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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Participants of the recent Joint ICEM-IMF World Conference on Sustainability, June 18-19, Toronto, Canada, adopted unanimously a statement regarding the British Petroleum (BP) oil well blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
The statement demands an independent and open inquiry into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, a process to which trade unions should be granted full insight. 
 
In the years prior to the 20 April oil rig explosion that caused the current disaster, BP had repeatedly made assurances that “best available technology” is in use in all its operations. It has since become clear that this was not true at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig operation. The Statement demands that “blow out prevention (BOP) systems should have remote control capabilities, for instance acoustic signal actuators, in addition to traditional BOP controls”.
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEM100.jpg" width="100" height="86"/>   <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/IMF.jpg" width="90" height="88"/>   <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ITGLWF100.jpg" width="85" height="85"/>
The participants at the Toronto Conference included 270 trade union leaders from the industrial and manufacturing sectors of some 50 countries, affiliated to the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), and the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), and the International Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF). In total, the number of workers represented by these organisations and their affiliates exceeds 55 million people and includes the most important unions in the petroleum sector, worldwide. 
 
Local sponsors of the event in Canada included the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), the Power Workers Union (PWU), the United Steelworkers (USW), and the International Association of Machinists (IAM). 
 
See the full statement <a href="/en/97-Sustainable-Development-Health-and-Safety/3897-Global-Governance-Includes-Better-Governance-of-Oil-Companies" type="internal">here</a>.

ICEM, IMF, ITGLWF Affiliates Demand Better Governance of Oil Industry

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM French trade union affiliate, the Federation of Chemical and Energy Workers (FCE-CFDT) Union, elected Jean-François Renucci to the post of General Secretary, with the 48 year-old succeeding Patrick Pierron, who served seven years as General Secretary. 
 
Jean-François Renucci was unanimously proposed by the union’s Federal Executive and subsequently elected by the Federal Steering Committee. Renucci began in his new role on 1 June, as the federation’s third general secretary. 
 
The FCE-CFDT has described their new General Secretary as a dedicated trade unionist, with the necessary determination and experience to lead the trade union action of the federation, during turbulent financial conditions, globalisation, and ever-changing social conditions. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Jean Francois Renucci FCE CFDT.jpg" width="197" height="222"/>
Jean-François Renucci
Jean-François has identified social dialogue as the key in the effort to improve conditions and rights of workers, individually and collectively. According to the new general secretary, collective bargaining is the only way to ensure fair treatment of employees in small, medium, and large sized companies. Jean-François has been involved in negotiating collective agreements in all sectors and at all levels, local, national and international, and he has consistently identified mutual respect, trust and confidence as key factors to success of collective bargaining. 
 
Jean-François has made communication and participatory debate a priority for effective decision making, and the internal democracy of the federation. He hopes that in changing the general secretary, the organisation will not change its line or direction, but will give a renewed impetus to continue to implement decisions agreed collectively. 
 
The ICEM salutes and thanks outgoing Patrick Pierron, and congratulates Jean-François Renucci.

Jean-François Renucci Becomes FCE-CFDT General Secretary

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Thailand’s Tripartite Industrial Relations Committee (IRC) ruled that French-based Michelin has violated provisions of the Industrial Relations Act 1975, and ordered that management at the Laem Chabang tyre factory reinstate 12 activists – members of ICEM-affiliated Petroleum and Chemical Workers’ Federation (PCFT) – to their rightful jobs. 
 
The ruling was given on 24 June, but notification and official documentation of the unfair labour practices complaint did not come to the PCFT until 20 July. The12 had been unfairly discriminated against by Michelin since leading a two-month dispute and company lockout at the plant in March and April 2009. 
 
The 12 had been kept on Michelin’s payroll, but were assigned to a government-run skills centre in efforts to keep them away from the 1,800-member workforce. They refused the assignments, citing violations of their rights. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1007.michelin.thai.JPG" width="200" height="181"/>
Standing, center, Michelin plant-level PCFT President Thanakorn Somsin (fist raised) and Secretary Sommoi Prawai (on his left), together with founders of the PCFT branch union 
The IRC ruling orders Michelin to provide work inside the factory to the 12 in positions not lower than their previous postings, and to do so within ten days. 
 
The dispute started when Michelin, in March 2009, attempted to institute 35% wage cut to everyone at the Chonburi Province plant. A petition surfaced protesting the unilateral cuts and managers then punished workers who refused to remove their names from the petition by locking them out of the factory. After unionists blockaded the plant, some were jailed, while Michelin supervisors filed criminal complaints against the union organisers. 
 
Even though tri-partite negotiations produced a partial resolve on 28 April, including recognition of the newly-formed plant union as part of PCFT, Michelin continued to discriminate against union leaders. The recent IRC ruling means that all union activists should be legally reinstated. 
 
Some 700 workers at Laem Chabang have taken up PCFT membership. Michelin has a 90% stake in three Thai tyre plants, the PCFT-represented Phra Padaeng factory in Samut Prakarn, the non-unionised Nong Khae plant in Sarburi, and Laem Chabang. The Siam Cement Group owns the minority shares in the three tyre plants.

Thai Labour Court Orders 12 Michelin Union Activists Back to Work

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The US United Autoworkers’ Union (UAW) will divest hundreds of millions of dollars from JPMorgan Chase over the bank’s refusal to implement a two-year moratorium on housing foreclosures in the state of Michigan. The divestiture of pension, health care, and other union-managed funds from the New York-based bank is also due to Chase’s ties to the RJ Reynolds Group, and that company’s treatment of low-wage farm workers in the US state of North Carolina. 
 
At a press conference on 24 September in Detroit, UAW President Bob King was joined by church and American farm-labour leaders in calling for a full citizens’ boycott of JPMorgan Chase. King and a coalition of civil society leaders from Michigan met with bank officials in June following a protest and requested a moratorium on home foreclosures of unemployed workers. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Bob.King.UAW.jpg" width="100" height="141"/>
UAW President Bob King
At a follow up meeting, UAW and religious leaders called on Chase to join President Barack Obama’s Hardest Hit Homeowners programme and declare a temporary freeze on foreclosures. Although the bank made a good-faith promise to continue the dialogue with the social partners, the bank “has since failed to communicate its intentions regarding any of the issues raised,” said the UAW. 
 
At the press conference ten days ago, US Farm Labour Organising Committee President Baldemar Velasquez detailed low wages, unsanitary conditions, and the Reynolds Group’s hindrance of trade union organizing rights for tobacco workers. 
 
King said Americans “have a moral responsibility to step up” and join the boycott. “Chase needs to help unemployed homeowners in Michigan and underpaid farm workers in the Carolinas,” stated King. “The bank could make a huge difference by suspending foreclosures and pressuring RJ Reynolds to do the right thing.”

US Auto Workers’ Pull Money from Bank over Home Foreclosures

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Latin America’s largest company by market value, Petrobras, was hit hard by a one-day warning strike on 3 September. Eighty percent of ICEM-affiliated Federação Única de dos Petroleiros’s (FUP) 35,000 members shut refineries, distribution terminals, offshore platforms and rigs, and administration offices across Brazil last Friday in a stern message to the largely state-owned company that it will not be shortchanged in current negotiations. 
 
In a statement, the FUP umbrella grouping of unions – by far the largest at Petrobras – said workers’ intent was to “interrupt the main operations, keeping only the essential activities operating for the maintenance and security of equipment.” 
 
The union was angry that Petrobras had granted large bonuses to senior managers while negotiations were in progress, and then suddenly halting talks. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMOil.JPG" width="120" height="122"/>
Some seven refineries in Brazil stopped producing, as did 30 offshore drilling platforms and countless other facilities. FUP is seeking the Brazilian inflation rate from September 2009 to August 2010, or 5%, and also seeks productivity pay totaling 10% for undertaking training and development programmes. 
 
The union federation also wants guaranteed safeguarding of labour standards and establishment of a national forum as a dialogue platform to discuss structural changes with management over health, safety, and the environment. 
 
The company’s response to the warning strike was that it would conduct an “open and transparent” set of negotiations with workers’ representatives. 
 
The warning strike came on the same day that Petrobras announced it would conduct a massive stock offering in order to raise US$64.5 billion in capital funds.

FUP Launches Day-Long Warning Strike Against Petrobras 

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The Taiwan Electric Power Labour Union (TPLU) has been protesting in Taipei for clarification of their pension status. Some 6,000 members of the ICEM affiliate, working at several water and electric enterprises, turned out 2 June at the Legislative Yuan to manifest and then to march. 
 
Under current law, workers at the enterprises are considered neither workers nor civil servants, meaning their pension pay-outs are miniscule, not paid out in monthly installments, their retirement earnings are not covered by a state-legislated pension insurance programme, and they are without the preferred interest rate on pension savings accounts.
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1006.taiwan.jpg" width="280" height="155" alt=""/>
TPLU Members Marching on 2 June  
 

Under three classifications of work in Taiwan, employees are classified as civil servants, workers, or civil servants and workers. Public sector engineers and administrators, for example, have the latter classification, which grants them more in terms of pension benefits and better regulated retirement schemes. 
 
But workers at Taipei Power Company (Taipower) and water and other enterprises are considered neither workers nor civil servants, meaning they have the advantages of nether and bear the disadvantages of both. 
 
We are orphans under a system that does not recognise our rights and does not provide any safeguards, said a TPLU spokesperson close to President Guo-Kang Hu. TPLU wants lawmakers and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to amend the provisions of the “State-Run Enterprise Administrative Act” that better reflects a high court ruling in 1990 that sets forth details on retirement and retirement benefits. 
 
Taipower management supports the workers demands and has laid out three schemes that would correct the legal status. The ICEM also has endorsed TPLU’s campaign to achieve fairness and a sense of balance into Taiwanese pension schemes.

Taiwanese Power Workers Protest Over Slight in Pension Laws

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/> 
Japan's strongest ever earthquake and consequent tsunami has caused devastation along Japan’s North-eastern coast. The ICEM is shocked and extremely concerned for all those affected, including many union members. Large numbers of messages of support and solidarity are being communicated from unions around the world to Japan. ICEM have offered heartfelt condolences for the loss of life. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda wrote to Japanese affiliates, via ICEM-JAF General Secretary Yoshio Sato, and President Ochiai, “It is with deep sadness that I and all in ICEM are receiving ever more news of the disastrous effects of the earthquake and Tsunami. All our solidarity is with the people of Japan. And our special thoughts are now with the comrades of Denryoku Soren. Please convey to them my best and heartfelt wishes that their members will be safe and the dangers that may come from the Fukushima power plant, which was so terribly hit by the earthquake, can be tackled.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Ochiai ICEM-JAF President.jpg" width="177" height="156"/>
ICEM-JAF President, Kiyoshi Ochiai
The scale of the devastation and safety of union members and their families is now being assessed, and that process will take some time. Early reports are that all headquarter staff of ICEM affiliates, in Tokyo, are safe but there is much concern for their colleagues and members unaccounted for in the coastal region, especially the Tohoku area and workers in the electric and petroleum industries. ICEM-JAF General Secretary Sato today reported that the death toll in the Tokhoku Region could go well into the tens of thousands, and that the current situation there is desperate, with severe shortage of water, food, electricity, and gas. Train services have been severely disrupted, movement inside Japan is difficult. 
 
Sato-san also reports that brave members of Denryoku Soren are risking their lives working to contain the difficult situation at the Fukushima Power Plants, following explosions at reactors 1 and 3. They managed to prevent the spread of radiation, but continuing hydrogen explosions have injured operators. Engineers from Toshiba, members of the International Metalworkers’ Federation are working on the Fukushima reactors. The International Atomic Energy Agency and experts from abroad are present and assisting at the Fukushima plant. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Sato-san ICEM-JAF General Secretary.jpg" width="156" height="222"/>
ICEM-JAF General Secretary, Yoshio Sato
“We are touched with and appreciate from our heart your support and solidarity!” stated ICEM-JAF. 
 
ICEM affiliates can send <a href="mailto:icemjaf@blue.ocn.ne.jp">messages of condolence</a> and support to ICEM-JAF General Secretary Bro. Yoshio Sato here. Sato-san has explained that the ICEM-JAF are very grateful for the numerous offers of assistance, and that they need to first assess the situation and respond once it is known where the help is needed most. 
 
Top-level union officials are meeting today on coordinating volunteer rescue efforts and an aid fund. 
 
Dangerous aftershocks will continue, hindering rescue efforts. And another tsunami has not been ruled out. Damage to energy plants is causing wide reaching power-cuts, beginning today in Tokyo.

ICEM Concern for the People of Japan

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In April, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) will begin searching for union members in the metals and engineering sector who retired between 1980 and 2001. The reason is that NUMSA last month won a long-running battle through arbitration with South Africa’s Steel and Engineering Industry Federation. 
 
The arbitrated judgement is an award for R20 billion (€209 million, US$290 million) in surplus pension funds that had been withheld by the employers’ federation for decades. 
 
NUMSA fought in court and through negotiation channels for the right to disburse the surplus entitlement funds. The money was accumulated in both the Engineering Industries Pension Fund and the Metal Industries Provident Fund since the 1950s. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SouthAfricaFlag.gif" width="130" height="78"/>
The surplus was accumulated and held when worker contributions to the funds were never paid out to staff who had not reached the vesting scale of ten years employment, or when NUMSA members failed to claim pensions when they retired or resigned. ICEM-affiliated NUMSA began battling for disbursement in 2001, but the case was not resolved because employers imposed many legal entanglements to block any disbursement. 
 
The Steel and Engineering Industry Federation insisted that South Africa’s Labour Relations Act (LRA) apply in settling the issue. NUMSA and the Financial Services Board argued that surplus monies should come under the Pension Fund Act because the LRA had no provision for addressing pension issues. Finally, in 2008, the LRA was amended to address pensions and the two sides began negotiations. It was resolved in February through arbitration in the union’s favour. 
 
Some 1.5 million former and current NUMSA members will now benefit. A total of R11 billion (€115 million, US$160 million) will be paid out to former or retired members, while R9 billion (€94 million, US$130 million) will go into existing funds to buoy those funds for the benefit of current NUMSA members. 
 
Said NUMSA National Benefits Coordinator Samuel Tsiane, “Now it becomes our task to locate former members to deliver what belongs to them.” Tsiane said a small part of the pay-out will go to the union to achieve this and in April, NUMSA will utilise 450 people to conduct an initial ten-day blitz to identify retired or former metal or engineering staff. The pay-outs are expected to start being made in September.

NUMSA Wins 20-Billion-Rand Surplus Pension Case

The ICEM’s Japanese Affiliates Federation (JAF) has been using many of its own resources, and nearly all of its time and energy to deal with the horrible after effects of last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. The ICEM has been in contact with JAF several times daily in order to determine the federation’s needs. What follows is a Circular Letter from General Secretary Manfred Warda to all ICEM affiliates alerting them on how they can help:
Please Contribute: Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami Relief 

Dear ICEM Affiliated Unions, 
 
Many of you have inquired over the past several days the best means to contribute to Relief Funds handling the horrible disaster in Japan. You should know that we have been in constant touch with JAF, the ICEM’s Japanese Affiliates Federation, and they have been doing the very best they can, under unimaginable circumstances, to come to the assistance of their electric energy, oil and gas, and other union members in North-east Japan, as well as in other areas. 
 
As is ICEM policy in such natural disasters, we ask that you consider contributions to your local or national Red Cross or UNICEF agencies, with the earmark of Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami Fund. 
 
But we also have been informed by JAF General Secretary Yoshio Sato that JAF has set up an account in its Tokyo Bank to handle relief efforts undertaken by the unions. The bank transfer coordinates there: 
 
Bank Name: Mizuho Bank, Ltd. 
Swift Code: MHBKJPJT 
Branch name: Shiba Branch 
Branch Address: 5-34-7, Shiba, Minato-Ku, Tokyo 108-0014, Japan 
Account Name: Nihon Kagaku Enerugi-Kouzan Roudoukumiai Kyougikai 
Account Number: 054-3316103 
 
Please state in the transfer “Earthquake.” 
 
Obviously, ICEM and ICEM JAF are very grateful for any and all contributions. And messages of Support and Solidarity can still be sent, addressed to <a href="mailto:icemjaf@blue.ocn.ne.jaf">Yoshio Sato</a>.
Lastly, please take a moment to reflect on the safety and health of the courageous workers, members of JAF affiliate Denryoku Soren, who are working non-stop on the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. These and other JAF members who are working around the clock on Japanese security, relief efforts, and tending in so many ways to abate this disaster are the real heroes in the world today. They deserve our Support and Solidarity. 
 
Again, thank you for your efforts. 
 
In Solidarity, 
 
Manfred Warda 
General Secretary

ICEM’s Japanese Affiliates Identify Earthquake Relief

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/en-header.jpg" width="160" height="49"/>
Welcome to this first issue of a quarterly newsletter in 2011 of IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF aimed at providing information on the creation of a new International uniting industrial workers. 
 
Trade unions around the world affiliated to the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), and the International Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) have a common interest in becoming a stronger voice for industrial workers. 
 
A joint IMF-ICEM-ITGLWF task force met in Japan in February to continue its examination of how to unify the world's industrial workers into one global union federation. 
 
Task force members of the three Global Union Federations (GUFs) from five continents confirmed the rationale of creating a united voice of the industrial workers of the world, and a strong counter-power to major transnational corporations. Unions want to underline the role of manufacturing industry as the locomotive of national economies and as a creator of good quality jobs with decent working conditions and trade union rights. 
 
The task force heard the reports from the working groups on statutes and finances, and discussed in detail the decision-making, regional and sectoral structures of a possible new GUF. The task force decided to meet again on May 5 in Frankfurt, Germany, to finalize a proposal to the Executive Committees of the three organizations at the end of May. 
 
Already the three GUFs work together on a number of joint areas and through joint initiatives in trade union rights and campaigns, precarious work, climate change, sustainable trade and development, networking and union building, and have demonstrated the advantages of greater unity. 
 
By creating a new International and combining our strengths we believe we can do more to mobilize workers, defend trade union rights, and organize unorganized workers throughout supply chains into strong and self-reliant unions. Together we can create a powerful counterpart to transnational corporations and fight more forcefully for good quality industrial jobs and against precarious forms of employment. 
 
By combining resources we can achieve greater visibility and impact, better service to affiliates, and find synergies through a reduction of overlapping activities. 
 
In this and future issues of our joint newsletter in 2011, we hope to show just how industrial workers around the world are Stronger Together! 
 
Jyrki Raina 
Manfred Warda 
Patrick Itschert

IMF, ICEM, ITGLWF Move Towards Creating a New International

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