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The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) voiced fierce opposition to government’s decision to bail out the authoritarian and illegitimate Swaziland rule of King Mswati III. On 3 August, South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced a R2.4 billion (US$354 million, €259 million) loan to the repressive regime to offset revenue shortfalls from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).
“This decision by the South African government to give King Mswati’s regime a financial bail-out is a direct assault on our solidarity efforts to free and liberate the people of Swaziland from this hyena’s tyranny,” said NUMSA in a statement, making direct reference to Mozambique’s 1987 Nkomati Accord with South Africa’s apartheid regime.
Then, African National Congress (ANC) President Oliver Tambo said “our brothers and sisters in Mozambique have hugged and kissed the most hated hyena in the world.”
The South African loan to Mswati’s absolute monarchy comes when all political parties have been banned, trade unionists are jailed, and a bureaucracy surrounding Mswati that has proven corrupt and ineffectual in tending to the needs of the impoverished country of 1.2 million. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party also oppose the loan.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Swaziland.png" width="250" height="115"/>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Swaziland had gone to the European Union, the African Development Bank, and the World Bank for loans but turned down Africa’s last absolute monarchy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has refused to extend credit for what it calls blatant irresponsibility in handling budgetary processes.</div>
The first instalment of South Africa’s loan is to be paid out late this month, the second in October and the final in February 2012. South Africa is to recoup payment over five years through Swaziland’s share of SACU revenue sharing. 
Although there are some conditional requirements to the loan, none are readily transparent. Vague “confidence-building measures” by the Swazi regime, adherence to fiscal and technical reforms by the IMF (reforms that failed in past loans), and capacity-building support by the South African government are listed as those conditions.
COSATU was point-blank in its assessment of South Africa’s loan: “So long as there are no strict conditions to compel the regime to concede democratic reforms and to share the country’s wealth among the people, the loan will simply be used to perpetuate the status quo. Mswati’s lavish lifestyle and the royal family’s extravagance, impunity and lack of accountability will continue unabated, while the conditions of misery for the majority get even worse.”
NUMSA said the loan essentially squanders the “hard-earned money generated through taxes” of South Africans while continuing Mswati’s “order to unleash state terror and starve the people of Swaziland.”

NUMSA Opposed to South Africa’s Non-Transparent Swaziland Loan

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ICEM Belgian affiliate Centrale Générale-FGTB and the chemicals company Clariant made temporary peace over the weekend in a pitched industrial strike by blue-collar workers in Louvain-la-Neuve. In weekend talks between the union and Clariant Benelux, the blue-collar workforce accepted reinstatement of one of two discharged shop stewards and resumption of social dialogue based on trade union rights and safeguards of freedoms, said the FGTB. 
 
Mohamed Loukili and Kemal Bennaceur were sacked by Clariant on 27 July for faithfully carrying out union responsibilities inside the workplace. This weekend’s negotiations won reinstatement for Loukili, while Bennaceur decided earlier to accept a pay-out package from Clariant and depart the company. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1108.clariant settlement.jpg" width="231" height="164"/>
Strikers Surround FGTB Rep Mohamed Loukili at 17 August Manifestation
A 17 August strike manifestation at Clariant plant gates in Louvain-la-Neuve saw 200 workers and supporters call on Clariant to reverse the anti-social sackings. Three days before the annual summer shut-down, managers announced dismissal of the two union representatives. That caused a strike by the entire 45-worker blue-collar unit, a strike that threatened the safety of some 100 white-collar staff when work resumed last week. 
 
The ICEM congratulates the FGTB on winning this important union rights test, and notes it is the second time in a month that Belgium’s Socialist Union has won reinstatement rights for sacked job leaders. It happened at Belgian Refining Corp. (BRC), near the Port of Antwerp, when two union delegates were reinstated through dialogue on 15 July between FGTB-ABVV and BRC managers. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4558-BRC-Belgium-Conflict-Settled-Sacked-Oil-Workers-Reinstated " type="internal">ICEM story</a> here) 
 
Clariant’s chemical plant in Louvain-la-Neuve is part of the Swiss company’s Masterbatches division and produces colour chemicals for inks and textiles.

Union Rep at Clariant in Belgium Reinstated

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Australian union members of three trade union organisations are livid with the announcement that BlueScope Steel will lop 1,400 jobs in New South Wales and Victoria. Members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), the Australian Workers Union (AWU), and the Electrical Trades Union of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (ETU-CEPU) met in Wollongong on 25 August and sternly moved to resist all restructuring until further labour-management consultations can occur. 
 
Today in Canberra, the unions met with Prime Minister Julia Gillard and urged her Labour Government to launch an inquiry into Australia’s manufacturing crisis. 
 
BlueScope, formed in 2002 when BHP Steel was spun off in the BHP and Billiton merger, announced on 22 August that it was shedding nearly half of its Port Kembla Steelworks staff of 3,100 and another 200 jobs at a hot-strip steel mill in Hastings, Victoria. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1108.aussie steel.jpg" width="244" height="160"/>
AMWU’s Dave Oliver (left), AWU’s Paul Howes, ETU National Secretary Peter Tighe (right) at Port Kembla Steelworks, 22 August
Photo: Illawarra Mercury
Last Thursday’s heated union meeting came when workers also learned that senior managers of the troubled company are awarding themselves A$3.05 million in bonuses, including A$721,000 for CEO Paul O’Malley. The company recently posted an operating loss of A$118 million plus an asset write-down of A$900 million, mainly from a rising Australian dollar, high raw material costs, and depressed order books. 
 
The BlueScope job cuts come at a time when booming Australian resource exports are driving up currency exchange rates to the detriment of Australia goods and product manufacturing. BlueScope is chopping 1,200 full-time and contract labour jobs by idling a blast furnace, coking battery, slab caster, and oxygen-based steelmaking vessel at Port Kembla south of Sydney, and the 200 steel-rolling jobs on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. 
 
Speaking at Port Kembla the day BlueScope made the announcement, AMWU National Secretary Dave Oliver said, “The benefits of the mining boom come with very big downsides and 1,400 families have learnt today the hard way about the downsides. “Today is a massive wake-up call for to state and federal governments to take more action on this issue.” 
 
In news interview yesterday, 28 August, before today’s meeting with Gillard, Oliver said the federal government must take immediate action to bolster manufacturing. “I don’t think it’s acceptable that 90% of the gear that goes into a resource project is imported from overseas,” he said. 
 
AWU National Secretary Paul Howes called on the federal government and the Reserve Bank Australia (RBA) also to kick into action. Howes said the Labour government must impose “robust” anti-dumping measures, pressure China to stop currency manipulation of the Yuan, and he called on the RBA to lower interest rates in order to promote Australian manufacturing. 
 
“We’ve got to face the reality of the manufacturing crisis that’s before us,” said Howes. “We can’t accept job losses as the norm and we can’t rely on imported goods in our strategic sectors.” 
 
The announcement of BlueScope’s job losses in Australia last week came a week after steelworkers, members of New Zealand’s Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), downed tools for 24 hours in a protest over outsourcing at New Zealand Steel, a wholly owned subsidiary of BlueScope. Over 850 EPMU members engaged in the industrial action on 15 August at a steel roll mill at Glenbrook, south of Auckland, and at company iron mines at Waikato North Head and Taharoa.

BlueScope Steel Sackings Reveal Crisis in Australian Manufacturing

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A first-of-a-kind collective agreement took root in Germany’s solar energy manufacturing industry on 1 September. It was then that a labour contract took effect between IG Metall and three subsidiaries of Bosch in the state of Thuringia, making it the first collective agreement in Germany’s solar power industry. 
 
The agreement covers 2,500 workers at factories of Bosch Solar Energy AC, Bosch Solar Wafers GmbH, and Bosch Solar Thin Film in the cities of Erfurt and Arnstadt. IG Metal Hesse and Thuringia Region representatives used the effective date of the three-year agreement to distribute leaflets to workers at other solar product manufacturers in central and eastern Germany highlighting details of the Bosch accord. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1109.solar art.jpg" width="267" height="160"/>
Those companies include Q-cells, Conergy, and Solon, to name just a few. It is the union’s hope that the Bosch accord will spur a national collective agreement in the solar manufacturing industry, a sector now encompassing 130,000 German workers. 
 
Labour agreements in renewable energy industries, said IG Metall Regional Secretary Armin Schild, have been “a no man’s land. This agreement hopefully will become the standard throughout the industry.” 
 
Based on the union’s metal sector agreement, this first contract contains a bounty of benefits for workers of the three Bosch subsidiaries. Although it contains no set wage increases over the three years, workers will see their pay increase with regular bonuses, performance-based bonuses, and additional compensation for holiday and night-shift work. 
 
The work week will be reduced with full pay from 40 to 38 hours in increments over the three-year term, and overtime work will either be paid in full or employees have the option to convert that overtime to paid time off. And apprentices completing training are assured of at least a one-year fixed-term period of employment. 
 
The three Bosch worksites are relatively new in Thuringia, with Bosch Solar only opening the massive cell and panel plant in Arnstadt a year ago. The agreement is a trendsetting pact within Germany’s former eastern states and IG Metall deserves high accolades for achieving this milestone.

IG Metall Breaks New Ground with First Accord in German Solar Energy Sector

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A UK defense contractor who reneged on terms contained in a collective agreement last year met industrial action last week. Members of Unite the Union in the London and Eastern Region began an overtime ban and work to rule at the Wattisham Airbase in Suffolk on 7 September against Morson Wynnwith, a contractor for AgustaWestland which manages a fleet of Apache helicopters for the British Ministry of Defence. 
 
The 100 engineers belonging to Unite entered into a four-year labour agreement in April 2010 with Morson Wynnwith, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Manchester-based Morson Group Plc. Part of that accord called for wage parity to occur over the four years with Unite engineers employed by the same company at Middle Wallop Airbase in Hampshire. 
 
The Wattisham engineers, most of whom are ex-military personnel, earn £3,000 annually less than Unite members at Middle Wallop, who service and maintain the same military equipment. Last spring – a year into the agreement – MorsonWynnwith initially offered a 2% wage increase. The military contractor later increased the offer to 2.6%, the same wage increase accepted at Hampshire, and told the Wattisham unit that service and maintenance work done on Apaches at Middle Wallop is more complicated. 
 
Engineers at Wattisham rejected the 2.6% offer in June and immediately passed a strike ballot with a 71-14 vote. Eighty-one workers then voted for job actions short of a strike. 
 
“If these skilled workers had accepted that proposal,” said Region Officer Mark Robinson, “then they would have fallen further behind.” He added that the engineers do not take strike action lightly because they recognize the importance of their work related to the battlefield, but Morson Wynnwith’s backtracking over last year’s forced the issue. 
 
The dispute is under review by UK’s Advisory, Conciliation, and Mediation Services (ACAS) and a report is slated to be issued in October. Unite and Morson Wynnwith are expected to talk next week but if there is no movement by the company, job actions could be escalated. 
 
The engineers at Wattisham Airbase are responsible for maintenance on the Apache helicopter, which the UK Army Air Corp is using in Afghanistan. They do complete servicing and maintenance on each unit of the specialized aircraft after 600 flying hours.

UK Engineers Begin Industrial Action against Apache Helicopter Contractor

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A work stoppage and hunger strike by non-regular coal miners in Bangladesh ended on 6 September, three days after the 1,145 contract workers took up strike action again against state-owned Barapukuria Coal Mine Company Ltd. (BCMCL) and its extraction contractor, the China National Import and Export Corp. (CMC). 
 
The strike originally began on 23 August, but was suspended on 27 August so miners could celebrate the Islamic Eid vacation. In negotiations between the Barapukuria Coal Mine Miners’ and Workers’ Union, BCMCL’s parent, the Bangladesh Oil, Gas, Mineral Corp. (PETROBANGLA), CMC, the country’s Minister of Land, and Dinajpur Province authorities on 5 September, the union won production bonuses and holiday guarantees, as well as assurances that each year 10% of non-skilled workers will see their employment status regularized. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Bangladesh.png" width="280" height="129" alt=""/>
BCMCL, the country’s only operating coal mine, guaranteed that production bonuses will take effect when coal output exceeds 70,000 tonnes per month. The contract miners, employed by CMC through an arrangement with the Xuzhou Coal Mine Group of China (XMC), also won a four-fold increase in festival allowances, a paid three-day holiday period each for two Eid vacations, and 20 kilos of rice per miner each month. 
 
Regularisation of employment, however, was the major achievement in the August-September strike action. Since CMC began operating the mine the mine in 2005, the contract miners were without many social protections, insurances, and pension pensions. 
 
Barapukuria Coal Mine Miners’ and Workers’ Union President Rabiul Islam called the settlement satisfactory, with BCMCL and the Chinese employer accepting a good share of the union’s demands. 
 
BCMCL has a recoverable coal deposit of 64 million tones, of which only 1.13 million tones have been extracted since inception of the mine five years ago. The mine produces thermal coal with the bulk of it transported to Bangladesh’s lone 250 megawatt electric generating plant.

Contract Coal Miners in Bangladesh Win Guarantees with Strikes

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In Chile's northern Region 1, a planned 24-hour strike at the world's third largest copper mine, Dona Ines de Collahuasi, on 2 September did not happen. The 1,500 miners of Sindicato de los Trabajadores, affiliated to the Chile Federation of Miners (FMC), voted the day prior to forego striking when managers extended a satisfactory albeit temporary resolve to the dispute. 
 
That resolve included an adjusted bonus for the last two quarters of the fiscal year, the first half of 2011, of two million pesos (US$4,345) to each miner, and recall of two of the six miners who were sacked for strike activity on 30 July. 
 
The FMC branch Chairman at Collahuasi, Manuel Munoz, told the ICEM that three of the six miners desired not to return to work high in the Atacama Desert, while the union will continue to fight for the rights of the sixth miner. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1109.manuel munoz.jpg" width="183" height="161"/>
FMC branch Chairman at Collahuasi, Manuel Munoz
Dons Ines de Collahuasi, jointly owned through 44% stakes each by AngloAmerican and Xstrata and a smaller share by a consortium of Japanese firms controlled by Mitsui, offered to rehire the sixth miner, but is attempting to deny him several benefit entitlements, including health insurance. 
 
"We will continue to wage a stiff fight for our comrade to ensure that fairness and justice prevails," Munoz reported to the ICEM. 
 
There are several other issues still to be resolved that were behind the 29-30 July strike. They include housing benefits, bonuses based on weather conditions in the extreme altitudes of the Atacama, and a clocking-in, clocking-out process at the mine and copper processing operation that stands as a regression of miners' working conditions. 
 
Labour relations between Dona Ines de Collahuasi and the Mineworkers' Union of Collahuasi have been frayed since the end of a 33-day strike last December. The company filed a criminal lawsuit against the union a month after the strike ended, charging union with libel over items the union posted on its website during the strike.

Collahuasi Miners Partially Resolve Dispute without Striking

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The ICEM has been saddened and concerned by the worst flooding in Thailand for five decades. The flood is causing immediate danger, already killing 350 people, but also is threatening industrial production and the country’s economy as waters creep toward capital city Bangkok. Rough early estimates suggest 400,000 workers will lose their employment, at least in the short term, because of the flooding. 
 
We urge affiliates and supporters to provide all possible relief aid through international humanitarian aid agencies in their home countries, such as the International Red Cross. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ARANYA.jpg" width="214" height="160" alt=""/>
ICEM Thai Project Coordinator Aranya Pakapath
ICEM Thai Project Coordinator Aranya Pakapath’s house is under water after large amounts of water entered the area where she lives on 18 October, she was evacuated by truck that evening. 
 
Roughly one third of all Thai provinces are affected. Authorities are attempting to drain the flood water from areas east and west of Bangkok, out to sea. However the sheer volume of water building from heavy monsoon rains since the end of July have forced authorities to open the sluice gates outside Bangkok and northern parts of the city are now under water.

Thailand Floods Kill 350, Threaten Industry

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Members of the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM) began strike action Honeywell on 10 October at a nuclear parts manufacturing facility in Kansas City, Missouri. The 940 members of IAM Lodge 778 begin their third week today on picket lines at a US government-owned site following a 79% contract rejection on 9 October. 
 
Union members followed that ballot with an 85% strike vote the same day. US federal mediation a week ago failed to resolve differences, but did produce a hand-shake agreement on 18 October in which both sides agreed to refrain from airing the dispute in the local press. Two days later, a manager for Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies LLC. told a television broadcast that IAM members are overpaid and should be satisfied with the company’s “last and final” offer.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.machinists usw.jpg" width="215" height="161" alt=""/>
That offer is a six-year proposal that does contain minimal pay gains in each year, but it also creates a two-tier wage scheme. That pay grid would see all employees hired in 2012 receive less hourly pay and come under a slower pay progression. Such a pay schedule would take new hires five years to reach only 90% of what current workers earn. 
 
Honeywell’s proposal also attacks workers’ health care coverage, making it more costly for union members to have adequate health insurance. IAM Lodge 778 has proposed a four-year contract without the concessions. 
 
The union awaits a decision from the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) declaring the work stoppage an unfair labour practice strike. In the days prior to the 9 October rejection vote, Honeywell management circumvented the union’s bargaining committee by express mailing a letter to all workers, misrepresenting the company’s proposal and urging them to accept the offer. 
 
Such bad-faith bargaining runs counter to US labour statute and if the NLRB does issue a complaint, the strike takes on new meaning. Honeywell operates the US government facility called Bannister Federal Complex and produces non-nuclear components for America’s nuclear weapons industry. 
 
The IAM strike comes a short two months after Honeywell ended a 13-month lockout against members of the United Steelworkers (USW) at a uranium conversion site in Metropolis, Illinois. ICEM reports on that can be found <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4618-USW-Local-7-669-Honeywell-Accord-Takes-Effect-Today-Ending-US-Lockout " type="internal">here</a> and <a href="/en/27-North-America/4527-Steelworkers-Mark-Year-long-Honeywell-Lockout-in-US " type="internal">here</a>.

US Machinists Strike Honeywell Nuclear Parts Plant in Missouri

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The Asia-Pacific Regional Materials Union Network of the ICEM held its third meeting in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on 10-11 October. The meeting was attended by 34 trade unionists from 14 unions in the cement, glass, and ceramics industries of Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, India, and the Philippines. 
 
This meeting agreed to set up a Saint Gobain Network in the Asia-Pacific Region, with affiliates in Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand joining the network. Unions in the region are currently running networks at Lafarge and Holcim in India, Korea, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.vietnam HCMC Group Photo hcm 153.JPG" width="372" height="144" alt=""/>
The meeting was also joined by union leadership from Nippon Sheet Glass (NSG) and Taiheiyo Cement of Japan, who expressed support for networking in their subsidiaries. 
 
The Vietnamese General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) and the Vietnam National Union of Building Workers (VNUBW) hosted this meeting of the Network, supported by the German Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FES). The meeting also welcomed the ICEM Secretariat and the Japanese Affiliates’ Federation (ICEM-JAF). 
 
“I am very impressed with the young and talented union representatives with research capacity and language skills in the region,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “This participation guarantees a positive future for the trade union movement.” 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1110.HCMC Manfred -1 hcm 180.JPG" width="214" height="160" alt=""/>
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda
ICEM Materials Industries’ Officer Phee Jungsun presented major developments and challenges in the global materials industries and profiles on multinational companies. 
 
Participants then gave country reports with pre-arranged survey details on working conditions and occupational safety and health. For the cement unions of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, performance of union activities is still difficult due to weak labour legislation. It was reported that both Lafarge and Holcim hire an increasing number of contract workers – averaging about 60% – with offers of voluntary retirement schemes to reduce permanent workers with long seniority. 
 
The meeting adopted a resolution to support contract workers at Swiss-based Holcim in India, who fight constantly for freedom of association rights. Also, support was extended to workers and unions at Lafarge in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. The establishment of a Saint Gobain Network on the national and regional level is seen to coordinate with French trade union affiliate CFDT-FCE, which heads the Saint Gobain European Works Council. This Asia-Pacific network will work alongside a newly-planned North America Saint Gobain Network and hopefully build toward creation of a global network. 
 
The meeting also received a detailed report from ICEM-JAF General Secretary Yoshio Sato on the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Sato thanked all ICEM affiliates who showed solidarity to Japanese unions by sending messages and donations.

ICEM’s Asia-Pacific Materials Sector Network Meeting Held in Vietnam 

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