10 October, 2011
The latest meeting of the ICEM Repsol – YPF Network took place in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 26-28 September, 2011. Set up in 2005, the Repsol Network brings together unions organising workers within the Spanish energy multinational Repsol from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain. In attendance at the latest meeting, together with our Spanish affiliates, FITEQA-CCOO and FITAG-UGT, were trade unions from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru as well as from the host country Bolivia. ICEM Vice-President for the Latin American and Caribbean Region, Sergio Novais, represented ICEM together with Energy Officer Jim Catterson.
The meeting followed a well-established pattern with the first day a union-only gathering to update each other on the latest situation in the respective countries as well as to prepare interventions for the following day where management from both the Madrid Headquarters and the Bolivian operations of the company were in attendance. The final day was again restricted to trade union delegates for discussion on the previous day’s business and plans for the future. A protocol agreement signed in November 2008 provides management recognition of the Network. Management of the Madrid-based oil and gas company agreed to recognise the workers’ network as a collective body to represent the trade unions in the countries where both Repsol and its majority owned subsidiary, YPF, operate.
Also on the first day Sergio Novais updated participants on the latest situation regarding the forthcoming ICEM World Congress to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 24-26, 2011 and Jim Catterson gave a presentation on ICEM work priorities in the Oil and Gas Industry, following the 2010 World Energy Conference in Stavanger as well as an update on the industry globally and in Latin America in particular. Both presentations led to lively discussions and comparisions with their own situations. It was agreed that interventions would be made the following day expressing concerns at the company’s increasing use of temporary and contract and agency workers, Occupational Safety and Health, and the need to recognise and facilitate trade union organising in all operations. Participants also agreed to request the company to open discussions about reaching a Global Framework Agreement with ICEM.
The second day of discussions opened with detailed presentations by the company representatives covering their global operations, planned expansions and the operations in Bolivia in particular. There were then detailed discussions following question and answer sessions. The discussions focused on many of the issues raised by the unions on the first day and the company representatives gave detailed replies and made commitments to recognise trade unions in their operations.
During the course of the meeting union participants were shocked and appalled to hear of the vicious murder of an activist of USO in Colombia. A strong condemnation of the assassination was agreed and sincere condolences sent to the family of the deceased.
The final day decided that the network needed to prioritise Contract and Agency labour work and participants were interested to hear of the ICEM global campaign on the subject. Occupational Safety and Health continued to be an area of key concern and participants agreed it was important to press for a Global Framework Agreement with the company. It was also important to improve outreach to other trade unions, in particular Trinidad and Cuba where the company had important investments.
Finally it was agreed that the next meeting of the steering committee of the network would take place in Spain, probably Barcelona, in 2012 with a follow up meeting of the full network planned for Ecuador in 2013.
More information on the meeting, including conclusions in Spanish are available here.