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Halliburton, the US construction and oil services company, continues to restrict union representation of the unaffiliated Chemical, Energy, Mines, Oil &amp; Gas, and General Workers&rsquo; Union (FSP KEP) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
&nbsp;The company is attempting to withdraw certification of the Jakarta branch union of FSP KEP because branch leaders elected include workers from the information technology department. Halliburton Energy Services of Indonesia claims IT workers have access to sensitive company data, thus should not be eligible to hold union office.
Halliburton delayed a collective agreement for FSP KEP members for a two-year period up until recently because of management turnover and attempts to cut workers&rsquo; benefits. Halliburton is deployed as a contract services provider to several multinational oil companies doing business in Indonesia, including state-run Pertamina, the Chinese government&rsquo;s CNOOC, ConocoPhillips, BP, Total and Caltex.

Halliburton Interferes with Indonesian Union’s Elected Officers

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The USW in the US supports the decision by the federal Labor Department to refer the consequences of BP&rsquo;s fatal 23 March 2005 explosion at an oil refinery in Texas City, Texas, to the US Justice Department for possible criminal indictments.
Fifteen workers&mdash;all contract employees&mdash;were killed and another 170 were workers injured when the blast occurred during start-up of an isomerisation unit at the former Amoco refinery. BP issued its final report on the US&rsquo;s worst industrial disaster in two decades last week by identifying root causes, including &ldquo;Processs safety &hellip; had not been set and consistently reinforced by management.&rdquo;
In September, the US Labor Department&rsquo;s Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the firm with over 300 &ldquo;egregious and willful&rdquo; violations and fined the British firm US$21.4 million.

BP’s Texas Oil Refinery Blast May See Criminal Indictments

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The United Steelworkers (USW) in Canada has endorsed the mega-mining merger of Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Inc., two Canadian mining houses that combined would comprise the world&rsquo;s largest nickel producer.
The C$13 billion friendly takeover was given approval at a USW press conference in Sudbury, Ontario, on 7 December with the announced formation of a Steelworker Inco/Falconbridge Council made up of 8,500 workers at 15 USW bargaining units.
USW said the merged company will be &ldquo;good for Canada, good for communities and good for building bargaining power across the continent.&rdquo;
The merger is threatened by a possible hostile bid by Swiss-based Xstrata Plc., the Glencore International-controlled mining giant which purchased a 20% stake in Falconbridge in August. Inco has extended to 27 January its offer to Falconbridge shareholders, who must sell at least two-thirds of the company&rsquo;s outstanding shares to Inco before the deal becomes final.

USW in Canada Endorses Inco, Falconbridge Mining Merger

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&nbsp;Electricit&eacute; de France (EDF) announced last week that it would eliminate 6,500 jobs through the end of 2007 in an apparent attempt to boost the share price of the newly privatised company.
The French government placed shares totalling 15% of the company on the Paris bourse 21 November in hopes of raising capitalisation of &euro;7 billion. It offered EDF shares at &euro;32 to small investors and &euro;33-per-share to institutional investors.
On 7 December, prior to the job cuts announcement, EDF stock was selling at &euro;31.66. EDF said the jobs would be lost by not replacing roughly 70% of the 9,000 workers expected to retire by the end of 2007.

EDF Announces Job Cuts to Boost Share Price

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German affiliate IGBCE focuses its attention even harder on Continental&rsquo;s broken promises. On 6 December, 30,000 workers of the tyre maker held stop-work meetings at 26 locations throughout Germany to protest the announced closure of the St&ouml;cken plant in Hannover and the resulting loss of 320 jobs by year-end 2006.
IGBCE agreed with Continental on more flexible working rights, including work weeks of 40 hours without additional pay, in exchange for a pledge of no job cuts. Continental Chief Executive Manfred Wennemer broke that pledge last month with the announcement on the fate of the St&ouml;cken plant.
IGBCE will now terminate ten programmes inside Continental that were established jointly with the company to save some &euro;42 million annually.

IGBCE Rescinds Cooperation Efforts with Continental Tyre

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US affiliate United Electrical, Radio &amp; Machine Workers (UE) used International Human Rights Day to remind us all that the United States has not ratified ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.
The union sent a delegation to the North Carolina state governor with a complaint on a state statute that supports the US position of non-ratification. The statute grants state employees with the right to unionise, but denies collective bargaining. The union is also taking the matter before the ILO&rsquo;s Public Sector Workers&rsquo; conference committee. The US has also not ratified ILO Convention 151, granting public employees the right to organise and setting conditions of employment in the public sector.
UE Local 150 counts as members many public employees across North Carolina. UE members from six US states and supporters from three countries delivered the complaint to North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley on 9 December.

US Affiliate Seeks Bargaining Rights for North Carolina’s Public Workers

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A branch of Canadian affiliate Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union issued a strike notice against Swedish-Finnish paper company Stora Enso a week ago at a mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. 
The notice was served after 98% of 660 members of CEP Local 972 voted to strike. The company has refused to comply with the non-monetary portion of the pattern agreement for the paper industry in eastern Canada. Other unresolved issues include local ones such as Stora Enso&rsquo;s drive to contract out bargaining unit work, including outsourcing of clerical jobs.
A provincial mediator has called the two sides back to the table for three days of talks from 16-18 December, and another session if necessary on 19 December, the earliest day that a strike could begin. CEP workers at the magazine papers and newsprint mill have been without a current collective agreement for 16 months.

CEP Branch in Canada Braced to Strike Stora Enso

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French utilities, construction and telecommunications company Bouygues is taking revenge on ICEM Cote d&rsquo;Ivoire affiliate SYNASEG, the country&rsquo;s electric and gas trade union. 
Prior to a 15-year Bouygues contract for management of water and electric supplies that expired earlier this year, the government announced plans to repatriate the utilities as national entities. SYNASEG publicly supported such a move. But then the government reversed itself and granted Bouygues another 15-year contract.
The company has now retaliated against SYNASEG by refusing to honour check off procedures over union dues. In September, Bouygues neglected to deduct dues from workers&rsquo; pay checks and, in October and November, it did make the deductions but refused to forward the funds to SYNASEG.

French-based Bouygues Creating Union Problems in Cote d’Ivoire

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A deadly past several weeks has brought more deaths from China&rsquo;s mines. 
On 11 November, 19 perished due to a gas explosion at Bayinsai Coal Tar Co. in Wuhai city, Inner Mongolia. That was preceded by two separate gas blasts on 6 November, claiming a total of 52 miners. At the one in Xingtai County, Hebei province, three gypsum mines collapsed killing 36 and seriously injuring another 30. The other happened at the Taiping Coal Mine, Shanxi province, where 16 died in a gas blast. 
On 8 November in Qitai County in the autonomous region of Xinjiang Uygur, 14 died in a workers dormitory where an employee of Beitahsan Coal Mine was handling explosives. Sixteen coal miners died on 27 October due to an explosion inside the Zhongxing Coal Mine near Aksu city in northwest Xinjiang region. 
Drilling through a water-eroded cave brought death by drowning to 28 miners on 4 October at Guang&rsquo;an Energy Group&rsquo;s Longtan Coal Mine in Sichuan province. A day earlier in Henan province, 34 miners died from a gas explosion at the Henan Hebei Coal Co., a joint venture between the state and Thai-based Banpu plc. And on the evening of 2 October, ten people died when they were overcome by gas after sneaking into a molybdenum mine in Liaoning province to work illegally. 
China&rsquo;s State Administration of Coal Mine Safety will have closed 7,000 mines due to safety concerns by the end of the year, and another Chinese agency posted on its website that in order to qualify for financial incentives available for safe mining practices, managers must accompany workers into mines on each shift.

More Deaths Hit China’s Mines

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ICEM affiliate National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) won a labour court ruling late last month against Continental Tyre. The court ruled the company must reinstate 40 workers who were retrenched at a Port Elizabeth factory in July. 
The unilateral decision by the company to curtail weekend shift operations and manpower in some areas of the plant last summer brought ICEM intervention with the German Works Council of Continental. 
In a separate decision also issued in late October, a South African Labour Department inspector determined that Continental violated the Employment Equity Act that seeks to correct racial imbalances left over from the apartheid era. The inspector found that Continental&rsquo;s policies have failed to assimilate blacks and whites into common work practices. The Port Elizabeth tyre factory employs 1,200. 
Meanwhile in Germany, IGBCE has won a year&rsquo;s reprieve for 500 Continental Tyre workers at the St&uuml;cken plant in Hannover. The plant was scheduled to close at the end of 2006, but ICEM&rsquo;s German affiliate convinced the company to keep the plant operating until December 2007.

NUMSA Wins Court Ruling in Continental Tyre Dispute

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