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<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
In Namibia recently, a collective agreement signed between ICEM affiliate Mine Workers’ Union of Namibia (MUN) and Namdeb Diamond Corp., the DeBeers, Namibian state joint mining venture, had the rubber stamp of a High Court order. That unusual attribute came because a month-long strike/lockout of 1,600 miners developed into a highly charged and fractious split between labour and management that had Namibia’s top political leaders nervous. 
 
The agreement ending the strike, which began 16 August, and the lockout, beginning 20 August, came 11 days ago and was overseen by the country’s Minister of Presidential Affairs. The next day, High Court Judge Dave Smuts made the agreement a court order. 
 
The agreement calls for the two sides to “dedicate themselves in good faith to rebuild relationships.” It calls for empowering a tripartite commission to investigate and resolve the many issues that surfaced in the hostile dispute, and the accord signed at government house in Windhoek also positively resolves the central issue behind the dispute: housing pay when a mine’s resources are spent and workers are transferred. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NamibiaFlag.gif" width="160" height="106" alt=""/>
The dispute started when Namdeb mothballed the remote Bogenfels mine and denied workers their housing and utility allowances in transferring them to new sites. That occurred earlier this year for a small number of the 1,600 union miners, about 125, and the dispute festered with both sides hardening until industrial action started in August. 
 
When MUN decided to conduct a strike vote, Namdeb yelled foul, saying the vote should not be open to all 1,600. That angered MUN which saw it as an overt intervention into the union’s affairs. Then during talks to resolve the strike/lockout, the company angered miners with a counter-offer granting the housing and utility allowances, but then demanded that miners pay rent in their new locales 
 
The recent peace agreement restores to the 125 transferred workers their housing and utility entitlements, and they will not have to pay rent at their new worksites. The accord guarantees no regressions to a 2009 Work Conditions Agreement. The Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, which worked staunchly over the past six weeks to resolve the dispute, will coordinate the reconciliation commission. 
 
MUN called attention during to the strike the inequity in opportunities between Namibian citizens and expatriates. The union also singled out a top boss for unfairly denying Namibians jobs because he insists on using polygraph tests on applicants. And MUN has accused this same boss of safety neglect in implementing cost curtailments. Namdeb’s largest operation at Oranjemund has seen two years this year. 
 
Diamond output by Namdeb fell off by 30,000 carats of gems during the dispute. Diamond production accounts for almost 10% of Namibia’s GDP and 40% of foreign exchange funds. 
 
Meanwhile, a MUN branch took strike action 23 September against Rössing Uranium Ltd., 69% owned by Rio Tinto. The 950 uranium miners of the Arandis branch passed a strike authorisation vote 19 September and this is the second strike in three months against Rössing over inequitable bonus pay-outs between managers and workers. With Rio Tinto the lead company, the remainder of Rössing is owned by the Namibian government and South Africa’s Development Corp.

Namibia’s Mineworkers’ Union, Namdeb Reach for Olive Branch

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International pressure – both inside and out of Georgia – caused a change of course last week by police and political authorities in the aftermath of the belligerent 15 September strike-breaking at Euroasian Steels in Kutaisi. Not only were over 30 sacked workers offered their jobs back, but police questioned the Indian managing director and two aides at Euroasian, also known as Hercules Steel, on 29 September. 
 
The next day the top boss was sacked. An ongoing police investigation is underway over his conduct inside the steel mill. 
 
In the midst of this positive reversal, the ICEM, however, took deep exception to remarks made last week by the Georgian business ombudsman, George Pertaia. On 6 October, Pertaia said the September strike by workers was manipulated and instigated by ICEM affiliate Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers’ Trade Union “to justify its existence.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.georgia.jpg" width="125" height="166"/>
Polish Solidarnoşç Union Members and ICEM Meet with Hercules Steel Workers, 28 September
Pertaia said that workers at Hercules have individual contracts and had no right to strike. “If the contract is signed, and you have already agreed with certain conditions, then you have no right to refuse those conditions,” he said. 
 
The ICEM reminds Pertaia that global labour standards do exist, including the right to join a union and to bargain collectively. Considering that Euroasian Steels, or Hercules, has no wage schedule in place, no health and safety plan, it pays no overtime, and workers are forced to work mandatory and long work days, industrial action was justified. 
 
The ICEM also invites Mr. Pertaia to examine the working conditions of 130 Indian workers employed at Hercules. They live eight to a room in a dormitory adjacent to the mill, their passports were being head by the managing director, Raji Kumar Sureika, their salaries are sent back to India, and they are given a miniscule stipend to support themselves off the job. 
 
In fact, it is believed that the managing director was sacked and is under police investigation because of treatment of the Indian workers. 
 
On 18 September, three strike leaders – Emilo Gumberidze, Irakli Iobidze, and Malkhaz Gogiava – were rounded up and jailed by police on bogus charges. They were given ten day jail sentences. (A <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4673-Georgian-Trade-Union-Leaders-Jailed-for-Passing-Drug-Test" type="internal">prior ICEM article</a> is here.)  
 
Upon release from the Kutaisi jail on 28 September, the three immediately called Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers’ Union President Tamazi Dolaberidze and pledged their continued support to the union. On 30 September, the new acting managing director of Hercules personally called each of the three to offer them their jobs back. The reversal gave Hercules metalworkers renewed momentum following the strike’s crushing and that registered both with Georgian workers and with Indian workers. 
 
Several points of global and internal civil pressure caused deep embarrassment to the Georgian government. There was high-level diplomatic pressure involved, especially after an international delegation that included the ICEM and top leaders from Poland’s Solidarnoşç union exposed the fact that the Indian workers at Hercules might just be treated worse than Georgian workers. 
 
The strike last month by 200 Hercules metalworkers was sparked after the Metallurgical, Mining, Chemical Union gained written support from a majority of the Georgian workers and then requested labour-management dialogue. After several weeks, the request was ignored and the strike started, including hunger strikes by four workers in front of the mill.

ICEM Rebuts Georgian Business Ombudsman for Remarks over Steel Mill Dispute

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Former ICEM Sub-Sahara Africa Regional Organisation (SSARO) Chairman Rayford Mbulu was named on 1 October to be Deputy Minister for Labour, Sport, Youth and Gender in Zambia. He enters the new government of Michael Sata and the Patriotic Front Party (PF), which won Zambian elections on 23 September. 
 
Mbulu takes the government posting along with the head of the reconstituted Labour Ministry, Fackson Shamenda, former President of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and once the African Regional Secretary of Global Union Federation Uni. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0707ICEMAFConf1.jpg" width="180" height="169"/>
Rayford Mbulu
Mbulu is past President of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia (MUZ), a position he was elected to in 2005 after serving as MUZ Deputy General Secretary in 2004. He left the MUZ late last year after challenging for the presidency of ZCTU. On the day of the election, he was disqualified by the Labour Minister under the previous Movement for Multiparty Democracy Party after his mining employer, state-owned Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), terminated his employment. 
 
Mbulu worked for many years at ZCCM’s Nkana Division. He served as ICEM’s SSARO Chairman from 2007 until his resignation in March 2011. Mbulu also becomes a Member of Zambia’s Parliament from the Kalululushi constituency in the Copperbelt. 
 
On his swearing-in, Labour, Sports, Culture and Gender Minister Shamenda said the PF leadership would work to raise the minimum wage, reduce casualisation of employment, and strive to get better working conditions for all Zambians. President Sata reduced the number of government ministries from 23 to 19, combining some ministries including Sports, Culture and Gender with Labour.

Rayford Mbulu Named Deputy Labour Minister in Zambia

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Contract workers in the oilfields of Colombia are fighting for fair conditions and union rights with multinational sub-contractors and state-run Ecopetrol in eastern departments of the country. ICEM’s militant affiliate Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) is leading the fight on behalf of exploited contract workers and has recruited over 4,000 workers since July. 
 
A solidarity caravan sets off today from capital Bogotá to a major rally at the Campo Rubiales oil sites. Tomorrow the caravan will hold a forum in Puerto Gaitán with discussions to cover trade union rights across the sector in Colombia and the history of the current struggle. The caravan will then spend 12 October visiting various oil fields of Puerto Gaitán. On 14 October, the alliance of national and international trade union groups will return to Bogotá and hold a large action in the capital, bringing attention to the campaign. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Colombia.USO.jpg" width="120" height="130"/>
Contract workers cut oil production by 25% by blockading major roads in Puerto Gaitán 18-21 September and forced Colombia’s Interior Minister to the table. 
 
The grievances aired by staff of oil service subcontractors include poverty wages, sub-standard housing, poor sanitation, poor transport, degrading treatment, all imposed on a workforce precariously employed on fixed-term contracts for two-to-three years. Conditions in workstations in the oilfields around Puerto Gaitán are described as similar to concentration camps. 
 
The campaign has achieved recent improvement from Pacific Rubiales, the company agreed to fill 100% unskilled positions with local people, to build 3,000 housing units, and donate US$1million to a local hospital. 
 
Significantly workers and local communities have been united in protest to great effect, targeting specifically the environmental degradation taking place, high local unemployment with many jobs not filled by area residents, and a lack of social investment in local health and education. 
 
Guilty companies include Canadian-based Pacific Rubiales and Petrominerales, Cepcolsa, a subsidiary of Spanish-based CEPSA, and 90% state-owned Ecopetrol itself. Pacific Rubiales is funding a large disinformation campaign labeling USO trade unionists as "armed criminals, forcing work stoppages." 
 
Canada’s Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union and USO have formed a united front, adding leverage against the Canadian-based multinationals.

Colombian Oil Workers Continue Battle for Rights, Solidarity Caravan 10-14 October

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Under strong intimidation and threats, 6,500 workers at the government-owned Mahshahr Bandar Imam Petrochemical complex, in the South-West of Iran, took strike action on 28 September, demanding an end to management’s use of subcontracting firms at the plant. Workers’ rights are continuously undermined by intermediary companies, in a familiar pattern seen around the world. Workers are not directly employed by the factory where they work, and so are unable to bargain collectively with management, forced to work in substandard conditions with low wages and allowances, all based on precariously temporary contracts. 
 
Workers at the Tabriz petrochemical company at the plant conducted an 11-day strike in March this year on the same demands. That strike was suspended after an empty government promise to respond to workers’ demands within three months. While CAL workers do not receive their production and efficiency bonuses, their contract agency collects those benefits. Despite of management threats and arrests of union activists, the union is committed to continuing the action until their demand is met. 
 
On paper, the management has supposedly committed itself to eliminating the subcontracting firms for some time but its actual implementation in most facilities is yet to happen. 
 
The Free Union of Iranian Workers reports that on the seventh day of the strike, three oil workers were summoned to the security office and immediately put under arrest. These were Mansour Abbasi, a worker with the Khawrazmi subcontracting company and a workers’ representative; Mohammad Bagher Bagheri, worker at Fars Industries contracting company and a workers’ representative; and Jasem Bandarani, another worker at the Khawrazmi subcontracting company. The arrests followed protest rallies near the main offices of the petrochemical complex which included marches and chants. The three arrested workers have since been released. 
 
Reports suggest over 70% of Iranian workers are employed on temporary contracts, with no job security. Many other shocking abuses are reported, from poverty wages often beneath the low minimum wage, non-payment of salaries for up to 18 months, extremely dangerous working conditions, and little to no legislative protections.

Iranian Petrochemical Workers Strike, Demanding Elimination of Subcontractors

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Seventeen Chinese miners died last week at the Anping coal mine in southwest Guizhou province, as a new wave of coal mine explosions, cave-ins, and floods hit the country’s mining industry. The latest happened at the Anping mine in the Lihua township of Libo county, when an early morning methane gas blast happened on 4 October. 
 
There were 28 miners in pits at the time of the blast. Thirteen died instantly, while rescue efforts pulled 15 from the mine. Four died in a hospital within a day following the explosion. The mine is owned by privately-held Liuzhou Zhengling Group Ltd., a machine tool manufacturer based in the autonomous Guangxi Zhuang region. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Mine Entrance.jpg" width="221" height="160" alt=""/>
The mine only started trial production in June and initial conclusions found that safety rules had been breached and inadequate measures were practiced that failed to relieve the build-up of methane gas. 
 
On 25 September, at least five miners died when a shaft collapsed at a mine in Yunnan province owned by the partially stated-owned Yunwei Group of Yunnan Coal Chemical Group Ltd. The cave-in happened at a colliery near the city of Qujing. Twenty-three miners were working at the time of the collapse, with 16 escaping and only two of the seven who were trapped managed to be rescued. 
 
And on 16 September, ten miners died in flooding at a mine in Shanxi province owned by the China National Coal Group. Official Chinese statistics for the first seven months of 2011 reveal 1,083 mine deaths. The Chinese state said there were 2,433 fatalities in 2010 and 2,631 in 2009, although the real number of mine deaths is thought to be many times more because thousands of mine deaths go unreported in China.

Coal Mine Accidents Raise Death Toll in China’s Collieries

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ICEM Austrian affiliate PRO-GE and GPA djp, the Salaried Employees, Print, Journalism, Paper Union, sent stern warning last week to metal and industrial employers on 2011 wage packages. After second round bargaining failed on 12 October to close pay differences, workers surprised the industry by launching one-to-three hour warning strikes the very next day. 
Some 300 Austrian employers witnessed workers’ reaction last Thursday to the bosses’ proposal of a miserly half-percent above the 3.1% offer tabled in the opening round on 4 October. The strikes escalated on 14 October when the unions targeted 60 employers for 24-hour work stoppages. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.pro ge.jpg" width="160" height="160"/>
PRO-GE and GPA djp are negotiating on behalf of 170,000 metal, mining, and energy workers in Austria. Workers and their unions are steadfast that 5.5% is due them on 1 November. Their rationale is that productivity gains combined with healthy balance sheets and a September inflation rate of 3.6% warrants nothing less than the 5.5%. 
“We know that the money is there,” said PRO-GE Chief Negotiator Rainer Wimmer. 
PRO-GE and GPA djp have laid down a precision perfect strategy of rapid mobilization keyed on bargaining developments, or non-developments as was the case last week. The unions held hundreds of meetings with workers inside companies from 5-7 October after first round talks went nowhere, and then they held 400 mobilization meetings on 10-11 October in preparation for the 12 October second round. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.pro ge reiner.jpg" width="105" height="160"/>
Rainer Wimmer
Going into Friday’s escalated industrial actions, leaders of the two unions offered to continue talks over the weekend but a shell-shocked employers’ association representative would only say that 20 October is the next scheduled bargaining date. That means more job actions are likely to occur early this week, with the ICEM learning that the number of enterprises in which workers chose strike actions last week grew exponentially. 
Industrial workers realize that a 5.5% wage increase is fair compensation for inflation and a fair share of the expected 2011 economic growth of 3% that has been brought on by industrial productivity. In 2009, during the height of the financial crisis, metal/industrial negotiations produced a 1.45% salary increase, while in 2010 that increase was 2.45%. Now, Austria is posting strong export numbers and purchasing power during the first half of 2011 is on the climb. 
In a joint statement, Wimmer and GPA djp Deputy Federal Director Karl Proyer said, “The fact that sustainable wage and salary increases are economically viable means that we can further support and strengthen purchasing power, thus boost the economy of Austria.” 
Just some of the workplaces where 24-hour stoppages took place on Friday include the engine-maker MAN in Steyr, Opel assembly at Aspern Airfield, Opel powertrain at Donaustadt, Schindler-Aufzüge in Vienna, Doppelmayr chair lifts in Wolfurt, Bosch in Hallein, Magna car parts in Steyr, Andritz AG in Graz, and Salinen AG salt mines in Ebensee.

Wage Shame Drives Austrian Metalworkers into Warning Strikes

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By a 61% vote on 15 October, members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1005 in Hamilton, Ontario, ended U.S. Steel’s total chokehold on the livelihoods of 900 Canadian workers. Union members accepted a three-year labour agreement that ends a 49-week lockout at the steel mill. 
 
The agreement means workers will begin returning to jobs tomorrow, 18 October, for week-long health and safety training. The new pact is not altogether satisfactory because it creates a two-tier pension scheme with new hires placed in an inferior plan, and it ends cost-of-living indexing for 9,000 retirees, a key issue in the 14-month dispute.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.us steel. bill mahoney.jpg" width="218" height="163" alt=""/>
U.S. Steel pressured steelworkers into submission by first imposing the lockout on 7 November 2010, and then supplying its Canadian customers from the former Stelco mill in Hamilton with finished steel from American mills. In the end and after nearly one year, most of Local 1005’s members were on the verge of losing unemployment insurance funds, which coupled with the USW’s C$200-a-week strike benefit gave workers about two-thirds of their normal income. 
 
The agreement contains a C$3,000 ratification bonus, to be paid within 60 days of Saturday’s vote, and it also includes a lump sum pay-out of C$1,000 to retirees taking in less than C$1,500-per-month in lieu of annual pension indexing. Active workers will also see reduced cost-of-living annual increases. 
 
A profit-sharing plan for active employees will be implemented in the fourth quarter 2011. It will come from a pool of money totalling 6.5% above C$25 million in earnings from the Hamilton Works and could mean an added C$3,500 in income per worker. Union members will receive credited service for the 11 months of the lockout, meaning some workers will be closer to taking retirement. 
 
All workers will be recalled and they will be guaranteed 26 weeks of employment at 40 hours per week. That countered a U.S. Steel proposal from mid-September in which the company sought call-back language that would have left many workers without jobs long after ratification and the end of the lockout. 
 
In the new agreement, which takes effect today, new hires will not be included in the existing defined benefit pension scheme and placed in a union-administered plan that will see U.S. Steel contribute C$2.50-per-hour worked. 
 
On USW Local 1005’s website, union leaders said, “We have made a huge effort so that the members can make an informed vote on whether to accept or reject this contract. We wanted to ensure that they are fully aware of the situation they face and of the responsibilities towards not just themselves and their families, but also towards the retirees, the future generation of workers, their union and their community. This whole process has shown that there are serious challenges facing us going forward.”

Canadian Steelworkers Ratify U.S. Steel Pact, Lockout Ends

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ICEM affiliate Ammattiliitto Pro, the trade union of salaried workers in Finland, and Metalliliitto, the country’s Metalworkers’ Union, began a first wave of strike action this morning across Finland. Some 32,000 workers – 25,000 metalworkers and 7,000 represented by Ammattiliitto Pro – are on full work stoppages at 45 targeted companies. 
 
If national conciliation again fails next week and the days that follow, metalworkers and salaried staff at another 35 companies will join the strike on 7 November. Overtime bans are now in effect across Finland’s metal and technology sector covering 200,000 workers, including 10,000 members of the Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff (YTN). That union of top-level supervisors is expected to join the strike on 1 November if no deal is accomplished. 
 
“The strike is running well so far,” said Pro Vice President for the Industrial Sector Markku Polokangas, the salaried staff’s lead negotiator. “The amount of pressure on employers will increase in the coming days, we are certain.” Polokangas also said the union is organising support strikes among Pro’s membership in other sectors, such as telecommunications and chemicals. 
 
The two unions and the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, or Teknologiateollisuus, the employers’ federation, were in marathon mediation sessions with National Conciliation Esa Lonka throughout the week. The latest session broke off last night and Metalliliitto's 38-member Council gave a near-unanimous mandate to begin the strike.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/FINLAND Metalli.jpg" width="100" height="102"/>
Ammattiliitto Pro’s membership had earlier given leadership of the union a mandate for strike action. 
 
Although the two sides are in general agreement with the 4.3% wage increase over two years that Finnish social partners agreed to on 13 October, major discord in metal and tech negotiations center on how that amount will be split. Finnish employers want discretion on paying some workers far less than the 4.3%, while the unions want the increase given to everyone across the board. 
 
Another difference is over a three-day yearly training and education period. Employers seek the discretionary right to award it, while the unions want it across the board. Tied to that is the manner in which workers age 55 and above will receive the three-day training allocation. 
 
Among just some of the 45 corporations that saw strike action taken against them this morning at 06h00 were ABB, Boliden, Kone elevators and Kone cranes, the mining concern Talvivaara, the Metsa set of engineering companies, iron and steel maker Rautaruukki, Sandvik Mining and Construction, Valmet Automotive, Outotec, Patria aerospace and land companies, and Ruukki Metals and Engineering. 
 
On 7 November, among 35 other companies expected to join the strike will be a large number of workers employed by the Nokia-Siemens joint venture called NS Network.

Strikes Begin in Finnish Metal, Technology Sector

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Unions organising employees of the world’s largest coal producer, Coal India Ltd., achieved a significant hike in profit-linked annual bonuses for 300,000 members on 17 October. The annual bonus for permanent employees will now be INR21,000 (US$438), up from 17,000. 
 
Negotiators also achieved a bonus for contract and agency workers, who have never before received bonuses at Coal India. Unions compromised on their original 23,500 INR demand. 
 
The settlement, which also includes an INR1,000 INR Diwali gift to all workers, avoided a proposed three-day strike last week. 
 
When negotiations broke down at earlier stages, all five trade union confederations in India, INTUC, BMS, HMS, AITUC and CITU, jointly organised large actions, and jointly backed strike actions. Strong unity throughout the campaign is a positive development for all Indian workers. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/B. K. Das.jpg" width="108" height="178" alt=""/>
INMF General Secretary B. K. Das
Talks were brokered by the Indian Coal Minister, between Coal India, and the ICEM affiliate Indian National Mineworkers’ Federation (INMF) and other unions, following a concerted campaign which included a one-day strike by 300,000 miners on 10 October at eight coal producing subsidiaries of Coal India. In reaching settlement, all parties agreed to seek to finalise negotiations for the next national annual wage agreement by 31 December 2011. 
 
Coal India’s decision to reward shareholders with a 39% dividend pay-out on profits strengthened the workers’ resolve with all 400,000 employees standing to share only 13% of all profits. 
 
Coal India is India’s largest employer. Last financial year, it posted a 12.9% (US$2.4 billion) jump in net profit. 
 
There was more positive labour news in India on 17 October, as the government’s Minister of Labour and Employment, Mallikarjun Kharge, told the Standing Labour Committee in New Delhi that the Labour Ministry is making efforts to extend all benefits now available to permanent workers to contract workers. Specifically, unions campaigned for amending the Contract Labour Act of 1970 so that contract workers would be automatically absorbed into permanent employment, especially when contract labour is blocked. 
 
The Minister also gave positive indications on the need for a National Labour Code for minimum wages, maximum hours of work, and minimum standards of safety and health at the workplace.

Strike Averted as Indian Coal Miners Win Improved Bonuses

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