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In manifestations scheduled for today and tomorrow, the Hungarian Union of Mining and Energy Industry Workers (BDSZ) and the Federation of Trade Unions in the Electric Energy Industry (EVDSZ) will turn out hundreds of workers and supporters to preserve the Vértes Power Station in northwestern Hungary. The electric generation plant, and adjoining coal mine, both subsidiaries of Hungarian Power Companies Ltd. (MVM), are in jeopardy. Today, the board of the state-run utility is meeting with bankruptcy and liquidation of Vértes the sole point on the agenda. 
 
Today’s demonstration will take place in Budapest where the board of directors meet, while tomorrow’s will take place at the Orasźlany power plant, part of the Vértes company complex. 
 
In a joint declaration by BDSZ President Ferenc Rabi and EVDSZ President Gál Rezső, the two national Hungarian trade union leaders said the decision to place immediate closure on the agenda comes without providing the necessary information to local trade unions and without full consultations. The threat of liquidation could mean the loss of 2,500 to 3,000 jobs in the region. 

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The Vértes Power Station consists of the Márkushegy mine and the Orasźlany plant, capable of generating 240 megawatts of power. The two unions insist that the power plant be maintained until at least 2014, and that the mine continue producing until the year 2020. Rabi and Rezső said the wishes of the local trade unions at the sites should be respected. Those unions have proposed an energy mix that will safeguard the environment and provide job security. 
 
The two unions, in the declaration call, on Hungary’s National Assembly today to issue a resolution supporting their actions to preserve the power plant and mine. 
 
The ICEM issued a letter of support today to Vértes workers and the two unions. In it, General Secretary Manfred Warda said, “Your manifestations today and tomorrow to preserve jobs, livable standards for families, and to keep local business enterprises around the Márkushegy mine and Orasźlany plant operable is exactly the rallying cry that workers worldwide must make to ensure sustainable futures. With a global trade union sustainability conference coming soon to Canada, your rallying cry to achieve a balance between clean environmental methods and security of employment is a leading example to all of us.”

Hungary’s Electric, Mining Unions Oppose State Liquidation of Power Company

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A general strike in Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula that started on 15 May got the ICEM’s attention and immediate support today. Called by the General Labour Union (GLU) of Yemen, the strike started because Prime Minister Ali Mujawar did not respond to demands for higher wages in the face of rampant inflation and a devalued currency. 
 
The strike started with one-hour work stoppages on 15 May and again yesterday, and will escalate to three-hour stoppages today and Tuesday, 18 April. If the government still does not respond in a week’s time, the strike will occur over the whole day on 24 May. 
 
“Following the sharp rise in prices and cost of living that has been afflicting Yemeni citizens in the last two years, GLU demands a rise in wages and salaries and the establishment of a minimum wage of at least US$300, instead of the current monthly salary of less than US$100,” stated GLU President Mohamed al-Jedri. 

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The GLU is also demanding a reduction in taxes, improved health conditions for workers, giving fixed and permanent jobs to contract workers, and improvements in living conditions. The government earlier had agreed to set up a joint committee to address GLU concerns, but that has never materialized. 
 
The strike was called for all workers in the public and private sectors, with the exception of emergency health workers, electricity, water, and air traffic control workers. The ICEM-affiliated General Union of Oil, Mining, and Chemicals Workers’ were expected to join the strike. 
 
The GLU consists of 12 general unions, 15 branches in various governorates, and totals 520,000 workers as union members.

General Strike in Yemen Gains ICEM Support

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Global trade union and civil society outrage was heard loud and clear last week by the latest setback to reconstruction in Iraq. The Iraqi government, on 20 July, invoked a ministerial order to shut and seize all offices and property of electrical workers’ trade unions. 
 
Within a day of the order, police were inventorying equipment, furniture, and files of several electrical workers’ union across Iraq, including those of two ICEM affiliates – the Electrical Power Workers’ Union of the Federation of Workers’ Council Unions of Council (FWCUI) and the General Union of Electricity Workers and Technicians (GUEWT), affiliated to the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW). GUEWT President Hashmeya Muhsen Al-Saadawi said the police were polite, yet forceful in cataloging and closing offices. 
 
In Iraq, issuance of the order and implementing it within a day is a record. Normally, administrative orders can take weeks and months to put in place. In this case, the anti-union bias of Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani is evident. He has only recently been appointed Acting Minister of Electricity. The order states that trade union leaders who stand in the way of the closures will be charged under Iraq’s 2005 Terrorism Act. 
<a href="http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/cgi-bin/campaign1.cgi"><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1004.iraq.campaign.2.jpg" width="320" height="184"/></a>
-Click for campaign website 
 
Last week’s targeting of electrical trade unions stands as a malicious muscle-play by the government to keep a ban on all public-sector unions. That ban, Order 8750, was imposed by the occupation forces in August 2005, and, in turn, had upheld a Saddam law from 1987 that banned free and independent trade unions. The electrical raids also serve as stark reminder that meaningful labour law in Iraq will be very difficult under leaders of this government. 
 
The ICEM and many other unions and NGOs, including Amnesty International, immediately protested. On 22 July, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda wrote to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki: “This order is a direct affront to all trade unions in Iraq, particularly trade unions such as the GUEWT that ICEM and its affiliated unions across the world have been working with in order to establish free and democratic institutions for the betterment of all Iraqi people.” (The full letter is <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/76.ICEM.Iraq.Electric.22july.pdf" type="internal">here</a>.) 
 
In another letter, this one to new UK Foreign Secretary William Hague by Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Secretary Brendan Barber, the decree was labeled “a violation of the Iraqi constitution, and one of the most draconian acts by the Iraqi Government since the fall of Saddam. It comes from Hussain al-Shahristani, the Minister for Oil, who has recently taken over the electricity portfolio and has a worrying track record of using Saddam-era labour laws against trade unions.” 
 
The TUC began a campaign on LabourStart to protest this willful action, and that can be joined <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=740 ">here</a>. 
 
In Iraq by week’s end, there was discrimination against trade union leaders who attempted to gather to discuss the sudden closures and seizures. At one such gathering that took place outside the offices of an electric enterprise, police came by to verbally assault trade unionists. In Basra on 22 July, union leaders did meet with some members of the Basra Governorate Council to discuss the aggressive and illegal, under Article 22 of the Iraqi Constitution, ministerial order 
 
The ICEM urges trade unions and activists to engage the Iraqi government by joining the LabourStart campaign.

Outrage at Iraq’s Raids Closing Electrical Workers’ Offices

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In Singapore, a coalition of oil workers’ unions has petitioned the government for inclusion into the Retirement Age Act, which would allow 500 workers to retire at mandatory age 62 instead of the current lower age. An appeal by the group was made to Singapore’s Manpower Ministry last week to abolish some of the 26 job categories that are exempt under the law. 
 
The coalition includes ICEM affiliate Singapore Shell Employees’ Union, the ExxonMobil Singapore Employees Union (ESEU), Singapore Refining Company Employees’ Union (SRCUE), and the United Workers of Petroleum Industry (UWPI), which represents BP, Chevron, and Singapore Refining staff. 
 
Singapore is attempting to revise provisions in its 1993 Retirement Age Act before a new employment law passes in 2012. The original retirement age in the 1993 statute was 60. In 1999, it was raised to 62. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Singapore.png" width="250" height="115" alt=""/>
But the law still excludes teachers, pilots, doctors, civil servants, police, soldiers, and other job categories. It also excludes jobs governed by a ministry in which age in occupation is a consideration regarding safety and other reasons. That includes many jobs inside refineries. 
 
Workers affected by the exemption must retire at an age negotiated between workers’ organisations and enterprises at the time the law took effect, 1993. For those in the city-nation’s important oil sector, that age is between 55 and 60. 
 
The effort by the oil workers’ unions to win Retirement Age Act jurisdiction for refinery workers has been endorsed by the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) of Singapore. Many here feel that in a tight labour market, with higher year-to-year living costs and higher life expectancies, working longer can be beneficial both to workers and to enterprises, the latter benefitting by retention of talent and experience.

Singapore Oil Unions Lobby for Statutory Retirement Coverage 

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The first round of collective negotiations in the German chemicals and pharmaceutical industries proved futile, with the employers’ BAVC Chemical Industry Association infuriating ICEM affiliate IGBCE and its 550,000 chemical workers by citing the economic crisis as the reason for not offering pay rises. 
 
Bargaining at the different state levels broke off the week of 22 March. The second round of talks will take place now at the federal level in Würzburg, Germany, on 20-21 April. Contracts for workers at some 1,900 companies expired on 31 March in some states, and expire in other German states on 30 April. 
 
At a press conference at IGBCE headquarters in Hannover on 31 March, the union made it clear that a wage increase is in order because the country’s chemicals industry has weathered the crisis, with a substantive upswing realized in the second half of 2009. 
 
Much of that can be attributed to sacrifices of workers in helping their companies cope with the crisis, including shortened work hours at reduced pay. Also in 2009, some 130,000 workers at 347 companies did not take scheduled pay increases because of the crisis. 
 
The union also cites job security as paramount in this round of negotiations. 

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Peter Hausmann
Peter Hausmann, IGBCE Governing Board member, who heads the union’s Collective Bargaining Department, said employers in the opening round of talks completely missed the union’s initiatives to continue strengthening the industry. IGBCE stressed that job and skills retention and avoiding compulsory redundancies is essential for competitiveness. The union also proposes to continue to create training opportunities for young workers. 
 
Hausmann said the employers’ response to the dedication made by German chemical workers during the economic crisis was one of ridicule, as well as ignoring the sacrifices that were made. “It was a completely absurd assessment of the economic situation,” said Hausmann, adding such posturing is not conducive to productive social dialogue. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMchemical2.jpg.JPG" width="140" height="138"/>
The IGBCE maintains that recovery in Germany’s chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors in 2009 and a bright forecast in 2010 means these industries are better positioned for immediate wage growth than other industries to resuscitate the economy. The BAVC, almost assuredly, is using February’s early settlement in the German metals and electronics sectors as a blueprint for all industries. In that, IF Metall deferred a wage increase until spring 2011. 
 
IGBCE is calling on the BAVC to return to bargaining by meeting the union’s call for further negotiated training positions to assure future competiveness. Through novel negotiating between the two parties, life-long opportunities for young workers to take skilled jobs in chemicals and pharmaceuticals increased by 9.4% between 2003 and 2008. But between 2008 and 2009, those opportunities decreased, largely due to the crisis. 
 
IGBCE is willing to take a 12-month contract in the upcoming Würzburg talks. Traditionally, the union and BAVC have negotiated two-year agreements.

German Chemicals Pact Elusive in First Round of Talks

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On 23 March, 8,000 members of the ICEM affiliate in the UK, GMB, voted for strike action against British Gas by 82%. Upon releasing the ballot results, GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny said, “It is now time for them to sit up and take notice. We are giving British Gas a week to give us a constructive response.” 
 
Last week, GMB got that constructive response. The electric and gas utility that is owned by Centrica Plc. began positive discussions with the union and as a result, threatened strike action was halted. 
 
GMB and management of British Gas issued a joint statement saying a new relationship will be “built on trust and the ability to have frank, honest debate.” The two sides will use the month of April to engage in substantive negotiations on pay and work conditions. “Neither party will be seeking to undermine the other in these talks,” read the statement. 

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Paul Kenny
As a start, the company has separated a performance management process from arbitrary discipline, something that had been used indiscriminately in recent months to reprimand engineers, service and repair mechanics, and other workers. The union and company also agreed to zero tolerance on bullying, an issue brought forward through a GMB workers’ survey that revealed overwhelmingly that a “bullying management culture” had set in. 
 
The two sides agreed also to job times. Kenny said last week’s “discussions have not been easy, but we do now have a platform on which to build relations. 
 
“It is positive that the company respects the position of GMB.” 
 
British Gas Managing Director Phil Bentley stated, “We remain committed to growth and as British Gas grows we want to create an environment in which our union relationships develop with us. Looking forward, we have the opportunity to work together with GMB to agree a new and exciting future for our engineers.” 
 
GMB’s 21 national shop stewards at British Gas will meet this week with management to formalise the process forward. A short two months ago, GMB and British Gas were completely polarised, as reflected in <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3604-GMB-to-Take-Strike-Ballot-at-British-Gas-This-Week " type="internal">this</a> ICEM dispatch then. The ICEM commends our British affiliate, and senior management of the company, in establishing the proper social protocol to resolve outstanding issues.

GMB Lifts Strike Action Against British Gas; Positive Dialogue Takes Hold

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A new 10,000-member was born early in the new year when the ICEM affiliate Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers’ Union (FLIWUL) and the National Mine Workers’ Union of Liberia merged, creating the United Workers’ Union of Liberia (UWUL). 
 
The merger, after two years of discussion, was formalised by delegates of both unions at a convention in Monrovia on 5 January. The new union has 2,600 members in mining, 1,250 in forestry, as well as 6,000 members employed at the Firestone Rubber Plantation. It also has 550 members working for the National Transit Authority, the public bus system. 
 
The union has five collective agreements and that will increase to eight in the near future. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Liberia.png" width="170" height="78"/>
FLIWUL brings ArcelorMittal mine and railroad workers into the merger, workers employed at the state’s Forestry Development Authority, as well as the Firestone workers. The National Mine Workers’ Union represents miners in the country’s western cluster of mining activity. The union is closing in on organising iron ore miners of a Chinese company. 
 
The 5 January merger convention elected four leaders from each trade union to guide UWUL, including FLIWUL David Sackoh as Secretary-General. “The mission of this merger is to unite Liberian workers to build bargaining power for decent work, mutual respect, and sustainable development at the workplace and in communities through collective action and social dialogue,” said Sackoh. 
 
The other union officers include: Aloysius S. Kie, President, who served in that capacity with the Mine Workers and as President of the Liberia Federation of Labour Unions; Oretha Tarnue, Vice President, who led FLIWUL Union No. 1, or the Forestry Development Authority Union; Dave Seneh, Deputy Secretary General for Administration; James D. Sorboh, Deputy Secretary General for Operations; Sakou Sirleaf, Treasurer; Tenneh Y. Nagbe, Chair of the Women’s Committee; and Mohammed Guss, Advisor. 
 
Sackoh’s tenure as leader of FLIWUL dates back 2003 and before that with the union’s predecessor, FLAWUL, where he organised a logging company in the West African nation. Prior to that, he headed the United Seamen’s and Port Workers’ Union of Liberia, where he landed after a career as a marine engineer. 
 
In a statement read at the early January merger convention, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda congratulated the two unions, calling the marriage “a great accomplishment and one in which the adage ‘In Unity There is Strength’ we know will prove true in Liberia.”

FLIWUL, Miners’ Union in Liberia Merge to Create United Workers’ Union

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The ICEM-affiliated National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union (SNTMMSRM) of Mexico, or Los Mineros, conducted its National Assembly 10-11 January in Mexico City. Delegates representing over 60 sections and fractions of the union, from 22 states, pledged unfaltering support for their General Secretary in exile, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, and for the national executive. 
 
The meeting confirmed the priority challenges facing Los Mineros at present during four ongoing strikes, at Cananea, Zacatecas, Taxco, and El Cubo. The National Assembly also reiterated the union’s demand for the immediate release of union officials Juan Linares Montúfar and Martín Salazar, and for an immediate end to the illegal freezing of union bank accounts by the Calderón government. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101. Mexico days of action.jpg" width="368" height="87"/>
Delegates resolved to continue the fight to bring Napoleón Gómez back to Mexico, currently made impossible by sham legal charges from the government. Los Mineros also want their democratically elected leader to be officially recognized by the authorities, which has not yet happened. 
 
Delegates pledged full support to the Global Days of Action for trade union rights in Mexico, 14-19 February, which will mark the fifth anniversary of the deadly mine disaster at Pasta de Conchos. The Days of Action will provide a strong, cross-sector trade union alliance carrying out actions across the globe, intended to pass common demands to the Mexican government through its embassies and consulates around the world. 
 
To get involved in trade union action during the week 14-19 February, email <a href="mailto:tom.grinter@icem.org">tom.grinter@icem.org</a>. See the campaign material <a href="/en/5-Mining-DGOJP" type="internal">here</a>.

National Assembly of Los Mineros of Mexico Reiterates Trade Union Demands

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For the second straight year, trade unions representing over a quarter of the 10,500 UK workers in publicly-traded electric and gas company National Grid have voted to take industrial action. Some 3,000 union members of Unite, Prospect, and Unison balloted overwhelmingly to take action short of a strike due to an inferior 2010 pay offer by National Grid. 
 
Following talks last week that saw the London-based company only reduce from three years to two its wage offerings, industrial action that would include work-to-rule and a ban on overtime could begin by month’s end. The current dispute is the second year running that profitable National Grid has proposed wage hikes below UK’s retail price increase. 
 
In 2009 pay talks, unionised National Grid workers balloted affirmatively for strike action, but labour and management agreed to a 1.3% increase before the industrial activity could begin. In talks this time, National Grid initially put forth a three-year pay offer of 2.5%, 2.25%, and 2.25%, still below inflation. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/UKUNITE.jpg" width="92" height="108" alt=""/>    <img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/UK Unison.jpg" width="150" height="62" alt=""/>    <img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/UK Prospect.jpg" width="83" height="82" alt=""/>
On 12 January, the company revised its pay proposal by offering a two-year deal of 2.5% and 2.25%, but continues to insist on certain conditions attached to the increases. The unions are seeking a one-year wage deal from 2010. 
 
In early January, the 750 mainly electrical transmissions workers that are represented by Unite the Union voted by 94% for industrial action. Grid system engineers, gas operations engineers, and field engineers, represented by Prospect and numbering 1,000, then voted by 95% for the overtime ban and work-to-rule, which means performing only the minimum level of work as specified in contracts. The 1,200 Unison members, mostly gas workers, also voted by a wide margin for industrial action. 
 
National Grid posted a 12% increase in pre-tax profits and shareholders saw an 8% increase in dividends in the first half of 2010. About the same period that unions were voting for industrial action, on 6 January UK energy regulator Ofgem levied a £8 million fine on National Grid for reporting completion of gas pipe maintenance work that was imposed by the government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE). In fact, that maintenance work had never been done. 
 
It was the second big fine in two years by Ofgem against in National Grid. In 2009, the company agreed to pay a reduced a fine of £15 million for misreporting maintenance work.

Three UK Unions on Verge of Industrial Action at National Grid

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ICEM Central European affiliate, the Independent Trade Union of Chemistry and Non-Metal Workers of Bosnia-Herzegovina (SSHN-FBIH), held its Congress is Sarajevo on 8 December 2010, and high on the agenda was ICEM involvement in a bitter backpay dispute last year with one of the union’s major employers. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda spoke at the Congress. The union re-elected the woman who fought selflessly to bring a successful conclusion to the backpay and health and safety dispute. SSHN-FBIH President Kata Iveljic was enthusiastically acclaimed again as leader of the trade union. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.bosnia congress(1).jpg" width="220" height="141" alt=""/>
The dispute involved 1,250 workers employed by Global Ispat Koksana Industtrija Lukavac (GIKIL), a sodium carbonate plant that produces coking coke for steelmaking. The enterprise is a unit of the nefarious Global Infrastructure Holdings, owned by Pramod Mittal of the Indian steel-making family. 
 
Management of GIKIL, which is operated by the Indian company but jointly owned with the Canton of Tuzla, had unilaterally rolled back wages 55% to 2003 levels, failed to pay wages during the last quarter of 2009, and neglected to heed SSHN-FBIH’s call for proper safety and health attention around coke ovens that had caused numerous cases of cancer. 
 
At last month’s Congress, Warda congratulated the union for mobilizing support beyond the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as for two successful strikes in late 2009 and early 2010 which forced the absentee Mittal brother to respond to workers’ grievances. Warda also praised the government of the Canton of Tuzla for stepping into the fray and forcing Global Infrastructure Holdings to react. The 2009 pay arrears were fully paid in February 2010 through the joint ICEM/SSHN-FBIH campaign. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1006.Mato.Lalic.jpg" width="170" height="128" alt=""/>
ICEM Central European Project Coordinator Mato Lalic
Warda also told SSHN-FBIH delegates in Sarajevo that the ICEM will continue to monitor GIKIL’s social conduct and health and safety inside the factory, located in the northern city of Lukavac. 
 
Other guests at the Congress included ICEM Central European Project Coordinator Mato Lalic and representatives from trade unions of Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia.

Chemistry, Non-Metal Workers’ Union Holds Congress in Sarajevo, Bosnia

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