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Australian unionists protested further job cuts at two plants of Pilkington Glass in Geelong and Laverton following an announcement by General Motors Holden. The automobile manufacturer said it would discontinue its supply of windshield glass from Pilkington and begin import of the product from Thailand, thus costing 120 Pilkington jobs. Workers at the two plants, members of CFMEU, staged a three-hour stop-work protest at Holden&rsquo;s Port Melbourne auto assembly plant last week. The 120 job cuts would come only four months after Pilkington made 660 workers redundant. Unionists blame both Holden and Pilkington. The glass-maker has been unwilling to make the necessary investment for continual supply to Holden, while the auto-maker is taking advantage of a free-trade agreement the Howard government put in place with Thailand.

Cuts at Glass Plants in Australia Bring Protests to General Motors

Just two years past a bitter 84-day strike, New Zealand paperworkers of ICEM affiliate Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) are again locked in a bargaining dispute at the Kinleith mill. CHH, majority owned by US-based International Paper Co., has refused to meet EPMU&rsquo;s pay demands for over 500 workers at the market pulp and containerboard mill. The union has campaigned since February in all NZ bargaining renewals for &ldquo;5% in &lsquo;05&rdquo; but Australia and New Zealand&rsquo;s biggest paper company has offered only 4% this year and 3% in 2006. EPMU members at Kinleith have threatened industrial action if the dispute over pay and a pay parity issue with workers at another CHH pulp mill is not resolved. At a plywood mill next door to the Kinleith mill near Tokoroa, North Island, EPMU is in consultation with CHH to save and cushion job losses. The company announced it would cut 55 of 250 woodsector jobs at this mill effective 23 August. The US parent of CHH, meanwhile, has also announced that the entirety of the firm&rsquo;s assets in New Zealand and Australia are now for sale.

Paper Mill Dispute Again Surfaces in New Zealand

USW in the US expressed more concern over BP&rsquo;s safety inside American refineries after a 28 July explosion and fire at the company&rsquo;s Amoco refinery in Texas City, Texas. The incident, which caused no deaths or injuries, comes four months after a BP explosion on 23 March that killed 15 and injured 170 in Texas City. The most recent accident occurred along hydrogen lines in one of the refinery&rsquo;s Resid Hydrotesting Units, an area that removes sulphur from heavy crude. USW has been critical of the investigation in the aftermath of the 23 March blast, specifically placement of blame on workers and flawed information that was disclosed. USW Region Six Director Gary Beevers asked, &ldquo;How many accidents is it going to take for BP to get off the dime and start cooperating with us to make this plant safer?&rdquo; BP is the leading company when it comes to refinery deaths in America over the past ten years with 22. In 2003-04 alone, BP recorded over 100 accidental releases of illegal air emissions at its Texas City refinery.

More Safety Woes at BP-Amoco&#039;s Texas Refinery

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US affiliate Utility Workers of America (UWUA) is taking on National Grid USA over the company&rsquo;s intent to use contractors at two of its New England subsidiaries&mdash;Massachusetts Electric Co. and Narragansett Electric of Rhode Island. UWUA Local 330&rsquo;s contract prohibits outsourcing, and the union says National Grid&rsquo;s plan is to contract collection, metering and service-ending operations to a company called Contract Callers Inc. 
UWUA says this will not only have a detrimental effect on permanent employees, but will provide hardships to the elderly and low-income citizens of communities the utilities service. The American union has submitted the matter to arbitration, as well as filed unfair labour practice charges with the US government on the breach.

US Affiliate Utility Workers&#039; Protests Contracting Out

Canadian offshore oil workers at Hibernia, members of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP), rejected a proposed first contract in voting that was tabulated in early August. Because of the vast distances offshore workers must travel between work and home, and the fact that Hibernia&rsquo;s managing company ExxonMobil refused to allow voting to occur on the rig, CEP had to conduct a mail ballot along with information meetings and voting in St. John, Newfoundland, during June and July. CEP did not recommend a vote for acceptance or rejection on the proposed first collective agreement. Some 450 workers organised with CEP in 2001, but efforts to win certification and a first contract were hampered by ExxonMobil&rsquo;s continuous legal challenges.

Canadian Offshore Workers Reject Hibernia Contract

Workers on two North Sea oil rigs of Statoil have been listened to after they called out a lifeboat manufacturer for providing unsafe equipment. Workers on the Kristin and Veslefrikk platforms have witnessed damaged lifeboats in free-fall tests off the platforms. They reported crushed roofs and cracks in the enclosed boats. The manufacturer of the lifeboats is Umoe Schat-Harding of Norway. The issue has affected oil production from the platforms, and Statoil has complied with workers&rsquo; requests and pulled six lifeboats off rigs until Umoe Schat-Harding makes modifications.

Oil Workers Dumps Faulty North Sea Lifeboats

UK affiliate Amicus won an important court case over the EU&rsquo;s Work Time Directive for North Sea offshore oil workers. A Scottish employment tribunal ruled 26 July that offshore contractors and oil companies cannot deny annual leave to workers because of the irregular pattern of work on offshore rigs. The European Commission had previously upheld Amicus&rsquo; claim to the four-week leave provision, and last month&rsquo;s court decision from Aberdeen&mdash;considered a precedent-setting test case&mdash;negates employers&rsquo; arguments that the Work Time Directive does not apply to worksites beyond the 12-mile limit of UK&rsquo;s territorial waters.

UK Union Wins North Sea Work-time Directive

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The ICEM is alarmed at the number and scope of mining accidents that have occurred during the month of September. The Global Union Federation calls on mining houses to undertake more thorough precautionary measures regarding safety and health inside their enterprises. A look at September&rsquo;s most public tragedies reveals that companies have compromised safety for greater production, spurred by the current high commodity pricing of natural resources. 
 
Mining accidents in September brought death to hundreds of miners in India, Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. The death toll rose also in China&rsquo;s mining sector in September. In Australia, a contractor was killed inside a nickel mine; in New Zealand, ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) mourned the death of a coal miner on the South Island. 
<img height="66" alt="" src="" width="100" /> 
 
India 
The catastrophe that struck deep inside a coal mine in India&rsquo;s eastern state of Jharkhand on 6 September is characteristic of countless accidents occurring in the mineral rich Dhanbad area which usually kill small numbers of miners regularly. Only this time, at the Bhatdih mine of state-owned Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., 54 miners died. The tragic accident occurred when methane gas caused a tremendous explosion some 460 metres underground. Miners, associated to ICEM-affiliated Indian National Mineworkers&rsquo; Federation (INMF), had plumbed to that level to extricate coal from a pit known as the 17th Incline. 
 
Over 5,000 miners and family members gathered at the Bhatdih mine site, and were upset by management&rsquo;s failure to check gas levels or other safety hazards at regular intervals. INMF President Rajendra Prasad Singh, arrived at the site immediately, together with other trade union accidents. He demanded for a high-level commission to be established to investigate the causes and identify the persons responsible. 
 
Brother Singh stated that management must be held accountable. He also criticised management&rsquo;s practice of not going underground for testing and safety checks. 
<img height="66" alt="" src="" width="100" /> 
 
Ukraine 
In the Ukraine, a series of coal-mining accidents across mid-September claimed 17 miners&rsquo; lives in the eastern Donetsk region. The worst was at the Zasyadko mine, where 13 workers either suffocated or died instantly due to a gas explosion 1,300 metres underground. That tragedy occurred 20 September when 400 miners were deep in Zasyadko&rsquo;s mine shafts. Sixty-one other miners were seriously injured. 
Ukraine's Independent Industrial Trade Union of Miners, an ICEM affiliate, had one of its members killed and another injured in the accident. The union's President Michael Volynets is part of the investigation team. 
 
The Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU) made a decision at its presidium to provide financial assistance to the families of the deceased in the Zasyadko tragedy. FPU has also called on member organisations to do the same. 
 
On the same day, at the Dobropilka coal mine in the same area, three workers died of gas poisoning. They were found 450 metres down, after they had been granted permission to stop work and return to the surface because of high gas levels. On 21 September, a Ukrainian miner was crushed in a rock fall in Kirovska. Gas inhalation caused seriously trauma and injury to three miners inside the Fominske mine also on the same day. 
 
Energy markets are partly to blame for the deadly coal-mining accidents in Ukraine, numbering 133 to date this year. The country suffers from rapidly escalating natural gas prices, and the government has ordered coal production to increase by one-third or 80 million tonnes, by 2007. 
<img height="67" alt="" src="" width="100" border="1" /> 
 
Russia 
The mine tragedy in Russia&rsquo;s Chita region of Siberia on 7 September was different, but no less tragic. Twenty-five miners died inside a gold mine operated by London-based Highland Gold Mining, owner of several gold mines in Russia&rsquo;s Far East. The cause of the deaths inside the 105-year-old Darasun mine was a fire. Wooden supports are believed to have caught fire during welding. 
 
What marks this negligence was that the company had no evacuation plan in place, a ventilation system was old and decrepit, and the last notation in a safety logbook was dated May 2006, according to BBC. &ldquo;Many foreign companies, in order to increase their value &hellip; economise when it comes to observing industrial safety rules,&rdquo; stated a Russian official from the Natural Resources Inspectorate in another published report. 
<img height="67" alt="" src="" width="100" /> 
 
Kazakhstan 
In Kazakhstan, a 20 September methane explosion killing 41 in a colliery owned by Arcelor Mittal Steel turned into a full-fledged labour dispute over the course of last week. The blast occurred at the Lenin mine in the Karaganda region of the central Asian country, as 374 were working inside. The preliminary cause of the blast, determined by the Kazakh Minister of Emergency Situations, was the result of negligence and breach of safety rules. 
 
&ldquo;The cause is a lack of organisation and coordination in the operations of (maintenance),&rdquo; stated Minister Shalbai Kulmakhanov. It has been determined that ventilation pipes were being repaired when the explosion rocked the mine 560 metres underground. 
 
Six days after the disaster, coal miners struck for better working conditions and higher wages to compensate the dangerous work they do. By Friday, 29 September, they were joined by all 24,500 miners of the eight Kazakh collieries owned by Arcelor Mittal, the world&rsquo;s largest steelmaking concern. By week&rsquo;s end, 30 September, many steelworkers and iron ore miners of the India-based company &ndash; some 6,000 in total &ndash; joined the coal miners in a government-sanctioned rally at the headquarters of the company in the city of Termirtau. 
<img height="50" alt="" src="" width="100" /> 
 
New Zealand 
In New Zealand on 8 September, 47-year-old Bernard Green, an EPMU member, was crushed to death when a shaft collapsed 800 metres underground near the town of Blackball on the South Island&rsquo;s west coast. He was employed by Roa Mines, a private NZ coal company. 
 
His death prompted the EPMU to reassert a longstanding call for a return of &ldquo;check inspectors&rdquo; in the country&rsquo;s mining industry. Check inspectors are rank-and-file workers who are trained in safety procedures and who go down with miners at each and every shift. 
 
&ldquo;Check inspectors are health and safety people who are elected by the workers,&rdquo; said EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little. &ldquo;They make sure the worksite is safe, the guys have the right equipment, and the right procedures are being followed.&rdquo; 
 
Little added, &ldquo;Anything that minimises the danger must be pursued, and check inspectors are a good start. This is a very important issue for our guys, and we&rsquo;re going to make sure their voices are heard at the highest levels.&rdquo; The positions were eliminated with the reform of NZ&rsquo;s Health and Safety in Employment Act. 
<img height="50" alt="" src="" width="100" /> 
 
Australia 
In West Australia on 22 September, a contract worker was crushed to death by falling rocks inside a nickel mine owned by Consolidated Minerals Ltd. This occurred at the Kimbalda Beta Hunt mine. The 43-year-old victim, an airleg operator, had been working there for two-and-a-half years.

September’s Global Mine Tragedies Bring Concern to All

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ICEM Argentinean affiliate Sindicato &Uacute;nico de Trabajadores del Neum&aacute;tico Argentino (SUTNA) signed a historic agreement recently with the employers&rsquo; association for the rubber sector in the country. 
 
In a SUTNA publication, General Secretary Pedro Wasiejko expressed his satisfaction as, for the first time in 31 years, the union managed to reach an agreement for the entire sector. In addition to detailed salary benchmarks, the agreement contains language on a large number of positive accomplishments, including the establishment of health and safety committees, anti-discrimination measures, a 25% retirement bonus, and, perhaps most importantly, the elimination of subcontracting in the production process. 
<img height="100" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Specific salary increases were agreed for several different companies, including Pirelli, Bridgestone&rsquo;s Firestone division, and FATE S.A.I.C.I., the Argentine tyre producer. The collective agreement not only states a percentage level for basic and average salary increases at different companies, but also sets minimum salaries for the entire rubber sector. The agreement is binding on any new company that might enter Argentina&rsquo;s rubber sector. 
 
Regrettably, despite achieving the excellent labour agreement, a major problem with a tyre manufacturer occurred almost immediately: F&aacute;brica Neum&aacute;ticos de Avanzada, a company in C&oacute;rdoba, Argentina, making competition tyres, began to dismiss workers for no other reason than that they had become SUTNA members. The conflict, a clear violation of the recently signed agreement, has seen 25 workers at the plant getting the sack thus far. 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s Argentinean rubber affiliate cited &ldquo;union discrimination&rdquo; as the reason behind the sackings, because management had been attempting to set up a company union in the plant. SUTNA has staged a strike at the plant, and organised a 200-worker march from the worksite to the provincial Ministry of Work in C&oacute;rdoba. 
 
SUTNA succinctly stated: &ldquo;The conflict in C&oacute;rdoba continues.

SUTNA Signs Argentinean Master Rubber Contract, But Problem Company Persists

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Following mass meetings by members of UK&rsquo;s Transport &amp; General Workers&rsquo; Union (TGWU) and two other unions, Amicus and GMB, on 27 and 28 September, workers at Imerys&rsquo; English China Clay operations in South West England have given union leaders a mandate to ballot membership for industrial action in the coming months. 
The reasons cited include an extremely tight-fisted redundancy package, and the refusal by the Paris-based company to seriously address job retention and job creation opportunities in the face of Imerys&rsquo; July announcement to cut some 40% of 2,000 jobs in the UK. 
<img height="55" alt="" src="" width="100" />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; <img height="62" alt="" src="" width="120" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img height="70" alt="" src="" width="70" />
TGWU and the company have held several statutory consultation meetings since the July announcement, during which the company&rsquo;s intransigence in producing a fair redundancy package became clear. Another consultation session is scheduled for today, 2 October. The 90-day consultation period ends on 5 October. Amicus and GMB, which represent smaller numbers of Imerys workers, have also been part of the discussions. 
At a session in mid-September, the company presented what it called its final offer. The offer of ₤13,500 for the average worker (age 46) barely exceeds the statutory requirement, which is considered exceedingly low by most standards. Imerys also insists on capping the redundancy package at 20 years of service. Many workers in the South West have upwards of 40 years of service. 
 
&ldquo;Imerys has failed to negotiate meaningfully with the unions on redundancies,&rdquo; said TGWU National Secretary Jennie Formby. &ldquo;It also has been extremely callous in its regard for the livelihoods of workers, as well as to the communities of the South West as a whole.&rdquo; 
<img height="60" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The ICEM is actively engaged in building a global trade union network of Imerys workers in preparation for possible industrial action. A meeting in Brussels on 25 September with union leaders from the UK and the F&eacute;d&eacute;ration Force Ouvri&egrave;re (FO) Mat&eacute;riaux, C&eacute;ramique, and Thermique, the major union in France inside Imerys, produced genuine vows of solidarity.

Imerys’ Attitude Could Bring Industrial Balloting in UK’s Cornwall Region

Archive

Cuts at Glass Plants in Australia Bring Protests to General Motors

Paper Mill Dispute Again Surfaces in New Zealand

More Safety Woes at BP-Amoco's Texas Refinery

US Affiliate Utility Workers' Protests Contracting Out

Canadian Offshore Workers Reject Hibernia Contract

Oil Workers Dumps Faulty North Sea Lifeboats

UK Union Wins North Sea Work-time Directive

September’s Global Mine Tragedies Bring Concern to All

SUTNA Signs Argentinean Master Rubber Contract, But Problem Company Persists

Imerys’ Attitude Could Bring Industrial Balloting in UK’s Cornwall Region

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