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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Fraught by failed efforts in August to give contract workers their legitimate rights in the oilfields of south-central Colombia, Canada-based Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. and the government of Juan Manuel Santos will get a second chance to rectify the low pay, horrid work conditions, and sub-standard working terms of contract workers. 
 
That came because ICEM affiliate Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) led 4,000 contract workers in Meta Department, Colombia, on a strike and blockade early last week that cut output of South America’s third largest oil producer by 25%. The road blockades started on 18 September and continued until 21 September in rural areas near wells in the Rubiales and Quifa oilfields and in the city of Puerto Gaitan. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL_en.jpg" width="146" height="66"/>
The strikes were violently broken up by 300 Colombia national riot police wielding batons and pitching tear gas. Police ordered a curfew for Puerto Gaitan. The strike, however, forced a tripartite agreement on 21 September between USO, the government’s Interior minister, and Pacific Rubiales after six hours of talks. 
 
The protocol agreement calls for a permanent arbitration board to be set up in Bogotá to address the issues of irregular workers labouring in the oilfields. Those issues include regularisation of employment, better pay and working conditions, and the right to join a union and bargaining collectively. USO, once the representative of only workers at state-run Ecopetrol, has championed the rights of contract workers in Colombia’s burgeoning oil sector. USO also is championing the re-hire of 800 contract workers who have been sacked in the recent past for trade union activity. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1109.USO rubiales.jpg" width="213" height="160"/>
Last week’s accord is not the first time that a tri-partite forum was set up to address and solve these issues. In August, Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzón chaired a meeting in which nine tripartite working groups made recommendations for fairness and justice. None of the submitted recommendations by the working groups were accepted by contractors or by Ecopetrol, prompting last week’s strike and blockades. 
 
USO is intent that poverty wages, exhausting work hours, and unlimited days of consecutive work disappear from the Colombian energy landscape. Several contractors along with Pacific Rubiales exploit irregular workers in the Llanos basin and other oil-rich basins of central and eastern Colombia. Pacific Rubiales, which owns Colombian oil company Meta Petroleum, operates oilfields in eastern Meta Department jointly with Ecopetrol and has been a magnet for labour unrest over the past several months. 
 
Two weeks ago, contract workers led by USO conducted similar strikes and blockades in Casanare department at the Corcel and Guatiquia upstream operations. Those facilities are run by another Canadian company, Petrominerales Ltd., which holds extensive Colombian production facilities both by itself and with Ecopetrol.

Colombia Oilfields: Government Must Now Address Contract Workers’ Issues

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French trade unionists employed at Lafarge last week began a hunger strike at the headquarters of the company in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud. Some 12 unionists from the company’s Frangey cement plant near Lézinnes, L’Yonne province, are protesting the company’s decision to close that facility. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4466-French-Unions-Conduct-4-Hour-Strike-at-Lafarge-Today" type="internal">prior ICEM report</a> here).  
 
Meanwhile, CFDT and CGT – the unions representing the 74 workers at Frangey – have continued today their stop-work actions at 14 French cement plants of Lafarge. The strikes started last week and were expected to escalate today. 
 
Lafarge announced on 25 May at an extraordinary Works Council meeting that it would close the Frangey plant in three stages between August 2011 and the end of 2012. The company said over-capacity, the small market the Frangey plant serves, and environmental considerations. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1109.lafarge france.jpg" width="250" height="161"/>
6 June Strike at Frangey
On Saturday, 24 September, the hunger strikers were on day five of their protest outside the Lafarge offices. They include the mayor of one of the small towns in the Burgundy region of France. The strikers are grouped in five small tents and were visited Friday and Saturday by a number of French politicians, including parliamentarian Nicolas Dupont-Aignan from l’Essone department. 
 
“I cannot stand to see businesses close and workers thrown out like dogs,” he said, refuting Lafarge’s reasons for closure. 
 
The CFDT delegate taking part in the hunger strike, Florent Gaden, said strikers will remain in front of the company’s offices until the world’s largest cement producer rescinds the closure. 
 
The Frangey cement plant does operate with proper environmental certification. It produces 300,000 tons of cement annually and has a system of cogeneration that serves 50% of the plant’s energy needs.

Hunger Strikers Protest Lafarge’s French Cement Plant Closing

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Some 300 members of Australia’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’s Forestry, Furnishing and Timber Building Products Division have been on strike – and locked out five days – 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’s 4.5% cost-of-living rise. 
 
Workers at six factories – including St. Mary’s near Sydney, New South Wales; Dandenong, Cambellfield and Scoresby in Victoria; Regency Park near Adelaide, South Australia; and Canningvale, Perth, Western Australia – 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="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1109.cfmeu jeld wen.jpg" width="242" height="161" alt=""/>
Photo: The Western Weekender
Global labour leaders attending the CFMEU’s National Construction Conference in Canberra recently visited the St Mary’s picket line on 16 September, and the Building and Wood Workers’ 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&Language=EN">here</a>.  
 
CFMEU National lead Negotiator Phil Davies said the revised pay offer given after the company’s lockout ended on 13 September is worse than Jeld-Wen’s original “non-negotiable” pay proposal. If accepted, one-third of all job classifications would actually see a further decline in real wages compared to inflation. “All our members want is fair and reasonable pay and conditions,” 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’s son, Roderick, will cease heading one of the world’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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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 Haliç 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 Akçul, President of Türkiye Maden-İş, the Mine Workers’ Union of Turkey, and President Eyüp Alabaş of Genel Maden-İş, the General Mine Workers’ Union of Turkey, participated and expressed the necessity of improved mine safety through adoption of global standards. 
 
ICEM Industry and Corporate Affairs Director Kemal Özkan 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="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1109.c176 istanbul.jpg" width="230" height="160" alt=""/>
From left to right: Brian Kohler, Glen Mpufane, Eyüp Alabaş, Kemal Özkan, Nurettin Akçul, 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 “First Aid Needed for Safety and Health in the Mining Industry.” He focused on various incentive systems used to compensate miners – 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’ 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 – workers have rights.

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

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Klaus Priegnitz of IG Metall, the German Metalworkers’ Union, has become the new General Secretary of the ITGLWF. 
Klaus was a former officer of the clothing and textile workers union Gewerkschaft Textil/Bekleidung till the integration of GTB with IG Metall in 1998. 
He has been closely involved in the work of the ITGLWF over the past two decades and was elected a Vice-President of the ITGLWF at the 10th World Congress in 2009. 
Klaus was elected General Secretary at a special meeting of the Executive Committee held on 25 May in Geneva. 
He replaces the outgoing General Secretary Patrick Itschert who was recently elected Deputy General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

ITGLWF Elects New General Secretary

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On the 18 April, 16 union leaders from the ICEM affiliate United Workers Union of Liberia (UWUL) and the IMF affiliate Metal, Mechanical Electrical Communications and Allied Workers Union (MMECAWU) met in Monrovia to discuss the possibility of a merger and to develop a program of cooperation. 
It is now 15 years since civil war left Liberia in ruins. Not only is there much work to be done in this post war era to re-establish infrastructure, the country is also engaged in nation building including revitalizing the educational, health, security, economic and governance sectors. For the last seven years Liberians have been consolidating peace, receiving support for development from the international community and making strides in securing foreign investment attracted by the countries abundant natural resources. 
Whilst some multinationals like Firestone have been in Liberia for many decades, ArcelorMittal and BHP Billiton are the new kids on the block, with substantial recent investments in iron ore extraction. Historically, foreign companies that have been granted concessions have been expected to take care of service delivery to people in the area, in the form of housing, education and health services. This system still exists today and further disempowers workers to challenge employers as it is not only their jobs at stake but also their homes. 
Organised labour has recognized that unity is needed for bargaining power to stand up to these multinational companies and meet the challenges to build worker rights, create decent work and improve the lives of workers. Liberia's two labour federations have united to form a strong single federation in the country. The forestry union and mining union merged to create UWUL. Now, building on these successful mergers and encouraged by their benefit for worker power, UWUL and MMECAWU have agreed to work towards a merger. 
 
At the April meeting, the unions formulated and signed a memorandum of understanding committing to form a joint committee to develop a programme of collaboration that would culminate in a merger within a 24 month period. Central to the joint work would be organizing workers of multinational companies. 
The unions agreed to take the memorandum of understanding to their constituencies to gain the support of workers for the merger. The IMF has offered support and guidance to the unions' efforts in the interest of building strong worker representation in Liberia.

Liberian Unions Work Towards a Merger

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Since last year, ICEM affiliates in Colombia have been participating in a project to create strong national unions for IMF affiliates in Colombia, Fetramecol and Utrammicol. The project’s objective is to strengthen trade union unity. 
 
The ICEM and the IMF have a common interest in strengthening trade unions in Colombia and both federations have been concerned about the situation of Colombian trade unions. Union membership is among the lowest in Latin America due to anti-trade union practices and to the obstacles to trade union activity created by the government. The creation of “employment cooperatives” (cooperativas de trabajo asociado - CTAs) has led to a deterioration in the quality of jobs, nullified inalienable workers’ rights and made jobs precarious. 
 
In 2009, a project was started to create national unions for the IMF affiliates in Colombia, Fetramecol and Utrammicol. This project was supported by IF Metall and LO-TCO of Sweden and its main objective was to strengthen metalworkers’ unions, improve co-operation between affiliates at the national level and strengthen trade union unity. 
 
Three regional workshops and one national workshop take place four times a year and the project is due to conclude in 2012. To date, these workshops have discussed such issues as collective agreements and collective bargaining and developed proposals to deal with the problems that face trade unionism at the national level. This year’s central theme is trade union structures. 
 
When the project began, the main objective was to create the conditions to unite IMF affiliates in Colombia into one national organisation. However, the project, which also covers Chile, is now focusing on the creation of broader industrial unions and political alliances in the regions, in the context of the merger of three major international trade union federations (IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF). 
 
In 2010, Carlos Bustos, ICEM coordinator in Colombia, invited IMF affiliates to participate in the federation’s current activities and in various national meetings. Meanwhile, Colombian ICEM affiliates began to attend the project seminars, explains Nohora Tovar, of Fetramecol and joint national coordinator of the project. 
 
Bustos adds that this year it was decided to increase participation of ICEM colleagues in the three regions where the project is operational (Bogotá, Boyacá and Medellín). Luis Velázquez of Utrammicol, who is the other joint national coordinator, says that participation has been very good and IMF affiliates have welcomed the initiative as well. 
 
Both explain that at the end of 2010 the National Council formed by Fetramecol and Utrammicol was renamed the Unity Council and extended to include the ICEM affiliates. This council established committees to draft statutes and, along with ICEM colleagues, established an action plan with a dual focus: first, initiatives to promote unity and second, development of education and training. 
 
Marino Vani, from the IMF’s Regional Office, explains that the project has forced each organisation to assess the situation and promote joint actions to strengthen their unions and formulate common objectives. The project proposal to discuss particular issues with a view to developing a trade union agenda has provoked discussion and resulted in new trade union practices, although the unions have yet to develop a broader consensual strategy with a unified agenda and action. It is hoped that the project will encourage union members to learn and to understand the need to create united and representative national trade unions that include precarious and outsourced workers and in this way strengthen the position of all members.

Creating strong unions in Colombia

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Ten US trade unions, working together as the Coordinating Bargaining Council (CBC) of General Electric (GE) Unions, are negotiating with the industrial and financial giant toward a 19 June expiration of a four-year agreement covering 15,000 workers. 
 
The ICEM-affiliated United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and the International Union of Electronic Workers/Communications Workers (IUE/CWA) are the largest US unions at GE, representing 11,000 industrial workers. Collective agreements for the UE and IUE are national in scope. 
 
UE Local 506 in Erie, Pennsylvania, hosted a CBC rally on Saturday, 4 June, in which a larger-than-expected gathering of 4,000 trade unionists took part. The bargaining manifestation was held at Gannon University in the western Pennsylvania city. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1106.ue general electric.jpg" width="285" height="160"/>
UE-led Bargaining Rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on 4 June
Negotiations began in New York City on 24 May and after five rounds of bargaining it is evident that pension issues and health care costs have become the main agenda items. GE is trying to separate all new hires from a defined pension plan and shift them to an inferior plan. It also wants higher cost-sharing on medical insurance from workers and introduction of inferior option plans. The unions and GE resume bargaining tomorrow, 7 June. 
 
In opening bargaining statements delivered on 24 May, UE President John Hovis spoke of GE’s role in the financial crisis in which a bursting real estate bubble and accompanying credit crunch had dramatically cut GE’s stock price, its dividend payouts, and loss of GE’s AAA credit rating. Hovis reminded GE executives they had “lectured more than once in past negotiations” how GE Capital represented a more important and profitable component of the company than its industrial and manufacturing businesses. 
 
“The irony did not escape UE members when in the wake of the crisis, GE scrambled to persuade investors that it should once again be viewed as an industrial company,” Hovis said. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1106.ue general electric.2.jpg" width="153" height="161"/>
Despite the crisis, GE is faring well in the marketplace and American unions will resist any rollbacks to pension schemes and health care costs. And they will seek a significant yearly wage increase and cost-of-living improvements. GE paid out three dividends to shareholders in the past year and recorded US$14.2 billion in gross profits in 2010. GE’s cash surplus was US$82 billion in first quarter 2011, and UE claims GE workers produced an average of US$42,000 each in net profit for the company last year. 
 
View a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/ueunion?blend=24&ob=5">UE YouTube video</a> of 2011 bargaining here.  
 
The CBC of GE Unions in the US consists of the UE, the IUE/CWA, International Association of Machinists (IAM), NABET/CWA, the United Steelworkers (USW), the United Auto Workers (UAW), the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees (IFPTE), the Electrical Workers (IBEW), Sheet Metal Workers Union (SMWIU), the United Association of Plumbing and Pipefitting Union (UA), the Firemen & Oilers division of the Service Employees Union (SEIU). 
 
The national set of talks for UE is occurring on behalf of GE Transportation workers in Erie and for GE Energy staff at Fort Edward, New York, while the IUE/CWA has a common pact for GE Aviation in Lynn, Massachusetts, and GE Appliances in Louisville, Kentucky. Simultaneous bargaining for single-site agreements with the same 19 June expiry date also continues for the UAW and IAM at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, Ohio, as well as at some 30 other GE worksites, including plastics and chemical operations. 
 
Jim Clark, the head of IUE/CWA, is chairman of the CBC.

American Unions in Tough Talks for 15,000 General Electric Staff

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South African ICEM affiliate, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU) representing over 70,000 workers begins strike action today in the petroleum, pharmaceutical, industrial chemicals, tissue and allied industries, and plastics industries, as employers continue to stone-wall negotiations for the period 2011-2012. 
 
The Strategic Committee of CEPPWAWU met on 23 June and decided unanimously to strike during the week of 4 July 2011. CEPPWAWU members today, 4 July 2011 are joining NUMSA in the national strike in the MEIBC (Metal and Engineering) sectors. 
 
Negotiations have been deadlocked with employers on wages and conditions in three national bargaining councils - the National Bargaining Council for Chemical Industries, National Bargaining Council for the Wood and Paper Sectors and the Metal Engineering Industries Bargaining Councils. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEM.Solidarity.JPG" width="150" height="146" alt=""/>
CEPPWAWU’s demands include a wage rise of 11-13 per cent across the board, a minimum wage of R6 000 (615 Euros) monthly, annual wage discussions, outsourced and temporary workers to become permanently employed, plus various sector specific social demands including on housing, transport, and maternity benefits. 
 
Employers are offering 4 per cent and 7 per cent, an offer that CEPPWAWU describes as an “insult” to workers. Union negotiators point to discrepancies between the official rate of inflation, 4.6 per cent, and the real inflation of living costs, as the price of basic items has risen dramatically over the last two years. 
 
In last year’s negotiations workers made sacrifices as the country was badly affected by the global recession. This year some employers are seeking to extend those concessions. 
 
CEPPWAWU has asked the South African public to be patient during the strike, as it will result in shortages of drugs in hospitals, of fuel, paper, chemicals. CEPPWAWU remains committed to dialogue towards a solution. 
 
The strike was able to be legally launched today after an attempt by employers of the Plastics Converters Association (PCA) failed in the Gauteng Labour Court, with the judge ruling the strike legal and ordering the PCA to pay legal costs. 
 
An eleventh hour bid to interdict a strike by workers in the metals and plastics sectors failed on Friday, when the Labour Court turned down an application from the Plastics Converters Association (PCA) and ordered it to pay costs.

CEPPWAWU Downs Tools in Demand for Living Wage

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
ICEM-affiliated Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine has successfully launched a <a href="http://npgu.com.ua/">new website</a>.  
 
The mineworkers of Ukraine have been especially important this year, as the union forged ahead with the campaign for ratification of ILO Convention 176, setting the standard for others to follow. The Ukrainian victory was celebrated in February this year, when the union worked together with PRUPU to play a crucial role in the ratification of the Safety and Health in Mines Convention. 
 
The Convention spells out responsibilities for government, employers, and workers and their trade unions, and specifically gives miners the right to report hazards, dangerous conditions and accidents, as well as the right to refuse unsafe work. 
 
Ukraine is the first major mining country to ratify Convention 176 since Peru ratified it in June 2007.

Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine Launch Website

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