26 July, 2010
A small hotel in the hills above Beirut, Lebanon, was the venue for the latest seminar held by ICEM and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) under the Oil and Gas Workers’ Trade Union Alliance. The seminar brought together delegates from eight Iraqi trade unions in the oil and oil transportation sectors, affiliated to either ICEM or ITF.
Popularly known as the "Well to Wheel" initiative, Iraq has been identified as a key country for the Alliance, which came together last week with the generous support of the US Solidarity Center. This was the first seminar held by the Solidarity Center in Lebanon, with earlier ones taking place in Amman and Aqaba in Jordan.
Lars Myhre, President of the ICEM’s Energy Industries Section and a leader in Norwegian affiliate IndustriEnergi (IE) and Jim Catterson, Energy Officer, represented ICEM. Bilal Malkawi represented the ITF, while Heba El-Shazli, Regional Program Director, The Middle East and North Africa, together with Boyko Atanasov of the Qatar Office, represented the Solidarity Center.
After a series of presentations updating delegates on the recent activities of the organisations in the region, as well as delegate presentations on their recent activities and discussion of the present situation in the Iraqi oil industry, participants divided into multi-union groups. The report backs to plenary sessions were able to agree a Code of Conduct for future work of the Alliance in Iraq, and a firm programme of activities to take place inside Iraq itself.
The ten-point Code of Conduct commits all of the unions to recognise and respect each other and commits them to support each other in conflicts regardless of which trade union confederation of Iraq they are affiliated with. It recognises the need for regular meetings and discussion at both cross-sectoral regional and national levels, as well as maintaining the essential need for practical channels of communications between the unions in the Alliance and the Global Union Federations, ICEM and ITF, and with the Solidarity Center.
With only two of the 16 delegates being women, a serious discussion took place on how to improve women's participation. All agreed that the goal of the Alliance was to strengthen the trade unions and unions cannot be strong without women workers as members and activists. There was agreement that we need to have more women participation in future events and it is essential that more effort be taken by all to encourage and support women to participate in union activities both internally and externally. "Strong Unions Need Women workers!" was a slogan to be taken seriously.
Delegates drew up a plan of activities to take place at a regional level inside Iraq at both a sectoral and cross-sectoral level. Unions decided to focus on work within regions in which transport was relatively easy and cheap, dividing the country into the south, centre, and north. Facilitators were decided on for each of the regions. Such facilitators would move along the work, carry outreach to involve other unions in the transportation sector, and maintain communication with the Secretariat.
ICEM, ITF, and the Solidarity Center continue to see this work as a key way of building trade union strength in Iraq, as well as encouraging unions to work together and to create unity in Iraq.