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<p>Copper miners in the US states of Arizona and Texas, represented by ICEM affiliate United Steelworkers (USW) are on strike against Asarco, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Grupo Mexico. Some 1,200 miners struck a pair of Asarco’s Arizona worksites 2 July, just after their collective agreement expired, and another 350 struck at mine and processing sites in Arizona and Texas last week in sympathy. Their contract had expired 30 June 2004. Grupo Mexico is demanding a wage freeze and pension and health care benefit reductions at a time when copper prices are at a 16- year high. </p>
<p>The company has told markets that 100,000 to 125,000 tonnes of processed and contained copper will be reduced from world supplies due to the strikes. The company has turned down requests by the union for bargaining to resolve the young strikes, and the USW has filed numerous unfair labour practice charges with the US labour board over the company’s lack of bargaining and harsh reprisals in the workplace against trade unionists during bargaining.</p>

Steelworkers in Southwestern US Strike Copper Holdings

A gas explosion early today in China has killed three and left 81 missing. The incident occurred at the Shenlong coal mine in Fukang city,Xinjiang province. Last week, two separate mine catastrophes killed 18 in China, and the week prior, a mine explosion killed 19. On 7 July at a licensed mine in Chishan township, Jiangxi province, a flood trapped 15 miners. A day earlier, three miners were killed due to a gas combustion explosion. That accident was at the Wangzifen coal mine in Chifeng city, North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region. On 2 July, 19 of 24 miners working at the illegal Jiajiabao coal mine in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, died after a gas explosion rocked the mine.

Gas Blast in China Kills 81

As InBrief reported on 1 March that USWA was about to win its second card check organization with Goodyear, a majority of 350 workers at a plant in Asheboro, North Carolina, did choose the US’s leading steel and rubber union for representation. Per terms of the collective agreement between USWA and Goodyear, an independent arbitrator ruled 12 March that a majority did want the union. Goodyear manufactures steel wire for truck tyres at the plant.

USWA Wins Unionisation for Goodyear Workers through Accord

Fallout over miners’ drinking water that had been used for processing uranium ore in Australia’s Northern Territory continues some three weeks after a Rio Tinto subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., wrongly fitted a pipe with the contaminated water into drinking water supplies. Several workers at the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park drank and showered in the water 23 March and were taken ill. The mine was closed as 150,000 liters of contaminated water 400 times the legal limit made its way into safe water supplies. Affiliate CFMEU is monitoring the health crisis at Australia’s largest uranium processing site.

Rio Tinto’s Water Contamination Makes Australian Workers Ill

Australian oil workers are battling the world’s largest energy concern to preserve a family’s way of life. Members of ICEM affiliates Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and Communication, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) were informed by Esso, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, and its contractors working the Bass Straight oil rigs off Victoria that it would shift to a two-week on, two-week off schedule, replacing the current seven-day roster. The unions are resisting the change. Contractors are seeking to terminate the enterprise bargaining agreement through Australia’s Industrial Relations Commission. The contract for oil rig workers expired last year and contractors backed by ExxonMobil refuse to discuss issues until workers agree to the 14 continuous days away from families.

Australian Affiliates Resist ExxonMobil’s Shift Changes

A near-fatal death attempt in Colombia on the life of another trade union leader occurred 2 March. Rafael Cabarcas Cabarcas, a key leader of ICEM ally Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria Del Petróleo (USO), was seriously injured when assassins riding a motorcycle opened fire on him and a bodyguard outside Funfedhin Institute of Education in Cartagena. A bullet entered the neck of Cabarcas and lodged in his jaw, while the bodyguard was shot in the abdomen. Cabarcas had been a member of the National Executive of USO during last spring’s successful strike against Ecopetrol, a strike in which ICEM spearheaded international support and attention. USO had warned the government of death threats against its leaders since the end of that strike and despite the fact that the Organisation of American States had recommended security tighter measures for USO leaders, none were put in place.

Assassination Attempt on Colombian Oil Union Leader

Australian affiliate CFMEU sent a clear message to the Howard government last week on how it would resist proposed radical industrial relations reform: together with the Maritime Union, it dispatched 400 trade unionists from Perth to Collie in Western Australia to support striking construction workers at BHP Billiton’s new Worsley alumina refinery. Throughout February, strikers—including CFMEU members and members of ICEM affiliates Communications, Electrical & Plumbing Union (CEPU) and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU)—downed tools over pay and dispute over their classification as individual contractors under the federal awards system, a system already denying them basic workplace rights. Under the proposed Howard reform plan, among other regressive measures, such individual workers could be sued for taking strike action. Last week’s 200 km solidarity caravan to Collie convinced two of BHP Billiton’s site contractors to settle the pay dispute and if another agrees to the higher pay, construction workers could be back to work early this week.

CFMEU Will Resist Howard Government’s Labour Reforms

Canadian nickel mining concern Inco Ltd. has caused a labour dispute at a mine and processing operation at Saroako on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The company sacked 250 workers on 25 January and has refused dialogue with the legitimate union, FSP KEP, the Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union affiliated with the Indonesian Trade Union Congress. Although none of the workers are members of SPSK, a rival, former Suharto-aligned union, Inco contacted this group on the reductions in efforts to undermine FSP KEP. The ICEM will continue to investigate Inco’s unfair treatment of the miners and FSP KEP.

Dispute Caused by Canadian Inco Mining in Indonesia

A 15 March manifestation in Paris over Total’s decision to cut jobs at a petrochemical plant in Saint-Auban, Alpes-de-Haute Provence, has pushed the company off rationalisation of its Arkéma subsidiary. Total’s plan was to cut 548 jobs, 380 of them at the plant in southeastern France. ICEM affiliate FCE-CFDT, along with CGT, took action with workers of the subsidiary in Paris and the company suspended the plan. Worker representatives and managers at the 1,000-worker Saint-Auban plant will now sit down to examine worker proposals for costs savings. FCE-CFDT predicted economic disaster for all workers in management’s restructuring had occurred.

French Strike Cancels Total’s Chemical Plant Restructuring

Members of UK’s Transport & General Workers Union at Michelin’s Stoke tyre plant in the Midlands are in their 11th day of industrial action following the French company’s refusal to consolidate a pay offer with pension, holiday and other benefits. The 400 workers rejected a non-consolidated pay offer 10 March for the second time and are refusing overtime and all cooperative programmes with management. Tying the pay offer of 3% also to pensions and other benefits would cost Michelin less than the revised offer the company made last week that included performance-related payments, said T&G. Workers staged a mass protest outside the factory 15 March, the same day Michelin announced its 2004earnings topped those of 2003 by 60%, £ 358 million to 220 million.

Industrial Action at Michelin in the UK

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