English

Español

Français

Русский

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy 

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2021-2025

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL 

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

<img height="55" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="138" alt=""/>
ICEM affiliate National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) won a labour court ruling late last month against Continental Tyre. The court ruled the company must reinstate 40 workers who were retrenched at a Port Elizabeth factory in July. 
The unilateral decision by the company to curtail weekend shift operations and manpower in some areas of the plant last summer brought ICEM intervention with the German Works Council of Continental. 
In a separate decision also issued in late October, a South African Labour Department inspector determined that Continental violated the Employment Equity Act that seeks to correct racial imbalances left over from the apartheid era. The inspector found that Continental’s policies have failed to assimilate blacks and whites into common work practices. The Port Elizabeth tyre factory employs 1,200. 
Meanwhile in Germany, IGBCE has won a year’s reprieve for 500 Continental Tyre workers at the Stücken plant in Hannover. The plant was scheduled to close at the end of 2006, but ICEM’s German affiliate convinced the company to keep the plant operating until December 2007.

NUMSA Wins Court Ruling in Continental Tyre Dispute

<img height="55" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="138" alt=""/>
A four-hour general strike across Italy is scheduled for 25 November in protest to the Berlusconi government’s proposed 2006 budget. 
All three major trade union federations—CGIL, CISL and UIL, numbering 11.2 million workers—have called for the strike.
The Berlusconi budget, which must be approved by Parliament by year’s end, calls for US$24 billion in spending cuts, plus regressive revenue-raising measures. Among the proposed cuts are US$2.4 billion in social security costs that companies now must pay for the welfare of workers.

Italy Poised for General Strike on 25 November

<img height="55" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="138"/>
Workers at Mauritanian contractor El Majabaat El Koubra Tours (MKT) remain on strike due to the oil services firm’s sacking of union activists. 
The Energy and Petroleum Workers’ Union (CGTM) of Mauritania conducted a march and demonstration against MKT on behalf of the strikers on 18 November in the capital city of Nouakchott. The event drew over 1,000 protestors. 
The ICEM brought the dispute to international attention and on the day of the rally, MKT, a transport and logistic provider to Australian-based Woodside Petroleum, directed a four-page letter to the global union federation. The company admitted to the firings, but failed to justify reasons why the workers were sacked. 
In early October, MKT and the union reached a protocol agreement over terms, which included union elections for workers. But within days, the company sacked 16 workers, provoking the start of the strike on 14 October. A day later in efforts to reconcile the dispute, MKT agreed to take back ten workers, but not six others who were counted on by fellow workers to stand for election to union positions. 
The ICEM will continue to press MKT and Woodside for justice and recognition of legitimate trade union rights.

Contract Service Workers Remain on Strike in Mauritania

<img height="55" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="138" alt=""/>
Protests in Thailand against contract and agency labour continue in efforts to amend the New Labor Protection Act of 1998, which disproportionably created a mass of contract workers that possess no rights and no direct employee-employer relationship with the actual companies for which they work. 
On 20 November, 1,000 workers protested in front of Government House in Bangkok and, on 24 November, a similar protest in front of the Labour Ministry in the Dindaeng section of Bangkok occurred when Prime Minister Thaskin Sinawatra visited the ministry. This latter rally, attended by 500, called attention to Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s misdirected decision to shift contract workers in its rubber stock and warehouse operations from its own employment rolls to a contract agency following months of pressure by the ICEM. 
The two protests were preceded by a forum sponsored by the Thai Labour Solidarity Committee entitled “An Unjust Labour Contract: Stop Contract Labour System and Poverty.”

Thai Workers Protest to Government on Contract and Agency Labour

Year 2005 has been an important year for the expansion of ICEM’s activities in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The Global Union Federation’s commitment has manifested itself in an up scaling of innovative projects and activities. Many of ICEM’s 389 trade union affiliates in 122 countries have joined the fight to reverse the pandemic. 
<img height="122" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Aids%20ribbon.jpg" width="86"/>
From the beginning of Year 2005, a Global HIV/AIDS Coordinator based in Geneva has been in place and a regional coordinator manages the African project from Johannesburg. Two training workshops were held in June and November for national coordinators from twelve sub-Saharan African countries. A manual on collective bargaining is being finalised. 
 
HIV/AIDS has been mainstreamed in ICEM global and regional meetings. A seminar for the Asian and Pacific region in Tokyo in October sponsored by ICEM-JAF laid the foundation for the expansion of ICEM work in that region. 
 
ICEM’s global information policy has been carried forward. The new ICEM website includes <a href="/?id=72" type="internal">web pages on HIV/AIDS</a> with links to important HIV/AIDS sites and materials of intergovernmental organisations, NGOs and other Global Union Federations, as well as the Global Unions Programme against HIV/AIDS in which the ICEM takes an active part. Power Point Presentations have been developed and posted on the web for the use by affiliates. An e-bulletin is being published monthly. The latest version, also released on December 1, can be read <a href="/index.php?id=72&doc=1539" type="internal">here</a>.
The leaflet “ICEM Responds to HIV/AIDS” is launched on World AIDS Day, and can be <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0511AIDSleaflet.pdf" type="internal">downloaded here</a>. 
 
A central part of ICEM strategy is the expansion of services of existing health clinics of major mining companies to the wider community. It is the logical progression of the valuable workplace education and awareness programmes, which have been in place. And it is here where the ICEM will have a real impact. Agreement in principle has been reached with two multinational mining companies to up scale voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and the provision of antiretroviral treatment (ART). Substantial amounts of funding with a long-term perspective are required from sources not previously accessed by trade unions. The ICEM calls on the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) to support more co-financed workplace projects to provide VCT and ART in partnership with unions and companies. 
 
“The ICEM is strategically positioned for such a direct role in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” says General Secretary Fred Higgs. “We represent workers in the mining industry, a sector disproportionately stricken by the virus due to living and working conditions. We also represent chemical workers in the major drug-producing companies of the world.” The ICEM will continue to be engaged with pharmaceutical companies to provide affordable drugs to those living with HIV/AIDS in the least developed countries. 
 
The ICEM continues its advocacy for genuine poverty eradication policies and for an increased financial commitment to fight the pandemic, especially through the Global Fund. The establishment of a permanent G8 working group is central to this. The newly established partnership between the WHO and the Global Unions must result in concrete assistance for workplace VCT and ART programmes. 
 
The ICEM calls on all affiliates to use World AIDS Day to intensive their campaigns to reverse the pandemic.

ICEM reiterates strong commitment to combat HIV/AIDS

<img height="40" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100"/>
A branch of Canadian affiliate Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union issued a strike notice against Swedish-Finnish paper company Stora Enso a week ago at a mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. 
The notice was served after 98% of 660 members of CEP Local 972 voted to strike. The company has refused to comply with the non-monetary portion of the pattern agreement for the paper industry in eastern Canada. Other unresolved issues include local ones such as Stora Enso’s drive to contract out bargaining unit work, including outsourcing of clerical jobs.
A provincial mediator has called the two sides back to the table for three days of talks from 16-18 December, and another session if necessary on 19 December, the earliest day that a strike could begin. CEP workers at the magazine papers and newsprint mill have been without a current collective agreement for 16 months.

CEP Branch in Canada Braced to Strike Stora Enso

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
German affiliate IGBCE focuses its attention even harder on Continental’s broken promises. On 6 December, 30,000 workers of the tyre maker held stop-work meetings at 26 locations throughout Germany to protest the announced closure of the Stöcken plant in Hannover and the resulting loss of 320 jobs by year-end 2006.
IGBCE agreed with Continental on more flexible working rights, including work weeks of 40 hours without additional pay, in exchange for a pledge of no job cuts. Continental Chief Executive Manfred Wennemer broke that pledge last month with the announcement on the fate of the Stöcken plant.
IGBCE will now terminate ten programmes inside Continental that were established jointly with the company to save some €42 million annually.

IGBCE Rescinds Cooperation Efforts with Continental Tyre

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
French affiliate FCE-CFDT has grown impatient with progress in wage negotiations in France’s chemicals sector. 
The union refused last week to sign a memorandum on the chemicals sector wage policy. FCE-CFDT termed results of a joint committee meeting on 18 November as unacceptable. In 11 months of futile bargaining on the wage issue, FCE-CFDT’s agenda and goals have not been realized.
The union expressed dissatisfaction with that in a letter to the chemical employers’ federation and to the Minister of Employment. FCE-CFDT week is meeting this week with the other French trade unions in the sector to formulate future action.

French FCE-CFDT Union Expresses Chemicals Bargaining Concerns

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief%201.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
 Electricité de France (EDF) announced last week that it would eliminate 6,500 jobs through the end of 2007 in an apparent attempt to boost the share price of the newly privatised company.
The French government placed shares totalling 15% of the company on the Paris bourse 21 November in hopes of raising capitalisation of €7 billion. It offered EDF shares at €32 to small investors and €33-per-share to institutional investors.
On 7 December, prior to the job cuts announcement, EDF stock was selling at €31.66. EDF said the jobs would be lost by not replacing roughly 70% of the 9,000 workers expected to retire by the end of 2007.

EDF Announces Job Cuts to Boost Share Price

France's five main trade union confederations have issued a call for day-long strikes and demonstrations on 4 October aimed at creating job protection and greater purchasing power from workers’ wages. Specifically, manifestations on that day will France’s five main trade union confederations have issued a call for day-long protest the new and extended terms of temporary job contracts created by Prime Minister Dominque deVillepin, considered a crucial threat to job security. The five unions calling for workers both in the public and private sectors to take strike action are CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT and CGT-FO.strikes and demonstrations on 4 October aimed at creating job protection and greater purchasing power from workers’ wages. Specifically, manifestations on that day will France’s five main trade union confederations have issued a call for day-long protest the new and extended terms of temporary job contracts created by Prime Minister Dominque deVillepin, considered a crucial threat to job security. The five unions calling for workers both in the public and private sectors to take strike action are CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT and CGT-FO.

Day of Action in France on 4 October 2005

Archive