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On 19 September, exactly one week before the trade union Day of Action for human and social rights in Colombia, a miner and community leader in the northern Colombian province of Bolívar was assassinated by members of the Neuva Granada Battalion of the Fifth Brigade of Colombia’s army. Alejandro Uribe, a father of two who was president of a local town council in the southern Bolívar province, had spoken out against the army’s aggressive intimidation and abuse of citizens. 
 
Local people, many miners included, fear they will be forced off the land by a new gold mining venture, and have become more and more vocal in recent months.
The mining venture, announced in June to explore and drill for mineral opportunities in Bolívar and Antioquia provinces, was created when South African-based AngloGold Ashanti and Canadian-based Bema Gold Corp. formed an enterprise called Newco. AngloGold is providing at least eight exploration properties in a 120,000 square kilometre area for initial test drilling for Newco, which is expected to be a publicly-traded company within two years. 
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The assassination of Uribe was the culmination of months of attacks, threats, blockades, and other killings by the army on some 1,300 miners and their families, said the Catholic Diocese of Magangue. 
According to Swedish-based New Colombia News Agency (ANNCOL), which tracks Colombian human rights abuses, residents of some 16 rural communities marched in a candle-light vigil in the town of Santa Rosa del Sur on 24 September, demanding that the government investigate the murder of Uribe and others, as well as demanding a response from civilian authorities over the military’s abuses. They were joined by Christian Peacemaker Teams and international human rights activists. 
 
ANNCOL reported that a meeting with national government authorities had been scheduled for 26 September in Santa Rosa. “The main condition the communities placed on the meeting was that it should take place with civil authorities and without the presence of military,” stated the ANNCOL report. 
 
But both Colombian officials and military officers insisted that the military be present. “In response, the people once again marched through the streets demanding justice. They then occupied the central plaza, and the government officials left without a dialogue,” wrote ANNCOL.

Colombian Army Murders Outspoken Mining Region Leader

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On 3 May, Nigerian Labour & Productivity Minister Dr Muhammed Hassan Lawal prevailed upon ICEM affiliate PENGASSAN and ExxonMobil’s Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. to come to terms over a company breach on a procedural agreement with the white-collar union. Specifically, ExxonMobil agreed to pay 50% of unpaid housing allowances owed to some 300 workers by the end of May. 
 
Several other matters were discussed, and the three parties agreed in a joint statement that industrial action would be suspended, with lingering issues taken up in further dialogue between the union and Mobil Oil management. 
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However, PENGASSAN’s National Executive Council has now issued an ultimatum to the company over its reluctance to curb the use of contract labour. The union’s Executive said that if this all-important matter is not immediately resolved in compliance with the laws and policies currently in place on expatriate quotas and local content, industrial action is imminent. PENGASSAN cites several companies within the country’s oil and gas industry for violations, but specifically targets Mobil Oil for industrial actions unless the grievances are rectified. 
 
PENGASSAN noted “with grave concern the disturbing trend in the recruitment, releases and compensation of well skilled and qualified Nigerians that are being employed as contract workers with no hope of security of employment.” 
 
On 2 May, local community members protested at a Mobil Oil export terminal at Qua Iboe over the company’s failure to pay compensation and adequately clean up an oil spill. Some 70 workers — many of them PENGASSAN members — had been detained by the protestors, but were later released. Production at the 420,000 barrel-per-day terminal was interrupted, but was later restored through efforts of members of PENGASSAN and NUPENG, Nigeria’s blue-collar oil workers’ union.

PENGASSAN in New Dispute with ExxonMobil in Nigeria

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Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero signed, on 9 May, into law a labour reform measure aimed at decreasing the abuse by employers of temporary work contracts. The new law, which becomes effective in July 2006, makes any employee who has held two or more temporary contracts totalling at least 24 months, within a 30-month period, a permanent employee with full social benefits. 
 
Companies, meanwhile, will receive incentives in the form of subsidies for transferring temporary workers to full-time status, as well as reductions in social security contributions for the same. 
Spain’s two trade union federations — CCOO and UGT — and the employers’ organisation CEOE, along with the government, have been negotiating this positive reform for the past 14 months in hopes of an overall reduction in the use of temporary workers and to reduce the work-life stress that fixed-term contract labour brings.

New Temp Workers’ Law in Spain Has Positive Aspects

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In South Korea, trade union federations and legislators of the Democratic Labor Party have prevailed on the governing Uri Party not to table the controversial irregular workers’ bill in the National Assembly, at least not for now. In a series of daring political manoeuvres occurring in April, opposing forces to the pro-business legislation were joined by the major opposition party, Grand National Party, in successful efforts to sideline the proposed bills involving temporary workers. 
 
The legislation, if passed, would grant all temporary workers permanent status after two years. However, as it stands now, the bill woefully lacks the safeguards to prevent employers from discarding temporary workers through the two years. Trade unions and democratic advocates maintain that enactment of the law would mean more, not less, of Korea’s workforce would be made up of temporary workers. 
 
In early April, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions launched a five-day general strike against the Uri Party initiative.

South Korea’s Irregular Workers’ Bill Sidetracked

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Two strikes in the Colombian coal mining sector broke out recently, giving 3,000 miners of unaffiliated Sintramienergética a loud voice to express disapproval over working conditions in this resource-rich sector of the South American country. 
A strike by 1,000 miners broke out at Swiss-owned Glencore International’s Carbones La Jagua operations in Jagua de Ibirico, Cesar state, on 17 May, and one numbering 2,000 miners started on 22 May at US-based Drummond Coal’s LaLoma mines in Cesar, and spread to the company’s transport and export terminal operations in Cienaga and Santa Marta. 
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The Drummond strike centers on subcontractors. The privately-held US company refuses to extend collective bargaining rights to thousands of contract workers, mostly at the transport and terminal sites. Sintramienergética is insisting for these jobs to be made permanent, with full social rights as well as the necessary health care benefits both on and off the job. 
 
Wages are also a major issue with both companies, since coal’s high prices and the rich value of Colombian’s high-grade resource in America and Europe has left miners short-changed. Miners’ demands also include significant investment, particularly by Glencore, on environmental projects, and for both companies to begin providing medical assistance to communities that have been adversely affected by the mining enterprises. 
 
Columbia’s national labour center, Central Unitaria de Trabajores (CUT), has warned that company security units have made the strike scenes extremely volatile, and has called for constructive dialogue from both the national government and the two companies. CUT, saying the two strikes are lawful, said the companies refused to find solutions to the union’s demands over the past two months, and that the demands have the overwhelming support of the miners. 
Glencore recently sold its 33% share in another rich coal mining and export operation in eastern Colombia, Carbones del Cerrejón, to Xstrata, a global mining house in which Glencore owns a 15% stake.

Colombia’s Coal Industry Hit with Two Strikes

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In what the Chinese work-safety director is calling the worst coal mine disaster of 2006, 56 miners were trapped and killed by flooding at the Xinjing Coal Mine, Shanxi Province. Miners told managers to cease mining due to rising water levels six days before the 18 May mass flooding, but were ordered to continue mining. 
 
To make matters worse, local safety officials had attempted to cover up the extent of the disaster when it happened by stating only five miners were trapped. After two days, a State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) investigation discovered 56 were trapped. Nine managers are under arrest, while the owner of the licensed mine is reported to have fled. In addition, six others were arrested in connection to the disaster, including two bankers as well as the person charged with work safety, who stands accused of leading the cover-up. 
Also on 18 May, near Beijing, a coal mine collapsed in Fangshan District, killing five miners. The mine is owned by Jingmei Coal, part of the Beijing Coal Group. These two mid-May tragedies follow a fierce explosion that occurred at the Wayaobao Coal Mine in Shaanxi Province on 29 April. It killed 32. 
 
Fatalities occurred in other Chinese mining sectors as well over the past month. On 13 May, at last three were confirmed dead after the Dalongshan Iron Mine collapsed in Anhui Province. On April 30, in an effort to heighten production, the Zhen’an County Gold Mining Co., raised water levels on a dam, which then burst and killed 17 villagers. That incident happened in Shaanxi Province.

Coal, Iron, Gold Disasters Kill Scores in China’s Mines

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN N° 16

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Bargaining in the US tyre industry began on 9 June when the United Steelworkers (USW) kicked off talks when Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and America’s largest industrial union exchanged proposals in Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
USW also begins talks with Michelin’s North American subsidiary BF Goodrich this month, and bargaining with Bridgestone/Firestone begins on 14 June. The three companies represent the largest of the tyre firms which comprise the master rubber agreement in the US. The union represents some 17,000 Goodyear employees, 6,000 Bridgestone workers, and 4,000 at Michelin.
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USW is expected to select one of the three as the “target” company, in which it hopes to achieve a pattern contract that will be taken to the others. Current three-year contracts in the US tyre industry expire on 22 July.

US Tyre Talks Begin for 27,000 Workers

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ICEM Costa Rican affiliate Sindicato de Trabajadores Petroleros, Químicos y Afines (SITRAPEQUIA) has criticised the government of Dr Oscar Arias Sánchez for continuing rhetoric favouring privatisation of state oil company RECOPE. 
In a 15 June circular, the union points out that the company has operated effectively and efficiently since it was nationalised in 1974, a fact that finds other Central American governments attempting to replicate such management. 
 
“We don’t understand how our government can pretend to imitate the way these Central American governments have operated, meaning handing this important activity into the hands of multinational oil companies,” the statement read. 
SITRAPEQUIA’s strong rebuke comes as Arias is using political measures to ratify the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the US, an agreement which could lead to the sell-off of successful and highly-profitable state companies. The Costa Rican president made such overtures before an ILO audience in Geneva, Switzerland, on 7 June. 
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The union contends RECOPE has fulfilled its role on national development over the past decades, and that the oil company can serve to reduce poverty and as a means toward better redistribution of wealth. It also says that privatisation proposals of basic industries have consistently failed at the legislative level due to legitimate rejection by the public. 
 
SITRAPEQUIA union members massed with other Costa Rican trade unions affiliated to national centre Confederación de Trabajadores Rerum Novarum (CTRN) in a march and demonstration in the capital city of San Jose. 
The 7 June mass demonstration, numbering 10,000, was over both Arias’s intended remarks at the ILO, as well as over a constitutional court ruling that weakens union protections for public sector workers, an adjustment in accordance with CAFTA.

SITRAPEQUIA Out to Protect State-run, Costa Rican Oil Company

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ICEM affiliate in Germany, IGBCE, has taken deep exception to a report published by a research institute that all energy supplies be left to market forces.
The RWI, an economic research think tank supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the state of North Rhine/Westphalia, proposes that all state subsidies for coal and other energy sources be removed.
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“Those who claim that energy supplies are not the state’s responsibility and should be left to markets, have lost all sense of reality,” said IGBCE President Hubertus Schmoldt. He added that the risks associated with an energy crisis is the concern of the entire Germany economy, stating that it is easy for those “in an ivory tower that is 80% funded by public monies” to preach such free market ideas. 
 
The IGBCE believes German policy for safe and secure energy supply cannot be left alone to markets.

IGBCE Disputes Research Institute’s Energy Supply Thesis

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