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

	Over 8,000 trade unionists and supporters rallied in Alma, Qu&eacute;bec, Saturday, 31 March, on behalf of locked-out workers belonging to Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma Local 9490, an affiliate of the United Steelworkers (USW). Some 780 workers at an aluminium smelter of Rio Tinto&rsquo;s Alcan subsidiary have been ruthlessly locked out of their livelihoods now for 14 weeks, and the economic stranglehold Rio Tinto has on the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region of Qu&eacute;bec is clear to all.

	Bus-loads of union militants from across Qu&eacute;bec converged on Alma, a community of 30,000, to stand with the victimised Alma steelworkers. And the USW organised convoys and buses as well from elsewhere in Canada, including Toronto, Hamilton and other industrial cities in Ontario province.

	Some 50 international trade unionists also attended, representing workers employed at Rio Tinto or Alcan in Australia, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, US, and other nations. A day prior to the manifestation, the ICEM held its bi-annual North American regional meeting in Alma as a global signal to the 780 Alma workers that they are not alone in their struggle for fairness on the job.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 190px;height: 143px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" style="width: 190px;height: 143px" width="390" />

	Manfred Warda, Jyrki Raina Address Rally

	The well-organised rally started with speeches at an Alma shopping mall, before a march complete with sound truck playing working-class music wound its way through the streets of the city to an amphitheatre. There, political and union leaders continued to chastise the world&rsquo;s second largest resources company for delivering economic devastation to workers&rsquo; doorsteps in central Qu&eacute;bec.

	ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda pledged that global labour will mobilise Rio Tinto workers across the globe in this struggle.

	&ldquo;If the ruthless social agenda of Rio Tinto cannot be defeated here in Qu&eacute;bec, there will be little hope that it can be stopped when others face company attacks,&rdquo; Warda said. Rest assured, &ldquo;we will take the indignities committed by Rio Tinto Alcan here throughout the world until this company agrees to stop the attacks against your community and your union.&rdquo;

	Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), said, &ldquo;If Rio Tinto wants to prosper, it cannot break the delicate balance that connects it to the community.&rdquo;

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 239px;height: 159px" width="390" />

	ICEM Vice President and USW Canadian National Director Ken Neumann had a message for the Conservative government of Stephen Harper in his country, where the federal government has turned a deaf ear to several attacks by multinationals on Canadian workers.

	&ldquo;Stephen Harper clearly fell short of his task by failing to impose conditions on the sale of Alcan to Rio Tinto in 2007 and to protect jobs,&rdquo; said Neumann. &ldquo;For someone who is so bent on involving himself in labour relations, why doesn&rsquo;t he intervene with Rio Tinto to put an end to this abhorrent lockout?&rdquo;

	That lockout was brought about by Local 9490&rsquo;s rightful effort to stop erosion of permanent jobs that pay a living wage of C$34-an-hour against Alcan&rsquo;s labour plan, which is aimed at replacing those jobs with outsourced work that pays half that amount.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 212px;height: 159px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

	Turkish Mineworkers Expressed Solidarity for Locked-out Steelworkers

	By late afternoon on Saturday, about an hour after the final speeches were given at Parc le Festiv Alma, Rio Tinto Alcan issued a defensive statement criticising the&nbsp; USW event, and saying&nbsp; a &ldquo;calmer climate&rdquo; was necessary in order to carry on with negotiations.

	But for nearly three months &ndash; until 19 March when Qu&eacute;bec public pressure mounted primarily because Alcan was capitalising on the lockout by selling excess hydro-electric power back to the province &ndash; the company shunned bargaining, preferring instead to operate the modern and low-cost Alma smelter at reduced capacity while waiting for global aluminium prices to rise. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4943-Negotiations-Restart-between-USW-Rio-Tinto-Alcan-in-Canadian-Lockout">ICEM report</a> from 21 March.)

	Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos Local 9490 and Alcan did return to talks for two days in March, with the help of provincial mediators, and two more days of negotiations occurred on 28-29 March. The two sides will in all likelihood meet again this week.

	But ever since the company prematurely halted negotiations and imposed the lockout on 30 December before a majority of workplace issues could even be tabled, Rio Tinto has been content to rob the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region of C$1.8 million per week in lost salaries and benefits.

	With or without a settlement to the Alma lockout, the 31 March manifestation will stand as the prelude to a global fight against Rio Tinto to resist its anti-social agenda that has become all too common everywhere it does business.

Mass March, Manifest Lifts Locked-out Steelworkers in Alma, Canada

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	Week-long strikes at seven Queensland, Australia, metallurgical coal mines ended today, but a dogged 16-month labour dispute between three ICEM union affiliates there and the BHP Billiton-Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) continues. On 27 March, just when progress was being made on a new version of an enterprise labour agreement after two weeks of steady talks, BMA reneged on pivotal language, causing the latest round of protected industrial actions.

	For the 3,500 miners of Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Australian Manufacturing Workers&rsquo; Union (AMWU), and the Electrical Trades Union of Communications, Electrical, Plumbing Union (CEPU), the setback means they are no closer to a collective agreement under Fair Work Australia than when bargaining began in December 2010.

	For BMA, which twice now has rejected the unions&rsquo; Single Bargaining Unit (SBU) offer of third-party mediation, it means more disruption at the world&rsquo;s largest coking coal mine pits with workers likely to take yet another legal round of stop-work actions next week.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 145px;height: 160px" width="390" />&nbsp;

	On 2 April, BHP Billiton, the lead operator of the 50/50 joint venture, announced force majeure to customers in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, India, Latin America and Europe. It informed steel producers that it would be unable to meet its coal-delivery contracts due to the labour disruptions and wet weather in the Bowen Basin of central Queensland.

	Management also announced at the outset of last week&rsquo;s seven-day strike that at the end of April it would again use its Fair Work law privilege to conduct a second mail ballot directly to workers without SBU involvement. The first time it did such, last October, miners rejected the throwback management rights&rsquo; proposals by 92%. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4731-Australian-Miners-Reject-BMA-s-Contract-Proposal-by-92">ICEM report</a> here.)

	Last week&rsquo;s failed bargaining saw BMA regress on commitments it made in earlier days and earlier rounds of bargaining over family-friendly work rosters and other language that had been tentatively agreed to in principle. Issues that remain in dispute include the role of unions in safety matters, working hours, housing, and inequality for contract workers.

	On the company&rsquo;s backtracking, the strike leader of the largest union representing BMA miners, CFMEU Queensland District President Stephen Smyth said, &ldquo;The level of contempt they&rsquo;re showing for their workers is truly astonishing.&rdquo;

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 241px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Stephen Smyth

	That contempt rests in the belief that BHP Billiton believes it can cling to one-sided work rules common in the dead-and-gone WorkChoices legislation of pre-2009. The contempt toward miners and current Australian labour law is also evident in a leaked early March e-mail from BHP Billiton Coal Division CEO Marcus Randolph. In it, he told his Bowen Basin mine managers &ldquo;this is the fight we had to have&rdquo; and the work-rule issues in dispute &ldquo;are not negotiable, not now, not next month and not next year.&rdquo;

	Meantime, with BMA&rsquo;s seven Queensland mines that produce one-fifth of the world&rsquo;s metallurgical coal, prices are soaring and the ripple effect from Australia&rsquo;s nastiest labour dispute in decades is being felt in rail and seaborne transport, and in steel-making centres across the globe.

	(An <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4879-Queensland-Coal-Strikes-to-Resume-against-BHP-Billiton-Mitsubishi-Alliance">ICEM report on SBU</a> strikes from February 2012 can be found here.)&nbsp;&nbsp;

Intentional BHP Billiton Strife in Australian Coal Dispute Continues

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	A Charter of Demands by the Coats Employees&rsquo; Union, part of the Bangladesh Garment, Textile &amp; Leather Workers&rsquo; Federation (BGTLW), in turn affiliated to the ITGLWF, was agreed to last month after intense pressure was placed on British-based threads maker Coats by the global textile federation and its Asian regional body, the Textile Workers&rsquo; Asia Regional Organisation (TWARO).

	The agreement comes after a 13 to 29 February strike against Coats Bangladesh Ltd. in the Tejgaon Industrial Area of Dhaka, and following several earlier months of fruitless bargaining. That bargaining reached a low on 12 February when union leaders, attempting to once again negotiate with factory mangers, had their mobile telephones confiscated by bosses and were forcibly detained overnight in company offices. (Read the <a href="http://www.itglwf.org/lang/en/UnionLeadersHeldCaptivebyFactoryManagersinBangladesh.html">ITGLWF release</a> here.)

	The Charter of Demands reached includes pay upgrades in job grades that will at least lift workers&rsquo; salaries to what is considered by the BGTLWF to be the bare living wage in Bangladesh, BTK 7,000 (US$85.60) per month from a previous pitiful quarter of that.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 180px;height: 83px" width="390" />

	The wage increase is retroactive to October 2011. In addition, BGTLW&rsquo;s perseverance in this dispute won increases in a host of other areas including housing rents, lunch allowances, medical and hospitalisation betterments, and education allowances.

	The agreement also ensures that striking workers will not be retaliating against, and that salaries during the strike will be paid. The Charter also addresses contract workers, stating that they will not be retaliated against for joining the strike, and grants them first priority for permanent jobs when such positions open up.

	In a message to the ITGLWF, BGTLF General Secretary Mohammad Abu Taher expressed gratitude to both the Brussels-based federation and TWARO for its &ldquo;accelerating interventions&rdquo; to solve the dispute.

	&ldquo;We believe that peace and tranquillity are the only elements to make an industry more productive, profitable and vibrant and management eventually understood this and signed the agreement,&rdquo; stated Abu Taher.

ITGLWF Intervention with UK Firm Coats Delivers in Bangladesh

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	Turkish workers of rubber manufacturer Standard Profil, organised by ICEM affiliate Petrol-İş over a year ago, are more determined than ever to get a collective agreement from a recalcitrant employer. On 2 April, some 500 workers gathered with union President Mustafa &Ouml;ztaşkin outside plant gates in the northern Anatolian city of D&uuml;zce to publicly state that union and workers will not be deterred in gaining their universally recognised collective bargaining rights.

	The ICEM as well joined the demonstration, the first such outward display by workers amidst a climate of management fear and intimidation, and promised that pressure will continue against the private equity firm that controls Standard Profil, a maker of weather-sealing door and window units for the automotive industry.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 206px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	ICEM&#039;s Dick Blin Displays Alert to a Company Customer

	The rally saw a number of Anatolian labour leaders participate along with &Ouml;ztaşkin, Petrol-İş Organising Secretary Nimetullah S&ouml;zen and regional Organiser Ǘnal Akbulut. Gathering under the banner &ldquo;One Year is Enough: Standard Profil Workers Are Unionised &ndash; They Want Their Right to Collective Bargaining,&rdquo; the manifestation was conducted under the watchful eyes of managers who dispatched transport buses through in an effort to disrupt it.

	Following a Petrol-İş organising drive from December 2010 to February 2011 that saw well over half of 2,300 workers from the plant in D&uuml;zce and a sister factory in Bursa select the union as their bargaining representative, Turkey&rsquo;s Labour and Social Security Ministry in March and April 2011 formally granted a pair of certifications stating Petrol-İş was both the correct sectoral union &ndash; rubber &ndash; for Standard Profil workers, and that it had exceeded the simple majority needed for representation.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 241px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Despite Petrol-İş and ICEM invitations to both Istanbul executives of Standard Profil and the UK-based private equity firm to form a positive labour-management relationship, the company chose an adversarial path by wasting company funds in legal challenges to both certifications in an effort to block workers from their legitimate workplace rights.

	Standard Profil managers further muddied the waters by sacking 37 union activists inside the larger D&uuml;zce factory, a grievous factory-level ploy to intimidate others against the union. Judging from Monday&rsquo;s determined and vocal manifestation, workers are not intimidated. But they are growing short of patience with management&rsquo;s stalling strategy through frivolous legal appeals.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 365px;height: 128px" width="390" />

	One Year is Enough&nbsp;

	Petrol-İş President &Ouml;ztaşkin made it clear at the one-year anniversary that a new era has now begun. The union will move in a different direction to get Standard Profil to the bargaining table. &ldquo;We cannot and will not accept this employer&rsquo;s attempts to block the internationally rights and freedoms of workers,&rdquo; he said.

	The ICEM has begun to take the rights abuses outside Turkey. Standard Profil&rsquo;s major auto-making customers have been identified and efforts are underway to alert trade unions and automotive factory managements of the company&rsquo;s dereliction. In some instances, Volkswagen/Audi and Daimler for instance, global labour pacts contain strict guidelines that suppliers must comply with basic workplace rights.

	The rubber manufacturer&rsquo;s assets are controlled by Bancroft Private Equity LLP, a holding company that has been trying to dispose of Standard Profil since last year. The ICEM has made it clear to Bancroft &ndash; and to the buyers of Standard Profil&rsquo;s products &ndash; that a positive and respectful labour relations bond with Petrol-İş is far better than an adversarial one to ensure a productive and profitable future for the auto supply company.

One Year On, Turkey’s Standard Profil Still Delays Workers’ Bargaining Rights

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

	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.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 271px;height: 159px" width="390" />

	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

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

	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.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 255px;height: 159px" width="390">

	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

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

	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

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

	Aminul Islam, a trade union activist in Bangladesh who only two years ago was arrested for his role in protests against the garment industry&rsquo;s miserly low salaries, was found murdered on 5 April on the side of a road near Ghatail, 80 kilometres north of Dhaka.

	Islam, 40, was last seen the day before in the textile manufacturing centre of Ashulia, 30 kilometres north of Dhaka. He worked as a senior organiser for the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS), and reportedly closed the NGO office in Ashulia early on 4 April after noting police surveillance outside.

	His tortured body was found half buried with several bruises from the waist down, including his toes and ankles smashed. Police in Ghatail then buried the unidentified body, but a brother identified Islam when his tortured body was shown in a newspaper photograph. His body was exhumed and then re-buried on 9 April in his home village of Kaliakoir.

	He is survived by his wife, two sons and one daughter.

	Aminul Islam was arrested in June 2010 along with some 20 other demonstrators after they violated a ban on protests when the government raised the minimum wage for garment and textile workers only a token amount. Those charges were still pending against him and a few other trade union activists.

	Islam and the BCWS had most recently been leading a campaign of liveable wages and fair treatment against the Shanta Group, a garment supplier to Nike, Ralph Lauren and PVH, the latter a maker of garments for Tommy Hilfiger. He had also assisted in arranging news interviews by an American television network with exploited workers in the Ashulia area.

	The International Trade Union Confederation has written Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina demanding a full and impartial investigation of Islam&rsquo;s death. That letter can be found <a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/ituc-letter-to-bgd-minister-of.html?lang=en">here</a>.

Garment Workers’ Activist Brutally Murdered in Bangladesh

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

	Workers belonging to several unions in Guinea began strike action on 4 April against UC Rusal at the Russian company&rsquo;s Friguira alumina refinery in the city of Fria. The strike by 5,000 workers is termed an indefinite one and started after managers of the company refused to adhere to better working conditions for workers.

	Rusal said the strike is illegal and has urged the Guinean government to intervene. On 10 April, the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow issued a terse statement calling strikers &ldquo;extremist syndicalists,&rdquo; urging the government to take decisive action to end the strike.

	But late last week the government closed the offices of Rusal in the capital of Conakry &ndash; 100 kilometres from Fria &ndash; in violation of environmental regulations at Frigura. In September 2011, Guinea passed a new mining code mandating that a 35% stake of all resource-producing enterprises be placed in state hands. Rusal has resisted that law, even though it bought the bauxite and aluminium operation valued at US$257 million in 2006 for US$19 million.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 200px;height: 92px" width="390" />

	Since, Guinea&rsquo;s government has found that Rusal has evaded some US$860 in taxes due and non-payment of royalties.

	At the Friguira operation, the only aluminium refinery in the West African country which holds roughly two-thirds of the world&rsquo;s bauxite reserves, workers are seeking a doubling of the current US$200 monthly wage and for Rusal to pay their medical expenses. The Frigura refinery can produce 630,000 metric tonnes early of aluminium.

	Rusal has a long history of exploiting workers in Guinea&rsquo;s bauxite industry. In 2009, following an ICEM Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) workshop attended by government officials, the Russian industrial relations manager of the company, Anatoly Pantchenko, was expelled from the country after exposure to practices regarding the use of casual labour.

	It was customary for Rusal to allow front-line managers to establish phantom labour brokering companies in order to hire casual workers at low pay with commissions going to the font-line bosses. The ICEM considered this practice the perpetuation of abject poverty in a country many consider to be the poorest nation on earth.

Guinea’s Unions Take Strike Action Against Rusal’s Aluminium, Bauxite Operations

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 130px;height: 63px" width="390" />

	Over 8,000 trade unionists and supporters rallied in Alma, Qu&eacute;bec, Saturday, 31 March, on behalf of locked-out workers belonging to Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma Local 9490, an affiliate of the United Steelworkers (USW). Some 780 workers at an aluminium smelter of Rio Tinto&rsquo;s Alcan subsidiary have been ruthlessly locked out of their livelihoods now for 14 weeks, and the economic stranglehold Rio Tinto has on the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region of Qu&eacute;bec is clear to all.

	Bus-loads of union militants from across Canada&rsquo;s only French-speaking province converged on Alma, a community of 30,000, to stand with the victimised Alma steelworkers. And the USW organised convoys and buses as well from elsewhere in Canada, including Toronto, Hamilton and other industrial cities in Ontario province.

	Some 50 international trade unionists also attended, representing workers employed at Rio Tinto or Alcan in Australia, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, US, and other nations. A day prior to the manifestation, the ICEM held its bi-annual North American regional meeting in Alma as a global signal to the 780 Alma workers that they are not alone in their struggle for fairness on the job.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 302px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	The well-organised rally started with speeches at an Alma shopping mall, before a march complete with sound truck playing working-class music wound its way through the streets of the city to an amphitheatre. There, political and union leaders continued to chastise the world&rsquo;s second largest resources company for delivering economic devastation to workers&rsquo; doorsteps in central Qu&eacute;bec.

	ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda pledged that global labour will mobilise Rio Tinto workers across the globe in this struggle.

	&ldquo;If the ruthless social agenda of Rio Tinto cannot be defeated here in Qu&eacute;bec, there will be little hope that it can be stopped when others face company attacks,&rdquo; Warda said. Rest assured, &ldquo;we will take the indignities committed by Rio Tinto Alcan here throughout the world until this company agrees to stop the attacks against your community and your union.&rdquo;

	Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), said Rio Tinto must &ldquo;show respect for current and future workers and stop callously cutting labour costs and decent jobs without regard for the local economy.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 190px;height: 143px" width="390">&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" style="width: 190px;height: 143px" width="390">&nbsp;&nbsp;

	Manfred Warda, Jyrki Raina address Alma rally

	&ldquo;If Rio Tinto wants to prosper, it cannot break the delicate balance that connects it to the community,&rdquo; said Raina.

	ICEM Vice President and USW Canadian National Director Ken Neumann had a message for the Conservative government of Stephen Harper in his country, where the federal government has turned a deaf ear to several attacks by multinationals on Canadian workers.

	&ldquo;Stephen Harper clearly fell short of his task by failing to impose conditions on the sale of Alcan to Rio Tinto in 2007 and to protect jobs,&rdquo; said Neumann. &ldquo;For someone who is so bent on involving himself in labour relations, why doesn&rsquo;t he intervene with Rio Tinto to put an end to this abhorrent lockout?&rdquo;

	That lockout was brought about by Local 9490&rsquo;s rightful effort to stop erosion of permanent jobs that pay a living wage of C$34-an-hour against Alcan&rsquo;s labour plan, which is aimed at replacing those jobs with outsourced work that pays half that amount.

	By late afternoon on Saturday, about an hour after the final speeches were given at Parc le Festiv Alma, Rio Tinto Alcan issued a defensive statement criticising the &nbsp;USW event, and saying&nbsp; a &ldquo;calmer climate&rdquo; was necessary in order to carry on with negotiations.

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	Turkish mineworkers solidarity for Alma locked-out Steelworkers

	But for nearly three months &ndash; until 19 March when Qu&eacute;bec public pressure mounted primarily because Alcan was capitalising on the lockout by selling excess hydro-electric power back to the province &ndash; the company shunned bargaining, preferring instead to operate the modern and low-cost Alma smelter at reduced capacity while waiting for global aluminium prices to rise. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4943-Negotiations-Restart-between-USW-Rio-Tinto-Alcan-in-Canadian-Lockout">ICEM report</a> from 21 March.)

	Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos Local 9490 and Alcan did return to talks for two days in March, with the help of provincial mediators, and two more days of negotiations occurred on 28-29 March. The two sides will in all likelihood meet again this week.

	But ever since the company prematurely halted negotiations and imposed the lockout on 30 December before a majority of workplace issues could even be tabled, Rio Tinto has been content to rob the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region of C$1.8 million per week in lost salaries and benefits.

	With or without a settlement to the Alma lockout, the 31 March manifestation will stand as the prelude to a global fight against Rio Tinto to resist its anti-social agenda that has become all too common everywhere it does business.

Thousands March, Manifest in Alma, Canada, for Locked-out Steelworkers

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