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ICEM affiliate FNV Bondgenoten will find out today how serious Shell Nederland is to resolving a pension dispute. The company will present an alternative over a prior, inadequate proposal to the union and the Central Works Council. 
If the offer does not improve and further bargaining is not renewed by 21 June, Bondgenoten is prepared to commence strikes by late summer. Shell needs to maximize premium payments for workers under the Dutch pension system so they too, like nearly all Dutch workers, become eligible for early retirement.

FNV Bondegenoten, Shell Work to Resolve Pension Issues

ICEM German affiliate IGBCE entered a second round of bargaining with chemical employers 7 June with hopes of achieving a real wage increase for 550,000 workers, as well as special bonuses for trade union members. IGBCE also seeks to include more mid-level and small chemical employers in mandatory industry pension plans. The union and chemical employers association BAVC, representing 1,900 companies, did make progress in May talks toward increasing the number of trainees in the chemicals sector and establishing a fund to pay special stipends to workers in the event of job displacement.

IGBCE, Employers Continue Efforts to Resolve Chemical Talks

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Bargaining will resume today in the lockout of 25,000 paperworkers in Finland. The Executive Committee of Paperiliitto on 5 June rejected a mediator&rsquo;s proposal that, on the whole, sided with many of the concessionary proposals put forward by the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. Those proposals would have given paper companies the unlimited right to outsource work that would see as many as one-third of all full-time paper sector jobs disappear, and would have weakened worker protections against layoffs. 
Employers have now extended the lockout to six weeks, or until 29 June. EMCEF announced that it will investigate whether Finnish paper firms forced the lockout in order to increase paper prices through reduced supply and the ICEM continues to encourage paper sector unions across Europe not to accept work orders from Finnish paper mills and converters.

Finnish Affiliate Rejects Paper Companies Harsh Concessions

The president of the Cartagena region of oil workers union USO in Colombia escaped injury 14 May when four heavily armed men on two motorcycles fired on him. Jorge Ortega was riding in an automobile with his family in Cartagena when the attack occurred. Bodyguards of Ortega exchanged gunfire with the assailants. 
USO blames the national government for not providing the necessary measures to protect trade union leaders, as well as not taking necessary action to curb right-wing paramilitaries in their &ldquo;political and social genocide.&rdquo;

Attempt on Life of Regional Oil Union Leader in Colombia

Talks continued in New Zealand last week at the highest level to resolve issues surrounding a series of strikes over the past two months by coal miners of ICEM affiliate EPMU. National Secretary Andrew Little and Solid Energy CEO Don Elder met to clarify issues and to seek an end to the dispute. Miners are seeking a 6% pay hike and a national coal mining agreement that will bring pay parity to miners on both the North and South Islands, and in underground and open cast mines.

Talks Pressing Forward for End to New Zealand’s Coal Dispute

USW members in Mayfield, Kentucky, are being further victimized by Continental Tyre of Germany. Following a plant closing 1 January that found 730 workers losing their jobs, Continental has now dropped 350 of those workers from company-paid health insurance, despite the fact that no agreement over extended health coverage was ever agreed to in severance bargaining. Terms of the collective bargaining agreement call for between 30 days to 12 months of health insurance in the event of a closure depending on seniority, but many of the 350 cut were some of the most senior workers at the tyre production plant.

Continental Tire Cuts Displaced Workers from Health Care in US

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US affiliate United Steelworkers (USW) expressed disbelief that BP blamed workers for the 23 March explosion at its Amoco refinery in Texas City, Texas. BP said in an interim report that the &ldquo;root causes&rdquo; were a failure to follow operating procedures by workers and supervisors, but backed off that statement when the USW called the company on it. 
USW Region Six Director Gary Beevers said the blast that killed 15 and injured 170 could have been prevented had BP taken the union&rsquo;s advice to properly vent hydrocarbons released from an isomerization unit and had not violated its own policy by granting a variance in placing contractors&rsquo; trailers in a dangerous location.

BP Wrongly Blames Workers, Managers in Deadly US Explosion

ICEM affiliate NUM in South Africa issued its demands to the Council of Mines for the gold sector, and the union will press for full implementation on all terms agreed to in the last negotiations&mdash;2003. The demands include adequate retirement benefits, death and funeral benefits and an across-the-board wage increase of 20%. In June, the NUM and the Council, representing AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields and Harmony Gold, will begin full negotiations.

NUM Puts Gold Sector Demands Forward in South Africa

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Bargaining will continue today in efforts to end the lockout of 25,000 paperworkers in Finland. Six major paper companies, headed by the Forest Industries Federation of Finland, locked out members of ICEM affiliate Paperiliitto on 18 May for two weeks, and then tacked on another two weeks as a retaliatory measure for industrial action of 16-17 May. Employers are seeking harsh concessions including unlimited outsourcing, elimination of Christmas and mid-summer shutdown days, and greater job flexibility including 12-hour work shifts. 
Paper unions in Sweden and Norway have successfully turned back orders originating from Finland at mills and paper converters in those countries, and the ICEM has encouraged paper sector unions at all European operations to refuse production work from the closed Finnish mills. The European Works Council of Stora Enso has taken positive solidarity action, as has the European working committees of UPM Kymmene and M-Real. The other three major paper companies instigating this lockout are Ahlstr&ouml;m, Mets&auml; Tissue, and Myllykoski.

Paper Employers Lock Out 25,000 Workers in Finland

Members of ICEM oil workers&rsquo; affiliate NOPEF in Norway have given leaders of the union a mandate to begin merger negotiations with the Norsk Kjemisk Industriarbeiderforbund, the country&rsquo;s Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union, also an affiliate of the ICEM. Merger discussions between the two leading trade unions of Norway are expected to begin by late summer.

NOPEF Given Vote to Begin Merger Dialogue in Norway

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