22 March, 2010
A historic protocol agreement between ArcelorMittal and ICEM-affiliated Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers’ Union of Liberia (FLIWUL) will guarantee that a collective labour contract is in place when the world’s largest steelmaker begins revenue-earning operations at an iron ore enterprise. The two parties agreed to an “Interim Procedural Agreement” on 6 March that assures 3,000 workers will have trade union protections once ArcelorMittal comes on line with a US$1.5 billion mining, rail, and export operation in the West African country.
The deal also sets forth the process in which FLIWUL now begins to build a free and democratic trade union inside the country-wide branch union, called ArcelorMittal Workers’ Union FLIWUL No. 4. This week, from 24 to 28 March, FLIWUL will begin conducting on-site nominations and elections from among the existing 750 workers at mine sites in northern Nimba County to the port of Buchanan, some 250 kilometres south on the Atlantic Ocean.
FLIWUL General-Secretary David Sackoh said the union will then begin electing shop stewards at mines near Yekepa, two company hospitals, transport workers along the rail link, and port workers at Buchanan. The final step, starting about mid-year, according to Sackoh, will be an extensive survey inside the various work units that will “transform our compilations into collective bargaining proposals.”
ArcelorMittal has not been always this cooperative to work with FLIWUL in Liberia. A short 11 months ago, the company attempted to subvert a lawful union recognition vote with strong-arm tactics. (See prior ICEM news dispatch here.) But a Labor Ministry ruling declaring the union certification fair and legal, as well as intervention by the US-based United Steelworkers (USW) directly with the company’s CEO and founder, Lakshmi Mittal, convinced Liberian management that recognizing and working with FLIWUL was in the best interests of the company.
Sackoh said the company is now moving in mining equipment and completing work on the rail link. By mid-year, employment should reach 2,000, and then climb to over 3,000 by the time ore is ready for export in first quarter 2011. ArcelorMittal has a 25-year concession with the Liberian government to mine some one billion cubic metres of iron ore reserves in Nimba County, at the point where the Liberian, Guinean, and Côte d’Ivoire borders meet.
FLIWUL activists in Harbel
The mining assets were once owned by the Liberian American Swedish Chemicals Company (LAMCO), but production ceased and the assets started to deteriorate when civil war started in 1989.
The “Interim Procedural Agreement” contains basic framework standards covering health and safety conditions, protection of the environment, current working conditions, and protection of communities. It also contains a grievance process for workers. FLIWUL’s union-building efforts now will assure worker input in a collective agreement due to take effect next year, a workers’ contract that most certainly will stand as a model in Liberia.
“FLIWUL has much to be proud of in achieving this milestone,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. “The assistance they received from the USW – both on-the-ground in Liberia and intervention at the corporate level – is also exemplary and will guarantee that miners, transport workers, and other staff have an excellent collective agreement.”