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The ICEM has issued a circular calling on affiliates to again protest directly to Saint-Gobain CEO Jean-Louis Beffa over continued intransigence in bargaining at a US abrasives plant. A majority of some 800 workers in Worcester, Massachusetts, voted for ICEM affiliate United Auto Workers in August 2001 but after 121 bargaining sessions, workers and the UAW are still without a collective agreement. Protest letters can go to Beffa at Saint-Gobain, 18 avenue d’Alsace, 92096 La Défense, Cedex, France.

ICEM Protests Saint-Gobain’s Union-Busting in the US

ICEM sent condolences to Pakistan affiliate WAPDA Labour Union over a gas explosion 25 May that killed 17 miners at the Sunjidi coal mine in Balachistian province. The area is rich in coal reserves, but the mines have notoriously poor safety records. A private company which leases land from the government operates the Sunjidi mine. ICEM is calling on the Pakistani government to put in place more stringent health and safety controls.

Gas Blast in Pakistan Coal Mine Kills 17

ICEM affiliate FNV Bondgenoten of The Netherlands is in dispute with French-based BSN Glasspack at three plants just as Europe’s second largest glassmaker has been bought by Owens-Illinois of the US. The employer is seeking to escape pension obligations, raise the retirement age from 62 to 63, and cut a profit-sharing plant for 200 workers at plants in Leerdam, Maastricht and Schiedam. Workers are steadfast against BSN’s concessionary proposal. The collective agreement expires 1 July.

FNV Bondgenoten in Glass Dispute in NL

Germany needs a long-term, reliable consensus on energy policy, which must "take just as much account of economic and technical needs as of social responsibility and environmental challenges." That is the view of the country's mine, chemical and energy workers, as set out at a press conference yesterday by Hubertus Schmoldt, President of their union the IG BCE. 
<img height="191" alt="Hubertus Schmoldt: "Many jobs are at stake."" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/schmoldt.gif" width="147"/>
Hubertus Schmoldt: "Many jobs are at stake."

All concerned must avoid putting the energy consensus at risk, Schmoldt warned. German and foreign-based firms must be given a reliable basis for investment decisions. 
 
Germany is engaged in a major debate on its future energy options - not least due to the rise of the environmentalist Green party, which is now the Social Democrats' junior partner in the federal coalition government. 
 
In particular, the greening of German energy policy has placed a question mark over the future of nuclear power. 
 
An energy consensus could succeed only "if the phasing out of nuclear energy is implemented as a longer-term change," Schmoldt insisted. Decisions on nuclear must also be placed in a broader context, he said. "IG BCE supports a comprehensive energy policy whose central component is the well-tried principle of an energy mix. Native energy sources, particularly hard coal and lignite, have a full part to play in this, both now and beyond the year 2005." 
 
Plans for environmentalist energy taxes are one complicating factor in the current German discussion. Originally, exemptions had been proposed for energy-intensive industries. But the waiver plan got the thumbs-down from the EU, and German manufacturing industry could now face a uniform tax rate of 20 per cent on its energy bills. 
 
IG BCE still thinks that complete exemption for industry would be the "best solution," Schmoldt said. However, the union could view an energy tax positively provided that the rate for manufacturing industry were 15 percent or less, the tax burden remained constant in absolute terms and commitments to reduce energy use were rewarded with tax incentives. 
 
"Energy taxes must not increase industry's overall tax bill," Schmoldt said. "Moreover, there must be a binding commitment that the already announced second and third phases of the ecological taxation reforms will be introduced only within the context of a common solution at the European level. It would be damaging for Germany to go it alone, and we would resolutely resist this. Many jobs are at stake, as are the credibility and calculability of policy-making." 
 
At the global level, IG BCE is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), of which Hubertus Schmoldt is Vice-President.

Real Energy Consensus Needed, IGBCE Says

Imerys, the ceramics and construction materials multinational, has just given itself a new name and a new image. But it already risks seeing them tarnished by an international dispute over its anti-union stance in the USA. 
 
In Brussels today, the American Imerys workers' union joined with Belgian unions and a global trade union federation in launching a world campaign to win full trade union rights throughout Imerys' operations. 
 
Belgian financiers the Frere family are major investors in Imerys, and the unions insisted that the Frere group must intervene to ensure that Imerys' American plants immediately cease anti-union practices that would not be tolerated in Europe. 
 
Known until recently as Imetal, the company claims to be the world leader in refractory raw materials, paper pigments, white pigments and high-purity graphite. 
 
The US Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers union (PACE) is fighting anti-union campaigns by Imerys at its plants in Georgia and Alabama. The restructuring that led to the formation of Imerys last year included the merger of unionised and non-unionised production plants in the USA. PACE now wants the chance to represent workers throughout the newly merged Imerys operation there, but the company has hired professional "union-busters" to discourage union organising and is blocking all attempts to plebiscite its workers on whether they wish to be represented by the union. 
 
At the global level, PACE is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
ICEM Belgian affiliate the Centrale Générale-FGTB/Algemene Centrale-ABVV has also declared its full support for the American trade unionists. 
 
At the Centrale Générale headquarters in Brussels today, the following statement was issued by Michel Nollet, President, Belgian General Labour Federation (FGTB/ABVV); Paul Lootens, General Secretary of the Centrale Générale; Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary; and Joe Drexler, Special Projects Director of PACE: 
 
The FGTB, Centrale Générale, ICEM and PACE condemn the continued refusal of the American management of Imerys to permit a free and fair determination of its US employees' wishes concerning trade union representation. 
 
We note that PACE has charged Imerys with seven serious violations of US labour law. The US National Labor Relations Board is currently investigating the accusations, which could lead to prosecutions. In particular, PACE charges that the employer has threatened and harassed pro-union employees because of their activities, and that the company has financed and otherwise supported an anti-union campaign group known as the "A-team." 
 
We also note that Imerys has hired professional "union-busters" to advise it on methods of pressurising its employees to reject trade union representation. Methods employed by the company so far include meetings which employees are obliged to attend and at which anti-union videos are screened. Among other things, these videos equate trade unionism with the mafia. Employees are not permitted to ask questions at these meetings. 
 
23 percent of the shares in Imerys are in the hands of the Frere group's financial holding company. It is wholly unacceptable that Belgian shareholders should support a company involved in anti-union practices. 
 
We call upon Imerys to agree, without further delay, to a "card-check" procedure in order to determine whether the majority of its US workforce wishes to be represented by PACE. If a majority does wish to be so represented, we call upon Imerys to recognise PACE for collective bargaining purposes immediately. We insist that Imerys management should maintain an attitude of neutrality throughout this procedure and during any subsequent union elections, and should not seek in any way to pressurise or intimidate its employees concerning this matter. 
 
We further call upon the Frere family and their financial holding company to ensure that Imerys, in which they are major investors, fully respects human rights, including trade union rights, throughout its worldwide operations. 
 
Imerys is headquartered in France. Trade unions there have pledged full support for the campaign, as have unions in Britain, where Imerys has major manufacturing operations.

Imerys US Dispute Goes Global

American trade union activists demonstrated outside Texaco's Washington office on Friday in protest over ongoing labour and human rights violations at an Indonesian oil facility owned jointly by Texaco and Chevron. The demonstration was sponsored by the US labour confederation AFL-CIO and by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM). 
<img height="426" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/usindo3.jpg" width="276"/>
 
At issue is a strike by 8,000 oil workers at an oil rig owned by Caltex Petroleum Corp, a joint venture between Texaco and Chevron, located in central Sumatra, Indonesia. The workers are employed by a Caltex subcontractor, PT Tripatra, which violated Indonesian labour law when it refused to make those of the workers with more than two years' seniority permanent employees and pay them the compensation due to them. The Indonesian workers are members of the Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), headed by prominent labour leader Muchtar Pakpahan. 
 
When the company refused to follow a May 1999 directive from the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower, the workers went on strike on June 21. PT Tripatra then fired the strikers on July 6 and has been using the Indonesian army and police to intimidate and harass the strikers. On July 23, these security forces fired rubber bullets at the strikers, shooting one man in the head. They also assaulted several other strikers. 
 
"Disputes such as the one at the Caltex facility undermine the credibility of the Indonesian government in the eyes of the international community and must not go unresolved," said John J.Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO. "The Indonesian government has the responsibility to ensure that the workers’ rights are respected, and Chevron and Texaco have the obligation to ensure that subcontractors at their facilities abide by international labor standards." 
<img height="424" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/usindo6.jpg" width="277"/>
 
 
"We call on Chevron and Texaco to use their considerable power and influence to insist that these workers are treated fairly and justly," insisted Robert Wages. He is Executive Vice President of the ICEM-affiliated Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union (PACE), which represents workers employed at Chevron and Texaco facilities in the United States. 
 
"The company must call off its security forces, pay the workers the compensation that is due to them and reach an amicable settlement with the oil workers’ union," he said. Wages is a Vice-President of both the AFL-CIO and the ICEM. 
 
"We will not stand by and allow these workers’ rights to be trampled on," added Kenneth Zinn, ICEM North American Regional Coordinator. "It is appalling that, in the waning days of the 20th century, a worker anywhere in the world can be shot in the head for exercising his legitimate right to withhold his labour."

US Demo Backs Indonesian Texaco/Chevron Strikers

Materials giant Imerys was today accused of acting in bad faith over an upcoming union recognition vote at one of its US sites. 
 
"Imerys headquarters management in France had assured us that the company would not campaign against the union in the US," said Fred Higgs in Brussels today. "They have broken their word." 
<img height="263" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/syl2.jpg" width="350" alt=""/>
UNDER PRESSURE 
Imerys supervisors are pushing US workers to vote against the union. 
(photo: PACE) 
Higgs is General Secretary of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
An election is scheduled for 22 June at Imerys' Sylacauga site in the US, to decide whether workers there should be represented by ICEM American affiliate the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers' Unions (PACE). 
 
The vote follows a campaign by PACE, the ICEM and unions at other Imerys sites worldwide to secure the Sylacauga workers' right to opt for a union. 
 
Imerys corporate headquarters had promised the ICEM and PACE that the company would not campaign against the union in the run-up to the poll. 
 
On 17 May, local US manager Randy Sandrik sent all Sylacauga employees a note proclaiming the company's "commitment to a fair and prompt election." 
 
But a little further into the memo, he unveiled his real agenda: "In consideration of the relationship between the company and unions throughout Imerys, we will not campaign against unions in general. The focus of our communications process will only be union representation at Sylacauga." Sandrik also gave everybody the benefit of his own views: "I don't think the Sylacauga employees need a third party representative to manage our relationship." 
 
The results of this duplicity are already plain. 
 
Supervisors at Sylacauga are wearing "Vote NO" stickers on their hardhats and posting the same stickers around the plant. 
 
The supervisors, sometimes two together, are also taking workers one at a time into offices, telling them that unionisation would mean a loss of wages and benefits, and urging them to vote against the union. 
 
And the company is still using the union-busting lawyer Frank Parker to train its local managers. 
 
"One thing is clear," Higgs said today. "Either the Imerys corporate management in Paris is acting in bad faith - or else it is simply being fooled by its US local managers." 
 
He urged Imerys CEO Patrick Kron to write immediately to all the Sylacauga workers, assuring them of the company's full neutrality on the issue of union representation at its US site. 
 
PACE has now brought a case against Imerys at the OECD, which has a code of conduct for multinational companies.

Imerys in 'Bad Faith' Over US Union Vote

Australian trade union leaders are fine tuning a National Union Fightback Campaign against the conservative coalition government of Prime Minister John Howard’s radical reforms. Such industrial relations reforms would further weaken collective bargaining. Howard’s reforms, expected to be rushed into law after conservatives take control of the Australian Parliament’s Senate next month, will destroy the power of the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) to set minimum wage, job classification structures and minimum statutory employment conditions. 
It will abolish the IRC’s ability to judge cases of unfair dismissal of workers in businesses employing less than 100, or two-thirds of all Australian workers. If enacted, approval of enterprise bargaining agreements will pass from the IRC to an agency that now regulates the Howard creation of individual contracts between employees and employers. The draconian reforms will also strip the country’s states from employment regulation in favour of a centralized federal system. Trade unions have the support of Australian state governments in resisting the Howard plan.

Australian Unions Resist Government's Labour Reforms

Canadian-based Inco will have to declare force majeure on some of its deliveries, the company admitted yesterday. 
 
The defaults on shipments result from Inco's lock-out against workers at a Canadian nickel mine in Thompson, Manitoba. 
 
Inco's blunder in Thompson will seriously weaken its credibility as a supplier, observers predicted. The company's sales slogan is Stronger For Our Experience. 
 
"The total quantity of products that the Company is currently expected to be unable to supply as a result of the continuation of the work stoppage represents about 15 percent of the Company's average monthly primary nickel sales for the first nine months of 1999," Inco said yesterday. 
 
On its own figures, Inco supplies about 26 percent of the world's nickel demand. It is also an important producer of copper, precious metals and cobalt. 
 
1,040 workers at the Thompson mine have been locked out since 14 September. They are members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). The lock-out followed the union membership's rejection of the company's final offer. The Inco offer did not include any improvements in pensions, wages or benefits. USWA members at two other Inco Canadian operations have suspended their participation in joint labour-management design projects until the lock-out at Thompson is settled. 
 
At the global level, the USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Earlier this month, USWA Canadian National Director Lawrence McBrearty asked the ICEM World Congress to back the Inco workers' campaign. Inco's behaviour is an example of a " heartless corporate culture that puts profits before people," McBrearty told the Congress in Durban, South Africa. The USWA would take "the struggle for justice" to "the four corners of the globe," he declared. 
 
"We will mobilise our affiliates worldwide to communicate their solidarity with the USWA," responded ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs, "and we will use every means to urge Inco to reach a settlement with the union expeditiously." 
 
Inco is present in 14 countries, and has production operations in Canada, the UK, Indonesia, Japan, Guatemala, France, China, New Caledonia and the United States.

Inco Lock-Out Hits Nickel Supplies

Several hundred union members rallied in Melbourne, Australia, today outside the headquarters of BHP, the minerals, metals and oil multinational. 
 
They were protesting over a radical policy shift in BHP's Australian iron ore operations. Management there has abandoned its traditional cooperative approach to industrial relations in favour of a hard-line policy that denies its workers the right to bargain collectively. 
 
BHP issued its 1,000 iron ore workers in the Pilbara, Western Australia, with individual staff contracts, saying it was not prepared to negotiate a new collective agreement. The company had previously operated under a collective agreement negotiated with unions. 
 
The individual staff contracts were delivered to workers' homes on November 11. BHP decreed that workers must either sign the contracts or stay on their expired agreement. Sticking with the expired agreement would mean forgoing wage and superannuation rises and lump-sum sick leave payouts. Under the individual contracts, BHP would be able to impose workplace changes and alter pay scales without having to negotiate with unions. BHP offered workers a bonus of three months' back pay if they signed by December 3. 
 
The Secretary-elect of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Greg Combet, said the BHP iron ore division had moved sharply away from its successful cooperative approach to industrial relations, and was aping the hard-nosed American-style tactics that characterised its competitor, Rio Tinto. 
"Not only is BHP now displaying great disregard for the right of employees to bargain collectively," Combet pointed out, "it is adopting discriminatory practices against one section of its workforce. BHP is offering these Pilbara workers 14 percent superannuation only if they sign an individual contract, and yet BHP already pays its steel workers the same amount under a collective agreement negotiated with the unions. 
 
"If BHP Steel can work out a collective agreement," Combet asked, "why can't BHP Iron Ore do the same? Unions and their members in the Pilbara are more than willing to talk about efficiencies and flexibility to boost BHP's domestic and international competitiveness in iron ore." 
 
BHP's individual staff contract offer came just weeks after conservative lawyers and journalists published articles in the Australian financial press urging the company to drop "its union culture". Some industrial relations experts are tipping that the move by BHP is a forerunner of similar forays into other areas, such as the coal and steel divisions.

BHP's Anti-Bargaining Stance Sparks Australian Protests

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