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Australian trade unions have won a first round by stomping on a Rudd government plan to raise the pension age to 67 by the year 2023. This story serves as a global reminder that Australian trade unions will not let down their guard and will prevent a labour government from rolling back into the Howard era. 
 
The plan came inside a Treasury budget proposal to gradually increase the pension age beginning in 2017. Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), and other unions, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), posted immediate challenges and Kevin Rudd backed down. 

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But the plan will likely re-surface in coming years, and trade unions now are well placed for full engagement. CFMEU, AMWU, and others correctly label the measure, “a path to the false economy” and point out that the proposed retirement system unfairly affects low-paid, blue-collar workers, particularly those doing physical labour in construction and industrial sectors. The government’s plan disregards future health-care disabilities and the needed funds to maintain an effective and inclusive medical social net. 

<img height="132" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0906.sharon.burrow.jpg" width="100"/>
ACTU President Sharon Burrow
ACTU President Sharon Burrow aptly stated that workers’ bodies are “broken way before” they reach age 67. Research polling showed that 72% of Australians think the Rudd government plan is unfair to labourers, while 61% think it is unfair to trades and crafts workers. 
 
Separately and a fairer proposal, in a joint letter to Rudd by CFMEU National Secretary John Sutton and AMWU National Secretary Dave Oliver, they said roll-backs of tax concessions on superannuation accounts should be a priority in order to raise revenue. By raising the eligibility threshold at which tax relief is granted on superannuations, the unions maintain, Australia creates equality and fairness for all. 
 
The ICEM commends the CFMEU and AMWU, and all Australian unions, for leading a rapid vanguard over this issue and supports future efforts of trade unions to block similar regressive and anti-people policies.

Australian Unions Push Back Over Pension Age Issue

Sappi: pulp & paper/pâte et de papier/pulp y papel 
Urgent Alert, Sappi/South Africa: Voice Opposition, Support CEPPWAWU 
 
ICEM is calling for immediate action to a union-smashing affront by Sappi at its Enstra mill in Springs, South Africa. Sappi suspended 19 shop stewards and 23 other workers due to their union affiliation with Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU), a longtime ICEM affiliate. 
Starting on 6 May, SAPPI systematically and maliciously began taking disciplinary actions against CEPPWAWU leaders inside the 650-worker Enstra sulfate pulp and printing papers mill. The allegations: inciting workers (90% of whom are CEPPWAWU members), harassment, and use of company property for union purposes. At a 28 May meeting, SAPPI said it would start disciplinary hearings on them, hearings that will be one-sided and unfair. The ICEM urges that messages get sent and that this posting gets wide attention: union bashing will not be tolerated in South Africa! 
 
ICEM finds it reprehensible that SAPPI refuses meeting participation by CEPPWAWU’s National Coordinator for Sappi branches, and called it “a blight on Sappi everywhere,” in a letter to SAPPI house in South Africa. The ICEM calls it a blatant violation of basic trade union rights and this union-bashing merits immediate condemnation. Respond! 
 
Take the message below, and send to Enstra manager Dave Glazebrook at <a href="mailto:dave.glazebrook@sappi.com">dave.glazebrook@sappi.com</a> and <a href="mailto:Wikus.van.Zyl@sappi.com">Wikus.van.Zyl@sappi.com</a>, <a href="mailto:Jan.labuschagne@sappi.com">Jan.labuschagne@sappi.com</a>, and then pass it to others to do the same: 
 
Sappi: Hands Off Union at Enstra. 
 
NO!!! … Union Bashing in South Africa! 
No … no suspending Union Rights in South Africa! This is malicious, anti-democratic, and anti-people … there is no room for it in economic recovery. Sappi cannot afford disrepute now or ever in its paper businesses. Reinstate the workers’ representatives and others at Enstra Now. These trade union members have been incriminated because they represent Sappi’s biggest trade union in South Africa. It is deplorable labour-relations and employment conduct … and a cancer inside South Africa. Trade union rights at Enstra – anywhere at Sappi … Europe, North America, or in South Africa – are guaranteed and will never be denied! 
 
 
Please send solidarity messages to CEPPWAWU: <a href="mailto:secretariat@ceppwawu.org.za">secretariat@ceppwawu.org.za</a>

SAPPI: Act Now!!

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Instead of facing testimony in a US federal court over the complicity its Nigerian subsidiary played in the 1995 executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni rights activists, Royal Dutch Shell made a US$15.5 million payout to the nine defendants – relatives of the martyrs – and the Ogoni people. 
 
Shell’s announcement came at the outset of a federal court case in New York under the US’s Alien Tort Claims Act, an effective global instrument to bring social justice and payment damages to non-American victims of crimes or violations committed by companies. Shell said it would pay US$10.5 million to the defendants and US$5 million for an Ogoni trust fund. 
 
Shell termed it a “humanitarian settlement” and proclaimed innocence over the 1995 complicity with the Abacha regime’s round-up and execution of the land and environmental rights activists, who were leading the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta. 
 
The civil lawsuit in the US, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and EarthRights International, lingered on for well over a decade. One US writer, labour rights activist Phil Mattera, wrote, “It is understandable why the plaintiffs … would feel a need to settle a case that had dragged on for 13 years and provide some financial assistance to the Ogoni community. Yet it is frustrating to see Shell trying to turn an outrage into an opportunity to burnish its image.” 
 
Shell was charged with crimes against humanity, and being complicit with arbitrary arrest, torture, jurisprudence negligence, wrongful death, and emotional distress. Saro-Wiwa and the others faced hasty trials and immediate execution by security forces of General Abacha in November 1995.

Shell Pays Nigeria’s Ogoni People, Avoids Tell-tale US Court Case

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ICEM Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs Joe Drexler reports that progress is being made with Russian and Ukrainian governments by ICEM-affiliated mining affiliates in promoting the ratification of the ILO Convention 176 on Health and Safety in Mines. 
 
Russia experienced a major mining disaster last week when 12 people were killed at an apatite mine near Kirovsk, in the Murmansk region, and Ukraine has the most dangerous coal mines in Europe. Apatite is used in fertilizer production. 
 
In a week-long trip that included stops in Moscow, Russia, and Kiev and Donetsk, Ukraine, Drexler met with union leaders, employers, and government officials including the Deputy Minister of Health and Social Development in Russia and the Minister of Coal in Ukraine. The meetings with the ministers were set up by Ivan Mokhnachuk, President of the Russian Independent Coal Employees’ Union, and Victor Turmanov, Chairman of the Trade Union of Workers’ of the Coal Industry of Ukraine. 

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Left, Joe Drexler, ICEM Director for Industry and Corporate Affairs; right, Ivan Mokhnachuk, President of the Russian Independent Coal Employees' Union (Rosugleprof)
In Russia, the Chemical and Allied Industries Workers Union, which represents some 50,000 largely phosphate and potash miners, and the Russian Trade Union of Metal Workers in the Nickel, Cobalt, and Platinum Industries, representing miners at Norlisk Nickel, offered strong support for the ratification of ILO Convention 176. Valery Glaskov, president of the metal mining union, also said he would open direct talks with Norlisk about a Global Framework Agreement. The talks will include the ICEM and trade unions outside of Russia. Norlisk has mining operations in Africa and the US.
It is in Ukraine where the prospect of achieving ratification of ILO Convention 176 in the near-term appears most likely. Victor Turmanov, who is also a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, has been leading the effort along with Mikhail Volynets of the ICEM affiliated Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, and also a member of Parliament. A meeting was also held with Vasyl Khara, President of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, and yet another member of Parliament. Although much of the research and proposed changes to mining laws and regulations have been prepared, unified political pressure will be required to ensure ratification. 
“I think we can say with confidence that Ukraine will become the 23rd nation to ratify ILO 176,” said Turmanov after a meeting with Viktor Poltavets, the Minister of Coal, who gave his whole-hearted commitment to push for ratification in 2009. 
 
The ICEM has been lobbying the ILO to step up its own efforts to promote the ratification of the convention. The ILO is setting up workshops about ratification in India and Mongolia, but after several months of discussion, no meeting dates have been set. 
 
Indian unions have grown frustrated over the slow progress by the ILO and are actively engaged in lobbying efforts with government and employers. The Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia has received a commitment from the new Labour government that it will also proceed next year toward ratification. 
 
Ratification of ILO Convention 176 will result in needed improvements in mining regulations and laws in most countries which have not yet ratified. Experience has shown that good mining laws and regulation will make mines safer.

ILO Mine, Safety Convention 176 Moves Closer to Realty in Russia, Ukraine

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On 1-2 December, in Bogotá, Colombia, union leaders of ICEM affiliate Sintracarbòn delivered a list of demands to management of Carbones del Cerrejón, the world-class coal mining operation owned by BHP Billiton, AngloAmerican, and Xstrata. The workers are seeking solutions regarding serious problems in health, education, low wages, outsourcing of labour, and effects on the local community. 
 
Preliminary discussions were carried out on 3-4 December at company headquarters in the city of Barranquilla, where a course was set forth for the negotiations to continue. The direct settlement stage of discussions began 9 December, where both parties again agreed on the required methodology in approaching negotiation of the union demands. 
 
This massive open-pit mining enterprise in the northern state of Guajira produces highly desirable low-carbon thermal coal. The mine produces 32 million tones annually, with a majority of that shipped to Europe, with exports to North America second in scope.
<img height="252" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805COLOMBIA3.jpg" width="300" alt=""/>
Miners of Sintracarbòn in Colombia  
 

Since January 2007, when the ICEM assisted Sintracarbòn in achieving its current and now expiring labour contract, the number of health problems of workers has increased dramatically, up to 700, leading to the demand for a better health care system for both workers and their families. Aims to reduce the numbers of outsourced workers at the mine would develop economic stability for miners and their families, as well as efficient unionization of the workforce enabling collective bargaining. 
 
The union represents some 4,500 full-time Carbones del Cerrejón workers, with another 4,000 employees working for service providers. Sintracarbòn is requesting solidarity again from its global affiliation, as well as from national level unions in Colombia as the talks progress in December.

Sintracarbòn Enters Critical Talks with Carbones del Cerrejon in Columbia

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Pulp and Paper trade union leaders of the ICEM concluded their World Conference on 10 December in Piriápolis, Uruguay, with delegates forging a clear and concise solidarity action plan. With that, ICEM’s Pulp/Paper Work Group activities will be extended and expanded to other leading affiliates. 

The conference featured a work plan, built around collective bargaining and other important work, and it took on issues of debt collapse, global growth slowdowns in the south, and pricing and labour costs from region to region.
<img height="169" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812UrugBanner_edited.jpg" width="300"/>
The conference heard a thorough and first-of-its-kind mapping of Mercosur unions in the pulp and paper sector and the companies that these unions are present at. The mapping came way of Brazil’s Instituto Observatório Social, through funding from Finland’s SASK, the global solidarity arm of the country’s national labour centre. 
Delegates heard comments from Argentine trade union leader Blas Juan Alari, President of FOEIPCyQ, that a cold-war dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over a pulp mill did not take into account the sentiments of Argentine workers. The conference also heard moving presentations about workers’ rights in Uruguay from leaders of the national labour centre, PIT/CNT. 
They also heard from Ilkka Hämälä, President and CEO of Metsa-Botniä Oy, whose pulp mill in Fray Bentos has brought controversy between Argentine and Uruguyan governments, and from Jeronimo Ruiz, Director of São Paulo State’s BRACELPA employers’ grouping, who also heads collective bargaining for Brazil’s pulp and paper employers. 
Workers’ representatives queried the industry leaders on several things, including wood supply issues; pulping, delivery, and labour costs, and questions on social responsibility records, a sharp challenge that was put forward by ICEM Pulp and Paper Charman Jouko Ahonen, President of Paperiliitto of Finland. He said the precedence of profits to investors over society’s interests is the foremost affront to a company’s social responsibility record.
<img height="107" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812Uruguay2_edited.jpg" width="240"/>
Trade Union leaders on panel, from left, Jan-Henrik Sandberg, Sweden; Blas Juan Alari, Argentina; and Fred Wilson, Canada 

The conference also heard from Uruguay Industry and Energy Minister Daniel Martinez and Labour and Social Security Minister Eduardo Bonomi. Martinez, a former trade union leader in Uruguay, gave an impassionate speech on the need to uphold high labour and social standards in all industrial development. Bonomi gave a vivid account of a crumbling civilian government giving way to military in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as proclaiming that Uruguay’s cuurent plans for industrial growth will better integrate the Mercosur countries. 

President of the host union, CUOPyC’s Walter Silva, reminded trade union guests that any financial crisis inevitably harms workers first and the hardest, and said the most recent economic collapse must be the call for deepening democratic trade unions, opening of workers’ channels to investment decisions, and an absolute end to “any type of social dumping.” 

Silva also called the Argentine-Uruguay dispute – now in the World Court – regrettable, stating “our opinion wasn’t taken into account, although we had the ability to offer experience and knowledge” to calm the political difficulties of the Fray Bentos mill. The mill has now been operating for one year and produces 100,000 metric tonnes of pulp annually, 70% of which is bought by Metsa-Botniá’s three paper-making owners. 

ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda told delegates the neo-liberal model of economic structures has failed. “It is not a time to heal a system that has failed, but rather a time to forge a sustainable future built on justice and equality.” 

He said Uruguay was the right place to hold this conference, considering the dark days of repression in the 1970s and 1980s, with the ICEM purposely scheduling the conference on the 60th Anniversary of signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

The three-day ICEM forum was preceded by a two-day conference, 6-7 December, on forest certification programmes sponsored by the global union federation, Building and Woodworkers’ International (BWI). That forum proved highly successful and afforded.ICEM affiliates the opportunity to learn about forest certification programmes.

ICEM Pulp/Paper Conference Held in Uruguay

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With less than 18 months in existence, the Latin American trade union network of Belgian-based Solvay has taken important steps in expanding to other employees in the region. 
 
The third meeting of Brazilian Trade Union Network of the chemicals, pharmaceutical, and plastics multinational was held in São Paulo on 1-3 December, with trade union participates coming from Argentina, Belgium, and the European Works Council of the company, as well as from five Brazilian unions. The meeting was also attended by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Chemicals and Rubber Industries Officer Kemal Özkan. 
 
The participants discussed the importance of international trade union networking, especially in the face of the global financial crisis and its possible consequences in the world of work. The precariousness of labor relations, such as outsourcing and subcontracting, and the need to ensure the health and safety of workers in all localities were priorities at the meeting. 
 

<img height="148" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812.solvay.jpg" width="300"/>
"This network has shown a great willingness to grow, adding strength of colleagues from different Latin American plants, so that together we can initiate dialogue with Solvay in order to improve working conditions and the lives of workers,” said Juvenil Youth Nunes da Costa, coordinator of the network. 
 
”I am very happy to take part in such an important initiative, which is becoming a model for workers’ solidarity,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “This network has become a success in a very short period of time, and it is clear that we must unify our efforts to combat common problems." 
 
Among the major decisions taken at the early December meeting was to strengthen the role of representation of the network, along with the role of workers in Solvay’s direction in Brazil; disclosure of the network in Argentina so that further extension can occur in other Mercosur countries; dissemination of the commitments on "Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility," as made by the company to workers in Argentina and Brazil; and drafting a proposal related to a Communication Policy Network. 
 
The next meeting is scheduled to be held in July 2009. The Network of Workers at the Solvay-Brazil Group was created in September 2007, and representation covers the 14 units of the group in the country.

Brazilian Network of Solvay Eyes Latin Expansion

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Union and community leaders in the UK’s northeast have mounted a campaign to save over 100 jobs at a chemicals plant. UK-based Elementis Plc., the EU’s only producer of chromium chemicals used in superalloy production, timber treatments, and metal finishing, is currently in a 90-day consultation period with ICEM affiliate Unite the Union and workers at a plant in Eaglescliffe, near Teesside. 
 
In February, the specialty chemicals company – the world’s largest producer of chromium chemicals – announced the plant was under “a strategic review” that could lead to a shutdown by July 2009. 
<img height="138" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMchemical.jpg" width="140" alt=""/>
Workers and community leaders are petitioning MPs and engaging in other activities to keep the profitable plant operating. Elementis, which also produces surfactants and specialty chemicals for paints, coatings, inks, and cosmetics, saw its chromium chemicals business post an operating profit of £27.7 million in 2008, compared to a £14.2 million profit in 2007. Sales in the division rose to £168.6 million in 2008 from £115.9 million in 2007. 
 
Unite Regional Secretary Bob Bolam stressed that production from the plant was crucial for the EU. “If this plant were to close, the EU would be reliant on Kazakhstan and China. We intend to put together a case for the (Elementis) board to keep this site.” 
 
The company’s other chromium chemicals plants are in the US – Corpus Christi, Texas, and Castle Hayne, North Carolina. Raw materials used by Elementis come from South Africa and other parts of Africa, and are processed at the Eaglescliffe plant before being shipped to US facilities and other locations. The company’s chromium chemicals business produces dichromate, chrome sulphate, chromic acid, chromic oxide, chromide hydrate, and sodium sulphate. 
 
Elementis senior executives have stated that no final decision on closure has been taken. The ICEM supports workers in the Teesside and Wilton area in their buoyant efforts to preserve jobs in this sector.

UK Workers, Community, Unite the Union Fight to Protect Jobs at Elementis Chemicals

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The union that won a long battle to represent Firestone Rubber Plantation workers in Liberia has now won a Labor Ministry-supervised vote to represent workers at ArcelorMittal’s mining development in Liberia. 
 
On 11 April, ICEM-affiliated Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers’ Union of Liberia (FLIWUL), greatly assisted by the United Steelworkers (USW) of the US, easily beat a yellow union in a representation election that took place in Nimba County on the Liberian-Guinea-Côte d’Ivoire border and at Buchanan, a port city on the Atlantic Coast. 
 
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel-maker, is undertaking a US$1.5 billion re-development of iron ore mining operations near Yekeba in Nimba County and a 250-kilometre railroad line to Buchanan. 
 
The union vote, however, encountered flagrant interference by a company official and a Liberian legislator, despite both an ICEM letter (found <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/6%20letter%20to%20Bernard%20Fontana%20-%203%20Feb09.pdf" type="internal">here</a>) and a USW letter warning ArcelorMittal not to interfere in the election. But an ArcelorMittal boss and a national lawmaker showed up in Buchanan several hours after voting began and demanded a halt to balloting. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904.fliwul.jpg" width="149" height="112"/>
FLIWUL activists in Harbel
On the eve of the vote, the yellow union used a radio broadcast to discourage workers from voting. Election observers also reported that whoever was behind this group had pressed members of the Liberian Parliament to intervene with the Labor Ministry to cancel the vote. 
 
The ArcelorMittal official was Arthur Massaquio, who earlier on 11 April was the company’s designated election observer, but left the polling area soon after balloting began. When he returned several hours later, he was with Representative Gabriel Smith. The lawmaker began questioning workers on why they felt the urgency to have a union vote, before ordering workers back to work because he was canceling the election. 
 
Despite this, and the fact that several workers did leave the Buchanan polling area without voting, FLIWUL won the fair, government-supervised election. FLIWUL got 198 votes, the yellow union 19, and the “no union” option on the ballot received one. In Buchanan, the FLIWUL got 59 votes and the company union 15. The ICEM had an observer present for the vote through a designated representative from the Ghana Mineworkers’ Union. 
 
FLIWUL Secretary-General David Sackoh told the ICEM following the vote that an investigation into the Buchanan interruption is underway, but that he is confident the vote will stand. 
 
ArcelorMittal is developing Nimba County’s one billion cubic-metre iron ore reserves in a 25-year concession that will see the Liberian government receive 30% of the net profits, plus 4.5% in royalty fees. Some 2,000 Liberian workers are expected to be employed in the mining enterprise and the rail link and port hub. This northern Liberia mining area was originally operated by the Liberian American Swedish Chemicals Company (LAMCO), but production ceased in 1989 with the outbreak of civil war.

Despite Interference, FLIWUL Wins Union Rights for ArcelorMittal Workers in Liberia

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28 April is Workers’ Memorial Day, or more formally, the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers. It is the day that trade unions across the world mourn the dead, but pledge even harder to wage the fight for safe, healthy, and risk-free workplaces. 
 
The commemoration day is rooted in the Canadian labour movement, whose unions worked for several years before the country’s Parliament in 1989 passed Bill C-223, adopting 28 April as the official “Day of Mourning.” While labour groups in several countries began commemorating the day soon thereafter, it became a global day of health and safety recognition and a vivid reminder of the ever-present risks and hazards inside worksites when the UN lit a Commemorative Candle in 1996 for the victims of the Kader toy factory fire in Thailand three years earlier. 
 
Some 188 mostly young women workers perished in that fire and another 500 were severely injured. Now, 20 countries officially recognize the day, with Croatia being the latest, moving in recent weeks to designate it the National Day of Occupational Safety and Health. 

<img height="86" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEM100.jpg" width="100"/>
(The others: Argentina, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Luxembourg, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Venezuela.) 
 
The day also is marked by labour unions and workplace health and safety groups in over120 countries. It is more than just a memorial day to remember the estimated two million workers who die each year from workplace accidents, job-related injuries, or occupational illnesses. It is a day of renewal and action for positive change to make worksites safer and risk-free. 
 
ICEM trade union affiliates are encouraged to find an activity next week to take meaningful action. Use the day, for example, to work in your community and within your union to engage your government on ILO Convention 176, the Health and Safety in Mines Convention; or any of the other ILO Conventions which your government has not ratified, such as Convention 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention; No. 162, the Asbestos at Work Convention; No. 148, the Work Environment Convention; No. 174, the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents Convention; No. 119, the Guarding of Machinery Convention; and No. 136, the Benzene Convention. Only through direct action will change occur.

28 April, Day of Mourning: History is Recent but Roots are Growing

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