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<img height="113" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMsustdev.JPG" width="120"/>
A lot of health and safety dangers exist at the many different locations and workplaces in the global materials industries, which includes the glass, cement and ceramics sectors. In addition, these industries also face a huge number of environmental challenges. 
 
At the ICEM World Conference for the Materials Industries, in Brussels, on 17-18 November 2005, a comprehensive overview of these risks and challenges was presented by Reg Green, ICEM officer for Health, Safety & Environment. 
 
The presentation, entitled ‘Towards a Safe and Sustainable Materials Sector’, provides an in depth overview of the hazards and health dangers for each of the industrial sectors in the materials industries. It discusses a wide range of issues, going from the use of irritant coloring agents over toxic substances, heat problems or noise pollution to the many products used, such as asbestos, that are know to cause cancer. 
 
The document also suggests a hierarchy of preventive controls to avoid problems to happen in the first place, as prevention is, or - at least - should be, one of the key priorities in this area. 
Click <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0511REGmaterialsppt.ppt" type="internal">here</a> for the complete presentation.
For more information on this conference, including background documents and presentations, click <a href="/index.php?id=148" type="internal">here</a>.

ICEM presentation on the Health and Safety risks in the Materials Industries

23 November 2005 
 
His Excellency Dr Thaskin Sinawatra 
Prime Minister 
Kingdom of Thailand 
Government House 
Pitsunalok Road 
Bangkok 10300 
Thailand
Dear Sir, 
 
I write on behalf of the 20-million-member ICEM on a serious labour matter affecting your country. It is the unregulated and unceasing use of contract and agency labour by major employers in Thailand. 
 
In assessing a number of labour disputes in Thailand, some of which are in ICEM sectors such as energy and rubber, others in sectors such as metals and food, covered by other, fraternal Global Union Federations, the issue of extensive use of contract labour is at the forefront. I ask you to consider the harm such labour practices bring to the overall social development in Thailand. 
 
I write this prior to a group of trade unionists—many of whom are members of trade unions affiliated to the ICEM—bringing this issue forward in a rally outside the Ministry of Labour, and I implore you to hear their voice as it calls forth the ill-effects brought to workers, their families and entire communities when permanent jobs are replaced by contractors and agencies. 
 
I invite you to meet with these trade unionists, and I invite the Thai Government to initiate discussions on this critical issue affecting workers and the communities in which they live. 
 
The ICEM is leading a global campaign on contract and agency labour. We would be quite willing to join a dialogue between your government and trade unionists in Thailand who are recognising the dangers, and rightfully speak out on this issue. The ICEM realizes that it is not practical to call for a total ban on contract and agency labour. 
 
But what we do seek is that contract and agency labour be properly controlled to avoid the unnecessary displacement of direct workers and when there is a need to utilize contract or agency arrangements, trade union representatives be consulted and dialogue occur prior to contracts being signed. The logic to this in terms of productive enterprises, and well-being of workers, families and the communities in which they live is clearly evident. 
 
The ICEM is promoting such simple and precise language for employers, governments and inter-governmental institutions to adopt. Again, I respectfully request that your government give this labour issue serious attention, and I and the ICEM stand ready to assist in any manner possible. 
 
Sincerely, 
 
 
Fred Higgs 
General Secretary 
 
CC Mr Somsak Thepsuthin, Labour Minister, Thailand

ICEM letter to the Prime Minister of Thailand on Goodyear Contract labour problems

Led by ICEM German affiliate IGBCE, 3,000 protestors on 23 November demanded that tyre maker Continental rescind its decision to fire 320 workers at its Stöcken plant in Hannover. 
<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0511IGBCEContinentalpicture.jpg" width="350"/>
A day before the rally that occurred at the company’s headquarters in Hannover, Conti chief executive Manfred Wennemer reneged on a deal to maintain jobs and production levels by stating growth rates at the plant were not high enough. Despite profitability and cooperation from the IGBCE on workplace matters, Wennemer’s announcement stung workers and politicians alike, particularly in view of prior production shifts to plants in eastern European countries. 
IGBCE board member Werner Bischoff, vice president of Continental’s Supervisory Board, promised the matter will get full attention at the Supervisory Board’s 6 December meeting, and said any further cooperative efforts with the company are now in danger.

German Union Protests Continental Tyre Decision

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Pressure brought by potential sympathy strikes at an ABB Power Technologies paper mill near Oskarshamn, Sweden, and promised industrial actions at the company’s Finnish installations, proved too much for the Swiss-based engineering firm. 
Within hours of a 15 November strike deadline by 130 paperworkers, members of ICEM affiliate Svenska Pappers, ABB abandoned a two-year-long effort to undercut established social standards in Sweden’s paper sector. 
The resulting two-year labour agreement actually surpasses the social norms of the sector. ABB agreed to pay the union 1.5% of the total salary cost for administrative costs of the long overdue collective agreement at the paperboard mill. 
ICEM Finnish affiliate Paperiliitto said it would target ABB in Finland if a strike at the Figeholm mill near Oskarshamn were to occur, and a labour court in Sweden issued a unanimous ruling that a strike by the 130 workers, as well as any sympathy actions surrounding the mill’s operations would be legal.

Solidarity Fashions New Labour Contract at ABB Paper Mill in Sweden

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In Nepal, on International Human Rights Day this past Saturday, police used water canons and unnecessary force to arrest 130 activists, trade union leaders and academics who tried to conduct a protest in Kathmandu’s Ratna Park.
The protest, led by a multi-NGO coalition called Citizens’ Movement for Democracy and Peace, was to focus attention on continued restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly imposed by King Gyanendra’s suspension of the government and his imposition of authoritarian rule last February. Ratna Park in Kathmandu’s city centre is declared a restricted area by Nepalese authorities.
The head of the UN’s Human Rights office in Nepal, Ian Martin, on the occasion of the 10 December observance of the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said that the number of torture cases by security forces in the Himalayan country has shown no sign of letting up over the past several months.

Security Forces Crush Human Rights Day Demonstration in Nepal

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The General Confederation of Labour in Greece (GSEE) has called for national strikes this week, on 14 and 15 December, over the conservative government’s planned revisions to public sector employment.
One such revision is to phase out permanent jobs for DEKO workers employed at public utilities, and replace them with employees on private-sector contracts. The strikes have been called together with ADEDY, the public sector union of civil servants.
The proposed changes, crafted by the government of Premier Costas Kamanlis, also would affect collective bargaining. This week’s strikes will get a prelude today when all public transport will stop between the hours of 11 AM and 4 PM.

Strikes in Greece This Week over Cuts to Permanent Jobs

New Zealand paper workers at a Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) converting factory in Auckland have won a 5% pay hike, but CHH workers in the woods sector are still staging industrial actions to get similar pay increases. On 23 September, 200 workers at a laminated veneer plant at Marsden Point in Whangarei began a week-long strike aimed at achieving affiliate Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s (EPMU) goal of 5% in 2005. The EPMU has succeeded in getting 5% hikes in 269 collective agreements since it’s Fair Share Campaign began in February 2005, 85% of all contracts open this year. The “5% in ‘05” Campaign prompted an industry association spokesman to remark, “If you get the message out there, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

New Zealand Affiliate Succeeding at 5% Wage Hikes

ICEM NZ affiliate National Distribution Union (NDU) has elected Laila Harre as national secretary. Harre, an industrial relations attorney who served as former Alliance Party leader in Parliament, had been head of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. Last year, she won a NZ$380 million pay equity package for the country’s nurses, believed to be the largest pay package in public sector history. She has served in ministerial posts for Youth and Women’s Affairs, Statistics, and was Associate Minister of Labour. She is credited for winning paid parental leave for working mothers.

NDU in New Zealand Elects Laila Harre National Secretary

Fourteen workers were hospitalized and 30 treated for injuries following a 24 September hydrogen sulphide leak at Caltex Australia Ltd.’s refinery in Sydney. Less than a week later, on 29 September, another suspected gas leak forced evacuation of hundreds of oil workers at the country’s second largest refinery. The incidents occurred near a new, A$395 million clean fuels plant inside the Kurnell refinery, a major producer of transport fuels in Australia. Caltex, 50% owned by US-based Chevron, is behind schedule and has been burdened with unplanned maintenance and outages at the 124,000 barrel-per-day refinery.

Leak Hospitalizes 14 at Caltex Refinery in Australia

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Tensions remain high between ICEM affiliate Communications, Electrical & Plumbing Union (CEPU) of Australia and Western Power. The issue of outside contractors is central to the dispute. 
Western Power, citing potential blackouts, has petitioned the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to terminate the 600 line and maintenance workers’ right to strike. 
CEPU has implemented industrial actions over the pay, overtime and contracting dispute, but on 31 October called off a possible action because the utility had conceded a matter over discipline—whether or not workers were entitled to union representation. Days earlier, a Western Power confidential letter leaked, detailing outsourcing plans including dividing an entire grid into zones and then allocating maintenance of those zones to contractors. 
CEPU termed the strategy “privatisation by stealth.” CEPU Secretary Bill Game, quoted in a Perth newspaper, said, “Our guys are saying it’s clearly their core work that is being outsourced. Part of what we are trying to do is prepare the industry for young people coming in, so that they can have permanency and security and not having to run all over the place doing outsourcing work.”

Ongoing Dispute in Australia Between CEPU and Western Power

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