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11 December, 2006
After a full day devoted to the global pharmaceutical industry, ICEM delegates ended a week of trade union meetings in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 1 December. The first part of the week, 27-29 November, was taken up with the ICEM’s World Conference for the Energy Industries, followed by the ICEM World Conference for the Chemical Industries, Wednesday through Friday, 29 November to 1 December.
Hundreds of national energy and chemical trade union representatives, from all parts of the world, united at the two ICEM conferences, which are held every four years. In addition to listening to presentations on several topics, by both global and national trade unionists, as well as by individuals from business and institutional sectors, delegates had, and passionately took, the opportunity to discuss developments and challenges to their respective industries.
An action plan was adopted at the end of both conferences, setting a broad scope of priorities for the coming four years. One such priority is the call to increase the effort to sign Global Framework Agreements with multinational companies. Other shared priorities include the fight against precarious employment, specifically contract and agency labour, and the struggle to improve the workplace environment for women.
The energy action plan also calls for, among other things, more solidarity and dialogue between unions of energy export and import countries, and for expanding contacts between Mining Sector unions and the Energy Sector. The action plan also calls for more education, training and skills development. It also endorsed the creation of the ICEM Nuclear Workers’ Unions Network (INWUN).
The conference further decided to set up an ICEM-ITF Working Group on health and safety in the oil and gas transportation sector, with specific attention going to remote and hostile environments. This decision was confirmed during a subsequent meeting of the Strategy and Organising Standing Committee (SOSC) of the ICEM-ITF Global Oil and Gas Industry Trade Union Alliance.
The energy conference was attended by 200 representatives from 64 ICEM affiliated trade unions, who travelled from 47 countries to attend the conference in Trinidad and Tobago. The conference unanimously re-elected ICEM Energy Sector Chairman Lars Myhre of Norway’s IndustriEnergi, the newly-formed union created with the merger of NOPEF and Norsk Kjemisk.
The Chemicals Sector action plan called on trade unions to actively promote the 1990 ILO Safety in the Use of Chemicals at Work Convention 170. Other areas in which specific work is targeted for include the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), the Globally Harmonized System of Chemical Classification and Labelling (GHS), and Responsible Care.
Of particular interest at this conference was a lively and challenging debate on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), which included the development of a proposal on how to get better involve trade unions in M&A processes. The chemicals action plan also calls for Global Framework Agreements discussions to begin with international employers’ organisations, such as CropLife and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA).
Some 120 national trade unionists participated in the chemical conferences, representing 43 different national unions from 33 countries. IGBCE’s Tomas Nieber, who took over from IGBCE’s Michael Meirsman as Chair of the ICEM chemical section halfway through the previous four-year period, was unanimously elected to continue this role.
Various documents and presentations from the conferences are available online through the ICEM web-site.
Click here to access various documents from the ICEM World Conference for the Energy Industries
Click here to access various documents from the ICEM World Conference for the Chemical Industries.