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Press

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN N° 11

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ICEM’s paperworkers’ union affiliate in Finland, Paperiliitto, began a 48-hour strike today at some 64 paper mills owned by companies affiliated with the Finnish employers’ organisation, Forest Industries Federation. The strike by 20,000 Finnish workers is in protest to the harsh social measures through which the industry has chosen to improve profitability. 
 
The strikes, begun at 6h00 today and are set to run until 6h00 on 17 May, affecting all major paper firms including Stora Enso and UPM Kymmene. Other mills and paper converters owned by M-real, Metsä Tissue, Myllykoski, and other, smaller companies are also affected. Paperiliitto’s Executive Committee decided to allow Stora Enso’s mill at Panakoski and UPM Kymmene’s mill at Voikkaa mill to operate. Stora has the Panakoski mill up for sale, while UPM intends to shut down the Voikkaa mill by year end, even though it is a viable operation that could be sold. 
On 17 May, office workers across the Finnish paper sector, represented by the Union of Salaried Workers Trade Union, will strike for 24 hours in similar protest. 
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Stora and UPM, the largest Nordic paper companies, announced broad restructuring plans of late. In order to cut production capacity to maintain high prices, Stora Enso announced in the last quarter of 2005 that it would slash 2,000 jobs and close 10 mills worldwide. UPM Kymmene said it would cut 2,560 jobs, and that three mills in Finland would be shuttered. The other companies have also cut jobs in Finland, although at smaller numbers. 
 
Paperiliitto President Jouko Ahonen, chairman of ICEM’s Pulp and Paper Sector, said the cuts to jobs and workers’ livelihoods reflect a disturbing trend as to social awareness by the paper manufacturers. “Finland has moved to a management culture where shareholders are now the priority,” he said. “Paperworkers feel deeply insulted at the way they have been treated by employers.”

Paperiliitto Launches 48-Hour Strike in Finnish Paper Sector

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Continental AG, the German tyre manufacturer, wasted little time in slamming shut the negotiation process by announcing the closure of a union-represented plant in the US. Despite an offer by the United Steelworkers (USW) on 28 April to cut labour costs by US$16 million in order to keep an auto and light-truck tyre plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, operating, the company said the cuts were not enough. 
 
Managers then stormed out of talks and issued a formal letter stating negotiations had reached impasse. On 1 May, a day after expiration of a collective agreement for 800 rubber workers, Continental implemented its basket-load of cuts, totalling US$32 million, and announced tyre production in Charlotte would cease altogether by the end of September. 
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USW / IGBCE Press conference in Hannover
“We consider this action unlawful and will take every step to see that the company’s action is reversed,” said USW Exec. Vice President Ron Hoover. The union has filed a US labour law charge against the impasse declaration and the unilateral implementation of pay and benefit cuts amounting to 35%. 
 
On 5 May, USW took its fight for job retention and fairness in Charlotte to the company’s AGM in Hannover, Germany. The US Steelworkers, led by former Rubber Sector Chairman John Sellers, were joined by rubber manufacturing representatives of IGBCE in planning and implementing a protest and setting up a press conference denouncing Conti’s harsh and abrupt actions.
The company, which sacked 140 Charlotte workers in March, says it will fire another 170 workers this month, with 480 slated to go in mid-September. Continental said only 200 workers will remain after September, performing mixing, calendaring and warehousing duties, while tyre production will shift to a non-union plant in the US and to plants in3 Mexico and Brazil. Continental realized record profits in 2005, as well as seeing share gains topping 25%.

Continental Gives No Ground in US Tyre Talks

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Following results of German Works Council elections this spring, ICEM affiliate IGBCE has raised its representation voice inside companies to 85%. That is 5% better than results reflected in the last overall elections in 2002. 
 
IGBCE Governing Board Member Michael Vassiliadis termed the new number “an outstanding result” and a “clear signal” of worker confidence in Germany’s most diverse industrial union. 
 
“Under difficult conditions, we continue to add,” said Vassiliadis. IGBCE has over one million members in Germany, and the union, through its worker representatives, has strong voice on some 3,700 Works Councils.

IGBCE Gains Strength on German Works Councils

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The global mining industry did produce one piece of good news over the past fortnight. Canadian mining house Ivanhoe announced it would withdraw from Burma, expressing to sources discomfort with having to deal with the military junta, which jointly owns a copper mine with Ivanhoe. The company will sell its 50% in the Monywa mine to a consortium of South Korean investors, including Daewoo International, which already has investment deals with the Burmese generals. 
 
The Ivanhoe Mines exit will happen in a July 2006 sale. Last week, Burma’s military junta extended the house arrest on Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her strong voice for democracy and human rights in Burma has now been silenced for the past three years by the corrupt Burmese military rulers. In total, she has spent a total of ten of the past 17 years in detention.

Canadian Ivanhoe Mines Pulls Out of Burma

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ICEM Norwegian affiliate NOPEF and other unions achieved a 2006 wage increase of 4.5% in the offshore oil sector. The accord came on 17 May after offshore workers rejected a 2.5% offer from the Oil Industry Association (OLF). 
 
The agreement covers 6,200 workers and also lays a framework for further dialogue on work conditions including the rising demand for skilled workers in Norway’s offshore oil sector. A total of 2.4 million barrels of oil daily is pumped from rigs off the Norwegian continental shelf.

Norway’s Offshore Energy Workers Negotiate 4.5% Raise

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On 19 May, ICEM’s French affiliate Fédéchimie CGT-FO elected, unanimously, Hervé Quillet as its new general secretary at an extraordinary National Committee meeting. 
 
The new general secretary replaces long-serving and popular general secretary Michel Decayeux, who is retiring, but will remain on as a member of the organisation’s Bureau Fédéral as well as of its Commission Exécutive Confédérale until the union’s next congress. He also remains in charge of European and international relations. Decayeux is a former ICEM Materials Section chairman and an Executive Committee Member of the ICEM.

Michel Decayeux Steps Down as GS of Fédéchimie CGT-FO in France

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ICEM German affiliate IGBCE and the country’s chemical employers’ federation, BAVC, announced in Berlin today, 12 June, a joint declaration toward implementing family-friendly policies in the workplace. The agreement is the first of its kind in any sector in Germany.
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The initiative serves as the pioneering effort toward achieving the necessary balance between work and family life. “This is a significant step to better compatibility between occupation and family duties,” said IGBCE’s Edeltraud Glaenzer. She added that the basic principles contained in the position paper will now need to be put in practice in chemical industry worksites. 
 
German Family Affairs Secretary Ursula von der Leyen, who was present for the signing, stated, “For the trade union and employers’ organisation to declare this family-friendly personnel policy, is a decisive prerequisite for a better balance between work and family life.”

IGBCE, Chemical Industry Announce ‘Family-Friendly’ Protocol Agreement

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Locked-out members of Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) of Canada Local 972 ratified a collective agreement with Stora Enso on 20 June, thus ending a five-month labour dispute and ensuring that the paper mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, remains open. 
 
The 600 paper mill workers ratified the contract by the narrowest of margins, 54%, while a separate clerical unit gave approval by an even slimmer margin. The coated paper and newsprint mill was threatened with shutdown by Stora Enso unless a new labour agreement was not ratified by 24 June.
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The mill is plagued by Stora’s insistence on cutting paper capacity, and the current high value of the Canadian dollar in relation to the US dollar. Stora Enso has now petitioned the province’s utility commission in order to gain a power rate reduction before it re-starts the mill.
The province of Nova Scotia has already given preliminary approval to a C$65 million, seven-year property tax decrease so that the company would continue to operate the mill. 
 
Throughout the 23-week lockout, CEP Local 972 received vast support from several sources. 
In a letter announcing the ratification, Local 972 stated, “This support came from other CEP Locals across the country, other unions across Canada and many other countries, numerous other unions, associations, affiliates, local businesses, local individuals, and our own members who also cared and looked out for one another. This tremendous show of support will be long remembered.”

Stora Enso Lockout in Canada Ends with Ratification Vote

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Trade union members of Amicus, an ICEM affiliate in the UK, staged a second four-hour strike on 30 March at International Paper Co.’s Inverurie mill in Scotland. The union and its 231 members at the paper mill will escalate industrial actions this week with two further strikes, tomorrow and Thursday, 4 and 6 April, if the company does not revise a pay offer for 2006 and 2007. 
Management has proposed an unacceptable pay freeze for this year and a minimal one-off payment in 2007. Workers for the past two years have contributed part of their weekly earnings to help fill a gap in the company’s pension scheme. The industrial actions have boosted Amicus support inside the printing and writing papers mills, as well as in the nearby community of Aberdeenshire.

Further Strikes at IP Paper Mill in Scotland

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