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<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
The general strike that has paralysed the West African nation of Guinea since 10 January ended 27 January. The country’s unions, including ICEM mining affiliate SYNAMIC/ONSLG, reached a compromise with beleaguered President Lansana Conté to cede some of his near absolute powers. 
 
Guinea’s trade unions, backed by some 14 opposition parties, forced Conté to concede authority to a yet-to-be-named prime minister, who will run the government. The ending of the strike also produced a pledge from Conté to immediately reduce fuel and food prices. 
The ICEM reached SYNAMIC General Secretary Yamodou Touré last week, after he had been twice jailed by police and gendarmerie during the strike. Touré said he was among some 20 leaders who negotiated with Conté until late in the evening of 25 January. Earlier that day, a commission that included government officials, union leaders, and civil society representatives met to work out the new powers for the prime minister. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Guinea.png" width="250"/>
The 72-year-old Conté sacked former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo in April 2006. The strike started after Conté, in December, released one of Guinea’s wealthiest men, employers’ association leader Mamadou Sylla, and former minister Fode Soumah from prison. The two, both close associates of the reclusive president, had been imprisoned on corruption charges. 
 
The peaceful general strike was met with heavy-handed force by Guinea’s riot police. At least 59 demonstrators were killed during the 18-day strike, including more than 30 on 22 January when police sprayed automatic weapons fire into a citizens’ protest in the capital city of Conakry. 
 
Touré was among a handful of labour leaders arrested on 17 January as they led a group of some 200 demonstrators on a march to the National Parliament. The leaders were released later that day following negotiations led by National Assembly Speaker Aboubacar Sompare. Touré also serves as secretary general for the Organisation Nationale des Syndicats Libres de Guinée (ONSLG), one of the main national labour centres in Guinea. 
He was arrested again five days later, on 22 January, the bloodiest day of the strike, when a presidential guard led by the president’s son, Ousmane Conté, stormed a union meeting. Some 30 trade union leaders were then taken to Conté’s home on the Samory military grounds near Conakry. They were released in the early morning hours of the next day. 
<img height="96" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMminingsector2.JPG" width="100" alt=""/>
Ironically, it was those arrests and late night meeting with Conté that set the stage for last week’s negotiated end to the general strike. 
 
The strike brought Guinea, one of the world’s most impoverished countries, to a standstill. It crippled exports of bauxite, the country’s major cash source, after miners at one of the country’s bauxite mines, Sangaredi, downed tools. 
 
Workers of the Christian miners’ union, FSAMCA, also played a key role in the strike, after they were told by their union to join the strike on 19 January. Miners belonging to all unions at the country’s national bauxite company, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG), effectively brought the company to a halt. 
 
CBG is operated by Alcoa World Alumina, through its Halco joint venture with Canada’s Alcan, with the two North American companies owning 51% of the enterprise, and Guinea’s government the remainder. Russia’s giant aluminium producer Rusal also has substantial holdings in the country. 
 
Guinea is the world’s leading producer of bauxite.

Unions in Guinea End General Strike

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A 24 January trade union protest in Moscow demanded that the Russian government correct the inefficient and inadequate social pension system of the country. Some 500 workers turned out for the demonstration at Russia’s Government Building. The manifestation was sponsored by the Russian Association of Main Industries’ Trade Unions, a formalised coordinating body of ten trade unions representing workers in essential industries. 
Five of the ten trade unions are ICEM affiliates, and the Association is headed by ICEM Vice President Lev Mironov, president of the Russian Oil, Gas and Construction Workers Union (ROGWU). 
<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0701Russia1.jpg" width="350"/>
Left to right: Ivan Mokhnachuk, Rosugleprof; Lev Mironov, ROGWU; Alexander Sitnov, RCWU.
The demonstration calls on the government to radically reform a broken pension system in which skilled workers receive only 10-15% of their wages once they retire. 
 
Mironov, in a television interview on the day of the rally, spoke of the frustration that people in the regions experience because of low pensions. He said the government must urgently respond to this dire situation. 
 
The rallying workers agreed to a list of demands that was presented to the government, and named a group of trade union leaders to negotiate with the government. One demand is to bring pension income to at least 40% of wage levels by 1 January 2008. The demands also call for the minimum pension to be set at a higher level, for tighter control over employers’ contributions to the pension fund, worker participation in fund management, and a return to the insurance-based mechanisms of social security. 
<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0701Russia3.jpg" width="350"/>
The association’s demands also include Russian ratification of the European Social Charter, as well as Russia ratifying ILO Conventions 102 and 128. Convention 102 establishes minimum standards on social security, while Convention 128 covers standards for invalidity, old age, and survivors’ benefits. 
 
The union leaders are expected to meet with Russian government officials this week. 
 
The union coalition is expected to bring further public actions and pressure to bear on the pension crisis this year. Other ICEM affiliated unions that are part of the Association include the Russian Chemical and Allied Workers Union (RCWU), the All-Russia Electric Union (Electroprovsoyuz), the Timber and Related Industries Workers Union of Russia, and the Russian Independent Coal Employees’ Union (Rosugleprof). They are joined in the coalition by trade unions representing automobile workers, metal workers, construction workers, as well as another power workers’ union.

ICEM’s Russian Trade Union Affiliates Lead Pension Protest

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On 15 January, a death squad in Guatemala killed Pedro Zamora, general secretary of the STEPQ Dockers’ Union in Puerto Quetzal. The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has pledged that justice will be done in what it is calling a “dirty and cowardly act.” 
 
Trade unionists are urged to respond to ITF’s “Campaign for Justice for Pedro Zamora,” an immediate call to the Guatemalan government to bring arrest to the perpetrators of this vile crime. Please click <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm">here</a> and sign ITF’s Charter for Justice ‘No Hay impunidad.’ 
<img height="202" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0701GuatemalaZamora.jpg" width="150"/>
Pedro Zamora 
Killed on 15 January
Your help is urgently needed in order to put maximum pressure on the Guatemalan government. An ITF-assembled delegation representing a global labour voice arrived in Guatemala City over the weekend, and has called for discussions with police, state and national justice leaders, prosecuting attorneys, as well as President Oscar Berger Perdomo. The delegation includes ILO and ITUC representatives, as well as Spanish and US unionists. Trade unionists from Guatemalan unions ISCOD/UGT, UITA-FESTRAS, and USTAC joined the delegation. 
 
“The Guatemalan government will never be forgiven if it doesn’t investigate and then bring the murderers to justice,” said ITF Gen. Sec. David Cockroft after Zamora was slain in front of his children. “It’s a filthy little act that makes the blood of any decent person boil.” 
 
Zamora, 43, was driving his car on 15 January after gathering his children, ages 3 and 5, from medical appointments, when a white truck with several assailants in it pulled along side and riddled the car with some 100 shots of automatic gun fire. As the STEPQ union leader lay critically wounded in the front seat of his car, one of the assailants came up to him at close range and shot him in the face. His 3-year-old son was severely wounded in the attack. 
<img height="102" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ITF.jpg" width="102" alt=""/>
“Pedro’s commitment to the union cause is the reason he was targeted for political killing,” declared the ITF. “His death must not be in vain.” 
 
The port workers in Quetzal have been waging a battle to retain their proper trade union recognition in the face of privatisation. In October 2006, they took industrial action, and the strike was met by 300 armed riot police. Their grievance was the company’s failure to negotiate a collective agreement, and failure to respect dockworkers’ views on modernisations to the port. 
 
The ITF delegation, currently in Guatemala, will also lend a protective voice to other activists of STEPQ, five of whom have received telephone death threats and have been followed before Pedro Zamora’s death. 
 
Sign the Guatemalan Charter for Justice, and bring as much heat as possible on the country’s judicial system: <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm">http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm</a>.

Justice for Pedro Zamora Campaign Mounted by ITF

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A three-week strike by ICEM Belgian affiliate La Centrale Générale FGTB against ArjoWiggins is expected to end today at two paper mills. Union members over the weekend voted, by a 62% margin, to approve an amended company proposal that calls for a restructuring of the two Wallonian mills. 
 
Union members had twice before rejected the company’s proposed social plan, once on 15 January, and again on 23 January. French-based ArjoWiggins is closing a paper mill and converting operation in Nivelles, and will transfer the paper converting portion there to the company’s paper mill in Virginal-Samme. 
<img height="99" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMpaper.jpg" width="100" alt=""/>
The restructuring was to make 147 workers redundant, as well as 80 temporary employees. The company manufactures carbonless writing and printing papers at both locations. ArjoWiggins future plans for Nivelles are to use the mill merely for warehousing and logistics. 
 
The company and workers’ representatives, led by FGTB, came to a satisfactory agreement on 26 January, after pressure was brought on the company by both federal and provincial employment ministries. Belgium’s federal labour ministry will conduct a final conciliation hearing on the dispute tomorrow, 30 January. 
 
ArjoWiggins is owned by the French holding company Sequana Capital, formerly called Worms & Cie. Sequana is primarily owned by the Agnelli family of Italy.

Belgian Paper Strike at ArjoWiggins Ends

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ExxonMobil is not going to escape the fact that it has to answer for Indonesian human rights crimes occurring in the 1990s. That decision came from a US Appeals Court on 17 January, after the world’s biggest energy company attempted to dismiss a lawsuit brought by 11 Indonesian citizens. 
 
The alleged crimes came when Mobil was opening the Arun gas fields in joint development with the Suharto government. At the time, Suharto’s regime was deploying brutal methods to put down a separatist movement in the Aceh region on the northern tip of the Sumatra Island. 
 
The lawsuit contends that Suharto agreed to provide army troops during the development, and that Mobil provided logistical and material support to the troops. Troops used the company’s facilities and equipment to “interrogate, torture and murder Acehnese civilians suspected of engaging in separatist activities,” the lawsuit states. Following Suharto’s forced leave from office, independent investigation teams did find several mass graves connected with the human rights atrocities. 
<img height="115" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Indonesia.png" width="250" alt=""/>
The lawsuit is legitimate in US courts because of the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 216-year-old American statute that allows persons from other countries to hold accountable, either American citizens or US-based corporations, when violations of international law are committed outside of the US. 
 
ExxonMobil filed a review of the case in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, after a US Federal District Court denied a prior request for dismissal. 
 
This American court case has special significance inside Indonesia. Under a negotiated autonomy agreement implemented last year for Aceh, the Indonesian government has pledged to establish a special court by July 2007 to hear the thousands of human rights cases that have been pending after 30 years of regional strife on Sumatra.

ExxonMobil in Dock for Indonesian Human Rights Crimes

Mr. Mahmoud Abbas 
President 
President’s Office 
The Palestinian Authority 
 
Brussels, 31 January 2007 
 
Dear President, 
 
On behalf of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions, the Global Union Federation representing 20 million workers in the Mine, Energy, Chemical and related Process Industries I strongly condemn the rocket attack on the house of Deputy Secretary General of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), Rasem Al Bayari. 
 
The ICEM has been informed by the ITUC and PGFTU that gunmen attacked Mr. Al Bayari’s home at 2.15 am on 29 January 2007. The gunmen fired two rockets against his house, destroying the doors and the entrance to the building. Mr. Al Bayari and his family only survived the attack as they were asleep on the upper floor of the residence. 
 
At 2.30 am yesterday shots and bombs were again fired at the house, which is now completely damaged, leaving Mr. Al Bayari and his family without proper shelter. Mr. Al Bayari now fears for his life, but unfortunately he and his family have had to stay in their house with only a small number of security people for their protection. 
 
The attacks on Mr. Al Bayari’s home are grave violations of fundamental human and trade union rights. The ICEM is especially concerned about the very grave threat to the safety of Mr. Al Bayari and his family. 
 
The Palestinian Authority, as a responsible Authority, must uphold internationally recognised rights, including full respect for fundamental human rights of workers, such as their right to life. 
 
 
The ICEM urges you to immediately ensure the safety of Mr. Al Bayari and his family and prevent further attacks on his home. We urge you to order a thorough investigation into the rocket attacks and the shooting, to bring the perpetrators of this serious crime to justice and to ensure proper compensation to Mr. Al Bayari and his family for the destruction of their home. 
 
Yours sincerely, 
 
Manfred Warda 
General Secretary

ICEM Letter to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas

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Workers, members of three of Peru’s mining and metals unions, struck the copper and lead smelting operations of Doe Run Company last week for three days. The strike and blockade of smelting operations in the city of La Oroya caused nearly a 70% production decline, which affected markets. 
 
The 2,000 miners and metal workers took the job action to protest the company’s 2006 dividend pay awards. The workers took struck action from 2-4 April and completely blocked the central motorway near La Oroyo from Lima on 1 April. La Oroyo is 175 kilometres away west of Lima. 
 
A branch union of ICEM affiliate FNTMMSP is one of the three unions involved in the pay dispute. The strike was called off after workers’ representatives and managers met on the afternoon of 4 April.
<img height="130" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Peru.png" width="280" alt=""/>
Doe Run is a privately-held US company that began operating in Peru in 1997. It mines, mills, and smelts some 59,000-tons-per-yar of copper, 129,000 of lead, 40,000 of zinc, and minor amount of gold and silver. In the US, Doe Run operates in the states of Arizona, Missouri, and Washington in lead recycling and lead smelting. 
 
Last month, public health and environmental groups filed a petition against Peru before the human rights division of the Organisation of American States over contamination from Doe Run’s La Oroya operations. The complaint charges the Peruvian government with failing to put in place pollution controls, thus trampling “the human rights of the town’s citizens.”

Strike Crimps Production at US-based Firm’s Peruvian Mining, Smelting Operations

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Canada, as one of the biggest suppliers of asbestos, will be the target of protests on 28 April at the country's embassy in Washington, D.C., and at the Canadian High Commission in London. Organised by the London-based International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, the protest calls on the Canadian government to live up to its progressive global reputation by banning the mining and export of asbestos. 
 
Canadian labour groups and activists are also using 28 April as a day to call on the government to halt asbestos production and export. They will issue a separate document on the issue. 
 
Estimates are that one national asbestos-related death occurs for each 170 tonnes produced. In 126 years of asbestos mining, dating back to 1880, Canada has produced in excess of 65 million tonnes of asbestos. 
<img height="83" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CanadaCLC.gif" width="363" alt=""/>
The theme for this year's 28 April National Day of Mourning, as proclaimed by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), is "Safe and Healthy Workplaces for All Workers." The CLC calls on trade union bodies to demand that governments enforce existing laws by providing the necessary tools and resources. "Lives are not saved by governments simply adopting legislation," states the CLC. "Lives are saved by governments enforcing legislation."

Canada: Demonstrations Set to Get Government to Halt Asbestos Mining and Exports

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One of Colombia’s national labour centres, United Workers’ Confederation (CUT) will cooperate with the National Trade Union School (Escuela Nacional Sindical) and the Inter Trade Union Organisation for the Health of Workers of Antioquía (INSISTA, or Intersindical De Salud Y Trabajo de Antioquía) to host a major seminar entitled “Work Related Accidents and Decent Work.” 
 
The conference will be held on 30 April at the Antioquía University. An expected 200 union representatives and workplace safety experts will attend. In addition, a special publication called “Karoshi: To Die Working” will be available that provides analysis of Colombia’s workplace deaths in 2006. 
The country’s Social Protection Ministry estimates that 870 workers – three per day – die each year due to workplace accidents, and that some 590,000 workplace health or safety incidents occur annually.
<img height="74" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ColombiaCUT.jpg" width="83" alt=""/>
Colombia has ratified ILO Convention 174, the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents Convention, but has not ratified ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Conventions, and ILO Convention 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention. 
 
ICEM drew attention to the Colombian government’s non-ratification of these two conventions, following a pair of devastating coal mining accidents in early February. In one, in Gámeza, Boyacá state, where eight people died at an illegal mine, one of the fatalities was a 13-year-old boy. This disaster occurred on 6 February. Three days earlier, 32 miners perished when two inter-connected mines collapsed due to an underground explosion. That happened near Sardinata, Norte de Santander state. 
 
The ICEM, together with the ITUC, expressed deep concern at not only the circumstances of the Gámeza disaster, but also the inadequate safety measures in place at the San Roque and La Preciosa mines in Norte de Santander state. The two global labour organisations called, on the deadly occasions of these twin catastrophes, on the government of Colombia to ratify ILO Conventions 176 and 155.

Colombia: Major Seminar to Address Work Deaths, Accidents on 30 April

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In past commemorations of 28 April Workers’ Memorial Day, Danish trade unions – like many others across the world – have done customary candle lighting ceremonies to honour the dead and injured. This year, the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), in combination with the Confederation of Salaried Employees and Civil Servants (FTF), are asking trade unions to mount torches outside union offices to honour the memories of workers killed while on the job or from job-related diseases. 
 
The two labour federations have adopted the motto “Safe and Healthy Work for All – Welfare Centred on Health and Safety” for 28 April 2007. Activities are planned across Denmark, including conference, meetings, and street actions to call attention to health and safety at work. 
 <img height="59" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/DenmarkLO.gif" width="57" align="absMiddle"/>         <img height="30" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/DenmarkFTF.jpg" width="88" align="absMiddle"/>
Part of that focus will ask people of Denmark to examine global development, and how globalisation puts pressure on workers’ rights, including the right to a safe and hazard-free workplace. To look at materials and posters developed by the two labour federations, please visit <a href="http://www.lo.dk">www.lo.dk</a>, or <a href="http://www.ftf.dk/28april">www.ftf.dk/28april</a>.

Denmark: Past Candle-lighting Becomes Torch-bearing for Trade Unions

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