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="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
A proposed European energy deal, conceived as a blocking move, received trade union attention and analysis last week in Brussels at EMCEF, the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers’ Federation. Attended by Spanish trade unions FIA-UGT and FM-CC.OO, Italian union UILCEM and German union IGBCE, the meeting was held to formulate a common trade union position on the bidding outcome for Spanish energy company Endesa. 
 
German E.ON recently outbid Spain’s Gas Natural for Endesa, and both E.ON and Gas Natural will have one further opportunity in a sealed-bid process under Spanish energy and market rules. EMCEF issued a statement following the 28 February meeting in Brussels calling for maintaining Endesa as it is today and avoiding the splitting of businesses, and not to contract out integrated parts of the company; no refinancing through sale of assets; and keeping on track investments for renewed production and for build up of new electrical capacities. 
<img height="88" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/endesa.jpg" width="90"/>
Regarding the social impact of any Endesa takeover, EMCEF and the unions insist on no redundancies or layoffs; continuation of all collective agreements; further investment and support for worker training; social dialogue with trade unions on all matters of industrial policy; and recognition of all existing national labour relations matters as part of the European social model.
The EMCEF statement also cites, as good practice, a model of mutual recognition and well-developed agreements on social issues between unions and companies, and said ICEM’s Global Agreement with Endesa is “one example of this good practice on the global level that needs to be incorporated also for other companies in the future.”

EMCEF, European Unions Announce Priorities on Endesa

A general strike last week by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and a pro-labour panel of lawmakers working inside a plenary session of South Korea’s National Assembly blocked three bills regarding non-regular workers from reaching final approval. 
<img width="120" height="80" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/KoreaSOUTHFlag.gif" alt=""/>
The strikes, in which 300,000 workers took part, occurred on Tuesday and Thursday, 28 February and 2 March. (1 March was an official Korean holiday.) The lawmakers, primarily from the progressive Democratic Labor Party, took over a parliamentary session on 2 March to temporarily derail passage. 
 
The bills were approved by the Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee on 27 February, but action in the streets and inside the plenary session prevented final approval prior to the Assembly closing its session on 2 March. The issue is certain to meet further review and more public protests when the Assembly reconvenes on 20 March in an extraordinary session. 
 
The proposed legislation would do little to improve conditions for temporary and agency workers, but instead would give employers’ the flexibility to use hundreds of thousands more non-permanent workers and laying them off prior to the end of a proposed two-year period after which they must be made permanent. 
 
The ICEM congratulated KCTU on its strike and mobilisation. In an ICEM letter to KCTU President Cho Jun Ho, General Secretary Fred Higgs said it is “of immense importance that the main issue of your struggle is defending the basic rights of contract and agency workers. The substitution or limiting of permanent direct employment has clearly become a priority issue for countless workers and their trade unions, in every region of the world and every sector.”

Korean Temp Worker Bills Blocked for Now

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
This Wednesday, 8 March, marks the 97th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, a day of action in the continuing fight for equality and justice for all women. The ICFTU is in a fourth year of a “Unions for Women, Women for Unions” campaign in which the aim is to significantly increase unionisation rates of women workers in the informal economy, among migrant women workers, young women, and women in export processing zones. 
 
The ICEM on 8 March calls attention to the appalling conditions of women workers in the developing world, the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS that finds women making up over half of those infected, and the rise of militarisation throughout the world that adversely affects women is so many ways. The ICEM urges all trade union affiliates to put in practice policies and initiatives for equality, opportunity and fairness not only for working women, but for women in all walks of life.

International Women’s Day Action Urged for 8 March

<img height="41" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief.gif" width="100"/>
Two jewellery workers from China and two gem polishers from India will travel to Basel, Switzerland, late this month to raise awareness of the deadly side effects of their jobs, particularly silicosis. 
The workers will attend a jewellery fair from 30 March to 4 April, and hope to have talks with a large number of organisations, including the ILO, in order to bring more preventative measures to their line of work. Silicosis kills workers slowly, often over long and painful illnesses. In the case of Asian workers, compensation is unheard of and most do not have the means to pay for medical bills. 
 
According to official Chinese figures, 440,000 workers—many of them migrant workers—have silicosis. Other estimates put that figure as ten times higher. The ICEM released a statement on the occasion of the Basel visit, which can be found at <a href="/index.php?id=5&la=EN&doc=1671" type="internal">/index.php?id=5&la=EN&doc=1671</a>.

Asian Jewellery Workers Visit Europe over Silicosis

<img height="41" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief.gif" width="100"/>
Even as German affiliate IGBCE came to acceptable terms with Continental Tyre over a plant downsizing in Hannover, two other ICEM-affiliated trade unions face difficulties with the company. In the US, United Steelworkers (USW) is fully engaged in achieving job protection measures in negotiations at a tyre plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. 
 
Continental North America announced last year that it would make redundant 510 of the plant’s 1,083 jobs this year, and then dropped a concession-ridden proposal on the union seeking US$32 million in costs savings that includes across-the-board 15% pay cuts. 
USW has criticized the “slash and burn proposal.” Union Executive Vice President Ron Hoover said, “There are absolutely zero job security provisions to maintain future productivity” in Continental’s proposal, a deviation from the master rubber contracts that Goodyear, Bridgestone-Firestone and BF Goodrich/Michelin operate under in the US. A labour agreement in place since 1999 at the Charlotte plant expires on 30 April 2006. 
 
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), meanwhile, has condemned Continental for failing to abide by a labour court ruling to reinstate workers at its Port Elizabeth plant. The workers were sacked after the company unilaterally changed working hours without consultations with NUMSA. The union has taken legal action, and is threatening a strike and a boycott of Conti products through its affiliation with COSATU, a South African national labour centre.

Continental Tyre Creating Problems in US, South Africa

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
A five-day glass plant strike in Bulgaria by ICEM affiliate National Federation of Chemical Workers of Podkrepa ended 19 May. Some 700 workers, the majority of them members of the union, won a 17% increase in their total financial package, including a 10% raise in their basic salary. 
 
The strike action occurred at Turkish-owned Sisecam’s Trakya Glass Bulgaria (Shishejam), a new facility that only went into production in February 2006 in the town of Targovishte. The Chemical Workers’ Union had conducted a one-hour protest outside the factory on 8 May over local management’s refusal to address several issues. 
The flat-glass plant is the second of three plants that Sisecam has opened recently in Targovishte. A household glass plant opened for production in August 2005, while a potassium-glass plant and mirror operation will open in the northern Bulgarian town late in 2006.

Glass Strike Ends in Bulgaria with Wage Gains

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
Negotiations in Norway’s industrial sectors between ICEM affiliate Fellesforbundet and Norsk Industri broke off last week and are now headed for mediation with a state conciliator. The union and industry began the 2006 talks on 6 March over four separate collective agreements—paperboard, building materials, metal/engineering, and textiles. 
 
Fellesforbundet is seeking continuation of early retirement provisions, contract language to diminish part-time and casual labour, and life-long learning options for workers. Norwegian law stipulates industrial conflict cannot be declared until 14 days after the start of state mediation, which now would be on 3 April.

Industrial Bargaining in Norway Goes to Conciliation

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief.gif" width="100"/>
ICEM affiliate AMICUS of the UK has issued formal notice to International Paper at its Inverurie Mill in Scotland that industrial action is imminent if the company doesn’t immediately amend a pay proposal. The union at the 400-worker printing and writing papers mill voted by four-to-one for industrial action, and notice of a four-hour work stoppage set for 23 March was sent to management. 
 
Bosses at the American company are demanding that paperworkers take a pay freeze in 2006, and receive a small, one-off payment in 2007. Workers responded with the resounding strike vote, calling a freeze an “insult.” Over two consecutive years in the recent past, Inverurie paperworkers had three percent deductions weekly taken from their earnings to fill a pension gap. 
 
One Amicus leader told a local newspaper after the 10 March strike vote that if bosses had their way, “we would be chasing inflation forever.” The union said the paper industry federation in the UK has made pay increases of 2.5% in 2006.

Amicus Poised for Industrial Action Against International Paper

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief.gif" width="100"/>
The German trio of unions attempting to come under a single collective agreement with Energy producer Vattenfall got a lift when Swedish ICEM trade union affiliate SEKO pressed that country’s Ministry of Economic Affairs for a fair and just resolution to the matter. Vattenfall AB is a Swedish state-run utility now in the process of buying out the minority stake of Vattenfall Europe AG. 
 
The German-based utility, the country’s third largest, includes power utilities in Berlin and Hamburg, as well as power generation, distribution and lignite coal mines in eastern Germany. German unions IGBCE, Ver.di and IG Metall have been jointly negotiating with Vattenfall for a common accord in order to remove pay disparities and bring uniform working conditions to 20,000 German workers, but the company has refused. 
<img height="62" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/GermanyFlag.gif" width="100"/>         <img height="63" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SwedenFlag.gif" width="100"/>
Vattenfall has indicated it may sell parts of the German company to other enterprises, effectively removing 5,000 from company employment rolls. The German unions seek a guarantee that sale of any operation to another company will include the common collective agreement. 
 
SEKO has begun a public campaign in Sweden on the company’s hard-line stand in Germany, and has promised reciprocal industrial actions if the German unions strike. “Vattenfall is an enterprise that must conduct its business activities outside Sweden the same as it does here,” said SEKO Chairman Janne Rudén. “We have a tradition in Sweden in which the rights of workers are respected. This tradition must also occur in the countries of Europe.” An ICEM News Release on the Vattenfall situation in Germany is at /?id=77&doc=1672.

German Energy Dispute with Vattenfall Gets Swedish Attention

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief1.gif" width="100"/>
A strike by ICEM affiliate International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) ended at US building products producer National Gypsum in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Some 90 IUOE members at the Milford quarry and Burnside loading facility ratified a four-year labour agreement in late January calling for wage and benefit increases. 
The strike started 10 August 2005. It ended after the company had been cited by the provincial government for six safety infractions in January and after IUOE Local 721 announced a boycott of National Gypsum products, a boycott that had backing from the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour and Nova Scotia’s building trades. In a statement, the company said it would work to repair broken relationships and to build a foundation of trust.

National Gypsum Strike in Canada Ends

Archive