17 January, 2011
Industri Energi (IE), one of ICEM’s Norwegian affiliates, announced opening of the nomination process for the Second Annual Arthur Svensson International Award for Trade Union Rights. The prestigious award comes with a cash prize of NOK 500,000 (€65,000) and is awarded to a person or organisation for contributing greatly to promoting trade union rights and the strengthening of trade unionism on both international and national levels.
Nominations are due by 1 March 2011, and can be made by Norwegian trade unions, by trade union affiliates associated with global unions, or the global unions themselves. A nomination must contain a solid justification for the candidate, make clear who is nominating the candidate, and spell out the nominator’s relationship with the candidate.
Arthur Svensson
In 2010, Wellington Chibebe, the General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), was awarded the prize at IE’s Congress in Oslo in October. (See the ICEM news article here.) The 2011 award winner will be announced on 16 June.
The award is named after Arthur Svensson, a long-time leader of Norsk Kjemisk Forbund, the Norwegian Chemical Workers’ Association, which merged in 2006 with NOPEF to create IE. Svensson died in 2008, but left a legacy in Norway and beyond as a man who promoted global peace, disarmament, and a nuclear weapons-free world.
He was also a driving force from his union leadership position in developing Norway’s environment law, and a strong proponent of clean energy to drive clean industries. But first and foremost, he was a dedicated trade unionist, maintaining membership in LO-Norway for 61 years, the final 48 of those years with the Chemical Workers.
Nominations can be e-mailed or faxed to Svensson Award Committee Chairperson Liv Undheim, fax no. +47 23 06 13 60. Further information on the award, in English, can be found here.