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12 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 90/1998
How should trade unions tackle the new upheavals in the world's energy industries? How will energy privatisation and technological change affect social and environmental standards?
These were the major issues facing energy union leaders of all continents as they met in Cork, Ireland, today for POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
As the international's General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out, the conference is the biggest ever, with over 300 energy union leaders from 50 countries taking part. They represent more than 9 million ICEM-affiliated energy workers of all sectors. The ICEM is now "the major social force in the energy industries," Thorpe said. It is also a "ring of workers' power that reaches from raw energy resources in the ground, through generation and secondary power distribution, on to the downstream, value-adding activities of the chemical and allied industries."
Economists, academics and philosophers who had sold the world the "free market" philosophy had, Thorpe said, not just kissed the Blarney Stone once - "they must have been involved in a virtual Blarney love-fest." Privatisation and deregulation of energy industries had not resulted in lower prices to the end consumer, nor in better service, more real choice or greater security of supply. But control of energy had passed from elected governments to "boards of directors whom very few of us could name, who are elected by no-one except a handful of institutional shareholders and whose primary responsibility is to the financial bottom line."
The ICEM's response was to "redefine the relationship of labour with the new controlling entities of our industry." Workers must not be "just wage labourers in an industry that is out of their control", but "primary stakeholders, with a powerful voice at the decision table where their future is being discussed."
There had been notable success stories, such as the ICEM's recent global agreement with oil multinational Statoil, covering basic trade union rights and occupational and environmental safety standards worldwide.
But there was also a downside to changes in the energy industry. Trade union rights were under attack in many countries where energy multinationals operated. Thorpe cited Colombia and Burma as particularly bad current examples of this. He also reminded delegates of the "dreadful years in Nigeria's prisons" endured by oilworkers' leaders Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori. Detained without trial for years on end, Kokori and Dabibi were finally released this June after an international trade union campaign led by the ICEM.
The two Nigerian union leaders are taking part in the Cork conference. At a later special session on energy multinationals, social control and trade union rights, Dabibi and Kokori told cheering delegates that the international campaign had saved their lives. The session on union rights included speakers from Statoil and Amnesty International, as well as energy union leaders. This crucial discussion will continue over the next two days.
Today, the conference continued with sessions on new horizons for world energy giants; and on Irish energy policy and industrial relations. Both sessions included contributions from employer representatives as well as union leaders.
GLOBAL NUCLEAR FORUM PROPOSED
In his opening speech this morning, ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe also suggested that the ICEM could act as an "honest broker" in discussions on the future of the world's nuclear power industry. He proposed the establishment of a "global forum on the sustainability of nuclear energy" in which "the industry, the community, the environmental lobbyists and involved workers can sit together to thrash out what must be done to bring this industry into line with what society expects of its industrial processes."
This proposal was welcomed by guest speaker Joe Jacob, Minister of State in Ireland's Department of Public Enterprise. The forum would be a step forward, Jacob said, as would "any other means of allaying the real fears that exist in this country about the use of nuclear power at Sellafield and elsewhere." Sellafield is a major nuclear plant on the British coast, just across the sea from Ireland.
Ireland itself has no nuclear power, and Jacob particularly emphasised the country's investment in the development of alternative energy sources.
He also said that the Irish experience of social partnership over the past decade has been that "it works, and works well." The Irish government, unions, employers, farm organisations and more recently community organisations including those of the unemployed, have been engaged in a succession of programmes to develop the country's economy on the basis of consensus. Today, Jacob said, Ireland has "the fastest-growing economy in the developed world."
That upbeat assessment of social partnership is to a large degree shared by John McDonnell, General Secretary of the ICEM-affiliated Irish union SIPTU. He was especially critical of "the British model of privatisation, which is particularly savage, anti-union and anti-worker" and which "has been rejected or has given way to other, more European social models of corporate restructuring, in some countries."
However, McDonnell did warn that Irish social partnership could be put at risk if the government did not help to halt a new trend towards deunionisation by some employers operating in Ireland. He particularly took energy multinational Enterprise Oil to task. He accused the company of refusing to employ Irish workers in Ireland's new offshore gas fields - because those workers are unionised.
Unions, McDonnell said, should "lobby at national and indeed international level for the strengthening of international institutions, such as the International Labour Organisation" and for "a new Bretton Woods-type agreement on international capital flows, speculation etc. including a Tobin Tax on speculation."
As ICEM President Hans Berger told the conference, "global corporations call for a global trade union strategy."
Continuing in Cork tomorrow and Wednesday is the conference that will decide that strategy.
These were the major issues facing energy union leaders of all continents as they met in Cork, Ireland, today for POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
As the international's General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out, the conference is the biggest ever, with over 300 energy union leaders from 50 countries taking part. They represent more than 9 million ICEM-affiliated energy workers of all sectors. The ICEM is now "the major social force in the energy industries," Thorpe said. It is also a "ring of workers' power that reaches from raw energy resources in the ground, through generation and secondary power distribution, on to the downstream, value-adding activities of the chemical and allied industries."
Economists, academics and philosophers who had sold the world the "free market" philosophy had, Thorpe said, not just kissed the Blarney Stone once - "they must have been involved in a virtual Blarney love-fest." Privatisation and deregulation of energy industries had not resulted in lower prices to the end consumer, nor in better service, more real choice or greater security of supply. But control of energy had passed from elected governments to "boards of directors whom very few of us could name, who are elected by no-one except a handful of institutional shareholders and whose primary responsibility is to the financial bottom line."
The ICEM's response was to "redefine the relationship of labour with the new controlling entities of our industry." Workers must not be "just wage labourers in an industry that is out of their control", but "primary stakeholders, with a powerful voice at the decision table where their future is being discussed."
There had been notable success stories, such as the ICEM's recent global agreement with oil multinational Statoil, covering basic trade union rights and occupational and environmental safety standards worldwide.
But there was also a downside to changes in the energy industry. Trade union rights were under attack in many countries where energy multinationals operated. Thorpe cited Colombia and Burma as particularly bad current examples of this. He also reminded delegates of the "dreadful years in Nigeria's prisons" endured by oilworkers' leaders Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori. Detained without trial for years on end, Kokori and Dabibi were finally released this June after an international trade union campaign led by the ICEM.
The two Nigerian union leaders are taking part in the Cork conference. At a later special session on energy multinationals, social control and trade union rights, Dabibi and Kokori told cheering delegates that the international campaign had saved their lives. The session on union rights included speakers from Statoil and Amnesty International, as well as energy union leaders. This crucial discussion will continue over the next two days.
Today, the conference continued with sessions on new horizons for world energy giants; and on Irish energy policy and industrial relations. Both sessions included contributions from employer representatives as well as union leaders.
GLOBAL NUCLEAR FORUM PROPOSED
In his opening speech this morning, ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe also suggested that the ICEM could act as an "honest broker" in discussions on the future of the world's nuclear power industry. He proposed the establishment of a "global forum on the sustainability of nuclear energy" in which "the industry, the community, the environmental lobbyists and involved workers can sit together to thrash out what must be done to bring this industry into line with what society expects of its industrial processes."
This proposal was welcomed by guest speaker Joe Jacob, Minister of State in Ireland's Department of Public Enterprise. The forum would be a step forward, Jacob said, as would "any other means of allaying the real fears that exist in this country about the use of nuclear power at Sellafield and elsewhere." Sellafield is a major nuclear plant on the British coast, just across the sea from Ireland.
Ireland itself has no nuclear power, and Jacob particularly emphasised the country's investment in the development of alternative energy sources.
He also said that the Irish experience of social partnership over the past decade has been that "it works, and works well." The Irish government, unions, employers, farm organisations and more recently community organisations including those of the unemployed, have been engaged in a succession of programmes to develop the country's economy on the basis of consensus. Today, Jacob said, Ireland has "the fastest-growing economy in the developed world."
That upbeat assessment of social partnership is to a large degree shared by John McDonnell, General Secretary of the ICEM-affiliated Irish union SIPTU. He was especially critical of "the British model of privatisation, which is particularly savage, anti-union and anti-worker" and which "has been rejected or has given way to other, more European social models of corporate restructuring, in some countries."
However, McDonnell did warn that Irish social partnership could be put at risk if the government did not help to halt a new trend towards deunionisation by some employers operating in Ireland. He particularly took energy multinational Enterprise Oil to task. He accused the company of refusing to employ Irish workers in Ireland's new offshore gas fields - because those workers are unionised.
Unions, McDonnell said, should "lobby at national and indeed international level for the strengthening of international institutions, such as the International Labour Organisation" and for "a new Bretton Woods-type agreement on international capital flows, speculation etc. including a Tobin Tax on speculation."
As ICEM President Hans Berger told the conference, "global corporations call for a global trade union strategy."
Continuing in Cork tomorrow and Wednesday is the conference that will decide that strategy.