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29 June, 2009
The ICEM calls on South African pulp, paper, and woodlands company Sappi to cease disciplinary matters against 19 shop stewards and 23 other workers at the Enstra mill in Gauteng province. The ICEM supports its South African affiliate, Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU), in its rigorous defense of the 42.
The paperworkers are charged with inciting three safety strikes in May at the 700-worker pulp, printing, and graphics paper mill near Johannesburg. The incident started when shop stewards prevented a worker from doing unsafe work. That worker is now one of the 23 workers still on the job that Sappi now wants to suspend for one week without pay, and issue final written warnings to.
The 19 shop stewards, the mill’s entire CEPPWAWU representation team, have already been suspended, and await further discipline at meetings on 7-8 July.
The safety strikes took place on 5 May, 8 May, and 28 May. The worker was assigned to do cleaning in a part of the paper mill that a piece of equipment normally performs. When shop stewards protested the unsafe act, management hardened and the safety strikes began. The matter was compounded when a joint labour-management report on the safety incident and subsequent strikes was ignored by the mill manager.
In a 16 June ICEM letter to Sappi, the Global Union Federation told Sappi to drop the disciplinary procedures at the Enstra mill and to “get on with building a trusting labour-management relationship at Enstra.” The ICEM noted in the letter that Sappi had been engaged over the past six months in building a better labour relations climate at the mill, but failure to follow through with the findings contained in the joint investigatory report was a breach of trust.
“The ICEM strongly believes the first and most important component in building a trusting and lasting relationship in labour-management relations must be safety,” read the letter.
The ICEM also believes Sappi violates global labour standards at Enstra, not least of which was suspending all CEPPWAWU shop stewards and discrimination in bringing separate sets of charges against the 23 workers and the 19 duly-elected shop stewards.
Some 90% of Enstra workers are CEPPWAWU members.