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After 22 days in an Iranian jail, Sherkat-e Vahed trade union leader Mansour Osanloo of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company was released for a second time on 19 December after his wife deposited a sizeable bail bond. 
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Sherkat-e Vahed trade union leader Mansour Osanloo
The release was welcomed by the Iranian union&rsquo;s global federation, the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF), but the ITF expressed disgust that Iran is now resorting to added bail money and other restrictions to hold back legitimate trade union rights. 
Osanloo was arrested outside his home on 19 November by plain-clothes policemen, who beat him and forced him at gunpoint into a car. He appeared in court a week later, but no charges were filed against him. In August 2006, only three months earlier, he was released from prison, after nearly eight months of detention for essentially championing union rights among Tehran&rsquo;s bus drivers. 
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In January 2006, a strike by drivers was met with brutal clubbings and beatings by Iranian police forces. Many among some 50 strike leaders have been terminated and/or blacklisted for their suspected involvement in that strike. The ITF, in coordination with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), has been engaged in a campaign against Iran&rsquo;s rights&rsquo; abuses, using both direct protests and formal complaints. 
 
Following Osanloo&rsquo;s 19 December release, ITF Gen. Sec. David Cockroft stated, &ldquo;The persecution of this man has got to stop. Fundamental trade union rights have to be respected in Iran, and we await similar news concerning Mansour Osanloo&rsquo;s trade union colleagues, some of whom have been sacked and all of whom have been denied the right to be represented by the union of their choice.&rdquo;

Iran Releases Trade Union Leader Mansour Osanloo

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The United Steelworkers (USW) in the US is recommending that copper miners and smelter workers of Asarco LLC in the states of Arizona and Texas approve a new 42-month labour agreement. The union successfully negotiated an amicable tentative settlement with the subsidiary of Grupo Mexico late in December, and voting by some 1,600 miners at three mines and two smelters is now underway. 
 
The accord must also be approved by a US Bankruptcy Court. 
 
USW District 12 Director Terry Bonds said the tentative agreement contains substantial economic gains, as well as achieving job security protections that have never before been seen in the US mining industry. &ldquo;This agreement is a tremendous breakthrough for workers in the mining industry,&rdquo; said Bonds. 
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Perhaps the highlight of the new agreement is that it is a single contract covering all five locations. &ldquo;In 2004, we had seven different contracts with varying contract language, two different expiration dates, and differing pension plans,&rdquo; said Bonds, adding that workers took action in a bitter 136-day strike. That strike began in July 2005 when Grupo Mexico demanded massive wage and benefit concessions, despite copper prices being at record highs. 
 
To settle the strike, workers agreed to a one-year contract extension. &ldquo;This recently concluded tentative agreement is the fruit of this extraordinary struggle,&rdquo; Bonds said. &ldquo;I could not be more proud of our members and local union leaders. This was a long struggle and its outcome was never guaranteed. Our members proved that working people don&rsquo;t have to simply accept inequality or economic injustice.&rdquo; 
 
The USW&rsquo;s Southwest regional director in the US also had high praise for Asarco CEO Joe Lapinsky. He said the company&rsquo;s labour relations behaviour began to change when Grupo Mexico management was moved aside and an independent board of directors and Lapinsky were named to head the US subsidiary. 
 
&ldquo;(Lapinsky) has chosen a path of cooperation with our union, rather than confrontation, and we look forward to working with him to address the many challenges still facing the company,&rdquo; stated Bonds. 
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Once ratified, the new contract will contain US$1-per-hour wage increases for all miners and smelter workers, backdated to 1 January 2007. Another US$1 increase will come on 30 September 2008, with another US$1 hike coming a year later. Workers will receive a US$3,000 ratification bonus with approval of the contract. 
 
Quarterly bonuses will be awarded if the price of copper averages above US$1.60-per-pound. A 20% increase in the pension formula over the life of the three-and-a-half-year pact was also negotiated. 
 
But perhaps more significantly, USW won strong successorship protections in the event of a sale of any Asarco asset; reinvestment guarantees on the part of the company; restrictions on Asarco&rsquo;s ability to outsource work; substantial USW influence in any Plan of Reorganisation; and a company requirement that it will remain neutral in union organising efforts, with union recognition granted on the basis of a card-check.

Approval Near for Innovation Mining Contract between USW and Asarco in US

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Belgian unions FGTB/ABVV and CSC/ACV have boosted their joint project in Colombia to draw attention to human and trade union rights. The unions now have a petition drive underway on the project&rsquo;s website, aimed at the government of Colombia, including members of Parliament. The petition drive also addresses the management of both Colombian and multinational companies to take action. 
The project, called Syndicol, is operated by the two Belgian unions, in full cooperation with all three Colombian national labour centres, CUT, CGT, and CTC. A number of ICEM&rsquo;s Colombian affiliates are directly involved in the project.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
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Syndicol&rsquo;s action plan is to bring aid and solidarity to the workers of Colombia. Its aim is to build broad campaigns of information around the abuses of human and trade union rights in the South American country, including the many assassinations of trade union leaders. 
The current petition, located on Syndicol&rsquo;s French language website at <a href="http://www.syndicol.be/Petition">http://www.syndicol.be/Petition</a>, states that over 3,000 trade unionists have been assassinated since 1990, and calls on government and business leaders to take immediate action to end this state of terror. 
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&ldquo;The flagrant and inadmissible violations of human rights and, in particular, of the rights and trade union freedoms are a denial of justice, and disgraceful for those who commit the crimes, as well as their protectors. The systematic assassination of trade unionists and human rights defenders is a throwback to another age and what&rsquo;s worse, the perpetrators enjoy impunity from the Colombian legal system and the country&rsquo;s authorities.&rdquo; 
 
ICEM affiliates and activists are encouraged to visit the website to sign the petition.

Belgian Unions Team on Colombia Petition Drive

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Three gold miners, jailed on 17 December, for illegal gold mining in the southern Zimbabwe region of Matabeleland, died six days after their arrest from exhaustion and starvation. The three died after days of filling trenches without being given food or enough water by the police forces of Robert Mugabe&rsquo;s government. 
 
In a country with 80% unemployment and an inflation rate that hit a new high of 1,281% in December, the three miners were arrested with 12 other gold diggers as part of the government&rsquo;s crackdown on illegal mining, called Operation Makorokoza Zvakwana by the Mugabe police forces. 
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One police officer told ZimOnline, Zimbabwe&rsquo;s independent news agency, that when the workers tried to resist the continuous trench filling, or complained of hunger, they were beaten &ldquo;because that&rsquo;s how our bosses had instructed us to treat them.&rdquo; 
 
The three died at separate times on 24 December after experiencing extreme dizziness before collapsing. 
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe&rsquo;s labour leaders, who were severely beaten in September after police forces broke up an anti-poverty rally, have sued top Mugabe aides for unlawful arrests and injuries incurred to them. Zimbabwe Council of Trade Unions (ZCTU) Sec. Gen. Wellington Chibebe and 14 other labour leaders sued Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, and several other police officers for Z$1.34 billion (US$9.13 million), which includes general damages, and unlawful arrest and deprivation of liberty. 
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ZCTU Secretary General Wellington Chibebe 
In the lawsuit, attorneys for the labour leaders cite violations of the Zimbabwe constitution, Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5 of the African Charter for Human and People&rsquo;s Rights, Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Treatments. 
The labour leaders, on 12 and 13 September, were subjected to beatings that caused bone fractures, serious cranial/facial bruising, and head injuries. Some 256 ZCTU activists were arrested at the time. 
 
The current economic crisis in Zimbabwe, which saw the inflation rate jump a full 182% from November to December 2006, has caused mass labour strikes in the health care and education sectors, not to mention in mining and energy industries, because salaries have become miniscule compared to the vast inflation jumps. For example, staff of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority staged a two-day strike on 3-4 January, when an internal memo was released stating that salaries would only increase by 50%.

Mugabe Regime Starves Jailed Gold Miners

The 86-day strike by members of the United Steelworkers (USW) at 12 Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. plants in the US ended 29 December, after rubber workers voted to approve a new accord at America&rsquo;s biggest tyre producer by a two-to-one margin. USW announced yesterday that 10,000 of 14,000 striking union members voted in balloting, and that approval of the new three-year labour agreement was gained by a majority of members at all 12 branch locals.
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Some 500 Canadian USW members at four rubber accessory plants in the province of Ontario are voting on a separate contract proposal. Both the US and Canadian Goodyear workers have been on strike since 5 October 2006. 
 
&quot;It took a strike, but we achieved a fair and equitable contract that protects quality health care for active and retired members,&rdquo; said USW Executive Vice President Ron Hoover. &quot;And by winning major capital investment expenditures, it secures our jobs for the future.&quot; 

The strike in the US centered on heath care coverage and job security. USW won a guarantee from Goodyear that it would commit US$550 million in capitalisation investments at the 12 plants over the next three years. 

The union also pushed Goodyear in week-long talks beginning on 19 December to increase a health care trust fund for active workers and retirees. The US-based company agreed to place US$1 billion in a Voluntary Employees&rsquo; Beneficiary Association, from which medical and prescription drug benefits for current and future retirees will come. Future contributions into this fund will include diverted cost-of-living payments and profit-sharing plants. 
During the strike, Goodyear announced that it would close a tyre plant in Tyler, Texas, in 2007, thus making 1,100 workers redundant. USW and Goodyear agreed in the December talks that closure would occur no sooner than 2008, and the union won sizeable retirement buy-outs, enhanced severance packages, and medical coverage for Texas workers for a full two years beyond closure of the private-label tyre operation. It also won a guarantee that future manufacture of such tyres will be done in a plant that had been on strike. 
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The 12-week strike was marked by the company circumventing the union and appealing directly to USW members to abandon the walk-out and return to work. But there were few defections among the nearly 15,000 strikers, and that fact no doubt forced Goodyear to compromise its original demands. 

&ldquo;The credit really belongs to our members and their families, whose solidarity prevented the company from short-changing them, despite all of its attempts,&rdquo; stated USW President Leo Gerard. 
 
This week&rsquo;s contract ratification means workers will return to work on 2 January at both tyre and engineered rubber product plants in Akron, Ohio; St. Marys, Ohio; Marysville, Ohio; Gadsden, Alabama; Buffalo, New York; Lincoln, Nebraska; Topeka, Kansas; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Danville, Virginia; Tyler, Texas; Sun Prairie, Wisconsin; and, Union City, Tennessee.

USW Ends US Goodyear Strike after Membership Vote Approval

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN N° 16

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The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) filed, at the request of the All-India Council of Unilever Unions, a complaint last week with the OECD National Contact Points in both the UK and The Netherlands. Unilever, the third largest global food company, is an Anglo-Dutch conglomerate. 
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The OECD complaint is on the appalling behaviour by Hindustan Lever, an Indian Unilever subsidiary, who, as described in a prior ICEM InBrief article, last year sold its Mumbai factory in order to have it closed down by another enterprise. In doing that, the company not only wanted to avoid paying taxes, the effort was also meant to escape duties to its own workforce. 
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The ICEM, together with the IUF, seeks the major global corporation to set things right, and calls on Unilever to respect both the relevant international standards, as well as the national law in India. The two GUFs believe that Hindustan Lever must immediately start fair and honest negotiations with the Hindustan Lever Employees&rsquo; Union (HLEU), the trade union representing its workforce. 
 
More on the dispute can be found on the IUF&rsquo;s web-site <a href="http://www.iufdocuments.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&amp;uid=default&amp;ID=3745&amp;view_records=1&amp;ww=1&amp;en=1 ">here</a>.

OECD Complaint Filed on Unilever India

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The ten-month dispute between ICEM affiliate Oilfield Workers' Trade Union (OWTU) and the Trinidad and Tobago state oil company Petrotrin ended early this month when a new three-year agreement was agreed to.
Agreements were reached for all five Petrotrin bargaining units, covering 5,000 workers in total. The different labour agreements are similar, sharing many of the advances reached, for example a 15% salary increase over three years. 
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Differences between the five agreements can be found in the periods that the agreements cover, with some going back to 2005, and others to February 2006. The 1,500 refinery workers, for example, will receive a 6% wage increase backdated to February 2006. They will be given a 5% increase in 2007 and a further 4 % in 2008. 
 
Agreement was reached on a wide set of issues, includes on health and safety topics and on cost of living allowances. According to an OWTU Spokesman, the union regards the agreement as a good agreement, given the circumstances. 
 
The dispute was marked by several industrial actions by the refinery workers at the Pointe-a-Pierre set of plants, as well as by marches on the company's corporate offices by OWTU members of all the bargaining units.

Trinidad&#039;s State Oil Company Comes to Terms with Workers

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The second Trade Union Seminar for Repsol-YPF trade unionists took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 9-11 October. Repsol-YPF, a Spanish-Argentinean multinational, employs 16,000 workers worldwide and ranks in the top ten of oil and gas companies. 
 
ICEM affiliate Fiteqa, with the active support of CC.OO&rsquo;s Paz y Solidaridad Foundation (FPS) was again leading this initiative. Trade unionists from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba met to debate around their common concerns and to create a union network. ICEM was represented at the event by its Latin-American Vice-President and its Energy Officer. 
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The seminar gave participants the ability to compare their industrial, economic, social and political realities as well as to reinforce their unity and solidarity. For Isidor Boix, International Secretary of Fetiqa, &ldquo;the level of discussions and the commitment shown by all the colleagues who participated constitutes a very sound basis for the future work of the network&rdquo; 
 
The Repsol-YPF unions have also decided during this meeting to set up a web site to extend and deepen the information resources of the workers they represent. At the end of the sessions, representatives of the union network met representatives of Repsol-YPF to introduce their future work plan. 
 
The next meeting will take place in Peru in October 2007, while the webpage should be launched over the coming months.

Repsol Union Representatives from 9 Countries Meet in Argentina

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The dispute in Argentina between ICEM affiliate Sindicato &Uacute;nico de Trabajadores del Neum&aacute;tico Argentino (SUTNA) and the F&aacute;brica Neum&aacute;ticos de Avanzada (NA), a competition tyre making company in C&oacute;rdoba, is going from bad to worse. Over the last few weeks, trade unionists have been harassed and intimidated, including many of the dismissed workers at the tyre plant, their family members, SUTNA union representatives, and the union&rsquo;s attorney. 
 
The house of Ignacio Ferrer, a lawyer working for SUTNA, was turned upside down during a break-in by unknown aggressors. A clear sign that the burglary was only meant to intimidate, is the fact that nothing was taken. 
 
Further aggravation came when the provincial police refused to take action, arguing that they could do nothing since nothing was taken. Failure by the police to do something seems to be endemic in C&oacute;rdoba as none of the other intimidation complaints have been investigated by the police either. 
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Union representatives, as well as union members, have been threatened on at least five different occasions, mainly through bullying by unknown individuals. Similar things happened to their family members. 
 
The Union&rsquo;s Assistant secretary, Rub&eacute;n Silva, for example, was approached by the company&rsquo;s security people while he was talking to the strikers in front of the plant. He was told by a company security guard that the man &ldquo;would break all his bones so that he could never **** again.&rdquo; Another tactic used against the same man is to drive around in cars without license plates in the area where he lives, asking neighbours where his house is. 
 
NA refuses to participate in mandatory reconciliation efforts, thereby turning down any possibility for a dialogue. As part of that, the company&rsquo;s security personnel refused entry to an officer from the Department of Justice, accompanied by, among other people, the union&rsquo;s lawyer and two police officers. They were refused entry in spite of the fact that they had a warrant issued by a court. The group later managed to get in by jumping a gate. 
 
The conflict started in early August when NA, in a clear violation of trade union rights, started to dismiss staff members for becoming SUTNA members. Things escalated when the company became openly hostile to SUTNA&rsquo;s industrial actions, which occurred in support of the 25 sacked SUTNA members. The dispute follows the signing, for the first time in 31 years, of a national agreement for the Argentinean rubber sector with the employers&rsquo; association.

SUTNA Rubber Dispute in Argentina Hardens

Archive

Iran Releases Trade Union Leader Mansour Osanloo

Approval Near for Innovation Mining Contract between USW and Asarco in US

Belgian Unions Team on Colombia Petition Drive

Mugabe Regime Starves Jailed Gold Miners

USW Ends US Goodyear Strike after Membership Vote Approval

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN N° 16

OECD Complaint Filed on Unilever India

Trinidad's State Oil Company Comes to Terms with Workers

Repsol Union Representatives from 9 Countries Meet in Argentina

SUTNA Rubber Dispute in Argentina Hardens

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