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1. Increasing of our efforts to sign more global framework agreements not only with companies but also with international branch organisations, like for example CropLife and IFPMA 
 
2. Using the SAICM process to build up a stronger influence on chemicals management, safety and occupational health and safety on a national and regional and global level 
 
3. Organizing of an international exchange of experience dealing with Mergers &amp; Acquisitions (M&amp;A), including the development of a proposal on how to get better involved in the M&amp;A process. 
 
4. Continue the fight against precarious employment and strengthen the common efforts of all ICEM member organisations and all global trade union federations, in order to prevent a further erosion of employee and trade union rights within companies (CAL project) 
 
5. Starting a &ldquo;social dialogue&rdquo; with employers on a global level (for example ILO or global framework agreements with International Employers&rsquo; Organisations) 
 
6. Actively seek to promote the 1990 ILO Safety in the Use of Chemicals at Work Convention 170 and the Globally Harmonized System of Chemical Classification and Labelling (GHS), and engage with the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) regarding trade union involvement in the Responsible Care programme. 
 
7. All ICEM activities will put a serious effort into improving the workplace environment of the chemical industry for women, and improve the possibilities of combining work and private life for men and women. We also ask our affiliates to make sure that the participation of female delegates on international conferences get an appropriate share, and minimally contains one woman (as concluded on last executive meeting).

Action Plan - ICEM World Conference for the Chemical Industries

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&nbsp; 
Reminder to ICEM Affiliates 
 
In our November e-bulletin we have encouraged you to join the campaign on 
World AIDS Day, 1 December 
against stigma, discrimination and victimisation, and for prevention, care and support and treatment. 
 
Please, report back to <a href="mailto:hiv.aids@icem.org">hiv.aids@icem.org</a> on any actions you have taken. 
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ICEM HIV/AIDS Workshop in India 
 
21 participants from four ICEM affiliates in the mining, diamond, cement and chemical/electricity sectors participated in a workshop in Puri, Orissa, 16-19 November. The workshop was held at the Gandhi Labour Foundation, which is part of the network of Institutes for Miners and Metalworkers Education (IMME) of the Indian National Mineworkers&rsquo; Federation (INMF). 
 
The workshop was inaugurated by veteran trade union leader, former General Secretary and President Emeritus of the INMF, long-time member of the ILO Governing Body and former Vice President of the MIF, Kanti Mehta. 
 
The objectives of the workshop included the achievement of a solid knowledge about the HIV/AIDS epidemic; the introduction and advocacy of the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work; the development of workplace policies and of a work plan of activities with sustainable funding sources. 
It incorporated a baseline survey of what policies exist and what activities have taken place. IMME had run an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in the Korba area of South Eastern Coal Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited from December 2004 to April 2006 with the support from the Catholic Relief Services. 
 
The workshop answered the question why unions should get involved in HIV/AIDS activities and how they could get involved. Participants drafted a workplace policy which includes non-discrimination and non-victimisation, confidentiality and care and support and came up with an action programme. 
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Focus on India 
 
The Indian national response to HIV/AIDS is led by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), a department of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NACO was created in 1992 and provides the strategy and direction for the whole country. India is a decentralised federation and in each state, a State AIDS Control Society is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the national strategy. 
Besides general awareness, information and behaviour change communication, the strategy is based on targeted interventions aiming at high-risk groups, providing access to VCT, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and, since 2004, access to antiretroviral treatment. 
 
According to the UNAIDS/WHO 2006 Epidemic Update, India is experiencing a highly varied HIV epidemic which appears to be stable in some parts while growing in others. Approximately 5.7 million people, of whom 5.2 million were adults aged 15 to 49 years, were living with HIV in 2005. This is the highest absolute number of HIV infections in the world although the prevalence rate at 0.9% is relatively low due to the large population of more than 1.1 billion. 
 
The majority of HIV infections occur in a few regions. About two thirds of reported infections have been in six of the country&rsquo; 28 states &ndash; mainly in the industrialised south and west and the north-eastern tip. On average, HIV prevalence in those states is 4 to 5 times higher than in the other Indian states. 
 
The bulk of HIV infections in India happen during unprotected heterosexual intercourse. Consequently, women account for a growing proportion of people living with HIV (some 38% in 2005). A large proportion of women have acquired the virus from regular partners who were infected during paid sex. 
In Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra state, for example, 54% and 49% of sex workers have been found to be infected. In such a scenario the likelihood of transmission between sex workers and their clients and their other sex partners is extremely high. Prevention efforts have been started by organisations of sex workers themselves in the state of West Bengal but condom use is still inconsistent in other parts of India. 
 
Injecting drug use is the main risk factor for HIV infections in the north-east and in major cities. In Chennai (formerly Madras), 31% of injecting drug users were found to be HIV positive. 
 
The report states that above all, more must be done to combat stigma, which remains rife in all walks of Indian society and to reduce gender and other inequalities which make HIV prevention and treatment such a huge challenge. 
 
The 3rd Five-Year Plan (NACP III) is currently under preparation. In early November, one of the largest Global Fund HIV/AIDS grants for US$ 259 million over the 5-year grant period was approved for India. 
 
(Source: UNAIDS/WHO AIDS 2006 Epidemic Update and UNAIDS country profile) 
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The Gates Foundation in India 
 
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given a US$ 200 million five-year grant to operate an HIV prevention programme on a scale never done before. The Foundation&rsquo;s prevention efforts, known as Ahavan &ndash; a Sanskrit word meaning &ldquo;call to action&rdquo; &ndash; target the commercial sex trade, which is a main transmission route for the infection. 
The challenge is complex. Often the sex trade is nearly invisible with sex workers working out of truck stops or even in small village homes. 
 
One of India&rsquo;s hardest-hit areas, the remote northeast, has an entirely different problem. There, most HIV transmissions come from needles shared by hundreds of drug addicts. 
 
All these problems are confounded by the stigma attached to AIDS in a very conservative society. 
 
Ahavan&rsquo;s strategy has been to adopt a business-style structure. The product is prevention, and the Foundation formed a pyramid structure to get to its consumers. It contracted 15 other organisations which, in turn, work with about 150 grass-root groups. They engage some 5,000 sex workers, many of them HIV-positive, to get the message about condom use out. 
 
(Source: Abbreviated article by Gavin Rabinowitz, AP US and WorldMonday, 3 July 2006) 
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NUM Calls for Accelerated Conversion of Hostels 
 
The ICEM affiliated National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) called upon the South African mining industry to accelerate the conversion of single-sex hostel accommodation to decent family housing. 
 
Speaking at the 2nd Mining Industry Tripartite HIV/AIDS Summit, NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni reiterated that doing away with single-sex hostels would go a long way in dealing with HIV, AIDS and TB. He said that migrant labour travelling between their communities and the mines was fuelling the epidemic and added that a mineworker housing scheme would establish a family environment, which was more likely to deal with the spread of HIV. 
 
Baleni also urged the mining industry to extent antiretroviral treatment to the partners of mineworkers and singled out AngloGold Ashanti, Anglo Collieries, Gold Fields, Harmony and De Beers as firms only treating their workers. 
 
He told the summit that little progress has been made in prevention since the first summit held in 2003. Baleni called on employers and the government to create a more supportive environment for voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and said that the peer group support system should be improved. 
 
(Source: Mining Weekly, South Africa, 6 November 2006)
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AIDS in Zimbabwe &ndash; Facts and Fiction 
 
In its latest report, UNAIDS cites Zimbabwe as an example of successful prevention measures. Between 2002 and 2005, the prevalence rate among pregnant women has dropped from 29.6% to 20.1%. That would make Zimbabwe one of the most successful countries in the world in the fight against the epidemic. 
 
There are, however, strong indications that government-supplied statistics are more based on fiction than on facts. The almost complete collapse of the health system in the wake of a long and severe economic crisis and an absence of prevention campaigns make it hard to believe that prevalence rates have come done. Furthermore, according to the government&rsquo;s own figures, only 23,000 persons received anti-retroviral treatment at the end of 2005 when 321,000 needed it. 
 
If the prevalence rates among different groups have come down, it is due to other factors such as persons living with AIDS simply dying or that HIV-positive people have left the country in search of work elsewhere. It is estimated that two to three million Zimbabweans have emigrated, mainly to South Africa. 
 
(Source: Neue Z&uuml;rcher Zeitung, Switzerland, 20 November 2006) 
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Global AIDS Epidemic Continues to Grow 
 
The global AIDS epidemic continues to grow and there is evidence that some countries are seeing a resurgence in new HIV infection rates which were previously stable or declining. However, declines in infection rates are also being observed in other countries, as well as positive trends in young people&rsquo;s sexual behaviours. 
 
According to the latest figures published in the UNAIDS/WHO 2006 Epidemic Update (www.unaids.org), an estimated 39.5 million people are living with HIV. There were 4.3 million new infections in 2006 with 2.8 million (65%) of these occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and important increases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where in some countries infection rates have risen by more than 50% since 2004. In 2006, 2.9 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses. 
 
(Source: UNAIDS/WHO Press Release, 21 November 2006)

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 15

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ExxonMobil workers in Belgium returned to work on 21 November after a week-long strike in protest of the unfair dismissal of five workers at a refinery in Virton. Work continued inside the refinery behind closed plant gates, preventing any trucks from driving in or out. 
 
On 23 November, workers were forced to reopen the gates after the company had sought and won a legal injunction. According to Belgian union representatives, industrial actions will continue as workers pledge to do whatever it takes to get the US-based oil multinational to respect their rights. 
The spontaneous strike started when it became known that the five workers had been dismissed for &ldquo;not respecting the ethics of the company.&rdquo; Reportedly, the workers were found to have exchanged pornographic e-mails. In addition to the five employees that were dismissed, ten others were temporarily suspended for four days.
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While acknowledging that company e-mail networks are not to be used for distribution of erotic material, ICEM affiliated unions from both national centres,&nbsp;FGTB and CSC, claim management&rsquo;s reaction was completely out of proportion. The dismissals are extreme and drastic punishments, condemning workers and their families to hardship. The unions contend that ExxonMobil has suffered no moral or financial harm as a result of the e-mails. 
The unions&rsquo; statement said that there are privacy laws in Belgium which ExxonMobil can not violate. Workers and unions denounced the company&rsquo;s radical position on the matter, saying it can, under no circumstances, agree with a company that believes it owns the right to decide what is right and what is wrong. 
 
The unions have taken the matter to court and demand the reinstatement of the workers. They also call on ExxonMobil to bring its &ldquo;code&rdquo; before the unions for discussion. The code, FGTB and CSC believes, must conform to Belgian law.

Belgian ExxonMobil Workers Strike after ‘Unethical E-mail’

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Balloting is underway among paperworkers represented by three UK unions to turn the page on the adversarial relationship that has dominated the country&rsquo;s papermaking industry. 
 
A new framework &ldquo;Partnership Agreement&rdquo; has been agreed to by senior industrialists and national officers of Amicus, the Transport &amp; General Workers Union (TGWU), and GMB, together with Britain&rsquo;s Confederation of Paper Industries, an employers&rsquo; grouping of pulp, paper, and converting companies. 
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The agreement sets out modern approaches to the employment relationship across the sector, and includes as its motto &ldquo;Work Together, Grow Together, Stay Together.&rdquo; The three unions briefed local branch leaders on the agreement earlier in November, and union leaders are recommending that workers now accept the concept. 
 
&quot;The new agreement is an important step in securing modern working terms across the industry, such as work-life balance, actively promoting learning and skills, providing safer workplaces, promoting dignity at work and giving employees an opportunity to be informed and consulted, and actively involved in improving the performance of their workplace,&quot; said Amicus Assistant General Secretary Tony Burke. 
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According to the independent chairman of CPI, Professor Frank Burchill, &ldquo;The agreement provides an essential framework for all the parties to work as partners in tackling the challenges in securing a healthy future for the papermaking industry.&quot; 
 
The agreement, if passed, is expected to take effect in early 2007. 
 
UK&rsquo;s papermaking industry employs over 10,000 people in over 60 worksites, but has struggled to remain competitive in the face of reduced output coupled with high energy costs. Papermaking, along with printing in the UK, is one of the few industries to have industry-wide bargaining.

UK Unions Could Embark on New Partnering Relationship in Paper Sector

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Some 1,000 German coal miners will convene in Dresden tomorrow, 28 November, to lobby the Christian Democratic Party to preserve federal coal subsidies. 
 
Miners will handbill the CDU&rsquo;s Congress with a leaflet entitled &ldquo;We Fight for Germany&rsquo;s Energy Future&rdquo;, aimed at reminding German Chancellor Angela Merkel of promises she made to the preservation of the country&rsquo;s coal mining industry. 
 
The action is supported by ICEM German affiliate IGBCE. 
 
Some 700 miners will arrive from the Ruhr region and from Ibbenb&uuml;ren, some 300 others from the province of Saarland. The miners and their union are reacting to motions passed by CDU&rsquo;s North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland regional delegations to reduce the current level of coal mining in those areas, as well as proposing to phase-out mining subsidies by the first half of the next decade. 
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The miners contend that domestic coal is necessary in a balanced energy mix, and argue that Germany has become too dependent on imports of both coal and natural gas. 
 
The handbilling campaign also seeks to remind Merkel, as well as North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister J&uuml;rgen R&uuml;ttgers and Saarland Prime Minister Peter M&uuml;ller, of pledges they made that any adjustments in the coal mining industry would be socially acceptable, and occur without closures to existing mining operations.

German Coal Miners Take Protest to CDU Congress on 28 November

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Following failed bargaining between negotiators for the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Goodyear Tire &amp; Rubber Co. from 14 to 17 November, the ICEM North American affiliate has heightened its safety and awareness campaign against the US tyre-maker. 
 
On 2 December, the USW will dispatch hundreds of strikers and supporters to 13 cities in the US and Canada to handbill Goodyear retail outlets. The effort, following a similar one on 18 November, will call attention to possible safety defects of Goodyear tyres to be sold in America. The company is attempting to run production at several of the 16 plant sites that are currently on strike with managers and temporary workers. 
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The USW has erected an &ldquo;Investor Alert&rdquo; website, <a href="http://www.usw.org/goodyearalert">www.usw.org/goodyearalert</a>, aimed at some 15,000 industry analysts, in an effort to drive the company&rsquo;s stock price down. The site calls into question Goodyear&rsquo;s third-quarter earnings report, and gives a truthful account of the company&rsquo;s future while skilled crafts-people are on strike. 
 
A total of 55% of the company&rsquo;s outstanding shares is owned by ten institutional investors.
The USW has also begun using a video-sharing site called YouTube to educate the public about the strike and the safety concerns stemming from union members being out. That site can be found at <a href="http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=QDKGJu5eMZo">http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=QDKGJu5eMZo</a>. 
The union has moreover begun targeting the NASCAR racing circuit, which is 100% supplied by Goodyear, providing high-quality and expensive race car tyres. USW begins a renewed radio advertising campaign this week, targeting consumers in the New York City area with the safety alert. 

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That alert is reminiscent of the campaign the union engaged in against Bridgestone/Firestone some 11 years ago. After that lockout, researchers at Princeton University in the US state of New Jersey examined the causes of the Ford Motor recall of 14.4 million Firestone tyres, and linked it to the temporary workers utilised during the dispute. 
 
These tyres were later linked by the US National Highway Safety Transportation Authority to some 271 road fatalities and more than 800 injuries. 
The Goodyear strike at the 16 US and Canadian tyre and auto accessory plants by 15,000 steelworkers began on 5 October, after America&rsquo;s biggest rubber company proposed harsh concessions and refused to guarantee job security at the unionised plants. 
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The proposed concessionary terms include closing company-paid health care coverage for retirees and a two-tier wage scheme in which new employees will be paid US$13-per-hour with no future opportunity to make what current rubber workers earn. The company also seeks to close at least one tyre-making plant, in Tyler, Texas, where 1,100 workers are employed. 
 
In the mid-November bargaining &ndash; the first talks since the strike began &ndash; Goodyear proposed to create a US$600 million trust fund for retiree health care. The Akron, Ohio-based company, however, carries a US$1.2 billion liability for retiree care. The proposed US$600 million trust would only provide current retirees with six years of coverage, leaving nothing for future retirees. 
 
The USW has promised to escalate the campaign to an even higher level if the strike is not settled by the first of 2007. The Steelworkers&rsquo; general website on all Goodyear related activity can be found at <a href="http://www.gkdsolidarityexpress.org">http://www.gkdsolidarityexpress.org</a>.

Steelworkers Ramp up Campaign Surrounding North American Goodyear Strike

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Today starts the ICEM World Conference for the Energy Industries in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The conference will run until Wednesday, 29 November. On that day, a second ICEM conference will start, the World Conference for the Chemical Industries.
Documents from the two ICEM World conferences
<a href="/?id=166">Click here for the ICEM Energy Conference 
</a> 
<a href="/?id=165">Click here for the ICEM Chemical&nbsp;Conference</a>
ICEM sectoral conferences are held once every four years, providing ICEM affiliates from the respective sectors the opportunity to discuss and exchange information on global, regional, and national developments and challenges in their sectors. 
 
The two conferences have their own specific agendas. Some issues, however, such as the increasing use of contract and agency labour and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, two global ICEM priorities, will be discussed at both conferences. Gender and health and safety issues will also be part of both agendas, as will be global framework agreements and global networks. 
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The energy conference will be opened by Lars Myhre, Chair of the ICEM energy section, Errol K. Mcleod, General President of OWTU, Hon. Partrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary. 
 
Some of the main topics include: a general outlook for the global energy sector, climatic challenges, clean coal technologies, alternative sources, LNG, the challenge of renewable energies, the nuclear renaissance and the ICEM-ITF Global Oil and Gas alliance. 
 
One specific subject of the Energy Conference will be a presentation by the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada on the booming oil extraction occurring in Alberta&rsquo;s tar sands, with specific emphasis on the union&rsquo;s agenda of assuring that refining occurs inside Canada. 
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On 29 November, the Chemicals Conference, the second of its kind ever, will start. The first two days of the conference will be devoted to the chemicals sector. The last day, 1 December, will deal exclusively with issues involving the pharmaceutical sector. 
 
The chemical agenda includes, among many other things, company mergers and acquisitions, the increasing demands of China and the Middle East, REACH, the Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). 
 
On Friday, 1 December, which is World HIV/AIDS Day, the conference will discuss the responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry in delivering HIV/AIDS-drugs to the least developed countries on a fair and equitable basis.

ICEM World Conferences on Energy and Chemicals Opens Today

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Spanish and Portuguese workers of Compagnie Saint-Gobain will join French workers in strike action on 11 May, as called by four unions at all French plants of the major global glass and materials producer. 
 
The strike has the united support of the CGT, CFDT, FO, and CFTC, and the four unions have called 60,000 Saint-Gobain workers to strike in protest to the Paris-based company&rsquo;s industrial decisions. 
<img height="203" alt="" src="" width="200" />
Central among issues is Saint-Gobain&rsquo;s uncertainty over its Desjonqu&egrave;res glass business. Saint-Gobain is exploring either a sale or a spin-off of this business. 
 
The workers&rsquo; representatives in France, which called for the 11 May action, say the company has made strategic choices that have adversely affected employment. They cite the acquisition of British Plasterboard as one example of a non-strategic business decision. 
 
Trade union representatives from France met with Spanish and Portuguese glass-union leaders in Lisbon on 17 April to plan next week&rsquo;s action. 
 
The one-hour strike this coming Friday is just another in a series of escalating protests to Paris managers of Saint-Gobain. In February, the four unions already brought hundreds of workers from four factories to a manifestation outside the company&rsquo;s headquarters at La D&eacute;fense near Paris. 
<img height="263" alt="" src="" width="350" />
Saint-Gobain workers demonstrating early 2007
Saint-Gobain faces labour turmoil in other sectors in France as well. On 6 March, 100 workers took strike action at an abrasives factory in Nazelles-N&eacute;gron. The CGT called that strike over stalled wage negotiations. Another recent strike at a Saint-Gobain plant in Ch&acirc;teaubernard tells the level of discontent inside the company. A spontaneous monetary collection by workers at another operation netted &euro;7,788 for the Ch&acirc;teaubernard strikers.

French Workers to Strike Saint-Gobain 11 May in Three Countries

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More than 300 rubber workers mobilised to direct action recently in Callao, Argentina, seeking a negotiated settlement already agreed to with major rubber companies. The workers marched to the office of the Work Ministry behind the banner of ICEM affiliate Sindicato Unico Trabajores del Neum&aacute;tico Argentina (SUTNA), demanding the negotiated package that is already in place at the major tyre producers, Bridgestone, Pirelli, and FATE. 
 
The labour dispute is currently before a government conciliation process. 
<img height="93" alt="" src="" width="200" />
Earlier this year, SUTNA won 38% wage increases for 4,000 workers at the major firms. SUTNA Gen. Sec. Pedro Wasiejko also has pledged that, in this round of national rubber bargaining, no worker would earn less than 2,741 pesos (&euro; 600) per month. 
 
The 300 rubber workers in Callao have placed this minimum monthly salary demand as a priority. They also seek the pay packages earned at the tyre factories. 
 
Wasiejko said that across the entire Argentine rubber sector, labour costs are but a small fraction of total production costs. According to the Argentine labour leader, rubber companies can afford the pay raises. Such labour cost increases will not affect the customer or the consumer.

Rubber Workers Take Action in Argentina to Achieve Pattern Agreement

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As an election nears for workers at the Firestone Rubber Plantation in Harbel, Liberia, violence broke out during a three-day strike. Riot police stormed a picket line on 27 April, clubbing and tear gassing strikers. Some two-dozen workers were hospitalised, at least two seriously. 
 
The police violence came one month before some 6,000 agriculture workers will vote on their choice of union representative. An insurgent union, called the Firestone Agriculture Workers Union (FAWU), has strong support among workers tapping rubber at this million-acre rubber plantation owned by Bridgestone Corporation of Japan. 
 
The FAWU succeeded on 9 April in getting Liberia&rsquo;s Labor Ministry to conduct the election against the General Agriculture and Allied Workers&rsquo; Union (GAAWUL), the recognised union that FAWU activists accuse of malfeasance and providing little or no representation. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="" width="250" />
The police force, which included electric shocks from batons, occurred after strikers had questioned contract workers who were unloading rubber from trucks. The three-day strike was nearing an end at the time, with Firestone managers and workers nearly in agreement on issues related to the strike. 
 
Government and local officials denied calling out the police, and indications are that Firestone Rubber Plantation managers called for the forceful police raid. NGO and trade unions, who have been monitoring the longstanding trouble surrounding this rubber plantation, videotaped some of this police violence. 
 
While plantation workers count down to a union election, scheduled by the government for the last week of May, Bridgestone is defending itself in a US court against charges of longstanding child labour practices, other slave-like employment practices, and environmental degradation at the Firestone plantation. The Alien Tort Claims Act lawsuit in a US federal courtroom has been brought by the International Labor Rights Fund and 35 plaintiffs, including ICEM affiliate United Steelworkers.

Police Beat Insurgent Unionists at Firestone Rubber Plantation in Liberia

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