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A UK defense contractor who reneged on terms contained in a collective agreement last year met industrial action last week. Members of Unite the Union in the London and Eastern Region began an overtime ban and work to rule at the Wattisham Airbase in Suffolk on 7 September against Morson Wynnwith, a contractor for AgustaWestland which manages a fleet of Apache helicopters for the British Ministry of Defence. 
 
The 100 engineers belonging to Unite entered into a four-year labour agreement in April 2010 with Morson Wynnwith, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Manchester-based Morson Group Plc. Part of that accord called for wage parity to occur over the four years with Unite engineers employed by the same company at Middle Wallop Airbase in Hampshire. 
 
The Wattisham engineers, most of whom are ex-military personnel, earn &pound;3,000 annually less than Unite members at Middle Wallop, who service and maintain the same military equipment. Last spring &ndash; a year into the agreement &ndash; MorsonWynnwith initially offered a 2% wage increase. The military contractor later increased the offer to 2.6%, the same wage increase accepted at Hampshire, and told the Wattisham unit that service and maintenance work done on Apaches at Middle Wallop is more complicated. 
 
Engineers at Wattisham rejected the 2.6% offer in June and immediately passed a strike ballot with a 71-14 vote. Eighty-one workers then voted for job actions short of a strike. 
 
&ldquo;If these skilled workers had accepted that proposal,&rdquo; said Region Officer Mark Robinson, &ldquo;then they would have fallen further behind.&rdquo; He added that the engineers do not take strike action lightly because they recognize the importance of their work related to the battlefield, but Morson Wynnwith&rsquo;s backtracking over last year&rsquo;s forced the issue. 
 
The dispute is under review by UK&rsquo;s Advisory, Conciliation, and Mediation Services (ACAS) and a report is slated to be issued in October. Unite and Morson Wynnwith are expected to talk next week but if there is no movement by the company, job actions could be escalated. 
 
The engineers at Wattisham Airbase are responsible for maintenance on the Apache helicopter, which the UK Army Air Corp is using in Afghanistan. They do complete servicing and maintenance on each unit of the specialized aircraft after 600 flying hours.

UK Engineers Begin Industrial Action against Apache Helicopter Contractor

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ICEM Presidium Members and leaders of major affiliates paid a visit to Japan to convey a message of condolence and solidarity on the occasion of the National Conventions of Denryoku Soren and UI ZENSEN. The delegation was led by President Senzeni Zokwana and General Secretary Manfred Warda, composed of Dave Coles from CEP, Canada, Andrew Vickers from CFMEU, Australia, Michael Mersmann, IGBCE of Germany, David Shier from Canada&rsquo;s Power Workers Union, and Phee Jungsun, ICEM Regional Contact Person. 
 
On 6 September, a meeting was conducted with representatives of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Union of Denryoku Soren. President Taneoka of Denryoku Soren and Mr. Yoshio Sato, General Secretary of ICEM-JAF facilitated the discussion on the current situation in the Fukushima plants. The chaotic and desperate situation immediately following the Tsunami attack was described, when about 600 workers on the site fought against the melt-down and were also concerned about the safety of their families. 
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International Delegation meets Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Union of Denryoku Soren
The delegation paid tribute to those workers who sacrificed themselves in the recovery operations at the damaged power plants. According to the report from Mr. Hasekawa Takahiro, Unit Union Chair of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Union of Tokyo Electricity (TEPCO) Union and Mr. Yukio Arai, President of the Tokyo Electricity (TEPCO) Union, two reactors out of the three that were destroyed and melted down are now under control in terms of cooling down and recycling radiated water. The level of radiation has been decreased to normal radiation outside of reactors. Robot equipment is being used to check the situation inside the reactors. A total of six workers had been exposed to radiation above the standard levels. The full scale report has just been constructed and submitted to the IAEA Board Meeting, to be held in late September. 
 
Manfred Warda commended workers still under precarious conditions, saying &quot;you are heroes&quot; and offered any necessary solidarity and technical assistance from ICEM and its affiliates. TEPCO has been working on the financial plan for compensation that requires more than US$2.5 Trillion and needs state subsidy. 
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Manfred Warda addresses UI Zensen National Convention
The ICEM delegation then moved to attend the National Convention of UI Zensen in Yokohama, President of which is Brother Ochiai, Vice President of ICEM and Chair of the Asia Pacific Region. UI ZENSEN has worked strenuously on an organizing drive, and now becomes the largest industrial federation in Japan with 1.2 million members. Brother Ochiai congratulated the merger agreement of the three GUFs and confirmed full support for the new organization. Manfred Warda expressed solidarity towards relief and recovery efforts and complimented the firm spirit of the Japanese people. &quot;We have come to express the grief we share with you and again convey to you, all your members and their families, to the Japanese people and to your country, our condolences for the loss of so many people, relatives, friends, neighbours &ndash; and we know that many of your members and their families were among the victims of the disaster. But let me also applaud you for the immediate determination you showed to take tremendous efforts to come to the assistance of all who needed your support and for all the personal sacrifices that you and many of the members of your union devoted during the process of rescue operations.&quot;

ICEM Solidarity, Condolence Visit to Japan

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A branch of the&nbsp;Indonesian trade union&nbsp;FSP-KEP (SPSI), the Trade Union of Chemical, Energy, and Mine Workers (CEMWU), will renew strike action this week, 15 September, with a month-long walkout at a leading global copper and gold mining complex, the Grasberg operation of US-based Freeport-McMoRan in eastern Papua province on New Guinea Island. 
 
The strike by 8,000 Indonesia miners would follow an eight-day strike in July that saw six union leaders sacked, only to be returned to their jobs when mine management relented and agree to re-start pay talks. (See <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4549-Indonesia-Mine-Union-Wins-Strike-Reinstatement-of-Sacked-Union-Leaders ">ICEM news article</a> on that initial strike.) 
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4 July March to Kuala Kencana
Those talks did resume in Timika on 20 July but after a number of sessions, no agreement was reached on pay for 2011 to 2013 and negotiations broke off on 5 September. The FSP-KEP branch is seeking a doubling of miners&rsquo; US$1.50-per-hour wage rate, while PT Freeport is offering only an 11% increase, mostly in the form of bonuses. 
 
The Grasberg mine is 91% owned by Freeport-McMoRan and 9% by the Indonesian government, and serves as the American mining company&rsquo;s biggest revenue producer. The mining house, which also faces a copper strike at its 53.7% held Cerro Verde copper mine in Peru, recorded a second quarter 2011 profit of US$1.37 billion. 
 
The FSP-KEP (SPSI)&nbsp;branch of CWMWU, the PT Freeport Indonesia Workers' Union,&nbsp;is reportedly asking now to negotiate directly with Freeport-McMoRan&rsquo;s chairman and non-elective board member James Moffett, who took in a total compensation package last year of US$21.5 million. 
 
Grasberg is the world&rsquo;s largest gold mine and second largest producer of copper concentrates, with daily output of 61,000 tonnes of copper and gold ore. The eight-day strike in July cost the company 16,000 tonnes of copper output and 60,000 ounces of gold production.

Indonesian FSP-KEP (SPSI) Union Set to Renew Grasberg Mine Strike

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The ICEM and the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) renewed a Global Framework Agreement last week&nbsp;with Umicore, the Brussels-based global materials technology group with expertise in materials science, chemistry and metallurgy, operating in four business groups, namely catalysis, energy materials, performance materials and recycling, with some 14,400 employees.
First signed in September 2007, the agreement has been the basis for joint union-management activities for proper implementation of the principles set out in the text. Representatives of the company, both Global Union Federations&nbsp;(GUFs)&nbsp;and the European Works Council conducted joint missions in China in 2008, in Brazil in 2009, and in South Africa in 2010, in addition to the regular monitoring activities defined in the agreement. 
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(left to right) Ignace de Ruijter, Marc Grynberg, Jyrki Raina, Kemal &Ouml;zkan
The four-year renewal was done with&nbsp;a ceremony held on 6 September in the Belgian capital with Umicore&rsquo;s Marc Grynberg, Chief Executive Officer, and Ignace de Ruijter, Senior Vice-President Human Resources, as well as IMF General Secretary Jyrki Raina and ICEM&rsquo;s Kemal &Ouml;zkan, Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs on behalf of General Secretary Manfred Warda. 
The agreement was also re-affirmed by the Belgian trade unions through the signatures of Marc De Wilde, President of ACV-CVC Metea, Paul Heykants, Secretary of LBC-NVK, Said Zaoudi, Secretary of CNE-GNC, Georges De Batselier, Vice-President ABVV Metaal, Angelo Basile, Deputy General Secretary of MWB-FGTB and Guy Vertommen, Secretary BBTK and Kurt Marysse, National Responsible of ACLVB/CGSLB. 
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(left to right) Kemal &Ouml;zkan, Marc Grynberg, Jyrki Raina
The agreement covers six major chapters, namely Human Rights, Working Conditions, Environment, Implementation of Agreement, Monitoring, and Validity of Agreement. Under Human Rights, Umicore pledges to adhere to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, as well as adherence to ILO core labour standards. The latter specifically includes ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and other Conventions regarding child labour, forced labour, and non-discrimination and equal opportunities' practices. With the renewal, the parties re-confirmed their political decisiveness over their global level commitments within the framework of the agreement. 

&ldquo;We believe that this agreement offers benefits for all stakeholders. All parties have benefited from the constructive relationship fostered by the original agreement and we look forward to this continuing in the coming years,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Raina, speaking on behalf of both GUFs. 
 
&ldquo;We are so proud of this international agreement with IMF and ICEM. This gives a big value in our policies towards the issues of sustainable development,&rdquo; said Umicore&rsquo;s&nbsp;Grynberg. &ldquo;This agreement supports Umicore&rsquo;s global vision on social issues and reflects our diversity and international presence. It will help us in our journey towards sustainability and in being considered a great place to work,&rdquo; added Umicore Vice-President&nbsp;de Ruijter.

ICEM and IMF Renew Global Agreement with Umicore

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Union members of Sindicato No. 1 de Trabajadores de Minera Escondida, a branch of Chile&rsquo;s Federation of Miners (FMC), returned to work Friday night, 5 August, at the world&rsquo;s largest copper mine, majority owned by BHP Billiton. Some 2,375 miners at the Escondida mine ended a 15-day strike with a 65.5% to 34.5% vote the night before after two days of negotiating with mine management. 
 
The memorandum of agreement provides a remedy to a dispute over a 2010 production bonus but just as important, addresses several grievances and breaches by Escondida management from a 2009 labour agreement. 
 
Sindicato No. 1 said of the memorandum, &ldquo;the company promises to solve a series of labour issues such as establishing a new attendance policy, regularising a certification system based on competency for promotions, and reformulating the criteria for calculating a production bonus.&rdquo; These were just some of the issues in dispute inside a four-year labour agreement that was signed in November 2009. 
 
In 2010, Escondida &ndash; 57.5% owned by operator BHP Billiton, 30% by Rio Tinto, and 12.5% by Japanese holding companies &ndash; saw profits of US$4.3 billion, up 35% over that of 2009. Last week&rsquo;s amended bonus to each worker amounts to CHP 2.65 million (pesos), or US$5,800. Miners will receive that on 25 August.
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Sindicato No. 1 Files Papers in a Labour Court in late July
Escondida said the strike was illegal and indicated throughout the walkout that it would not negotiate with the union. But as the days wore on and the company was losing US$30 million per day, that changed. In a statement after signing the memorandum of agreement, the company said workers had ended their &ldquo;illegal work stoppage&rdquo; and &ldquo;this action is due to the success of talks between the parties. 
 
&ldquo;Minera Escondida reiterates that dialogue and respect are the foundation for maintaining a beneficial relationship with its workers.&rdquo; 
 
Besides the aforementioned labour issues, that respect includes a more transparent system for the production bonuses; restoration of a housing allocation that lifts restrictions on where miners may use the stipends; safer and higher quality buses for transportation to and from worksites, as well as compensation for tickets; no retaliation, redundancy, or punishment for union activity; and review of company-installed surveillance cameras. 
 
Miners will also be paid their salaries for the 15-day strike. Sindicato No. 1 de Trabajadores de Minera Escondida had filed labour court charges on several of the issues involved in the strike. 
 
For its part, the union said it hopes to maintain and deepen channels of communication with management, but also will remain vigilant that the issues agreed to in the memorandum will get resolved. 
 
Minera Escondida consists of two open-pit copper mines some 170 kilometres southeast of Antofagasta, in Chile&rsquo;s Region II. It also consists of two concentrator plants, Los Colorados and Laguna Seca, which have a combined capacity of 330,000 tonnes per day. The company operates two pipelines and a filter plant at the Port of Coloso. 
 
In 2010, Escondida&rsquo;s production totalled 1.087 million tonnes, consisting of 786,603 tonnes of copper concentrate and 300,098 tonnes of copper cathodes. It provides concentrates to smelters in Japan, China, Korea, India, and Chile, while the cathodes are sold to markets in France, the Netherlands, Italy, China, Korea, Canada, and Mexico. It provides a total of 7% of the world&rsquo;s copper supply.

Chile Copper Workers End Strike at Escondida with 65% Vote

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By the narrowest of margins on 2 August, members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 in Metropolis, Illinois, ratified a three-year labour agreement with Honeywell, Inc., officially ending a lockout that began on 28 June 2010. The ratification vote came a full 13 days following conclusion of a negotiating settlement (see <a href="/en/3-Energy-Oil-and-Gas/4564-USW-Union-at-Honeywell-Reaches-Tentative-Labour-Agreement">ICEM 22 July report</a>), primarily because Honeywell managers at the uranium converting facility were negligent in giving explicit back-to-work assignments to locked-out workers. 

The 228 steelworkers at Honeywell convert milled uranium, known as yellow-cake uranium, into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) which is used in nuclear fuel enrichment. The lock-out was marked by Honeywell&rsquo;s decision to resume full production nine weeks into the company&rsquo; s work stoppage and then re-start operations with inexperienced scab replacement workers. Twice in the months that followed, the plant saw near-miss tragedies due to mishandling of dangerous chemicals. 

The period between the 20 July 2011 tentative agreement and yesterday&rsquo;s ratification was just as contentious as was the entire lockout. Honeywell managers told Local 7-699 that it wanted experienced workers to return to the jobs they knew best, but then submitted a back-to-work roster which saw job postings many of the locked-out workers had never worked before. 

It took Local 7-669 leaders enormous time and effort in the 13-day interval to sort out the return-to-work roster. Meanwhile, Honeywell managers publicly denounced the union for not conducting the ratification vote. &ldquo;They were trying to force a vote before our people knew exactly which job they would return to,&rdquo; said local union spokesman John Smith.
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Local 7-669 members will begin returning to work on 15 August. Some 150 workers will return then to training and re-certification by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Forty workers will return two weeks later for the same, and the remainder two weeks after that. The unionised workforce will number about 220 workers when the experienced and qualified USW members are fully back to work. 

The negotiated settlement preserves most of the key union-protection provisions that Honeywell was trying to strip away at the start of the lockout, including seniority, job bidding, overtime, and retention of a defined benefit pension plan for existing workers, as well as retiree medical benefits that go along with that plan. 

On wages, the new three-year collective agreement calls for no increase in the first year, 1% effective 15 August 2012, and 2% on 15 August 2013. Local 7-669 proposed in bargaining over a year ago a freeze on wages and continuation of all terms and conditions of a prior three-year contract. But Honeywell seemed intent on taking away pension, the accompanying health care benefits, as well as union-protection provisions. 

Honeywell abandoned most of those contract concessions, perhaps realising that it needed experienced steelworkers to effectively operate the plant safety and productively. Production had plummeted to a reported 35% of pre-lockout levels and Honeywell was not meeting it order demand for UF6. 

USW Local 7-669 President Darrell Lillie told the ICEM: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re highly appreciative of the tremendous support we have received from trade unions, those in the community and others throughout this long lockout. The donations, the international support, and the recognition by many here and abroad on what we were up against will never be forgotten.&rdquo;

Troubled to End, USW Union Ratifies US Honeywell Contract

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The ruling National Party in New Zealand took a correct industrial safety decision two weeks ago when the conservative government of Prime Minister John Key authorised NZ$1.5 million annually from an existing account to create a high hazards unit in the mining, and oil and gas industries. The decision comes in the wake of the tragic Pike River coal mine deaths nine months ago, a damning indictment on National&rsquo;s business-friendly agenda of the 1990s, but the decision also comes with strong voice that more must come regarding regulations and stringent deterrents to protect all workers on the job in New Zealand. 
 
New Zealand&rsquo;s Labour Party also said more must be done, stating check inspectors must be re-established on company payrolls to ensure monitoring and compliance. The Nationals eliminated mandatory worksite safety specialists in 1992 in deregulatory measures pushed by business. 
 
The ICEM states the hazards unit is a positive step coming just after first-phase hearings of the Pike River Royal Commission finished, and commends the New Zealand government for improving industrial safety in the country. The ICEM also encourages New Zealand through the Royal Commission to examine the safety structure at Pike River, compare it with best-practice standards of the world, and then begin a process to ratify and implement the tenets inside <a href="/en/209-ILO ">ILO Convention 176</a>. 
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Establishment of the high hazards unit also comes a year after a government review of health and safety and environmental issues in the offshore petroleum industry. The review recommended an increase in the number of safety inspectors. 
 
The high hazards unit will have three inspectors, plus a chief inspector each in the mines and energy sector, and a support and research staff of three. In comparison, New Zealand has only two mine inspectors &ndash; one position now being vacant &ndash; and it has only a single oil and gas inspector to cover upstream production over a wide expanse. 
 
The NZ$1.5 million will be funded from a special levy that the government has collected over the years in a Health and Safety in Employment Memorandum Account. 
 
Ged O&rsquo;Connell, Assistant National Secretary of the Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), said it was a breakthrough for the government, &ldquo;but more still needs to be done. There is the need for decent regulations and reinstatement of the check inspector role to provide the full check and balance required.&rdquo; 
 
New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) President Helen Kelly said first-phase Pike River testimony before the Royal Commission made it clear that stronger mine safety regulations are critical. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t wait and risk another disaster when we already know that other measures are also necessary,&rdquo; said Kelly. 
 
Phase one of the Royal Commission&rsquo;s inquiry into the deadly string of Pike River Coal Mine explosions that took 29 lives ended on 22 July 2011. Phase two hearings will start on 5 September in Greymouth, near the Pike River mine on the South Island, and run until 23 September. Phase two will centre on time and circumstance of death for the 29, safety and rescue efforts, and site effectiveness in the horrid weeks after the 19 November 2010 initial explosion.

New Zealand Updates Energy, Mine Safety Regime

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The President of an ICEM affiliate in Chile, Fenatrapech, the National Federation of Oil Workers, passed away at 5h30 on 23 August. Comrade Jorge Matute was 61 years old and dedicated 41 years to trade union work for Chile&rsquo;s oil workers. Twenty of those years were with Fenatrapech. 
 
Matute was the key oil workers&rsquo; leader during pivotal moments and struggles in Chile&rsquo;s energy. Unpopular Chilean President Sebasti&aacute;n Pi&ntilde;era has attempted to sell off the nationalised oil assets into private hands, along with other major nationalised industries. Workers at the National Petroleum Company, ENAP, have been under attack over the last two years, as government attempts to weaken the union to facilitate privatisation. 
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Jorge Matute was central in fighting to protect workers in this process, negotiating redundancy packages and against job cuts. 
 
An example of this struggle led by Matute was at the Bio Bio refinery in Central Chile. In tribute, his remains were taken there on the day of his death, before moving him to Valparaiso for his funeral on 24 August. 
 
Matute had suffered the disappearance of his son, Jorge Matute Johns. Trade union comrades in Chile now take comfort in the belief that Matute is reunited with his son. 
 
Words of support and mourning have been offered from many sides for the popular union leader. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda conveyed sincere condolences to Fenatrapech on behalf of the ICEM, calling for his good work and struggles on behalf of workers to be continued. &ldquo;We honour the life of a great fighter,&rdquo; said Warda. 
 
ENAP oil workers&rsquo; union President Alejandro Avenda&ntilde;o said that Matute had &ldquo;taught us the important value of the struggle for workers rights in Chile.&rdquo;

Jorge Matute: 1950-2011

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Madhukar Kashinath Pandhe, a steadfast champion of workers in India and elsewhere, died of a heart attack on 20 August in a New Delhi hospital. M K Pandhe was a champion for decades in India of carving gains for all workers, from unorganised workers in the informal sector to the skilled workers that drive India&rsquo;s economy. He was 86. 
 
Pande was an early leader of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU). When he died, he was Vice President of CITU. He had served as the trade union&rsquo;s Secretary, General Secretary, and President. 
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He was also President of the All India Coal Workers&rsquo; Federation. The ICEM knew him as a tireless and dedicated partner on coal supply, work rights, pay, health, safety and other issues in the mining industry. 
 
Pande was born in Pune, Maharashtra, and joined the Communist Party in 1943. He joined the Goa liberation struggle against the Portuguese and after the Communist Party in India divided, be became a leader a CPI(M) &ndash; the Communist Part India (Marxist) party. 
 
His high prestige in India as a trade union negotiator who delivered for the working class was earned because Pandhe did it across all industrial sectors, from mining, steel, energy to all forms of transport, and from navy to shipping to aviation to many other jobs. He served on numerous national level bodies formed by the government, and his steady voice inside all of them never wavered from the defense of the working class. 
 
M K Pandhe is survived his wife, Pramile, a key leader in CPI(M) and also leader in the All India Democratic Women&rsquo;s Association, and a son.

M K Pandhe: 1925-2011

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At the triennial United Steelworkers Convention in Las Vegas, US, on 16 August, the union covering members in the US, Canada, and the Caribbean moved closer to formalising a unified North American trade union together with oppressed National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union of Mexico (SNTMMSRM), or Los Mineros. 
 
Los Mineros President Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez Urrutia addressed the 3,000 delegates via teleconference from Canada, where he has been in exile for the last five years. These same charges blocked G&oacute;mez from travelling to the Las Vegas Convention. His wife, Oralia, gave an emotional speech instead. It had been planned that Los Mineros leader Juan Linares would sign the agreement, but he was blocked from leaving Mexico by authorities who are conducting a relentless campaign against Los Mineros. 
<img alt="" src="" width="246" height="161" />
&ldquo;A strong, unified union is needed to fight for workers from the northern tip of Canada to the most southern tip of Mexico, particularly in the age of the North American Free Trade Agreement,&rdquo; stated USW President Leo Gerard. 
 
Among other things, the agreement establishes worker councils for employees at multinationals in the three countries, &quot;to facilitate exchange of information, strategic cooperation, solidarity support, and organizing initiatives.&quot; 
 
The two trade unions formed a commission, charged with increasing strategic cooperation and exploring a fusion together following the aggressive police attacks on workers and their families at Cananea and Pasta de Conchos on 6 June 2010, announcing the bi-lateral trade union commission at the global &quot;Triple Crisis of Sustainability&rdquo; conference in Toronto on 19 June 2010. 
 
The commission was made up of five members from each of the union&rsquo;s leaderships, and will now be expanded to include the USW general counsel and director of international affairs. Los Mineros will get two additional representatives. 
 
The USW represents 850,000 workers in the US, Canada and the Caribbean, while Los Mineros represents about 180,000 in Mexico.

USW, Mexico’s Los Mineros Strengthen Alliance

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