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ICEM oil union affiliates in Nigeria will again oppose any domestic price increase in the cost of petrol. State-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) and the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) said earlier this month it would try to enforce price increases even over the objections of stakeholders involved in the public entities, including trade unions PENGASSAN and NUPENG.PENGASSAN said it would mount strong opposition until measures are in place to cushion effects of high fuel prices across all of Nigerian society. NUPENG has called on all Nigerian workers in the country to oppose the hike unless it comes with commensurate increases in social benefit packages for all workers in both the private and public sectors. NNPC and PPPRA assert that increases are necessary due to rising prices of imported refined products. But the unions contend Nigeria's only solution to high global prices of petroleum are major upgrades to local refining and capacity.

Nigerian Unions Will Agian resist Petrol Price Hikes

Another sad episode in the seemingly never-ending story of mining disasters in China took place in the country’s Guangdong Province, where over 120 workers most probably drowned in an illegally-operated coal mine on August 7. The mine, partly owned by local officials in Xingning, Guangdong, was reportedly seriously mismanaged, with health and safety issues being widely ignored. According to Li Yizhong, director of the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision and Administration, "the tragedy was caused by mine-owners' greed for economic profits and malignant violation of safety rules". He also said that the mine did not have a production license, and that it had ignored a government order to suspend production following a flooding incident at a nearby mine on July 14. The provincial authorities in Guangdong and the Chinese Central Government have started an inquiry into the tragedy and ordered 69 officials to make themselves available to investigators.Two mayors have already been suspended.

Flooding Kills 120 at Illegal Guangdong Province Mine

The ICEM's Asia-Pacific Union Network of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. met in Manila, Philippines, 8-9 August, and attention focused on the American rubber company's fierce resistance to unionisation drives of contract workers in Thailand and Malaysia. Goodyear plant union leaders also discussed the company's retreat from ownership of natural rubber plantations at a time when natural rubber demand coupled with shortages is increasing. Some 21 leaders from Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand took part.

Goodyear AP Meeting Studies Contract Labour Issue

ICEM affiliate Mineworkers of Namibia conducted its 9th National Congress over the weekend in Windhoek, and pledged to expose all forms of corruption in the mining and energy sectors of the country. The Congress also drafted statements on black economic empowerment in Namibia, reviewed a four-year activities report, and gave special tribute to founding members who have built and bettered membership of the union through early and tedious work. The theme of the Congress was “Building a Stronger Union Through Education, Solidarity, Networks and Economic Empowerment.”

Mineworkers in Namibia Aim to Eradicate Corruption

U nion members of three ICEM affiliates in Australia successfully backed Bridgestone from not only a planned lockout, but also blocked the Japanese-headquartered tyre-maker from its no pay raise/cuts to entitlement stand. It was a combination of worker resolve, outreach in the local Salisbury community in South Australia and a flood of international protests led by the ICEM that broke the company's resolve. 
 
Bridgestone was on the brink of locking out 580 members of the Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers' Union (LHMU), the Communication, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU) in mid-August when the protests began. The world's largest tyre manufacturer retreated from a planned two-week lockout, and returned to bargaining under the authority of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. 
 
By 5 September, union negotiators had hammered together a minimum 9% pay raise over the next three years and maintained all current conditions of employment. That was a long ways from the company's pre-lockout threat of wage hikes tied only to productivity targets, an increase in work hours and severe reductions to long-practiced entitlement programs. Workers will vote on the enterprise agreement late next week, and indications are that it will pass. 
 
At mass worker meetings on 20 August, LHMU Shop Steward Boyd MacRae told union members, "The reason that Bridgestone is moving its position is that the support of trade unionists from around the globe is unprecedented. You are being assisted by international workers standing along side of you and supporting you." 
 
MacRae read letters of support to the trade unionists and letters of protest to Bridgestone President and CEO Shigeo Watanabe from ICEM affiliates in Romania, the Slovak Republic, Pakistan, South Korea, the UK, US, France, Spain, Turkey and Denmark. FUTINAL, the Latin American rubber unions network, weighed in, and the ICEM's Japanese Affiliates' Federation (JAF) also sent an important letter of support. In part, it read, "We are deeply concerned about the current attitude and behaviour of BFS Australia … We sincerely hope that this dispute will be solved, as early as possible, in a peaceful manner as well as in favour of the Australian workers." 
 
Chris Field, LHMU's Assistant Secretary for South Australia, reported an ICEM Pakistan affiliate vowed to demonstrate in front of the Japanese embassy in that country. "This act of solidarity by our Pakistani sisters and brothers was done knowing full well they risked police repression on the orders of a government hostile to organized trade unionism," he said. 
 
The mayor of Salisbury supported worker resistance of the three unions and local restaurants and pubs made it clear they would provide free meals to workers if Bridgestone proceeded with the lockout. In addition, the unions received valuable local help and aid from CFMEU, the Maritime Union of Australia, the South Australia Police Association, the Transport Workers Union and the Labour Council of South Australia. 
 
The victory, said Field, was the "combination of disciplined unity of tyre workers and strong support from many allies that forced the biggest rubber products company in the world to back off and recognize the collective will and rights of tyre workers." 
 
ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs, who called the lockout threat "clearly unacceptable behaviour" in an 11 August letter to Watanabe and told delegates on 28 August at ICEM's Congress in Norway of the growing support, praised the fortitude of workers and commended the solidarity. "An established Bridgestone/Firestone Global Network of Workers together with the strength and will of committed trade unionists paid off in reversing a company's demands, pure and simple. There is no better validation of global solidarity than what occurred over the past month at this particular tyre plant in Australia, and it personifies the work we strive to do."

Victory Near at Bridgestone Plant in Australia

A n ICEM affiliate, US-based Paper, Allied-Industrial, Energy, Chemical (PACE) Workers Union, successfully affiliated another union not part of the formal American labour movement. On 21 October, workers at DuPont Soy Polymers in Louisville, Kentucky, voted for collective bargaining representation by the preeminent oil, chemicals and paper union in the US. 
 
The workers previously had been represented by the Independent Factory Workers Union (IFWU). In the US, with very few exceptions, Dupont workers either have representation by such stand-alone unions or have no union at all. The decision to join 300,000-member PACE marks the seventh such union at DuPont to throw in with the Nashville, Tennessee-based union. 
 
"The committee decided it would be in the union's best interest to bring in some outside help," stated IFWU President Ronnie Sanders, adding that unions such as his "are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with multinational firms in terms of bargaining and basic representation rights of workers." 
 
The plant with 50 union members produces specialty food ingredients from soy products. DuPont acquired the plant as part of its 1997 purchase of Protein Technologies from Ralston Purina. 
 
Previously, workers at DuPont stand-alone unions in Buffalo, New York, Edgemoor, Delaware, Louisville, Kentucky (DuPontDow Elastomers), and three separate units in Deepwater, New Jersey, have voted to affiliate with PACE.

ICEM Affiliate PACE Organises DuPont Workers

Union members of two ICEM affiliates rallied today against the anti-union practices of global paper company Sappi Ltd. outside the firm's Annual General Meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

<img height="219" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/sappi.gif" width="350" alt=""/>
PACE members from Michigan protest at Sappi AGM in Johannesburg 

Representatives of US-based Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, Energy (PACE) Workers Union joined union brothers and sisters from South African Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU) to condemn the company's aggressive attempts to weaken workers' rights in both countries. 
 
The PACE delegation and CEPPWAWU leaders then gained entry to the AGM, while CEPPWAWU members continued to rally outside the firm's headquarters in the Braamfontein financial district of Johannesburg. 
 
"We have taken this action to serve notice to Sappi management that its refusal to deal fairly with workers and their unions must come to an end," declared CEPPWAWU President Pasco Dyani, himself a Sappi employee at the Adamas paper mill in Port Elizabeth. "We are pleased to join with union members from America to build the international solidarity necessary to confront Sappi's attacks on working families." 
 
CEPPWAWU represents workers at Sappi's seven paper mills across South Africa. The union is in dispute with the firm over management demands to unilaterally impose so-called "labour market flexibility" that would severely weaken the union's ability to protect workers' rights on the shop floor. 
 
In the US, PACE Union members have been without new labour agreements for over a year at two Sappi paper mills in Somerset and Westbrook, Maine. Sappi managers at those locations have proposed to drastically cut workers' income and health care benefits. Sappi has also proposed substantial cuts in retiree health benefits. PACE members at the two mills and a third US mill in Muskegon, Michigan, have formed a bargaining alliance to reject management's demands for concessions. 
 
"Sappi stakeholders should understand that management's attempts to lower the living standards of working families and diminish the rights of workers on the shop floor places the company on a collision course with labour," stated Keith Romig, Director of National and International Affairs for PACE. 
 
The labour agreement at the Muskegon mill is scheduled to expire in June. Together, the three mills account for more than 80 percent of Sappi's fine paper production in North America, and 25% of production worldwide. 
 
The ICEM assisted the two affiliates' actions in Johannesburg today. While in South Africa, PACE, CEPPWAWU and ICEM representatives will lay a foundation for more effective cooperation among unions representing Sappi workers worldwide. 
 
"Every Sappi mill in South Africa, Europe and North America is organized by trade unions affiliated with the ICEM," said ICEM Paper and Chemical Sectors Officer Marc Welters. "By building stronger bonds between all unions at Sappi, workers will gain the strength to deal effectively with this company's hostile approach to labour relations."

US Union, CEPPWAWU Protest at Sappi AGM

Trade unions in Thailand—led by affiliate EGAT-LU—continue to resist the government’s plan to privatise the electric and water services of the country. The ongoing stalemate will likely now be the key issue in government elections set for February 2005. Unions, now in their 119th consecutive day of protest at the headquarters of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, have embarked on a “Scattering Bees Strategy” in which they will conduct educational forums and brochure drops in all parts of Thailand leading up to those elections.

Thai Government, EGAT-LU Stalemated Over Electric Privatisation

French unions have promised more actions over the government’s plan to partially privatise the country’s electric and gas industries. Some 10,000 workers and supporters marched in Paris 29 June, the day the National Assembly passed a bill changing the statutes of the Electricité de France and Gaz de France to limited liability companies. The French Senate must still vote on the proposed liberalization and implementation decrees also must be issued. ICEM affiliates FCE-CFDT and Fédéchimie CGT FO are leading the resistance.

French Unions March in Paris Over Electric, Gas Privatisation

Rio de Janeiro, 
April 12th, 2002 
 
Statement by ICEM Latin America and the Caribbean condemning the coup in Venezuela 

1. The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union in Latin America and the Caribbean vehemently condemns the coup perpetrated in the early morning of April 12th 2002 against the constitutional government of Venezuela. 
 
 
2. We call upon all our affiliates in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially those in the oil sector, to similarly condemn the forces that carried out the coup, and to close ranks in defence of the Rule of Law and of Human and Trade Union Rights. 
 
 
3. We urge international forums, the United Nations and the Organisation of American States to conduct an immediate investigation into reports of violations of Human Rights perpetrated by the putschist forces. 
 
 
4. Finally, we call upon governments whose countries are OAS members not to recognise the “provisional government”, but to testify to its unconstitutionality and to take an unequivocal stand in defence of the Rule of Law. 
 
 
Luiz Gonzaga Ulhoa Tenório 
Regional President

Statement by ICEM Latin America and the Caribbean on the coup in Venezuela

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