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Months of dispute were brought to an end last week when workers at the Sellafield nuclear energy site in Cumbria, UK, voted to accept a pay offer. 
 
Two UK ICEM affiliates, Unite the Union and GMB, voted by a three-to-one margin to accept terms similar to what a third UK union, Prospect, accepted in mid-September. Unite and GMB had been engaged in limited industrial action at the British Nuclear Decommissioning Authority&rsquo;s (NDA) site as it prepares to sell the last state-owned nuclear assets. 
 
Although the union Prospect accepted a 2.5% pay increase plus a 2.5% bonus in mid-September from Sellafield Ltd., operator of the facility, members of the two ICEM affiliates, Unite and the GMB, rejected the offer as the pay increase was below inflation. 

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The 5,000 of 10,000 Sellafield workers who are represented by Unite and GMB received four months back pay, and two separate bonus schemes of &pound;600 each. An added incentive in the negotiated proposal was a &pound;1,500 &ldquo;goodbye bonus&rdquo; as the NDA prepares to sell its nuclear assets to Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of French, American, and British energy interests. That sale is scheduled to be finalised on November 24. 
 
During October, Unite and GMB members had strictly performed only work in their own job classifications, refusing to attend meetings on efficiencies, and refusing cross-departmental work. 
 
The Sellafield site, with a technical facility in Risley and a former uranium enrichment site in Capenhurst, will now undergo a massive multi-year reprocessing and clean-up project, estimated to cost &pound;1.3 billion a year.

Unite, GMB Avoid Further Industrial Action at Sellafield Nuclear in the UK

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Meeting on 6 November in Geneva, eight days before an economic summit for the world&rsquo;s political leaders to address a financial crisis that already has caused great social pain, the ICEM Presidium passed a resolution, declaring the recent collapse &ldquo;a turning point in history&rdquo; and proof that &ldquo;the current system of capital has not worked.&rdquo; 
 
After some debate, ICEM Vice Presidents agreed that the current market system has malfunctioned and that &ldquo;creation of a new and fairer system of global capital&rdquo; must &ldquo;contain stringent financial oversight and governance, including a new set of global regulations.&rdquo; 
 
The resolution emphasizes the fact those citizens of the world least responsible for the collapse are the &ldquo;most vulnerable, worst affected, and the least able to cope in the aftermath of the crisis.&rdquo; 
 
The resolution can be read <a href="/index.php?id=3&amp;doc=2856">here</a>.

ICEM Presidium Discusses, Passes Resolution Addressing Financial Crisis

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ICEM&rsquo;s Central European Regional Council was held in Katowice, Poland, on 29 April, and leaders of affiliates from eight Central European countries discussed trends and developments within the ICEM region, as well as global matters. 
 
The problems mentioned by ICEM&rsquo;s trade union leaders of the region often mirrored those from neighbouring countries. Workers in most countries face problems with stagnant wages &ndash; and extremely low minimum wages &ndash; as well as high inflation rates. In Croatia, many workers do not earn more than &euro;8 per day.
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The ICEM Central European Regional meeting was hosted by Polish trade union sentre Solidarnosc
Unions in Croatia are calling for a minimum wage to be set at the level of 50% of the average wage. Unions in other countries are setting that bar at 60%. In several Central European nations, the current minimum wage is often lower &ndash; 40% of the average wage, or even lower.
<img width="120" height="60" src="" alt="" />
Croatia&nbsp;
Progress is slow on that front, but it is being made. In Slovakia, for example, union and employers are now jointly negotiating a new minimum wage through social dialogue. In Romania, the minimum wage was raised last year from &euro;100 to &euro;150 per month. 
 
Standard wages do differ between countries. An average wage in Bosnia stands at around &euro;300, whereas the average salary in Poland, before taxes, is around &euro;800. The wage differences between sectors inside some countries are oftentimes wide. Some Polish workers barely earn &euro;300 per month, while others make &euro;1,700.
<img width="120" height="60" src="" alt="" />
&nbsp;Bosnia-Herzegovina
Overall, unions in Central Europe are generally reporting progress. One such area that is progressing is negotiations with multinational companies. In nearly all countries, privatisation exercises continue and that does cause serious hardship for many trade union members. Unions do report that fair dismissal packages are now being won, a welcome change from previous years. Another positive aspect is that relations with incoming multinational companies are improving. 
 
Engagement in social dialogue is a key priority for most unions, including with several non-European multinational investors. This phenomenon has grown rapidly over the last few years. Multinational companies from Russia, Turkey, India, and South Korea are no longer the exception. Regrettably, industrial relations with some of these firms (for example, Korean Hankook Tire in Hungary) are acrimonious, since some of these newly-arrived companies lack relevant experience with the European social dialogue system. 
 
Nearly all trade union leaders attending the regional meeting also mentioned the positive, and growing, international cooperation between unions in the region. Trade unions and their members are increasingly attending each other&rsquo;s demonstrations, across borders, and are sharing more and more information. 
 
Also reported was the vastly improved trade union cooperation inside countries. This is occurring between unions that often belong to different national confederations. One clear example came from Poland, where a joint ICEM-EMCEF office is being set up, allowing six industrial unions to speak with one voice. 
 
As a result of this increased cooperation, there also appears to be a growing political will to do away with the problem of having too many unions inside one country. Leaders spoke of the need for consolidation and mergers, in order to avoid situations where unions compete with each other. 
 
Unions in Serbia, for example, spoke of improvements in their own operations, as they manage, frequently after changing internal structures, to halt the drop in union membership and boost affiliation fees.
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Serbia
Related to these efforts was an overview by Mato Lalic on the South-East European Education Project for ICEM and IUF affiliates. He reported on a number of successes from this project, which is expected to enter its last two-year cycle this year. For over ten years, Lalic has organised over 300 seminars, workshops, and seminars, with over 6,000 trade unionists attending. And some 30-to- 40% of these participants have been women. 
 
Some problems, however, remain country-specific, such as the after-war issue of the non-payment of pensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Also, austerity measures were cited as a measure to offset the GDP deficit in Hungary. 
 
Other problems appear simultaneously in all countries. Many spoke, for example, of anticipated difficulties &ndash; and possible long and hard struggles &ndash; in relation to the expected increases of the statutory pension age in their respective country. The issue of green jobs, and the need to have an ecological balance, but also the possible difficulties that industries may face as a result of a more stringent emissions rights system, were equally mentioned by many.

Reports from Central Europe Regional Meeting Point to Cautious Optimism

ICEM sectoral conferences on Mining and on Diamonds, Gems, Ornaments &amp; Jewellery production are being held this week in Benoni, South Africa. The Diamonds/Gems conference is being held today with 130 global trade unionists attending. A joint session of the two sectors will be held tomorrow with the Mining Conference and its 190 registrants meeting on 24-25 November. The conference will develop a four-year ICEM work plan on Mining.

ICEM’s Mining, Diamonds and Gems Sectors to Merge

ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) won a round against global paper and packaging firm Visy Industries when the firm backed off forcing single-site labour agreements at 13 of its corrugated packaging plants in Australia. Visy had offered workers A$1,000 cash payment to accept the stand-alone labour agreements, but AMWU unity and resistance defeated the measure. The two sides agreed on a three-year, 14.25% wage hike covering some 600 paper-converting workers that preserves a system-wide agreement.

AMWU Wins Master Contract for Paperworkers in Australia

US affiliate United Steelworkers of America (USWA) and Bridgestone/Firestone will return to negotiations 16-17 November in St. Louis, Missouri, after a yearlong recess. The union halted talks in November 2003 and instead reached agreements with other global tyremakers in the US and Canada. USWA represents 5,000 rubber workers at seven Bridgestone/Firestone factories in the US.

Bridgestone and USWA Return to Bargaining Table in US

Brazilian affiliate FUB-CNQ will conclude voting on a new collective agreement with state-run Petrobras tomorrow, thus preventing unions from striking operations of the oil and gas major by 40,000 workers. Workers stand ready to approve a 12.1% pay hike plus additional benefits for retired workers. Petrobras will also create a special body to study workers&rsquo; retirement plans.

Oil Union in Brazil Gains Deal with Petrobras

The ICEM is central to global protests against the Colombian government&rsquo;s expulsion of four international trade unionists on 31 October. ICEM, along with representatives from the Textile, Education and Journalists GUFs, as well as ICFTU and Human Rights activists, met with Colombian Ambassador to Belgium Nicol&aacute;s Echavarr&iacute;a on 5 November in Brussels over the expulsions. Colombia has officially apologized for the trade union breaches, blaming the incident on immigration officials and &ldquo;erroneous interpretation&rdquo; of decrees. The four were due to attend a regional trade union coordination meeting. About the same time, union leaders from the UK, Ireland and Spain who were in Colombia at a women&rsquo;s trade union meeting had their 60-day visas cancelled and were permitted inside the country for only three days.

ICEM Protests Expulsions of Trade Unionists to Colombia

Another general strike over the price of fuel may occur in neighbouring Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Labour Congress has called on its government to rescind a late October price hike&mdash;the third fuel price hike in nine months&mdash;or face a strike. &ldquo;Most industrial firms and employers depend on generators. Which invariably affects cost of production with a high probability for redundancy for workers and high process for products,&rdquo; the national center said in a release last week.

High Fuel Prices May Spark General Strike in Sierra Leone

UPM Kymmene, one for world&rsquo;s leading papermakers, is causing job loss and social destruction in its homeland&mdash;Finland&mdash;as well as in Canada. Last week, two 24-hour strikes shut production at both the firm&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s hard wage and other talks in the paper sector.

UPM Kymmene Bringing Labour Unrest Home to Finland

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