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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
An <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4103-Two-Dead-in-Dynamite-Blast-Near-Chile-s-San-José-Mine-Rescue-Site" type="internal">ICEM report</a> from November 2010 told how inexperienced miners with no training detonated explosives on their first day of work inside the Los Reyes copper mine in northern Chile, killing 2. The incident happened only three weeks after the fabled rescue of 33 copper miners and only 70 kilometres from the San José mine in Chile’s Region II. 
 
Now some rather startling facts have surfaced courtesy of an expose on Chile’s mine safety practices in the newspaper El Mercurio. As reported originally, the owner of the company, a Mexican national named Germán Zayas Bazán, fled Chile and within six hours of the 8 November explosion landed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a flight from Chile. 
 
Germán Bazán was in Chile on a tourist visit. His whereabouts now are unknown and there has been no attempt to extradite him by Chile’s government, reportedly because the mine accident is still under investigation. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMminingsector.JPG" width="120" height="120"/>
What is known is that on 15 September 2010, the Los Reyes mine was ordered by the National Service of Geology and Mining (SERNAGEOMIN) inactive. But Bazán somehow managed to get local authorities to reverse the order. At the same time, Bazán was openly advertising in Copiapó and elsewhere, seeking people to work long shifts for high pay, no qualifications required. 
 
The deadly incident happened on the first day of work for three workers, ages 37, 26, and 21, were inside the mine. None had license to handle dynamite, they were without hard hats and mining lights, and the mine was without a fixed telephone line. El Mercurio reported that after the blast, Bazán drove the 21-year-old worker – who lost an eye from an exploding stone – to a hospital and then fled to the Copiapó airport. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Chile.png" width="200" height="92"/>
In new light of safety ills that beset Chile’s mine industry, the SERNAGEOMIN inspector charged with overseeing the mine’s official closure was sacked and the regional director then resigned. Sill in question is how Bazán managed to acquire a deal to sell copper and other metals to Empresa Nacional de Mineria (Enami), a state-owned firm that processes and sells metals. 
 
Separately from Los Reyes, SERNAGEOMIN has acknowledged that only 7%, or 27 of 394 small-scale mines in Region II are operating legally. Currently there is legislation drafted in Chile to reform SERNAGEOMIN. Part of the bill would institute a mining regulator that would be charged with overseeing exploration and mine development plans. The new regulator will have oversight on mine safety too. 
 
In January, the Chile Mining and Energy Ministry did approve a 62% increase in the agency’s funding, which is expected to raise the number of mine safety inspectors across the country from 18 to 45. But with over 4,000 mining operations, that number is far too low and it is still too early to judge the effect revisions in the proposed legislation will have.

2010 Chile Copper Mine Blast Reveals Regulation Gaps

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The already-limited freedoms of association in Iraq are under further attack. Last month, the Cabinet arbitrarily dismissed the executive board of the country’s largest trade union organisation, the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), and established a new committee to take over all union structures and assets, oversee and control upcoming union elections. 
 
Cabinet Decrees 95 and 96 were issued on 17 April, withdrawing recognition of the GFIW and appointing a “Ministerial Preparatory Committee” (MPC), consisting of un-elected, politically bias officials, mostly from the Sadrist Party. MPC employees have already begun distributing union membership cards, arbitrarily choosing members favourable to their faction. Further to this, union offices have been taken over with support from police and military personnel. Upcoming union elections are expected to be held inside the Sadrist Party offices. 
 
The deeply concerning developments follow a recent distribution of government ministries between the various political factions of the coalition. The carving up of responsibilities saw the labour ministry taken over by the small, Shia sectarian Sadrist movement, followers of Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. 
 
Eight years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his regime’s regressive labour laws have not been replaced, meaning all public sector employees have no right to organise or bargain collectively. The vast majority of workers in Iraq are affected by this law. But this latest attack is even in breach of the Saddam legislation. 
 
The TUC in the UK has been on the front line of a global union backlash, calling on the Iraq government to back down. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber wrote to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki explaining that the TUC will exercise its veto right to block the government-nominated workers’ delegate to the ILO Annual Conference (ILC) in June, unless the attack is reversed. 
 
Support the <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=917">Labourstart campaign</a>, and send your protest message to Iraq Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki here. Also send your opposition to this attack on the GFIW to the Iraqi Embassy in your country. International pressure has proved effective in Iraq over recent years. The labour ministry decree has been publicly condemned by the Minister of Civil Society in Iraq. Build the pressure, join the campaign. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.iraq oil workers basra.jpg" width="210" height="158"/>
Basra Oil Workers’ Protest
Iraqis continue to bravely organise in face of the government attacks. Oil workers in Basra last week, 10 May, walked out and threatened to stop production at the state-run South Oil Corporation, demanding fair salaries and benefits to match those of oil workers at the international corporations operating in Iraq. Foreign workers were to be blocked from entering oil fields yesterday, but Basra Governor Khalaf Abdul Samad Khalaf agreed to meet the unions and averted the escalation of the protest, for the time being.

Repression Continues on Iraqi Trade Unions

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The European Trade Union Confederation’s (ETUC) 12th Congress in Greece from 16-19 May adopted the “Athens Manifesto,” calling for necessary financial governance and tax changes in a social Europe. The manifesto also rejects deregulation and flexibility measures as false solutions to the sovereign debt crises hovering over several European countries – including Greece. 
 
Some 500 delegates from 36 European nations attended, with those delegates consisting of representatives from 82 national labour centre federations and 12 continental union federations. 
 
The manifesto states that wages are not the enemy of the economy, but rather the motor of it and that the autonomy of social partners in collective bargaining must be respected. “The ETUC will fight for a European New Deal for workers against austerity governance and for European economic governance that serves the interests of the European people and not the markets,” ETUC said. It places a priority on combating youth unemployment and a priority to improve the working conditions of all European workers. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.etuc congress french woman.jpg" width="200" height="206"/>
Bernadette Ségol
The confederation said: “The ETUC commits to demand effective and stringent regulation of financial markets and ratings agencies and to campaign and claim that fundamental social rights take precedence over economic freedoms and consequently enshrine this principle in a Social Progress Protocol in European treaties, in a revised Posted Workers Directive and in internal market regulation known as Monti II. An action day has been approved to promote the Manifesto's aims.” 
 
The Congress also debated a minimum wage and pay coordination across national borders. Outgoing ETUC Secretary-General John Monks set the tone for the week on opening day, 16 May, by saying, “Austerity is not working.” 
 
In a letter to European finance ministers that accompanied an emergency resolution at the start of the Congress, Monks wrote, “The ETUC calls on you to immediately change course. Brutal austerity, both in terms of public finance and in terms of wages, is not working but instead undermining the economies of countries such as Greece and Ireland.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.emcef delegation etuc.jpg" width="206" height="167"/>
EMCEF Delegation at ETUC Congress
In a secret-ballot election, the longest-serving member of ETUC’s executive committee, Bernadette Ségol, head of Uni Europa, was elected Secretary-General to replace Monks. A French national, she previously worked at the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) and at one of Uni’s predecessor unions, the banking and commerce federation Euro-FIET. 
 
Elected Deputy General Secretaries were Patrick Itschert, General Secretary of ITGLWF and of ETUC-TCL, and Jozef Niemiec, the lone holdover from the Monks era on ETUC’s seven-member Secretariat leadership team. Itschert is Belgian and advocates an ETUC that “turns political developments into actions.” Niemiec is Polish, was an engineer in Krakow and member of NSZZ Solidarność during trade union revival in Poland, and was involved in European integration of his home country. 
 
Elected confederal secretaries were Judith Kirton-Darling, formerly with the European Metalworkers’ Federation; Veronica Nilsson, who worked at TUAC and since March 2010 served as special advisor to ETUC; Claudia Menne, previously with the German DGB national labour centre; and Luca Visentini, from the Italian labour centre UIL. 
 
ETUC statutes dictate a single term for the Presidency of the confederation. Wanja Lundby-Wedin of Sweden thus stepped down and Ignacio Fernández Toxo, President of CC.OO of Spain, was elected President of ETUC for the next four years.

ETUC Adopts ‘Athens Manifesto’ at 12th Congress

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The Independent Trade Union of Miners’ of Ukraine (NPGU) held its Sixth Congress at mid-month in Kiev and besides hearing a 2005 to 2011 report on the union’s activities, the Congress elected governing bodies and adopted several resolutions. 
 
Mikhail Volynets was re-elected President of the Independent Miners Union by secret ballot. The Congress was attended by the ICEM and representatives from the ILO, the US Solidarity Center, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) of Germany, representatives of Ukrainian ministries and departments, deputies of the Verkhovnaya Rada, or Parliament, the leaders of other trade unions of Ukraine. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.volynets akimochkin vp.jpg" width="209" height="207" alt=""/>
Mikhail Volynets (left) and NPGU Vice President Anatoly Akimochkin
Delegates and speakers voiced concern that the new law on Social Dialogue in Ukraine, adopted by the Rada, with many stating that it jeopardizes the gains made over the past 20 years. Specific resolutions of the Congress singled out harmful passages of the Social Dialogue law regarding pension reform and health and safety in Ukraine’s coal mines. 
 
The Congress also resolved to: demand that the state establish a system of preferences for employees who are actively involved in creating safe working conditions and for employers who prove that they maintain a steady level of safe working conditions; demand that the work state mine regulatory agencies do be judged on hours worked without incidents, accidents, and fatalities, rather than on the number of orders, reprimands, and fines issued; demand that public institutions in the field of occupational safety and health should be an integral part of safety and health management systems. 
 
Delegates also called on the Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers not to adopt the draft law on pension reform; develop wage reform aimed at legalizing the maximum wage and to significantly increase the wage proportion in a company's production costs to the level of 20-25% to serve as the basis for calculating pension contributions; eliminate the corruption phenomenon in the extractive industries where the shadow market of coal reaches three million tons per year, and to close coal mining off to so-called “slave labour,” or “Kopanki”; and improve legislation for heightened liability against employers for violating workers’ rights.

Independent Miners’ Union of Ukraine Holds Sixth Congress

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Bargaining in UK’s corrugated paperboard industry concluded this week, with negotiators for Unite the Union and GMB coming to 2010 wage terms with the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI). The CPI, representing major corrugated boxboard and packaging employers at some 50 plants mainly belonging to D.S. Smith, SmurfitKappa, and SAICA, agreed to raise their wage offer from 2.1% to 2.5%. 
 
The offer, if accepted by paperworkers from the two unions in January, will be retroactive to 1 September 2010, the date a prior one-year accord expired. Unite National Officer Peter Ellis said the tentative settlement falls into the upper level of median pay awards in all industries in the UK this year, and Unite’s bargaining panel will strongly recommend acceptance.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.peter.ellis.unite.gif" width="140" height="109"/>
Unite National Officer Peter Ellis
The settlement averts a vote for industrial action, a ballot both Unite and GMB members were about to file for on 10 January. Unite represents 2,500 workers in the corrugated industry, while GMB covers some 800 workers in the industry. 
 
Contract talks began in July, but became bogged down in October when CPI offered a pay hike of less than half of the retail price index. 
 
Meanwhile, Unite and Kimberly Clark reached an early accord recently for 2011, covering 500 workers at two towel and tissue mills, the Northfleet mill in Kent and the Barrow-in-Furness mill in Cumbria. The 2011 pay award, effective 1 February, will be 1.5%, with Unite also winning a lump sum bonus of £1,450. That lump sum will also be calculated into the pension contribution, thus raising the benefit level.

UK’s Unite, GMB Settle Corrugated Paper Talks; Vote to Come in January

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Union members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 9508 in the Canadian province of Labrador / Newfoundland last week voted by 80% to accept the recommendations of a government Industrial Inquiry Commission to end an 18-month strike and return to work. But the conciliatory move won’t get the 124 copper and nickel miners any closer to their jobs. 
 
Their employer, Brazilian-based Vale rejects the report’s recommendations out of hand, findings that were drawn up by a neutral commission the company actually embraced three months ago. 
 
The independent commission presented the two sides with its first report – recommendations to settle the dispute – at the end of 2010. The report’s findings caused Vale to initiate a call to Local 9508 for resumption of bargaining, which occurred in remote Goose Bay, Labrador, on 5-6 January. But the company walked away from talks on the second day after disagreeing with the term length of a renewal agreement. 
 
In talks last October, just days before former provincial Premier Danny Willams established the commission, Vale sought a three-year term, while the USW wanted five years from the August 2009 expiry of the last agreement. In its report, the Industrial Inquiry Commission recommended four years. But in this month’s Goose Bay talks, Vale changed its position, seeking a five-year term from the date of ratification, proposing a 31 January 2016 expiry. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.VoiseyBay.jpg" width="200" height="200"/>
The commission’s report on collective bargaining issues does stand as a workable compromise. While it is critical of both sides for prolonging the strike, it cites the Steelworkers with already making “significant” compromises to end the dispute. The report recommends wage adjustments, a bonus plan based on Vale’s Labrador operations, a back-to-work protocol, and sub-contracting rules. The commission does not have the power to impose a settlement, but it has urged both sides to accept the compromise or submit unresolved issues to binding arbitration. 
 
Most tellingly, however, the report states that Vale’s use of scab workers during the strike is reason for the company’s intransigence. “It is apparent to the Commission that the Employer has an approach that does not contemplate compromise on any basis that might be acceptable to the Union.” 
 
Vale “maintains that it has a desire to conclude a collective agreement, buts its actions and reactions send the opposite message.” The report also cites the company with circumventing “a union’s right to bargain on behalf of its membership.” 
 
Vale is operating its eastern Canadian operations now at full production with the use of replacement workers. But nearly all of those scabs are working in excess of 60 hours per week, creating the obvious safety risks. The Industrial Inquiry Commission’s second report will be issued in late February and it will address the integrity of Vale’s Labrador operations, the strike’s impact on rural communities, the reasons behind the strike, and Vale’s international strategies to re-shape Canadian work-life. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1009.usw.voiseys.bay.darren.cove.2.jpg" width="134" height="130"/>
USW Local 9508 President Darren Cove
The strike by USW Local 9508 began on 1 August 2009, and now has eclipsed by six months a parallel strike by 3,500 steelworkers in Ontario. That strike against Vale, in Sudbury and Port Colborne, went on for 50 weeks and ended on 7 July 2010. 
 
In total, Vale has forced 420 Local 9508 members into strike action in Voiseys Bay and other remote worksites of Labrador. Workers at three of Vale’s contractors, including First Nation electrical and pipefitting firm Ushitou Maintenance and security and catering companies, are on strike due to the mining giant’s recalcitrant positions. In addition, workers of a logistical transport company, Torngat, also represented by Local 9508, will see a collective agreement expire early in 2011. 
 
Local 9508 this week will call on new Labrador/Newfoundland Premier Kathy Dunderdale and Human Resources, Labour, and Employment Minister Darin King to intervene more assertively to resolve the strike. On Saturday, 15 January, the USW purchased a full-page advertisement in a province-wide newspaper the urgent need for further government action. 
 
“It is now clear that Vale is the impediment to a fair settlement,” said USW District Six Representative Boyd Bussey. “It is also clear that, unless our government takes action to bring about a settlement, Vale will continue to use its scab workforce and prolong the hardship for our working families and communities.”

Vale’s Arrogance to Eastern Canadian Miners, Communities, Government Continues

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The attack by U.S. Steel against 900 members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1005 and even more retirees – 9,000 in total – will receive a boost 29 January when thousands of Canadian trade unionists converge on Hamilton, Ontario, for a Day of Action. A lockout was derisively imposed by the American steelmaker there on 7 November after Local 1005 refused to vote on steep cuts proposed in a renewal contract. (See prior ICEM report <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4101-Flawed-Investment-Canada-Act-Again-Seen-in-Steel-Lockout " type="internal">here</a>) 
 
The manifestation, organising by the Ontario Federation of Labour (CLC), will begin with speakers at 13h00 on Saturday, 29 January, at Hamilton City Hall, 71 Main Street West, and then a march will wind through the streets of the city centre. 
 
The lockout ten weeks ago became the latest affront by a multinational to the Investment Canada Act. When U.S. Steel received Canadian government approval to buy Ontario-based steelmaker Stelco three years ago, it pledged to maintain job and production levels. But within a year, it had levied layoffs on USW members at both of Stelco’s mills, in Hamilton and Nanticoke, Ontario, and began supplying Canadian customers with products made in its US mills. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.US Steel March.jpg" width="365" height="123"/>
The Canadian Attorney General in 2009 brought a lawsuit against the company for failing to comply with the Investment Canada Act. U.S. Steel’s obstruction and delay in addressing the suit was set back late last month when a federal appellate court judge upheld the right of the union and other parties to intervene in the breach of the Act. 
 
In bargaining last autumn, U.S. Steel pressured Local 1005’s bargaining committee to accept a two-tier pension scheme in which new hires would be closed off from a longstanding defined benefit plan. The company also proposed de-indexing the pension benefits for retirees, a losing proposition for 9,000 retirees against inflation. U.S. Steel sought as well cuts to active workers’ cost-of-living adjustments, and proposed cutting two weeks of vacation time. 
 
When the steel producer demanded the bargaining committee put the concessions to a vote of active members and union leadership refused, the lockout began. U.S. Steel immediately cut off all health and disability benefits. Under Ontario provincial labour law, a company has the right to mandate a one-time only vote on a final contract offer. But U.S. Steel has not exercised that option, knowing full well that Local 1005’s 2010 contract mobilisation campaign would produce a decisive “no” vote. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/USAUSW.jpg" width="140" height="77"/>
In fact, at a union meeting on 8 December, when a motion was put forward to put the company’s proposals to a vote, a full 90% of Local 1005’s members defeated it. 
 
The union already has received overwhelming support from Canadian unions, including the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Union. At a Hamilton picket line on 5 January, CUPE National President Paul Moist presented the locked-out local with C$10,000, and said, “Defending Steelworker pensions is a fight CUPE and the entire labour movement must be part of. If private sector pensions are eroded, the public sector will be next. 
 
CAW also has contributed to USW Local 1005 and President Rolf Gerstenberger addressed the CAW National Council of Delegates in early December. Gerstenberger called for a nation-wide campaign to resist the growing strength of international corporations in Canada and a political overhaul in order to revamp the loopholes in the Investment Canada Act. 
 
(See the mobilisation call for the 29 January Hamilton Day of Action <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/20110129USSteel.pdf">here</a>.)

Rally Slated 29 January in Canada to Support Locked-out Steelworkers

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Mega sports events, like the Olympics and the World Cup, can have a tremendous positive influence on workers. Too often, however, we hear stories of accidents on construction sites and horrendous sweatshop-like conditions in factories. Workers who build the stadia and manufacture the merchandise suffer behind the glamorous facade of the games. 
The Play Fair alliance, which joins unions and NGOs from around the world, began in 2003 and since then has been campaigning to put workers’ rights on the agenda of the International Olympic Committee and FIFA. Many of Play Fair’s demands have not been met, but the campaign has had some positive achievements. For the London 2012 Olympics all official merchandise must be sourced from factories which pay workers a living wage and provide “regular employment.” Workers in these factories must have access to a complaints mechanism, and grievances must be investigated in a timely fashion. For the first time, the 2016 Olympic bid questionnaire asked prospective hosts to demonstrate how labour standards would be taken into account in making sourcing decisions for licensed goods. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.joint newsletter Eunice Cabral at Play Fair Brazil Launch.JPG" width="132" height="197"/>
In addition to sporting bodies, the Play Fair campaign has been targeting the brands and retailers who supply the team kits worn at sports events. Companies like adidas, which last year paid its board members almost €11.5 million, and Puma, which have a sponsorship deal with Usain Bolt reportedly worth £21 million, yet who refuse to commit to paying workers in their supply chain a living wage. Progress in improving brand practices has been slow, but a significant step forward will be made next month when Indonesian suppliers, their buyers, unions and NGOs come together to sign a protocol guaranteeing unions the right to freedom of association, including releasing an agreed number of union officials from work duties and providing adequate office and communication spaces, and time off for workers for union activities. 
In 2014 and 2016 Brazil will become the first country ever to host the World Cup and the Olympics within two years of each other. Taking advantage of this unique opportunity, Brazilian unions from the construction and textile sectors have joined forces to demand decent work for all those who contribute to the games. 250 people attended the public launch of the campaign on 1 April in front of the main gate of the Maracana Stadium, and the ITUC, BWI, ITGLWF and their affiliates exchanged messages of solidarity. 
The prevalent theme of the messages was a demand that the Brazilian World Cup and Olympics leave a positive legacy based on respect for workers’ rights.

A Sporting Chance for Workers: Launch of Play Fair Brazil

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The ICEM Thai Committee and the Thai Electronics Automobile Metalworkers (TEAM), the structure for IMF affiliates in the Southeast Asian country, joined hands and chanted for labour rights on May Day in Bangkok. They were a major part of a 1 May manifestation at Parliament and march along Ratchademnoen road to Democracy Monument. It drew 5,000 workers. 
It was one of two May Day protests in Bangkok and both demanded attention from the government on some of the same issues. The Thai Labour Solidarity Committee and the State Enterprises Relations Confederation (SERC) joined the ICEM-TEAM work forces. 
Both demonstrations demanded that the government ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98, the core labour standards, and rescind Thailand’s 1999 privatisation laws. The two manifestations also called for Social Secrurity reform in terms of better protections made in administrative reform and tax exemptions on workers’ final payment schemes.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.TEAM.jpg" width="200" height="150"/>
The ICEM-TEAM protest made other, worthy demands including protection for informal sector workers and migrant workers, creation of a specific government agency on job-related health and safety, revocation of the Public Assembly Bill, and allowing workers to vote in areas where they work rather than in their hometowns. 
Many that marched along Ratchademnoen road to Democracy Monument chanted political slogans and criticisms of the current government as the time draws for national elections in Thailand.

TEAM, ICEM Thai Committee March Together on May Day

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What are the main challenges facing women members of the CFMEU? 
In the mining, energy, and petrochemicals sectors there are a very low percentage of women in the workforce especially in New South Wales. In a male-dominated work environment, it is a challenge to encourage women to take jobs in these sectors and then into union positions. 
We have gone through over 11 years of a very right-wing, conservative government that stripped a lot of conditions out of our agreements. For the last two years, we have had a Labour government and we are trying to claw back the things that were lost over that period. 
Aside from ongoing gender issues, one major challenge now facing women is allowances for those coming off maternity leave at Shell. The employer is discriminating against mothers by inflexibility on shift scheduling. Operators work 12-hour shifts, rotating nights and days. Shell’s inflexibility means women do not have the right to become mothers and also stay on their job. 
Can you tell us about the Women’s structure inside the CFMEU? 
Our newly-formed Women’s Committee elected me as Secretary. It consists of three executives, and three rank-and-file members from the mining, forestry, and construction industries. An early priority is to run education and training programmes for women, to encourage women to work in our industries. I was also recently appointed to the Central Council of the central leadership body of CFMEU through a new policy on affirmative action and women’s involvement. 
 
What about unity among women of other trade union organisations?
This has been greatly facilitated by the strong support of CFMEU’s central leadership. I actively serve on the Asia-Pacific Regional Committee of the ICEM Women’s Committee, uniting women workers from India, Pakistan, Australia, and many other nations. 
My long-term involvement in Australia’s Women In Male-Dominated Organisations and Industries has seen a building of cross-sector coordination of industrial women. We are seeking grants for training and education, through the Skills Councils, and looking to run programmes in schools for girls looking at careers in industry. 
 
What is the action way forward for the Women’s Section of an integrated global industrial federation? 
I would like to see a lot more programmes established, firstly on a regional level and especially on issues such as domestic violence. All the problems that we face across the spectrum would be much easier to combat if women were in a position of strength and able to support themselves. The most important priority is training and education for women. Training and education that lead to better jobs, better organisations, increased diversity and seniority inside unions, and increased possibilities for women to escape bad situations at work and at home. Our long-term goal is simply be to have more women being more active.

Interview: New South Wales Energy District Secretary Lorraine Usher, CFMEU

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