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<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Lastik-Īş, ICEM’s rubber and chemicals affiliate in Turkey, kept its collective agreement in the rubber sector intact. A week ago, under threat of a 22 May strike at four tyre plants by 3,500 workers, the rubber industry representing Pirelli Lastikleri, Goodyear and Brisa Bridgestone Sabanci, agreed to a two-year contract with the union that excludes all employer flexibility demands contained in a World Bank and IMF inspired labour code introduced in Turkey three years ago. 
<img height="151" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0605Turkey.jpg" width="200"/> 
 
Lastik-Īş leaders outside the Izmit Turkey 
Goodyear plant
Lastik-Īş retained 50 years of gained rights, including holiday periods, wage rates of new hires, health care protections, and limitations on use of temporary workers.
The union won a 5% wage increase back to 1 January, which equals the country’s inflation rate of the last six months of 2005, and also won wage adjustments every six months, based on the inflation rate level. Lastik-Īş negotiated increases based on the inflation rate for several social benefits, including education and child aid, sickness and disease benefits, and heating, food and other social gains.

Turkish Lastik-Īş  Preserves All Past Gains in New Tyre Agreement

US affiliate United Steel Workers (USW) intends to file a lawsuit in a federal courtroom in the state of South Carolina over Giant Cement’s improper reporting of hazardous wastes emitted from the company’s plant in Harleyville, South Carolina.
<img height="99" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMCement.JPG" width="100" alt=""/>
USW claims Giant failed to report the identity and quantity of hazardous wastes burned at the plant, as well as hazardous chemicals used and stored on the jobsite of late. The suit will allege violations of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986
 Giant, a subsidiary of Spain-based Cementos Portland Valderrivas, is operating the cement plant with replacement workers and some 50 of the 138 workers who struck the plant in August 2005. The strike ended on 24 September, but the company has refused to take back the majority of unionised workers.

US Steelworkers File Environment Suit Against Spanish Cement Firm

<img height="61" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBriefAlert.jpg" width="125"/>
The ICEM learned today that one of the two top leaders of the Nepalese trade union federation GEFONT was released from police custody in Kathmandu. 
<img height="129" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0601NepalMukunda.jpg" width="100"/>    <img height="127" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0601NepalBinod.jpg" width="111"/> 
Left: Chairman Mukunda Neupane (released) 
Right: Gefont's Secretary General Binod Shrestha 
(still under arrest) 
Chairman Mukanda Neupane was released Tuesday evening, 24 January, but GEFONT Secretary-General Binod Shrestha was still being detained. Both had been arrested early on 19 January. Also released were two trade union leaders of another trade union federation, NTUC, as well as a number of pro-democracy political leaders. 
 
Upon his release, Brother Neupane thanked the international community—particularly the global trade union family—for its strong support, and urged the people of Nepal to continue efforts to bring democracy to the Himalayan country. Neupane, however, also expressed dismay that other detainees, including Brother Shrestha, are still being held. 
 
Further information can be found at the GEFONT website: <a href="http://www.gefont.org">http://www.gefont.org</a>.

GEFONT Chairman Mukanda Neupane Released in Nepal

Mr. Jukka Härmälä 
CEO 
Stora Enso Oyj 
Kanavaranta 1 
FIN-00160 Helsinki 
FINLAND 
 
Sent Via Fax +358 2046 21471 
 
 
Dear Mr. Härmälä, 
 
The ICEM, a 20-million-member Global Union Federation with affiliates in 122 countries of the world, has been informed by our Canadian affiliate, the Communications, Energy and Paper Workers’ Union (CEP) of Canada, that the North American management of your company’s Port Hawkesbury mill in Nova Scotia locked out 600 workers with crippling effect on the whole of the local economy in that Canadian province. 
 
The lock-out came as workers predictably rejected North American management’s contract proposal, which would have given managers unprecedented rights to outsource unionised work. Such a proposal regarding the use of contract labour is in total contradiction to the norms now in place regarding contract labour in the paper industry’s pattern agreement for Eastern Canada. 
 
The ICEM strongly urges you to personally intervene to amicably resolve this dispute. We believe attitudes demonstrated by Stora Enso’s North American managers are contrary to your publicly-declared international principles of sustainability. 
 
We appeal to you to apply the principled custom of Nordic fairness and to direct your North American managers to immediately reopen dialogue with the CEP to resolve this dispute. 
 
The ICEM will closely monitor this dispute and we will bring it to the attention of our global affiliates who represent Stora Enso workers across the world. We look forward to an early and just settlement of this lockout. 
 
Sincerely, 
 
Fred Higgs 
General Secretary

ICEM letter to Stora Enso

A torch-lit parade and protest in the Belgian city of Gent against the retaliatory measures of paper company Stora Enso has the full endorsement of Brussels-based ICEM, the Global Union Federation representing pulp and paper trade unions across the world. 
 
The parade and protest, to be held beginning at 19h00 on Tuesday, 7 February, is sponsored by the Gent-Dendermonde Region of ICEM affiliate De Algemene Centrale ABVV (La Centrale Générale FGTB). The march will convene in front of ABBV’s regional headquarters at Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Market), 9000 Gent, and after assembly, will proceed for one hour through the city streets of Gent. 

<img height="99" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMpaper.jpg" width="100"/>
 
The retaliation involves the sudden dismissal of two ABVV shop stewards at Stora Enso’s Langerbrugge paper mill on 30 December. Mill Management executed legal papers for their dismissal and had constables deliver the termination notices to their homes. 
 
The union protested directly to Stora Enso, and alerted the Finnish-Swedish paper company that it had 30 days to reinstate the pair to their rightful jobs, or it would set the Belgian legal process in play. The company, responding through its law firm, said that if ABVV/FGTB filed legal action for compensatory damages for the two, it would sue ABVV/FGTB for business losses connected to a short, but legal strike last fall that the union and two other trade unions conducted. 
 
Such a lawsuit against a union is unprecedented and currently not possible in Belgian courts due to the legal definition of a trade union. But right-wing political parties inside Belgium are pushing for a legislative debate on holding unions responsible for financial restitution during a work stoppage, and Stora Enso has now entered that debate. 
 
Tuesday’s event will showcase the necessity to strengthen workplace protections for on-the-job trade union leaders. And Stora Enso’s anti-worker practices at Langerbrugge will be shown as the shameful example of anti-social behaviour in Belgium. 
 
“This march is intended for the citizens and politicians of Belgium and to alert them that current law protecting shop stewards is inadequate,” said Katrien Van der Heist, regional Secretary for De Algemene Centrale. “It is clear to us that Langerbrugge management holds our two shop stewards responsible for the strike, and this is illegal.” 
 
But under Belgian law, a trade union’s only legal recourse is to seek a fine against the company and compensation for the individuals, but not reinstatement. “This is something that must change,” added Van Der Heist. “We must make the law stricter and force companies to take back union representatives who are fired for carrying out their legitimate duties.” 
 
The sackings came as a result of a 12-day strike by 330 workers at the Langerbrugger newsprint and publication papers mill from 28 October to 8 November, 2005. During that strike, mill management used coercive tactics by petitioning a Gent court to impose a €1,000-a-day fine on the union and its representatives for each worker that did not cross picket lines. The company also publicly declared that its concessionary proposals would only get worse each day that the strike lasted. (Further information on that strike can be found at <a href="/?id=19&doc=1482 &la=EN" type="internal">/?id=19&doc=1482 &la=EN</a> and <a href="/?id=19&doc=1485&la=EN" type="internal">/?id=19&doc=1485&la=EN</a>.) 
 

<img height="173" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602ACCGCEPpicture.JPG" width="260"/>
From left: CEP President Brian Payne, ABVV Regional Secretary Katrien Van der Helst,and FGTB/ABVV National Federal Secretary Bruno Bachely.
Stora Enso also took indirect action against two ABVV shop stewards of cleaning contractor ACS. They informed the contractor that the stewards could not work inside Langerbrugge under threat of ACS losing the cleaning contract. The two women shop stewards had stopped by picket lines during the strike to express solidarity. 
 
The torch-lit march through the streets of Gent comes 12 days after the world’s largest pulp, paper and paperboard company locked out 600 members of ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada at a mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. (For information on the lockout, see <a href="/?id=77&doc=1635&la=EN" type="internal">/?id=77&doc=1635&la=EN</a>.) Brian Payne, president of CEP, was in Brussels yesterday and not only pledged a presence at the parade, but also pledged a continued link of solidarity and communication between CEP Local 972 in Nova Scotia and Belgian ABVV-FGTB.

Stora Enso Retaliates Against Union Leaders in Gent, Belgium

<img height="80" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ThailandFlag.gif" width="120"/>
An ICEM intervention in a Thai glass factory dispute at Saint-Gobain Sekurit produced a victory for 700 workers last week. 
The majority of the workers, members of a plant union affiliated with the Federation of Thailand Automobile Workers’ Unions, had been locked out since 6 January by hostile local managers. They conducted demonstrations in front of the factory in Thailand’s Rayong province and at the Labour Ministry in Bangkok, while the ICEM and French trade unions used a steady stream of facts and data in open-channelled dialogue with senior officials of Saint-Gobain in Paris. 
<img height="225" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602ThaiSaintGobainprotest.jpg" width="300"/>
The factual matter included the harsh treatment inflicted on trade unionists at the plant, including initiating a court case in order to sack four of them for leading plant-gate protests. The contract dispute was over many issues, including bonus payments for 2005 and management proposals to cut Sunday overtime pay by half. 
After Saint-Gobain Sekurit imposed the lockout on half the workforce and sacked the four, bargaining became regressive as Thai managers dramatically reduced the bonus proposal and said it would be for two years instead of one. 
With front-line information provided by the ICEM, French unions Fédération Chimie Energie CFDT, CGT Verre Céramique and Fédéchimie CGT-FO were in daily contact with Saint-Gobain in Paris, putting pressure on top-level decision makers who steered the dispute to a successful conclusion. 
The result is that Thai glass managers reinstated the four and dropped the court cases. Union and local managers also agreed on all collective bargaining issues, including a bonus. The ICEM commends the French unions for delivering a fair and just labour agreement to workers at the productive and growth-filled glass factory.

Saint Gobain Glass Workers in Thailand Gain When ICEM Intervenes

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
In Canada, joint union-management rescue teams succeeded in bringing 72 potash miners who were trapped one kilometre deep in Saskatchewan province to safety. The incident occurred on 29 January when a fire started inside the world’s largest potash mine, owned by US-based Mosaic Co., which is controlled by giant foods group Cargill. 
Mine rescue teams from Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union Locals 890 and 892 began tried and tested methods of progressive procedures to rescue the 72 after being trapped for 25 hours. The miners had retreated to sealed refuge stations after the fire—caused by a cutting torch—that ignited polyethylene piping. 
Union-management rescue teams, backed by similar rescue teams from nearby unionised potash mines, extinguished the suffocating fires, reached the miners, cautiously vented toxic gas and smoke, and then brought the 72 safely to the surface. The mine has 3,000 miles of underground roads and tunnels covering a 20-mile-wide surface area. 
“It really looks like a textbook recovery to me,” one former US mine director observed. The trapped miners, however, were unimpressed by the food inside the wet-clay-sealed refuge stations. “Ample water but the food sucks … dry biscuits that are like eating gravel or sand,” complained one miner in a local newspaper.

CEP Mine Safety Teams Rescue Potash Miners

Ron Beaton, President 
CEP Local 972 
323 Reeves Street 
Port Hawkesbury, NS B9A 2W2 
CANADA 
 
Transmitted by Fax Number +1 902.626.5943 
or E-Mail: <a href="mailto:cep.972@ns.sympatico.ca">cep.972@ns.sympatico.ca</a> 
 
 
Dear Brother Ron Beaton, 
 
We have learned from the ICEM of your courageous struggle to maintain the hard earned working conditions and job security provisions contained in the Paper Sector Pattern Bargaining Agreement for Eastern Canada. We also have been alerted that Stora Enso has locked out members of your local branch union in efforts to undermine the pattern. 
 
On the occasion of your union’s rally and march in Port Hawkesbury on 18 March, we extend to Local 972 members our heartfelt Support and Solidarity in resisting Stora Enso’s pattern weakening proposals. We stand with you in this dispute against Stora Enso, and urge Local 972 members to remain strong and unified in order to defeat these concessionary proposals. 
 
Your struggle is our struggle, and your determination and resolve to gain a fair and equitable labour agreement has our admiration and support. 
 
In Solidarity, 
 
(signed) 
 
(Name, 
Position, 
Name of the Union)

Model letter to the union in support of striking Canadian Stora Enso workers

For the urgent attention of His Majesty 
King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev 
Narayanhity Royal Palace 
Durbar Marg 
Kathmandu 
Nepal 

 
Brussels, 28 February 2006 
 
 
Your Excellency, 
 
I am writing to you in name of the 20 million members of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). We have been informed by our affiliate in Nepal, the Nepal Electricity Authority Employees' Union (NEA-EU), about the existing plans by your government to split up the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). 
 
The ICEM strongly objects to the fact that your government is seeking to take advantage of the dissolution of the parliament last year to prepare a new electricity act, which would fragment the NEA and, ultimately, prepare the utility for privatization. The ICEM therefore joins the NEA-EU, together with the NEAEA, another ICEM affiliate, and the NEAEWC, in their protest against the proposed ordinance that would make this privatization possible. 
 
As you know, the trade unions have actively stated their opposition to this ordinance through mass meetings, the wearing of black bands and picketing the office of the Managing Director of the NEA. The ICEM supports the ongoing campaign by the trade unions, including the continued picketing, the vehicle strikes in the central office area of the NEA and the various protest actions that will be organised throughout the country. 
 
The ICEM urges you to halt the plan to split up the NEA and to discuss any possible restructuring of the company with the workers and their elected representatives. 
 
Furthermore, I wish to repeat our call for the immediate release of all trade union leaders and members that have been arrested over the last few weeks in Nepal. The ongoing repression of democratic organisations in your country is violating a wide range of accepted international standards, and this needs an immediate remedy. 
 
Thanking you in advance for your urgent attention. 
 
Yours sincerely, 
 
 
Fred Higgs 
General Secretary 
 
Cc: Mr. Narayan S. Thapa, Ambassador of Nepal to the Benelux and European Countries

ICEM letter to King of Nepal on privatisation of Nepal Electricity Authority

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
In Nepal, wrapped inside the monarchy’s current autocratic rule and dissolution of Parliament over a year ago, is a government ordinance coming to light that would privatise components of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). ICEM affiliates NEAEU and NEAEA, along with a third union inside the electric utility, are resisting the privatisation and have launched a series of protests and short strikes to keep NEA in the public domain. 
<img height="263" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0603NepalNEA.jpg" width="350"/>
 
“The government is preparing a new electricity act for the purpose of unbundling NEA through an ordinance because there is no Parliament in Nepal,” stated NEAEU Secretary General RP Rimal. “We, with the other two unions NEAEA and NEAEWC, are opposing the proposed ordinance,” he said, adding the unions began protests on 15 February. 
The protests include picketing NEA central offices, and a series of one-hour vehicle strikes that have escalated to four-hour strikes. The ICEM joined the protests by writing a strong letter in opposition to the plan, which can be found at <a href="/index.php?id=7&la=EN&doc=1681" type="internal">/index.php?id=7&la=EN&doc=1681</a>.

ICEM Opposes Nepal’s Electric Privatisation

Archive

Turkish Lastik-Īş Preserves All Past Gains in New Tyre Agreement

US Steelworkers File Environment Suit Against Spanish Cement Firm

GEFONT Chairman Mukanda Neupane Released in Nepal

ICEM letter to Stora Enso

Stora Enso Retaliates Against Union Leaders in Gent, Belgium

Saint Gobain Glass Workers in Thailand Gain When ICEM Intervenes

CEP Mine Safety Teams Rescue Potash Miners

Model letter to the union in support of striking Canadian Stora Enso workers

ICEM letter to King of Nepal on privatisation of Nepal Electricity Authority

ICEM Opposes Nepal’s Electric Privatisation

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