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<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Japanese tyre-maker Bridgestone’s failure to listen to alternatives on redundancies in social talks has caused a fiery strike at the company’s airplane tyre factory in Frameries, Belgium. The strike by all 140 workers and led by ICEM Belgian affiliate FGTB Centrale Générale started on 11 June over eight job cuts. 
 
A day into the strike, trade unionists convinced managers to stay away from the factory and the plant has been idle since. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0906.bridgestone.strike.jpg" width="250" height="171" alt=""/>
Bridgestone seeks to unilaterally lay off eight workers. FGTB and the 140 workers say that decision ridicules a plant rule on job security. They also point to the fact that Bridgestone employs 14 workers on short-term contracts at Frameries. The FGTB states that Belgium’s pre-pension plan qualifies 24 workers for leave, but Bridgestone will not consider other solutions to its reduction in force. 
 
The factory is a Bridgestone re-treading plant. The strike at the plant comes at a time when Bridgestone is boasting to global financial markets that its 2009 earnings sheet will be better that previously predicted because of a stronger yen and already-implemented expense reductions.

Bridgestone Tyre Strike in Belgium Erupts

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The ICEM has again registered sharp complaint to the Iraqi government over anti-social conduct at its State Company for Petrochemical Industries’ set of plants in Basra. The latest incident finds a new state manager harassing, and then filing police charges against Mohammed Zaki Ibrahim, the leader of ICEM affiliate Petrochemical Workers’ Union of Basra. 
 
Last month, Mohammed Zaki was verbally assaulted by the new general manager, who stated his trade union activity was an “obstacle” to the way he intended to operate the company. The manager also charged Zaki with being under the influence of “external forces.” 
 
The ICEM was compelled to harshly condemn that violation of freedom of association in a letter to Iraq’s Minister of Industry and Minerals. 
 
The letter also pointed out that after Zaki left the abusive meeting – witnessed by other managers – he was immediately charged by police with trade union activity, and labelled as a danger to the Iraqi national economy. As the Zaki case illustrates, managers have been vindictive in upholding Saddam’s decades-old decree banning trade unions in the public sector, a draconian labour code that continued under the occupation forces. 
On 28 January, a workers manifestation over wage arrears at the enterprise resulted in management calling in the army. Managers targeted four union leaders with leading the protest, and then brought cruel and unjust discipline on to one of them: Kareem Johi Sahan was banished from the petrochemicals enterprise for six months and his pay grade was lowered. 
 
“The ICEM has paid close attention to events at the Basra facility,” said General Secretary Manfred Warda. “The Iraqi government must also. This must become a worksite where trade union rights are respected and we will continue working from the outside with trade unionists on the inside to fulfil that.” 
 
The state-owned petrochemical facility employs 5,000 workers and contains six plants making ethylene, polyethylene, vinyl chloride, and other chemicals. The Basra Petrochemical Workers’ Union is affiliated to the Iraq Oil Workers’ Federation (IFOU).

Iraq: ICEM Again Condemns Union Harassment at Basra Petrochem

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
A unique happenstance followed an ICEM workshop on Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) in Guinea recently: the Industrial Relations manager of Russian bauxite and steel producer RUSAL was expelled from the country following revelations at the conference of the company’s horrid labour practices in Guinea. 
 
Mineworkers in Guinea, backed by leaders of the trade union federations, provided vivid evidence on working conditions, including child labour, at Compagnie des Bauxite de Kindla, RUSAL’s joint venture bauxite mining concern with the government. 
 
The testimony resulted in the government, led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, to expel Anatoly Pantchenko from Guinea. 
 
Trade unionists told how the RUSAL manager had organized a culture of outsourcing at the mine and at RUSAL’s wholly-owned Friguia alumina smelting plant. The company utilises some 120 outsourcing companies. Discussion centered on how the system has aggravated poverty and created extremely poor work conditions and salaries, leaving workers under RUSAL’s umbrella with little means for improved living conditions. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0703Guinea2.jpg" width="350" height="233"/>
From left to right: Ibrahima Fofana, Rabiatou Sereh Diallo, Manfred Warda and Yamodou Touré
The report was not new to the ICEM. In 2007, after street protests in Guinea loosened the dictatorial powers of President Lansana Conté, Rabiatou Sereh Diallo, General Secretary of the National Confederation of Workers of Guinea (CNTG), visited the ICEM in Brussels. She and other trade union leaders from Guinea then told how RUSAL relies heavily on “phantom” subcontracting companies that are tied to Conté associates. 
 
In December 2008, following the death of Conté, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara and a team of military officers took over the country. They immediately forged relations with the three main trade union federations and pledged to end corruption in the mining sector. 
 
Since then, relations between RUSAL and the government have been tenuous, and ICEM’s CAL workshops in May provided all the evidence Moussa Camara needed to expel RUSAL’s top manager from Guinea. In mid-April, workers at the Friguia refinery staged a strike, and RUSAL – now the world’s second largest steelmaker – said the work stoppage was instigated by the government. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL_en.jpg" width="146" height="66"/>
The ICEM’s CAL conference agreed on a plan of action for Guinea’s mining sector, which will see trade unions and the government push for a review of the national mining convention, a code that became obsolete and neglected under the corrupt Conté regime. Such a review will make it possible to properly address outsourcing, as well as to include guarantees on working conditions in employment contracts. 
 
A new committee was established with the government that is tasked with carrying out the review. The committee is composed of 13 members, two of whom are trade union leaders. 
 
The West African nation of Guinea holds two-thirds of the world’s bauxite deposits. A second multinational bauxite miner, called Halco, also operates in Guinea. But trade unionists tell the ICEM that work conditions there are far superior to those existing at RUSAL. Halco is an enterprise 51% owned by US-based Alcoa World Alumina and Alcan of Canada, with the remainder owned by Guinea’s government.

ICEM’s Contract Labour Forum in Guinea Forces Expulsion of Russian Mine Boss

“National Project Conference of Turkey: 
Organising and Social Dialogue” 
 
15 – 16 June 2009 
Ankara, Turkey 
 
A g e n d a 
 
 
15 June 2009, Monday 
 
09:30 - 10:30 Opening : 
 
Bayram Eren, General Education Secretary of Tes-İş 
Henk Van Der Kolk, President of FNV Bondgenoten, The Netherlands (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/henk.fnv.speech.pdf" type="internal">speech</a>) 
Manfred Warda, ICEM General Secretary 
 
10:30 - 11:00 Break 
 
11:00 - 12:30 First Session: “Organising and Social Dialogue: International Mechanisms” 
 
Gülay Aslantepe, ILO Turkey Representative 
Zergül Özbilgiç, Undersecretariat of Treasury, General Directorate of Foreign Capital, Head of Department of International Relations (OECD Turkey National Contact Point) 
Kemal Özkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries Officer 
Manfred Warda, ICEM General Secretary and Board Member of “Global Compact” (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.manfred.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
 
Discussions 
 
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch 
 
14:00 – 16:00 Second Session : “Organising and Social Dialogue : International Trade Union Tools” 
 
Kemal Özkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries Officer (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.kemal.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
Marc Ferron, EDF Global Agreement TU Secretary, France (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.ferron.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
Yücel Top, Coordinator of Turkey-EU Trade Union Integration Com. 
Jorgen Juul Rasmussen, Danks El-Forbund, Denmark (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.jorgen.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>)  
 
Discussions 
 
16:00 - 16:30 Break 
 
16:30 – 17:30 Third Session : “Different Country Trade Union Structures, Experiences and Strategies for Organising and Social Dialogue” : Experiences from North America and Asia 
 
Joe Drexler, ICEM Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.drexler.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
Phee Jungsun, ICEM Materials Industry Officer (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.phee.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
 
Discussions 
 
19:00 – 22:00 Dinner 
 
16 June 2009, Tuesday : 
 
09:30 – 10:30 Fourth Session : “Different Country Trade Union Structures, Experiences and Strategies for Organising and Social Dialogue” (continuation) : Experiences from Europe-1 
 
Michael Wolters, IG BCE, Germany (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.wolters.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
Marc Blanc, FCE-CFDT, France (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.blanc.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
 
Discussions 
 
10:30 - 11:00 Break 
 
11:00 – 12:30 Fifth Session : “Different Country Trade Union Structures, Experiences and Strategies for Organising and Social Dialogue” (continuation) : Experiences from Europe-2 
 
Isidor Boix, FITEQA-CC.OO., Spain (<a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/fnv.bois.pres.pdf" type="internal">presentation</a>) 
Lobé Gevaerts – Mail Ürker, FNV Bondgenoten, The Netherlands 
 
Discussions 
 
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch 
 
14:00 – 15:30 Sixth Session : “In line with discussions, Strategy and Action Plan for Developing Organising and Social Dialogue in Turkey“ 
 
Fikret Sazak, Türkiye Maden-İş (mining) 
Üzeyir Ataman, Lastik-İş (rubber and chemical) 
İsmail Hakkı Kurt, Petrol-İş & Belediye-İş (oil/public service) 
Resul Limon, Tes-İş (Energy) 
Bahri Topçu, Türkiye Çimse-İş (Materials) 
 
15:30 – 16:00 Break 
 
16:00 - 17:00 Wrapping-up of two-day works and Proposals for the future 
 
17:30 End of the Conference

FNV Turkey Project Conference

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Strike actions occurred in Europe in recent days against South African pulp and paper producer Sappi. Workers holding memberships in four Dutch unions continue to be in dispute with Sappi at two mills in the Netherlands, Nijmegen and Maastricht. 
 
And at one of two mills in Finland that Sappi purchased from M-real one year ago, Kirkniemi, members of the local branch of ICEM affiliate Paperiliitto took a four-day industrial action 19-23 November over serious safety issues. 
 
At Nijmegen on 26 November, workers staged a 24-hour strike over the company’s failure to come to a terms in meeting minimal union demands for a new labour agreement. More actions are expected this week at Nijmegen and Maastricht. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/paper logo.jpg" width="300" height="81"/>
On 24 November, Dutch unions FNV Bondgenoten, CNV Bedrijenbond, ACV, and De Unie issued a demand for a one-year wage increase, July 2009 to July 2010, of 1.5%. The unions, representing 800 workers at the two paper mills, also demand retention of “seniorendagen,” the annual reward days off for workers with long service careers. If this is to be lost in a new collective agreement, the unions said in a demands declaration, a financial equivalent for both senior workers and younger workers for the social benefit must be substituted. 
 
Sappi Europe has been stingy in its pay offer, as well as unfair in benefit takeaways. In mid-September, workers rejected a 21-month Sappi proposal that was deemed inferior by a 95% vote. On 15 October, in a protest joined by ICEM and its global pulp and paper unions, 50 of the two mills’ workplace leaders took a petition to Sappi’s European headquarters in Brussels. (See InBrief No. 142 <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3455-Pulp-Paper-Unions-Assist-Dutch-Unionists-in-Contract-Dispute-with-Sappi-" type="internal">here</a>.) 
 
Following a revised company offer a few days later, union leaders again decided to take the proposal to Dutch workers at Nijmegen and Maastricht for a vote. They rejected that with a 99% vote. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0810PaperRollArt.jpg" width="180" height="109"/>
At Kirkniemi in Finland, earlier this year, Sappi thinned job ranks by 63 workers from a workforce of 400. The 19-23 November strike was over the fact that the remaining workers have taken on more work duties and occupational safety has been jeopardized. Sappi bought five European coated paper mills from M-real in early 2009 and intends to completely close one of those mills – Kangas, Finland – by the end of this year, thus giving the sack to 150 members of Paperiliitto. 
 
At a Sappi mill in North America, another labour dispute is coming to a head. Members of the United Steelworkers (USW), early in the week of 16 November, made a statement about a regressive Sappi contract proposal with an 82% rejection vote. Some 600 union members at a pulp and coated paper mill in Cloquet, Minnesota, have been without a current labour agreement since 1 May 2009. Sappi’s less than adequate pay offer contains no retroactive wages to that date. It also falls short in meeting pension offsets and the company has ignored a USW request to assist Sappi in finding lower-cost private health care alternatives.

Paperworkers in Finland, Netherlands Take Strike Actions against Sappi

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The campaign for preservation of coal mining jobs at Xstrata operations in New South Wales by the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) in Australia intensified late last week when miners took protected strike action at the Tahmoor mine. 
 
In late July, Swiss and London-based Xstrata said it was cutting 158 of 493 jobs at Tahmoor, a mine producing coking coal, and another 122 jobs – or 20% of the permanent workforce – at its Ulan mine. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/AUSTRALIACFMEU.gif" width="90" height="93"/>
Last Friday, CFMEU took strike action at Tahmoor over the job redundancies and demanding that safety standards be upheld. Miners took four-hour work stoppages on 28 and 29 November, and the CFMEU is enforcing overtime bans and not loading coal onto trains. The legal industrial actions began over the weekend of 21-22 November when miners struck for two hours. If management is not willing to negotiate by today, a 24-hour work stoppage will take place this week. 
 
In a statement, CFMEU said, “All we are asking from Xstrata is a deal that protects job security and maintains safety standards at Tahmoor mine. Tahmoor mineworkers work long and hard to deliver Xstrata their healthy profits each year, with the company taking more than A$924 million from its Australian coalmines such as Tahmoor” in 2008. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/XstrataPoison.jpg" width="240" height="76"/>
In early September, 500 residents of the town of Mudgee, New South Wales, marched there in protest to the redundancies at the nearby Ulan mine. CFMEU fears Xstrata’s overall goal is to reduce its permanent workforce and replace it with contractors. 
 
Xstrata bought the Tahmoor mine in 2007 from Centennial Coal, while it acquired majority control of Ulan in 2002 and now has a 90% stake in that mine, with Mitsubishi Development Corp. of Japan holding the remainder 10%.

CFMEU Begins Industrial Actions at Xstrata’s Coal Mines in Australia

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
On 21 November, over 900 New Zealand miners, members of the Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) at four Solid Energy mines, dropped their strikes and returned to work following stoppages that lasted as long as 26 days. They quit the strikes in order to start good faith bargaining efforts toward a new labour accord with the state-owned company and its mining contractors. 
 
Talks between EPMU and management parties began later that day. But those talks aimed at ending an eight-month impasse failed and over the past week, one by one, collieries staffed by EPMU miners have taken votes to resume the strikes. 
 
At issue are changes in shift rotations without adequate compensation, as well as an across-the-board national pay proposal by Solid Energy and its contractors amounting to 2% for 2010 and 3% in 2011. The offer also includes a one-off NZ$2,000 bonus, based on the company’s record 2008 profits. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NewZealand.png" width="250" height="115" alt=""/>
The proposed pay package is inadequate, but EPMU members are particularly dissatisfied with the terms attached to the roster changes and increased work hours. At some mines, production workers are being asked to work ten hours per day, while maintenance workers are being asked to work 12-hour shifts. 
 
As was the case in late October, industry actions last week began on the North Island. The 120 miners at the Huntly East colliery near Rotowaro went on strike first. And despite staff of mining contractor HWE Mining Ltd. at the Rotowaro open pit mine accepting the proposal, a strike there continued in sympathy with the Huntly East miners. 
 
On 26 November, 500 EPMU miners at the Stockton mine on the South Island voted to strike. That work stoppage was expected to start over the weekend. Workers at the Spring Creek mine at the South Island will vote this week on whether or not to strike. 
 
The labour dispute has become deeply pitched, partly due to management’s public posturing and statements denigrating the EPMU, but mostly due to coal deposits at Rotowaro nearing exhaustion and Solid Energy and RWE Mining seeking heightened production with longer work hours. That has caused the sympathy strikes at the other mines, a credit to the solidarity of EPMU miners. But as well, all unionized miners of Solid Energy have been without current labour agreements since 30 March 2009.

Strikes Resume at New Zealand’s State-Run Solid Energy Mines

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
With pressures mounting on Brazilian-based Vale to return to bargaining in the Canadian nickel strike now entering its sixth month, the company and United Steelworkers (USW) are fighting battles in the courtroom and before the public in what has become a pitched, bitter dispute between working-class Canadians and a rich, profitable multinational. 
 
If the public war of words over who first must amend its position so bargaining can resume is not enough, the two sides are now belligerent combatants in face-to-face side dramas, including changes to a picket line protocol agreement and grievances and unfair work practices before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. The latter is over Vale’s intent to make non-striking USW members perform struck work. 
 
Canadian management of Vale has also deployed divide-and-conquer tactics by trying to drive a wedge between striking steelworkers, as well as giving the false public perception that its social rollback proposals to USW branch unions are a necessary ingredient to sustainable mining in Canada. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0909sudbury.jpg" width="260" height="195"/>
Some 3,250 miners and metalworkers went on strike at Vale’s nickel mining, smelting, and processing operations in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, on 13 July 2009, while another 350 copper and nickel miners from Goose Bay and Voiseys Bay, Labrador, joined the strike on 1 August. Vale, which bought Canada-based Inco’s assets late in 2006, is seeking to strip away a production bonus from Canadian steelworkers, impose a two-tiered pension plan, and gain contract language to allow it greater flexibility on using sub-contractors, which ultimately jeopardizes job security and the sustainable future of workers themselves. 
 
For ten weeks now, Vale has made threatening moves that it would re-start production at its mines and processing facilities in northern Ontario near Sudbury, something never before done in a labour dispute at Sudbury. The company most recently posted notices that it will re-start the massive Copper Cliff smelter using a selected contractor. 
 
The union has filed an unfair labour practice with the Ontario labour board because Vale insists on using USW Local 2020 members – clerical, admin, and technical workers – to perform mining and processing work. Local 2020 itself has filed serious safety grievances against Vale for assigning its members work they are not trained for. 
 
A picket-line protocol agreement signed on 29 July has been a subject of contention, primarily due to Vale’s desire to amend it. The company wants to include in the protocol the transfer of buses carrying replacement workers across strike lines. This courtroom conflict also involves how long USW Local 6500 strikers can delay vehicles upon entry to company property, as well as lesser issues such as Vale’s failure to supply strikers’ firewood, as stipulated in the original agreement. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0908.usw.canada.png" width="347" height="138"/>
Those and other picket-line issues are before an Ontario Superior Court justice, who is expected to rule on revised picket-line conduct before the end of December. 
 
Vale has also made an overture to the 200 USW Local 6200 members in Port Colborne, 400 kilometres south of Sudbury, to resume negotiations without Local 6500. This move is a blatant effort to divide the two workforces. Locals 6500 and 6200 share the same labour agreement. Local 6200 President Wayne Rae says separating the two workforces will never happen. 
 
And last week, Vale’s Canadian managers circumvented official union structures by sending a letter directly to all workers on strike. The letter urged workers to call on their unions to return to bargaining and accept Vale’s concessions because the company intends “moving ahead on business,” meaning a return to production using replacement workers and contractors. 
 
The USW responded in an 11 December press release, stating that it has already put forth a good-faith invitation to Vale to return to talks under no pre-conditions. "We are publicly reiterating our position today because Vale's letter attempts to misrepresent our willingness to resume meaningful discussions," read the statement. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0912.USW.Sudbury.png" width="284" height="113"/>
"We are ready and willing to get back to the bargaining today, unconditionally. Given the impact this dispute is having on our working families and our community as a whole, it is incumbent on the union and the company to drop all preconditions and start talking to each other again. 
 
"Unfortunately, Vale Inco continues to stick by its preconditions and its argument that it needs concessions to maintain its 'sustainability,' when its demands such as cutting the nickel bonus do not affect its sustainability whatsoever. Vale had to win a bidding war to purchase this profitable company. Inco made profits each year with nickel prices lower than today's. Vale has reaped huge profits under the current contract. No one can say Sudbury's rich nickel mines are not sustainable." 
 
USW branch locals in Ontario and Labrador have been buoyed by a private member’s bill in the Canadian Parliament by MP Claude Gravelle. The proposed legislation would give transparency to all deals made within the Investment Canada Act, a haunting lesson on democracy to many Canadians since details between the federal government and Vale were kept secret when the company bought Inco. 
 
Gravelle has also submitted two additional bills aimed at making public all facts surrounding Vale’s purchase of Inco and Xstrata’s buy-up of Canadian-based Falconbridge, a deal that also included valuable copper-nickel assets in northern Ontario. 
 
For Sudbury Local 6500, the 3,100-member union continues promoting solidarity within its own ranks through unity, fraternity, and an acute community awareness that says successfully resisting Vale’s take-aways is the real path for a sustainable future. 
 
From 10 to 15 December, Local 6500 embarked on a Week of Action that include several activities in Sudbury. Those activities included a 10 December, International Human Rights Day candlelight vigil and march done in unison with the Sudbury District Labour Council of the Canadian Labour Congress. The next day, 11 December, students and the faculty union association of nearby Laurentian University conducted “Out of the Classroom and Onto the Picket Lines,” in which class sessions were moved to the picket lines of the Copper Cliff smelter in order to study the causes and effects of the strike. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/US.USW.jpg" width="124" height="59"/>
A Families Supporting the Strikers’ fundraiser was held on the weekend, 12-13 December, while a Steelworker Solidarity Support caravan from Toronto also visited picket lines on 13 December. Today, 14 December, union veterans and retirees will conduct a symposium entitled “Lessons From the Past – What We Have Won,” complete with reflections on a strike in 1978 and the necessity to retain what has already been gained. 
 
And tomorrow, 15 December, Local 6500 members and their families will hold a “Fair Deal for Our Families” march and manifestation at Vale-Inco’s Copper Cliff offices. 
 
On 3 December, in another outpouring of support for the striking Canadian miners, scores of members from the US-based union Unite-Here joined Local 6500 and Local 6200 members who bused to New York City to protest an award by the Business Council for International Understanding to Roger Agnelli, Vale’s CEO. 
 
The joining of hands by Unite-Here, who recently returned to the AFL-CIO, with the USW was symbolic of renewed unity inside the American trade union movement, solidarity now extending into Canada. 
 
The ICEM has been joined by the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF) in waging a global campaign in support of Canadian miners. The miners’ own English-language website gives complete and up-to-date details of the bitter strike. It can be found <a href="http://www.fairdealnow.ca">here</a>.

USW, Vale Spar Over Picket Line, Scab Threats in Canadian Nickel Strike

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The International Textiles, Garment, and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) held its Tenth World Congress in Frankfurt, Germany, from 2-4 December. The ITGLWF adopted several major decisions regarding the coming work re-organization. The theme of this Tenth Congress was “Organise = Decent Work = Decent Life,” and it brought together 214 delegates from 97 trade unions in 68 countries. 
 
It also paid moving tribute to the necessary humanitarian contributions made by the late ITGLWF General Secretary, Neil Kearney. Kearney’s daughters were at the Congress and told of their father. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0912.itglwf.2.png" width="179" height="135"/>
Neal Kearney’s daughters, Nicole and Caroline
The Congress was hosted by IG Metall at its Frankfurt headquarters. 
The Congress took place just two weeks after General Secretary Neil Kearney died from a heart attack while doing important ITGLWF work in Bangladesh. The global trade union movement was shocked and saddened. Kearney, the ITGLWF General Secretary for the past 21 years, performed some of the toughest and most meaningful work in the world. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ITGLWF100.jpg" width="100" height="100"/>
The Frankfurt Congress confirmed the appointment of Patrick Itschert as the new General Secretary. Itschert has led the European regional organization of ETUC:TCL, for nearly two decades. He will continue in both roles. 
 
Congress unanimously elected Hisanobu Shimada of Japan as the organisation’s new president. Hisanobu Shimada is the General Secretary of ITGLWF affiliate UI Zensen. Outgoing president Manfred Schallmeyer of IG Metall received a special message of appreciation from Congress, for his work during the past five years as president. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0912.itglwf.png" width="142" height="193"/>
Manfred Schallmeyer hands over the presidency to Hisanobu Shimada 
The ITGLWF’s Congress elected fifteen Vice-Presidents, eight of whom are women, and formally approved the membership of the Executive Committee. 
 
The future of the ITGLWF was a major issue on the agenda. Congress recognised the need for a powerful trade union force across manufacturing industries, in response to corporate restructuring and obvious synergies created within the continual overlaps of the world’s manufacturing sectors. The ITGLWF Congress resolved that the Global Union Federation make all necessary efforts to ensure the creation of a new GUF for manufacturing, and that it be concluded no later than 2011.

Memories, Accomplishments of Neil Kearney Cited at ITGLWF Congress

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
Industrial action that was to begin today at a pulp and paper mill in the UK has been cancelled because progress was made in redundancy consultation talks last Friday, 11 December. Paperworkers who are members of Unite the Union voted 226 to 30 for industrial action, after Iggesund Paper – a wholly-owned subsidiary of Swedish Holmen Paper – announced unilateral job cuts in early November. 
 
Iggesund, operating a softwood pulp mill and paperboard mill in Cumbria, sought to cut 99 of 480 jobs at the facility. Following the announcement, local managers said there was no need for consultation. UK law states that redundancies of less that100 workers must be preceded by a 30-day union-management consultation period, while jobs cuts totaling over 100 workers must see a 90-day consultation. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/paper%20logo.jpg" width="300" height="81"/>
External pressure and the overwhelming vote for industrial action convinced management to discuss its reasons for the redundancies. Peter Ellis, a Unite the Union National Secretary, reported that Friday’s talks between the union and Iggesund reduced the number of job cuts by five, with the potential for possibly saving more jobs to occur in coming consultation sessions. 
 
In the lead-up to the industrial ballot, the ICEM delivered nearly 100 messages of support from global pulp and paper unions to Unite the Union, messages that were distributed on the shop floor of the paper company.

Industrial Action at Iggesund Paper Mill in UK Suspended

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