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For over the past month, 200 workers at a paper mill in Giresun on the Black Sea in northeastern Turkey have picketed their worksite. The daily protests are just one further example of what can happen to workers when an enterprise is privatised. 
 
The Giresun newsprint mill had been operated by state-owned Turkiye Seluloz ve Kagit Fabrikalari (SEKA), a company that was privatized a few short years ago. A paper distributor called MILDA bought this SEKA mill.
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In late spring, with working conditions deteriorating and salaries not being paid on time for five consecutive months, workers joined ICEM affiliate Seluloz-Is, the paperworkers&rsquo; union in the country. As soon as managers learned of the unionization, wages that were due were paid but they demanded that workers quit the union. 
 
When workers rejected this, MILDA fired 250 of the 286-member workforce and closed the mill. This occurred on 15 June 2007. Seluloz-Is President Ergin Alsan has met with management, but they have used the excuse that lack of raw materials has resulted in the closure, not unionization.
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&nbsp;The fact that 250 workers who signed up with different were sacked says differently. 
 
Each day, the workers picket and protest MILDA&rsquo;s unfair dismissals. They are helped out financially by other unions in the region, as well as by NGOs in the area. 
 
The ICEM will continue to monitor the plight of these victimized paperworkers and assist them in any possible as their struggle continues.

Turkish Workers, Union Protest Sackings at Former SEKA Paper Mill

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South Korea&rsquo;s new Irregular Workers&rsquo; Protection Law went into effect on 1 July 2007, but even before then Korean civil society got a glimpse of how little protection the new law affords contract workers. 
 
A number of Korean employers fired irregular workers who had less than two years employment immediately before 30 June. 
 
The most notable of these companies is E-Land Group, a retail clothing outlet that operates a number of Homever and New Core stores. The company sacked 900 workers in June, including 300 cashiers, which caused two strikes. In July, thousands of labour activists &ndash; together with many women who had been sacked &ndash; conducted sit-ins in 13 stores.
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On 20 July, riot police used batons and police shields to forcibly break up the sit-ins. They hauled the protestors to police stations. Arrest warrants were then issued for the labour activists who organized the protests. The police force comes just a short month after the Labour Ministry granted 70,000 irregular workers in the public sector permanent status as an example for the private sector. 
 
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which calls for completely amending the new statute and proposes, in part, to have equal pay for equal work provisions in the law, has demanded reinstatement for the discharged E-Land workers. KCTU has mounted a campaign on behalf of the sackings. 
 
The firings violate provisions of a collective agreement between E-Land and unions, which state that those employed over 18 months would not face lay-offs. Many of the 900 workers were very close to two years service employment.
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In December 2006, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and his Grand National Party used political maneuvering to pass the irregular workers&rsquo; bill in the waning days of a National Assembly session. The law allows employers with 300 or more workers this year to use contract or agency workers for up to two years before making them permanent employees. 
 
The ICEM predicted that the new law would create a &ldquo;revolving door&rdquo; for employers to use and then discard contract workers within the two-year period. The example at E-Land bears this out. 
 
In order to evade relevant provisions in the new law, said the KCTU, E-Land, with help from the riot police and the Roh Moo-hyun government, terminated the contractors for cashiers and others. 
 
&ldquo;The KCTU has consistently asserted that the new bill would lead to more irregular workers because the law, which was suppose to give permanent status to irregular workers, has left the door open to evade such measures, such as outsourcing and termination of contracts,&rdquo; said the labour federation. 
 
Recent statistics by the South Korean government reveal the number of irregular workers is growing. A 2007 study found that a full 35.5% of Korea&rsquo;s 15 million workforce is in this category.

Actions by E-Land Group Proves Failures of Korea&#039;s Contract Workers’ Law

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The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) are calling for a &ldquo;Day of Action&rdquo; on 9 August 2007, demanding the immediate release of two trade unionists locked inside Iran&rsquo;s prisons. The two global federations are calling for pickets, protests, and letter-writing to Iranian embassies or consulates by trade unions in their home countries. 
 
The ICEM joins with the ITUC and ITF in demanding the release of Mansour Osanloo, the leader of the Tehran bus workers&rsquo; union, and the release of Mahmoud Salehi, the founding member of the Saqez Bakery Workers&rsquo; Association. The date of 9 August was chosen because it is the one-year anniversary of Osanloo&rsquo;s release from jail in 2006, following mass global trade union protests.
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&nbsp; 
Osanloo was arrested for the third time on 10 July 2007, following a tour of European labour institutions and labour unions, in which he spoke of the labour abuses and restrictions on freedom of association by Iran&rsquo;s Islamic regime. Witnesses said he was beaten as he was hauled off by secret police. Confirmation came two weeks ago that he is being held in Evin prison. 
 
Mahmoud Salehi is in ill-health and has been sent to a distant prison in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province. The ITUC said there is firm evidence that his life is in danger because of inadequate medial care at this prison. 
 
The ICEM strongly encourages affiliated trade unions to take some form of meaningful action on 9 August in support of their releases.

9 August Designated as ‘Day of Action’ for Jailed Iranian Trade Unionists

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Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. Rescinded the suspensions it had imposed on laid-off white-collar oilworkers&rsquo; in bargaining with PENGASSAN on 26 July. Following a terse 20 July letter from the ICEM Nigerian affiliate to the Mobil Oil&rsquo;s managing director, ExxonMobil backed down from full collision with PENGASSAN, and a new labour agreement is now possible if the company meets remuneration demands. 
 
Pay talks will continue early this week, and a settlement with Mobil Oil Nigeria will complete PENGASSAN&rsquo;s 2007-2008 oil sector bargaining. The union had completed satisfactory negotiations with Chevron, Total, African Petroleum Plc., and other energy concerns, but the world&rsquo;s largest one, ExxonMobil &ndash; bargaining last &ndash; attempted to reduce labour standards from those negotiated with the others.
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&nbsp; 
The company committed a serious breach when it contacted and then coerced many PENGASSAN members due to retire to sign voluntary retirement letters. This action in July came while the union and Mobil Oil were in talks, and the issue of early retirement incentives was alive. The voluntary letters were a ploy to reduce the statutory amount of separation benefits that the company would have to pay in restructuring. 
 
PENGASSAN called is &ldquo;repugnant to statutory stipulations, local and international labour conventions, and best practices&rdquo; already in place in Nigeria&rsquo;s oil and gas sectors. The breach flagrantly violated the collective agreement between the two parties as well. 
 
But in Thursday&rsquo;s talks, ExxonMobil apologized to PENGASSAN and to the sacked workers, and reversed itself by rescinding the letters and reversing the firings.
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&nbsp;Now the issue of pay for 2007 and 2008 must be addressed. PENGASSAN Gen. Sec. Bayo Olowoshile said Mobil Oil Nigeria must live up to its market share in the industry and its profit sheet. The conflict now, he said, &ldquo;is on the reluctance of Mobil to pay competitive remuneration that aligns with the company&rsquo;s market share and its own remuneration policy.&rdquo; 
 
PENGASSAN represents over 200 engineers, technicians, accountants, and administrators of Mobil Oil Nigeria at some ten locations. The majority of the white-collar workers are employed at Apapa in Lagos.

ExxonMobil in Nigeria Backs Down from Conflict with PENGASSAN

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A peaceful protest by 1,000 members of ICEM&rsquo;s two Nigerian oil workers&rsquo; affiliates &ndash; PENGASSAN and NUPENG &ndash; was met by 150 riot police last week, 17 May. The protest occurred at the national headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) in Abuja, while privatisation bidding on two NNPC refineries was going on elsewhere in the Nigerian capital city. 
 
Trade unionists blocked traffic in and out of the NNPC building for the better part of the day. 
 
The unions were not objecting to the privatisation of refineries in Port Harcourt and Kaduna, but rather to NNPC ignoring a memorandum it signed with the two unions only last week allowing them to carry out independent audits of the refineries before the sales occur. 
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The concerns of the two unions centre on the loss of 4,000 jobs, with no plan on how to meet the pension commitments of sacked workers. &ldquo;We are saying, yes you can privatise, but let us sit down and thrash out the labour issues,&rdquo; Williams Ibiba Inko, NNPC&rsquo;s union chair and leader of the protest, told This Day newspaper. 
 
&ldquo;This process is going to kill our pension. Most of the concerned staff has passed the employment age bracket,&rdquo; said Inko, adding the memorandum calling for due process by workers&rsquo; representatives was signed by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE). &ldquo;We believe (the process) is being hijacked by the BPE to suit its purposes.&rdquo; 
 
As part of last Thursday&rsquo;s protest, PENGASSAN and NUPENG also lodged stop-work actions at NNPC operations in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Mosimi, and Kaduna. All of the protests remained peaceful and no arrests were made. 
 
Bidding on the federal government&rsquo;s 51% stake in the Port Harcourt refinery, Nigeria&rsquo;s largest with a capacity of 210,000 barrels-per-day, was awarded to a Nigerian consortium called Bluestar Oil, for US$561 million. Bluestar is composed of the Dangote Group, Nigeria&rsquo;s biggest cement producer, Zenon Oil, Transcorp, and the Rivers State government. Sale of 51% of the Kaduna refinery, however, was not completed after the lone bidder, China National Petroleum Corp., failed to meet the reserve price. CNPC&rsquo;s bid was US$102 million. 
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The BPE last week conducted privatisation bids on 18 public entities, including electric power, cement, and palm oil companies, as well as liquid petroleum gas depots, and coal and other mining blocks. 
 
Meanwhile, PENGASSAN President Peter Esele is pleading with militants in the Niger Delta to stop committing violent acts in the region, since such acts hamper legitimate development. Esele spoke out after three oil pipelines of Italian company Eni were blown up during the week of 7 May in Bayelsa state. 
 
&ldquo;The effect of blowing up pipelines is grave,&rdquo; he said in an interview with This Day. &ldquo;It is very dangerous to the environment because it pollutes and it increases the costs&rdquo; for development. PENGASSAN and NUPENG call for a truce in the unstable Delta region, so that development and investment can serve as a means to reduce poverty.

Nigerian Oil Unions Protest Lack of Transparency in Refinery Sales

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Meeting in Brussels on 10-11 May, the ICEM&rsquo;s Executive Committee passed two separate resolutions, one calling on multinational companies not to interfere with new labour regulations being proposed in China, and one declaring continued support and solidarity for strikers at German-based Fresenius Medical Care&rsquo;s Novamed factory in Turkey. 
 
The ICEM Executive also tabled several resolutions that will be considered at its Fourth World Congress this November in Bangkok, Thailand, including continuation of projects on HIV/AIDS and Contract and Agency Labour. 
<img height="113" alt="" src="" width="100" />
GLOBAL UNITY, GLOBAL EQUALITY
ICEM 2007 World Congress logo
The resolution on the draft Chinese labour law condemns those companies which attempt to water down the draft labour law of China&rsquo;s government. The motion notes that even though the proposed law falls far short of common international standards regarding workers&rsquo; rights, some companies operating inside China oppose implementation of new labour regulations. 
 
The ICEM also calls on multinational companies not to oppose the movement of workers in China to form &ldquo;free, strong and independent trade unions.&rdquo; The resolution, in its entirety, can be found <a href="/index.php?id=7&amp;doc=2259&amp;la=EN">here</a>. 
 
Regarding the ongoing dispute that ICEM Turkish affiliate Petrol-Iş is waging on behalf of 84 strikers, 82 of whom are women, the ICEM resolution deplores the conduct of Novamed. The company operates in the Antalya Free Trade Zone and makes bloodline and kidney dialysis equipment. 
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Novamed strikers in Antalya Free Trade Zone, Turkey
Managers of the company caused the strike, in September 2006, by severely restricting workers&rsquo; rights, particularly those of women. Such inhumane practices as making women apply for permission to become pregnant, forbidding employees from talking on the job, and threatening to move the plant from Turkey unless workers reject Petrol-Iş were severely criticised by ICEM Executive members. 
 
The ICEM resolution states: &ldquo;The practice of restricting women&rsquo;s maternity rights is against ILO Conventions and EU directives and does not suit a country applying for membership in the European Union.&rdquo; Workers at Novamed GmbH organised with Petrol-Iş in March 2005, but the company has refused good-faith bargaining for an initial collective agreement. 
 
The ICEM resolution on Novamed&rsquo;s horrid labour relations can be found <a href="/index.php?id=71&amp;doc=2258&amp;la=EN">here</a>.

ICEM Executive Passes Motions on China’s Draft Labour Law, Dispute in Turkey

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Union members of ICEM affiliate Engineering Printing &amp; Manufacturing Union (EPMU) in New Zealand were back to work on 4 May, following a three-day lockout imposed by Australian-based Amcor paper and packaging company. 
 
Fifty EPMU members were locked off their jobs at a paper converting facility in Auckland on 1 May. The workers were resisting staffing cuts that would have reduced the factory to unsafe manning levels. 
 
&ldquo;These workers were prepared to stick this out as long as it took,&rdquo; stated EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little. &ldquo;They are relieved this dispute has come to a close so quickly.&rdquo; 
<img height="143" src="" width="390" alt="" />
Amcor lock-out in New-Zealand
Added Little, &ldquo;Our members tried to negotiate in good faith and were met with the most extreme and militant response an employer can make. It&rsquo;s good to see common sense has prevailed and they can now get back to doing their jobs under fair and equitable circumstances.&rdquo; 
 
The negotiated end of the lockout consisted of maintaining staffing levels without redundancies, an extra week&rsquo;s service and shift leave, the industry standard pay raise, and a day&rsquo;s pay to cover part of the lockout period. 
 
Amcor, a major global producer of flexible packaging, last week announced a European restructuring plan that could cut 900 of the company&rsquo;s 7,600-member workforce in Europe. The plan focuses on shifting work to Eastern and Southern Europe. The company triggered this restructuring in February, by announcing construction of a plastic extrusion facility in Poland.

EPMU Members Win Guarantees in Short Lockout by Amcor Packaging

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Union members of the United Steelworkers (USW) in eastern Canada ended a seven-week strike at the Iron Ore Co. of Canada (IOC) two weeks ago. USW members, numbering some 1,300 at two Canadian locations, approved five-year labour agreements, on 25 April and 26 April. 
 
IOC is 59% owned by Australian mining company Rio Tinto. It is Canada&rsquo;s largest producer and exporter of iron ore. 
 
The new accord gives workers wage increases over the five-year term, as well as a ratification bonus of C$4,000 per worker. It also gives workers increases in pension benefits, lifts the ceiling on medical benefits, and grants travel allowance increases. 
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More importantly, the strike blocked IOC&rsquo;s attempt to gain unlimited right to contract out work, and miners and dockworkers preserved their seniority language. 
 
The successful strike counted some 1,050 miners and iron ore processing plant workers in Labrador City, province Newfoundland. That strike began on 8 March. On 19 March, 250 port and dock workers at Sept-Iles, province Quebec, strengthened the strike by their walk-out. 
 
IOC is a major exporter of iron ore pellets and concentrates to steelmakers in Europe and Asia. Besides Rio Tinto&rsquo;s majority stake, publicly-traded Labrador Iron Ore Income Fund has an ownership stake. That holding, admitted in a 3 May posting, that the strike affected the timing of cargo shipments, which will affect IOC&rsquo;s first quarter 2007 sales and earnings.

USW Miners Preserve Contract Language at Rio Tinto in Canada

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An eleventh hour wage settlement by petroleum companies and workers has averted a scheduled strike by 5,500 members of Belgian trade unions. Sectoral bargaining in Belgium&rsquo;s energy sector had hit a standstill and was heading to a 10 May strike, before trade unions and industry representations reached accord late last week. 
 
Workers are now studying the proposal and are expected to vote on the offer soon. 
<img height="203" src="" width="200" alt="" />
ExxonMobil and Total refineries near Antwerp would have been severely affected, and the industry association predicted a crippling supply and transport problem of 700,000 barrels per day if the strike had happened. It predicted fuel pump increases and shortages. 
 
Other oil and petro-chemical operations attached to Belgium&rsquo;s employers&rsquo; association also would have been affected. 
 
The major oil refiners and some others had begun decreasing production in late April to order to guarantee safe and secure shutdowns in the event of a strike.

Wage Settlement Averts Scheduled 10 May Petrol Strike in Belgium

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Italy&rsquo;s three major unions came together on 23 April for an eight-hour strike against Pfizer pharmaceutical. The unions protested Pfizer&rsquo;s destructive job losses at a time in which the US-based company is posting record earnings. 
 
Italian unions FILCEM-CGIL, FEMCA-CISL, and UILCEM-UIL rallied 2,400 workers at a manifestation in Rome at the offices of the Labour Ministry and the Economic Development Ministry. 
Inside a mass worldwide restructuring plan, Pfizer has targeted the sacking of 440 research and development staff in Italy, as well as curtailment of antibiotic production in Varese, Italy. The unions also object to the February sale of a business in Nerviano, and cite some 2,200 staff that have been discharged since 2003. 
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Workers at the Rome manifestation included staff from four Pfizer worksites &ndash; Latina, Ascoli, Pisticci, and Nerviano &ndash; which are affected under the giant drug-maker&rsquo;s restructuring plan. 
 
Pfizer earlier this year announced that 10,000 jobs would be cut worldwide. The company announced this in the face of quarterly profit returns of US$9.45 billion. Pfizer cited competition from generic drug-makers as a reason for the 2007 restructuring.

Italian Unions Protest Pfizer’s Cuts in Rome

Archive

Turkish Workers, Union Protest Sackings at Former SEKA Paper Mill

Actions by E-Land Group Proves Failures of Korea's Contract Workers’ Law

9 August Designated as ‘Day of Action’ for Jailed Iranian Trade Unionists

ExxonMobil in Nigeria Backs Down from Conflict with PENGASSAN

Nigerian Oil Unions Protest Lack of Transparency in Refinery Sales

ICEM Executive Passes Motions on China’s Draft Labour Law, Dispute in Turkey

EPMU Members Win Guarantees in Short Lockout by Amcor Packaging

USW Miners Preserve Contract Language at Rio Tinto in Canada

Wage Settlement Averts Scheduled 10 May Petrol Strike in Belgium

Italian Unions Protest Pfizer’s Cuts in Rome

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