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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Upwards of a half million people marched through London on Saturday in a turnout that British trade unions said exceeded their highest predictions. The manifestation, heard around the world, was called “The March for the Alternative: Cuts are not the Cure” and was direct push-back to the deep, rapid, and unfair public sector cuts in the pipeline by the ruling UK Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition. 
 
Turnout for the march and rally at Hyde Park in London’s West End was so massive that the rear of the march had just left the Victoria Embankment staging area when the Hyde Park rally – five kilometres away – began. The front of the march left Victoria and passed by Parliament four hours earlier. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.london march for the alternative - mac urata.jpg" width="365" height="192"/>
photo: Mac Urata
Using the argument that fiscal austerity is needed to reduce UK’s financial deficit, the right-wing government led by David Cameron wants to cripple a social welfare system that will see cuts to people and curtailment of British services. And both will fall disproportionately on the poor and on the workers of Britain. 
 
Deep cuts to education, pensions, and Britain’s 62-year-old National Health Service (NHS) are being laid out on the Con-Dem chopping block. And Saturday’s manifestation – the biggest in London since 2003 and an anti-Iraq war protest – validated the fact that tens of thousands of teachers, doctors, nurses, police and prison guards, municipal council workers, joined by students, retirees, private-sector workers fiercely resist this agenda. 
 
The 26 March manifestation sponsored by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was civil and peaceful. But the beat of drums, whistles, and chants of resistance made it clear that anger is real. Anger at the fact that for every £4 in spending cuts, there is a £1 tax hike and that mainly is a higher VAT; anger that 50,000 jobs will disappear when the NHS is cut; anger that the brutal cuts will cost 170,000 public-sector jobs. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.london prison union.jpg" width="265" height="189"/>
photo: John MacLennon
Instead of cuts, the “alternative” should be a crackdown on tax avoidance totalling £25 billion alone taken by City of London operators; initiating a Robin Hood tax on banks and financial institutions over their transactions; a stop to exorbitant executive bonuses; and a gradual, sensible, and sustainable deficit reduction plan based on jobs, growth, and tax justice. 
 
At the afternoon rally, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “We will fight these savage cuts and we will not let them destroy services, jobs, and lives. Today we are speaking for the people of Britain, and David Cameron, if you want to meet the Big Society, we’re here in Hyde Park.” 
 
Unite the Union General Secretary Len McCluskey called it the greatest demonstration in London in a generation, and said there is “palpable anger in the country. If the government was brave enough, it would tackle the tax avoidance that robs the British taxpayer.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.lennie london.jpg" width="133" height="150"/>   <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.leo gerrard london.jpg" width="105" height="160"/>
Unite's Len McCluskey, USW's Leo Gerard 
photos: John MacLennon
Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis, whose public-sector union chartered 500 coaches to get people to London, told the assembled at Hyde Park that he wants the Con-Dems “to feel the fear and anger of people who have come here today from every part of the UK to vent their frustration and to stand up for a fairer future.” 
 
Another speaker was USW President Leo Gerard of North America who drew the link between the purge of public services in the UK to what is happening in several US states. He said the real culprits are the greedy banks and corporations who pull the strings of politicians. 
 
“It is their reckless speculation that took down the world economy,” said Gerard, adding, The best way to rob a bank is to manage one. We will stand together, we will march together, and we will fight together to demand that our governments protect the rights of public employees and of all workers.”

500,000 Protest Con-Dem Coalition’s Public Sector Cuts in London

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
ICEM’s German affiliate, IGBCE, held yet another mass mobilisation on 24 March in Ludwigshafen, alongside BASF’s massive chemicals complex there. The purpose of the manifestations are to continue to buoy support among rank-and-file chemical workers for the union’s 7% wage demands in national bargaining with the chemical employers’ association, the BAVC. 
 
The second round of federal bargaining covering 550,000 workers in 1,900 companies is set for 30-31 March in Bad Honnef, North Rhine-Westphalia state. The first round of federal talks took place in Hanover on 15 March, with employers refusing to put forward an offer. 
 
In the fortnight since, IGBCE has deployed a “wage truck” and bus tour of activists to 12 chemical sites, reminding workers that they deserve good money for the hard work they’ve performed in pulling German chemical employers through the financial crisis. Some 30,000 IGBCE members in chemicals have turned out for the rallies thus far. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.TRUCK_IGBCE.jpg" width="240" height="134"/>
A rally also was held at the Rhein Chemie Rheinau GmbH plant near Mannheim on 24 March and after one on Friday, 25 March, at Boehringer-Ingelheim’s plant in Biberach, the manifestation tour continues today with mobilisations at Hoechst, Merck, and other companies in Frankfurt and in Darmstadt. 
 
The truck and caravan will make another stop tomorrow in Hanau, before culminating for a 30 March demonstration prior to the talks in Bad Honnef. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103. igbce Demo in Hannover.jpg" width="270" height="152"/>
IGBCE Demo in Hanover
“We expect a conclusion to come” in Bad Honnef, said IGBCE Governing Board member Peter Hausmann, who heads the union’s Collective Bargaining Department. “We expect employers to put a fair offer on the table,” something, he noted, that was absent in Hanover, or in the nine rounds of regional bargaining earlier this year. 
 
IGBCE is adamant that 7% over the next 12 months is fair compensation for workers who absorbed work-time cuts and other social curtailments to help chemical producers weather the economic crisis. The union said the industry has now overcome that crisis. With German production capacities at full levels and sales and profits gushing upward, the time for fairness and justice to the people who delivered this return to prosperity is this week in Bad Honnef.

IGBCE Mobilises for Second Federal Round of German Chemical Talks

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
A thorough survey conducted by the global trade union network of AkzoNobel reveals key points inside the Dutch chemical company’s worldwide subsidiaries, particularly related to restructuring. The <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3883-ICEM-Affiliates-Move-to-Form-an-Akzo-Nobel-Workers’-Network" type="internal">AkzoNobel Workers’ Network</a> was created only ten months ago when ICEM affiliate FNV Bondgenoten hosted the inaugural meeting in Amsterdam. 
 
The survey saw response from nearly all workplace leaders and it shows important trends regarding use of temporary labour and contractors, labour-management communication levels, pay comparisons, and health and safety compliance. A full 96.5% of trade union leaders surveyed responded. 
 
Also, for example, responses show that in AkzoNobel’s worldwide facilities – most of which are under 500 workers – the core labour standards regarding freedom of association and collective bargaining are in question, with 17% of all workplaces not unionised. Sixty-three percent of respondents answered that overtime work is compulsory, while 63% again said one form or another of restructuring has taken place in their plants over the past three years. 
 
Regarding legal compliance with local or national regulations, AkzoNobel fares extremely well since 100% responding said the company complies with legal requirements, while the same number said AkzoNobel relies almost totally on legally-binding contracts. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/akzonobel[1].gif" width="235" height="56"/>
Ninety-six percent of the respondents stated that the specialty chemicals and paints and coatings company does abide by adequate health and safety regulations. 
 
Other results of the survey: 
 
• 75% of those responding say that the workforce in their facility is composed of between 1-25% temporary workers, while 18% said there are no temporary workers and 7% said that the composition is between 50-75%; 
• At 70% of the locations, there are regular meetings between trade union representatives and management; 
• A good majority of unions (81%) have contacts with other unions inside or outside of their home country; 
• 81% indicate that wages paid are in correlation to what is paid at respective national levels; 
• 81% also say their worksites offer training possibilities; 
• Regarding restructuring, in nearly all cases consultation took place between workers’ representatives and management; 
• And in the restructurings, in 59% of the cases, 1-25% of the workforce was affected and in 33% of restructurings no workers were affected; 
• And in 46% of AkzoNobel’s restructurings, there were no dismissals, while in 54% there were between 1-25% of workers at the site that lost their jobs. 
 
In other AkzoNobel worker news, the Latin American Trade Union Network, held in December 2010 São Paulo, Brazil, created a <a href="http://IWN.AN@groups.facebook.com">group Facebook page</a> called IWN-AN International Workers Network AkzoNobel. The page has an objective to ramp up communications, and post speedy opinions, documents, and other issues that participants wish to share. The facebook group is expected to obtain support for expanding the network via inputs from participants for future communications and discussion. For those wishing to participate, a Facebook account is necessary and then just to IWN-AN International Workers Network AkzoNobel. 
 
The global network’s next activity will be to attend and follow Akzo Nobel’s Annual General Meeting, to take place Wednesday, 27 April, at 14h00 in Amsterdam.

AkzoNobel Network Survey Reveals Pertinent Site-to-Site Facts

The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union (ICEM), a Geneva, Switzerland-based global union federation represented rubber workers across the world, announced today that it would lend its full support to the National Union of Metalworkers’ of South Africa (NUMSA) in its fight to keep Bridgestone South Africa compelled to wage terms negotiated in the New Tyre Manufacturing Employers’ Industry Association (NTMEIA). 
 
South African management of the Japanese-based company locked out 1,200 members of NUMSA at two former Firestone tyre producing plants, Brits and Port Elizabeth, on 22 March. At issue is Bridgestone South Africa’s defiance of a private arbitrator's award that the tyre manufacturer is bound to certain wage terms contained in a three-year collective agreement that was negotiated between NUMSA and NTMEIA that ended a 30-day strike against four tyre producers on 29 September 2010. 
 
In a 31 March letter to Bridgestone South Africa CEO Kenji Shoda, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said, “Please know that the current situation in Brits and Port Elizabeth will be communicated to all Bridgestone facilities throughout the world and if your current labour relations conduct is not halted, we will begin to mobilise within these facilities.” 
 
The ICEM will support NUMSA as it ramps up a campaign against Bridgestone inside South Africa. And it will take that campaign into Bridgestone tyre plants from Japan and throughout Asia, to Europe and in North and South America. The ICEM is adamant that wage rates negotiated by the NTMEIA for 4,000 other rubber workers at Continental, Goodyear, and Apollo-Dunlop factories in South Africa also be instituted at Bridgestone’s two factories. 
 
The ICEM is the global union federation for 20 million workers in the energy, chemical, rubber, mining, and other industrial sectors. It is composed of 467 trade unions in 132 countries. 
 
For further information, contact ICEM Information Officer Dick Blin, <a href="mailto:dick.blin@icem.org">dick.blin@icem.org</a>, +41 22 304 1842, +41 79 734 8994.

Global Union Federation Supports Besieged Tyre Workers in South Africa

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Trade union activists around the world are focussing on Mexico again this week and next in the vitally important struggle to block regressive labour legislation which stands to further legitimise Mexico’s breaches of international labour standards.
The proposed labour code revisions would legitimise the illegitimate and pervasive use of “protection contracts,” increase the undermining of freedom of association through outsourcing and temporary contracts, sharply curtail the right to strike, and restrict the contesting of unfair dismissals. 
 
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), in proposing the harsh provisions, is widely seen as pandering to big business in the build-up to presidential elections in 2012. The draconian revisions have the full backing of President Felipe Calderón’s ruling National Action Party (PAN). 
 
Legislators are planning to fast-track the bill through public consultations, in which high-level trade union delegations are contributing, so that the legislative commission of labour can approve the proposal in the final days of this parliamentary session, ending 18 April. The next stage of the bill will likely occur during the Easter holiday. Legislators are refusing to discuss the 30 most contentious articles of the new legislation during the consultation stage.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Mexico.SNTMMSRM.jpg" width="80" height="97"/>
During these critical days, write with your organisation’s opposition to the proposed labour legislation to parliamentary coordinators of the parties <a href="mailto:jcarlos.ramirez@congreso.gob.mx; frnrojas@congreso.gob.mx; alejandro.encinas@congreso.gob.mx; josefina.vazquez@congreso.gob.mx; alfonso.rios@congreso.gob.mx; jjguerra@congreso.gob.mx; pedro.jimenez@congreso.gob.mx">here</a>. 
 
Further dangers posed by the proposed changes include a cap on backpay when a worker is found unjustly sacked. The proposed cap of 12 months salary, when legal proceedings commonly take five years, effectively gives employers a green light to sack workers arbitrarily with impunity. 
 
Another concern is over a proposal that would give employers the right to negotiate individually with workers on terms other than what is in a collective agreement. This would outrageously destroy the process of collective bargaining, enshrined in international labour law. 
 
Mexican labour law can never begin to resemble acceptable standards without first addressing “protection contracts,” which make democratic trade union organising near impossible, and the “toma de nota,” which allows authorities to remove elected union leaders arbitrarily and without legal basis. Legislators from the PRI and PAN political parties ignored trade union demands on these issues and other amendments, including establishing a 40-hour work week and improving seniority bonuses and the holiday system. 
 
Also ignored by the authors of these legal changes was the 23 March report of the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, which discusses the complaints of the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) and identifies “protection contracts” as a priority issue which must be dealt with through social dialogue with trade unions. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910.mexico.SME.JPG" width="310" height="212"/>
The Zócalo
A trade union demonstration marched from Mexico City’s main square, the Zócalo, to the Congress on 31 March, where discussions over the regressive labour bill continue. Then, last Thursday, 7 April, a large national day of demonstration was conducted against the proposed labour law. 
 
In Mexico City, protestors marched from the Angel Monument of Independence to the Zócalo and heard speakers from trade unions of all Mexico’s democratic unions. Los Mineros General Secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, exiled to Canada, sent his message to the demonstration, calling the proposed changes a “robbery of labour rights in Mexico,” and called for Labour Minister Javier Lozano Alarcón to resign immediately so that he does not cause “more damage to industrial relations and social peace of the republic.” 
 
Public opinion on Mexico around the world is repeatedly drawn away from the shocking denial of human and workers’ rights toward the bogus war on drugs, funded by the Obama administration as a way to finance Calderón’s military strength, which in turn is used to crush trade union campaigns such as in <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3975-ICEM-Condemns-Repression-of-Workers-by-Mexican-Government-Grupo-Mexico" type="internal">Cananea</a>. 
 
An international tribunal on trade union freedoms will be held on 29 April in Mexico City and that body will hear a strong globally-supported case against the proposed labour law, as well as specific cases from affected unions. 
 
The government-business campaign to weaken trade unions in Mexico was again highlighted by an avoidable methane gas explosion which killed two mineworkers in Barroterán, Coahuila, on Saturday, 26 March. The explosion at Mine No. 7 belonging to Northern Steel, took the lives of 33-year-old Juan Francisco Rodríguez Piedra and 43-year-old José Camacho Grimaldo. The accident has been described as “industrial homicide” due to dangerous and negligent safety conditions in the mine. Union leadership at Barroterán was forced onto workers through coercion. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.lazaro cardenas dead.png" width="73" height="108"/>   <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.lazaro cardenas dead.2.png" width="65" height="108"/>
Mario Alberto Castillo and Héctor Álvarez
Next week, 20 April, Los Mineros will honour the five-year anniversary of the two miners killed at Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, in 2006. Mario Alberto Castillo and Héctor Álvarez were murdered by federal and state police in violent suppression of a strike at the Sicartsa steel plant.

Next Two Weeks Crucial to Block Harsh Mexican Labor Law Revisions

<img height="39" width="100" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" alt=""/>
ICEM-affiliated Sintravidricol of Colombia won a much-heralded victory in December 2007, achieving recognition and a collective agreement at three metal-moulding plants owned by US-based multinational Ross International. The victory followed a 23-day strike, and a three-year struggle that garnered international support through the ICEM. 
 
The agreement made all 240 workers at the three plants full-time employees, whereas the majority were previously on fixed-term contracts. 
 
That four-year agreement is now seven months from expiration, and Sintravidricol’s Section Presidents for La Estrella and Sabaneta, Brahyan Sanchez Henao and Heriberto Giraldo Hernandez, are calling for the company to come to the table and discuss a new agreement for all employees of the group.
The union seeks improvements on paid leave for union activity, and greater stability and formalisation of employment to stop the increasing use of outsourcing at the plants. Sintravidricol formally submitted their list of demands on 5 April to the company. 
<img height="174" width="232" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.sintravidricol.jpg" alt=""/>
Outsourced employees at two of the three worksites, Andes International Tooling Limited and Andes Cast Metals Foundry Limited, were successfully brought into Sintravidricol in 2007 through a campaign supported by the ICEM and the United Steelworkers (USW) and its Flint/Glass Section, after those plants were opened in 2004. Workers at Moldes Medellin Ltd. had organised with Sintravidricol previously. 
 
During the bitter dispute of 2007 which culminated in the first agreement, the company signed two parallel agreements with non-unionised staff. A central goal of this negotiating round will be to scrap those divisive agreements and reach a settlement to cover all staff. Sintravidricol bargaining representatives will be seeking improved guarantees on development of mature industrial relations at the three plants. 
 
Messages of support can be sent to the union <a href="mailto:sintravidsab@unet.net.co; sintravidestrella@yahoo.com">here</a>. Messages to the employer can be sent <a href="mailto:daniel.posada@moldesmedellin.com.co; rubilem@yahoo.com">here</a>.

Colombian Glass Workers Seek to Build on Gains Made in 2007

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904Labourrose.JPG" width="50" height="65"/>
In the 2010 special ICEM newsletter on April 28, the ICEM stressed that the key to getting a global ban on asbestos lies in Canada. If Canadian support for the asbestos industry fails, then a global asbestos ban will succeed. Everyone who cares to examine the evidence by now knows that the link between all forms of asbestos (asbestosis, mesothelioma, other cancers) is irrefutable. 
 
An important step forward was taken by the Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN) at the union federation’s 11 March congress. The congress decided to withdraw the federation’s traditional support of the Québec asbestos industry. This was truly an historic and courageous stand, in a province where the asbestos industry is so closely tied with labour history. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904.asbestos.jpg" width="150" height="107"/>
Claudette Carbonneau, President of the 300,000 member organization, told the congress: “Québec, like many advanced industrial societies, has been shaken by the use of a resource which sows death. If health and safety conditions do not prevent these deadly illnesses in Québec, it is difficult to pretend that there can be safe use of asbestos in developing countries.” 
 
However, for every step forward, there seems to be at least one step backwards. Just this month, the Québec government approved a C$52 million economic aid package to expand the Jeffrey asbestos mine, whose products will be exported principally to India, Indonesia, the Philippines and other Asian countries. Proof, once again, that the industry would not be viable without heavy government subsidies. 
 
Meanwhile, the body which regulates place-names in Québec has given permission for the regional body known as MRC de L’Amiante to delete the Amiante (Asbestos) from its title and rename itself “MRC des Appalaches.” So, evidently there are people even in the region of Québec that mines asbestos who are perhaps disgusted by the shameless hypocrisy of politicians and profiteers and would prefer not to be associated with the export of this deadly fibre.

Québec Labour Federation CSN Takes Heroic, Historic Stand on Asbestos

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904Labourrose.JPG" width="50" height="65"/>
ICEM, as the pre-eminent global union for miners, continues its campaign for the ratification of ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines, and the adoption of its associated Recommendation 183. 
 
Although progress is slow, the Ukraine was finally persuaded to ratify Convention 176 in February of this year. The ICEM has meetings fixed or planned in several countries this year to push for ratification of this important ILO instrument. 
 
The year 2010 saw the world witness the dramatic rescue of 33 trapped miners from the depths of a mid-sized copper mine in Chile. It also saw the gruesome deaths of 29 miners at the Pike River coal mine in New Zealand, caused perhaps by ventilation fans located inside mine shafts instead of outside. Twenty-nine miners also died in the US on 5 April 2010 at the Upper Big Branch mine in the state of West Virginia, a tragedy that saw mine owner Massey Energy and its CEO shift blame – unbelievably – to the stringent safeguards enshrined in the US Mine Safety and Health Act. 
<a href="/en/209-ILO" type="internal"><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ilo_small.jpg" width="175" height="247"/></a>
Click here for ICEM 176 Campaign
There were also mass mining deaths in Russia, Turkey, and the Ukraine in 2010. Mine deaths still occur on a weekly basis in China, and in South Africa, despite a somewhat decline from the highs of 2006-2008, mining deaths still occur regularly and public statements of satisfaction and accomplishment by the Chamber of Mines is delusional and fraught with contempt. 
 
The tragedies from 2010, as well as the deadly coal mine blast in Pakistan just last month, prove there is much left to be done to make the world's mines safer. It can start with ratification of Convention 176. But it can only occur with full implementation and then practice of the convention’s principles. 
 
Convention 176 demands that employers perform risk assessments, and control identified hazards at source, through good engineering design and through personal protective equipment. Mines must be properly engineered, designed, and constructed for safety, with provision of at least two separate means of exit and adequate communications systems. Sufficient ventilation with monitoring for contaminants and fire prevention, detection, and firefighting systems must be provided. Emergency response plans must be developed and maintained, and if serious dangers are detected, operations must be stopped and workers evacuated. Workers are to be provided with information and training on the hazards and how to work safely. 
 
Accidents must be investigated and corrective actions taken. Workers have the right to report, and receive reports on, accidents and dangerous occurrences and hazards. Workers can request workplace inspections from employers and the regulatory authorities. Workers have the right to refuse unsafe work, and remove themselves from dangers. In addition, workers can select workplace health and safety representatives and they have the authority to participate in investigations and inspections, monitor health and safety matters, have recourse on advisers and experts, and consult with the employer and the government regulators. 
 
Within Convention 176, governments are expected to create a legislative and regulatory framework that protects workers’ safety and health. This is to be accomplished by requiring employers and workers to comply with the specifics of ILO Convention 176. In addition, the responsible authorities are expected to maintain adequate regulatory mine supervision and inspection, and require the reporting of accidents and maintenance of statistics. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1004.28April.konopacki.gif" width="120" height="150"/>
Mining is one of the world’s most dangerous occupations and regulatory safeguards are essential. The following list prepared using mostly ILO statistics from the UN agency’s LABORSTA database indicates the most dangerous countries for miners and workers in quarrying, as ranked by fatal injuries per 100,000 employees for a period from 1999-2008. 
<blockquote style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" dir="ltr"><blockquote style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" dir="ltr"><blockquote style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" dir="ltr">
1. Turkey 
2. Korea, Republic of 
3. China 
4. Pakistan 
5. Cyprus 
6. Kyrgyzstan 
7. Togo 
8. Hong Kong, China 
9. Ireland 
10. Taiwan, China 
11. Costa Rica 
12. Lithuania 
13. Portugal 
14. Ukraine 
15. Philippines 
16. Spain 
17. Nicaragua 
18. Chile 
19. Argentina 
20. Malta 21. Moldova, Republic of 
22. India 
23. Brazil 
24. Bulgaria 
25. United States 
26. Tunisia 
27. Estonia 
28. Zimbabwe 
29. Slovenia 
30. Burkina Faso 
31. Denmark 
32. Romania 
33. Czech Republic 
34. Canada 
35. Finland 
36. Italy 
37. Kazakhstan 
38. Myanmar 
39. Austria 
40. Poland 41. France 
42. Latvia 
43. Slovakia 
44. Croatia 
45. Azerbaijan 
46. Australia 
47. Egypt 
48. Japan 
49. Sweden 
50. United Kingdom 
51. Sri Lanka 
52. Hungary 
53. Norway 
54. Trinidad and Tobago 
55. Bahrain 
56. Belgium 
57. Luxembourg 
58. Macau, China 
59. Mauritius 
60. Singapore
</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>
The list, however, does not contain relevant statistics for all countries, thus the rankings of China, Ukraine, and Chile are estimated based on reports from private websites. There are no reliable estimates for Russia even though Russia is an extremely important mining country. 
 
A few explanations are in order in assessing the list. First, even the ILO database which is the most authoritative on such matters, is extremely unreliable. The ILO can only cite what member countries send them. And then there are difficulties from under-coverage, such as most countries report only compensable deaths, to under-reporting, such as many deaths, even traumatic ones, are simply not recorded as occupational. Then there is outright fraud, since without question it is in the economic interests of employers to under-report. It is also in the political interests of many countries to under-report. 
 
Furthermore, occupational disease claims more workers' lives than traumatic accidents – even in hazardous occupations like mining. Occupational cancer alone almost certainly kills more miners than accidents, and there are many other diseases (lung, skin, nervous system) that are fatal but are not cancer. These diseases are universally under-diagnosed and under-reported. 
 
In the country ranking above, Turkey and Korea become the countries with the most dangerous mines, ahead of China. This may seem surprising, but Turkey, which is not a major mining country has both an extremely poor safety record and perhaps a better record of reporting than other countries on the list. As for China, the statistics are estimated from on-line sources of unknown origin and can only be assumed to be gross underestimates. The real number could be double, or even triple, the reported rate. 
 
Finally, mining statistics often can be found in the form of deaths per million metric tonnes of ore/coal produced. This type of reporting tends to skew the statistics so that low-productivity mining nations such as China look relatively worse compared to highly mechanised mining nations such as the US, because more miners are required to produce the same number of tonnes of product. An example of <a href="http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/08/two-chinese-coal-miners-lived-179-did.html ">this type of rating</a> can be seen here. 
 
The ICEM prefers to look at mining fatalities per 100,000 workers because what matters to a miner in considering whether a mine is safe or unsafe is whether he or she goes home intact at the end of the day. The number of tonnes mined in that day is secondary to that fact. 
 
Overall, safety statistics revealed above should be considered to be of only the most marginal value.

Mine Safety and ILO Convention 176: A Continued Priority for the ICEM

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBriefAlert.jpg" width="120" height="59"/>
Union members of Sindicato No. 1 de Trabajadores de Minera Escondida, a branch of Chile’s Federation of Miners (FMC), returned to work Friday night, 5 August, at the world’s largest copper mine, majority owned by BHP Billiton. Some 2,375 miners at the Escondida mine ended a 15-day strike with a 65.5% to 34.5% vote the night before after two days of negotiating with mine management. 
 
The memorandum of agreement provides a remedy to a dispute over a 2010 production bonus but just as important, addresses several grievances and breaches by Escondida management from a 2009 labour agreement. 
 
Sindicato No. 1 said of the memorandum, “the company promises to solve a series of labour issues such as establishing a new attendance policy, regularising a certification system based on competency for promotions, and reformulating the criteria for calculating a production bonus.” These were just some of the issues in dispute inside a four-year labour agreement that was signed in November 2009. 
 
In 2010, Escondida – 57.5% owned by operator BHP Billiton, 30% by Rio Tinto, and 12.5% by Japanese holding companies – saw profits of US$4.3 billion, up 35% over that of 2009. Last week’s amended bonus to each worker amounts to CHP 2.65 million (pesos), or US$5,800. Miners will receive that on 25 August.
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Sindicato No. 1 Files Papers in a Labour Court in late July
Escondida said the strike was illegal and indicated throughout the walkout that it would not negotiate with the union. But as the days wore on and the company was losing US$30 million per day, that changed. In a statement after signing the memorandum of agreement, the company said workers had ended their “illegal work stoppage” and “this action is due to the success of talks between the parties. 
 
“Minera Escondida reiterates that dialogue and respect are the foundation for maintaining a beneficial relationship with its workers.” 
 
Besides the aforementioned labour issues, that respect includes a more transparent system for the production bonuses; restoration of a housing allocation that lifts restrictions on where miners may use the stipends; safer and higher quality buses for transportation to and from worksites, as well as compensation for tickets; no retaliation, redundancy, or punishment for union activity; and review of company-installed surveillance cameras. 
 
Miners will also be paid their salaries for the 15-day strike. Sindicato No. 1 de Trabajadores de Minera Escondida had filed labour court charges on several of the issues involved in the strike. 
 
For its part, the union said it hopes to maintain and deepen channels of communication with management, but also will remain vigilant that the issues agreed to in the memorandum will get resolved. 
 
Minera Escondida consists of two open-pit copper mines some 170 kilometres southeast of Antofagasta, in Chile’s Region II. It also consists of two concentrator plants, Los Colorados and Laguna Seca, which have a combined capacity of 330,000 tonnes per day. The company operates two pipelines and a filter plant at the Port of Coloso. 
 
In 2010, Escondida’s production totalled 1.087 million tonnes, consisting of 786,603 tonnes of copper concentrate and 300,098 tonnes of copper cathodes. It provides concentrates to smelters in Japan, China, Korea, India, and Chile, while the cathodes are sold to markets in France, the Netherlands, Italy, China, Korea, Canada, and Mexico. It provides a total of 7% of the world’s copper supply.

Chile Copper Workers End Strike at Escondida with 65% Vote

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Following an opening meeting in October 2010, the Global Safety Panel of ICEM and French chemicals company Rhodia under the Global Framework Agreement (GFA) held its second meeting at a Rhodia operation called Sertow in Serpukhov, Russia, on 19-20 July.
The safety forum was included in an amendment to the GFA in February 2010. The safety panel has duties to monitor Rhodia’s health and safety policies and practices, as well as to continue ongoing dialogue between the company and its workers and make recommendations on improvements.
The Sertow plant is part of the group’s Acetow company and makes cigarette filters for the global tobacco industry. Operated by Rhodia since 1994, the plant uses cellulose acetate flakes as a key raw material. The plant does stress the importance to health and safety issues since a fatal accident happened on 12 September 2000. The plant since has gone for over ten years without a lost-time accident.
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The ICEM delegation was composed of Juarez Nogueira of Sindquim, Brazil; Scott Harrington of the United Steelworkers (USW), US; Maurice Tritsch of CFDT, France; Jie Dong from China; and Kemal Özkan and Brian Kohler from the ICEM headquarters. The delegation first met with the elected representatives of the site concerning industrial relations and the health and safety situation.
Local level labour relations were set up using the example of the German Works Council system as it exists at Acetow’s centre, located in Freiburg, Germany. There is close collaboration between the workforce leaders of both operations, and the Sertow Works Council is actively involved in labour-related matters such as collective agreements, personnel health improvement, support of sporting events, and involvement in renovation of the social room. The Works Council has regular meetings with management as part of social dialogue.
Following presentations about Rhodia, Acetow, and the Sertow plant with key figures presented on economic, social, and personnel-related matters, the meeting received a report on Rhodia Way, the company’s integrated management system regarding sustainable development.
The participants also heard a report from Rhodia managers on the five-year plan of personal safety that covered records of 2011, as well as projections for the period of 2011-2015. The report put forward a plan to significantly reduce the number of irreversible and chemical accidents until 2015. The targets cover Rhodia’s temporary and sub-contact employees and its own staff.
Having made comments on the report, the ICEM’s Kohler presented his health and safety recommendations to plant-level and corporate management. A specific discussion was made on Rhodia’s investigatory method named after the “Casual Tree" accident. The meeting also received a presentation from the Sertow management on practices and results regarding safety compliance. The participants later toured the facility.
The meeting was finalized with an assessment of the discussions and future activities. It was agreed to deepen co-operation for reflecting the work of the Global Safety Panel to workplace level in all of Rhodia’s operations worldwide.

ICEM, Rhodia Global Safety Panel Hold Second Meeting in Russia

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