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In line with a 2001 agreement with US-based rubber multination Firestone, the ICEM-affiliated SUTNA announced on 9 May that 980 members at Firestone received a profit share bonus of 4,000 Argentine pesos (686 euros). It is the fourth time workers have received this kind of bonus since 2001. 
 
SUTNA General Secretary Pedro Wasiejko is now pushing for similar profit sharing to be extended to all workers in Argentina and enshrined in the country’s labour law. The agreement was reached between workers and management during a difficult economic period for the tyre and automobile sectors in Argentina. Workers then agreed to take a reduction in wages in line with the downturn in company profits, to ensure the company would recover. Now the tyre and auto sectors are performing well, workers are rewarded with the substantial bonus. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0811PedroWasiejkoArgenSutna.jpg" width="149" height="164"/>
Pedro Wasiejko
According to the agreement, workers receive the bonus payment when annual profits reach more than 6%. Workers receive one third of the amount above the 6% mark, whatever that figure is equal to. 
 
See the video of the <a href="http://ejes.com/enc23mc6a2">press conference</a> where the announcement was made here.  
 
Wasiejko, also General Secretary of Industrial Workers’ Federation FETIA, and Hugo Yasky, General Secretary of the CTA national centre, argue that the Bill currently passing through the consultation phase within Congress ought to formalise the profit sharing bonus, and for those payments not to be taxed. This would encourage investment on the local level, and also from multinationals.

Argentinean Rubber Workers Receive Profit Share Bonus

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A study entitled “Oil and Casualisation of Labor in the Niger Delta” was released recently by the US Solidarity Center. It vividly depicts the social erosion occurring to the livelihoods of Nigerian oil workers due to casualisation, or contract or outsourced work. 
 
The <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.pubs_nigeria_degradationofwork.pdf " type="internal">study</a> can be found here. 
It states that casualisation in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is facilitated by the widespread poverty, joblessness, and plundering of natural resources along the Niger Delta. “As a result, Nigerian oil workers are vulnerable to a new kind of attack – quiet but more potent – an industry-wide shift away from regular, full-time work toward forms of cheaper temporary labour and short-term contracting,” reads a part of the executive summary of the study. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805BayoOlowPenGS.jpg" width="120" height="180"/>
Bayo Olowoshile
The 36-page study says that under one-half of the country’s oil and gas workers are unionised, down from 60% in 2003. The rate of women in the union ranks is even less, 20%. It attributes the decline and low level of women in unions to increased use of casual workers in “an attempt to replace full-time unionised workers with lower-paid, less-protected workers and to relegate legal and managerial responsibilities to one or more third-party contractors. 
 
“The casualisation model enables employers to ignore workplace standards and workers’ social needs and to create a strong barrier against workplace organising.” 
 
Bayo Olowoshile, the General Secretary of ICEM salaried staff affiliate PENGASSAN, told the ICEM that major multinationals are to blame. “Companies have been allowed to adopt their human resource techniques and styles to deplete full-time staff and grant favour to dubious contractors.” He also blamed neo-liberal business models and government agencies willing to go along with those models for the anti-social trend. 
 
Olowoshile said it is a common problem with his union and the blue-collar ICEM affiliate NUPENG, but that the union representing junior staff have had more opportunities to organise casual workers. 
 
Olowoshile said the issue of casualisation will get more attention in the coming weeks in Nigeria with the release of a tri-partite position paper stemming from a PENGASSAN/NUPENG strike last August. That strike centered on infringement of workers’ rights for casuals. He said the unions and employers may not agree on all tenets contained in the paper, but that it must serve as a basis for dialogue to correct the economic and social imbalances inherent in the trend toward irregular employment.

Study: Stark Effects to Casualisation in Nigeria’s Oil Sector

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The ICEM today vehemently condemned the deepening trade union repression occurring in Iraq. In recent days, a youth leader of the Mechanics’ and Printers’ Union of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW) and three others were rounded up and presumably jailed, and Jamal Abdul-Jabbar, President of the Oil and Gas Workers’ Union of the GFIW in Kirkuk was forcibly transferred from his job at Northern Oil Company to a remote location due to his union activities. 
 
On 27 May, plainclothes Iraqi security police in a civilian ambulance grabbed the four young activists as they were on their way to demonstrate in Tahrir Square, the central Baghdad flashpoint this year for protests. Taken away were Jihad Jalil, 27, a worker and Mechanics’ and Printers’ Union activist; Ahmed Alaa al Baghdaddi, 19; Moyaid Fasil al Taib, 29; and Ali Abdul-Khaliq, 24. 
 
They were on their way into Tahrir Square near the Green Zone to manifest for trade union rights, jobs, basic services, political reform, and an end to corruption when police apprehended them for merely attempting to express their internationally recognised human rights, as well as rights under the Iraqi constitution. 
 
In Iraq’s north, Jamal Abdul-Jabbar was forcibly transferred from his position at major Northern Oil installations in Kirkuk to a remote and isolated company site. He had led a walk-out in defence of contract workers at Kirkuk about a month ago. The transfer of elected union leaders away from any mass concentration of workers has been commonplace in Iraq over the past several years. 
 
“The ICEM is angry that the Al-Maliki government is escalating trade union repression,” ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said in a letter to the government. “Rather than persecuting Iraqi citizens for engaging in their fundamental human rights, the government must institutionalise free and independent trade unions in a modern labour law for peace and prosperity of all Iraqis.” 
 
The ICEM expressed disheartenment that Iraq’s government is moving away from democratic reforms. It noted the implementation of Cabinet Decrees 95 and 96 in mid-April, which in part stripped away recognition of the GFIW and replaced it with a committee of non-elected and politically-biased officials from the Sadrist Party. The GFIW is affiliated to the ICEM. 
 
Eight years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his regime’s prohibition against trade unions not officially connected to the Baathist regime continues, only with a different political covering. “By restricting trade unions and the right of workers to freely engage in democratic assemblies that will benefit their work lives, and Iraqi society as a whole, your government appears to be stepping back in time,” wrote the ICEM to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. 
 
The ICEM also notes that last week’s apprehension of a Mechanics’ and Printers’ Union leader is not something new. On 27 March 2007, the union’s leader, Najim Abd-Jasem, was abducted from his home and three days later his body was found with clear signs he had been tortured before his murder. 
 
For further information, contact ICEM Information Officer Dick Blin, <a href="mailto:dick.blin@icem.org">dick.blin@icem.org</a>, +41 22 304 1842.

ICEM Demands Release of Iraq Mechanics’ Union Leader

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The framework of a new industrial Global Union Federation (GUF) made a major step forward on 25 May in Geneva when a joint meeting of the IMF-ICEM-ITGLWF Executive Committees produced a clear mandate to forge ahead with integration of the three GUFs. 
The Executives met in joint session at the ILO and confirmed the commitment that global industrial workers in all sectors must integrate into a unified GUF for greater strength. Such a federation will number 55 million workers and it will unite textile workers with rubber, plastics, and autoworkers in the automotive sector; mineworkers’ with steel, smelting workers in basic metals; and chemical and electronic workers in high-tech and other industries. 
The commitment is to build a strong and responsive GUF that will unite and organise workers across entire supply chains. The new GUF will tackle tough social issues to reverse the global wealth imbalance including broader trade union rights in more countries, reducing the harmful trend in society of informal and precarious labour, and it will ensure there is just transition and decent work in green industries. 
It will also promote and build democratic and self-reliant trade unions across all industrial sectors. And through networks that communicate and respond, it will stand as protector of workers’ rights and social justice against errant multinationals throughout the world. 
The uniform consensus coming out of the 25 May meeting is paralleled by the work that IMF, ICEM, and ITGLWF already do jointly in Thailand, Turkey, Mexico, Canada, and several other countries. It is manifested in common policies put together inside forums between the three GUFs regarding climate change, economic disparity, and global finance flaws. 
The meeting of the joint Executives outlined new structures that will guide an integration process to a founding Congress. The secretariat will be headquartered in Geneva and the new GUF will have a President, three Vice Presidents, a General Secretary, and three Deputy General Secretaries. It will also have an Executive Committee with at least 30% women’s representation. 
It was recognised that the new organisation must be built on solid financial footing and a common set of affiliation fees will be established during the initial four-year Congress period. Regional structures will exist that both implement the global policies of the GUF, as well as discuss and act on matters specific to the region. There was agreement on continuing strong sector work and enhance supply-chain coordination among workers and their unions. 
A joint working group of the three GUFs will continue its work to finalise statutes. Another working group will be set up to develop an action plan for the new organisation. Final approval to the process is expected to come at ITGLWF’s Executive Committee in September, ICEM’s Congress in late November, and IMF’s Central Committee in early December. 
A contest for affiliates of the three GUFs to name the new organisation will be introduced in the coming weeks through a letter. Nordic trade unions offered to host dissolution Congresses and a founding Congress in Copenhagen. The proposed dates are 18-20 June 2012.

Creation of New Industrial GUF Takes Shape

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
from International Metalworkers’ Federation 
 
Some 10,000 workers and citizens from every part of Korea participated across the night of 9-10 July in the "Hope Bus" march to the Hanjin shipyards in Korea to protest against dismissals in breach of contract and precarious work, and to make a solidarity visit to hunger-striking protester Kim Jinsuk. After a culture festival at Busan, the participants started a candlelight march to the shipyards. One kilometre from the yard riot police blocked the road and opened fire on marchers with water cannons and liquid tear gas. 
 
Kim Jinsuk has been denied access to medical treatment since 5 July, when her doctor was physically prevented from seeing her. The company has also stopped her from getting necessities and a recharged mobile phone. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1107.korea.jpg" width="252" height="161"/>
Marchers attacked with tear gas
The president of a national trade union centre, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), planned on taking part in the hunger strike on 13 July to call on the Hanjin Corporation to bargain in good faith. 
 
The Korean Metal Workers' Union (KMWU) will hold a press conference on 14 July to announce protest letters to the Korean president Lee Myung-bak to the press. 
 
The International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) sent a letter to the Korean president on 4 July, calling for the Korean government to stop all violence against the workers at Hanjin Heavy Industries shipyard and Yuseong Piston Ring factories, to push the companies to start collective bargaining and lift the lock-out, stop the persecution of union officials, members and sympathizers, and to respect the ILO Conventions on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. 
 
The IMF, KMWU and LabourStart have launched a campaign calling on the Korean government to end the violence immediately. Join the <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=1046 ">LabourStart campaign</a> through this link.

Korean Metal Workers’ Continue Struggle at Hanjin Shipyards

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Trade unionists are encouraged to apply for the Masters programme at Witwatersrand University, South Africa. The deadline for applications is 31 July. The course on Labour Globalisation is one of the specialised Masters programmes offered by the Global Labour University (GLU). 
 
Participants of GLU courses have the unique opportunity to engage in a diploma course that puts individuals on the front lines of current labour policies in the rapid globalisation of trade and commerce. 
 
The two 14-week semesters of the course compliment an internship placement for participants at trade unions and labour research institutions, offering the chance to engage in the labour movements in different countries and at the international level. 
 
For details, including application and scholarship availability, visit the <a href="http://www.global-labour-university.org">site</a> here. <a href="http://www.global-labour-university.org/54.html">Application forms</a> can be downloaded here. Applications should be sent to <a href="mailto:engage@uni-kassel.de">engage@uni-kassel.de</a>. 
 
The GLU, part of the ILO, has trained trade unionists in economics and in social sciences from 49 countries in its short existence, giving national and local trade union staff the opportunity to pick up specific curriculums tailored to improve their skills at home. 
 
The GLU awards a limited number of scholarships for participants from developing and transition countries. Applicants need to have the endorsement of a trade union to apply for a scholarship.

Global Labour University Masters Application Deadline 31 July

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The 55-week lockout by US manufacturing and technology company Honeywell Inc. on 228 unionised workers appears to be over. United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 in Metropolis, Illinois, and the US company came to tentative terms for a new three-year contract on 20 July, which likely sets in motion a return to work for USW members beginning on 15 August if union members ratify the tentative accord next week. 
 
The workers convert yellow-cake uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), which is used in nuclear fuel enrichment. USW Local 7-669 members have been locked off their jobs since 28 June 2010 and in the weeks following, Honeywell inexplicably re-started operations at a worksite utilising dangerous chemicals with inexperienced replacement workers. 
 
Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie said the union is currently in the process of sorting out job re-classifications; Honeywell has created 21 new jobs and with the union retaining its seniority provisions in the tentative new agreement, job scheduling and job bidding must take place for returning workers.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Darrel Lillie - Honeywell USW.jpg" width="154" height="169"/>
USW Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie  

Lillie said that should be complete today and the union will conduct an explanation meeting of the new contract early next week, with voting on the tentative agreement expected to occur by mid-week. 
 
“Overall, we’re not entirely happy with the proposed contract but we are glad that several of the key issues that the company was trying to take from us will remain in place,” said Lillie. “We preserved most provisions that are at the heart of what trade unionists value.” 
 
Those provisions include the seniority provisions, which allow senior-most workers to accept more favourable jobs when they become open; retention of a defined benefit pension plan for existing workers; retiree medical care under that same pension scheme; and retention of overtime pay for time work after eight and 12 hours per day. Honeywell workers in Metropolis work both eight- and 12-hour work shifts. 
 
Another important provision kept by workers was time-and-a-half pay on the sixth consecutive day in a week worked, and double-time for the seventh. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4538-Honeywell-Threatens-Safety-by-Extending-Lockout-of-USW-Members-" type="internal">ICEM news piece</a> from earlier this month.) 
 
Regarding wages, the proposal contains no increase for the first year of the contract, 1% effective 15 August 2012, and 2% due on 15 August 2013. It should be noted that at the outset of the lockout, Local 7-669 proposed a freeze on wages and continuation of all terms and conditions from a previous three-year contract, but the company was set on gutting many benefits and union-protection provisions. 
 
In the proposed agreement, new hires will fall into an equity fund scheme rather than the defined-benefit AlliedSignal Pension Benefit Thrift Fund, and workers on leave under the US Family and Medical Leave Act must take vacation time concurrently. A handful of janitorial and laundry jobs will be contracted out, and more worrisome in such a dangerous worksite, a single safety operator job will be outsourced. That position is responsible for maintaining all safety equipment throughout the plant, such as fire extinguishers, emergency breathing devices and other safety equipment. 
 
Lillie said 150 workers will return to training and re-orientation as mandated by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on 15 August, 40 workers two weeks later, and the remainder two weeks after that. The unionised workforce will number about 220 workers when the experienced and qualified USW members are fully back to work.  
 
“Local 7-669 is highly appreciative of the tremendous support we have received from trade unions, those in the community and others throughout this long lockout,” said Lillie. “The donations, the international support, and the recognition by many here and abroad on what we were up against will never be forgotten.”

USW Union at Honeywell Reaches Tentative Labour Agreement

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The ten-day strike by union members of Sindicato No. 1 Escondida of Chile’s Federation of Miners (FMC) at the world’s largest copper mine has galvanized mining unions in the South American country. In unprecedented solidarity, mineworkers’ unions of the private-sector FMC and at state-run Codelco, the Federation of Workers of Cobre (FTC), are uniting to proclaim a larger portion of the world’s copper profits must remain in national hands. 
 
That message was made clear last Thursday, 28 July, when leaders of both federations met in Antofagasta in northern Region II to discuss how companies circumvent labour laws and collective agreement conventions at the expense of mineworkers, and how natural resources are exploited to the detriment of Chile’s national character. Outside the trade union meeting, rank-and-file workers marched and demanded re-nationalisation of copper mining. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1107.chile miners - use this one as replacement.jpg" width="237" height="164"/>
28 July manifestation in Antofagasta
That may seem improbable, but one thing is not: soaring pricing on copper concentrates and copper cathodes and the ever-growing profit margins of multinationals that mine and trade the red metal worldwide has created a “Together We Can” mentality. Chile’s mineworkers are now saying that unified industrial action can affect the country’s future for the better. 
 
Consider that on a single day – 30 July – 10% of the world’s copper production stopped when 1,500 FMC miners at Doña Inés Collahuasi (AngloAmerican and Xstrata) joined 2,400 miners of FMC Sindicato No. 1 at Minera Escondida Ltd. (BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto). Although grievances reflected separate sets of negligent circumstances at the two mining complexes, the unity of purpose was evident. 
 
The bosses have declared both strikes illegal because the walkouts occurred during running collective agreements. But when companies abrogate terms of those contracts – or refuse dialogue on health and safety or other concerns – what choice is there? Sindicato No. 1 has taken Escondida Ltd’s breaches to labour court to disprove the illegality of its strike. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Christian Arancibia - Chile FMC.jpg" width="128" height="159"/>
Cristián Arancibia
FMC President Cristián Arancibia said that workers are hearing a national calling, that unions of his federation feel a responsibility to the people and communities of mining regions. He said agreement has been reached with the FTC that mineworkers will not be “accomplices to Chile’s resources sold away for foreign investment.” That includes FMC recognition that Codelco is chipping away at FTC’s membership in order to partially privatise the world’s largest copper company. 
 
The FTC’s Cristian Cuevas, in turn, demanded that Escondida Ltd. stop persecuting workers by failing to fulfil the terms of the 2009-2013 collective agreement and disrespecting international labour conventions. He also warned that if BHP Billiton sacked striking Sindicato No. 1 members and replaces them with scabs, the wrath of all Chilean mineworkers will be heard. 
 
The ten-day strike by FMC Sindicato No. 1 at Escondida is portrayed as a difference in a one-off production bonus between the union and management. In fact, it is over dramatic reductions in agreed-upon production bonuses that were reduced three-fold this past spring while multinationals, BHP Billiton (57.5%) and Rio Tinto (30%), were reaping huge profits from a mining enterprise that accounts for 7% of the world’s copper supply. 
 
At Collahuasi, the 24-hour walkout on 30 July – only eight months after a bitter 33-day strike – was over the company negotiating individually with workers outside the collective agreement. It was also brought about by an unresolved health issue from that November-December 2010 strike. The mine is located 4,000 metres high in the Atacama Desert of the Andes where oxygen levels are low and worker body stress is high. Anglo American and Xstrata have a US$750 million expansion underway that will nearly double production. The new open-cast mining area is at even higher altitudes, up to 5,000 metres. The FMC affiliate, Sindicato de los Trabajadores de Collahuasi, seeks dialogue to address the obvious and adverse health affects.

‘Together We Can’ …. Chile’s Copper Miners Unite for National Gain

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Swiss union UNIA is mobilising its forces in defence of 560 jobs at Swissmetal, as the company moves dangerously close to bankruptcy. Some 150 Swissmetal staff in Dornach in north-western Switzerland assembled in the factory car park on 21 July in a sombre demonstration, demanding that production continues after the two-week scheduled holiday break. Resumption of all work activities should occur 8 August. 
 
Workers at the plant are refusing to halt production, in the knowledge that it would result in mass redundancies. UNIA and local staff have proposed a raft of alternative measures to improve efficiency, which would ensure profitability for Swissmetal. 
 
Pending a solution, local management must not issue redundancies or dismantle production equipment, as operations may still be purchased by another company. One prospective buyer is France-based Le Bronze Industriel. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1107.swissmetal unia.jpg" width="216" height="161" alt=""/>
Other union demands include for management to provide fully transparent financial documentation of the company, and a joint review of union proposals on efficiency improvements. A period of consultation has been extended to 19 August. 
 
UNIA is calling on the Canton of Soleure to mobilise its powers to safeguard the jobs. It is the same Canton where pulp and paper multinational Sappi last spring announced closure of its Biberist graphic papers mill, in a brutal loss of 341 jobs. Despite UNIA and Sappi European Works Council (EWC) efforts to find a buyer for the Sappi mill, the South African company recently said those efforts have failed and the mill would close. 
 
Swissmetal manufactures high-quality copper products, mainly used in the electronics, telecommunications, aviation, petroleum, and automotive industries. Based in Dornach, ten kilometres south of Basel, the company’s other foundry in Switzerland is in Reconvilier, where another 560 jobs are at risk.

UNIA Continues Fight to Keep Swissmetal Jobs 

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Three separate mine tragedies last week caused the deaths of 36 miners in eastern Ukraine, with the death toll likely to climb with rescue efforts still incomplete and some miners in life-threatening conditions in hospitals. The worst occurred in the early morning hours of Friday, 29 July, when a methane gas explosion in a Metinvest B.V. coal mine in Lugansk Region killed 18. Eight miners are still missing. 
 
On the same day, hours later and in adjoining Donetsk Region, seven miners were instantly killed when a headframe at the state-owned Bazhanova mine near Makiyivka collapsed. The collapse sent an elevator hurling downward, killing the seven. Another three miners are unaccounted for and four were rescued and are hospitalised in serious condition. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1107.ukraine mine accident.jpg" width="329" height="161" alt=""/>
Families of the lost miners
The third tragedy occurred in another state-run mine in the Donbass of Donetsk Region on 26 July. Three miners are dead, another three are missing and feared dead when a roof collapsed 520 metres underground at the Rodynska colliery. 
 
The Metinvest gas blast at the former state-owned Sukhodolskaya-Vostochnaya coal mine near Krasnodon, Lugansk, happened at a depth of 915 metres and stands as Ukraine’s worst mine tragedy since 101 miners were killed in a series of explosions in November 2007 at the privately-held Zasyadko company mine in the Donbass. 
 
Demitry Kalitventsev, the branch leader of the Ukrainian Coal Industry Workers’ Union (PRUP) in Lugansk, feared the death toll could exceed 30 because another nine miners who were rescued have extreme burns and their conditions are not good. It’s been reported that the mine had modern safety equipment and detection devices, but consistently languished under high gas methane readings. 
 
Families of the victims are to receive UAH 1 million (US$125,000), it was reported. Metinvest is 75% owned by Rinat Akhmetov’s System Capital Management Group (SCM) and 25% by Smart Holding Group. Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest individual, is a Party of Regions bankroller and a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, the Rada. Metinvest of late has grown into one of Ukraine’s largest steel producers with a number of acquisitions. Smart Holding has major interests in shipbuilding, construction, port management, and metallurgy and mining.

Three Coal Mine Accidents Kill at Least 36 in Ukraine

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