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Following mass meetings by members of UK&rsquo;s Transport &amp; General Workers&rsquo; Union (TGWU) and two other unions, Amicus and GMB, on 27 and 28 September, workers at Imerys&rsquo; English China Clay operations in South West England have given union leaders a mandate to ballot membership for industrial action in the coming months. 
The reasons cited include an extremely tight-fisted redundancy package, and the refusal by the Paris-based company to seriously address job retention and job creation opportunities in the face of Imerys&rsquo; July announcement to cut some 40% of 2,000 jobs in the UK. 
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TGWU and the company have held several statutory consultation meetings since the July announcement, during which the company&rsquo;s intransigence in producing a fair redundancy package became clear. Another consultation session is scheduled for today, 2 October. The 90-day consultation period ends on 5 October. Amicus and GMB, which represent smaller numbers of Imerys workers, have also been part of the discussions. 
At a session in mid-September, the company presented what it called its final offer. The offer of ₤13,500 for the average worker (age 46) barely exceeds the statutory requirement, which is considered exceedingly low by most standards. Imerys also insists on capping the redundancy package at 20 years of service. Many workers in the South West have upwards of 40 years of service. 
 
&ldquo;Imerys has failed to negotiate meaningfully with the unions on redundancies,&rdquo; said TGWU National Secretary Jennie Formby. &ldquo;It also has been extremely callous in its regard for the livelihoods of workers, as well as to the communities of the South West as a whole.&rdquo; 
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The ICEM is actively engaged in building a global trade union network of Imerys workers in preparation for possible industrial action. A meeting in Brussels on 25 September with union leaders from the UK and the F&eacute;d&eacute;ration Force Ouvri&egrave;re (FO) Mat&eacute;riaux, C&eacute;ramique, and Thermique, the major union in France inside Imerys, produced genuine vows of solidarity.

Imerys’ Attitude Could Bring Industrial Balloting in UK’s Cornwall Region

The meeting was opened by Mohammad Jadallah of the General Union of Petroleum, Mining and Chemicals Workers in Palestine. Guests from Jordanian trade unions and fraternal organizations also addressed the meeting. 
 
The 25 women attending the meeting were between 21 and 52 years of age, with many young women present. The women&rsquo;s expectations for the meeting ranged from making recommendations to support women leaders in Palestine to exchanging information and experience to develop themselves as trade unionists to empowering working women in Palestine to creating awareness among Palestinian women about their rights. 
 
Turid &Oslash;ygard, NOPEF, made a presentation about women in Norway. The presentation covered women&rsquo;s rights, women in trade unions, women in society and NOPEF&rsquo;s future merger. Although it would seem that women are equal with men in Norway, there is still a long way to go there, too. 
 
Men still have plenty of privileges in Norway. For example, women still do not earn the same as men. Turid recommended to the women that in order to make progress in their society, they should use their right to vote. They should build up their self-confidence and self-esteem. 
 
She reminded them that if they wanted to earn the same as men, then they would need to work full-time and share family responsibilities with men. Even for gender equality at work, family life must be changed and fathers must spend more time at home. Women&rsquo;s participation in trade union life in Norway seems to be stagnating, and it is not easy to identify the reasons for it. It may be that women simply have too much to do with their jobs and their families. And trade unions are often seen as just too much a man&rsquo;s world. 
 
Carol Bruce, ICEM, introduced the topic of women&rsquo;s health. Health is just one more reflection of gender equality or inequality, not least on the job. The term gender refers to the fact that everything affects women and men differently &ndash; privatization, unemployment, the environment, extremism, health &ndash; all things affect women differently from men. 
 
All in all poverty and unemployment are the greatest risk factors for poor health. An abbreviation to describe gender differences in health are that men are the norm, and women are invisible. This phenomenon is just one more reflection of job segregation. Standards are developed with men in mind. 
 
Safety equipment and tools are based on men&rsquo;s needs, and women often have accidents when using them. Women&rsquo;s health hazards are less obvious to the naked eye than are men&rsquo;s, who work, for example in mining. Stress disorders are greater among women than among men, including musculoskeletal disorders. Men develop deafness more frequently as a result of working in generally louder environments. Men suffer more injuries and accidents at work. 
 
Women are more likely to report work-related sickness than men. In general women are less present in research, which means that women must boost their representation. Nevertheless all of these problems pale before the danger represented by HIV/AIDS. Any real solution to the AIDS pandemic will only be by empowering women. 
 
The women did an activity in groups called body mapping and risk mapping. The women drew a front and back picture of a woman&rsquo;s body and placed dots on the parts where they had felt illnesses or stresses. The body map was supposed to reflect their job-related injuries, illnesses and exposures, bearing in mind, however, that women&rsquo;s lives are not necessarily clearly broken down between working life and home life, but that the one spills over into the other. 
 
After that activity the women drew their workplaces to indicate where they had suffered accidents, illnesses, stress, etc. After the group work, the women were asked whether they had taken these complaints to the union to be solved. There was some disagreement about whether the union had taken action or not. 
 
On the second day the women played a game about negotiating. Group 1 played a mother who wanted her son to stay home and study, but the son wanted to go play football. Group 2 played a husband that wanted to buy a scooter, but the wife wanted a refrigerator. 
 
Group 3 played a mother who wanted the daughter to stay home to look after her sisters and brothers, but the daughter wanted to go out with her friends. After playing these negotiations out, the groups analysed what they had learned. They realized it was necessary to collect arguments and persuade the other side. 
 
Carol Bruce introduced the topic of collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is now more important than ever since most companies do not want regulations imposed by governments. Negotiations can be at all levels, local, branch, national, etc. ICEM even negotiates with multinationals on so-called global agreements to lay down basic standards. 
 
These agreements generally contain what are called ILO core labour standards. But in trade unions women must already negotiate to get their demands on the collective bargaining agendas. Sometimes it is even more difficult to negotiate with male colleagues than with employers. Women&rsquo;s committees in trade unions should develop women&rsquo;s demands in the unions and pass them on to the negotiators. Research also must be done to see what women&rsquo;s demands can be met. 
 
The women went into groups to decide on what their priorities would be if they were going to negotiate. The list was: job security, respect on the job, health insurance, controlling working hours, more money, maternity leave, occupational safety and health, childcare, programmes for ending discrimination, pension, training, sexual harassment. 
 
The three groups had the following top priorities: Group 1 &ndash; job security, respect on the job, health insurance, controlling working hours. Group 2 &ndash; health insurance, job security, occupational safety and health, equal pay. Group 3 &ndash; respect on the job, more money, controlling working hours, job security. In the analysis we told the women that in the United States and Norway the women&rsquo;s priorities would most probably have been to have more money. 
 
Turid &Oslash;ygard introduced the topic of trade union democracy. The women went into groups to discuss how their unions worked and how people were nominated to trade union boards. We found that some of their practices were limiting, such as not allowing any contract workers to be in the union, or only allowing people to be union members who had worked for five years. 
 
The women had to find mechanisms to have their voices heard, instead of simply leaving things up to leadership or planners. Leyla Shream from Jenin explained her experiences in detail as a trade union leader. 
 
The women all gave their views of what the problems were for women to participate in trade unions. Their culture does not easily allow women to participate together with men and to participate in unions. 
 
It is difficult to reconcile family and trade unions. People are more concerned with earning money. According to customs and traditions men are superior to women. Women are seen as inferior. 
 
According to their culture women are ashamed. Women&rsquo;s environment is a factor. Women have no self-confidence, or if a woman has it, she can be destroyed. Women can only accept traditions; they are complacent, they are not ready to fight. 
 
The intifada influences women. Women cannot move because of all the restrictions, the separating wall, the seizure of land, all the pressures. Women&rsquo;s husbands are imprisoned or killed, so women must care more for the children. Men have power and authority. Women have too many tasks; they cannot do their jobs properly if in addition they go out to do volunteer work. Women do not support women. Women feel inadequate. Women need awareness workshops. Women need to know they can manage the role. Men need to support women; their support will help. Women can benefit from their precursors. Men need to have awareness of women&rsquo;s role. 
 
Society and the environment are masculine, and women already need encouragement at home. Women are already stressed in transport. Women should take the initiative and not leave everything up to men. 
 
On the last day the women all stated their conclusions. The political situation is imposed, and thus women must be more positive toward themselves. Women must not leave leadership up to men. Women cannot eradicate situations and traditions; they are born with them. 
 
Women must have self-confidence and determination and must be empowered and work hand in hand with men. We need workshops together with men and families to make it more possible to move. Families need awareness. Society must also change. The best way is to go door to door. 
 
Educational curricula should be modified to reflect new realities, and the importance of cooperation between men and women must be stressed. Women must make alliances to achieve their goals. Men must have awareness and realize what women can do. Women must fight for their rights. 
 
Women need more training on decision-making. In the short term women need training, and in the long term curricula must be changed to raise awareness of women&rsquo;s role. Women must have more strength than men. We must destroy the walls that separate us from each other. 
 
Palestinian women are strong. Women should have centres to support women. Women need more self-esteem. Women say they are weak, but they can improve themselves as leaders. Women must support women. Women must increase confidence. We must eradicate gender discrimination and get rid of the stereotype that men are everything. We need joint seminars between women and men in order to convince men union leaders to accept partnerships with women. Men must give women the freedom to participate. We should use the media to talk about women leaders. All women would benefit. 
 
The recommendation for future work was to continue with such workshops, but it was emphasized that the next time men must be along. Things will never change until men are made aware of women&rsquo;s needs. Men must also see how capable women are as leaders. It would also be worthwhile broadening the scope of the countries involved. 
 
The women did an evaluation of the workshop on a point system from 1 to 10, with 1 lowest and 10 highest. The questions were the following: did the workshop meet your expectations? This question scored 7. Did you like the subjects? This question scored 9. Did you like the method? This question scored 8. Did you find the workshop useful? This question scored 8. Will you use it? This question scored 8+. 
 
The seminar ended by passing out diplomas to all the women. Then each woman wrote down on a piece of paper something that she wanted to get rid of, ripped the paper up and threw it in the waste basket in the middle of the circle. Then all held hands and said one word about something that they wanted to fight for such as just peace or gender equality or solidarity.

Meeting report - ICEM/NOPEF Training for Palestinian and Jordanian Women

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Lastik-Īş, ICEM&rsquo;s rubber and chemicals affiliate in Turkey, kept its collective agreement in the rubber sector intact. A week ago, under threat of a 22 May strike at four tyre plants by 3,500 workers, the rubber industry representing Pirelli Lastikleri, Goodyear and Brisa Bridgestone Sabanci, agreed to a two-year contract with the union that excludes all employer flexibility demands contained in a World Bank and IMF inspired labour code introduced in Turkey three years ago. 
<img height="151" alt="" src="" width="200" /> 
 
Lastik-Īş leaders outside the Izmit Turkey 
Goodyear plant
Lastik-Īş retained 50 years of gained rights, including holiday periods, wage rates of new hires, health care protections, and limitations on use of temporary workers.
The union won a 5% wage increase back to 1 January, which equals the country&rsquo;s inflation rate of the last six months of 2005, and also won wage adjustments every six months, based on the inflation rate level. Lastik-Īş negotiated increases based on the inflation rate for several social benefits, including education and child aid, sickness and disease benefits, and heating, food and other social gains.

Turkish Lastik-Īş  Preserves All Past Gains in New Tyre Agreement

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ICEM Nigerian affiliate PENGASSAN agreed to a 27% wage increase at the weekend for upstream workers of Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. The company, a subsidiary of US-based supermajor ExxonMobil, was under an extended strike deadline to tomorrow by the white-collar oil workers&rsquo; union and its 1,700 members employed by the company. 
 
PENGASSAN had targeted ExxonMobil&rsquo;s Nigerian operations because prior wage negotiations with other multinational oil companies had yielded higher pay increases. The union and company will meet again in December to discuss further increases. 
<img height="50" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Meanwhile, dialogue will continue between the two sides on the use of contract labour in offshore oil operations, as well as PENGASSAN&rsquo;s demand that ExxonMobil comply with an expatriate quota and local content policies that are in effect in Nigeria. The union seeks more full-time employment for Nigerian workers in the oil and gas sector. 
 
On 25 May, PENGASSAN&rsquo;s National Executive Board met and elected Peter Esele as president. He had been serving as acting president since the tragic death of President Uche Okoro in an airline crash last December. Esele is a skilled negotiator and employed at Core Laboratories Nigeria Ltd. as a Health and Environment officer.

ExxonMobil Negotiates Equity Wage Increases to Avert Nigerian Strike

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Senzeni Zokwana won re-election as president of South Africa&rsquo;s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), while Frans Baleni was elected general secretary. Those and other elections were part of a spirited 12th National Congress of the NUM, held 24-27 May in Midrand, near Johannesburg. 
 
Over 1,000 delegates to the NUM&rsquo;s triennial Congress passed resolutions prioritising the issue of wage compensation, and convene a special summit to deal with the issue; to openly engage employers to reopen mines to enhance employment; and for leadership of the 300,000-member NUM to develop a discussion document on its important role inside COSATU related to labour&rsquo;s strained relationship as part of the African National Congress (ANC) Alliance. 
<img height="60" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The Congress also vowed to maintain NUM&rsquo;s bank as a workers&rsquo; asset, set in motion an aid and support plan for striking security guards in conjunction with the Transport &amp; Allied Workers&rsquo; Union, and commemorated the 1946 strike by the Black Mineworkers Union, with events leading up to the 60-year anniversary of the strike in the Witwatersran on 12 August of this year. 
The Congress closed by paying a rousing tribute to Gwede Mantashe, NUM&rsquo;s general secretary since 1998 who retired at this Congress. 
In opening the Congress, Zokwana, ICEM president, now in his third term as a NUM national office bearer, demanded of ANC leadership, including President Thabo Mbeki, that more anti-retroviral medicines be made available to workers in the fight against HIV/AIDS. &ldquo;This human culling must stop,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;South Africa has the resources to assist us and it must do so.&rdquo; 
 
Baleni, a miner who rose through NUM leadership ranks as a national organiser and then national education coordinator, has been the union&rsquo;s chief negotiator prior to his 27 May election. He headed the Production Pillar of the NUM. Zokwana joined NUM in 1983 as a shaft steward in a Free State gold mine, and rose through the ranks to regional chairman in 1993 and national vice president in 1994. 
 
Other national office bearers elected at the 12th Congress: Crosbi Moni, deputy president; Oupa Komane, deputy general secretary; Derick Elbrecht, treasurer general; Helen Diatile, chairperson of Education; Zwelitsha Tantsa, secretary of Education; Peter Bailey, chairperson of Health and Safety; and Eric Gcilitshana, secretary of Health and Safety.

NUM Elects Leaders at Energised South African Congress

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ICEM&rsquo;s Latin America/Caribbean Regional Coordinating Committee meeting in S&atilde;o Paulo, Brazil, on 18 and 19 May, discussed and took action on two pressing matters involving ICEM sectors in South America. 
 
The Committee resolved, considering the steps taken by the Bolivian people to institute a process of nationalisation of certain natural resources, to call on the governments and companies involved to be coherent in a wise and prudent response so that the rights of workers in these enterprises are not adversely affected. 
<img height="81" alt="" src="" width="120" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; <img height="80" alt="" src="" width="120" />
Regarding the dispute between Argentina and Uruguay and the construction of two paper mills on the Uruguay side of the Uruguay River, the ICEM&rsquo;s Committee vowed to put pressure on both governments to immediately resolve the matter. The resolution stated that it was important that the opinions of trade unionists be considered in the combined US$1.7 billion projects by Mets&auml;-Botnia AB of Finland and Grupo Empresarial Ence of Spain. 
 
The resolution also said &ldquo;it was advisable not to ignore contributions made by those at the international level&rdquo; in this debate. &ldquo;In our double role as workers and trade unionists, we have to make sure, as we have done in the past, that control mechanisms exist which guarantee ecological and environmental sustainability for our people,&rdquo; ICEM&rsquo;s Latin America/Caribbean Committee declared. 
To read the resolution (in Spanish), <a href="/index.php?id=26&amp;doc=1814&amp;la=ES">click here</a>.

Nationalisation and Paper Mills: ICEM’s Latin Delegates Take Fresh Look at Two Regional Dilemmas

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North American&rsquo;s offshore oil and gas industry now has its second collective agreement in place after a Newfoundland-Labrador provincial arbitrator issued a 38-month labour contract between employers on the Hibernia platform and the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada. Some 450 workers at Hibernia, whose managing company is US supermajor ExxonMobil, will receive yearly wage increases, plus backpay to 1 July 2004 totalling, on average, C$9,168. 
 
CEP won a guarantee that workplace certification of the platform and terms of the agreement apply to all successor companies or oil-service firms at Hibernia. The interest arbitration award lays out a three-week on, three-week off work rotation schedule. That includes 84 paid hours each workweek, divided into seven 12-hour days while on the platform. 
Hibernia workers were the first offshore oil workers anywhere in North America to organise a union, voting for the CEP in 2001. Workers at the Terra Nova platform, an oil rig also in the North Atlantic that is managed by Petro-Canada, voted for CEP representation in 2003 and the 120 workers there received a first collective agreement through an interest arbitration award issued on 30 September 2005. Legislation in several Canadian provinces provides for such a process in achieving first collective agreements, and also prohibits strikes or lockouts during that period.

Labour Agreement in Place at Hibernia’s Offshore Platform

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The 16-week-old lockout by Stora Enso at a paper mill in Canada will continue into the foreseeable future. The Finnish-Swedish company, which locked 600 members of Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union off their jobs on 26 January 2006, returned to the bargaining table on 8 May. 
 
But the session was short and discouraging. In a return-to-work agreement, Stora Enso demanded a 10% pay cut from workers in mid-April, and the union&rsquo;s counter-proposal last week was met with bitter rejection. The company then bypassed the union-management process by mailing to each worker its plea for acceptance, including the concessionary &ldquo;Recovery Plan&rdquo; that seeks to cut costs inside the Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, mill. With a proposed wage freeze staring at them, workers would actually see an 18% cut in earnings if the proposal were to be accepted. 
 
Stora Enso has brokered C$65 million in subsidies from the province of Nova Scotia, covering seven years. But the aid package is contingent on a new collective agreement between the company and CEP Local 972, and CEP paperworkers in the maritime province will not slash their livelihoods to meet Stora&rsquo;s outrageous demands.

Stora Enso’s Demands Prolong Canadian Paper Mill Lockout

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
In South Korea, trade union federations and legislators of the Democratic Labor Party have prevailed on the governing Uri Party not to table the controversial irregular workers&rsquo; bill in the National Assembly, at least not for now. In a series of daring political manoeuvres occurring in April, opposing forces to the pro-business legislation were joined by the major opposition party, Grand National Party, in successful efforts to sideline the proposed bills involving temporary workers. 
 
The legislation, if passed, would grant all temporary workers permanent status after two years. However, as it stands now, the bill woefully lacks the safeguards to prevent employers from discarding temporary workers through the two years. Trade unions and democratic advocates maintain that enactment of the law would mean more, not less, of Korea&rsquo;s workforce would be made up of temporary workers. 
 
In early April, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions launched a five-day general strike against the Uri Party initiative.

South Korea’s Irregular Workers’ Bill Sidetracked

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero signed, on 9 May, into law a labour reform measure aimed at decreasing the abuse by employers of temporary work contracts. The new law, which becomes effective in July 2006, makes any employee who has held two or more temporary contracts totalling at least 24 months, within a 30-month period, a permanent employee with full social benefits. 
 
Companies, meanwhile, will receive incentives in the form of subsidies for transferring temporary workers to full-time status, as well as reductions in social security contributions for the same. 
Spain&rsquo;s two trade union federations &mdash; CCOO and UGT &mdash; and the employers&rsquo; organisation CEOE, along with the government, have been negotiating this positive reform for the past 14 months in hopes of an overall reduction in the use of temporary workers and to reduce the work-life stress that fixed-term contract labour brings.

New Temp Workers’ Law in Spain Has Positive Aspects

Archive

Imerys’ Attitude Could Bring Industrial Balloting in UK’s Cornwall Region

Meeting report - ICEM/NOPEF Training for Palestinian and Jordanian Women

Turkish Lastik-Īş Preserves All Past Gains in New Tyre Agreement

ExxonMobil Negotiates Equity Wage Increases to Avert Nigerian Strike

NUM Elects Leaders at Energised South African Congress

Nationalisation and Paper Mills: ICEM’s Latin Delegates Take Fresh Look at Two Regional Dilemmas

Labour Agreement in Place at Hibernia’s Offshore Platform

Stora Enso’s Demands Prolong Canadian Paper Mill Lockout

South Korea’s Irregular Workers’ Bill Sidetracked

New Temp Workers’ Law in Spain Has Positive Aspects

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