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Global worker No1 2022

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How should trade unions tackle the new upheavals in the world's energy industries? How will energy privatisation and technological change affect social and environmental standards? 
 
These were the major issues facing energy union leaders of all continents as they met in Cork, Ireland, today for POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
As the international's General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out, the conference is the biggest ever, with over 300 energy union leaders from 50 countries taking part. They represent more than 9 million ICEM-affiliated energy workers of all sectors. The ICEM is now &quot;the major social force in the energy industries,&quot; Thorpe said. It is also a &quot;ring of workers' power that reaches from raw energy resources in the ground, through generation and secondary power distribution, on to the downstream, value-adding activities of the chemical and allied industries.&quot; 
 
Economists, academics and philosophers who had sold the world the &quot;free market&quot; philosophy had, Thorpe said, not just kissed the Blarney Stone once - &quot;they must have been involved in a virtual Blarney love-fest.&quot; Privatisation and deregulation of energy industries had not resulted in lower prices to the end consumer, nor in better service, more real choice or greater security of supply. But control of energy had passed from elected governments to &quot;boards of directors whom very few of us could name, who are elected by no-one except a handful of institutional shareholders and whose primary responsibility is to the financial bottom line.&quot; 
 
The ICEM's response was to &quot;redefine the relationship of labour with the new controlling entities of our industry.&quot; Workers must not be &quot;just wage labourers in an industry that is out of their control&quot;, but &quot;primary stakeholders, with a powerful voice at the decision table where their future is being discussed.&quot; 
 
There had been notable success stories, such as the ICEM's recent global agreement with oil multinational Statoil, covering basic trade union rights and occupational and environmental safety standards worldwide. 
 
But there was also a downside to changes in the energy industry. Trade union rights were under attack in many countries where energy multinationals operated. Thorpe cited Colombia and Burma as particularly bad current examples of this. He also reminded delegates of the &quot;dreadful years in Nigeria's prisons&quot; endured by oilworkers' leaders Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori. Detained without trial for years on end, Kokori and Dabibi were finally released this June after an international trade union campaign led by the ICEM. 
 
The two Nigerian union leaders are taking part in the Cork conference. At a later special session on energy multinationals, social control and trade union rights, Dabibi and Kokori told cheering delegates that the international campaign had saved their lives. The session on union rights included speakers from Statoil and Amnesty International, as well as energy union leaders. This crucial discussion will continue over the next two days. 
 
Today, the conference continued with sessions on new horizons for world energy giants; and on Irish energy policy and industrial relations. Both sessions included contributions from employer representatives as well as union leaders. 
 
 
 
GLOBAL NUCLEAR FORUM PROPOSED 
 
In his opening speech this morning, ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe also suggested that the ICEM could act as an &quot;honest broker&quot; in discussions on the future of the world's nuclear power industry. He proposed the establishment of a &quot;global forum on the sustainability of nuclear energy&quot; in which &quot;the industry, the community, the environmental lobbyists and involved workers can sit together to thrash out what must be done to bring this industry into line with what society expects of its industrial processes.&quot; 
 
This proposal was welcomed by guest speaker Joe Jacob, Minister of State in Ireland's Department of Public Enterprise. The forum would be a step forward, Jacob said, as would &quot;any other means of allaying the real fears that exist in this country about the use of nuclear power at Sellafield and elsewhere.&quot; Sellafield is a major nuclear plant on the British coast, just across the sea from Ireland. 
 
Ireland itself has no nuclear power, and Jacob particularly emphasised the country's investment in the development of alternative energy sources. 
 
He also said that the Irish experience of social partnership over the past decade has been that &quot;it works, and works well.&quot; The Irish government, unions, employers, farm organisations and more recently community organisations including those of the unemployed, have been engaged in a succession of programmes to develop the country's economy on the basis of consensus. Today, Jacob said, Ireland has &quot;the fastest-growing economy in the developed world.&quot; 
 
That upbeat assessment of social partnership is to a large degree shared by John McDonnell, General Secretary of the ICEM-affiliated Irish union SIPTU. He was especially critical of &quot;the British model of privatisation, which is particularly savage, anti-union and anti-worker&quot; and which &quot;has been rejected or has given way to other, more European social models of corporate restructuring, in some countries.&quot; 
 
However, McDonnell did warn that Irish social partnership could be put at risk if the government did not help to halt a new trend towards deunionisation by some employers operating in Ireland. He particularly took energy multinational Enterprise Oil to task. He accused the company of refusing to employ Irish workers in Ireland's new offshore gas fields - because those workers are unionised. 
 
Unions, McDonnell said, should &quot;lobby at national and indeed international level for the strengthening of international institutions, such as the International Labour Organisation&quot; and for &quot;a new Bretton Woods-type agreement on international capital flows, speculation etc. including a Tobin Tax on speculation.&quot; 
 
As ICEM President Hans Berger told the conference, &quot;global corporations call for a global trade union strategy.&quot; 
 
Continuing in Cork tomorrow and Wednesday is the conference that will decide that strategy.

Biggest-Ever World Energy Union Conference Opens

EGAT-LU, the heroic Thai affiliate that is fending off privatisation of the country&rsquo;s electric industry, has declared 24-28 May as &ldquo;International Week of Action&rdquo; against the government&rsquo;s rush to privatise. ICEM is central to accessing global action for the week, and more information will be posted this week through an ICEM Circular, with specific activities announced in an ICEM press release next week.

EGAT-LU Declares Week of Action Against Electric Privatisation

French affiliate FCE-CFDT and other electric power workers&rsquo; unions sent a strong message against privatisation 8 April with strikes in three French cities that shut down electric supplies. The strikes in Toulouse, Marseilles and Lille were response to the government&rsquo;s intent to spin off Electricit&eacute; de France (EDF) and Gas de France into private utilities. In northern France, workers also pulled the plug on power supplies for a brief period in four cities. And in Paris, demonstrators pelted EDF headquarters and France Conseil d&rsquo;Etat with used light bulbs. FCE-CFDT is calling for a full debate in Parliament over energy policy. It is advocating security of power supplies, promotion of renewables and reductions in general consumption.

French Affiliate FCE-CFDT Opposes EDF Privatisation

Application has been made to begin formal dialogue in the chemical sector of Europe. At a conference in Helsinki, Hubertus Schmoldt, president of both ICEM affiliate IGBCE and EMCEF (www.emcef.org), and Hans-Paul Frey, president of the European Chemical Employers&rsquo; Group, announced to trade unionists and employer representatives that dialogue between the social partners would begin this year. The chemical industry is Europe&rsquo;s second biggest industry, employing two million workers.

European Chemical Unions, EMCEF Seek Social Dialogue

The unaffiliated Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEMU) rallied last week and commenced industrial actions against government-run Bahamas Electricity Corporation. Industrial actions officially began on 1 September. About 150 of the union&rsquo;s 900 members rallied on that day outside the utility&rsquo;s headquarters in Nassau. The company has failed to reach compromise on five key issues separating the two sides: safety, a pension scheme, salary disparities, management of work hours, and contract breaches. The union, part of the National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU) of The Bahamas, is now conducting sit-down actions, go-slow procedures, and action might escalate to power cuts if management remains unwilling to address the concerns of electrical workers

Electric Workers in The Bahamas Start Job Actions

About 400 members of ICEM affiliate Fiji Electricity Workers Association (FEWA) are preparing to strike this week over Fiji Electricity Authority&rsquo;s (FEA) refusal to address pay demands and grievances. The union gave managers a 28-day strike notice on 11 August and insisted that failure to enter meaningful negotiations would cause a walkout. Talks did occur last week, but FEA did not address the wage issue or failure to pay past cost-of-living increases that were due. Fiji&rsquo;s minister of Labour entered the dispute by issuing a letter declaring any strike illegal under the country&rsquo;s Trades Disputes Act, despite the fact that FEWA has been in compliance with all strike notice and secret ballot provisions.

Fiji Electric Workers Threaten Strike

Gold miners at Ghana Goldfields Ltd&rsquo;s Tarkwa mine briefly struck early last week over a dispute on a newly implemented profit-sharing plan. The 1,500 miners of ICEM affiliate Ghana Mineworkers Union (GMWU) struck 29 August but were back on jobs 30 August after negotiations between national leaders of GMWU and regional political leaders. The Tarkwa operation is Ghana&rsquo;s single largest gold producer that now has output of nearly 600,000 ounces annually, up from 530,000 in 2003. In 2004, Goldfields stopped utilizing contract miners at Tarkwa. The Johannesburg based mining house created a permanent workforce and introduced profit sharing that was aimed at supplementing full-time workers&rsquo; salaries.

Ghana Miners Strike Goldfields over Profit-Sharing

<img height="55" alt="" src="" width="138" />
Striking Canadian Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union members at Invista, a global DuPont spinoff now owned by privately-held Koch Industries of the US, got a meaningful sign of Solidarity 27 August. Brother and sister CEPers employed at two other Invista chemical plants came to picket lines of striking Local 28 in Maitland, Ontario, with 380 black shorts bearing the union logos of all three branches. 
The 380 strikers have been out since 4 June over Invista&rsquo;s unwanted benefit cuts and company insistence to eliminate job security language in the contract to make room for contractors. A mediation session in mid-August did produce some progress, and the two sides are back before a provincial mediator on 12 August. CEP members at local branches in Ajax and Millhaven, Ontario, move closer themselves to initial bargaining with Invista in the coming months.

Invista Unions Rally Behind CEP at Canadian Chemical Plant Strike

North American affiliate USW responded rapidly last week to the disaster along the US Gulf of Mexico coast brought on by hurricane Katrina. By mid-week&mdash;before US government relief could get into the death-stricken region with emergency supplies&mdash;the union had designated and begun disbursing US$100,000 through it&rsquo;s Steelworkers Charitable and Education Organization, reported ICEM NA Chairman Don Langham, a vice president of USW. Some $50,000 of that came from the USW&rsquo;s Humanity Fund of Canada. For information on the special fund, log on to www.uswa.org and visit &ldquo;USW Katrina Disaster Fund&rdquo; which is on the homepage. Further information can be obtained by contacting USW Secretary-Treasurer Jim English at jenglish@steelworkers-usw.org.

US Steelworkers Respond to Gulf Coast Hurricane

Negotiations between ICEM affiliate NOPEF and the Norwegian Oil Industry Association in the oil services industry broke off and will now enter mediation. The industry has refused to match increases equal to the collective salary regulation for workers on fixed installations. In 2002, oil servicing workers won a five-day strike on the same issue. The matter of wage scale disparities in the oil sector also has an upcoming court trial scheduled in Norway under the country&rsquo;s Labour Code. NOPEF, meanwhile, is doing its part to rid the global oil industry of corruption. The union formally lodged a complaint with Norwegian economic crime police over bidding procedures conducted by Norway-based Sintef Petroleum Research A/S in Iran.

NOPEF, Oil Industry Enter Dispute Process for Service Workers

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