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<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
ICEM Argentinean affiliate Sindicato Único de Trabajadores del Neumático Argentino (SUTNA) signed a historic agreement recently with the employers’ association for the rubber sector in the country. 
 
In a SUTNA publication, General Secretary Pedro Wasiejko expressed his satisfaction as, for the first time in 31 years, the union managed to reach an agreement for the entire sector. In addition to detailed salary benchmarks, the agreement contains language on a large number of positive accomplishments, including the establishment of health and safety committees, anti-discrimination measures, a 25% retirement bonus, and, perhaps most importantly, the elimination of subcontracting in the production process. 
<img height="100" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMrubber.JPG" width="100"/>
Specific salary increases were agreed for several different companies, including Pirelli, Bridgestone’s Firestone division, and FATE S.A.I.C.I., the Argentine tyre producer. The collective agreement not only states a percentage level for basic and average salary increases at different companies, but also sets minimum salaries for the entire rubber sector. The agreement is binding on any new company that might enter Argentina’s rubber sector. 
 
Regrettably, despite achieving the excellent labour agreement, a major problem with a tyre manufacturer occurred almost immediately: Fábrica Neumáticos de Avanzada, a company in Córdoba, Argentina, making competition tyres, began to dismiss workers for no other reason than that they had become SUTNA members. The conflict, a clear violation of the recently signed agreement, has seen 25 workers at the plant getting the sack thus far. 
 
The ICEM’s Argentinean rubber affiliate cited “union discrimination” as the reason behind the sackings, because management had been attempting to set up a company union in the plant. SUTNA has staged a strike at the plant, and organised a 200-worker march from the worksite to the provincial Ministry of Work in Córdoba. 
 
SUTNA succinctly stated: “The conflict in Córdoba continues.

SUTNA Signs Argentinean Master Rubber Contract, But Problem Company Persists

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Trade union representatives from Sappi paper mills in Europe, South Africa, and the US gathered in La Roche, Belgium, 22-23 September, to discuss the South African-based company’s European restructuring measures. This restructuring has already led to numerous – and sometimes massive – redundancies at several mills. 
 
The seminar, hosted jointly by the Belgian Unions ABVV/FGTB and ACV BI/CSC BI, was attended by representatives from both ICEM and the European Mine, Chemical, and Energy Workers’ Federation (EMCEF). The two-day event primarily focused on Sappi’s “Project Everest,” a restructuring programme announced in February 2006 for the company’s European operations. Project Everest is aimed at improving the company’s operating income by the end of 2007. 
 
Sappi workers’ representatives from Austria, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, and the UK, who currently face different stages of the restructuring, shared their experiences, while trade unionists from South Africa and the US added to the discussion by updating the participants on situations inside their mills. 
<img height="285" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0609Sappi.jpg" width="380" alt=""/>
Union participants in La Roche produced a joint letter from the Global Union Sappi Network to company Chairman Eugene van As, stating common concern over the company’s cost-cutting measures. The letter says that the restructuring is potentially damaging not only to the company’s workers, but also to the company itself. 
 
The letter requested clarification of management’s development strategy for Sappi. The letter also asked van As to direct his reply to Pasco Dyani of ICEM affiliate Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers’ Union (CEPPWAWU) of South Africa, who serves as Chairman of ICEM’s Global Sappi Union Network.

Sappi Trade Unionists Meet to Discuss Company’s European Restructuring

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont 
General Sondhi Boonyaratglin 
 
Government House 
Pitsunalok Road 
Bangkok 10300 
Thailand 
 
Brussels, 5 October 2006 
 
Dear General, 
Dear Prime Minister, 
 
Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, today, the ICEM Presidium, the policy setting body of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions, demands the immediate and full restoration of civil rights and democratic freedoms in your country. 
 
The ICEM Presidium members see it as an important priority to lift the current martial law at once. In addition, elections need to be held as soon as possible. 
 
The restoration of fundamental human rights is a necessary and urgently needed first step so that your country can be put back on its route to democracy. As part of this, we call upon you to remove, without delay, the whole range of political restrictions that are currently in place, so that the situation for Thai citizens can be normalised. 
 
The ICEM is scheduled to hold its 4th World Congress in Bangkok next year, from 22 to 24 November 2007. 
 
Thanking you for your consideration. 
 
Yours sincerely, 
 
Fred Higgs 
General Secretary. 

Cc: Embassy of Thailand in Brussels

ICEM letter to Thailand interim government

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The Imerys announcement last July that the French-based building materials company would relocate its UK paper coating operations to Brazil, and sack over 600 workers in the Cornwall region, was a shock to workers, their families, and the communities and towns in the UK’s South West. 
 
The news followed prior closure announcements, a 100-member workplace in Lamotte-Beuvron, France, where work was being shifted to Hungary, and job reductions at the Lixhe plant in Belgium. Now comes word that Imerys has been planning even more sackings; jobs at its Minerali SpA plant in Massa, Italy, where workers recently struck in protest to jobs being moved to Turkey. 
 
In the UK, ICEM affiliate Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) has called for a mass march and rally on Saturday, 18 November, in St. Austell, Cornwall, in protest not only to Imerys’ community-wrecking job redundancies, but the company’s bad-faith bargaining in the official consultation process. 
<img height="55" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/UKTGWU.gif" width="100"/>
The TGWU and two other UK trade unions that represent Imerys workers in the region are preparing memberships for an industrial ballot. In late September, Imerys’ workers gave the unions a mandate to call for a ballot when the time and circumstances are ripe. The company has turned a deaf ear on TGWU ideas for job retention and job creation opportunities, and the redundancy package that has been tabled is ridiculously low. 
 
Recently, in what the TGWU is calling “misleading spin,” the company claimed that a large number of UK workers have already opted for the voluntary redundancy package. A representative of FO Céramique, the French ICEM affiliate which is working with TGWU to correct Imerys’ behaviour, was told the same at Paris headquarters. 
However, Imerys’ count in the UK merely was on the number of workers who had responded to an inquiry to receive more information on the redundancy package. 
 <img height="60" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/FranceFO.jpg" width="100"/>
The closure announcement of the company’s Minerali SpA operation in Italy is even more inexcusable. Only a few weeks ago, Imerys CEO Gérard Buffière answered a question from an Italian trade union CGIL representative on the subject, at a meeting with other trade union representatives present, including the head of the European Works Council, Serge Gonzalez from FO Céramique. 
 
Buffière responded by saying that the Italian plant would not be touched. Gonzalez and FO Céramique took note, but then an alert came from Italy that jobs would be slashed and a strike commenced. 
 
Striking Imerys workers in Italy ended that industrial action last week when news came that the company withdrew its prior announcement of closing the Massa plant. Negotiations will now restart in Italy on the future of the plant. 
<img height="85" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ItalyCGIL.gif" width="65"/>
FO Céramique’s Gonzalez is currently preparing a document, to be signed by all Imerys unions in Europe. An earlier statement by the workers representatives of the Imerys European Works Council described the current relocation wave as profit driven. The company has posted excellent economic returns, and has no compelling reasons to cause such social distress.

18 November Date for Mass Rally against Imerys in UK’s South West

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
The 12-day strike by members of US affiliate United Steelworkers (USW) against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. continues with no negotiations scheduled. The strike by 15,000 trade unionists at 16 US and Canadian plants began on 5 October, and is one of the biggest North American industrial strikes of this decade. 
 
Workers are striking the US-based tyre company for retention of job security guarantees won in 2003 negotiations. They also resist company proposals for steep wage and retirement benefit cuts. With Goodyear teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in 2003, the USW granted financial concessions in exchange for job security and job-retention protections. 
<img height="100" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMrubber.JPG" width="100"/>
This year, with Goodyear in excellent financial health, and with 2005 figures showing that North American production accounts for nearly one-half of its total US$19.72 billion in revenues, the company came to the bargaining table with intentions to take even more from its workforce. In addition, it proposes to close two tyre plants, employing 2,190 workers in Gadsden, Alabama, and Tyler, Texas. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs has called on all ICEM’s rubber sector unions that represent Goodyear workers to monitor tyre inventories and production, so as to ensure that they are not undermining the USW's strike. The company claims that some US and Canadian production is continuing with supervisory personnel doing the work. Tyre production also continues from Goodyear's two non-union rubber facilities in Lawton, Oklahoma, and in Napanee, Ontario. 
 
The 12 US plants, eight tyre operations and four engineered rubber products operations in which 13,000 USW members are on strike, are located in: Gadsden and Tyler; Marysville, Ohio; St. Mary's, Ohio; Lincoln, Nebraska; Tonawanda, New York State; Topeka, Kansas; Union City, Tennessee; Danville, Virginia; Sun Prairie, Wisconsin; Fayetteville, North Carolina; and Akron, Ohio. 
 
The four Canadian plants in which 2,000 USW members are striking are at: Collingwood, Ontario; Owen Sound, Ontario; the Toronto, Ontario, logistics center; and the Toronto commercial retread plant.

No Talks Slated in USW Strike of Goodyear Rubber

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The second Trade Union Seminar for Repsol-YPF trade unionists took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 9-11 October. Repsol-YPF, a Spanish-Argentinean multinational, employs 16,000 workers worldwide and ranks in the top ten of oil and gas companies. 
 
ICEM affiliate Fiteqa, with the active support of CC.OO’s Paz y Solidaridad Foundation (FPS) was again leading this initiative. Trade unionists from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba met to debate around their common concerns and to create a union network. ICEM was represented at the event by its Latin-American Vice-President and its Energy Officer. 
<img height="81" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SpainFITEQA.jpg" width="100"/>
The seminar gave participants the ability to compare their industrial, economic, social and political realities as well as to reinforce their unity and solidarity. For Isidor Boix, International Secretary of Fetiqa, “the level of discussions and the commitment shown by all the colleagues who participated constitutes a very sound basis for the future work of the network” 
 
The Repsol-YPF unions have also decided during this meeting to set up a web site to extend and deepen the information resources of the workers they represent. At the end of the sessions, representatives of the union network met representatives of Repsol-YPF to introduce their future work plan. 
 
The next meeting will take place in Peru in October 2007, while the webpage should be launched over the coming months.

Repsol Union Representatives from 9 Countries Meet in Argentina

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
ICEM Affiliate Federación de Industrias Químicas y Afines de Comisiones Obreras (Fiteqa) has, together with the Spanish metalworkers union, Federación Estatal Minerometalúrgica, both of which affiliate to CC.OO., published a guide book on how to deal with safety related problems at work. 
 
The guide book follows a change in the law in Spain, which affects both refineries and chemical complexes, and gives workers guidance on how to act in case of an accident. 
<img height="66" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SpainFlag.gif" width="100"/>
According to the authors, the guide should be a helpful tool to get more companies in the said sectors to accept propositions by Spain’s social partners to create more health and safety committees. The handbook discusses the urgent need to create such committees in all enterprises. 
 
The guide highlights the need for more and better information and communications between the largest companies in the sector. Its full name in Spanish is “Guía para la implantación de la Coordinación de Actividades Empresariales. Desarrollo de la Ley de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales en las Refinerías y complejos petroquímicos de España.”  It can be found <a href="http://www.fiteqa.ccoo.es/salud/Documentos/GuiaImplanta.CoordinacionActividadesEmpres..pdf">here</a>.

Spanish Health/Safety Guide for the Chemical/Metal Sector

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
Croatian ICEM affiliate, the Autonomous Trade Union of Energy, Chemical, and Non-Metal Workers’ (EKN) of Croatia, held its Sixth Congress on 18-19 October, and enthusiastically endorsed an agreement to form, with the Croatian Metal Workers’ Union, a Confederation of Metal and Chemical Workers’ Union of Croatia. 
 
The EKN Congress gave a vote of confidence to Ivan Tomac, re-electing him President for the next term. Upon congratulating Tomac on re-election, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs commended the union in forging the bond with the Metal Workers’ Union by stating, “We see this initiative as a major breakthrough in the process of uniting organized industry workers in your country and the whole region.” 
<img height="212" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0610CroatiaTomac.jpg" width="300"/> 
 
EKN President Ivan Tomac
A special Inaugural Congress of the new confederation was held following the EKN Congress. The creation of this new industrial confederation of workers, now the largest in Croatia, was preceded by three years of negotiations and the signing of a Declaration of Intent in October 2005. Establishing the confederation, which now has its own statutory bodies and president, is seen as a way for the two unions to adjust their respective financial and staff policies with the intent to fully merge the organizations in two years’ time. 
 
The new Confederation holds its doors open to all trade unions in the relevant industries who wish to join it and make it stronger. The ICEM welcomes this initiative as a unification breakthrough in bringing together a labour movement in a part of the world that has been plagued by so much division. 
 
Besides attendance at the Congress by the ICEM and the European Mine, Chemical, and Energy Workers’ Federation (EMCEF), to which EKN is affiliated on the global and European levels, guests from fraternal unions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovakia, and Croatia were also in attendance.

Croatia’s Power and Chemical Union Moves to Forge Bonds with Metalworkers

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
ICEM affiliate, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), again called for an absolute zero level of tolerance on health and safety incidences inside South Africa’s mining industry. 
 
That message again had to be delivered following a pair of seismic events, which caused death on 23 October at AngloGold Ashanti’s TauTona gold mine near Carletonville, South Africa. The tremors brought cave-ins and resulted in the deaths of five miners, who were working some 2,700 metres underground in one of the world’s deepest mines. 
The NUM questions why miners are even working in an environment so hazardous. AngloGold’s TauTona mine had already seen the deaths of another five miners, with ten others severely injured, earlier this year in similar rock falls. Tremors struck the mine southwest of Johannesburg in separate occurrences in January and February. In July 2005, two more miners were killed at TauTona when a tremor caused a rock slide. 
<img height="103" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SouthafricaNUM.gif" width="100"/>
The two 23 October tremors, which struck near a production seam nearly three kilometres inside the earth, occurred 25 minutes apart, and registered magnitudes of 1.9 and 2.3 on the Richter scale. The resulting rock slides also injured two other miners, one seriously. 
 
South African Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjea questioned the logic of miners working so deep in such environments. “In view of an industry-accepted target of zero fatalities, gold mines are the worst performers,” she said, in a statement on the most recent TauTona tragedy. 
 
AngloGold produced 120,000 ounces of gold from TauTona in fiscal quarter ending in June 2006. That figure represents 8.5% of the company’s total global gold production.

Earth Tremors Bring Death in AngloGold’s South African TauTona Mine

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A 4 January pipeline leak of some 4.5 tonnes of the chemical hexamethylene diamine (HMDA) at a BASF nylon intermediates plant near Bellingham, Teesside UK, was termed a “major incident,” causing injuries to 37 workers, including one worker still in serious condition at a North-East UK hospital. 
 
Two other workers had been hospitalised up until late last week. One of the two underwent plastic surgery for burns to the face. Hexamethylene diamine is a component in the manufacture of synthetic material nylons, and is a corrosive substance which causes chemical burns when contact with the skin and eyes is made. It also causes damage if breathed into the lungs. 
 
The incident injured both BASF staff and contract workers employed at the chemical plant. 
<img height="90" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/UKGMB.gif" width="90"/>
ICEM UK affiliate GMB, which represents some workers at the plant, said it will involve itself fully in investigations now underway by the UK’s Health and Safety Executive and the Environmental Agency. “When there is an accident of this nature, we always have questions about safety and why it happened,” GMB Regional Secretary Tom Brennan told a local newspaper, the Northern Echo. “I can assure you, there will be questions raised over safety procedures, equipment, and machinery. There will be a complete review.” 
 
Twenty of the workers were decontaminated at the worksite, but 17 others were rushed to hospitals. 
<img height="99" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMchemical.jpg" width="100"/>
BASF, the world’s largest chemical concern, has had two other serious health and safety occurrences in recent years at this operational site. The German company’s previous site, in Wilton, a town close to Bellingham, was struck by a massive fire in 1995. And four years later, a worker who inhaled cyanide fumes died. BASF was fined ₤20,000 in 2002 for that workplace death. 
 
BASF bought the nylon intermediate plant on Seal Sands Road in Bellingham in 1985.

Chemical Leak at BASF in UK Injures 37, One Seriously

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