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<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
The general strike that has paralysed the West African nation of Guinea since 10 January ended 27 January. The country’s unions, including ICEM mining affiliate SYNAMIC/ONSLG, reached a compromise with beleaguered President Lansana Conté to cede some of his near absolute powers. 
 
Guinea’s trade unions, backed by some 14 opposition parties, forced Conté to concede authority to a yet-to-be-named prime minister, who will run the government. The ending of the strike also produced a pledge from Conté to immediately reduce fuel and food prices. 
The ICEM reached SYNAMIC General Secretary Yamodou Touré last week, after he had been twice jailed by police and gendarmerie during the strike. Touré said he was among some 20 leaders who negotiated with Conté until late in the evening of 25 January. Earlier that day, a commission that included government officials, union leaders, and civil society representatives met to work out the new powers for the prime minister. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Guinea.png" width="250"/>
The 72-year-old Conté sacked former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo in April 2006. The strike started after Conté, in December, released one of Guinea’s wealthiest men, employers’ association leader Mamadou Sylla, and former minister Fode Soumah from prison. The two, both close associates of the reclusive president, had been imprisoned on corruption charges. 
 
The peaceful general strike was met with heavy-handed force by Guinea’s riot police. At least 59 demonstrators were killed during the 18-day strike, including more than 30 on 22 January when police sprayed automatic weapons fire into a citizens’ protest in the capital city of Conakry. 
 
Touré was among a handful of labour leaders arrested on 17 January as they led a group of some 200 demonstrators on a march to the National Parliament. The leaders were released later that day following negotiations led by National Assembly Speaker Aboubacar Sompare. Touré also serves as secretary general for the Organisation Nationale des Syndicats Libres de Guinée (ONSLG), one of the main national labour centres in Guinea. 
He was arrested again five days later, on 22 January, the bloodiest day of the strike, when a presidential guard led by the president’s son, Ousmane Conté, stormed a union meeting. Some 30 trade union leaders were then taken to Conté’s home on the Samory military grounds near Conakry. They were released in the early morning hours of the next day. 
<img height="96" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMminingsector2.JPG" width="100" alt=""/>
Ironically, it was those arrests and late night meeting with Conté that set the stage for last week’s negotiated end to the general strike. 
 
The strike brought Guinea, one of the world’s most impoverished countries, to a standstill. It crippled exports of bauxite, the country’s major cash source, after miners at one of the country’s bauxite mines, Sangaredi, downed tools. 
 
Workers of the Christian miners’ union, FSAMCA, also played a key role in the strike, after they were told by their union to join the strike on 19 January. Miners belonging to all unions at the country’s national bauxite company, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG), effectively brought the company to a halt. 
 
CBG is operated by Alcoa World Alumina, through its Halco joint venture with Canada’s Alcan, with the two North American companies owning 51% of the enterprise, and Guinea’s government the remainder. Russia’s giant aluminium producer Rusal also has substantial holdings in the country. 
 
Guinea is the world’s leading producer of bauxite.

Unions in Guinea End General Strike

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
A 24 January trade union protest in Moscow demanded that the Russian government correct the inefficient and inadequate social pension system of the country. Some 500 workers turned out for the demonstration at Russia’s Government Building. The manifestation was sponsored by the Russian Association of Main Industries’ Trade Unions, a formalised coordinating body of ten trade unions representing workers in essential industries. 
Five of the ten trade unions are ICEM affiliates, and the Association is headed by ICEM Vice President Lev Mironov, president of the Russian Oil, Gas and Construction Workers Union (ROGWU). 
<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0701Russia1.jpg" width="350"/>
Left to right: Ivan Mokhnachuk, Rosugleprof; Lev Mironov, ROGWU; Alexander Sitnov, RCWU.
The demonstration calls on the government to radically reform a broken pension system in which skilled workers receive only 10-15% of their wages once they retire. 
 
Mironov, in a television interview on the day of the rally, spoke of the frustration that people in the regions experience because of low pensions. He said the government must urgently respond to this dire situation. 
 
The rallying workers agreed to a list of demands that was presented to the government, and named a group of trade union leaders to negotiate with the government. One demand is to bring pension income to at least 40% of wage levels by 1 January 2008. The demands also call for the minimum pension to be set at a higher level, for tighter control over employers’ contributions to the pension fund, worker participation in fund management, and a return to the insurance-based mechanisms of social security. 
<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0701Russia3.jpg" width="350"/>
The association’s demands also include Russian ratification of the European Social Charter, as well as Russia ratifying ILO Conventions 102 and 128. Convention 102 establishes minimum standards on social security, while Convention 128 covers standards for invalidity, old age, and survivors’ benefits. 
 
The union leaders are expected to meet with Russian government officials this week. 
 
The union coalition is expected to bring further public actions and pressure to bear on the pension crisis this year. Other ICEM affiliated unions that are part of the Association include the Russian Chemical and Allied Workers Union (RCWU), the All-Russia Electric Union (Electroprovsoyuz), the Timber and Related Industries Workers Union of Russia, and the Russian Independent Coal Employees’ Union (Rosugleprof). They are joined in the coalition by trade unions representing automobile workers, metal workers, construction workers, as well as another power workers’ union.

ICEM’s Russian Trade Union Affiliates Lead Pension Protest

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
On 15 January, a death squad in Guatemala killed Pedro Zamora, general secretary of the STEPQ Dockers’ Union in Puerto Quetzal. The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has pledged that justice will be done in what it is calling a “dirty and cowardly act.” 
 
Trade unionists are urged to respond to ITF’s “Campaign for Justice for Pedro Zamora,” an immediate call to the Guatemalan government to bring arrest to the perpetrators of this vile crime. Please click <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm">here</a> and sign ITF’s Charter for Justice ‘No Hay impunidad.’ 
<img height="202" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0701GuatemalaZamora.jpg" width="150"/>
Pedro Zamora 
Killed on 15 January
Your help is urgently needed in order to put maximum pressure on the Guatemalan government. An ITF-assembled delegation representing a global labour voice arrived in Guatemala City over the weekend, and has called for discussions with police, state and national justice leaders, prosecuting attorneys, as well as President Oscar Berger Perdomo. The delegation includes ILO and ITUC representatives, as well as Spanish and US unionists. Trade unionists from Guatemalan unions ISCOD/UGT, UITA-FESTRAS, and USTAC joined the delegation. 
 
“The Guatemalan government will never be forgiven if it doesn’t investigate and then bring the murderers to justice,” said ITF Gen. Sec. David Cockroft after Zamora was slain in front of his children. “It’s a filthy little act that makes the blood of any decent person boil.” 
 
Zamora, 43, was driving his car on 15 January after gathering his children, ages 3 and 5, from medical appointments, when a white truck with several assailants in it pulled along side and riddled the car with some 100 shots of automatic gun fire. As the STEPQ union leader lay critically wounded in the front seat of his car, one of the assailants came up to him at close range and shot him in the face. His 3-year-old son was severely wounded in the attack. 
<img height="102" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ITF.jpg" width="102" alt=""/>
“Pedro’s commitment to the union cause is the reason he was targeted for political killing,” declared the ITF. “His death must not be in vain.” 
 
The port workers in Quetzal have been waging a battle to retain their proper trade union recognition in the face of privatisation. In October 2006, they took industrial action, and the strike was met by 300 armed riot police. Their grievance was the company’s failure to negotiate a collective agreement, and failure to respect dockworkers’ views on modernisations to the port. 
 
The ITF delegation, currently in Guatemala, will also lend a protective voice to other activists of STEPQ, five of whom have received telephone death threats and have been followed before Pedro Zamora’s death. 
 
Sign the Guatemalan Charter for Justice, and bring as much heat as possible on the country’s judicial system: <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm">http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm</a>.

Justice for Pedro Zamora Campaign Mounted by ITF

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
A three-week strike by ICEM Belgian affiliate La Centrale Générale FGTB against ArjoWiggins is expected to end today at two paper mills. Union members over the weekend voted, by a 62% margin, to approve an amended company proposal that calls for a restructuring of the two Wallonian mills. 
 
Union members had twice before rejected the company’s proposed social plan, once on 15 January, and again on 23 January. French-based ArjoWiggins is closing a paper mill and converting operation in Nivelles, and will transfer the paper converting portion there to the company’s paper mill in Virginal-Samme. 
<img height="99" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMpaper.jpg" width="100" alt=""/>
The restructuring was to make 147 workers redundant, as well as 80 temporary employees. The company manufactures carbonless writing and printing papers at both locations. ArjoWiggins future plans for Nivelles are to use the mill merely for warehousing and logistics. 
 
The company and workers’ representatives, led by FGTB, came to a satisfactory agreement on 26 January, after pressure was brought on the company by both federal and provincial employment ministries. Belgium’s federal labour ministry will conduct a final conciliation hearing on the dispute tomorrow, 30 January. 
 
ArjoWiggins is owned by the French holding company Sequana Capital, formerly called Worms & Cie. Sequana is primarily owned by the Agnelli family of Italy.

Belgian Paper Strike at ArjoWiggins Ends

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
ExxonMobil is not going to escape the fact that it has to answer for Indonesian human rights crimes occurring in the 1990s. That decision came from a US Appeals Court on 17 January, after the world’s biggest energy company attempted to dismiss a lawsuit brought by 11 Indonesian citizens. 
 
The alleged crimes came when Mobil was opening the Arun gas fields in joint development with the Suharto government. At the time, Suharto’s regime was deploying brutal methods to put down a separatist movement in the Aceh region on the northern tip of the Sumatra Island. 
 
The lawsuit contends that Suharto agreed to provide army troops during the development, and that Mobil provided logistical and material support to the troops. Troops used the company’s facilities and equipment to “interrogate, torture and murder Acehnese civilians suspected of engaging in separatist activities,” the lawsuit states. Following Suharto’s forced leave from office, independent investigation teams did find several mass graves connected with the human rights atrocities. 
<img height="115" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Indonesia.png" width="250" alt=""/>
The lawsuit is legitimate in US courts because of the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 216-year-old American statute that allows persons from other countries to hold accountable, either American citizens or US-based corporations, when violations of international law are committed outside of the US. 
 
ExxonMobil filed a review of the case in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, after a US Federal District Court denied a prior request for dismissal. 
 
This American court case has special significance inside Indonesia. Under a negotiated autonomy agreement implemented last year for Aceh, the Indonesian government has pledged to establish a special court by July 2007 to hear the thousands of human rights cases that have been pending after 30 years of regional strife on Sumatra.

ExxonMobil in Dock for Indonesian Human Rights Crimes

Mr. Mahmoud Abbas 
President 
President’s Office 
The Palestinian Authority 
 
Brussels, 31 January 2007 
 
Dear President, 
 
On behalf of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions, the Global Union Federation representing 20 million workers in the Mine, Energy, Chemical and related Process Industries I strongly condemn the rocket attack on the house of Deputy Secretary General of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), Rasem Al Bayari. 
 
The ICEM has been informed by the ITUC and PGFTU that gunmen attacked Mr. Al Bayari’s home at 2.15 am on 29 January 2007. The gunmen fired two rockets against his house, destroying the doors and the entrance to the building. Mr. Al Bayari and his family only survived the attack as they were asleep on the upper floor of the residence. 
 
At 2.30 am yesterday shots and bombs were again fired at the house, which is now completely damaged, leaving Mr. Al Bayari and his family without proper shelter. Mr. Al Bayari now fears for his life, but unfortunately he and his family have had to stay in their house with only a small number of security people for their protection. 
 
The attacks on Mr. Al Bayari’s home are grave violations of fundamental human and trade union rights. The ICEM is especially concerned about the very grave threat to the safety of Mr. Al Bayari and his family. 
 
The Palestinian Authority, as a responsible Authority, must uphold internationally recognised rights, including full respect for fundamental human rights of workers, such as their right to life. 
 
 
The ICEM urges you to immediately ensure the safety of Mr. Al Bayari and his family and prevent further attacks on his home. We urge you to order a thorough investigation into the rocket attacks and the shooting, to bring the perpetrators of this serious crime to justice and to ensure proper compensation to Mr. Al Bayari and his family for the destruction of their home. 
 
Yours sincerely, 
 
Manfred Warda 
General Secretary

ICEM Letter to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas

Mr. Mahmoud Abbas 
President 
President’s Office 
The Palestinian Authority 
 
Brussels, 5 February 2007 
 
Dear President, 
PGFTU Headquarters bombed 
On behalf of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions, the Global Union Federation representing 20 million workers in the Mine, Energy, Chemical and related Process Industries I condemn in the strongest possible terms the bombing of the headquarters of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), only three days after the rocket attack on the home of Deputy Secretary General of the Rasem Al Bayari. 
 
The ICEM has been informed by the PGFTU and ITUC that the PGFTU headquarters were attacked on February 2, 2007. The main entrance of the building was bombed and the radio station in the building (the Voice of Workers) was burnt down. Fortunately nobody was in the building when the attack took place. 
 
This is not the first time that the headquarters and the union’s means of communication have been targeted. A similar incident took place on 12 October. 
 
The ICEM finds it totally unacceptable that peaceful trade unionists, working hard to promote the rights of workers, must work and live in fear of their lives and that of their family members. The Palestinian Authority has a duty to ensure the personal safety of all trade unionists in accordance with internationally recognised rights, namely the right to life and freedom of association. 
 
The ICEM urges you to immediately take all necessary measures to ensure the full safety of all PGFTU trade union officials, activists, members and their families. We also urge you to ensure respect for the premises and all other property of the PGFTU. We urge you to immediately order a thorough investigation into this attack and the recent attacks against the home of Mr. Al Bayari and to bring the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice. The PGFTU and Mr. Al Bayari should be given proper compensation for the damages caused. 
 
I thank you for your prompt attention to this very serious matter. 
 
Yours sincerely, 
 
Manfred Warda 
General Secretary 
Cc.: Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Ismail Haniya

<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/RTnews[1].pdf">Rio Tinto Workers' Global Network Newsletter 1</a>
<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Issue2.pdf">Rio Tinto Workers' Global Network Newsletter 2</a>
<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Issue%20No%203.pdf ">Rio Tinto Workers' Global Network Newsletter 3</a>
<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Issue%20No%204.pdf ">Rio Tinto Workers' Global Network Newsletter 4</a>
<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Issue%20No%205.pdf">Rio Tinto Workers' Global Network Newsletter 5</a>
<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/RioTintoNewsMay.pdf">Rio Tinto Workers' Global Network Newsletter 6</a>
<a href="http://www.cfmeu.asn.au/national/int_issues/20040513_Riotinto.html ">Rio Tinto Workers' Global Network Newsletter 7</a>

Rio Tinto Network Newsletter overview

The ICEM has expressed disgust and dismay over the circumstances in which a Nigerian trade unionist was killed earlier this week in the Niger Delta. Nelson Ujeya, a member of white-collar oil workers’ union PENGASSAN, was apparently murdered as he was about to be released by a militant youth group in Bayelsa State. 
 
Reports say that Brother Ujeya was killed when troops of Nigeria’s Joint Military Task Force ambushed the militants at a time when he was about to be released. In all, 11 people were killed in the ambush that took place on 20 August. 
<img height="50" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaFlag.gif" width="100"/>
On 8 August, Nelson Ujeya, the Community Liaison Officer for Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd., was abducted on an official visit to Letugbene community while he was accompanied by senior Bayelsa State government officials to inspect community projects. 
The ICEM denounces the Bayelsa State government and the federal government of Nigeria for failing to provide timely and relevant information on the abduction and subsequent killing of Nelson Ujeya to his family and to the leadership of PENGASSAN. 
Further, in a <a href="/index.php?id=25&doc=1926&la=EN" type="internal">letter to PENGASSAN President Peter Esele</a> that was also sent to Nigerian government entities and other organisations, the Brussels-based trade union federation said: 
 
“The 20-million-member ICEM, the Global Union Federation for oil and gas workers, finds it reprehensible that such indiscriminate use of force by Nigerian government militia be used in such a situation. The ICEM stands firmly behind PENGASSAN in holding both the government of Bayelsa State initially responsible for the abduction of Brother Ujeya while in the presence of state officials, and the federal government for its new policy of ‘force by force’ in dealing with kidnappings that occur in the Niger Delta.
<img height="105" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaPengassan.JPG" width="100"/>
“The ICEM calls on all energy companies operating in Nigeria to apply the same effort and resources in securing the release of kidnapped Nigerian workers as they do for their foreign national employees.” 
 
PENGASSAN and the blue-collar Nigerian oil workers’ union, NUPENG, will hold a joint National Executive Council meeting in Benin City, Nigeria, on 30 August to take up the matter of security for oil workers’ employed in the Niger Delta. The ICEM notes that the combined voice of the two unions, operating under the aegis of NUPENGASSAN, has been one of reason and soundness in efforts to curb the kidnappings and violence of the area. 
 
That voice has called for both the government of Nigeria and the oil companies operating in the region to provide greater and better employment opportunities to the youth and indigenous of the region through skills training and other social development initiatives.

Abhorrent Circumstances Surround the Killing of PENGASSAN Member in Nigeria

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
The Mineworkers’ Union of Namibia (MUN) has scored an important victory for fixed-term contract workers at a diamond-cutting and polishing factory in the capital city of Windhoek. Last week, ICEM affiliate MUN successfully completed negotiations with the Namibian managers of Israel-based Lev Leviev Diamonds LLD. The agreement will make 356 mainly young workers into permanent employees, complete with rights and benefits. 
 
“Workers are happy about the fact they have representation,” MUN General Secretary Joseph Hengari told the ICEM. “There have been many shortcomings in work procedures since this factory started and our duty now is to bring these technicalities to a close to the benefit of workers.” 
<img height="237" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NamibiaNUM.jpg" width="200" alt=""/>
In late July, about a quarter of the workers at the Lev Leviev enterprise struck after they were given an ultimatum by managers to sign new 12-month-long individual contracts for the third time. Strike leaders contacted the MUN, whose intervention ended the strike and began collective negotiations with the company. 
 
MUN’s involvement also proves beneficial to the company, which had been operating without knowledge of local laws, without a functioning human resources department, and without a proper method of salary calculations. In fact, one major grievance that led to the 27 July strike was the fact that individual contracts disqualified the workers from getting a basic salary unless they reached certain production quotas. 
 
MUN will soon become the official bargaining representative at the Lev Leviev plant. During two weeks of intense negotiations in August that covered a number of employment issues including salary and remuneration, MUN and the company agreed to make the 356 workers permanent effective 1 September. All 356 applied for membership to the MUN. In addition, another 56 were classified as trainees, but will progress from that status to permanent workers in the near future. The company also says it intends to bring another 120 trainees into the plant, with the aim of having a total of over 500 permanent workers. 
 
The diamond-cutting and polishing operation opened in mid-2004 and has a capacity to produce 25,000 carats of polished stones monthly. The factory currently is dependent on rough stones mined from another Lev Leviev enterprise, the Sakawa Mining Corporation of The Netherlands, located in offshore areas of southern Namibia. But the company is attempting to convince the Namdeb Diamond Corporation, the country’s joint venture with DeBeers, to supply rough stones to the factory in order to fully promote local beneficiation of Namibian diamonds.

ICEM Namibian Affiliate Succeeds in Making Diamond Polishing Jobs Permanent

Archive

Unions in Guinea End General Strike

ICEM’s Russian Trade Union Affiliates Lead Pension Protest

Justice for Pedro Zamora Campaign Mounted by ITF

Belgian Paper Strike at ArjoWiggins Ends

ExxonMobil in Dock for Indonesian Human Rights Crimes

ICEM Letter to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas

ICEM Letter to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas

Rio Tinto Network Newsletter overview

Abhorrent Circumstances Surround the Killing of PENGASSAN Member in Nigeria

ICEM Namibian Affiliate Succeeds in Making Diamond Polishing Jobs Permanent

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