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7 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 94/2000
For the first time ever, employers and unions are close to reaching a worldwide agreement covering a whole industrial sector.
Workplace health and safety and environmental protection are the theme of a working document drawn up in Tokyo at the end of last month by the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA).
The paper focuses on union participation in the chemical industry's voluntary initiative, Responsible Care. The Responsible Care programme aims to ensure uniformly high occupational health and safety and environmental standards wherever the industry operates.
Two years of negotiations have gone into the Tokyo document, which recognises that workers and their unions have a vital role to play in ensuring the highest standards.
The ICCA is a council of leading trade associations representing chemical manufacturers worldwide. It deals with issues of international significance to the chemical manufacturing industry.
The ICEM is a global federation of industrial trade unions representing more than 20 million workers on all continents.
"A joint working document was agreed in Tokyo and will be recommended to the industry," explained ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Brussels today. "It includes six policy objectives which are essential if Responsible Care is to gain the credibility it needs in order to secure our full support. We hope the document can be signed as a formal agreement between the ICCA and the ICEM before the end of next April."
This would be a world first, Higgs said. "It would be a historic development in international industrial relations - the first-ever world agreement between the representative body of employers in a whole sector and a global federation of workers."
Workplace health and safety and environmental protection are the theme of a working document drawn up in Tokyo at the end of last month by the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA).
The paper focuses on union participation in the chemical industry's voluntary initiative, Responsible Care. The Responsible Care programme aims to ensure uniformly high occupational health and safety and environmental standards wherever the industry operates.
Two years of negotiations have gone into the Tokyo document, which recognises that workers and their unions have a vital role to play in ensuring the highest standards.
The ICCA is a council of leading trade associations representing chemical manufacturers worldwide. It deals with issues of international significance to the chemical manufacturing industry.
The ICEM is a global federation of industrial trade unions representing more than 20 million workers on all continents.
"A joint working document was agreed in Tokyo and will be recommended to the industry," explained ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Brussels today. "It includes six policy objectives which are essential if Responsible Care is to gain the credibility it needs in order to secure our full support. We hope the document can be signed as a formal agreement between the ICCA and the ICEM before the end of next April."
This would be a world first, Higgs said. "It would be a historic development in international industrial relations - the first-ever world agreement between the representative body of employers in a whole sector and a global federation of workers."