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A compromise was reached in the pension dispute at Shell Nederland that nearly shut all operations of the company in Holland, including the giant gas fields and plants of NAM Nederland BV, the joint venture between Shell and ExxonMobil. 
ICEM affiliate FNV Bondgenoten and Christian union CNV Chemie en Energie reached the compromise on 3 November, three days after shutdown procedures began at the Pernis oil refinery in Rotterdam and a petrochemicals plant in Moerdijk. Workers at Shell and NAM won through their unions an agreement that the early retirement age would stay at 60, while pension contributions by workers would not exceed more than 2% annually. 
Some 10,800 Shell and NAM employees are covered under the pension scheme.

Pension Dispute at Shell Nederland Ends

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Copper-mining and smelter workers, members of US affiliate United Steelworkers (USW), voted 12 November to accept a collective agreement. The ratification ends a four-and-a-half month strike at Asarco, a unit of rich Grupo Mexico SA de CV, now a global mining company enjoying healthy profits from high metals pricing. 
Strikes by 1,550 steelworkers and members of other US unions at six mine and smelting operations in Arizona and Texas began in late June and early July and were followed by Grupo Mexico taking Asarco into US bankruptcy protection. 
Formal US government labour law complaints against Asarco moved creditors to settle the strikes, and the resignation recently of Asarco Chairman and President Daniel Tellechea helped clear the way for agreement. 
The dispute centered on further wage and pension freezes at a time when world copper prices are at an all-time high. Two other US affiliates of the ICEM have minority representation in some of the six Asarco southwestern US worksites, including the Boilermakers (IBB) and Operating Engineers (IUOE).

Copper Strike in American Southwest Ends

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Just hours before 130 paperworkers of the ICEM affiliate Svenska Pappers were about to strike an ABB Power Technologies paper mill near Oskarshamn, Sweden, on 15 November, a settlement was reached between the union and Swiss-based engineering firm. 
The agreement actually exceeds the standards in place in Sweden's paper sector. It guarantees workers at the paperboard mill the right to health care, education, all benefits and income development, plus ABB will pay Svenska Pappers 1.5% of the total salary cost for follow up and administrative costs during the term of the agreement. 
Pressure to resolve the two-year-long dispute was brought on management when, on 10 November, a Swedish labour court ruled the workers not only had the right to strike, but that sympathy strikes by other unions operating at the mill were lawful. 
The threat of a strike also was heightened when Finnish union Paperiliitto, another ICEM affiliate, announced it would engage in industrial action against ABB if Swedish workers at the ABB's Figeholm mill struck. Svenska Pappers was instrumental last spring and early summer in sympathy actions in support of Paperiliitto during a 7-week lockout of Finland's paper sector, affecting 25,000 paperworkers. 
"We are happy to avoid a strike," said Svenska Pappers Negotiations Secretary Lennart Olovsson. "But I am more relieved over the fact that we could stand up against ABB and their intention to introduce a completely new and inferior collective agreement into the Swedish paper industry."

Strike Threat, Finnish Pressure Wins Paper Mill Dispute in Sweden

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Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on 15-16 November 2005, 65 global trade union delegates from 17 countries at the ICEM World Conference for Pulp and Paper Industries, adopted the following statement: 
 
We recognise the current business difficulties in the global paper industry and inevitable restructuring, affecting workers and their families. However, the conference adopted a Resolution, making it clear to the Pulp/Paper Industry that continued International Trade Union Solidarity will be utilised to protect the interests of workers and their families at this difficult time in the global paper sector. 
 
The Conference also took note of the recent unprecedented international solidarity actions. This lays the ground for further international networking in the Pulp and Paper Industry. 
 
Such actions clearly demonstrate the will of ICEM global trade union affiliates in the Pulp and Paper Sector to use International Solidarity to resist harsh and inhumane attacks on workers and their collective bargaining agreements to achieve business goals. 
 
The conference adopted the following proposals: 
<ul>
 <li>During the next four-year period until the next ICEM World Conference for the Pulp and Paper Industries, affiliates will seek to initiate dialogue and achieve further ICEM Global Framework Agreements with pulp and paper companies; 
 </li>
 <li>Affiliated Trade Unions will adopt new and innovative international networking methods to further enhance Global Trade Union Solidarity; 
 </li>
 <li>Trade Unions in the industry will be fully joined to the ICEM’s campaign against the abusive use of Contract and Agency Labour in all facets of work; 
 </li>
 <li>Affiliates will exercise greater vigilance in monitoring and ensuring responsible behaviour by global pulp and paper companies with regard to health, safety and the environment; 
 </li>
 <li>Affiliated Trade Unions will undertake to increase their efforts regarding the all-important gender issue, and seek to ensure Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value, and the elimination of all gender-based discrimination at workplaces. </li>
</ul>
It is the determination of all Affiliates and the ICEM to ensure that they are able to report real achievements on the above agenda at the next World Conference for the Pulp and Paper Industries. 
 
Adopted on 16 November 2005 
Brussels, Belgium 

For more information on this conference, including background documents and presentations, click <a type="internal" href="/index.php?id=147">here</a>.

ICEM Declaration on the Pulp and Paper Sector

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The General Confederation of Labour in Greece (GSEE) has called for national strikes this week, on 14 and 15 December, over the conservative government’s planned revisions to public sector employment.
One such revision is to phase out permanent jobs for DEKO workers employed at public utilities, and replace them with employees on private-sector contracts. The strikes have been called together with ADEDY, the public sector union of civil servants.
The proposed changes, crafted by the government of Premier Costas Kamanlis, also would affect collective bargaining. This week’s strikes will get a prelude today when all public transport will stop between the hours of 11 AM and 4 PM.

Strikes in Greece This Week over Cuts to Permanent Jobs

EPS Trade Union of Serbia-Montenegro elected new officers last week. Elected president was Miroslav Veličković, and elected to serve as vice president was Žikica Đorđević.
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Veličković had been a union vice president who got his start in union matters shortly after EPS Trade Union was founded in 1992. He served as president of the Niš branch of the union, and began working in the Electric Power Distribution Co. of Niš in 1977. 
He has a background in electrical engineering. Veličković is a founder and acting president of a democratic and free trade union confederation of unions serving public enterprises in the Balkan country.

EPS Trade Union in Serbia Elects New Officers

Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadjinejad 
President of the Republic 
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection 
Tehran 
Islamic Republic of Iran 
 
By Fax: + 98-21-66.48.06.65 and + 98-21-649.58.80 
 
 
Brussels, 13 February 2006 
 

Dear Mr. President, 
 
 
Re: Sherkate Vahed (Tehran Bus Company) 
 
The ICEM, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions, after having been informed by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU) about the recent developments in regard to the dispute between the Iranian authorities and the workers of the Sherkate Vahed in Tehran, adds its voice, in the name of the 20 million members that it represents in 122 countries around the world, to the world-wide protest against the hostile and brutal repression of the Sherkate Vahed workers at the occasion of the International Day of Action, on 15 February 2006. 
 
Following a series of arrests late last year, combined with a new wave of repression at the end of January, a large number of Sherkate Vahed trade union members reportedly still remain in detention, many of them arrested during a demonstration on 28 January 2006. This harassment of trade union members and officials is most definitely in breach of the internationally recognised fundamental trade union rights. 
 
The ICEM is also very concerned about the continued detention of Mansour Osanloo, the President of the Executive Board of Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs United Bus Company (Sandikaye Kargarane Sherkate Vahed Otobosrani Tehran va Hoomeh). Our concern is not only that Brother Mansour Osanloo is imprisoned for none other than doing standard trade union work, but also that he is detained while in bad health. 
 
Together with the ICFTU, the ITF and the other Global Unions partners, the ICEM urges you to release Mansour Osanloo at once and drop all charges against him. Also, an immediate end needs to be put to the unjustified pressure that the Sherkate Vahed workers are facing. All trade unionists that remain detained because of their participation in regular trade union actions need to be released as a matter of urgency. Finally, genuine discussions with the representatives of the workers need to be restarted so that a fair solution can be found to this crisis. 
 
I trust you will take these matters seriously and urgently act in accordance. 
 
Sincerely Yours, 
 
Fred Higgs 
General Secretary 
ICEM

ICEM letter in support of the Iran Sherkate Vahed workers

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The ICEM is fully supportive of French affiliates Filpac-CGT and FCE-CFDT, and the French paper workers, in their manifestation Saturday, 17 December, in Lille, France. The unions are protesting against the actions of several multinational paper companies, who are firing workers and closing mill and paper converters, or have plans to do so, in the Nord/Pas-de-Calais area of northern France. 
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According to Filpac-CGT, paper companies are creating “a genuine social earthquake” with job losses and closures in the region. 
Paper companies Stora Enso of Sweden and Finland, International Paper of the US, Cascades of Canada and Smurfit-Kappa of Ireland and The Netherlands have all announced harmful restructurings in the Nord/Pas-de-Calais area. Over 1,000 jobs might be lost in total. 
Companies are ignoring their social responsibilities and cite external causes, such as surplus capacity, the overall economic situation or global energy costs. 
 
According to the unions, however, the real reasons lie elsewhere. Stora Enso is pursuing its Profit 2007 initiative aimed at adding another €300 million to its annual pre-tax profit in 2007. FCE-CFDT reminds us that Stora Enso, as part of this initiative, intends to get rid of 2,500 work places world-wide, with 500 of them in France, for the sole purpose of making more profit. 
Cascades is equally seeking improved profitability of its boxboard unit, while pointing to capacity build-up in China and the pressures of Asian exports as the reason for the possible closure. 
International Paper (IP) first refused to sell its Maresquel mill to a potential buyer earlier in the year and then gave local managers just two months to find investors, demonstrating that it is more interested in closing this operation than having to live with a potential competitor. Lastly, the closure of a paper converter in Gravelines, along with another converting plant in Cevennes, was announced by a Smurfit subsidiary immediately after the merger between Smurfit and Kappa Packaging. 

The manifestation on 17 December begins at 9h00. For more information, visit Filpac-CGT’s website at <a href="http://www.filpac.cgt.fr">http://www.filpac.cgt.fr</a> or FCE-CFDT's site: <a href="http://www.fce.cfdt.fr/n1/2005/12/bra%5Fpacart%5F97.doc">http://www.fce.cfdt.fr/n1/2005/12/bra%5Fpacart%5F97.doc</a>.

Paper Multinationals plan to eliminate jobs in France

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Senzeni Zokwana won re-election as president of South Africa’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’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’s strained relationship as part of the African National Congress (ANC) Alliance. 
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The Congress also vowed to maintain NUM’s bank as a workers’ asset, set in motion an aid and support plan for striking security guards in conjunction with the Transport & Allied Workers’ 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’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. “This human culling must stop,” he said. “South Africa has the resources to assist us and it must do so.” 
 
Baleni, a miner who rose through NUM leadership ranks as a national organiser and then national education coordinator, has been the union’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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Things are definitely changing in the industrial gases sector. Mergers and acquisitions are decreasing the number of global players. In addition, there is a rising demand in industrial gases for the steel and petrochemical sector, with the biggest investments in new plants taking place in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. 
 
At the conference on industrial gases, organised by ICEM affiliates Centrale Générale (Belgium) and FNV Bondgenoten (Netherlands), in Blankenberge, Belgium, on 14-15 December 2005, the ICEM presented an overview of the economic situation in the sector, as well as of the big 5 global players. The presentation also includes a brief forecast for the next years. 
 
The continuous growth in the industrial gases sector and the many new applications for industrial gases, for example in the medical sector, are good news for employees. The shift from manufacturing plants to so-called low-cost countries, however, is a real challenge for the workers and their unions. 
 
The presentation explains how workers in the sector from different countries can cooperate and how a communication network can be built between the workers’ representatives in the different European countries. Another important question that is touched upon is how the different systems of industrial relations work in each country of the EU. 
 
Click <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0512michaelindgases.ppt" type="internal">here</a> for the complete presentation.

ICEM Powerpoint Presentation on Industrial Gases

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