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 alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
Members of ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), in dispute with management of Visy Pulp and Paper now for two weeks, resorted to peaceful civil disobedience early today at one company facility. Thirty strikers staged a sit-down across the entry to Visy’s Dandenong recycled containerboard mill near Melbourne. 
 
They were arrested and charged with undue obstruction and besetting a work premise. 
 
Some 500 AMWU members took a 24-hour industrial action on 29 November over Visy’s foot-dragging in reaching a new enterprise agreement. On 3 December, that action became an open-ended strike when 370 paperworkers at two mills, Dandenong in Victoria state and Visy’s Smithfield mill in New South Wales, walked out. 
 
Central among issues in talks has been Visy’s insistence to vastly increase the number of casual workers employed in its mills, converters, and recovered paper worksites. In deliberate moves to frustrate the bargaining process, Visy seeks to create a whole new casual classification rate of A$15-per-hour, less than the current casual rate and about half what full-time workers earn. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1012.VisyDandenong.jpg" width="180" height="135"/>
The AMWU is seeking a 5% wage increase for each of three years, improvement to the wage base for casuals, and a heat policy for work during the current hot summer months. In a provocative move, the company approved a 15% wage increase to workers over three years in its non-union operations. 
 
The AMWU has been fruitlessly negotiated with Visy for three months and a prior enterprise labour agreement expired 30 September. “We have tried to engage and negotiate with Visy, (but) they have closed the door on the negotiations,” said AMWU National Print Division Secretary Lorraine Cassin. 
 
The company has “tried everything in (its) power to whittle down the job security of our members and introduce a cheaper casual workforce across the country,” she added. Besides the Dandenong and Smithfield mills, the union’s 24-hour stop-work actions occurred at converting and recycling centres in Carole Park, Queensland, and O’Connor, West Australia. 
 
Visy did succeed in gaining a court injunction banning union officials from participating on picket lines. But that did not prevent paperworkers employed at Dandenong from lifting the strike to another level. Today’s peaceful sit-down strike is evidence of union frustration against a company fiercely bent on trying to avoid enterprise collective agreements.

AMWU’s Visy Strike in Australia Escalates; 30 Peaceful Strikers Arrested

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), ICEM’s white-collar affiliate in Africa’s most populous country, halted a strike on 4 December against Mobil Producing Nigeria Ltd., a subsidiary of the American energy giant ExxonMobil, so that negotiations over breaches to a collective agreement could begin. 
 
The strike was conducted by the Mobil Producing Nigeria Branch of PENGASSAN over the energy company’s sudden and unilateral sacking of 84 Nigerian workers. The union blocked entry at the company’s administrative offices in Eket in Akwa Ibom State, as well as at other Mobil Producing facilities in Lagos and Port Harcourt. 
 
The strike began on 30 November and was called off on 4 December when Mobil decided to discuss the issue, stating that it would return the workers to their jobs. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMoil3.JPG.JPG" width="100" height="99"/>
The company, the operating partner in a joint venture with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corp., dismissed 66 offshore workers and 18 office employees employed by various contractors. Under the collective agreement, the workers are covered by provisions of the agreement. 
 
By late last week, negotiations did prove that Mobil had violated the contract, both in terms of failing to meet and discuss the layoffs with PENGASSAN prior to the sackings and failing to establish redundancy pay with the union. 
 
The union and company agreed to establish a working group to calculate the exact remuneration owed dismissed workers but Mobil has not returned Nigerian nationals to their rightful jobs. 
 
PENGASSAN has constantly had to defend its collective agreements is the rapid escalation of casualisation in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, with Mobil Producing consistently being one of the worst violators.

PENGASSAN Halts ExxonMobil Strike in Nigeria for Talks

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM participated in the Eastern Europe and CIS regional conference of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and its Pan-European Regional Council (PERC) on 3–4 December in Moscow. 
 
The conference brought together 150 trade union leaders from newly independent countries, to identify new challenges and search for strategies and solutions to fight the violation of workers’ and trade union rights. 
 
The conference was attended by the ITUC General Secretary Sharon Barrow; European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) General Secretary John Monks:, Mikhail Shmakov, President of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia and President of the PERC: and Igor Kovalchuk, President of the Confederation of Labour of Russia (FNPR). 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1012.perc.jpg" width="221" height="138"/>
Trade union rights was identified as a vital necessity in Russia and elsewhere in the region in order to develop civil society and democracy under new conditions of economic modernization. 
 
The conference agreed that in the current environment of the post-crisis recovery, a consolidation of the trade union movement is required in order to respond properly to the challenges common throughout the region. 
 
Speaking about the specific rights of trade unions in Russia, the FNPR’s Shmakov drew attention to the need to liberalise the strike law. “In our country, in contrast to Western countries, it is almost impossible to organize a legal strike, so we must strive to reduce the length of time for conciliation.” 
 
Barrow stated that “the attacks on the rights of the workers are a bad recipe for economic development.” She added: “The role of trade unions as defenders of the legitimate rights of the employees by conducting effective negotiations with the employer is extremely important for the future development of economies and societies in general.”

ICEM Participate in Regional ITUC-PERC Conference in Moscow 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The ICEM expressed deep condolences to the families of 29 miners declared dead on 24 November at the Pike River coal mine disaster in New Zealand, as well as to their trade union – affiliate Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU). 
 
In a letter to EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said, “It is with great sadness that the ICEM has learned of the deaths of 29 miners. Please accept my heartfelt condolences. 
 
“We will now support your call for a full and thorough investigation into the causes of this terrible accident, and for all of the bodies to be returned as soon as possible to their families. The explosion illustrates the importance of our shared work in improving safety standards in mines, and moving the New Zealand Government toward ratification and proper implementation of ILO Convention 176, on safety and health in mines.” (Full letter <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/145.ICEM.EPMU.New%20Zealand.24Nov.pdf" type="internal">here</a>.) 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.epmu.pike.river.jpg" width="208" height="161"/>
Inside Pike River mine, before accident, Photo: NZPA
The miners, trapped since 19 November by a horrid methane gas explosion at Pike River Coal Ltd.’s coking coal mine inside the Paparoa Range on the South Island, were declared dead 24 November by police charged with rescue. (See ICEM’s initial report <a href="/en/5-Mining-DGOJP/4115-Hope-Still-Alive-for-29-Trapped-Inside-Pike-River’s-New-Zealand-Coal-Mine" type="internal">here</a>.) The police announcement came minutes after a second massive explosion that lasted 30 seconds occurred inside the company’s mine of the Brunner coal seam at 14h37, local time, Wednesday. The Pike River mine is located 50 kilometres from Greymouth . 
 
Rescue attempts proved prohibitive for six days because of high levels of methane gas and carbon monoxide that were registered inside. News of the secondary explosion on 24 November and improbability that the 29 could have survived was brought to grief-stricken family members at 16h00 in Greymouth by Pike River CEO Peter Whittal. “Exactly what we said would happen happened,” he told reporters in explaining why rescuers had not been sent into the mine. Some 90 skilled mine rescuers, many flown in from Australia, were on standby for those five days. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/People/EPMU Andrew Little.jpg" width="182" height="173"/>
EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little
EPMU National Secretary Little said: “News of this second devastating explosion means there is now no prospect of a successful rescue and the lives of the 29 men trapped inside have been lost. It is time to let the families and the community grieve. 
 
“Most of the miners killed were our comrades in the union, including Blair Sims who was an EPMU delegate at the Pike River mine,” Little said. “The EPMU will now make the practical arrangements to establish a fund to assist the families of the men whose lives have been lost.” 
 
Little added the EPMU now calls on the government “to establish an independent inquiry to investigate the circumstances of the explosion, including a public hearing in front of a senior judge and leading technical experts,” adding the union will do everything possible to assist the investigation. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.epmu.blair.sims.jpg" width="175" height="175"/>
EPMU Delegate Blair Sims
Sims was a 28-year-old loving husband and father of two small children. He was an exceptional rugby player who for the past two seasons was New Zealand West Coast player of the year. Eleven of the 29 miners were EPMU members. Those perishing included 16 full-time workers of Pike River Coal Ltd., owned 31% owned by New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd., and 13 contract employees. 
 
Little, who received the news 90 minutes after the blast yesterday, told New Zealand media that “miners are special people. They are the foundation rock that much of New Zealand was built on. When you lose special people like that, 29 all in one go, it is a hard thing. I don’t think any of us can imagine what the families will be going through tonight.” 
 
The EPMU is assisting by setting up the “EPMU Pike River Miners Family Support Trust” to collect donations to support the 29 families. See more information on how to give financial support to the families of the dead miners <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.EPMU%20Pike%20River%20Miners%20Family%20Support%20Trust%20-%20flyer.pdf" type="internal">here</a>. 
 
"Miners around the world are grieving their fallen comrades," said ICEM and South Africa's NUM President Senzeni Zokwana, "our struggle continues to ensure our members safety at work." 
 
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key today will name a High Court judge along with two other high-level people to a Royal Commission of Inquiry to determine accountability for the Pike River tragedy. One of those members is expected to be an international mine safety expert. 
 
As well, other investigations will be conducted by Kiwi governmental agencies, and the EPMU will assemble its own team of legal and technical experts. Little welcomed Key’s announcement after a Cabinet meeting today that a Royal Commission will convene. 
 
“This is a huge disaster by any account and what we do in response will be scrutinized around the world, especially in other Commonwealth countries whose nationals were among those killed,” Little said. 
 
Besides 24 New Zealanders who perished inside the Pike River mine, two Australians, two UK nationals who were Scotsmen, and one South African also died. 
 
See photos of all the lost Pike River miners <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/pike-river-miners/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=1503001">here</a>.

Together with EPMU, ICEM Mourns Deaths of 29 Miners in New Zealand

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
The ICEM is calling on its affiliates to mark World AIDS Day. 
 
First observed in 1988, World AIDS Day on 1 December has served to raise awareness about the epidemic, focus attention on issues that are key to a successful response and inspire positive action. The theme of World AIDS Day for 2009 and 2010 is “Universal Access and Human Rights”. 
 
This year, a global “Lights for Rights Commemoration” is organised in 100 cities. When lights are turned off, darkness represents how stigma, discrimination, and criminalisation forces people to die alone in fear and shame, while switching the lights on symbolises the human rights of all people, which allows one to walk in the light of information, treatment and care. 
 
HIV/AIDS is a social disease. HIV transmission mainly takes place along the fault lines caused by poverty, gender inequality and social injustice. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.world_aids_day_poster_non[1].gif" width="132" height="171" alt=""/>
HIV/AIDS is a workplace issue. The workplace is crucial for successful action to combat the pandemic. 
 
HIV and AIDS funds are in recession due to the impact of the global financial crisis; HIV and AIDS are not in recession. Still for every three people put on treatment five more become infected. That is why awareness and prevention as well as advocacy for voluntary counselling and testing are crucial in the fight against the epidemic. These are also cornerstones of the ICEM HIV/AIDS project. 
 
HIV is also a human rights issue, closely related to workplace non-discrimination laws and regulations. The ICEM calls on its affiliates to negotiate and adopt HIV/AIDS workplace policies, which are rights-oriented, non-discriminatory and do not victimise people living with HIV and AIDS. 
 
An important development in 2010 was the adoption by the 99th International Labour Conference of the new ILO Recommendation 200 on HIV and AIDS and the World of Work. The ICEM is committed to support the implementation of this strong new instrument on HIV and AIDS. 
 
The ICEM calls on its affiliates to join campaigners and organisations in their country to highlight universal access and human rights.

1 December – World AIDS Day

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
ICEM Nigerian affiliate the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is demanding the immediate release of its 10 members who were aggressed and arrested at work at 10.30am last Thursday, 25 November. 
 
The employees of oil multinational Halliburton did not know who the armed men were who arrived at company offices in Lagos, after attacking the security guards at the entrance. The men were officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), investigating the bribery and corruption scandal around Halliburton and the multi-million dollar bribes paid to top government officials in exchange for the contract to build Africa's first liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny, Rivers state. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0805BanatundeOgunPengPres1.jpg" width="100" height="150" alt=""/>
PENGASSAN President Babatunde Ogun
It is widely suspected that the bribery and corruption reached the very top levels of government and the establishment in Nigeria, including three former presidents. This is another reason why PENGASSAN are angered by the arrests of their members. 
 
PENGASSAN President, Comrade Babatunde Ogun said, “Many Nigerian names appeared on the Halliburton investigating list in the United States and Nigeria. Names of three former heads of states, Late Gen. Sani Abacha, Gen.Abdusalami Abubakar (rtd) and President Olusegun Obasanjo as well as the ministers of Petroleum under their regimes were implicated as recipients of bribes. Why is it that it is only innocent Nigerians that the EFCC picked?” 
 
Those arrested and brutalised by the EFCC are Jarvis Peter, Hans Kempeneers, Liliy Adiogu, Lawal Yakubu, Iseoluwa Ogundele, Efe Collins, Isa Saibu, Barnabas Iroegbulem, Chi-Ukpai, and Theodore Okonkwo. 
 
The association also condemned the barbaric nature with which the anti-corruption agency carried out its operations at Halliburton office on November 25, 2010, by beating the workers and molesting the female staff, which have been reported by Branch Chairman of the union Abel O. Agarin.

Police Brutally Arrest Innocent PENGASSAN Members

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
ICEM Swedish affiliate IF Metall launched a new campaign ‘Strong Together’, 20 November, to highlight the strength of their local trade union reps, and to illustrate that there is power in unity. That message was made with members picking up cars at the locals in the cities of Kiruna, Umeå, Eskilstuna, Trollhättan, Gothenburg and Malmö. 
 
“Alone you cannot lift a car, but together we can,” said Jan Thelin, a shop steward at LKAB mine in Kiruna, and one of the members who lifted a car. “Imagine what more members can do together!” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1011.if metall campaign.png" width="141" height="146"/>
The campaign will be continued until the IF Metall Congress in June 2011. See videos of the events and further information on the campaign <a href="http://www.ifmetall.se/ifmetall/home/home.nsf/LUUnique/CADBBFCAB43A8C90C12577E000299F9D?OpenDocument">here</a>.  
 
The first group of IF Metall members to be the focus of the action was the 14,500-strong health and safety representatives. Those representatives conducted a hazard investigation before the lift.

IF Metall Campaign 'Stronger Together'

By a vote of 521 to 398 on 6 December, members of Sindicato de los Trabajadores de Collahuasi voted to end a 32-day strike against the world’s third largest copper miner, located in Chile. The Union of Workers of the Collahuasi Copper Mine and Doña Ines de Collahuasi, owned jointly through 44% stakes each by AngloAmerican and Xstrata, resumed talks early last week with help from Roman Catholic Prelate Marco Antonio Órdenes, Bishop of Iquique. 
 
The union's Second Director, Carlos Daniel Rojas, told the ICEM early today that Bishop Órdenes succeeded "in opening the door" with the company when there appeared little hope that talks would resume, and the union took it from there to work out a settlement. 
 
The final resolve came in negotiations over the weekend and early Monday, 6 December, with an acceptable compromise. 
 
The vote Monday night ends the longest private-sector Chilean copper strike, surpassing one of 26 days in 2006 at the Escondida mine, owned 57.5% by BHP Billiton and 30% by Rio Tinto. 
 
Terms of the settlement will give the 1,551 miners of Collahuasi a wage increase of 16.3% over a 42-month period, and a bonus payment of 14 million pesos (US$28,733). Other key issues in the strike, which began on 5 November, were company-paid health care and education costs for miners’ children. The union did make advances in both these areas from prior levels paid by the company. 
 
The strike was marked by a united workforce led by President Manuel Muñoz and Second Director Rojas. The miners of Collahuasi took up residency in the Santa María School in Iquique, and staged peaceful and near-daily manifestations in that city. Those demonstrations were strategic in order to draw attention to their cause of gaining adequate health coverage and educational stipends from an employer that posted net profits in 2009 of US$1.56 billion due to high copper pricing. 
 
Last night’s vote took place inside the Santa María School. Collahuasi miners were scheduled to return to work high in the Atacama desert of Chile’s northern Region I, some 285 kilometres from the port city of Iquique, today, 7 December. 
 
"The Collahuasi miners and their families showed strength and fortitude in a dignified and peaceful way against an enterprise intent on maintaining production and turning profits," said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. "For that, they have earned the pride and admiration of the world's mining unions." 
 
Coverage of this heroic strike, taken from the ICEM website, can be found <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4117-Chile’s-Collahuasi-Copper-Strike-Now-in-Crucial-Stage" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4102-Miners-Dig-In-at-Chile’s-Collahuasi-Copper-Strike" type="internal">here</a>.

Strike Ends at Collahuasi Copper Mine in Chile

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CAL_en.jpg" width="110" height="50"/>
A sit-in strike by contract workers at the Hyundai Motor factory in Ulsan, South Gyeongsang, South Korea, which at times turned violent, ended on 9 December. The 25-day strike ended when three unions, including one representing the contract workers, met and agreed to halt the strike on condition that management would negotiate in good-faith to make the workers full-time Hyundai staff. The strike and blockade of production was over the auto manufacturer’s refusal to grant permanent work status, in accord with a July Korean Supreme Court decision. (See related story <a href="/index.php?id=73&la=EN&doc=4149" type="internal">here</a>.) 
 
The workers, some 550 in total who are members of the Hyundai Motors Irregular Workers’ Union, began sit-in actions at Ulsan on 15 November and are demanding an end to discrimination in wages and job conditions. The militant strike action was started by some 30 workers after Hyundai sought to replace a terminated seat-assembly subcontracting company called Dongsung with another, and insisted that the contract workers sign individual contracts with the new company. 
 
In the weeks prior, some 1,900 contract workers at Hyundai, buoyed by the 22 July Supreme Court decision stating they must be made permanent and direct workers of the car producer after two years employment, joined the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU). With the change in subcontractors, Hyundai also attempted to coerce the workers to withdraw from the KMWU. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1012.CAL Korea Hyundai Motor.jpg" width="250" height="160"/>
The strike had been met by the use of beatings and tear gas by local police brought in by the world’s fifth largest car-maker. At the outset on 15 November, Hyundai managers attacked the sit-down strikers with heavy metal fittings and iron frames. Scores of contract workers have been arrested, and the company has filed both criminal and civil lawsuits against the strikers, including a civil one against 419 strikers seeking 16.2 billion (US$14.1 million) for lost production. One contract worker attempted to set himself on fire during a plant gate rally on 20 November. 
 
At times, three assembly lines had been blockaded by angry contract workers, costing Hyundai some 24,000 units of production. As of early last week, contract workers were occupying one line at Ulsan, the world’s largest integrated automobile manufacturing facility, thus cutting production of the company’s newly-unveiled Accent model, as well as Click and Verna subcompact models. 
 
Union leaders at Ulsan had been seeking dialogue with Hyundai Motor management in order to resolve the ever-growing number of issues, but reportedly senior management would not meet until the strike actions cease. 
 
The strike by contract workers did catch the attention of autoworkers throughout the world. On 6 December, the American United Auto Workers’ (UAW) Union held a manifestation attended by 150 people at the Hyundai-Kia America Technical Center in the US state of Michigan in support of the Korean autoworkers.

25-Day Sit-In Strike by Hyundai’s Contract Workers Ends 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/en-header.jpg" width="160" height="49"/>
In a powerful display of international solidarity, trade unions in over 40 countries on five continents took action demanding trade union rights in Mexico from February 14-19, 2011. Unions from around the globe came together holding actions, writing letters and taking meetings with Mexican ambassadors and political figures to highlight massive labour rights violations in Mexico. Everywhere the message to the Mexican government was the same: 
• Hold employer and government officials accountable for the Pasta de Conchos mine explosion that killed 65 miners on February 19, 2006. 
• Abolish systemic violations of workers' freedom of association, including employer-dominated "protection contracts" and interference in union elections. 
• End the use of force-by the state or private parties-to repress workers' legitimate demands for democratic unions, better wages and working conditions, and good health and safety conditions. 
• End the campaign of political persecution against the Mexican Miners' Union (Los Mineros) and the Mexican Electrical Workers' Union (SME). 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.Mexico_MexAct.jpg" width="334" height="188"/>
Mexico City
In <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25486&l=2">Mexico</a> itself each day of action was marked with the independent labour movement conducting over 27 actions throughout the country, including visits to embassies of 23 countries, a march and demonstration in Mexico City, seminars and a protest rally at the Monument of the Revolution. The leaders of Los Mineros and SME signed a pact of national unity. 
 
In <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25465&l=2">Canada</a>, high-level trade union delegations met with Mexican ambassadors and consuls in four cities, while pickets continued outside. In six cities across the US, rallies, meetings with ambassadors and consuls, and pickets, sent the clear message to the Mexican Calderón government that pressure is building inside the country’s largest trading partner that labour rights abuses must end. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.Washington_MexAct.jpg" width="285" height="187"/>
Washington DC
Elsewhere more than 50 meetings with embassy representatives or policymakers took place, shining a light on Mexico's refusal to honour its international commitments to respect Freedom of Association. In <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4238-Mexico-Days-of-Action-Begin" type="internal">Switzerland</a>, the office of the Ambassador to the United Nations was targeted by a rally and other significant actions took place in <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25463&l=2">Australia</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25469&l=2">Belgium</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25476&l=2">Brazil</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25528&l=2">France</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25548&l=2">India</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25552&l=2">Indonesia</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25713&l=2">Italy</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25590&l=2">Japan</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25544&l=2">New Zealand</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25513&l=2">Russia</a>, <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25608&l=2">South Africa</a>, and <a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=25492&l=2">Spain</a>. 
 
These actions were key as the Committee on Freedom of Association met in the first week of March at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to discuss three significant complaints filed against Mexico, two regarding union autonomy and the other regarding "protection contracts". 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1103.Russia_MexAct.jpg" width="285" height="189"/>
Moscow
You can still join the <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=863">campaign through LabourStart</a> by sending a message to Calderón. More than 3,500 messages were sent via the campaign in the first week, and the numbers are growing every day. 
 
The action in support of the democratic and independent trade unions in Mexico was initiated by unions from around the world affiliated to the International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), UNI Global Union, and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). 
 
In addition, the International Textile, Garment, & Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) called for <a href="http://www.itglwf.org/lang/en/ITGLWFCallsforFundamentalRightsintheMexicanGarmentSector.html ">fundamental rights in the Mexican garment sector</a>, where “protection contracts” deny workers of their basic labour rights, as is the case throughout Mexico. 
 
<a href="http://www.imfmetal.org/mexico2011 ">Click here for more information</a>.

Unions Join Forces to Demand Trade Union Rights in Mexico

Archive