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="45" />
The devastating floods which killed more than 600 people in Thailand have had a serious impact on the livelihoods of CAL workers. Many agency workers were not paid as plants have been shut down since the crisis began in October 2011. As the flooding continued in November and December, hundreds of thousands of agency workers were laid off. 
 
The electronic sector, which employs a high proportion of precarious workers, has been amongst the hardest hit by the flooding. In the Ayutthaya and Pathumthani provinces, north of Bangkok, thousands of electronic factories located across several industrial estates remain swamped by more than two metres of water. Several companies have announced lay-offs and plans to relocate production facilities from Ayuttaya to Malaysia. 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="69" />
The Thai government is providing a package to assist companies to retain their workforces. Companies that commit to a policy of no lay-offs, maintain the same level of worker benefits, and pay workers no less than 75% of their wages are eligible for this relief package. 
 
Some unionised companies have continued to pay wages &ndash; from 100% of wages in the first month, to 75% and 50% for November and December. The Goodyear Tyre company paid full wages to both regular and fixed-term workers since its only plant in Rangsit, north of Bangkok, was hit by the floods on 21 October. 
 
Production has not yet resumed at the plant but management and the union are working hand in hand in the recovery process. Workers on fixed term workers at Goodyear whose contracts came to an end on 30th November 2011 did not have their contracts renewed. 
 
At the same time, several companies in the eastern seaboard which were not directly affected by the flood have used the flood as an excuse to delay CBA negotiations or to avoid implementing CBAs.

Flooding in Thailand has devastating impact on CAL workers

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="45" />
An ICEM report has found that the rights of workers in the cement industries of the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and India are being routinely violated through the use of precarious forms of employment. 
 
In many of the plants covered by the research, Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) is being used to restrict or prevent workers from exercising their right to freedom of association. Lafarge in the Philippines, for example, has been using CAL workers to fill permanent positions ever since workers took part in industrial actions as far back as 2000. At one Lafarge plant in Indonesia, all permanent workers are union members, whereas none of the CAL workers are. In India, contract workers at Holcim were dismissed after they joined the union. To make it worse, the company started criminalising the union leaders. 
 
ILO Conventions 87 and 98 apply to all workers, as explicitly stated in the 350th report of the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association: &ldquo;The Committee emphasizes that all workers, without distinction whatsoever, whether they are employed on a permanent basis, for a fixed term or as contract employees, should have the right to establish and join organizations of their own choosing.&rdquo; 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="46" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" width="150" height="64" />
The report further specifies that the non-renewal of a contract for anti-union reasons constitutes a prejudicial act within the meaning of Article 1 of Convention 98. 
 
In all five countries covered by the research, CAL workers earn less than permanent workers &ndash; despite performing work of equal value &ndash; and are denied access to many of the benefits enjoyed by their permanent counterparts. 
 
In both the Philippines and Thailand, permanent workers are increasingly being used only in supervisory roles. This division of responsibilities highlights the fact that it is often contract and agency workers who are performing core labour tasks. 
 
CAL workers in many cement plants live with the burden of uncertainty. As one interviewee explained, he felt his job would continue only &ldquo;as long as I will cooperate.&rdquo; In the Philippines, some CAL workers reported that they do not even have written contracts. In many cases and countries, CAL workers are also not clear who is responsible for their welfare. In Thailand, agency workers are the most likely to suffer workplace accidents, yet in many plants they are denied the same health care benefits as permanent workers. 
 
The ICEM decries these exploitative practices, and demands that multinational cement companies such as Lafarge and Holcim that operate in Asia guarantee equal rights for CAL workers and take urgent steps to bring their practices in line with not only the various applicable national legislations, but also with all existing international labour standards - including ILO Conventions 87 and 98 and the Employment Relationship Recommendation 198. 
 
Cement companies must also act to ensure that they meet their obligations under the OECD Guidelines for MNEs and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 
 
The <a href="http://cal.icem.org/images/documents/Cement%20Report.pdf">CAL Cement Report</a> is available here.

ICEM Report Exposes Asian Cement’s CAL Practices

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
US-based Cooper Tire and Rubber surprised rubber workers and their union, the United Steelworkers (USW), by rejecting good-faith efforts to extend a labour agreement and locking 1,050 USW members off their jobs at a tyre factory in Findlay, Ohio. 
 
The lockout against USW Local 207L started on 28 November after workers rejected a concession-laden three-year proposal by a 606-305 vote the day before. The USW then offered to extend the agreement that had expired on 31 October, but Cooper responded by imposing the lockout. 
 
At the weekend, the company said it intended to take 30 days to re-start production using managers and temporary replacement workers. A senior manager of the US&rsquo;s fourth largest tyre-maker predicted full production in Findlay by then. The company statement is seen as a direct affront to unionized rubber workers at another US Cooper&rsquo;s tyre plant, in Texarkana, Texas. 
<img src="" width="200" height="112" alt="" />
USW Local 752L in Texarkana currently is in bargaining with Cooper over a labour agreement that expires early in 2012. The 1,500 workers there have given union leaders a strike mandate through a vote. Bargaining in Findlay saw USW Local 207L not take a strike vote, making last week&rsquo;s lockout unprovoked and a harmful retaliatory action by Cooper. 
 
The lockout is also a bitter stab at USW&rsquo;s rubber workers who assisted the company in gaining US trade Section 421 protections against dumping of tyre imports into the US by China. In 2008, in the midst of the US debt crisis that crippled American manufacturing, Local 207L members granted US$30 million in contract concessions to Cooper to keep it operating. 
 
The ICEM condemns the lockout for these reasons, and the fact that it now seeks more givebacks from Findlay&rsquo;s steelworkers at a time when it has resumed bonuses to executives. Cooper operates seven manufacturing plants, including former Avon Tyre factories in the UK, and start-up plants in Mexico and joint ventures in China.

Cooper Tire and Rubber Locks Out Steelworkers at Ohio Factory

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
Some 6,000 members of the Pascagoula Metal Trades Council &ndash; four US union organisations &ndash; have an early three-year contract extension with shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries at work-yards in the state of Mississippi. That came off because of a 60% ratification vote by unionised workers on 1 December. 
 
Huntington Ingalls, a spin-off of major US defense contractor Northrup Grumman, builds and maintains the US Navy&rsquo;s surface combatant fleet at Pascagoula, a coastal city on the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
The agreement covers workers who are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the International Association of Machinists &amp; Aerospace Workers (IAM), the Office Professional Employees Union (OPEIU), and a security workers&rsquo; union, and comes four months before the March 2012 expiry of the current agreement. 
 
Journeymen workers will see a US$.60-per-hour rise in their base wage on 9 January 2013, with another US$.60 coming a short two months later on 11 March. Effective 10 March 2014, a US$.70-per-hour increase will occur. 
 
Workers will receive a one-off US$1,000 payment early in 2012 to forego a 2012 cost-of-living adjustment but the COLA will return in the other years. Workers will absorb some increases in their health care insurance coverage in the new pact. 
 
Huntington Ingalls is a major contractor to the US Navy and Coast Guard and besides Pascagoula, where it is responsible for 70% of US surface fleet, it operates the Newport News, Virginia, shipyards, where it builds both nuclear and non-nuclear ships and submarines for the US government. It also controls AMSEC LLD and Continental Maritime of San Diego (CMSD). 
 
Huntington Ingalls is currently partnering in Newport News with French nuclear specialist Areva in building a US$360 million facility for construction of heavy components used in nuclear reactors.

Shipbuilders at Pascagoula, US Mississippi, Ratify 3-Year Contract Extension

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 120px;height: 59px" width="390" />

	&nbsp;

	The ICEM &ndash; along with the European Mine, Chemical, Energy, Federation (EMCEF) &ndash; will march in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, tomorrow, 16 November, in support of 5,200 British workers who are seriously threatened by Unilever with closure of a final salary pension scheme. The ICEM and EMCEF will join European workers of the world&rsquo;s third largest consumer goods company in protest at the company&rsquo;s Rotterdam headquarters.

	The message &ndash; Unilever, Don&rsquo;t Make Workers Pay for Your Profits &ndash; will specifically target Unilever CEO Paul Polman for his 2010-11 salary and bonus pay-out of &euro;8 million. Unilever is out to slash between 20-40% of pension earnings to UK workers represented by trade unions Unite the Union, GMB and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers&rsquo; (USDAW).

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 141px;height: 159px" width="390" />

	Jennie Formby

	&ldquo;Executive greed and compensation must be challenged,&rdquo; stated United National Officer Jennie Formby. Polman saw a 50% increase in his total earnings from 2010 to 2011, some 285 times that of the average Unilever worker.

	The Rotterdam manifestation comes just days two weeks after Unilever posted a strong set of financial numbers in its latest results and three weeks after UK workers from several Unilever sites descended on Davos, Switzerland, where Polman served as one of the co-chairs at the World Economic Forum.

	The three British unions have engaged in two rounds of industrial actions against Unilever at 11 plants, the latest coming with 11 days of rolling strike actions that ended on 28 January. Unilever UK management did finally agree to meet with the unions on 9 February with the assistance of UK&rsquo;s Advisory, Conciliation and Mediation Services (ACAS), but the company is still adamant on closing the final salary pension scheme effective 1 July 2012.

	Unilever instead intends to implement a pension scheme based on career average earnings. Formby said Polman&rsquo;s vision of doubling Unilever&rsquo;s revenue stream over the next ten years and creating &ldquo;sustainable living&rdquo; is disingenuous in view of cutting workers&rsquo; pensions.

	Tomorrow&rsquo;s manifestation will begin at 12h00 at Unilever&rsquo;s offices at Weena 455, Rotterdam. The ICEM also will raise concerns over the 5 February closure due to a labour dispute at Unilever&rsquo;s Basamadi, Nepal, factory. The dispute at that facility, which produces Lux and Lifebuoy soaps and Pepsodent and Close-Up toothpastes, is close to a resolve this week after intervention from the Nepalese government.

Unilever Rotterdam Protest Pits Corporate Compensation vs. Workers’ Pension Cuts

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 77, February 2012

<img alt="" height="59" src="" width="120" />

	Warning strikes across Austria&rsquo;s electric energy sector slated for tomorrow, 15 February, brought a national labour agreement to 21,000 workers over the weekend. ICEM affiliate PRO-GE and GPA-djp, the Salaried Employees, Print, Journalism, Paper Union reached accord on 12 February after the third round of bargaining last week failed.

	In keeping with a decision made in worksite meetings after the second round of talks failed, late in January, the two unions got strike endorsement from the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions (&Ouml;GB) and were to start manifestations today, with warning strikes commencing tomorrow.

	Instead, the employers&rsquo; association moved a previous 3.6% wage offer to over 4%, with the minimum level of wages in the utility sector lifted to 4.2%. Higher-level wages will be increased by 3.8%, while those of apprentices will be hiked by 4.2%.

	The two unions took the stalemate in 2012 wage negotiations to union memberships at the shop-floor level because employers were refusing to come close to wage level increases reached in Austria&rsquo;s metal sector last October, or to account for a 2011 inflation rate of 3.2% that continues to rise. The unions also cited rising company earnings as reason why electric generating and distribution companies could pay what was achieved in the nation&rsquo;s metal sector.

	In a statement issued yesterday, PRO-GE&rsquo;s Manfred Anderle and GPA-djp&rsquo;s Karl Proyer jointly said: &ldquo;Our great thanks go to all employees and to the shop stewards, who made this possible through their solidarity and readiness for action.&rdquo;

Threat of Strikes in Austria’s Electric Sector Brings National Accord

<img alt="" height="59" src="" width="120" />

	The Australian High Court last week refused to hear an appeal by Rio Tinto over the company&rsquo;s illegal non-union collective agreements imposed on iron ore miners in West Australia. The denial is a victory for ICEM affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), which took the case forward, and a victory for legitimate collective bargaining rights.

	It also stands as a rebuke to Rio Tinto in its efforts to avoid 2009 changes in Australian labour law.

	The 10 February ruling not to hear Rio&rsquo;s appeal to a 25 July 2011 determination by the full bench of the country&rsquo;s Federal Court means Rio&rsquo;s sham labour agreement from July 2008 is not a genuine collective agreement. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4571-Australia-s-CFMEU-Wins-Major-Bargaining-Ruling-Against-Rio-Tinto">ICEM report</a> on Federal Court decision from 1 August 2011.)

	It also serves as an invitation for iron ore miners &ndash; and others &ndash; in West Australia&rsquo;s rich Pilbara region to take membership in the CFMEU, with the aim to negotiate real enterprise labour agreements through the union.&nbsp; The High Court ruling will also negate other mining firms such as BHP Billiton, which also converted individual work agreements into non-union labour agreements that were intended to keep trade unions away from workers and workers without a union voice.

	In Rio Tinto&rsquo;s case, it brought ten new hires of its Pilbara Iron Company Pty. Ltd. subsidiary into a bogus Pilbara Iron Employee Agreement for a five-year duration that was meant to include all other new hires during that time. The ploy was done to avoid changes in law that took effect with the July 2009 effective date of the Fair Work Australia law.

	Some 20 such delusionary labour agreements are said to have been put in place to avoid the Fair Work law, and Rio Tinto&rsquo;s legal failure last week is expected to strike the ones that are still in effect null and void.

	&ldquo;Rio Tinto made a cynical attempt to circumvent their obligations under the Fair Work laws,&rdquo; said CFMEU Mining General Secretary Andrew Vickers. &ldquo;It has tried to dodge its obligation to recognise the rights of its workers to genuinely collectively bargain for future pay increases and improved conditions.

	&ldquo;It has been a long legal battle, but it&rsquo;s been worth it to safeguard the rights of our members in the Pilbara and demonstrate that Rio Tinto is not above the law,&rdquo; added Vickers.

Australian High Court Denies Rio Tinto’s Appeal to Evade Union Contracts

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390" />

	ICEM Colombia Coordinator Carlos Bustos reports that a two-day seminar of young trade unionists from the three Global Union Federations (GUFs) that next month will form IndustriALL came to important conclusions last week. The participation of 20 trade unionists under the age of 30 brought young men and women together from throughout Colombia on 10-11 May.

	Participating unions included International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF)affiliates Utramicol and Fetramecol, and Martina Sanguinetti of the Uruguayan Metalworkers (UNTMRA). Also participating were representatives of ICEM, and CUT and CTC national labour centres.

	The meeting sought to find ways to increase the active participation of youth. A key issue for participants was not for them to be consulted more, but to be centrally involved in decision-making and to be involved and represented at all levels inside unions. This includes deciding the politics and the future of the Colombian trade union movement.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" height="146" src="" width="180" />&nbsp;

	Carlos Bustos

	A commitment was reached to establish a permanent network for communication and information.

	The joint youth project of the three GUFs that also included the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITGLWF) and was funded by the Finnish Solidarity Organisation, SASK. This project will connect similar processes that are ongoing in Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and Nicaragua with that in Colombia.

	ICEM project coordinator Patricio Sambonino evaluated the two-day Colombian seminar, saluting the important contribution and participation of the young trade unionists, moving towards generational change for the movement.

Young Colombian Trade Unionists of ICEM, ITGLWF, IMF Connect

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390">

	The ICEM-affiliated Peruvian Federation of Mine and Metal Workers, FNTMMSP, achieved a significant legislative victory on 12 May that creates a pension fund for miners, funded by corporate profits and worker contributions.

	The law had been passed by the country&rsquo;s Senate nine months ago, but the government had not approved regulations for its implementation until now, two days prior to a planned two-day national strike.

	FNTMMSP General Secretary Luis Castillo announced the victory and called off the strike. The 75,000-member FNTMMSP had led the campaign for the last four years, against strong conservative forces in government and industry. The four-year campaign has included numerous mobilisations, marches, and three national strikes.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 342px;height: 154px" width="390">

	Supreme Decree DS 006-2012-TR sets out that the fund will be funded with 0.5% of the corporate annual income of the mining, metal, steel industries, plus 0.5% workers&rsquo; monthly gross salaries. The benefits cannot be used for any other benefit than miners&rsquo; pensions.

	FNTMMSP reports that the primary beneficiaries of the new law will be mine and metal workers from both primary employers and outsourced contractors.

	The mineworkers&rsquo; struggle now continues in other areas, including modification of the legislation on utilities.

	Peru is the world&rsquo;s second largest producer of copper and silver, and is a major producer of gold, zinc, and tin. A massive 60% of the country&rsquo;s export revenue comes from mining.

Peru’s Mineworkers Achieve Legislative Victory on Pensions, Avoid Strike

Archive