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The Philippine Cement Workers Council (PCWC) has joined with the country’s Department of Trade and Industry in efforts to overturn a Supreme Court decision nullifying safeguard tariffs on imported cement. The High Tribunal ruled 12 July against the legal measure put into effect late last year, which guarantees mechanisms protecting industries from cheap imports. Institution of such mechanisms is sanctioned under the WTO. PCWC Gen. Sec. Samuel Eslava said the safeguard measures saved jobs and “paved the way for industrial peace” in the Philippines.

Philippine Cement Workers Council Seeks to Preserve Tariffs

A mining accident at the shuttered Shinkolobwe uranium mine in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 30 when a roof collapsed. The mine had been closed for decades, but that hasn’t prevented small-scale, illegal mining for colombo tantalite—or coltan, the valuable mineral used in mobile phones and computer chips—from continuing. ICEM Congolese affiliate FENAMICO has condemned the practice and has called for a full-scale investigation of the 9 July tragedy.

Illegal Uranium Mine in Congo Collapses, Kills 30

The GPMU and another ICEM affiliate in the UK, Amicus, officially merged earlier this month following a vote of members at branch levels of the GPMU. The vote tally to merge with the UK’s largest union was 26,709 for and 4,287 against, or 86% to 14%. The two unions will begin joining operations on 1 October with a five-year period expected to fully merge structures. GPMU will become a sector within Amicus.

UK Union GPMU Merges with Amicus

PACE, along with ICEM, has released a testimony of European DuPont workers following a visit to the chemical firm’s US sites last spring. The report contains first-hand experience of the European delegates including DuPont’s inhospitable response to the tour. The report can be accessed at www.dupontcouncil.org.

PACE in US Releases Anti-Worker Testimony at DuPont

The ICEM’s North American Women’s Conference will be held 13 September in Ottawa at the headquarters of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The statutory conference will coincide with a CLC march to protect Canada’s national Medicare system as political leaders will gather that day to debate the future of the healthcare programme. A block of rooms has been reserved at the Minto Place Suite Hotel.

ICEM’s North American Women’s Conference Set for Ottawa

That accident was on the agenda and received discussion at the founding conference of the International Nuclear Workers’ Union Network (INWUN) at ICEM in Brussels 25-26 August. The independent network adopted a fees structure, passed bylaws and statutes, and elected officers. Those elected were Dave Shier, Power Workers Union of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (PWU-CUPE), president; Irina Micu, Energy Trade Union, Romania; executive vice president; Paul Reece, PWU-CUPE, general secretary; and Roland Glibert, Belgian Confederation of Executives and Management Staff at Belgonucleaire, Belgium, treasurer.

Independent Nuclear Network Elects Officers

In a signal victory for Australian miners' union the CFMEU, workers from the closed-down Oakdale mine are now to receive the A$6.3 million owed to them in entitlements. Reached on Tuesday night, this decision follows a 24-hour nationwide coal strike last Friday over the Oakdale case. 
 
The pay-out marks a major about-face by Australia's right-wing federal government. The money is to come from the industry's existing centralised long-service leave fund. The government had been intending to abolish this fund and hand all the money in it back to the employers. This policy was part of its plan to make all such provisions "enterprise-based", and therefore dependent on employer patronage. 
 
Oakdale closed in June after its owner was declared insolvent. Entitlements owed to the miners there included accrued sick leave, annual leave and redundancy pay. In such situations, Australian employees are regarded as unsecured creditors. Often, they receive only a few cents in the dollar after all assets have been sold and secured creditors paid. 
 
Following the outcome of the Oakdale case, there are now proposals for some kind of national scheme - perhaps insurance-based - to stop the same thing happening to other workers in other industries. 
 
Overall, this is a major victory for the labour movement, and a particularly big win for the CFMEU, which at the global level is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The biggest loser is Peter Reith, Australia's union-bashing Minister for Workplace Relations. The strike forced him into a very public climbdown, and his conservative colleagues now feel that his anti-union crusade has substantially damaged the government's standing with the electorate. 
 
As Kim Beazley, leader of the opposition Labor Party, pointed out, it took a strike costing A$33 million in lost output to convince the government to allow miners access to 6.3 million dollars' worth of owed entitlements.

Australian Miners' Victory: Strike Forces Debt Pay-Off

Venezuela's new emergency decree has been roundly condemned by twelve labour internationals representing more than 120 million workers worldwide. 
 
Measures in the decree adopted by the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly include: 
 
 
- the complete dissolution of national and regional trade union confederations and federations 
 
- the annulment of trade union leaders' mandates 
 
- a ban on union leaders' travelling abroad 
 
- a 90-day suspension of election processes within all labour-related bodies 
 
- the seizure of trade union property and assets. 
 
 
In a joint statement issued in Panama on 16 August, the union internationals stress that the measures are a flagrant violation of the Conventions of the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) and also breach UN and Interamerican treaties on basic human rights. As the unions point out, the decree "contradicts in every respect" the "great transformations that the Venezuelan government plans to undertake in order to steer the country's destiny back towards the paths of Democracy, Justice, Transparency and Freedom." 
 
The union internationals demand that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and National Assembly chairman Luis Miquelena should: 
 
- revoke the decree 
 
- relaunch national dialogue between the Venezuelan trade union movement and the government 
 
- fully guarantee the free exercise of trade union activity in Venezuela. 
 
Signing the unions' joint statement were the regional representatives of the International Federation of Building and Woodworkers (IFBWW), the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical and Technical Employees (FIET), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the International Graphical Federation (IGF), the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF), the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF), the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI) and Public Services International (PSI).

World Labour Condemns Venezuelan Union Ban

Ukrainian miners are blocking coal supplies to power stations as anger mounts over massive wage debts. 
 
By July, pay owed to Ukraine's miners totalled 532.5 million US dollars, the Ukrainian Miners' Independent Trade Union (MITU) says. The wage backlog is continuing to rise, and Ukraine's miners and their families have been plunged into dire poverty. 
 
711 Ukrainian miners' wives and 240 children recently held a 50-km march in protest over the conditions in which they now live. They had to walk in pairs, well separated, in order to comply with curbs on the right to demonstrate. 
 
Ukrainian electricity generators are one culprit in the wage scandal. They are now paying only about 5 percent of their coal bills in cash. The rest is settled either in complicated barter deals or not at all. 
 
At the global level, MITU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
"The Ukrainian government and the international community must ensure that the miners are paid in full," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe insisted today. "The topmost principle, as always, must be that workers' wages and benefits have first call on the employer's available finances. The second principle is that Ukraine's coal suppliers must be paid immediately for the stocks that they have delivered in good faith. 
 
"Recently, national and international pressure secured payment of the wages owed to Ukraine's nuclear workers," Thorpe recalled. "The Ukrainian miners deserve no less. Nor are they any less important to the future of a key economy in a volatile region."

Ukraine: Power Stations Hit Over Wage Debt To Miners

Despite a complete and full victory by Kristal-Is at Sisecam Group glass plants in Turkey, ICEM affiliate Maden-Is—the General Mine Workers’ Union—is still in dispute with the glassmaker. Fifty-five miners at Sisecam’s Cam-Is Quartz Mining operations in Yalikey, Istanbul, were sacked one year ago for becoming members of Maden-Is, and 16 others have been on strike at the mine since last August. Sisecam has shown no willingness to recognize the rights of the miners to join the union.

Turkish Maden-Is Union Seeks Rights for Glass Workers

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