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

The ICEM has signed yet another Global Framework Agreement. Together with Swedish affiliate Svenska Papersindustriarbetaref&ouml;rbundet, the ICEM on 15 April became signatory with Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA) to maintain high health, safety, environment and workers&rsquo; rights standards. SCA will formally launch the agreement in June with a public campaign, and will follow that by distributing the agreement in respective languages to all its global worksites.

ICEM, Swedish Pappers Union Sign Global Agreement with SCA

A candlelight vigil commemorating the 9th Workers&rsquo; Memorial Day will occur at ICEM in Brussels and at thousands of other unions worldwide on 28 April. This year&rsquo;s commemoration will have twin themes&mdash;Safe &amp; Healthy Work and Employer Accountability&mdash;to draw attention to reducing workplace accident and death rates. Avaible are&nbsp;death and injury rates throughout the world and&nbsp;fact sheets and other materials in three languages. ICEM affiliates recognizing 28 April in one form or another are encouraged to report their observance to Lucien Royer at royer@tuac.org.

Vigil Marks 9th Workers’ Memorial Day

Fallout over miners&rsquo; drinking water that had been used for processing uranium ore in Australia&rsquo;s Northern Territory continues some three weeks after a Rio Tinto subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., wrongly fitted a pipe with the contaminated water into drinking water supplies. Several workers at the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park drank and showered in the water 23 March and were taken ill. The mine was closed as 150,000 liters of contaminated water 400 times the legal limit made its way into safe water supplies. Affiliate CFMEU is monitoring the health crisis at Australia&rsquo;s largest uranium processing site.

Rio Tinto’s Water Contamination Makes Australian Workers Ill

PACE, as lead union in ICEM&rsquo;s ExxonMobil Network, has an excellent website containing topical and informative data and news articles on the world&rsquo;s largest energy concern. It can be found at www.exxonmobil-solidarity.org.

PACE in US Establishes ExxonMobil Network Website

<img alt="" src="" width="130" height="63" />
The ICEM on Friday, 19 November, expressed hope that 29 miners were still alive inside the Pike River Coal Ltd. mine following a methane gas explosion on the west coast of the South Island, New Zealand. The miners, some of whom are members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), are believed to be trapped two kilometers inside a horizontal shaft of the Brunner coal seam in the Paparoa Range, near the town of Atarua. 
 
&ldquo;We are shocked and saddened by this terrible accident,&rdquo; wrote ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda to EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little, who travelled to Greymouth, 50 kilometrers away, to offer direct support to family members. &ldquo;We pray that a speedy rescue takes place and that the men successfully reach the surface alive and into the warmth of their loved ones,&rdquo; said Warda. 
 
This morning, 21 November, rescue efforts into the mine were stalled due to continued high levels of gas build-up. Tests conducted through a ventilation shaft yesterday revealed a large heat source 1,500 metres underground, indicating that a fire might be still raging. 
<img alt="" src="" width="120" height="182" />
EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little
The blast happened Friday afternoon, New Zealand time, following an electrical malfunction that shut the mine&rsquo;s two large ventilation units. The subsequent explosion was so powerful that a fireball was seen coming from the ventilation shaft. An electrician ventured into the main shaft of the mine to check the outage at the same time the blast occurred. He continued, only to come upon an equipment operator who had been thrown from his machine. 
 
The two manage to escape 108 metres up a ladder inside the ventilation shaft. But the 29 other miners, ages 17 to 62, were entrapped deeper inside. The 17-year-old was working his first shift inside the two-year-old mine. A telephone line was found to be working inside the mine, but there was no answer to numerous calls. 
 
The Pike River mine is the largest underground coal mine in New Zealand and part of the mine is beneath Paparoa National Park. It employs 140 staff, 71 of whom are union members of the EPMU. 
 
Pike River Coal Ltd. is a 14-year enterprise that mines premium hard coal for coking and ultimately steel-making. It is 31% owned by New Zealand Oil &amp; Gas Ltd., 7% by India&rsquo;s Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd., and 8% by Singapore-based Saurashtra World Holdings Pvt. Ltd. The remainder is traded on New Zealand and Australian bourses. 
 
The company made two major shipments this year &ndash; one in February 2010 of 20,000 tonnes, the other in September 2010 of 22,000 tonnes &ndash; to Port Bedi, India, for exclusive use by Gujarat. It exports also to China, Korea, and Brazil. The mine has reserves of 17.6 million tonnes. 
<img alt="" src="" width="200" height="146" />
In recent months, Pine River installed a hydro-monitoring system inside the mine that uses a water canon to blast coal off working faces. The company was also seeking funding for a second ABM20 continuous mine machine it hoped to install. Two years ago, start-up production was delayed after collapse of the newly-built ventilation shaft. 
 
The company&rsquo;s CEO, Peter Whittall, said air compressors were pumping fresh air down the ventilation shaft in hopes that trapped miners were in a nearby rescue area. Whittal has headed the company for only seven weeks and was previously served five years as Pike River&rsquo;s general manager of mines. Before that, he managed various BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal operations in New South Wales, Australia. 
 
Despite rescuers not able to enter the mine today, drilling of a 15-centimetre vertical hole did commence in order to get a camera and possibly supplies down. 
 
The EPMU&rsquo;s Little said in Greymouth, &ldquo;Inevitably there are questions. We don't have an incident like this without there being reasons. There will be a time when we will need to get answers.&rdquo; 

The 29 trapped miners include 24 New Zealand nationals, two Australians, two UK citizens who are Scotsmen, and one South African. The equipment operator who found safety in the aftermath of the blast, 24-year-old Daniel Rockhouse, has a brother, Ben, who is one of the 29. The grandfather of the two passed away Friday evening. 
 
New Zealand has not ratified ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention.

Hope Still Alive for 29 Trapped Inside Pike River’s New Zealand Coal Mine

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="49" />
Bahrain&rsquo;s authorities and business leaders are retaliating to a general strike led by the national trade union centre GFBTU with a campaign of mass sackings, intimidation, and violence against all workers involved. The general strike was called on 13 March, and ended 22 March, in support of pro-democracy protests inside the island state near the western shore of the Persian Gulf. The agreement to end the strike included a promise to GFBTU, an affiliate of the International Trade Union Confederation, by authorities that strikers would not suffer repercussions. 
 
Estimates suggest over 1,000 workers will be laid-off during the crackdown including at employers Aluminium Bahrain BSC, Bahrain Telecommunications Company, Gulf Air, Bahrain Airport Services and APM Terminals Bahrain at the Khalifa Sea Port. All sackings were due to worker absence during the strike. 
<img alt="" src="" width="140" height="169" />
BAPCO President Abdul Ghaffar Abdul Hussain
The president of the union at Bahrain Petroleum (BAPCO), Abdul Ghaffar Abdul Hussain, has been sacked for his absence during the strike and also for &ldquo;inciting workers to strike&rdquo;. The company will begin legal prosecution of Hussain this week or next. Hussain was central in the creation of the GBFTU. All employees at BAPCO are now fearful of losing their jobs in the coming days. Absenteeism of BAPCO employees on 16-17 March was 60%. 
See <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/27.ICEM.Bahrain.6April.pdf">ICEM's letter to the King of Bahrain</a> here. 
 
Security forces have closed down the GBFTU headquarters and are expected to soon call the organisation&rsquo;s president, Salman Mahfooz, in for questioning. Roads leading to the union office were closed and workers were blocked from reaching the headquarters, most of those workers had been seeking guidance from their union following their sacking. The GBFTU website has been closed. Parliament is calling on the government to immediately refer trade union leaders involved in the strike to the public prosecution office. 
 
All members of the GBFTU executive, spanning all industries, have been suspended from work pending investigations. On top of this cynical multi-faceted attack on Bahrain&rsquo;s independent trade unions, companies are now planning legal cases against the unions in a further attempt to permanently end their activities. 
 
Over 300 activists have been arrested with many missing, and at least 20 killed since protesters took to the street in February, inspired by popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. The violent suppression of the Bahraini people&rsquo;s reform protest has been facilitated with armed forces from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. 
 
This disgraceful attack on core human and trade union rights of the Bahraini people must end immediately.

ICEM Angered by Brutal Attack on Trade Unions in Bahrain

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="49" />
The ICEM Secretariat was stricken with grief on 4 April upon learning of the death of Liv Undheim, former Vice President of Norwegian trade union affiliate IndustriEnergi (IE). Liv Undheim died at 07h00 that morning in an Oslo hospital after a period of illness. She was 61. 
 
She was an ICEM Vice President, representing the Nordic region, and had served on ICEM statutory bodies for the past 20 years, dating to her tenure as an officer of Norsk Kjemisk Forbund, the Norwegian Chemical Workers&rsquo; Association. She was the driving force inside ICEM in the development of gender equality and women&rsquo;s activities. 
 
In a letter to IE President Leif Sande, General Secretary Manfred Warda said her advocacy in this regard made the ICEM a leading Global Union Federation on gender issues. 
 
She began working in an industrial setting in the late 1960s at Figgjo AS, a ceramics and pottery manufacturer near Stavanger. She then became a federal secretary of the Chemical Workers&rsquo; Association and served in that capacity for nine years before being elected organisation secretary of the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions (LO). In that capacity in 1997, she also became deputy minister with responsibility for energy issues. 
 
In 2001, she became Vice President of the Chemical Workers&rsquo; Association and in 2006, upon the merger of that union with the Norwegian Oil and Petrochemicals Workers&rsquo; Federation (NOPEF), she was elected Vice President of IE. She retired in October 2010 but retained the exemplary role she always performed as IE&rsquo;s head of international affairs.
<img alt="" src="" width="112" height="150" />
She also had served on a number of boards and public bodies, including the research institute FAFO, Norway&rsquo;s Labour Directorate, the Labour Inspection Authority, and many others. 
 
She was diagnosed with cancer several months ago and in February 2011 was stricken and hospitalised with pneumonia, which prevented cancer treatment. The ICEM&rsquo;s Warda said she always delivered a great deal of energy and passion to global trade union work, and &ldquo;we held hope that this same energy and passion would allow her to overcome this illness.&rdquo; 
 
He added: &ldquo;Her passing at the age of 61 is a sad moment for us here. The extraordinary work she performed for the ICEM &ndash; and for all trade unions &ndash; will carry on in her honour. We pledge to re-dedicate the many workers&rsquo; issues that she championed in her memory.&rdquo; 
 
In a statement this week from Oslo, IE President Sande said, &ldquo;Following her long and devoted service to the labour union movement we all felt with all our hearts that Liv had deserved a long and pleasant retirement together with her dear Elisabeth. The holiday to Thailand was booked and she was looking forward to spending her time reading, travelling and generally enjoying life. Instead she was struck down with cancer, having to spend her last days in a hospital. It seems so unfair. She will be deeply missed.&rdquo;
Liv Undheim's funeral will be 14 April in Oslo. Following, a memorial and commemoration of her life will be held at&nbsp;IE's offices&nbsp;there.&nbsp;

ICEM Mourns Death of Presidium Member Liv Undheim

<img src="" width="120" height="59" alt="" />
The ICEM expressed satisfaction today that the Kumho Tyre subsidiary of Kumho Asiana Group lifted its eight-day lockout on 3,400 rubber workers, members of the Korean Metal Workers&rsquo; Union (KMWU). Korea&rsquo;s second biggest tyre maker locked out workers on 25 March at factories in Gwungju and Gokseong following a one-day warning strike. 
 
The lockout ended at 14h30 today. The company rescinded its demand that workers sign individual work agreements promising not to engage in further work stoppages. In return for lifting the lockout, the Kumho Tyre Workers&rsquo; Union said it would end its industrial actions in front of the two plants. 
 
The union executed the warning strike on 25 March because Kumho refused to engage in dialogue over relevant issues in the middle of a two-year labour agreement. Those issues included giving workplace union leaders the right to maintain their union representation duties while on the job, revisions to severance packages, and health factors inside the factories. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4347-Warning-Strike-Leads-to-Lockout-at-Kumho-Tyre-Factories-in-Korea">ICEM report</a> from 28 March.) 
 
In lifting the lockout, the Kumho Tyre Workers&rsquo; Union recognised the company&rsquo;s fragile financial and market situation. The ICEM is encouraged that the two sides engaged in meaningful dialogue to end the mid-term dispute.

Kumho Tyre Lifts Lockout on Metal Workers Union in Korea

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
The ICEM this month began a search for qualified candidates to assume the duties of Mining/Diamond, Gems, Ornaments, and Jewelry Production Officer. The vacancy was created when Joe Drexler decided to leave the ICEM to resume his duties with the United Steelworkers in North America. 
 
The position will be based in Geneva. The successful candidate must have fluent written and spoken English language skills, as well as IT skills. The Mining/DGOJP position at ICEM offers an excellent salary and level of benefits. 
 
Candidates must send full details of their background in a cover letter in English, along with a CV to General Secretary Manfred Warda and ICEM&rsquo;s Finance and Administration Officer Marie-France Sarfati <a href="mailto:marie-france.sarfati@icem.org">here</a>, (or to fax no. +41 22 304 1841) by 15 February 2011. 
 
The letter of job posting can be found <a href="/index.php?id=5&amp;la=EN&amp;doc=4203">here</a>, and a job description for the position in English can be found <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/Job%20description%20mining%20and%20DGJOP%20Officer.pdf">here</a>.

ICEM Seeks Mining Officer Based in Geneva

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
RadioLabour broadcasts a daily round-up of news in the global labour movement. Now the daily broadcast is accessible from the ICEM website. 
 
The Solidarity News shows are five minutes long Monday to Thursday, and the Friday show is ten minutes long and summarizes the news of the week. 
<img src="" width="174" height="24" alt="" />
RadioLabour's news programmes are presented by international labour educator, Marc B&eacute;langer, and broadcaster, Irma Arkus. 
 
RadioLabour is also accessible via its <a href="http://www.radiolabour.net">website</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/radiolabour">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://RL-5.net">mobile phones</a>, <a href="http://www.radiolabour.net/itunes-instructs.html">iTunes</a>, UnionBook and Twitter. 
 
The ICEM is proud to provide access to this important labour communications tool.

Access RadioLabour’s Daily Broadcasts on ICEM’s Homepage

Archive