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	In the ILO&rsquo;s annual report on global labour conditions released early this week, the UN agency predicts that European social unrest will heighten this year as governments continue to forge ahead with ill-advised austerity policies. It also forecasts that over 202 million people worldwide will be unemployed in 2012.

	<a href="http://www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/world-of-work/">The World of Work Report 2012</a> states that 2012 global unemployment will increase to 202 million from 196 million in 2011. The report says this figure is likely to increase by another five million in 2013, and up to 210 million by 2016.

	&ldquo;Four years into the global crisis, labour market imbalances are becoming more structural, and therefore more difficult to eradicate,&rdquo; the report states. &ldquo;Certain groups, such as the long-term unemployed, are at risk of exclusion from the labour market.

	&ldquo;For a growing proportion of workers who do have a job, employment has become more precarious. In advanced economies, involuntary part-time employment and temporary employment have increased in two-thirds and more than half of these economies.&rdquo;

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 348px;height: 154px" width="390" />

	The ILO report condemns the austerity policies in many industrialised countries, making the inevitable obvious: employers gaining greater latitude to sack workers, lower pay and corresponding social benefits, with an effect of reducing &ldquo;job stability and exacerbate inequalities while failing to boost employment levels.&rdquo;

	The result has been vast increases of long-term unemployed, with upwards of 40% of job seekers in developed nations between the ages of 25 and 49 not having worked in more than a year.

	The ILO said societies are &ldquo;becoming increasingly anxious about the lack of decent jobs.&rdquo; It says that 106 countries surveyed that have available data, 57 of them indicate an increase in the Social Unrest Index for 2011 over 2010.

	&ldquo;The two regions of the world that show the most heightened risk of unrest are Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa but there are also important increases in advanced economies and also in Central and Eastern Europe.&rdquo;

	The ILO report expressed grave concern at the way young people are being shut out of labour markets, as well as the rise of short-term contracts, which, it says, affect young adults and women the most. &ldquo;Youth unemployment rates have increased in about 80% of the advanced economies,&rdquo; the report says.

ILO Report Says Joblessness, Social Unrest Will Persist in 2012

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	The global tyre industry is driven by four major multinationals &ndash; Bridgestone of Japan, Michelin of France, Goodyear of the US, and German-based Continental A.G. The ICEM has strategically targeted these leaders and as a result, Workers&rsquo; Networks have been formed within Bridgestone and Goodyear.

	Now Michelin is on ICEM&rsquo;s radar screen. It employs 115,000 workers and has 69 production facilities in 18 countries. ICEM French affiliates, along with the Michelin European Works Council (EWC), have traditionally played active and supportive roles during times of labour conflict at factories throughout the world.

	The latest examples include in Colombia, Thailand, and most recently, in Romania. The Secretary of the EWC, Cyrille Poughon, a member of French affiliate FCE-CFDT coordinates relations with all unions organizing Michelin employees.

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	ICEM&#039;s &Ouml;zkan, FCE-CFDT&#039;s Poughon, EMCEF&#039;s Lefevbre&nbsp;

	In the latest meeting of the Michelin EWC, attended by 32 workers&rsquo; representatives from 14 countries &ndash; held 27-30 March in Alessandria, Italy &ndash; the ICEM participated together with sister organization, the European Mine, Chemical, Energy Federation (EMCEF). The ICEM was invited as a keynote presenter, and participants discussed tyre production strategies, cost-cutting programmes, and current and prospects for the Michelin Group in Europe for 2012.

	During the final session of the meeting, ICEM&rsquo;s Kemal &Ouml;zkan presented the policies and practices of the ICEM, as well as the unification process of new Global Union Federation, IndustriALL.

	&Ouml;zkan also gave an overview about global tyre industry, including overviews of the other three companies, as well as emerging Asian companies and the difficulties and challenges in labour relations in Thailand, South Africa and the US. In addition, &Ouml;zkan gave reports on active solidarity and support extended by the EWC of Michelin over the past several years.

	The ICEM presentation concluded with the functions of Workers&rsquo; Networks in the global tyre and rubber industry, and a series of case studies involving the different companies in select countries and regions.

	&ldquo;This EWC meeting proved very promising for extending union solidarity from European partners to Michelin workers throughout the world, stated &Ouml;zkan.

Michelin EWC Gets Close Look at Global Solidarity in Tyre Industry

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	Some 35 trade union leaders, mostly from Indonesian pulp and paper mills of Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), attended a two-day workshop on 28-29 March in Serong, Indonesia, on trade union rights, environmental issues, and the health and safety record of the multinational company that is part of Indonesia&rsquo;s Sinar Mas Group.

	The workshop was intended to kick-start w Global Workers&rsquo; Network around APP, a company within the Indonesia-based Sinar Mas Group that also includes palm oil holdings and the European and North American pulp and paper company Paper Excellence. The workshop was generously supported by the Humanity Fund of the Canada&rsquo;s Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia, and the Solidarity Center of the US.

	The ICEM&rsquo;s Indonesian Council of Unions, headed by D. Patombong Sjaiful, hosted the event and aptly handled all logistics.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 229px;height: 159px" width="390">&nbsp;

	Delegates from multiple Indonesian labour confederations and affiliated trade unions, including the forestry and pulp union Kahutindo, that represent workers at APP owned and partially held Indonesian mills attended, and &nbsp;received valuable training on global labour standards contained in ILO Conventions, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and the UN&rsquo;s Global Compact.

	They also heard presentations on APP&rsquo;s forestry practices in Indonesia, the ways and means of the world&rsquo;s three forest certification programmes, and they participated in a session on community-building that was conducted by Tim Woods of FitzpatrickWoods consulting group of Australia.

	Also participating were union representatives from CFMEU&rsquo;s Pulp and Paper Division of its Forestry sector, local union presidents from CEP Local 440 in Nova Scotia &ndash; representing workers of Paper Excellence at the Pictou Mill there &ndash; and CEP Local 1092 in Mackenzie, British Colombia, representing Paper Excellence pulp mill workers there.

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	As well, the United Steelworkers (USW) of the US had delegates from a pulp mill in Halsey, Oregon, attend, and the US-based union provided a look at its labour-environmental network called the BlueGreen Alliance. Other representatives came from the Swedish Paperworkers Union, Pappers, which sponsors a pulp and paper project in Indonesia, and the Pulp and Paper Products Manufacturing Employees&rsquo; Union (PPPMEU) of Malaysia.

	The central conclusion formed at the workshop is that intensive work must now start in order to unite the different unions and their respective confederations at APP&rsquo;s Indonesia&rsquo;s pulp, paper and tissue mills. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Pulp, Paper Unions Conduct Workshop on APP in Indonesia

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	Asia-Pacific Regional Chemical Unions of the ICEM discussed union organizing and strong union representation inside workplaces at a seminar entitled Coordination of Trade Union Networks and Implementation of Global Framework Agreements in the Chemical and Related Industries.

	The seminar was held 9-10 April in Shanghai, China, with support and assistance from German-based Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) through its Shanghai Coordination Office for International Cooperation led by Director Catrina Schl&auml;ger.

	Attended by 50 participants from China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam and India, the seminar was opened by speeches from Dr. Jiang GuangPing, National Secretary of All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), Yoshio Sato, General Secretary of ICEM&rsquo;s Japanese Affiliates&lsquo; Federation (JAF), and ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 240px;height: 160px" width="390">

	Manfred Warda

	ICEM&rsquo;s Kemal &Ouml;zkan introduced global and regional developments in the chemicals industry, which clearly depicted the rapidly growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region. Representatives from Japan, China, India, Thailand and Pakistan presented their experiences with other participants.

	Delegates underscored the importance of a strong union presence at chemical workplaces for getting more shared and added value from the burgeoning industry as it ramps up in the region.

	Another important topic discussed was trade union networking inside the ICEM-represented companies and sectors at the global, regional and national levels. Following ICEM&rsquo;s general overview, trade union representatives from major chemical multinationals such as BASF, Linde and Akzo Nobel put forward their experiences and discussed how to further networks in the upcoming period.

	As an important role, trade union networking was analyzed in supporting union organizing and struggling against precarious employment in Asia Pacific Region. Contributions on this subject were presented to the meeting.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 323px;height: 160px" width="390">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

	The Shanghai meeting also brought forth discussion on international labour instruments, social dialogue and Global Framework Agreements (GFAs), particularly on activities carried out within ICEM&rsquo;s Project for Multinational Companies and Social Dialogue in the Asia-Pacific Region.

	The meeting heard a number of specific examples on how GFAs have successfully worked for shop-floor improvements, including cases involving French-based company Rhodia. Rhodia&rsquo;s China Country Manager, Michael Zu, presented how the GFA has impacted improvement of labour relations at the workplaces of the company in China.

	Two trade union representatives, Lee Daeyong of Rhodia in South Korea and Vadhavkar Sanjay Suryakant from Rhodia in India, shared their respective situations on implementing the GFA in their respective countries.

	On the seminar&rsquo;s second day, participants were divided into two work groups and given the task of devising future cooperation strategies on union networking and GFAs. Specific delegates related to companies BASF, Linde, Akzo Nobel and Rhodia worked in a separate work group. All groups discussed advantages, challenges, and strong and weak points of their tasks, as well as future cooperation opportunities among chemical unions in Asia-Pacific.

	&ldquo;This seminar provided an important opportunity to drive forward union organizing and strong representation through the various instruments that were studied, and to develop networks and resulting Global Framework Agreements,&rdquo; said &Ouml;zkan in summary.

Asia-Pacific Chemical Unions Decisive in Unity Through Networking

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On 14 September 14, the ICEM held an education and awareness-raising event on ILO Convention 176, the Health and Safety in Mines Convention, at XIX World Congress on Safety and Health at Work (WCSHW), an important global occupational health and safety gathering. It took place at the Hali&ccedil; Congress Center in Istanbul. 
 
The ICEM forum had the presence of two of the leaders of ICEM-affiliated mining unions, which indicated the commitment from them to get Turkey to ratify and implement the standards contained in Convention 176. Nurettin Ak&ccedil;ul, President of T&uuml;rkiye Maden-İş, the Mine Workers&rsquo; Union of Turkey, and President Ey&uuml;p Alabaş of Genel Maden-İş, the General Mine Workers&rsquo; Union of Turkey, participated and expressed the necessity of improved mine safety through adoption of global standards. 
 
ICEM Industry and Corporate Affairs Director Kemal &Ouml;zkan introduced the panellists. He noted that the ICEM has made mine safety a top priority, and will vigilantly work to get more countries to ratify ILO Convention 176. 
 
The first panellist was Dr. Fikret Sazak, Director of Education Department for Maden-İş. He reviewed the deplorable occupational health and safety conditions in Turkey's mining sector, as well as generally. 
<img src="" width="230" height="160" alt="" />
From left to right: Brian Kohler, Glen Mpufane, Ey&uuml;p Alabaş, Kemal &Ouml;zkan, Nurettin Ak&ccedil;ul, Fikret Sazak, Turhan Oral
Neo-liberal policies of deregulation, privatization, and globalization are devastating the sector, he said. There is a large informal sector within the Turkish economy. Even within the formal sector, there is high unemployment, low union density, and therefore a big problem with contract labour, flexible labour arrangements, and other forms of precarious work. 
 
Turkish mines are poorly regulated, and there are not enough government inspectors to adequately enforce even those regulations that do exist. 
 
Sazak concluded that the solution lies in enacting effective and enforceable occupational health and safety laws, much more education and training, and worker participation through joint Health and Safety Committees. ILO Convention 176 sets out a minimum standard for all of these things, therefore it should be a high priority for the government of Turkey to ratify it. This will not happen without strong unions. 
 
ICEM Mining Officer Glen Mpufane entitled his presentation &ldquo;First Aid Needed for Safety and Health in the Mining Industry.&rdquo; He focused on various incentive systems used to compensate miners &ndash; both workers and managers. This creates a race to the bottom where all standards are sacrificed to the altar of profit. 
 
Surveying recent mining disasters, in Pakistan, New Zealand, the US, China, Russia, Mexico and other countries, Mpufane concluded that the role of trade unions was crucial. The ICEM predecessor, the Miners&rsquo; International Federation (MIF), played a major role in drafting and adopting ILO Convention 176 in 1995, and now the ICEM is the major organization campaigning for country to country ratification. 
 
Brian Kohler, ICEM Officer for Health, Safety and Sustainability, reviewed some of the provisions contained in ILO Convention 176, and the associated Recommendation 183. 
 
The main features include recommendations for a strong national legislative and regulatory framework, including inspection, required accident investigation, and reporting and record-keeping; employers' responsibilities to provide adequate training and supervision; hazard control following the principle of eliminating or controlling the hazard as close to the source of the hazard as possible and relying on personal protective equipment only as a last resort, and a recognition of workers rights to participate in health and safety policy-making at the workplace level and to remove themselves from danger. 
 
Other important provisions include topics such as risk assessment and control, health surveillance, and risk communication. Good engineering design is a starting point for a safe mine, stated Kohler. Effective emergency response procedures and equipment are also necessary. 
 
Kohler concluded by saying when it comes to occupational health and safety, governments and employers have responsibilities &ndash; workers have rights.

ICEM Holds Forum on ILO C. 176 at Safety Congress in Turkey

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Movement finally occurred in the ten-and-a-half-month lockout by U.S. Steel Corp. of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1005 members in Hamilton, Canada, but too little of it by the concession-seeking company by all accounts. The American steelmaker tabled an offer one week ago, but little in it has changed from US Steel&rsquo;s original demands. 
 
The lockout of 900 steelworkers in the province of Ontario began on 7 November 2010 when USW Local 1005 refused to put a concession-laden proposal before proud union members. US Steel is demanding closure of the defined benefit plan to new hires, an end to pension indexing for 9,000 retirees, cuts to cost-of-living adjustments, and elimination of two weeks vacation time. 
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Negotiations commenced on 13 September for the first time since the lockout began and Hamilton Works managers tabled the offer. The union took it to an information meeting on 21 September, but Local 1005&rsquo;s Executive Committee reviewed it days earlier, and passed a resolution declaring it &ldquo;substantially the same as the offer presented prior to locking the workers out on November 7, 2010, as concerns the demands to give up indexing of pensions and permitting new hires to go into a defined contribution plan instead of being part of the defined benefit plan.&rdquo; 
 
Local 1005&rsquo;s committee also said parts of the new offer actually &ldquo;make it worse,&rdquo; proving &ldquo;that (U.S. Steel) continues to refuse to bargain in good faith.&rdquo; 
 
A major sticking point reportedly is the offer contains call-back language in which the company will only re-start certain operations with a very limited number of workers. The new offer also contains a modest ratification bonus. 
 
USW Local 1005 and U.S. Steel are expected to continue talks under the guidance of provincial mediator Simon Clark.

Talks Begin but Relations Still Frozen in Canadian Steel Lockout of USW Members

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United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6166 in Thompson, Manitoba, ratified a three-year labour agreement with the mining company Vale on 15 September, the same day that a prior three-year pact expired. Following a strike authorisation vote by the 1,100-strong unionised workforce a week earlier that passed by 95.3%, the USW bargaining team negotiated excellent gains in wage, pension, cost-of-living, and other payment schemes. 
 
But most importantly the union diminished the harsh effects to workers in expected 2015 closures of a nickel refinery and smelter at Vale&rsquo;s Manitoba Operations. 
 
The new contract contains annual 2.5% wage increases, plus a C$.35-per-hour cost-of-living increase that will lift earnings C$2.72-an-hour over the life of the agreement. USW Local 6166&rsquo;s defined-benefit pension plan also will increase, to C$3,450 monthly for full work service effective this year and to C$3,550 in September 2013. 
 
The union won &ldquo;preferential hiring&rdquo; language for workers that will lose their jobs in 2015 when Vale pares the Thompson workforce by 45% with the refinery and smelter closures. Vale&rsquo;s Thompson operations exceed new federal Canadian sulphur dioxide standards that will come in 2015. The Brazilian company is building a new C$2.8 billion refining complex in Long Harbour, Labrador/Newfoundland, near Vale&rsquo;s Voiseys Bay and Goose Bay mine operations in eastern Canada. 
 
The new contract language will mean workers likely to be furloughed will have preference in employment opportunities at Vale&rsquo;s Canadian operations in Ontario and Labrador/Newfoundland. The company will continue mine and milling processing in Manitoba and also will continue development of new nickel deposits in the western Canadian province. 
 
Other gains in the 2011 to 2014 collective agreement include a transition and retention payment to be paid over the three years. That will total C$10,000 and include a C$4,000 pay-out on 15 October 2011, and C$2,000 pay-outs in each of the next three years. The new agreement also contains an incentive scheme. 
 
&ldquo;Obviously, the gains we have made are bittersweet, given Vale&rsquo;s plans to close our smelter and refinery in 2015, eliminating 500 jobs,&rdquo; said USW Local 6166 President Murray Nychyporuk. The company and union came to terms on 12 September. A senior Vale manager called the negotiations &ldquo;respectful throughout.&rdquo; The agreement stands as the second labour accord between USW Local 6166 and Vale, the first coming in 2008 two years after Vale bought Inco Ltd. operations in Canada and elsewhere.

Canadian Steelworkers, Vale Agree to Terms at Manitoba Nickel Mine

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In Namibia recently, a collective agreement signed between ICEM affiliate Mine Workers&rsquo; Union of Namibia (MUN) and Namdeb Diamond Corp., the DeBeers, Namibian state joint mining venture, had the rubber stamp of a High Court order. That unusual attribute came because a month-long strike/lockout of 1,600 miners developed into a highly charged and fractious split between labour and management that had Namibia&rsquo;s top political leaders nervous. 
 
The agreement ending the strike, which began 16 August, and the lockout, beginning 20 August, came 11 days ago and was overseen by the country&rsquo;s Minister of Presidential Affairs. The next day, High Court Judge Dave Smuts made the agreement a court order. 
 
The agreement calls for the two sides to &ldquo;dedicate themselves in good faith to rebuild relationships.&rdquo; It calls for empowering a tripartite commission to investigate and resolve the many issues that surfaced in the hostile dispute, and the accord signed at government house in Windhoek also positively resolves the central issue behind the dispute: housing pay when a mine&rsquo;s resources are spent and workers are transferred. 
<img src="" width="160" height="106" alt="" />
The dispute started when Namdeb mothballed the remote Bogenfels mine and denied workers their housing and utility allowances in transferring them to new sites. That occurred earlier this year for a small number of the 1,600 union miners, about 125, and the dispute festered with both sides hardening until industrial action started in August. 
 
When MUN decided to conduct a strike vote, Namdeb yelled foul, saying the vote should not be open to all 1,600. That angered MUN which saw it as an overt intervention into the union&rsquo;s affairs. Then during talks to resolve the strike/lockout, the company angered miners with a counter-offer granting the housing and utility allowances, but then demanded that miners pay rent in their new locales 
 
The recent peace agreement restores to the 125 transferred workers their housing and utility entitlements, and they will not have to pay rent at their new worksites. The accord guarantees no regressions to a 2009 Work Conditions Agreement. The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, which worked staunchly over the past six weeks to resolve the dispute, will coordinate the reconciliation commission. 
 
MUN called attention during to the strike the inequity in opportunities between Namibian citizens and expatriates. The union also singled out a top boss for unfairly denying Namibians jobs because he insists on using polygraph tests on applicants. And MUN has accused this same boss of safety neglect in implementing cost curtailments. Namdeb&rsquo;s largest operation at Oranjemund has seen two years this year. 
 
Diamond output by Namdeb fell off by 30,000 carats of gems during the dispute. Diamond production accounts for almost 10% of Namibia&rsquo;s GDP and 40% of foreign exchange funds. 
 
Meanwhile, a MUN branch took strike action 23 September against R&ouml;ssing Uranium Ltd., 69% owned by Rio Tinto. The 950 uranium miners of the Arandis branch passed a strike authorisation vote 19 September and this is the second strike in three months against R&ouml;ssing over inequitable bonus pay-outs between managers and workers. With Rio Tinto the lead company, the remainder of R&ouml;ssing is owned by the Namibian government and South Africa&rsquo;s Development Corp.

Namibia’s Mineworkers’ Union, Namdeb Reach for Olive Branch

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The second phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry&rsquo;s investigation into the deadly Pike River mine disaster in New Zealand in November 2010 concluded in Greymouth on Friday, 23 September. It produced important revelations regarding inept police supervision after the tragedy, lax emergency response and planning by Pike River Coal, and misguided decisions that still have prevented the recovery of bodies of 29 dead miners. 
 
The Pike River Coal Ltd. explosion of 19 November &ndash; and five subsequent blasts in the days following &ndash; is New Zealand&rsquo;s worst mining disaster in 100 years and Royal Commission hearings are succeeding in illuminating serious malpractices that have no place in modern mining. This second set of three-week hearings that began on 5 September will be followed by a third phase in November. 
 
The three-member commission heard testimony on time and information lapses in rescue and recovery between local and national police supervision. And they heard the frustration of an Australian Construction, Forestry, Mine and Energy Union (CFMEU) expert from the Queensland Mines Rescue team, whose team arrived at Pike River in the immediate days after the blast, only to be sidelined and kept out of the monitoring loop. 
<img alt="" src="" width="183" height="159" />
Timothy Whyte, a chief safety inspector of the CFMEU, told how he witnessed, on 30 November, contractors ignore a warning and place flammable polyurethane around a GAG machine used to extract deadly gases from the mine. The material did catch fire. It took only an hour to extinguish, White said, because the fire retardant apparatus was nearby, but it cost the recovery team valuable time in sealing the mine. 
 
In other testimony, the panel heard from the New Zealand Mines Rescue general manager who said that off-site control by national police in Wellington resulted in &ldquo;operational paralysis.&rdquo; One of the commission members, Stewart Bell, a state Mine Safety commissioner from Australia, asked a senior police commissioner, &ldquo;How much time was wasted, training police officers, in mining matters when you could have had someone there from the word go that understood the word terminology from the word go?&rdquo; 
 
NZ Mines Rescue also was sidelined in the aftermath. The general manager said he advised the police and Labour Department on 21 November to immediately seal the mine to prevent intake of air. They rejected the idea and within days five more explosions occurred. Sealing would have made it possible to recover the bodies sooner. 
 
Whyte testified earlier that he was flabbergasted to witness a large ventilation fan positioned at a portal pumping fresh air into the shaft in the early stages of rescue and recovery. 
 
Eleven of the 29 dead were members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU). The union&rsquo;s attorney questioned witnesses on safety practices of Pike River Coal Ltd. He heard testimony that the company failed to provide enough drift-runners to mechanically evacuate miners in event of an emergency. A control room operator, who lost his brother in the disaster and was manning internal and external telephone lines at the time of the blast, testified that telephones into the mine sometimes worked and sometimes didn&rsquo;t. 
 
A safety and training manager of Pike River Coal Ltd., who lost a son in the blast, admitted that he was always concerned that a long ventilation shaft served as the mine&rsquo;s prerequisite second escape route. It was revealed climbing the laddered shaft could take up to 45 minutes and Pike River provided self-rescuers with only 30 minutes of fresh oxygen. 
 
In the final week of the Inquiry, last week, panel members heard from seven family members of the deceased who spoke on ineffective communication and outreach by authorities. November&rsquo;s third stage of the Royal Commission of Inquiry will deal with the cause of the disaster.

Pike River’s Royal Inquiry Sees Troubling Safety Issues Inside NZ Mine Disaster

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Some 300 members of Australia&rsquo;s Construction, Forestry, Mine and Energy Union (CFMEU) are locked in a fierce battle with the American door and window-maker Jeld-Wen. Woodworkers of the CFMEU&rsquo;s Forestry, Furnishing and Timber Building Products Division have been on strike &ndash; and locked out five days &ndash; at factories in four Australian states. 
 
The central issue is pay. CFMEU has been negotiating with Jeld-Wen subsidiaries Corinthian, William Russell Doors, and Stegbar since June over a new enterprise agreement, but the meagre wage increases offered over a three-year proposal would mean actual pay cuts for workers. In recent talks, the company reshuffled its pay offer but it still fell far short of Australia&rsquo;s 4.5% cost-of-living rise. 
 
Workers at six factories &ndash; including St. Mary&rsquo;s near Sydney, New South Wales; Dandenong, Cambellfield and Scoresby in Victoria; Regency Park near Adelaide, South Australia; and Canningvale, Perth, Western Australia &ndash; took 48-hour strike actions on 6 September. They then were hit by the five-day lockout on 8 September. Workers immediately undertook further and varying strike actions over the last two weeks at the six worksites. 
<img src="" width="242" height="161" alt="" />
Photo: The Western Weekender
Global labour leaders attending the CFMEU&rsquo;s National Construction Conference in Canberra recently visited the St Mary&rsquo;s picket line on 16 September, and the Building and Wood Workers&rsquo; International (BWI) has picked up the cause and is actively supporting CFMEU members. BWI has launched a protest campaign through its website. Please join that protest <a href="http://www.bwint.org/default.asp?Index=3685&amp;Language=EN">here</a>.&nbsp; 
 
CFMEU National lead Negotiator Phil Davies said the revised pay offer given after the company&rsquo;s lockout ended on 13 September is worse than Jeld-Wen&rsquo;s original &ldquo;non-negotiable&rdquo; pay proposal. If accepted, one-third of all job classifications would actually see a further decline in real wages compared to inflation. &ldquo;All our members want is fair and reasonable pay and conditions,&rdquo; he said. 
 
The company is seeking to abolish an attendance-based bonus scheme as well. Meanwhile, the employer has sent letters to workers warning of future lockouts. 
 
Family-run and closely-held Jeld-Wen, started in 1960 by Richard Wendt, purchased the Corinthian factories in Australia and Asia on the cheap during the Asian financial crisis in the mid-1990s, and in 1999 bought Stegbar from a UK-based company. In North America, Oregon-based Jeld-Wen overextended itself in recent years with diversification into ski resorts and holiday properties at the exact time housing and real estate markets crashed. 
 
Next month, Canadian private equity company Onex is expected to close on a US$860 million infusion into Jeld-Wen, giving it 58% ownership of a company that operates 60 manufacturing and distribution sites in 22 countries. The deceased Wendt&rsquo;s son, Roderick, will cease heading one of the world&rsquo;s biggest door- and window-makers in exchange for an Onex selectee.

US Firm Slams Door on CFMEU Members Trying to Catch Inflation

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