English

Español

Français

Русский

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 2021-2025

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

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

The NUM of South Africa successfully concluded wage negotiations with DeBeers Consolidated Mines Ltd. Terms include a 7% increase in pensionable wages with the minimum basic rate of pay retroactive to May 2004 set at R 3,100 per month. “The agreement paves the way toward enhancing a partnership that would enable both parties to benefit during the good and bad times,” said NUM Deputy Gen. Sec. Archie Palange. The pact runs until 30 April 2005.

NUM, DeBeers Come to Wage Terms in South Africa

United Steelworker (USWA) members at four Michelin plants in the US and Canada ratified new two-year labour agreements last week that enhances job security protections and pledges the French-based tyre firm to make minimum US$150 million capital improvements to the plants. The ratification in Canada at the company’s Kitchener, Ontario, plant ended an 11-week strike for 1,000 workers. The USWA fended off concessions at Michelin’s four unionized North American plants, and won protections against contracting out maintenance and a guarantee of no layoffs or plant closings during the term of the contract. The three US plants are located in Tuscaloosa and Opelika, Alabama, and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Steelworkers in US, Canada Ratify Rubber Contracts with Michelin

ICEM President and Australian CFMEU National Secretary John Maitland officiated at a remembrance 4 April of the 1,600 miners who lost their lives in the mining areas of New South Wales dating back to 1801. The remembrance was the ninth such observance at the United Mineworkers’ Federation House in Cessnock. CFMEU Northern Mining & Energy Division President Peter Murray said it is important to demonstrate respect and condolences to families who have lost loves ones in the mines and as a result of hazardous mine work.

Australian Mine Union Marks Death Toll in NSW

The crisis in Ukrainian coal mines is worsening by the day. Crippled by customers' unpaid bills and by "reforms" partly dictated by global financial institutions, the industry is continuing to default on wage payments to its workers. 
 
By 1 February, active coalminers were owed between 3 and 14 months' pay, the Miners' Independent Trade Union of Ukraine (MITU) reports. The total wage debt to these miners topped 700 million US dollars last month. The many Ukrainian miners invalided out because of accidents and occupational diseases are faring no better financially. They are now owed some 135 million US dollars' worth of benefits. 
 
Desperate times breed desperate measures. Strikes are spreading rapidly, now involving between 20,000 and 25,000 miners each day. About 200 miners have launched an indefinite sit-in below ground. One miner burned himself to death in a protest last December and more have threatened to do so. 
 
"The miners are demanding that their wages be paid on time, that the arrears be paid and that state financing of the sector be increased during 1999," MITU President Mikhail Volynets commented yesterday. He said the country's President and government had reneged on a commitment to begin paying off the wage backlog. If the miners' "legimate demands" were not met, MITU would "lead a general miners' strike," Volynets pledged. 
 
He pointed out that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are pressing the Ukraine to cut coal industry subsidies, close mines and reduce the workforce. 
 
"All this doesn't favour the financial improvement of country in general, and in particular of the coal sector, which is a key Ukrainian industry," Volynets emphasised. "Because of the tough monetary policy implemented by the government under pressure from the World Bank, many industrial enterprises in related sectors have stopped working. This has also had a negative effect on the working of the mines. 
 
"In this situation, social and psychological tensions are intensifying more and more in the mining regions," Volynets warned. 
 
At the global level, the MITU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
"The Ukrainian miners' claim is undeniably just," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe commented. "They are simply demanding what they are owed. They have the full support and solidarity of their brothers and sisters worldwide. 
 
"We certainly call upon the Ukrainian mines and the Ukrainian government to ensure payment of the wage debt without further delay," Thorpe said. "But beyond that, we demand that the institutions of global finance, notably the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, should at last show some social responsibility. At least part of the international finance that now goes into often harmful 'restructuring' in Ukraine and similar economies must instead be earmarked for the payment of the huge debts owed to those countries' workers. Global action is needed now to right this scandalous wrong."

Ukraine: Mine Strikes Spread As Pay Debt Climbs

92,000 South African workers have united within a union spanning a wide range of major industries. 
 
CEPPWAWU (Chemical, Pulp and Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers' Union) was created at the end of last week by the merger of the chemical and allied workers' CWIU and the paper and allied workers' PPAPWU. As well as the sectors listed in its name, the new union covers glass, rubber, plastics and pharmaceuticals. 
 
Elected as CEPPWAWU's General Secretary was Muzi Buthelezi, with Bengeza Mthombeni as Deputy General Secretary and Pasco Dyani as President. 
 
"Our membership will benefit from this merger through better service, improved finances and human resources, and more bargaining power," Buthelezi told ICEM UPDATE. 
 
The new union will be harmonising its collective bargaining this month and expects to have its local and regional structures in place by May. 
 
It urged its members to contribute today's (3 March) wages to the Job Creation Fund set up by South Africa's national labour confederations to tackle the unemployment crisis. 
 
At the global level, CEPPWAWU will be affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). The new union has taken a resolutely internationalist stance from the start, and specifically notes that "unions internationally from the chemical and paper industries have aligned themselves to form single organisations." 
 
"This strong new union will be a further boost for the ICEM's important organising drive in Africa," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. "South Africa is crucial to out efforts to unite the world's workers - a fact that we will recognise when the ICEM holds its World Congress in Durban this November."

South Africa's New Super-Union

Australian affiliate Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers’ Union (LHMU) won a verdict on agency fees in South Australia. The Industrial Relations Commission ruled non-union members must pay a fee for worklife gains through the enterprise bargaining process. LHMU Branch Sec. Mark Butler called it a “landmark decision” and vowed that all LHMU collective agreements in South Australia will include the new language.

Australian Affiliate LHMU Wins Agency Fees Case

The Uribe government and the Colombian oil firm Ecopetrol has escalated a 19-day strike by Union Sindical Obrera (USO) by sacking another 40 workers. The government has ruled the strike illegal on the “essential service” theory of oil refining. The ICEM argues that ILO jurisprudence regarding that definition proves differently. The government has now sacked 60.

Colombian Government Declares War on Oil Union

Asia-Pacific labour and management representatives from BASF met in Singapore on 10 February. The network takes shape following the successful ICEM regional dialogue with BASF managers in Latin America/Caribbean. BASF’s Eggert Voscherau called the AP network “important and necessary” and one that “has to be continued.” Recently, ICEM, German affiliate IGBCE and BASF teamed up so that BASF workers in Malaysia could have trade union recognition rights in Malaysia.

ICEM’s Regional BASF Network Meets in Singapore

The initial conference of ICEM’s ExxonMobil Workers’ Global Network has been set for 3-4 November 2004 in the US city of Houston, Texas. US affiliate PACE is the lead union of the network. Unions representing ExxonMobil workforces are encouraged to attend. A call letter went out last month and trade union leaders can contact Gino Govender at ICEM or Keith Romig at PACE for further information.

First Global Meeting of ExxonMobil Network to Meet in US

After a one-week strike, some 300 members of ICEM affiliate Korean Chemical & Textile Workers’ Federation reached a labour agreement with BASF Korea in Yeosu. The 23 July agreement calls for a base monthly salary hike of 5% and a reduction in weekly work hours from 42 to 40 without any corresponding loss of pay. 
The amiable settlement is contrasted with the harsh response of government and joint venture partners LG Group and ChevronTexaco at the nearby LG Caltex refinery.

Week-Long Strike Brings BASF Settlement in Korea

Archive