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In New Zealand, offshore energy and drilling workers belonging to ICEM affiliate Engineering Printing &amp; Manufacturing Union (EPMU) are expected to ratify a new multi-employer collective agreement that will merge separate onshore and offshore agreements into one agreement. 
 
EPMU issued a strike notice to the five drilling companies and several oil firms involved. The strike was to have started on 24 May. Employers responded by filing a court injunction preventing a work stoppage. 
 
But two weeks ago, employers presented a revised two-year pay offer that EPMU&rsquo;s oil and gas negotiating committee was recommending for ratification to the 200 workers. Voting is expected to conclude on the contract proposal in the near future.

New Zealand’s Offshore Oil and Gas Workers Get Tentative Agreement

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The global mining industry did produce one piece of good news over the past fortnight. Canadian mining house Ivanhoe announced it would withdraw from Burma, expressing to sources discomfort with having to deal with the military junta, which jointly owns a copper mine with Ivanhoe. The company will sell its 50% in the Monywa mine to a consortium of South Korean investors, including Daewoo International, which already has investment deals with the Burmese generals. 
 
The Ivanhoe Mines exit will happen in a July 2006 sale. Last week, Burma&rsquo;s military junta extended the house arrest on Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her strong voice for democracy and human rights in Burma has now been silenced for the past three years by the corrupt Burmese military rulers. In total, she has spent a total of ten of the past 17 years in detention.

Canadian Ivanhoe Mines Pulls Out of Burma

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The coal rush in the eastern United States has brought six more mining deaths in recent days, and again it is a fledgling mining company responsible for five of those deaths. On 20 May, five miners at the non-union Kentucky Darby Mine No. 1 in Harlan County, state of Kentucky, died after a methane explosion inside a shaft. Two of the miners died instantly due to the blast, while three others died underground later due to carbon monoxide poisoning. 
 
On 24 May, a miner underground at International Coal Group&rsquo;s (ICG) Sycamore II Mine near Jarvisville, state of West Virginia, died when he was struck in the head by a heavy wooden object. ICG is the non-union coal operator of the Sago Mine in West Virginia in which 12 miners were killed on 2 January 2006 following an explosion. 
A miner who escaped the Harlan County blast questioned the reliability of self-contained oxygen packs provided to miners only a month before the 20 May explosion. Both ICG and Kentucky Darby LLC, which has operated the mine in eastern Kentucky since 2001, utilized the same emergency devices. Thirty-three mining deaths have happened in the US so far in 2006, with 19 of those deaths in West Virginia and ten in Kentucky. 
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On the day of the latest ICG death, the US Senate passed legislation mandating improved oxygen supplies, electronic tracking systems, fire-resistant lifelines, and local rescue teams, all areas in which start-up coal operators have been lax. The bill also requires up-to-date emergency preparedness and response plans that are continually monitored by the Mine Safety &amp; Health Administration (MSHA). A companion bill is now in the US House. 
The legislation is endorsed by ICEM affiliate United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), as well as by a coalmining employers&rsquo; group. But the association tempered its support over of a 15-minutes notification requirement to MSHA in the event of serious accidents. MSHA has also issued new rules on mine safety since the Sago Mine explosion. 
 
The UMWA has called for miner tracking devises, wireless communication and emergency rescue chambers already in use in Germany, Poland and Australia. UMWA Director of Occupational Health and Safety, Dennis O&rsquo;Dell, in a published report, said, &ldquo;The emergency rules do some good things but don&rsquo;t go far enough. We in the United States are really behind on the kind of technology that protects miners&rsquo; safety and is already saving lives in other countries.&rdquo;

Mining Deaths Keep Occurring in US Coal Industry

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In what the Chinese work-safety director is calling the worst coal mine disaster of 2006, 56 miners were trapped and killed by flooding at the Xinjing Coal Mine, Shanxi Province. Miners told managers to cease mining due to rising water levels six days before the 18 May mass flooding, but were ordered to continue mining. 
 
To make matters worse, local safety officials had attempted to cover up the extent of the disaster when it happened by stating only five miners were trapped. After two days, a State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) investigation discovered 56 were trapped. Nine managers are under arrest, while the owner of the licensed mine is reported to have fled. In addition, six others were arrested in connection to the disaster, including two bankers as well as the person charged with work safety, who stands accused of leading the cover-up. 
Also on 18 May, near Beijing, a coal mine collapsed in Fangshan District, killing five miners. The mine is owned by Jingmei Coal, part of the Beijing Coal Group. These two mid-May tragedies follow a fierce explosion that occurred at the Wayaobao Coal Mine in Shaanxi Province on 29 April. It killed 32. 
 
Fatalities occurred in other Chinese mining sectors as well over the past month. On 13 May, at last three were confirmed dead after the Dalongshan Iron Mine collapsed in Anhui Province. On April 30, in an effort to heighten production, the Zhen&rsquo;an County Gold Mining Co., raised water levels on a dam, which then burst and killed 17 villagers. That incident happened in Shaanxi Province.

Coal, Iron, Gold Disasters Kill Scores in China’s Mines

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A dispute has been settled and a first collective agreement is in place in Malaysia&rsquo;s paper industry. ICEM assisted its affiliate Paper and Paper Products Manufacturing Employees&rsquo; Union (PPPMEU), as did Norwegian trade union Fellesforbundet in achieving recognition and a contract at a Malaysian Newsprint Industries mill in Pahang. 
 
Malaysian Newsprint is 34% owned by Norske Skog, with whom ICEM and Fellesforbundet have a Global Framework Agreement. The matter was brought before the Norwegian-based company by Fellesforbundet. 
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A union was formed at the nine-year-old mill in October 2004 and, in March 2005, a government ministry verified PPMEU certification. The union submitted proposals toward a first collective agreement in July 2005, but the company stalled in meeting its bargaining obligations. When the company finally did meet with the union, it informed the union that 70 of 220 workers were in &ldquo;executive&rdquo; capacities and exempt from the union, even though they perform manual tasks. 
 
The ICEM and Fellesforbundet attention to the dispute, and no doubt the formal intent-to-strike notice issued by PPPMEU on 15 May, brought pressure on management to settle. The initial three-year collective agreement will be backdated to 1 October 2005. Even though the scope of the bargaining unit wasn&rsquo;t resolved, it will now be submitted to a Malaysian Industrial Court. Other partners in the newsprint mill include the Hong Leong Group of Malaysia (34%), the New Straits Times newspaper (21%), and Rimbuan Hijau Group of Malaysia (11%).

Global Agreement, Strike Threat Brings First Accord to Malaysian Paper Mill

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On 24 May, tens of thousands of Ukrainian workers, led by their trade unions, took to the streets of Kiev. Led by Alexander Yurkin, former ICEM Vice President, who now leads the Ukrainian Trade Union Federation (FPU), workers gathered in six main city squares and marched to Maydan Square, site of the 2004 Orange Revolution in the country.
In front of one of those squares, Mariyinskyy Park, some 500 trade union leaders picketed the Cabinet of Ministers&rsquo; building over the rapid and unjustified hike to both prices and tariffs on consumers&rsquo; utility rates. 
 
 
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Yurkin, addressing an estimated 50,000 protesters at Maydan Square, said the government has violated the trust of Ukrainian citizens by &ldquo;arrogantly and irresponsibly&rdquo; making a unilateral decision to increase utility pricing, thus breaking a General Agreement with trade unions. Trade unions insist that any increase in prices or tariffs must be preceded with definitive social protection measures.
A day before the 24 May demonstration, the country&rsquo;s National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) again raised tariffs on natural gas and electricity distribution, this time by 41%, effective 1 June.&nbsp; 
 
NERC and the Ukrainian government already had hiked&nbsp;tariffs on gas and electricity distribution by 25%, and yet another round of increases is&nbsp;scheduled for 1 July. The FPU is demanding a rollback in prices and tariffs, and is insistent that the government start immediate negotiations with trade unions in order to introduce social protections.

Ukrainian Labour Protests Hikes in Utility Tariffs

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The selective strike by ICEM Norwegian oil workers&rsquo; union NOPEF ended late on 24 July following a mediated session by the government. The 34-day strike against oil service companies operating on Norway&rsquo;s Continental Shelf proved highly effective, and produced a new two-year agreement that fulfils NOPEF&rsquo;s demands toward normalising the national oil services agreement with other collective agreements in the country&rsquo;s energy sector. 
 
The accord also matches the other agreements in the sector with the first-year wage increase, and provides an even better salary pay-out for 2007. Effective 1 July 2006, oil service workers in Norway, numbering some 2,650, receive a 5.9% wage increase. In 2007, a lump sum bonus of NOK 17,000 (US$2,800) was won. 
 
But more significantly, the 2006-2006 agreement sets forth a protocol that will begin moving oil service companies to the standard rotation schedule of two-weeks on, four-weeks off. Local discussions toward that work schedule will now occur, with NOPEF and the employers&rsquo; federation, Oil Industry Association (OLF), meeting in February 2007 to review the progress. 
 
NOPEF also achieved an increase in night work, added pay for holidays, and increases in food and travel pay and arrangements. The union did not achieve pay for waiting time, but that issue will be prioritised for talks in future renewal contracts. Workers will now vote on the new contract, with the vote to be completed by 1 September. 
 
NOPEF&rsquo;s strike against oil service contractors began on 21 June. The union called but 87 workers out on strike against just a handful of employers, knowing that such a strategy would place pressure on the oil majors in their drilling and development projects. The main employers targeted were Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Weatherford and Oceaneering. 
 
The ICEM salutes NOPEF for carrying out a tactical and effective strike in achieving a national oil services agreement that has proven to be the most difficult in the Norwegian energy sector. The will and discipline from a set of highly-skilled workers and trade unionists has now brought major employers providing oil services closer to the work rules and terms of other companies operating inside Norway&rsquo;s oil patch.

NOPEF Wins Oil Services Strike in Norway

Probes into deadly coal mine disasters in the Americas earlier this year are now coming into focus. And at two of the worst &ndash; the Sago mine blast in the US state of West Virginia on 2 January and the 19 February explosion at Grupo Mexico&rsquo;s Pasta de Conchos No. 8 mine in Mexico&rsquo;s Coahuila state &ndash; inadequate government safety monitoring and a reckless company safety culture are just part of the causes.
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In Mexico, a report issued last week by the government&rsquo;s National Human Rights Commission said, in 2004, safety officials of Mexico&rsquo;s Labour Department identified 48 major problems in Grupo Mexico&rsquo;s Minera Mexicana mine. The report added, however, that nothing was done to correct the deficiencies until just 12 days before the explosion. Sixty-five miners were killed in the February 2006 mine blast, the majority of them contract workers who were given no training and inadequate oxygen supply devices. Some 25 of the miners killed were members of Mexico&rsquo;s Miners &amp; Metalworkers Union (SNTMMSRM). 
 
The Human Rights Commission stated that Labour Department officials tolerated carelessness and neglect on behalf of company safety representatives, and that they &ldquo;had full knowledge of the working conditions of the mine where the catastrophe occurred (that) infringed on security standards,&rdquo; said a statement from the agency. The government knew of problems with lighting and underground signal systems, as well as gas and oil leaks and a faulty smoke-release system. 
 
In the US, a joint state and federal investigation into the Sago disaster that killed 12 miners has found that company officials had workers falsify documents. Testimony saw workers admitting they had signed documentation brought to them by bosses that they had attended safety classes and training, when, if fact, they had not. Sago is owned by the Wolf Run Mining Co., one of many coal mines in the eastern United States bought in bankruptcy proceedings by US-based investment house International Coal Group (IGC).
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&nbsp;An in-depth investigation done by a Pennsylvania newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also found that seals inside the non-union Sago mine&rsquo;s safety chambers were poorly constructed, using materials unable to withstand the force of a methane explosion. 
 
IGC attempted to bar safety officials from ICEM affiliate United Mineworkers of America (UMWA) from playing a role in the Sago disaster&rsquo;s investigation, even though miners and family members of victims sought such help. Under mine safety regulations in the US, such union assistance in non-union worksites is permissible if so requested. IGC had private security forces physically stop UMWA safety officials from entering the mine property following the explosion, and the US government had to sue the company in order that the mine safety law was honoured. A US District Court ruled in favour of UMWA involvement late in January, but IGC appealed that ruling to a higher court. Last month, the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court&rsquo;s verdict.

Mine Safety Probes in the Americas Progress

In Chile, negotiations resumed 22 July between Escondida Workers&rsquo; Union No. 1 and Minera Escondida Ltd., owner of the world&rsquo;s largest copper-producing mines. The union and company, primarily held by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, have been locked in a pay dispute since bargaining began on 21 June.
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A current contract expires 2 August. The unaffiliated union, representing 2,052 workers, or 96% of Escondida&rsquo;s workforce, issued a statement on 21 July that workers would vote on management&rsquo;s latest salary offer on 28 July. Miners have already given authorisation for a strike if their pay demands are not met by then. 
 
In early July, a company pay offer of 1.5% above Chile&rsquo;s inflation rate enraged workers, resulting in work-to-rule actions in which strict adherence to all safety rules forced a 10% production reduction. The union is seeking a 13% pay adjustment, in addition to a one-off bonus for high copper prices coupled with an end-of-dispute bonus.
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&nbsp; 
Record high copper prices and the fact that production from Escondida&rsquo;s two massive open-pit mines in Chile&rsquo;s northern Region II has risen nearly 15% increase over last year has given credence to the union&rsquo;s demands. The union has argued that because of the mining boom, the cost-of-living in such places as Antofagasta near Escondida is 10% higher than anywhere else in Chile. 
 
Minera Escondida Ltda. produced 1.27 million tonnes of copper and copper cathode last year, some 8% of the world&rsquo;s total. The mine also produced 182,472 ounces of gold. BHP Billiton holds 57.5% of the company&rsquo;s stock; Rio Tinto, 30%; a Japanese consortium led by Mitsubishi, 10%; and the World Bank&rsquo;s International Finance Corp., 2.5%.

Chile’s Escondida Copper Miners Poised to Strike

Trade union rallies, protests and strong and bitter objections are being heard across Pakistan to harsh and draconian changes to the country&rsquo;s labour code.
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&nbsp;Five major trade union centres have marched, posted letters, distributed literature, and even promoted and participated in a one-day hunger strike on 20 July in protest to, in the words of one Asian NGO, legislative changes that take &ldquo;Pakistan&rsquo;s working conditions back to the 17th century.&rdquo; 
 
A month ago, the National Assembly&rsquo;s House of Representatives &ndash; without Senate consent &ndash; passed changes to Pakistan&rsquo;s Finance Bill, which effectively increased daily work hours, reduced overtime compensation, and created a new category of &ldquo;contract worker&rdquo; not entitled to legal compensation for overtime work. 
 
The legalisation of contract work with no overtime pay will open the floodgates in Pakistan for employers to use large numbers of people as temporary workers well into the future. By amending just one statute in the framework of the Finance Bill, daily working hours have been increased from eight to 12. 
 
Another amendment abolishes the country&rsquo;s compulsory closed weekly holiday, while others will target women for more work and less family life. A provision in the Finance Bill amends the Factories Act, allowing women workers now to work up until 22h00 in two daily shifts. Prior, women were prohibited from working before sunrise and after sunset. 
 
Trade union leaders in Pakistan, and the world over, are declaring the changes inhumane, in violation of international labour standards and ILO Conventions, and against the spirit of the Constitution of Pakistan. Leaders inside Pakistan also consider the procedure for adopting the labour amendments as unconstitutional and illegal. They say the direct result will be rampant labour exploitation, especially to those people already marginalised within society.

Trade Unions in Pakistan Revolt Against Labour Code Changes

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