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A two-day strike by hundreds of Eni workers in Nigeria brought the Italian energy company and state-owned NNPC to the bargaining table. The strike occurred over wage arrears. 
The 19-21 October strike by ICEM Nigerian affiliates NUPENG and PENGASSAN was won when Eni&rsquo;s direct subsidiary Agip agreed to expedite pay. The strike affected Agip&rsquo;s Brass River export terminal on the southern coast. 
Eni is responsible for 7% of Nigerian oil production

Eni Oil Strike in Nigeria Ends

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ICEM President Senseni Zokwana, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, gave an inspirational appeal at the Congress of ICEM affiliate South African Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union (SACWU) to fight even harder against the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. 
The Congress was held in Johannesburg from 3-5 November and included a skit by SACWU members on HIV/AIDS as well as speech by a motivational speaker delivering a strong message on fighting the disease.

SACWU Congress in South Africa Focuses on HIV/AIDS

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A 12-day hunger strike by five members of Colombian oil workers&rsquo; union Sindical Obrera de la Industria Del Petroleo (USO) ended 3 November. 
The hunger strikers ended their fast after winning assurances from the archbishop of Cartagena and the governor of Boliv&aacute;r state that they would present a public proposition to the national government to prohibit privatisation of state-run Ecopetrol&rsquo;s oil refinery in Cartagena. Archbishop Jorge Enrique Gim&eacute;nez and Gov. Libardo Simancas have committed to present the plan within 30 days. 
The Uribe government has plans to sell 51% of Colombia&rsquo;s second largest oil refinery. The hunger strikers of USO, which solely represents Ecopetrol workers in Colombia, included Rodolfo Vecino, Hernando Meneses, Rafael Cabarcas, &Eacute;dgar Mojica, and Jorge Ortega.

Hunger Strike in Colombia Over Refinery Privatisation Ends

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US-based glassmaker Owens Illinois has discriminated against union members by sacking workers inside a Peldar glass plant in Peru. 
Early in October the company made redundant 11 workers from the factory but later that month recalled five of the workers. The six who were not recalled included representatives - two of whom were past general secretaries - of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de Owens Illinois Per&uacute;. 
The ICEM, in lodging a protest with the American company, cited the firm with a clear violation of trade union rights. The trade union discrimination matter has also been taken up by Peruvian national labour centre CGTP, and is before the country&rsquo;s labour courts.

Owens Illinois Discriminating Against Union Officers in Peru

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Members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing &amp; Manufacturing Union (EPMU) of New Zealand staged a two-day strike on 7-8 November at Carter Holt Harvey&rsquo;s (CHH) Kinleith pulp and paper mill. 
The strike by the mill&rsquo;s 270 production workers was over CHH&rsquo;s refusal to meet the country&rsquo;s recognised wage standard this year of 5%, and a demand by the company to cut annual leave time for shift workers. EPMU and CHH were scheduled to resume talks this week. 
CHH is now 70% owned by Graeme Hart&rsquo;s Rank Group Investments, an Auckland-based trader that has a NZ$3.3 billion hostile bid in play for the company. US-based International Paper Co. has divested its 50.3% stake in CHH to Hart.

New Zealand Workers Strike Carter Holt Harvey’s Kinleith Mill

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Svenska Pappers, the ICEM paperworkers&rsquo; affiliated union in Sweden, could strike ABB Power Technologies at its Figeholm mill near Oskarshamn tomorrow. 
The union won a unanimous victory in a Swedish labour court last week, giving it the right to strike as well as granting sympathy actions by unions representing electrical, construction and transport workers. 
A Swedish-based multinational primarily engaged in engineering and papermaking equipment, the pressure now is on ABB to settle. The company has been stonewalling a collective agreement for 130 workers at the paperboard mill for two years, refusing to match work and social standards already in place in Sweden&rsquo;s paper sector. &ldquo;ABB simply has refused to give paperworkers at the ABB Figeholm mill their rights, which exist for the rest of paperworkers in Sweden,&rdquo; said Sune Ekb&aring;ge, president of Svenska Pappers. 
The positive labour court ruling did prompt ABB to return to talks with the union on 12 November and again today in efforts to prevent a strike.

Swedish Labour Court Ruling Reinforces Svenska Pappers

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South Korea&rsquo;s business-oriented government has set its agenda for industrial relations reform, including weakening the regulations on use of irregular, or contract and agency workers. 
The ruling Uri Party has defined 24 issues that are contained in four bills now in Parliament. The proposed legislation will meet a crucial test in an extraordinary session of Parliament scheduled for February. The reforms, if passed, would allow multiple unions on a jobsite, give employers the right to use temporary workers during strikes, and grant bosses longer time periods for contract and agency workers. 
The government on 26 October erroneously reported that the number of non-regular workers this year over last decreased to 5.03 million, or 33.6% of the Korean workforce. Two days later it retracted those statistics and said the figure, in fact, was nearly a half-million workers more&mdash;5.48 million, or 36.6% of the workforce. The number of irregular workers this year had grown by 90,000 over 2004.

Fate of Contract Labourers Before South Korea’s Parliament

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Tomorrow, the Australian labour movement will take to the streets in several cities with hundreds of thousands of protestors aimed at the Howard government&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Conservatives, now controlling both houses of Parliament, pushed the reform through the lower chamber on 10 November by initiating &ldquo;gag and guillotine&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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

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A strike by over 300 paperworkers at Stora Enso's newsprint and publication papers mill in Gent, Belgium, ended 8 November. 
The strike ended after 56% of the workers voted to continue the 11-day strike and 43% voted to return to work. The workforce had imposed a rule that at least 60% of the 330 blue-collar workers at Stora Enso's Langerbrugge mill must vote for continuation of any job action. 
The strike's end means that an inferior wage offer presented by management on 7 November will go into effect. The wage package will cover two years. The strike was over management's posture at the negotiations table, which was bargaining by ultimatum rather than honest social dialogue to resolve the pay and other serious issues inside the mill. 
The paper mill's managing director never entered talks, but rather other managers issued terse and reactive ultamatums at workers' representatives, stating such dictates were coming from him. The strike involved members of ICEM affiliate ABVV-FGTB, the socialist union in Belgium, as well as two other unions with membership inside the paper mill.

Strike Ends at Stora Enso Paper Mill in Belgium

1. Denmark &ndash; Paternity Leave 
 
In 2002, new and extended rules for maternity leave were introduced in Denmark. The family has 52 weeks available that can be shared between father and mother. The official figures from Statistics Denmark show that 46,447 fathers went on paternity leave in 2004, the highest ever. It is an increase of 6% over the year before. On average, fathers took 3.6 weeks of paternity leave, a new record in Denmark. 
 
The problem for women who make use of the new and extended maternity leave is that they often return to a job inferior to the one they had before taking leave. A survey shows that 30% of the women who had maternity leave by the new rules find that it has adverse effects on their careers. Only 4% of the men have similar experiences. 
The United Federation of Danish Workers is working on a survey to determine cultural and structural barriers that prevent fathers from having a longer period of parental leave. The survey investigates how workplace culture and traditional roles in the family have an influence when men decide to have paternity leave. For more information on the survey please contact the Department for Equality and Family Policy, c/o <a href="mailto:Marianne.bruun@3f.dk">Marianne.bruun@3f.dk</a>. 
 
 
2. Brazil &ndash; Government launches Gender Equality Program 
 
The Brazilian federal government launched a gender equality program on 22 September to boost the promotion of equality between women and men. The program is based on partnership between UNIFEM (UN Women&rsquo;s Development Fund) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). 
The program will grant pro-equality seals for the development of programs to benefit women. The seal is geared to promote company best practices. To start with, the program is geared to public enterprises and will be open to private companies at a later date. 
 
 
3. Brazil &ndash; FETIESC and the 10th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting 
 
FETIESC, the Santa Catarina Federation, was a promoter of the 10th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist meeting held from 9-12 October in Sao Paulo. The main theme of the meeting was Feminism and Democracy. One panel discussed, in addition, Feminism &ndash; Present and Future. 
Four dialogues went into the relationship between feminism and racism, ethnocentricity, youth and lesbianism. These meetings have been continuing since the 1980s and have served to create a Latin American and Caribbean network. 
 
In addition, FETIESC carried out a workshop on 6 October on Women&rsquo;s Communication and Expression. 
 
 
4. Canada &ndash; CEP 6th Women&rsquo;s Conference 
 
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada held its 6th Women&rsquo;s Conference from 16-18 October 2005 in the maritime province of New Brunswick. The conference theme was &ldquo;Our Time, Our Terms, Women March On.&rdquo; 
The conference had workshop sessions on equity, pay equity and women in solidarity in Canada and abroad. Caucuses were also held on young workers, regional caucuses, aboriginal people, people of colour, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered workers, and people with disabilities. 
The conference was held against the background of the women&rsquo;s world march and the women&rsquo;s global charter for humanity. The women&rsquo;s charter is a proposal to build a world where exploitation, oppression, intolerance and exclusion no longer exist and where integrity, diversity and the rights and freedoms of all are respected. The core values for this vision of the world are equality, freedom, solidarity, justice and peace. These, too, were the CEP conference themes. 
The last day of the conference coincided with the arrival of the women&rsquo;s charter quilt in Burkina Faso after it went around the world. 
 
 
5. Germany &ndash; Gender and the 3rd IGBCE Congress 
 
IGBCE women presented motions to the 3rd IGBCE Congress held 9-14 October 2005 on work-life balance and gender and health. Some German companies have best practices to share, the so-called chemical triangle in Leuna, the Mapa Company and Tesa. 
The chemical triangle around Leuna is expecting a labour shortage in the coming years, which means that even employers are keen on developing work-life balance. It is, however, as a rule easier for large-scale companies to develop work-life balance arrangements than for small and medium-sized companies, which is why IGBCE organized a project on good practice for small and medium-sized companies, including Mapa in Northern Germany. 
The focus there was on part-time work. Most people are interested in working part-time in order to be able to look after children and elderly parents. Not all part-timers are happy, however, and many earn less, work more intensely, and are not involved in company life. 
The project will continue discussing these obstacles and developing solutions. Tesa organized one workshop and will soon have another on job and family because of the experience that young families have to walk a tightrope between children and career. The workshops are geared to boosting acceptance for alternatives on the part of management as well as the employees. 
 
IGBCE will continue its work on gender and health. 
 
 
6. ICEM-IUF Workshop on Women and Work 
 
A workshop on women and work was held in the framework of the ICEM-IUF Southeast Europe project in Crikvenica, Croatia, from 10-12 October 2005. The workshop focused on bullying, sexual harassment and equal pay. The women agreed to do research on pay issues in their jobs and to find out what women and men earn in eight specific occupations. 
The meeting was one more in the series to build a women&rsquo;s network in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. 
 
 
7. Multi GUF Training on Equal Pay 
 
Public Services International (PSI), with the support of FNV Netherlands, sponsored training for all Global Union Federations (GUFs) from 5-7 October 2005 in Montevideo, Uruguay, on equal pay and job evaluation.
The training was provided by Daina Green, an expert from Canada on equal pay and job evaluation. The point is to organize job evaluations that avoid gender bias. The idea is first to minimize gender bias and maximize awareness of the potential problems. Organisations can and will adapt to the systems that fit their needs. For more information see 
<a href="http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/publications/volume1-en.asp">www.chrc-ccdp.ca/publications/volume1-en.asp</a>. 
 
This work will prove useful to ICEM in its work on equal pay for work of equal value in the pharmaceuticals industry. Some employers, particularly in Brazil, have already expressed an interest in it. 
 
 
8. UN Population Fund UNFPA State of the World Population 2005 
 
Resolute action to end discrimination against women and lower their fertility rates is the key to meeting the ambitious goal of halving world poverty by 2015, according to the UNFPA report released in October. The report titled The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals noted that despite new laws and programs to improve the lot of the world&rsquo;s poorest women, &ldquo;the pace of change is far too slow.&rdquo; 
The report urged world leaders to fulfil promises made to the world&rsquo;s women and young people as part of poverty reduction goals agreed five years ago and reaffirmed at a UN summit last month. &ldquo;Investing in women and girls makes sound economic and social sense,&rdquo; according to the report which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the UN charter that enshrined gender equality. 
In the field of education, the study noted that today, 600 million women are illiterate as compared to 320 million men. The report indicates that reproductive-health problems, including HIV/AIDS, are the leading cause of death and illness among women between the ages of 15 and 44. It made the case that secondary education for women and girls had been shown to translate into improved economic prospects, better reproductive health, improved AIDS awareness and more enlightened attitudes toward practices such as female genital mutilation. 
For more information see <a href="http://www.unfpa.org">www.unfpa.org</a>. 
 
 
9. Uruguay &ndash; CUOPYC Cleaning Cooperative 
 
The Uruguay Paper Workers&rsquo; Union (CUOPYC) has set up a cleaning cooperative to provide employment for women and daughters of union members, as well as single mothers. This means a new role for the union since it is now involved in creating jobs instead of looking after existing jobs. 
The FANAPEL paper company proposed using the cooperative&rsquo;s services to replace the contract that had expired with the company. Thirteen women, who up to then had no stable income, were provided with cleaning jobs. Very little employment is available for women in Juan Lacaze, the site of FANAPEL, and even less jobs for women who left school early. 
The women are between the ages of 18 and 35. They were trained not only in industrial cleaning processes but also in tools to enable their industrial cooperative to stand on its own feet. This enterprise is made up of 13 women, it is a cooperative, and it is lead by a trade union. 
 
 
10. United States &ndash; Where are the Women on TV? 
 
On US news networks, women only represent 14% of guests on influential Sunday morning talk shows. This is one of the findings of a new report by the White House Project. The study also found that more than half of the talk shows did not even include one single woman. Since 2001, the number of women in talk shows has gone up only slightly, from 11% to now 14. 
Why does it matter? It should be a concern because people draw conclusions about real life from what they see on television. When they see no women in positions of power, they assume that women are not credible in these positions. If no women speak on TV about national security or arms control, the assumption is that women are not qualified to speak on theses issues and there are no female experts in these fields. 
The lack of women on influential political shows also matters because of what media call &ldquo;agenda setting.&rdquo; It means that whatever is discussed on these shows is designated as important, and the people doing the talking are recognized as influential. A lack of female voices allows the agenda to be set to exclude them and their issues. 
<hr />
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ICEM Women’s bulletin No. 6 – November 2005

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