English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2025-2029

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected Officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Press

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
The ICEM Brazilian affiliate, Federac&atilde;o &Uacute;nica dos Petroleiros (FUP), or Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Unified Federation, carved important new safety protections for deepwater oil platform workers in a new collective agreement recently approved. 
 
The union twice came to the edge of beginning strike actions, but postponed walkouts when the Brazilian state company agreed to better pay and more FUP and worker involvement in safety matters on the platforms in the Campos and Esp&iacute;rito Santo Basins, as well as across the company nationally. 
 
Following the FUP General Board accepting a revised company proposal that spells out specific safety requirements on 22 November, the contract won favour from 35,000 oil workers in local meetings, many coming on 26 November. 
<img alt="" src="" width="110" height="110" />
The new contract stipulates mandatory union representation of 150 safety specialists on platforms in the Campos Basin, for instance, and it requires three annual inspections per rig. Petrobras is underway with a US$225 billion investment in downstream and upstream projects, including exploration and development of 19 new wells next year in the deepwater Campos Basin off S&atilde;o Paulo state. 
 
FUP leaders throughout seven rounds of bargaining called for the same safety criteria that Norwegian state company Statoil has with ICEM affiliate IndustriEnergi (IE). Since the 2001 killing of 11 workers in the explosions and subsequent sinking of its P36 platform in the Roncador offshore fields, Petrobras has seen some 80 workplace fatalities, including one in September from a fire on a diesel fuel tanker. 
 
The FUP in 2010 forced suspensions on both Platforms 33 and 35 off Brazil, and the company itself shut operations on different vessels in both January and February this year over safety concerns. 
 
Worker safeguards in the agreement came only after FUP set a second strike deadline of 16 November. Following a first strike threat some weeks before, Petrobras agreed to improve health and pension fund benefits for workers. 
 
The pay package, another key issue throughout talks, will see Petrobras oil workers get a 10.71% pay rise, which represents 3.4% in real wages when factoring in Brazil&rsquo;s inflation rate.

Strike Threat Gets FUP Major Safety Protections for Brazil’s Petrobras Workers

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
Workers throughout Britain are scrambling to fight to protect their pensions, as companies follow the government&rsquo;s tactics of attacking pension schemes. Last week members of three joint affiliates of ICEM and the International Union of Food, Agricultural Workers&rsquo; Association (IUF) at the food and cosmetics manufacturing multinational Unilever voted to strike. 
 
Unilever is attempting to unilaterally scrap the final salary pension scheme for existing members and replace it with a career-average scheme that would cut as much as 40% of the expected retirement benefits of long serving employees. 
 
The company already blocked the final salary scheme to new entrants in 2008, but this plan to move 5,000 existing members has caused outrage, especially as part of the justification for the 2008 move was to preserve the benefits of existing members. 
<img alt="" src="" width="90" height="90" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" width="175" height="70" />
If the company does not act swiftly to avert the strikes, it will be the largest strike action it has faced in its 80 year history, and the first time a FTSE 100 company has faced a strike purely on the issue of pensions. 
 
5,000 workers producing well-known products such as Persil detergent and Marmite voted resoundingly in favour of the strike ballot. 85% of Unite members, and 75% of GMB members, and a large majority of USDAW members all voted on 28 November in support of the strike which will probably be conducted at 12 factories in December. 
 
&quot;The vote also shows that ordinary workers will not stand idly by to watch profitable employers like Unilever jumping on the pensions robbery bandwagon,&quot; stated Allan Black, national officer at GMB and ICEM Executive Committee member. 
 
Union negotiators offered the company alternatives to reduce the risk of the final salary scheme and cap benefits, but were frozen out of discussions by the talks by management. 
 
This month Unilever CEO Paul Polman received shares worth &pound;1,069,986. 
 
Unilever also just announced 600 redundancies in closing the Alberto Culver plant in Melrose Park near Chicago, Illinois in 2013. Workers at the 50 year old factory are members of United Steelworkers Local 9777, most of whom are very long-serving employees. The factory produces well known products VO5, TRESemme and Nexxus shampoos and conditioners, and St. Ives lotions and body wash.

UK Unilever Workers Vote to Strike to Protect Pensions

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
A day-long strike on 30 November in the UK brought a standstill to public services and a stark reminder that the Tory-led coalition government&rsquo;s proposed rollbacks to public-sector pensions is intolerable and will be met by street resistance. An estimated two million British workers conducted strikes at over 1,000 separate manifestations and it marked the country&rsquo;s largest mass actions since the &ldquo;Winter of Discontent&rdquo; strikes in 1979. 
 
Dubbed &ldquo;Pensions Justice Day of Action,&rdquo; 30 unions in the UK held strike votes in the months before 30 November against a government trying to impose austerity measures that include making public-sector employees work longer and pay more into what will result in smaller pension benefits. 
<img alt="" src="" width="269" height="161" />
Photo: Mac Urata
The rallying cry on 30 November was that it was bankers and lack of government oversight that caused revenue shortfalls, so why should the men and women who make Britain&rsquo;s public services work pay the price with lower pensions and more working years? 
 
The 30 November strikes brought 75% of all schools to a close, with teachers protesting more work through larger class sizes and less pay and pension money. Work stoppages brought reduced services inside hospitals, to National Health Service agencies, to public transport, in the courts, and throughout government departments and agencies. 
 
Perhaps the shrillest message against the Cameron/Osborne government&rsquo;s austerity plan came from civil servants at the Tax Ministry. A full 90% of them abandoned their jobs and took part in the day of protest last week. 
 
A group from Occupy London used the day to protest against global mining company Xstrata and its CEO Mick Davis. Activists were arrested at a sit-in inside Xstrata&rsquo;s London headquarters near Piccadilly Circus. They were protesting Davis&rsquo;s &pound;18 million compensation packaging, the largest among executives of the FTSE 100. 
 
Mass demonstrations shut down the city centre of Manchester, brought picket lines to government buildings and a 25,000 march through Liverpool, made 150,000 court workers leave their jobs, delaying and postponing court dockets, and saw the largest strike in Northern Ireland history where 10,000 civil servants rallied at city hall in Belfast. 
<img alt="" src="" width="252" height="160" />
NGWF, ITGLWF lead Bangladesh solidarity march for UK strikers
The UK strikes were felt globally as well. The ICEM was informed that the National Garment Workers&rsquo; Federation (NGWF) of Bangladesh held a sympathy strike for British workers in Dhaka at mid-day on 30 November that included addresses by NGWF President Amirul Haque Amin and International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers&rsquo; Federation Education Secretary Steve Grinter. 
 
The Tory coalition government&rsquo;s public-sector austerity plan calls for an increase in the pension age from 60 to 66 in the year 2020, and then to 67 in 2026. It seeks increased pension contributions to come out of the pockets of workers, and a pension formula based on average lifetime earnings rather than the current end-of-career pay. 
 
And a day before the 30 November strikes, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne further fueled worker discontent by announcing that when the current public-sector pay freeze expires in 2012, the government will insist on a 1% cap to salary increases over the following two years.

2 Million Strike in Resistance to UK’s Public-Sector Cuts

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
The Indonesian national government and Papua province Manpower officials will both participate in bargaining today in Timika, Papua, in further attempts to resolve the wage and benefit issues behind an 11-week strike. The strike is against US-based Freeport-McMoRan by the PT Freeport Indonesia Workers&rsquo; Union of the Chemical, Energy, Mine Workers Union (CEMWU), or SP KEP SPSI. 
 
Meanwhile, as talks continue into the fifth straight week with little progress to report, the union this week is making plans to issue another official notice to extend the strike a fourth time, again a 30-day extension that will continue the stoppage from 15 December to 15 January 2012. Some 10,000 mineworkers have blocked all production from Freeport-McMoRan&rsquo;s Grasberg mines, the world&rsquo;s largest recoverable gold and copper deposits, since the first 30-day strike began on 15 September. 
 
In a report on bargaining to the ICEM late last week, leaders of PT Freeport Workers&rsquo; Union said management has not moved off an average 35% wage offer over two years. (See previous <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4784-Indonesian-Miners-Resume-Talks-Again-Today-with-Freeport-McMoRan">ICEM report</a>.)&nbsp; 
<img alt="" src="" width="170" height="78" />
The union is seeking uniform wage increases for all workers, with a goal of US$7.50 per hour for non-staff workers in the second year. Workers earned a wage of between US$2.13 per hour and US$3.54 at the start of the strike. 
 
The union is seeking a fixed metal bonus scheme, while the PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) subsidiary is insisting on a bonus tied to the company&rsquo;s variable costs. The company has rejected the union&rsquo;s demand for monthly Housing, Education, and Risk Allowance Work benefits of two million rupiah each (&euro;165, US$222) and a daily premium for shift work of 100,000 rupiah (&euro;8.26, US$11). The union met with Indonesia&rsquo;s National Wage Council on Friday over the company&rsquo;s effort to impose a wage deal through the government&rsquo;s mediation process. 
 
The ICEM believes Freeport-McMoRan must do better in its wage and benefits offer to Grasberg miners, many of whom work 12-hour shifts in 4,200- metre altitudes and have an excruciating roster schedule in which they work five days on, two days off, followed by six days on and one day off, and then four days on, three days off. 
 
But if the company wants a return to production and an end to Indonesia&rsquo;s longest work stoppage, it must break from pressures being exerted by other extractive industry employers to hold down wage and benefit offers so their workers do not follow the example set by the PT Freeport Workers&rsquo; Union. Again, PTFI must make a more conciliatory contract offer and the company should take note on how Newmont Mining and Sumitoma Corp. two weeks ago ended a four-day strike at their 49% copper and gold holdings called Batu Hijau on Indonesia&rsquo;s Sumbawa Island. They acceded to workers&rsquo; demands for adequate compensation on overtime work.

Indonesian Mine Talks Continue Today; Union Ready with Another 30-day Strike Notice

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
A three-week strike by 4,000 members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) spilled into the streets of Johannesburg on 15 November, with workers employed at Xstrata&rsquo;s Boshoek and Wonderkop ferrochrome smelters near Rustenburg took a protest to the Swiss company&rsquo;s Alloys headquarters. NUMSA members presented a petition to company managers demanding wage parity with workers employed at the Xstrata Lion ferrochrome smelter in Tubatse, Mpumalanga province. 
 
Both operations are undergoing big expansions. Xstrata owns 79.5% of the ferrochrome complexes in South Africa, while publicly-listed Merafe Resources holds a 20.5% stake. Both companies also mine chrome in South Africa. 
 
The strike by NUMSA in the North-West province began on 24 October after conciliation efforts by the country&rsquo;s Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) failed. NUMSA and Xstrata Alloys met two days earlier, but a revised pay offer by the company fell short and workers rejected it. 
<img alt="" src="" width="211" height="140" />
NUMSA President Cedric Gina (rear) gets Xstrata's Edwin Hlatshwayo Sign Receipt of Petition
NUMSA is seeking an immediate 10% pay increase for Boshoek and Wonderkop metalworkers and a reduction of job grading systems from eight to five. That would close the wage gap with workers at the Lion smelter and equalize the grading system. Currently, Boshoek and Wonderkop workers earn 14 to 39% less than at Lion, depending on pay grades. 
 
NUMSA is also seeking a housing allowance of R3,500. 
 
The petition handed to Xstrata Alloys management last week states: &ldquo;(The company) has angered workers and instead of focusing on negotiations, they have decided to apply cheap apartheid-era tactics of bashing members through police intimidation of the strike. NUMSA is very angry that workers who went on a legal and protected strike have been treated like common criminals.&rdquo; 
 
NUMSA President Cedric Gina and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Second Deputy Vice President Zingiswi Losi led the march and handover of the petition. The petition asks the company to respond within 48 hours. 
 
Xstrata is world&rsquo;s largest producer of metal alloys, which besides ferrochrome includes vanadium and platinum, and accounts for one-third of total global production. The Boshoek smelter is currently seeing an expansion that will lift production to 240,000-tonnes-per-year by the end of next year. A second smelter, meanwhile, is now being constructed at the Lion operation that will see production double from the current 360,000 tonnes when it goes on line in the first half of 2013. 
 
The Xstrata-Merafe joint venture in South Africa will then yield 2.3 million tonnes yearly of ferrochrome, which is used in stainless steel production.

NUMSA Takes Xstrata Ferrochrome Smelter Strike to Streets of Johannesburg

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
From the IMF website
ICEM, IMF and ITGLWF will hold the joint event &ldquo;Cutting emissions - transforming jobs&rdquo; at the UN climate change conference in Durban (COP17) to discuss a sustainable foundation for Just Transition and develop a common industrial strategy for the future of industrial workers. 
 
GLOBAL: The 17th conference of the parties (COP17) to the UN framework convention on climate change will be held in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9, 2011. The international trade union movement led by ITUC will urge the governments to agree on a legally-binding climate regime and a concrete climate finance scheme, including provisions for a Just Transition. 
 
To support ITUC's contribution, ICEM, IMF and ITGLWF will hold a joint event, &quot;Cutting Emissions - Transforming Jobs&quot; on November 30 at 14.30-16.00 in the COP17 World of Work Pavilion, at the Civil Society Space - University of KwaZulu, Howard College Campus, King George Av., Berea, Durban. 
<img alt="" src="" width="110" height="134" />
The event will promote a common industrial workers' position to ensure the &quot;greening&quot; of existing jobs, the creation of new, sustainable jobs, and a Just Transition, with concrete policies for green technology innovation and a sustainability fund securing the future for both today's and tomorrow's workers. 
 
The discussions will focus on: 
 
&bull;Post Kyoto framework: Could a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol be a solution to avoid a gap in emission reduction commitments and to re-build the legally-binding framework covering all countries in the future negotiation process? 
&bull;Building a Foundation-Climate Finance: How should the funding be designed/realized to achieve sustainable jobs and a Just Transition? What are the components of a strong financing scheme e.g. mandatory contributions from governments, the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), levy on maritime transportation &amp; aviation, or? 
&bull;Just Transition: What kinds of programme are needed for industrial workers who are most dramatically affected by the climate change issues? How can both today's and tomorrow's workers benefit from the transformation to a sustainable economy? What support will be needed? 
&bull;Developing Industrial Strategy: Industrial strategies which aim towards sustainable production, the transformation and enhancement of existing jobs, and the creation of new, greener jobs are needed at local, national, regional and international levels. How could developed and developing countries be engaged to harmonize/develop respective industrial policies. 
&bull;Union&rsquo;s role for the future: How should unions get involved to transform industry and create new, greener jobs be designed and implemented with the full participation? 
 
For more information on the ICEM, IMF and ITGLWF event, contact Brian Kohler, ICEM Health, Safety and Sustainability officer (<a href="mailto:Brian.Kohler@icem.org">Brian.Kohler@icem.org</a>) or Kan Matsuzaki, IMF Director of Shipbuilding-shipbreaking, Non-Manual Workers and climate change (<a href="mailto:kmatsuzaki@imfmetal.org">kmatsuzaki@imfmetal.org</a>). 
 
See also ITUC's contribution to COP17 at <a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc_durbancontribution.pdf">http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc_durbancontribution.pdf</a>. 
 
More information on COP17 WoW will be posted at 
ITUC: <a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/climate-change-and-green-economy.html">http://www.ituc-csi.org/climate-change-and-green-economy.html</a>.

Industrial strategy on climate change to be discussed

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
The threat of a walkout last week by union members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) served to force German tyre and auto-parts manufacturer Continental AG to back away from a concession-ridden labour contract at a research and development center in Chatham, Ontario. 
 
Members of CAW Local 35 voted by 83% for a three-year renewal agreement at strike deadline 15 November in an accord that preserved full rights for new hires, including inclusion in a defined benefit pension plan, all other post-retirement benefits, and the same level of work benefits as existing staff. 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="75" />
The CAW branch union also won annual wage increases totaling over 9% for the three years, improved retirement incentives, and a signing bonus. The union represents 37 highly skilled workers employed at a research and development for engine management systems. 
 
&ldquo;We fought hard to preserve the rights of new hires and to prevent the creation of two tiers of workers in this workplace,&rdquo; said CAW National Representative Richard Laverty. &ldquo;This small group of workers stood together and pushed back numerous concession demands from this profitable and huge multinational corporation.&rdquo; 
 
The union agreed to take contract concessions in 2008 during the onset of the financial crisis and subsequent collapse of North American manufacturing segments. This came a year after Continental bought this and other automotive parts operations from Siemens VDO. Then, the Chatham plant made parts for emission control systems but with the sale to Continental, the German company cut the workforce and turned the operation into a R&amp;D centre.

CAW Preserves Benefits for New Hires at Continental AG in Canada

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
The PT Freeport Indonesia Workers&rsquo; Union of the Chemical, Energy, Mine Workers Union (CEMWU), or SP KEP SPSI, resumed wage negotiations this morning with Freeport-McMoRan&rsquo;s Indonesian subsidiary tomorrow in hopes of getting the 93% owner of the world&rsquo;s largest recoverable gold and copper deposits to increase its pay offer. 
 
A strike that has crippled all production at the 175,000-ton-per-day mine is now in its ninth week. 
 
From 14-18 November, the union covering 10,000 miners at US-based Freeport-McMoRan&rsquo;s Grasberg mining complex in Papua province did engage in give-and-take negotiations and although some progress was made on wage differences, the two sides remain far apart. 
 
Earlier, the union had given PT Freeport Indonesia, the Indonesian government, and local government leaders official notification that the strike would be extended another 30 days to 15 December. The ICEM, which has been directly involved in the dispute, responded to the extension by putting a call out to trade unions to assist the union in feeding striking families. 
<img alt="" src="" width="288" height="160" />
That call can be found in this <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/134.ICEM.Indonesia%20Mine%20Request.10November.pdf ">10 November ICEM letter</a> and trade unions and others are encouraged to send contributions to the union&rsquo;s official name in Papua province, the SPSI Freeport Indonesia Dana Perjuangan, at the bank numbers listed in this letter. 
 
The union has been feeding 10,000 workers and their families from five open-air kitchens in southern Papua province near the port city of Timika. The ICEM was informed by the branch&rsquo;s parent union in Jakarta, as well as by ICEM Indonesian Affiliates&rsquo; Chairman D. Patombong Sjaiful, that food staples are running low and a Solidarity Fund is short of money. Several ICEM affiliates immediately responded to the call, and more financial assistance is needed now. 
 
The union and management also met two weeks ago for four days, from 7-10 November, with management increasing its two-year wage offer to 35% from 30%. The company is offering 24% in 2011 and 11% next year. 
<img alt="" src="" width="170" height="78" />
Prior to the start of the 15 September strike, Grasberg miners earned a wage of between US$2.13 per hour and US$3.54. The union recently lowered its demands from US$7.50 to US$4 for lower-paid workers in 2011-2012, and proposed a US$3.50 wage increase on 1 October 2012. 
 
There are also a number of other issues still in dispute, including a metal bonus, a production bonus, and housing, education and vacation benefits. The major difference in all these issues is the company&rsquo;s insistence that they be based on variable costs, while the union wants them set at fixed costs. 
 
The PT Freeport Indonesia Workers&rsquo; Union continues to enforce a road blockade at Mile 28 that has hampered Freeport-McMoRan&rsquo;s ability to produce and caused the company to declare force majeure on 22 October. A ruptured set of pipelines that carry gold and copper concentrate 114 kilometres from Grasberg to Timika, again site of this week bargaining, is now being repaired, with the company using helicopters to ferry construction crews and materials to the damaged portions of the lines. 
 
In late October and early November, police threatened to break the blockade with force. But that threat &ndash; which was certain to have been met by resistance and bloodshed &ndash; is no longer there and police are no longer present at Mile 28. But rather, strikers and their families are forced onto reduced food rations as union funds have dried up. 
 
The ICEM continues to advocate for the union&rsquo;s wage and other demands to be met. Miners work 12-hour shifts some 4,200 metres high in the Sudirman Range and most spend another four unpaid hours each day getting to and from the Grasberg site via buses. Workers of the PT Freeport Indonesia Workers&rsquo; Union also undergo an excruciating roster schedule in which they work five days on, two days off, followed by six days of work and one day off, and then four days on, three days off.

Indonesian Miners Resume Talks Again Today with Freeport-McMoRan

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
ICEM and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) President Senzeni Zokwana said the drive for profit by mining companies operating in South Africa was undercutting safety, and corporate executives must prioritize their values in order to save lives. 
 
Zokwana was speaking last week at the Mine Heath and Safety Council Summit, a tripartite forum set up in 2008 to address the mounting deaths and diseases inside South Africa&rsquo;s mining industry. And despite the conference&rsquo;s theme, &ldquo;Zero Harm,&rdquo; it was obvious from the facts, figures and rhetoric presented at the conference that South Africa&rsquo;s mine safety culture is nowhere near zero levels. 
 
&ldquo;The continuation of people dying in the industry is unacceptable,&rdquo; said Zokwana. &ldquo;Unless the CEOs take (the deaths and injuries) as seriously as they do to meet financial targets, we&rsquo;ll always have problems.&rdquo;
<img alt="" src="" width="140" height="144" />
Zokwana also addressed the NUM&rsquo;s habit of taking a day of mourning at a mine site when a fatality occurs. &ldquo;Some companies view the mourning of death by their employers as a strike. But we need a more caring industry,&rdquo; he said. 
 
Zokwana was one of a handful of trade union leaders and government officials who called production bonuses rather than higher monthly salaries as a leading cause of safety lapses. The Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu, said there were &ldquo;unintended consequences created by the current bonus incentive scheme. It is time that this industry stops mindless risk-taking. I challenge the employer and employee to really address this matter because it does contribute to fatalities.&rdquo; 
 
Shabangu was also critical of industry for its profit-making, while ignoring the inherent danger of South African mining where mines are some of the deepest in the world and where rock slides &ndash;particularly in gold and platinum extraction &ndash; account for 40% of all fatalities. 
<img alt="" src="" width="140" height="84" />
&ldquo;I do not understand how mining companies that make billions in profit fail even to buy the latest available and proven ground monitoring and detection equipment,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;These can cut down the number of potential fatalities considering the fact that the equipment is widely available and has been used by the civil engineering industry for a number of years.&rdquo; 
 
Shabangu promised that her ministry would increase the number of safety audits through the rest of 2011 and into 2012, and stern action would be taken against companies that do not comply with established standards. The safety council summit, a by-product of the Mine Health and Safety Council that was a statutory requirement from South Africa&rsquo;s 1996 Mine Health and Safety Act, was held on 17-18 November at Kempton Park outside of Johannesburg. 
 
Through the first ten months of 2011, 116 registered mine fatalities have occurred in the South African industry. That compares with 168 official deaths in 2009 and 127 in 2010, but the unofficial rate is certain to be much higher. 
 
In the days just preceding the summit, four miners were killed in industrial accidents: an engineering contract worker at Eastern Platinum&rsquo;s Crocodile River mine near Brits in North West Province; a Harmony Gold employee at the Kusasaletha mine near Carltonville, western Gauteng province; a miner employed by First Uranium at the Ezulwini mine in Westonaria, Gauteng province; and a miner working at the Consolidated Murchison gold mine near Gravelotte, Limpopo province.

Senzeni Zokwana Calls Out Bosses on South African Mine Safety

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
A dramatic month-long occupation of an M-real paper mill in Alizay, France, ended on 18 November after trade unions CGT-Filpac and CFE-CGC signed an agreement with the Finnish company to end the blockade and release stockpiled printing papers. The strike began on 19 October after M-real dropped plans to sell the mill to one of two remaining buyers, and announced redundancies for 330 French paperworkers. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4726-French-Paperworkers-Continue-Protest-Today-to-Keep-M-real-Mill-Operating">ICEM report</a> of 24 October.) 
 
The workers voted in front of plant gates at the Haute-Normandie mill by 95% on 15 November to stop the occupation and leaders of the two unions signed an agreement with M-real on 17 November that provides a temporary reprieve to the plant closure, plus financial and other considerations. 
 
Workers receive a &euro;3,000 bonus for ending the occupation, &euro;1,500 immediately and the remainder in January. M-real commits to running the 230,000-tonne-per-year mill until 7 March 2012 and pledges not to remove equipment or machinery prior. In addition, workers will be paid their salaries during the 30-day strike. 
<img alt="" src="" width="140" height="136" />
The negotiated agreement and ending of the occupation came just before French police were to move in and force opening of warehoused paper. The plant closing standoff reached the highest levels of French government, after the unions petitioned the state to expropriate the paper mill assets, and spilled into European Parliament meetings in Strasbourg, France, last week, when French political leaders met with Finnish parliamentarians to complain of intransigence by M-real and its 40% owner, Mets&auml;liitto, a forest products company based in Finland. 
 
&ldquo;No one should believe that we capitulated,&rdquo; stated CGT-Filpac plant delegate Thierry Philippot. &ldquo;We will continue to make sure that this company pays for the moral and physical suffering of workers.&rdquo; Workers filed harassment complaints with French authorities over the psychological effects of M-real changing its plans. 
 
M-real announced on 4 May a major restructuring to exit office and printing paper manufacturing and focus instead on paperboard used for packaging. It meant putting two fine paper mills up for sale, the Alizay mill near Pont-de-l&rsquo;Arche and the Gohrsm&uuml;hle mill in Germany, as well as discontinuing carbon paper production at the Reflex mill in Germany. 
 
After paring a potential 65 bidders for Alizay down to two, M-real last month stopped negotiations with a Thai paper company and a French-based equity company and said it would shutter the mill. 
 
That set off the anger of French paperworkers of CGT-Filpac and CFE-CGC and the occupation began, which included placement of large vehicles in front of plant gates that were locked with heavy chains. The unions also brought the case into a French district court in Evreux over failure by M-real to provide the necessary documents on a possible sale. Statutory consultations over the plant closure did start on 8 November but were quickly suspended due to high tensions, and those talks must begin again separate of last week&rsquo;s protocol agreement to end the occupation.

French Paperworkers End Mill Occupation in Deal with M-real

Archive