English

Español

Français

Русский

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 2021-2025

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

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Indian Oil Sector Officers’ Association (OSOA) President Amit Kumar announced the start of a three-day strike on Wednesday, 7 January. Strikers, representing 14 organisations in the OSOA, demand higher wages. The union numbers some 50,000 white-collar workers at hundreds of Indian enterprises. The OSOA is not affiliated to the ICEM. 
 
Three public sector companies, the Indian state oil company ONGC, and refineries were hit and it coincided with a strike by Indians truck drivers, whose own strike began Monday, 5 January. Petroleum Secretary R.S. Pandey conceded that production was being curtailed at Koyali refinery, Panipat refinery, Mathura refinery, and the Haldia refinery. 

<img height="142" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMOil.JPG" width="140"/>
The government took a tough stand, invoking the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) at several locations. The first day of the nationwide strike saw gas supplies to industrial consumers disrupted, and the government arrested two employees under ESMA, and suspending nearly 100 others across the country. OSOA leaders Narendra Goyal and Somesh Ranjan were both arrested in Delhi from their offices. 
 
Representatives of the All India Motor Transport Congress truckers union said their strike would continue despite the arrest of their president, Charan Singh Lohara, and secretary S Venugopal on Friday.

Indian Senior-Level Oil Workers Conduct Three-Day Strike

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
ICEM affiliate Sintracarbón in Colombia last week achieved major wage and other gains, including 180 promotions for contract workers. The two-year contract, ratified 78-6 by the union’s Delegates Assembly on 18 January, is with Carbones del Cerrejón, the thermal coal exporter owned by AngloAmerica, BHP Billiton, and Xstrata. As reported in December by the ICEM, miners were seeking social improvements regarding family health, education, transportation, restrictions on outsourcing, and other social responses inside several Colombian communities in la Guijara state. 
 
The renewal agreement covers some 4,000 workers at Colombia’s largest mining operation, and successful negotiation of the contract keeps in place a social dialogue commitment between management of Carbones del Cerrejón and Sintracarbón that the ICEM was instrumental in forging in 2004. 
 
Talks began on 1 December toward a 31 January 2009 expiration, with the union in early January giving a 17 January deadline for negotiations to conclude. 

<img height="185" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805COLOMBIA3.jpg" width="220"/>
The contract grants an 11% pay increase to Cerrejón miners and workers at the company’s Puerto Bolívar export facility on the Caribbean for 2009, some 3% to 4% higher than the average negotiated settlements in Colombia. In 2010, workers will receive a 7% increase or 1.8% above the 2009 consumer price index, whichever is higher. 
 
Besides 180 precarious workers moving to full-time employment, the employer agrees to respect the right of contract workers to affiliate with Sintracarbón. The negotiations also yielded improvements in transportation to and from the open-cast mines, education stipends for miners’ and port workers’ children, retiree benefits, and talks also produced financial sums to Sintracarbón to perform benevolent deeds and community services. 
 
Besides improvements to health insurance, Cerrejón management agreed to fund a study to be undertaken by the union related to workers’ health concerns. 
 
The Colombian union requested ICEM trigger international solidarity in the form of letters to the managing director, and that call was answered by numerous unions, which had a profound effect. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda wrote on behalf of the 20-million-member Global Union Federation supporting Sintracarbón, warning the company that an expeditious settlement must come or strike action would result.
<img height="74" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Colombia.png" width="160"/>
Our union is grateful to all the unions, social organisations, NGOs, and community networks that exhibited national and international support that was fundamental and instrumental” in achieving the contract, Sintracarbón said in a statement. 
 
ICEM’s Warda said the labour-management process of social dialogue at Carbones del Cerrejón serves as an impressive example on what can accomplished through mutual respect and shared responsibility. 
 
The Colombian operation of the three multinationals mines a high-quality, low-sulphur thermal coal that meets stringent emissions standards in many countries. The company is embarking on a US$300 million modernisation plan this year to upgrade infrastructure, technology, and mining equipment. The mines produced 32 million tonnes of coal in 2008, with production expected to increase to 40 million tonnes by 2011.

Sintracarbón Miners Win Two-Year Renewal Contract at Colombia’s Biggest Coal Deposit

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN 32

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
After a long process of collective organisation and negotiation, ICEM affiliate Sintravidricol of Colombia, together with the workers of Caldas Glass Company, VICAL S.A., achieved a significant victory against Contract and Agency Labour (CAL). The right to organise collectively was established, and the first collective agreement was signed by this group of workers. 
 
It follows a similar collective agreement covering part-time workers achieved with Peldar Glass – part of Owens-Illinois – at Zipaquira, Colombia. There, ICEM’s Colombia Project successfully combined the federation’s global CAL programme, and a Social Dialogue project unique to multinationals operating in Colombia, to bring full-time status for many of Peldar’s temporary workers. 
 
The unionisation of the workers at Caldas Glass had been attempted by various groups repeatedly for the past 20 years, notably by Risaralda-CUT. 
The artisan workers at the Caldas Glass Factory make various glass products, using mainly only their hands (and lungs) in their work. At least 80% of the workers in the plant are employed through temporary work contracts, with tose agreements lasting less than a year. 

<img style="WIDTH: 185px; HEIGHT: 110px" height="132" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Colombiaflag.gif" width="200"/>
Even workers with 15, 20, 30 years of service remain on one-year contracts, and its non uncommon for them to receive wages and social benefits late. Under these conditions, the workers took the brave decision to organise. 
 
The three priorities of the newly organised workers: to end the system of separating workers from their years of service by imposing the yearly contracts; full recognition of the union by Caldas and registry with the Ministry of Social Protection; and labour stability, a key component to achieving a better and more productive workplace. 
 
Impressively, early talks with management indicate that the new union will achieve all three goals. Caldas, as well, will meet with Sintravidricol in a labor-management committee to analyse the problems of workers. The union also has established regular meetings with the president of the company. In addition, the first negotiations achieved scholarships for children of all employees of thirty thousand pesos (US$2,200) each, a productivity bonus, and a salary increase, equivalent to the percentage of the minimum wage increase as ordered by the national government. 
 
The ICEM commends its Colombian affiliate, Sintravidricol, in this very significant achievement.

Hard Fought Victory for Colombian Trade Unionists

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Fourteen Turkish trade unions, comprising the ICEM Coordinating Committee of Turkey, met in Ankara on 20 November and formulated an ambitious agenda related to union-building activities. 
 
Led by the ICEM Secretariat, Turkey’s leading trade union officials agreed to an Organising and Social Dialogue Project, sponsored by the global arm of the Dutch national labour center, FNV Mondiaal; they agreed to launch a cross-border series of solidarity activities with Iraqi unions; and they agreed to begin a campaign on getting Turkey’s government to ratify ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention. 
 
The meeting was hosted by Tes-İş, the Turkish Energy, Water, and Gas Workers’ Union, and chaired by Mustafa Kumlu, the union’s President, who also serves on the ICEM Executive and is President of Turkish national labour center Türk- İş. He addressed the negative effects brought on by the global financial crisis inside Turkey’s industrial sectors. 

<img style="WIDTH: 124px; HEIGHT: 181px" height="200" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812TesIsMustafa%20Kumlu.jpg" width="124"/>
Tes-İş President, Mustafa Kumlu
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Chemicals and Rubber Officer Kemal Özkan presented the two-year FNV Mondiaal project for Turkey and the necessity for ratification of Convention 176. Later, Türkiye Maden-İş, the largest mining union in Turkey, agreed to lead the ratification effort. 
 
The project will consist of eight activities in which 500 trade unionists will come together to begin recruitment exercises, create proper workers’ representation systems within workplaces, and to develop techniques to establish constructive bargaining and social dialogue practices with employers. 
In Coordinating Committee business, Turkish union leaders decided to establish a technical committee to prepare background information to the full committee. Besides Tes-İş and Türkiye Maden-İş, other trade unions participating included: Çimse-İş, Cement, Ceramics, Pottery, and Glass Workers’ Union; Belediye- İş, the Municipal and General Workers’ Union; Petrol-İş, Oil and Chemical Workers’ Union; Genel Maden-İş, representing Mine Workers; and Dev Maden-Sen, another union representing Mine Workers. 
 

<img style="WIDTH: 369px; HEIGHT: 133px" height="133" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0812TurkCounFamPix.jpg" width="380"/>
Participants at ICEM's Coordinating Committee
 
Also, Lastik-İş, Petroleum and Rubber Workers’ Union; ESM, or the Energy, Industry, and Mining Union of Public Employees; Selüloz-İş, Pulp, Paper and Paper Products Union; Kristal-İş, Glass, Cement, Ceramic and Soil Workers’ Union; Türk-Enerji-Sen, the Energy, Mine, Metal, Petroleum and Chemistry Branch Employees’ Union; Tümka-İş, the All Pulp and Paper Workers’ Union; and Türk Tarim Orman-Sen, a Union of agricultural, forestry, and environmental services’ workers. 
 
The ICEM Secretariat delegation also received commitments from Çimse-İş and Kristal-İş to co-host ICEM’s 2009 World Conference for the Materials Industry. Also attending the Coordinating Committee meeting was Michael Mersmann, head of the International Department of German affiliated union, IGBCE.

ICEM’s Turkish Coordinating Committee Takes on Dutch Project

<img height="39" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" alt=""/>
In efforts to hold the government of Álvaro Uribe responsible for prosecuting the real perpetrators behind the murders of trade union activists before a US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is enacted, the US House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee heard vivid testimony last month on several murders. 
 
One was the 2001 assassination of Jorge Darío Hoyos, who was once the Colombian coordinator for the Miners’ International Federation (MIF), one of the predecessor trade union federations of the ICEM. 

<img height="111" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0903.Yessika Hoyos.jpg" width="100" alt=""/>
Yessika Hoyos
Testifying in Washington, DC, was his daughter, 25-year-old Yessika Hoyos. She said that despite police arresting two individuals who actually committed the crime, no effort has been made to apprehend and prosecute those who ordered the assassination. 
 
“We know there is evidence of other perpetrators, including members of the national army,” she said. “The investigation remains open, but with no follow-up of the evidence as requested, and no identification of other possible perpetrators.” 
 
Darío Hoyos, then 61, was gunned down in his home town of Fusagasuga, in central Colombia near Bogotá, on 3 March 2001.At the time, a paramilitary group called the Block Centaurs was thought to have carried out the killing. He was MIF’s national coordinator from 1984 to 1991, and then served as an organiser and collective bargaining advisor to unions representing teachers, bank workers, and telecommunications staff. 
 
At the February 2009 US Congress hearing, the House Education and Labour Committee stated, “The Colombian government has not done enough to stem the rising violence against trade union leaders or address the backlog of labor union leader killings.” A representative from Colombia’s National Labour School testified that 60% of all murders of trade union activists throughout the world occur in Colombia.

US Congressional Committee Hears Testimony of Slain Colombian Mine Union Activist

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
The Global Unions’ message was made with great effect, 30 March, When the Council of Global Unions (CGU) released an attractive publication, giving a unified response to the global economic crisis. This is the first time Global Union Federations (GUFs), who together with the ITUC and TUAC of the OECD comprise the CGU, have come together in a unified voice, from different perspectives, to produce concrete statements on the crisis. 
 
The magazine, edited by International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) General Secretary Aidan White, also supplies sector specific views on the crisis, with several GUF General Secretaries calling for enhanced roles for government in the management of the economy. 
<img height="108" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904.aidan.white.jpg" width="92"/>
Aidan White 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda focused a chapter in the publication, entitled “Getting the World to WORK – Global Union Strategies for Recovery,” on issues of “Future Fuel,” discussing the worrying effects of the economic crisis on global fuel supplies and the necessity for sustainable development in meeting those supplies. 
 
The full publication, in pdf format, can be found at the Global Unions’ website <a href="http://www.global-unions.org/spip.php?article253">here</a>. 
 
John Evans, General Secretary of TUAC, discusses the Global Unions’ London Declaration and its proposals for economic recovery. Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the ITUC also joins the GUFs in calling for fresh approaches to governing the global economy, only in a far fairer and more sustainable fashion than in the period before last year’s downturn. 
 
Each of the chapters can be individually downloaded off the Global Unions’ website. The publication is an important tool for trade unionists, a vital and refreshing road map for the way forward, and a valuable source of information on each of the 13 GUFs, in which the publication cements further cooperation efforts.

Global Labour Responds to the Economic Crisis with Insightful, New Publication

The ICEM has intervened in a retaliatory dispute by French-based Michelin at a large tyre factory called Laem Chabang in Chonburi Province, Thailand. The Global Union Federation, together with French trade union affiliate CFDT, brought the matter before Michelin’s European Works Council (EWC) and Michelin Group Manager Jean-Dominique Senard at a EWC meeting in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, on 31 March. 
 
The situation in Thailand is serious. On 25 March, local management locked 383 workers off their jobs after they refused to withdraw their names from a petition submitted two weeks earlier. The petition called on management not to unilaterally impose 13% wage cuts, and to engage in consultation with workers’ representatives over effects of a downturn in the tyre market. 
 
The petition also called on the company to jointly identify solutions with workers, not to unilaterally dictate terms and conditions. It also asked Michelin’s Laem Chabang managers to stop forcing workers to sign acceptance forms on the wage cuts, and to quit victimising workers who did not sign the forms. 
 
Michelin managers responded by suspending eight worker representatives, and imposing a 35% pay cut on workers who refused to disavow the petition. They also reduced their yearly allotment of holidays to six. They then – on 25 March – locked out 383 of 458 workers who signed the petition. 
 
“This is extreme and harsh behaviour against loyal workers from a company that expects to recover from the global economic crisis,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “We have no choice but to demand that the EWC take action. We also call on rubber workers worldwide to take notice, and demand that Michelin rescind this retaliatory punishment.” 
 
The tyre workers have been trying to organise with ICEM affiliate Petroleum and Chemical Workers’ Federation (PCFT) since February, the second time in ten years that staff at Laem Chabang have attempted to unionise. 
 
The plant employs 1,500 staff and produces auto and light truck tyres. Michelin has two other tyre manufacturing plants in Thailand, the Nong Khae plant in Saraburi, employing 1,300 workers, and the Phra Padaeng factory in Samut Prakarn, where 1,500 Thai workers are employed. The latter is unionised by PCFT, with strong union membership. The three plants are 90% owned by Michelin, with the Siam Cement Group holding the remaining 10% stake. 
 
For further information, contact Dick Blin, ICEM Information Officer, +41 22 304 1842, or dick.blin@icem.org.

ICEM Condemns Lockout of Thai Workers by Michelin

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
In a unified response to safety shortfalls that killed a contract worker at Drummond Coal’s La Loma mine, 8,000 members of Sintramienergética and other contract staff stage a four-day strike late in March that shut production of Colombia’s second largest coal mine. 
 
Dagoberto Clavijo Barranco, a one-month worker at La Loma who was put there through a labour agency, was killed on 23 March when the coal-hauling vehicle he was operating fell into an open-cast mine. 
 
Drummond released all miners from work duties following the tragedy, but when the strike spread over the next few days because workers’ demanded improved safety, the company, in a statement, called the strike illegal. 

<img height="92" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Colombia.png" width="200"/>
A Sintramienergética leader said Drummond agreed to meet with the union to discuss safety but was “flippant” in stating that no amount of negotiations will improve safety conditions. The company, on 27 March, issued a further public statement after full production at La Loma resumed. This time Drummond said it regretted the accident and would continue its “best efforts together with the competent authorities to clear up this unfortunate incident.” 
 
Drummond has had nine mining deaths at La Loma in César state over the past decade. Another three have occurred at its port facilities near Barranquilla. 
 
In the days following the end of the safety strike, Drummond terminated 600 workers because of a strike by the transport union, Sintraime. Workers of coal-transport contractors Carbograneles and Fenoco (partially owned by Drummond) began strikes on 25 March, and these strikes were still underway late last week. Transport workers are striking for full union recognition on rail lines and at port facilities, as well as over overtime procedures. 
 
The mining union Sintramienergética is insisting that Drummond recall the 600, claiming it has no responsibility in the transport strike. 
 
Drummond directly or indirectly employs 9,000 workers at La Loma, and the American company will soon start up its El Descanso mine in César state, a US$1.8 billion investment that will increase the company’s coal production to 27 million tones annually.

Contract Worker Death Causes Safety Strike at Drummond in Colombia

<img height="39" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100"/>
Every year, on April 28, the world commemorates workers killed, injured, or made ill as a result of their jobs. 
 
How many are there? Collecting good data on occupational injuries and deaths is very difficult. The most credible source of international statistics is the ILO. Their numbers are staggering. The ILO has estimated that globally, there are two million work-related deaths annually. That's more than 5,000 every day, and for every fatality, hundreds more injuries and illnesses occur. 
 
These numbers, as incredible as they seem, are generally believed to be gross underestimates. 
 
Fatalities are under reported by workers and employers. Often, an occupational fatality is not identified as such. Once reported, a fatality must be "accepted" or recognized by a country's regulatory authority or workers' compensation board to be counted among the statistics. In many jurisdictions, large numbers of workers are exempt from workers' compensation coverage. Data for injuries are even less reliable than for fatalities. 

<img height="100" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904Labourrose.JPG" width="77"/>
Worker deaths that are immediate and obvious tend to be recognized. Deaths due to illnesses that have an occupational origin are rarely recognized. Cancer is one of the biggest work-related killers, but rarely is it properly acknowledged. Relatively few occupational diseases are recorded in official statistics. 
 
Injury and illness data are notoriously subject to bias and methodological problems. Many workers' injuries, illnesses, and even fatalities, are simply never recorded. Workers' compensation assessments and insurance premiums are often based on these statistics, creating a huge financial incentive for employers to suppress or discourage the reporting of accidents. 
 
This is done in a number of ways, ranging from schemes that bring injured workers into the workplace so their injuries won't be counted as "lost time," to sophisticated psychological techniques like "behaviour-based" safety programs. Threats of discipline or discharge following a reported accident are not uncommon. "Post-incident drug-testing" has been highly effective in causing workers to conceal injuries rather than risk a false-positive test result. 
 
In the days leading up to 28 April, many statistics will be quoted. Appalling as the numbers may be, the truth is probably far worse. 
 
In the end, 28 April is not about numbers, it is about people. Next week, on Tuesday, let us pause and remember those who paid for their livelihoods with their lives or their health. Then let us renew the fight for safe and healthy workplaces.

28 April: Day to Renew Fight for Safe and Healthy Worksites

Archive