English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy 

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2021-2025

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL 

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Fourteen Turkish trade unions, comprising the ICEM Coordinating Committee of Turkey, met in Ankara on 20 November and formulated an ambitious agenda related to union-building activities. 
 
Led by the ICEM Secretariat, Turkey’s leading trade union officials agreed to an Organising and Social Dialogue Project, sponsored by the global arm of the Dutch national labour center, FNV Mondiaal; they agreed to launch a cross-border series of solidarity activities with Iraqi unions; and they agreed to begin a campaign on getting Turkey’s government to ratify ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention. 
 
The meeting was hosted by Tes-İş, the Turkish Energy, Water, and Gas Workers’ Union, and chaired by Mustafa Kumlu, the union’s President, who also serves on the ICEM Executive and is President of Turkish national labour center Türk- İş. He addressed the negative effects brought on by the global financial crisis inside Turkey’s industrial sectors. 

<img style="WIDTH: 124px; HEIGHT: 181px" height="200" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812TesIsMustafa%20Kumlu.jpg" width="124"/>
Tes-İş President, Mustafa Kumlu
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Chemicals and Rubber Officer Kemal Özkan presented the two-year FNV Mondiaal project for Turkey and the necessity for ratification of Convention 176. Later, Türkiye Maden-İş, the largest mining union in Turkey, agreed to lead the ratification effort. 
 
The project will consist of eight activities in which 500 trade unionists will come together to begin recruitment exercises, create proper workers’ representation systems within workplaces, and to develop techniques to establish constructive bargaining and social dialogue practices with employers. 
In Coordinating Committee business, Turkish union leaders decided to establish a technical committee to prepare background information to the full committee. Besides Tes-İş and Türkiye Maden-İş, other trade unions participating included: Çimse-İş, Cement, Ceramics, Pottery, and Glass Workers’ Union; Belediye- İş, the Municipal and General Workers’ Union; Petrol-İş, Oil and Chemical Workers’ Union; Genel Maden-İş, representing Mine Workers; and Dev Maden-Sen, another union representing Mine Workers. 
 

<img style="WIDTH: 369px; HEIGHT: 133px" height="133" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812TurkCounFamPix.jpg" width="380"/>
Participants at ICEM's Coordinating Committee
 
Also, Lastik-İş, Petroleum and Rubber Workers’ Union; ESM, or the Energy, Industry, and Mining Union of Public Employees; Selüloz-İş, Pulp, Paper and Paper Products Union; Kristal-İş, Glass, Cement, Ceramic and Soil Workers’ Union; Türk-Enerji-Sen, the Energy, Mine, Metal, Petroleum and Chemistry Branch Employees’ Union; Tümka-İş, the All Pulp and Paper Workers’ Union; and Türk Tarim Orman-Sen, a Union of agricultural, forestry, and environmental services’ workers. 
 
The ICEM Secretariat delegation also received commitments from Çimse-İş and Kristal-İş to co-host ICEM’s 2009 World Conference for the Materials Industry. Also attending the Coordinating Committee meeting was Michael Mersmann, head of the International Department of German affiliated union, IGBCE.

ICEM’s Turkish Coordinating Committee Takes on Dutch Project

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
After four years of existence, the Global Union Research Network (GURN), a joint ILO and global unions research forum, unveiled a more user-friendly and attractive web site. Users will find it much easier to navigate and search for documents and information on the many topics covered by the institute. 
 
A new addition to the site is the topic on Public-Private Partnership, which allows GURN to provide information on eleven important research topics: Corporate Governance; Economic Alternatives and Poverty Eradication; Global Trade Union Strategies (Union Renewal); Health Politics and Trade Unions; Migration; OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises; Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) & International Financial Institutions (IFIs); Public-Private Partnerships; Sustainable Development; Trade; and Wages and Collective Bargaining 
 
The new Public-Private Partnership (PPP) page is created to shed light on the issues and concerns related to PPPs in different countries. 
 
GURN is a platform for trade unionists and researchers dealing with the challenges of globalization from a labour perspective. Partners to it include the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) of the OECD, the Global Union Federations, the ILO’s Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV), and the ILO’s Institute for Labour Studies. 
 
The new site can be found <a href="http://www.gurn.info/en/">here</a>.

GURN Launches New Website

<img height="73" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBriefAlert.jpg" width="150"/>
Some 125 trade union leaders from the pulp and paper sector of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) conclude deliberations today in Uruguay toward shaping strategies for the sector. In the final session of day two of the 8-10 December conference in Piriápolis yesterday, delegates from 35 countries embarked on a four-point work plan focusing on national collective bargaining schedules in 2009. 
 
Delegates received a thorough mapping of the different trade unions representing pulp and paper workers in the sprawling Brazilian pulp and paper sector, as well as those in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Day two also featured a trade union panel that probed the consequences on workers of the current global recession. 
 
The theme of the conference is “North Meets South: Global Unity, Global Strength,” and ICEM Pulp and Paper Chairman Jouko Ahonen said networking between trade unions of the North and the burgeoning South – even with project curtailments brought on by the sudden economic collapse – is essential. “This strategic plan is ambitious and we did get commitment that unions in South America, Asia, and the traditional pulp and paper-producing of the North will come together to forge common a programme,” said Ahonen, who serves the ICEM sector as President of Paperiliitto Union of Finland. 

<img style="WIDTH: 285px; HEIGHT: 133px" height="91" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0810PaperRollArt.jpg" width="150"/>
The work plan, which can be found <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/EN%20PulpPaper2009WkPl.pdf" type="internal">here</a>, centers on establishment of a global communications and support network for the many national unions that have bargains in 2009. Sector-wide negotiations will occur in the Nordic countries, as well as eastern Canada and several European countries. Major agreements also come due at mills in Australia, the US, and Argentina and union leaders pledged to monitor talks and take global action when requested. 
 
The work plan also addresses strategies aimed at renewal talks of Global Framework Agreements with Norske Skog of Norway and SCA of Sweden, which occur in 2009. And in line with the conference’s theme, the plan includes intensive work toward greater harmony and association between trade unions inside Brazil, together with unions in the other Mercosur countries of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. That effort will occur through a proposed project undertaken by Finnish trade unions of the sector and the global solidarity arm SASK, part of Finland’s national labour centre. 
 
On Monday, 8 December, delegates heard presentations from Ilkka Hämälä, President and CEO of Metsa-Botniä Oy, and Jeronimo Ruiz, Director of Pulp and Paper for BRACELPA in São Paulo State and also the head of Collective Bargaining for Brazil’s employers’ association. Workers’ representatives queried the industry leaders on the delivered cost of pulp from the South to the North, and on wood supply issues. 
The conference also heard on day one from Uruguay Industry and Energy Minister Daniel Martinez and Labour and Social Security Minister Eduardo Bonomi. Both spoke on issues related to the country’s developing pulp and forestry sectors, and efforts by the left-leaning government to balance environmental and social standards of common Uruguayans with that agenda. 
 
The three-day ICEM forum was preceded by a two-day conference, 6-7 December, on forest certification programmes sponsored by the global union federation, Building and Woodworkers’ International (BWI). 
 
Delegates to the ICEM conference also stepped out of their sector and passed a resolution supporting American trade unionists of affiliated union United Electrical, Radio, Machine Workers (UE) for its occupation of the shuttered Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago. The resolution specifically commended US President-Elect Barack Obama for his published support of the action. The resolution can be found <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Emergency%20Resolution.pdf" type="internal">here</a>. 
 
The 20-million-member ICEM, the dominant global union federation representing workers in the pulp, paper, and paper converting sector, represents 467 affiliated trade unions in 132 countries on the global level. 
 
For further information, contact Dick Blin, ICEM Information and Pulp and Paper Officer, +41 79 734 8994, or +41 79 734 9052.

ICEM Pulp/Paper Conference in Uruguay Focuses on 2009 Collective Negotiations

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Every year, on April 28, the world commemorates workers killed, injured, or made ill as a result of their jobs. 
 
How many are there? Collecting good data on occupational injuries and deaths is very difficult. The most credible source of international statistics is the ILO. Their numbers are staggering. The ILO has estimated that globally, there are two million work-related deaths annually. That's more than 5,000 every day, and for every fatality, hundreds more injuries and illnesses occur. 
 
These numbers, as incredible as they seem, are generally believed to be gross underestimates. 
 
Fatalities are under reported by workers and employers. Often, an occupational fatality is not identified as such. Once reported, a fatality must be "accepted" or recognized by a country's regulatory authority or workers' compensation board to be counted among the statistics. In many jurisdictions, large numbers of workers are exempt from workers' compensation coverage. Data for injuries are even less reliable than for fatalities. 

<img height="100" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904Labourrose.JPG" width="77"/>
Worker deaths that are immediate and obvious tend to be recognized. Deaths due to illnesses that have an occupational origin are rarely recognized. Cancer is one of the biggest work-related killers, but rarely is it properly acknowledged. Relatively few occupational diseases are recorded in official statistics. 
 
Injury and illness data are notoriously subject to bias and methodological problems. Many workers' injuries, illnesses, and even fatalities, are simply never recorded. Workers' compensation assessments and insurance premiums are often based on these statistics, creating a huge financial incentive for employers to suppress or discourage the reporting of accidents. 
 
This is done in a number of ways, ranging from schemes that bring injured workers into the workplace so their injuries won't be counted as "lost time," to sophisticated psychological techniques like "behaviour-based" safety programs. Threats of discipline or discharge following a reported accident are not uncommon. "Post-incident drug-testing" has been highly effective in causing workers to conceal injuries rather than risk a false-positive test result. 
 
In the days leading up to 28 April, many statistics will be quoted. Appalling as the numbers may be, the truth is probably far worse. 
 
In the end, 28 April is not about numbers, it is about people. Next week, on Tuesday, let us pause and remember those who paid for their livelihoods with their lives or their health. Then let us renew the fight for safe and healthy workplaces.

28 April: Day to Renew Fight for Safe and Healthy Worksites

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
The Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), consisting of 140 countries, took a landmark decision at its deliberations in Nairobi in February 2009. The council moved to start negotiations toward an international treaty on mercury that either bans or places very strict restrictions on the dangerous chemical. 
 
UNEP’s unanimous decision may mean the beginning of the end for mercury, although the transition to either a no-mercury or low-mercury world will still take time. 

<img height="82" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/UNEP.gif" width="70"/>
UNEP has, for seven years, coordinated the intense scientific and policy debate on how best to deal with mercury, said the agency’s executive director and UN Under-Secretary, Achim Steiner. Now “the world’s environmental ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over – the time for action on this pollution is now.” 
 
The Governing Council also was unanimous on the risk to human health. Mercury and its compounds are highly toxic to humans, especially to the nervous system at even relatively low levels of exposure. It is particularly harmful to the development of unborn children. It accumulates in humans and animals and can be concentrated throughout the food chain, notably in certain types of fish. 
 
The EU has called for a ban to begin on mercury by 2011. UNEP’s main function is to promote international policy cooperation in the environmental field.

Say Farewell to Mercury? UNEP’s 2009 Nairobi Action Sets the Stage

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
With over 70 confirmed participants, the ICEM’s quadrennial World Conference for the Rubber Industries will take place in Nashville, Tennessee, USA next week, on 12-13 May 2009. The conference, to be hosted be the United Steelworkers (USW), will be presided over by USW President Leo Gerard, Chairman of the ICEM Rubber Industry Sector. 

<img height="140" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0710USWLeoGerard120.jpg" width="120"/>
Leo Gerard, Chairman of ICEM Rubber Industry Section & USW President
The venue is the Sheraton Music City Hotel, Nashville. 
 
Kemal Özkan, ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Industries Officer, will make a presentation on “Global Industry Trends and Challenges.” 
 
The Conference will also feature five panel discussions: “Effects of Global Crisis on the Industry and Trade Union Challenges,” “Rising Hardships and Distortion in Work Relationships,” “Global Agreements, Global/Regional Company and Sector Networks and Campaigns,” “How to Improve Health and Safety for Workers: What Kind of Industrial Policy for a Greener Environment for Securing Jobs,” and “How to Better Coordinate Global Union Solidarity, Support and Cooperation.” 

Other presentations on the agenda will include: “Collective Bargaining in the Rubber Industry,” “Global Trade Union Response Against Challenges,” and “Healthy and Safe Work, Environment and Sustainable Development.” The conference will conclude in the afternoon of 13 May with “Development of an Action Plan” for trade unions of the global rubber sector.  
 
ICEM Health, Safety, and Sustainability Officer Brian Kohler will make the health, safety, and sustainable development presentations. 
 
The Report for the Conference will be up on the ICEM website (<a href="http://www.icem.org" type="internal">www.icem.org</a>) under ICEM Sectors: Rubber by late this week, as will the agenda and other background documents.

ICEM’s World Rubber Conference Set for Next Week in Nashville USA

Global Unions, le conseil syndical mondial, composé de 13 fédérations syndicales mondiales, de la Confédération Syndicale Internationale (CSI), du TUAC, la Commission syndicale consultative auprès de l’OCDE, est conscient de l’importance que revêt en Amérique l’adoption de ce projet de loi sur le libre choix des salariés. Nous savons qu’une économie forte dépend de travailleurs ayant la possibilité d’adhérer à une organisation syndicale et de négocier de manière collective de sorte que des salaires justes soient payés et que les avantages sociaux soient améliorés pour tous ce qui font partie de la société. 
 
Pour nous, ceci est le fondement même de cette loi sur le libre choix des salariés. Notre organisation appuie résolument les organisations syndicales américaines qui se battent en faveur de l’adoption de cette loi bénéficiant de l’appui du Président Barack Obama. Faites savoir à vos militants et à vos responsables élus que notre organisation soutient sans réserve cette loi sur le libre choix des salariés. Pour nous, elle constitue un élément essentiel permettant aux travailleurs dans une société libre de se syndiquer sans rencontrer d’obstacles. 
 
(Signé….. Nom du responsable syndical) 
(Dénomination de l’organisation syndicale) 
(Pays)

demande urgente: EFCA Lettre Français

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM took part in the 21st International Mining Conference of Turkey, sponsored by the Turkish Chamber of Mining Engineers. The ICEM’s campaign for ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention, was continued there. The ICEM, the ILO, and Turkish mining affiliates met in Ankara during the first week of May, resulting in commitments from the unions to work towards ratification. 
 
The ICEM’s mining programme established mechanisms for mining unions in Turkey to exchange successful strategies to combat the global financial crisis. Significant examples come from ICEM mining affiliates in Africa, where different forms of nationalisation and state mining enterprise are emerging to block mass job losses. The ICEM also showcased actions by African mining unions to head off efforts by employers in taking advantage of the financial crisis. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMminingsector.JPG" width="120" height="120"/>
In other news, trade unionists in Istanbul carried out an historic May Day by ending a march in the city’s Taksin Square. Workers’ had been banned from holding May Day rallies there by the military in 1980, and that ban was only lifted in the days before 2009’s May Day celebration. Taksin Square is the site of the so-called “Bloody May 1” of 1977, in which 36 trade unionists were killed. It is significant to Turkish unions, standing as the symbol for the right to assemble and for free speech. 
 
In Turkey, 1 May this year was a public holiday for the first time, following a successful campaign of pressure by trade unions.

ICEM Campaign for ILO 176 Continues in Turkey

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Six miners are likely dead following a roof collapse at the Novodzerzhynska coal mine in Dzerzhynsk, Donetsk region, on 4 May. In a release issued by the Ukrainian Trade Union Federation, ICEM-affiliated Coal Mining Industry Workers’ Union (PRUPU) President Viktor Turmanov said the disaster was likely “caused by gross safety violations” due to the shift of rock underground. 
 
Three mines died instantly, while three others were rescued after nearly three days underground. The remaining three miners are unaccounted for and their exact underground location was still unknown as of last week. Fourteen miners were working inside the mine at the time of the collapse, with five able to immediately escape. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Victor Turmanov.jpg" width="115" height="115" alt=""/>
Turmanov said the search would continue this week, with restoration of the roof needed to carry on with a possible rescue attempt. But after two weeks, it is unlikely the three miners will be found alive. It the area where the roof collapsed, some 250 square metres of rubble accumulated. The tragedy happened 58 metres underground. 
 
Turmanov and PRUPU were instrumental in the days following the deaths in getting Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers to set aside a large sum of money for better safety conditions at the Novodzerzhynska mine, which included compensation to the mining victims’ families. 
 
The mine in eastern Ukraine mine was reorganised last year and became a state enterprise connected to the Coal Industry Ministry of Ukraine.

Mine Deaths in Donetsk Region, Ukraine, Raises PRUPU Safety Call

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Hundreds of ICEM affiliates from every continent responded to an ICEM Circular to lend support to American trade unions in their legislative battle to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). In recent weeks, support letters arrived in droves to ICEM’s nine US trade union affiliates, which together with the rest of the American trade union movement are waging a bitter fight against a rabid business lobby in order to enact the first meaningful labour law reform measure in the US in 50 years. 
 
The EFCA would simplify and make the process fairer for workers who choose to organise and win US government certification for collective bargaining. The proposed law would give workers the choice of union representation if a simple majority in any given workplace signed a card or petition seeking unionisation. 
 
Currently, it is the employer that chooses which of two methods – “card-check” recognition or a one-sided election procedure – to certify a bargaining representative. In nearly all instances, a company chooses the election method because the government-conducted vote is held at the worksite and trade unions have no on-the-job access to workers in the 30-45 days leading up to the vote. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0903.AFL-CIO.gif" width="100" height="100"/>
Instead, over the past three decades, employers have fine-tuned the process, using stop-work meetings to vilify the union, sacking workers who support the union, and utilising threats and intimidation by stating that if the union is voted in, layoffs or plant closures will occur. Although such union-avoidance tactics currently do violate US labour law, no penalties are attached so bosses have crafted the election process to their distinct advantage. 
 
If the EFCA is passed, financial penalties will be levied on employers who deploy such tactics. Perhaps most significantly, the proposed legislation contains a first-contract arbitration provision in which contract proposals are submitted to a government mediator if an initial collective agreement cannot be reached. Oftentimes at present, management’s strategy following a union win in a government-supervised election is to “surface bargain” without ever intending to come to an agreement. After one year, the union can then be decertified. 
 
ICEM’s call to its global affiliates came immediately after Global Unions, comprising the 11 Global Union Federations, plus the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) of the OECD, issued a statement, demanding passage of the EFCA: “There is no defense for employers who interfere in workers’ decisions to form trade unions … It is time for the United States to join the other democracies around the world that respect the fundamental rights of workers to form trade unions and bargain collectively with their employers. Members of the US Congress should muster the courage to resist a massive, multi-million dollar employer campaign of propaganda, scare tactics, and distortion. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/globalunions.gif" width="100" height="100"/>
“We, the Global Unions, representing around 200 million workers on all continents and in all industries, call on the United States Government to adopt the EFCA.” 
 
Many of the ICEM affiliates that wrote to the US unions alluded to the current global economic crisis, and the best means to rise out of that crisis. “We know that a strong economy depends on workers given the opportunity to join a trade union and to bargain collectively so that fair wages and social benefits are lifted for all in a society.” 
 
The letters concluded by stating: “Please pass to your union membership, as well as to your elected officials, that our union fully supports EFCA, and that we consider it an essential element in a free society that workers be allowed to join a trade union in an unobstructed way.” 
 
American trade unions are currently pushing members of the US Senate to adopt the bill. US unions played the major role in electing members of the Democratic Party to substantial majorities in both the Senate and US House in last year’s elections. But a number of supposed pro-worker Democrats in the Senate have come under the influence of the business lobby’s misinformation campaign putting passage of EFCA in jeopardy. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/USA.png" width="227" height="100"/>
As committees of Congress prepare to debate EFCA, Democrats in the Senate are suggesting compromises, such as workers submitting “card-check” authorization directly by mail to the US labour board, or proposing alterations to the first-contract arbitration procedure. 
 
This is the fourth time in recent years that EFCA has been proposed in the US Congress, but the first time it has a realistic chance of enactment. This is due to President Barack Obama’s pledge to sign it, as well as the US labour movement’s yeoman work in elections six months ago that gave a political mandate to do away with George Bush’s draconian policies. 
 
In March 2007, the last time the measure was before Congress, it passed the US House by a 241-185 vote. But it died in the US Senate when proponents failed to gain the 60 votes necessary to invoke cloture, or the vote to shut down filibustering on a piece of legislation. In the coming weeks, Democrats are expected to have exactly 60 seats in the 100-seat Senate. Labor’s strategy this time is to first gain passage of EFCA in the US Senate before taking it to the House.

Trade Unions Worldwide Respond to ICEM’s Call for Fair Organising in the US

Archive