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The two Spanish ICEM affiliates in the oil and gas sector, FIA-UGT and FITEQA-CC.OO., jointly issued a call for a two-day general strike of all gas and petrol station workers, set for 7-8 November. In total, the strike would affect 41,500 workers, spread over some 8,700 petrol stations across Spain. 
 
The unions are protesting against a series of bad working conditions. Workers often work extra hours just in order to cope financially; they earn only &euro;800-900 euros a month, before taxes. They also face &ldquo;excessive rotation and temporary work,&rdquo; including shift and weekend work. Other issues include dangerous working conditions, specifically regarding frequent robberies, and the fact that workers are expected to perform extra shop duties without extra pay. 
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UGT and CC.OO. want a new three-year collective agreement to include a substantial salary increase and a reduction in average working hours. The unions say their demands are very reasonable, certainly given the current profits by the multinationals that control the distribution sector. 
 
And they remain open to negotiations with the employers. A meeting last week, however, failed to bring parties closer to an agreement. The unions and employers are meeting again tomorrow, in a last attempt to avoid a strike. Hopes are not that high though, since negotiations for this sector have been stalled since March.

Spanish Petrol Station Workers Threaten Two-Day Strike

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ICEM North American affiliated United Steelworkers (USW) and Stora Enso applauded an innovative labour agreement at four paper mills located in the state of Wisconsin, following union membership ratification on 17 January. 
 
The labour accord, covering some 1,400 USW members, is a five-year contract that will now backdate to 30 April 2005. It expires in 2010. It contains wage increases of 9% over the term of the agreement, and a US$3,000 ratification bonus also was negotiated. 
 
The agreement provides job security for all union members against contract labour, and gives USW local unions a strong voice in workplace redesign and restructuring at the paper mills in central Wisconsin. Workers also will be awarded quarterly bonuses for the redesign. The collective agreement contains language pledging Stora Enso to be neutral in union organising efforts, and contains a successorship clause in the event any facility is sold. It also brings all the mills under the same collective bargaining expiration date. 
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&ldquo;These negotiations are a model for improving the competitiveness of the US paper industry in the world market,&rdquo; said USW President Leo Gerard. &ldquo;Stora Enso recognizes that high productivity is tied to high road employee relations.&rdquo; 
 
Added USW Paper Sector Vice President Dick LaCosse, &ldquo;The willingness of Stora Enso and the USW to forge a new path in collective bargaining will make the company and union stronger.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;Simply put,&rdquo; said USW District 2 Director Jon Geenen, &ldquo;companies that rely on confrontation with the union lose a competitive advantage. Those that focus on working with the union to find innovative solutions benefit from it.&rdquo;

USW Achieves Innovative Collective Agreement with Stora Enso in US

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The Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada used 22 January as a National Day of Action in Canada to expose a government devoid of effective policies on halting job losses in the pulp, paper, and the forestry sector. Together with local branches, the CEP waged a massive e-mail campaign aimed at MPs and Premier Stephen Harper, and conducted a symposium in Ottawa on the jobs crisis. 
 
CEP also aired radio advertisements across Canada, demanding urgent action from Parliament on the issue. 
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&ldquo;The industry is facing unprecedented hardship impacting on more that 300,000 Canadians who depend on it for their livelihoods,&rdquo; said CEP President Dave Coles. &ldquo;There are solutions to this crisis, solutions based on the fair treatment of workers and their families, sustainable forest practices, value-added productivity, and more. But the first step is to break the silence and open discussions with all parties affected.&rdquo; 
 
The CEP symposium on Parliament Hill heard from labour leaders, elected officials from affected areas, representatives from the Forest Products Association of Canada, and members of Parliament. Coles said, &ldquo;The survival of dozens of communities are threatened, and yet we have had very little response from the federal government.&rdquo; 
 
The CEP reported at an ICEM statutory meeting last year that, in the preceding two years in the paper sector alone, 34 full, partial, or permanent mill closures had occurred, costing 7,000 jobs.

CEP Draws Attention to Massive Job Losses in Canadian Forestry Sector

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A three-week strike by ICEM Belgian affiliate&nbsp;La Centrale G&eacute;n&eacute;rale FGTB against ArjoWiggins is expected to end today at two paper mills. Union members over the weekend voted, by a 62% margin, to approve an amended company proposal that calls for a restructuring of the two Wallonian mills. 
 
Union members had twice before rejected the company&rsquo;s proposed social plan, once on 15 January, and again on 23 January. French-based ArjoWiggins is closing a paper mill and converting operation in Nivelles, and will transfer the paper converting portion there to the company&rsquo;s paper mill in Virginal-Samme. 
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The restructuring was to make 147 workers redundant, as well as 80 temporary employees. The company manufactures carbonless writing and printing papers at both locations. ArjoWiggins future plans for Nivelles are to use the mill merely for warehousing and logistics. 
 
The company and workers&rsquo; representatives, led by FGTB, came to a satisfactory agreement on 26 January, after pressure was brought on the company by both federal and provincial employment ministries. Belgium&rsquo;s federal labour ministry will conduct a final conciliation hearing on the dispute tomorrow, 30 January. 
 
ArjoWiggins is owned by the French holding company Sequana Capital, formerly called Worms &amp; Cie. Sequana is primarily owned by the Agnelli family of Italy.

Belgian Paper Strike at ArjoWiggins Ends

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The Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) on 22 January issued a call to enhance the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, in order for the Guidelines to become more transparent and more thoroughly implemented. The proposals from the DGB come at the outset of Germany&rsquo;s G8 Presidency term. 
 
The national labour centre&rsquo;s plan includes creating an inter-ministerial structure for National Contact Points (NCP) that will provide more efficient and pro-active case work. DGB also proposes to expand transparency among NCP offices through better public dissemination of cases, as well as insisting that the NCP&rsquo;s annual report to the OECD Investment Committee also includes those cases that the NCP decides not to move forward. The reasons for such decisions must be explained in a public declaration, DGB states. 
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A third proposal is to have the Guidelines codified in EU legislation, as well as established as the international benchmark for corporate social responsibility. In this, DGB calls on Germany and other countries to provide greater financial commitment to the OECD. This proposal also includes making the complaints procedure easier, and giving only MNCs who pledge, in writing, to comply with the Guidelines access to foreign trade instruments. 
 
&ldquo;The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have proven to be the strongest international instrument to date for promoting corporate social responsibility,&rdquo; states the DGB. &ldquo;In practice, however, their implementation encounters limits. 
 
&ldquo;The DGB takes the view that the OECD Guidelines hold the potential to promote corporate social and environmental responsibility worldwide and to make an effective contribution to sustainable development and to the social dimension of globalisation.&rdquo;

DGB Trade Union Confederation Calls for Strengthening OECD Guidelines

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German ICEM affiliate IGBCE has called recent statements by Economic Affairs Minister Michael Glos &ldquo;irresponsible,&rdquo; referring to the federal minister&rsquo;s remarks that the stock market listing of German coal and industrial company RAG as a publicly-traded company must be tied with the removal of coal subsidies. 
 
IGBCE President Hubertus Schmoldt challenged the comments on the eve of a summit on Germany&rsquo;s hard-coal industry, which began yesterday in Berlin. &ldquo;The economic minister endangers the coal discussions and creates an unnecessary uncertainty for 100,000 people,&rdquo; said Schmoldt. RAG employs some 100,000 German workers in coal mines, power stations, chemical enterprises, and in real estate. 
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Glos has sided with provincial authorities in the provinces of North Rhine-Westphalia and in Saarland, who have called for the end of German subsidies to the coal industry. He has proposed that the capital raised from RAG&rsquo;s listing could be used as a replacement for coal subsidies. 
 
Schmoldt termed the plan &ldquo;adventurism,&rdquo; and called on the federal government to take more responsibility to assure a future for the 100,000 workers. &ldquo;This is no way to run politics,&rdquo; said Schmoldt, adding that the workers of RAG expect to be treated fairly inside a publicly-traded company. He said the listing of RAG is an opportunity for the German federal government to create long-term employment. 
 
RAG is expected to be floated on the Berlin stock market in the second quarter of this year.

IGBCE Blasts Plan to Link RAG’s Public Listing with Removal of Coal Subsidies

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The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa gave Impala Platinum a seven-day ultimatum to respond to demands to improve health care services at the Impala Mine Hospital near Rustenberg, North West State. 
 
The ultimatum was given when miners staged a 23 January march on the hospital. NUM is protesting unfair and inferior treatment of union members at the facility. The union also accuses mine management, doctors, and hospital administrators of denying antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for treatment of HIV-AIDS. 
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&ldquo;We &hellip; condemn the collusion by both the management of Impala Mine and Impala Hospital that seeks to marginalize those not falling with a particular medical aid,&rdquo; NUM said in a statement last week. 
 
The collusion includes charges that managers and medical facilitators make gravely ill staff continue working underground, failing which, they are terminated with insufficient severance money. 
 
The NUM&rsquo;s demands include dismissal of doctors who are denying ARV treatments. The union also cites a host of incidents in which inferior health care was given. NUM said that if the demands were not addressed by 30 January, rolling industrial action would begin. 
 
Impala Platinum employs some 26,000 workers in South Africa. 
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At another platinum mine in the country, NUM union members began a strike on 26 January. Over 2,000 miners downed tools at Modikwa Platinum in Limpopo, Northern State, demanding an end to racism. 
 
The NUM branch there states that both pay and working conditions for white workers is better than that of black workers. The branch union also charges that recruitment and hiring procedures are not evenly applied. 
 
The strike began at 06h00 last Friday, and branch leaders were expecting to meet with Modikwa&rsquo;s management later that day.

NUM Members in South Africa March Against Impala Platinum’s Hospital Care

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On 15 January, a death squad in Guatemala killed Pedro Zamora, general secretary of the STEPQ Dockers&rsquo; Union in Puerto Quetzal. The International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) has pledged that justice will be done in what it is calling a &ldquo;dirty and cowardly act.&rdquo; 
 
Trade unionists are urged to respond to ITF&rsquo;s &ldquo;Campaign for Justice for Pedro Zamora,&rdquo; an immediate call to the Guatemalan government to bring arrest to the perpetrators of this vile crime. Please click&nbsp;<a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm">here</a> and sign ITF&rsquo;s Charter for Justice &lsquo;No Hay impunidad.&rsquo; 
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Pedro Zamora 
Killed on 15 January
Your help is urgently needed in order to put maximum pressure on the Guatemalan government. An ITF-assembled delegation representing a global labour voice arrived in Guatemala City over the weekend, and has called for discussions with police, state and national justice leaders, prosecuting attorneys, as well as President Oscar Berger Perdomo. The delegation includes ILO and ITUC representatives, as well as Spanish and US unionists. Trade unionists from Guatemalan unions ISCOD/UGT, UITA-FESTRAS, and USTAC joined the delegation. 
 
&ldquo;The Guatemalan government will never be forgiven if it doesn&rsquo;t investigate and then bring the murderers to justice,&rdquo; said ITF Gen. Sec. David Cockroft after Zamora was slain in front of his children. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a filthy little act that makes the blood of any decent person boil.&rdquo; 
 
Zamora, 43,&nbsp;was driving his car on 15 January after gathering his children, ages&nbsp;3 and 5,&nbsp;from medical appointments, when a white truck with several assailants in it pulled along side and riddled the car with some 100 shots of automatic gun fire. As the STEPQ union leader lay critically wounded in the front seat of his car, one of the assailants came up to him at close range and shot him in the face. His 3-year-old son was severely wounded in the attack. 
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&ldquo;Pedro&rsquo;s commitment to the union cause is the reason he was targeted for political killing,&rdquo; declared the ITF. &ldquo;His death must not be in vain.&rdquo; 
 
The port workers in Quetzal have been waging a battle to retain their proper trade union recognition in the face of privatisation. In October 2006, they took industrial action, and the strike was met by 300 armed riot police. Their grievance was the company&rsquo;s failure to negotiate a collective agreement, and failure to respect dockworkers&rsquo; views on modernisations to the port. 
 
The ITF delegation, currently in Guatemala, will also lend a protective voice to other activists of STEPQ, five of whom have received telephone death threats and have been followed before Pedro Zamora&rsquo;s death. 
 
Sign the Guatemalan Charter for Justice, and bring as much heat as possible on the country&rsquo;s judicial system: <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm">http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/zamora.cfm</a>.

Justice for Pedro Zamora Campaign Mounted by ITF

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A 24 January trade union protest in Moscow demanded that the Russian government correct the inefficient and inadequate social pension system of the country. Some 500 workers turned out for the demonstration at Russia&rsquo;s Government Building. The manifestation was sponsored by the Russian Association of Main Industries&rsquo; Trade Unions, a formalised coordinating body of ten trade unions representing workers in essential industries. 
Five of the ten trade unions are ICEM affiliates, and the Association is headed by ICEM Vice President Lev Mironov, president of the Russian Oil, Gas and Construction Workers Union (ROGWU). 
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Left to right: Ivan Mokhnachuk, Rosugleprof; Lev Mironov, ROGWU; Alexander Sitnov, RCWU.
The demonstration calls on the government to radically reform a broken pension system in which skilled workers receive only 10-15% of their wages once they retire. 
 
Mironov, in a television interview on the day of the rally, spoke of the frustration that people in the regions experience because of low pensions. He said the government must urgently respond to this dire situation. 
 
The rallying workers agreed to a list of demands that was presented to the government, and named a group of trade union leaders to negotiate with the government. One demand is to bring pension income to at least 40% of wage levels by 1 January 2008. The demands also call for the minimum pension to be set at a higher level, for tighter control over employers&rsquo; contributions to the pension fund, worker participation in fund management, and a return to the insurance-based mechanisms of social security. 
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The association&rsquo;s demands also include Russian ratification of the European Social Charter, as well as Russia ratifying ILO Conventions 102 and 128. Convention 102 establishes minimum standards on social security, while Convention 128 covers standards for invalidity, old age, and survivors&rsquo; benefits. 
 
The union leaders are expected to meet with Russian government officials this week. 
 
The union coalition is expected to bring further public actions and pressure to bear on the pension crisis this year. Other ICEM affiliated unions that are part of the Association include the Russian Chemical and Allied Workers Union (RCWU), the All-Russia Electric Union (Electroprovsoyuz), the Timber and Related Industries Workers Union of Russia, and the Russian Independent Coal Employees&rsquo; Union (Rosugleprof). They are joined in the coalition by trade unions representing automobile workers, metal workers, construction workers, as well as another power workers&rsquo; union.

ICEM’s Russian Trade Union Affiliates Lead Pension Protest

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Members of ICEM&rsquo;s Colombian mining affiliate, Sintracarb&oacute;n, were braced to strike the massive coal enterprise called Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n, in Guajira state, over the weekend. The mining operation in northeastern Colombia, complete with a 150-kilometre rail link to company-owned deep-water port facilities at Puerto Boliv&aacute;r, is owned by global mining houses AngloAmerican, BHP Billiton, and Xstrata. 
 
Sintracarb&oacute;n union members at the world&rsquo;s largest open pit coal mine voted to strike over a week ago. The union&rsquo;s National Assembly of Delegates, which met on 25 January, voted to give approval for a possible strike to begin anytime in the next ten working days. Company and union representatives were continuing bargaining over the weekend. 
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A total of 4,000 workers are represented by Sintracarb&oacute;n, while the mining enterprise employs another 4,000 contract workers. 
 
All three multinational mining companies, along with the Colombian subsidiary, are partners with the ICEM and Sintracarb&oacute;n in a unique Social Dialogue arrangement in the South American country. That agreement, set in 2004, covers some eight global companies doing business in Colombia, and establishes a formalised procedure not only for the safety and security of trade unionists, but also for meaningful labour-management discussions on all issues. 
 
Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n and Sintracarb&oacute;n called on the ICEM to intervene in the dispute two weeks ago. The ICEM had been monitoring the negotiations since November. 
 
General Secretary Manfred Warda responded to the company, as well as to the three parent firms, stating, &ldquo;ICEM has taken note of the extended period of negotiations involved in settling a new, two-year collective agreement between Sintracarb&oacute;n and your company. We are also keenly aware of the profitable coal mining and export operations that Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n and its three multinational partners have in Guajira state, as well as the high demand for this coal on global markets. 
&ldquo;We urge your company not only to maintain the level of respectful Social Dialogue that exists in the charter developed by the ICEM with multinational companies doing business in Colombia, but also to seriously consider the proposals set forth by Sintracarb&oacute;n. These social proposals are just and proper in view of the operation that your company has in Colombia.&rdquo; 
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Sintracarb&oacute;n is seeking a 2007 salary increase of 8%, and a 2008 increase of 2.5% above the Colombian consumer price index for this year. The ICEM affiliated trade union is also seeking monthly health care stipends to cover the costs of medicines for family members. It also seeks a university educational stipend for children of miners, as well as a non-conditional production bonus. Management is attempting to apply conditions to such a bonus plan. 
 
Another legitimate union demand calls on Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n to begin discussions on buying the land of indigenous people who live in the vicinity of Cerrej&oacute;n, and possibly relocate them to areas away from the company&rsquo;s vast mining operations. Sintracarb&oacute;n is proposing immediate &ldquo;working sessions&rdquo; between the union, company, and community leaders to analyse environmental problems and find solutions. 
 
A last unresolved issue involves the high number of contract workers on Cerrej&oacute;n worksites. Sintracarb&oacute;n is seeking for the minimum level of pay for contract workers to be increased and linked to the minimum legal salaries in Colombia. It also seeks application of all Colombian employment laws for these workers, including the right to union representation. 
In the ICEM letter to the companies, the Global Union Federation asks Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n to actively monitor the work practices of contract employers. The ICEM also insists that &ldquo;contract workers receive the same protections and rights that full-time, permanent employees have, including the right to trade union representation.&rdquo; 
 
The mining operation, once jointly owned by ExxonMobil and the Colombian government, has ramped up excavation of thermal coal from 17 million tonnes in 1995 to an expected 28 million tonnes this year. Cerrej&oacute;n&rsquo;s coal reserves are estimated at 930 million tonnes. 
 
The coal is highly desirable on global markets because it is high in energy and has a low sulphur and ash content. Europe accounts for 56% of exports, while 20% is exported to North America. The three parent companies have seen coal prices tripling over the past year, and the operation posted revenues of US$1 billion.

Sintracarbón’s Miners Poised to Strike at Carbones del Cerrejón in Colombia

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