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

Shell Employees Union of Batangas, an independent and fearless rank-and-file trade union at Shell in the Philippines, threatened to strike a refinery in Batangas Province over the company’s proposal to place a moratorium on wage increases. In mid-September, the Philippines labour secretary took jurisdiction of the dispute, a move objected to by the 100-member union. Shell has placed the future of the 100,000 b/d refinery in jeopardy and the refinery’s general manager said at the weekend that it suffers from insignificant investment by the super-major. Shell’s Tabangao refinery is one of only two refineries in the Philippines.

Philippines Union Threatens to Take On Shell Over Wages

20 October will go down as a day of death in China’s coal mines. Four disasters found 123 dead, including—at last count—77 miners of state-owned Zhengzhou Group at Xinmi, Henan province, the worst mine catastrophe in recent years. At the weekend, 71 are still missing from the 20 October gas explosion that tore through several shafts at one of Zhengzhou’s larger coalmines. Two other gas blasts added to the death count. Five were killed, 8 still missing at a blast in the southern province of Guizhou and near the southwestern Chinese city of Chongquing, another 12 perished in a natural gas explosion. The fourth 20 October disaster occurred at the Desheng coal mine in Wu’an, Hebei province, when flooding cased the deaths of 29 miners.

Day of Death in Chinese Coal Mines, 20 October 2004

The All Pakistan Trade Union Federation held a mass rally and march across several industrial areas of Lahore. The demonstration was against government policies restricting wage hikes and collective bargaining, as well as rampant retrenchments and price hikes. Similar protest meetings were held in several industrial cities across Pakistan. The protests continued with a major march in Rawalpindi on 6 October.

Pakistan Labour Marches Against Government’s Labour Stand

A week-long strike by ICEM affiliate Associated Mineworkers of Zimbabwe (AMWZ) ended 13 October with agreement by the Chamber of Mines to enter arbitration over a wage dispute. Specifically, to enter into wage talks quarterly, as promised by the employers’ group early this year. AMWZ won a ruling last month that financial incentives granted mine owners by the government and reserve bank must be passed to workers. The Chamber was appealing that ruling, thus the strike by 25,000 workers in coal, platinum, chrome, gold and other minerals. The AMWZ is insistent on quarterly wage bargaining since Zimbabwe’s inflation rate runs at near 600%.

Zimbabwe’s Miners Come to Terms’s with Chamber of Mines

Affiliate CEP in Canada held its 6th National Convention in Quebec City and pledged to raise C$500,000 for HIV/AIDS relief in Africa. The money will be channelled through CEP’s Humanity Fund which union members support by payroll deductions of one cent per hour. CEP also made a firm pledge to keep open the Mirimichi, New Brunswick, kraft pulp mill currently being shut by Finnish UPM Kymenne. By acclamation, Brian Payne was re-elected president of the 150,000-member CEP and Andre Foucault as secretary-treasurer.

CEP’s Congress in Canada Moves on Providing HIV/AIDS Relief

Canadian offshore oil workers at Hibernia, members of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union, are voting over the next few weeks on their first collective agreement. CEP organized the 450 workers in 2001, was certified by the Newfoundland provincial labour board in October 2001, but was met by union-blocking legal challenges since by Hibernia’s lead company, ExxonMobil. “We felt it was time for our members to have a say on what has been settled and tabled in bargaining,” said CEP National Energy Sector Coordinator Joe Gargiso. The successful organising of the offshore oil workers by the CEP was the first of its kind in North America.

Canadian Offshore Oil Workers Near Deal at Hibernia

<img height="55" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief1.gif" width="138" alt=""/>
ICEM affiliate FNV Bondgenoten will find out today how serious Shell Nederland is to resolving a pension dispute. The company will present an alternative over a prior, inadequate proposal to the union and the Central Works Council. 
If the offer does not improve and further bargaining is not renewed by 21 June, Bondgenoten is prepared to commence strikes by late summer. Shell needs to maximize premium payments for workers under the Dutch pension system so they too, like nearly all Dutch workers, become eligible for early retirement.

FNV Bondegenoten, Shell Work to Resolve Pension Issues

United Steelworkers (USW) and Bridgestone-Firestone in the US reached tentative labour agreements on 8 June covering 6,000 workers at eight plants. The proposed agreements include the union’s master rubber contract for plants in Akron, Ohio, Des Moines, Iowa, LaVergne, Tennessee, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Noblesville, Indiana, and Russellville, Arkansas, and accords at plants in Bloomington, Illinois, and Warren County, Tennessee. Steelworker members at those locations will review and vote on the proposals over the next few weeks. 
The labour agreements will run until 23 July 2006. If ratified, the Bridgestone agreement will complete master rubber bargaining in America the USW, which represents 70,000 workers in the industry. Prior contracts were achieved with Goodyear, Michelin’s BF Goodrich tyre unit, and Yokohama Corp.

Steelworkers Reach Accord with Bridgestone in US

Multiple gold strikes by affiliate NUM in South Africa may have been tempered some by a court decree late last week declaring an end to one strike, Gold Fields involving 30,000 miners. But ongoing stoppages and potential strikes could still pull 100,000 NUM members out, shutting down the country’s gold mining industry. On 23 March, 21,000 NUM miners at Harmony Gold’s Free State mines struck after the company reneged on a labour agreement from last summer. Harmony unilaterally terminated that agreement and announced job cuts to 4,900 workers without NUM consultation, thus shredding an understanding between Harmony and NUM reached last July. 
The 30,000 Gold Fields miners could return to strike lines once NUM serves a legal notice. A key issue at Gold Fields is housing. The company still provides only common-sex hostels in mining areas, a throwback to apartheid days. Pay disparity between black workers and white workers also is an issue, as is the fact that white women receive maternity leave while black women do not. At the weekend, NUM worksite leaders from South Africa’s other third big gold mining house, AngloGold Ashanti, were meeting to consider their options.

Retrenchments Cause of Mining Strikes in South Africa

The government-imposed "sole administrator" has now left the headquarters of the Nigerian oilworkers' union NUPENG and the democratically elected union leadership has moved back in. This follows a NUPENG Congress and elections yesterday. 
 
The headquarters of the oilworkers' union PENGASSAN is also understood to be back in the union's control. The "sole administrator" there withdrew ahead of next week's PENGASSAN Congress and elections. 
 
The government administrators had been running the two unions ever since the late military dictator Sani Abacha ousted their real leaderships at gunpoint in 1994, as he moved to crush a nationwide oilworkers'strike. 
 
Re-elected as NUPENG General Secretary yesterday was Frank Kokori. The new NUPENG President is B.B. Awe. 
 
Kokori and PENGASSAN General Secretary Milton Dabibi were imprisoned without trial under the Abacha regime. Their release this June followed a sustained worldwide campaign led by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the two unions are affiliated. 
 
"The NUPENG headquarters has been left in a bad state," Kokori told ICEM UPDATE today. "My first task will be to get the basic infrastructure back in and put our administration back on its feet." 
 
The ICEM had continued to press for the ending of government intervention in the two unions. "Democratic control is essential to the revival of these two important Nigerian unions," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe today. "We greatly welcome the freeing of PENGASSAN and NUPENG and look forward to working with them again for the good of workers in Nigeria and worldwide."

Nigeria: Oil Unions Back In Workers' Hands

Archive