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4 December, 2008Friday, 5 December 2008
The leading trade union federation covering the social interests of Pulp and Paper Workers world-wide will convene a global conference outside Montevideo, Uruguay, from 8-10 December. The conference will have 120 trade-union leaders participating from some 35 major pulp and paper-producing countries.
The conference of Geneva-based International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) is entitled: “North Meets South, Global Unity/Global Strength.” The sector-based conference will include participants from Finland, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, France, Romania, Turkey, Spain, Canada, United States, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, as well as paper industry union leaders from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, and elsewhere in Latin America.
The venue is the Argentino Hotel in Periápolis, Uruguay. The host union is ICEM Uruguay affiliate CUOPYC.
“We think we will have a good conference, with good discussion,” said ICEM Pulp and Paper Chairman Jouko Ahonen, also President of Paperiliitto Union of Finland. “With the financial collapse, if there is any industry that has seen the storms and the economic swings, it is this one. It is this industry that must have new and fresh ideas for the future.”
Uruguay Cabinet Ministers from Finance and Labour and Social Security will open the conference, and then the programme will feature two paper industry executives, Metsä-Botnia Oy President/CEO Ilkka Hämälä and Bracelpa São Paulo State Director Jeronimo Ruiz. They will speak, field questions, and hear discussion from workers of the industry on Monday, December 8. Day two will include a trade union panel, discussing network potential and collective bargaining issues. That discussion will develop a work plan, which includes a major project to enhance north-south trade union networking. Uruguay President Tabaré Vázquez is expected to speak to the trade unionists on day two, December 9.
Third day activities will be taken up with festivities commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948.
The ICEM is a global union federation that represents 20 million workers in the Oil, Gas, Energy, Chemicals, Rubber, Pulp/Papermaking, Mining, Cement, and other manufacturing sectors. It has 467 national trade-union affiliates in 132 countries.
For more: Dick Blin, ICEM Pulp and Paper Officer, +41 22 304 1840, or +41 79 734 8994 (mobile), or [email protected].