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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
ICEM-affiliated United Mine Workers’ of America (UMWA) members ratified a front-end loaded and pattern-setting US national coal collective agreement on 17 June. The contract with the Bituminous Coal Operators’ Association (BCOA) was ratified by 70% of miners voting at 125 UMWA local branches, and comes six months before expiry of an existing national contract. 
 
The five-and-a-half-year agreement replaces the existing one and takes effect on 1 July. It will cover 10,000 miners and preserves the long UMWA tradition of providing excellent salaries, pension benefits, and health care coverage to US miners and retired miners. 
 
The US$6-an-hour wage increases over the life of the contract will now serve as a national pattern in union and non-union mines across North America. More importantly, that pattern is extended to include pension benefits – including health care benefits – for tens of thousands of retired miners and for workers and retirees of many coal and energy companies outside of the BCOA. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/RobertsCecimwal.jpg" width="100" height="139"/>
UMWA President Cecil Roberts
“Our members will receive the largest pay increase in the 121-year history of our union,” said UMWA President Cecil Roberts. “In addition, we were able to preserve full health care benefits for active and retired members and their dependants, as well as preserve pensions for current and future retirees with no cuts in benefits.” 
 
The national accord includes two US$1-per-hour increases in the first six months of the new agreement, on 1 July and again on 1 January, which is an average 8.2% increase over current wages. Wages will be increased by US$1-per-hour on 1 January in each successive year until 2016. 
 
The UMWA preserved health care benefits for active and retired miners with no cuts. The agreement preserves a pension plan that sees a company-contributed US$5.50-man-hour-worked into a pension fund that ensures the benefits are paid in full. 
 
The UMWA posted several other improvements in the proposed agreement, including pay increases for shift work, increased sickness, accident, vision and dental benefits, and better life insurance terms. 
 
The ICEM termed the new collective accord exemplary on several fronts. “This contract again is verification of the tremendous power that UMWA holds for a social America,” said General Secretary Manfred Warda. “It deserves attention and wide applause.”

UMWA Wins Excellent Terms in US National Coal Talks

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Negotiations resume today and tomorrow, 20-21 June, for 4,000 Australian coal miners employed by the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), the world’s top exporter of metallurgical coal. Union allies, led by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), conducted successful stop-work meetings last week that saw broad agreement among miners that they want job security and an end to work practices of Australia’s bygone WorkChoices era. 
 
The union alliance, called the Single Bargaining Unit and consisting of CFMEU, the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU), met yesterday to prepare for this week’s pivotal talks. 
 
The six-hour and longer stop-work meetings, held across seven BMA mines of the Bowen Basin, Queensland, from 14-17 June, saw miners vent frustration at BMA intransigence that has stalled bargaining, and company arrogance inside those talks. The two sides have been bargaining since December 2010. See ICEM <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4463-Aussie-Coal-Miners-Vote-92-to-Strike-BHP-Billiton-Mitsubishi-Alliance" type="internal">InBrief No. 182</a> report on this enterprise bargaining dispute here. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1106.cfmeu steve smyth.jpg" width="110" height="110"/>
Stephen Smyth
Union members are “sick and tired of the same rhetoric being spat out of the company’s PR machine,” said CFMEU District President Stephen Smyth to the Central Queensland News. Miners and export facility workers voted in May for lawful industrial action by better than 92%. They are vehemently opposed to BMA proposals on changes in work rosters and moves toward subcontracting that will cost jobs and equitable incomes. 
 
The stop-work meetings were attended by between 300 and 1,000 miners each in forums at BMA’s Broadmeadow and Saraji mines on 14 June, Blackwater and Gregory Crinum mines on 15 June, Goonyella Riverside and Norwich Park mines on 17 June, and Goonyella and Peak Downs mines on 18 June. BMA is a 10-year-old joint venture between two of the world’s industrial titans that produces 58 million tones annually of coking coal.

Stop-Work Meetings Raise Stakes in Queensland Coal Talks

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
From the International Union of Food & Agriculture (IUF) Association
Business is doing well at Unilever’s personal products factory at Doom Dooma in the Indian state of Assam. But nearly four years after management tried to destroy the union with a punishing six-week lockout, and almost one year since the IUF and Unilever formally concluded an agreement to settle the dispute under the auspices of the UK government, the workers are still waiting for their union to be recognized as their collective bargaining agent. 
 
The workers’ mood is one of deepening frustration. How has this happened? 
 
On July 15, 2007 a dispute over the breach of a provision in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) led to a lockout of 700 union members of the Hindustan Lever Workers’ Union. Management’s condition for ending the lockout was that the legitimate union disbands and that all workers transfer their membership to a hastily improvised construction dubbed the Hindustan Unilever Democratic Workers Union (HUSS). Workers were forced to sign forms to this effect as a condition for returning to work on September 3. Shortly after this, a CBA with the new organization was registered with the local authorities – and workers found that their union check-off was being paid to the sham union against their wishes. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0711Unileverlogo.jpg" width="150" height="161"/>
On December 5, 2007, the union protested this illegal subsidy to a non-representative trade union to management – together with a petition with 372 signatures, of names and employee numbers. 
 
In October 2007, the IUF followed a complaint about these union-busting practices with the UK National Contact Point (NCP) responsible for the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. Nothing happened, either in Doom Dooma or at the NCP. 
 
In June 2008, the NCP suspended the complaint because the legitimate union petitioned the Assam High Court to hold a state-supervised election to determine which organization represented the workers for collective bargaining purposes. The Court took its time. Unilever continued to illegally deduct the check-off subsidy for their own creation. 
 
In February 2010 the High Court finally got around to issuing a decision: it had no jurisdiction to supervise an election, but there was no legal obstacle to the parties agreeing on an election procedure outside the court. 
 
In July 2010, Unilever and the IUF agreed, under the auspices of the NCP, to do just that. The illegal dues check off would cease, the authorities would be asked to conduct an election under agreed conditions, and should the authorities refuse a procedure was agreed to hold voluntary elections under a third party. 
 
The deductions stopped for a month – and then resumed. Only in February this year, did illegal deductions to the yellow union definitely cease. But workers cannot use the check-off to support the work of their own union – there is no check-off. And the elections exist only on a paper signed in London, with one excuse after another invoked to explain why they don’t take place. 
 
For four long years, workers at the plant have been denied the right to support, with a contribution from their wages, the union they have repeatedly declared should represent them. By consistently refusing to implement an agreement signed by the IUF in good faith, Unilever has shown contempt for the Assam workers, for their union, for the IUF and for the UK National Contact Point. The IUF will take all necessary action in support of its members in Doom Dooma. 
 
See the full <a href="http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/951">IUF report</a> here.

Patience Thin at Unilever-India as Company Evades Union Rights

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
A strike by over 200 militants of the Metal and Allied Namibian Workers’ Union (MANWU) from 6-9 June succeeded in winning salary and housing increases at the companies of the Plastic Packaging Group, a polymer manufacturing and recycling chain of companies that operates in Namibia, Angola, and the Northern Cape of South Africa. 
 
At Namibian workplaces in Windhoek and Okahandja, striking MANWU workers forced company managers back to the bargaining table on 9 June, where they increased a previously unacceptable pay and housing allowance offer. The bargaining was aided by mediation from the Namibian Labour Commissioner’s office, which on 23 May had declared the collective agreement unresolved. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Namibia.png" width="170" height="78" alt=""/>
The strike caused Plastic Packaging managers to raise a prior and combined 12% offer closer to the 19% demands of workers. The compromise agreement will give each worker an N$280 (€29) monthly pay and housing increase retroactive to March of this year. 
 
The dispute was fraught with charges and counter-charges of threats and intimidation on shop stewards who were calling for the strike. The Plastic Packaging Group is Namibia’s only maker and distributor of polymer packaging products. It consists of Plastic Packaging Namibia, Polyoak Packaging Namibia, and Namibia Polymer Recyclers, as well as Plastic Packaging Cape and Agno Plastics. 
 
MANWU is affiliated to the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF).

Metal, Allied Namibian Union Wins Pay, Housing Gains in Packaging Strike

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBriefAlert.jpg" width="110" height="54"/>
Branch leaders of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 in Metropolis, Illinois, took their 11-month lockout at a US uranium processing plant of Honeywell to Europe and won the support from major trade union federations. They also won support from Honeywell’s European Works Council (EWC) Chairman, who put Honeywell’s risky American lockout in front of the American company’s 30,000 European staff. 
 
The European Mine, Chemical, Energy Workers’ Federation (EMCEF), European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF), and European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) all endorsed the struggle and called on global technology giant Honeywell to end the lockout. The plant employs 228 steelworkers, who convert yellow-cake uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) for enrichment use in nuclear reactors. 
 
See a previous <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4120-Talks-Again-Fail-in-Honeywell-s-US-Lockout-of-Steelworkers" type="internal">ICEM news article</a> on this critical US labour dispute.  
 
USW Local 7-669 leaders John Paul Smith and Steven Lech, together with USW District Director Dan Flippo, were hosted by UK’s Unite the Union in Europe and met with national works council members in Germany and the European trade union federations in Belgium, as well as with members of Honeywell's EWC in Brussels. While in Germany, the USW delegation also met with leaders of ICEM affiliate IGBCE in Hannover.
The European trade union federations demand an end to the lockout, “with all workers welcomed back to their plant without reprisals, and with full agreement of the union the United Steelworkers.” 
 
The EWC member called out Honeywell’s careless contingency plan to operate the facility during the lockout, as did a Unite officer from the UK, Ian Tonks. “We believe the safety of the plant has been compromised on several occasions by the present temporary workforce,” Tonks and EWC Chairman Michael Petersen said jointly. 
 
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave Honeywell approval to re-start the conversion plant on 3 September 2010. Two days later, a hydrogen blast happened when accumulated hydrogen reacted with another gas during a venting process. The plant in southern Illinois also has seen uranium hexafluoride and hydrofluoric acid releases since replacement workers took up the jobs of skilled steelworkers in July 2010. The lockout started on 28 June. 
 
In Metropolis, the USW and Honeywell continue bargaining and talk more frequently than the once monthly set of negotiations in the first half of the lockout. But progress has been slow and Honeywell has been elusive and reprehensible at the bargaining table over the main issues in this long dispute – seniority, work rules, contracting out, a two-tier pension scheme, and health care costs. 
 
Following the last round of bargaining on 4 May, a Steelworkers spokesman told of the frustration: “Every time we address the company’s concerns, they say it’s not good enough and demand more. (They) change their position with respect to their own proposals, and we cannot bargain with a moving target.”

EMCEF, EMF, EPSU Condemn Honeywell Lockout in US

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Today, the ICEM Presidium held its bi-annual meeting in Geneva, with the annual meeting of the Executive Committee scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, 24-25 May. The meetings are being held at the ILO. 
 
Besides presenting a Secretariat Report and preparations for ICEM’s Fifth Statutory Congress, the decision-making bodies will receive an ICEM Action Plan for the Congress and beyond. The Action Plan will be a working document through to the Congress, scheduled for 24-26 November 2011 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 
 
On Wednesday afternoon, 25 May, the Executive Committees of ICEM, International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) and the International Leather, Textile and Garment Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) will meet in joint session to review the integration progress. IMF and ITGLWF statutory bodies are also meeting separately in Geneva this week. 
 
The three Global Union Federations (GUF) have been conducting joint task force deliberations to explore integration and to lay the groundwork for it. The task force has met four times since September 2010, with the most recent meeting – in Frankfurt on 5 May – producing a tangible outline for a new and dynamic industrial GUF. In Frankfurt, Nordic trade unions stepped forward and offered Copenhagen as the site for a founding Congress, likely to be held in 2012.

ICEM Statutory Bodies Meet in Geneva this Week

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM has decided to support the case of the Mexican union, Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Empresa Industria Vidriera del Potosí S.A. de C.V. (SUTEIVP) in a complaint about violations of trade union rights at the International Labour Organization (ILO). 
 
SUTEIVP represents workers employed by Industria Vidriera del Potosi S.A., (part of Grupo Modelo) a manufacturer of glass bottles used by Mexico's famous Corona beer. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.mex protection contract.jpg" width="125" height="160"/>
In early 2008, the company summarily dismissed 220 workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement, including the executive committee of SUTEIVP. The company then entered into "negotiations" with a "union" that they invited in to create a sub-standard agreement and to act as a shield to keep out the real union. Such practices are common in Mexico, and are known as employer protection contracts. The yellow union and its corrupt leadership are generally invisible - often unknown to the workers - until a real union attempts to organize the workforce. 
 
SUTEIVP attempted to file a complaint under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies, using Mexico's OECD National Contact Point. In 2010, the Mexican NCP dismissed their case for "insufficient evidence". 
 
Manfred Warda, ICEM's General Secretary, will highlight the SUTEIVP situation in a speech to the upcoming International Labour Conference. The case will then be reviewed by ILO's Freedom of Association committee.

ICEM Support Mexican Glass Workers’ ILO Complaint

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
On 13 May in Madrid, two great unions from the Spanish UGT confederation merged to form a new union, the 150,000-member FITAG-UGT, the UGT’s new union for food and industrial workers. 
 
Dissolution congresses of the two predecessor unions, FTA-UGT for food and FIA-UGT for chemicals and industrial, preceded the founding congress, with delegates voting better than 97% in both congresses to go ahead with the merger. Antonio Deusa Pedrazo was elected General Secretary of FITAG-UGT. The new Executive is made up of 17 members, six of whom are women. Roughly 32% of the new union’s membership is women. 
 
The union will negotiate 31 collective agreements in sectors that cover 10% of Spain’s total industrial base. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1105.ugt woman.jpg" width="239" height="159"/>
Mari Luz Rodriguez
The founding Congress made it clear that special attention will be given to sectors that are more difficult to organise such as ones containing small- and medium-sized companies. One focus will be immigrants who work in great numbers in some of the sectors that the new federation will represent. 
 
Spanish Secretary of State for Employment, Gender and Youth, Mari Luz Rodriguez, spoke at the founding 
Congress. She recognized the new union for its reinforced union structures and for defending the interests of workers. 
 
FITAG-UGT also made it clear it was laying the foundation for facing the challenges that confront trade unions, both at national and international levels. Those include: to respond to globalization and fight neoliberalism; strengthen the union role and strengthen European Works Council roles in facing multinationals; to make the most of international trade unions; to demand and get more stable and secure employment with more rights; and to demand more appropriate social protections and defend the welfare state. 
 
To meet these goals, FITAG-UGT resolved to organise more workers in all sectors that the new union serves, and to get more shop stewards to be present in all workplaces and to increase the union’s influence. The union believes better training, information, and structures will be put in place to achieve these goals. 
 
ICEM affiliate FIA-UGT itself is a product of mergers in Spain’s labour movement. The former Chemical Workers’ Union first merged with UGT branches representing oil and gas workers and then merged again with branches of miners and textile workers.

Industrial, Food Workers of UGT in Spain Merge

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBriefAlert.jpg" width="100" height="49"/>
Bahrain’s authorities and business leaders are retaliating to a general strike led by the national trade union centre GFBTU with a campaign of mass sackings, intimidation, and violence against all workers involved. The general strike was called on 13 March, and ended 22 March, in support of pro-democracy protests inside the island state near the western shore of the Persian Gulf. The agreement to end the strike included a promise to GFBTU, an affiliate of the International Trade Union Confederation, by authorities that strikers would not suffer repercussions. 
 
Estimates suggest over 1,000 workers will be laid-off during the crackdown including at employers Aluminium Bahrain BSC, Bahrain Telecommunications Company, Gulf Air, Bahrain Airport Services and APM Terminals Bahrain at the Khalifa Sea Port. All sackings were due to worker absence during the strike. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.abdul hussain bahrain.jpg" width="140" height="169"/>
BAPCO President Abdul Ghaffar Abdul Hussain
The president of the union at Bahrain Petroleum (BAPCO), Abdul Ghaffar Abdul Hussain, has been sacked for his absence during the strike and also for “inciting workers to strike”. The company will begin legal prosecution of Hussain this week or next. Hussain was central in the creation of the GBFTU. All employees at BAPCO are now fearful of losing their jobs in the coming days. Absenteeism of BAPCO employees on 16-17 March was 60%. 
See <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/27.ICEM.Bahrain.6April.pdf" type="internal">ICEM's letter to the King of Bahrain</a> here. 
 
Security forces have closed down the GBFTU headquarters and are expected to soon call the organisation’s president, Salman Mahfooz, in for questioning. Roads leading to the union office were closed and workers were blocked from reaching the headquarters, most of those workers had been seeking guidance from their union following their sacking. The GBFTU website has been closed. Parliament is calling on the government to immediately refer trade union leaders involved in the strike to the public prosecution office. 
 
All members of the GBFTU executive, spanning all industries, have been suspended from work pending investigations. On top of this cynical multi-faceted attack on Bahrain’s independent trade unions, companies are now planning legal cases against the unions in a further attempt to permanently end their activities. 
 
Over 300 activists have been arrested with many missing, and at least 20 killed since protesters took to the street in February, inspired by popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. The violent suppression of the Bahraini people’s reform protest has been facilitated with armed forces from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. 
 
This disgraceful attack on core human and trade union rights of the Bahraini people must end immediately.

ICEM Angered by Brutal Attack on Trade Unions in Bahrain

Solidarity Needed: Finnish UPM Paper Strike 
 
Dear Activists in Pulp/Paper Sector, 
 
At 6h00 on Wednesday, 6 April, 1,000 members of the ICEM affiliate Ammattiliitto Pro in Finland began a two-week strike against UPM, the target paper company in a break-down of talks with the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. In an insult to these dedicated paperworkers, the industry failed to give white-collar and technical workers a national wage adjustment, despite giving a second year 2.5% increase to blue-collar workers, members of Paperiliitto. Members of PRO deserve at least the same! 
 
(A full ICEM story on this can be found by <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4342-Finnish-Paper-Sector-Wage-Accords-Divert-Between-ICEM-Affiliates" type="internal">following this link</a>.) 
 
This is most insulting because in the past few years, paper companies in Finland have downsized the ranks of Pro by 30% through redundancies. It means more work and greater responsibilities have been placed on the 4,000 members of Pro remaining in Finland’s paper sector. Thus, Pro has targeted UPM’s six mills and 20 workplaces throughout Finland with industrial action. 
 
The ICEM is asking you to immediately send the following message of support to Pro President Antti Rinne (<a href="mailto:Antti.Rinne@proliitto.fi">Antti.Rinne@proliitto.fi</a>) and Chief Paper Sector Negotiator Jukka Hämäläinen (<a href="mailto:jukka.hamalainen@proliitto.fi">jukka.hamalainen@proliitto.fi</a>). 
 
Please cut and paste this message, or something similar, and send today to the e-mail addresses above: 
 
Dear Brothers Antti and Jukka, 
We have heard through the ICEM of your strike, targeting UPM, from April 6 to April 20. We understand the work stoppage to be justified because the Finnish employers’ federation has failed to deliver a justified wage increase on the national level. To tell your union’s members to go negotiate an increase on the local level is insulting considering the tremendous sacrifices they have made over recent years in keeping Finland’s paper sector operating. Please tell all Pro members working in the paper sector that our union supports them! 
 
(Signed) 
(Name of Union)
 
<hr/>
 
Appel à la solidarité: grève des papetiers d’UPM en Finlande 
 
Chers Militants de la Section Pâte et Papier, 
 
A 6h00 ce mercredi 6 avril, un millier de membres du syndicat finlandais Ammattiliitto Pro, affilié à l’ICEM, ont entamé une grève de quinze jours contre UPM, entreprise ciblée dans le cadre de la rupture de leurs pourparlers avec la Fédération des Industries forestières de Finlande. Dans une attitude insultante pour ces travailleurs appliqués, les entreprises ont refusé d’accorder un ajustement salarial aux cols blancs et techniciens en dépit d’une seconde augmentation salariale annuelle de 2,5% accordée aux membres de Paperiliitto, le syndicat des cols-bleus. Les membres de PRO méritent un traitement égal ! 
 
Un récit complet de l’ICEM, en anglais, sur ce sujet peut être lui en <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4342-Finnish-Paper-Sector-Wage-Accords-Divert-Between-ICEM-Affiliates" type="internal">suivant ce lien</a>. 
 
Ce geste est très insultant parce qu’au cours des dernières années, les entreprises papetières en Finlande ont réduit les rangs de Pro de 30% en raison des licenciements. Cela signifie que davantage de travail et de responsabilités reposent maintenant sur les épaules des 4000 membres de Pro qui subsistent dans le secteur du papier en Finlande. En conséquence, Pro a ciblé pour cette action les six usines et vingt sites d’activité d’UPM en Finlande. 
 
L’ICEM vous demande d’envoyer immédiatement le message de soutien suivant au Président de Pro Antti Rinne (<a href="mailto:Antti.Rinne@proliitto.fi">Antti.Rinne@proliitto.fi</a>) et au négociateur en chef pour le secteur du papier Jukka Hämäläinen (<a href="mailto:jukka.hamalainen@proliitto.fi">jukka.hamalainen@proliitto.fi</a>). 
 
Veuillez faire un couper-coller de ce message ou en composer un similaire et l’envoyer aux adresses électroniques mentionnées: 
 
Chers Camarades Antti et Jukka, 
 
Par l’intermédiaire de l’ICEM, nous avons pris connaissance de votre grève qui cible UPM du 6 au 20 avril. Nous sommes informés que votre arrêt de travail est motivé par le refus de la Fédération patronale finlandaise d’accorder une hausse de salaire justifiée au plan national. Dire aux membres de votre syndicat d’aller négocier leurs augmentations au plan local est une insulte compte tenu des sacrifices considérables qui ont été consentis ces dernières années pour maintenir en activité le secteur papetier en Finlande. Dites à tous les membres de Pro occupés dans le secteur du papier que notre syndicat les soutient ! 
 
(Signature) 
(Nom du Syndicat.) 
<hr/>

 
 
Llamado de solidaridad: huelga de trabajadores de UPM, sector papelero de Finlandia 
 
Estimados activistas del Sector de Pulpa y Papel: 
 
El miércoles 6 de abril pasado, se inició la huelga de trabajadores de la empresa papelera UPM, que estuvo involucrada en el colapso de las conversaciones con la Federación de Industrias Forestales de Finlandia. Siendo las 6 de la mañana del día indicado, 1.000 miembros de Ammattiliitto Pro, organización finlandesa afiliada a la ICEM, comenzaron una huelga de dos semanas en UPM, a consecuencia de la insultante negativa de esa industria, de no conceder un aumento salarial nacional a los dedicados trabajadores técnicos y de oficina, a pesar de haber otorgado a los trabajadores manuales un aumento del 2,5% por segundo año consecutivo. Los trabajadores manuales son miembros de Paperiliitto: ¡los miembros de PRO merecen por lo menos el mismo trato! 
 
(Haga clic en este enlace para ver un artículo completo de la ICEM, en inglés, <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4342-Finnish-Paper-Sector-Wage-Accords-Divert-Between-ICEM-Affiliates" type="internal">sobre este problema</a>.) 
 
Esto es un gran insulto porque en años recientes las empresas papeleras de Finlandia han despedido a muchos trabajadores, reduciendo en un 30% el número de miembros de Pro. Debido a esto, se han recargado con más trabajo y responsabilidades a los 4.000 afiliados de Pro que quedan en el sector papelero de Finlandia. Por este motivo, Pro ha declarado la huelga en seis plantas y 20 lugares de trabajo de UPM en diferentes partes de Finlandia. 
 
La ICEM les ruega enviar inmediatamente el siguiente mensaje de apoyo a Antti Rinne, Presidente de Pro, (<a href="mailto:Antti.Rinne@proliitto.fi">Antti.Rinne@proliitto.fi</a>) y a Jukka Hämäläinen, Negociador Principal del Sector del Papel (<a href="mailto:jukka.hamalainen@proliitto.fi">jukka.hamalainen@proliitto.fi</a>). 
 
Rogamos copiar este mensaje, o algo semejante, y enviarlo a las direcciones de e-mail que se señalan más arriba.: 
 
Estimados Cros. Antti y Jukka: 
La ICEM nos ha informado sobre la huelga que han declarado en UPM, del 6 al 20 de abril. Parece justa esta paralización de los labores, debido a que la federación empresarial de Finlandia no ha concedido un aumento salarial justo a nivel nacional. Tomando en cuenta los enormes sacrificios que han hecho estos sindicalistas en los últimos años para que continúen las operaciones del sector papelero de Finlandia, constituye un insulto que les digan a los miembros de su sindicato que vayan a negociar un aumento salarial a nivel local. ¡Rogamos informar a todos los miembros de Pro que laboran en el sector del papel que nuestra federación sindical está con ellos! 
 
(Firmado) 
(Nombre del sindicato)

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