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Brazilian oil workers' and seafarers' unions have launched a new Solidarity Pact with US mariners who are fighting for the right to join a trade union. 
 
Signed in Rio de Janeiro, the pact pledges international cooperation to promote fairness, justice and a voice at work for mariners working on US-flag vessels of Trico Marine Services, Inc. 
 
In addition, maritime unions throughout Latin America have agreed to support the campaign. 
 
This is a new phase in worldwide action by mariners and oil workers. The unions involved are affiliates of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). Together, they are supporting a campaign to secure trade union rights for American workers employed by Trico, which supplies shipping and other services to offshore oil producers. 
 
The Pact says: "The Brazilian and US unions call peacefully and lawfully on the customers of Trico not to engage in any further contracts with Trico from this day forward until Trico ceases its anti-union activities and, upon demonstration of majority support, recognises the OMU as the Union representing mariners working on the company's US Gulf of Mexico fleet and negotiates in good faith a collective bargaining agreement providing these workers all the protections of union representation." 
 
It was backed by maritime unions from all over Latin America who were taking part in an ITF conference in Rio. They resolved to "support OMU and the Bilateral Solidarity Pact by taking steps to persuade Trico Marine to end its campaign of intimidation, including any and all steps sanctioned by applicable law which would have the effect of limiting Trico's ability to expand its operations anywhere in Latin America, until such time as Trico Marine recognises the rights of its employees to organise and bargain collectively through the representatives of their choice." 
 
The OMU is a coalition of American mariners' unions. 
 
Trico Marine operates a fleet of nearly 100 vessels worldwide in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea and off Brazil. Trico mariners in the North Sea and Brazil enjoy the protection of a union contract. US workers are not so lucky. 
 
"For over a year, Trico mariners have sought a union," explains David Heindl. He is Secretary-Treasurer of the Seafarers International Union of North America (SIU). 
 
"Trico has responded by firing union supporters, blocking union representatives from visiting ships... and finding all manner of ways to prevent their mariners from being able to communicate with our unions," Heindl says. "Further, Trico has run a strong campaign of harassment, intimidation, interrogation and pressure to scare mariners away from their aim of having a union." 
 
One country where Trico workers have full union rights is Norway. The Norwegian oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF has mounted a sustained campaign to back their American colleagues' right to organise. Details in ICEM Update 56/2001. 
 
This August, the Norwegian pressure brought a first breakthrough, when Trico promised NOPEF that the company would provide all its US employees with the contact details of the relevant American trade unions. This is "a step in the right direction," NOPEF President Leif Sande said. He added that "as long as we experience progress in what we see as negotiations", NOPEF would not launch a boycott of Trico's Norwegian operations. 
 
Trico Marine also operates approximately 15 vessels in the Brazilian offshore market. Most of these are under contract to the Brazilian national oil company Petrobras. 
 
Renato Martins, the ICEM Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, commented in Rio: "Signing this pact jointly is a concrete act of solidarity to dissuade Trico from continuing its unacceptable anti-union practices. Also, it is an opportunity to join together in the fight for maritime workers." 
 
And Antonio Fritz, Interamerican Regional Secretary of the ITF, said: "This resolution and the commitments made by these maritime unions throughout Latin America are very important actions. They demonstrate that the international solidarity of our unions is not restrictive and is not limited. International trade union solidarity is real and it is strong!"

Trico: Latin American Workers Join Battle

POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), ended in Cork, Ireland, today with the adoption of an action programme to further the ICEM's aim of uniting and organising energy workers everywhere. 
 
The conference was the biggest ever, bringing together some 300 union leaders representing about 9 million energy workers in 50 countries. 
 
Unanimously re-elected as the chairman of the ICEM's energy section was Lars Myhre, President of the Norwegian oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF. It was agreed that the vice-chair will be a Japanese electricity union leader, to be appointed by the electric power workers' federation Denryokusoren. The ICEM energy section will also be introducing a steering committee, whose composition will reflect the ICEM's different regions. 
 
The conference ended with a call for a halt to further privatisation and deregulation of the world's energy industries, so as to create a pause for reflection on the results of this process so far. 
 
"There is an alternative," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe insisted. "The alternative is us."

World's Energy Workers Power Up

Canadian Steelworkers will be in a position to strike Rio Tinto subsidiary Iron Ore Company of Canada in mid-July after rejecting harsh concessionary proposals at operations in Newfoundland and Quebec. Mediated negotiations broke off 25 June and following the conciliator’s report to the Labour Ministry, three branches of the USWA representing 1,400 workers can legally strike 15 days hence. Despite peak demand and booming market for iron ore, Rio Tinto is seeking concessions that amount to C$7-an-hour per worker. A prior labour agreement expired 1 March.

USWA Members in Canada Set to Strike Rio Tinto

The ICEM’s ExxonMobil Global Workers’ Network, led by US affiliate PACE, helped achieve a first collective agreement for ExxonMobil gas production workers in the US state of New Mexico. Following two years of struggle, the Native American workforce chartered as PACE Local 5-50 won a US$2,000 ratification bonus and a wage re-opener in October 2004. PACE conducted two mass mobilizations of all unionized ExxonMobil workers to aid the new union members in the American southwest. More details can be found at the Network’s website, www.exxonmobil-solidarity.org.

US Affiliate PACE Wins Gains for ExxonMobil Workers

FUB-CNQ affiliate in Brazil is conducting meetings this week for 40,000 Petrobras oil workers to gain an affirmative vote for a five-day strike against the state firm beginning 19 October. The issue is an inferior pay proposal for active workers, and an inadequate benefit escalator for retirees. The union conducted surprise, 24-hour strikes in early October over four days protesting the company’s unwillingness to pay. The two sides are 5.3% apart over this year’s increase.

FUB Brazilian Affiliate May Strike Petrobras

The NUM has settled strikes at two of the world’s largest platinum producers, Anglo Platinum and Impala Platinum. The pay disputes were settled for increases between 7.75% and 9.5%, depending on job grades, and cycle shift workers who work on public holidays won added improvements.

NUM in South Africa Settles Two Platinum Strikes

Warrants for the arrest of South Korean power workers' leaders should be withdrawn immediately, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) urged today. 
 
"The unionised workers at power plant subsidiaries of the Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) are engaged in peaceful industrial action," wrote ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in a protest message to South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung. "The State's response has been to issue warrants for the arrest of 24 union leaders. We also understand that state-owned KEPCO has decided to dismiss more than 5,000 workers, to bring in replacement workers and to sue more than 200 trade union officers. 
 
"All of this is wholly unacceptable in a democratic society," Higgs told President Kim. "It constitutes a breach of the internationally recognised right to strike. We urge you to do your utmost to ensure that the arrest warrants are withdrawn immediately and that KEPCO rescinds all threats of dismissal and legal action. Your government should also negotiate sympathetically with the striking workers' union and should press KEPCO to do likewise." 
 
Over 5,000 power workers grouped within the Korean Power Plant Industrial Union have been on strike for the past nine days - mainly over plans to privatise South Korea's electricity industry. 
 
Unions were never consulted about the privatisation scheme. The decision was unilaterally imposed by the government in December 2000. 
 
South Korea's electric power unions are prepared to continue a dialogue aimed at finding solutions, but the government withdrew from the negotiating table and backed the unions into a corner by replacing strikers with retired workers. The unions' demand is for a full debate on privatisation, with the involvement of relevant civil society organisations and of the consumers.

Korean Power Strike: Halt Arrests And Restart Talks

The Chinese authorities have stepped up repression against protesting oil workers in the north-eastern city of Daqing, it was reported today. 
 
Meanwhile, the Daqing workers' unofficial union has been contacted by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has offered them its full support. 
 
Up to 50,000 workers have staged a series of demonstrations in Daqing over the past month, and supporting protests have been reported in other Chinese oil-producing areas. 
 
The Daqing workers had been retrenched from their jobs in one of China's most important state-owned oilfields. Their main grievances concern breaches of their retrenchment agreement with the Daqing Petroleum Administration Bureau (PAB). 
 
In particular, the workers have been protesting over the sudden withdrawal of their winter heating subsidies and against steep increases in the contributions that they have to pay into their social security fund. 
 
They have set up the Daqing PAB Retrenched Workers' Provisional Union Committee, outside of China's official trade union structures. 
 
A Chinese government official has now confirmed that 800 paramilitary police were deployed a week ago to break up the workers' protests, the Hong Kong Liaison Office (IHLO) reports today. The IHLO is run jointly by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the sector-by-sector Global Union Federations, and the Hong Kong union centres HKCTU and HKTUC. 
 
The police are concentrated in Daqing's Iron Man Square. "Since March 25, police have made daily announcements on local radio and TV condemning rising workers' protests for disrupting social order," reports the IHLO. "The announcement - broadcast several times a day - also warns workers may be forcibly removed from the Square." 
 
 
GLOBAL UNION SUPPORT 
 
In a message relayed to Daqing, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs sends warm fraternal greetings from the ICEM's more than 20 million members worldwide to "the leadership and membership of the Provisional Workers' Union." 
 
"Over the last few years," Higgs points out, "fellow Chinese workers, particularly in the mining and energy sectors, have been losing jobs on a massive scale as a result of industrial restructuring. Whilst hundreds of thousands workers have become redundant, the social implications require the Chinese Government to take measures, in close consultation with workers, to cushion the effects of unemployment. Anything short of this will no doubt result in more poverty, hunger and social upheaval." 
 
Backing the Daqing workers' demands, Higgs assures them of the ICEM's "full support in your fight against poverty. 
 
"Your determination to succeed against in a very hostile environment has indeed inspired us all, he adds. "But we remain extremely perturbed both by the lack of good faith negotiations to settle the issues in dispute and the heavy-handed response by the authorities." 
 
The Promotion of Good Industrial Relations in the Oil and Gas Industry was the theme of a recent meeting held by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). Taking part were representatives of the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the Chinese government and the Chinese employers, along with participants from 17 other countries. 
 
The ILO meeting achieved "a remarkable consensus on the important role social dialogue amongst all parties can play in promoting good industrial relations," Higgs tells the Daqing workers. "This is particularly so in the oil and gas sector where governments have the major investments. We therefore fully support your right to organise and to bargain for your interests." 
 
All parties at the ILO conference, he emphasises,"agreed that 'where reductions in the workforce are likely as a result of corporate restructuring, appropriate measures should be put in place according to good industrial relations practices to protect, as far as possible, workers' rights and interests.' The ICEM played a leading role at this meeting ... We quote these statements in order to confirm the legitimacy and correctness of your demands and actions." 
 
"We await further direction from you to determine our next course of action in support of your demands," the ICEM tells the Daqing workers. "Your struggle is our struggle." 
 
The ICEM has also contacted the official ACFTU and asked it for details of the current situation. 
 
Further support for the Daqing workers has come from the ICFTU, which has now lodged an official complaint with the ILO over the repression directed against independent workers' movements in Daqing and other industrial areas of China. 
 
 
BEATINGS, ARRESTS AND "DISAPPEARANCES" 
 
Workers who have been posting notices or holding banners in Daqing have "disappeared", the IHLO reports today. It also says that a 50-year-old woman worker was beaten and arrested after making a speech in the Square. She is now thought to be on hunger strike in a detention centre. A 60-year-old retiree has also been arrested, according to the IHLO. His whereabouts are unknown. 
 
"At one point," the IHLO says, "city government officials offered to hold negotiations with 10 workers' representatives. After the representatives entered City Hall for the talks, workers waiting outside did not see them leave. They were released after three days on condition that they would no longer go to the Square to join the protests. Authorities continue to refuse any negotiations with the workers and have ensured that the Daqing Petroleum Administrative Bureau (PAB) remains sealed off."

China's Protesting Oil Workers Get Global Union Backing

At least 191 union activists were murdered in Colombia last year. Since the beginning of 2002, over 60 more have been slain. The great majority of these killings have gone uninvestigated and unpunished. 
 
Colombia is the world's most dangerous country in which to be a trade unionist. Its government must act to halt the wave of killings, abductions and disappearances. And it must act now. 
 

<img height="239" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/colemb7.jpg" width="308"/>
 
That was the clear message brought to the Colombian Ambassador in Brussels this afternoon by a delegation of Belgian and international trade union leaders. 
 
As demonstrators chanted in the street outside, the delegation presented the ambassador with a letter detailing just some of the recent crimes against Colombian trade union leaders. 
 
Persecution against the Colombian trade union movement has become "serious, systematic and persistent," the letter points out. While the crimes against trade unionists rarely result in prosecutions, some leaders of the oilworkers' union USO have themselves been brought before Colombian courts in trials that are "marked by repeated serious violations of the minimum rules of due process and defence rights". The unions suggest the appointment of a special official within the Colombian prosecutor's office. The official's task would be to ensure that any trials against USO leaders are conducted fairly. 

<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/colemb9.jpg" width="350"/>
The letter is co-signed by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the Belgian unions Centrale Générale-FGTB, SETCA-FGTB and CNE and the Brussels region of the Belgian labour confederation CSC. Handing it over to the ambassador were ICEM Vice-President Paul Lootens, who is National Secretary of the Centrale Générale; ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs; and Guy Tordeur and Jacques Debatty, the Federal Secretary and Assistant Secretary of CSC Brussels. The demonstration was held by the Belgian unions, the ICEM and USO, with the support of a wide range of human rights and development organisations. 
 
The unions' letter goes on to condemn the escalation of the armed conflict in Colombia. While this has undoubtedly led to violations of trade union rights and other human rights, such breaches cannot be seen as "a natural consequence of the existence of the conflict." The letter calls for a resumption of dialogue and negotiations with the guerrillas in Colombia, "leading to a cessation of hostilities and a humanitarian agreement that lays the basis of a solid and lasting peace process". The European Union should continue to stimulate such negotiation and dialogue, the unions say. At the same time, responsibility for ending the persecution of trade unionists in Colombia rests with the Colombian State. The letter also stresses that the special Colombian forces set up to protect energy industry installations must operate under proper legal and constitutional control. 
 
"The Ambassador was quite open and candid," ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs told the demonstrators just after the delegation emerged from lengthy talks inside the embassy. "The Ambassador said that corruption, due in particular to money from the drugs trade, had reduced the ability of the Colombian State and judiciary to act. We pointed out that this was no excuse for permitting the murder and abduction of trade unionists, and we assured him that the international trade union movement would continue to monitor developments in Colombia very closely. He promised to relay our letter to the Colombian President and Government, and to communicate their response." 
 
 
To applause from the crowd, Higgs described Colombia's trade unionists as "heroic" and urged the global trade union movement to continue supporting them in every possible way.

Colombian Union Rights Demo In Brussels

Malaysia must release jailed labour activist Tian Chua and other political detainees, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) urged today. Following is the full text of the resolution adopted unanimously by the ICEM Executive Committee, meeting in Brussels 
 
 

<img height="225" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/tianchua.jpg" width="190"/>
 Jailed without trial: Malaysian labour activist Tian Chua 

The ICEM Executive Committee, at its meeting on 6-7 June 2002, condemns the detention without trial of Malaysian labour activist TIAN CHUA under the Internal Security Act of Malaysia. 
 
We urge the Malaysian Government to release immediately and unconditionally TIAN CHUA and other political detainees who are held under the Internal Security Act. 
 
We urge the Malaysian Government to abolish this draconian legislation and other similar laws which provide for detention without trial. 
 
We urge the Malaysian Government to grant the request of the special representative of the United Nations Secretary General on Human Rights to conduct a fact-finding visit to Malaysia. 
 
We call on the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) to raise the detention of TIAN CHUA at the 90th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva from 9th - 20th June 2002, where the Prime Minister of Malaysia will address the Conference.

Release Labour Activist Tian Chua, Unions Tell Malaysia

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