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By a 2-1 vote, Australian miners yesterday turned down an anti-union package offered by Rio Tinto, the world's biggest mining corporation. 
 
The miners' international, the ICEM, immediately urged Rio Tinto to open talks on a worldwide agreement to protect union rights and other human rights in the company's operations everywhere. 
 
Rio Tinto has been trying to deunionise the workforce at its Hunter Valley No. 1 coalmine in Australia, but workers there voted 2-1 yesterday against a proposed company non-union agreement. The votes were cast in a secret ballot conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), which announced the result this morning. 
 
The bitter long-running dispute will now go to arbitration, where the workers will be represented by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). 
 
At the global level, the CFMEU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has rallied worldwide support for workers who are challenging Rio Tinto's anti-union stance in various countries. 
 
The Australian federal government, on the other hand, has consistently sided with the company. Throughout the long drawn out Hunter Valley dispute, the administration of Prime Minister John Howard has given its full support to Rio Tinto in opposing the CFMEU's attempts to have the matter arbitrated. 
 
CFMEU Mining and Energy Division General President Tony Maher described the result of the ballot as &quot;a victory for the principle of collective bargaining through the union and an enormous setback for Rio Tinto's deunionisation campaign. 
 
&quot;The Hunter Valley No.1 mineworkers have been subjected to a war of attrition by Rio Tinto in an attempt to beat them out of the union after the initial attempt to bribe them out had failed,&quot; Maher declared. &quot;Rio Tinto have used every anti-union law the Howard government armed them with to break the union. The workers have endured mass sackings and victimisation of union activists. Almost every local union representative was sacked at Hunter Valley by Rio Tinto in December last year. 
 
&quot;Today's AEC announcement that the workers have stuck with the union is testament to their courage and to their lack of trust in Rio Tinto,&quot; Maher said. 
 
 
ICEM URGES GLOBAL TALKS NOW 
 
&quot;This decisive Australian vote is one more proof that Rio Tinto can't work against the unions. So they must start working with the unions,&quot; insisted ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe in London today. 
 
&quot;We repeat our call to Rio Tinto to open negotiations with the ICEM on a global agreement to protect trade union rights and other basic human rights in the company's operations worldwide,&quot; Thorpe said. &quot;In the best interests of all Rio Tinto's stakeholders, those talks should begin now.&quot;

Australian Miners Reject Anti-Union Deal

Just two years past a bitter 84-day strike, New Zealand paperworkers of ICEM affiliate Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) are again locked in a bargaining dispute at the Kinleith mill. CHH, majority owned by US-based International Paper Co., has refused to meet EPMU&rsquo;s pay demands for over 500 workers at the market pulp and containerboard mill. The union has campaigned since February in all NZ bargaining renewals for &ldquo;5% in &lsquo;05&rdquo; but Australia and New Zealand&rsquo;s biggest paper company has offered only 4% this year and 3% in 2006. EPMU members at Kinleith have threatened industrial action if the dispute over pay and a pay parity issue with workers at another CHH pulp mill is not resolved. At a plywood mill next door to the Kinleith mill near Tokoroa, North Island, EPMU is in consultation with CHH to save and cushion job losses. The company announced it would cut 55 of 250 woodsector jobs at this mill effective 23 August. The US parent of CHH, meanwhile, has also announced that the entirety of the firm&rsquo;s assets in New Zealand and Australia are now for sale.

Paper Mill Dispute Again Surfaces in New Zealand

USW in the US expressed more concern over BP&rsquo;s safety inside American refineries after a 28 July explosion and fire at the company&rsquo;s Amoco refinery in Texas City, Texas. The incident, which caused no deaths or injuries, comes four months after a BP explosion on 23 March that killed 15 and injured 170 in Texas City. The most recent accident occurred along hydrogen lines in one of the refinery&rsquo;s Resid Hydrotesting Units, an area that removes sulphur from heavy crude. USW has been critical of the investigation in the aftermath of the 23 March blast, specifically placement of blame on workers and flawed information that was disclosed. USW Region Six Director Gary Beevers asked, &ldquo;How many accidents is it going to take for BP to get off the dime and start cooperating with us to make this plant safer?&rdquo; BP is the leading company when it comes to refinery deaths in America over the past ten years with 22. In 2003-04 alone, BP recorded over 100 accidental releases of illegal air emissions at its Texas City refinery.

More Safety Woes at BP-Amoco&#039;s Texas Refinery

<img height="40" src="" width="100" alt="" />
US affiliate Utility Workers of America (UWUA) is taking on National Grid USA over the company&rsquo;s intent to use contractors at two of its New England subsidiaries&mdash;Massachusetts Electric Co. and Narragansett Electric of Rhode Island. UWUA Local 330&rsquo;s contract prohibits outsourcing, and the union says National Grid&rsquo;s plan is to contract collection, metering and service-ending operations to a company called Contract Callers Inc. 
UWUA says this will not only have a detrimental effect on permanent employees, but will provide hardships to the elderly and low-income citizens of communities the utilities service. The American union has submitted the matter to arbitration, as well as filed unfair labour practice charges with the US government on the breach.

US Affiliate Utility Workers&#039; Protests Contracting Out

Canadian offshore oil workers at Hibernia, members of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP), rejected a proposed first contract in voting that was tabulated in early August. Because of the vast distances offshore workers must travel between work and home, and the fact that Hibernia&rsquo;s managing company ExxonMobil refused to allow voting to occur on the rig, CEP had to conduct a mail ballot along with information meetings and voting in St. John, Newfoundland, during June and July. CEP did not recommend a vote for acceptance or rejection on the proposed first collective agreement. Some 450 workers organised with CEP in 2001, but efforts to win certification and a first contract were hampered by ExxonMobil&rsquo;s continuous legal challenges.

Canadian Offshore Workers Reject Hibernia Contract

Workers on two North Sea oil rigs of Statoil have been listened to after they called out a lifeboat manufacturer for providing unsafe equipment. Workers on the Kristin and Veslefrikk platforms have witnessed damaged lifeboats in free-fall tests off the platforms. They reported crushed roofs and cracks in the enclosed boats. The manufacturer of the lifeboats is Umoe Schat-Harding of Norway. The issue has affected oil production from the platforms, and Statoil has complied with workers&rsquo; requests and pulled six lifeboats off rigs until Umoe Schat-Harding makes modifications.

Oil Workers Dumps Faulty North Sea Lifeboats

UK affiliate Amicus won an important court case over the EU&rsquo;s Work Time Directive for North Sea offshore oil workers. A Scottish employment tribunal ruled 26 July that offshore contractors and oil companies cannot deny annual leave to workers because of the irregular pattern of work on offshore rigs. The European Commission had previously upheld Amicus&rsquo; claim to the four-week leave provision, and last month&rsquo;s court decision from Aberdeen&mdash;considered a precedent-setting test case&mdash;negates employers&rsquo; arguments that the Work Time Directive does not apply to worksites beyond the 12-mile limit of UK&rsquo;s territorial waters.

UK Union Wins North Sea Work-time Directive

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa has shut the world&rsquo;s largest gold mining industry by launching a strike of 80,000 workers at mines owned by the world&rsquo;s biggest mining houses. NUM began the strike last night and other gold miners&mdash;numbering some 15,000 and representing by two smaller unions&mdash;are expected to join the strike today and later this week. The dispute is over pay, as well as mining companies&rsquo; failure to make good on work terms agreed to in 2003 bargaining. Considering the current trend of a weakened rand and the fact that gold prices remain on an upward curve, NUM&rsquo;s pay demands of between 10-12% are logical and legitimate. Mining houses, led by Harmony, Goldfields and AngloGold, negotiating through South Africa&rsquo;s Chamber of Mines, are offering only 4.5% to 5%, depending on job classification.

NUM Strikes Gold Mining Sector in South Africa

In the mining industry in Canada, 1,300 members of two locals of the United Steelworkers (USW) began a strike 19 July in Trail, British Columbia, against Vancouver-based Teck Cominco Ltd. Workers are seeking to re-gain wage and pension ground given to the company when it was in financial trouble in the 1990s. Teck Cominco operates a refinery for zinc, lead and other metals in Trail. The mine and processing plant provides 3% of the world&rsquo;s zinc production. The company declared force majeure on all metal and chemical products sales due to the strike. Meanwhile, in the southwestern US, 1,550 USW members continue strikes in two states that began 2 July and 6 July that has crippled cooper production of Asarco, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Grupo Mexico.

Steelworkers Strike Teck Cominco Refinery in Canada

Bargaining in Germany&rsquo;s paper industry for 45,000 workers has broken down over employers&rsquo; resistance to compromise. ICEM affiliate IGBCE said it was the first time in a decade that the union and paper companies have not reached a compromise, and the union will not evade a confrontation if conciliation now fails. IGBCE Governing Board Member Werner Bischoff expressed great disappointment at the employers&rsquo; unwillingness to seek a compromise. Paper companies stubbornly held to a single payment of &euro;150 per worker for the first eight months of a new collective agreement, and then a 2% increase with a length-of-term proposal for 20 months. IGBCE finds that proposal unacceptable. The two sides will now go to conciliation in which equal numbers of worker representatives and employers will negotiate.

German Paper Bargaining Goes to Conciliation

Archive

Australian Miners Reject Anti-Union Deal

Paper Mill Dispute Again Surfaces in New Zealand

More Safety Woes at BP-Amoco's Texas Refinery

US Affiliate Utility Workers' Protests Contracting Out

Canadian Offshore Workers Reject Hibernia Contract

Oil Workers Dumps Faulty North Sea Lifeboats

UK Union Wins North Sea Work-time Directive

NUM Strikes Gold Mining Sector in South Africa

Steelworkers Strike Teck Cominco Refinery in Canada

German Paper Bargaining Goes to Conciliation

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