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An 18-day lockout of 58 members of Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union in New Zealand ended on 21 February after workers ratified a mediated settlement with a North Island regional electrical provider, Top Energy. 
The two-year accord gives the linemen a 5% wage increase, backdated to 1 July 2005, and a 4% wage increase in July of this year. The agreement also retains for workers key work-rule conditions, items that the community-owned electric distributor tried to take from workers in initiating the lockout.

Lockout Ends at Top Energy in New Zealand

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ChevronTexaco Nigeria Ltd. and one of its contractors, US-based Elper Engineering, face strike actions if the companies do not live up to terms of a collective agreement put in place five years ago. ICEM affiliate NUPENG met again last week in Nigeria with the two companies to resolve the dispute over back wages and severance, but the employers rebuffed efforts to settle the issue. 
The union declared its intent to resolve the dispute through social dialogue, but warned that NUPENG members working inside the two companies would strike if ChevronTexaco and Elper continue to avoid the issue. The two firms have granted the contractual obligation to a few employees, but have denied it to most. Contract workers at ChevronTexaco’s massive Escravos operations in Ugborodo, Delta State, and its shallow-water platform Funiwa off Bayelsa State are affected.

Dispute Festering in Nigeria Between NUPENG, ChevronTexaco

Following a two-day strike on 22 and 23 February, a two-week cooling off process is now underway between ICEM Belgian affiliate ABVV-FGTB and ExxonMobil at a polymers plant near Antwerp. The entire workforce of 350 totally shut down operations at the Zwijndrecht plant in a contract dispute for a 2006-2007 renewal. 
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Workers were incensed at the wage offer presented to them. Also in dispute is management’s proposal to reduce staff by increasing automation. 
Determined worker unity under the guidance of ABVV-FGTB brought the company back to the table, where a conciliator did remove some obstacles to a new agreement on 27 February, the day the two-week cooling off period took effect. Labour and management will return to talks on 14 March.

Belgian ExxonMobil Strike Over; Talks will Resume 14 March

Inside Thailand’s current political turmoil and Prime Minister’s Thaksin Sinawatra’s rush to elections next month to solidify his authority rests the issue of privatisation and whether or not a country’s resources belong in public control or sold off to capital markets. 
 
There is little question of where Thaksin stands, judging from his own business dealings and his government’s actions to break up the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), as well as Metropolitan and Provincial electric utilities. 

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A central demand by the political opposition, which seeks Thaksin’s resignation, is immediate debate and introduction of new constitutional amendments. Thaksin is seeking a quick victory, allowing him to continue setting constitutional precedents, including the ones he has used as the means to sell public-vested enterprises to investors. Initial listing of EGAT on the stock markets was scheduled for November 2005, but has been suspended pending a court review. 
 
New debate also has surfaced over privatising the regional electric power authorities, scheduled for later this year. Last month, the Thai Finance Ministry raised uncertainties on privatising these utilities by stating electricity rates are set by government policy, raising questions on profitability and revenue forecasts. Even more to the point, a ministry official said new investment decisions cannot necessarily be made just on commercial reasoning, but also must be made on social needs. 
“The plan to shift transmission wires underground will in no way help boost profits, but rather is aimed at improving service quality and the community,” the official told the Bangkok Post. The outcome in Thailand over the next several weeks promises to be the watershed that will shape political decision-making well into the future.

Electric Privatisation Cloaked in Thailand’s Political Tempest

Going against the flow of today’s business mantra on ethical and sustainable behaviour, China and India continue to sign energy agreements with the military dictators in Burma. 
Only last Friday, Indian President Abdul Kalam sealed such a new deal, which will allow India to tap into a part of Burma’s vast natural gas reserves. As part of that deal, yet another pipeline will be built. In Burma, more pipelines mean more slave labour, and more misery for the Burmese people. 
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This latest Indian deal follows the announcement late last year that the Burmese junta decided to sell a portion of its gas from the large Shwe project to China. 
By granting this and other rights to PetroChina and CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corp.), the military dictators opened up Burma’s new natural gas resources to both regional superpowers, continuing their old habit of creating rivalries between them. Some gas will now, in part, be produced by Indian companies, but sold to China. Both nations are hungry for resources to drive their energy needs. 
 
These deals concern recently discovered offshore gas reserves, including the massive Shwe Project, operated by consortiums of Asian companies, including South Korea’s Daewoo and India’s state owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC). 
This is in addition to the other ‘older’ gas fields in the region, such as Yadana and Yetagun, which are mainly operated by a mixture of OECD-based and regional companies, including Total, Unocal (now Chevron), Nippon Oil and Petronas of Malaysia. 
 
The ‘newer’ fields are still largely in their test-drilling phases. Estimates on their combined size vary, but range from twice the size of the combined Yadana and Yetagun fields, to ten times as much. 
Together with a few recently discovered oil fields, they are likely to become the latest and maybe largest pool of resources at the hands of Burma’s military cartel, widely known as one of the most horrific dictatorial regimes in the world. Burmese generals spend roughly half of their nation’s budget on the army, a tool used to terrorize Burma’s population. Spending on education or health services is nearly non-existent. 
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With the Chinese and Indian investments comes a startling fact: the projects will entail at least two new pipelines built inside Burma, one to India and one to China. 
While China is “studying” building a pipeline from the Arakan coast to the Chinese province of Yunnan, India reportedly agreed with Burma to build a pipeline that will now be much longer than originally anticipated, bypassing Bangladesh and going via Burma into northeast India. 
 
“We all know about the consequences of building pipelines in Burma: countless Burmese civilians may be subjected to forced labour and suffer from it, ranging from having to work under slavery conditions at gunpoint, at best, to being murdered at worst“ said Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary. 
 
History is clear about what happens when pipelines are built in Burma. While the onshore part of the pipeline that links the Yetagun and Yadana gas fields with Thailand is only 65 kilometres in length, construction of it brought serious human rights concerns with it. 
Forced labour was used in connection to the building of the pipeline by the omnipresent army, officially there to protect operations. Land confiscation without compensation, something common throughout Burma, is another likely consequence of the investment. Estimates on the current number of people forcibly displaced already range from a few hundred thousand to a few million. 
 
All this will be no different this time. According to the ILO, the United Nations agency that deals with labour issues, forced labour is still widespread in Burma.
Multinational companies still have to enter into joint-venture deals with Burmese state-run companies, in this case MOGE, the Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise, a company owned and controlled by the army, which continues to control virtually all aspects of life in Burma.

India and China to boost forced labour in Burma

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A United Steel Workers (USW) local union in the US is alleging Bridgestone/Firestone (BFS) blocked a plant-gate effort to raise money for Firestone rubber plantation workers in Liberia. This would violate workplace rules as defined under the national US labor law statute. 
USW Local 1055 in LaVergne, state of Tennessee, filed the charges last month with the US government over management’s action at a BSF auto/truck tyre plant employing 1,500 workers. The branch union was blocked by the company from collecting funds and sending the voluntary proceeds to some 6,000 plantation workers in war-infested Liberia, who, with their families, have been exposed to toxic chemicals in the cultivation of natural rubber. 
 
“We’ve stood for years collecting for members who are ill or other locals on strike,” said USW Local 1055 President Lewis Beck. “Most recently, we collected to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.” The US government’s labor board will now investigate the charges and issue a ruling.

Steelworkers in US Press Charges Against Bridgestone Management

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French ICEM affiliate CFDT Chimie Energie is calling for a day of action on 23 March to protest the government’s broken promise on Gaz de France. The union will call on members of Parliament, community officials across France, and consumers to tell them of the consequences if the government-brokered merger between Gaz de Franc and Suez, a French-Belgian water/power group, goes through. 
 
CFDT Chimie Energie declares that the social effects of the proposed merger have been completely disregarded. The French government pledged in June 2004 that no less than 70% of Gaz de France would remain in state hands following a debate on partial privatisation of the public utility. If the merger with Suez happens, only 34% of the combined enterprise would be under state control. The union will hold news conferences and conduct actions throughout France this Thursday.

23 March Day of Action to Save Gaz de France

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A strike by oil-service contractors in Ecuador was put down by the military, following a state of emergency imposed in three Amazon region provinces by President Alfredo Palacio. The 48-hour strike, 6 and 7 March, in which five of the company’s largest oil fields were occupied, was conducted by 4,000 contract workers employed by 50 contract firms responsible to state-run Petroecuador. 
 
The contract workers, who work under 15-day, 20-day and 30-day term contracts, had not been paid in three months due to a dispute between the Finance Ministry and Petroecuador. The army put down the strike with tear gas and other forceful means and the leader of the oil workers’ federation, Remigio Sornoze, was jailed. Not only were the workers seeking their rightful back wages, but demands also include permanent employment by Petroecuador, and reforms to the budgetary law that regulates the oil company. 
 
The strike curtailed over 40% of Ecuador’s 535,000 barrel-per-day production, costing the nation US$20 million. The South American country depends on Petroecuador for 43% of its revenues.

Contract Workers in Ecuador’s Oil Sector Strike

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US-based glassmaker Owens Illinois has discriminated against union members by sacking workers inside a Peldar glass plant in Peru. 
Early in October the company made redundant 11 workers from the factory but later that month recalled five of the workers. The six who were not recalled included representatives - two of whom were past general secretaries - of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de Owens Illinois Perú. 
The ICEM, in lodging a protest with the American company, cited the firm with a clear violation of trade union rights. The trade union discrimination matter has also been taken up by Peruvian national labour centre CGTP, and is before the country’s labour courts.

Owens Illinois Discriminating Against Union Officers in Peru

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ICEM’s Social Dialogue project in Colombia has seen its first direct positive result, and glassmaker Owens Illinois is the employer that made it happen. 
ICEM and Colombian affiliate Sintravidricol had lobbied the US company to bring multiple plants of its Peldar and Vildriera Fenicia subsidiaries under a common labour agreement. Through commitment to dialogue rather than confrontation, Sintravidricol and the company successfully negotiated separate but similar agreements at two of the plants. 
The ICEM applauds both the union and Owens Illinois managers in Colombia for charting a course of respectful collective bargaining. ICEM’s Social Dialogue project in Colombia, launched in October 2004, is in place due to strong support of Swedish unions.

Social Dialogue Project Makes Headway in Colombia

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