English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy 

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2021-2025

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL 

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

Mining giant Rio Tinto has made an offer to settle a long-running dispute at its Mt. Thorley mine in Australia. 
 
The news was announced this morning to a mass rally of striking mineworkers at the three Rio Tinto mines in Australia's Hunter Valley. 
 
The company concession came on the eve of an international trade union action week on Rio Tinto. The action is planned from today onwards in countries ranging from Australia to the USA, South Africa, Chile and Brazil. 
 
Rio Tinto has faced serious industrial disputes across all of its Australian coal mines since it sought to cease bargaining with unions and to push workers on to individual contracts - a process begun in 1993. 
 
The company's offer at Mt. Thorley was made on Friday night, and now has to be put to the union membership. The mining union CFMEU is understood to have recommended acceptance. At the global level, the CFMEU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), with which it has been campaigning globally on the Rio Tinto issue. The campaign and the action week will be maintained while the union members take their decision on the Mt. Thorley offer.

Rio Tinto Settlement Bid At Australian Mine

Global union-employer agreements are "the best way forward" for the Global Compact advocated by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. 
 
That was the message from world union leader Fred Higgs when multinational CEOs, unions and non-governmental organisations met under Annan's chairmanship yesterday at UN headquarters in New York. 

<img height="302" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/annanhiggs.gif" width="380"/>
BOOSTING LABOUR RIGHTS: 
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. 
First launched by Kofi Annan in Davos last year, the Global Compact aims to ensure respect for labour rights, other human rights and the environment within a globalised economy. 
 
"Organised labour and organised business can best 'embrace and enact' the Global Compact by negotiating global agreements," Higgs told yesterday's meeting. He is General Secretary of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Most of the multinationals represented at the New York meeting are in ICEM-organised sectors. Higgs challenged them to reach verifiable global agreements with the ICEM as soon as possible. 
 
"Collective bargaining is one of the rights enshrined in the Compact," he said, expressing strong support for Annan's initiative. "Collective bargaining could also be the means of securing compliance with all of the Nine Principles upon which the Compact is based." 
 
Not coincidentally, Higgs pointed out, the focus of the ICEM's current agreements with multinationals is "precisely those labour standards, human rights and environmental responsibilities that are enshrined in the Compact's Nine Principles." 
 
The ICEM already has such agreements with multinationals Statoil and Freudenberg, Higgs stated, and "we expect to reach similar agreements with a number of other global corporations in the near future." 
 
Meanwhile, current negotiations with the International Council of Chemical Associations could soon produce "the first-ever global sectoral agreement," Higgs said. This would ensure ICEM involvement in the monitoring and implementation of the chemical companies' Responsible Care programme, thus helping to achieve "the highest standards of occupational health and safety and of environmental protection" at chemical plants worldwide. 
 
Global corporate or sectoral agreements signed with the ICEM give it "the right to monitor compliance and to raise with the global corporate managements or the sectoral federations any breaches of the agreements," he emphasised. "This is the crucial difference between global agreements and companies' own internal codes of conduct." 
 
Global agreements also benefit the companies, Higgs argued, as they "give substance and credibility to corporate ethics." 

Go to: <a href="http://www.unglobalcompact.org/Portal/Default.asp?">Global Compact Web-site</a>

Bargaining For The Global Compact

Seventy-five trade union representatives from nine countries have agreed to establish a global network of Bridgestone unions for their "mutual defence and advancement." 
 
The unions, representing Bridgestone/Firestone workers in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Spain, France, and Australia, met in the US this week under the auspices of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and of the ICEM-affiliated United Steelworkers of America (USWA), which organises US tyre workers. 
 
"We re-affirm the age-old labour movement adage that an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us and pledge our unions' full support to help other Bridgestone unions in need of our solidarity," the unions stated. 
 
The union delegates also expressed their anger that Bridgestone management prohibited union delegates from South Africa and Thailand from attending the conference. 
 
At the conclusion of the conference, the union delegates marched to a Firestone Service Centre in downtown St. Louis to demonstrate support for American workers employed in ten Bridgestone/Firestone locations across the United States. 8,000 US workers are currently negotiating for new contracts (collective agreements) with the company. 
 
Chanting No Contracts; No Peace and carrying banners proclaiming Stop Stalling Contract Talks and Quit Breaking US Labour Laws, the delegates rallied to raise consumer awareness about working conditions at Bridgestone/Firestone. Similar events took place over the weekend at other Firestone Service Centres where the company operates manufacturing facilities. 
 
The conference unanimously expressed its support and solidarity with the USWA and called on Bridgestone "to bargain in good faith, and expeditiously reach a reasonable and just contract" with the union at all locations. It also pledged that, should the company refuse to negotiate a fair and equitable agreement and respect the rights of its employees, that the unions representing Bridgestone workers throughout the world "will call on their members to engage in solidarity activities in support of the USWA members." 
 
Featured speakers at the union conference were USWA President George Becker and ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. 
 
"Workers' rights can never be sacrificed for the sake of bloated corporate profiteering," said Becker. "Creating global networks and demonstrating world solidarity is the best way to combat the international race to the bottom on wages in this industry or any other." 
 
"In this era of globalisation, there is an absolute need for unions to build alliances that cross all borders," declared Higgs. "In so doing, we unite as one in dealing with common employers and can insist on the implementation of the highest standards everywhere the company does business."

Unions Launch Global Bridgestone Network

Union members at nine US plants of leading tyre multinational Bridgestone/Firestone were not immediately called out on strike at one minute after midnight this morning, when their collective agreements expired. 
 
However, they remain poised for industrial action as negotiations continue between the company and the tyre workers' union, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). 
 
The union's President George Becker announced last night that the start of the strike would be postponed, as the talks with the company had made some progress. 
 
"Key elements of a settlement are yet to be resolved, and much drafting will remain if and when an agreement in principle is reached," Becker said. "But we have made enough progress over the past two days that the union is willing to continue working while bargaining goes on." 
 
There would be no formal extension of the contracts (collective agreements), Becker stated, but the union's members at all the plants would "continue working under the terms and conditions of their expired contract while we see if we can reach an agreement." 
 
Union negotiators stressed that members will be working day to day, and will not indefinitely postpone a strike. 
 
"This will not be a long-term process," said John Sellers, USWA Executive Vice-President and chair of the union’s negotiating team. "We will either have an agreement with Bridgestone/Firestone in very short order, or we will have a labour dispute." 
 
The USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which recently set up a global network of trade unions in Bridgestone - see ICEM UPDATE 66/2000. 
 
This week, unions organising Bridgestone workers around the world have put the company under mounting pressure to reach a settlement in the US.

Bridgestone Strike Postponed As US Talks Continue

Fiji really had the blues yesterday. 
 
But it was all in the best of causes - democracy. 
 
Spearheaded by the Fijian trade unions, Blue Day was a massive silent protest against the military's "interim administration". Blue is the colour of Fiji's flag, and it was chosen as the rallying point for a broadly-based democracy campaign. 
 
Throughout the country, people turned out dressed in blue. 
 
Blue hats and blue posters were distributed, calling for an immediate return to democracy under Fiji's 1997 Constitution. From last Friday onwards, the country's TV screens had repeatedly turned blue, and the words "Fiji's Blue - democracy and the 1997 Constitution" appeared. National newspapers yesterday ran full-page blue advertisements with democracy slogans, while radio networks broadcast messages urging support for the campaign. 
 
Trade unionists nationwide backed the action - including public employees and civil servants, who had been threatened with suspension if they wore blue. The Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC) is to lodge an official complaint with the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) over these threats. 
 
Employers' federations and a wide range of civil organisations are also part of the Fiji's Blue coalition. 
 
The silent Blue Day protest was just the start, the Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC) told ICEM UPDATE today. The coalition would "continue our rolling lobby for a speedy return to democracy" for "as long as it takes us". 
 
The crisis in Fiji began this May, when businessman George Speight and his associates staged an armed coup and took hostages in the parliament buildings. Eventually, the hostages were released and the plotters were arrested. But instead of handing power back to the country's elected government, the military imposed their own "interim administration". Many Fijians now regard this as a "coup within a coup". 
 
At the time, Speight presented his own putsch as a blow on behalf of ethnic Fijians, who make up just over half of the population. 44 percent of the country's people are ethnic Indians, many of whom are descendants of labourers shipped out from the subcontinent during the British colonial era. 
 
However, persistent rumours suggest that Speight's real motive was to push through his own bid for a supply contract with a multinational timber company.
  
UNION RIGHTS ATTACKED 
 
 
New curbs on union rights in Fiji have merely strengthened labour's resolve to back the democracy campaign, says Daniel Urai. He is President of the FTUC and General Secretary of the Fiji Electricity Authority Staff Association, which is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
"If you want to hold a trade union meeting now, you have to inform the army and the police first," Urai told ICEM UPDATE. "If you try to hold a meeting without their permission, then they can come in and break it up and arrest people. There have already been cases of this." 
 
More restrictions could be on the way. "We expect further decrees soon that could make it virtually impossible for unions to organise new sectors," Urai says. "For instance, they have threatened to ban all solidarity action or secondary action. The military are trying to make out that the unions are sabotaging the economy and the state. But in fact, the interim administration is bringing trade sanctions upon itself by refusing to heed the international community." 
The democracy campaign has received strong backing from the ICEM, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and other labour internationals. Last month, FTUC General Secretary Felix Anthony had talks with ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Brussels about global union support for the democracy campaign. Anthony is now back in Brussels, lobbying the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the European Unions and the associated ACP (Africa-Caribbean-Pacific) countries. But, the ICFTU reports, representatives of the military regime are also thought to have arrived in the European capital ... 
 
Meanwhile, the Australian Council of Trade Unions warned on Monday that it may reimpose communications and freight bans on Fiji if the military administration brings in new anti-union measures. 
 
Like Speight, the "interim administration" has tried to portray itself as the ally of ethnic Fijians. 
 
But this is just a smokescreen, Daniel Urai says. "About 20,000 workers are either unemployed or are working on reduced wages as a consequence of the coup. One of the main sectors affected is tourism. Most of the workers who have been hit by this are ethnic Fijians - the very people that the interim administration says it is helping. But in any case, this ethnic issue is not at the forefront of workers' minds. They have other things to worry about." 
 
 
"SMART SANCTIONS" CALL 
 
 
For Fiji's workers, things could get worse before they get better, Urai says. 
 
"If the interim administration does not heed the calls of the international community for a return to democracy, then important trading partners like Australia, New Zealand and the US could start closing their markets to Fijian goods," he points out. "In that case, up to 50 percent of the country's workers will lose their jobs." 
 
Not that he is against sanctions, which he sees as "the most effective way to stop such an illegal government from continuing." 
 
But at the present stage, he advocates "smart sanctions" which would hit their real target - the illegal regime. In particular, the unions want other countries to "stop foreign travel by all those behind the coup and interim administration" and to "control the business dealings of all those known to be behind the illegal administration." 
 
For, as Urai emphasises, "some members of the interim government are known to have been behind George Speight and his coup." 
 
Governments everywhere should cease to have dealings with the interim administration, Urai says, and trade unions around the world can help by pressing their governments to take this line. 
 
"The international community has every interest in resolving this situation," he insists. "If the military in Fiji are seen to be getting away with this, it could have a knock-on effect throughout the Pacific islands." 
 
As for the Fijian unions and their allies in Fiji's Blue, their goal is quite clear: "We want the interim administration to be replaced immediately by a national government consisting of all the parties elected to parliament prior to the coup. It would then be up to that national government to organise elections and to consider any amendments to the 1997 Constitution." 
 
And should there be any amendments? 
 
"Not really," Urai replies. "Some people would like our voting system to be changed from first-past-the-post to proportional representation, but that's a side issue at present. The 1997 Constitution covers workers' rights, women's rights, political rights and religious rights very well. So there's really no need to change it."

Blues In The News: Fiji's Nationwide Protests

Fifty-three Serbian miners won job protections and guaranteed work rights with a seven-day hunger strike at the Kostolac coal mine. The workers, part of mine maintenance and geological research of Serbian power company EPS now coming under a new enterprise called Georad, will retain the same contract provisions and rights under the EPS collective agreement. They also won job protections from EPS if the new enterprise fails. The miners’ action plus skilled bargaining tactics by leaders of ICEM affiliate EPS Trade Union Workers won the guarantees. The strike lasted one full week, 18-24 March.

Serbian EPS Union Wins Rights for Mine Maintenance Workers

After three weeks of futile bargaining, talks broke off last week between Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) of Canada Local 689 and UPM Kymmene over efforts to end a four-month paper mill strike in Miramichi, New Brunswick. The Finnish paper company still will not submit the pattern labour agreement for the paper sector of eastern Canada to the striking 700 CEP members, which is the central issue to the strike. Rather, UPM Kymmene was pressuring Local 689 to force a vote of union members on a substandard proposal. Union members 14 April vehemently rejected taking a vote on anything short of the pattern agreement.

CEP, UPM Kymmene Fail in Canadian Talks to End Strike

Meanwhile, coal miners in South Africa, fearful they would be sacked by the sale of Zululand Anthracite Colliery by Ingwe Holdings’parent BHP Billiton to Riverdale Holdings, staged an underground strike for several days beginning 10 April. Supported by the NUM, the strikers are seeing assurances that any redundancies at the colliery in northern KwaZulu-Natal State will be met with adequate payments. Another underground mine sit-in occurred in the Free State by 400 NUM members at Star Diamond near Theunissen. Miners were protesting the sackings of two workers who refused to work in dangerous conditions.

South African Coal Miners Stage Underground Strike

EPMU members at a Colgate-Palmolive factory in Petone, NZ, are continuing a series of one-day strikes over the pay issue. While the global chemicals and detergents company shows record earnings in New Zealand, it offers Petrone workers a 5% increase covering 15 months, rather than the 5% yearly increase sought by the EPMU.

Strikes Occurring in New Zealand at Colgate-Palmolive

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
Legislation in South Korea to revise how contract and agency labour is regulated became deadlocked in the country's National Assembly. The country's two national labour centers--FCTU and FKTU--have joined hands and said passage in the bill's existing form would ensure a general strike across Korea. 
Employers are seeking a top pay rate of 70% coupled with the use of contract and non-regular labour on an unlimited basis. The union federations, whose top two leaders 22 April announced they would start a hunger strike over the issue, back a recommendation from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea which states the bill must provide part-time workers with full labour pay rates, and contain guarantees of full rights and safeguards against discrimination.

Korean Reform Legislation On Contract Labour

Archive