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South African affiliate NUM sees no harmony, only dishevel in the hostile takeover of Goldfields by smaller gold-mining company Harmony. In a statement, NUM said that considering the high gold price, companies should be investing in development and job growth rather than consolidation and shrinkage. Both South African companies have retrenched numerous workers this year alone. NUM is calling for dialogue between the two companies instead of hostile &ldquo;approaches that send jitters into the market and economy,&rdquo; in the words of Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe. NUM is also opposed to a Goldfields preferred deal with Canada&rsquo;s Imagold and said the mining industry in South Africa suffers an &ldquo;anti-patriotic spirit&rdquo; in terms of abandoning national investment.

South Africa’s NUM Chastises Harmony’s Takeover Bid

20 October will go down as a day of death in China&rsquo;s coal mines. Four disasters found 123 dead, including&mdash;at last count&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;an, Hebei province, when flooding cased the deaths of 29 miners.

Day of Death in Chinese Coal Mines, 20 October 2004

Nigeria&rsquo;s House of Representatives will carefully scrutinize an already amended Labour Reform Bill passed by the Senate. The measure, introduced by President Olusegun Obasanjo to punish NLC and trade unions for opposing past fuel price hikes with strikes, did have &ldquo;no strike&rdquo; language removed by the Senate before passage, but other restrictive measures that would weaken the NLC and trade unions remain. House leaders promise comprehensive hearings to ensure Nigerian people are heard on the legislation. Further amendments are likely.

Nigerian Labour Seeks to Further Weaken Labour Reform Bill

Leaders from the Botswana Mining Workers&rsquo; Union face continued legal harassment by Debswana, the diamond-mining joint venture between DeBeers and the government of Botswana. The union faces a 15 October deadline to file affidavits on why leaders should not face jail terms. Debswana is seeking jail sentences of the leaders over a two-week strike staged by some union members at Debswana despite a BMWU plea to continue bargaining. Debswana had received a positive ruling from a Botswana&rsquo;s Industrial Court in early August declaring any strike illegal. The ruling came at the peak of a bitter wage dispute.

Debswana Taking Hard Line Against Botswana’s Miners

Malaysian ICEM affiliates together with national center MTUC conducted nationwide pickets on 28 September protesting the government&rsquo;s lack of response over complaints on failure to implement ILO Convention 87. Malaysian unions have been beset by undue court delays over union recognition and collective bargaining cases, and by ministerial delays over trade union disputes that include worker discharge cases. The government has ignored the calls for response and instead has introduced further restrictions on trade union activity.

Malaysian Unions Protest Government’s Labor Rights Abuses

Lawlessness and intimidation&quot; in Zimbabwe are now impacting negatively on trade union rights there, world industrial union leaders declared in Brussels this afternoon. 
 
The Executive Committee of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) called on the Zimbabwean government to &quot;allow trade union activities to take place freely and without fear or intimidation.&quot; 
 
Trade union rights and human rights must be guaranteed &quot;irrespective of political tensions in the country,&quot; the ICEM said. It also called for &quot;free political activity&quot; in Zimbabwe and the &quot;creation of an environment conducive to free and fair elections.&quot;

Zimbabwe Union Rights Under Threat

Sri Lanka's emergency regulations have been severely condemned by world industrial trade union leaders currently meeting in Brussels. 
 
Promulgated on 3 May, the regulations suppress &quot;fundamental democratic rights and basic trade union rights,&quot; said the Executive Committee of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The ICEM particularly deplores the &quot;total suppression&quot; of Sri Lankan workers' &quot;rights to strike, to picket and to march in public procession&quot; in any sector that the country's President declares to be an &quot;essential service&quot;. The wide range of sectors already hit by the decrees includes fuel distribution, electricity supply, commodity exports and &quot;the sale, supply or distribution of any articles of food or medicine or any other article required by a member of the public,&quot; the unions point out. 
 
Calling on the Sri Lankan government to withdraw the regulations immediately, the ICEM pledged to mobilise &quot;full solidarity action&quot; by its unions worldwide and to lodge a complaint against Sri Lanka with the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). The emergency regulations breach the ILO's core standards on freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Unions Slam Sri Lankan Decrees

A strike that hit most of Turkey's tyre industry from 28 April onwards has been &quot;postponed&quot; by government decree. 
 
Under a frequently abused legal pretext, the Turkish cabinet claimed that the tyre strike was a threat to national security. 
 
It then invoked Article 33 of Turkey's Law on Collective Agreements, Strikes And Lock-Outs. This allows the government to suspend any strike or lock-out for sixty days if it is deemed to endanger &quot;public health or national security&quot;. 
 
To apply this law to a tyre strike is obviously absurd. The move will certainly damage the Turkish government's reputation at a time when it is trying to prove its democratic credentials in a bid to join the European Union. 
 
Moreover, &quot;postponement&quot; of a strike under this legislation usually amounts in practice to an indefinite ban, because Article 34 of the same law empowers the labour ministry to impose arbitration at the end of the sixty days, unless the parties have either come to an agreement or voluntarily sought arbitration. 
 
Turkey's official arbitrators rarely decide in a union's favour. 
 
The decree &quot;postpones&quot; strike action at the three main multinationals affected by the dispute - Pirelli, Goodyear and Bridgestone. It was signed on 5 May by President S&uuml;leyman Demirel, Prime Minister B&uuml;lent Ecevit and the entire Turkish cabinet. 
 
The Turkish rubber workers' union Lastik-Is had been negotiating with the tyre companies since last November for a new agreement covering this year and 2001. At the global level, the union is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which organises tyre and rubber workers worldwide. 
 
The companies' final offer to Lastik-Is was a 22 percent pay increase for the first half of this year, followed by a further 6 percent in the second half, plus a small lump sum. For the year 2001, the companies proposed to make an additional payment dependent on the prevailing exchange rate between the US dollar and the Turkish lira at the time. 
 
This is a wholly inadequate offer, the union points out, in view of the steep rise in the cost of living. Turkey's inflation rate last year was 68.8 percent. The tyre workers would need a pay rise of the same order simply in order to restore their purchasing power. 
 
Altogether, some 5,000 workers are affected by the strike ban.

Turkish Tyre Strike Banned

Talks could begin today on the dispute that has shut down much of Norway's private sector. 
 
National labour federation LO called its secretariat into special session immediately after a press conference in Oslo this morning. LO President Yngve Hagensen told journalists that exploratory discussions have already taken place with the employers' federation NHO. 
 
&quot;These could - and I emphasise the could - lead to a resumption of negotiations with NHO as early as today,&quot; Hagensen said. 
 
But strike action could continue in parallel with any negotiations, he stressed. 
 
&quot;If we are to succeed in the negotiations, we must demonstrate our strength,&quot; Hagensen explained. 
 
84,600 Norwegian workers have been on strike across the private sector since 3 May, following the membership's rejection of a previous mediated settlement offer. The strike is scheduled to spread at 6.00 a.m. tomorrow local time, after which a total of 102,119 workers will be out. 
 
Industrial unions affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) are playing a major part in the campaign.

Norwegian Strike Talks Today?

Norway's nationwide strike will spread to more industries next Tuesday, union leaders told a press conference in Oslo this morning. 
 
102,119 workers will be on strike across the private sector from 6.00 a.m. local time on 9 May. These include the 84,600 union members who have been out since 3 May - already more than a third of the country's private sector union membership. 
 
Among the new strikers next Tuesday will be 5,200 pulp and paper workers organised by the general union Fellesforbundet. At the global level, Fellesforbundet is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
ICEM sectors already on strike in Norway include asphalt, cement, explosives, rubber products, paints, plastics and a range of ancillary and catering functions in the oil and gas industries. Electricity and electrochemical workers could join in later this month. 
 
The strike follows a membership vote to reject a mediated settlement covering much of the private sector. 
 
&quot;It is true that we have national-level collective agreements and that we have a tradition of bringing out whole sectors of coverage during a dispute,&quot; commented Fellesforbundet President Kjell Bj&oslash;rndalen at today's press conference. &quot;We call out everything or nothing.&quot; 
 
No new offer has so far been received from the employers, Yngve H&aring;gensen told the journalists this morning. He is President of the national trade union federation LO, which is coordinating the action. 
 
&quot;We're going to conduct a big, solid strike without hitting 'third parties' too hard,&quot; H&aring;gensen added. &quot;We'll do it in such a way that it will be first and foremost the companies, the owners, who will feel it.&quot;

Norwegian Strike To Spread

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