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Union members of ICEM affiliate Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores del Neumático Argentina (SUTNA) took direct action to win a festering labour dispute with global rubber manufacturer Bridgestone/Firestone. The union and management, with the aid of both the national and provincial labour ministers of Argentina and Buenos Aires, put an 11-month dispute behind them by agreeing to terms 13 September over the illegal firings of 58 workers. 
 
The Japanese company also agreed to begin new talks toward a collective agreement, something managers had refused to do since expiration of a prior contract in 2001. 
 
The dispute began in October 2003 when the company unilaterally implemented a rationalization plan by imposing a new shift schedule at its Llavallol, Pcia, Buenos Aires tyre factory where 700 workers are employed. The work-rule changes circumvented Argentina’s labour code since managers failed to negotiate with SUTNA. Both the provincial ministry and national labour ministry issued rulings last winter against Bridgestone and ordered the company to reinstate the fired workers with backpay. 
 
Despite global union pressure applied by ICEM and the United Steelworkers of America, Bridgestone failed to adhere to the government’s directives until SUTNA union members imposed an eight-day blockade in late June and early July on suppliers delivering materials to the plant. That produced talks mediated by the Buenos Aires labour minister in which the firm agreed to recall nine workers, and a promise of further dialogue. 
 
But with no further progress, SUTNA struck the facility again last week. 
 
The subsequent discussions held inside the national labour ministry produced an agreement by Bridgestone to recall a total of 12 workers and grant all discharged workers full backpay dating to last October plus a level of social benefits exceeding those mandated by law. In addition, the firm will pay a fixed amount to each displaced worker for a period of 20 months and made a commitment to employ these workers on a sub-contracting basis as the need arises. 
 
In the presence of both the provincial and national labour ministers, Bridgestone managers Ariel Dipascuale and Daniel Benvenutti agreed to respect the independence of SUTNA at the Llavallol factory and to begin fresh dialogue toward a new collective agreement. 
 
“We commend the leaders and members of SUTNA,” said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. “Their resolve and perseverance in the face of longstanding employer attacks is a lesson to us all.”

Bridgestone/Firestone Dispute Resolved in Argentina

Seven separate coal mine disasters in China over the past month have claimed 102 lives. On 3 August, 13 miners suffocated after a wooden support caught fire with flames spreading throughout shafts rapidly. The fire occurred at the illegal Taodingshan mine, Handan county, Hebei province. A day earlier on 2 August, a gas leak caused an explosion at the privately-run legal mine of Xingfa in Wenshu township, Henan province,killing 26. Managers of the mine fled the scene after the deadly accident.On 27 July, 14 miners perished due to a gas blast and ventilation shaft collapse at the village-run Fengxiangpo coal mine, Kaiyang county, Guizhou province. On 23 July, four miners were poisoned and died underground by gas at a mine in Tanghou village, Shaanxi province. And in the same province on 19 July at the Jinsuo mine near Tongchaun, 26 coal miners were killed when a gas explosion occurred. On 17 July, four miners were trapped by flooding while three escaped at the small-scale Xigou mine in Xin’an county, Henan province. On 14 July, a faulty explosives detonation caused collapse of an underground cave full of water, drowning 16 miners. That happened at the Fusheng mine near Xingning city, Guangdong province. Authorities in China on 21 July closed a total of 5,290 mines in which owners had failed to apply for safety permits.

Death Again Visits China's Coal Mines

An ongoing lockout by an investment house against chemical workers of US affiliate International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB) has reinforced the ruthlessness capital wreaks on US unions when a manufacturing enterprise changes hands. 
In Meredosia, Illinois, chemicals company Celanese owned by equity trader Blackstone Group locked out workers 6 June, four months after buying the emulsions, adhesives and polymers plant. 
<img height="147" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/USABoilermakers.gif" width="125" alt=""/>
The crime of the 148 workers: refusal to accept steep concessions to their health care plan, opposing the company's plans to lose 41 jobs to contract labour and dissatisfaction with a three-year wage freeze. When workers again voted down the proposed cuts late in June, Celanese responded by harshly proposing 20-40% pay cuts. The ICEM has issued a Circular to all affiliates, and trade unions across the world are encouraged to respond to IBB Local Branch 484.

Harsh Lockout of Boilermakers Union in US

In South Africa, a statement was released by a coalition of trade unions, including ICEM affiliates NUM and National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), expressing serious concern about possible job losses after the merger of the 7 power distribution business units of Eskom and those of the municipalities, consisting of 187 licensed municipal distributors. According to an industry restructuring document, about 1,000 jobs could be lost a year. The report contradicts statements by the Electricity Distribution Holdings (EDI), the state-owned company set up to reform the sector, which said that no jobs would be lost during the restructuring.

Unions Fear SA Electric Merger Migh Mean Job Cuts

In Jordan, ICEM affiliate, the General Trade Union of Workers in Mining and Metal Industries, decided to postpone a strike mid- August until 27 August. The decision was taken to give the managers of the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) at the Shidiyeh mines some more time to meet with the workers' demands. The dispute, in which the union president, Khalid Fanatsah, is taking a leading role, is on housing units to be built for the workers by the company. Support for the workers reportedly came from the king of Jordan himself, His Majesty King Abdullah, who announced that the units should be distributed to the workers.

Tension Remians at Jordanian Phosphatre Mine

Over the course of the summer, an asbestos scandal hit Japan and has been getting a lot of press attention ever since. According to reports, around 3,000 people die every year from asbestos cancer in Japan and it is feared that these numbers may rise considerably in the coming years. When in 1987, lobbyists began to call for a ban of crocidolite, used, amongst other purposes, in Japanese schools, the government failed to take the necessary action. Similarly in the 1990s, when a move to ban asbestos was blocked after "relentless opposition from within the asbestos industry."

Asbestos Issue Surfaces in Japan

The Global Employee Forum of Norwegian pulp and paper producer Norske Skog has issued a strong statement in support of ICEM affiliate Fellesforbundet. The union is seeking to keep open a 380-worker book and newsprint mill in Skien, Norway, called Norske Skog Union. But the company is intent on closing in order to reduce capacity even though buyers have lined up to acquire the mill. The firm’s Global Employee Forum has charged management that it has not “prioritized and not taken advantage of the book market’s shortage of book paper.” Norske Skog has said “no to inquiries from customers in this market” and the employees’ forum calls on the company to exhibit the necessary social responsibility to “see that production at Norske Skog Union is maintained, at least with new owners.”

Norske Skog Workers Protest Closure of Norwegian Paper Mill

North American affiliate USW responded rapidly last week to the disaster along the US Gulf of Mexico coast brought on by hurricane Katrina. By mid-week—before US government relief could get into the death-stricken region with emergency supplies—the union had designated and begun disbursing US$100,000 through it’s Steelworkers Charitable and Education Organization, reported ICEM NA Chairman Don Langham, a vice president of USW. Some $50,000 of that came from the USW’s Humanity Fund of Canada. For information on the special fund, log on to www.uswa.org and visit “USW Katrina Disaster Fund” which is on the homepage. Further information can be obtained by contacting USW Secretary-Treasurer Jim English at jenglish@steelworkers-usw.org.

US Steelworkers Respond to Gulf Coast Hurricane

The 1,550 USW copper-mining members who are on strike in the states of Arizona and Texas against Grupo Mexico’s Asarco got a boost last month when thousands of Mexican mining and metallurgical workers engaged in hour-long stop-work actions in support of both the American trade unionists, as well as Mexican steel mill workers on strike in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán state. The US copper strike, begun at different locations in late June and early July, has now been complicated by the Mexican subsidiary filing bankruptcy in US federal court in Texas. That action, the USW says, is result of non-investment in facilities while copper prices were low, thus restricting Asarco’s ability now “to reap the full rewards of the ongoing copper boom.”

Stop-Work Actions in Mexico for US Miners

Another USW metals strike, now entering its eighth week in the Canadian province of British Colombia, will get a chance for resolve with renewed mediation on 9 September. The union and Teck Cominco Ltd. At a zinc, lead and metals refinery in Trail, BC, are locked in dispute over wage and pension benefits conceded in the 1990s. USW maintains the current windfall of high zinc and metal prices has lifted Teck’s bottom line, and such profitability warrants adequate adjustments for the 1,300 strikers. British Colombia provincial leaders, however, have turned a deaf ear to legitimate demands by the USW that it halt the company’s sale of hydrogenerated power across the border to the US while Canadian steelworkers of Teck Cominco are on strike.

USW's Teck Cominco Strike in Canada Continues

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