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 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"/>
The ICEM calls on South African pulp, paper, and woodlands company Sappi to cease disciplinary matters against 19 shop stewards and 23 other workers at the Enstra mill in Gauteng province. The ICEM supports its South African affiliate, Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU), in its rigorous defense of the 42. 
 
The paperworkers are charged with inciting three safety strikes in May at the 700-worker pulp, printing, and graphics paper mill near Johannesburg. The incident started when shop stewards prevented a worker from doing unsafe work. That worker is now one of the 23 workers still on the job that Sappi now wants to suspend for one week without pay, and issue final written warnings to. 
 
The 19 shop stewards, the mill’s entire CEPPWAWU representation team, have already been suspended, and await further discipline at meetings on 7-8 July. 

<img height="109" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0810PaperRollArt.jpg" width="180"/>
The safety strikes took place on 5 May, 8 May, and 28 May. The worker was assigned to do cleaning in a part of the paper mill that a piece of equipment normally performs. When shop stewards protested the unsafe act, management hardened and the safety strikes began. The matter was compounded when a joint labour-management report on the safety incident and subsequent strikes was ignored by the mill manager. 
 
In a 16 June ICEM letter to Sappi, the Global Union Federation told Sappi to drop the disciplinary procedures at the Enstra mill and to “get on with building a trusting labour-management relationship at Enstra.” The ICEM noted in the letter that Sappi had been engaged over the past six months in building a better labour relations climate at the mill, but failure to follow through with the findings contained in the joint investigatory report was a breach of trust. 
 
“The ICEM strongly believes the first and most important component in building a trusting and lasting relationship in labour-management relations must be safety,” read the letter. 
 
The ICEM also believes Sappi violates global labour standards at Enstra, not least of which was suspending all CEPPWAWU shop stewards and discrimination in bringing separate sets of charges against the 23 workers and the 19 duly-elected shop stewards. 
 
Some 90% of Enstra workers are CEPPWAWU members.

ICEM Calls on Papermaker Sappi to Halt Safety Discipline

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada held its Eighth Bi-annual Women’s Conference from 8-10 November in Ottawa. Entitled “Breaking Down Barriers…Building Equality,” the conference was attended by a record number of women from the 150,000-member union – 250 – making it the union’s largest women’s conference ever. 
 
The conference was organized mostly with workshops, with one on the opening day dealing with the new harassment policy of the Canadian union. Three other workshops were held over the ensuing days, including “Confronting Harassment and Bullying,” “The Economic Crisis: We’re Not Taking This Sitting Down,” and “Finding Our Voices.” 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0911.CEP.lara.acheson.jpg" width="125" height="150"/>
Lara Acheson, CEP
Lara Acheson, a rank-and-file CEP member from the telecommunications sector, serves as chairperson of CEP’s National Women’s Committee. 
The conference paid special remembrance to what has become known in Canada as the Montréal Massacre. Twenty years ago, on 6 December 1989, 14 women were shot dead at École Polytechnique de Montréal by a deranged man who stormed into a classroom, separated men and women, and shot dead the women in anti-feminist lunacy. Because of that, Canada designates 6 December as “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women,” and that theme was carried out in CEP women’s workshops last week. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0911.CEP.womens.committee.jpg" width="260" height="157"/>
CEP Women's Committee
The harassment workshops emphasized that there would continue to be zero tolerance for harassment on the job and in the union. The economic crisis workshop detailed the effects that the crisis was having on women. And in the “Finding Our Voices” workshop, CEP women were empowered to begin standing up and speaking, and begin to be heard. 
 
The Canadian crisis in the pulp and paper industry was one recurring theme at the conference, specifically on the toll such economic depravation is taking on women in communities. CEP women developed a set of demands for the Canadian government to counteract the adverse economic consequences, such as affordable childcare and reform of the employment insurance scheme.

CEP Women Turn Out in Record Numbers at Canadian Conference

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM French trade union affiliate, the Federation of Chemical and Energy Workers (FCE-CFDT) Union, will conduct a day of action this week, 19 November, against the country’s plastics manufacturers over a long simmering wage dispute. Some 150,000 workers in plastics, employed by 3,700 big and small plastics companies, have not seen any wage increase since 2006. 
 
Early in 2008, the employers’ federation abrogated a 2004 labour agreement which automatically gave liveable wage increases that at least matched French inflation. In the more than three years since the last pay hike, three pay grids in French plastics have fallen below the nation’s minimum wage levels. 
 
Despite ongoing negotiations since May 2008, the employers’ grouping and French unions have been unable to reach acceptable wage standards, or a threshold on maximum seniority pay.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMchemical2.jpg.JPG" width="100" height="98"/>
The manifestation will occur at 10h30 on Thursday, 19 November, in front of the Fédération de la Plasturgie, at 65 rue de Prony in Paris. A joint union-management commission charged with resolving the longstanding impasse will again meet that day. 
 
FCE-CFDT said in a statement that many companies in the sector have profited handsomely from the three-year wage freeze, adding that thousands of workers are expected to take advantage of sick leave provisions on 19 November in plant-level protests. The union will hold a press conference on the foot-dragging by employers on Wednesday, 18 November. 
 
Since spring 2008, several manifestations have occurred across France over the lack of a current wage accord in this sector.

French Plastics Workers to Do Another Manifestation This Week

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Rolling work stoppages began at a Peabody Energy coal mine in central Queensland on 7 November. The legal industrial actions, brought on by the American company’s proposed rollbacks in an enterprise labour agreement at its North Goonyella mine, could intensify in coming weeks, as members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) balloted this weekend on whether or not to take further industrial actions. 
 
A prior enterprise agreement expired early in 2008. But that was extended one year, until 31 March 2009. The dispute now centers on work rosters, rates of pay, and conditions of living in a mining camp. 
 
The CFMEU members took four three-hour work stoppages over a 24-hour period in the middle of last week. Further three-hour industrial actions could occur this week, and if this weekend’s ballot passes, legalized work stoppages could extend to 24- or 48-hour periods. Unrelated to the dispute, Peabody announced on 11 November that 34 miners would be made redundant by year’s end at North Goonyella.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Australia.png" width="200" height="102" alt=""/>
Peabody owns other coal-mining operations in Queensland and New South Wales, and is the major stakeholder of other collieries that operate with sub-contractors. All miners at these enterprises are represented by the CFMEU. Peabody bought the North Goonyella colliery from RAG AG as part of a three-mine purchase in 2003. 
 
The US multinational began mining coal in Australia through predecessor companies in the 1950s. Over the years, the CFMEU has developed close ties with the US mining union, ICEM affiliate United Mine Workers’ of America (UMWA), over Peabody’s collective agreements and organizing efforts.

CFMEU Begins Job Actions at Peabody Coal in Australia

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
ICEM’s last newsletter, 14 days ago, reported on the end of a strike and the pending payment of a long-awaited pay increase for Peruvian mineworkers at the Marcona mine of Shougang Hierro Perú. That salary increase had been agreed to in July 2009, through mediation by Peru’s Labour Ministry, but never paid, so miners again went on strike for 15 days in October. 
 
However, on 4 November, after resuming work and again being promised July’s salary increase, Shougang miners again went on indefinite strike action following the company, yet again, failing to make payments. 
 
This time, the company transported non-striking workers around the mine in illegal and unsafe vehicles, as transport drivers joined miners on strike. Such practices are against both national and regional law in the Ica District of southern Peru, and coupled with failure to pay the negotiated and agreed-to salaries, depicts a multinational metals company, albeit state-owned, exhibiting contempt for Peruvian law and its workers.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/PeruFlag.gif" width="120" height="83" alt=""/>
The ICEM affiliate in Peru, the National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (FNTMMSP), last week called upon Labour Minister Manuela García Cochagne to act and deal harshly with the latest illegalities of Shougang Hierro. The Chinese company has been mining iron ore near the town of San Juan de Marcona since its 1993 purchase from the state. Since then, the union says that Shougang has only poverty levels in the area, and has blocked local residents from owning land. 
 
Elsewhere in Peru’s mining industry, the Ministry of Labour is attempting to avoid a strike at the Los Quenuales zinc mine, owned by the Swiss transnational Glencore. The dispute there runs consistent with many stories from around the world; Glencore is using the current global economic crisis to renege on a prior salary agreement for some 1,800 workers. The weekly raise that the Swiss holding company refuses to pay is 2 Peruvian Soles per week, the equivalent to US$0.68.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910PeruFNTMMSPLuis Castillo.jpg" width="160" height="120" alt=""/>
FNTMMSP Gen. Sec. Luis Castillo Carlos 
The branch union at Los Quenales represents workers also from contract companies operating at Los Quenuales. The union has been attempting to negotiate with management since 15 October, with no positive results. FNTMMSP General Secretary Luis Castillo Carlos has been negotiating on behalf of the workers. 
 
A collective of multinationals face another Peruvian dispute at the Antamina copper and zinc mine. Antamina is controlled by BHP Billiton and Xstrata (33.75% each), with Teck Cominco of Canada and Mitsubishi of Japan holding smaller stakes. Management of one of South America’s largest copper/zinc mines is offering no pay increase, while FNTMMSP is seeking a raise of living wage each day. Negotiations will continue on 17 November, and if they fail, a strike mandate could be in order.

Chinese Mine Firm Shougang Hierro Perú Again Reneges on Salary Hike

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
ICEM affiliate Sintraelecol reported last week that the union has signed a collective agreement with ISA Transelca for a period from 2009 to 2012. 
 
The triumph for the union brings significant pay rises to the 110 workers, with more than 80% of those workers receiving increases amounting to 10% above inflation. 
 
And perhaps even more significantly, the new agreement brings Contract and Agency Labour staff used by the company into full, direct employment, complete with all the legal protection that full-time employees receive.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMelectricity5.JPG.JPG" width="140" height="138" alt=""/>
The ICEM commends this achievement by Sintraelecol, which is significant not only because of the improved work conditions achieved for workers in Colombia in the electric sector, but also because Grupo ISA Transelca operates in many neighbouring countries, such as Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador. The hope is that this agreement will serve as an example and precedent for management and unions in those countries to reach similar agreements, and bring contract and agency staff onto the company’s books. 
 
The rate of collective bargaining in Colombia is the lowest in the entire Andean region. Trade unionists face anti-union repression from the national government, as well as fear of killed or assaulted while deploying legitimate trade union activity. These facts make the agreement with ISA Transelca all the more commendable. 
 
Also in Colombia, ICEM affiliate Sintravidricol last week reported a victory in forcing Havells Sylvania, a maker of lighting fixtures, to reinstate workers who had been illegally dismissed. Reintegration into the workforce will take place on 17 November. 
 
Sintravidricol issued a statement praising all union members, as well as ICEM Colombia Project Coordinator Carlos Bustos, for their help and solidarity. However, focus and work remains on the company in Bogota, as not all workers who lost their jobs have been reinstated. The ICEM is demanding that those workers are back on their jobs immediately. Send messages of solidarity and support for these employees to the Havells Sylvania management at <a href="mailto:info.co@havells-sylvania.com">info.co@havells-sylvania.com</a>.

Rights Achieved for Contract Workers by Sintraelecol in Colombia

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
World Day for Decent Work (WDDW) actions by the ICEM kicked off last week with two days of activities in Turkey, focusing on the dangers to civil society when full-time employment is eroded and use of contract and agency labour increases. 
 
The ICEM is highlighting actions on curbing the anti-social nemesis of temporary and agency work in Turkey and Thailand as its part in WDDW for 2009, the second year that global labour has marked an October date to herald decent work and decent living standards. 7 October has become fixed as WDDW, and trade unions worldwide are encouraged to use the weeks of early October to publicly rally for sustainable jobs. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0704CALThailand2.jpg" width="240" height="180"/>
In Thailand, ICEM-affiliated trade unions, together with the Confederation of State Enterprise Unions, will gather at 10h00 on 7 October in front of the UN Building on Rachadamnoen Road. From there, a march will proceed to the Government House, where a petition will be submitted to the Prime Minister’s office calling on Thailand to ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98, the Freedom of Association and Right to Organise and Right to Collective Bargaining Conventions. 
 
The assembly is being buoyed by the Thai Solidarity Committee, and federated trade unions representing workers chemicals and petroleum, pulp and paper, automotive, electronics, textile and garments, and food workers. Thousands are expected to march. 
 
In Istanbul, Turkey, on 1 October, a delegation of leading global union leaders first met with Turkish trade union officers to let them know that global labour stands with them in preventing re-submission of “Private Labour Offices” legislation in Turkey. In late June, the country’s Parliament moved such a bill to President Abdullah Gül without hearings or input from civil society. 
 
On 9 July, President Gül vetoed the measure. The bill would have allotted fees to labour brokers in their jobs’ dispatch of temporary, and allowed any individual or business to certify as a private-hire labour agency with a minimal investment of TL 20,000 (€9,250). 
Last Thursday, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, International Textile, Garment, Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWU) General Secretary Neil Kearney, International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) General Secretary Jyrki Raina, and ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Officer Kemal Özkan met with Turkish trade unions, as well as with Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-İş) General Secretary Mustafa Kumlu to pledge continued resistance to the bill. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910.turkey.wddw.JPG" width="315" height="175"/>
Trade Union Leaders with Turkish Minister of Labour and Social Security Ömer Dinçer
Later in the day, Kumlu, an ICEM Executive Committee member, joined global union leaders in a meeting with Turkish Minister of Labour and Social Security Ömer Dinçer. The minister confirmed that the draft bill, at present, is not on the agenda of the Parliament. 
 
Discussion also ensued on trade union rights and freedoms inside Turkey. Dinçer said his ministry is ready to cooperate with the global trade union movement to modify Turkey’s draconian labour code to become more in line with ILO Conventions and European Union norms. The union leaders also met separately on 1 October with Salim Uslu, president of Hak-İş, the Real Trade Unions Confederation of Turkey, and with Süleyman Çelebi, President of DİSK, the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910.turkey.pressconference.JPG" width="352" height="146"/>
2 October Press Conference in Istanbul
On 2 October, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Guy Ryder joined Warda, Kearney, Raina, and the four presidents of Turkish national labour centers at an 11h00 press conference. The conference was attended by 60 trade union leaders from inside Turkey, and press representing 18 Turkish media outlets. 
 
Again, the message zeroed in on the growing threat to the living standards of workers under the present trend of discarding regular and full-time employees in favour of temporary and agency work. In two days, on 7 October, DİSK will distribute, in all workplaces in which it has membership, an ITUC manifesto on WDDW. 
 
Meanwhile, the Türk-İş Confederation will sponsor an international symposium on decent work on that day at Gazi University in Ankara. The Global Union Council will be present for that symposium. 
 
Also in Thailand this week, trade unions are doing vast media outreach around WDDW and are disseminating the IMF’s precarious work brochure and poster.

ICEM’s WDDW Activities Start in Istanbul; March Set in Bangkok on 7 October

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
ICEM Italian affiliate FEMCA-CISL has drawn a line in the stand against any break-up of Eni, the oil and gas major that is 30% owned by the Italian government. As investors study a restructuring of the energy company, the union sounded a warning last week that splitting Eni into separate companies would bring more harm than good. 
 
FEMCA-CISL General Secretary Sergio Gigli said both workers and consumers would be negatively affected, and that skills, knowledge, and strategic synergies – long vital in the running of the company – would be destroyed. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Sergio%20gigli.jpg" width="130" height="173"/>
Sergio Gigli
The union’s comments came at the same time that a financial conference was being held in Milan to address restructuring the company. At that conference, American asset management company and minority shareholder, Knight Vinke, known for provoking shareholder activism to break apart enterprises, recommended that Eni’s oil and gas units be split apart in separate upstream and downstream businesses. 
 
FEMCA-CISL called such a possible separation a loss of integration that would jeopardize the company as a national model, and as an entity that plays a valuable social role inside Italy. The union also said that any weakening of Eni would erode the company’s ability to provide guaranteed strategic energy source supplies to Italy. 
 
Meanwhile, three Italian unions – FILCEM-CGIL, UILCEM-UIL, and FEMCA-CISL – welcomed the news last week that talks have fallen through between Eni and a UK private equity group, the Klesch Group, over sale of a refinery in Livorno, Tuscany. The discussions caused a nine-day strike by unions at the 1,000-worker refinery in early September. Eni had insisted in preliminary talks with Klesch that job guarantees be given to all workers.

Italian Union, FEMCA-CISL, Opposes Splitting of Energy Company Eni

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers' Association (IUF) scored a victory in its ongoing struggle for the rights of workers at Unilever in June, by reaching a settlement with the multinational to permanently employ members of a union Action Committee at the Rahim Yar Khan plant in Pakistan. 
 
Permanent positions were created for workers, who had previously been employed precariously. Unilever dismissed those workers after they protested against status as fixed-term contract workers. 
 
In October 2007, the IUF began a concerted campaign against the mass dismissals, supported by the National Federation of Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Workers of Pakistan, which was conducted in the country’s courtrooms, as well as on streets. The Action Committee was then formed to fight for rights for permanent jobs. 
 
Last month’s negotiated settlement was agreed to through mechanisms of the OECD, including applying standards of its Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which require companies to ensure that all its subsidiaries conform to global labour standards, including ILO Conventions 87 and 98. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0901.unilever.pakistan.jpg" width="300" height="158"/>
The 120 new positions were created at the Rahim Yar Khan plant as of 24 June 2009. All Action Committee members were appointed to these posts. Under the terms of the agreement, these workers are to suffer no discrimination or victimization, and will be free to organize and bargain collectively. 
 
Implementation of the agreement will be continuously monitored by the IUF and Unilever. 
 
Despite this positive settlement, Unilever continues its policy to employ large numbers of CAL workers. There has been no improvement to the rights of workers at the Lipton tea factory in Khanewal, Pakistan, which was reported <a href="/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/3015-Support-Needed-for-Contract-Agency-Workers-Forming-Union-at-Unilever-Tea-Factory-in-Pakistan" type="internal">here</a> by the ICEM in January 2009.  
 
“I am encouraged by the news of a just settlement at the Rahim Yar Khan plant,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “This is a step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before we succeed in ending the anti-union employment strategies of Unilever.” 
 
The Khanewal factory employs just 22 permanent workers, with another 723 hired through six labour agency companies.

Victory Noted for IUF in Unilever Contract Labour Struggle in Pakistan

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Svenska Pappers, the Swedish Paperworkers Union, and the Forest Industry Employers’ Association (SFIF) reached agreement for 18,000 workers on 26 April, just minutes before a second set of industrial actions were to begin. Those strikes, if they had happened, would have shut a total of 12 pulp and paper mills in Sweden. 
 
Strike action at six mills did occur on 16 April, taking 3,000 paperworkers out in protest against an industry attempting to make workers the scapegoats for the financial crisis. It was those strikes, the unified front of all Pappers members at 61 mills, and the threatened further strikes that gave better-than-average wage gains and contract terms to Pappers and its members. 
 
The SFIF was the driving wedge in a multi-industry employers’ front that was aimed at Sweden’s paperworkers in an effort to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto workers. Pulp, paper, and packaging trade unions across the world recognised this and posted hundreds of solidarity messages to Pappers, all of which made their way to branch unions. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SWEDEN.JanHenrikSandberg.jpg" width="200" height="267" alt=""/>
Svenska Pappers President Jan-Henrik Sandberg
The 26-day stand-off only ended when industry chieftains realised they were at the brink of another major set-back to Swedish pulp and paper exports. The union and SFIF agreed on a 22-month contract, totaling 3.4%, with the first increase taking effect 1 May and the second increase due on 1 April 2011. As part of that total pay package, an extra 0.4% additional increase was won for the lowest paid workers in the sector. That was one goal met by Pappers in its bargaining aims. 
 
The other goals that were accomplished included continued company payments to a pension scheme for a period, an issue related to Swedish law, and tougher sanctions on employers who use and abuse workers hired through agency labour companies. In addition, the union’s grittiness both at the bargaining table and on the shop floor won supplementary insurance benefits for workers injured at work and an added month – from four to five – of paid parental leave. 
 
“We were overwhelmed by the support and solidarity given us from around the world by so many different trade unions," said Svenska Pappers President Jan-Henrik Sandberg. “We passed these messages on to our branches and this support strengthened our resolve. We express our sincere gratitude for this outpouring of solidarity."

Swedish Paperworkers Carve Solid Gains After 11-day Strike

Archive