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The ICEM is very happy to announce the newly available Arabic version of its website. With almost 30 ICEM affiliates in Arabic-speaking countries, the new web pages are aimed at communicating our news and message to those members, as well as to the thousands of Arabic-speaking members of ICEM affiliates throughout the rest of the world. 
 
Prominent on the Arabic page is the campaign for fair labour legislation in Iraq. ICEM Executive Committee member Hashmeya Muhsen Al-Saadawi, President of the General Union of Electricity Workers and Technicians (GUEWT) continues to lead her union under constant government harassment. As reported by ICEM in July, the Electricians union’s offices were shut and seized by the authorities on 20 July, under a ministerial order of the government.

ICEM Launches Arabic Website

Bayo is the General Secretary of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
How Prevalent is Contract and Agency Labour and Casualisation in Nigeria? 
 
CAL is increasing and alarmingly taking over Nigeria’s Oil and Gas industries. It encompasses various dimensions of precarious work and the worst forms of employment. CAL gives room for unfair labour practices that are repugnant to decent work principles. About 60% of our workforce is now composed of contract and agency workers. Standard, permanent employment is declining. 
 
Is the Issue of Casualisation and Temporary Work Practices a Bigger Problem than it was Before? 
 
The issue is a bigger problem in the Nigeria Oil and Gas Sector now than it was before due to the fact that employers and the government’s standpoint is that CAL is now a reality that cannot be wished away. This leaves trade unions with no other option than to tackle the adverse effects of CAL, which are: 
 
• Use of this work practice to replace direct and permanent employment; 
• To adversely change employment forms and conditions, to avoid social responsibilities and obligations which employers circumvent through gaps and inadequacies in our extant laws; 
• To weaken trade union membership, solidarity and relevance, and to prevent union organising and recognition of the collective bargaining principle; 
• It widens the exploitation gaps particularly by user enterprises who prefer to minimise cost and increase profit, at the expense and detriment of labour; 
• It increases workplace discrimination and inequitable terms and conditions of employment; 
• It seriously challenges trade union ability to protect job security; 
• There are conflicts in the definition of employment relationships and the obligations of user enterprises, particularly where laws and employment regulatory agencies do not clarify these issues; 
• And an underlying factor, casualisation and temporary work is a growing phenomenon due to the unemployment situation. Employers are exploiting workers’ desperation for a means of subsistence for their own profit mongering. 
 
 
What are Differences in Nigeria Regarding Working Conditions Between CAL Workers and Permanent Workers? 
 
Number one, casual and temporary workers are subjected to conditions that are not in accord with the general work conditions in the Oil and Gas Sector. Where CAL workers are lucky and are allowed to organise and bargain collectively, the mandate for negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement is seriously curtailed by the contracts between the contractors and agencies on the one side and by the primary enterprise on the other side. 
 
In addition, these workers are subject to limited or no provisions for basic welfare, pensions and social security, health, safety, security and environmental protection, and other stipulated core ILO conventions. And to cite just one small example, Global Framework Agreements that are signed with Global Union Federations, where functional, are not usually made available and applicable to contract and agency workers. 
 
Any set of negotiations in Nigeria that involves a collective agreement for these workers is prone to grievances, disputes, threats, resistance, and action from labour unions, contractors and agencies, and user enterprises. 
 
What are the Main Ways in which Trade Unions are Supporting Casual and Contract and Agency Labour Workers? 
 
It has become a priority to use union resources and machineries to mobilise support and confront the overall denial that contract and agency workers’ rights have not right to organise and bargain collectively. We are doing this through increases levels of sensitisation through mobilisations, campaigns, solidarity actions, protests, rallies, pickets, strikes, media work, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, and litigation. 
 
We now have the task of entrenching the more effective and protective organising and collective bargaining strategies for contract and agency workers, with financial and organisation support from our union’s Union Solidarity Reserve fund, from organisations like the ICEM, Friedrich-Ebert Foundation of Germany, and the US Solidarity Center. 
 
We are constantly implementing union resolutions, directives, and decisions in the area of campaigns, lobbying, engagements, and advocacy for contract and agency workers’ issues. 
 
Which Ways Do You Feel the ICEM’s Global Campaign on CAL can be Helpful and Most Effective in Confronting the Challenges of CAL in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Sector? 
 
The Global CAL Campaign of the ICEM must use donors’ resources and mechanisms to mobilise support and confront resistance to full rights of contract and agency workers to organise and bargain collectively. The ICEM must increase awareness of the CAL situation, by all possible means, and it must effectively implement the Campaign through communication, engagement and evaluation, and correcting deviations/gaps in the global campaign strategies. 
PENGASSAN’s best hope is that the ICEM will carry out advocacy and lobbying for fair labour policies and laws which are favourable to contract and agency workers, as to campaign for best practices in dealing with employment and working conditions issues relating to this most serious issue.

Interview: Bayo Olowoshile, PENGASSAN General Secretary

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The rescue of 33 miners, trapped 47 days today 700 metres under Chile’s Atacama desert, brightened considerably over the weekend. On Friday, 17 September, one of two rescue drills perforated a ceiling of a work room near where the miners are entrapped. And yesterday, 19 September, a third drill began boring a separate rescue hole. 
 
An oil-drilling rig, made by a Canadian manufacturer and leased to Chilean state oil company ENAP, began boring Sunday through high-silica rock to get to 597 metres and an area 300 metres from where the miners are trapped. 
 
But the big news at the weekend was the American-built Schramm T-130 reaming through ceiling rock of a workshop at 624 metres. That lifted hope and renewal, across Chile, particularly with Saturday, 18 September, being the celebration of Chile’s bicentennial independence. The miners, already frustrated and bedeviled by topside doctors and psychologists controlling supply tubes, celebrated Independence Day with song and dance, and roasted meat pies and pasties, a diet different than the usual one of liquid nutrients and vitamin juices.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Chile Flag.jpg" width="140" height="93"/>
Top side, the Schramm T-130 drill was changing bits in order to re-drill the hole to a wider 74 centimeters. 
 
Two mine-drilling rigs have been operating since 31 August and early September, with South African mine, construction, and engineering giant Murray & Roberts overseeing operations through Chilean associates Terraservices and Cementation Sudamerica. The first to begin drilling, an Australian-made Strata 950 Raisebore drill developed by South African company RUC Cementation that is boring a 38 centimeter hole, temporary stopped drilling last week at 250 metres for maintenance purposes. The Strata 950 is built for raise-boring of holes from one underground area to another, and was transferred to the site from state-owned Codelco’s Andina mine. 
 
The larger Schramm T-130 rig, made by US-based Center Rock Inc. that is blind reaming another hole, hit a steel support beam in an abandoned shaft at 268 metres on 11 September, causing a two-day delay before spare parts were flown in. But days later, it had drilled through to an area close to the entrapped miners. 
 
Those 33 miners, employed at the San Jose mine of junior miner Campañia Minera San Esteban Primera, escaped their deaths on 5 August when a shaft collapsed due to an explosion. The San Esteban company, a family-owned enterprise that stands now as a black mark on Chilean safety regulations inside non-major mining companies, extracts copper and gold and sells to Codelco. As a result of the mine collapse and entrapment, San Esteban has filed bankruptcy. 
 
A Chilean court has seized the firm’s assets of US$1.8 million, or €1.43 million, but the state has not made arrangements over lost wages. For sure, 100 San Jose miners who were not underground on 5 August, as well as another 170 San Esteban miners at the neighbouring San Antonio mine, are not being paid wages. Reportedly, Campañia Minera San Esteban’s insurance carrier is responsible for wages of the trapped miners. 
 
Together with the Murray & Roberts contractors, Chilean state officials and officials of Codelco are leading the rescue, and the use of three separate bore holes is intended to give the greatest chance of faster freedom to the miners. The oil-drilling rig, Rig 421, is expected to reach 597 metres and is drilling away from the other rescue drills because its heavier size likely would cause rock slides. 
 
Once widening occurs by the mine-drilling rigs, as it begins today for the Schramm T-130, a steel “rescue pod” will be erected by both the miners below and technicians on top in order to lift the miners out one at a time in the 15-minute ride to the surface. 
 
Estimates of when the miners will earn and win their freedom have now been moved up, perhaps to happen in early November.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1009.chile.mine.rescue.jpg" width="191" height="128"/>
In the meantime, and perhaps the biggest indignity for miners still working for a bankrupt company, has their strength been restored enough to clear the rock and construct the cage to ensure rescue? They suffer from skin sores, foot fungi, and abrasions caused by handling rock. With temperatures at 35 degrees Centigrade and humidity at 88%, the risk of infections and bacteria in a low-oxygen environment is very high. Three, small, 15-centimetre holes used to ferry capsules of food, liquids, medicines, and other essentials is now their only portage to the outside. 
 
The ICEM has received scores of requests from trade unions seeking to lend support to the miners. The ICEM has been in contact with one of the leaders of Union No. 2 of Compania Minera San Esteban, its Secretary, Javier Castillo, and we encourage trade unions and trade unionists to send messages of goodwill to the miners at <a href="mailto:jcastillojulio@gmail.com">jcastillojulio@gmail.com</a>. 
 
The ICEM also congratulates the humanity and solidarity shown from throughout the world to the trapped miners of Union No. 2. In just one example of such solidarity, through a call by Australia’s Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU), hundreds of construction workers in West Australia at a building site donated A$50 each to pay for food, housing, and other costs for family members. That inspiring response to the now longest underground mine survival in human history is being repeated in one form or another by trade unions and others all across the world.

Rescue of Chilean Miners Hits Stride

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Coal-mining unions from Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Spain agreed last week in unity to ask the European Commission to extend its deadline for the elimination of state subsidies on the production of coal. Last spring, the Commission moved to eliminate completely any Member State from granting coal subsidies to coal-fired generating plants after 31 December 2010, but that was amended slightly in July to give a very limited extension of certain subsidies until 2014. 
 
German union IGBCE last week conducted a unity tour together with Works Council leaders of the country’s coal producer, RAG, to Hungary, Poland, and Spain. What they found was undivided consensus that the sudden curtailment of state subsidies at year end will create social conflicts, much like what is now occurring in Spain.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/HUNGARYBDSZ.gif" width="84" height="102"/>
Hungarian Mining & Energy Union, BDSZ 
 
The trade unions of the coal-producing countries, IGBCE, NSZZ Solidarność of Poland, the Mining and Energy Workers’ Union BDSZ of Hungary, and mining and energy unions of both Spanish federations, UGT and CC.OO, pledged to work through their respective governments to change the Commission’s current policy. 
 
“The regulation proposal helps neither the coal-producing countries of Germany, Poland, Spain, and Hungary, nor the non coal-producing countries of the European Union,” stated IGBCE President Michael Vassiliadas, who led the travel delegation. “The subsidies do not create unfair competition in the EU. In comparison to the little that is gained in environmental protection, more (social costs) will be lost due to imported coal replaced domestic coal,” said Vassiliadas.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0907.Michael Vassiliadis.jpg" width="140" height="119"/>
IGBCE President Michael Vassiliadas 
Further, the unions claim that revoking the subsidies is counter-production to jobs creation coming out of the financial crisis. Coal accounts for 30% of European electricity generation, and 17% of total energy consumption in the EU.

European Mining Unions Reject Commission’s Coal Subsidies Policy

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Two sharp-edged coal disputes in Queensland and New South Wales are concluding, with branches of ICEM Australian affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) gaining the best possible terms for some combined 570 mineworkers. 
 
In northern Queensland, 233 miners employed by mining contractor Theiss of Leighton Holdings at the Collinsville mine reached terms within an enterprise agreement with Theiss in early September that provides them wage increases, improved housing allowances, and job security. 
 
The two-year-long dispute erupted late in July 2010 when miners launched a continuous strike. The 16-day strike was heroically marked by miners, spouses, and partners blocking tracks and turning back trains loaded with coal. The Collinsville mine is majority-held by Xstrata but Theiss and Leighton, a subsidiary of German construction giant Hochtief, operate the mine exclusively.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1002.tahmoor.xstrata.australia.jpg" width="251" height="189"/>
CFMEU Members at the Tahmoor Mine 
The other long dispute coming to conclusion is with Swiss-based Xstrata at the Tahmoor mine in New South Wales. Some 240 miners likely will vote approvingly for the company’s last offer this week. If approved, the CFMEU will retain enterprise labour agreements under Fair Work Australia, something that Xstrata was resisting in attempting to roll back union-protected work rules to the days of former Tory Prime Minister John Howard. 
 
The 22-month dispute at Tahmoor was marked by lockouts and strikes, the latest a 19-day lockout that ended 7 September. During that lockout, a Fair Work Australia judge turned back Xstrata Coal’s application to scrub the enterprise agreements at Tahmoor, basically stating that CFMEU had the legitimate workplace right to protect job security. 
 
Xstrata was seeking broad flexibility over workplace policies and procedures, without union involvement, while the union sought assurances against job replacements by contractors and greater roles in rosters and other on-the-job work rules.

Coal Strikes in Australia Wrapping to Conclusions

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The conference held in Oslo, Norway, on 13 September by the ILO and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided rhetoric giving economic redress to the great financial crisis, but it must now be followed up with prompt action on job creation, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). 
 
The conference, entitled “The Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion,” produced plenty of well-intentioned talk toward developing policies that promote job-creating growth, but the ITUC – one of the participants at the conference – stressed the importance of the ILO and IMF acting jointly and immediately on a job-centred recovery to pull tens of millions of the world’s citizens from impoverished conditions. 
 
“The ILO should be fully integrated into the G20’s Mutual Assessment Process,” stated ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow, adding that national policies must adopt progressive taxation, quality public service agendas, expanded collective bargaining and better workers’ protections, and respect for the world’s core labour standards.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Sharon.Burrow.ITUC.jpg" width="110" height="131" alt=""/>
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow 
She also said that it is crucial that wage increases keep pace with growing productivity in order to stop the income decline of working people. 
 
“In the face of the persisting global employment deficit, the IMF should encourage countries, including those that borrow from the Fund, to adopt and maintain job-intensive stimulus policies until recovery is self-sustaining and unemployment is falling to pre-crisis levels,” said Burrow. 
 
The IMF’s General Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was pointed in his remarks at the conference. “The labour market is in dire straits,” he said. “The Great Recession has left behind a wasteland of unemployment, and this devastation threatens the livelihood, security, and dignity of millions of people across the world.” 
 
A joint ILO-IMF report said 30 million jobs had been lost due to the crisis, 75% of which occurred in developed nations. The IMF admitted that the percentage of workers laid off for long terms has grown with each economic downturn for decades, but that figures for such from the recent financial crisis have surged even more dramatically. 
 
The Oslo conference, hosted by the Norwegian government, was attended by four heads of state – Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, Liberia President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, and Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg – as well as seven national ministers and 25 trade union leaders.

ILO, IMF Oslo Conference on Crisis Now Demands Immediate Action

In April 2010, ICEM SSARO unanimously adopted a resolution to oppose the investment in Africa by Vale, the multinational mining giant of Brazil. The purpose was to prevent a global decline in mining labour standards due to the anti-union practices of Vale, throughout the world and particularly in Canada where the company forced over 3,500 miners on strike. 
 
ICEM SSARO also took note that Vale had established a partnership with African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) of South Africa to assist Vale in developing new mines and smelters on the African continent. 
 
Despite representations to the contrary made by Vale and ARM, there is little evidence that Vale has changed its attitudes and behaviour. Even after settling two year-long strikes in Canada, when the United Steelworkers agreed to accept some significant concessions, Vale boasted that it had won a power struggle, instead of trying to rebuild the strained relationship with its employees. Vale refused to settle a third strike in Voisey’s Bay, Canada, and is demanding that the largely aboriginal workers accept lower standards than what was agreed at the other sites. 
 
Recently, the ICEM and International Metal Workers (IMF) met with Vale officials in Geneva at the request of the company. Vale called for continued social dialogue with the two global trade union federations. The ICEM and IMF stated that social dialogue can only proceed if Vale demonstrates a willingness to change its policies and practices toward trade unions. 
 
So far, there is no evidence that Vale has changed its policies and practices. 
 
SSARO trade unions in South Africa, Zambia, Liberia and Guinea have been in the forefront of opposing Vale’s expansion in Africa and that of its surrogate, ARM. These trade unions have stated clearly that complete respect for trade union, community and environmental rights is a fundamental condition that multinational mining companies must meet to gain access to Africa’s riches. Vale has not met this condition. 
 
SSARO hereby reaffirms its opposition to Vale investment in Africa. SSARO affiliates will continue to educate its governments and it citizens of the dangers of allowing Vale to operate in their respective countries and will oppose all Vale investments in Africa and those of its surrogates until Vale demonstrates a willingness to drop its anti-union behaviour. 
 
ICEM SSARO also stressed the critical importance of involving and working more closely with Brazilian trade unions in the effort to stop Vale’s export of anti-union practices and to strengthen the position of trade unions wherever Vale operates.

Vale Resolution -- SSARO 

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The ICEM’s Sub-Sahara Africa Regional Organisation (SSARO), at its Executive Committee Meeting in Mauritius, 27-28 September, adopted a resolution affirming continued commitment to challenge mining multinational Vale in Africa. “SSARO affiliates will oppose all Vale investments in Africa and those of its surrogates until Vale demonstrates a willingness to drop its anti-union behaviour,” states the resolution. 
 
The resolution was adopted unanimously by the ICEM African affiliates, building on their commitment of 6 April during the ‘Week of Action on Vale’ when SSARO’s Executive Committee denounced Vale’s attacks on workers in Canada and throughout the world, and resolved to oppose the investment of Vale in Africa. 
 
Vale continues hostile demands on workers at Voisey’s Bay, Newfoundland, Canada, to accept large concessions and worse terms than those agreed in settling the bitter disputes at Sudbury and Port Colborne. The corporate management of Vale maintains the unacceptable position that they cannot intervene in the dispute, instead settlement must be reached by local management and workers. 
 
The ICEM and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) have been fighting a global campaign against Vale’s anti-union practices and efforts to spread their intolerable treatment of workers to Africa and throughout the world. 
 
“The ICEM affiliates of Africa have shown their strength in unity by confronting the second largest mining company in the world, and refusing their anti-worker practices. We salute them for this and pledge our full continued support to the campaign,” stated ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. 
 
The opposition to Vale in Africa includes the 50/50 joint venture between Vale and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), a South African mining company that acts as a gateway for Vale to Africa’s mineral resources. 
 
Vale has begun construction of the Konkola North Project in Zambia, where the Brazilian multinational plans to invest US$400 in the copper mine. This is strongly opposed by the Mineworkers Union of Zambia (MUZ), who have questioned the legality of the mine’s lease. 
 
ICEM affiliates in South Africa, Zambia, Liberia, and Guinea have been at the forefront of opposing Vale expansion. Unions have been informing government officials on Vale’s global misconduct, and of their demand that Vale move to settle the dispute at Voisey’s Bay before entry of the company is considered. 
 
“The global campaign will benefit all mining unions. We cannot allow Vale’s practices to be imported into Africa or any other continent for that matter,” stated ICEM Director of Industry & Corporate Affairs Joe Drexler. 
 
View the Resolution in its entirety <a href="/index.php?id=25&la=EN&doc=4022" type="internal">here</a>. 
 
Participants at the meeting approved the joint proposal of the United Steelworkers (USW) to hold a regional meeting on Vale in Africa. In these decisions, SSARO emphasised the importance of closer contact with trade unions in Brazil and Mozambique.

ICEM SSARO Endorses Continued Campaign on Vale

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With the rescue of 33 trapped Chilean miners perhaps only two weeks away, early October events at the San José mine near Copiapó in northern Chile centered on activity on the surface and in courtrooms. Relatives of 27 of the 33 miners filed lawsuits last week against both the government and Campañia Minera San Esteban Primera seeking a total of US$12 million while in a separate court case, a Northern Region III prosecutor brought criminal charges against San Esteban’s two owners, plus the mine manager and operations manager over a 5 July rock slide in which a miner lost a leg. 
 
Meanwhile, a group of Chilean trade unions from the mining, metals, and energy sectors, after conducting two days of meetings in Copiapó in late August, issued a terse manifesto holding the government responsible for safety lapses inside the San José mine. That manifesto cites the inherent flaws inside Chile’s diverse workplace safety system, a system that excludes participatory roles for workers and their trade unions on safety matters. 
 
The Chilean trade unions drafting the manifesto also cite a government that is unwilling to engage in tri-partite dialogue to improve mine safety conditions, including refusing initiatives to discuss ratification of ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention. That manifesto, in Spanish, can be seen <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/MANIFIESTO_DE_COPIAPO.pdf" type="internal">here</a>. 
 
The ICEM today sent a second letter to Chile’s government regarding the San José tragedy, this time to Mining Minister Laurence Golborne calling on the government to revamp its preventative safety practices. That letter can be accessed <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMletters/116.ICEM.Chile.MiningMinister.4Oct.pdf" type="internal">here</a>. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1009.chile.mine.rescue.jpg" width="191" height="128"/>
Scene at San José on 5 August
The lawsuit filed 30 September by the relatives of the 27 calls for damages totaling US$10 million against the company, and another US$2 million against the government and a state regulatory agency, the National Geological and Mines Services, for allowing the San José mine to reopen in 2008 following a fatal accident in 2007. 
 
The criminal case by a miner who had his leg amputated from a rock slide in July was brought against San Esteban owners Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny, mine manager Pedro Simunovic, and operations manager Carlos Pinilla. The regional public prosecutor of Atacama ordered the four not to leave the country during a 90-day investigation of the incident. 
 
The 33 miners are in relatively good health and trapped 700 metres underground. The rescue by three separate drilling rigs (see prior ICEM dispatch <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4006-Rescue-of-Chilean-Miners-Hits-Stride" type="internal">here</a>) continues with the Schramm T-130 drill advancing to 428 metres over the weekend in the widening of a smaller hole it made two weeks ago. 
 
That drill was idled on Saturday, 2 October, for a change in parts, but continued drilling yesterday. A larger oil drilling rig, called Rig 421, is making a single bore in hopes of coming to an area near where the miners are trapped. But Rig 421 drilling stopped over the weekend so technicians could change the directional course. The smaller mine drilling rig, a Strata 950 Riasebore drill, has been temporarily idled, but is due to restart its mission this week. 
 
Once a hole 66 centimeters across is made that reaches near where the miners are, it will take about eight days to erect a metal framing encasement – from both above and below – for a rescue capsule to fit that will take each miner to the surface. It is expected that all three holes will be fitted in the event a failure occurs in one. 
 
The miners became trapped on 5 August, following an underground explosion that caused mine shafts to collapse. Miraculously, they were discovered alive on 22 August. Thirty-two of the miners are Chileans, while one is a Bolivian national.

Story Line of Chilean Mine Rescue Shifts to the Surface

Following the release in Nigeria early this week of four journalists and their driver, and of a trade union leader of Pengassan, ICEM’s white-collar oil and gas workers’ affiliated union, the Geneva-based International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) calls on the new government of President Goodluck Jonathan to bolster security, thoroughly investigate and prosecute, and root out rogue elements in law enforcement that may be perpetuating the heinous kidnap-for-ransom industry that again strickens the Niger Delta. 
 
“Crimes of kidnapping, extortion, corruption seriously tarnish Nigeria throughout the world,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “It is up to the new President to eradicate it, to eradicate it in such a way that it is gone forever, and to make sure that those responsible are punished to the full extent of the law.” 
 
The ICEM notes the fact that the recent spate of kidnappings, including the highly publicized abduction of trade unionists leaving the National Executive Council meeting of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) on 11 July, occurred in the states of the Niger Delta. The ICEM is deeply concerned over the safety and security of Nigerian nationals working in the oil and gas sectors of the Delta.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaPengassan.JPG" width="120" height="126" alt=""/>
  
More and more, the targets are Nigerians who have achieved a certain level of prosperity through their work and their technical expertise in energy production. The ICEM points to the recent abduction, and release on 18 July, of Issa Ilbrahim, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (Pengassan) branch chairman of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.’s (NNPC)’s Department of Petroleum Resources. 
 
He was kidnapped in Imo State at an airport along with his wife. His wife was released earlier and Ilbrahim was subsequently released on 18 July after a small ransom was paid. But those who committed this cowardly crime remain free. 
 
The ICEM also calls attention to two Pengassan members – Danjuma Bashir and Malabu Abubakar Ahmad, both NNPC staff at Nigerian Petroleum Development Co. Ltd. – who were abducted in March 2010 near Mosogar village, Delta State, while on their way to a post-graduate programme in energy and petroleum economics at Delta State University. A week later, their decomposed bodies were found in the bush riddled with bullet holes, suggesting they were killed execution style before their bodies were mutilated. Nigerian federal and state police are no closer to solving the case than when they came across the bodies of the trade unionists on 20 March. 
 
The ICEM commends the Nigerian government and police in the investigation, manhunt, and subsequent release of the four journalists and their driver, NUJ Lagos State Council Chair Wahab Obba, NUJ Area Secretary Adolphus Okonkwo, NUJ Lagos State Council Secretary Sylvester Okere, Lagos journalist Sola Oyeyipo, and driver Azeez Yekini. But it also is mindful that this particular kidnapping in the Niger Delta received wide attention, both inside and outside Nigeria. 
 
“The prevailing fear and insecurity caused by the criminal enterprising that carry out these despicable acts is a plague upon Nigeria,” said Warda. “The new federal administration of President Goodluck Jonathan now has the opportunity be act with strength, with force, and without hint of impunity to eliminate this menace. For the betterment of a critical industry to Nigeria, and for Nigerian nationals who are building this industry into global respectability, we call on the President to make this commitment.” 
 
The ICEM is a Global Union Federation, representing 367 industrial trade union affiliates in 132 countries. 
 
For further information, contact ICEM Information Officer Dick Blin, <a href="mailto:dick.blin@icem.org">dick.blin@icem.org</a>, +41 22 304 1842, or +41 79 734 8994 (mobile).

ICEM Demands Nigerian Government Crack Down on Kidnappings

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