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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Scores of electrical workers descended on the headquarters of the National Power Authority (NPA) in Freeport, Sierra Leone, on 25 October, protesting the failed implementation of promised wage increases. Their target was Energy, Power, and Water Minister Ogunlade Davidson, who workers claim does not even know the number of staff employed at NPA. 
 
The manifestation was not a strike, but a strike is threatened if the government does not follow through on a negotiated 60% wage increase plus other social provisions that are due. In Sierra Leone, a country that is still struggling to come out of an 11-year civil war, the standard of living for workers is among the world’s lowest. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SierraLeone.png" width="150" height="69"/>
At the 25 October protest, electricity workers chanted slogans saying they were tired of waiting for long-awaited salary increases, and growing weary of supporting the government’s Agenda for Change. One demand calls for workers in the meter reading and disconnection service of NPA, some of whom have been working for NPA as casual staff for up to eight years, to finally be put on the official payroll. 
 
Several government leaders were allowed to address the demonstrators but when Davidson himself attempted to speak, he was shouted down. 
 
The leader of the Senior Staff Association for Energy and Water Resources, Emmanuel Wilson Taylor, said 20% of the negotiated increase had been awarded, but the remaining 40%, which was suppose to take effect in early October, was not granted. At a follow-up meeting on 21 October, government officials told union representatives that the remaining salary increase would only be made if workers agreed to forego the many social improvements they were offered. 
 
The ICEM supports the electricity workers of Sierra Leone in their justified efforts to improve their working lives and their livelihoods.

Public Sector Electrical Workers Protest in Sierra Leone

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ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Asia-Pacific Regional Contact Person Phee Jungsun visited ICEM affiliates in India and Pakistan 18-22 October. The mission was to increase understanding of the challenges facing ICEM members in those countries, and to coordinate ICEM support. 
 
The activities in India included a joint meeting with the four ICEM Indian affiliates, in Nagpur, 19 October. Those unions are the Indian National Mineworkers’ Federation (INMF), The Indian National Cement Workers’ Federation (INCWF), the Indian National Diamond & Ornaments Workers’ Federation (INDOWF), and the HMS Chemical Mazdoor Federation. 
 
The National Chemical and Petroleum Federation joined the meeting as an observer. The meeting was chaired by Warda and Brother BK Das, INMF General Secretary, who also serves as the India Representative of the Council of ICEM Indian affiliates, formed in 2009. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.india.meeting.JPG" width="275" height="183" alt=""/>
The common focus of the four unions is on issues of Contract and Agency Labour (CAL), and organizing. The INMF reported on progress in mines in the state of Orissa, where a collective bargaining agreement was obtained to provide equal benefits of social security for CAL workers. In the cement sector, around 60% of all workforces are CAL workers. Several unions were set up by CAL cement workers, who then either joined INCWF or applied for membership directly to ICEM. Cement employers sack CAL workers whenever they try to form union or to join. 
 
The proposal was agreed by affiliates to hold a joint rally and symposium in New Delhi, the capital of India, on the issue of national legislation and social security benefits for CAL workers. It will be a joint action with the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) and the International Textiles, Garment, Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF). 
 
In the chemicals sector, due to common characteristics of small numbers of employees in a company, trade unions are not powerful, except for in the large state-owned fertilizer or petro-chemical companies. 
 
Pharmaceutical unions in MNCs were active until ten years ago, but have been destroyed by aggressive relocation strategies of employers, seeking unorganized workforces. Contrary to the high economic growth rate every year, trade unions in the manufacturing sector are in decline, especially in private companies. The unification of trade unions in Indian manufacturing seems more and more necessary. 
 
The mission continued to Karachi, Pakistan, on 21-22 October, where meetings were held with the three ICEM affiliates: the Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF), the Pakistan Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Union (PCEM), and the Pakistan National Federation of Chemical, Energy, and Pharmaceutical Workers’ Union. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.pakistan.jpg" width="246" height="185" alt=""/>
ICEM Mission to Pakistan
The Secretary General of the PCMLF, Sultan Muhammad Khan, and Pir Muhammad, Education Secretary, presented the challenges of the major industry federation, based in Quetta, Balochistan Province. It is the largest mining union in Pakistan, with a total membership of 130,000. Members suffer from occupational diseases, including TB, and Hepatitis A and C, with high numbers of fatal accidents at work. The numbers of death at work cases are 136 per year, with little help from the government since many labour inspectors are corrupt. 
 
The PCEM, led by General Secretary Muhammad Suhail, has 2,000 members, and is based in Karachi, Sindh Province. 
 
The Pakistan National Federation of Chemical, Energy, and Pharmaceutical Workers’ Union, led by General Secretary Khalil Ur Rehman, has 1,500 members, and is also based in Karachi. The union has national affiliation to the APFOL-PWF, an ITUC affiliate.

ICEM Supports Pakistan, India Affiliates in Tough Challenges

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As the mineworkers’ strike at Gammon Gold’s El Cubo mine in Mexico’s Guanajuato State was deferred to the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the authority abandoned all activities and took summer vacations until August. 
 
The recess forces workers to continue the strike with no possibility of settlement before labour authorities return to litigate and rule on the legality of the strike. The authority gave no instruction to Canadian-based Gammon to start negotiating with the workers. 
 
The 409 workers are represented by Section 142 of ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), or Los Mineros, at the mine in south-central Mexico. 
 
As previously reported by ICEM, the strike began 30 June, primarily because of Nova Scotia-based Gammon’s refusal to make profit-share payments to workers, a condition that had been agreed to in bargaining with the union in return for a lengthening of miners’ work days from eight- to ten-hour shifts. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/04miningsafety.jpg" width="180" height="132"/>
In the absence of a profit-sharing arrangement, union leaders took strike action, demanding a bonus of 50,000 pesos (US$3,968) per worker. A further demand was that the company improve safety standards at the mine, following five deaths at the site in recent months, accidents which were not properly investigated or even sometimes not recorded by authorities. The families of the five dead miners have not received any compensation. 
 
As was predicted by the ICEM in an earlier, 28 June, report (see <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3896-El-Cubo-Mexican-Mine-Shut-in-Attempt-to-Crush-Union" type="internal">here</a>), the company has moved to restart production with scab labour. This decision was authorised by Labour Minister Javier Lozano, who pushed through a ruling via the Federal Conciliation Board for 70 “emergency personnel.” The obvious anti-union stance of the Mexican government is again illustrated by these rulings and lack of pressure from the authorities on Gammon to negotiate with Section 142. 
 
Gammon Gold has repeatedly claimed that it does not have the financial resources for profit-sharing payments, which are mandated by law, or to make improvements to worker safety at the mine. Los Mineros filed for a fiscal audit to be conducted by the Mexican Treasury into Gammon, in May 2010. In typical government inaction regarding Los Mineros, there has been no response to this request. 
 
In a familiar trend now used in Mexican labour conflicts, workers at El Cubo were physically attacked by the company’s private security team on 18 June. 
 
Gammon Gold recorded US$207 million in revenue from gold and silver mining operations in 2009. The company operates exclusively in Mexico, with a large gold-silver complex in the northern state of Chihuahua, known as Ocampo. Exploration work is on-going at the neighbouring Guadalupe y Calvo gold-silver mine, and Gammon recently acquired the El Mezquite and Venus projects in the states of Zacatecas and Chihuahua, respectively. 
 
Gammon Gold’s director in Mexico, Luis Chavez, was previously the Director of Mines in the Ministry of Finance, and then Director of Mines in Coahuila State government, a position he held when 64 miners died inside the Pasta de Conchos mine in February 2006. After protecting Grupo México in the wake of the accident, Chavez moved to his current position as head of Gammon Gold. The corrupt links between the Mexican government and Gammon Gold are deep. 
 
Politicians in the country’s Senate and House of Representatives demanded that Labour Secretary, Javier Lozano, act as mediator to the conflict.

Mexico Government No Help in Resolving Gammon Gold Mine Strike

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Hundreds of trade unionists backed by their unions and led by New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) President Helen Kelly fiercely manifested outside the National Party’s annual conference in Auckland on 18 July, protesting the ruling party’s treachery in launching anti-worker revisions to the country’s Employment Relations Act. 
 
Inside, Prime Minister John Key used his keynote to state that the party’s legislative mandate will now aim to roll back workers’ rights and union rights. For starters, the Nationals intend to pass a law extending the rights-less, 90-day probationary period, now at workplaces with fewer than 20 workers, to all workplaces. 
 
The policy paper that formed Key’s surprise keynote speech broke earlier commitments made by the prime minister to trade unions and the NZCTU that hard-line changes to the Act would not occur. Several NZ unionists at the manifestation showed their anger by skirting security to take the protest inside the Auckland casino/hotel where the National Party was meeting. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1007.Helen-Kelly.NZCTU.jpg" width="100" height="150" alt=""/>
NZCTU President Helen Kelly
By Thursday, 23 July, trade unions had met and jointly devised an aggressive mobilization campaign against the legislation. 
 
The Kiwis call the trial 2008 probationary measure “the 90-Day Fire-at-Will” law. Kelly said that nearly one-quarter of all workers employed under the existing scheme for small employers have been sacked. And 47% of those firings are workers under the age of 23. 
 
Other provisions to the National Party agenda erode existing labour law. The test for justified dismissal under the Employment Relations Authority gets weakened; union access to worksites to defend workers gets restricted; workers can trade one of four annual leave weeks for money to stay on the job; observance of statutory holidays can be changed; and stricter proof of illness in order to take sick-day leave will apply if revisions to New Zealand’s labour law takes effect. 
 
“Unfair dismissal changes are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Kelly, citing other draconian provisions of the proposed legislation, including cuts in entitlement, meal breaks, union education funding, and axing the Pay and Employment Equity Unit of government. “To make matters worse, we believe government will also make it more difficult for the Employment Court to question the reason why any worker has been dismissed.” 
 
The country’s Labour Party had introduced legislation to repeal the 90-day probationary law. That party will now coalesce with the Green Party and the Maori Party to attempt to block the Nationals anti-worker agenda. But the biggest voice expected to halt the labour law roll backs will be the nation’s 400,000 trade unionists who will work tediously through their unions to block these spurious changes to labour law.

New Zealand Unions Protest National Party’s Draconian Labour Proposals

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Two weeks after a pair of Norwegian unions, together with ICEM and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) signed a Global Framework Agreement (GFA) with Norsk Hydro ASA, two workers’ representatives of the aluminium and energy company’s board of directors journeyed to Pará state in northern Brazil to brief workers and trade union leaders there. 
 
Sten Roar Martinsen, a process operator and full-time union representative from the Kopervik extrusion plant, and Billy Fredeagsvik, also an operator and union representative at Hydro’s Høyanger aluminium smelter, met with workers’ representatives of Brazilian trade unions on 30 March and 1 April. Martinsen and Fredeagsvik are representatives of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) on Hydro’s 11-member board. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.norsk hydro. sten roar.jpg" width="100" height="150"/>    <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.norsk hydro. billy fredagsvik.jpg" width="100" height="150"/>
Sten Roar Martinsen    Billy Fredeagsvik
The mission, according to Norsk Hydro’s website, was to brief Brazilian workers at a former Vale bauxite mine and aluminium smelter and refinery on the structure and principles for trade union dialogue at Hydro, as well as the impact and significance of the GFA that was signed on 15 March. 
 
In late February, Norsk Hydro concluded the purchase of Vale assets in northern Brazil for US$3.5 billion. Those assets include a 51% stake in the aluminium smelter Albrás in Barcarena, Pará state, 57% of the Alunorte refinery, and a 61% stake in the future Companhia de Alumina do Pará (CAP) alumina plant, which will start up in 2012. A Japanese consortium of 17 companies holds the minority stakes in these companies. 
 
Also, on 30 March, Martinsen and Fredeagsvik met with union leaders at the former Vale bauxite mine Paragominas. As part of the deal, Hydro bought 60% of the 9.9 million tonne mine, as well as other bauxite mineral rights of Vale in Brazil. Hydro will now call its Brazilian mining assets Mineração Paragominas. Hydro will purchase the remaining 40% in 2013 and 2015 for US$200 million in each year. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NorwayFellesforbundet.gif" width="240" height="52"/>    <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NorwayIE.jpg" width="80" height="107"/>
The Norwegian board members also discussed local issues with Pará state workers including access to housing in the rural areas, and health and education. 
 
“This was an important first step,” said Martinsen, “towards establishing the right framework for including our Brazilian colleagues in Hydro’s internal arenas for dialogue, to ensure that the interests and views of all employees in Hydro are represented in the appropriate forums and decision-making processes.” 
 
Added Fredeagsvik, “Through these initial meetings, we have created a solid foundation for further work together. The meetings have been interesting, positive, and highly constructive.” 
 
Besides ICEM and IMF, Norwegian trade unions IndustriEnergi and Fellesforbundet are signatory to the GFA.

Norsk Hydro’s Worker Reps Talk with Trade Unionists in Brazil 

<img height="39" width="100" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" alt=""/>
Bahrain’s authorities and business leaders are retaliating to a general strike led by the national trade union centre General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFBTU) with a campaign of mass sackings, intimidation, and violence against all workers involved. 
 
The general strike was called on 13 March, and ended 22 March, in support of pro-democracy protests in the Persian Gulf island-state. The agreement to end the strike included a promise to GFBTU, an affiliate of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), by authorities that strikers would not suffer repercussions. 
 
Estimates suggest over 1,000 workers will be laid-off during the crackdown, including staff at Alba Aluminum Bahrain BSC, Bahrain Telecommunications Company, Gulf Air, Bahrain Airport Services, and APM Terminals Bahrain at the Khalifa Sea Port. All sackings were due to worker absence during the strike. 
<img height="169" width="140" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.abdul hussain bahrain.jpg" alt=""/>
BAPCO Union President Abdul Ghaffar Abdul Hussain
The president of the union at Bahrain Petroleum (BAPCO), Abdul Ghaffar Abdul Hussain, has been fired for his absence during the strike and also for “inciting workers to strike.” The company has begun legal prosecution of Hussain. BAPCO also fired nine other workers, and is investigating the cases of 230 workers who participated in the strike. 
 
BAPCO union President Hussain was central in the creation of the GBFTU. All employees at BAPCO are now fearful of losing their jobs in the coming days. Absenteeism of BAPCO employees on 16-17 March was 60%. 
 
(See <a type="internal" href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/27.ICEM.Bahrain.6April.pdf ">ICEM's letter to the King of Bahrain</a>.) 
 
Last week, security forces closed down the GBFTU headquarters and are expected to soon call the organisation’s president, Salman Mahfooz, in for questioning. Roads leading to the union office were closed and workers were blocked from reaching the headquarters. Most of those workers had been seeking guidance from their union following their sacking. 
 
The GBFTU website has been shut down. Parliament is calling on the government to immediately refer trade union leaders involved in the strike to the public prosecutor’s office. 
 
All members of the GBFTU executive, spanning all industries, have been suspended from work pending investigations. On top of this cynical multi-faceted attack on Bahrain’s independent trade unions, companies are now planning legal cases against the unions in a further attempt to permanently end their activities. 
 
Over 300 activists have been arrested with many missing and at least 20 killed since protesters took to the streets in February, inspired by popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. The violent suppression of the Bahraini people’s reform protest has been facilitated by armed forces from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. 
<img height="126" width="108" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/People/Somavia.jpg" alt=""/>
ILO Director-General Juan Somavia
This disgraceful attack on core human and trade union rights of the Bahraini people must end immediately, global trade unions say. ILO Director-General Juan Somavia issued a statement on 6 April calling repercussions to the strike “extremely alarming, in particular as the GFBTU had called on workers to return to work and had been given assurances by State officials that they will not face any punitive measures for their participation in strikes.”

Kingdom of Bahrain Retaliates Against Trade Unions for General Strike

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A strike by the ICEM affiliate, Pan-Hellenic Federation of Employees in Petroleum Products, Refineries, and the Chemical Industry (POEPDHV), was extended another week until 19 April. The strike began at Hellenic Petroleum’s (ELPE) flagship refinery in Aspropyrgos on 3 April, and then spread to Hellenic’s two other refineries at Elfsina and Thessaloniki after a judge declared the walkout legal. 
 
Greek oil workers are striking over inadequate staffing levels and safety issues at ELPE’s new refinery units at Elfsina and Thessaloniki, as well as resistance to company plans to curb pay gains and link pay with productivity. The strikes, originally of 10-day durations, came with orderly shutdowns to ensure operational integrity of the refineries is maintained, and with assurances that full safety compliance is followed. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.greek petro strike.jpg" width="240" height="166"/>
On Thursday, 7 April, POEPDHV announced another week of strike action, due to occur 12-19 April. Three days earlier, a judge denied ELPE’s request for injunctive relief in an effort to declare the strike illegal. POEPDHV President Nikos Orfanos said the extension is in full support of the workers’ struggle and on demand from refinery workers. Further bargaining between the union and ELPE is scheduled for 13 April. 
 
ELPE operates three of Greece’s four refineries and controls 50% of the country’s downstream market. The company is 35.5% owned by the Greek government. 
 
The ICEM fully support its Greek trade union affiliate and calls on the company to adequately staff its new refining units for safety reasons, as well as to justly compensate oil refinery workers.

Greek Petrochemical Union Extends Refinery Strikes until 19 April

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An international campaign for the reinstatement of 50 Mexican rubber workers employed by German-based Continental AG, was successful after 22 months. The illegal dismissals on 18 May 2009 were made under the guise of the global financial crisis. The ICEM-affiliated National Union of General Tire/Continental Workers’ Union (SNTGTM), led by General Secretary Alberto Espinosa Rocha, launched a full mobilisation of the union for their reinstatement and to support each sacked worker who chose to fight for re-employment. 
 
The struggle, termed to “Resist One More Day than Continental,” supported especially the reinstatement of union activists Juan Pablo Hernández Lara and Alfredo Calderón and was won one year, ten months, and ten days after the sackings, when 50 colleagues returned to work at the factory in San Luis Potosí, 430 kilometres north of Mexico City. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1006.MexToronto2.jpg" width="199" height="182"/>
SNTGTM Secretary-General Alberto Espinosa Rocha
The members of SNTGTM, through the decision of the union's Congress to wage the fight, supported every worker contesting dismissal, and the union paid them the minimum wage for a worker in the sector throughout the legal process. That income is low, but the faith and support from fellow members was vital. 
 
The SNTGTM and reinstated workers gave special thanks to the ICEM, International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), the United Steelworkers (USW), and the AFL-CIO, for their solidarity and support internationally. The SNTGTM singled out the IGBCE and European Works Council for their important assistance in forcing the struggle onto the agenda of Conti's management meetings. 
 
In recent months, the union has recovered hundreds of jobs and established conditions for increased factory production in Mexico. The SNTGTM is now fighting the proposed regressive labour law in Mexico, which, if enacted, would jeopardize their hard-won achievements.

Victory for Mexican Rubber Workers, 50 Reinstated

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The ICEM Secretariat was stricken with grief on 4 April upon learning of the death of Liv Undheim, former Vice President of Norwegian trade union affiliate IndustriEnergi (IE). Liv Undheim died at 07h00 that morning in an Oslo hospital after a period of illness. She was 61. 
 
She was an ICEM Vice President, representing the Nordic region, and had served on ICEM statutory bodies for the past 20 years, dating to her tenure as an officer of Norsk Kjemisk Forbund, the Norwegian Chemical Workers’ Association. She was the driving force inside ICEM in the development of gender equality and women’s activities. 
 
In a letter to IE President Leif Sande, General Secretary Manfred Warda said her advocacy in this regard made the ICEM a leading Global Union Federation on gender issues. 
 
She began working in an industrial setting in the late 1960s at Figgjo AS, a ceramics and pottery manufacturer near Stavanger. She then became a federal secretary of the Chemical Workers’ Association and served in that capacity for nine years before being elected organisation secretary of the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions (LO). In that capacity in 1997, she also became deputy minister with responsibility for energy issues. 
 
In 2001, she became Vice President of the Chemical Workers’ Association and in 2006, upon the merger of that union with the Norwegian Oil and Petrochemicals Workers’ Federation (NOPEF), she was elected Vice President of IE. She retired in October 2010 but retained the exemplary role she always performed as IE’s head of international affairs. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NorwayIE.jpg" width="112" height="150"/>
She also had served on a number of boards and public bodies, including the research institute FAFO, Norway’s Labour Directorate, the Labour Inspection Authority, and many others. 
 
She was diagnosed with cancer several months ago and in February 2011 was stricken and hospitalised with pneumonia, which prevented cancer treatment. The ICEM’s Warda said she always delivered a great deal of energy and passion to global trade union work, and “we held hope that this same energy and passion would allow her to overcome this illness.” 
 
He added: “Her passing at the age of 61 is a sad moment for us here. The extraordinary work she performed for the ICEM – and for all trade unions – will carry on in her honour. We pledge to re-dedicate the many workers’ issues that she championed in her memory.” 
 
In a statement this week from Oslo, IE President Sande said, “Following her long and devoted service to the labour union movement we all felt with all our hearts that Liv had deserved a long and pleasant retirement together with her dear Elisabeth. The holiday to Thailand was booked and she was looking forward to spending her time reading, travelling and generally enjoying life. Instead she was struck down with cancer, having to spend her last days in a hospital. It seems so unfair. She will be deeply missed.” 
 
Liv Undheim's funeral will be 14 April in Oslo. Following, a memorial and commemoration of her life will be held at IE's offices there.

ICEM Mourns Death of Presidium Member Liv Undheim

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904Labourrose.JPG" width="50" height="65"/>
While basking in world admiration following the successful rescue of 33 workers from inside the San José copper mine, Chile President Sebastián Piñera announced on October 18, 2010, on BBC’s HARDtalk, to a global television audience, that his country would ratify ILO Convention 176 and reform a disjointed national mine safety programme “within 90 days.” 
 
It turned out to be a lie. 
 
Near that 90-day mark in mid-January, ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana and General Secretary Manfred Warda met with senior government officials in Santiago and were told there is nothing on the agenda to reform internal safety standards or to adopt global standards. And, indeed, since there has been no movement inside Chile for reform, except from the trade union federations there who are now working hand-in-hand with the ICEM. 
 
In February, the ICEM organized a three-prong campaign to pressure Piñera to fulfil his promise. Over 4,000 messages were delivered by ICEM affiliates and our friends in the labour movement! The Piñera government is being forced to answer embarrassing questions about why his government has so far reneged on a promise made in the celebratory aftermath of the San José rescue. 
 
The ICEM continues to be optimistic that the Chilean government will remember how important reality is; that the country is only one mining accident away from losing the good-will and technical credibility it won by marshalling a rescue of historic dimensions. 
 
And the Piñera government must face another reality: if it is world-class in any way, it is as a world-class producer of minerals, especially copper, and that means it must develop and implement world-class safe mining practices. So far it hasn’t. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1009.chile.mine.rescue.jpg" width="191" height="128"/>
San José Mine Rescue
In the days just preceding Piñera’s brash HARDtalk declaration, the President fell back on a culture dating to the Pinochet regime. In the commission he set up to investigate San José, no trade union representatives were invited to sit on it. ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention, states that workers and their trade unions shall participate in mine inspections and accident investigations. 
 
At San José, Union No. 2 of Campañia Minera San Esteban repeatedly warned of safety hazards and once even presented a legal challenge to close the mine. But the common refrain from both government and industry when unions warn on safety and health conditions is that the union’s duty is to negotiate economics, not to take part in safety or health matters. 
 
After a miner was killed in 2007, San José was shut for a brief period by SERNAGEOMIN, the National Service of Geology and Mining. But it quickly reopened on orders from another government official who failed to read the closure report, and relied on the owner’s pledge that deficiencies would be corrected. 
 
One such pledge was to install a ladder through a ventilation shaft as a second exit, a standard in Convention 176. That was not done, there were no follow-up inspections, and the lack of a second exit, in fact, led to the 69-day entrapment of the 33 miners. 
 
SERNAGEOMIN is not a health and safety inspectorate. It plays that role, but so do bureaus inside six Chilean ministries. Chile has overlapping safety agencies inside the six that cover all sectors of work. None of them have judicial powers to enforce the few regulations there are in mining and all are without the technical capabilities to inspect and prevent accidents before they happen. 
 
In short, all prerequisites of Convention 176 are missing in Chile: regular inspections, set procedures to report and investigate dangerous occurrences and accidents, trade union consultation, regulatory bodies with the authority to shut dangerous mines, the right to refuse unsafe work, workers’ ability to select their own safety representatives, and employer obligations to provide training. Convention 176 places responsibility on employers to not only remove workplace hazards, but to remove the causes of those hazards. 
 
Despite the Chilean government’s “head-in-the-sand” approach to mine safety now that the cameras and microphones so prominent at San José have disappeared, the ICEM will continue to press Piñera alongside a renewed coalition we have developed with the mineworkers’ federations of the country.

ICEM Will Continue to Press Chile over Mine Safety Standards

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