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Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union National Secretary Andrew Little said New Zealand’s current high growth, healthy company profits, and a tight skilled-labour jobs market make “the perfect conditions for wage growth.” In calling for more and better levels of collective bargaining, Little said with economic growth nearing 4%, “working people should be getting pay raises of at least that much. Instead, they’re getting 2.5%.”

EPMU Charts Wage Growth Course in New Zealand

The framework accord reached in May between South African affiliate NUM and Harmony Gold Mining Ltd. Was broke last week when the firm refused to budge on its initial stand of sacking 5,000 workers at six mine shafts. “Clearly, Harmony is not interested in savings jobs but wishes to wait out the situation by mothballing shafts until the price of gold improves,” said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe. “Their emphasis is more on cost-cutting and efficiency improvement, going against the framework we developed on jobs.” The union has declared a dispute with Harmony through a formal letter to the company and the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration

NUM marches over Job Retrenchments in South Africa

German and French unions are teaming up to block the hostile takeover of German-French pharmaceutical Aventis by French rival Sanofi-Synthelabo. Hubertus Schmoldt, president of German IGBCE and Patrick Pierron, general secretary of the French union FCE-CFDT, oppose the hostile takeover. They fear massive job cuts in both countries will result, and jointly expressed disdain over how the takeover was set up. “A hostile takeover such as this is counter-production to the stock market. There are hardly any winners with such actions, but certainly plenty of losers,” the two unions said.

French, German Unions Resist Aventis, Sanofi Chemical Merger

Local unions of the CEP in Canada ratified a five-year labour accord last week with Abitibi-Consolidated, thus giving the union a pattern for 25,000 other paperworkers in eastern Canada. The 2,500 union members at Abitibi’s 13 mills won better pension formulas effective upon ratification and again in 2005 and 2009. In addition, the pact provides for an unreduced pension at age 57 and continues an indexing formula for retirees. Wage gains amount to 11% over the term, and job security provisions protecting CEP members from losing employment due to outsourcing work were achieved.

Paper Pattern Established in Canada by Affiliate CEP

The Philippine Cement Workers Council (PCWC) has joined with the country’s Department of Trade and Industry in efforts to overturn a Supreme Court decision nullifying safeguard tariffs on imported cement. The High Tribunal ruled 12 July against the legal measure put into effect late last year, which guarantees mechanisms protecting industries from cheap imports. Institution of such mechanisms is sanctioned under the WTO. PCWC Gen. Sec. Samuel Eslava said the safeguard measures saved jobs and “paved the way for industrial peace” in the Philippines.

Philippine Cement Workers Council Seeks to Preserve Tariffs

A mining accident at the shuttered Shinkolobwe uranium mine in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 30 when a roof collapsed. The mine had been closed for decades, but that hasn’t prevented small-scale, illegal mining for colombo tantalite—or coltan, the valuable mineral used in mobile phones and computer chips—from continuing. ICEM Congolese affiliate FENAMICO has condemned the practice and has called for a full-scale investigation of the 9 July tragedy.

Illegal Uranium Mine in Congo Collapses, Kills 30

That accident was on the agenda and received discussion at the founding conference of the International Nuclear Workers’ Union Network (INWUN) at ICEM in Brussels 25-26 August. The independent network adopted a fees structure, passed bylaws and statutes, and elected officers. Those elected were Dave Shier, Power Workers Union of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (PWU-CUPE), president; Irina Micu, Energy Trade Union, Romania; executive vice president; Paul Reece, PWU-CUPE, general secretary; and Roland Glibert, Belgian Confederation of Executives and Management Staff at Belgonucleaire, Belgium, treasurer.

Independent Nuclear Network Elects Officers

In a signal victory for Australian miners' union the CFMEU, workers from the closed-down Oakdale mine are now to receive the A$6.3 million owed to them in entitlements. Reached on Tuesday night, this decision follows a 24-hour nationwide coal strike last Friday over the Oakdale case. 
 
The pay-out marks a major about-face by Australia's right-wing federal government. The money is to come from the industry's existing centralised long-service leave fund. The government had been intending to abolish this fund and hand all the money in it back to the employers. This policy was part of its plan to make all such provisions "enterprise-based", and therefore dependent on employer patronage. 
 
Oakdale closed in June after its owner was declared insolvent. Entitlements owed to the miners there included accrued sick leave, annual leave and redundancy pay. In such situations, Australian employees are regarded as unsecured creditors. Often, they receive only a few cents in the dollar after all assets have been sold and secured creditors paid. 
 
Following the outcome of the Oakdale case, there are now proposals for some kind of national scheme - perhaps insurance-based - to stop the same thing happening to other workers in other industries. 
 
Overall, this is a major victory for the labour movement, and a particularly big win for the CFMEU, which at the global level is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The biggest loser is Peter Reith, Australia's union-bashing Minister for Workplace Relations. The strike forced him into a very public climbdown, and his conservative colleagues now feel that his anti-union crusade has substantially damaged the government's standing with the electorate. 
 
As Kim Beazley, leader of the opposition Labor Party, pointed out, it took a strike costing A$33 million in lost output to convince the government to allow miners access to 6.3 million dollars' worth of owed entitlements.

Australian Miners' Victory: Strike Forces Debt Pay-Off

Venezuela's new emergency decree has been roundly condemned by twelve labour internationals representing more than 120 million workers worldwide. 
 
Measures in the decree adopted by the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly include: 
 
 
- the complete dissolution of national and regional trade union confederations and federations 
 
- the annulment of trade union leaders' mandates 
 
- a ban on union leaders' travelling abroad 
 
- a 90-day suspension of election processes within all labour-related bodies 
 
- the seizure of trade union property and assets. 
 
 
In a joint statement issued in Panama on 16 August, the union internationals stress that the measures are a flagrant violation of the Conventions of the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) and also breach UN and Interamerican treaties on basic human rights. As the unions point out, the decree "contradicts in every respect" the "great transformations that the Venezuelan government plans to undertake in order to steer the country's destiny back towards the paths of Democracy, Justice, Transparency and Freedom." 
 
The union internationals demand that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and National Assembly chairman Luis Miquelena should: 
 
- revoke the decree 
 
- relaunch national dialogue between the Venezuelan trade union movement and the government 
 
- fully guarantee the free exercise of trade union activity in Venezuela. 
 
Signing the unions' joint statement were the regional representatives of the International Federation of Building and Woodworkers (IFBWW), the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical and Technical Employees (FIET), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the International Graphical Federation (IGF), the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF), the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF), the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI) and Public Services International (PSI).

World Labour Condemns Venezuelan Union Ban

Ukrainian miners are blocking coal supplies to power stations as anger mounts over massive wage debts. 
 
By July, pay owed to Ukraine's miners totalled 532.5 million US dollars, the Ukrainian Miners' Independent Trade Union (MITU) says. The wage backlog is continuing to rise, and Ukraine's miners and their families have been plunged into dire poverty. 
 
711 Ukrainian miners' wives and 240 children recently held a 50-km march in protest over the conditions in which they now live. They had to walk in pairs, well separated, in order to comply with curbs on the right to demonstrate. 
 
Ukrainian electricity generators are one culprit in the wage scandal. They are now paying only about 5 percent of their coal bills in cash. The rest is settled either in complicated barter deals or not at all. 
 
At the global level, MITU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
"The Ukrainian government and the international community must ensure that the miners are paid in full," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe insisted today. "The topmost principle, as always, must be that workers' wages and benefits have first call on the employer's available finances. The second principle is that Ukraine's coal suppliers must be paid immediately for the stocks that they have delivered in good faith. 
 
"Recently, national and international pressure secured payment of the wages owed to Ukraine's nuclear workers," Thorpe recalled. "The Ukrainian miners deserve no less. Nor are they any less important to the future of a key economy in a volatile region."

Ukraine: Power Stations Hit Over Wage Debt To Miners

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