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The above-mentioned title was one of the main mottos of the Workers Group, which was coordinated by the ICEM, at the recent Experts&rsquo; Meeting of the International Labour Office (ILO) on Hazardous Chemical Substances. This meeting took place from 10 to 13 December in Geneva. 
 
The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss how ILO instruments, as well as other tools concerning occupational safety and health, and hazardous substances, could be best incorporated into a new policy framework and action plan. 
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The meeting examined the best practices and appropriate national legal frameworks to promote safe and healthy working environments. It also reviewed the roles of governments, and of employers&rsquo; and workers&rsquo; organisations, as well as ways of establishing tripartite consultation mechanisms on occupational safety and health, and of ensuring that workers and their organisations participate in the consultation mechanisms. 
 
The meeting further considered the impact of new and ongoing initiatives related to hazardous substances, including the UN-wide Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) and the Globally Harmonized System of Chemical Classification and Labeling (GHS). 
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On the basis of the background paper prepared by the ILO (which <a href="http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/techmeet/mepfhs07/mepfhs-r.pdf">can be found here</a>) and the subsequent actions of the Office, the meeting adopted recommendations, including on the need to increase, speed up and integrate the processes for the assessment and management of existing and new hazardous substances in the development and marketing of chemicals. This needs to take into account the special requirements for the protection of all workers, in particular for precarious and vulnerable workers, as well as facilitate access to information on preventive and protective measures. 
 
Other recommendations were on promoting the ratification and implementation of the up-to-date ILO&rsquo;s general OSH (Occupational Health and Safety) and chemical safety instruments, including ILO Conventions 155, 170, 174 and 187, as a comprehensive and coherent basis for the sound management of chemicals and the establishment; and on the need to increase and strengthen the dialogue and joint actions of employers and workers throughout all levels, including at the global scale, on OSH and chemical safety issues. 
 
&ldquo;It is an obvious success to see the main parameters of the Action Plan adopted by the ICEM World Conference for the Chemical Industries, which took place in 2006 in Trinidad &amp; Tobago, reflected in the final document of this ILO Meeting. ICEM and its affiliates should increase their efforts in protecting our members&rsquo; health and safety by using all the instruments at international level&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda.

Decent Work Must be Safe Work

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In a bold move aimed at narrowing the disparity between high and low wage earners in Japan, the Trade Union Confederation Rengo, on 4 December, adopted an official policy of raising pay levels for contract workers in its 2008 spring wage negotiations. 
 
The policy was adopted at Rengo's Central Committee meeting, and means that now it and Japanese Trade Union Confederation UI Zensen have prioritised that contract and temporary workers receive equal treatment to that of full-time employees in the country's social-work agenda. 
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Rengo's Central Committee also adopted a policy aimed at curbing the long work hours traditionally performed by Japanese workers. Rengo will demand that the legal premium for overtime pay be raised to 50% for work done on weekdays, and 100% on holidays. Currently, overtime pay is formulated at 25% above straight-time pay for weekdays and 35% for work performed on holidays. 
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In the spring 2008 wage offensive, Rengo will demand that companies sign a minimum wage agreement for contract workers, ensuring them of a salary that is higher than the official minimum wage. It will also push for revision of Japan's Worker Dispatch Law. That proposed change will guarantee more rights for contract workers and temporary workers. 
 
Both Japanese trade union confederations, Rengo and UI Zensen, are acutely aware that the number of workers recruited for full-time employment has decreased, while recruitment of temporary workers, or workers through labour staffing agencies, has dramatically increased.

Rengo&#039;s Central Committee Moves to Prioritise Higher Pay, Better Rights for Contract Workers

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Last month, full worker participation in a future, pan-European company became a reality with agreement by chemicals firm BASF that creates a European Works Council, and includes workers' representatives on its supervisory board. 
 
The employee participation agreement was signed by management and a special negotiating body representing BASF workers in Ludwigshafen, Germany. It is a final step in BASF converting from a German company, or Aktiengesselschaft (AG), to a European company, or Societas Europaea (SE). That transformation is expected to occur early in 2008. 
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Following that, BASF's supervisory board will be reduced from 20 to 12 members, with six of those to be workers' representatives. The newly-formed European Works Council will consist of 23 members from 12 European nations, of which eight will be from Germany. 
 
The agreement strengthens the participation of all European employees in the company. BASF said the accord will improve corporate governance. Legally, the new employee participation agreement will govern cross-border information and make sure that the consultation process involves workers. 
 
That social partnership process will convene three times yearly. In addition, the European Mine, Chemical, and Energy Workers' Federation (EMCEF) will hold the right to be present during all European Works Council meetings, as well as at the SE supervisory board meetings. ICEM German affiliate IGBCE called the BASF negotiated pact a yardstick by which to measure other companies seeking to become European entities.

BASF Signs Accord for Pan-European Worker Representation on Company Panels

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On 4 December, 500 European trade unionists from 17 countries gathered in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, for a European Day of Action against consumer products maker Unilever&rsquo;s harsh restructuring course.
The event, sponsored by the European Federation of Food, Agriculture, and Tourism Trade Unions (EFFAT), the European Mine, Chemical, and Energy Federation (EMCEF), and the European Works Council of Unilever, included a mass meeting, followed by a march to Unilever&rsquo;s Rotterdam headquarters, where a formal declaration was presented to senior executives.
<img height="85" alt="" src="" width="100" align="absMiddle" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img height="46" alt="" src="" width="146" align="absMiddle" />
Globally, trade unions in a number of countries expressed solidarity with the European Action Day. In Mumbai, India, some 150 unionists, organised by the All India Council of Unilever Unions, held a mass rally on that day to protest the cuts. And in South Africa, Unilever workers from two plants conducted plant-gate pickets during the noon hour.
The six-point Rotterdam declaration presented to Unilever includes: clarity and perspectives from Unilever to European workers of the company; a halt to the current restructuring plan; an end to job dismissals and plant closures; respectful treatment to Unilever&rsquo;s No. 1 asset &ndash; its workers; and a call for full social dialogue with workers&rsquo; representatives to find alternative solutions to job cuts. 
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In early August 2007, the Anglo-Dutch company announced a global reorganisation plan that would make redundant one-tenth of its 180,000 employees. Of those 20,000 job cuts, 10,000 to 12,000 were from European operations, with 20 to 25 plants endangered over the next 3 years.

700 March in Rotterdam against Unilever on European Day of Action

The ICEM welcomes the news that Thaneth Jhanluechai, a paperworker at New Zealand-owned SIG Combibloc in the Rayong industrial area of Thailand, was reinstated to his job. Global trade union actions forced the reinstatement, particularly in New Zealand, where Rank Group, an equity house with a portfolio of forest product assets, bought the 420-worker SIG Combibloc paper packaging factory from a Swiss company last spring.
Thaneth Jhanluechai will return to work this week with full backpay and benefits dating to when he was unjustly sacked, 4 May&nbsp;2007. 
 
Jhanluechai is a leader of the SIG branch union of ICEM affiliate Paper and Printing Federation of Thailand (PPFT). He was sacked by SIG Combibloc for encouraging workers to honour the Songkran holiday. He did this while serving as vice president of the PPFT branch union and as a member of the factory&rsquo;s Employment Committee.
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The discharge came as SIG Combibloc was readying the plant for Rank Group&rsquo;s purchase. To do this, it eliminated the 8-hour work day for 12-hour shifts, a change that would reduce workers fixed pay and would cut their shift differential pay. Thaneth&rsquo;s call for workers to stay home on a legal Thai holiday was reason for discharge, said managers, because it damaged the business. 
 
Following Rank Group&rsquo;s purchase of the Rayong paper converting facility in June, ICEM took up Thaneth&rsquo;s case. In a letter to Rank&rsquo;s CEO, Graeme Hart, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said this &ldquo;matter concerns the employment status of Thaneth Jhanluechai, a conscientious lab technician who was unjustly fired by managers of the Swiss-based company, shortly before the purchase by your company of SIG Combibloc. He is a 10-year employee who has always gone above and beyond the call of duty at this enterprise.&rdquo; 
 
New Zealand labour unions, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and the National Distribution Union (NDU), both ICEM affiliates, played key roles in this just reversal, as did Union Network International (UNI). 
 
The pressure, including a manifestation at the New Zealand embassy in Bangkok during the recent ICEM Congress, forced Rank Group to send a senior manager to Rayong. A meeting between the branch union committee, PPFT, and Rank Group representatives occurred on 27 November. Managers listened to six major grievances, and heard first-hand how workplace leaders felt over the unfair treatment of Thaneth. 
 
Two separate meetings occurred next, both on 6 December, one to address the sacking, the other to address the issues. The firing was reversed and the issues, including obstruction of union activity, contract labour matters, unfair work rules, discrimination and favouritism, now get full hearing. The ICEM congratulates everyone involved with the result of this 9-month struggle for justice.

Justice Restored with Reinstatement of Thai Paperworker, Thaneth Jhanluechai

Ref: ICEM07/ENGC/124 
 
 
 
 
Tony Burke, 
Assistant General Secretary 
AMICUS 
 
 
Brussels, 13 November 2007 
 
 
Dear Brother Tony, 
 
It is with great sadness that I&rsquo;ve learnt about the death of Christopher Massey at the Kimberly-Clark tissue mill in Cumbria. On behalf of the ICEM members and its staff I ask you to convey our deepest condolences to brother Massey&rsquo;s family and his colleagues. 
 
This fatal accident has yet again shown with terrible clarity the importance of the unions&rsquo; continuous HSE work with the companies as the only way to make sure that such tragedies never happen again; and the ICEM is prepared to assist you in this work in all possible ways. 
 
Fraternal Greetings, 
 
Manfred Warda 
General Secretary 
ICEM

ICEM Letter of Condolences Over Kimberly-Clark, Barrow, UK, Death

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Several Belgian trade unions, as well as NGOs, will be forming a human rights chain at the Brussels Palace of Justice on 10 December, International Human Rights Day. Among the Belgian trade unions that have signed on to the event are ICEM-affiliated La Centrale G&eacute;n&eacute;rale FGBT/ABVV, ACV/CSC, LBC-NVK, and CNE. 
 
Also taking part will be the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists, the Global Union Federation for journalists and allied workers. 
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Focussing on the dangerous situations for trade unionists around the world, participating organisations will target a number of specific countries where trade unionists are in every-day danger of violence, kidnapping, or even assassination. The 10 December event in Brussels will highlight the cases of Jonas Burgos from the Philippines, Pedro Zamora from Guatemala, and Ana Sylvia Melo de Rodr&iacute;guez from Colombia. 
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All are people who were either murdered or disappeared in 2007. Jonas Burgos, an agriculturist working with peasant groups in the Philippines, disappeared on 28 April. He is the son of free speech advocate and opposition newspaper owner Malaya Jose Burgos. Ana Sylvia Melo, a trade unionist with CGT-SINDIMANUELA in Colombia, was assassinated on 19 May. And Pedro Zamora, the leader of Guatemalan dockworkers&rsquo; union STEPQ, who campaigned to rid corruption in the privatisation of Puerto Quetzal, was murdered on 15 January. 
 
The action starts at 19h30 on Monday, 10 December. For more information in Dutch, click <a href="http://www.wereldsolidariteit.be/dmdocuments/10.12.07_affiche%20+%20pamflet%20ned ">here</a>. For the French version, click <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/affiche%20+%20pamflet%20fra%20def.pdf">here</a>.

Trade Union/Human Rights Chain Happening in Brussels 10 December

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Health and safety in the US oil refining sector is as dangerous now as it was nearly three years ago when a blast at a Texas City, Texas, BP refinery claimed the lives of 15 contract workers. So say the results of an in-depth survey of health and safety conditions in US refineries, published by North American affiliate United Steelworkers, the Tony Mazzocchi Center for Health, Safety and Environmental Education, and New Perspectives Consulting Group. 
 

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The 90-page study, which critiques operating practices in some 64 variants inside 51 US refineries, sets forth five &ldquo;Urgent and Critical Actions&rdquo; for the US downstream industry, as well as another five &ldquo;Necessary Support Actions.&rdquo; The recommendations represent an imperative call for better health and safety conditions by oil refiners in the US. 
 
Entitled &ldquo;Beyond Texas City: The State of Process Safety in the Unionized US Oil Refining Industry,&rdquo; the survey takes into account a number of criteria, including use of atmospheric vents on process units, failed instrumentation or alarm systems, allowance of non-essential personnel in restricted areas, and entire process safety systems as they relate to start-ups and shut-downs. 
<img alt="" src="" width="120" height="140" />
USW President Leo Gerard
The urgent actions recommended include establishing a Process Safety Team that includes members selected by the trade union; ensuring that Process Hazard Analyses are reviewed and revalidated at least once every three years; redress to four distinct conditions arising from the 23 March 2005 Texas City disaster; developing and implementing full safety reviews prior to start-ups and shut-downs; and providing adequate and skilled staff to ensure safe working conditions. 
 
&ldquo;These proposals are doable, and while we can&rsquo;t bring back the 15 workers killed at the BP Texas City refinery, they can make it harder for future deaths and injuries to occur,&rdquo; said USW President Leo Gerard. 
The BP Texas City explosion occurred near an isomerisation unit that boosts octane levels of petrol. The unit was being restarted at the time of the explosion after undergoing scheduled maintenance. Contract company trailers and traffic were operating nearby the unit. Besides the contract workers who died, 80 workers suffered injuries.

US Steelworkers Release Insightful Safety Study on Downstream US Oil Industry

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An 11-day strike ended peacefully and successfully for ICEM mining affiliate FSP KEP of Indonesia at PT International Nickel (PT-Inco), a unit of Canadian-based/Brazilian-owned CVRD-Inco. The business is the world&rsquo;s largest nickel operation, located on the Indonesia island of Sulawesi. 
 
The strike started on 15 November and ended on 26 November. FSP KEP won bonus payments similar to those paid to Inco North American workers, won internal promotion procedures, made advances on local hiring versus outside contractors, and PT International agreed to hold no recriminations on workers who waged the effective, gain-filled strike. 
<img height="254" alt="" src="" width="380" />
The strike was successful due to global unity between miners and steelworkers in North America and Brazil. A year ago, when Brazilian mining giant Cia Vale do rio Doce (CVRD) bought Canadian-based Inco, unity came quickly between CVRD and INCO workers on several continents. The Indonesian strike at Sorowako, South Sulawesi, was done by 2.500 dedicated trade unionists, who won gains for 3,500 workers at a nickel mine and matte smelting operation. CVRD-Inco holds the mineral rights to Sorawki until 2025. 
 
The strike saw FSP KEP diligently follow all legal requirements. Sjaiful Patombong, President of FSP KEP, said, &ldquo;Nobody is allowed to prevent workers from using their right to strike legally, orderly, and peacefully.&rdquo; Ten days into the strike, on 25 November, management was ready for talks and presented a proposal. It called for the two sides &ldquo;to honour and maintain harmonious industrial relations between both parties without prejudice to the prevailing laws and regulations, including the Collective Bargaining Agreement.&rdquo; 
<img height="115" alt="" src="" width="250" />
The accord produced a third quarter 2007 bonus, an item PT Inco was denying, citing uncertainty by Brazilian CVRD owners. Workers won, in addition, a production bonus in 2008 that is based on global nickel prices. If prices reach US$13-per-pound, all workers receive a 12% monthly bonus. The strike also produced a company sum for scholarships targeted to the children of PT Inco employees. 
 
FSP KEP President Patombong recognised the global solidarity. &ldquo;The ICEM and our friends in Canada (USW), the USA (USW), and in Brazil have firmly performed the global unity and solidarity between workers around our globe, particularly within the ICEM family.&rdquo; 
 
PT Inco is 61% owned by CVRD-Inco Ltd. of Canada. A 20% stake is held by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. of Japan. The company has a US$1 billion plan on the boards to expand nickel operations on Sulawesi Island, with construction of two new processing plants.

Indonesian Strike Wins Gains for CVRD-Inco Nickel Miners

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Thirteen days after an explosion inside an eastern Ukrainian coal mine killed 101 workers, a second methane blast at privately-held Zasyadko&rsquo;s mine near Donetsk sent 44 miners to the hospital. This second explosion happened at 05h00 on Saturday, 1 December. 
 
And then on Sunday, 2 December, a third blast inside the stricken mine killed five rescue workers. Thirty-three rescue workers and 33 other miners were injured in this third blast. Many of the hospitalised are in serious condition. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="" width="250" />
The explosions follow the worst Ukrainian coal disaster in recent years. The death count from the 18 November explosion, deep inside several shafts of Zasyadko&rsquo;s Donbass region mine, reached 101 on 29 November, when a worker died in a Donetsk hospital. Ten miners remain unaccounted for from that methane explosion, which occurred 1,000 metres below ground. Another 40 miners remain hospitalised. 
The ICEM had sent its condolences to both the Ukrainian Coal Industry Workers&rsquo; Union (PRUP) and the Independent Miners&rsquo; Union of Ukraine. 
The cause of the 18 November explosion is believed to be defect electrical equipment. Reportedly, sensors did not show a build-up of methane gas. The mine was privatised by state-run Donetskugol and assets transferred to prominent Ukrainian politician Efim Zvyagilsky. Igor Gryaznov serves as director of the enterprise. It yields 10,000 tons per day, and is one of Ukraine&rsquo;s larger collieries. 
<img height="100" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The Zasyadjo mine has a history of tragedies. One worker died in February 2007, while in September 2006, 13 miners were killed due to a methane blast. In 2002, 20 miners were killed in the same manner, a tragedy which brought criminal charges to six managers of the mine for violation of safety procedures. Other tragedies happened at Zasyadjo in 2001, when 55 lives were lost, and in 1999, when 50 miners perished. 
 
Also in Ukraine, on 25 November, two miners were killed and one seriously injured when a rock slide caused a shaft to collapse. That occurred at the Arbis coal mine, also eastern Ukraine, but in the Lugansk region. The same day, a fire occurred inside a shaft in the Belorechenskaya mine in the same region. There were no fatalities there.

String of Blasts Hit Ukraine’s Zasyadko Coal Mine, Killing 5 More, Injuring 44 Workers

Archive

Decent Work Must be Safe Work

Rengo's Central Committee Moves to Prioritise Higher Pay, Better Rights for Contract Workers

BASF Signs Accord for Pan-European Worker Representation on Company Panels

700 March in Rotterdam against Unilever on European Day of Action

Justice Restored with Reinstatement of Thai Paperworker, Thaneth Jhanluechai

ICEM Letter of Condolences Over Kimberly-Clark, Barrow, UK, Death

Trade Union/Human Rights Chain Happening in Brussels 10 December

US Steelworkers Release Insightful Safety Study on Downstream US Oil Industry

Indonesian Strike Wins Gains for CVRD-Inco Nickel Miners

String of Blasts Hit Ukraine’s Zasyadko Coal Mine, Killing 5 More, Injuring 44 Workers

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