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<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
The ICEM Turkish affiliate &Ccedil;IMSE-İş, the Cement, Ceramics, Pottery and Glass Industry Workers&rsquo; Union, decided at its presidential committee meeting on 2 June to call strikes at 45 cement factories. The decision, occurring in Ankara, comes after disagreement in cement sector collective bargaining negotiations. 
 
The bargaining has hit an impasse, blocking achievement of a new collective agreement. The union and the Cement Industry Employers&rsquo; Federation (CEIS) have been negotiating since 7 January. Bargaining in January and February did reach consensus on some 40 provisions on normative regulations. 

<img alt="" src="" width="154" height="140" />
&Ccedil;IMSE-İş President Zekeriye Nazlım 

But in the months since, no further progress has been made. &Ccedil;IMSE-İş decided to call a walkout on the entire industry at last week&rsquo;s meeting of the presidential committee, composed of the union&rsquo;s Executive Committee members and branch chairmen. The committee decided to take the necessary preparations for strike actions without delay. 
 
Some 5,800 union members are employed at the 45 cement plants. 
 
According to the Strike and Lock-out Law, &Ccedil;IMSE-İş can lawfully strike within a 60-day period after announcing the strike. The union will soon determine the exact day to start the strike.

ÇIMSE-İş Calls for Strike Actions at 45 Turkish Cement Plants

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
ICEM and the Building &amp; Wood Workers&rsquo; International (BWI) are actively continuing the campaign of the Indian Cement Workers Federation (INCWF) for equal rights, better conditions, and higher salaries for contract workers at Swiss-based cement multinational Holcim. Union busting and police harassment were increased at Holcim-India over the last two weeks, and a worker rally at the Labour Ministry was organized in response. 
 
The renewed worker anger was sparked by an incident on 19 May with the arrest Bhagwati Sahu, who was falsely accused of stealing Rs. 3,500 and a mobile phone. Brother Sahu is a trade union organizer for contract workers at the Holcim-Ambuja plant in Rawaan. 
 
Claims of police complicity with the company were compounded when the local police opposed bail and spuriously calling Sahu a &ldquo;habitual offender, dangerous, and a threat to law and order.&rdquo; Numerous witnesses came forward to testify that Bhagwati was elsewhere at the time of the incident. Lakhan Sahu, a fellow union activist, was also charged with the same crime. He was attending a family funeral in Raipur, a one-day drive south of Rawaan. 

<img alt="" src="" width="146" height="66" />
The fake charges, intended to break the union organising of contractors at Holcim, also targeted six other union activists. 
 
Join the <a href="http://www.bwint.org/default.asp?Index=3442&amp;Language=EN">campaign</a> yourself by sending a message to the Holcim CEO via the BWI website here. 
 
INCWF, an affiliate of both the ICEM and BWI, has conducted a long-running campaign calling for equal rights for contract workers, as stipulated under Indian law. Holcim-India continuously neglects this legislation, specifically at its subsidiaries of ACC in Bhilai and Ambuja Cement in Baloda Bazar. 
 
On 26 May, 250 contract workers reached Raipur to meet the Labour Ministry and Labour Secretary to demand the implementation of the High Court order directing regularization, and the withdrawal of the false cases against their union leaders. Both the minister and secretary avoided meeting the workers though their subordinates made &ldquo;assurances&rdquo; of looking into the workers&rsquo; grievances. 
 
The BWI, ICEM, and Swiss trade union UNIA are planning to send a delegation to India to investigate the grievances. 
 
Holcim is the second largest producer of cement in the world. An average salary for Indian contract workers of US$2.17 a day and India&rsquo;s large quantities of limestone are reasons why Holcim has shifted production to the Asian sub-continent from countries such as Spain and the US.

Holcim, India’s Police Team to Resist Contract Worker Organising

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
Four French unions, led by the CGT and the CFDT, carried out four-hour strikes at Lafarge cement plants today, 6 June, in protest to the company&rsquo;s intended plans to shut its Frangey cement facility near L&eacute;zinnes, L&rsquo;Yonne province, some 170 kilometres southeast of Paris. Workers began blocking trucks this morning at the Frangey plant and work stoppages were occurring at other French Lafarge sites in support of the 74 workers who could lose their jobs. 
 
Besides CGT and CFDT, FO and CFTC endorsed the industrial actions at some 11 Lafarge plants in France. The CGT and CFDT are the unions with membership at the Frangey plant. 
<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="93" />
Lafarge announced on 25 May at an extraordinary Works Council meeting that it would close the plant in three stages between now and the end of 2012. However, the initial redundancies &ndash; expected in August &ndash; will likely reduce employment to only 20. The company used over capacity and the small market that the plant serves as reasons for closure. 
 
Lafarge also said environmental factors were part of the decision, although the facility has received environmental certification. The Frangey plant produces 300,000 tons of cement annually and a system of cogeneration covers 50% of the plant&rsquo;s energy needs. 
 
The company said workers would be offered a chance to transfer to other Lafarge facilities. CGT delegate Jean-Claude Rives said the decision is unjustified because the plant provides a major benefit both in wages and in cement production to the L&rsquo;Yonne department. 
 
Twenty contractors also work at Frangey and they likely will lose their jobs. The French unions left open the possibility that further job actions would occur to protest the announced closure.

French Unions Conduct 4-Hour Strike at Lafarge Today

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
Mansour Osanloo, the leader and co-founder of Vahed Syndicate, a union of bus drivers in and around Tehran, Iran, was released from an Iranian jail on 2 June after four years imprisonment. But his freedom came conditionally. He needed to post payment of a bond and release was granted on grounds that he maintain &ldquo;good behaviour.&rdquo; 
 
His only offence against the state was to form a free and democratic union of bus drivers in 2005. 
 
In a statement by the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF), which has been fighting for his freedom and full recognition of his union, General Secretary David Cockroft said, &ldquo;He is free because trade unions worldwide demanded justice. 
<img alt="" src="" width="80" height="80" />
&ldquo;That bail has been set falls short of the full pardon we all wanted, and which the Iranian government promised, but for now we can just take a moment to savour his richly deserved return to his family.&rdquo; (See the full <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/6047">ITF statement</a> here.)&nbsp; 
 
The ITF reminded that two of Osanloo&rsquo;s colleagues of the Vahed Syndicate, Reza Shahabi and Ebrahim Madadi, are innocent victims still locked inside Iran&rsquo;s prisons. 
 
Vahed Syndicate and Osanloo, 51, had been under heavy state repression since the founding of the union six years ago. Osanloo had been jailed twice between 2005-2006 and was beaten and had his tongue slit while in prison. Then in early summer 2007, just a month after he had been at a meeting of the ITF in London and another with trade union leaders of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Brussels, he was jailed again and sentenced to five years for &ldquo;acting against national security&rdquo; and &ldquo;propaganda against the state.&rdquo; Last year, another year was added to his sentence. 
 
Osanloo is suffering from poor health from the harsh treatment inflicted on him in Iran&rsquo;s prisons. A previous <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/2439--�Dirty-Tricks-Imposed-by-Iranian-Government-over-Imprisonment-of-Mansour-Osanloo ">ICEM report</a> on his treatment can be found here, while <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/2327-Iran-Again-Arrests-Mansour-Osanloo-Following-His-European-Labour-Visits ">another ICEM report</a> of his 2007 arrest following his European trade union visit can be found here.

After Four Years, Mansour Osanloo Released from Iran Jail

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390" />

	Turkish workers of rubber manufacturer Standard Profil, organised by ICEM affiliate Petrol-İş over a year ago, are more determined than ever to get a collective agreement from a recalcitrant employer. On 2 April, some 500 workers gathered with union President Mustafa &Ouml;ztaşkin outside plant gates in the northern Anatolian city of D&uuml;zce to publicly state that union and workers will not be deterred in gaining their universally recognised collective bargaining rights.

	The ICEM as well joined the demonstration, the first such outward display by workers amidst a climate of management fear and intimidation, and promised that pressure will continue against the private equity firm that controls Standard Profil, a maker of weather-sealing door and window units for the automotive industry.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 206px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	ICEM&#039;s Dick Blin Displays Alert to a Company Customer

	The rally saw a number of Anatolian labour leaders participate along with &Ouml;ztaşkin, Petrol-İş Organising Secretary Nimetullah S&ouml;zen and regional Organiser Ǘnal Akbulut. Gathering under the banner &ldquo;One Year is Enough: Standard Profil Workers Are Unionised &ndash; They Want Their Right to Collective Bargaining,&rdquo; the manifestation was conducted under the watchful eyes of managers who dispatched transport buses through in an effort to disrupt it.

	Following a Petrol-İş organising drive from December 2010 to February 2011 that saw well over half of 2,300 workers from the plant in D&uuml;zce and a sister factory in Bursa select the union as their bargaining representative, Turkey&rsquo;s Labour and Social Security Ministry in March and April 2011 formally granted a pair of certifications stating Petrol-İş was both the correct sectoral union &ndash; rubber &ndash; for Standard Profil workers, and that it had exceeded the simple majority needed for representation.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 241px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Despite Petrol-İş and ICEM invitations to both Istanbul executives of Standard Profil and the UK-based private equity firm to form a positive labour-management relationship, the company chose an adversarial path by wasting company funds in legal challenges to both certifications in an effort to block workers from their legitimate workplace rights.

	Standard Profil managers further muddied the waters by sacking 37 union activists inside the larger D&uuml;zce factory, a grievous factory-level ploy to intimidate others against the union. Judging from Monday&rsquo;s determined and vocal manifestation, workers are not intimidated. But they are growing short of patience with management&rsquo;s stalling strategy through frivolous legal appeals.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 365px;height: 128px" width="390" />

	One Year is Enough&nbsp;

	Petrol-İş President &Ouml;ztaşkin made it clear at the one-year anniversary that a new era has now begun. The union will move in a different direction to get Standard Profil to the bargaining table. &ldquo;We cannot and will not accept this employer&rsquo;s attempts to block the internationally rights and freedoms of workers,&rdquo; he said.

	The ICEM has begun to take the rights abuses outside Turkey. Standard Profil&rsquo;s major auto-making customers have been identified and efforts are underway to alert trade unions and automotive factory managements of the company&rsquo;s dereliction. In some instances, Volkswagen/Audi and Daimler for instance, global labour pacts contain strict guidelines that suppliers must comply with basic workplace rights.

	The rubber manufacturer&rsquo;s assets are controlled by Bancroft Private Equity LLP, a holding company that has been trying to dispose of Standard Profil since last year. The ICEM has made it clear to Bancroft &ndash; and to the buyers of Standard Profil&rsquo;s products &ndash; that a positive and respectful labour relations bond with Petrol-İş is far better than an adversarial one to ensure a productive and profitable future for the auto supply company.

One Year On, Turkey’s Standard Profil Still Delays Workers’ Bargaining Rights

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 110px;height: 50px" width="390" />

	Sintracarb&oacute;n at Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n is held up as a strong example of positive industrial relations, with tough collective bargaining achieving considerable protections for 4,000 direct employees at Colombia&rsquo;s largest coal mines, and stable communications channels between workers and management. Sintracarb&oacute;n&rsquo;s fight now is over the basic rights of outsourced contract workers at the largest set of coal mines in the world, a joint venture of three multinational mining conglomerates, BHP Billiton, Xstrata and AngloAmerican.

	First adopting a policy to fight outsourcing in 2008, Sintracarb&oacute;n&rsquo;s initial research noted the strategic policies of multinational corporations (MNCs) to increasingly outsource employment and weaken workers&rsquo; job security, social benefits, wage levels, and ability to organise and bargain collectively.

	The research also discovered that over 50% of workers at MNCs operating in Colombia are employed through contract companies, and that these workers had considerably lower standards of employment and no collective agreements. Almost every attempt by Contract or Agency Labour (CAL) workers to reach a collective agreement in Colombia prior to 2008 had been met with mass dismissals.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 201px;height: 135px" width="390" />&nbsp;

	At Cerrej&oacute;n, 6,000 of the total 11,000 workers are precariously employed by contractors. In the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, Sintracarb&oacute;n achieved a clause stating that Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n management is &ldquo;committed to ensuring respect for the unionisation of all workers, including CAL workers.&rdquo;

	The first attempt to organise CAL workers, in 2010, was at the company that provides transportation to the mine workers, SOTRANS. The effort of 500 members of SINTRANS was crushed with mass dismissals and harassment.

	The second attempt was at Chaneme, a company conducting maintenance of heavy machinery. This effort was successful and 50 workers remain under a CBA as members of Sintrachaneme.

	Through Sinaltrainal, a national union, employees of food supplier Aramark won a collective agreement for 200 workers in March 2011.

	Over recent months, mechanics at EPROFQ and ASEOCOLBA also have won struggles and achieved collective agreements. In the case, of EPROFQ the convention was signed after an eight-day strike.

	ICEM affiliates at glass supplier Ross and at Prodeco have also won victories over short-term, casual employment, bringing the total to 1,560 CAL workers organised in Colombia in ICEM sectors.

Sintracarbón, Colombian Unions Make Big Strides in Organising Against Outsourcing

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390" />

	Daniel Aguirre Piedrahita, the General Secretary of SINALCORTEROS, Colombia&rsquo;s Nation Union of Sugar Cane Cutters, was assassinated last Friday night, 27 April, as he accompanied his wife, Helena, to make a telephone call in their Casilda neighbourhood of Florida municipality, Valle del Cauca department in west-central Colombia.

	He was shot twice in the head by a cowardly assassin only 70 metres from his home. In a statement, SINALCORTEROS said the cold-blooded murder occurs in a continued context of violence and intolerance of trade union work in Colombia. It urged members and activists not to let this &ldquo;reprehensibly violent action torpedo our union&rdquo; and derail activities, but rather to &ldquo;reaffirm our actions and our mission.&rdquo;

	The government of Colombia did put out a statement early this week condemning the killing. Deputy Minister of Labour David Luna Sanchez said the ministry supports the Interior Ministry&rsquo;s Protection Unit director&rsquo;s call for an investigation to determine if the killing was related to union activity.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 213px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	Aguirre, 35, was a stalwart leader of sugar cane cutters and their fight to bust the chains of servitude inflicted by sugar mill employers who considered them self-employed independent contractors.

	He was instrumental in 2005 in forming SINALCORTEROS, now an affiliate of the International Food and Agricultural Workers&rsquo; Association (IUF), through strikes. He also led strikes of 18,000 sugar cane cutters in 2008 in both Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments that two years later resulted in collective agreements, labour pacts he instituted that in part made recruitment less cumbersome.

	More recently, he had been advocating revisions to Colombia&rsquo;s labour statutes to bring them up to ILO standards and he was a fierce opponent of the Free Trade Agreement with the US, something he felt would lead to exploitation of workers and the product that they harvested.

	Daniel Aguirre becomes the seventh Colombian trade unionist killed this year, and the 61st since Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos took office in August 2010. He is survived by his wife and three daughters, ages 14, 10 and 4.

	A <a href="http://www.rel-uita.org/internacional/ddhh/Rel-sinalcorteros_asesinato_daniel_aguirre.htm">letter of condolence</a> (in Spanish) from the IUF to SINALCORTEROS President Alfonso Viafara can be viewed here.

Coward Guns Down Colombian Sugar Cane Cutters’ General Secretary on 27 April

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 39px" width="390" />

	Warning strikes in German metalworking, engineering and electronic sectors will broaden beginning today with the break-down last week of third round bargaining between IG Metall and employers&rsquo; associations in several states.&nbsp; Upon expiration of a labour peace accord on 28 April, 2,500 German metalworkers began the warning strikes at select locations, taking creative and imaginative actions.

	Talks for 3.6 million German workers represented by IG Metall began in several states in late winter. Bargaining was stalemated in the last state talks, on 26 April, after employers put forth a less than satisfactory salary offer. They also refused to agree to union demands assuring full work guarantees for apprentices once their training tenures are over and more job rights for contract and agency workers.

	The offer put forward by employers&rsquo; association Gesamtmetall through its state chapters on 24 April was termed &ldquo;a provocation&rdquo; by IG Metall, thus causing mobilisation over the weekend when the peace accord expired. The proposal saw employers offering a 3% increase over 14 months, of through June 2013. The union is seeking a 6.5% pay rise over 12 months.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 216px;height: 160px" width="390" />

	The union&rsquo;s goal is based on a run-up in productivity development, as well as projected inflation in 2012 and 2013. Guaranteed opportunity for apprentices and contract workers is also based on the fact that Germany currently experiences a shortage of skilled workers.

	The 6.5% wage proposal is indicative of German industrial workers being the driving force in a nation that is Europe&rsquo;s biggest industrial power and strongest economy, with high pay and workers&rsquo; savings being the wellspring of that strength.

	Last weekend&rsquo;s warning strikes began on 28 April in the eastern city of Zwickau in Saxony state, where hundreds of young metalworkers conducted a motorcycle parade. Other demonstrations over the weekend occurred in Bavaria, Berlin, NorthRhine-Westphalia, and Nordenham in northern Germany, where workers from several plants held a protest and mass breakfast early on Sunday morning.

	In Ingolstadt in Bavaria, some 80 apprentices gathered the night before and flashed a light-projector against the wall of a factory expressing their demand for job guarantees. Workers from a TDK factory in Munich held a torchlight parade that same night, and autoworkers from a Daimler Mercedes-Benz plant in Rasiah, Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg state, protested on Sunday.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 272px;height: 160px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;

	The actions continued on 30 April with loud protests in cities and streets near a Daimler Mercedes-Benz factory in W&ouml;erth-am-Main in Rheinland-Pfalz, at a MAN diesel plant in Augsburg, in Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg in Bavaria, where lead talks will resume on 8 May.

	Yesterday on May Day in Hamburg, IG Metall President Berthold Huber pledged that the union will not be deterred from its agenda, and will bring the dispute into June if employers do not adhere to union demands. If upcoming talks do not produced the desired results, IG Metall is planning continuous strike actions commencing on 16 May.

	Besides a number of further warning actions today, mass demonstrations tomorrow, 3 May, are set at an Audi factory on Neckarsulm and a Porsche plant in Stuttgart. Some 900,000 of the 3.6 million workers affected are employed by Germany&rsquo;s primary auto-makers.

German Warning Strikes Begin in Metals, Electronics Sectors

The international commitment to sustainable job creation and a financial transactions tax (FTT) will be the focused of RIO+20. The international labour movement, led by ITUC, could play a strong role at RIO+20 to ensure that international commitments are turned into national legislation.

	The ITUC released a new report &quot;<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/growing-green-and-decent-jobs,11011.html?lang=en" target="_blank">Growing Green and Decent Jobs</a>&quot; that trade union leaders can use in negotiations on green investment and job creation as a part of their national policies. The report, released on April 18, analyses seven industries including manufacturing and energy industries in 12 countries and shows that investing two per cent of GDP in a greener economy could create up to 48 million new jobs over the next five years.

	Since world leaders adopted Agenda 21 in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, governments have been called upon to invest in a greener economy and accelerate the adoption of clean technologies, but actual progress at the global level has fallen short of the expectations expressed in Agenda 21 (1992), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, 2000, and the 2008 update), the Johannesburg Program of Implementation (JPOI, 2002), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 112px;height: 161px" width="390" />

	Especially on sustainable job creation, a review by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) secretariat reports &quot;global delivery of the employment and green jobs-related commitments is sobering. While judgment is needed to assess delivery against the not so well defined commitments, there is ample evidence to suggest that progress has been slow and in some cases even contradictory to the stated goal. It is impossible to say whether delivery of commitments specifically relating to &quot;green jobs&quot; has fared better or worse than those generic to employment as a whole.&quot;

	Twenty years after the adoption of Agenda 21 at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit as a roadmap towards a sustainable future, representatives of governments, businesses, and international organizations, including trade unions, NGOs, business leaders, academics, politicians, bureaucrats and journalists, will once again discuss the issues on sustainable development at UNCSD-RIO+20 on June20 to 22, in Rio de Janeiro. The main objective of the Conference is to assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits and to secure renewed political commitment for tackling poverty eradication and sustainable development challenges. The RIO+20 will also highlight <a href="http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/7issues.html" target="_blank">seven critical issues</a> which need priority attention; these include decent jobs, energy, sustainable cities, food security and sustainable agriculture, water, oceans and disaster readiness.

	As representatives of industrial workers in the metal, chemical, energy, mining, paper, rubber, textiles, materials, and related sectors, the IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF have been jointly promoting common policy demands on sustainable development; including:
<ul>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		a strong, legally-binding, comprehensive global agreement with an ambitious reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions,</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		creation of sustainable jobs that meet ILO definition of Decent Work while ensuring a Just Transition, and</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		building a strong financial foundation for a sustainable future using instruments such as a financial transactions tax.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		The IMF, ICEM, and ITGLWF fully support following three key demands as articulated by the ITUC:</li>
</ul>

	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/greendecentjobs_madesimple.pdf" target="_blank">Green&amp;Decent Jobs 
	http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/greendecentjobs_madesimple.pdf</a> 

	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/socialprotectionfloor_madesimple.pdf" target="_blank">Social Protection Floors 
	http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/socialprotectionfloor_madesimple.pdf</a>

	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ftt_madesimple.pdf" target="_blank">The Financial Transaction Tax 
	http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ftt_madesimple.pdf</a>

	We hope that all industrial workers who attend RIO+20 as labour delegates will play an active role in supporting the common union demands. The international labour movement could play a strong role at RIO+20 to ensure that international commitments are turned into national legislation.

	For further information on ITUC&#039;s campaign on RIO+20, please go to: 
	<a href="http://www.ituc-csi.org/rio-20.html">http://www.ituc-csi.org/rio-20.html</a>

RIO+20 Must Commit to Sustainable Job Creation

As we remember those that have died, been injured or suffered ill health as a result of work, we must also commit to making occupational health and safety one of the highest priorities for IndustriALL Global Union.

	Every year, on April 28, the World Day on Safety and Health at Work, workers take a moment to reflect on the devastating toll taken by workplace fatalities, injuries, and occupational diseases.

	IndustriALL Global Union will soon be created, a new organization speaking for some 50 million workers represented by its affiliates. Here are some statistics that should give us all pause. Of IndustriALL&#039;s 50 million affiliated workers:
<ul>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		An estimated 16,400 will die in 2012 as a result of their work. That&#039;s about 45 fatalities per day.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		About 5,000 IndustriALL members will die this year of cancer, alone.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		1,570,000 will be diagnosed with a non-fatal occupational disease.</li>
	<li style="text-align: justify">
		An enormous number, millions, impossible to estimate with any accuracy, will be injured on the job.</li>
</ul>

	These numbers, shocking as they are, are certainly gross underestimates.

	&nbsp;<img alt="" height="90" src="" width="360" />&nbsp;

	Drawn from International Labour Organization&#039;s Bureau of Labour Statistics and estimates of occupational fatalities and diseases produced in 2008, they rely on nationally accepted statistics reported to the ILO by member countries. In most cases, these are taken from the country&#039;s workers&#039; compensation systems, immediately omitting workers whose disease or death was not accepted as &quot;occupational&quot; in origin, or who were not covered by the workers&#039; compensation system. Occupational diseases are chronically under-diagnosed, and occupational injuries are subject to various strategies to suppress reporting or fraudulently misrepresent them.

	In addition, these estimates simply divide world totals by IndustriALL&#039;s fraction of the global labour force. In reality, IndustriALL will represent workers in industries with many more hazards than most. It is worth remembering that even in traditionally dangerous workplaces such as coal mines, an estimated five times as many workers die of occupational diseases, than of sudden accidental causes such as fires, explosions, falls, or encounters with machinery.

	IndustriALL clearly has to make occupational health and safety one of its highest priorities.

	There are a large number of global standard-setting agencies and agencies that engage in different aspects of occupational health and safety. The alphabet soup of their acronyms includes ILO, WHO, OHSAS, ISO, GRI, UNEP, GHS, REACH, SAICM. IndustriALL must watch all of these closely and pressure them to do a better job of protecting workers.

	IndustriALL will inherit a substantial number of Global Framework Agreements with trend-setting multinational companies. Occupational health and safety provisions must become more prominent in most of these.

	Global campaigns on specific issues, such as the ongoing campaign to raise the number of ratifications of ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines, must continue.

	Occupational health and safety is a complex problem. Interconnected systems must be created to identify and control workplace hazards, and protect workers from them. Central to that effort must be the full participation of workers through their representatives, and on Joint Health and Safety Committees.

	There is no simple, magic solution that can be quickly implemented. Instead, occupational health and safety requires hard work and determined campaigning by union activists. Despite the global race for profits, our health is not for sale.&quot;

28 April 2012: A Day of Mourning

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