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Australian oil workers are battling the world’s largest energy concern to preserve a family’s way of life. Members of ICEM affiliates Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and Communication, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) were informed by Esso, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, and its contractors working the Bass Straight oil rigs off Victoria that it would shift to a two-week on, two-week off schedule, replacing the current seven-day roster. The unions are resisting the change. Contractors are seeking to terminate the enterprise bargaining agreement through Australia’s Industrial Relations Commission. The contract for oil rig workers expired last year and contractors backed by ExxonMobil refuse to discuss issues until workers agree to the 14 continuous days away from families.

Australian Affiliates Resist ExxonMobil’s Shift Changes

A near-fatal death attempt in Colombia on the life of another trade union leader occurred 2 March. Rafael Cabarcas Cabarcas, a key leader of ICEM ally Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria Del Petróleo (USO), was seriously injured when assassins riding a motorcycle opened fire on him and a bodyguard outside Funfedhin Institute of Education in Cartagena. A bullet entered the neck of Cabarcas and lodged in his jaw, while the bodyguard was shot in the abdomen. Cabarcas had been a member of the National Executive of USO during last spring’s successful strike against Ecopetrol, a strike in which ICEM spearheaded international support and attention. USO had warned the government of death threats against its leaders since the end of that strike and despite the fact that the Organisation of American States had recommended security tighter measures for USO leaders, none were put in place.

Assassination Attempt on Colombian Oil Union Leader

Australian affiliate CFMEU sent a clear message to the Howard government last week on how it would resist proposed radical industrial relations reform: together with the Maritime Union, it dispatched 400 trade unionists from Perth to Collie in Western Australia to support striking construction workers at BHP Billiton’s new Worsley alumina refinery. Throughout February, strikers—including CFMEU members and members of ICEM affiliates Communications, Electrical & Plumbing Union (CEPU) and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU)—downed tools over pay and dispute over their classification as individual contractors under the federal awards system, a system already denying them basic workplace rights. Under the proposed Howard reform plan, among other regressive measures, such individual workers could be sued for taking strike action. Last week’s 200 km solidarity caravan to Collie convinced two of BHP Billiton’s site contractors to settle the pay dispute and if another agrees to the higher pay, construction workers could be back to work early this week.

CFMEU Will Resist Howard Government’s Labour Reforms

Canadian nickel mining concern Inco Ltd. has caused a labour dispute at a mine and processing operation at Saroako on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The company sacked 250 workers on 25 January and has refused dialogue with the legitimate union, FSP KEP, the Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union affiliated with the Indonesian Trade Union Congress. Although none of the workers are members of SPSK, a rival, former Suharto-aligned union, Inco contacted this group on the reductions in efforts to undermine FSP KEP. The ICEM will continue to investigate Inco’s unfair treatment of the miners and FSP KEP.

Dispute Caused by Canadian Inco Mining in Indonesia

A 15 March manifestation in Paris over Total’s decision to cut jobs at a petrochemical plant in Saint-Auban, Alpes-de-Haute Provence, has pushed the company off rationalisation of its Arkéma subsidiary. Total’s plan was to cut 548 jobs, 380 of them at the plant in southeastern France. ICEM affiliate FCE-CFDT, along with CGT, took action with workers of the subsidiary in Paris and the company suspended the plan. Worker representatives and managers at the 1,000-worker Saint-Auban plant will now sit down to examine worker proposals for costs savings. FCE-CFDT predicted economic disaster for all workers in management’s restructuring had occurred.

French Strike Cancels Total’s Chemical Plant Restructuring

Members of UK’s Transport & General Workers Union at Michelin’s Stoke tyre plant in the Midlands are in their 11th day of industrial action following the French company’s refusal to consolidate a pay offer with pension, holiday and other benefits. The 400 workers rejected a non-consolidated pay offer 10 March for the second time and are refusing overtime and all cooperative programmes with management. Tying the pay offer of 3% also to pensions and other benefits would cost Michelin less than the revised offer the company made last week that included performance-related payments, said T&G. Workers staged a mass protest outside the factory 15 March, the same day Michelin announced its 2004earnings topped those of 2003 by 60%, £ 358 million to 220 million.

Industrial Action at Michelin in the UK

China recorded further mass deaths in yet another coal mine disaster over the weekend. On 19 March, a gas blast at Xishui colliery near Shuozhou, Shanzi province, killed 60, with another nine miners still missing. The explosion collapsed a wall in the adjacent Kangjiayao mine and several of the dead and trapped miners were working there. The Xishui mine was ordered shut last November for safety reasons, but mine owners—now being held by police—restarted production early this year in defiance of authorities. This latest disaster comes a mere two days after another gas explosion killed 19 miners in Chongquing in southwestern Sichuan province. And on 14 March, a gas blast at Qitaihe Coal Field Group killed 18 at the Xinfu mine in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang province.

Three Chinese Mine Accidents Kill 100

Fifty-three Serbian miners won job protections and guaranteed work rights with a seven-day hunger strike at the Kostolac coal mine. The workers, part of mine maintenance and geological research of Serbian power company EPS now coming under a new enterprise called Georad, will retain the same contract provisions and rights under the EPS collective agreement. They also won job protections from EPS if the new enterprise fails. The miners’ action plus skilled bargaining tactics by leaders of ICEM affiliate EPS Trade Union Workers won the guarantees. The strike lasted one full week, 18-24 March.

Serbian EPS Union Wins Rights for Mine Maintenance Workers

After three weeks of futile bargaining, talks broke off last week between Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) of Canada Local 689 and UPM Kymmene over efforts to end a four-month paper mill strike in Miramichi, New Brunswick. The Finnish paper company still will not submit the pattern labour agreement for the paper sector of eastern Canada to the striking 700 CEP members, which is the central issue to the strike. Rather, UPM Kymmene was pressuring Local 689 to force a vote of union members on a substandard proposal. Union members 14 April vehemently rejected taking a vote on anything short of the pattern agreement.

CEP, UPM Kymmene Fail in Canadian Talks to End Strike

Meanwhile, coal miners in South Africa, fearful they would be sacked by the sale of Zululand Anthracite Colliery by Ingwe Holdings’parent BHP Billiton to Riverdale Holdings, staged an underground strike for several days beginning 10 April. Supported by the NUM, the strikers are seeing assurances that any redundancies at the colliery in northern KwaZulu-Natal State will be met with adequate payments. Another underground mine sit-in occurred in the Free State by 400 NUM members at Star Diamond near Theunissen. Miners were protesting the sackings of two workers who refused to work in dangerous conditions.

South African Coal Miners Stage Underground Strike

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