20 April, 2009
The union that won a long battle to represent Firestone Rubber Plantation workers in Liberia has now won a Labor Ministry-supervised vote to represent workers at ArcelorMittal’s mining development in Liberia.
On 11 April, ICEM-affiliated Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers’ Union of Liberia (FLIWUL), greatly assisted by the United Steelworkers (USW) of the US, easily beat a yellow union in a representation election that took place in Nimba County on the Liberian-Guinea-Côte d’Ivoire border and at Buchanan, a port city on the Atlantic Coast.
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel-maker, is undertaking a US$1.5 billion re-development of iron ore mining operations near Yekeba in Nimba County and a 250-kilometre railroad line to Buchanan.
The union vote, however, encountered flagrant interference by a company official and a Liberian legislator, despite both an ICEM letter (found here) and a USW letter warning ArcelorMittal not to interfere in the election. But an ArcelorMittal boss and a national lawmaker showed up in Buchanan several hours after voting began and demanded a halt to balloting.
FLIWUL activists in Harbel
On the eve of the vote, the yellow union used a radio broadcast to discourage workers from voting. Election observers also reported that whoever was behind this group had pressed members of the Liberian Parliament to intervene with the Labor Ministry to cancel the vote.
The ArcelorMittal official was Arthur Massaquio, who earlier on 11 April was the company’s designated election observer, but left the polling area soon after balloting began. When he returned several hours later, he was with Representative Gabriel Smith. The lawmaker began questioning workers on why they felt the urgency to have a union vote, before ordering workers back to work because he was canceling the election.
Despite this, and the fact that several workers did leave the Buchanan polling area without voting, FLIWUL won the fair, government-supervised election. FLIWUL got 198 votes, the yellow union 19, and the “no union” option on the ballot received one. In Buchanan, the FLIWUL got 59 votes and the company union 15. The ICEM had an observer present for the vote through a designated representative from the Ghana Mineworkers’ Union.
FLIWUL Secretary-General David Sackoh told the ICEM following the vote that an investigation into the Buchanan interruption is underway, but that he is confident the vote will stand.
ArcelorMittal is developing Nimba County’s one billion cubic-metre iron ore reserves in a 25-year concession that will see the Liberian government receive 30% of the net profits, plus 4.5% in royalty fees. Some 2,000 Liberian workers are expected to be employed in the mining enterprise and the rail link and port hub. This northern Liberia mining area was originally operated by the Liberian American Swedish Chemicals Company (LAMCO), but production ceased in 1989 with the outbreak of civil war.