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A pipeline project between Chad and Cameroon headed by ExxonMobil has come under scrutiny with a study detailing abuse of workers by two contractors, TCC and Subsahara Services. US affiliate PACE and NGOs the union is working with have brought the issue to the attention of the US supermajor in ongoing talks over human and trade union rights at company worksites. The study says contract workers are not paid for certain social benefits; violations of work rules exist regarding the number of working hours; non-payment to workers who are injured is prevalent; and the firms are absent of plans regarding demobilization, professional reconversion and social reinsertion.

ExxonMobil Stands Accused of Pipeline Abuses in West Africa

German affiliate IGBCE proved instrumental in getting a tyre factory in Mexico reopened. The Continental AG plant in the western Mexican state of Jalisco was closed in 2001, idling 1,400. Working with several NGOs and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), IGBCE convinced Continental to sell the plant to a group of Mexican investors and workers as a cooperative. The tyre plant, now called Western Tire Corp./El Salto Tire Factory, will employ between 600 and 700 workers.

Continental Tyre Plant in Mexico gets New Life Thanks to IGBCE

The Executive Boards of ICEM North American affiliates USWA and PACE voted to merge in January, creating the continent’s largest industrial union with 850,000 members. The merger is scheduled to be consummated in April when the two unions will hold concurrent conventions.

PACE, USWA Unions in US Lay Preliminary Work for Merger

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An oil industry contractor in Nigeria sacking 170 workers because they exercised their right to trade union representation could provoke a strike early next week. ICEM affiliate NUPENG gave a 14-day ultimatum to Outsourcing Services Ltd. and ChevronTexaco to re-hire the workers and correct their miserable terms of employment. The South African firm is doing work for the US supermajor at Escravos, near Warri, and at offshore oil installations. 
The contract workers are paid extremely low wages and “used as expendable mules in Nigeria,” NUPENG said in a statement. “It is repugnant to good justice, fair play, equity and human dignity,” the statement added. Both NUPENG and Nigerian white-collar affiliate PENGASSAN have renewed a strike threat in the Port Harcourt area over the conduct of another contractor, Malaysian-based Wasco. 
The unions want two expatriate Wasco bosses expelled from Nigeria, as well as written apologies issued after the bosses made insulting and derogatory comments during wage and benefit bargaining. That strike could occur tomorrow if company and government actions are not taken.

Contractor’s Unfair Sackings May Provoke Nigerian Strike

Transport and General Workers’ Union (T&G) of the UK termed Royal Dutch/Shell’s profits announcement as “obscene.” Shell made history last week by reporting the largest annual profit ever posted by a British company—£9.3 billion or US$18.5 billion. The massive earnings statement propped up by record oil and energy prices are making many in the UK— including ICEM affiliate T&G—call for a windfall tax bill. “With our pensions in crisis, (Shell’s) profits are 9.3 billion extra reasons for a windfall tax,” said T&G General Secretary Tony Woodley. “The government should grasp the nettle so everyone can benefit.”

UK Affiliate Terms Shell's Profits 'Obscene'

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) is very concerned about the kidnapping of Mr. Moaid Hamed, General Secretary of the IFTU in Mosul. Mr. Moaid Hamed was abducted on 11 February, in Mosul, by gunmen who attacked him and took him away. At the end of January 2005, the president of the IFTU in Mosul had already been abducted for a week, at which time he was severely tortured. Prior to his release on 1 February, he was told to stop his trade union work or be killed. The ICEM demands the immediate release of Mr Moaid Hamed and strongly supports the campaign by the IFTU to end terrorism against trade unionists in Iraq and to organise Iraqi workers into free trade and democratic unions.

Another Iraqi Trade Union Leader Abducted

ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) won a round against global paper and packaging firm Visy Industries when the firm backed off forcing single-site labour agreements at 13 of its corrugated packaging plants in Australia. Visy had offered workers A$1,000 cash payment to accept the stand-alone labour agreements, but AMWU unity and resistance defeated the measure. The two sides agreed on a three-year, 14.25% wage hike covering some 600 paper-converting workers that preserves a system-wide agreement.

AMWU Wins Master Contract for Paperworkers in Australia

In India, a three-day strike by coal mines of the Singareni Collieries Co. ended 27 April, but the union--Singareni Collieries Employees Union-- promised an indefinite strike if the uniform pay increase from India's wage board is not implemented. Strikes at mines in Adilabad and Warangal districts saw 100% support by miners, while other areas such as Khamman and Karimnagan saw somewhat less participation. In total, the 72-hour strike had support from 75% of over 92,000 miners.

Coal Strikes in India’s Mines

Canada's Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) has reached a settlement with Petro-Canada which sets a pattern for about 10,000 CEP members at major oil, gas and petrochemical companies across the country. 
 
The new agreement, announced yesterday, provides wage increases of 9.5 per cent over the next three years - 3.5 per cent in the first year, and three per cent in each of the following two years. 
 
The proposal was accepted by delegates representing workers from coast to coast in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry at a special conference this past weekend. 
 
"We're pleased that we were able to avoid a national strike and obtain an acceptable settlement at the bargaining table," said CEP President Brian Payne. Some outstanding issues remain to be solved in local negotiations, he added. 
 
At the global level, the CEP is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

Wage hike for Canadian oil workers

Efforts to secure a global union-employer agreement for the chemical sector have failed, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) announced today. 
 
Speaking in Washington, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs expressed "profound concern" over "what may turn out to have been a two-year charade masquerading as serious dialogue between the world chemical industry and the ICEM." 
 
Detailed negotiations between the ICEM and the companies' International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) had seemed close to success. Now, however, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) - a major member organisation of the ICCA - has decided to "take no position" on a proposed memorandum of understanding covering health, safety and environmental issues between the ICCA and the ICEM. This seriously jeopardises the prospects of the hoped-for ICCA/ICEM agreement. 
 
The scuppering of the worldwide agreement would pose a particular threat to the chemical industry's Responsible Care programme. 
 
Responsible Care aims to portray the chemical sector as applying uniformly high occupational health and safety and environmental standards wherever the industry operates. It has been the industry's main response to critics of its social and environmental record. Responsible Care programmes have been introduced in many parts of the world, often backed by lavish advertising campaigns. 
 
However, Responsible Care long lacked public credibility. A survey published by the ICEM in December 1997 showed that chemical workers were neither particularly involved in, or even aware of, Responsible Care. 35 percent of the chemical unions surveyed did not know what Responsible Care was. Among those that did, many regarded it as little more than a public relations exercise. One union called it "window dressing." 
 
In February 1999, all this looked set to change. A meeting of the world's governments, chemical employers and chemical unions decided to establish a formal dialogue between the ICEM and the ICCA - notably in a bid to inject some real content into Responsible Care. 
 
Organised by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), the meeting was hailed at the time by the companies and the unions as a major step forward in the promotion of Responsible Care. 
 
Among the ILO meeting's conclusions: 
 
- Internationally comparable systems of performance indicators should be developed and maintained to track chemical enterprises' performance on workplace health and safety and on environmental protection. Workers and their representatives should be involved in the development and use of these systems. 
 
- Workers and their representatives should be actively involved in identifying training and education needs and in designing and implementing training programmes. 
 
At the time, this and the meeting's detailed agreed principles for worker involvement seemed to offer new hope for Responsible Care and the industry's other "voluntary initiatives". The thinking was that careful monitoring by chemical workers and their trade unions, from the workplace right up to the global level, could give more real substance to these programmes and so boost their credibility. 
 
It was not to be. 
 
"We had supposed that the industry was discussing in good faith," Higgs said today. "That was clearly not the case. Whilst I am inclined to believe that those with whom we were negotiating under the auspices of the ICEM/ICCA Joint Advisory Committee were sincere, I am forced to conclude that we were not talking to the real decision-makers and that, furthermore, those making the final decision never had any intention of reaching agreement with the ICEM." 
 
And he left no doubt as to the villains of the piece. 
 
"It is appropriate that I am making this announcement in Washington," Higgs said, "because it is the US chemical industry - or at least one or two powerful voices within it - which deliberately destroyed this international process. The consequences will be extremely damaging, perhaps fatal, for Responsible Care and the industry's other voluntary initiatives worldwide. 
 
"Ironically," Higgs added, "the US chemical companies have made this move at the precise moment when their own reputation is in tatters. The programme 'Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report', televised by PBS here in the States on 26 March, demonstrated just how badly the American chemical industry has behaved in the past, the tactics it uses to silence or neutralise its critics and the widespread public mistrust and anger directed against it. In particular, the progamme chronicles the US chemical manufacturers' very well-funded fight against the 'precautionary principle' for the regulation of toxic chemicals. Long used and accepted in, for example, the European Union, this principle says that, in case of doubt, government regulators should opt to regard a chemical as toxic, thus protecting public health and safety. Due to sustained lobbying by the US chemical companies' trade association, Americans still do not have the basic protection of the precautionary principle. 
 
"When the PBS programme was made, and when we were negotiating with the ICCA, the US chemical manufacturers were grouped in a body called the Chemical Manufacturers' Association (CMA)," Higgs said. "Now, it is called the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Frankly, I'm not surprised that they had to change its name. 
 
"What other ICCA member associations have to decide now," Higgs said, "is whether they want to be identified with the blinkered attitude of their US counterparts. That is, of course, a difficult choice, but unless they isolate the American companies, the chemical industry worldwide will risk a serious loss of social and environmental credibility. Both for labour relations and for the environment, the present political climate in the USA is anything but good. The White House is clearly at the beck and call of America's most reactionary boardrooms. So on chemical safety, as on other issues, the world may just have to get on with its own agenda and, reluctantly, leave the USA to one side for the moment. 
 
"That is the challenge now facing the ICCA," Higgs concluded. "If you want to keep talking to us, if you want to salvage the chemical industry's global reputation, prove to us - now, without any more doublecrosses or doubletalk - that you are no longer the hostages of your most backward US member companies. It's entirely up to you."

US Chemical Firms Scupper Global Agreement

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