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ICEM’s US affiliate United Steelworkers (USW) opened up the possibility for strike action at Continental Tyre’s North America plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. The decision by the union to authorise a strike if deemed necessary, a common action for trade unions in the US, is the logical result of the failure so far to get to an agreement between the workers at Continental and local management. 
Current collective bargaining has been ongoing for over half a year and remains dead-locked, due to the harsh demands by the company. The USW now said it wants a new agreement before April 30, when the current agreement ends. Continental, which threatened earlier to suspend tyre production indefinitely in Charlotte as of September 2006, wants to cut costs at the Charlotte plant by US$32 million. Amongst other things, this plan proposes across-the-board 35% pay cuts. 
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Last year, the company already announced that it would make redundant 510 of the plant’s 1,083 jobs in 2006. In March,140 workers were dismissed, and 170 more are scheduled to suffer the same fate in May. 
The USW since made a few more realistic counter-proposals, which do include job security provisions and a guarantee towards future productivity. So far, to no avail. The USW also strongly protests against the company’s threat that it may start to alter benefits for its retirees as soon as the insurance agreement expires, which would be 90 days after the expiry date of the current bargaining agreement.

Negotiations between US Workers and Continental Tyre Could Turn into Strike in North Carolina

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Canadian Ivanhoe Mines, one of the larger foreign investors in Burma, has been forced to temporarily close its copper mine in Burma for a few weeks last month. Problems related to the mine’s bank and insurance broker ending its relationships with the operation, a result of the economic sanctions that the US government installed on Burma. According to Ivanhoe, the mine has been reopened in the meantime, albeit at a lower level. 
Company sources reportedly acknowledged that the US sanctions are making it increasingly difficult to work in Burma. The company also admitted having a few technical problems with the Burmese government, including on import permits. The Monywa Copper Project is operated as a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and the Burmese government. The Burmese government forces joint ventures on all foreign investors operating inside Burma, guaranteeing the dictatorial regime a steady flow of income.

Canadian Investor Needs to Temporarily Close its Mine in Burma

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Leading into May Day, International Workers’ Day, news from Nepal is that King Gyanendra has met his fate, as defying protestors stood their ground on the streets during curfews and martial law. 
 
During what is now known as Popular Movement II, a general strike in Nepal, which lasted for 23 days, forced the despotic king late on 24 April to restore the country’s Parliament, a first and necessary step toward a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. “ 
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With the sacrifice of nearly 20 people’s lives, some 5,000 who were seriously injured, and the arrests of 2,000, continuous struggle has meant we have achieved something,” wrote Binda Pandey, ICEM Vice President and a leader inside Nepal’s labour federation, GEFONT. “Let us celebrate this together as an initial victory, but there still is a long way to go to sustainable peace, prosperity and a dignified Nepal.” 
 
April’s general strike brought hundreds of thousands of Nepalese citizens to spontaneous demonstrations across the Kathmandu Valley. Wives, children and relatives of police and army personnel stepped to the front of barricades as a way of getting security forces to defy clear orders to beat and shoot demonstrators at will, highlighting the fact that it was a unified public action that crossed all castes, classes and ethnic origins. 
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On 22 April, some 300,000 marched to the centre of Kathmandu, to within 500 meters of Gyanendra’s palace where they were met by soldiers with heavy weaponry. ICEM’s four affiliated trade unions all played crucial roles in the organised movement. (The general secretary of the Nepal Independent Chemical and Iron Workers’ Union was badly beaten and hospitalised with a broken knee.) Scores of leaders and activists from the unions were either injured or arrested. 
 
The ICEM issues an alert that resources and organisational support from the global trade union movement will be needed once Nepal reaches a full people’s democracy in order that unions and trade union rights can flourish in the Himalayan country.

Peoples Movement Defies King in Nepal

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Nigerian ICEM affiliate PENGASSAN, the white-collar oil workers’ union, is bracing for a major dispute with ExxonMobil’s subsidiary, Mobil Oil, in Lagos over a breach of a collective bargaining agreement. 
 
Mobil Oil in Nigeria has refused to honour a procedural agreement with PENGASSAN. The agreement sets out housing allowances for 300 headquarters staffers in the capital city, as well as pension requirements. The company told the union it would pay one, but not the other. The company is refusing to honour pension entitlements allotted prior to Nigeria’s 2004 Pension Act. 
 

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The union gave Mobil Oil a 21-day ultimatum to make good on the entire procedural agreement, but that expired on 14 April with no movement from the company. PENGASSAN succeeded in getting the matter placed before Nigeria’s minister of Labour and a meeting of the parties is set for 3 May. If no solution is reached, industrial action is sure to come. 
 
“Management has not shown the sincerity to have the matter resolved amicably,” stated PENGASSAN Acting President Peter Esele. “If industrial unrest is what they want, they better be prepared to face it.” 
 
Another matter which finds the US-based supermajor at odds with PENGASSAN, is a planned relocation of company headquarters out of Nigeria. The union discovered that ExxonMobil is planning to close the Nigerian home office and shift downstream operations to Egypt, while upstream office work would go to Houston, Texas. 
 
“We have a responsibility not just to our members, but also to the country,” said Esele. “You cannot have companies making so much money from the resources of our country, and then simply relocating. This is unacceptable to us as Nigerians.”

PENGASSAN Ready for Battle with ExxonMobil

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Strikes in the Turkish cement sector, scheduled to begin Monday, were averted when ICEM affiliate Çimse-Iş and the Cement Producers’ Association (ÇMIS) arrived at a new collective bargaining agreement covering 5,000 workers at 43 cement plants. 
 
The two-year agreement, retroactive to 1 January 2006, calls for an increase of 12% this year, and an amount equal to Turkey’s consumer price index in 2007. Increases were also realised in social benefits in each of the two years. Çimse-Iş had planned strikes at 23 cement plants on 1 May, with walkouts occurring at the other 20 plants on 8 May.

Turkish Cement Industry Calm as Settlement Reached

ICEM WOMEN’S BULLETIN N° 11

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ICEM’s paperworkers’ union affiliate in Finland, Paperiliitto, began a 48-hour strike today at some 64 paper mills owned by companies affiliated with the Finnish employers’ organisation, Forest Industries Federation. The strike by 20,000 Finnish workers is in protest to the harsh social measures through which the industry has chosen to improve profitability. 
 
The strikes, begun at 6h00 today and are set to run until 6h00 on 17 May, affecting all major paper firms including Stora Enso and UPM Kymmene. Other mills and paper converters owned by M-real, Metsä Tissue, Myllykoski, and other, smaller companies are also affected. Paperiliitto’s Executive Committee decided to allow Stora Enso’s mill at Panakoski and UPM Kymmene’s mill at Voikkaa mill to operate. Stora has the Panakoski mill up for sale, while UPM intends to shut down the Voikkaa mill by year end, even though it is a viable operation that could be sold. 
On 17 May, office workers across the Finnish paper sector, represented by the Union of Salaried Workers Trade Union, will strike for 24 hours in similar protest. 
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Stora and UPM, the largest Nordic paper companies, announced broad restructuring plans of late. In order to cut production capacity to maintain high prices, Stora Enso announced in the last quarter of 2005 that it would slash 2,000 jobs and close 10 mills worldwide. UPM Kymmene said it would cut 2,560 jobs, and that three mills in Finland would be shuttered. The other companies have also cut jobs in Finland, although at smaller numbers. 
 
Paperiliitto President Jouko Ahonen, chairman of ICEM’s Pulp and Paper Sector, said the cuts to jobs and workers’ livelihoods reflect a disturbing trend as to social awareness by the paper manufacturers. “Finland has moved to a management culture where shareholders are now the priority,” he said. “Paperworkers feel deeply insulted at the way they have been treated by employers.”

Paperiliitto Launches 48-Hour Strike in Finnish Paper Sector

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Continental AG, the German tyre manufacturer, wasted little time in slamming shut the negotiation process by announcing the closure of a union-represented plant in the US. Despite an offer by the United Steelworkers (USW) on 28 April to cut labour costs by US$16 million in order to keep an auto and light-truck tyre plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, operating, the company said the cuts were not enough. 
 
Managers then stormed out of talks and issued a formal letter stating negotiations had reached impasse. On 1 May, a day after expiration of a collective agreement for 800 rubber workers, Continental implemented its basket-load of cuts, totalling US$32 million, and announced tyre production in Charlotte would cease altogether by the end of September. 
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USW / IGBCE Press conference in Hannover
“We consider this action unlawful and will take every step to see that the company’s action is reversed,” said USW Exec. Vice President Ron Hoover. The union has filed a US labour law charge against the impasse declaration and the unilateral implementation of pay and benefit cuts amounting to 35%. 
 
On 5 May, USW took its fight for job retention and fairness in Charlotte to the company’s AGM in Hannover, Germany. The US Steelworkers, led by former Rubber Sector Chairman John Sellers, were joined by rubber manufacturing representatives of IGBCE in planning and implementing a protest and setting up a press conference denouncing Conti’s harsh and abrupt actions.
The company, which sacked 140 Charlotte workers in March, says it will fire another 170 workers this month, with 480 slated to go in mid-September. Continental said only 200 workers will remain after September, performing mixing, calendaring and warehousing duties, while tyre production will shift to a non-union plant in the US and to plants in3 Mexico and Brazil. Continental realized record profits in 2005, as well as seeing share gains topping 25%.

Continental Gives No Ground in US Tyre Talks

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Following results of German Works Council elections this spring, ICEM affiliate IGBCE has raised its representation voice inside companies to 85%. That is 5% better than results reflected in the last overall elections in 2002. 
 
IGBCE Governing Board Member Michael Vassiliadis termed the new number “an outstanding result” and a “clear signal” of worker confidence in Germany’s most diverse industrial union. 
 
“Under difficult conditions, we continue to add,” said Vassiliadis. IGBCE has over one million members in Germany, and the union, through its worker representatives, has strong voice on some 3,700 Works Councils.

IGBCE Gains Strength on German Works Councils

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The global mining industry did produce one piece of good news over the past fortnight. Canadian mining house Ivanhoe announced it would withdraw from Burma, expressing to sources discomfort with having to deal with the military junta, which jointly owns a copper mine with Ivanhoe. The company will sell its 50% in the Monywa mine to a consortium of South Korean investors, including Daewoo International, which already has investment deals with the Burmese generals. 
 
The Ivanhoe Mines exit will happen in a July 2006 sale. Last week, Burma’s military junta extended the house arrest on Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her strong voice for democracy and human rights in Burma has now been silenced for the past three years by the corrupt Burmese military rulers. In total, she has spent a total of ten of the past 17 years in detention.

Canadian Ivanhoe Mines Pulls Out of Burma

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