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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" style="width: 100px; height: 39px; " width="390" />

	From the International Metalworkers’ Federation 

	On 24 April, the federal tribunal cancelled the only remaining warrant for the arrest of the leader of the Mexican Miners' Union (SNTMMSRM), Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, regarding US$55 million of union funds.

	On Tuesday 24 April, the First Unitary Criminal Court of Mexico City notified the union that the federal justice system had cancelled the preventive measure.

	Napoleón Gómez's lawyer, Marco Del Toro, said: "All the arrest warrants issued as part of this unprecedented campaign of political persecution have fallen one by one. We are very happy with today's ruling. It is a lesson to those in Mexico who think they can still conduct this kind of immoral persecution, which is alien to our legal system."

	<img alt="" height="107" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Napoleon.Gomez.Los.Mineros[1].jpg" style="cursor: default; " width="160" />

	Napoléon Gómez

	"Once again, it has been shown that the political persecution against the miners' union and its leader is completely and absolutely illegal. Once again, the truth has been established. Napoleón Gómez Urrutia has never committed any kind of crime," said the union, in a press release.

	Andrew Vickers, Chair of the ICEM Mining Sector, described the decision as “further vindication of the magnificent struggle being played out by Napoleón, the USW, and Los Mineros. I find it truly amazing, although not terribly surprising, that governments can impose sanctions on countries and regimes such as Syria, Libya, Zimbabwe, Burma and Fiji, yet with Mexico and the Calderon regime, countries like the US and Australia fete them.”

	Gómez Urrutia has been in exile in Canada for six years, during which time he has worked constantly to establish his innocence and provide leadership for the miners' union.

Napoleón Gómez Nearly Home: Mexican Court Voids Warrant

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBriefAlert.jpg" style="width: 120px; height: 59px;" width="390" />

	A two-day strike by ICEM Indonesian affiliate KSP2KI at one of the world’s largest paper mills this week produced sizeable salary increases for over 13,000 workers. With strike support from nearly all workers at Asia Pulp and Paper’s (APP) PT Pindo Deli’s twin mills in Karawang, West Java, the union achieved substantially more than the minimum government-mandated increase that APP was at first willing to distribute.

	The two-year accord becomes retroactive to 1 April and grants workers, in some cases, a doubling of that provincial government minimum. KSP2KI, or  Federasi Serikat Pekerja Pulp Dan Kertas, the Pulp and Paper Union of Indonesia, announced a three-day strike on 7 May but by yesterday, management had resumed talks and agreed to across-the-board increases.

	<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0810PaperRollArt.jpg" style="width: 249px; height: 150px;" / width="390">

	Last month, managers of the 900,000-metric-tonnes-per-year paperboard, writing papers and tissue mills had unilaterally decided on the minimum increase while still in bargaining. The strike and yesterday’s bargaining lifted the wage increase from 9.14% to 18% for most workers, with increases to 14.14% and 11.14% in other job classifications.

	That translates to an average IDR (Indonesia Rupiah) monthly increase of 139,363 (US$15.12). The minimum monthly pay at PT Pindo Deli in Karawang had been IDR 1,450,000 (US$157), so the pay grid for most workers will climb to above US$180-per-month.

	The ICEM commends the KSP2KI – a union with 7,650 members at the twin Karawang mills – for the well-organised strike action and subsequent result, and encourages all workers at Karawang, including workers of outsource companies operating inside the mills, to take up union membership.

	APP is part of Indonesian Sinar Mas Group and operates some ten paper machines and 14 paper-coating machines in the Karawang No. 1 and No. 2 mills in West Java. It also operates wholly-owned or majority-controlled pulp and paper mills – some nine in total – in other parts of Indonesia.

Short Strike Wins Big Pay Gains at APP Paper Mills in Karawang, Indonesia

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" style="width: 100px; height: 39px;" / width="390">

	The Syngenta Employees Union of Pakistan won a proud legal victory in the Labour Appellant Tribunal of Sindh Province on 20 March, when the court dismissed appeals from management and ruled in favour of the union. The ruling declares that 50 Syngenta employees must become permanent employees of the Swiss-based world leading corporation in the agricultural chemicals industry.

	Management has preferred to finance the expensive legal battle to keep its Pakistani employees on short-term precarious contracts and has chosen to repeatedly combat the union instead of accepting offers of dialogue.

	The court victory is extra significant in view of the size and resources of each side. The small Syngenta Employees Union is affiliated to ICEM member union PCEM, with 2,000 members and led by General Secretary Muhammad Suhail.

	 <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL Vending Machine.jpg" style="width: 115px; height: 183px;" / width="390"> 

	The Labour Appellant Tribunal decisions were in compliance with Pakistan’s “Standing Order Ordinance, 1968” which clearly outlines the nature of permanent and temporary workmen. The court also ruled that the 50 workers are entitled to join and be members of the union.

	However, in the time since the ruling, PCEM has approached Syngenta management to work through the contractual changes with necessary benefits. Syngenta are still refusing to accept the court’s decision. Management has instead hired a famous law firm to file an appeal to the High Court.

	The union is also still fighting for the reinstatement of Brother Imran Ali, the President of PCEM and General Secretary of the Syngenta Employees Union, who was dismissed for his trade union activities by Syngenta.

Syngenta Pakistan Refuses to Accept Law Court Ruling to Regularise of 50 CAL Employees

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" style="width: 100px; height: 39px;" / width="390">

	From the IMF website

	On April 3, 2012, Dorje Khatri, central committee member of the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT) will leave Kathmandu on a journey to put the flag of IndustriALL Global Union on Mount Everest.

	The flag of the new Global Union, IndustriALL will be put at the top of Mt. Everest by Dorje Khatri. "I will leave Kathmandu on April 3, in a bid to conquer Mt Everest once again," said Khatri. "I will scale the top of the world, from May 15 to May 25, 2012; through South Col bordering to China. I will be back by June 5 in Kathmandu."

	In a brief ceremony organized at Kathmandu, GEFONT President Bishnu Rimal handed the IndustriALL flag to Dorje Khatri. Khatri is the central committee member of GEFONT which is an affiliate of the Union of Trekking Travels Rafting and Airline Workers Nepal (UNITRAV), this expedition to Mt Everest will be his eighth attempt. The flag was rolled up in order to keep it secret, as the logo of the new organization will only be launched at the founding Congress in Copenhagen this coming June.

	 <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1204-gefont.jpg" style="width: 220px; height: 154px;" / width="390"> 

	Cde Khatri has successfully completed seven previous attempts. Last year he had hoisted the International Trade Union Confederation's (ITUC's) flag under GEFONT coordinated campaign "Save Climate, Save Himalayas".

	GEFONT President Rimal expressed his best wishes on behalf of GEFONT NEC and the entire Nepali working class. Khatri will climb Everest with a team from the UK called UK Adventure Peak , the same group that accompanied him last year. He has successfully taken the flags of the International Metalworkers' Federation, GEFONT and the Building and Wood Workers' International (BWI) in past years.

IndustriALL flag on its way to the top of the world

How should trade unions tackle the new upheavals in the world's energy industries? How will energy privatisation and technological change affect social and environmental standards? 
 
These were the major issues facing energy union leaders of all continents as they met in Cork, Ireland, today for POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
As the international's General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out, the conference is the biggest ever, with over 300 energy union leaders from 50 countries taking part. They represent more than 9 million ICEM-affiliated energy workers of all sectors. The ICEM is now "the major social force in the energy industries," Thorpe said. It is also a "ring of workers' power that reaches from raw energy resources in the ground, through generation and secondary power distribution, on to the downstream, value-adding activities of the chemical and allied industries." 
 
Economists, academics and philosophers who had sold the world the "free market" philosophy had, Thorpe said, not just kissed the Blarney Stone once - "they must have been involved in a virtual Blarney love-fest." Privatisation and deregulation of energy industries had not resulted in lower prices to the end consumer, nor in better service, more real choice or greater security of supply. But control of energy had passed from elected governments to "boards of directors whom very few of us could name, who are elected by no-one except a handful of institutional shareholders and whose primary responsibility is to the financial bottom line." 
 
The ICEM's response was to "redefine the relationship of labour with the new controlling entities of our industry." Workers must not be "just wage labourers in an industry that is out of their control", but "primary stakeholders, with a powerful voice at the decision table where their future is being discussed." 
 
There had been notable success stories, such as the ICEM's recent global agreement with oil multinational Statoil, covering basic trade union rights and occupational and environmental safety standards worldwide. 
 
But there was also a downside to changes in the energy industry. Trade union rights were under attack in many countries where energy multinationals operated. Thorpe cited Colombia and Burma as particularly bad current examples of this. He also reminded delegates of the "dreadful years in Nigeria's prisons" endured by oilworkers' leaders Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori. Detained without trial for years on end, Kokori and Dabibi were finally released this June after an international trade union campaign led by the ICEM. 
 
The two Nigerian union leaders are taking part in the Cork conference. At a later special session on energy multinationals, social control and trade union rights, Dabibi and Kokori told cheering delegates that the international campaign had saved their lives. The session on union rights included speakers from Statoil and Amnesty International, as well as energy union leaders. This crucial discussion will continue over the next two days. 
 
Today, the conference continued with sessions on new horizons for world energy giants; and on Irish energy policy and industrial relations. Both sessions included contributions from employer representatives as well as union leaders. 
 
 
 
GLOBAL NUCLEAR FORUM PROPOSED 
 
In his opening speech this morning, ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe also suggested that the ICEM could act as an "honest broker" in discussions on the future of the world's nuclear power industry. He proposed the establishment of a "global forum on the sustainability of nuclear energy" in which "the industry, the community, the environmental lobbyists and involved workers can sit together to thrash out what must be done to bring this industry into line with what society expects of its industrial processes." 
 
This proposal was welcomed by guest speaker Joe Jacob, Minister of State in Ireland's Department of Public Enterprise. The forum would be a step forward, Jacob said, as would "any other means of allaying the real fears that exist in this country about the use of nuclear power at Sellafield and elsewhere." Sellafield is a major nuclear plant on the British coast, just across the sea from Ireland. 
 
Ireland itself has no nuclear power, and Jacob particularly emphasised the country's investment in the development of alternative energy sources. 
 
He also said that the Irish experience of social partnership over the past decade has been that "it works, and works well." The Irish government, unions, employers, farm organisations and more recently community organisations including those of the unemployed, have been engaged in a succession of programmes to develop the country's economy on the basis of consensus. Today, Jacob said, Ireland has "the fastest-growing economy in the developed world." 
 
That upbeat assessment of social partnership is to a large degree shared by John McDonnell, General Secretary of the ICEM-affiliated Irish union SIPTU. He was especially critical of "the British model of privatisation, which is particularly savage, anti-union and anti-worker" and which "has been rejected or has given way to other, more European social models of corporate restructuring, in some countries." 
 
However, McDonnell did warn that Irish social partnership could be put at risk if the government did not help to halt a new trend towards deunionisation by some employers operating in Ireland. He particularly took energy multinational Enterprise Oil to task. He accused the company of refusing to employ Irish workers in Ireland's new offshore gas fields - because those workers are unionised. 
 
Unions, McDonnell said, should "lobby at national and indeed international level for the strengthening of international institutions, such as the International Labour Organisation" and for "a new Bretton Woods-type agreement on international capital flows, speculation etc. including a Tobin Tax on speculation." 
 
As ICEM President Hans Berger told the conference, "global corporations call for a global trade union strategy." 
 
Continuing in Cork tomorrow and Wednesday is the conference that will decide that strategy.

Biggest-Ever World Energy Union Conference Opens

Materials giant Imerys is using a self-proclaimed "goon squad" to oppose union recognition at one of its US plants. 
 
This is shown by a photo taken yesterday morning at the multinational's Sylacauga site in Alabama. 
 
An election is to be held at Sylacauga on 22 June to decide whether workers there should be represented by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers' Union (PACE). 
 
But the US management's tactics are bringing French-based Imerys into serious disrepute. 
 
The new photo features a man carrying the company's anti-union leaflets. He is wearing a teeshirt with "Goon Squad" printed on the back. "Goon" is a slang word for "thug". 
 
So the teeshirt is an implied threat of physical attack. Goon squads often played a violently anti-union role in past US labour disputes. 
 
PACE reports that some of the company's other leafleters were wearing the same shirts. The union believes that they were provided by Imerys. 
 
This latest union-busting attempt at Sylacauga has been roundly condemned by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). PACE is one of the ICEM's American affiliates. 
 
The goon squad photo coincides with the ICEM's receipt of a letter from Imerys CEO Patrick Kron, in which he admits that the company is allowing its Sylacauga management to pursue an anti-union line. 
 
Dated 9 June, Kron's letter is in response to a recent protest from ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. 
 
"Local management," Kron replied, "has said from the beginning that a third party representation is not an advantage for the plant or our employees in Sylacauga and that a direct relationship between management and employees works well at Sylacauga. There is obviously no reason to prohibit the local management to express and explain this view to our employees and no commitment to refrain from doing so has been taken by anyone." 
 
Kron's words will shock Imerys employees in Europe, where the company has emphasised "social partnership" with unions. But unions in Europe, too, are now questioning the company's two-faced approach to industrial relations. Can it really cuddle up to unions on one side of the Atlantic and use goons on the other? 
 
Higgs had told Kron of three current anti-union activities by the Sylacauga local management: 
 
(a) Supervisors at Sylacauga are wearing "Vote NO" stickers on their hardhats and posting the same stickers around the plant. 
 
(b) The supervisors, sometimes two together, are also taking workers one at a time into offices, telling them that unionisation would mean a loss of wages and benefits, and urging them to vote against the union. 
 
(c) The company is still using the union-busting lawyer Frank Parker to train its local managers. 
 
In response, Kron wrote that the ICEM had been "misinformed" about points (b) and (c). He made no comment on point (a). 
 
Higgs had also urged Kron to "confirm in writing to all workers in Sylacauga what you told your shareholders about the free choice of the workers." This was a reference to the commitment given by Kron, at last month's annual shareholder meeting in Paris, that the company would not campaign against the union. Both PACE and the ICEM asked questions during the Paris assembly, and discussed Sylacauga with Kron and his colleagues afterwards. 
 
In his reply to Higgs' letter, Kron made no comment on the suggestion that he should write to the Sylacauga workers. 
 
Today, Higgs again wrote to Kron. 
 
Kron had argued that Imerys is "committed to respect the laws in all the countries where we operate and to conduct our industrial relations and business in an ethical manner." 
 
Higgs' reply: "My experience tells me that a blind reliance on domestic legislation in many countries would certainly not deliver acceptable ethical business behaviour." 
 
Imerys employees in Europe should view the company's anti-union preference in Sylacauga with concern, Higgs stated - "as I am sure they will when it is brought to their attention." 
 
And he signed off with the hope that "even at this late stage, you will reflect on the inconsistency in the application of Imerys' declared corporate ethics, by ensuring your US management respect trade unions as legitimate social partners who, as in the European Union, should be welcomed rather than resisted."

Imerys: 'Goon Squad' Photographed At US Site

Brazilian labour confederation CUT today launched a national campaign to ban all forms of asbestos from the country. 
 
The first goal of the campaign is to make union members fully aware of the dangers of asbestos, and CUT has prepared a full range of information material. 
 
Brazil is the world's fifth-largest producer and consumer of asbestos, and did not begin regulating its use until the mid-1980s. In recent years, asbestos use per capita in Brazil has been 14 times the US rate. 
 
The Brazilian government should offer early retirement packages to the country's asbestos miners, the CUT says. It also wants the government to invest in new industries in the mining areas. 
 
The unions believe there is a good chance that Brazil will ban asbestos in the near future. The major asbestos companies Eternit and Brasilit (a Saint-Gobain company) announced on 30 November that they would conduct research into the use of alternative materials. 
 
The CUT hopes that its national campaign will speed up progress towards a ban. 
 
"There is no such thing as safe asbestos," emphasises the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). "Attempts to distinguish between 'more' and 'less' hazardous types of asbestos are based on discredited science, and even single exposures to very low doses of fibres can result in harm."

Brazil Unions Seek Asbestos Ban

The USWA and Goodyear have resolved a potential dispute stemming from union-friendly language contained in last September’s precedent-setting labour agreement. Goodyear announced 5 February that production of its new Assurance ComforTred tyre would go to a non-union plant in the state of Oklahoma. Specific job-security provisions in the labour agreement, however, state new tyre lines must go to a unionized plant. Goodyear acquiesced and the new tyre will be made in a Steelworker-represented plant in Gadsden, Alabama.

USWA Tyre Accord with Goodyear Brings Union Work

Police in Australia are attacking picket lines as minerals and metals giant BHP continues its bid to deunionise parts of its operation there. 
 
Pickets at BHP's Newman site were assaulted by police using batons last night, the mining and allied workers' union CFMEU reports. 
 
And at BHP's Port Hedland site today, 80 police officers broke a picket line. Several people were arrested, including the secretary of the CFMEU's Western Australian Mining & Energy branch, Gary Wood. He has been released on bail, on condition that he does not return to the picket line, and will face court on Friday. 
 
In a hit-and-run incident on another picket line, an officer of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union was knocked down by a BHP car. John Mossington, the AMWU officer, has been hospitalised. Police are investigating. 
 
The CFMEU and AMWU are two of the unions campaigning against a recent radical policy shift in BHP's Australian iron ore operations. Management there has abandoned its traditional cooperative approach to industrial relations in favour of a hard-line policy that denies its workers the right to bargain collectively. 
 
Last November, BHP issued its 1,000 iron ore workers in the Pilbara, Western Australia, with individual staff contracts, saying it was not prepared to negotiate a new collective agreement. The company had previously operated under a collective agreement negotiated with unions. Legislation brought in by Australia's right-wing federal government has made it much easier for employers to evade collective bargaining. 
 
At the global level, the CFMEU and AMWU are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
"We condemn the opportunistic attempts by various multinationals to use current Australian legislation for purposes of union-busting," said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Brussels today. "The ICEM is very concerned that BHP has joined the ranks of the union-busters. The company must get back to collective bargaining and to constructive relations with the Australian trade unions."

BHP's Union-Busting:  Australian Pickets Attacked

Norwegian oilworkers' leader Lars Myhre has strongly criticised energy multinational Statoil for its links with America's anti-union Crown Central Petroleum. 
 
Crown, which has kept 252 unionised American workers locked out for 32 months, recently signed a contract to refine Statoil's North Sea crude for the American market. 
 
Myhre is President of the Norwegian oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF and chairs the energy workers' section of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
 

<img height="181" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/crown.jpg" width="380"/>
 CROWNING INJUSTICE: 
Crown Central Petroleum's workers have been locked out for 32 months. 
(photo: OCAW) 
Statoil is headquartered in Norway. As Myhre emphasised, Statoil has "excellent labour relations in Norway and worldwide." 
 
This July, Statoil, the ICEM and NOPEF signed the oil industry's first globally applicable company-union agreement. Amongst other things, this guarantees full union rights worldwide (see ICEM News release 66/1998). However, it applies only to those employed in Statoil's own operations. 
 
Speaking in the USA yesterday, Myhre insisted that "Statoil products should not be tainted by its association with Crown." 
 
The US firm's "use of scab labour after locking out 252 union workers for 32 months should have disqualified Crown from having any relationship with Statoil," Myhre said. "In addition, Crown's appalling environmental record and serious charges made by workers for race and sex discrimination should have stopped Statoil from signing this contract." 
 
Myhre's statement was warmly welcomed by the ICEM-affiliated US oilworkers' union OCAW, whose members are locked out at Crown. 
 
"We believe that Statoil, by its contract with Crown, is making itself part of the labour dispute, and we are ready to extend our campaign and boycott against Crown to Statoil as well," said OCAW President Robert Wages. "Being partnered with a corporate outlaw like Crown is very damaging to Statoil's reputation." 
 
"We applaud the statements and efforts of Lars Myhre," Wages said, "and we hope that Statoil will either pull out of its contract with Crown or use its influence to make Crown accountable for its actions against workers, women and people of colour." 
 
According to an OCAW statement, Crown's contract with Statoil is aimed at stopping the US refiner's "continued losses due to its disastrous policy of purchasing crude oil in the futures market and guessing wrong about crude prices." 
 
"Crown reported losses in the first two quarters of this year," the OCAW notes. "Other so-called independent refiners, to whom Crown is often compared, reported strong profits in the same period. Crown's Class A and Class B stock prices have hovered at 30-year lows in recent weeks."

Statoil Slammed For Link To US Union-Buster

Archive

Napoleón Gómez Nearly Home: Mexican Court Voids Warrant

Short Strike Wins Big Pay Gains at APP Paper Mills in Karawang, Indonesia

Syngenta Pakistan Refuses to Accept Law Court Ruling to Regularise of 50 CAL Employees

IndustriALL flag on its way to the top of the world

Biggest-Ever World Energy Union Conference Opens

Imerys: 'Goon Squad' Photographed At US Site

Brazil Unions Seek Asbestos Ban

USWA Tyre Accord with Goodyear Brings Union Work

BHP's Union-Busting: Australian Pickets Attacked

Statoil Slammed For Link To US Union-Buster

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