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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
In line with the Global Framework Agreement (GFA) signed jointly by the ICEM and the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) with Belgian-based Umicore, a chemicals, metal technology, and catalyst systems company, the parties conducted a mission to Umicore subsidiaries in South Africa from 24-26 January. 
 
It was the third such mission since the GFA was signed in September 2007, with the two previous ones to China in 2009 and to Brazil in 2010. The main objective of the joint missions, as a regular exercise in accordance with the relevant provisions of the agreement, is to monitor compliance. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.umicore.JPG" width="229" height="172"/>
Participants at the Umicore Mission in South Africa
Umicore’s South African plants are located in the city of Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape province, and are called UACSA and UCPE. They are part of the company’s automotive catalysts business segment, one of four business units of Umicore. The area is a leading producer for automobiles and auto parts. 
 
Umicore was represented by Ignace De Ruijter, Senior Vice President of Human Resources; Guy Ethier, Senior Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety; Mark Dolfyn, Director of Human Resource Development; and Kerry Bryans, Managing Director of Umicore South Africa. From the trade union side, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries’ Officer Kemal Özkan, Belgian trade union officer Luc Triangle of ACV-CSC METEA (representing the IMF), and the Chairman of the Umicore’s European Works Council and member of ICEM German affiliate IGBCE, Peter Kamm, attended. 
 
From South Africa, representatives from ICEM-affiliated Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU) from both Umicore plants also participated. They included: Skhumbuzo Phakathi, International Relations Officer; Clement Chitja, Head of Collective Bargaining: David Nzanzeka, Regional Secretary; Khaya Mkefe, Regional Organiser; and South African Works Council members Lindelwa Gxavu (Chairperson), Ncedile Boyce (Deputy Chairperson), Sindiswa Silotile (Secretary), Xola Dlova (Deputy Secretary), and Camagu Mzinyati (Organiser.) 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.umicore.3.JPG" width="231" height="192"/>
CEPPWAWU Shop Stewards Lindelwa Gxavu and Siniswa Silotile
The internal trade union meeting also welcomed Vuyo Bikitsha, Regional Secretary, and Mziyanda Twani, Educator, from the ICEM- and IMF-affiliated National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which had membership at UCPE plant in the past. 
 
Considering recent issues between local management and trade unions in the Port Elisabeth plants, the visit by the ICEM and IMF representatives resulted in positive and constructive evaluations. The plant visits also assisted workers in resolving some outstanding local issues. 
 
The mission resulted in a number of concrete results, including a conclusion that local communication on a number of issues, including recruitment procedures, structure of employment, integration of both plants, and training and education, should be further advanced and would benefit from greater engagement by both parties. By doing this, the results are in line with the objectives of the GFA to create mutually beneficial relations and dialogue between all the partners. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.umicore.2.JPG" width="202" height="158"/>
Trade Unionists Visit “UMICARE,” a Social Project by the Belgian Company in South Africa
The ICEM and IMF representatives were impressed by the excellent work of the local trade union representatives, and also recognized that local and corporate managers play a crucial role in creating better social dialogue within the company for the future. This visit will be evaluated in April 2011 at the next GFA Monitoring Committee with management. Both ICEM and IMF are ready for the continuation of the GFA. 
 
As part of the South African mission, the trade union delegation also visited a social project financed by the local company called “UMICARE.” The programme, while small, enables children to gain valuable opportunities in schooling to improve their chances for a better life. 
 
ICEM’s Özkan commented on the visit: “While approaching the four-year mark of the Umicore GFA, I am proud to observe very positive and concrete steps forward. Each joint mission has given us important input and synergy for future activities with positive expectations. I do believe that dialogue between ICEM/IMF and Umicore is an excellent model of global industrial relations tailored for what we need to create as a global union federation.”

ICEM, IMF Complete Umicore GFA Mission to South African Plants

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Trade union members of IGBCE and Verdi downed tools on 24 January in a four-hour warning strike across Germany against fair-pay salary delays by RWE. The worksite actions came a day before the sixth round of 2010 wage talks in Dortmund, the last chance for RWE to make an equitable salary increase before a full strike ballot occurs. 
 
With worker anger inside RWE boiling over, senior managers of the major European utility provider find themselves at a pivotal point with its 26,000-member German workforce. 
 
The warning strikes last week proved discontent at RWE is wide and loud. Scores of local staffs and thousands of RWE workers held vocal assemblies sponsored by the unions that delivered the same message: workers will contribute to the economic success of the company, but they want fair and full participation to create that success. 
<img style="WIDTH: 142px; HEIGHT: 210px" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0811.IGBCE.jpg" width="150" height="242"/>
Spirited demonstrations took place at many RWE gas and electric power stations and other workplaces, including lignite mines of RWE Power at Garzweiler, Hamach, and Inden. Coal-fired power plants at Niederaussem and Weisweiler also registered vocal support for further strike action. RWE’s nuclear workers at Biblis, Emsland, and Gundremminger downed tools, and gas workers from Emsland and Gersteinwerk also took part in the stop-work actions. 
 
IGBCE urged RWE in a statement to make an acceptable wage offer. The ICEM affiliate said the warning strike is necessary in order to increase pressure on RWE at the bargaining table. A full and unlimited strike would also ratchet pressure on RWE’s major German industrial customers. 
 
RWE had astoundingly withdrawn a 2.9% wage offer, while IGBCE and Verdi were demanding 6.5%. In place, the energy company proposed 2.4%. Salaries, however, are not the only issue. Worker demands for job security and halts to work-time increases also have thus far been unmet by RWE.

German Power Workers Close to Full Dispute with RWE

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A woman and metalworker won election as General Secretary of Italy’s largest labour federation, the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL). Susanna Camusso was elected by the federation’s 160-member National Executive Assembly on 3 November with a 79.1% vote, succeeding Guglielmo Epifani who stepped down due to term limits. 
 
Camusso, 55, becomes the first woman to lead a major national labour centre in Italy, and the challenges in front of her are great. Considered Italy’s most militant labour federation, the 5.7-million-member CGIL must confront the €23.5 billion in public spending cuts that the Berlusconi government is proposing, and it faces social regressions that car-maker Fiat is demanding in return for investing in Italian auto factories. 
 
Following her election, she said of Silvio Berlusconi, “The more he governs, the more trouble he creates.” She said the sooner that Berlusconi retires from public office, “the better it will be for the country.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.susanna_camusso CGIL GS.jpg" width="120" height="159"/>
CGIL General Secretary Susanna Camusso
Regarding Fiat, she must navigate the militancy of CGIL’s Metalworkers (FIOM) branch – once her own constituency – with the moderation of Italy’s other two national labour centres, the UIL and CISL, in dealing with the automaker. One test will be Fiat’s insistence on individual factory agreements instead of a national collective agreement. 
 
Another will be the determination by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne to drive a wedge between CGIL-FIOM and the other federations in coming talks over implementing the company’s five-year, €20 billion investment plan in Italy. 
 
Camusso began her union career in 1977 as a union organiser for CGIL’s FIOM branch in Milan. Over a 20-year career there, she built a reputation as a fierce negotiator, having bargaining numerous collective agreements in the auto and metalworking sectors. She is considered a pragmatic, results-oriented labour leader. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.CGIL Congress.jpg" width="240" height="160"/>
CISL Congress, May 2010 
In 1997, she left FIOM in Milan and became a regional leader for CGIL in the Lombardy region. In 2005, she founded the Italian women’s rights movement “Let’s Get Out of Silence” movement. On her election earlier this month, she said full women’s rights must be a condition for democracy in Italy and the demeaning issue of prostitution must find a place on the national agenda, an obvious reference to Berlusconi’s style. 
 
She was elected a member of the CGIL’s 10-member national governing board in 2008, became the federation’s deputy general secretary at the May 2010 Congress, and was Epifani’s choice to succeed him earlier this month. 
 
Camusso will often be paired in her new duties with Emma Marcegaglia, the leader of the industrial employers’ federation Confindustria. The two women share a mutual respect for one another other, with Marcegaglia saying early this month she has “a very positive opinion” of Camusso.

First Woman Elected to Lead Italian National Labour Federation

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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’s redundancies at the Ulan coal mine near Mudgee, New South Wales, and whether or not those sackings were “genuine redundancies,” 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 “genuine redundancies” and ensures that employers can be held liable if they do not fully offer and then redeploy sacked workers in all reasonable circumstances. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/XstrataPoison.jpg" width="200" height="63" alt=""/>
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’s ruling covers six of ten miners whose rights, under Australia’s new labour statute, were violated because the dismissals were not “genuine redundancies” 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’s full bench ruling stated: “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.”

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

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The ICEM expressed deep condolences to the families of 29 miners declared dead on 24 November at the Pike River coal mine disaster in New Zealand, as well as to their trade union – affiliate Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU). 
 
In a letter to EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said, “It is with great sadness that the ICEM has learned of the deaths of 29 miners. Please accept my heartfelt condolences. 
 
“We will now support your call for a full and thorough investigation into the causes of this terrible accident, and for all of the bodies to be returned as soon as possible to their families. The explosion illustrates the importance of our shared work in improving safety standards in mines, and moving the New Zealand Government toward ratification and proper implementation of ILO Convention 176, on safety and health in mines.” (Full letter <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/145.ICEM.EPMU.New%20Zealand.24Nov.pdf" type="internal">here</a>.) 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.epmu.pike.river.jpg" width="208" height="161"/>
Inside Pike River mine, before accident, Photo: NZPA
The miners, trapped since 19 November by a horrid methane gas explosion at Pike River Coal Ltd.’s coking coal mine inside the Paparoa Range on the South Island, were declared dead 24 November by police charged with rescue. (See ICEM’s initial report <a href="/en/5-Mining-DGOJP/4115-Hope-Still-Alive-for-29-Trapped-Inside-Pike-River’s-New-Zealand-Coal-Mine" type="internal">here</a>.) The police announcement came minutes after a second massive explosion that lasted 30 seconds occurred inside the company’s mine of the Brunner coal seam at 14h37, local time, Wednesday. The Pike River mine is located 50 kilometres from Greymouth . 
 
Rescue attempts proved prohibitive for six days because of high levels of methane gas and carbon monoxide that were registered inside. News of the secondary explosion on 24 November and improbability that the 29 could have survived was brought to grief-stricken family members at 16h00 in Greymouth by Pike River CEO Peter Whittal. “Exactly what we said would happen happened,” he told reporters in explaining why rescuers had not been sent into the mine. Some 90 skilled mine rescuers, many flown in from Australia, were on standby for those five days. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/People/EPMU Andrew Little.jpg" width="182" height="173"/>
EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little
EPMU National Secretary Little said: “News of this second devastating explosion means there is now no prospect of a successful rescue and the lives of the 29 men trapped inside have been lost. It is time to let the families and the community grieve. 
 
“Most of the miners killed were our comrades in the union, including Blair Sims who was an EPMU delegate at the Pike River mine,” Little said. “The EPMU will now make the practical arrangements to establish a fund to assist the families of the men whose lives have been lost.” 
 
Little added the EPMU now calls on the government “to establish an independent inquiry to investigate the circumstances of the explosion, including a public hearing in front of a senior judge and leading technical experts,” adding the union will do everything possible to assist the investigation. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.epmu.blair.sims.jpg" width="175" height="175"/>
EPMU Delegate Blair Sims
Sims was a 28-year-old loving husband and father of two small children. He was an exceptional rugby player who for the past two seasons was New Zealand West Coast player of the year. Eleven of the 29 miners were EPMU members. Those perishing included 16 full-time workers of Pike River Coal Ltd., owned 31% owned by New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd., and 13 contract employees. 
 
Little, who received the news 90 minutes after the blast yesterday, told New Zealand media that “miners are special people. They are the foundation rock that much of New Zealand was built on. When you lose special people like that, 29 all in one go, it is a hard thing. I don’t think any of us can imagine what the families will be going through tonight.” 
 
The EPMU is assisting by setting up the “EPMU Pike River Miners Family Support Trust” to collect donations to support the 29 families. See more information on how to give financial support to the families of the dead miners <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.EPMU%20Pike%20River%20Miners%20Family%20Support%20Trust%20-%20flyer.pdf" type="internal">here</a>. 
 
"Miners around the world are grieving their fallen comrades," said ICEM and South Africa's NUM President Senzeni Zokwana, "our struggle continues to ensure our members safety at work." 
 
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key today will name a High Court judge along with two other high-level people to a Royal Commission of Inquiry to determine accountability for the Pike River tragedy. One of those members is expected to be an international mine safety expert. 
 
As well, other investigations will be conducted by Kiwi governmental agencies, and the EPMU will assemble its own team of legal and technical experts. Little welcomed Key’s announcement after a Cabinet meeting today that a Royal Commission will convene. 
 
“This is a huge disaster by any account and what we do in response will be scrutinized around the world, especially in other Commonwealth countries whose nationals were among those killed,” Little said. 
 
Besides 24 New Zealanders who perished inside the Pike River mine, two Australians, two UK nationals who were Scotsmen, and one South African also died. 
 
See photos of all the lost Pike River miners <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/pike-river-miners/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=1503001">here</a>.

Together with EPMU, ICEM Mourns Deaths of 29 Miners in New Zealand

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ICEM conducted a project on organizing and social dialogue in Turkey in 2009 and 2010 with the support of the Dutch national labour centre, FNV, and its affiliate FNV Bondgenoten. Evaluation of the two-year work was made in a conference held on 29-30 November 2010 in the Turkish capital Ankara. 
 
Attended by more than 80 union representatives, the Conference hosted international delegates, namely Hans Hupkes, Celil Çoban, and Mail Ürker from FNV Bondgenoten of the Netherlands: Mats Svensson from IF Metall of Sweden; Michael Wolters from IGBCE of Germany; Jorgen Juul Rasmussen from Dansk El Förbund of Denmark; Jacques Caltot and Christophe Quarez from FCE-CFDT of France; Dimitra Penidis and Isabelle Verhaegen from CSC Batiment, Industri & Energie of Belgium; and ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Chemical and Rubber Industries Officer Kemal Özkan, who ran the project. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.turkey project.JPG" width="230" height="151" alt=""/>
The Conference started with the speech of Mustafa Kumlu, President of Turk-İş Confederation and Tes-İş Union, who expressed appreciation for the activities of the project that covered some 600 union activists over the two-year period. 
 
“The ICEM takes the lead in organizing international solidarity for Turkish workers, and this project is a clear signal of that,” said Kumlu, adding that Turkish unions support the creation of new manufacturing and energy workers Global Union Federation. Such an entity, he said, will create a large Turkish grouping of over 20 unions. 
 
Hans Hupkes, on behalf of FNV Bondgenoten, stressed the appreciation and satisfaction of his organization with the activities of the project. “A lot has been done – and won – in such a short period. We gained spirit and a sense of solidarity without borders,” he said. 
 
Warda said organising and social dialogue are two key elements of ICEM policy regarding multinationals. “We need the ability to include companies inside Turkey in this process, and the FNV project, we believe, will serve us well to meet this objective.” 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1101.turkey project.2.JPG" width="213" height="149" alt=""/>
ICEM’s Özkan gave a report on project activities carried out in 2009-2010. The conference then listed observations and opinions of the unions supporting the project from Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, France, and Belgium. In a separate session, participating Turkish unions shared their observations and evaluated the set of conference. Trade union rights and freedoms in Turkey was one discussion item. A remarkable contribution was made by Sister Müzeyyen Acunal who was fired from her workplace in the paper industry because she pioneered an organizing drive there. 
 
For 2011 and beyond, an evaluation on the future of the project with an action plan will be developed. A common point was made that union organizing is very tough in Turkey. Current legislation makes it extremely difficult. In addition to mentioning the obvious difficulties, a consensus was put forward that new opportunities and tools, particularly international ones, need to be used. Organising campaign being conducted by Petrol-İş was mentioned as a good example. 
 
At the end of the discussions, Turkish unions agreed to develop capacity on using international tools in separate sessions for trade union officers. Specific bilateral groups between Turkish unions and unions from countries from where multinational investment to Turkey originates should be created. Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the Nordic nations were mentioned as priorities. 
 
Continuation of the struggle against Contract and Agency Labour, as part of ICEM’s global CAL campaign, was defined as one of the priority areas. After the first national conference in 2008, an urgent second conference was identified as important, considering the recent pushes by the Turkish government to modify labour legislation for allowing more workplace flexibility and unlimited use of agency labour. 
 
The ICEM’s Özkan commented: “Our intensive project programme in 2009 and 2010 gave us a good opportunity to get together with a big portion of local union officers in the regions of Turkey. More than 600 people got a chance to learn and make use of international solidarity in day-to-day union activities. We now will embark on specific projects with concrete targets.”

ICEM’s Two-Year Dutch FNV Project for Turkey Evaluated in Ankara

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The ICEM today announced unequivocal support to striking coal miners of the Tkibuli-Mindeli coal mine Imereti region in western Georgia. Trade union members of ICEM affiliate Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers Trade Union of Georgia are justified in their stop-work actions because the owner of the mine, the Saknakshiri company, part of the Georgian Industrial Group (GIG), has neglected to install modern gas detection devices in its underground mine. 
 
The open-ended strike began yesterday, 2 February, and the ICEM supports the demands of 200 miners to remedy unsafe mine conditions and to improve work conditions. The strike yesterday came after a two-hour warning strike on 31 January, and 12 days after a methane gas explosion inside the Tkibuli-Mindel mine killed one worker and severely injured four others. 
 
Those workers knew methane gas levels were high but were told to retreat into the mine or face dismissal. Two days before the 21 January explosion, two other work units complained about high gas levels but were ordered to stay inside shafts.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Georgia.png" width="250" height="115"/>
"The information we have is the Tkibuli mine operates with inferior and out-dated detection and ventilation equipment,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “Following an August 2010 gas explosion that again killed miners, the company made only minor repairs rather than invest in a new and modern system.” 
 
The 27 August 2010 explosion killed four miners and severely injured six others. On 3 March 2010, four miners were again killed and one seriously burned in another methane gas blast at the Tkibuli-Mindeli colliery. 
 
The ICEM backs the Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers Trade Union of Georgia’s demand that the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC) be given full participation in the special commission to probe the 21 January disaster. The ICEM calls on Saknakshiri to meet workers’ demands, including establishment of a compensation system for injured workers and the families of miners killed at work, hazardous duty pay, and proper protective clothing attire for work. 
 
Besides a healthy safety environment in which to work, Tkibuli-Mindeli miners also are seeking an end to non-regular employment, an overtime pay system, and wage indexation tagged to inflation, restitution of 2010-2011 outstanding arrears, and holiday pay.

ICEM Supports Safety Strike at Georgian Coal Mine

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The global trade union for the mining industry, the ICEM, congratulates the miners of Carbones del Cerrejon and their union, Sintracarbón, as well as management of the coal enterprise in la Guajira state in reaching contract terms early this week in Colombia. In a statement, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda noted that through respectful social dialogue – a process instituted with the assistance of the ICEM seven years ago – the two parties reached a mutually acceptable collective agreement, thus abandoning a planned strike. 
 
The two-year labour accord between the 4,000-member ICEM-affiliated mining union and the company operating the world’s largest set of open pit coal mines, owned jointly by AngloAmerican, BHP Billiton, and Xstrata, was reached with the assistance of Colombia Vice President Angelino Garzón and Vice Minister of Labour Relations Ricardo Echeverry late last week. That mediation illuminates the importance of social dialogue at the highest level in a country usually devoid of such labour-management tools. It also averts a costly strike that would have placed a heavy toll both on union members of Sintracarbón and Cerrejon. 
 
“We have witnessed both sides reach the brink of negotiations in the past several sets of two-year talks,” said Warda. “The fact that Sintracarbón and Cerrejon have not had a strike in over 20 years is testament to mutual respect and shared responsibility by both the union and management in looking after the welfare of communities, workers, and their families.”
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805COLOMBIA3.jpg" width="220" height="185"/>
The 2011-2012 labour agreement calls for a first-year wage increase of 6.5% and a 2012 increase of two percent over next year’s Consumer Price Index. But more importantly, the ICEM noted, Sintracarbón continued to make improvements at the bargaining table for the communities surrounding the massive coal complex in north-east Colombia, improvements in health benefits for workers and their families, and education benefits for family members. 
 
The ICEM commends the involvement of Vice President Garzón, Vice Minister Echeverry, and the Cerrejon management for recognizing in this set of talks that contract workers not directly employed by Cerrejon have the right of association and the right to form a union of their own choosing without interference from sub-contracting companies of Cerrejon, or the mining enterprise itself. 
 
The ICEM congratulates the bargaining committee of Sintracarbón for achieving a deserved 2011 pay increase of 6.5%, better than double Colombia’s current 3.19% CPI. The ICEM’s notes that Cerrejon is a highly profitable enterprise for the parent companies, as well as for Colombia, the world’s fifth biggest exporter of coal. 
 
“The union’s organised process of collective negotiations and it’s method of mobilising 4,000 workers behind the bargaining team is an example to all unions worldwide,” said Warda. “In this set of bargaining, they succeeded in raising the bar on work standards inside Colombia that should be an aspiration to all workers.”

Sintracarbón, Cerrejon Reach Commendable Contract in Colombia

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Members of ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), in dispute with management of Visy Pulp and Paper now for two weeks, resorted to peaceful civil disobedience early today at one company facility. Thirty strikers staged a sit-down across the entry to Visy’s Dandenong recycled containerboard mill near Melbourne. 
 
They were arrested and charged with undue obstruction and besetting a work premise. 
 
Some 500 AMWU members took a 24-hour industrial action on 29 November over Visy’s foot-dragging in reaching a new enterprise agreement. On 3 December, that action became an open-ended strike when 370 paperworkers at two mills, Dandenong in Victoria state and Visy’s Smithfield mill in New South Wales, walked out. 
 
Central among issues in talks has been Visy’s insistence to vastly increase the number of casual workers employed in its mills, converters, and recovered paper worksites. In deliberate moves to frustrate the bargaining process, Visy seeks to create a whole new casual classification rate of A$15-per-hour, less than the current casual rate and about half what full-time workers earn. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1012.VisyDandenong.jpg" width="180" height="135"/>
The AMWU is seeking a 5% wage increase for each of three years, improvement to the wage base for casuals, and a heat policy for work during the current hot summer months. In a provocative move, the company approved a 15% wage increase to workers over three years in its non-union operations. 
 
The AMWU has been fruitlessly negotiated with Visy for three months and a prior enterprise labour agreement expired 30 September. “We have tried to engage and negotiate with Visy, (but) they have closed the door on the negotiations,” said AMWU National Print Division Secretary Lorraine Cassin. 
 
The company has “tried everything in (its) power to whittle down the job security of our members and introduce a cheaper casual workforce across the country,” she added. Besides the Dandenong and Smithfield mills, the union’s 24-hour stop-work actions occurred at converting and recycling centres in Carole Park, Queensland, and O’Connor, West Australia. 
 
Visy did succeed in gaining a court injunction banning union officials from participating on picket lines. But that did not prevent paperworkers employed at Dandenong from lifting the strike to another level. Today’s peaceful sit-down strike is evidence of union frustration against a company fiercely bent on trying to avoid enterprise collective agreements.

AMWU’s Visy Strike in Australia Escalates; 30 Peaceful Strikers Arrested

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The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), ICEM’s white-collar affiliate in Africa’s most populous country, halted a strike on 4 December against Mobil Producing Nigeria Ltd., a subsidiary of the American energy giant ExxonMobil, so that negotiations over breaches to a collective agreement could begin. 
 
The strike was conducted by the Mobil Producing Nigeria Branch of PENGASSAN over the energy company’s sudden and unilateral sacking of 84 Nigerian workers. The union blocked entry at the company’s administrative offices in Eket in Akwa Ibom State, as well as at other Mobil Producing facilities in Lagos and Port Harcourt. 
 
The strike began on 30 November and was called off on 4 December when Mobil decided to discuss the issue, stating that it would return the workers to their jobs. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMoil3.JPG.JPG" width="100" height="99"/>
The company, the operating partner in a joint venture with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corp., dismissed 66 offshore workers and 18 office employees employed by various contractors. Under the collective agreement, the workers are covered by provisions of the agreement. 
 
By late last week, negotiations did prove that Mobil had violated the contract, both in terms of failing to meet and discuss the layoffs with PENGASSAN prior to the sackings and failing to establish redundancy pay with the union. 
 
The union and company agreed to establish a working group to calculate the exact remuneration owed dismissed workers but Mobil has not returned Nigerian nationals to their rightful jobs. 
 
PENGASSAN has constantly had to defend its collective agreements is the rapid escalation of casualisation in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, with Mobil Producing consistently being one of the worst violators.

PENGASSAN Halts ExxonMobil Strike in Nigeria for Talks

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