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UPM Kymmene, one for world’s leading papermakers, is causing job loss and social destruction in its homeland—Finland—as well as in Canada. Last week, two 24-hour strikes shut production at both the firm’s wood operations and papermaking mills in Finland. A strike on 4 November by 7,500 paperworkers called by ICEM affiliate Paperiliitto and one two days earlier by 3,500 woodworkers was caused by UPM’s decision to retrench 672 jobs in the Finnish woodworking sector by closure of three operations and production curtailments at another two. Paperiliitto is also battling UPM’s hard wage and other talks in the paper sector.

UPM Kymmene Bringing Labour Unrest Home to Finland

The ICEM registered a strong letter of protest last week with the government of Serbia-Montenegro over the police beating of Electric Power of Serbia (EPS) Trade Union member Dragan Teofilovic. The trade unionist for the Electric Power Distribution Company of Belgrade was summoned 8 November to a police station where he was questioned over his participation in a strike last summer. Teofilovic then suffered head and arm injuries at the hands of a police inspector. EPS Trade Union said the incident is further proof that the government systematically violates human and trade union rights.

ICEM Protests Serbian Police Brutality over Electric Industry Strike

Swedish affiliate Sif held its Congress in Göteberg on 15-18 November and used a novel working method to discuss issues that replaced lengthy plenary sessions common to many congresses. The 180 delegates attending participated in 11 detailed consultative sessions that were aided by networked computers. The system, first introduced at the 2000 Congress but further refined at last week’s event, facilitated much greater delegate participation in producing consultative documents and summaries of spontaneous discussions. These were then put to a final plenary for approval. Delegates also re-elected President Mari-Ann Krantz and elected two new Vice Presidents, Peter Hellberg and Stefan Carlsson.

Sif of Sweden Holds Congress

China’s coal mines have come under global scrutiny due to weekly disasters that claim the lives of thousands of miners each year. But yet another mine disaster this past weekend has gained headlines. On 20 November, a mass fire spreading across five iron ore mines in Shahe city, Hebei province, claimed the lives of 57 miners with another three still missing. The fire in the privately-run mine was caused by an electric cable that ignited and then spread when flames engulfed wood pillars.

Chinese Iron Ore Operations Latest to Face Safety Deaths

Union leaders at DeBeers’ operations in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa met in Cape Town the week of 22 November for a globalisation school, and concluded the week with strong support for workers victimized by Debswana, the joint venture between DeBeers and Botswana’s government. At a Diamond Employees Network meeting on 27-28 November, the leaders pledged to work through individual DeBeers worksites in the three countries to urge the company to drop charges against 451 Debswana workers, members of the Botswana Mining Workers’ Union (BMWU) who participated in a strike last August.

Union Leaders from DeBeers Hold Conference

To help end corporate support for the Burmese military regime, shareholders in energy multinational Unocal are being urged to back two proposals calling for the adoption of best corporate practices in the company's operations worldwide. 
 
Backing the campaign are the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and the AFL-CIO, which is the national trade union federation in the USA, where Unocal is headquartered. 
 
Shareholders will vote on the resolutions at the company's annual meeting on 20 May. 
 
While many global corporations have withdrawn from Burma, Unocal continues to participate in a 1.2 billion US dollar natural gas joint venture with a firm owned by the Burmese military dictatorship. 
 
Widely condemned for its systematic use of forced labour and other human rights abuses, Burma is subject to US sanctions against new investment. Unocal's investment has exposed the company to potential significant liabilities resulting from two lawsuits filed in US courts by Burmese refugees. They allege Unocal's involvement in human rights violations. 
 
The first shareholder resolution is sponsored by the LongView Collective Investment Fund of the Amalgamated Bank and ICEM American affiliate the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE). It urges the Unocal board of directors to adopt and implement an employee policy based on the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). 
 
The second resolution urges the Unocal board of directors to appoint a special committee of the board to review ways to link executive compensation with the company's social performance. It is sponsored by Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, As You Sow Foundation and Walden Asset Management. 
 
The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), one of the world's largest pension funds with assets totalling 156 billion dollars, has already announced its support for both shareholder proposals. 
 
The ICEM and the global labour movement have made it clear that we will not sit back and watch as multinational corporations continue to prop up the brutal military dictatorship in Burma," said Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary. "We will continue to stand with our brothers and sisters in Burma's outlawed trade union and pro-democracy movements and demand that Unocal follow the example of the many other companies that have disinvested their operations from Burma until full democracy and human rights are restored." 
 
"Working people investing in Unocal want to make sure that Unocal isn't bolstering a regime in Burma which uses forced labour and commits other human rights abuses," commented Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer. "The long overdue recent release of Burma democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is a positive sign, but the military junta has yet to show that it is genuinely changing. Until the pro-democracy and trade union movements are allowed full freedom without curbs or harassment, the international demand for economic pressure on the Burmese regime is likely to continue," said Trumka. 
 
The activities of the two labour federations are part of a global initiative by trade unions to restore democracy and respect for human rights in Burma. In November 2000, the ILO took the extraordinary measure of urging its members to "review their relations with Burma" and "ensure that such relations do not perpetuate the system of forced or compulsory labour in that country." This has prompted an expanded effort among labour unions to urge foreign companies to withdraw from Burma. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the European Trade Union Confederation issued a call in April for the European Union and its member governments to implement effective economic measures to put pressure on Burma. Britain's Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged UK investors to support the Amalgamated Bank/PACE resolution.

Unocal Shareholders Urged to Back Corporate Best Practice

Unions are holding coordinated rallies in America and Taiwan to mark the first anniversary of a lock-out in the USA. 
 
The demos are part of global union action to secure basic labour rights for workers at a plant in Ponca City, Oklahoma. On 8 May 2001, Taiwanese-controlled Continental Carbon announced that it was locking out its workers there until they agreed to huge cuts in wages and benefits. The lock-out continues to this day. The plant makes carbon black for the tyre industry. 
 
In a one-mile march through Ponca City today, the local community will gather to recognise workers and their families who have survived a year of hardship. The march will continue out of town to the Continental Carbon plant, where there will be a protest and a release of balloons. The event is backed by PACE, the American paper, allied industrial, chemical and energy workers' union. Speakers at today's rally include Ponca City Mayor Tom Leonard, Oklahoma State Senator Paul Muegge, PACE Region Seven Vice-President Lloyd Walters and Jim Curry, who is the Oklahoma State President of the US national labour federation AFL-CIO. 
 
"The entire community is standing by us in our efforts to end this lock-out," said Todd Carlson, spokesperson for the locked out workers. 
 
He praised efforts by the community, including a public hearing this April which blasted the economic and environmental hardship that the company had inflicted on workers and residents. Various protests have been raised about the plant's environmental impact.
Carlson said that workers had gathered over 5,000 signatures from residents on a petition calling for an end to the lock-out. He and fellow workers intend to deliver this to authorities in Taiwan next month. 
 
"The community is fed up," Carlson pointed out. "Continental Carbon will eventually learn that doing business in this country and in Oklahoma is not just taking with both hands and slapping anyone who gets in your way." 
 
 
TAIWANESE DEMO 
 
In Taiwan, meanwhile, unions and other prominent campaigning organisations rallied in front of the parent company's headquarters yesterday. They also protested outside the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). The demonstrators urged Koo Chun-Fu to end the lock-out and respect labour rights. Koo chairs both the SEF and the family-run Koo Group business empire, which controls Continental Carbon. "All of us were assembled here because we feel ashamed of the Koos' treatment of US labour and the environment," said the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU). "We should unite and force the Koos to solve this issue." 
The TCTU and the Taiwan Petroleum Workers' Union (TPWU) organised the demonstration. 
 
To get the message across, they brought along an outsize "Anti-Lockout Key" and said Koo should use it to "open up" the situation and end the lock-out. 
 
Key points are nothing new to Koo. As chair of the SEF, he has often been involved in delicate discussions between Taipei and Beijing. Yet SEF representatives who met the demonstrators refused even to touch either the key or the accompanying "Anti-Lockout File." 
 
"We won't give up," the Taiwanese unions insist. They point to Koo Group shareholder meetings this June, which will be "a great opportunity to make an impact on the shareholders, the company's management and the public." 
GLOBAL SUPPORT 
 
Both PACE and the TPWU are affiliated to the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which is backing the campaign. 
 
"The first anniversary of Continental Carbon's lock-out at Poca City is a deeply shameful one for the company," said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs today. "This year-long lock-out is a violation of workers' internationally recognised basic rights and would be illegal in many countries. On behalf of more than 20 million workers worldwide united within the ICEM, I salute the struggle of our American affiliate, PACE. We pledge full support to PACE and its members. Continental Carbon must end the lock-out immediately and bargain in good faith. 
 
"Trade unions in Taiwan have been conducting an exemplary campaign in support of their American colleagues," Higgs added. "We congratulate the ICEM-affiliated TPWU and the TCTU on this outstanding example of global solidarity in action." 
 
 
POLLUTION PROBLEMS 
 
Back in the US, Continental Carbon is also at the centre of a dispute between Ponca citizens' groups and the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The groups include representatives of PACE and of the Ponca Indian tribe. 
 
At a news conference in Oklahoma City yesterday, the groups accused the DEQ of acting to protect Continental Carbon's profits rather than the environment and people of Oklahoma. The citizens are calling on the DEQ to pursue additional enforcement against Continental Carbon. They also want the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office and the US Environmental Protection Agency to intercede and investigate the DEQ's relationship with the company for possible conflicts of interest. 
 
 
Among other things, the groups allege that the DEQ privately assured the company, immediately after issuing two separate Violation Notices this February, that no penalties would have to be paid. 
 
One of the notices followed a complaint by Continental Carbon employees, who suspected that the company's drinking water system was unsafe. They also believed that the hazardous chemical dibutylphthalate was being poured down the laboratory drain. The ensuing DEQ investigation found the water supply system to be a "potential health hazard", and the hazardous chemical was found in the laboratory sewer. The second notice charged the company with wastewater system violations. The most serious of these concerned illegal discharges of hydrocarbon-contaminated wastewater.

Year-long lock-out sparks protests in US and Taiwan

Led by Australian mining and allied workers' union the CFMEU, the protest marked a further escalation in the campaign by unions and others worldwide to instil some corporate ethics into Rio Tinto, the world's biggest mining company. 
 
The Melbourne demonstration was outside Rio Tinto's headquarters for Australia, where the company has one of its most extensive mining operations. Australia is also the scene of a major drive by Rio Tinto to push trade unions out of its mines and end collective bargaining. 
 
 
<img height="253" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/mel10.gif" width="380"/>
"Rio Tinto: Corporate Greed, Global Grief" 
said a huge banner unfurled by demonstrators in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia, today.
The multinational's anti-union stance in many parts of the world has made it a priority target for a global trade union campaign coordinated by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The ICEM and its affiliated unions worldwide, including the CFMEU, are allying themselves with a wide range of campaigning organisations on environmental issues and human rights, notably worker rights and indigenous people's rights. Rio Tinto is currently under heavy fire on all these counts. 
 
One feature of the campaign will be parliamentary questions about Rio Tinto in a number of countries where it operates. Last week, 29 British parliamentarians signed up to a highly critical motion about Rio Tinto in the House of Commons (see ICEM UPDATE 24/1998). The company's global corporate headquarters is in London. 
 
"Rio Tinto makes much of the fact that it is a global operator," CFMEU National Secretary John Sutton told the Melbourne demonstrators. "Now it's finally being made to answer internationally for its actions, such as its aggressive anti-union campaign in Australia and overseas." 
 
Sutton said it is important for Rio Tinto's overseas operations to be exposed to parliamentary and public scrutiny in Australia, in order to counter the company's public relations machine. The company claimed an excellent worker health and safety record, he pointed out, but that was not the real story. He cited the compensation case brought against Rio Tinto in the UK courts by a former employee, who claims he contracted cancer because of inadequate safety provisions at Rio Tinto's Rossing uranium mine in Namibia. 
 
"Few people know that Rio Tinto mined uranium in Namibia during the 1970s and 1980s in direct violation of UN resolutions," Sutton added. "Those are the sorts of issues the questions and reports to governments will bring out. We believe that once people have a clearer understanding of the problems Rio Tinto has caused around the world there will be pressure on the company to change. 
 
"It's time Rio Tinto adopted progressive and ethical policies," Sutton insisted. "Rio Tinto must start working with, and not against, its employees, communities and the environment." 
 

 
<hr/>
 
PROUD TO BE ANTI-UNION 
 
In its new annual report, now being distributed to shareholders, Rio Tinto writes: "At our operations throughout the world, we respect the right of employees to choose for themselves whether or not they wish to be represented collectively." 
 
 

<img height="284" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/hunter1.gif" width="346"/>
 
But the pictures below tell a very different story. Broadcast on Australian television, they show a ceremony at the company's Hunter Valley No. 1 mine in Australia on 25 June last year. The overwhelming majority of the workers there were on strike over the company's refusal to conclude a collective agreement. So the company mined small amounts of coal by using white-collar staff plus just seven workers who had signed individual employment contracts. 
 
 

<img height="282" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/hunter3.gif" width="353"/>
 
At the ceremony, trophies were handed out celebrating the "First Coal Mined at Hunter Valley No. 1 Mine by Non-Union Labour." 
 
Footage of this bizarre little rite is included in a new documentary on Rio Tinto, Naked Into The Jungle.

Rio Tinto: Australian Demo Launches New Global Protests

Canadian workers have emerged victorious from a six-month strike against cement multinational Lafarge. 
 
Members of the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) ended the dispute at the company's Bath, Ontario facility last Saturday when they ratified a new agreement by 77 per cent. They will return to work on 2 July. 
<img height="168" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/lafarge4.jpg" width="250" alt=""/>
photo: CEP 
The four-year deal includes gains for the workers in wages and pensions and an end to the employment of all strikebreakers hired during the dispute. Disagreements about overtime and subcontracting have also been resolved, with the company committing itself to hire 17 per cent more staff at the facility. 
 
"The overtime issue has been resolved through a voluntary system," the local union's website states. "The contracting out language has been reworked in a way that actually strengthens our job security. The company has committed to hire 11 more persons and given a commitment to a minimum level of union members. Not only do both parties benefit from this agreement, but there are now a few more jobs available to the general workforce." 
 
"This is the best kind of union victory," said CEP Ontario Vice President Cec Makowski. "Not only did we win on the wage front, but less hours means safer working conditions for these workers and more time with their families." 
 
Before the strike, workers were putting in 300 to 400 hours of overtime a year, and some were on call 24 hours a day. 
 
"Other employers should take note of the priority our members and our union place on the hours of work issue," commented Doug Chisholm, local union president. "This small group stood up against a huge multinational company and they won. 
 
"I'm extremely proud of our members and our union which provided unwavering support throughout this difficult strike," he added. 
 
During the dispute, the CEP received solidarity from other unions, both in Canada and beyond. In the US, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers and the Paper Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers International Union, both of which represent Lafarge workers, mobilised in support of the CEP. So did British unions the GMB and the Transport & General Workers' Union, which also have membership at Lafarge. 
 
Like the CEP, these unions are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

Canadian LaFarge Strikers Win

Namibia should nationalise mines belonging to the Tsumeb corporation (TCL), the country's miners demanded today. Their call follows moves by holding company Gold Fields Namibia to put TCL into liquidation. 
 
The jobs of some 2,000 workers at TCL are now under threat - about a quarter of the workforce in Namibia's important mining industry. The company has been mining copper, lead, zinc, sulphur and other minerals in Namibia for the past 55 years. 
 
In a curt note to workers on Friday, manager J. B. Ayres announced that "all assets, monies and liabilities of the company are frozen with immediate effect by the courts. The action affects all employees including management." A liquidator would now be "responsible for the realisation of the company assets and the distribution of these funds. These actions are now out of the control of the management of this company." Ayres did, however, add that the workers' provident fund is "intact". Workers' hostel services would continue "until further notice". 
 
If TCL really is bankrupt, this is "mainly due to mismanagement," commented Peter Naholo. He is General Secretary of the Mineworkers Union of Namibia (MUN). "Since its inception," Naholo said, TCL has been "run by apartheid managers" who have been "generally incompetent and corrupt." Condemning the company's failure to give advance warning to its workers and other stakeholders, Naholo called Ayres' note "materially flawed, in that no court has as yet 'frozen' any assets." And the country's Minister of Mines and Energy, Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, said the lack of advance notice put TCL in breach of Namibia's Minerals Act. 
 
The MUN has repeatedly warned the Namibian government that TCL/Gold Fields is not a reliable investor. The union has faced a whole series of conflicts with the company, notably a strike over pay in 1996. "Today the Government is expressing their shock," Naholo said. "We must point out that the MUN is not shocked. We know what TCL is." 
 
The company is blaming the closure on the fall in world copper prices - and on the 1996 strike, a claim echoed in the mine and energy minister's statement. "The strike resulted in a premature closure of the De Wet shaft at Tsumeb mine," the minister said, "although mining from this shaft was scheduled to come to an end in 1997." 
 
This is a "flagrant lie," Naholo retorts. "De Wet shaft was closed in June 1996, two months prior to the strike. This is all the more reason to believe that TCL/Gold Fields has since 1996 had a perfectly planned hidden agenda for the abandonment of the mines in question." 
 
The MUN is determined to oppose the liquidation, and is demanding a commission of enquiry into TCL/Gold Fields' affairs. Naholo called on all other TCL/Gold Fields creditors to join the union's campaign. The Goldfields board of directors should be "investigated in terms of the Companies Act for recklessly dealing with the company's affairs," he insisted. "If found liable, they should be apprehended and locked up for sabotage of the Namibian economy." The company must not be allowed to "abandon Namibia under the smokescreen of liquidation, thus leaving the people they have exploited to clean up the mess for them." 
 
Meanwhile, Naholo pointed out, TCL's abandonment of its three mines has provided a "golden opportunity for the Government to nationalise and establish a sound and economically viable mining operation at the three 'people's mines'." 
 
TCL/Gold Fields' behaviour has also been condemned by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the MUN is affiliated. 
 
"This is hit-and-run capitalism at its very worst," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. "Through the ICEM, mining and allied workers worldwide will give every possible support to our Namibian colleagues in their just struggle."

Namibian Mine "Bankruptcy": Union Demands Nationalisation

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