English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2025-2029

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected Officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Press

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

	Daniel Aguirre Piedrahita, the General Secretary of SINALCORTEROS, Colombia&rsquo;s Nation Union of Sugar Cane Cutters, was assassinated last Friday night, 27 April, as he accompanied his wife, Helena, to make a telephone call in their Casilda neighbourhood of Florida municipality, Valle del Cauca department in west-central Colombia.

	He was shot twice in the head by a cowardly assassin only 70 metres from his home. In a statement, SINALCORTEROS said the cold-blooded murder occurs in a continued context of violence and intolerance of trade union work in Colombia. It urged members and activists not to let this &ldquo;reprehensibly violent action torpedo our union&rdquo; and derail activities, but rather to &ldquo;reaffirm our actions and our mission.&rdquo;

	The government of Colombia did put out a statement early this week condemning the killing. Deputy Minister of Labour David Luna Sanchez said the ministry supports the Interior Ministry&rsquo;s Protection Unit director&rsquo;s call for an investigation to determine if the killing was related to union activity.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 213px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Aguirre, 35, was a stalwart leader of sugar cane cutters and their fight to bust the chains of servitude inflicted by sugar mill employers who considered them self-employed independent contractors.

	He was instrumental in 2005 in forming SINALCORTEROS, now an affiliate of the International Food and Agricultural Workers&rsquo; Association (IUF), through strikes. He also led strikes of 18,000 sugar cane cutters in 2008 in both Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments that two years later resulted in collective agreements, labour pacts he instituted that in part made recruitment less cumbersome.

	More recently, he had been advocating revisions to Colombia&rsquo;s labour statutes to bring them up to ILO standards and he was a fierce opponent of the Free Trade Agreement with the US, something he felt would lead to exploitation of workers and the product that they harvested.

	Daniel Aguirre becomes the seventh Colombian trade unionist killed this year, and the 61st since Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos took office in August 2010. He is survived by his wife and three daughters, ages 14, 10 and 4.

	A <a href="http://www.rel-uita.org/internacional/ddhh/Rel-sinalcorteros_asesinato_daniel_aguirre.htm">letter of condolence</a> (in Spanish) from the IUF to SINALCORTEROS President Alfonso Viafara can be viewed here.

Coward Guns Down Colombian Sugar Cane Cutters’ General Secretary on 27 April

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

	Warning strikes in German metalworking, engineering and electronic sectors will broaden beginning today with the break-down last week of third round bargaining between IG Metall and employers&rsquo; associations in several states.&nbsp; Upon expiration of a labour peace accord on 28 April, 2,500 German metalworkers began the warning strikes at select locations, taking creative and imaginative actions.

	Talks for 3.6 million German workers represented by IG Metall began in several states in late winter. Bargaining was stalemated in the last state talks, on 26 April, after employers put forth a less than satisfactory salary offer. They also refused to agree to union demands assuring full work guarantees for apprentices once their training tenures are over and more job rights for contract and agency workers.

	The offer put forward by employers&rsquo; association Gesamtmetall through its state chapters on 24 April was termed &ldquo;a provocation&rdquo; by IG Metall, thus causing mobilisation over the weekend when the peace accord expired. The proposal saw employers offering a 3% increase over 14 months, of through June 2013. The union is seeking a 6.5% pay rise over 12 months.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 216px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	The union&rsquo;s goal is based on a run-up in productivity development, as well as projected inflation in 2012 and 2013. Guaranteed opportunity for apprentices and contract workers is also based on the fact that Germany currently experiences a shortage of skilled workers.

	The 6.5% wage proposal is indicative of German industrial workers being the driving force in a nation that is Europe&rsquo;s biggest industrial power and strongest economy, with high pay and workers&rsquo; savings being the wellspring of that strength.

	Last weekend&rsquo;s warning strikes began on 28 April in the eastern city of Zwickau in Saxony state, where hundreds of young metalworkers conducted a motorcycle parade. Other demonstrations over the weekend occurred in Bavaria, Berlin, NorthRhine-Westphalia, and Nordenham in northern Germany, where workers from several plants held a protest and mass breakfast early on Sunday morning.

	In Ingolstadt in Bavaria, some 80 apprentices gathered the night before and flashed a light-projector against the wall of a factory expressing their demand for job guarantees. Workers from a TDK factory in Munich held a torchlight parade that same night, and autoworkers from a Daimler Mercedes-Benz plant in Rasiah, Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg state, protested on Sunday.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 272px;height: 160px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;

	The actions continued on 30 April with loud protests in cities and streets near a Daimler Mercedes-Benz factory in W&ouml;erth-am-Main in Rheinland-Pfalz, at a MAN diesel plant in Augsburg, in Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg in Bavaria, where lead talks will resume on 8 May.

	Yesterday on May Day in Hamburg, IG Metall President Berthold Huber pledged that the union will not be deterred from its agenda, and will bring the dispute into June if employers do not adhere to union demands. If upcoming talks do not produced the desired results, IG Metall is planning continuous strike actions commencing on 16 May.

	Besides a number of further warning actions today, mass demonstrations tomorrow, 3 May, are set at an Audi factory on Neckarsulm and a Porsche plant in Stuttgart. Some 900,000 of the 3.6 million workers affected are employed by Germany&rsquo;s primary auto-makers.

German Warning Strikes Begin in Metals, Electronics Sectors

The international commitment to sustainable job creation and a financial transactions tax (FTT) will be the focused of RIO+20. The international labour movement, led by ITUC, could play a strong role at RIO+20 to ensure that international commitments are turned into national legislation.

	The ITUC released a new report &quot;<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/growing-green-and-decent-jobs,11011.html?lang=en" target="_blank">Growing Green and Decent Jobs</a>&quot; that trade union leaders can use in negotiations on green investment and job creation as a part of their national policies. The report, released on April 18, analyses seven industries including manufacturing and energy industries in 12 countries and shows that investing two per cent of GDP in a greener economy could create up to 48 million new jobs over the next five years.

	Since world leaders adopted Agenda 21 in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, governments have been called upon to invest in a greener economy and accelerate the adoption of clean technologies, but actual progress at the global level has fallen short of the expectations expressed in Agenda 21 (1992), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, 2000, and the 2008 update), the Johannesburg Program of Implementation (JPOI, 2002), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 112px;height: 161px" width="390" />

	Especially on sustainable job creation, a review by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) secretariat reports &quot;global delivery of the employment and green jobs-related commitments is sobering. While judgment is needed to assess delivery against the not so well defined commitments, there is ample evidence to suggest that progress has been slow and in some cases even contradictory to the stated goal. It is impossible to say whether delivery of commitments specifically relating to &quot;green jobs&quot; has fared better or worse than those generic to employment as a whole.&quot;

	Twenty years after the adoption of Agenda 21 at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit as a roadmap towards a sustainable future, representatives of governments, businesses, and international organizations, including trade unions, NGOs, business leaders, academics, politicians, bureaucrats and journalists, will once again discuss the issues on sustainable development at UNCSD-RIO+20 on June20 to 22, in Rio de Janeiro. The main objective of the Conference is to assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits and to secure renewed political commitment for tackling poverty eradication and sustainable development challenges. The RIO+20 will also highlight <a href="http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/7issues.html" target="_blank">seven critical issues</a> which need priority attention; these include decent jobs, energy, sustainable cities, food security and sustainable agriculture, water, oceans and disaster readiness.

	As representatives of industrial workers in the metal, chemical, energy, mining, paper, rubber, textiles, materials, and related sectors, the IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF have been jointly promoting common policy demands on sustainable development; including:
<ul>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		a strong, legally-binding, comprehensive global agreement with an ambitious reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions,</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		creation of sustainable jobs that meet ILO definition of Decent Work while ensuring a Just Transition, and</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		building a strong financial foundation for a sustainable future using instruments such as a financial transactions tax.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		The IMF, ICEM, and ITGLWF fully support following three key demands as articulated by the ITUC:</li>
</ul>

	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/greendecentjobs_madesimple.pdf" target="_blank">Green&amp;Decent Jobs 
	http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/greendecentjobs_madesimple.pdf</a> 

	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/socialprotectionfloor_madesimple.pdf" target="_blank">Social Protection Floors 
	http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/socialprotectionfloor_madesimple.pdf</a>

	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ftt_madesimple.pdf" target="_blank">The Financial Transaction Tax 
	http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ftt_madesimple.pdf</a>

	We hope that all industrial workers who attend RIO+20 as labour delegates will play an active role in supporting the common union demands. The international labour movement could play a strong role at RIO+20 to ensure that international commitments are turned into national legislation.

	For further information on ITUC&#039;s campaign on RIO+20, please go to: 
	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/rio-20.html">http://www.ituc-csi.org/rio-20.html</a>

RIO+20 Must Commit to Sustainable Job Creation

As we remember those that have died, been injured or suffered ill health as a result of work, we must also commit to making occupational health and safety one of the highest priorities for IndustriALL Global Union.

	Every year, on April 28, the World Day on Safety and Health at Work, workers take a moment to reflect on the devastating toll taken by workplace fatalities, injuries, and occupational diseases.

	IndustriALL Global Union will soon be created, a new organization speaking for some 50 million workers represented by its affiliates. Here are some statistics that should give us all pause. Of IndustriALL&#039;s 50 million affiliated workers:
<ul>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		An estimated 16,400 will die in 2012 as a result of their work. That&#039;s about 45 fatalities per day.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		About 5,000 IndustriALL members will die this year of cancer, alone.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		1,570,000 will be diagnosed with a non-fatal occupational disease.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		An enormous number, millions, impossible to estimate with any accuracy, will be injured on the job.</li>
</ul>

	These numbers, shocking as they are, are certainly gross underestimates.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" height="90" src="" width="360" />&nbsp;

	Drawn from International Labour Organization&#039;s Bureau of Labour Statistics and estimates of occupational fatalities and diseases produced in 2008, they rely on nationally accepted statistics reported to the ILO by member countries. In most cases, these are taken from the country&#039;s workers&#039; compensation systems, immediately omitting workers whose disease or death was not accepted as &quot;occupational&quot; in origin, or who were not covered by the workers&#039; compensation system. Occupational diseases are chronically under-diagnosed, and occupational injuries are subject to various strategies to suppress reporting or fraudulently misrepresent them.

	In addition, these estimates simply divide world totals by IndustriALL&#039;s fraction of the global labour force. In reality, IndustriALL will represent workers in industries with many more hazards than most. It is worth remembering that even in traditionally dangerous workplaces such as coal mines, an estimated five times as many workers die of occupational diseases, than of sudden accidental causes such as fires, explosions, falls, or encounters with machinery.

	IndustriALL clearly has to make occupational health and safety one of its highest priorities.

	There are a large number of global standard-setting agencies and agencies that engage in different aspects of occupational health and safety. The alphabet soup of their acronyms includes ILO, WHO, OHSAS, ISO, GRI, UNEP, GHS, REACH, SAICM. IndustriALL must watch all of these closely and pressure them to do a better job of protecting workers.

	IndustriALL will inherit a substantial number of Global Framework Agreements with trend-setting multinational companies. Occupational health and safety provisions must become more prominent in most of these.

	Global campaigns on specific issues, such as the ongoing campaign to raise the number of ratifications of ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines, must continue.

	Occupational health and safety is a complex problem. Interconnected systems must be created to identify and control workplace hazards, and protect workers from them. Central to that effort must be the full participation of workers through their representatives, and on Joint Health and Safety Committees.

	There is no simple, magic solution that can be quickly implemented. Instead, occupational health and safety requires hard work and determined campaigning by union activists. Despite the global race for profits, our health is not for sale.&quot;

28 April 2012: A Day of Mourning

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 120px;height: 59px" width="390" />

	The ICEM affiliate in Sierra Leone, United Mineworkers&rsquo; Union (UMU), stepped in yesterday to negotiate a partial resolve to a strike by casual workers employed by subcontractors of iron ore producer African Minerals Ltd. That strike, lasting from 17 April to 23 April, was marked by police violence in the north-central Sierra Leone town of Bumbuna that saw one woman killed by police gun fire and at least nine others seriously injured.

	The agreement reached last night near Bumbuna between the UMU, African Minerals and several Sierra Leone ministry officials &ndash; including ministers of Labour and Social Security and Mineral Resources &ndash; produced several remedial measures to last week&rsquo;s spontaneous strike by some 500 casual workers.

	UMU General Secretary Ezekiel Dyke said he hoped his union&rsquo;s intervention would move the London-based mining company that relies almost totally on subcontractors to finalise a collective agreement with the UMU. African Minerals earlier this year began production at Sierra Leone&rsquo;s Tonkolili project near Bumbana, containing the world&rsquo;s largest reported magnetite iron ore reserves of 12.8 billion tonnes.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" height="140" src="" width="123" />&nbsp;

	Ezekiel Dyke

	UMU has been in talks with African Minerals since last year over a collective agreement. Last week&rsquo;s strike by nearly half of the workforce of 1,000 casual workers was caused by delayed salaries to some, meagre pay to all, lack of medical care, and on-going lack of union representation as production ramped up and rail shipments to the capital of Freeport began.

	On the strike&rsquo;s second day, 18 April, violence ensued when Bumbuna towns-people joined strikers and blocked entrances to the Tonkolili project. Riot police then stormed protestors in the village, firing live ammunition, wielding batons and shooting tear gas directly at strikers and their community supporters. The police action created a stampede that tore through a marketplace in Bumbuna.

	Killed instantly was Musu Conteh, a woman in her 30s employed by the catering firm ATS. Some nine others were seriously injured by bullet wounds to their legs, said the UMU&rsquo;s Ezekiel Dyke, while perhaps 20 others were treated in an ill-equipped medical centre in nearby Makena for gas inhalation and police-inflicted wounds.

	Dyke said upwards of 40% of the casual workers employed throughout the Tonkolili project are women.

	The remedial agreement reached last night will see African Minerals immediately pay owed back salaries of up to two months for casual workers who work on the mine&rsquo;s rail link. It establishes a framework whereby casual workers will become permanent employees of either African Minerals or their subcontracting firm after three months of employment, or in some cases extended to six months.

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

	It also mandates that African Minerals provide a full review of salaries, work conditions and job categories within two weeks. The primary employer also agreed to investigate and pay compensation to the deceased woman&rsquo;s family within two weeks, as well as provide compensation to injured victims in that same period. African Minerals also agreed to pay compensation to market vendors &ndash; mostly women &ndash; for their losses from the 18 April violence.

	There will also be a thorough investigation of the unchecked police force used last week.

	Major contractors for African Minerals in Sierra Leone include the company BCM, doing production work, while UK-based engineering and construction companies Dawnus and Hawk also employ casual workers, as does South African-based Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon (WBHO). There are scores of Sierra Leone-based companies that reportedly also exploit workers.

	Between the latter half of 2011 and last month, China-based Shandong Iron &amp; Steel Group Co. Ltd. of state-owned Shandong Province Asset Commission purchased 25% of the Tonkolili project from African Minerals, along with the same percentage of related rail and port subsidiary companies for nearly US$1.5 billion.

	UMU currently has collective agreements in Sierra Leone with iron ore miner London Mining, BSG Resources&rsquo; Koidu Holdings, a diamond miner, Cluff Gold, Baomahun Gold Mines, and Sierra Rutile, a miner of titanium dioxide. &nbsp;

Temporary Truce Reached in Sierra Leone Mine Strike, Quelling Violence Against Contract Workers

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

	From the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation 

	On 24 April, the federal tribunal cancelled the only remaining warrant for the arrest of the leader of the Mexican Miners&#039; Union (SNTMMSRM), Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez Urrutia, regarding US$55 million of union funds.

	On Tuesday 24 April, the First Unitary Criminal Court of Mexico City notified the union that the federal justice system had cancelled the preventive measure.

	Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez&#039;s lawyer, Marco Del Toro, said: &quot;All the arrest warrants issued as part of this unprecedented campaign of political persecution have fallen one by one. We are very happy with today&#039;s ruling. It is a lesson to those in Mexico who think they can still conduct this kind of immoral persecution, which is alien to our legal system.&quot;

	<img alt="" height="107" src="" style="cursor: default" width="160" />

	Napol&eacute;on G&oacute;mez

	&quot;Once again, it has been shown that the political persecution against the miners&#039; union and its leader is completely and absolutely illegal. Once again, the truth has been established. Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez Urrutia has never committed any kind of crime,&quot; said the union, in a press release.

	Andrew Vickers, Chair of the ICEM Mining Sector, described the decision as &ldquo;further vindication of the magnificent struggle being played out by Napole&oacute;n, the USW, and Los Mineros. I find it truly amazing, although not terribly surprising, that governments can impose sanctions on countries and regimes such as Syria, Libya, Zimbabwe, Burma and Fiji, yet with Mexico and the Calderon regime, countries like the US and Australia fete them.&rdquo;

	G&oacute;mez Urrutia has been in exile in Canada for six years, during which time he has worked constantly to establish his innocence and provide leadership for the miners&#039; union.

Napoleón Gómez Nearly Home: Mexican Court Voids Warrant

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

	A local branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is now in its second week of a full strike at a major US Defense Department contractor, Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. Some 3,600 workers represented by IAM walked out when their contract ended at midnight on 22 April.

	And early yesterday, 1 May, just as a prior six-year labour agreement expired, 800 IAM members went on strike against Caterpillar Inc. in Joliet, Illinois. The plant manufactures hydraulics and other components for heavy equipment, including mining trucks that Caterpillar makes at other factories in Illinois and elsewhere.

	The walkout at Lockheed by IAM Lodge 776 in Texas is over a highly profitable company attempting to shut down a defined benefit pension plan for new hires. It is also over the company&rsquo;s intent to eliminate several health care options under an insurance plan and removing the ceilings on what workers&rsquo; pay out-of-pocket on annual health care premiums. The strike is by three bargaining units of Lodge 776, including workers who assemble and manufacture the US fighter jets F-16 and F-35, firefighters, and nurses.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 205px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	IAM Lodge 776 on Strike at Lockheed

	It also includes Lodge 776 members employed at Lockheed testing grounds in Pax River, Maryland, and Edwards Air Force Base in California. Lockheed and the Pentagon have been under major pressure over cost over-runs on the so-called &ldquo;Lightning II&rdquo; F-35, Lockheed&rsquo;s largest project and the US government&rsquo;s most expensive weapons system.

	The Pentagon has ordered 2,457 F-25s at a spiralling cost now of US$395.7 billion.

	Lockheed Martin&rsquo;s first quarter 2012 profits rose a full 20% over postings in for the same period in 2011, with net income rising to US$665 million. The company is offering a three-year contract with 3% increases each year, plus a signing bonus and higher pension payments to existing workers.

	But workers are admirably striking for future workers and retention of a liveable pension scheme, as well as keeping earned medical benefits. IAM members voted by 94% on 22 April to reject the company&rsquo;s proposal, and followed that with a 93% vote to strike. The Fort Worth aerospace plant employs another 10,000 contractors and non-bargaining union staff of Lockheed who continue to work through the strike.

	In Illinois, Caterpillar &ndash; another profitable industrial manufacturer that has registered first quarter profits of US1.5 billion &ndash; is asking IAM Lodge 851 members to take a six-year wage freeze. Virulently anti-union Caterpillar is also seeking medical cost reductions by proposing a doubling of workers&rsquo; out-of-pocket health care costs.

US Machinists Strike Lockheed Aeronautics in Texas, Caterpillar Plant in Illinois

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

	Sintracarb&oacute;n, the ICEM-affiliated Colombian mining union comprised mostly of permanent employees at Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n, one of the largest set of coal mines in the world, is continuing its policy of the last three years of supporting CAL workers at the complex. The latest struggle is for mechanical technicians employed at Blastingmar.

	Workers at Blastingmar have organised and affiliated with Sintracarb&oacute;n. Sintracarb&oacute;n are now in bargaining with company management to secure a first collective agreement at the firm. On 27 April the second phase of bargaining ended in the northern city of Barranquilla. Although there is agreement on a number of points, a third bargaining round is necessary and will be held on 3-4 May.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 318px;height: 159px" width="390" />

	It is encouraging and a sign of Sintracarb&oacute;n&rsquo;s achievements in working towards organising contract workers at Cerrej&oacute;n that negotiations are continuing in good faith from both sides.

	The union bargaining committee reports that agreement is within sight on issues such as wages, bonuses, leisure, sport and education. But the management&rsquo;s counter-offer on the following points was not acceptable for Sintracarb&oacute;n: food, housing, childcare, shift rotation, equal benefits for new hires.

	Once again Sintracarb&oacute;n can be held up as a positive example of fighting effectively for contract workers.

	At Cerrej&oacute;n, 6,000 of the total 11,000 workers are precariously employed by contractors. In the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, Sintracarb&oacute;n achieved a clause stating that Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n management is &ldquo;committed to ensuring respect for the unionisation of all workers, including CAL workers.&rdquo;

Sintracarbón Continues Leadership in Bargaining for Rights for CAL Workers

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

	Some 100 workers are now in their fifth week of strike action against Irish Cement Ltd., wholly owned by giant Dublin-based construction company, the CRH Group. The Irish Cement Group of Unions, composed of the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), the Technical Engineers and Electrical Union (TEEU) and Unite the Union, began the strike at two Irish production sites on 3 April.

	The dispute is over the company&rsquo;s non-adherence over a Labour Court recommendation from early this year that it owes workers between &euro;5,500 and &euro;9,500 each in unpaid compensation. The company instead is trying to gouge a 15-18% pay cut from workers.

	The two plants are located at Castlemungret in County Limerick and Platin in County Meath.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 226px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Last week, cement workers received a boost when a Limerick-based Assembly delegate to the D&aacute;il &Eacute;ail &ndash; Ireland&rsquo;s lower House of Parliament &ndash; tabled a question to Ireland&rsquo;s Minister for Enterprise on the company&rsquo;s recalcitrance. Willie O&rsquo;Dea called the company&rsquo;s labour behaviour &ldquo;belligerent&rdquo; in refusing to accept the Labour Court recommendation.

	&ldquo;The company is trying to beat the workers into submission by refusing to honour its obligations unless the staff agree to a massive pay cut,&rdquo; said O&rsquo;Dea, adding total fees paid last year to non-executive board members of the company is more than what is owed workers.

	&ldquo;I am calling on this profitable company to honour its obligations to staff,&rdquo; he said.

Pay Dispute Finds Irish Cement Workers Embroiled in Strike Action

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

	Marking 28 April, the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the Committee on Workers&rsquo; Capital (CWC) launched a briefing paper on workers&rsquo; safety and the role of responsible investing in ensuring labourrights. The report shows how investors can hold companies accountable for failure to protect their workforce from work-related accidents or diseases, and how workers&rsquo; capital especially through trade union pension funds can seriously effect change in corporate governance.

	Collaborators in the project included ICEM, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF), the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI), and ICEM affiliates the United Steelworkers (USW), and the National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa (NUM).

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 349px;height: 129px" width="390" />

	The CWC is a joint initiative of the ITUC, Global Union Federations (GUFs), and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC). Established in November 1999, following a meeting of international trade union leaders in Stockholm, Sweden, the CWC examines ways for workers to leverage their retirement savings on companies so that they respect human and labour rights.

	The paper includes case studies from the Massey Energy Upper Big Branch mine disaster of April 2010 that killed 29 non-union members in the state of West Virginia, and from USW oil workers at the Tesoro Refinery in Anacortes, Washington, and from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

	The paper also includes a clear framework on how pension trustees can use their pension fund investments to address the issues of Occupational Health and Safety and labour rights. &nbsp;

	Ken Georgetti, Chair of the CWC and President of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) said: &ldquo;Innovative partnerships between labour rights advocates and investors can deliver the promise of decent work for all.&rdquo;

	View the full <a href="http://www.workerscapital.org/images/uploads/CWC-Investing%20in%20Decent%20Work%203%20Final(1).pdf">Investing in Decent Work</a> report here

Workers’ Capital Committee Launches Report - Investing in Decent Work, Safe and Healthy Workplaces

Archive