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Transport and General Workers’ Union (T&G) of the UK termed Royal Dutch/Shell’s profits announcement as “obscene.” Shell made history last week by reporting the largest annual profit ever posted by a British company—£9.3 billion or US$18.5 billion. The massive earnings statement propped up by record oil and energy prices are making many in the UK— including ICEM affiliate T&G—call for a windfall tax bill. “With our pensions in crisis, (Shell’s) profits are 9.3 billion extra reasons for a windfall tax,” said T&G General Secretary Tony Woodley. “The government should grasp the nettle so everyone can benefit.”

UK Affiliate Terms Shell's Profits 'Obscene'

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) is very concerned about the kidnapping of Mr. Moaid Hamed, General Secretary of the IFTU in Mosul. Mr. Moaid Hamed was abducted on 11 February, in Mosul, by gunmen who attacked him and took him away. At the end of January 2005, the president of the IFTU in Mosul had already been abducted for a week, at which time he was severely tortured. Prior to his release on 1 February, he was told to stop his trade union work or be killed. The ICEM demands the immediate release of Mr Moaid Hamed and strongly supports the campaign by the IFTU to end terrorism against trade unionists in Iraq and to organise Iraqi workers into free trade and democratic unions.

Another Iraqi Trade Union Leader Abducted

ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) won a round against global paper and packaging firm Visy Industries when the firm backed off forcing single-site labour agreements at 13 of its corrugated packaging plants in Australia. Visy had offered workers A$1,000 cash payment to accept the stand-alone labour agreements, but AMWU unity and resistance defeated the measure. The two sides agreed on a three-year, 14.25% wage hike covering some 600 paper-converting workers that preserves a system-wide agreement.

AMWU Wins Master Contract for Paperworkers in Australia

In India, a three-day strike by coal mines of the Singareni Collieries Co. ended 27 April, but the union--Singareni Collieries Employees Union-- promised an indefinite strike if the uniform pay increase from India's wage board is not implemented. Strikes at mines in Adilabad and Warangal districts saw 100% support by miners, while other areas such as Khamman and Karimnagan saw somewhat less participation. In total, the 72-hour strike had support from 75% of over 92,000 miners.

Coal Strikes in India’s Mines

Canada's Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) has reached a settlement with Petro-Canada which sets a pattern for about 10,000 CEP members at major oil, gas and petrochemical companies across the country. 
 
The new agreement, announced yesterday, provides wage increases of 9.5 per cent over the next three years - 3.5 per cent in the first year, and three per cent in each of the following two years. 
 
The proposal was accepted by delegates representing workers from coast to coast in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry at a special conference this past weekend. 
 
"We're pleased that we were able to avoid a national strike and obtain an acceptable settlement at the bargaining table," said CEP President Brian Payne. Some outstanding issues remain to be solved in local negotiations, he added. 
 
At the global level, the CEP is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

Wage hike for Canadian oil workers

Efforts to secure a global union-employer agreement for the chemical sector have failed, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) announced today. 
 
Speaking in Washington, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs expressed "profound concern" over "what may turn out to have been a two-year charade masquerading as serious dialogue between the world chemical industry and the ICEM." 
 
Detailed negotiations between the ICEM and the companies' International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) had seemed close to success. Now, however, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) - a major member organisation of the ICCA - has decided to "take no position" on a proposed memorandum of understanding covering health, safety and environmental issues between the ICCA and the ICEM. This seriously jeopardises the prospects of the hoped-for ICCA/ICEM agreement. 
 
The scuppering of the worldwide agreement would pose a particular threat to the chemical industry's Responsible Care programme. 
 
Responsible Care aims to portray the chemical sector as applying uniformly high occupational health and safety and environmental standards wherever the industry operates. It has been the industry's main response to critics of its social and environmental record. Responsible Care programmes have been introduced in many parts of the world, often backed by lavish advertising campaigns. 
 
However, Responsible Care long lacked public credibility. A survey published by the ICEM in December 1997 showed that chemical workers were neither particularly involved in, or even aware of, Responsible Care. 35 percent of the chemical unions surveyed did not know what Responsible Care was. Among those that did, many regarded it as little more than a public relations exercise. One union called it "window dressing." 
 
In February 1999, all this looked set to change. A meeting of the world's governments, chemical employers and chemical unions decided to establish a formal dialogue between the ICEM and the ICCA - notably in a bid to inject some real content into Responsible Care. 
 
Organised by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), the meeting was hailed at the time by the companies and the unions as a major step forward in the promotion of Responsible Care. 
 
Among the ILO meeting's conclusions: 
 
- Internationally comparable systems of performance indicators should be developed and maintained to track chemical enterprises' performance on workplace health and safety and on environmental protection. Workers and their representatives should be involved in the development and use of these systems. 
 
- Workers and their representatives should be actively involved in identifying training and education needs and in designing and implementing training programmes. 
 
At the time, this and the meeting's detailed agreed principles for worker involvement seemed to offer new hope for Responsible Care and the industry's other "voluntary initiatives". The thinking was that careful monitoring by chemical workers and their trade unions, from the workplace right up to the global level, could give more real substance to these programmes and so boost their credibility. 
 
It was not to be. 
 
"We had supposed that the industry was discussing in good faith," Higgs said today. "That was clearly not the case. Whilst I am inclined to believe that those with whom we were negotiating under the auspices of the ICEM/ICCA Joint Advisory Committee were sincere, I am forced to conclude that we were not talking to the real decision-makers and that, furthermore, those making the final decision never had any intention of reaching agreement with the ICEM." 
 
And he left no doubt as to the villains of the piece. 
 
"It is appropriate that I am making this announcement in Washington," Higgs said, "because it is the US chemical industry - or at least one or two powerful voices within it - which deliberately destroyed this international process. The consequences will be extremely damaging, perhaps fatal, for Responsible Care and the industry's other voluntary initiatives worldwide. 
 
"Ironically," Higgs added, "the US chemical companies have made this move at the precise moment when their own reputation is in tatters. The programme 'Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report', televised by PBS here in the States on 26 March, demonstrated just how badly the American chemical industry has behaved in the past, the tactics it uses to silence or neutralise its critics and the widespread public mistrust and anger directed against it. In particular, the progamme chronicles the US chemical manufacturers' very well-funded fight against the 'precautionary principle' for the regulation of toxic chemicals. Long used and accepted in, for example, the European Union, this principle says that, in case of doubt, government regulators should opt to regard a chemical as toxic, thus protecting public health and safety. Due to sustained lobbying by the US chemical companies' trade association, Americans still do not have the basic protection of the precautionary principle. 
 
"When the PBS programme was made, and when we were negotiating with the ICCA, the US chemical manufacturers were grouped in a body called the Chemical Manufacturers' Association (CMA)," Higgs said. "Now, it is called the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Frankly, I'm not surprised that they had to change its name. 
 
"What other ICCA member associations have to decide now," Higgs said, "is whether they want to be identified with the blinkered attitude of their US counterparts. That is, of course, a difficult choice, but unless they isolate the American companies, the chemical industry worldwide will risk a serious loss of social and environmental credibility. Both for labour relations and for the environment, the present political climate in the USA is anything but good. The White House is clearly at the beck and call of America's most reactionary boardrooms. So on chemical safety, as on other issues, the world may just have to get on with its own agenda and, reluctantly, leave the USA to one side for the moment. 
 
"That is the challenge now facing the ICCA," Higgs concluded. "If you want to keep talking to us, if you want to salvage the chemical industry's global reputation, prove to us - now, without any more doublecrosses or doubletalk - that you are no longer the hostages of your most backward US member companies. It's entirely up to you."

US Chemical Firms Scupper Global Agreement

Trade unions in the world's pharmaceutical industry have welcomed the decision by 39 leading drug companies to drop their lawsuit against the South African government. 
 
And the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) today launched a campaign for a new global initiative against HIV/AIDS. The ICEM represents pharmaceutical workers worldwide. 
 
The unconditional ending of the court case by the companies sets an important precedent for access to medication in developing countries. 
 
To protect their patents, the major drug corporations had been seeking to stop the implementation of a South African law aimed at providing cheaper medicines. The law, which can now go ahead, permits the country's health minister to use parallel importation of drugs, compulsory licensing and generic substitution (cut-price "copy" drugs) where necessary. 
 
The measure is particularly important to the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection.
A wide range of organisations had pressed the companies to drop the case. Prominent among the campaigners were the South African trade unions and the ICEM. 
 
At a brief court hearing in South Africa today, the companies unconditionally withdrew their lawsuit, and agreed to pay the South African government's costs. 
 
"The companies took the right decision," said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Tokyo today. 
 
"Many pharmaceutical companies are already mobilising to make effective treatments available in developing countries at affordable prices," Higgs pointed out. "Those efforts deserve full recognition. The world's pharmaceutical workers are doing a vital job. They want to be proud of their industry. 
 
"Lawsuits against developing countries are not the way forward," Higgs said. "Neither are cases brought through the World Trade Organisation. The WTO should refuse to consider any cases that aim to reduce access to affordable medication. 
"As part of the ICEM's programme to combat HIV/AIDS, we believe that South Africa and other countries must have the right to buy the appropriate pharmaceuticals at prices that they can afford," Higgs emphasised. 
 
"The pharmaceutical companies should build new alliances with governments worldwide in the fight against AIDS and other diseases that threaten humankind," Higgs said. "The ICEM is now calling for a new intergovernmental committee at the ministerial level - perhaps under the auspices of the World Health Organisation - to produce a coherent global policy for tackling AIDS. Its remit must include getting effective drugs to developing countries at affordable prices. We want the pharmaceutical companies to play a full and active part in this initiative, and I will be contacting them to that effect immediately."

Unions Launch Anti-AIDS Drive: Firms' Ending of SA Lawsuit Welcome

90 percent of Turkish glass production has been halted by a strike launched on 24 May. 

<img height="157" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/kristalis1.gif" width="380"/>
photo: Kristal-İş 
Called by the glass, cement, ceramic and earth workers' union Kristal-İş, the strike has hit major glass production companies within Turkey's Şişe-Cam group. Some 6,000 workers are involved. 
 
The main issues are pay and subcontracting. The union has been negotiating a new collective agreement with Şişe-Cam since last December, but bargaining broke down over the employers' refusal to consider wage increases in line with inflation. Şişe-Cam insists that real pay will have to go down. The employers say that the International Monetary Fund programme for Turkey calls for cuts in workers' purchasing power. 
<img height="182" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/kristalis2.gif" width="380"/>
photo: Kristal-İş 

Subcontracting of labour is on the increase in the Turkish glass industry, and Kristal-İş is firmly opposed to this trend. Kristal-İş also wants an assurance that all Şişe-Cam workers who want to join the union will be allowed to do so. Managers in some Şişe-Cam subsidiaries have been denying workers the right to organise, Kristal-İş says. 
 
At the global level, Kristal-İş is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
Subcontracting of labour is on the increase in the Turkish glass industry, and Kristal-İş is firmly opposed to this trend. Kristal-İş also wants an assurance that all Şişe-Cam workers who want to join the union will be allowed to do so. Managers in some Şişe-Cam subsidiaries have been denying workers the right to organise, Kristal-İş says. At the global level, Kristal-İş is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

Turkish Glass Strike Over Pay and Subcontracting

As Thai unions prepare for a protest march in Bangkok tomorrow, industrial unions worldwide are declaring solidarity with their main demands. 
 
Key goals of the demonstration are wage rises and the scrapping of a draft anti-labour law. 
 
Organised by the electricity workers, the march will bring together representatives of 30 Thai unions. It will start at Bangkok's Victory monument, announced Banlue Hengprasert, leader of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) Labour Union. He said the march will end with a demonstration in front of the Labour Ministry, at around 6 pm local time. 
 
LIVING WAGE CALL 
 
On pay, the protesters will call for the legal minimum wage to be raised to 180 baht per day (just under four US dollars). They want the same rate to apply nationwide. At present, Bangkok and five suburban provinces have a daily minimum rate of 165 Baht. Six other provinces are on 143 Baht a day. In the rest of Thailand, the daily rate is 133 Baht. 
 
In practice, the minimum is often the maximum. Most Thai workers are on the legal minimum, but many in small- and medium-scale enterprises are actually paid below it. The legal minimum rate is set in national negotiations between the employers, the government and the various trade union confederations. Due partly to internal divisions, the national union centres have often been at a disadvantage in these talks, and there is widespread dissatisfaction with the minimum rates. In Bangkok, a family cannot live on much less than 500 Baht a day. 
 
Where industrial or company-level unions exist, their scope for bargaining with individual employers is severely circumscribed. They can, however, negotiate on annual increments, shift allowances and various fringe benefits. In some industries, unions have been able to secure substantial improvements in total real earnings. Thus, while average industrial earnings in 1998 were 4174.82 Baht per month, the figures for the same year in the paper manufacturing, chemical and food processing industries were 7998.91 Baht, 6721.42 Baht and 5412.89 Baht respectively. 
 
Now, though, many Thai employers have taken to demanding give-backs - in other words, cuts in allowances and benefits. And so, at a time of mounting inflation, average total earnings may actually fall. 
 
ANTI-UNION LAW OPPOSED 
 
Worse still, a law now in the pipeline would further weaken collective bargaining and the right to strike. This would inevitably depress wages, so the draft law is a second focus of tomorrow's protests. 
 
The Thai government has been pushing hard to get its Labour Relations Act on to the statute book. The law would give the labour minister sweeping new powers to impose arbitration. In effect, he could end any labour dispute by decree. He could also order unions not to demand wage rises - and employers not to pay them. These powers could be invoked for reasons of "national security" or "public order" but also in the case of undefined "serious economic problems". 
 
Behind these harsh provisions, local commentators see the hand of the International Monetary Fund. Complying with IMF conditions - and appeasing foreign investors - is a major plank of Thai government policy during the current economic downturn. But if the government presses ahead with the legislation, it is likely to run into opposition both from the unions and from the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). As it stands, the law would breach ILO Conventions on collective bargaining and the right to strike. 
 
The unions want the government to drop the legislation, and instead to adopt a union draft that protects worker rights. 
 
Thailand is a touchstone for living standards and labour rights in newly industrialised countries. Asian and global industrial unions have therefore swung behind the Thai marchers' demands. Meeting today, the Asia-Pacific regional committee of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) declared full solidarity with the Thai unions. Similar statements are likely this week from the ICEM's global Executive and its women's committee, both of which will be meeting in Brussels. 
 
The EGAT Labour Union, which is organising the Bangkok demonstration, has applied for affiliation to the ICEM - a request that will come up for approval by the ICEM Executive this week. A number of the other Thai unions involved are already ICEM affiliates. Action on the Thai wage issue, in particular, was discussed during the ICEM Asia-Pacific regional women's conference in Bangkok this March. 
 
Other demands at tomorrow's march in Bangkok will be the immediate implementation of an unemployment insurance scheme; the extension of social insurance - including hospital coverage - to all workers; the doubling of child welfare payments; and the ending of a long lock-out at a textile factory. 
 
The unions have repeatedly put all the demands to the Labour Minister and his deputy, but have not received any adequate response.

Thai Labour Demo Draws Global Support

Global industrial unions today called for a new world body at ministerial level "with a broad brief to cover all aspects of HIV/AIDS policy and strategy". 
 
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has made a global strategic review essential, says the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). Meeting in Brussels today, its Executive called for the creation of a ministerial-level Intergovernmental Standing Committee (IGSC) on HIV/AIDS. 
 
"The UN has begun to tackle the HIV/AIDS issue, particularly as regards the provision of assistance to African countries," ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs said today. But "this is an inadequate approach," he insisted. "It would be a mistake to concentrate on just one region, as this could deny funds to others in equal need. HIV/AIDS is a global problem which must be solved through global coordination." 
 
The IGSC should have "a small permanent secretariat (say 3-4 persons)," the ICEM suggests, and could perhaps be based at the headquarters of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva. 
 
Priority issues would be: 
 
EQUITY in access to medicines and medical infrastructure; in the balance between patent protection and the right to produce and market generics (cut-price "copy drugs"); and in human rights. 
 
CAPACITY - notably in relation to the economic situation of individual HIV/AIDS sufferers and of governments, and to production capacity for HIV/AIDS medicines. 
 
COORDINATION of HIV/AIDS-related activities, ranging from the local to the international level. 
 
COMMITMENT - by governments, by the pharmaceutical industry, by trade unions representing HIV/AIDS-affected workers and their families, by the international financial community and by international agencies and organisations involved in addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. 
 
The IGSC would also need to "engage with international experts and with key stakeholder organisations," the ICEM points out. These include the WHO, UNAIDS, the World Bank, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the pharmaceutical industry and union internationals, notably the ICEM and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). 
 
The ICEM has particular interests in the HIV/AIDS issue. It represents the world's pharmaceutical workers. Another of its sectors is mining. An especially serious HIV/AIDS problem arises from the widespread use of hostels to house male mineworkers - either unmarried or separated from their families. Today, the ICEM again called on mining companies to end the "hostel mentality" and provide proper accommodation, including for families.

HIV/AIDS - Unions Call For World Strategy

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