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22 November, 2007
The 4th World Congress of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine & General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) opened today, 22 November, in Bangkok, Thailand, with a full slate of speakers, as well as pointed discussion on the future course of the 20-million-member Global Union Federation (GUF). Some 840 trade union leaders from 176 national trade unions in 75 countries are attending the three-day Congress at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.
Global union leaders also addressed the risks to workers of asset-stripping private equity firms, and delegates heard recent examples of job losses caused by such speculative financial tools. The quadrennial Congress, gathered under the banner ‘Global Unity – Global Equality,’ continues on Friday, 23 November, with an address by Maung Maung, head of the exiled Burmese labour federation FTUB.
Italo Rodomonti and Manfred Warda signing ICEM-WFIW integration agreement
The Congress will also consider a host of motions, including one on Burma, labour disputes occurring in the host country, Thailand, a location change of the labour federation from Brussels, Belgium, to Geneva, Switzerland, and one on creating closer cooperation with other GUFs. The election of ICEM General Secretary and President will also occur on 23 November.
Following a welcome by Kyoshi Ochiai of Japanese labour federation UI Zensen, chairman of ICEM’s Asia-Pacific Region, delegates heard from Rawi Pupaga, head of ICEM’s Thai umbrella of labour unions. He delivered news that a negotiated settlement is near at hand with Thailand’s Health Ministry to halt the interim government’s plan to privatise the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation.
Today’s session included formal integration of the World Federation of Industrial Workers into the ICEM, a Christian-based network of trade unions.
Featured speaker in the opening session was Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the 168-million-member International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Ryder’s comments centered on the shifting and real sentiment inside global trade unions of consolidation and closer cooperation. He spoke on the founding in January 2007 of the Global Unions Councils, an action-oriented structure to link the work of the world’s 11 GUFs, as well as the ITUC and the Trade Union Advisory Committee of the OECD.
ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana
“This will not be a dead piece of administration bureaucracy,” Ryder promised. “We now have the opportunity to work together to identify common priorities, and to design and fund work plans which will benefit from our combined talents, expertise, and strength.
In a keynote speech delivered by ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) of South Africa, he addressed growing trade union concern on the increasing number of deaths occurring in the mining industry. “How many more deaths, anguish, and sorrow must be visited upon innocent mineworkers, their families, and the communities in which they live before we can say enough is enough?” he asked.
The Congress opened to the sad news that 100 coal miners had perished in a methane gas explosion in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. And Zokwana’s own union, the NUM, has now planned a one-day strike for 4 December across the entire mining sector of South Africa to protest the lack of regard for health and safety by mining houses operating in the mineral-rich nation. It will mark the first total shutdown of all mines in South Africa in 20 years.
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda presented the GUF’s Secretariat Report, and cited several examples on where union action or voter power has changed the agenda for capital markets. “We should never agree with any government’s argument that they cannot control the so-called invincible forces of globalisation,” he said.
Warda highlighted the ICEM’s work on helping to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS around worksites of the extractive industries, as well as giving instances in which engagement with multinational companies on meaningful social dialogue has produced tangible results.
Henk Van Der Kolk, president of the national union FNV Bondgenoten in The Netherlands, addressed the issue of private equity, and how the rapid movement of capital has undermined workers’ rights and created mass job losses. He challenged the ICEM to examine how private equity funds are violating the code of conduct of the OECD, as well as rules of the WTO. He also suggested the time might be ripe for the ICEM, or the ITUC, to seek Global Framework Agreements with private equity concerns in order to bring a social dimension to such capital funds.
The Bangkok Congress of the ICEM is featuring speeches and appearances by seven Iraqi trade unionists coming from the oil sector as well as the electric power sector.