English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy 

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2025-2029

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL 

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
An international campaign for the reinstatement of 50 Mexican rubber workers employed by German-based Continental AG, was successful after 22 months. The illegal dismissals on 18 May 2009 were made under the guise of the global financial crisis. The ICEM-affiliated National Union of General Tire/Continental Workers’ Union (SNTGTM), led by General Secretary Alberto Espinosa Rocha, launched a full mobilisation of the union for their reinstatement and to support each sacked worker who chose to fight for re-employment. 
 
The struggle, termed to “Resist One More Day than Continental,” supported especially the reinstatement of union activists Juan Pablo Hernández Lara and Alfredo Calderón and was won one year, ten months, and ten days after the sackings, when 50 colleagues returned to work at the factory in San Luis Potosí, 430 kilometres north of Mexico City. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1006.MexToronto2.jpg" width="199" height="182"/>
SNTGTM Secretary-General Alberto Espinosa Rocha
The members of SNTGTM, through the decision of the union's Congress to wage the fight, supported every worker contesting dismissal, and the union paid them the minimum wage for a worker in the sector throughout the legal process. That income is low, but the faith and support from fellow members was vital. 
 
The SNTGTM and reinstated workers gave special thanks to the ICEM, International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), the United Steelworkers (USW), and the AFL-CIO, for their solidarity and support internationally. The SNTGTM singled out the IGBCE and European Works Council for their important assistance in forcing the struggle onto the agenda of Conti's management meetings. 
 
In recent months, the union has recovered hundreds of jobs and established conditions for increased factory production in Mexico. The SNTGTM is now fighting the proposed regressive labour law in Mexico, which, if enacted, would jeopardize their hard-won achievements.

Victory for Mexican Rubber Workers, 50 Reinstated

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The ICEM Secretariat was stricken with grief on 4 April upon learning of the death of Liv Undheim, former Vice President of Norwegian trade union affiliate IndustriEnergi (IE). Liv Undheim died at 07h00 that morning in an Oslo hospital after a period of illness. She was 61. 
 
She was an ICEM Vice President, representing the Nordic region, and had served on ICEM statutory bodies for the past 20 years, dating to her tenure as an officer of Norsk Kjemisk Forbund, the Norwegian Chemical Workers’ Association. She was the driving force inside ICEM in the development of gender equality and women’s activities. 
 
In a letter to IE President Leif Sande, General Secretary Manfred Warda said her advocacy in this regard made the ICEM a leading Global Union Federation on gender issues. 
 
She began working in an industrial setting in the late 1960s at Figgjo AS, a ceramics and pottery manufacturer near Stavanger. She then became a federal secretary of the Chemical Workers’ Association and served in that capacity for nine years before being elected organisation secretary of the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions (LO). In that capacity in 1997, she also became deputy minister with responsibility for energy issues. 
 
In 2001, she became Vice President of the Chemical Workers’ Association and in 2006, upon the merger of that union with the Norwegian Oil and Petrochemicals Workers’ Federation (NOPEF), she was elected Vice President of IE. She retired in October 2010 but retained the exemplary role she always performed as IE’s head of international affairs. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NorwayIE.jpg" width="112" height="150"/>
She also had served on a number of boards and public bodies, including the research institute FAFO, Norway’s Labour Directorate, the Labour Inspection Authority, and many others. 
 
She was diagnosed with cancer several months ago and in February 2011 was stricken and hospitalised with pneumonia, which prevented cancer treatment. The ICEM’s Warda said she always delivered a great deal of energy and passion to global trade union work, and “we held hope that this same energy and passion would allow her to overcome this illness.” 
 
He added: “Her passing at the age of 61 is a sad moment for us here. The extraordinary work she performed for the ICEM – and for all trade unions – will carry on in her honour. We pledge to re-dedicate the many workers’ issues that she championed in her memory.” 
 
In a statement this week from Oslo, IE President Sande said, “Following her long and devoted service to the labour union movement we all felt with all our hearts that Liv had deserved a long and pleasant retirement together with her dear Elisabeth. The holiday to Thailand was booked and she was looking forward to spending her time reading, travelling and generally enjoying life. Instead she was struck down with cancer, having to spend her last days in a hospital. It seems so unfair. She will be deeply missed.” 
 
Liv Undheim's funeral will be 14 April in Oslo. Following, a memorial and commemoration of her life will be held at IE's offices there.

ICEM Mourns Death of Presidium Member Liv Undheim

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904Labourrose.JPG" width="50" height="65"/>
While basking in world admiration following the successful rescue of 33 workers from inside the San José copper mine, Chile President Sebastián Piñera announced on October 18, 2010, on BBC’s HARDtalk, to a global television audience, that his country would ratify ILO Convention 176 and reform a disjointed national mine safety programme “within 90 days.” 
 
It turned out to be a lie. 
 
Near that 90-day mark in mid-January, ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana and General Secretary Manfred Warda met with senior government officials in Santiago and were told there is nothing on the agenda to reform internal safety standards or to adopt global standards. And, indeed, since there has been no movement inside Chile for reform, except from the trade union federations there who are now working hand-in-hand with the ICEM. 
 
In February, the ICEM organized a three-prong campaign to pressure Piñera to fulfil his promise. Over 4,000 messages were delivered by ICEM affiliates and our friends in the labour movement! The Piñera government is being forced to answer embarrassing questions about why his government has so far reneged on a promise made in the celebratory aftermath of the San José rescue. 
 
The ICEM continues to be optimistic that the Chilean government will remember how important reality is; that the country is only one mining accident away from losing the good-will and technical credibility it won by marshalling a rescue of historic dimensions. 
 
And the Piñera government must face another reality: if it is world-class in any way, it is as a world-class producer of minerals, especially copper, and that means it must develop and implement world-class safe mining practices. So far it hasn’t. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1009.chile.mine.rescue.jpg" width="191" height="128"/>
San José Mine Rescue
In the days just preceding Piñera’s brash HARDtalk declaration, the President fell back on a culture dating to the Pinochet regime. In the commission he set up to investigate San José, no trade union representatives were invited to sit on it. ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention, states that workers and their trade unions shall participate in mine inspections and accident investigations. 
 
At San José, Union No. 2 of Campañia Minera San Esteban repeatedly warned of safety hazards and once even presented a legal challenge to close the mine. But the common refrain from both government and industry when unions warn on safety and health conditions is that the union’s duty is to negotiate economics, not to take part in safety or health matters. 
 
After a miner was killed in 2007, San José was shut for a brief period by SERNAGEOMIN, the National Service of Geology and Mining. But it quickly reopened on orders from another government official who failed to read the closure report, and relied on the owner’s pledge that deficiencies would be corrected. 
 
One such pledge was to install a ladder through a ventilation shaft as a second exit, a standard in Convention 176. That was not done, there were no follow-up inspections, and the lack of a second exit, in fact, led to the 69-day entrapment of the 33 miners. 
 
SERNAGEOMIN is not a health and safety inspectorate. It plays that role, but so do bureaus inside six Chilean ministries. Chile has overlapping safety agencies inside the six that cover all sectors of work. None of them have judicial powers to enforce the few regulations there are in mining and all are without the technical capabilities to inspect and prevent accidents before they happen. 
 
In short, all prerequisites of Convention 176 are missing in Chile: regular inspections, set procedures to report and investigate dangerous occurrences and accidents, trade union consultation, regulatory bodies with the authority to shut dangerous mines, the right to refuse unsafe work, workers’ ability to select their own safety representatives, and employer obligations to provide training. Convention 176 places responsibility on employers to not only remove workplace hazards, but to remove the causes of those hazards. 
 
Despite the Chilean government’s “head-in-the-sand” approach to mine safety now that the cameras and microphones so prominent at San José have disappeared, the ICEM will continue to press Piñera alongside a renewed coalition we have developed with the mineworkers’ federations of the country.

ICEM Will Continue to Press Chile over Mine Safety Standards

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Pressure on the Finland Forest Industries Federation (FFIF) ratcheted upward last week, even as a <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4363-Proliitto-Strike-in-Finland-Against-Paper-Firm-UPM-Continues" type="internal">two-week strike by Ammattiliitto Pro</a> – representing 1,000 white-collar, technical, and clerical workers – ended at 20 workplaces of leading Finnish paper producer, UPM. 

That pressure was mainly caused by Stora Enso, which has tried to bully shift managers and others in breaking an overtime ban by the ICEM affiliated salaried workers’ union, Ammattiliitto Pro. If there is no result from national conciliation talks set for tomorrow, a second two-week strike will start on Tuesday, 26 April, a day earlier than originally planned because of employers abusiveness, and will target Stora Enso and Metsäliitto, which include the latter’s partly-owned paper companies – Metsä-Botnia, M-real, and Metsä Tissue. 
 
Some 1,500 Ammattiliitto Pro are prepared to take legal stop-work actions this week in this second full strike. 
 
Top-level supervisors at Stora Enso have proven to be the serious offenders in this month-long dispute. After attempting to force overtime on salaried personnel at the Imatra mill ten days into the lawful overtime ban of 1 April, 350 white-collar employees of Stora Enso and maintenance contractor Efora walked off jobs for two days on 14 April. That was repeated by 100 Pro members of Stora and Efora at the Oulu mill on 21 April when supervisors threatened and coerced workers to break the overtime ban.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0807PaperMillStoraFin.jpg" width="300" height="200"/>
Stora Enso Imatra  

The problem started when management verbally attacked and then threatened Pro shop stewards who were trying to enforce the overtime ban. In Finland, it is illegal to apply pressure or sanctions on workers over lawful industrial actions. Pro’s job actions were legally certified by the Finnish government in March. 

“We have zero tolerance when a company attacks our shop stewards over actions that are legal,” said Ammattiliitto Pro's chief negotiator for Pulp and Paper, Jukka Hämäläinen. “These actions have only hardened our members’ desire to get what they justly deserve.” 

The dispute, with Stora Enso now the antagonist, was compounded last week when Stora management at its global financial service centre in Kotka ordered 35 clerical workers to train replacement workers brought in from Tallinn, Estonia, in preparation for the two-week strike starting now on 26 April. Workers refused and on Wednesday morning, 20 April, the Pro members began their Easter weekend early. 

Although FFIF did offer a token national pay increase in government talks on 19 April, that offer still falls short of what Pro and 4,000 of its members employed in pulp and paper demand. That is a pay package structured on current work skills and work requirements in a sector that has seen rampant job losses in Finland. 

Considering the egregious actions by one employer, the labour relations climate in this sector is pitched, traditionally an aberration in Finnish labour relations but something occurring more and more frequently. The growing discontent of Pro members caused by the heavy-handedness of one company, in turn, has put pressure on FFIF to reach satisfactory terms to end the dispute.

Paper Dispute in Finland Worsens; Strike Expands

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
A national settlement was signed on 11 February in Delhi bringing significant wage improvements to 125,000 workers in the Indian cement industry. Workers will receive an increase of up to 3,500 Indian Rupees (US$77) per month. 
 
The ICEM-affiliated Indian National Cement Workers’ Federation (INCWF) led the negotiations under President Sanjeeva Reddy. There was good cooperation with all other Cement Workers' Federations in the talks with the Cement Manufacturers' Association, representing 23 major employers in the sector. The INCWF is also affiliated to the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI). 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1102.intuc reddy.jpg" width="120" height="136"/>
Sanjeeva Reddy
Negotiations were chaired by Chief Labour Commissioner N. K. Prasad. The settlement is valid for a period of four years from 1 April 2010. Continuous negotiations have been occurring since then when the INCWF submitted its demands for an agreement, following the termination of the previous settlement of April 2005. The repeated failures of the parties to reach agreement led them to request arbitration by the Chief Labour Commissioner. 
 
The new agreement includes improved allowances for education of workers’ children and for travel. The raise is equal across all grades of the pay scale. Arrears will be paid in April and August this year. 
 
The INCWF and other trade union signatories to the agreement have distributed it widely and hope that it will serve as a model for workers in cement companies outside of the Cement Manufacturers' Association, of which there are 18.

Finally, Excellent Wage Gains Won by Indian Cement Workers

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
EMCEF, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF), and the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) –representing trade unions in electricity and gas across the European Union inclusively – warned that decisions to be made now by the European Commission will have serious impact later regarding energy use and energy supply. 
 
With a heavy Commission agenda on energy this spring, the four trade unions issued the alert on 3 February, a day prior to a special energy summit over development of a strategy document for the future. 
 
The unions said any strategy must include emission cuts and dedicated resources for a “smart grid” system that saves energy and thrives on innovation, training, and quality jobs. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ETUC.jpg" width="100" height="72"/>    <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/EMF.png" width="90" height="80"/>
“Our members, whether workers or consumers, understand the importance for the economy of safe, reliable, sustainable and accessible energy for businesses and communities alike,” read the statement. “Our jobs and our communities depend on clear policies that guarantee that energy is viewed as a service of general interest.” 
 
Sustainable development, the unions said, is “the development of quality employment and the development of training to ensure genuine transitions.” European trade unions also call for strict regulations, a financial framework for technical development, and market integrity and transparency to ensure no abuse inside energy markets. 
 
EMCEF, ETUC, EMF, and EPSU call for a sustainable energy mix in which supply is guaranteed and affordability is ensured. With Hungary currently presiding at the European Council, debate on a roadmap forward will occur at an Energy Council meeting on 28 February, a ministers’ meeting on 2-3 May, and again at a second Energy Council meeting, 10 June.

European Union Federations Warn Commission on Errant Energy Agenda

Rhodia and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) today announced the renewal of the <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEM%20AGREEMENT_17%20FEB%202011.pdf" type="internal">“Social Responsibility” agreement</a> first signed in 2005. This agreement, designed to drive continuous improvement and the only one of its type signed with a chemical company, confirms Rhodia’s commitment to sustainable development and its determination to ensure that high labor standards are maintained on all its sites. 
 
By renewing its partnership with ICEM for the second time, Rhodia is reasserting its commitment to apply worldwide: 
• The international labor standards defined by the International Labor Organization, 
• The principles of the UN Global Compact, 
• Its labor standards in the fields of health and safety at work, managing occupational hazards and protection of environment. 
 
In order to verify the correct implementation of the commitments specified in the agreement and to continuously improve its content, annual assessments will be conducted at a local level by representatives of Rhodia and ICEM. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1102.rhodia GLOBAL AGREEMENT 17 FEB 2011_2.JPG" width="339" height="185" alt=""/>
For 2011, the main amendments to the text of the agreement are: 
• The creation of an innovative body – the “Global Safety Panel” – to ensure that the dialogue between management and employee representatives is firmly anchored in the realities of the Group’s industrial activities. Comprised of ICEM members representing each of the Group’s different geographical regions in addition to members of Rhodia’s General Management team and a delegation of ICEM representatives, this panel is responsible for monitoring the Group’s safety policies and results worldwide, 
• The adoption of monitoring indicators to follow the situation regarding employment and the subcontracting policy of the Group, 
• The extension of the validity of the agreement by increasing it from three to five years. 
Lastly, both parties agree to continue to reflect on the terms and conditions making it possible to develop a worldwide social dialogue within the Group. 
 
“Rhodia is the only chemical group to have signed a global social and environmental responsibility agreement with ICEM. Since it was first signed in 2005, the assessments conducted regularly on the ground by ICEM and Rhodia have made us progress and the agreement has been broaden each time it has been renewed. Through this exacting partnership, Rhodia is confirming its social commitments and submitting its practices to vigilant appraisal by the ICEM. It shows our determination to foster an innovative culture of social dialogue within Rhodia,” said Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, Chairman and CEO of Rhodia. 
 
“The Rhodia framework agreement is an effective, working document for the ICEM and its affiliates,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “Rhodia has proven to be a responsive and responsible social partner and ICEM looks forward to many further renewals with the Group.” 
 
Rhodia is an international chemical company resolutely committed to sustainable development. As a leader in its businesses, the Group aims to improve its customers’ performance through the pursuit of operational excellence and its ability to innovate. Rhodia is the partner of major players in the automotive, electronics, flavors and fragrances, health, personal and home care markets, consumer goods and industrial markets. The Group employs around 13,600 people worldwide and generated sales of €4.03 billion in 2009. Rhodia is listed on Euronext Paris.    
 
ICEM, a federation of trade unions representing a number of industries around the world, was comprised of 467 unions in 132 different countries. It is the largest federation of trade unions in the chemicals industry. 
 
Contacts Rhodia 
Relations Media 
Roxanne Diarra +33 (01) 53 56 59 62 <a href="mailto:roxanne.diarra@eu.rhodia.com">roxanne.diarra@eu.rhodia.com</a>   
 
Investor Relations 
Maria Alcon  +33 (0)1 53 56 64 89 <a href="mailto:maria.alcon-hidalgo@eu.rhodia.com">maria.alcon-hidalgo@eu.rhodia.com</a>   
Benjamin Bruneau  +33 (0)1 53 56 64 42 <a href="mailto:benjamin.bruneau@eu.rhodia.com">benjamin.bruneau@eu.rhodia.com</a>   
 
Contact ICEM 
Dick Blin  +41 79 734 8994 <a href="mailto:Dick.Blin@icem.org">Dick.Blin@icem.org</a>

Rhodia and ICEM Reinforce Global Social and Environmental Responsibility Agreement

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
In France, European paper and packaging giant SmurfitKappa was made to move up on a 2011 wage offer for 2,500 corrugated packaging workers following a day-long strike on 23 February. The French paperworkers are employed at 18 SmurfitKappa paper plants and French union CGT-FILPAC staged successful strikes at all 18 that increased 2011 earnings. 
 
The agreement calls for a 2.35% wage increase spread across 2011. SmurfitKappa had offered only 1.4% prior to the strike, with half of that – 0.7% -- first due on 1 April. CGT-FILPAC won a one percent on 1 March, with the remainder due sooner this year than the company’s now discarded proposal dates. 
 
The union also won an added increase for lower-salaried workers, effective 1 October 2011, and posted an increase in holiday pay as well. 
 
Last week’s industrial action was the second within a month in the French paper sector over what constitutes a fair 2011 pay increase. Some 400 UPM paperworkers at the Chapelle Darblay newsprint mill had been staging twice-weekly two-hour strikes across all three work shifts to get the Finland-based company to meet French cost-of-living demands. 
 
And to illustrate the deadly risks inside the paper sector, also in France, in late January a contract worker was killed at Emin Leyder’s paperboard mill in Nogent-sur-Seine, Aube, when a gas explosion occurred inside a pulp tower. The 47-year-old contractor was working on the roof of a pulping tower with another worker and was blown off the roof by the blast. The 300,000 tonne-per-year corrugated medium and linerboard mill is the smaller of Emin Leyder’s two French mills, owned by the holding company FINEL SA.

24-Hour Paper Strike Gives Accord to CGT-FILPAC, SmurfitKappa

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
A dispute has arisen in South Africa between ICEM affiliate National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Xstrata Coal over the apparent discharge of 12 HIV-positive miners. The miners were first sacked last fall from their jobs at the Tweefontein collieries in Mpumalanga province, but the NUM interceded on their behalf before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) and won reinstatement to their jobs. 
 
But in mid-February, Xstrata Coal South Africa informed the NUM that it would re-sack the 12 and appeal the CCMA’s decision to a labour court. At issue is whether or not Xstrata knew of their HIV status through a joint NUM-Xstrata Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCR) programme that is strictly confidential. Hundreds of Tweefontein miners were tested through the programme in October and November 2010. 
 
It is uncertain if Xstrata Coal gained access to results of the screenings, but the NUM alleges that the company does know the results. A private service provider was contracted to do the screenings and results are supposed to be shared only with the individual.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1102.num paris mashego.jpg" width="225" height="169"/>
Left: NUM Regional Secretary Paris Mashego
NUM Highveld Regional Secretary Paris Mashego accused the company of dragging backward the campaign to test for the pandemic and said the NUM will continue to press for the real motive behind Xstrata’s reversal. Late this week, NUM delegates and shop stewards from many Xstrata worksites will descend on the company’s Johannesburg headquarters to manifest against the injustice. 
 
“What we experience here with Xstrata is the same thing our Australian comrades of the CFMEU experience with the company,” said Mashego. “They cannot accept official rulings and must always appeal their losses in order to get their way. Only in this case, there is something fundamentally wrong, the anonymity and confidentially of HIV-positive workers.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids ribbon.jpg" width="70" height="100"/>
The National Education, Health, and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) of South Africa also responded negatively to Xstrata Coal’s alleged actions. “This ghastly and barbaric behaviour by a company is a clear sign of how some big companies are failing to abide by the ILO or the OECD Codes of Conduct by violating workers’ rights and working conditions. 
 
“This alleged discrimination against workers who are HIV-positive is a huge blow to the government’s fight against AIDS,” stated a NEHAWU spokesman, “because it sends a message to those who have the disease that they will lose their jobs if they come out.” 
 
Xstrata Coal South Africa, 20% owned by African Rainbow Minerals Ltd., operates 11 coal mines in South Africa, and is currently developing three new projects – the Arthur Taylor Colliery Opencast Mine (ATCOM) East development, the Goedgevond coal project, and optimisation of the Zonnebloem project, all in Mpumalanga province. Together with the Tweefontein optimisation project now nearing completion, the projects will eventually produce 90% of the company’s South African coal output.

Xstrata Coal South Africa Accused of Sacking HIV-Positive Miners

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Low-wage contract workers employed by OCS Group mounted a lawful two-day strike at Tata Steel in Port Talbot, UK, 14-15 February in protest to the cleaning and catering multinational’s miserly pay offer. Some 70 members of UK union Community, most taking their first industrial action, blocked two entrances to Tata’s Corus Strip Products mill in Port Talbot because a living wage has not been paid them since June 2010. 
 
The strikers took brave strike action under the banner “OCS: Have a Heart” in honour of the strike falling on Valentine’s Day. The contract cleaners and Community call on OCS to make a pay offer that exceeds UK’s minimum wage. Many OCS workers at Tata are paid as little as £5.75 an hour. 
 
OCS responded to the strike by bussing in managers and others at 5h00 on 14 February to perform mill-site services. Corus Strip Products in Port Talbot employs 2,900. Reports quickly surfaced that unionised steelworkers at Tata were supporting the strike actions on the inside by not cooperating with scab cleaners. OCS, or Office Cleaning Services, is a Surrey-based property support service company that operates in 40 countries. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.metal.photo.EMF.jpg" width="127" height="84"/>
Community Region Campaigns Manager Susan Lewis termed the company’s response to the strike a “low blow. While bringing in staff from outside Port Talbot might be legal, it is most certainly not morally right and will do nothing to resolve this dispute. 
 
“OCS workers do some of the toughest and dirtiest jobs on the plant,” added Lewis. 
 
The strike action at Tata could re-occur. It comes at a time when India-based Tata is increasing employment at Port Talbot and another Strip Products division mill in Llanwern. A £185 million investment is now underway on a blast furnace at Port Talbot, and a nearby coal deposit is being studied for extraction. Tata is utilising hundreds of agency workers inside the Port Talbot and Marjam mill, and very recently brought 75 of them into direct employment. 
 
Tata bought Anglo-Dutch Corus Steel in early 2007 for £5.75 million. The Indian company recently sold its Teeside Cast Products mill in North-east England to Sahaviriva Steel Industries of Thailand in a move in which British unions successfully saved 700 jobs. 
Community is a union created in a 2004 merger between the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and the National Union of Knitwear, Footwear, and Apparel Trades.

Contract Workers Strike Tata Steel’s UK Plant in Wales

Archive