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Müzeyyen Acunal is a 27-year-old single mother of one who was and still should be employed at the Tezol Tütün ve Kagit (Twezol Europap) recycled pulp, paperboard, and tissue mill in Izmir, Turkey. In July, she and 35 others at the 250-worker mill tried to organise with ICEM affiliate Selüloz-İş. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.Turkey Paper Sacking.jpg" width="90" height="106"/>
Müzeyyen Acunal
Management then maliciously called each of the 35 in individually and gave them a choice: resign from the union and maintain employment, or resign from the company and collect the meager, statutory state entitlements under Turkish law. Acunal did neither. When she turned up for the work the day following her interview, managers put her in the middle of the workplace to perform meaningless and humiliating work chores for the sole purpose of other workers to witness. 
 
When she complained and said she wanted to return to the machine operator job she had held for seven years, she was fired. She has filed suit, through her union, with both a labour court and a civil prosecutor. In the meantime, she and her child are living on stipends coming from the individual pockets of Selüloz-İş officials, while long court cases wait. 
 
In your own words and in your own language, send a message of support to Müzeyyen Acunal at <a href="mailto:muzeyyen-acnl@hotmail.com">muzeyyen-acnl@hotmail.com</a>. 
 
If you care to make a contribution to help with her subsistence, write to ICEM Pulp and Paper Officer Dick Blin at <a href="mailto:dick.blin@icem.org">dick.blin@icem.org</a>. He will provide bank details in order to make a bank transfer. 
 
Also in Turkey during the final week of October, at the Mondi Tire Kutsan Paper Mill in Tire, near Izmir, seven workers were fired for attempting to organise with Selüloz-İş. Reportedly, South African-based Mondi, which owns 64% of the recycled pulp and corrugated packaging mill, is trying to install a yellow union inside the 400-worker mill. ICEM will provide more details on this as information becomes available.

Turkish Woman Fired for Union Organising at Izmir Packaging Mill

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Re-emphasizing the immediate need for Chile to take complete regulatory overhaul of mine safety, two workers were killed and a third seriously injured on 8 November when dynamite was mishandled inside the Los Reyes copper mine. 
 
The incident happened 60 kilometres northeast of Copiapó in the country’s northern Region II, a short distance from the San José mine, site of the dramatic rescue last month of 33 miners after 69 days underground. 
 
Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service said the underground Los Reyes mine was new, unregistered, and operating illegally. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/04miningsafety.jpg" width="180" height="132"/>
The two dead miners, one age 40, the other 26, were working their first full day inside the mine. The injured worker, a 21-year-old, suffered a head injury that likely will result in the loss of his left eye. Reportedly, old detonators reacted to heat and humidity and exploded prematurely. 
 
The mine is owned by Sociedad Legal Compañia Minera Del Sur, a mining company that not much is known about except that it extracts copper from small deposits. A principal of the company, Mexican national German Statures Bazan, immediately fled Chile after the accident on a flight from Santiago to Argentina. Chilean authorities were seeking his capture.

Two Dead in Dynamite Blast Near Chile’s San José Mine Rescue Site

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The ICEM affiliated oil and gas workers’ trade union in Nigeria, the white-collar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is calling on the Nigerian government to enforce existing labour law and stop companies from blocking collective bargaining agreements with their employees. 
 
It is a practice far too common in Nigeria. Oil and gas companies negotiate collective agreements but refuse to implement the agreements. PENGASSAN will soon mobilise to disrupt operations at operations of the different companies if the government does not step in. 
 
Specifically, the union’s call went to the Federal Ministries of Petroleum, Labour, and Productivity, as well as to the Ministry of the Interior, arguing that collective agreements will guarantee industrial stability in the oil and gas sectors. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805BanatundeOgunPengPres1.jpg" width="140" height="210"/>
PENGASSAN President Babatunde Ogun
PENGASSAN has identified two prominent oil and gas servicing companies, Baker Hughes Nigeria Ltd., and BJ Services, neither of which has a collective agreement of record. These will be the first target companies of the campaign. 
 
Speaking on the issue, PENGASSAN President Babatunde Ogun said that the union will work together with the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and will not tolerate any company without a CBA to operate in Nigeria. 
 
“BJ Services lacks respect for Nigerian law, Nigerians, and the government, while Baker Hughes is operating without a union or a negotiated CBA,” said Ogun. “This turns Nigerian workers to slaves in our own country. 
 
“No company will be allowed to work in our sector if workers do not have union representation and a negotiated CBA. Government, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), and the multinational companies operating in our sectors must stop awarding contracts to these two companies, because we will not allow them to complete them,” said Ogun 
 
As a member union of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), PENGASSAN was directly involved in the decision to call a three-day general strike last week, demanding the government of Goodluck Jonathan implement a new minimum monthly wage of N18,000 (€87 euros). 
 
Organised labour accepted an offer from President Jonathan to postpone the strike on 10 November as the Minimum Wage Bill will go to the Nigerian National Assembly in the first week of December. Nigerian trade unions warned the President that if his promise to forward the bill to Parliament and then to ensure speedy passage is not fulfilled, he will face another general strike in December.

Nigerian Oil Workers Threaten Actions in Fight for Bargaining Rights

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The ICEM’s ongoing Turkey Organising and Social Dialogue Project, supported by the Dutch trade union confederation FNV, took an important initiative toward mobilizing young unionists in starting organizing drives last month. The two-year project saw a seminar on 21-22 October in the Aegean town of Kusadasi. 
 
The workshop was organized at the education and holiday facility of one of ICEM’s Turkish affiliates, Belediye-İş, the General and Municipal Workers’ Union. The hotel is the Grand Belish, which hosted some 7,500 union members with their families in the summer of 2010. 
 
The facility also welcomes ICEM affiliates from around the world (for information on the union’s hotel, click <a href="http://www.grandbelish.com">here</a>). “Hosting such an important event for youth organizing at our facility gives us a great honour and motivation,” said Nihat Yurdakul, President of Belediye-İş, at the opening of the seminar. “Thanks to international solidarity and co-operation, active involvement and increasing the union density of young people is a priority for us. 
 
“The ICEM project is a driving force to all of us in this direction,” he added. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.Kusadasi - Nihat Yurdakul.JPG" width="277" height="146" alt=""/>
Belediye-İş President Nihat Yurdakul
With a population of 75 million, Turkey has a workforce of 22 million that includes 16 million men and six million women. An important statistic is that 65% of all Turkish people are under age 30. 
 
But regarding work, four million out of 5.5 million employed in various industries work, on average, over 45 hours per week. For the rest, the average work-week is more then 60 hours. The proportion of workers employed in the informal economy is larger than that of the formal one. 
 
The youth seminar in Kusadasi was attended by 60 young militants, shop stewards, and local officers, with women comprising 40% of the participants. 
 
The seminar also hosted a large group of international participants: Paulo Lage, Sergio Novais, Juvenil Nunes, Fabio Lins, and Nilton Freitas from the ABC Chemical Workers’ Union of Brasil; Liv Christensen and Anders Lapon from Dansk El-Förbund of Denmark; Celil Çoban and Mail Ürker of FNV Bondgenoten in the Netherlands; Philippe Gousenbourger, Youth Officer of International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Brussels; and Dick Blin, ICEM Information, Campaigns, and Pulp & Paper Officer, and Kemal Özkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries’ Officer, from Geneva. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.Kusadasi - Group Picture.jpg" width="300" height="146" alt=""/>
Guest speakers exchanged their knowledge and experiences with the participants, particularly on youth organizing. 
 
The seminar also gave support and solidarity to a 27-year-old trade union woman named Müzeyyen Acunal, an activist for the Turkish paper and packaging affiliate Selüloz-İş. She was fired for initiating a union organising drive at a paper company in the city of Torbali. 
 
Her situation clearly demonstrates the difficulties that Turkish trade unions face in organising. (For further information, click <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4100-Turkish-Woman-Fired-for-Union-Organising-at-Izmir-Packaging-Mill " type="internal">here</a> to see how you can assist Müzeyyen Acunal.) 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.Turkey Paper Sacking.jpg" width="90" height="106"/>
Müzeyyen Acunal 
As a regular exercise during the FNV Mondiaal project, Turkish trade union expert Üzeyir Ataman, Director of Education and Collective Bargaining of Lastik-İş, also presented union history and the current labour relations situation in Turkey. Later, the seminar focused on Power and Weak Points, Challenges and Opportunities, and Concrete Organising Targets Inside Turkey, with contributions and inputs by participants from different sectors and regions. 
 
Participants also created an e-mail group for continuing communication among future leaders of the unions, which will allow them the opportunity to exchange information, as well as to further solidarity. 
 
“The Kusadasi Seminar gives us great hope and motivation for the future of our Turkish unions,” said Özkan, coordinator of the two-year project. “We now feel more obliged to do more work towards organising young workers, not just in Turkey, but also throughout the world.” 
 
The project will conclude with an Evaluation Seminar scheduled to occur late this month, 29-30 November, in the Turkish capital Ankara.

ICEM, FNV Mondiaal Turkey Project Mobilizes Young Unionists to Organise

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Negotiations to end a 23-week lockout by Honeywell Inc. against 228 members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 in the US state of Illinois failed last week. The American company, which converts yellow-cake uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at the Metropolis, Illinois, plant, continued its inflexibility in finding a resolve to the dispute and to return experienced workers to their jobs. 
 
The 22-23 November bargaining came four days after many of the locked-out workers rode a bus throughout the night to demonstrate at Honeywell’s corporate headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey. The manifestation was meant to convince senior Honeywell executives that it was finally time to conduct serious bargaining and end the lockout, according to Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.Honeywell 2.jpg" width="177" height="148"/>
Local 7-699 members at Honeywell's New Jersey offices, 18 November
But at last week’s bargaining, Honeywell only agreed to pay workers their accrued 2009 vacation time in pay, something owed them anyway because most workers had been denied their legitimate work furloughs this year due to the lockout. Further bargaining is scheduled for 13-14 December. 
Meanwhile, the transnational technology and manufacturing company continues to use scab replacement workers to run the highly dangerous plant, one which transforms uranium into UF6 gas and then is frozen and sold for feed to the nuclear enrichment process. 
 
Honeywell has replaced the locked-out workers with 200 scabs from the Shaw Group, Unbelievably, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted certification to re-start the four-stage production process in September. Since, the NRC has issued a number of violations for work infractions. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.Honeywell 3.jpg" width="186" height="139"/>
Issues that separate USW Local 7-699 and Honeywell are retirement benefits and the company’s demand to create a two-tier pension scheme; Honeywell’s insistence on gaining broad contracting-out rights, which could mean the loss of many jobs and possible elimination of entire in-house departments; and weakening of workers’ seniority rights. 
 
Honeywell has offered a 3% pay increase, but its pension and work-rule demands are so detrimental that Local 7-669 has offered to accept a wage freeze for continuation of current contract items. 
 
The union has been uplifted by the tremendous support given workers by trade unions in southern Illinois, Kentucky, and elsewhere. Notably, Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 160 of Murphysboro, Illinois, has provided money and food to locked-out steelworkers, and soon will hold a Christmas party for workers’ children. 
 
USW Local 550 in nearby Paducah, Kentucky, whose members are employed by US Enrichment Corp., a private sector company that buys Honeywell’s UF6, also has contributed greatly, as has local branch unions of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and the United Auto Workers (UAW). And recently, a financial contribution was sent to Local 7-699 from Germany’s IGBCE union. 
 
Prior ICEM reports on this lockout in the US can be found <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4066-Talks-Fail-Between-USW-Honeywell-in-US-Uranium-Lockout" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3977-Lockout-of-USW-represented-Uranium-Processing-Plant-in-US-Continues" type="internal">here</a>.

Talks Again Fail in Honeywell’s US Lockout of Steelworkers

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
from the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) 
 
The meeting is the first joint activity on the organization of trade union networks in Latin American companies organized by the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and the Building and Woodworkers' International (BWI) to develop new strategies together with their affiliates. 
 
On 23-24 September, an international seminar on forming union networks in Latin American trans-national companies (TNCs) took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, representatives of the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), the Building and Woodworkers' International (BWI), and the ICEM representing workers in metallurgical, chemical, construction and wood sectors took part. 
 
Supported by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FES), the aim of the meeting was to exchange experiences on existing networking activities and joint planning of actions in these companies. GUFs and unions provided information on several companies, as well as on the relationship (or lack thereof) that currently exists between companies and unions. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.brazil.creditIMF.jpg" width="331" height="189" alt=""/>
Photo: IMF 
 
The companies reviewed were Vale, WEG, Votorantim, Petrobras, and Arauco Odebrecht. All of the companies are involved in more than one sector, and some engage in unacceptable anti-union practices. 
 
“Unfortunately, we have suffered so much abuse by foreign TNCs. But today we see that the Latin American TNCs are no different. Our experience also shows that the anti-union practices and disregard of workers' rights by some companies are even fiercer in the countries where the company has opened new operations than in their home countries,” said IMF Assistant General Secretary Fernando Lopes. 
 
During the meeting, all participants decided to support the workers struggle at Brazilian Vale's operations in Voiseys Bay, Canada, where 230 workers have been on strike since 1 August 2009, after the company would only accept to renew the collective agreement if the workers represented by USW agreed to a drastic reduction in conditions and increased job insecurity. 
 
The IMF Regional Representative for Latin America and Caribbean, Jorge Almeida said, "This meeting was also a first step in the region. In a few years, we will work on a global scale with the merger of three confederations overall: IMF (metalworkers), ICEM (chemical) and ITGLWF (textiles).” 
 
The meeting included affiliates from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru affiliated to IMF, ICEM, and BWI, and also included were representatives from IG Metall, Germany, and the US Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO.

FES Sponsors Tri-GUF Multinationals Seminar in Brazil

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
A joint information campaign by the European Mine, Chemical, and Energy Workers’ Federation (EMCEF) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is proving successful in alerting trade unions and workers’ representatives to coming deadlines of REACH and the Chemical, Labeling, Packaging (CLP) regulation of the EU. The campaign is aimed at workers inside companies that market or use chemicals in their manufacturing. 
 
REACH is the Registration Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals regulation, an EU statute that took effect in 2007 and which is being phased in over several years. REACH requires industrial operators to register any chemicals they make or import in quantities above one tonne per year with the new European Chemicals Agency. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1005.emcef.reibsch.jpg" width="240" height="180"/>
EMCEF General Secretary Reinhard Reibsch
The deadline for employers to register is 30 November 2010, and the EMCEF/ETUC campaign is asking workers to remind employers of this fact. The accompanying CLP regulation says they have to notify the new agency regarding the classification and labeling of all hazardous substances that go on the market, regardless of production volume. 
 
A 1 December 2010 exists for CLP Reclassification, while a 3 January 2011 deadline looms for CLP notification. 
 
The two European trade union federations see fulfillment of the requirements as job-saving measures in the European chemicals sector. “Workers in this industry are very interested in sustainable development of the sector based on high environmental values, social progress, and economic success,” said EMCEF General Secretary Reinhard Reibsch, adding the joint EMCEF/ETUC campaign is an extension of that.

EMCEF, ETUC Alert European Workers to REACH Deadlines

The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine & General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) yesterday called on the Government of Chile to radically change the procedural methodology it uses on mine safety once the imminent rescue of 33 miners at the San José mine near Copiapó in northern Chile is complete. 
 
In a letter to Minister of Mining Laurence Golborne Riveros, the 20-million-member global union federation called on the government to streamline workplace safety and health enforcement, now contained in several different ministries, into a single, autonomous agency “that has full powers and full technical capabilities to inspect and correct workplace deficiencies before accidents happen.” 
 
The ICEM is also calling on the government of Chile to begin the process toward ratification of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 176, the 1995 Safety and Health in Mines Convention. By adopting the global principles contained in Convention 176, Chile ensures that workers and their trade unions have a voice on safety matters and the ability to take action to prevent mine accidents. (The full letter can be seen <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/116.ICEM.Chile.MiningMinister.4Oct.pdf" type="internal">here</a>.) 
 
“In a mine, when a trade union safety committee is engaged with the respective company and government representatives, the risks in that mine gets reduced dramatically,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “This is basic to Convention 176 but, unfortunately, is woefully lacking inside Chile’s mining industry.” 
 
The ICEM called on Chile’s government to consolidate ministerial safety investigatory bodies into a fully-staffed independent rule-making agency that has judicial and other powers to ensure safe and healthy workplaces. In the letter, the ICEM states that creation of such an agency can also serve as the mechanism to implement and enforce the global mine safety standards contained in Convention 176. 
 
The ICEM commended Chile’s government for the intensive rescue to save the lives of the 33 San José miners, but reminded that massive work awaits both politically and administratively to prevent such disasters from happening in the future. 
 
The Geneva-based ICEM, composed of 467 trade union affiliates in 132 countries, is the representative global body for some 70 national mining unions in as many countries. The ICEM has a global campaign underway pressing on governments of resource-rich nations to ratify ILO Convention 176. 
 
For further information, contact Dick Blin, ICEM Information Officer, <a href="mailto:dick.blin@icem.org">dick.blin@icem.org</a>; telephone: +41 22 304 1842 (direct) or +41 79 734 8994 (mobile).

Mine Safety Culture in Chile Must Change, Asserts ICEM 

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On 29 September, ten million bitter people demonstrated across Europe. They protested government imposed austerity measures brought on by a financial crisis not their fault, or the fault of those now feeling the pain from crisis-caused social cuts. 
 
In the weeks since, that bitterness and anger has not gone away. In fact, it is manifesting itself day by day through differing circumstances in different countries. What the angst and anger have in common from one country to another is the feeling that those that caused the pain do not share in it now. 
 
Perhaps nowhere is the anger more pronounced than in France, where last week’s strikes at refineries, pipelines, shipping, and transportation centres were compared to strikes in 2006. The country could be literally shut down this week if the strikes – focused on President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension reforms – continue. Prior 24-hour strikes were extended to continuous strikes last week, and another mass day of action is set for tomorrow, 19 September. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1008.no.to.austerity.banner.jpg" width="174" height="249" alt=""/>
The CFDT said 3.5 million workers taken to the streets by mid-week last. Although Sarkozy has pushed through portions of pension reform, he still seeks legislation to increase the minimum pension age from 60 to 62 and increase the age for a full retirement package from 65 to 67. As the strikes grew throughout last week, a poll showed 69% of French citizens support the strikes. 
 
In Romania on 13 October, Finance Ministry workers stopped work in a spontaneous strike and occupied the Finance Ministry overnight. They were joined by public-sector workers from the Work, Heath, and Post Office, all protesting elimination of bonus payments from July, totaling between €100-150 per month. That accounts for up to 60% of public-sector salaries. 
 
Continual protests in the Central European nation have now had an effect. Late in the week, the finance minister agreed to restore the bonuses for August and September. And a pension reform bill that would have lifted the retirement age for both men and women was sent back to Parliament for amendments because of “people mobilisation” and pressure from trade unions. The protests could become even bigger this week, since the menace behind Romania’s austerity cuts – the International Monetary Fund – is scheduled for an evaluation visit on 22 October. 
 
In the Slovak Republic on 12 October, thousands of trade unions marched in Bratislava and assembled in the city’s SNP Square, protesting the government’s harsh reductions in the 2011 budget. The measures include cutting one-seventh of the entire state budget, including cutting the pay of all public-sector workers by 10%. The Confederation of Trade Unions (KOZ) said the average family of four throughout the country will see a reduction in income of €400 a year, and instead calls for higher taxation on dividend earnings and granting relief measures to ordinary citizens. 
 
In the Czech Republic, trade unions are on strike alert today, anticipating the worst scenario on how a 10% pay cut in across the public sector will be implemented. A poll in the Czech Republic revealed that 58% of people polled believe the austerity measures will result in slower economic recovery. On 21 September, 40,000 Czech public-sector workers took to the streets because of the pay cuts. 
 
In Athens, Greece, protesters that are owed up to two year’s back pay barricaded themselves inside the Acropolis and had to be removed by police force. Other tense confrontations appear to be hotting up for Slovenia, Portugal, and the UK. 
 
Instead of pension reform, wage cuts, and budget curtailments, trade unions see jobs and economic growth as the catapult to recovery. Unions bear witness that most victims of austerity cuts are workers and the working poor, victims of an economic crisis set off by bankers and traders and aided then by the same neo-liberal governmental policies that now call out for social cuts.

Deep Anger to Austerity Continues Across Europe 

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IndustriEnergi (IE), ICEM’s strong Norwegian energy and chemicals affiliate, awarded its first Arthur Svensson International Award for Trade Union Rights to Wellington Chibebe, the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). The award came at the opening of IE’s Congress in Oslo on 11 October. 
 
Chibebe won the award as one of the trade unionists leading the courageous struggle in Zimbabwe for workers’ rights. IE’s Arthur Svensson Award is named after a longtime leader of Norsk Kjemisk Forbund, the Norwegian Chemical Workers’ Association, which merged in 2006 with NOPEF to form IE. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805ZCTUCibebe.jpg" width="175" height="140" alt=""/>
Wellington Chibebe, ZCTU General Secretary
Chibebe told African radio upon wining the award that Zimbabwe’s unions must continue fighting for its rightful “democratic space” in Zimbabwe’s economic society. The global significance to the award, said Chibebe, is that the world now knows that Zimbabwe has appeared before the ILO Standards Committee every year since 2002, “culminating in the commission on enquiry which came to Zimbabwe last year and a report that moved the government to address the problems that have been facing unions.” 
 
Chibebe and others in Zimbabwe have been effective global voices against the brutish trade union abuses that occur in the country. In May 2008, he and ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo were locked up and charged with an absurd “communicating falsehoods” complaint against the state. In September 2006, Chibebe was beaten in police custody after being one of some 200 trade unionists seeking satisfactory work rights. He began his trade union career in 1988 as an apprentice railway worker. He became president of the railway union and then joined ZCTU in 2001. 
 
In praise of Chibebe’s award last week, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) said in a statement that he has “courage, passion, and firmness of principle. We believe the African trade union movement in particular and the global trade union movement in general has an asset in him and we are yet to see more of his outstanding contributions as we intensify our struggle for justice.” 
 
The Arthur Svensson International Award for Trade Union Rights comes with a cash prize of NOK 500,000 (€60,000).

Zimbabwe’s Wellington Chibebe Receives First Norwegian Labour Prize

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