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Some 60,000 South Africans filled Absa Stadium in East London on 10 January for unveiling of the African National Congress&rsquo;s (ANC) 2009 election manifesto. And one of the main pieces of that five-year legislative plan &ndash; contained within a pledge to expand employment &ndash; is regulating the burgeoning number of labour brokers in the country. 
 
The manifesto cites an ANC mandate now to better regulate labour-hire agencies and short-term contract work. It states, &ldquo;to avoid exploitation of workers and ensure decent work for all workers as well as to protect the employment relationship, (the ANC will) introduce laws to regulate contract work, subcontracting, and outsourcing, address the problem of labour brokering, and prohibit certain abusive practices.&rdquo; 
 
The ANC&rsquo;s election platform is strong on labour and work rights, and clearly reflects the influence of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The platform aims to generate jobs through creation of more labour-intensive production methods, as well as procurement policies that support local jobs. 

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The ANC intends to make the creation of decent work the central focus in all of the party&rsquo;s economic policies. The central points contained in the manifesto call for more public investment in infrastructure projects; expanding public employment; establishing assistance programmes in the fight against poverty; and introduction of a state-funded health insurance system. 
The manifesto was unveiled by ANC President Jacob Zuma, who called it a product of 15 years of ANC experience in governing South Africa. Zuma told those assembled in the stadium that South Africa would work earnestly to find solutions to the African continent&rsquo;s major flashpoints, from Zimbabwe to Somalia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. 
 
Parliamentarian elections in South Africa must be held by April, although no date has yet been set.

Curbing Labour Brokers Main Tenet of ANC Manifesto in South Africa

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A comprehensive study entitled &ldquo;Temporary Agency Work and Collective Bargaining in the EU&rdquo; expertly lays out the many differences in the 27-member union on laws and regulations, the broad shapes temporary work takes from country to country, and collects vital collective bargaining data on an issue that is the world&rsquo;s biggest threat to decent work. 
 
The study was compiled by surveying 28 national labour centres last March. It was done by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound). The research was done by Eurofound&rsquo;s European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO). 
 
The 48-page study can be found in pdf <a href="http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/docs/eiro/tn0807019s/tn0807019s.pdf">here</a>. 
The study charts agency work growth, country by country, from 2004 to 2007, both in numbers of workers and in revenue growth and it also graphs male, female ratios, and percentages in young and old workers. 

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Regarding laws relating to agency work, the study includes Norway&rsquo;s 1977 Work Environment Law as the earliest statute on the books in greater Europe. The late 1980s witnessed Belgium, Austria, and Portugal adopting statutes. Eurofound&rsquo;s study finds that today, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Malta are without clear legal frameworks. 
 
In Bulgaria, trade unions and businesses have sought a legal remedy for the triangular employment relationship, but disagreements on content in any proposed law has prevented passage both in 2006 and 2008. In Estonia and Lithuania, legislation is non-existent but there are licensing systems for agency labour firms. The study also points out that in Denmark, uniquely, strict regulation occurs inside the social dialogue process. The Danish model is considered by many to be the most evolved. 
 
In late October 2008, the European Parliament passed the Directive on Temporary Agency Work, premised on the principle of equal treatment for temporary workers. &ldquo;Temporary Agency Work and Collective Bargaining in the EU&rsquo;s&rdquo; value, clearly, can be found in the fact that this Directive allows countries to have exemptions or derogations, specifically with collective bargaining and social dialogue between partners. 
 
The study cites 10 countries that have umbrella employer associations which bargain collectively with trade unions on behalf of temp agency firms. All 10 are original EU member states. The study also says that, nearly without exception, there is not any role defined for collective bargaining in regulating temp work in the new member states. 
 
The survey of labour organisations cites 10 countries with having estimates of trade union density for agency workers. It ranges from Denmark (50%) and Finland (44%), to Slovenia (0.18%), France (0.9%), Italy (1.4-1.7%), to Austria and Luxembourg (5% each), and the Netherlands (17%). In Sweden, a difference is noted between white-collar (17%) and blue-collar (50%), the latter figure, the study says, &ldquo;might reflect higher exposure to trade unions in the user companies.&rdquo; 
 
The study notes that the CGT in France was the earliest to sign a collective agreement with a temp firm &ndash; Manpower in 1968 &ndash; and that all three Italian trade union organisations (CGIL, CISL, UIL) established, in the late 1990s, internal units to represent temporary workers. It says the trend now in most countries is for agency workers to join the trade union closest to their sector or job. 
The study contains scores of useful pieces of information, best characterising the broad effects the issue paints across all worklife in EU countries. In Austria and Germany, for instance, agency work is found more often in the blue-collar jobs of metalworking and manufacturing. In Finland, some two-thirds of agency workers are employed by firms for less than a year, with an average assignment of 94 days. In Denmark, 13% of the government&rsquo;s &ldquo;work and stay&rdquo; permissions since 2004 have been granted to east Europeans hired through labour agencies. Temporary workers in France have the shortest average work lengths, 1.9 weeks, while in the UK, one in five agency workers have been on a single job&nbsp;for an average of&nbsp;18 months. 
 
Eurofound&rsquo;s 2008 study compilation, done by its EIRO research arm, is a valuable document in terms of developing a substantive view on the effects and proliferation of agency labour in Europe.

Temp Agency Work in EU Clearly Defined in Eurofound Study

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Representatives of the ICEM affiliate, Associated Mineworkers Union of Zimbabwe (AMWZ), will meet with the Chamber of Mines on Thursday 15 January, to put forward their demand to be paid in United States dollars instead of local currency. 
 
Workers are ready to down tools if they receive their next salary payment in Zimbabwe dollars. &ldquo;Mineworkers are reeling in poverty and are starving because they are being paid in local currency when almost everything is being charged in US dollars,&rdquo; stated AMWZ president Tinago Ruzive. &ldquo;The situation is quite bad. If we are not paid in United States dollars, we will go on a collective job action.&rdquo; 

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The mining industry in Zimbabwe is in a near-critical condition, especially in the gold sector where the Reserve Bank is said to owe miners at least US$30 million backdated to 2007. Mining industry management has called the union&rsquo;s ultimatum irrational and unrealistic, considering the current crisis. Ruzive responded, arguing that workers have the right to a decent wage. 
 
Salaries in the local currency do not represent a decent wage as it is no longer being accepted for commercial purposes. This near total dollarization of the economy has rendered the local currency virtuously worthless. 
 
Should the miners decide to strike, they will join the country&rsquo;s teachers and nurses who have been on strike since late 2008.

Zimbabwean Miners Demand Payment in US Dollars

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Australia&rsquo;s Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union&rsquo;s (CFMEU) fight to preserve mining jobs against a MNC&rsquo;s callousness, making workers the victims of an economic downturn, got a ruling in the Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) last week. That ruling, delivered on 8 January, calls for a one-week consultation period &ndash; beginning today &ndash; in which Xstrata must justify its ill-taken decision to sack 230 coal miners at Oaky Creek No. 1 Mine in Queensland. 
 
The case stands as a key test in Australia regarding a company shifting the burden of the recent economic collapse onto workers. CFMEU is not alone at present in fiercely resisting job cuts because of a failed neo-liberal economic agenda. From Russia to Chile, at Europe&rsquo;s largest zinc deposits in Ireland&rsquo;s County Meath, where 670 were retrenched by Tara Mines, to the hundreds of thousands of migrant miners across the world who are out of work with no place to go, it is workers who are paying the unjust price of capital&rsquo;s failure. 
 
The CFMEU fightback is just one example of the necessary, the pivotally necessary response that is needed to re-shape a social agenda. 
 
In Bolivia, the FSTMB mine union federation staged protests on 9 January calling on the country&rsquo;s leftist government to allow no layoffs. That came just after Xstrata&rsquo;s holding partner &ndash; Swiss-based Glencore International &ndash; announced job cuts of 700 zinc and lead mines, and at the Sinchi Wayra smelting plant. Workers threatened to take over the operations if the sackings came. 

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In Brazil, iron ore miners of Vale stopped work last Thursday, 8 January, at a mine in Itabira over the mining company&rsquo;s decision to retrench 1,300 jobs. Itabira, in Minas Gerais state, is where Vale was founded. Mining union Metabase says that as many as 10,000 miners could lose their jobs in Brazil because of economic cuts. 
 
In South Africa, estimates say that 40,000 miners could be out work through 2009 because of the economic meltdown. Many will be migrant workers. ICEM and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) President Senzeni Zokwana predicted the social impact of such sudden and unprecedented joblessness will be far-reaching and disturbing. 

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ICEM President Senzeni Sokwana
In Australia on 16 December, Anglo-Swiss Xstrata levelled a surprise on the 1,800-person town of Tieri, central Queensland, by announcing that the jobs of miners at one part of Oaky Creek&rsquo;s rich coal seams would be indefinitely suspended. 
 
ICEM-affiliated CFMEU took the matter to the AIRC to prevent the sackings. In arbitration hearings on 22 December, and again from 6-7 January in Brisbane, CFMEU argued that Xstrata&rsquo;s price drops are a speck in comparison with its recent coal pricing history has reverted only to early 2008 thermal coal prices to meet slowing demand from the steel industry. Xstrata has an industry-wide reputation, especially over Oaky Creek&rsquo;s high-quality coking coal, of driving prices upward in tight markets, thus making it the industry&rsquo;s price-setter during boom times. 
 
The CFMEU sought a four-week period for the consultative process. The AIRC gave the process a week to work. The CFMEU seeks to get Xstrata to place retrenched workers in its other Queensland operations, specifically Oaky Creek North, a separate longwall operation. The company resists. The union has charged Xstrata with stonewalling the AIRC process, relying on former Howard government work laws to justify its privilege to inflict social degradation on workers. 
 
&ldquo;Xstrata has chosen to take advantage of John Howard&rsquo;s WorkChoices laws and argues heartlessly that they are not required to afford workers natural justice in the redundancy process,&rdquo; said CFMEU Mining and Energy Vice President Stuart Vaccaneo. &ldquo;This really is corporate cowboy stuff.&rdquo; 
 
For the company&rsquo;s part, in December, a spokesman called CFMEU guilty of political posturing by wasting the AIRC&rsquo;s time in bringing the legal case. Vaccaneo called that the &ldquo;height of arrogance,&rdquo; given what 230 Queensland families face. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not about politics&mdash;it&rsquo;s about the future of (these) workers and their families.&rdquo; 
 
Following the 8 January AIRC ruling mandating this week as the week for labour-management consultation, a company spokesman said Xstrata will talk to the union, but &ldquo;we have appropriately managed those people&rdquo; affected. 
 
Some 450 job cuts were announced in December in Queensland. Although the Xstrata Oaky Creek case is the most high profile one, other mining enterprises in the region like Macarthur Coal Ltd. and Oz Minerals, a zinc producer, have also fired miners. 
 
Oaky Creek, first starting production in 1983, was bought by Xstrata when it took over MIM Holdings in 2003. Xstrata owns 55% of Oaky Creek, while Japanese companies Sumisho Coal, Itocho Coal, and ICRA OC Ltd. hold remaining ownership. Oaky Creek exports 11 million metric tonnes annually to steel mills in Europe, Japan, and North and South America.

Xstrata, CFMEU in Australia Battle Over Mining Jobs in Economic Downturn

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Find this article in Arabic <a href="/index.php?id=78&amp;la=EN&amp;doc=2994">here</a>.
The first cargo plane full of humanitarian supplies for the people of Gaza landed last week, 8 January, at Al-Areesh, Egypt, courtesy of the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF). Both the ITF and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) are actively engaged in trade union relief operations to deliver food, water, and medical assistance to Gaza, following nearly three weeks bombing by Israel.
The supplies, collected from transport trade unions and other across the Middle East, were passed to the Red Crescent in Gaza. ITF Representative for the Arab World, Bilal Malkawi, also chief leader of Jordan&rsquo;s General Trade Union of Workers in Air Transport and Tourism, supervised a cargo that included mostly vital medical supplies purchased by the ITF. 

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Bilal Malkawi was aboard the aircraft as it landed in Egypt late last week. The ITF-affiliated union has headed up the collection of essential supplies that were transported on Royal Jordanian planes, donated by the airline for the cause. Further relief flights will follow. 
 
&ldquo;We hope that this will be the first of several mercy flights carrying humanitarian supplies,&rdquo; said ITF General Secretary David Cockroft. &ldquo;Vital though these medical supplies are, they do not lessen in any way the need for an immediate cease fire in Gaza.&rdquo; 

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The ICEM called for an immediate cease fire in a statement issued on 31 December. &ldquo;The loss of innocent Palestinian lives is deplorable, and an immediate and fully respected ceasefire by both Israel and Hamas is now clearly the only way forward,&rdquo; the&nbsp;ICEM statement read.&nbsp; 
 
Labour groups worldwide, particularly in the Middle East, have condemned Israel&rsquo;s disproportionate attacks on Gaza. Late last week, the ICEM-affiliated General Trade Union of Public Utilities of Egypt issued a call for the international community &ldquo;to exercise and exert pressure on Israel to bring an end to Palestinian suffering, and to stop the violent and atrocious aggression on the armless people of Gaza.&rdquo; 

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The ITUC is working in cooperation with national labour centres in Palestine and Jordan (the PGFTU and GFJTU) to bring trade union aid for Gaza&rsquo;s citizens. The ITUC has set up an account called &ldquo;Trade Union Aid for Gaza.&rdquo; Information on bank transfer donations can call +32 2 224 0211 for information. 
 
Union wishing to contribute to the ITF, Jordanian Air Transport Workers Union efforts can do so by contacting Bilal at <a href="mailto:malkaw_bilal@itf.org.uk">malkaw_bilal@itf.org.uk</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Relief Aid Begins Reaching Gaza through ITF and ITUC Efforts

Calling it a &ldquo;complete and total victory,&rdquo; ICEM Vice President and Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union President Dave Coles said today that CEP Local 175 ratified a three-year labour agreement yesterday with Petro-Canada, ending a 57-week lockout at a refinery in the Canadian province of Quebec. 
 
&ldquo;The pattern agreement for the CEP&rsquo;s National Energy Bargaining Programme has been achieved, the employer has recognized this programme, and we can now truly call this a major victory for both the international and national labour movements,&rdquo; said Coles. 
 
The 260 members of CEP Local 175 at the Montr&eacute;al refinery voted on 23 December by 94.6% to approve the retroactive contract.
<img height="266" src="" width="200" alt="" />
CEP Local 175 Members Were&nbsp;Solid in&nbsp;Their Resolve to Achieve the Canadian Oil and&nbsp;Gas Pattern Agreement&nbsp;
Coles said the mediated settlement contains a commitment by both sides to undertake measures to improve the labour relationship between CEP and Petro-Canada at all locations across the country. The two sides began private mediation early in December with Special Mediator Lucien Bouchard, Premier of Quebec from 1996 to 2001, in efforts to resolve the lockout, which began on 17 November 2007. 
 
The mediated settlement preserves the pattern labour agreement in Canada&rsquo;s oil, gas, and petrochemicals industry, thus granting Local 175 members a basket-full of wage and benefit improvements at year end 2008. 
 
They will receive a retroactive pay increase of 5% dating to 1 February 2007, with further increases of 4.5% in 2008, and 4.5% on 1 February 2009. In addition, each worker will receive a C$4,000 bonus, an accrued holiday or vacation payment averaging C$6,000, and a 2007 profit-sharing payment of C$3,800. 
 
Petro-Canada dropped a demand to eliminate the refinery&rsquo;s health and safety prevention officer; its proposal to accelerate a training programme that would place safety at greater risk; and backed away from plans to alter shift schedules and job assignments.
<img height="160" src="" width="140" alt="" />
&nbsp;CEP President Dave Coles 
 

The settlement provides for an automatic extension of the collective agreement when it expires on 1 February 2010 based on the CEP&rsquo;s National Energy Bargaining agreement with the company at its Edmonton, Alberta, refinery. 
 
Coles credits the start of a nationwide boycott against Petro-Canada&rsquo;s retail products, as well as vast support both from CEP members, and from union members throughout the world, with bringing the company to terms of the pattern agreement. 
 
&ldquo;It was clear that the world&rsquo;s trade unions were pulling in behind our courageous members of Local 175,&rdquo; said Coles. &ldquo;We had international support from energy unions around the globe organized by our international federation, ICEM. There is no doubt that this outcome owes much to this watershed of labour solidarity that was organized in support of our members.&rdquo; 
 
The other message, Coles said, is that boycotts work. &ldquo;Canadians from all trade unions had begun executing a flawless boycott, and the company took notice.&rdquo;
<img height="263" src="" width="350" alt="" />
ICEM's Manfred Warda, left,&nbsp;in Ottawa with CEP members&nbsp;
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, who had walked the picket line at the Montr&eacute;al refinery, as well as protested at company petrol stations in Ottawa, extended the Global Union Federation&rsquo;s congratulations to the CEP and Local 175. 
 
&ldquo;This is a tremendous victory. The perseverance and resolve of the 260 refinery workers to protect 40 years of pattern bargaining &ndash; backed by CEP members across Canada &ndash; is an inspiration to us all,&rdquo; stated Warda. &ldquo;This will be acclaimed by energy trade unions across the world.&rdquo; 
 
The back to work agreement calls for CEP Local 175 members to return to their jobs and begin ramping up production to the refinery&rsquo;s 130,000 barrel-per-day capacity on 12 January 2009. The CEP agreed to drop all legal charges and complaints arising from the dispute.

CEP’s Montréal Refinery Workers Victory ‘Total and Complete,’ Lockout Ends

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With less than 18 months in existence, the Latin American trade union network of Belgian-based Solvay has taken important steps in expanding to other employees in the region. 
 
The third meeting of Brazilian Trade Union Network of the chemicals, pharmaceutical, and plastics multinational was held in S&atilde;o Paulo on 1-3 December, with trade union participates coming from Argentina, Belgium, and the European Works Council of the company, as well as from five Brazilian unions. The meeting was also attended by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Chemicals and Rubber Industries Officer Kemal &Ouml;zkan. 
 
The participants discussed the importance of international trade union networking, especially in the face of the global financial crisis and its possible consequences in the world of work. The precariousness of labor relations, such as outsourcing and subcontracting, and the need to ensure the health and safety of workers in all localities were priorities at the meeting. 
 

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&quot;This network has shown a great willingness to grow, adding strength of colleagues from different Latin American plants, so that together we can initiate dialogue with Solvay in order to improve working conditions and the lives of workers,&rdquo; said Juvenil Youth Nunes da Costa, coordinator of the network. 
 
&rdquo;I am very happy to take part in such an important initiative, which is becoming a model for workers&rsquo; solidarity,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;This network has become a success in a very short period of time, and it is clear that we must unify our efforts to combat common problems.&quot; 
 
Among the major decisions taken at the early December meeting was to strengthen the role of representation of the network, along with the role of workers in Solvay&rsquo;s direction in Brazil; disclosure of the network in Argentina so that further extension can occur in other Mercosur countries; dissemination of the commitments on &quot;Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility,&quot; as made by the company to workers in Argentina and Brazil; and drafting a proposal related to a Communication Policy Network. 
 
The next meeting is scheduled to be held in July 2009. The Network of Workers at the Solvay-Brazil Group was created in September 2007, and representation covers the 14 units of the group in the country.

Brazilian Network of Solvay Eyes Latin Expansion

&nbsp;
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The International Metal Workers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), in collaboration with the ITUC and other Global Union Federations, last week announced the third annual Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival, to take place 16 June 2009. The event will &ldquo;explore ways of reaching broader audiences and promote and support the capacity of trade unions to communicate through film.&rdquo; 
 
Started in 2007 as part of the IMF Communicators&rsquo; Forum, the Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival has grown over the last two years and has positioned itself as one of the only international film festivals to showcase primarily film and videos made by unions about unions and working people. 
 
The three-hour programme will focus on films that are excellent examples of communicating labour stories and messages and the selection will include a range of different films from different parts of the world. 
 
The IMF asks for copies of films, in English, on DVD with a short paragraph describing the film and why it was produced, by 13 February 2008. Please contact Kristyne Peter (<a href="mailto:kpeter@imfmetal.org">kpeter@imfmetal.org</a>) or Alex Ivanou (<a href="mailto:aivanou@imfmetal.org">aivanou@imfmetal.org</a>).

Third Annual Geneva Labour Film Shorts Festival Announced

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Pulp and Paper trade union leaders of the ICEM concluded their World Conference on 10 December in Piri&aacute;polis, Uruguay, with delegates forging a clear and concise solidarity action plan. With that, ICEM&rsquo;s Pulp/Paper Work Group activities will be extended and expanded to other leading affiliates. 

The conference featured a work plan, built around collective bargaining and other important work, and it took on issues of debt collapse, global growth slowdowns in the south, and pricing and labour costs from region to region.
<img height="169" alt="" src="" width="300" />
The conference heard a thorough and first-of-its-kind mapping of Mercosur unions in the pulp and paper sector and the companies that these unions are present at. The mapping came way of Brazil&rsquo;s Instituto Observat&oacute;rio Social, through funding from Finland&rsquo;s SASK, the global solidarity arm of the country&rsquo;s national labour centre. 
Delegates heard comments from Argentine trade union leader Blas Juan Alari, President of FOEIPCyQ, that a cold-war dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over a pulp mill did not take into account the sentiments of Argentine workers. The conference also heard moving presentations about workers&rsquo; rights in Uruguay from leaders of the national labour centre, PIT/CNT. 
They also heard from Ilkka H&auml;m&auml;l&auml;, President and CEO of Metsa-Botni&auml; Oy, whose pulp mill in Fray Bentos has brought controversy between Argentine and Uruguyan governments, and from Jeronimo Ruiz, Director of S&atilde;o Paulo State&rsquo;s BRACELPA employers&rsquo; grouping, who also heads collective bargaining for Brazil&rsquo;s pulp and paper employers. 
Workers&rsquo; representatives queried the industry leaders on several things, including wood supply issues; pulping, delivery, and labour costs, and questions on social responsibility records, a sharp challenge that was put forward by ICEM Pulp and Paper Charman Jouko Ahonen, President of Paperiliitto of Finland. He said the precedence of profits to investors over society&rsquo;s interests is the foremost affront to a company&rsquo;s social responsibility record.
<img height="107" alt="" src="" width="240" />
Trade Union leaders on panel, from left, Jan-Henrik Sandberg, Sweden; Blas Juan Alari, Argentina; and Fred Wilson, Canada 

The conference also heard from Uruguay Industry and Energy Minister Daniel Martinez and Labour and Social Security Minister Eduardo Bonomi. Martinez, a former trade union leader in Uruguay, gave an impassionate speech on the need to uphold high labour and social standards in all industrial development. Bonomi gave a vivid account of a crumbling civilian government giving way to military in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as proclaiming that Uruguay&rsquo;s cuurent plans for industrial growth will better integrate the Mercosur countries. 

President of the host union, CUOPyC&rsquo;s Walter Silva, reminded trade union guests that any financial crisis inevitably harms workers first and the hardest, and said the most recent economic collapse must be the call for deepening democratic trade unions, opening of workers&rsquo; channels to investment decisions, and an absolute end to &ldquo;any type of social dumping.&rdquo; 

Silva also called the Argentine-Uruguay dispute &ndash; now in the World Court &ndash; regrettable, stating &ldquo;our opinion wasn&rsquo;t taken into account, although we had the ability to offer experience and knowledge&rdquo; to calm the political difficulties of the Fray Bentos mill. The mill has now been operating for one year and produces 100,000 metric tonnes of pulp annually, 70% of which is bought by Metsa-Botni&aacute;&rsquo;s three paper-making owners. 

ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda told delegates the neo-liberal model of economic structures has failed. &ldquo;It is not a time to heal a system that has failed, but rather a time to forge a sustainable future built on justice and equality.&rdquo; 

He said Uruguay was the right place to hold this conference, considering the dark days of repression in the 1970s and 1980s, with the ICEM purposely scheduling the conference on the 60th Anniversary of signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

The three-day ICEM forum was preceded by a two-day conference, 6-7 December, on forest certification programmes sponsored by the global union federation, Building and Woodworkers&rsquo; International (BWI). That forum proved highly successful and afforded.ICEM affiliates the opportunity to learn about forest certification programmes.

ICEM Pulp/Paper Conference Held in Uruguay

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A six-day occupation of a factory in the US by ICEM affiliate United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers Union of America (UE) in Chicago served notice that American workers will take militant action to protect their interests, specifically against the US banking industry, which ultimately was responsible for the Chicago dispute. 
 
The occupation at Republic Windows and Doors ended on 11 December when a negotiated settlement came together between UE and a consortium of capital entities. The plant takeover started on 5 December when 200 workers occupied the Chicago factory after being given only three days notice of Republic closing the plant.
<img height="136" src="" width="140" alt="" />
American law requires 60 days pay for workers victimized by plant closures that are the size of Republic. UE Local 1110 members were denied this in the liquidation of their factory, and they were denied accrued and unused vacation time as well. The employer, Republic, pleaded it could not pay because Bank of America had cut off the company&rsquo;s line of credit, while the credit-troubled bank claimed it was the company&rsquo;s responsibility to pay workers. 
 
After six days of living and sleeping inside the plant, UE members and workers won a backpay settlement that included accrued vacation time and job benefits, and they won much more. Bank of America agreed to guarantee pay to cover the lawful plant-closing requirement, JPMorgan Chase &ndash; 40% owner of Republic Windows and Doors &ndash; agreed to contribute US$400,000, and Republic itself agreed to come up with US$114,000 to meet its payroll obligations for the week leading up to the plant takeover. 
 
Also in the negotiated settlement, workers will receive extended health insurance coverage. The victory inspired the UE to open a &ldquo;Window of Opportunity&rdquo; fund in order to find a way to keep the factory operating. 
 
The plant occupation sends a stark reminder regarding civil priorities in this period of bank bailouts, and the circumstances surrounding plant closures in the first place. It caught the attention of US President-elect Barack Obama, who said, workers were &ldquo;right&rdquo; to occupy the plant, because they &ldquo;understand that what&rsquo;s happening to them is reflective of what&rsquo;s happening across the economy.&rdquo; 
 
The UE sent a potent message on how to protect workers&rsquo; benefits during the bailout bonanza. The ICEM commends its US trade union affiliate for taking &ndash; and winning &ndash; this timely workplace action.

Chicago Plant Takeover Vivid Reminder Amidst American Banking Bailout

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