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A summer-long Korean labour dispute that spiraled into a 25 August lockout by Kumho Tire Co. at three manufacturing plants was resolved Saturday, 5 September, when South Korea’s second largest tyre maker and the Kumho Tire Workers’ Union of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) reached a compromise settlement. 
 
That compromise will preserve 733 of 4,000 jobs that Kumho had proposed be cut. The union, in turn, will extend a 2008 wage freeze through 2009. The Kumho Tire Workers’ Union also agreed to forego scheduled 2008 bonuses, with talks over 2009 bonus schemes to be held in the first quarter of 2010. 
 
The dispute began in June when management demanded another wage freeze, non-payment of bonuses, a job-sharing plan that would cut work hours, thus reducing salaries between 20-to-30%, and the redundancies, totaling 18% of the entire workforce. The union then began a series of industrial actions, and was prepared to escalate job actions after Kumho reported its restructuring plan to the Ministry of Labour on 24 August.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/kctuKoreaLogo.gif" width="140" height="102" alt=""/>
Instead, the company imposed lockouts at tyre facilities in Gwangju, Gwanngju province, Gokseong, South Jeolla province, and Pyeonggtaek, Gyeonggi province. When Kumho lifted the lockouts some ten days later, workers embarked on sit-in strike actions. Those ended at the weekend with the negotiated compromise. 
 
The union also retreated on a “no work/no pay” demand by Kumho for the strike days, and salaries will not be paid during periods of strike. The dispute mirrored some of the negative results from the recent Ssangyong Motor struggle. 
 
Kumho Tire is part of the conglomerate Kumho Asiana Group, a holding company that took on massive debt in 2006 with the purchase of Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co. The group’s debt-to-equity ratio rose five-fold and Kumho has tried to reduce debt by reducing labour costs. 
 
Kumho Tire has severed its workforce by 130 each year since ill-advised purchase of Daewoo, but last year, in July, a four-day strike by the Kumho Tire Workers’ Union convinced the company to withdraw 431 announced redundancies. In the past year, however, Kumho opened its second plant in China, a truck and bus tyre facility in the city of Nanjing. 
 
The Tire Workers’ Union, through the KMWU, is affiliated to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).

Korean Tyre Dispute at Kumho Ends in Compromise

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Women of Steel, the women’s organization of ICEM North American affiliate United Steelworkers (USW), has called on the US government to take stronger action against the Honduran military, following the 28 June coup of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya. 
 
The union’s women’s group pointed to at least 19 cases of rape by police officers since the coup began, and cited a report by Feministas de Honduras en Resistencia that said police are using rape and other forms of sexual assault against women leaders of the resistance to blunt a return to democracy. 
 
In a 31 August letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Women of Steel Director Ann Flener said, “We call upon you and President Obama to denounce the repression and basic human rights violations being carried out by the current illegitimate government and to take all necessary steps to restore President Zelaya, including the withdrawal of the US Ambassador to Honduras; the end of all economic assistance to the coup regime, including monies granted by the Millennium Challenge Corp., and to freeze all assets of the coup leaders. 
 
“As women, we ask you to speak out and stand up against this violence against women …” The letter also asked Secretary of State Clinton to denounce the gender violence in Honduras, similar to her denouncement of violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0708USWwomen.jpg" width="300" height="130" alt=""/>
Some of USW's Women of Steel 
The letter was copied to President Barack Obama, US First Lady Michelle Obama, 17 women members of the US Senate, and several other US government officials. 
 
While the US government has verbally called for the return to power of Zelaya, it has officially refrained from terming the overthrow a coup, which would legally require it to suspend all economic and military aid. The US is Honduras’s chief trade partner. 
 
Most European Union governments have withdrawn their ambassadors, and EU countries in total have suspended US$90 million in aid to the Central American country. 
 
On 30 July, Carlos Reyes, General Secretary of International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers’ (IUF) affiliated STIBYS, was brutally attacked by Honduran police squads while he was peacefully protesting the military coup in the northern city of Tegucigalpa. Reyes, an IUF Executive Committee member, suffered a severely broken arm and other serious injuries.

USW Women call on US Government to Take Definitive Action in Honduras

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Patience by members of ICEM-affiliated Ghana Mine Workers’ Union (GMWU) has worn thin with the African nation’s three largest gold producers, AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields, and Newmont Mining. The union has been in wage talks with the major producers throughout the summer, focusing mainly on narrowing the wide pay gap between expatriate workers and Ghana staff. 
 
The mining houses have become difficult in talks. Despite gold being one mineral which has maintained high pricing value during the economic crisis, AngloGold and Goldfields, in particular, are cold to the GMWU’s proposal to lift base wages of Ghanaian miners gradually over the next three years. The wage agreement for 2009 in mining expired in July. 
 
The mining companies’ intransigence has already produced GMWU industrial actions. In early August, 4,600 miners staged a two-day strike at AngloGold’s three mines and last week, 2,100 Goldfields miners began “go-slow” industrial actions at the South African-based mining house’s two mines, including Ghana’s largest producing gold mine – Tarkwa.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Ghana.png" width="250" height="115" alt=""/>
Talks between GMWU and Goldfields on 17-18 September again went nowhere, and GMWU General Secretary Prince William Ankrah said the union’s executive council met over the weekend to assess the situation and plan further action. 
 
“The situation is dire,” he said. “There now is a very good possibility that we will conduct nationwide strikes against the entire industry.” Such industrial actions would also involve smaller mining concerns. Since Goldfields has applied to the Ghana Labour Commission for intervention over last week’s actions, GMWU will now file for arbitration with the commission. 
 
“We are realistic that mining companies cannot equalize the pay disproportion between expatiates and local staff immediately,” said Ankrah. “But we have very clear direction from our National Executive Council that a wage review must now begin, with the disparity bridged over the next three years.” 
 
The union is seeking a 24.5% increase over the three years, which would produce a minimum monthly salary of US$500 by 2011. The mining houses have offered an increment of only 3.5%. 
 
GMWU points out that pay of Ghana’s AngloGold executives is 289 times that of the lowest-paid worker, while at Goldfields it is 201 times. Mid-level expat workers in the gold mines receive salaries that are above twice that of local staff doing the same jobs. Lower-tiered salary levels for Ghanaian staff are up to 30 times less than that of expat workers. 
 
At AngloGold, junior staff – numbering about 4,000 workers – account for 46% of the payroll, while 675 managers account for 35% and 42 expat workers count for 18% of payroll costs. 
 
In Ghana’s mining sector, the US dollar is used as the basis for salaries. In bargaining with Goldfields, the company said the weakness of the American dollar had already lifted salaries when converted to cedis (GHC), an argument the GMWU found insulting.

Ghana Miners’ Escalate Pay Dispute with Gold Producers

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The three-day Congress of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa late last week provided stark reminder that tensions do exist on certain issues between trade unions and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party. One such issue is the contentious matter of labour brokers. 
ANC General Secretary Gwede Mantashe, himself a former NUM General Secretary and ICEM Executive member, argued on the first day that certain actions by labour unions might prove “counter-productive” with the ANC and the new Zuma government. But earlier, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told delegates that in current wage talks throughout the country, it is wrong to think that workers should pick up a share of the economic burden. 
Vavi called it “scandalous” that the first response to this economic crisis is for workers to lower their pay demands. “I say No to the CEOs who have watched their salaries grow by 150% each year and now say it is workers who must lower their demands,” Vavi said. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0906.NUM.senzeni.jpg" width="180" height="167"/>
ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana
The NUM’s Triennial Congress was held at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, near Johannesburg. The union conducted debates, deliberations, and their elections under two banners, “Members First Today and Forever” and “Strengthen Solidarity, Deepen Class Consciousness.” Delegates attended from all 11 regions of the 320,000-member NUM to this 12th policy-shaping Congress. 
One of the policies adopted is an outright ban on the use of labour brokers in South Africa. The NUM calls it the biggest threat to decent work in the country today. The NUM stands along side COSATU and other unions on the ban, while the ANC government has said it will introduce laws that more closely regulate contract work, subcontracting, and outsourcing. 
NUM President Senzeni Zokwana, who also is ICEM President, gave a forceful and moving speech to open the Congress on 28 May by stating, “Let no one here believe we are going to settle for low wages. We will demand a living wage for mineworkers, construction workers, and energy workers.” 
Zokwana called for an end to labour brokering, saying it is the creator of detrimental work conditions and the beginning of slave wages. 
South Africa Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana also criticised labour brokers. “These companies send the labour of workers to the highest bidder and then they pay them the lowest possible wage,” he said. “It is an extreme form of free market labour capitalism. It allows workers to be traded for profit just as if they are meat or vegetables.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0906.NUM.manfred.jpg" width="180" height="165"/>
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda told delegates that the Global Union Federation stands with them in calling for the ban, calling Contract and Agency Labour “one of the worst plagues of globalisation.” Warda added that “the neoliberal model and the greed that it encouraged” has led the whole world to the edge of economic disaster. “We need a world of equality and regulated financial governance now more than at any previous time.” 
Warda paid tribute to the NUM’s leading role inside Africa related to trade-union building, and he also mentioned the union’s exemplary work in HIV/AIDS prevention and in mine safety. Warda also used the NUM forum to issue a call for unity among the trade unions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 
Zokwana was re-elected President of NUM, while ICEM Executive member Frans Baleni won re-election as General Secretary.

NUM Stands Pat on Ban of Labour Brokers at 12th Congress

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At a press conference on 8 January in Mexico City, during an ICEM North American Regional Coordinating Committee meeting there, Canadian and US ICEM leaders denounced the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s anti-union conduct in dissolving the Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union (SME) and its continuing persecution of the National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM, or Los Mineros) and its General Secretary Napoleón Gómez Urrutia. 
 
The regional forum, led by ICEM North American Vice Presidents Ken Neumann of the United Steelworkers (USW) and Dave Coles of the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada, stressed that the repressive tactics heaped upon trade unions by the Calderón government is an affront to human rights and that these actions will receive world-wide attention. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1001.icem.us.mexico.jpg" width="261" height="196"/>
ICEM North American leaders at press conference 
The North American ICEM leaders also said the anti-union policies subject millions of Mexican workers to poverty. They also called attention to Mexican trade union leaders like Los Mineros’s Juan Linares Montúfar who have been jailed for their legitimate union activities. The press conference was attended by members of Los Mineros, by several ICEM North American delegates, and by ICEM’s Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs Joe Drexler. 
 
Napoleón Gómez himself has escaped jail in Mexico by fleeing to Canada, with the Mexican government now seeking his extradition. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Mexico.SNTMMSRM.jpg" width="120" height="145"/>
Neumann, the USW’s National Director for Canada, said that there is evidence that the charges against Napoleón Gómez are unfounded and purely an invention by the Mexican government in sync with the mining company, Grupo México. “Mexico is a NAFTA partner with Canada and the United States and we will not sit back and allow these repressions to occur,” said Neumann. 
 
On 10 October 2009, the Calderón government swept in with federal agents and armed police to shut down the country’s second largest utility, the Mexico City regional Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), or Central Light and Power. Calderón used an executive decree to merge the electric power distributor with the Federal Electricity Commission and to disband the 95-year-old and 60,000-member SME. 
 
The North American ICEM representatives condemned the government for not proceeding through legal channels if it suspected there were misdeeds inside the utility.

ICEM North Americans Use Mexican City Press to Condemn Calderón’s Labour Policies

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While the campaign for retention of coal-mining jobs and a fair contract by the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) with Xstrata in Australia continues, another union is resisting proposed mining and metallurgical job cuts by the Anglo-Swiss mining house. 
 
In North America, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) launched a campaign in northern Ontario in mid-December to preserve 676 copper and nickel smelting and refining jobs at Xstrata’s Kidd Creek metallurgical plants in Timmons, Ontario. The company announced on 8 December that it was permanently shuttering a smelter and refinery, effective 1 May 2010, thus heaping further economic havoc on a region already beset by job losses and a strike. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/caw-logo-45[1].jpg" width="160" height="74"/>
The proposed job losses come on top of 725 mineworker layoffs by Xstrata in February 2009, when it temporarily shut three mines in the region. CAW Local 598 of Sudbury, Ontario, which is currently engaged in negotiations with Xstrata Nickel toward a 1 February contract expiration, has made recall of those jobs its number one bargaining table priority. 
 
In Timmons, CAW Local 599 has started a public campaign aimed at drawing business and government pressure on Xstrata Copper Canada to reverse the Kidd Creek closure. A major part of the campaign is aimed at the federal government, which, the union contends, must protect Canadian jobs as part of the C$19 billion sale of these former Falconbridge assets to Xstrata in 2006. 
 
That issue is similar to one included in the campaign by the United Steelworkers (USW) in its strike against Brazilian Vale. The CAW has supported USW Local 6500 on picket lines and with financial support in its current six-month strike against Vale, and it has also joined USW in calling on the Canadian Parliament to enact legislation that would give transparency to deals made under the Investment Canada Act. 
 
In the corporate takeovers of both Vale buying Inco and Xstrata paying a premium to get Canadian-based Falconbridge, many details between the federal government and the foreign mining houses were kept secret, and the job-slashing now – the unions feel – could have been prevented had more disclosure come in 2006. 
 
CAW Local 599 is pursuing an aggressive petition campaign calling for both retention of the Kidd Creek facility and for government action on the proposed job cuts. Visit the union’s website <a href="http://www.caw599.ca">here</a> to learn more and to join the petition. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1001.caw.canada.sign.jpg" width="183" height="150"/>
In Australia, CFMEU’s campaign against Xstrata in New South Wales on redundancies and lack of a current enterprise agreement continues. Last summer, Xstrata announced it was cutting 180 coal-mining jobs at two collieries, Tahmoor and Ulan. 
 
The union has been engaged in lawful industrial actions at Tahmoor over the past several months (see past ICEM coverage <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/" type="internal">here</a>), with miners conducting a march through Tahmoor on 21 December to coincide with a 24-hour work stoppage. Other industrial actions included the refusal to load coal on to trains for shipment to Port Kembla. 
 
Early in the new year, the industrial actions were halted so coal could be loaded on to trains and eventually shipped to German steelmaker ZKS. That request came from metalworkers in Germany due to low inventories and in order to keep operations at ZKS in production. 
See the CFMEU's campaign website <a href="http://www.xstratafacts.com/">here</a>.

Mine Unions in Australia, Canada Reject Xstrata’s Job Cuts

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Short strikes by copper miners in Chile have ended and new collective agreements are in place with both the state-owned copper company, Codelco, and with Anglo-Swiss multinational Xstrata. Striking mineworkers at Codelco’s Chuquicamata complex have settled, however an agreement still needs to be reached for 280 miners at the state-owned firm’s Codelco Norte and for 500 miners at El Teniente. 
 
Meanwhile, mineworkers at Xstrata’s Altonorte copper smelter agreed to contract terms, following one week of industrial action that ended on 4 January. 
 
Some 5,600 miners at Chuquicamata, located in Chile’s northern region, ended two days of strike action on 5 January after accepting a pay rise of 4% and a bonus totaling US$24,280. Codelco’s Chuquicamata workers also won a US$6,000 interest-free loan. Miners voted by 2,610 to 1,203 to accept the deal. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Chile.png" width="200" height="92"/>
The Chuquicamata produces around four percent of the world’s total copper supply. The vast complex includes the Chuquicamata and Mina Sur mines, and the short strike boosted global prices to a 16-month high. Union leaders had been seeking a 7.5% salary increase and a US$28,000 bonus, claiming the cost of living in the remote region is higher than anywhere in Chile. 
 
It was the first strike at these Codelco mines since 1996. The new collective agreement will last 38 months and took effect on 1 January. 
 
The settlement at Xstrata’s Altonorte smelter, also in Chile’s northern Region II, includes a two percent increase to base wages, a bonus of US$5,000, and an annual production bonus of US$1,500. The new collective agreement will be in effect for a three-year period, backdated to 18 December 2009. Miners of Labour Union No. 1 at Altonorte began their strike action on 28 December. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMminingsector5.jpg" width="100" height="101"/>
Altonorte employs 660 workers and treats raw copper and other mining by-products to obtain copper anodes. The site has the capacity to produce 290,000 tonnes per year of copper in anode form. Xstrata is the fourth largest copper producer in the world. 
 
End-of-year negotiations at both Codelco and Xstrata coincided with a big jump in global copper prices, bringing pricing levels to 130 percent of what they were in early 2009. Codelco resumes bargaining with miners at El Teniente in March. 
 
Chile, the world’s largest copper producer, reached an output of 5.3 million tonnes in 2008, and it is estimated that the 2009 figure will be similar. This equals roughly one-third of total global production.

Strikes Bring Chilean Miners Significant Advances with Codelco, Xstrata

The 20-million-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) is demanding that the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina intervene on behalf of 1,250 workers in the northern city of Lukavac. The workers have had their pay slashed and are owed wage arrears by India-based Global Infrastructure Holdings Ltd., a subsidiary of the Ispat Group, owned by the Mittal steel-making family. 
 
The company is the minority owner but manages a coke-chemicals enterprise called Global Ispat Koksana Industtrija Lukavac (GIKIL), which sells to steel mills throughout Central Europe, Turkey, and in India. The local government of the Canton of Tuzla is majority stakeholder. 
 
In a 21 January letter to Bosnia-Herzegovina Prime Minister Mustafa Mujezinovic and to Canton of Tuzla Prime Minister Enes Mujić, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda – together with International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) General Secretary Jyrki Raina – called on both the federal government and regional government to ensure that restoration of previous pay levels dating to 2003 are restored, that wage arrears are paid, and that the governments be more vigilant on potentially serious health risks existing inside GIKIL. 
 
The ICEM, a Geneva-based global trade federation that numbers 467 affiliated trade unions in 132 countries, is pursuing justice for Lukavac workers on behalf of one of those affiliates, the Independent Trade Union of Chemistry and Non-Metal Workers of Bosnia-Herzegovina. 
 
“The ICEM has probed Global Infrastructure Holdings, its parent, the steel-maker Ispat Group, and Pramod Mittal himself.” said Warda. “What we find is a history of depraved conduct placed on people in many countries and total disregard for global social standards, as well as statutes enshrined in European law.” 
 
In Lukavac, workers have carried out lawful strikes twice in six months, laying claims to salaries owed them. Despite all workers taking membership in the union, GIKIL’s Indian managing director, Guttupalli Jagannadham, has bypassed the union in slashing pay to 55% of previous earnings. That level is below the minimum wage standard contained in the national collective agreement for chemistry and non-metals, and amounts to just above €200 per month (400 marka), putting it well under the minimum wage threshold for the sector in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 
 
Workers staged a strike from 6 January to 14 January after salaries had not been paid in October, November, and December 2009. During the strike, the October and November pay was made, but December salaries are still in remiss. A mediated agreement that ended a three-day strike in July 2009 called on GIKIL management to honour the collective agreement, and pay all wages due by 31 December 2009. 
 
The ICEM and IMF also stated concern for workers’ health at GIKIL in the letter to the Bosnia-Herzegovina government. The Independent Trade Union of Chemistry and Non-Metal Workers believes a number of workers have acute cases of cancer due to lack of safeguards around coke ovens. 
 
In the joint letter, the combined 45-million-member ICEM and IMF cautioned the government not to lose oversight over labour-management relations at GIKIL. “We think this a mistake, considering the recent history of wage arrears, asset stripping, and general social depravation brought by Global Infrastructure Holdings.” 
 
The ICEM cites a number of instances in the near past where Ispat and its Global Steel Holdings and Global Infrastructure Holdings subsidiaries have not met payrolls and displayed other social misconduct following privatizations and restructuring. Those cases have occurred in Nigeria, Libya, Bulgaria, as well as against Indian expatriate staff working abroad. 
 
“We take the breach of contract, failure to engage the union in social talks, and wage issues very seriously,” said Warda of the conflict in Lukavac. “Either the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina corrects the wrongs imposed on workers, or we carry this dispute to different levels.” 
 
For More Information, Contact: or Kata Iveljic, Tuzla Branch President, Independent Trade Union of Chemistry and Non-Metal Workers, <a href="mailto:sindikat.tz@bih.net.ba">sindikat.tz@bih.net.ba</a>, +387 35 279 081 (mobile: +387 61 894 385); or Dick Blin, ICEM Information and Campaigns Officer, <a href="mailto:dick.blin@icem.org">dick.blin@icem.org</a>, +41 22 304 1842 (mobile: +41 79 734 8994).

ICEM, IMF Decry Mittal’s Pay Delinquencies in Bosnia-Herzegovina

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
On 21 January, ICEM Colombian affiliate Union Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petrolero (USO) presented demands to management of Schlumberger Surenco, the world's largest oilfield services corporation with operations in approximately 80 countries. The multinational has been operating in Colombia since 2001 with the state-run petroleum company, Ecopetrol, at the Casabe site, near Barrancabermeja, the country’s most important refinery. 
 
Schlumberger has contracts with Ecopetrol at a majority of production sites in Colombia. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMoil4.JPG.JPG" width="130" height="130" alt=""/>
The company entered into bargaining with the USO negotiating committee on 3 February. USO will be aiming to improve conditions and salaries for workers at a global oil services company that posted operating revenues in 2008 totaled US$27.16 billion. 
 
The ICEM will continue to monitor these talks, and pledges full support to USO in achieving the best terms and conditions possible. 
 
Elsewhere regarding USO, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda last week sent a letter to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, calling on his government to improve security for trade unionists in Colombia. The letter follows yet another serious attack on USO President Germán Osman. Warda called on both the government and Ecopetrol to do more to guarantee the safety and rights of trade unionists and their families, in light of the continuing attacks by Colombian mafia groups such as the “Águilas Negras,” or Black Eagles. 
 
Colombia has the reputation for being the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists, with 49 trade union leaders murdered in 2009 and 2,712 since 1986. The ICEM and Warda’s letter in Spanish can be viewed <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1.ICEM.Col.Pres.Uribe..pdf" type="internal">here</a>. 
 
The ICEM has a website dedicated to its work in Colombia, run by Colombia Coordinator Carlos Bustos. View that website here <a href="http://www.icemcolombia.com">www.icemcolombia.com</a>. Write to Carlos <a href="mailto:icemcol@hotmail.com">here</a>.

Colombia Oil Union USO Presents Demands to Service Provider Schlumberger

Two global union federations are urging the Mexican government and Mexican armed forces to use restraint in any attempt to secure Grupo México’s Cananea copper mine in Sonora State. The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) are deeply concerned that a court ruling last week will precipitate violence between armed Mexican troops and miners represented by an affiliate of the two Geneva-based labour federations, Mexico’s National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM). 
 
The caution to Mexican authorities comes following an 11 February decision by a labour appellate court upholding a Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board declaration to end a 31-month strike by the union, and terminating the collective agreement between SNTMMSRM and Grupo México. 
 
The ICEM and IMF are aware that federal troops have been dispatched to northern Sonora State. The ICEM and IMF are also in direct contact with the Mexican trade union and believe miners at Cananea are resolved to continue occupying the mine until a fair and equitable labour agreement is reached. 
 
“This week is a very critical time at Cananea and we urge the Mexican government to order its forces to use prudence and abeyance in dealing with workers,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “If the mine is to reopen, we insist that Grupo México, the government, and the union engage in honest dialogue to address the issues that are unresolved, and to recognise the union in a productive spirit.” 
 
“The use of violence of any kind will serve only to further isolate the parties,” said IMF General Secretary Jyrki Raina. “We understand that the legal process has now been exhausted, so we urge respect and balance and hopefully a negotiated resolve can occur that will put the miners back to work in a region of Mexico that desperately needs income-generating jobs.” 
 
Together, the ICEM and IMF represent 45 million workers globally. The ICEM serves as the umbrella global union federation for 467 trade unions in 132 countries, while the IMF represents the interests of 200 trade unions in 100 countries.

ICEM, IMF Urge Restraint by Mexico at Cananea Copper Mine

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