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The Mineworkers Union of Zambia blasted the use of casual labour as a new and growing threat against the work/life social structure. 
MUZ Gen. Sec. Ernest Mutale told the nation that new investment arriving into Zambia is intent on utilizing contract labour, a fact opposite of what these investors must do in their home countries, he said.

Zambia’s Mining Union Sees Threat of Casual Labour

German IGBCE, French FCE CFDT and EMCEF, the European workers&rsquo; federation in chemical, energy and mining sectors, met in Paris 4 May and issued a declaration on the impending Sanofi-Synthelabo and Aventis pharmaceutical merger. The combined firm&rsquo;s two biggest unions vowed to prevent site closures and job loss, maintain existing rights and obligations, and asks that the new management team be innovative inside the framework of existing social dialogue.

German, French Unions Meet over Aventis, Sanofi Merger

Global tyremaker Continental faced coordinated protests on both sides of the Atlantic over the past 24 hours by union leaders from 16 countries. 
 
Demonstrations took place in Akron, Ohio - a centre of the US rubber industry - and in London, England, where the tyre industry is holding a major European trade exhibition. Coordinating the campaign is the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which represents tyre workers worldwide. 
 
The current protests centre on Continental's treatment of striking (and locked-out) workers at its General Tire plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. But union leaders have also voiced concern over the company's declared worldwide strategy of shifting production to &quot;low-cost&quot; areas. 
 
The core issue in the American dispute is that &quot;Conti&quot; is refusing to pay the going rate among leading employers of US tyre workers, even though the plant is now profitable. The American workers accuse Conti of failing to bargain in good faith and of trying to break the Charlotte local of their union, the USWA. After provoking a strike, the company drafted in &quot;permanent replacement&quot; workers last September, thus effectively locking out and dismissing the strikers. 
 
In 1995, after Continental bought General Tire, the workers bailed out the Charlotte plant by &quot;giving back&quot; about 90 million dollars in pay and benefits cuts. Charlotte is now showing a healthy profit, but the company is still refusing to bring its pay and conditions up to standard. 
 
Taking part in the Akron protests yesterday were tyre workers' leaders from ICEM-affiliated unions in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Malaysia, Morocco, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the USA and Venezuela. Their demo was held in front of a retail outlet that sells Conti tyres. 
 
And in London this morning, protesters from ICEM-affiliated British unions rolled bald tyres up and down outside the TYREXPO Europe 99 exhibition. Time To Run Continental's Greed Off The Road proclaimed one placard at the London demo, while another said Reinstate 1,450 Sacked Continental Workers In North Carolina USA. 
 
&quot;We will take our campaign against Continental to wherever they do business, here or abroad,&quot; John Sellers pledged in Akron yesterday. Sellers is Executive Vice-President of the USWA and heads the union's Rubber And Plastics Industry Conference. &quot;German multinational corporations would not be allowed to abuse workers this way in Germany,&quot; Sellers declared, &quot;and we're not going to tolerate such behaviour in the United States, either.&quot; 
 
&quot;We are proud to join forces with our American brothers and sisters in protesting against Continental's actions in Charlotte,&quot; said British union leader Bert Hill. He is from British ICEM affiliate the GMB, which organises workers at Continental's Newbridge tyre plant in Scotland. Hill is currently in Akron. 
 
&quot;Continental has been systematically trying to wrest concessions from our members in Scotland,&quot; he stated, &quot;and we know we have to stand together in solidarity with other Continental workers in other countries against our common employer.&quot; 
 
 
UNIONS DRAW UP GLOBAL STRATEGY 
 
Hill and union leaders from Germany, France, Turkey, South Africa and the US met yesterday to plan a common strategy to support the Charlotte strikers. 
 
&quot;Continental's actions in the United States are a disgrace,&quot; said Jacques Caltot, who heads the rubber division of the ICEM-affiliated French union FCE-CFDT. &quot;We will continue to press Continental to adhere to international labour standards wherever it does business, and we will support the USWA strike in Charlotte until a fair and just agreement can be reached.&quot; 
 
&quot;The situation at Continental is typical of a problem that we are going to have to tackle globally,&quot; commented ICEM Vice-President Fred Higgs just after the London demo. &quot;Companies that pride themselves on being respectable employers in Europe often act very differently in contexts like the United States. We are going to be exerting the fullest possible pressure to secure the reinstatement of all the 1,450 Charlotte workers who have been so unjustly and ungratefully treated by Continental.&quot; 
 
Also heading up the London demo was Earl Pabst, President of the union local in Charlotte. 
 
&quot;The support over here is even stronger than I had imagined,&quot; Pabst said. &quot;Today's event has taken our message to another level.&quot; 
 
Asked what he wanted as a next step, Pabst replied: &quot;I want the scabs [strikebreakers] out and us back in.&quot; 
 
Meanwhile, he said, the union would be expanding an &quot;informational campaign&quot; of leafletting customers outside US retailers that sell Continental tyres. &quot;We're now contacting retailers across the USA,&quot; Pabst added. &quot;We're telling them who we are and what we want, and we're explaining that we're with them, not against them.&quot; 
 
In Akron, ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe pledged continuing global union support for the American workers' campaign. 
 
&quot;Our affiliated unions around the world are behind the USWA,&quot; Thorpe said. &quot;We will show Continental there are serious consequences for its violation of workers' rights.&quot;

Continental Tyres Faces Intercontinental Trouble

Canadian-based Inco will have to declare force majeure on some of its deliveries, the company admitted yesterday. 
 
The defaults on shipments result from Inco's lock-out against workers at a Canadian nickel mine in Thompson, Manitoba. 
 
Inco's blunder in Thompson will seriously weaken its credibility as a supplier, observers predicted. The company's sales slogan is Stronger For Our Experience. 
 
&quot;The total quantity of products that the Company is currently expected to be unable to supply as a result of the continuation of the work stoppage represents about 15 percent of the Company's average monthly primary nickel sales for the first nine months of 1999,&quot; Inco said yesterday. 
 
On its own figures, Inco supplies about 26 percent of the world's nickel demand. It is also an important producer of copper, precious metals and cobalt. 
 
1,040 workers at the Thompson mine have been locked out since 14 September. They are members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). The lock-out followed the union membership's rejection of the company's final offer. The Inco offer did not include any improvements in pensions, wages or benefits. USWA members at two other Inco Canadian operations have suspended their participation in joint labour-management design projects until the lock-out at Thompson is settled. 
 
At the global level, the USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Earlier this month, USWA Canadian National Director Lawrence McBrearty asked the ICEM World Congress to back the Inco workers' campaign. Inco's behaviour is an example of a &quot; heartless corporate culture that puts profits before people,&quot; McBrearty told the Congress in Durban, South Africa. The USWA would take &quot;the struggle for justice&quot; to &quot;the four corners of the globe,&quot; he declared. 
 
&quot;We will mobilise our affiliates worldwide to communicate their solidarity with the USWA,&quot; responded ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs, &quot;and we will use every means to urge Inco to reach a settlement with the union expeditiously.&quot; 
 
Inco is present in 14 countries, and has production operations in Canada, the UK, Indonesia, Japan, Guatemala, France, China, New Caledonia and the United States.

Inco Lock-Out Hits Nickel Supplies

About 3,000 South Africans suffering from asbestos-related diseases are pressing for their compensation claims to be heard by courts in Britain. The claims are against British-based asbestos multinational Cape. 
 
&quot;These claims should be heard in Britain and should be settled quickly,&quot; said Fred Higgs in Durban today. Higgs, who is General Secretary of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), is himself a British citizen. He is in South Africa for the ICEM World Congress, which ended yesterday. 
 
&quot;It is a disgrace that Cape is even contesting the claims,&quot; Higgs said. &quot;It treated these people atrociously, and it should pay up immediately and in full.&quot; 
 
Many of the compensation claimants were employed in Cape's mining and milling operations in South Africa when they were children. That was during the apartheid era, and the children were forced to work in appalling conditions, with no protection against the deadly asbestos. 
 
In the latest round of the long legal battle between Cape and its victims, a British court ruled last month that the claims could not be heard in Britain. However, the claimants are now likely to take the matter to the House of Lords, Britain's highest court of appeal. &quot;We believe that the rights of the victims have been ignored in favour of commercial interests,&quot; their British lawyer said in London. 
 
The child labourers who survived Cape's ill-treatment are now adults, and many are desperately ill. This week, South African TV showed pictures of their emaciated bodies. 
 
The case took a macabre new turn on Thursday, when between 200 and 250 unmarked graves were discovered next to a mine dump in Prieska, near Kimberley. South Africa's ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which is backing the claimants, believes the graves are those of asbestos workers who died during the apartheid era. 
 
&quot;Delegates to our World Congress were outraged to hear about this case and about the latest discoveries,&quot; Higgs said today. &quot;There were immediate consultations between British delegates and the NUM, and they agreed that the cases must be heard in Britain without further ado.&quot; 
 
Both British and South African ICEM delegates went on South African TV last night to call for the immediate hearing of the claims in Britain and the payment of full compensation. 
 
The asbestos victims and their supporters in the Northern Cape are planning a protest march to urge the House of Lords to allow their case to be heard in Britain.

Asbestos: South Africans&#039; Case Should Be Heard In Britain

Just as Australian unions, asbestos victims and renegade building materials firm James Hardie were getting close last week to resolving an A$2 billion shortfall in an asbestos liability fund, the company&rsquo;s CEO and CFO resigned, taking a combined A$10 million severance package. Peter Macdonald and Peter Shafron still face Australian criminal charges on misleading investors and other deceptive stock market practices by establishing and then underfunding an asbestos victims fund. Hardie had cut its own liability in constructing the fund.

James Hardie’s Executives Take Massive Severance Payouts

A Swiss mega-union was created 16 October with the merger of four unions. The new union, called Unia, includes ICEM affiliate Syndicat Industrie &amp; Batiment (SIB) and now represents over one million workers. Unia covers Swiss workers from engineering to construction industries, and also in retail and catering sectors.

Four Unions Merge in Switzerland to Inform Unia

Affiliate CEP in Canada held its 6th National Convention in Quebec City and pledged to raise C$500,000 for HIV/AIDS relief in Africa. The money will be channelled through CEP&rsquo;s Humanity Fund which union members support by payroll deductions of one cent per hour. CEP also made a firm pledge to keep open the Mirimichi, New Brunswick, kraft pulp mill currently being shut by Finnish UPM Kymenne. By acclamation, Brian Payne was re-elected president of the 150,000-member CEP and Andre Foucault as secretary-treasurer.

CEP’s Congress in Canada Moves on Providing HIV/AIDS Relief

A week-long strike by ICEM affiliate Associated Mineworkers of Zimbabwe (AMWZ) ended 13 October with agreement by the Chamber of Mines to enter arbitration over a wage dispute. Specifically, to enter into wage talks quarterly, as promised by the employers&rsquo; group early this year. AMWZ won a ruling last month that financial incentives granted mine owners by the government and reserve bank must be passed to workers. The Chamber was appealing that ruling, thus the strike by 25,000 workers in coal, platinum, chrome, gold and other minerals. The AMWZ is insistent on quarterly wage bargaining since Zimbabwe&rsquo;s inflation rate runs at near 600%.

Zimbabwe’s Miners Come to Terms’s with Chamber of Mines

The All Pakistan Trade Union Federation held a mass rally and march across several industrial areas of Lahore. The demonstration was against government policies restricting wage hikes and collective bargaining, as well as rampant retrenchments and price hikes. Similar protest meetings were held in several industrial cities across Pakistan. The protests continued with a major march in Rawalpindi on 6 October.

Pakistan Labour Marches Against Government’s Labour Stand

Archive

Zambia’s Mining Union Sees Threat of Casual Labour

German, French Unions Meet over Aventis, Sanofi Merger

Continental Tyres Faces Intercontinental Trouble

Inco Lock-Out Hits Nickel Supplies

Asbestos: South Africans' Case Should Be Heard In Britain

James Hardie’s Executives Take Massive Severance Payouts

Four Unions Merge in Switzerland to Inform Unia

CEP’s Congress in Canada Moves on Providing HIV/AIDS Relief

Zimbabwe’s Miners Come to Terms’s with Chamber of Mines

Pakistan Labour Marches Against Government’s Labour Stand

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