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International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers 
 
On 28 April, the trade union movement remembers over two million workers who die and millions more who are injured, or who fall sick each year due to unsafe, unhealthy or unsustainable work and workplaces. 
The slogan for this year’s 28 April Commemoration Day is “Union Workplaces – Safe Workplaces” and the selected themes are: The Global Union Ban Asbestos Campaign, HIV/AIDS – workplace aspects and implementation of programme response, and ILO Conventions and Instruments that relate to Occupational Health and Safety. 
 
Unions the world over are called upon to mobilise workers to seek government and employer support of a total ban of asbestos; to promote action on HIV/ADS as a workplace issue and to convince the next G8 summit to establish a permanent working party on HIV/AIDS; and to encourage governments to ratify key ILO occupational health and safety instruments. 
 
A 28 April guide, issued by the Global Unions, can be accessed <a href="http://www.global-unions.org/pdf/ohsewpH_3d.EN.pdf">here</a>. The backgrounder provides a history of 28 April and points to a wide variety of activities that trade unions can implement on the day itself. Specifically on HIV/AIDS, we draw your attention to the trade union country profiles. these can be found <a href="http://www.global-unions.org/pdf/ohsewpT_4a.EN.pdf">here</a>. 
 
 
New UNAIDS Website 
 
UNAIDS has launched a new version of its website complete with a new navigation, branding and logo <a href="http://www.unaids.org/">www.unaids.org</a>. The website, which will also be available in French, Spanish and Russian, provides content specifically chosen for each audience group: business and labour; civil society; donors; media; people living with HIV/AIDS; policy-makers; researchers; the UN family; and women, as well as an easier more intuitive navigation structure. 
 
The new focus of the website is to include all the relevant documentation and publications but also to highlight the impact of UNAIDS’ work through its cosponsors and partners. Each of the new sections provides additional background information, relevant publications and links to outside sources. 
 
At <a href="http://www.unaids.org/en/mediacentre/newsletter">www.unaids.org/en/mediacentre/newsletter</a> you can find the new UNAIDS quarterly newsletter. The first issue features a letter from the UNAIDS Executive Director, information on a regional consultation on universal access in Latin America and UNAIDS support to Kenya. Future issues will be available in French, Spanish and Russian. Subscriber information is available online at <a href="http://www.unaids.org/Services/Subscribe.aspx">www.unaids.org/Services/Subscribe.aspx</a>. 
 
 
World AIDS Campaign Calls for Greater Accountability 
 
Governments and international agencies are coming under pressure to answer for the specific HIV and AIDS commitments and promises they have made. In a new report, the World AIDS Campaign (WAC) closely examines statements, commitments and declarations made by governments and intergovernmental organisations in the past five years, and asks how they hold up under scrutiny as genuine promises. 
 
The WAC Report, entitled “Promises, Promises ….” reveals the growing gap between what governments say they will do about HIV and AIDS and what is actually achieved. It argues that the most significant promises were made during the special session of the UN General Assembly in June 2001 when the Declaration of Commitment was solemnly adopted by all member states of the UN. 
A review of the progress on the Declaration will be made at a special session in June 2006 (see e-bulletin No. 5, February 2006). For the full WAC report, go to <a href="http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/">www.worldaidscampaign.org</a>. 
 
 
Pakistan Labour Federation Holds Seminar 
 
The Pakistan Labour Federation organised a one-day seminar in collaboration with UNAIDS on the responsibilities of trade union leaders in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Atia Saleem, Chairperson of PFL’s Women’s Wing, stressed that HIV/AIDS should not be an issue discussed only once a year. 
From the first cases reported in 1987, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS has soared. Trade unions, with their presence at the workplace, have an important role to play in implementing anti-discrimination policies and they can contribute to home and community care. 
(Source: PLF News Release) 
 
 
Generic Drugs 
 
A deal between Bristol-Myers Squibb and two generic drug makers (Aspen Pharmacare in South Africa and Emcure Pharmaceuticals in India) will allow cheaper versions of its newest AIDS drug to be made available in sub-Saharan Africa and India. The agreement includes the transfer of technology covering manufacture, testing, packaging, storage and handling of the drug’s active ingredient. 
(Source: Business Day, Johannesburg, 17 February 2006) 
 
 
Product RED to Fight AIDS in Africa 
 
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bono announced Product RED, an economic initiative designed to deliver a sustainable flow of private sector money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM). Leading brands have made a commitment to channel a portion of profits from sales of specially-designed RED products to the GFATM to support AIDS programmes in Africa with a focus on women and children. 
 
The GFATM has welcomed this new initiative. Through RED and other initiatives it hopes to increase the private sector share of income from less than one percent currently to ten percent or more in the long term. Nelson Mandela added, “We must all come together in supporting the Global Fund and the fight against AIDS. RED carries the promise of capturing the world’s attention to do just that and I applaud RED and its partners for their vision and commitment.” 
 
Go to <a href="http://www.joinred.com/">www.joinred.com</a> to find out more. 
 
 
Joint publication on co-investment and public-private partnerships (PPP) 
 
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), the Global Business Coalition on AIDS (GBC), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the ILO and the World Bank have joined forces to produce “Making Co-investment a Reality – Strategies and Experiences.” The publication explains how co-investment can strengthen HIV/AIDS workplace programmes and extend them into the community. It gives examples and lessons learned on PPP and co-investment. 
The publication can be accessed at 
<a href="http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/trav/aids/publ/gtzgbccoinvest.pdf">http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/trav/aids 
/publ/gtzgbccoinvest.pdf</a>. 
 
 
Update from ILOAIDS 
 
At the beginning of the year, ILOAIDS has released a number of new publications. Most important of these is the booklet “Workplace Action on HIV/AIDS – How to Access Funds at the National Level,” which you can find at <a href="http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/trav/aids/publ/resmob.pdf">http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/trav 
/aids/publ/resmob.pdf</a>. 
The booklet contains a set of fact sheets to help workers’ and employers’ organisations identify sources of funding and understand the mechanisms necessary in order to apply for them. 
A complementary guidance note for proposal writing is in preparation. This will be posted on the ILOAIDS website <a href="http://www.ilo.org/aids">www.ilo.org/aids</a>, where you can also find the other recently released publications such as “The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the Labour Force in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Preliminary Assessment,” and “ILO/AIDS Brief on Women, Girls, HIV/AIDS and the World of Work,” which is now also available in French and Spanish. 
 
Reminder: In the first issue of our e-bulletin, October 2005, we drew your attention to the ILOAIDS 24-hour News Service. You can register under <a href="http://campo.ilo.org/cmdb-access">http://campo.ilo.org/cmdb-access</a> and indicate your language preference. For up-to-date daily news on HIV/AIDS and the world of work this new website is highly recommended (it will take you no more than 3 minutes to register). 
 
 
This ICEM HIV-AIDS Newsletter – How to Subscribe or Translate? 
 
To subscribe to the e-bulletin, send an email to <a href="mailto:press@icem.org">press@icem.org</a>. Please put “subscribe ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin” in the subject line. 
 
Unfortunately, the e-bulletin can only be published in English. For a free automated (non-ICEM) translation of this HIV-AIDS bulletin into other languages, you may want to try <a href="http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr">http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/language_tools">http://www.google.com/language_tools</a> and insert the following URL into the window “Translate a Web page“: <a href="/?id=72&doc=1673" type="internal">/?id=72&doc=1673</a>.

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 6

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ICEM Turkish affiliate Petrol-Īş’s efforts to block, through several lawsuits, the 51% sale of state-owned oil refiner Turkiye Petro Rafinerisi AS (TÜPRAS) produced another court victory on 23 May. 
The Ankara Administrative Court cancelled sale of the 14.76% minority stake to Israeli investor Sami Ofer on the grounds that the sale did not benefit the “public good.” Ofer’s bid of US$446 million last year for a minority stake in TÜPRAS had ballooned into a potential US$1.2 billion investment due to the revaluation of the state company. 
<img height="66" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/TurkeyFlag.gif" width="100"/>
On 2 February 2006, a preliminary ruling by the Council of State judiciary panel blocked the controlling stake in a privatised TÜPRAS when it ruled against the purchase by a consortium made up of Turkey’s Koc Holdings and Royal Dutch Shell. That ruling was issued on the basis that privatisation laws had not been adhered to. 
The ruling, however, was vacated when no further court action occurred by a 29 March deadline. Petrol- Īş will now challenge this privatisation matter before the General Council of Administrative Courts. 
 
The union will also continue its public campaign against the sale of TÜPRAS, and likely will engage in further industrial actions at the company’s four refineries and petrochemical plant. Petrol- Īş has also made application on the matter before the European Court of Human Rights.

Petrol-Īş Wins Yet Another Court Round Involving TÜPRAS Privatisation

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A proposed European energy deal, conceived as a blocking move, received trade union attention and analysis last week in Brussels at EMCEF, the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers’ Federation. Attended by Spanish trade unions FIA-UGT and FM-CC.OO, Italian union UILCEM and German union IGBCE, the meeting was held to formulate a common trade union position on the bidding outcome for Spanish energy company Endesa. 
 
German E.ON recently outbid Spain’s Gas Natural for Endesa, and both E.ON and Gas Natural will have one further opportunity in a sealed-bid process under Spanish energy and market rules. EMCEF issued a statement following the 28 February meeting in Brussels calling for maintaining Endesa as it is today and avoiding the splitting of businesses, and not to contract out integrated parts of the company; no refinancing through sale of assets; and keeping on track investments for renewed production and for build up of new electrical capacities. 
<img height="88" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/endesa.jpg" width="90"/>
Regarding the social impact of any Endesa takeover, EMCEF and the unions insist on no redundancies or layoffs; continuation of all collective agreements; further investment and support for worker training; social dialogue with trade unions on all matters of industrial policy; and recognition of all existing national labour relations matters as part of the European social model.
The EMCEF statement also cites, as good practice, a model of mutual recognition and well-developed agreements on social issues between unions and companies, and said ICEM’s Global Agreement with Endesa is “one example of this good practice on the global level that needs to be incorporated also for other companies in the future.”

EMCEF, European Unions Announce Priorities on Endesa

A general strike last week by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and a pro-labour panel of lawmakers working inside a plenary session of South Korea’s National Assembly blocked three bills regarding non-regular workers from reaching final approval. 
<img width="120" height="80" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/KoreaSOUTHFlag.gif" alt=""/>
The strikes, in which 300,000 workers took part, occurred on Tuesday and Thursday, 28 February and 2 March. (1 March was an official Korean holiday.) The lawmakers, primarily from the progressive Democratic Labor Party, took over a parliamentary session on 2 March to temporarily derail passage. 
 
The bills were approved by the Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee on 27 February, but action in the streets and inside the plenary session prevented final approval prior to the Assembly closing its session on 2 March. The issue is certain to meet further review and more public protests when the Assembly reconvenes on 20 March in an extraordinary session. 
 
The proposed legislation would do little to improve conditions for temporary and agency workers, but instead would give employers’ the flexibility to use hundreds of thousands more non-permanent workers and laying them off prior to the end of a proposed two-year period after which they must be made permanent. 
 
The ICEM congratulated KCTU on its strike and mobilisation. In an ICEM letter to KCTU President Cho Jun Ho, General Secretary Fred Higgs said it is “of immense importance that the main issue of your struggle is defending the basic rights of contract and agency workers. The substitution or limiting of permanent direct employment has clearly become a priority issue for countless workers and their trade unions, in every region of the world and every sector.”

Korean Temp Worker Bills Blocked for Now

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This Wednesday, 8 March, marks the 97th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, a day of action in the continuing fight for equality and justice for all women. The ICFTU is in a fourth year of a “Unions for Women, Women for Unions” campaign in which the aim is to significantly increase unionisation rates of women workers in the informal economy, among migrant women workers, young women, and women in export processing zones. 
 
The ICEM on 8 March calls attention to the appalling conditions of women workers in the developing world, the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS that finds women making up over half of those infected, and the rise of militarisation throughout the world that adversely affects women is so many ways. The ICEM urges all trade union affiliates to put in practice policies and initiatives for equality, opportunity and fairness not only for working women, but for women in all walks of life.

International Women’s Day Action Urged for 8 March

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Two jewellery workers from China and two gem polishers from India will travel to Basel, Switzerland, late this month to raise awareness of the deadly side effects of their jobs, particularly silicosis. 
The workers will attend a jewellery fair from 30 March to 4 April, and hope to have talks with a large number of organisations, including the ILO, in order to bring more preventative measures to their line of work. Silicosis kills workers slowly, often over long and painful illnesses. In the case of Asian workers, compensation is unheard of and most do not have the means to pay for medical bills. 
 
According to official Chinese figures, 440,000 workers—many of them migrant workers—have silicosis. Other estimates put that figure as ten times higher. The ICEM released a statement on the occasion of the Basel visit, which can be found at <a href="/index.php?id=5&la=EN&doc=1671" type="internal">/index.php?id=5&la=EN&doc=1671</a>.

Asian Jewellery Workers Visit Europe over Silicosis

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Even as German affiliate IGBCE came to acceptable terms with Continental Tyre over a plant downsizing in Hannover, two other ICEM-affiliated trade unions face difficulties with the company. In the US, United Steelworkers (USW) is fully engaged in achieving job protection measures in negotiations at a tyre plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. 
 
Continental North America announced last year that it would make redundant 510 of the plant’s 1,083 jobs this year, and then dropped a concession-ridden proposal on the union seeking US$32 million in costs savings that includes across-the-board 15% pay cuts. 
USW has criticized the “slash and burn proposal.” Union Executive Vice President Ron Hoover said, “There are absolutely zero job security provisions to maintain future productivity” in Continental’s proposal, a deviation from the master rubber contracts that Goodyear, Bridgestone-Firestone and BF Goodrich/Michelin operate under in the US. A labour agreement in place since 1999 at the Charlotte plant expires on 30 April 2006. 
 
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), meanwhile, has condemned Continental for failing to abide by a labour court ruling to reinstate workers at its Port Elizabeth plant. The workers were sacked after the company unilaterally changed working hours without consultations with NUMSA. The union has taken legal action, and is threatening a strike and a boycott of Conti products through its affiliation with COSATU, a South African national labour centre.

Continental Tyre Creating Problems in US, South Africa

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A five-day glass plant strike in Bulgaria by ICEM affiliate National Federation of Chemical Workers of Podkrepa ended 19 May. Some 700 workers, the majority of them members of the union, won a 17% increase in their total financial package, including a 10% raise in their basic salary. 
 
The strike action occurred at Turkish-owned Sisecam’s Trakya Glass Bulgaria (Shishejam), a new facility that only went into production in February 2006 in the town of Targovishte. The Chemical Workers’ Union had conducted a one-hour protest outside the factory on 8 May over local management’s refusal to address several issues. 
The flat-glass plant is the second of three plants that Sisecam has opened recently in Targovishte. A household glass plant opened for production in August 2005, while a potassium-glass plant and mirror operation will open in the northern Bulgarian town late in 2006.

Glass Strike Ends in Bulgaria with Wage Gains

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Negotiations in Norway’s industrial sectors between ICEM affiliate Fellesforbundet and Norsk Industri broke off last week and are now headed for mediation with a state conciliator. The union and industry began the 2006 talks on 6 March over four separate collective agreements—paperboard, building materials, metal/engineering, and textiles. 
 
Fellesforbundet is seeking continuation of early retirement provisions, contract language to diminish part-time and casual labour, and life-long learning options for workers. Norwegian law stipulates industrial conflict cannot be declared until 14 days after the start of state mediation, which now would be on 3 April.

Industrial Bargaining in Norway Goes to Conciliation

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ICEM affiliate AMICUS of the UK has issued formal notice to International Paper at its Inverurie Mill in Scotland that industrial action is imminent if the company doesn’t immediately amend a pay proposal. The union at the 400-worker printing and writing papers mill voted by four-to-one for industrial action, and notice of a four-hour work stoppage set for 23 March was sent to management. 
 
Bosses at the American company are demanding that paperworkers take a pay freeze in 2006, and receive a small, one-off payment in 2007. Workers responded with the resounding strike vote, calling a freeze an “insult.” Over two consecutive years in the recent past, Inverurie paperworkers had three percent deductions weekly taken from their earnings to fill a pension gap. 
 
One Amicus leader told a local newspaper after the 10 March strike vote that if bosses had their way, “we would be chasing inflation forever.” The union said the paper industry federation in the UK has made pay increases of 2.5% in 2006.

Amicus Poised for Industrial Action Against International Paper

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