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Global worker No1 2022

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Working groups established by the Executive Committees of the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) took steps to finalize the Statutes and launched the discussion on an Action Plan for the new Global Union Federation. Members representing affiliates from all five continents met on 30-31 August in Geneva. 
 
The Statutes Working Group examined the key points agreed at a joint Executive Committee meeting in May and made some final adjustments in the draft Statutes. The new International will be governed by an Executive Committee of 60 members until 2016, after which it will be reduced to 40 members. At least 30% of the members shall be women. 
 
The Statutes foresee regional structures and offices that will implement the organization&rsquo;s general policies and address matters specific to the region. There will also be 14 industrial sectors as well as sections for women and non-manual workers. 
 
The Action Plan Group agreed on producing a short and punchy program, which will summarize the main priorities for the new global union. Some of the suggested headlines are building union power by organizing workers throughout supply chains and creating a powerful counterweight to transnational companies by uniting the workers in networks for solidarity and joint action. 
 
Later the same week, the IMF, ICEM, and ITGLWF held a first joint global staff seminar in Geneva. The participants shared their experiences about the way of working of the three organizations and identified opportunities to combine strengths for more powerful action. 
 
The Statutes and Action Plan will be discussed at the decision-making bodies of the three partner federations, including ITGLWF&rsquo;s Executive Committee in September, ICEM&rsquo;s Congress in November and IMF&rsquo;s Central Committee in December. The final proposals are expected to be adopted at a second joint Executive Committee meeting in February 2012, to be presented to the Founding Congress in June 2012 in Copenhagen.

Working Groups Pave Way for New Global Union Federation

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The ICEM&rsquo;s ongoing Turkey Organising and Social Dialogue Project, supported by the Dutch trade union confederation FNV, took an important initiative toward mobilizing young unionists in starting organizing drives last month. The two-year project saw a seminar on 21-22 October in the Aegean town of Kusadasi. 
 
The workshop was organized at the education and holiday facility of one of ICEM&rsquo;s Turkish affiliates, Belediye-İş, the General and Municipal Workers&rsquo; Union. The hotel is the Grand Belish, which hosted some 7,500 union members with their families in the summer of 2010. 
 
The facility also welcomes ICEM affiliates from around the world (for information on the union&rsquo;s hotel, click <a href="http://www.grandbelish.com">here</a>).&nbsp;&ldquo;Hosting such an important event for youth organizing at our facility gives us a great honour and motivation,&rdquo; said Nihat Yurdakul, President of Belediye-İş, at the opening of the seminar. &ldquo;Thanks to international solidarity and co-operation, active involvement and increasing the union density of young people is a priority for us. 
 
&ldquo;The ICEM project is a driving force to all of us in this direction,&rdquo; he added. 
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Belediye-İş President Nihat Yurdakul
With a population of 75 million, Turkey has a workforce of 22 million that includes 16 million men and six million women. An important statistic is that 65% of all Turkish people are under age 30. 
 
But regarding work, four million out of 5.5 million employed in various industries work, on average, over 45 hours per week. For the rest, the average work-week is more then 60 hours. The proportion of workers employed in the informal economy is larger than that of the formal one. 
 
The youth seminar in Kusadasi was attended by 60 young militants, shop stewards, and local officers, with women comprising 40% of the participants. 
 
The seminar also hosted a large group of international participants: Paulo Lage, Sergio Novais, Juvenil Nunes, Fabio Lins, and Nilton Freitas from the ABC Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union of Brasil; Liv Christensen and Anders Lapon from Dansk El-F&ouml;rbund of Denmark; Celil &Ccedil;oban and Mail &Uuml;rker of FNV Bondgenoten in the Netherlands; Philippe Gousenbourger, Youth Officer of International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Brussels; and Dick Blin, ICEM Information, Campaigns, and Pulp &amp; Paper Officer, and Kemal &Ouml;zkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries&rsquo; Officer, from Geneva. 
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Guest speakers exchanged their knowledge and experiences with the participants, particularly on youth organizing. 
 
The seminar also gave support and solidarity to a 27-year-old trade union woman named M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal, an activist for the Turkish paper and packaging affiliate Sel&uuml;loz-İş. She was fired for initiating a union organising drive at a paper company in the city of Torbali. 
 
Her situation clearly demonstrates the difficulties that Turkish trade unions face in organising. (For further information, click <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4100-Turkish-Woman-Fired-for-Union-Organising-at-Izmir-Packaging-Mill ">here</a> to see how you can assist M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal.) 
<img alt="" src="" width="90" height="106" />
M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal 
As a regular exercise during the FNV Mondiaal project, Turkish trade union expert &Uuml;zeyir Ataman, Director of Education and Collective Bargaining of Lastik-İş, also presented union history and the current labour relations situation in Turkey. Later, the seminar focused on Power and Weak Points, Challenges and Opportunities, and Concrete Organising Targets Inside Turkey, with contributions and inputs by participants from different sectors and regions. 
 
Participants also created an e-mail group for continuing communication among future leaders of the unions, which will allow them the opportunity to exchange information, as well as to further solidarity. 
 
&ldquo;The Kusadasi Seminar gives us great hope and motivation for the future of our Turkish unions,&rdquo; said &Ouml;zkan, coordinator of the two-year project. &ldquo;We now feel more obliged to do more work towards organising young workers, not just in Turkey, but also throughout the world.&rdquo; 
 
The project will conclude with an Evaluation Seminar scheduled to occur late this month, 29-30 November, in the Turkish capital Ankara.

ICEM, FNV Mondiaal Turkey Project Mobilizes Young Unionists to Organise

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ICEM Australian affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Construction Union (CFMEU) won a precedent-setting case last week before the full judicial panel of Fair Work Australia. The matter involves global mining house Xstrata&rsquo;s redundancies at the Ulan coal mine near Mudgee, New South Wales, and whether or not those sackings were &ldquo;genuine redundancies,&rdquo; or if the employer had first to deliver alternative jobs at other company enterprises. 
 
On 12 November, the full bench of Fair Work Australia rejected an Xstrata appeal and ruled that the company had an obligation not just to make vacancies at other company enterprises known to the dismissed workers, but to offer positions and facilitate transfer to those worksites. 
 
In effect, the ruling establishes concise guidelines regarding &ldquo;genuine redundancies&rdquo; and ensures that employers can be held liable if they do not fully offer and then redeploy sacked workers in all reasonable circumstances. 
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In 2009, Xstrata Coal Pty. Ltd. made redundant over 100 workers at its 500-worker Ulan mine. The CFMEU claimed the company would replace many of those workers with contract employees. Last week&rsquo;s ruling covers six of ten miners whose rights, under Australia&rsquo;s new labour statute, were violated because the dismissals were not &ldquo;genuine redundancies&rdquo; since their jobs were still being performed. 
 
The other four were found not to have reasonable redeployment options due to light-work injury status or unwillingness to travel. 
 
Last week&rsquo;s full bench ruling stated: &ldquo;Where an employer decides that, rather than fill a vacancy by redeploying an employee into a suitable job in its own enterprise, it will advertise the vacancy and require the employee to compete with other applicants, it might subsequently be found that the resulting dismissal is not a case of genuine redundancy. This is because it would have been reasonable to redeploy the employee into the vacancy.&rdquo;

CFMEU Wins ‘Fair Work Australia’ Case Involving Xstrata’s Illegal Dismissals

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In the first bi-lateral bargain since a 2006 binding government-arbitrated labour agreement, 420 offshore oil workers on the Hibernia platform in the North Atlantic scored a remarkable first-year pay gain in a four-year contract through their union, the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada. 
 
The oil workers, employed by 14 separate oil-servicing companies under a common labour agreement led by ExxonMobil-controlled Hibernia Management Development Corp., won a minimum 8% pay gain and adjustment that is retroactive to 1 July 2009. 
 
The first-year increase actually ranges from 4.5% to 12.5%, but for workers employed by companies on the platform in which the negotiated backpay increase was 4.5% to 7%, a lump sum payment was negotiated bringing the total pay gain to 8%. Noble Drilling, Weatherford Wellhead, Schlumberger Ltd., and Petroleum Geo-Services are just a few of the 14 companies that are signatory to CEP Local 2121&rsquo;s common agreement. 
 
In the second (2010), third, and fourth years of the contract, offshore workers will see wage increases equal to what the CEP negotiated in its national energy and chemicals pattern agreement in Canada. Those increases are 2.5%, 3%, and 3.25%. 
<img alt="" src="" width="169" height="147" />
CEP National Representative Brian Campbell
&ldquo;We recouped in retroactive pay what the arbitration award did not give us,&rdquo; said CEP National Representative Brian Campbell, referring to a 38-month initial agreement delivered through first-contract arbitration by the Labour Ministry of the province of Labrador/Newfoundland. 
 
&ldquo;There were some workers who were underpaid in the arbitration deal,&rdquo; Campbell added, &ldquo;and the 2009 pay gains and lump sums adjust that.&rdquo; Campbell said other highlights of the new contract, approved by a 68% vote following a final ratification meeting on 5 November, includes increased day rates for salaried workers and a first-ever supplementary paid vacation. 
 
Four of the service companies operate with salaried staff, and the day rate &ndash; or actual work days on the rig &ndash; was increased in the second and fourth years. Hibernia staff work a 21-day on, 21-day off schedule, and the new vacation scheme will allow workers to take a total 63-day hiatus each year. 
 
Hibernia is located 315 kilometres southeast of St. John&rsquo;s, Newfoundland. It is 33.1% owned by ExxonMobil, 26.9% by Chevron, 20% by Suncor Energy, 8.5% by the government&rsquo;s Canadian Hibernia Holdings, 6.5% by Murphy Oil, and 5% by Statoil. In early November, reserve estimates of Hibernia&rsquo;s fields were adjusted upward by 12% to show a reservoir of 1.395 billion barrels of oil. 
 
In the offshore waters of North America, including the Gulf of Mexico, only two platforms are unionised &ndash; Hibernia and Terra Nova, also off Labrador/Newfoundland. Oil workers there are also represented by CEP Local 2121. The 180 workers of Terra Nova, in which the licensed operator is Canadian-based Suncor, are in the early stages of renewal bargaining on a contract which expired 1 October 2010. 
 
Besides Suncor, which owns 34% of Terra Nova through its 2009 purchase of PetroCanada, other stakeholders include ExxonMobil (22%), Statoil (15%), Husky Energy (12.5%), Murphy Oil (10%), Mosbacher (3.5%), and Chevron (1%).

High Pay Gains Mark Hibernia Offshore Pact for CEP Members

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The ICEM was saddened to learn of the passing of Madhav Neupane, a co-founder of affiliate General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT). Comrade Neupane, 51, unexpectedly died on 29 October from tuberculosis, leaving his wife and two children behind. 
 
GEFONT released a statement on that day, saying, the &ldquo;entire trade union movement of Nepal is now under deep grief. We have lost an always active leader of the movement.&rdquo; 
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Comrade Neupane was one of many democratic activists who were arrested during the autocratic Panchayati period of King Mahendra in the 1970s and beyond. It was then, as leader of the Nepal Independent Hotel Workers&rsquo; Union, that the NIHWU and three other unions formed GEFONT. He was currently a member of GEFONT&rsquo;s Veterans&rsquo; Network. 
 
Following his funeral on 29 October, GEFONT&rsquo;s National Executive Committee met and adopted a resolution of mourning that calls for lowering of the union federation&rsquo;s flag to half-mast for three days throughout the country, as well as to organise a mass meeting to pay tribute to Madhav Neupane on the 13th day following his passing.

ICEM Mourns Co-Founder of Nepal’s GEFONT Federation

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Spain&rsquo;s ICEM-affiliated Confederaci&oacute;n Sindical de Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO) announced the passing of its first General Secretary, Marcelino Camacho, last Friday, 29 October. 
 
Marcelino Camacho, 92, a symbol for trade union rights and democracy in Spain, dedicated his life to the fight for those most in need, for justice and solidarity. 
 
The son of a railwayman, Camacho was a fighter for freedom and workers&rsquo; rights since his youth. Fighting Franco&rsquo;s 1939-1975 fascist dictatorship, and spending a total of 14 years in prison and concentration camps, as well as several years of political asylum in Algeria, Marceline Camacho was a true working-class hero. 
<img alt="" src="" width="160" height="160" />
Marcelino Camacho
In the late 1950s, Camacho and his comrades founded the CC.OO, now Spain&rsquo;s largest trade union confederation. He was elected General Secretary at its first congress in June 1978, and was re-elected at the second and third congresses. 
 
He was a member of the Spanish Communist Party, and was elected to the Spanish Parliament during the first democratic elections in 1977 following the defeat of the Franco regime. He resigned from the Parliament in1981 to devote himself to trade unionism. 
 
On resigning from the post of General Secretary at the 4th Congress of CCOO, Camacho was elected as President, a post he held until 1996. 
 
His important role was acknowledged with numerous honours and awards, in Spain and abroad.

Labour Movement Mourns Death of Spanish CC.OO’s Marcelino Camacho

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A six-week strike by contract workers of Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) in Tamil Nadu state, India, ended on 27 October, after intervention by state Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi. Some 13,000 contract workers, represented by six unaffiliated unions, began strike actions at the state-owned coal and electric generating company on 19 and 20 September after putting forward a ten-point charter of demands. 
 
Included in that charter was a demand to make workers with ten years or more of service permanent workers of the company. Other demands included wage revisions, equal pay for equal work, regularization of services, and certain work terms. 
<img src="" width="146" height="66" alt="" />
The settlement came after the six unions requested mediation by both state officials and the Coal Ministry in New Delhi. Also crucial in settling the walkout was a threat by the 750 permanent workers of NLC that they would strike if an accord was not reached. On 22 October, permanent staff also did a day of fasting in support of the striking contract workers. 
 
The agreement, reached late in the evening of 27 October, gave contract workers an additional monthly pay of 1,560 rupees (&euro;26), plus 1,000 rupees (&euro;16) on top of a minimum bonus. There was also an assurance that the contract workers would not be victimized by taking part in the strike. 
 
The strike was marked by road blockades to power plants, and mass arrests. Two weeks into the strike, contract workers affiliated to two other unions &ndash; an affiliate of the Labour Progressive Front, connected to the Tamil Nadu ruling party Davida Munnetra Kazhagam, and the Union of Dalit Panthers &ndash; broke with the other unions and signed a five-year contract with NLC.

State Indian Coal Company Settles Strike with Contract Workers

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The ICEM Asia Social Dialogue Project, funded by FNV Mondiaal of The Netherlands and Sweden&rsquo;s LO-TCO, with the support of Swedish affiliates IF Metall and Pappers, organizes some 50 seminars per year for trade unionists in the region. ICEM Project Officer Fons Vannieuwenhuyse participated in two recent seminars, on 13-15 October in Indonesia, and 20-21 October in India. 
 
Two new project coordinators have joined the work, Indah Saptorini in Indonesia and Ashutosh Bhattacharya in India, both now country coordinators. Both Indah and Ashutosh are already valuable members of the team. 
 
Workers in both countries reported that participation in ICEM project work was valued highly, with, in addition to the ICEM Asia Social Dialogue Project, also two other projects being very active: the ICEM HIV &amp; AIDS project and its Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) programme. The CAL Project in India, for example, has led to a number of successful organising drives, and it also has uncovered some horrid working conditions. 
<img alt="" src="" width="110" height="140" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" width="130" height="133" /> 
 
New ICEM Project Coordinators, Ashutosh Bhattacharya, Indah Saptorini
At both seminars, contact details were exchanged and mini-networks set up, to be coordinated by the country coordinators. 
 
Both seminars had a number of women participating, and a significant proportion of participants were young workers. 
 
In both Indonesia and India, the problems of outsourcing and contracting were identified by all as a key issue. In Indonesia, virtually no CAL worker is unionised, while the organising rate of directly employed permanent workers inside companies represented was reasonably high. The situation is a little better in India, although it changes drastically from sector to sector. In the public sector, which includes mining, organising CAL workers is possible and is being done. In the private sector, it is much more difficult. Trade unions in both India and Indonesia also face major difficulties in bargaining with employers, as they receive little to no information from the company on anything. 
<img alt="" src="" width="220" height="113" />
ICEM General Project coordinator Yoon Hyowon, right
Korean Projects Coordinator Yoon Hyowon leads most of the seminars of the project, which runs in 6 different South-East and South-Asian Countries. In Indonesia, participants indicated that direct permanent workers get a &ldquo;decent wage&rdquo; (defined as &ldquo;enough for a family to survive on&rdquo;) in 16 out of the 23 companies present. On average, the direct permanent workers earn around 2.5 million Indonesian rupees (about &euro;200). In contrast, a &ldquo;decent wage&rdquo; was paid to CAL workers in only one out of 23 companies. 
 
These CAL workers, working for the same multinational companies, but through a subcontractor, get on average only 1.25 million Indonesian rupees (about &euro;100), or about half for doing the same job. Judging from the figures quoted at the seminar in Indonesia, typically around 20-50% of the workforce is outsourced, depending on the company. Sometimes it is even more. 
<img alt="" src="" width="200" height="103" />
In India, unions indicated that the number of industrial disputes is low, but that, as in Indonesia, more and more core workers find their jobs outsourced. Once a job is outsourced, the same work is typically being done at much lower wages and much lower benefits. In the mining sector in India, CAL workers earn, on average, about 45% of what direct permanent workers earn. 
 
Without exception, all average salaries quoted by outsourced workers in India, from Lafarge, BASF, Rhodia, Holcim, FAG, Goodyear, and others, were lower than the decent wage. Around 25-60% of all workers in the ICEM sectors are said to be outsourced. For these outsourced workers, an average wage is 4,000 to 6,000 Indian rupees (or &euro;65-100), while the suggested needed living (&ldquo;survival&rdquo;) wage was said to be 15,000 Indian rupees (&euro;250). A typical wage for a directly employed permanent worker in India in the ICEM sectors, doing the same job as the outsourced worker, is around 15,000 to 20,000 Indian rupees (&euro;250-350). 
 
The Indian National Mineworkers&rsquo; Federation (INMF) is organising CAL workers, bringing in over 30,000 CAL workers in the last two years. And the union is close to achieving an additional clause on contract workers in its national mining agreement for the first time. That provides a bonus for contract workers. The situation is worse in the cement, diamond, and chemical sectors, where virtually all CAL workers are dismissed as soon as they try to set up or join a union.

ICEM Asian Project Work Uncovers Shocking Conditions for Contract Workers

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Scores of electrical workers descended on the headquarters of the National Power Authority (NPA) in Freeport, Sierra Leone, on 25 October, protesting the failed implementation of promised wage increases. Their target was Energy, Power, and Water Minister Ogunlade Davidson, who workers claim does not even know the number of staff employed at NPA. 
 
The manifestation was not a strike, but a strike is threatened if the government does not follow through on a negotiated 60% wage increase plus other social provisions that are due. In Sierra Leone, a country that is still struggling to come out of an 11-year civil war, the standard of living for workers is among the world&rsquo;s lowest. 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="69" />
At the 25 October protest, electricity workers chanted slogans saying they were tired of waiting for long-awaited salary increases, and growing weary of supporting the government&rsquo;s Agenda for Change. One demand calls for workers in the meter reading and disconnection service of NPA, some of whom have been working for NPA as casual staff for up to eight years, to finally be put on the official payroll. 
 
Several government leaders were allowed to address the demonstrators but when Davidson himself attempted to speak, he was shouted down. 
 
The leader of the Senior Staff Association for Energy and Water Resources, Emmanuel Wilson Taylor, said 20% of the negotiated increase had been awarded, but the remaining 40%, which was suppose to take effect in early October, was not granted. At a follow-up meeting on 21 October, government officials told union representatives that the remaining salary increase would only be made if workers agreed to forego the many social improvements they were offered. 
 
The ICEM supports the electricity workers of Sierra Leone in their justified efforts to improve their working lives and their livelihoods.

Public Sector Electrical Workers Protest in Sierra Leone

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The garment workers of Delta Style in the city of Soligorsk, Southern Belarus, have been attempting to organize a local union within the structure of ICEM-affiliated Belarusian Independent Trade Union (BNP) for some time. The 101 women at the factory have seen their efforts blocked by the local administration repeatedly, according to BNP Chairman Vasili Korabau. 
 
Efforts by the women to achieve trade union recognition began on 29 May 2009, when they conducted three constituent assemblies, each time submitting registration documents to the Soligorsk District Executive. 
 
Local officials, however, rejected the submission on administrative grounds, saying that certain documents were submitted late, or not signed by the correct people. Reacting to the submission for trade union recognition, the local authorities requested details of the trade union meeting, and of those workers present. When this information was given to the local authorities, company management immediately began intimidating those workers named. Workers were brought into the director&rsquo;s office and interrogated and also present for these meetings were others, presumed to be employees of the local authority. 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="153" />
This blatant breach of labour rights by the company, teamed with the local government, is appalling and the ICEM condemns such nefarious actions. 
 
The intimidation caused 30 workers to leave the trade union. The Regional Chair of BNP, Natalia Mihnjukevich, attempted to meet with those workers in recent months and was promptly arrested for attempting to organize meetings with the workers. She was then found guilty in a regional court on 27 August, and fined. 
 
This treatment of Mihnjukevich moved those 30 workers who had left the union, to return and re-submit the documents for trade union recognition once again. The submission was again refused, on the grounds that all workers involved in making the request were no longer employed at the factory at the time of consideration. If these grounds for refusal are permitted to stand, the company has the power to relocate one worker during the consideration period, which lasts at least one month. The other main reason for the rejection of trade union recognition was, according to the authorities, that the local had not yet applied to become part of the BNP regional organization. Although the BNP rules require local recognition prior to becoming part of the regional and national union. 
 
The ICEM is requesting that affiliates support BNP and its oppressed workers by taking action. Write a note of protest to the Soligorsk Regional Executive Committee and the JSC Delta Style management <a href="mailto:solret@tut.by">here</a> and <a href="mailto:deltastyl@tut.by">here</a>.&nbsp;

Belarus: Local Government Blocks Women Garment Workers in Organising

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