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<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Senior management of Statoil, responsible for the Global Framework Agreement (GFA) with the ICEM and Norwegian trade union affiliate, IndustriEnergi (IE), met at the ICEM on 16 December 16, 2010, together with Lars Myhre, chair of the ICEM Energy Industries Sector, and ICEM General Secretary, Manfred Warda, to sign the latest version of the GFA. 
 
The Statoil GFA was the first one that ICEM reached with any company in any sector in July 1998, and it is seen as a major benefit to both management and unions around the world. The Statoil delegation was led by Siv Oftedal, newly appointed Vice President of Human Resources, and also included Erling Brevik and Aksel Stenerud. 
 
The text of the agreement remains substantially unchanged, with all agreeing that in its present form, it has served all parties well. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1102.statoilsigning.jpg" width="220" height="144" alt=""/>
After signing of the renewal, detailed discussions took place that focussed on the company’s investments in Iraq, where it is junior partner with Russian-based Lukoil in the development of the West Querna 2 field. It was agreed that it would be useful to hold a future exchange of information on Iraq early in 2011, with a view to continued contact and the consideration of joint activities. 
 
Another focus was the company’s increased activities in the Caspian Sea. Here it was agreed to consider the introduction of regional social dialog in the Caspian, building on both the work IE has done in Azerbaijan and the ICEM’s Caspian Sea Workers’ Network. Two years ago, ICEM affiliates in the Caspian made a declaration on social rights and last year held a first meeting in which Statoil attended with the Azerbaijan national oil and gas company, SOCAR. 
 
Finally discussions covered offshore safety, particularly in the light of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon disaster last year in the Gulf of Mexico.

ICEM Renews GFA with Statoil

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US state of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker wasted no time starting a major union-busting effort. Just a month into office, Walker is using budget deficit hysteria as excuse to eliminate public-sector unions by eliminating their right to bargain collectively over wages and benefits. 
 
The firestorm of legitimate protests that has overtaken Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin, has spread to other states, where different legislative measures have surfaced by ultraconservative lawmakers that would unequivocally, and overnight, turn the clock back in America by 80 years. 
 
(The ICEM’s North America Region entered the protests in Madison last week by sending representatives from both Canada and the US to the state, and issued a terse letter to Walker. The letter by ICEM Regional Vice Presidents Ken Neumann and Dave Coles states that Walker has “drawn an ideological, anti-labour and undemocratic line in the sand.” The full <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Letter%20to%20Gov%20Walker.pdf " type="internal">ICEM North American letter</a> can be viewed here.) 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1102.wisconsin sign.jpg" width="93" height="128"/>
In Madison, and indeed, throughout the US and in many places in the world, resistance to Walker’s numerous and draconian public spending cuts has drawn an ideological line in the sand. In the early morning hours of 25 February, Republicans who control the Assembly, Wisconsin’s lower legislative chamber, used tomfoolery to pass the cuts. 
 
The regressive measures would have already been signed into law by Walker’s pen had it not for Wisconsin Democrats in the state Senate. Republicans hold a 19-14 in that chamber, but need 20 senators present to take legislative action. All 14 Democrats have left the state in order to prevent a quorum. 
 
The proposed cuts are far more than just the elimination of public-sector bargaining. The 144-page bill contains sweeping cuts to health care for low-income families, it would reduce by US$976 million over the next two years state aid to local units of education, and it would allow the governor to unilaterally privatise any state public utility without soliciting bids and without Public Service Commission consent. And in just one further insult to public employees, the proposed legislation mandates a 5% cut in salaries with that savings going to public-sector pension funds. 
 
The battle in Wisconsin has become a vanguard against right-wing extremism in the US. But why should it matter to the rest of the world? Considering the US is still the world's largest economy, here are five things to understand about the Wisconsin struggle. 
 
1. It is not really about deficits or austerity measures; this is an excuse. Wisconsin was on track for a modest budget surplus of US$120 million this year. However, by taking a worst-case estimate of some real and potential shortfalls in Medicaid, legal aid, prisons, and debts owed to other states, Walker creates the appearance of a US$137 million shortfall. 
 
To put Walker’s budget deficit fabrications into perspective, the American film documentary producer Robert Greenwald points out that withdrawing just 151 US troops from Iraq would save more money than Walker’s trumped-up deficit. Demanding that wealthy individuals and corporations pay a reasonable share of the tax burden would also solve the problem. The earnings of just the top 13 US hedge-fund managers (about US$1 billion each), if taxed as ordinary income instead of capital gains, a US tax loophole, would provide enough new revenue to hire 68,000 teachers. 
 
2. It is not about union intransigence. Public sector unions in Wisconsin have agreed to cuts in wages and benefits. However, they will not agree to permanent removal of their right to negotiate future wages and benefits. That is what Walker is demanding. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1102.wisconsin 2.jpg" width="291" height="218"/>
3. Public sector workers are not the cause of Wisconsin's problems. However, public sector workers are the last major segment of the US workforce with significant rates of unionization. Resistance in Wisconsin is resistance to a new demagoguery inside the US to destroy public sector unions as the final bastion unionisation strength in America. Wisconsin and Walker and the conservative business-led foundations pressing this assault clearly are using the Midwest state as a test case. A defeat in Wisconsin will mean sweeping attacks on unions elsewhere in the US. 
 
4. To accomplish this, well-funded business organisations and right-wing media outlets have incessantly worked the American mainstream against public sector workers. Their ploy is to direct private-sector worker resentment on the things that they do not have, or have been taken from them like adequate pensions and benefits, towards public-sector workers who still have them. To divide and conquer, and distract from the rich who have sucked up nearly all of America’s wealth, is the name of the game here. 
 
5. Most poignantly, the battle in Wisconsin is about the national political credibility of the US union movement. There are many politicians who do not believe that it is worth their while to pay any attention to union demands. A loss in Wisconsin would cement the view that unions are too weak to matter. 
 
Pure and simple, what is now happening in Wisconsin is nothing less than a class war. 
 
The ICEM is adamant that Governor Walker in Wisconsin must be stopped. A <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/8.ICEM.IMF.Wisconsin.21Feb.pdf" type="internal">joint letter from the ICEM and International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF)</a> is here. Write letters of protest to <a href="mailto:govgeneral@wisconsin.gov">govgeneral@wisconsin.gov</a>, for fax to: +1 608 267 8983. And please copy ICEM when you do at <a href="mailto:info@icem.org">info@icem.org</a>.

Five Things to Know About Protests in US State Wisconsin

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Juan Linares Montufar was released from jail last Thursday, 24 February, in what trade unionists around the world are calling a victory for international solidarity against the repressive Mexican government. The release comes one week after trade unions around the world conducted a week-long "Global Days of Action" for trade union rights in Mexico. 
 
Linares outwitted a coordinated and nefarious grouping of employers/government/yellow unions in accepting their offer of a pardon in exchange for his turning on his union, the ICEM affiliate, National Union of Mine, Metal, and Steel Workers (SNTMMSSRM), only to announce details of the illegal offer and continued staunch allegiance to his union as soon as the pardon was made official. 
 
Linares was a political prisoner, held illegally since 3 December 2008 and without bond since his arrest. The sham charges against him all relate to the transfer of funds from a Trust created by SNTMMSSRM. His detention is one part of the campaign of trade union intimidation and repression by the Mexican government.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1102.juan.libertad.jpg" width="100" height="140"/>
Juan Linares is the President of the Oversight and Justice Council of the SNTMMSSRM, also known as Los Mineros, and a key member of the union’s leadership. He was greeted on his release at 02h00 on 24 February by over 100 Los Mineros members outside the jail. 
 
The transfer of the trust funds was perfectly legal under Mexican law, as well as being a protected exercise of trade union autonomy under ILO Convention 87. Two state charges against Linares were dismissed during his time incarcerated, but a federal charge against him was dragged out while the courts denied him bail. 
 
Linares was held at the Reclusorio Norte prison in Mexico City. He received regular visits from his family, other Mineros leaders, and international trade union delegations. He said to all these visitors, “I could walk out of this jail tomorrow if I were willing to betray my union. But I will never do that.” 
<img style="WIDTH: 137px; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1005.napoleon.gomez.jpg" width="142" height="150"/>
Napoleón Gómez
But it was this long-standing offer of freedom with personal payment of millions of pesos that gave Linares his route to freedom. The deal offered to Linares stipulated that he change his chosen defence lawyer, leave the ranks of Los Mineros for a yellow union of miners, and attack Los Mineros leadership. On Linares’ acceptance of these terms, the yellow union complainants appeared before a judge and withdrew their accusations. 
 
Linares said following his release that his pardon could not be revoked, as stipulated under Article 93 of the Mexican Federal Penal Code, and the pardon was irreversibly ratified. In addressing the court, Linares said that neither he nor Napoleón Gómez Urrutia had committed any crime, that the complainants of the case were representatives of the company Grupo México, that during his illegal detainment he was pressured and offered the pardon deal, and that the transfer of bribe money would be made through a contract employing Linares as a “labour peace broker.” 
 
The pardon deal that Linares signed had no legal foundation, especially as it was reached through intimidation and bribery, and was thus discarded. The ICEM salutes Juan Linares for his dignified victory and loyalty to his fellow Mineros.

Mexican Trade Unionist Juan Linares Released from Jail

The second 24-hour strike at paperboard plants in Spain set for tomorrow, 3 March, was cancelled after ICEM’s two affiliates and the employers’ association reached accord early today (2 March) in Madrid. 
 
Trade unions FSC-CCOO and FIA-UGT reached agreement with Aspapel on a three-year national labour agreement for the paperboard sector that wins a 3% retroactive increase for 17,500 workers to 1 January 2010. Retroactive to 1 January 2011 will be a one percent salary increase, plus the amount of Spain’s consumer price increase (CPI). 
 
In 2012, another one percent was won atop the CPI. The Spanish unions also succeeded in keeping sweeping flexibility changes out of the national agreement. A special commission will be established to study that for possible future implementation on the local level. 
 
Without question, the success of a 23 February day-long work stoppage can be attributed to Aspapel and paper industry employers finally moving on a lapsed 2010 national contract. It is obvious by the terms of this agreement that employers did not want another such strike, scheduled for 3 March. 
 
Some 120 paperboard factories come under the new agreement. 
 
The ICEM congratulates paperworkers of both Spanish federations for their resolve in gaining a fair and current collective agreement, and we also thank the many pulp and paper unions worldwide who sent messages of Solidarity to Spanish paperworkers. 
 
An <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4269-Spain’s-Paperworkers-Shut-Industry;-Will-Strike-Again-3-March" type="internal">ICEM news piece</a> from 28 February, naming the companies involved and citing details on the 23 February general strike, is available for viewing.

2nd Spanish Paper Strike Called Off; Settlement Reached

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ICEM’s affiliated trade union in Indonesia’s pulp, paper, and packaging sector, Federasi Serikat Pulp dan Kertas (FSP2KI), conducted its Third Congress in Bandung, West Java, from 22-24 April. The union, with some 20 branches and 15,000 members, amended its structures at this Congress and made the decision to affiliate with Indonesia national labour centre KSPI, the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation. 
 
The Congress pledged to continue growing in the burgeoning Indonesian pulp and paper industry, and it resolved also to work to eliminate temporary or precarious labour in favour of full-time employment in the sector. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.indoFSP2KICongress.JPG" width="251" height="161" alt=""/>
Re-elected President of FSP2KI was Irzan Zulpakar, while Etin Rodiana was re-elected General Secretary. Guests to the Congress included Somahsundram Bala of the Malaysian Pulp and Paper Products Manufacturing Employees Union (PPPMEU), Mikale Lilja of the Swedish Paperworkers’ Union, Pappers, and Bambang Surjono of Indonesian SPKEP-KSPI. 
 
FSP2KI holds membership among workforces of a number of companies, including Asia Pulp and Paper’s (APP) PT Pinto Deli mills in Karawang, APP’s Kiat tissue mill in Tangerang, West Java, Asia Pacific Resources International’s (APRIL) PT Riau mills, the PT Lontar tissue mill in Jambi, Sumatra, and Japanese-based Marubeni’s mill in Kab. Maura Enim, South Sumatra.

Indonesian Pulp, Paper Union, FSP2KI, Holds Congress

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The already-limited freedoms of association in Iraq are under further attack. Last month, the Cabinet arbitrarily dismissed the executive board of the country’s largest trade union organisation, the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), and established a new committee to take over all union structures and assets, oversee and control upcoming union elections. 
 
Cabinet Decrees 95 and 96 were issued on 17 April, withdrawing recognition of the GFIW and appointing a “Ministerial Preparatory Committee” (MPC), consisting of un-elected, politically bias officials, mostly from the Sadrist Party. MPC employees have already begun distributing union membership cards, arbitrarily choosing members favourable to their faction. Further to this, union offices have been taken over with support from police and military personnel. Upcoming union elections are expected to be held inside the Sadrist Party offices. 
 
The deeply concerning developments follow a recent distribution of government ministries between the various political factions of the coalition. The carving up of responsibilities saw the labour ministry taken over by the small, Shia sectarian Sadrist movement, followers of Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. 
 
Eight years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his regime’s regressive labour laws have not been replaced, meaning all public sector employees have no right to organise or bargain collectively. The vast majority of workers in Iraq are affected by this law. But this latest attack is even in breach of the Saddam legislation. 
 
The TUC in the United Kingdom has been on the front line of a global union backlash, calling on the Iraq government to back down. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber wrote to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki explaining that the TUC will exercise its veto right to block the government-nominated workers’ delegate to the ILO Annual Conference (ILC) in June, unless the attack is reversed. 
 
Support the <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=917">Labourstart campaign</a>, and send your protest message to Iraq Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki here. Also send your opposition to this attack on the GFIW to the Iraqi Embassy in your country. International pressure has proved effective in Iraq over recent years. The labour ministry decree has been publically condemned by the Minister of Civil Society in Iraq. Build the pressure, join the campaign. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.iraq oil workers basra.jpg" width="210" height="158" alt=""/>
Oil workers protest in Basra for fair wage
Iraqis continue to bravely organise in face of the government attacks. Oil workers in Basra last week, 10 May, walked out and threatened to stop production at the state-run South Oil Corporation, demanding fair salaries and benefits to match those of oilworkers at the international corporations operating in Iraq. Foreign workers were to be blocked from entering oil fields yesterday, but Basra Governor Khalaf Abdul Samad Khalaf agreed to meet the unions and averted the escalation of the protest, for the time being.

Iraqi Government Moves to End Free Trade Unions, Remove Recognition of National Centre

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The result of long-running consultations with trade unions, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have been updated and improved, representing a positive opportunity to force global capital to respect workers. Stronger clarification that companies’ must ensure compliance throughout supply chains is a significant improvement, as is a new chapter on human rights which requires multinational companies to respect human rights of all workers, in line with the Guiding Principles for Implementing the UN Framework, Protect, Respect, Remedy. 
 
The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are a strong international instrument for promoting corporate social responsibility. In practice, however, their implementation has encountered limits. In this regard, the Update will create a number of improvements in the Procedural Guidance including provisions for: indicative timescales for the completion of cases; and stronger cooperation between home and host country NCPs (National Contact Points). 
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The new developments to the text must now be effectively implemented and respected by national governments. 
 
Other important advances include language on outsourced and temporary work, providing a tool for problematic precarious work to be addressed; and provisions for workers to receive a decent wage or “at least adequate to satisfy the basic needs of the workers and their families”. 
 
The updated Guidelines will be adopted at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting on Wednesday 25 May, and will be immediately in effect. 
 
The ICEM participated in dialogue over the past year with OECD governments. Centrally important in those consultations was TUAC (Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD), with the ITUC, GUFs, BIAC (Business Forum), and OECD Watch also partners. There remains more room for improvement of the Guidelines, and dialogue will be ongoing. 
 
The OECD Guidelines hold the potential to promote corporate social and environmental responsibility worldwide and to make an effective contribution to sustainable development and to the social dimension of globalisation. Potential is increased through this update.

OECD Guidelines Improved

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Poland’s trade unions at the state-run coal company, Jastrzębska Spolka Weglowa (JSW), gave their consent to a 30% float of JSW shares on the Warsaw bourse through a deal reached with the government early this month. The unions, including Solidarność, gained a ten-year guarantee of employment for 22,000 workers. 
 
Negotiations continue today, 23 May, over specifics reached in the 5 May framework agreement, and conclusions must also be reached over pay increases. JSW and the unions had been engaged in a four-month dispute over job security and the effects of the stock listing. 
 
Poland’s Treasury Ministry now will list a 30% stake of Europe’s largest coking coal company in July, instead of the 30 June date as originally planned. The government will maintain 51% stake in JSW, but the possibility exists that future sales of shares will occur. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.polish mine.jpg" width="200" height="133"/>
The government offered a five-year guarantee of employment, while the unions maintained and won ten years. They have retreated some on wage demands totalling 10%, but common agreement is expected to come on that issue. What still must be negotiated is the shape and structure of free-of-charge shares to staff, which will not be bound as an entitlement, certain provisions inside a 2007-2015 strategy plan of JSW, and the appointment of board members to the partially privatised company. 
 
JSW is the first of Poland’s major coal producers to list on a bourse. Next year, the thermal coal producer Katowicky Holding Weglowy (KHW), numbering 19,200 employees, is expected to merge with the state-run logistics and export company Wegokoks, with initial public offering (IPO) to follow. Solidarność is supporting the merger of the companies. 
 
In another mining area inside Poland, high tensions in wage talks at the state-run copper company, KGHM Polska Miedz SA, turned to unruliness on 5 May when angry copper workers tried to storm union-management pay negotiations at the company’s center in Lubin. Workers attacked private security guards and broke windows in trying to enter the premises. Three workers involved in the melee were sacked for the disturbance and 12 others are under investigation. 
 
Workers want more than the 4.5% offer on the table from Europe’s second largest copper producer, which has seen profits double to £1.9 billion in 2010. Some 18,500 KGHM workers have been waiting for fair wage gains since bargaining began in mid-April.

Tentative Accord between Coal Unions, JSW in Polish Privatisation

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ICEM’s North American affiliate, the United Steelworkers (USW), signalled its intent to join a federal lawsuit with two US NGOs against Omnova Solutions for alleged failure to report toxic chemicals. 
 
The USW, the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League fulfilled a 60-day requirement providing notice of intent to file in US Federal District Court over alleged insufficient reporting of storage and release of toxic chemicals into the environment from Omnova’s performance chemicals plant in Chester, South Carolina. 
 
Omnova Solutions, based in the US, is a global producer of specialty chemicals, emulsion polymers, and decorative products. Its performance chemicals division provides binders, coatings, adhesives, and additives primarily for the paper, textile, and carpet industries. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904.poison.jpg" width="120" height="105"/>
The suit by the three parties would fall under the US Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986. It will allege that Omnova, active in Europe, Asia, and North America, failed to accurately complete and submit required toxic chemical release forms for 2008 and 2009 to report releases of potassium permanganate and toluene diisocyanate. The groups also allege that the company failed to report its 2008 releases of isopropyl alcohol. Under the law, Omnova could be subject to civil penalties up to $US32,500 per violation, per day with liabilities that ultimately could reach millions of dollars. 
 
While all three chemicals can irritate the nose and throat, health warnings advise that toluene diisocyanate may cause cancer, lung irritation and an asthma-like allergy. Potassium permanganate may decrease fertility and affect the liver and kidneys. 
 
“We have found that employers who disrespect workers often treat the environment with the same contempt,” said USW Special Counsel Lynn Agee. “Until OMNOVA starts obeying our laws and respecting workers, we’ll continue in our efforts to bring the company to justice.” 
 
The Chester facility is one of six OMNOVA plants that stores large volumes of extremely hazardous chemicals in quantities that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems a potential public risk and subject to risk management planning.

USW Joins US Environmental Groups in Lawsuit Against Chemicals Company Omnova

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In March, the ICEM had the assistance of the IMF in a public campaign in support of ICEM affiliate Petrol-İş in Turkey to get Standard Profil, a manufacturer of rubber products, to begin bargaining. Petrol-İş had gained well past the necessary 50% of Standard Profil’s 2,300 employees workers seeking union representation, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security certified that the company’s product line fell into the Petrol-İş negotiating jurisdiction of petroleum, chemicals, and rubber. 
The purpose of the public campaign, which included global letters of endorsement to Petrol-İş by unions and Works Councils representing Standard Profil customers in the automotive sector, was to dissuade the company from appealing the Ministry’s industrial sector determination. The union called on the company, in the words of Petrol-İş President Mustafa Öztaşkin, to “start with mutual good will and consideration of mutual interests.”
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.petrol is president.JPG" width="217" height="201"/>
 Petrol-İş President Mustafa Öztaşkin
The maker of rubberized automotive sealing systems had already engaged with the union over freedom of association and workers’ rights training through intervention by the Multinational Investment Guarantee Agency, a monitoring agency of the World Bank’s International Finance Corp (IFC). The IFC has loaned Standard Profil development money at its two factories in Düzce and Bursa and criteria for the loan compels the company to foster proper social and environmental conduct. 
In April, the company ignored the workers’ olive branch made by Petrol-İş and filed an appeal with the government. The company claims its jurisdiction is in the metal industry. Such an appeal in Turkey is meant to thwart union recognition and negotiations by tying the matter up in court procedures for two years or more. And following jurisdiction outcome, an appeal on the 50% plus one is automatic, which further binds the hands of legitimate workers’ rights to join a union and bargaining collectively. 
This is a main reason why Turkey’s archaic labour code is currently under scrutiny at the ILO. 
Despite Standard Profil’s labour rights training in 2008-09 under its IFC responsibilities, the company signalled ill-will in sync with its appeal last month by sacking five union activists, including one who is a disabled worker. 
In fact, ICEM and Petrol-İş developed the public campaign with a back-up strategy in the event Standard Profil turned hostile. The Istanbul-based company manufactures rubber sealers for doors, boot, engine covers, and other seals for automobiles. It was owned by Bancroft Private Equity LLP but in early May was sold to the Pawan Ruia Group of India. 
The Ruia Group is heavily involved in the rubber industry and holds big equity stakes in Dunlop Tyre, Monotana Tyre, and Falcon Tyre of India. It also holds a big share of the automotive fastener market, making it a strategic company in the automotive supply chain. ICEM and Petrol-İş will now focus on that fact.

ICEM at Standard Profil: Halting Union Avoidance in Turkey’s Rubber Sector

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