English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy 

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2025-2029

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL 

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

<img height="55" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief%201.gif" width="138"/>
Nigerian affiliate NUPENG held its First Delegates’ Conference in Benin City, Edo state, this month, and took unprecedented action toward peace and stability for the oil and gas sector of the country. 
The union issued a mandate that all refineries and other government assets that currently are up for privatisation need to maintain 10% stakes held by workers. NUPENG called for only “credible and competent” investors to take 51% stakes in enterprises, with 39% holdings held by the Nigerian government. 
The union’s Delegate Assembly also called on oil exporting companies to build new refineries in Africa’s most populous country, and pledged industrial actions between January and June, 2006, to address the issue of casualisation and contract labour. 
Specifically, NUPENG condemned the non-existent screening and auditing of expatriate worker quotas by the government’s Directorate of Petroleum Resources. Such standards exist now in memorandums of agreement. 
Peter Akpatason was re-elected as NUPENG President; Ikechi Pius was re-elected as First Deputy; and Wosu Goodluck won election as Second Deputy. In elections for vice presidents, Osai Eddy was elected for Warri Zone, Okeke Basil elected for Port Harcourt Zone, Bako Joseph won re-election in Kaduna Zone, and Fakumoju K. in Lagos Zone. Elijah Okougbo remains NUPENG’s General Secretary.

NUPENG Promises Industrial Actions over High Contract Labour Use

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union (EPMU) of New Zealand has re-launched its 5% wage hike campaign last week for workers at Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) operations. The ICEM affiliate had put wage talks on hold last year with the forest products firm after Graeme Hart’s Rank Investments began buying stakes in the Auckland-listed company. 
EPMU has successfully negotiated 5% wage increases at three CHH enterprises, with bargaining at seven sites still outstanding from last year. 
Hart, owner now of 86% of CHH, increased his bid for shares last week by offering NZ$2.75-a-share, twenty-five cents better than his original offer. Hart needs 90% of CHH to de-list the company and take it private.

EPMU Re-boots 5% Wage Campaign at Carter Holt Harvey

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
ICEM Serbia-Montenegro affiliate EPS Trade Union has halted strike actions against three electric and mining enterprises of the state-run electric power generation and distribution company. Progressive strike actions had been underway to claim wage arrears and pay hikes for 2006. 
The union and government came to a tentative deal that workers would accept loans for shortfalls in January, February and March, and bargaining would start again in a month’s time. EPS Trade Union had engaged in daily strike actions and other protests since 10 January, in efforts to claim workers’ rightful wages.

EPS Trade Union in Serbia Suspends Strike Actions

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
Tuesday, 7 February, will mark a full year that US members of United Steelworkers (USW) in Cincinnati, Ohio have been on strike against Cognis, a German chemicals company. 
USW Local 14340 will observe the anniversary by placing further attention on Cognis and its joint-venture partner who are operating the plant at great environmental risk, and with known health and safety deficiencies. 
Workers struck because Cognis would not agree to union recognition through a “successorship” clause in the labour agreement when Cognis and Malaysian Golden Hope Plantations formed a joint venture to run the oleochemicals division of the plant. The company is now refusing to accept strikers back to work even if the strike is ended. 
In a letter to Cognis CEO Antonio Trusi Oliva, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs called this “unacceptable” and urged him to use his “influence inside this new enterprise to assure that a settlement to this strike will include jobs for all USW union members who wish to return to work.”

USW Members in Ohio Seek Justice from Chemicals Producer

More than 1500 trade unionists participated in a torch-lit march in the city centre of Gent, Belgium, yesterday, protesting against the shocking behaviour of the management of Stora Enso’s paper mill in Langerbrugge, near Gent. 
 
 

<img height="178" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602GentDemo3a.jpg" width="390" alt=""/>
 
At the heart of the demonstration were the two Belgian trade union representatives that Stora Enso, a Finnish-Swedish multinational headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, dismissed at the end of last year for their union activities. For the full background see: <a href="/?id=77&doc=1638&la=EN" type="internal">Stora Enso Retaliates Against Union Leaders in Gent, Belgium (3 February 2006)</a>. 
 
 

<img height="265" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602GentDemo2a.jpg" width="390" alt=""/>
 
An ICEM delegation, led by Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary, participated in the protest march. The presence of the ICEM highlighted the international character of the dispute, as the ICEM representatives carried the banner of the Canadian Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), another ICEM affiliate also facing an attack by Stora Enso management. 
 
One similarity between the disputes in Canada and Belgium is the desire of the company to have unchecked freedom in contracting out jobs, thereby seriously jeopardising job security at Stora Enso facilities. Another similarity is the blatantly anti-union behaviour. Stora Enso is becoming increasingly known as a company showing little or no regard for the rights of its workers and their unions in its chase of higher profitability. 
 
 

<img height="230" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602GentDemo1a.jpg" width="250"/>
 
At the march, flags were exchanged between representatives of the ICEM, in the name of CEP, and the Belgian ACCG, in a display of solidarity between the Canadian unionists and the Belgian protesters. Discussions took place between the two unions and the ICEM in Brussels last week. 
 
 

<img height="236" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602GentDemo4a.jpg" width="380"/>

Protest March Against Stora Enso Behaviour in Belgium

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
An eleventh hour agreement was reached late on Saturday, 30 September, just hours before 800 Canadian members of United Steelworkers (USW) were set to strike the Highland Valley copper mine and operations near Kamloops, British Colombia. 
 
USW Local 7619 and the mine’s owner, Teck Cominco, reached a tentative five-year labour agreement that will now be voted on by union members over the next week. The USW local issued a 72-hour strike notice on 26 September, and the Vancouver-based global mining house began shutting down operations in anticipation of a strike at the expiration of a prior agreement on 1 October. The tentative agreement came with the help of a provincial mediator. 
<img height="50" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CanadaFLAG.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
The Highland Valley operation is Canada’s largest copper producer and generates 1.2% of the world’s copper supply, with roughly 80% headed to Asian manufacturers. 
 
In Eastern Canada, a strike by USW members at Inco’s Voisey Bay nickel operations ended 23 September, after 120 workers ratified a new labour contract. The strike started on 28 July 2006. 
 
The accord gives Voisey Bay steelworkers a 15.5% raise over the three-year contract, as well as a retention bonus of C$6,000. It also allows the nickel miners to gain parity with unionised Inco miners in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba.

Strike Averted at Canada’s Largest Copper Mine

<img height="41" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief.gif" width="100"/>
An agreement in principle has been won by three German unions with Vattenfall Europe for some 20,000 utility workers in Germany to be covered by one collective agreement. 
The unions, ICEM affiliate IGBCE, IG Metall and Ver.di, have been negotiating with the Swedish-based company for two years in efforts to get all workers under a single agreement in order to achieve pay equity and uniform work terms. 
That pledge for agreement came recently when the supervisory board of Germany’s third largest utility changed its position and agreed to a common agreement. Management also agreed to allow workers who are in enterprises that get sold off by the company to remain in the agreement until a new collective agreement is negotiated with that business. 
<img height="62" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/GermanyFlag.gif" width="100"/>       <img height="63" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SwedenFlag.gif" width="100"/>
The three unions had joined together in a number of protests against the company’s indifference to a common contract, including a demonstration numbering 5,000 at Vattenfall Europe’s 1 March AGM in Berlin. 
In March, Swedish trade union SEKO began a campaign at home to assist the German unions with achieving a common contract. In Germany, Vattenfall Europe consists of several former utility companies that the Swedish firm has purchased over the past six years, including Bewag, HEW, Laubag and Veag.

German Unions, Vattenfall Come to Terms

<img height="55" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="138"/>
Tomorrow, the Australian labour movement will take to the streets in several cities with hundreds of thousands of protestors aimed at the Howard government’s proposed industrial relations reforms. Introduced into Parliament on 2 November, WorkChoices legislation is draconian workplace reform reminiscent of conditions that produced wholesale class warfare a century ago. 
Howard’s Conservatives, now controlling both houses of Parliament, pushed the reform through the lower chamber on 10 November by initiating “gag and guillotine” rules that prevented opposing MPs from speaking. 
The package of worker restrictions now goes to a Senate committee, and is expected to be brought to the full Senate chamber on 28 November. The reform will extinguish established collective enterprise agreements in favour of individual contracts; restrict trade union rights in representation matters; create unfair workplace dismissals; limit the range of issues unions can bring into bargaining; and will weaken annual leave provisions and remove the right to public holidays enjoyed by some workers, among just a few of the harsh measures. 
Australian trade unions have responded in typical fighting fashion, for example, by countering the affront to the country’s lowest paid workers with introduction of 4% hikes in the minimum wage in five separate states. The proposals were made to state industrial relations commissions, agencies the Howard government want abolished in lieu of federal control over workplace laws. Tomorrow’s rallies, like ones staged 30 June just prior to Conservatives taking control of both houses of Parliament, will show Australian workers are bitterly opposed to turning the clock back on industrial relations.

Australian Lab our Movement Rallies on 15 November

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
The 16-week-old lockout by Stora Enso at a paper mill in Canada will continue into the foreseeable future. The Finnish-Swedish company, which locked 600 members of Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union off their jobs on 26 January 2006, returned to the bargaining table on 8 May. 
 
But the session was short and discouraging. In a return-to-work agreement, Stora Enso demanded a 10% pay cut from workers in mid-April, and the union’s counter-proposal last week was met with bitter rejection. The company then bypassed the union-management process by mailing to each worker its plea for acceptance, including the concessionary “Recovery Plan” that seeks to cut costs inside the Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, mill. With a proposed wage freeze staring at them, workers would actually see an 18% cut in earnings if the proposal were to be accepted. 
 
Stora Enso has brokered C$65 million in subsidies from the province of Nova Scotia, covering seven years. But the aid package is contingent on a new collective agreement between the company and CEP Local 972, and CEP paperworkers in the maritime province will not slash their livelihoods to meet Stora’s outrageous demands.

Stora Enso’s Demands Prolong Canadian Paper Mill Lockout

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Baltic trade union solidarity was at its best last week when the Lithuanian Confederation of Trade Unions picketed and presented a formal letter of protest to the Estonian embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania. At the same time, on 25 May, Estonian trade union federations EAKL and TALO were demonstrating in the Estonian capital of Tallinn. 
<img height="66" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/EstoniaFlag2.gif" width="100" alt=""/>     <img height="67" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/LituaniaFlag.gif" width="100"/>
The joint protest is over the Estonian government’s proposed Employees’ Representatives Act, put forward by the Social Affairs Ministry. If passed into law, the measure would exclude legitimate trade union representatives from information and consultation procedures inside worksites, as well as give employers the leverage to sack trade union delegates. 
 
EAKL Chairman Harri Taliga said the proposed legislation was shaped only with the narrow interests of employers in mind. The ICEM has written to Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip to express concern with the bill, specifically citing it with violating ILO Conventions 98 and 135, as well as a European Union directive on trade union rights.

Lithuanian Labour Protests Estonia’s Anti-Union Legislation

Archive