English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2025-2029

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected Officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Press

French affiliate FCE-CFDT has condemned Swiss chemicals and pharmaceutical company Novartis for installing a special telephone line in plants so workers can whistle-blow on one another.
<img height="99" src="" width="100" alt="" />
The union said such a practice abuses the company&rsquo;s own code of conduct, and creates a sour climate for employee morale. The central committee of workers for Novartis&rsquo;s French enterprises, along with the FCE-CFDT and CGT-FO, have taken legal action in the city of Nanterre.
In spite of laws and regulations preventing such practices, certain multinationals, including Novartis, do no hesitate to transgress these laws and regulations in order to arrive at methods that are perceived to be accountability measures, stated the FCE-CFDT.

French Affiliate Protests Novartis’ Whistle-Blowing Tactics

<img height="99" alt="" src="" width="100" />
CEP members at a Stora Enso paper mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, will vote tomorrow and Wednesday, 24 and 25 January, on a company contract proposal. Rejection likely will mean 660 members of CEP Local 972 will face a lockout effective 26 January. 
Following eight days of non-stop bargaining that ended late on 18 January, Local 972 members met with union leaders on 21 January to review proposed terms, which includes job losses, contracting out provisions and changes in seniority procedures.
Stora Enso issued the mandatory 48-hour lockout notice on 30 December, and has had its only Canadian pulp and paper mill closed since 23 December, with nearly all workers on layoff status

Canadian Stora Enso Workers to Vote on Contract

The Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) of Canada on 16 January conducted 14 separate demonstrations across the North American country to protest the jobs crisis in the forest industries sector. Last week&rsquo;s actions came seven days before Canadians go to the polls in national elections today.
The protests were aimed at demanding government aid for stricken communities, as well as government subsidies tied to maintaining and creating jobs in forest products sectors.
&nbsp;<img height="131" alt="" src="" width="92" /> 
 
CEP President Brian Payne
&ldquo;These jobs and communities are worth fighting for, and it&rsquo;s about time the politicians joined our fight,&rdquo; stated CEP President Brian Payne. Some 7,600 jobs have been lost due to shutdowns and cutbacks in the past year in Canada, and 40,000 over the past five years.

Canadian CEP Union Calls for National Action Over Forest Sector Jobs

Paperiliitto President Jouko Ahonen of Finland, ICEM&rsquo;s Paper Sector Chairman, has questioned whether the current paper employers&rsquo; frenzy to contract out jobs is in the best interests of the companies&rsquo; own future financial health.
Because of the agreement that ended last year&rsquo;s bitter lockout in the Finnish paper sector, mill-level negotiations on outsourcing are underway at some 30 enterprises, work capably done now by Paperiliitto members. Ahonen told the Finnish press that employers would be wise to consider that such practices might backfire on them in the future.
<img height="171" alt="" src="" width="120" /> 
 
Paperiliitto President Jouko Ahonen
If mill-level talks on sub-contracting do not reach mutual accord, the matter goes before a national arbitration panel that includes Paperiliitto, the employers&rsquo; federation, and an impartial chairman. All final decisions by such a panel must be unanimous.

Paperiliitto President Predicts Finnish Outsourcing Will Backfire

ICEM Serbia-Montenegro affiliate, EPS Trade Union, began the second phase of strike actions at three enterprises of the state-run electric power generation and distribution services on 20 January.
Distribution workers are now striking two hours daily, while thermal plant production has been decreased by 10%. In addition, maintenance workers at hydro plants and transmission network workers have reduced services. The strike actions, which began 10 January, are over back wages owed to power workers and miners for 2004 and 2005 and for a fair wage increase in 2006. 

<img height="133" alt="" src="" width="100" /> 
 
EPS Trade Union President 
Miroslav Veličković
The Serbian Mining and Energy Ministry reneged on an offer that had ended one-hour, daily strikes. Originally, the two sides agreed that workers would be paid 70% of accrued back-wages now, and the remainder later. Last week, the government amended that offer to pay workers only 9% on a monthly basis, and structure that as a loan.

Serbian Affiliate Commences Phase Two of Utility Strike Actions

ICEM affiliate IGBCE has proposed mediation conducted by well-respected German politicians now that talks broke off between the union and Continental Tyre. Negotiations failed on 11 January in efforts to prevent 320 job cuts by year end at the St&ouml;cken plant in Hannover, as announced by the company in November. 
<img height="100" alt="" src="" width="100" />
IGBCE was outraged by press remarks made by Continental CEO Manfred Wennemer at the outset of those talks in which he predicted German workers in the future will work 42.5 hours a week, and have two weeks less of vacation. Wennemer also remarked that the world could not care less about Conti&rsquo;s broken agreement made with IGBCE last spring in which the company gained flexible work rules and a 40-hour week in exchange for a pledge of no job cuts.
IGBCE board member Werner Bischoff, vice president of Conti&rsquo;s Supervisory Board, said Wennemer &ldquo;poured oil on to the fire&rdquo; with his comments, and called on the CEO to apologise. On 13 January, the company&rsquo;s European Works Council members pledged to interpret with scrupulous accuracy the council&rsquo;s constitution and legal rules, intending to make Conti&rsquo;s normal business practices impossible. The central works council in Germany also took action by refusing to allow overtime work and opening health and safety inspections to civil authorities. 
A mass demonstration protesting the company&rsquo;s broken promise takes place today, 23 January, in Hannover, with workers&rsquo; meetings also occurring today at all Continental plants to discuss Wennemer&rsquo;s remarks and the St&ouml;cken situation

Continental Tyre: Wennemer’s Remarks Outrage IGBCE

&nbsp;<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The ICEM is saddened to learn of the death in late December of South African labour leader Muzi Buthelezi, 53, a former Executive Committee member of the ICEM. He was general secretary of the Chemical Workers&rsquo; Industrial Union (CWIU) and the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers&rsquo; Union (CEPPWAWU). 
Comrade Buthelezi headed the CWIU when it merged with PPWAWU in February 1999 and became the first general secretary of the 92,000-member CEPPWAWU. He stepped down in 2002 and became chairman of CEPPWAWU Investments, the union&rsquo;s Provident Fund, where he became prominent in black economic empowerment projects. 
He was a leader inside COSATU and a convenor for South Africa&rsquo;s National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), a tripartite statutory body aimed at achieving positive social and labour legislation. He was also chairman of Imithi, a black empowerment consortium which took a stake in South Africa&rsquo;s largest generic medicines manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, of which CEPPWAWU Investments owns a stake. He had been a director of Aspen.

ICEM Mourns Death of South Africa’s Muzi Buthelezi

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />&nbsp;
In the UK, GMB union members who are engineers and technicians at British Gas tentatively resolved their pension dispute after conducting one of five scheduled industrial actions. The 6,000 GMB members came to terms pending a vote with the Centrica-owned utility on 19 December. 
The compromise agreement will allow 1,700 workers hired after 1 January 2003, to become part of the existing final salary pension scheme. The union resisted a money-purchase pension scheme for new hires, and opted instead for a career-average salary scheme for all new recruits hired after 31 March 2006. Contract information sessions with membership began last week, and voting results are expected on 23 January.

GMB Members Halt Industrial Actions at British Gas

<img height="40" src="" width="100" alt="" />
Workers represented by ICEM Jordanian affiliate, General Trade Union of Petrol and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union, began a legal strike at the state-owned Jordan Petroleum Refinery Co. on 8 March. Some 3,500 workers struck in order to get the company to implement a signed agreement that was agreed to by workers and management. 
 
The agreement calls for wage increases, housing loans and post-retirement health insurance, but the government has failed to put those and other work terms into effect. The union had put forward the demands in 2003 and they were subsequently agreed upon. The strike is at Jordan&rsquo;s only oil refinery, the 100,000 barrel-per-day Zarqa refinery. Jordan must import all crude oil supplies, and production at the refinery is crucial for domestic purposes.

Jordanian Oil Workers Strike

<img height="40" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The German trio of unions attempting to come under a single collective agreement with Energy producer Vattenfall got a lift when Swedish ICEM trade union affiliate SEKO pressed that country&rsquo;s Ministry of Economic Affairs for a fair and just resolution to the matter. Vattenfall AB is a Swedish state-run utility now in the process of buying out the minority stake of Vattenfall Europe AG. 
 
The German-based utility, the country&rsquo;s third largest, includes power utilities in Berlin and Hamburg, as well as power generation, distribution and lignite coal mines in eastern Germany. German unions IGBCE, Ver.di and IG Metall have been jointly negotiating with Vattenfall for a common accord in order to remove pay disparities and bring uniform working conditions to 20,000 German workers, but the company has refused. 
<img height="62" alt="" src="" width="100" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<img height="63" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Vattenfall has indicated it may sell parts of the German company to other enterprises, effectively removing 5,000 from company employment rolls. The German unions seek a guarantee that sale of any operation to another company will include the common collective agreement. 
 
SEKO has begun a public campaign in Sweden on the company&rsquo;s hard-line stand in Germany, and has promised reciprocal industrial actions if the German unions strike. &ldquo;Vattenfall is an enterprise that must conduct its business activities outside Sweden the same as it does here,&rdquo; said SEKO Chairman Janne Rud&eacute;n. &ldquo;We have a tradition in Sweden in which the rights of workers are respected. This tradition must also occur in the countries of Europe.&rdquo; An ICEM News Release on the Vattenfall situation in Germany is at /?id=77&amp;doc=1672.

German Energy Dispute with Vattenfall Gets Swedish Attention

Archive