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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The Guyana Bauxite & General Workers’ Union (GB&GWU) is seeking corrective measures by the government of the South American nation in order to continue representing 500 miners of the Bauxite Co. of Guyana Inc. (BCGI), which is 90% controlled by the Russian metals company RusAl. 
 
Following six months of intense struggle, which crested in December 2009 when RusAl unilaterally withdrew recognition of the union at the Aroaima and Kwakwani bauxite mines in contradiction to Guyanese labour law, GB&GWU finally got a hearing last week, on 25 May, before Guyana’s Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board. 
 
But that hearing proved inconclusive, with the union seeking remedial action by the Labour Ministry before a ballot is put before miners on whether or not they want to retain the longstanding union. Fifty-seven GB&GWU activists remain sacked after they led a strike on 22 November 2009. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1002.guyana.JPG" width="256" height="192"/>
GB&GWU picketed the offices of Labour Minister Mansoor Nadir on 4 and 5 February 
The union wants redress for the Labour Minister refusing to act or to conduct an investigation that followed the end of the strike. BCGI prepared a de-authorization petition and coerced workers into signing it, denouncing the GB&GWU. In April, it surfaced that BCGI management at both Aroaima and Kwakwani conspired to organise a workers’ committee for a rival union, one connected with the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in Guyana. (The GB&GWU has been traditionally aligned with the opposition People’s National Congress Reform, PNCR). 
 
“What we are asking,” said GB&GWU Secretary-General Lincoln Lewis, “is that the laws of the country be upheld before any ballot at BCGI is held. That means that BCGI’s one-sided de-authorization be addressed, victimization of union leaders be addressed, the illegal firings be heard, and its blatant interference over freedom of association rights be addressed. 
 
“Now, that has not happened. We cannot enter a ballot until these complaints are answered. If we do, it opens an unwanted precedent for any union in Guyana – no matter the political alignment – for both national laws and international labour standards to be ignored in undermining a legitimate union.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/People/lincoln.lewis.guyana.jpg" width="120" height="198"/>
GB&GWU Secretary-General Lincoln Lewis 
The dispute is now highly politically charged with PNCR representatives in the National Assembly bringing a no-confidence motion on Labour, Human Services, and Social Security Minister Mansoor Nadir inside the Legislature. The Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy has called for his resignation. 
 
The labour dispute initially started in wage negotiations last November. BCGI submitted three proposals and asked miners to vote and accept one. When they accepted the one least desirable to BCGI, managers began meeting with groups of workers to convince them to change their position. For those who stood by the democratic vote, management made it known they would be the first terminated. 
 
Management’s bullishness, thus, caused the strike, a strike in which BCGI terminated union leaders, withdrew recognition, and subsequently has tried to introduce another union. The ICEM did intervene with the Guyanese government, but received only a curt reply that all laws and procedures are being adhered to. The ICEM will continue to stand by the GB&GWU until full justice prevails.

Guyana Bauxite Union Still Seeking Justice from RusAl, Government

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
In 2009, according to the annual survey of the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC), 101 murders of trade unionists occurred worldwide. Colombia again was the leader among countries with 48. Despite the gruesome repeat, the ILO’s Committee on the Application of Standards, on 5 June, excluded Colombia from the list of 25 countries sanctioned for trade union rights abuses. 
 
The ICEM expresses disbelief over the omitting of Colombia, and itself sanctions employers’ representatives at the ILO for manipulating the exclusion. The ICEM also calls attention to the fact that President Álvaro Uribe Vélez immediately used Colombia’s elimination to promote free trade agreements with North American nations and the European Union. 
 
It was the first time in 20 years that Colombia, far and away the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists to carry out their activities, was left off the list. The ITUC reports that over the last decade, 63% of all trade union murders occurred in Colombia. It counts at least 10,887 acts of violence against unionists, and over the past 24 years, 2,832 murders occurred. 
 
“The ICEM is appalled at the political power play by employers’ representatives, both from Colombia and elsewhere, to exclude Colombia from the list of 25,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “Not only do murders, telephone threats, physical assaults continue there on a regular basis, but despite government rhetoric, impunity for such crimes is nearly always certain.” 
 
The exclusion, at the 99th Session of ILO’s International Labour Conference in Geneva, came days before Colombia hosted the US Secretary of State in another effort to get America to implement its end of the 2006 United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Act. The US Congress has held up a vote over implementing it because of Colombia’s horrid labour and human rights record. 
 
Uribe welcomed the US foreign minister to Colombia by stating the ILO’s move was a “harbinger of your visit” to the Latin nation. 
 
Similar free trade agreements are also currently pending between Colombia and both Canada and the European Union. Resistance by constituencies, including labour unions, against such foreign trade deals also hinge on human and union rights abuses. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Colombia.png" width="250" height="115"/>
Colombia’s murder rate speaks for itself. In the first five months of 2010, 17 Colombian trade union activists were murdered. And on 5 June, the same day the ILO’s tripartite committee excluded the country, Hernán Abdiel Ordoñez Dorado, treasurer of the prison workers’ union ASEINPEC, was shot dead by unknown assailants on motorbikes in Cali. The number of assassinated trade unionists in Colombia in 2010 is 18. 
 
In 2009, 22 of Colombia’s 48 killings were made against senior trade union leaders, with five of those being women. 
 
Overall, again according to the ITUC statistics, murders of trade unionists jumped 30% in 2009 over 2008, when 76 killings were recorded. But it is a known fact that many murders, and other abusive violations aimed at trade unionists, go unreported. 
 
Compared to Colombia’s 48 trade union murders in 2009, 16 happened in Guatemala, 12 in Honduras, six each in Mexico and Bangladesh, four in Brazil, and three each in the Dominican Republic and the Philippines. 
 
The ITUC survey provides detailed documentation of harassment, intimidation, and other measures on anti-union persecution in 140 countries. The survey can be found <a href="http://survey.ituc-csi.org/+-Whole-World-+.html?lang=en">here</a>.

Home to Half of World’s Union Murders, Colombia Excluded from ILO’s Sanctions List

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The ICEM North American affiliate, Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), continues to win legal victories for 140 Massachusetts workers of Covanta, a private sector waste-to-energy company specializing in public solid-waste contracts that burns the waste for creation of electric energy. 
 
On 26 March, an administrative law judge of the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that the company owes the 140 workers nearly US$1 million for withholding wage increases and bonuses in retaliation for staff exercising their lawful right to join the UWUA in May 2008. 
 
The 49-page ruling requires Covanta to repay to workers the money illegally withheld, plus interest, and to bargain with UWUA Local 369 a first collective agreement at a Rochester, Massachusetts, incinerator before it makes any unilateral workplace changes. 
 
The company’s illegal conduct caused workers to lose between 8% and 11% of their annual income in 2009. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/covanta-smoke-4-copy.jpg" width="216" height="160"/>
The judge’s ruling involves the administrative phase of numerous workplace charges brought by the union against Covanta’s unfair labour practices following the NLRB-conducted union authorization vote nearly two years ago. Late in 2009, the labour agency invoked its powers under US labour law to petition a federal court for injunctive relief against Covanta for labour law violations. 
 
The NLRB invokes Section 10(j) of the labour code only rarely, and only when it deems cases are egregious enough to warrant federal court intervention. The injunction petition is currently pending before a federal court in Boston. 
 
Covanta is likely to appeal the administrative law judge’s ruling to the five-member NLRB, but the recent ruling should lend credence before the federal court. 
 
We’ve “long known that Covanta viciously punished these workers because they organized and demanded dignity and a voice in the workplace,” said Local 369 President Gary Sullivan. “This ruling lets the rest of the world know that, without question, Covanta broke the law and will have to put things right.” 
 
The company operates some 40 solid waste facilities in the US. As Covanta has tried to expand its waste-to-energy business into the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Canada, the ICEM has assisted the UWUA to illuminate the American company’s work rights violations, as well as health/safety infractions and certain environmental practices before communities and trade unions in those countries. 
 
For more information on the UWUA’s Campaign for Justice at Covanta, visit the campaign website <a href="http://www.cjcw.org/ ">here</a>.

UWUA Wins US$1 Million Judgment for Covanta Workers 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM has issued stern rebuke to the cowardly perpetrators of an assassination attempt on two union officers of the National Oil Workers’ Union (USO) of Colombia, and calls on the government of President Álvaro Uribe to apprehend and prosecute those responsible. On 27 March, in the city of Villavicencio, in Meta Department south of Bogotá, hired killers on a motorcycle fired automatic weapons at Fernando Navarro and Yesid Prieto, two USO subcommittee officers of Bogotá. 
 
Although both escaped unharmed, their bodyguard, Antonio Pedro Carreño, was shot and killed. 
 
The attack comes days after USO marked the eight-year anniversary of the assassination of the union’s Director, Rafael Jaimes Torra, by paramilitaries. Rafael Jaimes’ nephew, the only witness to the attack, was also murdered shortly after. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Colombia.png" width="250" height="115"/>
ICEM-affiliated USO reported the attack to the Attorney General’s office, as well as to national and regional government officials and to the government’s ombudsman. USO and the ICEM call on Colombian authorities to investigate this attack as a matter or urgency and to bring those responsible to justice. The union wants assurances from the government, as well as from the state oil company Ecopetrol, that their right to life and right to conduct trade union activities are protected. 
 
Paramilitary groups, such as Cuchillo (Knife) and El Loco Barrera (the Crazy Barrera), intimidate workers and trade unionists in the oil fields without reprimand. Recent public statements by paramilitaries that they receive regular payment from oil companies, has added weight to USO’s claim that complicity at many levels is involved in the trade union murder-for-hire racket. 
 
One recently example was the 13 March killing of the teachers’ union ADIDA activist, Duvian Dario Rojo Cadavid, who was gunned down together with his wife a day after speaking to media about armed groups who extort money from teachers. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0704Manfred.jpg" width="100" height="138"/>
Manfred Warda
“The ongoing deaths, assassination attempts, and common forms of threats and intimidation by telephone and other means against trade unionists have got to stop,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “If the Colombian government continues not to take action, then it is up to the world community to take sharp measures against the government of Colombia and its denial that violence impedes free, democratic trade unionism.”

Assassination Attempt on USO Leaders in Colombia Kills Bodyguard 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
ICEM affiliates FCE-CFDT of France, FIA-UGT of Spain, and FEMCA-CISL of Italy established a joint entity called Association Pour L’Europe Solidaire et Pour la Coopération Mediterranean, or the Association of Solidarity Europe and Mediterranean Cooperation (AESCOOMED). The new organization has an aim to develop a common European vision, and an information exchange between trade unions regarding economic, social issues, environmental matters, collective bargaining, industrial relations, and common social dialogue platforms. 
 
AESCOOMED’s vision is to develop common work on European Works Councils, and promote the consultation and participation of workers within the member unions, as well as enhance cooperation with countries in the Mediterranean region. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/FranceFCE-CFDT-NEW100.jpg" width="100" height="93"/>   <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Italy.FEMCA.CISL.jpg" width="100" height="85"/>   <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SpainFIAUGT.jpg" width="90" height="90"/>
The newly-formed organization held its first conference in Barcelona on 8-9 March 2010 under the banner “Energy, Industrial Policy, and Social Dialogue in the Mediterranean Region.” Trade unions from seven countries, including Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey, together with the presence of the ICEM, debated industrial and energy issues in the region during the initial meetings. 
 
Issues of energy supply security, energy conditions in industrial development, and the environmental impact in Mediterranean countries were discussed. Acknowledging the fact that the environment is fragile and deteriorating, protecting and improving eco-systems has become a key issue in the Euro-Mediterranean region, especially in view of new industrial dynamics. This Euro-Mediterranean cooperation includes issues of water scarcity and water quality, the reform of environmental standards, improving infrastructure, and preserving the environment. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1004.aescoomed.png" width="226" height="79"/>
The place and role of social dialogue in all countries of the Mediterranean was also highlighted. Common challenges were defined as population growth, aging population, job creation, modernization of labor markets, maintaining high levels of social protection, and dissemination of knowledge and innovation. All participants were convinced of the need to strengthen cooperation between the union organisations from countries bordering the Mediterranean basin. 
 
The ICEM was invited to the two-day conference and was represented by Rubber and Chemicals Kemal Özkan. He made a presentation on ICEM’s activities regarding social dialogue on the global level and union building and union-support activities in the Middle East/North African Region (MENA). 
In conclusion, all participants welcomed the AESCOOMED initiative and measured the importance of international solidarity between workers.

Trade Unions Form Euro-Mediterranean Cooperative Organisation 

<img height="216" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0912.greetings card.jpg" width="360"/>
For all in the global ICEM family 2009 became a painful year due to the global crisis. But again union action and solidarity beyond borders proved to be the essential asset to defend and advance the interest of workers. Let us continue to build unity, let us strengthen global solidarity, let us together make sure there is a way forward and success for the workers that we represent. ICEM wishes you, your members and your families the best of luck and success in 2010. HAPPY NEW YEAR. 
Manfred Warda
ICEM General Secretary

Happy Holidays from the ICEM

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union became the eighth US trade union to join the Blue Green Alliance, a well-honed collaboration in place between major trade unions and major environmental groups in America. The announcement two weeks ago weds one of the US’s founding industrial unions to a commitment to build cleaner and more fuel-efficient automobiles. 
 
“We are thrilled to become part of this unique partnership of working people and environmentalists who are striving to build a cleaner, more efficient and more prosperous American economy,” stated UAW President Bob King in the announcement that brought US auto industry labour into the alliance. “We have enormous opportunities to revitalize this industry, and the American economy, by embracing the clean energy economy of the future.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Bob.King.UAW.jpg" width="100" height="141"/>
UAW President, Bob King
The Blue Green Alliance started in 2006 between the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Sierra Club, and since has grown as a labor-environmental bond between leading American unions and both the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 
 
The Blue Green Alliance now has 8.5 million American workers pursuing Good Jobs, a Clean Environment, and a Green Economy. Besides the leading role the USW has taken in forming the alliance, other US-based unions include the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the Service Employees’ Union (SEIU), and the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association (SMWIA).

American Auto Workers Join Blue Green Alliance

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL_en.jpg" width="110" height="50"/>
The government of Zambia bent to the will of the country’s two major mining unions, including ICEM affiliate Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ), to investigate and remedy the anti-Zambian outsourcing policies planned by Anglo-Indian Vedanta Resources at several of its Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) operations. 
 
That government intervention did achieve the desired results, since KCM has now rescinded its plan to outsource major operational activities at its Nchanga mines, Chingola Copper concentrator and open pit mines, and the Nampundwe refractory to foreign contractors. 
 
On 24 August, a tripartite dialogue consisting of the Labour and Mines Ministries, Vedanta’s senior executives, and the MUZ and the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW) produced an agreement that should deploy more Zambians to the country’s mines and resource processing plants.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0707ICEMAFConf1.jpg" width="180" height="169"/>
MUZ President, Rayford Mbulu 
The agreement caused cancellation of a mass demonstration at mine sites and other locations by the MUZ and NUMAW for 28 August. 
 
According to Labour and Social Security Minister Austin Liato, the compromise with firstly, “on outsourcing, which has threatened a number of (local) jobs, it has been agreed that the issue will be stalled and the two parties shall engage each other before any decision is made. 
 
“Then secondly, on the vice president human resources, who is about to retire, it has been concluded that the position will be advertised” within Zambia. Both the government and civil society, including the Zambia Institute of Human Resource Management, was livid that Vedanta was about to hire another foreign national in this position. 
 
The outsourcing and offshoring issue between Zambian mining unions and Vedanta had become pitched in August, particularly at a time when Vedanta is greatly expanding many of its copper-producing facilities. 
 
The outsourcing issue at KCM became especially exasperated when a mining boss at the Chingola mine – operated by the Brazilian contractor U & M Mining – refused to allow the deputy minister of Labour and Social Security onto the mine to inspect labour conditions. 
 
In the days before the tripartite meeting, KCM attempted to resolve the dispute by offering any worker affected by outsourcing to transfer to the contract employer at equal pay and the same pension contributions, transfer to one of two other KCM operations, or voluntary separation under existing conditions of service. But that was unsatisfactory to the unions. 
 
KCM is 20% owned by the Zambian government. In 2009, over 80% of Zambia’s foreign exchange earnings and 15.9% of its GDP came from copper mining. The ICEM Secretariat commends Sub-Saharan African Regional Vice President Rayford Mbula, President of the MUZ, for his leadership and vigilance on this issue with both the government and Vedanta.

Planned Outsourcing by Vedanta inside Zambia’s Copper Belt

Joseph Toe is ICEM's Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) Project Coordinator for the Sub-Saharan Africa Region. He is a native of Togo.
How prevalent is the issue of Contract and Agency Labour and Precarious Work in Africa? 
 
In some cases, the proportion of temporal workers may reach 80% of the permanent workforce. Deregulation of the labour market has accelerated this process. 
 
What factors have impacted on the use of CAL? 
 
Structural adjustments imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions adversely affecting the institutional employment context at two levels: 
 
• The de-regulation of the labour market and the fact cry that use of labour must become more flexible; and 
• The reduction of trade union participation and the inability of civil society to effectively make its voice heard over anti-social measures advocated by lending institutions. 
The arrival of Asian investors has also disrupted the labour market in Africa and jeopardises previous social gains. 
 
What is the Sub-Saharan African ICEM CAL Project? 
 
The Sub-Saharan African ICEM CAL Project started at the end of February 2009 and covers 8 countries, Guinea, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. The selected targeted countries were all identified as nations where the issue of contract and agency labour is wide spread, but also where there are relatively strong trade unions. This means that there are possibilities of carrying out actions to achieve reasonable progress on this issue. 
 
What are the Project Objectives? 
 
The project aims to develop trade union strategies and seek best practices to address contract and agency labour related problems in Sub-Saharan Africa; it seeks to create a coherent regional coordination to address the problem; it advocates for governments to take the relevant initiatives and policies to halt the use of temporal contracts and to regulate private employment agencies; it seeks to carry out high level and specialised regional research; to have trained union negotiators on the issue of rights for contract and agency workers; to build the organisational capacities of the leadership in CAL campaigns; and to create a network for information- and experience-sharing of ICEM affiliates on the issue across the region. 
 
The training is based on a number of simple and practical tools designed from examples taken from around the world. At the end of each session, a plan of action is developed on the future actions to be carried out at the national level in synergy with other GUFs’ affiliates, and guidelines are defined to be included in the ICEM Global Campaign on CAL. In order to implement the national plan, a monitoring mechanism, which is part of the plan of action is defined, and the officers in charge of its implementation are appointed. 
 
Trade union action is indispensable to neutralising the development of outsourcing and temporal employment, particularly as it is crosscuts and affects all trade and industrial sectors. Sub-Saharan African countries are seriously affected by this problem and are reacting in order to stem and/or reduce the adverse effects. The Sub-Saharan African ICEM CAL Project also encourages and assists unions in: 
 
• Building trade union organising and negotiating capacity; 
 
• Institutionalising sector-based negotiations and reinforcing trade union unity of action, which is necessary to combat outsourcing, labour brokering, and contract agencies. It fights for the regulation of employment agencies and recourse to outsource, and to be involved in that redress process; 
 
• Reinforcing solidarity between temporary and permanent workers; 
 
• Training those who organise temporary workers; 
 
• Negotiating collective agreements which include clauses on the systematic recourse to outsource and use casual labour with regard to the improvement of the working conditions and the reduction of the consequences of casual labour; 
 
• Campaigns for the transformation of casual labour into permanent employment; 
 
• Develops strategies for CAL workers, with the emphasis on decent work and inclusion of gender and race in those strategies; 
 
• Organising campaigns and lobbying at national and international levels against casual labour, and developing plans of action aimed at ridding this phenomenon in the Export Processing Zones (EPZ); 
 
• Carrying out studies on the consequences of outsourcing and contract labour agencies within the context of worsening disparities and inequalities of the social strata. This means addressing the Millennium Development Goals 2015, the 2007–2015 Decent Work Agenda in Africa; the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), Sustainable Human Development Programme, and the Tripartite and Social Dialogue Principles which serve as the basis of ILO. 
 
Casual employment affects positive labour values, which develop, distinguish, and socialise the human being.

Interview: Joseph Toe, CAL Project Coordinator, Sub-Saharan Africa Region

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL_en.jpg" width="110" height="50"/>
At a side meeting in Geneva at the 2010 International Labour Conference of the ILO in June 2010, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, requested the ILO’s expertise in determining the impact of precarious work on human rights. 
 
In preparing to make operational the 2008, “Respect, Remedy, Protect” framework, Ruggie is consulting with a wide range of actors, including through an online consultation forum. Ruggie’s request to the ILO follows online submissions by the Global Union Federations International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association (IUF) and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), which both highlighted the fact that CAL and other forms of precarious work are being used to undermine the human rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/John.Ruggie.UN.png" width="145" height="73"/>
John Ruggie
In its submission to the consultations, the IMF’s statement said, “It is our submission that precarious work threatens the very survival of stable employment and collective bargaining,” adding, “As with other human rights, exercise of the fundamental enabling rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining is severely constrained by fear. That fear comes from the vulnerability that employers are imposing on workers every day, in developed and developing countries alike, with the explosion of precarious work practices.” 
 
Ruggie’s “Respect, Remedy, Protect” framework is based on three pillars: it is a state duty to protect human rights abuses by third parties, including businesses; corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and that there must be greater access by victims to effective remedies, judicial and non-judicial.

UN Human Rights Special Representative Ruggie Seeks ILO Help on Precarious Work

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