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At the 26th Constitutional Convention of the US&rsquo;s largest national labour center last week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, delegates elected Richard Trumka as president. Trumka, a member of ICEM-affiliated United Mine Workers&rsquo; of America (UMWA), had been serving as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO since 1995. 
 
A third generation miner from western Pennsylvania, Trumka pledged to reinvigorate the American labour movement by recruiting more young people into the ranks of organised labour. In his acceptance speech, Trumka promised to build &ldquo;a new kind of labour movement &ndash; one shaped to meet the needs of Americans in a changing economy.&rdquo; 
 
Trumka succeeds John Sweeney of the Office, Professional Workers&rsquo; Union, who retired after three terms as head of the AFL-CIO. A labour attorney by training, Trumka worked in the Legal Department of the UMWA starting in 1974. In 1982, he was elected as president of the UMWA, a position he held until joining Sweeney as part of a new AFL-CIO leadership team in 1995.
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Arlene Holt-Baker, Richard Trumka, and Liz Shuler&nbsp; 
 

Elected last week to replace Trumka as secretary-treasurer of the 56-union, ten-million-member federation was Liz Shuler, a member of the Electrical Workers&rsquo; Union (IBEW) from the state of Oregon. She served most recently as executive assistant to the president of the IBEW. Elected as executive vice president was Arlene Holt-Baker. A member of the public employees&rsquo; union, AFSCME, she has held that position since 2007 after being appointed by the AFL-CIO Executive Council . 
 
Among some 70 resolutions passed, two dealt with Iraq. One called on US President Barack Obama&rsquo;s administration to use its influence on the Iraqi government to adopt internationally-accepted work rights, including passage of an ILO-written labour law that assures the legitimacy of trade unions in Iraq. The other calls on the US government to end its military occupation and bring a speedy withdrawal home of both troops and US armed contractors from the Middle Eastern country. 
 
Another resolution calls on the US to sanction the military regime in Honduras by withdrawing the US ambassador, freezing assets of those responsible for the June 2009 coup, and for the US government to seriously consider suspending all trade with Honduras until Manuel Zeleya is restored as President of a democratic Honduras.

US Mineworker, Richard Trumka, Elected Head of AFL-CIO

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ICEM French affiliate F&eacute;d&eacute;ration Chimie-Energie (FCE-CFDT) denounced market reforms that the government of France recently announced and has planned for EDF, the state-run electricity provider. In a statement issued 17 September, FCE-CFDT said reforms proposed by the government would put at risk the entire enterprise if it had to share revenues from nuclear generation with competitors.
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Electricity market reform in France, with a proposed effective date of 1 July 2010, would destabilize the company, FCE-CFDT warns, with competitors able to buy power at rates far below EDF&rsquo;s production costs. The union said such reforms would also prevent the competition from engaging in their own investments, and calls for a plan that would mandate all electricity providers to make investments. 
 
Further, FCE-CFDT states that although there are supposed safeguards in the reform plan, nothing in the plan would protect consumers from electricity price hikes. The union is calling for the French energy regulatory body, the Commission Champsaur, to re-work its proposals, giving redress to economic development issues, social cohesion, and climate change challenges.

FCE-CFDT Issues Caution Against French Electric Reform Concerning EDF

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The profitable electrical and gas distributor National Grid Plc. has provoked industrial actions in the UK with plans to outsource service work to India. British trade unions GMB and Unison, representing some 2,500 workers, are planning further strike actions in company operations in the near future. 
 
The first such strike, a 24-hour one, occurred on 11 September when workers at a service center in Newcastle walked off jobs and manifested at a public square. Some 181 invoicing, procurement, and other jobs could be lost in Newcastle if National Grid gets its way to offshore jobs. Hundreds of other jobs are at risk in the company fulfills its planned agenda.
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&nbsp; 
Further job actions likely will occur in Warwick and Newcastle. National Grid is the major owner and operator of electric grid distribution and gas distribution in England and Wales, serving 52 million customers. It also controls lucrative electric and gas distribution networks through its private enterprises in the US. 
 
GMB National Secretary Gary Smith says it is &ldquo;absolutely immoral&rdquo; that the company would consider turning its back on UK workers and transferring work to India. &ldquo;It is a shameful example of corporate greed that a hugely profitable UK business is threatening to sack loyal and dedicated staff.&rdquo; 
 
National Grid posted profits of &pound;3 billion in 2008 and the company and workers have identified &pound;3 million in cost savings. Yet, National Grid has already narrowed a search to two contract companies that would outsource the service work to India. 
 
GMB and Unison are getting strong support from North American ICEM affiliate Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA). In a recent trip to the US, Smith met with UWUA-represented workers employed by National Grid subsidiaries in the state of Massachusetts, and engaged first-hand with the UWUA in is first contract battle with waste-to-energy company Covanta. ICEM-affiliated GMB, as well as other UK unions, have assisted the UWUA in bringing to light Covanta&rsquo;s derisive anti-worker practices in the US just as the company attempts to expand into the UK.
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In a letter to GMB&rsquo;s Commercial Services Section, UWUA President Michael Langford called National Grid &ldquo;one of the most profitable, privatised monopolies in the world.&rdquo; He added, &ldquo;In our view, it is unacceptable (for the company) to turn its back on the employees who have sacrificed so much to make National Grid a success.&rdquo; 
 
On 7 September, GMB and Unison counted ballots, revealing a 97% vote for industrial action. Those strikes likely will occur in the coming weeks if the electric/gas distributor does not retreat from its outsourcing plans.

UK Unions GMB, Unison Begin Industrial Actions Against National Grid

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The ICEM extends its condolences to the families of miners killed and injured in a deadly Polish mine explosion on Friday, 18 September, as well as to all mining unions representing workers at the Katowicki Holding Weglowy (KHW) company. 
 
A methane gas explosion followed by a fire at KHW&rsquo;s Wujek-Slask mine in the coal-dominated Silesa region of southwestern Poland killed 13, and seriously injured 18 other miners with severe burns. A total of 40 miners were hospitalized following the explosion. 
 
The deadly blast and fire, Poland&rsquo;s second worst in recent years, ripped through mine shafts 1,050 metres underground at mid-morning on Friday near the town of Ruda Slaska. 
 
The Polish government has declared today and Tuesday, 22 September, a two-day national period of mourning due to the horrible workplace tragedy.
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&nbsp; 
 
A Polish website, Pracownik, reported that a miner at the Wujek-Slask colliery made a video last April, showing methane measurements over four times the levels that are considered safe from such an accident occurring. The video was aired on a Polish TV station late Friday. 
 
Mine-safety activists in Poland hinted that any investigation must centre on whether or not methane reading instruments inside shafts had been tampered with in order to boost production. 
 
State-run KHW had merged the Wujek and Slash collieries in 2004 into a single enterprise in order to save costs. In November 2006, 23 miners perished in another Ruda Slaska mine called Halemba, owned by the state-operated Kampania Weglowa (KW). This was the worst Polish mine tragedy in three decades. The Halemba mine had been idled for eight months then, and the company had sent workers 1,000 metres below the surface to retrieve equipment when the blast occurred.

13 Perish in Poland’s Worst Coal Mine Disaster Since 2006

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Upwards of 30,000 trade unionists manifested in the streets of Switzerland&rsquo;s capital, Bern, Saturday, 19 September, in what the national general workers&rsquo; union, Unia, billed as a day in which workers declare, &ldquo;We Will Not Pay for the Crisis. The manifestation, sponsored by all Swiss trade unions, was intended to serve notice to a Parliament that it must adopt new policies to secure work, wages, and pensions in the face of the global economic crisis. 
 
The manifestation, in terms of sheer numbers, exceeded the expectations of Unia organisers. The union made plans for 20,000 demonstrators. Marches began in three different locations in Berne, and then converged at the Parliament House.
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&copy;Thierry Porchot&nbsp; 

The battle cry heard throughout the afternoon was the Swiss working class will not double-pay on a crisis it did not cause; meaning job reductions and the dismantling of social safety nets will not be tolerated. Speaker after speaker said the economic crisis was caused by greed and a blind faith that markets could regulate themselves. Speakers called for an end to erosion of social security systems and instead called on the government to restore safety nets to all people living in Switzerland. 
 
We are against a policy in which CHF 68 billion in government money is invested in UBS,&rdquo; said Paul Rechsteiner, President of the Swiss Trade Union Confederation (SGB), adding that the bank last week refused to implement effective measures against the crisis. 
 
The unemployment rate in Switzerland has now climbed over the 4% mark, which is considered high by Swiss standards.
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&nbsp;&copy;Thierry Porchot
Now is the time, asserts Unia, that effective measures must be undertaken to inject money into jobs and training, including programmes on youth employment, and extending options for shortened work hours at full pay. Unia also calls for adequate wage increases across Switzerland in 2010 in order to spur purchasing power. 
 
The manifestation culminated a week of action aimed at instituting a Swiss social order that focuses on people, not profits and greed. On Monday, 14 September, Rechsteiner told a press conference that Swiss workers demand decent wages and decent conditions of work, as well as a functioning system of social security.

30,000 Take to Streets in Bern Demanding Fairness in Economic Crisis

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Some 3,000 people crowded into the Sudbury, Ontario, ice hockey arena on 19 September and enthusiastically greeted global trade union leaders in what was billed as an &ldquo;International and Community Rally in Support of Sudbury&rsquo;s Strikers.&rdquo; 
 
International union leaders, including ICEM&rsquo;s Manfred Warda, Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF) General Secretary Jyrki Raina, Sharan Burrow, President of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, joined others to tell striking miners of the United Steelworkers (USW) that their nine-week strike against Vale has gained worldwide attention, and brought trade union pressure on Vale in all its global operations. 
 
&ldquo;Your struggle has now got the support and attention of the entire global union movement,&rdquo; said the ICEM&rsquo;s Warda. &ldquo;This conflict now has a global dimension, from nickel miners in Indonesia to mining communities in Africa and, of course, to miners and metalworkers in Brazil, this fight is now our fight, and we will assist in every way possible for a sustainable future for you and your families here in northern Ontario.&rdquo;
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USW Local 6500 President John Fera, with rally speakers behind him&nbsp;
The strike started on 13 July after USW Locals 6500 in Sudbury and Local 6200 in Port Colborne, joined in a common labour contract, gave the world&rsquo;s number two nickel producer a ten-week extension back in May. But instead of reaching agreement, based on Vale&rsquo;s vast profit margins despite the global downturn, managers of nickel entity Vale-Inco pressed ahead with concession-ridden proposals that would deflate the livelihoods of 3,500 workers and their families in Sudbury and in Port Colborne, 400 kilometres south on Lake Erie. 
 
Those concessionary proposals, still on the table, include retirement reductions, a two-tiered pension scheme, steep downgrades to a production bonus, and loss of value in cost-of-living adjustments. As well, Vale-Inco is seeking greater flexibility on outsourcing, standing as a serious affront to job security. 
 
On 1 August, 450 workers of USW Local 9508 in Voiseys Bay, Labrador, struck. Miners and smelter workers there, employed at Vale&rsquo;s nickel, copper, and cobalt mines and a processing enterprise, are under a separate labour agreement than the one in Ontario, but Vale&rsquo;s income-wrecking proposals are the same. 
 
Saturday&rsquo;s rally by the USW was meant to show strikers &ndash; as well as the rest of Canada and the world&rsquo;s mining industry &ndash; that global labour will stand together to prevent a prosperous mining house from boosting its profit sheet at the expense of workers.
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From left: USW's Leo Gerard; Carolyn Kazdin, USW rep in Brazil; Eduardo Fernando Jardim Pinto (STEFEM-Brazil); and Ken Neumann, USW Canadian Director&nbsp;and ICEM Vice President&nbsp; 

Those attending the rally were energized and excited to hear speakers from across the globe come to northern Ontario to address their issues. 
 
USW President Leo Gerard, who opened the rally, said the Brazilian company picked the wrong group of workers to start a fight with. &ldquo;This strike will determine what kind of future we&rsquo;ll have, and what kind of future our kids and grandkids will have,&rdquo; said Gerard, a native of Sudbury and a member of USW Local 6500. 
 
Following Gerard, Burrow, who also heads the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), told those assembled, &ldquo;You are standing up to the biggest corporate bully in the world. Congratulations &hellip; you are standing up for yourselves, for your children, and for your community.&rdquo; 
 
Another trade union leader, Artur Henrique da Silva Santos, President of Brazil&rsquo;s Central &Uacute;nica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), said Vale is not living up to the &ldquo;big deal it makes about corporate social responsibilities&rdquo; by its assault on workers in Canada, and vowed that Brazilian workers will stand with the USW throughout and beyond this fight.
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Jack Layton, national leader of the Canadian NDP party, brought striking steelworkers and their families to their feet when he said, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re going to win this battle, my friends.&rdquo; This company &ldquo;cannot take away what working people have built over generations in this country and this town.&rdquo; 
 
Other speakers included General Secretary Jorge Campos of the Brazilian mining union Sindimina-RJ (CNTSM), who is secretary of the Vale Union Network of Workers, and Paul Talbot, Assistant General Secretary of Unite the Union from the Amicus Section in the UK. 
 
USW National Canadian Director Ken Neumann said, &ldquo;We recognise that the only way we&rsquo;re going to win this strike is we&rsquo;re going to need the support from our allies around the world.&rdquo; With Saturday&rsquo;s showing of international union leaders, there is little question that global support for the Canadian strikers is alive, with trade union pressure worldwide beginning to mount against Vale. 
 
More coverage on the strike can be found at <a href="http://www.fairdealnow.ca">www.fairdealnow.ca</a>.

Canadian Nickel Strikers Receive Global Union Leaders in Sudbury, Ontario

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Meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, on 15 September, ICEM&rsquo;s Sub-Sahara African Regional Organisation (SSARO) called for greater security measures to be taken to protect energy workers in the Niger Delta. With representatives from ICEM&rsquo;s two Nigerian affiliates, NUPENG and PENGASSAN present and hosting the meeting, the committee noted that the region has not known peace since oil reserves were first extracted 50 years ago. 
 
The committee differentiated between community and labour groups genuinely seeking career opportunities for the indigenous people of the region and a stop to environmental degradation, and gangs of thugs using kidnappings and ransoms to enrich themselves. SSARO acknowledged that Nigeria President Umaru Yar&rsquo;Adua is correct in calling on global energy companies to halt purchases of bunkered oil from unsavory types, whose only interest is trading cash for weaponry. 
 
The regional committee, chaired by Rayford Mbulu, President of the Mineworkers&rsquo; Union of Zambia, also gave approval to the Nigerian government&rsquo;s offer of amnesty to militants who come forward and lay down their arms. It urged the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), to extend its unilateral ceasefire indefinitely.
<img alt="" src="" width="180" height="169" />
&nbsp;Rayford Mbulu 

The committee concluded the Niger Delta debate by identifying the main causes of civil unrest, which has caused cutbacks in production of both oil and gas. They include: a shortage of skill-building, training, and job opportunities by multinational energy companies for people of the region; rampant use of casualisation regarding labour by both local suppliers and multinationals; uneven revenue distribution; environmental degradation; and political marginalization, both at the federal level and within some states of the Niger Delta region. 
 
In other business taken up by SSARO, trade union leaders of Africa called attention to the climate change issue, saying current widespread flooding in many parts of West Africa, including Ghana, Benin, Niger, Senegal, and Burkina Faso, is a direct result of climate change. The committee said such flooding will cause serious famine in parts of West Africa, and called on the governments of Africa to be prepared to deal with the resulting human devastation. 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s African regional grouping resolved to bring pressure against global mining and energy giant BHP for its use of replacement workers in a legal South African dispute between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and BHP at the company&rsquo;s Hozatel manganese mine in Northern Cape State. SSARO also took up the strike by members of the United Steelworkers (USW) in Canada against the Brazilian mining company Vale, and passed a resolution to intervene on mining investment by the Brazilian company in Africa. More on that is <a href="/en/5-Mining-DGOJP/3394-">here</a>.

ICEM’s Sub-Sahara Africa Regional Committee Addresses Niger Delta Security

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Patience by members of ICEM-affiliated Ghana Mine Workers&rsquo; Union (GMWU) has worn thin with the African nation&rsquo;s three largest gold producers, AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields, and Newmont Mining. The union has been in wage talks with the major producers throughout the summer, focusing mainly on narrowing the wide pay gap between expatriate workers and Ghana staff. 
 
The mining houses have become difficult in talks. Despite gold being one mineral which has maintained high pricing value during the economic crisis, AngloGold and Goldfields, in particular, are cold to the GMWU&rsquo;s proposal to lift base wages of Ghanaian miners gradually over the next three years. The wage agreement for 2009 in mining expired in July. 
 
The mining companies&rsquo; intransigence has already produced GMWU industrial actions. In early August, 4,600 miners staged a two-day strike at AngloGold&rsquo;s three mines and last week, 2,100 Goldfields miners began &ldquo;go-slow&rdquo; industrial actions at the South African-based mining house&rsquo;s two mines, including Ghana&rsquo;s largest producing gold mine &ndash; Tarkwa.
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Talks between GMWU and Goldfields on 17-18 September again went nowhere, and GMWU General Secretary Prince William Ankrah said the union&rsquo;s executive council met over the weekend to assess the situation and plan further action. 
 
&ldquo;The situation is dire,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There now is a very good possibility that we will conduct nationwide strikes against the entire industry.&rdquo; Such industrial actions would also involve smaller mining concerns. Since Goldfields has applied to the Ghana Labour Commission for intervention over last week&rsquo;s actions, GMWU will now file for arbitration with the commission. 
 
&ldquo;We are realistic that mining companies cannot equalize the pay disproportion between expatiates and local staff immediately,&rdquo; said Ankrah. &ldquo;But we have very clear direction from our National Executive Council that a wage review must now begin, with the disparity bridged over the next three years.&rdquo; 
 
The union is seeking a 24.5% increase over the three years, which would produce a minimum monthly salary of US$500 by 2011. The mining houses have offered an increment of only 3.5%. 
 
GMWU points out that pay of Ghana&rsquo;s AngloGold executives is 289 times that of the lowest-paid worker, while at Goldfields it is 201 times. Mid-level expat workers in the gold mines receive salaries that are above twice that of local staff doing the same jobs. Lower-tiered salary levels for Ghanaian staff are up to 30 times less than that of expat workers. 
 
At AngloGold, junior staff &ndash; numbering about 4,000 workers &ndash; account for 46% of the payroll, while 675 managers account for 35% and 42 expat workers count for 18% of payroll costs. 
 
In Ghana&rsquo;s mining sector, the US dollar is used as the basis for salaries. In bargaining with Goldfields, the company said the weakness of the American dollar had already lifted salaries when converted to cedis (GHC), an argument the GMWU found insulting.

Ghana Miners’ Escalate Pay Dispute with Gold Producers

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Ugandan trade unions have brought to light de-humanising work conditions imposed by foreign investors in some of the country&rsquo;s workplaces. In a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni in Entebbe on 1 September, leaders of the Central Organisation of Free Trade Unions (COFTU) said abuse of workers and mistreatment is increasingly on the rise in private businesses controlled by outside investors. 
 
Although COFTU did not name employers, the worst of the abusive practices were by small businesses. Dr Sam Lyomoki, COTFU&rsquo;s General Secretary and a member of the Uganda Parliament, presented a petition to the President that outlined general shortcomings in pay and work conditions, as well as failure by some employers to remit income tax and social security deductions to the government. 
 
But the biggest shock came when labour leaders told of denigrating practices imposed by bosses on workers. Specific incidents were cited. One involved a small-business owner who forced an employee to mop an office floor with her tongue. Another boss in a food and detergent manufacturing plant locked a female worker in a toilet in retaliation for her using the toilet before a scheduled break. 
 
Reports said Museveni was visibly shaken upon hearing such accounts. He ordered the Labour Ministry to immediately investigate the abuses. He also told the trade union federation that he would support establishment of labour institutes within the country that would monitor employer misconduct, as well as safeguard workers&rsquo; health and safety. 

&nbsp;

Degrading Work Abuses Brought Forward in Uganda

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Women of Steel, the women&rsquo;s organization of ICEM North American affiliate United Steelworkers (USW), has called on the US government to take stronger action against the Honduran military, following the 28 June coup of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya. 
 
The union&rsquo;s women&rsquo;s group pointed to at least 19 cases of rape by police officers since the coup began, and cited a report by Feministas de Honduras en Resistencia that said police are using rape and other forms of sexual assault against women leaders of the resistance to blunt a return to democracy. 
 
In a 31 August letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Women of Steel Director Ann Flener said, &ldquo;We call upon you and President Obama to denounce the repression and basic human rights violations being carried out by the current illegitimate government and to take all necessary steps to restore President Zelaya, including the withdrawal of the US Ambassador to Honduras; the end of all economic assistance to the coup regime, including monies granted by the Millennium Challenge Corp., and to freeze all assets of the coup leaders. 
 
&ldquo;As women, we ask you to speak out and stand up against this violence against women &hellip;&rdquo; The letter also asked Secretary of State Clinton to denounce the gender violence in Honduras, similar to her denouncement of violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
<img src="" width="300" height="130" alt="" />
Some of USW's Women of Steel&nbsp;
The letter was copied to President Barack Obama, US First Lady Michelle Obama, 17 women members of the US Senate, and several other US government officials. 
 
While the US government has verbally called for the return to power of Zelaya, it has officially refrained from terming the overthrow a coup, which would legally require it to suspend all economic and military aid. The US is Honduras&rsquo;s chief trade partner. 
 
Most European Union governments have withdrawn their ambassadors, and EU countries in total have suspended US$90 million in aid to the Central American country. 
 
On 30 July, Carlos Reyes, General Secretary of International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers&rsquo; (IUF) affiliated STIBYS, was brutally attacked by Honduran police squads while he was peacefully protesting the military coup in the northern city of Tegucigalpa. Reyes, an IUF Executive Committee member, suffered a severely broken arm and other serious injuries. 

&nbsp;

USW Women call on US Government to Take Definitive Action in Honduras

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