Read this article in:
28 November, 2007
The ICEM’s Pulp and Paper Sector convened 21 November 2007 and formulated an expedited work plan for 2008. The plan is ambitious in scope and timely in light of paper industry developments. It will centre on intense networking and communication between global trade unions in the pulp and paper sector, specifically in coordinated bargaining, health and safety, contract labour, trade rules, climate change, retraining, and peak attention to social responsibility matters.
The 50-plus delegates to the sector meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, agreed to form a rapid response network to deliver key information on bargaining, health and safety incidents, and corporate reorganisations. They also agreed to form a geographic-diverse work group that will meet in the early weeks of 2008 to prepare and implement an action plan.
That plan will take into account first-half 2008 labour bargaining in the Finnish pulp and paper sector, it will meet restructurings with unified actions, and it will develop common policies shared by different national unions on global warming, contract labour, trade, and jobs skills relating to restructuring and health safety. Regarding social responsibility, leaders of pulp and paper unions pledged to use leverage to force the sale of mills during reorganisation, rather than closures and capacity reductions. The work group will also examine the unbalance of supply and demand in paper production.
These exact policies will take hold when the ICEM conducts its Pulp and Paper Industry Conference in December 2008, a date chosen by the assembled delegates, and one moved up from a scheduled Industry Conference the following year. The delegates agreed to hold that Conference in Latin America in order to better link trade unions from the global north and the global south, and to draw sharp attention to work terms, working conditions, and trade union and human rights in the global south, as well as in ICEM’s Asia-Pacific Region.
The ICEM has endorsed the agenda, and will expand trade union participation by inviting Global Union Federations representing forestry workers and workers in the graphical papers sector. The ICEM global networking activities will also tie work together with the European Works Councils of the major pulp and paper companies.