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Leaders from the Botswana Mining Workers’ Union face continued legal harassment by Debswana, the diamond-mining joint venture between DeBeers and the government of Botswana. The union faces a 15 October deadline to file affidavits on why leaders should not face jail terms. Debswana is seeking jail sentences of the leaders over a two-week strike staged by some union members at Debswana despite a BMWU plea to continue bargaining. Debswana had received a positive ruling from a Botswana’s Industrial Court in early August declaring any strike illegal. The ruling came at the peak of a bitter wage dispute.

Debswana Taking Hard Line Against Botswana’s Miners

A Swiss mega-union was created 16 October with the merger of four unions. The new union, called Unia, includes ICEM affiliate Syndicat Industrie & Batiment (SIB) and now represents over one million workers. Unia covers Swiss workers from engineering to construction industries, and also in retail and catering sectors.

Four Unions Merge in Switzerland to Inform Unia

Just as Australian unions, asbestos victims and renegade building materials firm James Hardie were getting close last week to resolving an A$2 billion shortfall in an asbestos liability fund, the company’s CEO and CFO resigned, taking a combined A$10 million severance package. Peter Macdonald and Peter Shafron still face Australian criminal charges on misleading investors and other deceptive stock market practices by establishing and then underfunding an asbestos victims fund. Hardie had cut its own liability in constructing the fund.

James Hardie’s Executives Take Massive Severance Payouts

ICEM affiliate National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) is in dispute with German rubber producer Continental Tyre over shift changes and restructuring at a Port Elizabeth factory. Up to 200 of the plant’s 1,400 workers could be retrenched under a company plan to cut weekend shift operations and manpower in various departments. Because management imposed the restructuring without consultation with NUMSA—a violation of the tyre industry agreement—over 300 workers staged spontaneous stop-work actions last week.

NUMSA Takes Issue with Continental Tyre's Restructuring

EPMU and Norwegian-based pulp and paper company Norske Skog signed an innovative agreement with Kewerau College for a maintenance training centre. The programme is the first of its kind in New Zealand and will provide training from apprenticeship up to and through advanced levels of skilled maintenance. “It’s a living example of a union and employer collaborating to fix a glaring gap in our skills and training,” stated EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little. Norske Skog operates the 600- worker Tasman paper mill, which produces newsprint and directory paper at Kawerau.

New Zealand's EPMU, Norske Skog Agree to Training Centre

Andriy Volynets, son of Ukrainian Miners’ Independent Trade Union Mikhail Volynets, was released from a hospital but doctors have not permitted him to return to work. Volynets was abducted and then brutally beaten 7 March in an act the ICEM believes to be political repression against his father, a member of the opposition coalition in the Rada, Ukraine’s Parliament.

Ukrainian Mining Leader’s Son Recovering from Brutal Beating

Organised labour is regrouping to meet new challenges. Union mergers have become an important source of strength in many countries. 
 
That process took a big step further in the USA this week with the creation of PACE, the 320,000-member Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Intl. Union. PACE results from a merger between two major US unions, the paperworkers' UPIU and the oil, chemical and atomic workers' OCAW. 
 
PACE immediately gave top priority to organising (i.e. actively recruiting new members) and to international trade union solidarity. Like both its forerunners, the new union is affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
First President of PACE is Boyd Young, who until now headed the UPIU. 
 
"We intend to set the pace for organising, a progressive vision and international solidarity," Young said. "The members of this great new union deserve to be and are prepared to be on the cutting edge as labour advances into a new century. We must fight for our future." 
 
The Executive Vice-President of PACE is Robert Wages, up to now President of the OCAW. He will take on key responsibilities in the union's organising programme and will continue to coordinate national oil bargaining. 
 
"When the merger discussions started with the UPIU, President Young and I committed to a basic premise," said Wages. "We were not interested in merging for the sake of being larger; we were interested in creating a new, more powerful and progressive union prepared to do the work our membership expects." 
 
Global trade unionism was highlighted during the merger Convention in a speech by the leader of locked-out Texan oilworkers. Crown Central Petroleum has kept unionised workers shut out of its Pasadena refinery since February 1996. Oil multinational Statoil has now told Crown that its contract to refine Statoil crude for the North American market will not be renewed unless Crown establishes normal relationships with the union. This pressure from Norwegian-based Statoil follows representations by the ICEM-affiliated Norwegian oilworkers' union NOPEF. During the PACE convention, the president of the Crown workers' union local paid tribute to this effective international solidarity. 
 
PACE has members in pulp, paper, oil, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, nuclear energy, cement, automobile parts, appliance manufacturing and a wide variety of other industries. 
 
The advent of the new union was warmly welcomed by ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe, who attended the merger Convention. "PACE represents a substantial consolidation of the ICEM's American membership," Thorpe commented. "We now have a powerful new affiliate with a strong commitment to global solidarity. This is good news for workers everywhere."

Pace-setting Union Merger Boosts US And Global Labour

Also in Nigeria, a day-long “warning strike” 22 June by NUPENG and PENGASSAN against Shell Petroleum Development Co. was conducted at worksites in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Warri. The action was taken over a document produced by Shell stating that the firm intends to cut between 30-40% of its 5,000-member workforce in Nigeria.

Warning Strike Launched at Shell in Nigeria

The framework accord reached in May between South African affiliate NUM and Harmony Gold Mining Ltd. was broken last week when the firm refused to budge on its initial stand of sacking 5,000 workers at six mine shafts. “Clearly, Harmony is not interested in saving jobs but wishes to wait out the situation by mothballing shafts until the price of gold improves,” said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe. “Their emphasis is more on cost-cutting and efficiency improvement, going against the framework we developed on saving jobs.” The union has declared a dispute with Harmony through a formal letter to the company and the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

Harmony Gold Breaches Agreement with NUM in South Africa

FCE CFDT also said recent financial figures of EDF suggests the company’s stated ill health in 2004 was exaggerated in order to prepare the public for partial privatisation of the state-run company. If finances are maintained for two further years at 2004 tax levels, the union contends, the company will be stable enough not to have to deliver any EDF stake into the hands of private capital.

False Signals Sent Over EdF’s Finances in 2004

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