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The USW in the US supports the decision by the federal Labor Department to refer the consequences of BP’s fatal 23 March 2005 explosion at an oil refinery in Texas City, Texas, to the US Justice Department for possible criminal indictments.
Fifteen workers—all contract employees—were killed and another 170 were workers injured when the blast occurred during start-up of an isomerisation unit at the former Amoco refinery. BP issued its final report on the US’s worst industrial disaster in two decades last week by identifying root causes, including “Processs safety … had not been set and consistently reinforced by management.”
In September, the US Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the firm with over 300 “egregious and willful” violations and fined the British firm US$21.4 million.

BP’s Texas Oil Refinery Blast May See Criminal Indictments

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ICEM affiliate and Russian power workers’ union Elèctroprovsoyùz held its Congress in Moscow on 7-8 December. Debate centered on electric utility RAO UES’s reform plan.
RAO UES is dividing the utility’s assets in the drive for profits, which brings a severe threat to jobs and workers’ protections. Valèry Vakhrùshkin was elected president, and the union reinforced its commitment to international trade union cooperation through the ICEM in the face of globalisation.
Elèctroprovsoyùz, which numbers 775,000 members, celebrated 100 years of trade unionism in Russia at this Congress, which drew 310 delegates of whom more than a third were women.

Russia’s Electric Power Workers’ Union Holds Congress

World AIDS Day 2005 - Keep the Promise 
 
The global theme of World AIDS Day, 1 December 2005, was Stop AIDS – Keep the Promise. This refers in particular to the commitments made by Heads of State at the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) in June 2001. 
Global unions appealed to their affiliates and the millions of members organised by them to take “3 Minutes of Their Time” to make their promise. Governments and political leaders must be reminded of their forgotten promises and efforts must be reinvigorated to keep them.
At UNGASS, four years ago, 189 countries made the most significant AIDS promises and agreed, among other things, to stop mother-to-child transmission and to provide treatment to all those who need it. In most countries the targets will not be met. 
At Gleneagles, in July 2005, the G8 leaders pledged “to develop and implement a package of HIV prevention, treatment and care, with the aim of as close as possible to universal access to treatment for all those who need it by 2010.” This must not remain a rhetorical statement. Action must follow so that the promise is not broken. 
 
Organisations and individuals are urged to make their own promise at <a href="http://www.worldaidscampaign.org">www.worldaidscampaign.org</a> or <a href="http://www.worldaidscampaign.net/community">www.worldaidscampaign.net/community</a>. Make your promise now! 
 
At the main ILO event in Geneva, which the ICEM Global HIV/AIDS Coordinator attended and at which the ICEM leaflet was distributed, the ILO Director General, Juan Somavia, said that the workplace must play a strategic role in the fight against HIV/AIDS. “It is a fight not only against the ravages of the disease but also against discrimination, intolerance, misconception and fear”. 
 
 
Côte d’Ivoire Workers and Management Fight the HIV/AIDS Epidemic 
 
Charlotte Nguessan, the President of the Shell C.I. HIV/AIDS committee and the ICEM National HIV/AIDS Coordinator, reports on initiatives within this company. Most of the people infected with HIV virus are between 15 and 49 – the economically active population. As a response Shell set up a joint committee with the union to fight HIV/AIDS by heightening awareness among workers, their families and the communities. 
 
This takes place at all levels of the company and reaches out into the community. Examples include campaigns for the families of Shell employees, campaigns for petrol attendants and Shell shops throughout the country, for other partners such as fuel and gas contractors, campaigns for religious communities and the establishment of the Yamoussoukro Shell Institute to promote awareness primarily among youth. Recognising the specific vulnerability of women, a conference for Shell’s Women Workers was organised with the theme “Women and HIV: we are more vulnerable”. 
 
The campaign consistently targets its constituencies through posters, leaflets, and flyers in canteen trays. It utilises mail message and video screening. Condoms are distributed in pay-slips and public toilets. The message is reinforced through bags and tee shirts distributed at the annual party. 
 
 
Global Unions’ Action Against HIV/AIDS in 2006 
 
On World AIDS Day, the global trade union movement announced a series of initiatives for 2006 in the fight against HIV/AIDS, ranging from campaigns and mobilisation action to activities in workplaces and lobbying of governments to get them to implement pledges they have made. Trade unions will focus on a series of global gatherings in 2006, including the G8, WHO, UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the UN General Assembly. 
 
2006 will see the rollout of a series of workplace initiatives in countries, which are severely hit by the pandemic, following agreements with the International Employers’ Organisation and the WHO. A new leaflet “HIV/AIDS is a Human Rights Issue, Human Rights are Trade Union Issues” was launched on World AIDS Day and is available at <a href="http://www.global-unions.org">www.global-unions.org</a>. 
 
 
UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Calls on Companies to Contribute 
 
In a statement issued on World AIDS Day, Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and former Canadian Ambassador to the UN, called on companies to contribute 0.7% of pre-tax profits annually to the Global Fund. He said that big multinational companies that have exacted such huge wealth from Africa’s mineral, diamond, gold, oil and other resources over decades and the pharmaceutical industry, which resisted the lowering of drug prices for an unconscionable length of time, should be targeted first.
He also addressed his call to the more than 200 companies that are members of the Global Business Coalition. Many of these companies provide antiretroviral drugs and make in-kind contributions or investments in research and training centres but the true expression of corporate social responsibility would be a 0.7% contribution to the Global Fund. 
(Source: Global Fund Observer, Issue 53, 11 December 2005 – <a href="http://www.aidspan.org/gfo">www.aidspan.org/gfo</a>) 
Stephen Lewis is also the author of the book Race Against Time. 
 
 
Global Fund – Continuation of Services 
 
In its December meeting the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria decided to develop a policy to ensure continued funding for treatment-based grants when they are denied Phase 2 funding or they are approaching the end of their term. (Global Fund grants are approved for five years but can be suspended on the basis of a review after two years). 
Concern had earlier been raised over the fate of the people on treatment when a grant is suspended. Comment: While this is an overdue commitment it has to be seen whether funds are available to implement such a policy. 
(Source: Global Fund Observer, Issue 54, 18 December 2005 – <a href="http://www.aidspan.org/gfo">www.aidspan.org/gfo</a>) 
 
 
COSATU Joins TAC to Push for Treatment 
 
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) joined activist group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) to push for a new approach to AIDS in the country worst hit by the worldwide pandemic. In a joint statement with TAC and the South African Council of Churches COSATU said, “We lament the continued refusal of our national government to declare the seriousness of the epidemic and to mobilise a response on the scale that is needed”.
The new campaign, which was launched on World AIDS Day, is designed to more deeply involve unions, employers and churches in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The organisations demand that by the end of 2006 at least 200,000 AIDS patients are enrolled for anti-retroviral treatment – currently the figure is just over 70,000 people who receive treatment at government health facilities. 
 
 
News from other Global Union Federations 
 
The Education International (EI) marked World AIDS Day with an information session for the staff at its Brussels Head Office. EI affiliates all over the world organised events on issues of education and HIV/AIDS. Demands included a greater commitment of governments to distribute antiretrovirals. 
(Source: EI AIDS Newsletter – <a href="http://www.ei-ie.org/aids">www.ei-ie.org/aids</a>) 
 
The UNI Global Union graphical sector in southern and East Africa will use collective bargaining to tackle HIV/AIDS. Unions agreed to include a clause in future negotiations to establish a joint worker-employer response to improve education and prevention, to end discrimination and to upscale access to treatment. Access to treatment at work has also been negotiated by unions with employers in several other sectors in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. 
(Source: UNI Global Union – <a href="http://www.uniglobalunion.org">www.uniglobalunion.org</a> - eBulletin December 2005) 
 
 
Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Stories – Faces of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic 
 
In collaboration with the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and Christian AID, the WHO has released on its HIV/AIDS website <a href="http://www.who.int/hiv">www.who.int/hiv</a> “Voices of Hope” - photo stories of communities affected by HIV/AIDS. The photo stories of people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America represent some of the real faces of the epidemic that, by the end of 2005, had infected an estimated 40.3 million people. 
 
 
Update from ILOAIDS 
 
There are two new titles (the last two) in the series of workplace action menus that the ILO has produced with UNAIDS and the World Economic Forum's Global Health Initiative. To complement Africa (in English and French) and Asia <a href="http://www.unaids.org/en/about+unaids/partnerships/partnership+menus.asp">http://www.unaids.org/en/about+unaids/ 
partnerships/partnership+menus.asp</a>), ILOAIDS now has Action against AIDS in the workplace for Latin America and the Caribbean (shortly also in Spanish), and a final global version with an overview of all regions, including North America and Europe. 
 
 
This ICEM HIV-AIDS Newsletter – How to Subscribe or Translate? 
 
To subscribe to the e-bulletin, send an email to <a href="mailto:press@icem.org">press@icem.org</a>. Please put “subscribe ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin” in the subject line. 
 
Unfortunately, the e-bulletin can only be published in English. For a free automated (non-ICEM) translation of this HIV-AIDS bulletin into other languages, you may want to try <a href="http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr">http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/language_tools">http://www.google.com/language_tools</a>  and insert the following URL into the window “Translate a Web page“: 
<a href="/index.php?id=72&la=EN&doc=1578" type="internal">/index.php?id=72&la=EN&doc=1578</a>.

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 4

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ICEM Norwegian affiliate Fellesforbundet has taken in the Norwegian Graphical Workers’ Union in a merger that will give the union greater strength in the graphical, cardboard and packaging sectors of Norway. The merger became effective 1 January. 
Fellesforbundet’s executive board will increase by four seats with the addition of three members from the Graphical Division, plus former President Ander Skattkjaer, who will also direct Fellesforbundet’s Collective Bargaining Department.

Norwegian Fellesforbundet, Graphical Union Merge

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The ICEM is saddened to learn of the death in late December of South African labour leader Muzi Buthelezi, 53, a former Executive Committee member of the ICEM. He was general secretary of the Chemical Workers’ Industrial Union (CWIU) and the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union (CEPPWAWU). 
Comrade Buthelezi headed the CWIU when it merged with PPWAWU in February 1999 and became the first general secretary of the 92,000-member CEPPWAWU. He stepped down in 2002 and became chairman of CEPPWAWU Investments, the union’s Provident Fund, where he became prominent in black economic empowerment projects. 
He was a leader inside COSATU and a convenor for South Africa’s National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), a tripartite statutory body aimed at achieving positive social and labour legislation. He was also chairman of Imithi, a black empowerment consortium which took a stake in South Africa’s largest generic medicines manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, of which CEPPWAWU Investments owns a stake. He had been a director of Aspen.

ICEM Mourns Death of South Africa’s Muzi Buthelezi

ICEM Serbia-Montenegro affiliate, EPS Trade Union, began the second phase of strike actions at three enterprises of the state-run electric power generation and distribution services on 20 January.
Distribution workers are now striking two hours daily, while thermal plant production has been decreased by 10%. In addition, maintenance workers at hydro plants and transmission network workers have reduced services. The strike actions, which began 10 January, are over back wages owed to power workers and miners for 2004 and 2005 and for a fair wage increase in 2006. 

<img height="133" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0512SerbiaEPSunionPrez.jpg" width="100"/> 
 
EPS Trade Union President 
Miroslav Veličković
The Serbian Mining and Energy Ministry reneged on an offer that had ended one-hour, daily strikes. Originally, the two sides agreed that workers would be paid 70% of accrued back-wages now, and the remainder later. Last week, the government amended that offer to pay workers only 9% on a monthly basis, and structure that as a loan.

Serbian Affiliate Commences Phase Two of Utility Strike Actions

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ICEM Nigerian affiliate PENGASSAN agreed to a 27% wage increase at the weekend for upstream workers of Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. The company, a subsidiary of US-based supermajor ExxonMobil, was under an extended strike deadline to tomorrow by the white-collar oil workers’ union and its 1,700 members employed by the company. 
 
PENGASSAN had targeted ExxonMobil’s Nigerian operations because prior wage negotiations with other multinational oil companies had yielded higher pay increases. The union and company will meet again in December to discuss further increases. 
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Meanwhile, dialogue will continue between the two sides on the use of contract labour in offshore oil operations, as well as PENGASSAN’s demand that ExxonMobil comply with an expatriate quota and local content policies that are in effect in Nigeria. The union seeks more full-time employment for Nigerian workers in the oil and gas sector. 
 
On 25 May, PENGASSAN’s National Executive Board met and elected Peter Esele as president. He had been serving as acting president since the tragic death of President Uche Okoro in an airline crash last December. Esele is a skilled negotiator and employed at Core Laboratories Nigeria Ltd. as a Health and Environment officer.

ExxonMobil Negotiates Equity Wage Increases to Avert Nigerian Strike

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ExxonMobil is being pressured to announce to either reopen its Mobil Oil Australia refinery at Port Stanvac, or face a costly environmental clean-up bill. Mobil Australia, wholly-owned by the US supermajor, has until July 2006 to announce plans for the refinery, which was closed in mid-2003 with the loss of 400 jobs. 
A South Australia state parliamentary inquiry recently heard from contractors of Mobil Australia who said burying asbestos waste and other toxic chemicals on both land and sea was commonplace at the refinery in the suburbs of South Adelaide from the 1970s to the 1990s. 
A former health representative at the refinery said 3,000 people had been exposed to asbestos, and added, “I saw things which you know are not right…if you say anything, you are out of a job.” 
Since ExxonMobil’s decision to mothball the Port Stanvac refinery in 2003, Australia has become a net importer of refined petroleum products.

ExxonMobil Pushed for Decision on Closed Australian Refinery

Mediated talks will resume today in New Zealand in an effort to end a lockout by regional electric provider Top Energy of 58 members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU).
The lockout began on 4 February and mediation to end it failed last week when the North Island utility continued to seek work-rule changes that would affect the lives of linemen. Top Energy has met the EPMU’s demand of a 5% wage increase, but concessionary proposals put in front of workers through mediation undermines that pay increase.
The EPMU is encouraging trade union activists to write letters seeking a fair contract offer to Top Energy’s Trustees’ chairman, Brian Thorburn. His e-mail address is <a href="mailto:b.thorburn@xtra.co.nz">b.thorburn@xtra.co.nz</a>.

Lockout by New Zealand Power Company Continues

The FNV labour federation in The Netherlands is engaged today, 9 March, in an emergency meeting with the nation’s tripartite Social Economic Council to address the misuse by Dutch employers of workers from Central and Eastern Europe.
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ICEM affiliate FNV Bondgenoten is conducting a protest outside the Council’s building as the meeting is in progress. The meeting will also focus on the negative effects of a new health insurance system introduced in the country. 
Workers from Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries have flocked to The Netherlands in search of work. They have often been met by unscrupulous employers who use these workers on a term-limited contract basis, or as self-employed workers, in an effort to undermine collective bargaining agreements. The resulting payment of lower wages has a direct effect on all Dutch citizens. 
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FNV Bondgenoten has been successful in its “Equal Pay for Equal Work” campaign, which has brought union membership to a significant number of Central and Eastern European workers, particularly Poles. “We are not against Polish workers coming to The Netherlands for employment, but we insist they be treated fairly, and so do they,” said FNV President Agnes Jongerius.

Dutch Protest Today Points at Exploitation of Central and Eastern European Workers

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