strike, most of the 1,551 strikers have taken up residency in the shuttered Santa Mar&iacute;a School in the Pacific port city of Iquique, 285 kilometres from the mine. In Iquique, both Do&ntilde;a Ines de Collahuasi managers and local governmental authorities siding with management accuse squatting miners of displacing the activities of youngsters. 
<img alt="" src="" width="224" height="168" />
Strikers Watch Children&rsquo;s Sports Class Activities at School
In fact, the opposite is true. Strikers are encouraging children&rsquo;s activities and yesterday, 14 November, the union held a community cultural event in the closed school. 
 
The Collahuasi Workers&rsquo; Union has taken their protests to the streets of Iquique each and every day. On 11 October, 800 strikers occupied the offices of the company in Iquique, headquarters for the company, and have protested at a company molybdenum plant just south of there in the port town of Patache. 
 
On 10 October, mine union leaders from BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto&rsquo;s Escondida copper mine, BHP&rsquo;s Spence and Cerro Colorado mines, Canadian Aur Resources Quebrado Blanca mine, Xstrata&rsquo;s Lomas Bayas mine, Canadian Castle Rock Resources Sierra Miranda mine, and Chile&rsquo;s Minera Cerro Dominador conducted a manifestation with the striking Collahuasi miners at the Santa Mar&iacute;a School.

Miners Dig In at Chile’s Collahuasi Copper Strike

The ICEM World Energy Conference, meeting in Stavanger Norway approved the following resolution regarding the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria. 
 
While deploring the visa difficulties which have prevented a delegation of ICEM affiliated trade unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN of Nigeria attending the Conference delegates discussed the situation in Nigeria. 
 
Delegates expressed total support to the petitions by our unions to the Minister of Petroleum Resources, and urge him to address the issues and calm the situation to avoid avoidable industrial unrest in the sector. 
 
In the petition the union listed some of the extensive unfair practices carried out by the industry including casualization/contract staffing, outsourcing and the refusal to allow workers to freely associate and unionise in accordance with Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution and International Labour Organisation, ILO, Conventions 87 and 98 of 1948 and 49 respectively. 
 
The unions have identified Shell Petroleum Producing and Development Company, SPDC, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited , Nigeria Agip Oil Company, Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited as the main culprits. 
 
Increased casualization has resulted in the placement of workers as temporary employees on jobs that are routine and permanent in nature. Multi-nationals and oil service companies in the industry, are contracting out and outsourcing very large portion of their workforce to unlicensed labour contractors to provide support services to the companies notwithstanding that the jobs are continuous, routine and permanent in nature and pay the contractors service handling charges or commission. The principal companies in most cases employ these categories of workers, supervise their conduct and determine their salaries but only transfer payment to the labour contractors.&rdquo; 
 
This group constitutes over 90% of the workforce of these oil companies. Another new dimension to the casualisation policy in the oil and gas industry is the resistance by some companies to unionization especially by NUPENG and PENGASSAN. 
 
ICEM and our affiliated trade unions fully support the struggle of our Nigerian brothers and sisters and stand ready to coordinate international solidarity action in their support.

Resolution in Support of ICEM Affiliates in Nigeria

Dear Mr. Javier Castillo, Secretary of the Union No. 2 of Compania Minera San Esteban 
 
The ICEM World Energy Conference, meeting in Stavanger, Norway on 6-7 September 2010, unanimously resolved to express our best and most sincere wishes of hope and strength, in solidarity with the 33 miners who remain trapped underground in the San Jose mine. 
 
It is encouraging to learn that rescue efforts are progressing, albeit slowly. Many of us are ourselves miners, and we can only imagine the circumstances that must prevail for our Chilean brothers, especially knowing that much time will still pass before they return to the light of day. 
 
Please let them know, on behalf of the ICEM Energy Sector, and indeed all of the ICEM's 20 million members and affiliates in the world, that we wish them courage. We hope they will soon be reunited safely with their families. 
 
With all of our hopes for a speedy and successful rescue, 
 
In solidarity, 
 
 
Manfred Warda 
Secretary-General

Energy Conference Message of Solidarity with Chilean Coal Miners Trapped Underground

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On 7-8 October, ICEM organised a session on decent work in Dakar, Senegal, together with the national trade union center Union D&eacute;mocratique des Travailleurs du S&eacute;n&eacute;gal (UDTS) and the ICEM affiliate, Syndicat Unique des Travailleurs des Industries Diverses du S&eacute;n&eacute;gal (SUTIDS). The meeting was sponsored by CSC Belgium, and ICEM Vice President Alfons de Potter was one of the facilitators of the meeting. 
 
&ldquo;We benefit from the experience of Belgium in discussion of employment problems,&rdquo; said SUTIDS General Secretary Seyni Mbaye Ndiaye. &ldquo;This country is very advanced on social issues.&rdquo; 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="69" />
In S&eacute;n&eacute;gal, the focus of decent work is to combat poverty and find a solution to social exclusion. The priority is to create employment for everyone backed by social protections. Such employment needs to have the support of social dialogue and the respect for global labour standards. In S&eacute;n&eacute;gal, a legal decree has been passed regulating temporary work. Nevertheless, it is the duty of trade unions to monitor the legislation. The country has a national programme to promote decent work. 
 
SUTIDS has a bilateral programme with CSC Belgium to strengthen capacities. The decent work programme was preceded by two days of a regional women's workshop for countries in French-speaking West Africa, which concluded that ICEM must do more to strengthen trade union action in the informal economy. Unions from Mauritania, Togo, B&eacute;nin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), S&eacute;n&eacute;gal, and Romania took part in the meeting. The unions also called upon ICEM to exert pressure on the production chains inside the DRC to put a stop to violence against women and rapes in Kivu. 
 
The meeting ended with a press conference.

ICEM, CSC of Belgium Conduct Decent Work Workshop in Sénégal

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A third meeting recently was held among trade unions and community groups of the Fako District of Cameroon in Buea to promote trade union cohesion. Cameroon Regional Delegate of Labour and Social Security Marie Catherine Kalati Lobe has been chairing the sessions, first started in June, and the forums are aggressively tackling issues regarding transportation, agriculture, and education, as well as a current labour issue at the state-run Soci&eacute;t&eacute; Nationale de Raffinage (SONARA) oil refinery at Cape Lembeh Limbe. 
 
Sector unions numbering about 12, some affiliated with the Confederation of Cameroon Trade Unions (CCTU), the General Federation of Free Workers of Cameroon (CGTTLC), and the Confederation of Cameroon Autonomous Trade Unions (CCATU), attended the most recent workshop in early October. They moved forward an agenda on the development of a common sense of purpose to enhance workers&rsquo; welfare and to improve the social climate. 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="69" />
Issues raised included consistent judicial delays on labour cases, the requisite standards for inclusion in a re-written labour code, and employer resistance in allowing union representation inside workplaces. Specifically at this month&rsquo;s meetings, grievances were heard over the low wages and long hours of agricultural workers in banana plantations, lack of paid leave for support staff of the University of Buea, in contrast to the teaching staff, and the influx of clandestine transportation modes in Fako District, most notably by police and law enforcement. 
 
Discussion also centered on the lack of movement in negotiations between management and the union &ndash; the Fako Petroleum Workers&rsquo; Union &ndash; at the country&rsquo;s only refinery, the 37,000 barrel-per-day Limbe refinery that processes light crude imported from neighbouring Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. The state refinery, started with the assistance of Elf and later Total, is currently undergoing a large capitalisation project.

Cameroon Trade Unions in Fako Meet to Improve Social Climate

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Oppression of the 30,000 technical and professional employees of PEMEX, Mexico&rsquo;s state-owned petroleum company, continued on 22 October when the General Secretary of Local 1 of the National Union of Technical and Professional Petroleum Workers (UNTyPP) was given &ldquo;forced retirement.&rdquo; 
 
The sacking of Mois&eacute;s Flores Salmer&oacute;n of Coatacoalcos, Veracruz State, is a clear attempt to intimidate workers and to block effective organising. He was informed of his &ldquo;retirement&rdquo; by the manager of labour relations of PEMEX, Francisco Javier Ramirez Rodriguez. There was no disciplinary procedure of any kind, and ironically came nine days after the PEMEX CEO appeared before the Mexican House of Deputies on 13 October, and expressed recognition and respect for UNTyPP. 
 
PEMEX white-collar staff of UNTyPP achieved official trade union recognition on 19 December 2009, following several years of struggle. After this successful legal battle, culminating in certification from the Secretary of Labour and Social Welfare office for the Registration of Associations (STPS), members of the new union were informed by company management that in order to retain their jobs, they would be required to sign two documents, one calling for the cancellation of the registration, the other a resignation from the union. 
<img alt="" src="" width="110" height="109" />
Those who refused, along with organisers of the UNTyPP, were fired and violently removed from their workstations by paramilitaries, including the entire National Executive Committee of the union. 
 
A global campaign putting pressure on the Mexican House of Deputies from March 2010 did lead to some reinstatements of those sacked, and to some limited progress in negotiations, although the PEMEX management chooses to conduct dialogue mostly with the corrupt union STPRM, with whom &ldquo;protection contracts&rdquo; have been agreed. 
 
This is the second time that Mois&eacute;s Flores Salmer&oacute;n has been sacked by PEMEX for trade union activity. The first sacking came seven years ago. He was reinstated last year. 
 
Also in Mexico, the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) held a strategy meeting on union building in Mexico City on 13-14 October, seeking ways to jointly build democratic union power in Mexico. The meeting, which included participation by the ICEM, was a follow-up to the <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3882-Mexican-Teach-in-Charts-North-American-Union-Solidarity">Mexico Teach-In</a> conference in Toronto, 20 June. The ICEM proposed to carry out action days at Mexican embassies and a tour for Mexican trade unionists in the US and Canada.

Leader of White-Collar PEMEX Union in Mexico Sacked

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