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<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
A six-week strike by contract workers of Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) in Tamil Nadu state, India, ended on 27 October, after intervention by state Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi. Some 13,000 contract workers, represented by six unaffiliated unions, began strike actions at the state-owned coal and electric generating company on 19 and 20 September after putting forward a ten-point charter of demands. 
 
Included in that charter was a demand to make workers with ten years or more of service permanent workers of the company. Other demands included wage revisions, equal pay for equal work, regularization of services, and certain work terms. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL_en.jpg" width="146" height="66" alt=""/>
The settlement came after the six unions requested mediation by both state officials and the Coal Ministry in New Delhi. Also crucial in settling the walkout was a threat by the 750 permanent workers of NLC that they would strike if an accord was not reached. On 22 October, permanent staff also did a day of fasting in support of the striking contract workers. 
 
The agreement, reached late in the evening of 27 October, gave contract workers an additional monthly pay of 1,560 rupees (€26), plus 1,000 rupees (€16) on top of a minimum bonus. There was also an assurance that the contract workers would not be victimized by taking part in the strike. 
 
The strike was marked by road blockades to power plants, and mass arrests. Two weeks into the strike, contract workers affiliated to two other unions – an affiliate of the Labour Progressive Front, connected to the Tamil Nadu ruling party Davida Munnetra Kazhagam, and the Union of Dalit Panthers – broke with the other unions and signed a five-year contract with NLC.

State Indian Coal Company Settles Strike with Contract Workers

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The ICEM continues to support the campaign for the rights of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand. The State Enterprise Workers’ Relations Confederation of Thailand (SERC) has teamed with LabourStart to call on the Royal Thai Government to end the illegal and unjust practice of blocking Burmese migrants from access to the Workers’ Compensation Fund (WCF). 
 
The social security fund provides compensation for workers who incur injuries or disease from their work. Burmese migrants are denied rehabilitation assistance and are denied the right to register as disabled if they suffer permanent disabilities from occupational accidents. 
 
Following three years of protest by the ITUC-affiliated SERC, the ILO’s Committee of Experts in February 2010 ruled that this denial of access for Burmese migrants was a breach of ILO Convention 19, on equality of accident compensation, which Thailand has ratified. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Thailand.png" width="150" height="69" alt=""/>
The Thai government’s response has been to outsource the compensation of migrant workers to private insurance firms. This cannot create equality of accident compensation with Thai nationals who remain covered by the WCF, and is in breach of international law and human rights standards. 
 
Over two million Burmese migrants currently work in Thailand, most in low-skilled, dangerous jobs. While the majority of these workers entered Thailand illegally, over one million have registered to work. 
 
Labour activists submitted a petition to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 26 October, calling for action on this issue and on the general abuse of migrant workers in Thailand. The LabourStart campaign condemns the Thai government’s inaction on the human trafficking of migrants. 
 
Visit the LabourStart Act NOW Campaign <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=783">here</a>, to send a message to the Thai Government.

Burmese Migrant Workers in Thailand Warrants Support

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A ten-day strike by the ICEM North American affiliate Teamsters Union against a subsidiary of Swiss-based Holcim ended 25-26 August when 130 union members at two branch locals ratified a three-year collective agreement with a 90% vote. 
 
The strike in the US state of Massachusetts was highlighted by Teamsters members from three other local branches blockading some 20 cement plants and terminals in Massachusetts and neighbouring New Hampshire. Those locals have contracts that expire in the future, making the show of support to truck drivers and plant operators of Locals 25 and 170 an exemplary example of solidarity. 
 
The strike and rolling actions came against Aggregate Industries, a wholly-owned Holcim subsidiary in the US and UK. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1009.teamsters.harrington.jpg" width="130" height="143" alt=""/>
Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 25, Mark Harrington
The Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 25, Mark Harrington, described terms of the new agreement as satisfactory, with the union solidly protecting wages, pensions, and health care coverage, while compromising with American management over some work rules. 
 
“The strategy worked,” said Harrington. “By extending picket lines we were able to impact the company economically.” 
 
Harrington himself extended gratitude to Swiss trade union Unia for its intervention in the strike. He said company negotiators made note of that fact – with some surprise – at the US federal mediation session on 25 August that produced the settlement. The ICEM also intervened with Holcim during the strike. 
 
Teamsters Locals 42, 633, and another unit of Local 25 that has a different expiration date with Aggregate Industries not only honoured roving pickets at the company’s New England operations, but members of those local branches joined the pickets. 
 
Regarding those solidarity actions, the ICEM considers it heroic deeds in defending and winning a new labour agreement because the Holcim subsidiary was readying the hire of replacement workers as its strategy to break the strike.

US Teamsters Union Settles Holcim Cement Strike in US

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Eighty delegates from eight Latin American and Caribbean countries attended the ICEM’s region meeting 4-5 April in Mar del Plata that was marvellously hosted by Federación Argentina Sindical del Petróleo, Gas y Biocombustibles (FASPyGP) at the trade union’s hotel. 
 
The regional meeting produced three resolutions, including condolences to Japan over human deaths brought by the earthquake/tsunami and heartfelt appreciation to aid workers, especially nuclear workers of ICEM affiliate Denryoku Soren, who have worked non-stop to prevent mass disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. 
<img height="150" width="222" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.mar de plata.JPG" alt=""/>
Another resolution was in support of Chile copper miners represented by Sindicato de los Trabajadores de Collahuasi over persecution following a recent strike by Doña Ines de Collahuasi, owned by Xstrata and AngloAmerican. The third was a statement buttressing the legitimate trade unions of Mexico in their current fight to repel regressive labour legislation. 
 
ICEM Latin American/Caribbean Vice President Sergio Novais proudly reported the work plan of the region and that it had exceeded expectations. He also detailed the eight projects he is overseeing in the region. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda gave a progress report on integration with the International Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), and IMF Regional Representative Jorge Alemida explained how the industrial sectors would be integrated. 
<img height="176" width="150" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.mar de plata.2.JPG" alt=""/>
ICEM Latin American/Caribbean Vice President Sergio Novais
Other reports were given by Colombia trade union affiliates, including Unión Sindical Obrera (USO), and Manuel Muñoz and Lincon Esponoza, representing the Collahuasi copper miners of northern Chile, told of their strike and their efforts to ratify ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention, in the South American country. 
 
A detailed report was given by Secretary-General Alberto Roberti of FASPyGP on the burgeoning biofuels industry in Argentina. He said his union is in the forefront in defending the environment and emphasized the need to maintain a balance between producing biofuels and sustained food production to meet the country’s growing needs. 
 
Overall, the regional meeting proved a good prelude to ICEM’s Fifth Statutory Congress, to be held 24-26 November 2011 in Buenos Aires, with the host union providing excellent example to Argentine unions in how to meet the logistics for 1,200 delegates and guests expected to attend.

Argentine Petroleum, Gas Workers’ Host ICEM’s Latin, Caribbean Region Meet

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Employment law changes in New Zealand took effect 1 April have given all employers the right to dismiss employees within a first 90-day “trial” period, with no rights to grievance procedure. This rule previously applied for small businesses of fewer than 20 employees.
Now it applies in all workplaces, no matter the side of the workforce.  
 
The regressive changes also include restrictions on trade union access to a worksite, relaxation of fairness tests on dismissals, the ability of employers to bypass the union in collective negotiations, the possibility to exchange holiday days for money, the right to shift public holidays without payment, and the right for employers to demand a medical certificate for one day’s sick leave. 
 
There is nothing fair in the workplace law changes, according to ICEM-affiliated Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU). 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/EPMU Andrew Little.jpg" width="130" height="124"/>
EPMU National Secretary, Andrew Little
Click here to sign the <a href="http://www.epmu.org.nz/petition-2/">EPMU’s petition</a>. 
 
"We are approaching employers with either collective bargaining claims to stop things like the 90 day no rights law, or the new rules on medical certificates being used by employers, or seeking a pledge that they will not reduce themselves to the low level that the law represents," said EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little. Some employers have already agreed not to use the bad new law, including Telecom, which employs 7,000 employees in New Zealand.

New Zealand Labour Law Changes Damage Worker Rights

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Metalliliitto, Finland’s Metalworkers’ Union, has reached a tentative agreement with KMW Engineering, preventing for now a blockade on construction of the nuclear power reactor Olkiluoto III. On 13 April, the Polish air-conditioning subcontractor agreed to compensate workers for shortfalls in pay required under the Finnish labour standards. 
 
Under the agreement, KMW Engineering did give an accounting that showed arrears in Sunday and overtime pay. It agreed to compensate back wages and pledged to uphold Finnish terms of employment in the future. It also agreed to correct its deficient safety and health standards on the 1.6 gigawatt (1,600 megawatt) nuclear plant.
 <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.finnish%20nuclear%20power%20plant.jpg" width="337" height="190"/>
Construction of Olkiluoto III 
Photo: YLE/Termonen Tapio  

Metalliliitto had given the subcontractor until 15 April to comply with Finnish social standards, or face a construction-wide blockade that would have halted all work on Finland’s fifth nuclear reactor. (See <a href="http:// /en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4343-Finland’s-Metalworkers-close-in-on-Blockade-of-Nuclear-Plant-Work">ICEM report</a> from 28 March.) A Metalworkers’ blockade had endorsement and would have been honoured by Finland’s Construction Trades Union, the Electrical Workers’ Union, and Proliitto, the union for salaried workers of Finland. 
 
A regional state labour agency of Finland’s South-West found in late March that KMW did not keep overtime records as required under the working hours act. It also determined that payment of wages for Sunday and overtime work varied. Failure to comply could have brought state sanctions to the nuclear construction site, which would have affected other contractors. 
 
Metalliliitto Compliance Officer Jyrki Virtanen said the union will now fully monitor future social conduct by KMW Engineering. The Olkiluoto III nuclear power station is owned by private-sector energy concern Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), and has as general contractor Areva of France. Olkiluoto III, a €3.95 billion project that is now €1.5 billion over budget, is the biggest investment in the history of Finnish industry.

Polish Engineering Firm Concedes to Finland’s Metalliliitto at Nuclear Plant

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0904Labourrose.JPG" width="50" height="65"/>
Recent administrative and other changes regarding health and safety governance in the UK clearly reflects the policies of the governing Tory, Liberal Democrat coalition. In late March, Employment Minister Chris Grayling announced a shift of emphasis from safety and health monitoring by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in order to ease regulatory burdens on business. 
 
The package of proposed changes includes eliminating unannounced workplace safety inspections and placing more emphasis on high-hazard worksites and those with histories of unsafe conditions. The ruling government will also conduct a review of all existing health and safety regulations with the notion to scrap measures that are not needed and those that place an unnecessary burden on business. 
 
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) disagrees with the new mandate, seen as a means to chop government spending out of the HSE. 
“The possibility of an unexpected visit from either the HSE or a local authority safety inspector helps keep employers on their toes,” said TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber. “Even now, workplaces can go decades without ever seeing an inspector. 
 
“If government cuts to HSE funding do result in fewer safety inspections, unscrupulous employers will simply assume they can get away with taking risks, without fear of ever being prosecuted.” 
 
Another change in the UK is a Ministry of Justice proposal for reform of local courts structures regarding who is responsible for legal fees in workplace compensation and other cases. The proposed change, which is under public consultation until June 30, would require plaintiffs that win their cases in courts to carry the burden of paying their own legal fees, regardless of damages. 
 
This “no win, no fee” proposal is seen as means to reduce the number the number of filings against employers by workers who suffer industrial accidents in order to eliminate a so-called “compensation culture” in the UK. The Ministry of Justice’s aim is also to push more cases out of courtrooms and into mediation. The TUC’s Hazards Campaigns sees it as a sham since less than 10% of all workers injured at work receive compensation and, as well, free legal counsel for victims seeking workers’ compensation has been cancelled by the state. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1104.hazards.tuc.jpg" width="130" height="65"/>
On another note in the UK, this one a milestone, the first company to be convicted of corporate manslaughter under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act of 2007, which became effective in April 2008, occurred on February 15, 2011. Cotswold Geotechnical Ltd., a small geological company, was found guilty by a jury of Winchester Crown Court, Hampshire, in the negligent death of 27-year-old Alexander Wright. In 2008, Wright was working alone in an unsupported 12-foot pit. He died from asphyxia when soil from the collapsed pit buried him. The court fined the company £385,000.

Health, Safety Changes Mirror Con-Dem Policies in UK

Commonality of April 28: Unions Make Work Safer

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Six weeks after an earthquake and tsunami decimated the six nuclear reactors inside the Fukushima power plant in northeastern Japan, union members and staff of Denryoku Soren, the ICEM-affiliated Federation of Electric Power Related Industry Workers’ Union of Japan, work voluntary week-long shifts to contain radiation leakage. They work inside a 20-kilometre zone in which Japanese rescue teams searching for the dead are prohibited from entering due to radiation levels. 
 
Few know it, but inside the offices of Denryoku Soren in Tokyo most work stations are empty. The reason is most union staff workers have volunteered to fill the shortage of workers needed at Fukushima. 
They sleep on concrete floors at Fukushima and consume only bottled water and biscuits for fear that food sources are contaminated. <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Japanese%20Nuke%20Measures.pdf" type="internal">Denryoku Soren’s letter</a> to the ICEM describing what it is up against can be found here. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMenergysector.JPG" width="170" height="172"/>
Last week, ICEM Asia-Pacific Contact Person Phee Jungsun visited Denryoku Soren offices in Tokyo and filed this report: 
 
“It is painful to see union officers here in Tokyo, who are exhausted and worried about their fellow workers at the Fukushima site. Those who have returned after their one-week voluntary shifts are calm and doing paperwork, but signs of fatigue show on their faces. 
 
“President Seiichi Taneoka, who himself has been to the site, is working hard every minute, organising volunteer shift teams and talking to TEPCO control centre officials on a dedicated telephone line. He is also trying to get assistance from local units of government and local police to locate and reach those union members and their families who are missing and haven’t been heard from.” 
 
Although the exact total death count is impossible to know, some ICEM affiliates in Japan have started to make assessments. JEC Rengo, the Japanese Federation of Energy and Chemical Workers’ Unions, confirms that well over 100 of its members are missing, with destruction of members’ homes totaling over 1,000 in the northeastern Prefecture. The same number is estimated by Zenkoku, the Federation of Gas Workers’ Unions in Japan. 
 
Other ICEM affiliates in Japan have registered plants and workplaces that have been affected. The Japanese Pulp and Paper Workers’ Federation has reported mills of Nippon Paper, Mitsubishi Paper Mills, and Oji mills closed or running on limited production. The same is reported at Sumitoma Rubber by Gomu-Rengo, the Rubber Workers’ Union. UI Zensen, the Textile, Chemical, Food and Commercial Union, also has reported damages and vast devastation to workers, their homes, and places of employment. 
 
Six days after the disaster, the ICEM put a call out to affiliates to provide funds to the ICEM Japanese Affiliates’ Federation (JAF) for disaster relief. The response was unprecedented, with over US$1 million sent to date to JAF. ICEM Asia-Pacific Region Vice President Kiyoshi Ochiai and JAF General-Secretary Yoshio Sato, through the ICEM, expressed gratitude for the solidarity and generosity: “We got heartfelt sympathy and encouragement from all over the world. We deeply appreciate the solidarity and fraternity of ICEM affiliates. We really feel that ICEM is one big family.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Ochiai%20ICEM-JAF%20President.jpg" width="177" height="156"/>
 Kiyoshi Ochiai
“Our brave members of Denryoku Soren are working hard to speed up recovery efforts in a very difficult situation. The Japanese people are working together to overcome numerous hardships and to get things back to normal with effort and patience. And ICEM JAF keeps engaging in the reconstruction effort.” 
 
In typical Japanese fashion, on 28 March, Denryoku Soren withdrew its wage demands on TEPCO that was part of the spring offensive “shunto.” The union’s decision reflects the belief that it cannot continue negotiations for now because of the ongoing tragedies of human life and the devastation in the electric power sector at Fukushima.
Due to a misunderstanding of information that ICEM received there was an incorrect description of events in this article, for which ICEM apologised. See the <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMletters/37.ICEM.IMFJC.Japan.27April.pdf" type="internal">letter to IMF-JC</a> here.

Workers of Denryoku Soren Face Dire Plight at Fukushima Nuclear Site

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Ammattiliitto Pro, ICEM’s salaried workers’ trade union affiliate in Finland, is asking that white-collar workers at several paper companies not take on extra work in the coming weeks. The union seeks such global unity as it begins its third wave of lawful strikes next week, and continues ones tomorrow against the intransigent employers of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation (FFIF). 
 
The request also comes after government conciliator Esa Lonka today was unable to shape a compromise proposal because of FFIF intransigence in official mediation in Finland. It was the third consecutive week that employers failed to resolve a downward spiralling labour dispute by not recognising the unfair job demands on 4,000 clerical, technical, and front-line supervisory personnel. 
 
Because of redundancies and speed-ups over the past several years in the Finnish pulp and paper sector, Pro members are asked to work more without adequate compensation, or without recognition of higher job competencies. 
 
In addition to an overtime ban across all pulp and paper companies, strikes that began on 26 April by 1,500 Pro members are continuing this week at Stora Enso, Metsäliitto, Metsä-Botnia, M-real, and Metsä Tissue and a renewed strike will begin tomorrow by 1,000 salaried workers at UPM. 
 
That strike will begin at 06h00 on 4 May and run until 06h00 on 7 May. It is the second strike action against UPM – the first one running from 6-20 April – and production at UPM’s six mills, as well at an administration centre in Tempere and an export facility at the port of Kotka will again be affected. 
 
Ammattiliitto Pro expects employers to try to break the strike by bringing in replacement workers, moving administrative work elsewhere, and to continue to bully Pro members in order to get them to ignore the overtime ban and strike actions. (See prior <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4394-Paper-Dispute-in-Finland-Worsens;-Strike-Expands" type="internal">ICEM report</a> here.) 
 
“Pro appeals for solidarity from workers of UPM-Kymmene, Stora Enso, Metsäliitto, Metsä-Botnia, M-real, Metsä Tissue, and Sappi in other countries not to perform any extra work of the type covered by the strikes, as the companies seek to break the strike by transferring the work abroad,” said the union. 
 
The ICEM is calling on paperworkers throughout the world to support Ammattiliitto Pro in this critical dispute in Finland, and to monitor the administrative, financial, services workload in these pulp and paper companies in order to comply with the union’s request. Also, notes of solidarity should be sent to Pro President <a href="mailto:Antti.rinne@proliitto.fi">Antti Rinne</a>, and collective bargaining directors <a href="mailto:Jukka.hamalainen@proliitto.fi">Jukka Hämäläinen</a> and <a href="mailto:Jari.uschanov@proliitto.fi">Jari Uschanov</a>.

Mediation Fails in Finnish Paper Strike; Strikes Continue

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