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Talks continued in New Zealand last week at the highest level to resolve issues surrounding a series of strikes over the past two months by coal miners of ICEM affiliate EPMU. National Secretary Andrew Little and Solid Energy CEO Don Elder met to clarify issues and to seek an end to the dispute. Miners are seeking a 6% pay hike and a national coal mining agreement that will bring pay parity to miners on both the North and South Islands, and in underground and open cast mines.

Talks Pressing Forward for End to New Zealand’s Coal Dispute

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A branch leader of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) was run over and killed by a cement mixing truck 14 June while striking with ICEM-affiliated FKTU-Chemical Workers Union. Kim Tae-hwan, leader of the Chungju branch of FKTU, was killed when police ordered a replacement driver through a picket line at cement company Sajo Remicon. 
Drivers are seeking to unionise with FKTU-Chemical Workers Union and gain permanent work status, as well as qualify for full rights under Korea’s Labor Standards Act. They have been on recognition strikes since 8 June at three cement companies. The drivers are considered selfemployed contract workers, contrary to union beliefs. On 18 June, 6,000 workers together with other activists rallied at the city hall of Chungju demanding accountability for Kim’s murder, including accountability of ten police officers that were at the picket line scene on 14 June.

Korean Labour Leader Killed on the Picket Line

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ICEM Nigerian affiliate PENGASSAN is adamant about improving laws and regulations concerning the use of casual workers. At a four-day workshop in mid-June in Owerri, Imo State, leaders of the white-collar petroleum union issued a communiqué aimed at both the Nigerian Department of Petroleum Resources and contractors: PENGASSAN members “frown at the increasing level of casualisation and contract staffing in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry because of its dehumanizing and exploitative nature but cautions that the proposed Recruiters License should be given to consultants who will respect Labour Laws.” 
PENGASSAN also stated such licenses “be renewed annually to check abuse while the Association should be made to certify that the vacancies to be filled are temporary in nature. Also, the workshop reaffirms the stand of the Association on unionizing contract workers and urges Companies that are yet to enter into Collective Agreements with this category of workers do so immediately.” 
The union is also seeking an amendment to the Petroleum Act of 1969 in that private enterprises awarded licenses to build new refineries are given two-to-three years maximum to construct such refineries, or risk losing permits and licenses. PENGASSAN insists that at least 40% of all crude oil drilled in Nigeria be refined in the country in order to create jobs for Nigerians.

Nigerian Unions Seek Controls on Casual Labour Use

A vote by two UK unions for industrial action against Imerys has moved the French materials company back to the negotiations table over a contentious pension issue. Union members of ICEM affiliates Transport & General (T&G) and GMB voted to take industrial action at Imerys’ English China Clay at several southwestern UK worksites. Rather than face an angry 2,500 workers ready to disrupt operations over pensions being chopped, Imerys agreed to negotiate after a meeting between T&G General Secretary Tony Woodley and corporate managers of the company. 
Imerys previously had refused any dialogue over its plan to close the pension scheme to new workers and cut anywhere from 33-40% in pension benefits to existing workers. In the US, Imerys workers in Dry Branch, Georgia, represented by another ICEM affiliate, USW, ratified a three-year agreement with the company, but fellow USW union members in Sylacauga, Alabama, still seek a commitment from management that it cease union-busting.

UK Unions, Imerys Agree to Re-start Pension Talks

ICEM affiliates in South Africa today have taken their members out on strike, joining labour centre COSATU’s call for protest against soaring job loss and unemployment levels now reaching 40%. Over 200,000 workers are expected to strike. ICEM affiliates National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) are also using the day-long strike to call attention to the lack of progress in wage talks. NUM is negotiating with the Chamber of Mines in gold sectors talks, and is also bargaining for workers in the precious mineral. NUMSA has been stalemated in pay talks in the metal, automotive and engineering sectors.

South African ICEM Affiliates Lead Mass Strike

A satisfactory result came from recent negotiations in Brazil by ICEM rubber affiliate inside Frente Unica da Borracha (FUB). Employers in tyre manufacturing agreed to meet Brazils’s inflation rate of 6.93% and workers in those business enterprises won 7%. Profit-sharing increased from R$2,750 to R$3,250. In the rubber materials sector, an 8% pay increase was attained and several improvements were made in that collective agreement as well.

Rubber Accord Reached in Brazil

Copper miners in the US states of Arizona and Texas, represented by ICEM affiliate United Steelworkers (USW) are on strike against Asarco, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Grupo Mexico. Some 1,200 miners struck a pair of Asarco’s Arizona worksites 2 July, just after their collective agreement expired, and another 350 struck at mine and processing sites in Arizona and Texas last week in sympathy. Their contract had expired 30 June 2004. Grupo Mexico is demanding a wage freeze and pension and health care benefit reductions at a time when copper prices are at a 16- year high. 
The company has told markets that 100,000 to 125,000 tonnes of processed and contained copper will be reduced from world supplies due to the strikes. The company has turned down requests by the union for bargaining to resolve the young strikes, and the USW has filed numerous unfair labour practice charges with the US labour board over the company’s lack of bargaining and harsh reprisals in the workplace against trade unionists during bargaining.

Steelworkers in Southwestern US Strike Copper Holdings

A gas explosion early today in China has killed three and left 81 missing. The incident occurred at the Shenlong coal mine in Fukang city,Xinjiang province. Last week, two separate mine catastrophes killed 18 in China, and the week prior, a mine explosion killed 19. On 7 July at a licensed mine in Chishan township, Jiangxi province, a flood trapped 15 miners. A day earlier, three miners were killed due to a gas combustion explosion. That accident was at the Wangzifen coal mine in Chifeng city, North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region. On 2 July, 19 of 24 miners working at the illegal Jiajiabao coal mine in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, died after a gas explosion rocked the mine.

Gas Blast in China Kills 81

As InBrief reported on 1 March that USWA was about to win its second card check organization with Goodyear, a majority of 350 workers at a plant in Asheboro, North Carolina, did choose the US’s leading steel and rubber union for representation. Per terms of the collective agreement between USWA and Goodyear, an independent arbitrator ruled 12 March that a majority did want the union. Goodyear manufactures steel wire for truck tyres at the plant.

USWA Wins Unionisation for Goodyear Workers through Accord

Fallout over miners’ drinking water that had been used for processing uranium ore in Australia’s Northern Territory continues some three weeks after a Rio Tinto subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., wrongly fitted a pipe with the contaminated water into drinking water supplies. Several workers at the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park drank and showered in the water 23 March and were taken ill. The mine was closed as 150,000 liters of contaminated water 400 times the legal limit made its way into safe water supplies. Affiliate CFMEU is monitoring the health crisis at Australia’s largest uranium processing site.

Rio Tinto’s Water Contamination Makes Australian Workers Ill

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