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The mining world&rsquo;s largest stop-work action so far in 2006 ended on 31 August when Chilean copper miners of the Escondida Workers&rsquo; Union No. 1 voted, 1,607 to 121, to accept a 40-month collective agreement. 
A settlement, which ended the 25-day strike, occurred the day before when the union and BHP Billiton, the lead company in Minera Escondida Ltda., agreed to salary and bonus terms with the regional Labour Ministry serving as mediator. The Escondida mine is located in Chile&rsquo;s northern Region II. 
 
Miners won a satisfactory share of the huge profits made by the world&rsquo;s biggest copper producer. The union&rsquo;s 2,052 miners will receive a salary increase of 5% above Chile&rsquo;s inflation rate, or 8%, and a one-off bonus of US$17,000 per miner. The union had amended its demands in last week&rsquo;s bargaining to 8% above the inflation rate and a bonus of US$29,000. 
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The new agreement also includes universal health care coverage, education allowances, and interest-free loans, totalling about US$4,000 per miner. Workers began returning to their jobs late last week, with full production expected by the end of this week. 
 
Under Chilean labour law, workers can sign individual contracts and return to work after 16 strike days. BHP Billiton was hoping this would occur as it called for strike-breakers and a return to normal production. However, the company&rsquo;s scab plan failed and it increased a final pay offer when it became apparent that only a handful of miners &ndash; estimated at 20 &ndash; abandoned the strike. 
 
BHP Billiton, a 57.5% stakeholder in Minera Escondida, said in a statement that it is &ldquo;convinced that the final result of this large process will prove beneficial to both sides.&rdquo; The company and other stakeholders have seen profits triple from Escondida during the first six months of 2006, from US$936.9 million in the first half of 2005 to US$2.92 billion. The strike at the operation producing 8% of the world&rsquo;s copper supply stoked fears of a global shortage of the red metal. The current copper market is one of high demand, causing high pricing. 
 
The settlement will now loom large in negotiations between Chilean state-run copper company Corporacion Nacional del Cobre (Codelco) and its unions, covering 17,000 miners. Codelco&rsquo;s workers are among the lowest paid miners in Chile, while Escondida workers are now the highest. Negotiations between Codelco and unions at three of its four divisions begin in October 2006, with contract expirations coming on 30 November and 31 December. 
 
Codelco stands as the world&rsquo;s biggest copper company, with huge reserves at its Andina, Norte, El Salvador, and El Teniente mines. Some 25% of the world&rsquo;s total supply of copper originates from Chile.

Chile’s Copper Strike at BHP Billiton’s Minera Escondida Ends

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Several French trade unions are resisting the government&rsquo;s forced privatisation of Gaz de France through a merger with French-Belgian water and power concern, Suez Group. Three salaried administrators on the company&rsquo;s board, representing the trade union CGT, were successful last week before an Appeals Court in Paris in ordering the utility&rsquo;s management to hold an extraordinary board meeting to discuss anti-trust concerns raised on 18 August by the European Commission. 
 
That board meeting was held on 1 September, six days before French parliamentarians will take the matter up in the National Assembly. All four unions represented on Gaz de France&rsquo;s board, including FO, CFE-CGC and ICEM affiliate FCE-CFDT, claim that the objections by the European Commission present serious warning signs and warrant full disclosure. 
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The government-brokered merger deal was set in motion last spring by French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to block a hostile takeover of Suez by Italian energy company Enel. If a Gaz de France-Suez merger were to become a reality, it would break a pledge contained in a 2004 French law which states that at least 70% of Gaz de France would remain in the state&rsquo;s hands. The proposed &euro;72 billion merger would mean the government&rsquo;s stake in the combined company would be diluted to 34%.
The CGT is threatening a strike sometime in September if the proposal in the National Assembly to validate the merger isn&rsquo;t defeated. In addition, CGT, FO and CFTC have called for national mobilisations on 12 September against the privatisation. 
 
FCE-CFDT is hostile to privatising Gaz de France and believes the state must continue to be the major shareholder of the utility. But the union is not opposed to closer cooperation between Gaz de France and Suez.

French Unions Press Issue on Gaz de France Privatisation

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The Mineworkers&rsquo; Union of Namibia (MUN) has scored an important victory for fixed-term contract workers at a diamond-cutting and polishing factory in the capital city of Windhoek. Last week, ICEM affiliate MUN successfully completed negotiations with the Namibian managers of Israel-based Lev Leviev Diamonds LLD. The agreement will make 356 mainly young workers into permanent employees, complete with rights and benefits. 
 
&ldquo;Workers are happy about the fact they have representation,&rdquo; MUN General Secretary Joseph Hengari told the ICEM. &ldquo;There have been many shortcomings in work procedures since this factory started and our duty now is to bring these technicalities to a close to the benefit of workers.&rdquo; 
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In late July, about a quarter of the workers at the Lev Leviev enterprise struck after they were given an ultimatum by managers to sign new 12-month-long individual contracts for the third time. Strike leaders contacted the MUN, whose intervention ended the strike and began collective negotiations with the company. 
 
MUN&rsquo;s involvement also proves beneficial to the company, which had been operating without knowledge of local laws, without a functioning human resources department, and without a proper method of salary calculations. In fact, one major grievance that led to the 27 July strike was the fact that individual contracts disqualified the workers from getting a basic salary unless they reached certain production quotas. 
 
MUN will soon become the official bargaining representative at the Lev Leviev plant. During two weeks of intense negotiations in August that covered a number of employment issues including salary and remuneration, MUN and the company agreed to make the 356 workers permanent effective 1 September. All 356 applied for membership to the MUN. In addition, another 56 were classified as trainees, but will progress from that status to permanent workers in the near future. The company also says it intends to bring another 120 trainees into the plant, with the aim of having a total of over 500 permanent workers. 
 
The diamond-cutting and polishing operation opened in mid-2004 and has a capacity to produce 25,000 carats of polished stones monthly. The factory currently is dependent on rough stones mined from another Lev Leviev enterprise, the Sakawa Mining Corporation of The Netherlands, located in offshore areas of southern Namibia. But the company is attempting to convince the Namdeb Diamond Corporation, the country&rsquo;s joint venture with DeBeers, to supply rough stones to the factory in order to fully promote local beneficiation of Namibian diamonds.

ICEM Namibian Affiliate Succeeds in Making Diamond Polishing Jobs Permanent

Nigerian oil workers&rsquo; unions NUPENG and PENGASSAN demand the immediate release of a comrade recently kidnapped in Bayelsa State. Nelson Ujeya, the Community Liaison Officer for Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd, a trade union member of white-collar PENGASSAN, was abducted on 8 August following an official visit to the Letugbene community to examine community projects. 
 
A NUPENGASSAN union communiqu&eacute; said the kidnapping occurred &ldquo;in the full glare of a team of senior Bayelsa State Government officials&rdquo; following the coordinated visit with officials to Letugbene. 
The two ICEM affiliates demanded in the statement &ldquo;that the Government and good people of Bayelsa should immediately produce our member whom they invited to a Community-related assignment.&rdquo; 
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&ldquo;On our part, considering the escalation of kidnapping and other violent acts in the Niger Delta Region, we are under tremendous pressure to take action that will guarantee the safety of lives and properties of our members.&rdquo; 
 
In Nigeria, NUPENG and PENGASSAN have been consistent in the call for a stop to the senseless kidnappings of oil workers&rsquo; of any nationality, but also for state and federal governments, as well as oil industry enterprises, to do more inside Niger Delta communities. 
 
The two unions, operating under the aegis NUPENGASSAN, call for education and skill development, and other meaningful social protections that improve the quality of life in these oil-rich areas. The ICEM stands behind the efforts of NUPENGASSAN, and applauds their trade union voice on this extremely serious problem in the global oil industry.

Call for Release of Kidnapped PENGASSAN Member in Nigeria

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Two UK trade unions, the Transport &amp; General Workers&rsquo; Union (TGWU) and Amicus, received a new pay offer last week after they issued a date for a one-day work stoppage. Pirelli of Italy increased its pay offer made to 1,100 tyre workers in the British Midlands to 3%, after attempting to force an unacceptable 2.2% raise on workers. 
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Workers and their union leaders at a Pirelli tyre plant in Carlisle and at another facility in Burton-on-Trent chose this coming Friday, 24 August, for industrial action. TGWU and Amicus members will now consider the offer in consultations. A Pirelli spokesman said the company was hoping to &ldquo;move forward from our national dispute&rdquo; to an agreement. 
 
The company offered 1.1% when bargaining began in April. Workers voted for industrial action by 75% after the company had revised the pay offer to 2.2%. TGWU represents most workers at the two Pirelli worksites, including the auto and light truck tyre plant in Carlisle.

Pirelli Heads Off UK Industrial Action with New Tyre Offer

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In a meeting with French building materials company Imerys last week, British trade union Transport &amp; General Workers&rsquo; Union (TGWU) asked the company to reconsider its plans to cut 800 jobs by the beginning of 2008 in Cornwall, Devon, and Lee Moor in the country&rsquo;s South West. 
 
TGWU said the job cuts, which would bring economic devastation to the region, are &ldquo;totally unjustified&rdquo; and said the company must give serious consideration to counter proposals put forward at the 15 August meeting. 
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&ldquo;The company is in a strong position to have a bright future in Cornwall, and everything should be done to persuade them to stay,&rdquo; said TGWU National Secretary Jennie Formby. &ldquo;(Imerys has) a hardworking, long-serving workforce who deserve better than being dismissed with massive job cuts and a redundancy offer that will in no way compensate for their lost employment.&rdquo; 
 
Added Malcolm Mellow, TGWU Convenor at Imerys in the South West: &ldquo;Members have been rocked by the news that they will lose their jobs after devoting years of loyal service to Imerys. The workforce and their families deserve better.&rdquo; 
 
Imerys cut some jobs in the region in 2004, but promised then that the remaining 800 jobs would be secure. That pledge was breached early in July 2006 when a proposed restructuring plan surfaced saying the vast majority of jobs in kaolin mining and processing at former English China Clay operations would be lost, and the work transferred to Brazil. Imerys bought English China Clay in 1999. 
 
The ICEM is working with affiliate TGWU, as well as with UK affiliated trade union Amicus, which represents a smaller number of Imerys workers in the South West, to preserve the jobs and the region&rsquo;s economic viability.

UK’s TGWU Meets with Imerys to Dissuade Job Cuts

The 20-million-member ICEM, the Global Union Federation for electric power industry trade unions, is calling on state-run Swedish utility Vattenfall AB to intervene with its German subsidiary to resolve a labour dispute with three German unions affecting 20,000 workers. 
 
The unions, ICEM affiliate IGBCE, and IG Metall and Ver.di, are seeking a common collective agreement with Germany&rsquo;s third largest utility in order to remove wage disparities and harmonise all terms and conditions. The three unions will stage a mass protest tomorrow, 1 March, in Berlin at the annual general meeting of Vattenfall Europe AG, the German subsidiary. (Smaller rallies by the three unions have been held at three sites since 21 February in protest to the deadlock in negotiations.) 
 
 

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21 February 2006 : rally in Cottbus, Germany 
&ldquo;We feel the time is now that the Swedish parent step in and grant equitable wages and conditions to all its German employees,&rdquo; stated ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &ldquo;Vattenfall has integrated its acquisitions throughout Germany over the past few years, now it must harmonise wages and conditions.&rdquo; 
 
The three unions have been negotiating for a common accord with the Swedish subsidiary for two years. Besides bringing pay equity and uniform work conditions to workers, the unions are seeking an agreement from Vattenfall Europe AG that sale of any operations to another company will include the common collective agreement. 
 
IGBCE&rsquo;s Jobst Weissenborn, the union&rsquo;s chief negotiator in the energy sector, said the company&rsquo;s bargaining posture has provoked the rallies. He said the unions are prepared to take whatever steps necessary to ensure that the social standards of all Vattenfall workers in Germany come under a common agreement. 
 
 

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21 February 2006 : rally in Cottbus, Germany 
 
ICEM affiliate IGBCE is the dominant union in east Germany&rsquo;s power generation and distribution units, including the company&rsquo;s lignite mines and the former LAUBAG enterprise, now held by Vattenfall. In the 1990s, Ost-Bewag came under control of Bewag, which has been 90% owned Vattenfall since 2002. 
 
In 2001, Vattenfall acquired a majority stake in HEW, the Hamburg electric company that had previously been held by E.ON&rsquo;s Bewag subsidiary. IG Metall is the primary union in Hamburg. Vattenfall also acquired its Berlin operations through buy-up of Bewag, giving it control of over 80% of the power market in Berlin, as well as 30% of the heating market. The company also has telecommunications, water and gas interests in Berlin, and public-service union Ver.di is the dominant union there. 
 
Vattenfall&rsquo;s Europe division also includes utility holdings in Poland and&nbsp;The Netherlands. The company is a major electric and power producer and provider in the Nordic countries. 
 
Protests last week leading up to tomorrow&rsquo;s major demonstration in Berlin saw 2,000 workers take to the streets on 21 February. Anther demonstration was held in the east German mining community of Cottbus on the same day, while on 23 February, over a thousand protested in Hamburg.

ICEM Supports Common German Contract for Vattenfall Utility Workers

Some 500 delegates attended the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Women&rsquo;s Conference on 16-18 February in Rosherville, near Johannesburg. The South African union elected a national leadership team, put in place a workable plan of action, and developed a concise and practical programme that will be presented at NUM&rsquo;s National Congress in May.
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Delegates heard from three prominent women in South African labour: Minerals and Energy Minister Lindiwe Hendricks, COSATU Second Vice President Violet Sebone, and ANC Women&rsquo;s League&rsquo;s General Secretary Themba Kgasi. The NUM Women&rsquo;s Structure was formed in 1998, and since has become a leadership front for women both nationally and internationally. &ldquo;As women in the NUM, we have passed the stage of being told what to do,&rdquo; said Women&rsquo;s Structure Chairperson Rose Mohale. &ldquo;We have stood firm and demonstrated we can add our voice to programmes of the organisation.&rdquo;

NUM in South Africa Holds Women’s Conference

The ICEM is backing a struggle by workers affiliated with Brazilian union SINAP-CUT in the state of Maranh&atilde;o. Without warning and refusing to engage in dialogue with unions, Brazilian company Group Jo&atilde;o Santos sacked 227 workers last month in the remote northern town of Coelho Neto at its paper and agricultural enterprises, Itapag&eacute; SA and Agrimex SA.
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The company has refused to honour social payments due to workers, or to recognise the economic hardships created in the town. Group Jo&atilde;o Santos is responsible for 90% of the formal jobs in the rural town and controls 90% of the land around Coelho Neto. 
The workers and their families, backed by ICEM affiliate SINAP-CUT, together with an agricultural union, established a camp in front of the company&rsquo;s Coelho Neto offices. The camp&rsquo;s inhabitants have been threatened by military police, which has been summoned by the company. 
Workers and their unions issued &ldquo;claims guidelines&rdquo; against Group Jo&atilde;o Santos, calling for the company to return land to the community, maintain the town&rsquo;s schools and school personnel, and rehire the workers to employment levels as of November 2005. The ICEM supports such demands, and has expressed such in letters to Brazilian President Luiz In&aacute;cio Lula da Silva, the country&rsquo;s minister of Labour and Employment, and the state&rsquo;s General Attorney for Labour.

ICEM Lends Support to Brazilian Paperworkers’ Union

ICEM Zambian affiliate National Energy Sector and Allied Workers Union (NESAWU) is facing retaliation and union repression for bringing to light mismanagement at the state power authority Zambia Electric Supply Corp. (ZESCO).
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The company has fired union President Peter Chupa, along with several branch leaders, and has cancelled the legitimate union responsibilities of General Secretary Yotam Mtayachalo. Since early last year, ZESCO has consistently been months late paying wages to utility workers. Lately, it has resorted to costly bank overdrafts to pay salaries. The utility has also failed to remit workers&rsquo; pension contributions. 
On 20 April 2005, ZESCO withdrew NESAWU&rsquo;s recognition agreement because of a week-long strike in early March 2005 for unpaid wages and a demand by the union for resignation of ZESCO&rsquo;s managing director. Retaliatory measures have only intensified since.
The union supported casual workers who struck early this year over low salaries and late payments at a new addition to the Kafue Gorge power plant, and ZESCO responded by locking 30 of the strike&rsquo;s leaders from their jobs. 
On 10 January, Chupa was blocked by three dozen police officers from entering a ZESCO board meeting that was convened to choose a new chairman for the utility. But the existing chairman ran the meeting and had no intention of resigning. 
ZESCO has been plagued by power outages and transformer malfunctions due to management&rsquo;s ineffectiveness in making capital improvements in equipment and infrastructure, particularly in areas affecting households. NESAWU has been outspoken on the many misdeeds that have caused such failures.

Mismanaged Zambian Electric Firm Targets Power Sector Union

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