3 November, 2008
Bookings for the ICEM’s World Conference for the Pulp and Paper Industry, scheduled from 8-10 December 2008 in Piriápolis, Uruguay, are filling fast, and the last of some 150 spots are expected to be taken in the coming fortnight. Uruguay President Tabaré Vázquez will open the conference on 8 December, and he will be joined by the country’s Ministers for Energy, Labour and Social Security, Economy and Finance, and Tourism, with some of the government officials closing the conference on 10 December.
The Pulp and Paper Conference will feature an opening day panel and discussion on the state of the industry – both in the emerging economies and in the traditional pulp and paper countries. That forum will discuss the current economic crisis, its effect on the industry at present, as well as trends over the past few years on output shifting from the global north to the global south. Metsä-Botnia President and CEO Ilkka Hämälä will be one of the panelists participating.
Centre, CUOPYC Walter Silva and at right, Uruguay President Tabaré Vázquez
Industry growth in China will also be on the agenda. A Friedrich Ebert Siftung expert, Bernd Reddies, will also take part in a panel.
Day two will include a panel of trade union and NGO leaders. They will develop a concise solidarity action plan for ICEM affiliated trade unions and others representing global paperworkers. The afternoon session on 9 December will lay the practical foundation for that plan.
The host union, ICEM affiliate Centro Unión Obreros Papeleros y Celulosa (CUOPYC) of Uruguay, has already done much groundwork to make sure the conference will be a success. The union has reserved 10 December as a social-events day to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UDHR was signed on 10 December 1948.
Uruguay President Vázquez said this on the coming ICEM conference: “It is a great challenge for CUOPYC, but it is also an excellent opportunity. Not just for CUOPYC, but for all in Uruguay, and the national government has committed to organize this event. We declare this meeting to be of national interest.”
Sizeable trade union delegations have already registered from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, and Thailand, as well as several countries from Europe. Finnish Paperiliitto President Jouko Ahonen, sector head of ICEM’s Pulp and Paper Industry, will chair the conference.
Trade unions still wishing to send delegates are encouraged to move fast in order to get visas, and to register through the ICEM Secretariat. Information and Registration documents can be found by going to the ICEM website here, clicking the respective language, and then going to “Pulp and Paper” for each language’s homepage. The 8-10 December conference will be conducted in all seven statutory ICEM languages.
The ICEM’s Pulp and Paper Conference will be preceded by a 6-7 December workshop by South American forest-sector unionists on certification programmes, sponsored by the Building and Wood Woodworkers’ International (BWI). ICEM delegates are welcome to attend, with sessions to be conducted in Spanish.