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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The Solidarity Support Organisation of the Central Labour Organisation of Finland (SASK) is an important partner of many Global Union Federations (GUFs) in joint work in Africa, Latin America and the Asia Pacific Regions. But until now, it has not undertaken support work with a GUF in the Middle East. 
 
This may be about to change. In a first such effort, SASK organised a three-day set of workshops in Amman, Jordan. The sessions ran from 29 September to 1 October, and were aimed at sharing information and experiences with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the GUFs. 
 
The ICEM’s Jim Catterson represented the Geneva-based GUF during the discussions, which brought together representatives from SASK, the ITUC, and six GUFs. SASK has seen the main reason for its absence in the region as a lack of good project proposals being tabled before them. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910.amman-sask.jpg" width="362" height="194"/>
Conference participants, outside the office of the General Union of Textile and Garment Workers in Jordan. 
After a brief formal opening session, ITUC representatives gave an up-to-date report on the trade union movement throughout the Arab World. This was followed by an overview from SASK on its global activities, methods of work and priorities regarding both work and information sharing with other Solidarity Support Organisations and the global union movement. 
 
Each GUF was then given time to describe its own activities in the region, developments in respective sectors, and GUF priorities for future work in the region. Here, Catterson emphasized that ICEM is still in a building stage in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) Region, and a major overall priority is to integrate the union work. As well, a main priority is to integrate MENA affiliates into the global work and activities of the ICEM. 
 
Clearly, privatisation of industrial enterprises, as well as gaining greater access to MNC investment has led to new challenges for the trade unions throughout the region, Catterson said. Unions also need assistance to organise workers in the new enterprises. Trade unions delegates attending from the region expressed their wish to have more information, as well as advice on how to benefit from the range of "international instruments," including ILO Conventions, OECD Guidelines, the Global Compact, and Global Framework Agreements. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910.amman-sask.2.jpg" width="369" height="146"/>
Delegates receive a briefing in the local ITLGWU-affiliated union office inside a QIZ 
Catterson described in detail the joint work the ICEM is doing with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) in bringing together oil and gas workers’ unions with port and transport unions that are involved in energy transportation in Iraq. 
 
Further sessions included a detailed focus on the issue of Migrant Labour in the region and in Jordan in particular, which saw extensive presentations from International Textile, Garment, Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) and the ILO Better Work programme. This latter project focuses on the garment industry and after an initial program in Cambodia, has expanded to a number of other countries including Jordan. 
 
Jordan has a significant garment manufacturing industry with production geared on exports almost totally to the US. The industry is principally located in special export processing zones known as Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs). Here, working and living conditions are truly appalling, with the overwhelmingly the number of workers foreign migrant workers. The ITGLWF Jordanian affiliate described the difficulties they face in organising workers in such conditions. Often, such workers distrust trade unions from experiences in their own countries and few speak Arabic. As well, access to either workplaces or living accommodations is tightly controlled by employers who often prevented union organisers from gaining access. However, ITGLWF had, in many instances, overcome such obstacles and continue to organise migrant workers in the industry. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ITGLWF100.jpg" width="100" height="100"/><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ITUC100.jpg" width="100" height="95"/><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ITF.jpg" width="95" height="95"/>
Participants were able to see an example of these successes with a visit to a factory making jeans for the US market. The factory was in one such QIZ in an area north of Amman. The union has an office, staffed by multi-lingual organisers, with the office displaying the flags of nations in which migrant workers hail from. The organizers speak such diverse languages as Chinese, Urdu, Tamal, and Arabic. 
 
Workshop participants received an initial briefing by union officials and organizers in the union office, as well as a tour of a small but well-equipped medical clinic that serves workers and their families. The clinic provides free medical treatment, dental care, and diagnostics. 
 
It was established with support of the Asia and Pacific Regional Organisation (TWARO) of ITGLWF, along with the GUF’s Japanese affiliates. It stands as a facility that any union would be proud to have. 
 
Management at one of the textile factories, employing around 1,500 workers, mainly from the Indian sub-continent, then joined the discussions for a question and answer session. Most of the workforce was organised by the union and a reasonable relationship had been built between union and management. 
 
ICEM will be in discussions with SASK in the future with a view toward developing joint programmes and providing solidarity and assistance to affiliated unions throughout the MENA Region.

ICEM Joins SASK of Finland, Others in Union-Building Workshops in Middle East

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
During an evaluation mission to Colombian cities Bogota and Medellin, representatives of the ICEM and of 2 Swedish ICEM affiliates (IFMetall and Pappers) were able to see first hand that the Swedish-funded ICEM project on Social Dialogue in Colombia is delivering excellent results. Throughout the two days of meetings and visits, all ICEM affiliates in Colombia unanimously praised the many different efforts and activities of the project. Participating ICEM affiliates are Sintracarbon (mining), Sintraquim (chemical, pharmaceutical), Sintracarcol (paper), Sintraelecol and Fenaltec (electricity) and Sintravidricol (glass, materials). New ICEM affiliate USO is to join the project’s activities shortly. 
 
Efficiently run by project coordinator Carlos Bustos, in close cooperation with the members of the ICEM Colombia Committee (i.e. the ICEM affiliates), the project’s main aim is to encourage more and better social dialogue between ICEM affiliated trade unions and (mainly multinational) companies in Colombia. And it seems to be succeeding quite well in this, looking at the year-long progress in the joint employer-union social dialogue efforts. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910Carlos.bustos.jpg" width="180" height="146"/>
Carlos Bustos, ICEM Colombia Project Coordinator
A more recent indication of progress made is the fresh interest shown by a number of additional companies to participate in the project, including Drummond, Repsol, Votorantim, Cerromatoso, SCA, Smurfit Kappa, Ross International and Petrobras. The project’s social dialogue activities include joint social dialogue conferences and joint training sessions on specific social dialogue topics. Companies that have been participating in the process for some time include Carbones de Cerrejon (Xstrata, AngloAmerican and BHP Billiton), Linde, Gas Natural, Owens Illinois and Endesa. 
 
Other areas where a great deal of impressive work has been done include the leadership training programmes (which are bringing rank-and-file, as well as both young and female trade unionists into leadership positions) and the discussions on creating a larger industrial union for most, if not all, ICEM sectors in Colombia. Yet another area of work has been around the issue of contract and agency labour (CAL). As in many other places around the globe, CAL is also an enormous problem in Colombia. A number of multinational companies, including from the energy sector, have become almost “shell companies”, outsourcing virtually everything. Working under difficult circumstances in Colombia, unions nevertheless spoke of a number of successes in organising CAL workers. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910RossInternational.jpg" width="156" height="210"/>
A worker / trade unionist at Ross International telling the story
Commended was also the communication between the project and the ICEM and other ICEM affiliates (including, for example, the USW in the United States), with virtually all Colombian ICEM unions noting positive after an international intervention. The affiliates emphasised the importance, and success, of this international support. One more positive aspect highlighted by almost all was the work done by the project on HIV/AIDS. 
 
Pointed out by several was also the fact that, since the project began to assist them, the collective membership of the participating unions rose from 1,500 to over 20,000.

ICEM Colombia Social Dialogue Project Doing Well 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
A five-week strike at a BHP-owned manganese mine and smelter by members of the Kimberley branch of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa ended 5 October with a satisfactory one-year contract. 
 
The resolve came after global pressure was applied by ICEM mining affiliates, as well as attention given BHP’s bargaining indifference at the recent statutory meeting of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and at ICEM’s Sub-Sahara Africa Region Meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, on 15 September. 
 
“We were very fortunate to have international pressure and a COSATU focus on this strike,” said NUM Kimberley Regional Coordinator Lucas Phiri. “The arrogance of this company from the mine level to the Johannesburg office was something I have not seen in 12 years inside the NUM.” 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SouthAfricaCOSATU2.jpg" width="102" height="111"/>
The 920 miners and smelting-plant workers at BHP’s Hozatel Manganese operation in the Northern Cape downed tools on 28 August. Their dispute was not just about wages – South African managers, in fact, were cancelling meetings both at the local level and with NUM national officers – but about parity between black and white miners, and for improved conditions for women in this remote mining region of the Northern Cape. 
 
With 90% of the 920 workers black, the NUM discovered that white workers at Hozatel got better medical assistance benefits, and received a transportation allowance of 2,000 rands per month, while blacks received 440 rands. Many miners live in hostels, but others travel from the village of Kuruman to the Hozatel operation. 
 
Due to outside pressure on BHP, local management finally got serious on addressing issues that caused the strike and called for talks on 5 October. Both sides agreed to an 8% pay increase effective 1 September, with a one-off 4,000 rand payment per worker for the period July-September 2009. A prior agreement expired 1 July, and the agreement reached on 5 October will last until 1 September 2010. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SouthafricaNUM.gif" width="100" height="103"/>
Another key issue resolved related to NUM’s ability to recruit into membership workers in higher-level classifications. BHP originally demanded a 66% vote, but the resolve reached in early October made that the standard 50% plus one, or a simple majority. 
 
Related to the parity issues, the two sides agreed to establish a separate bilateral forum to address and even out the disproportionate medical and transportation benefits between white and black workers. A deadline of 30 December 2009 has been put on resolving that. 
 
The same deadline holds for dealing with the employment equity between women and men, as well as the company’s draconian policy of not granting maternity leave to women who have less than three years of employment service. 
 
The agreement “was not all that we had hoped for,” stated Phiri, “but we are forever thankful for the outside pressure that moved a management that had before been so stubborn to address workers concerns.” 
 
BHP operates Hozatel under its Middelplaats Manganese subsidiary, an asset it acquired with its partial buy-up of Semancor in the 1980s. The mine and ferrochrome smelting facility had originally been part of AngloAmerican.

Union Pressure Helps End BHP Manganese Strike in South Africa for NUM

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
This morning, 500 workers demonstrated infront of the Headquarters of Ceramics company Preiss Daimler, in the Belgian city of Saint-Ghislain. Protesters denounced the loss of 173 jobs following the announcement that the ceramics refractory had bankrupt. Workers losing their jobs were not even paid their salary for the month of September. 
 
Slogans of the angry workers, members of the ICEM affiliated FGTB, included: ‘Press Daimler, Rogue Bosses!’ and ‘Press Daimler, 173 workers on the tiles!’ 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/BelgiumFLAG.gif" width="140" height="91" alt=""/>
The ICEM supports the demands from the FGTB, that these workers deserve respect for their skills, and should be offered new prospects for work in their sector. It should not be the workers who are to pay twice for the financial crisis. 
 
The Press Daimler workers call for intervention from politicians and business leaders to save jobs through a take-over of the company.

Belgian Ceramics Workers Protest Job Losses

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39" alt=""/>
After earlier releases in a number of other languages (for more, please consult the ICEM’s Contract and Agency Labour site <a href="http://cal.icem.org/index.php/en/icem-guide-on-cal">here</a>), the ICEM is now releasing the Croatian versions of the “ICEM Guide on Contract and Agency Labour” (CAL) as well as of the shorter and more practical “Negotiators’ Guide on CAL”. The Croatian translations have been made possible through the joint ICEM-IUF South-East European Project on Trade Union Modernisation. 

<img style="WIDTH: 140px; HEIGHT: 80px" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/CroatiaFLAG.gif" width="140" height="70" alt=""/>
This CAL guide describes numerous contract, agency and other precarious work situations from around the world - both in developing and developed countries. It contains a number of best practice examples, as well numerous worrying stories, including some of the terrible working conditions that many workers in precarious employment find themselves in. The guide also provides an overview of some of the more recent changes in national and international labour laws and standards, and further deals with combating this phenomenon at company level. 
 
The “Short Guide for Negotiators on How to Deal with Contracting Out, Outsourcing and/or Agency Labour” is an instrument to assist trade unionists at the plant level. It provides practical suggestions on what to do when (or before) the issue comes up.

ICEM releases Croatian versions of its Contract and Agency Labour Guides

On the recent call by the Iraqi government to form a new preparatory committee for the election of the GFIW leadership. 
 
 
The Higher Ministerial Committee overseeing the implementation of Governing Council's decision No.(3) for the year 2004 officially announced recently that nominations are open to establish a national preparatory committee with responsibility to organize and supervise the GFIW leadership election across Iraq. 
 
This government action was done without any prior knowledge or consultation with GFIW despite the government claim that it is organizing this (election) in line with current labour law[ Law 52 of 1987] and the internal rules of the GFIW [GFTU Rules]. 
 
The Executive Committee of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers states that the current move by the High Ministerial Committee completely violates Labour Law number (52) of 1987 and the internal rules of the GFIW [GFTU]. 
 
The High Ministerial Committee overseeing the implementation of Governing Council's decision No. (3) for the year 2004, should have implemented what it had issued before ( reference to the letter of the Ministry of State for Civil Society No c s / 106 On 13 September, which lead to the formation of a national preparatory committee on 2/2008 set up with the task of preparing and supervising workers election. A date for election was set on 22 June 2008 and then on 1 March 2009 but all this was cancelled without any justification by an order ( No 86 on 1March 2009) issued by the Minister of Civil Society. 
 
The GFIW stressed repeatedly that workers have the right to form and join union is and it believes that this is a legitimate democratic practice endorsed by international Labour organization (ILO) standards and guaranteed by article 22 of by the permanent Iraqi constitution. 
 
Convention No. 87 of 1948 of the ILO and Convention No. 8 of 1977, of the Arab labour organization obliges Member States to provide workers with freedom to form trade unions and compel states not to interfere in internal affairs of the unions. 
 
The main aim of organizing workers into trade union is to strengthen industrial relations and improve social and cultural conditions for workers so that they can help in the reconstruction of Iraq. 
 
The GFIW/IFTU while rejecting the current government interference in its internal affairs, Is calling on Iraqi workers to stand up to defend their legitimate rights and is appealing to the wider trade union movement, professional associations and civil society organizations, political parties and members of the Iraqi parliament for support and assistance and for the solidarity support of the international trade union movement in order to put an stop to all government interference. 
 
GFIW Executive 
October 2009

GFIW Statement

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM received a report over this past weekend from the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions (FWCUI) that a workers’ demonstration in Baghdad was fired upon by armed forces. The demonstration and use of armed force occurred on 6 October near the Green Zone in central Baghdad. 
 
The report the ICEM received from the FWCUI said many of the 2,000 protestors were hit with rubber bullets. The ICEM condemns such military action against workers, and calls it one further example why Iraq must enact legitimate labour law and recognise free and independent trade unions. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0911.iraq.rally.JPG" width="280" height="161"/>
Industrial workers had requested and received a permit from the Baghdad military to hold the demonstration, a protest over pay remunerations since 2008, safety benefits, and to settle cases of workers dismissed from jobs for political reasons under the Saddam regime. 
 
The march on 6 October started at Al Tahreer Square, and crossed Al Jumhoria Bridge towards the Green Zone, where armed forces indiscriminately fired upon and beat demonstrators. Four workers were severely beaten and arrested: Thamir Hameed and Muhammad Khangar from a battery manufacturing industry; Muhammad Khamees from an electrical facility; and Munadhil Attia from the leather manufacturing industry. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0911.iraq.rally.2.JPG" width="287" height="215"/>
The FWCUI declared the attack “an unprecedented act of terror that will not be forgiven,” and called upon authorities to fire the soldiers responsible and to try them criminally. A representative of the Ministries’ Council admitted of an unprovoked armed confrontation and said the council stood ready to issue a formal statement of apology. 
 
The ICEM has two affiliated trade unions that are part of the FWCUI, and the Geneva-based Global Union Federation calls on workers’ organizations everywhere to support the FWCUI in their efforts to bring those responsible for this cowardly attack on workers to justice. 
 
The ICEM also supports FWCUI in its efforts for security and just economic entitlements for workers of its federation.

Iraqi Armed Troops Fire at Peaceful Demonstration in Baghdad

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The nickel and copper strike at three Vale-Inco Canadian locations by miners and metalworkers of the United Steelworkers (USW) has started to have a full global effect, following a burst of international activity in October and judging from scheduled actions in November and December. 
 
Teams of strikers from USW Locals 6500, 6200, and 9508 will, over the next week, be on three continents spreading the message of their strike, and urging Vale’s customers, investors, and company workers everywhere to pressure the Brazilian-based company for a fair pair of contracts in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Newfoundland/Labrador. 
 
If their missions are anything near as successful as the ones taken by Local 6500’s Aaron Beaudry and Local 9508’s Curtis Saunders to Germany and Sweden in mid-October – following a ship-load of Vale copper to markets – managers could re-think their game plan that 3,500 steelworkers will swallow concession-ridden contracts and instead decide to return to the bargaining table in the company’s better interests. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910.vale.ship.1.jpg" width="290" height="218"/>
At the three-and-a-half-month point of the strikes, when USW is beginning to focus heavily on Vale’s customers and investors, the release last week of the company’s third-quarter numbers bear this out. For the quarter, Vale sold just US$31 million of nickel products from its six worldwide operations. This compares to US$79 million in second-quarter 2009, a quarter in which the three Canadian nickel mines were idled for market reasons. Vale’s overall net profit for the most recent quarter dropped 65%, while revenues fell 43%. 
 
In a 29 October conference call to investment analysts, Vale admitted to a loss of US$500 million due to the three-and-a-half month strike in Canada. One of the three Canadian mines and smelting operations, Sudbury, is responsible for 5% of the world’s supply of nickel products. 
 
What certainly is not helping Vale in the marketplace is what happened after workers Beaudry and Saunders tracked copper shipments from Voiseys Bay, Labrador, to Germany and Sweden last month. (See InBrief No. 142 <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3448-ICEM-ITF-IGBCE-in-German-Port-Protest-Against-Vale-Inco-Mine-Shipment" type="internal">here</a>.) Following pivotal work done by German ICEM affiliate IGBCE and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the striking local unions received a direct response from the chairman of the Works Council of the end-user. 
 
Renate Hold of Hamburg-based aluminum-producer Aurubis, whose workers are represented by the IGBCE, wrote that “It came as a surprise to us that Aurubis AG accepted a delivery from Vale-Inco … to give you our support, we have held the first discussions with our Management and drawn their attention” to the dispute in Canada. (See the full letter <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/sudbury%20engl%20pdf.pdf" type="internal">here</a>.) 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0910.sweden.vale.png" width="320" height="189"/>
Vale-Inco strikers Aaron Beaudry and Curtis Saunders (at left) with IF Metall workplace leaders at Boliden in Sweden
In Sweden, the result was much the same. Beaudry and Saunders left Germany and arrived in Sweden ahead of the laden with the remainder of the copper concentrate ore. At a copper smelter near Rönnskär owned by Boliden AB, ICEM affiliate IF Metall arranged a meeting with workplace leaders and managers of the metal-producer and Vale customer. The result was similar to Aurubis. 
 
Roland Antonsson, IF Metall Rönnskär local branch President and a Boliden board member, said he would use his position inside the company to urge Boliden to reconsider its market relationship with Vale. Erik Andersson, IF Metall International Secretary, added in a newspaper account of the visit that it is up to Boliden now to “take a stand against the Brazilian company’s behaviour” in Canada. “Boliden has a code of conduct. Now they have the evidence.” 
 
With USW now having a near-complete global customer list of Vale, the pressure will increase on Canadian managers to return to bargaining and retreat from a concessionary stance that would lower workers’ take-home pay, reducing pension levels, and create job insecurity through demands for flexible outsourcing. Additionally, USW will bring the campaign to the front door of investors, stressing negative social stigmas attached to investing in Vale. 
 
Strike teams have fanned out in recent weeks to Australia, where the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) hosted them near Vale coal fields in New South Wales and Queensland. The team that went to Australia also went on last week to New Caledonia, where Vale is having difficulty in start-up of the Goro nickel and cobalt mine and processing plant. Cost over-runs have dragged on Vale and the project has soared from US$3.2 billion to US$4.3 billion. The company is struggling to meet yet another start-up date for early in 2010, and there are environmental matters to deal with on the French territory. 
 
Meanwhile, the territorial government of New Caledonia has denied entry visas to migrant workers, staff Vale was counting on for the start-up. 
 
This week, a strike team that will include the ICEM will visit the PT Indonesia Nickel Corp. in remote Sulawesi Province, where Vale controls 59% of a nickel mine and smelting operation that also has faced production problems of late. From there, the USW strike team will visit operations and customers in Korea. 
 
From 11-18 November, another Canadian strike team will return to Brazil where workers will travel to several cities, including Brasilia where they will meet with Brazilian ministry officials about the strike and officials at the Canadian embassy. They will also meet with civil society groups and metalworkers’ union leaders, who themselves are in dispute with Vale due to company redundancies during the financial crisis. 
 
The USW is also planning an event in early December in New York City. On 21 October, Vale cancelled its “Vale Day” at the New York Stock Exchange there because Canadian strikers descended on Wall Street for a spirited manifestation. Two days later, a similar event in London was cancelled when the UK trade union, Unite, joined USW strikers from Canada in protest. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/People/0704Manfred.jpg" width="160" height="220"/>
Manfred Warda
“We are encouraged by the global pressure that is building,” said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, “and we hope that Vale and CEO Roger Agnelli are taking notice. As this momentum grows and the effects are felt, the burden will fall on the company to resume bargaining and negotiate a fair collective agreement with these proud workers.” 
 
For further information on all activities, as well as Vale-Inco efforts to re-start the Canadian operations with replacement workers, visit the strike’s website at <a href="http://www.fairdealnow.ca">www.fairdealnow.ca</a>.

Vale-Inco Mining Strike in Canada Escalates on Global Level

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The main Ukrainian national labour center, the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU), sent a message to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week: stay out of the internal legislative business of the country. FPU leaders, trade unionists, and civil society leaders protested in front of the IMF’s regional office in Kiev on 27 October. 
 
The peaceful pickets protested a statement issued two days earlier by the IMF calling on President Viktor Yushchenko to veto a bill passed by the Parliament on 20 October that would lift levels of social benefits, including minimum wage and pension benefits. 
 
The IMF has threatened to pull a €11.5 billion emergency credit arrangement to Ukraine if Yushchenko signs the legislation, which passed Parliament with a 459 to 254 vote. 

<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0911.FPU.Protest.jpg" width="240" height="164" alt=""/>
Yushchenko has indicated that he will sign the new social benefits bill, thus lifting the minimum monthly living wage to the equivalent of €73.09 on 1 December 2010 after five increments over the next year; and increase the monthly minimum wage to €77.37 on the same date, with incremental hikes from a proposed €62.43 that is due to take effect once Yushchenko signs the bill into law. 
 
The FPU said in a statement that the IMF “is interfering directly in the internal social policy of Ukraine and is trying to weaken social protections, decreasing the level of social guarantees.” The trade union federation also said IMF and other international financial institutions in the past have supported limits on Ukrainian pension expenditures, a rise in the pension age by five years, and strict restrictions on rises in citizens’ incomes. 
 
In a letter presented to the IMF on the day of the protest, the federation demanded that IMF consult with trade unions before changing its conditions on loan guarantees, and said it should work toward alleviating poverty, not promoting it in its guidance policies. 
 
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), in coordination with all three of Ukraine’s national labour centres, held a meeting with IMF resident representative Max Alier on 29 October in Kiev over the IMF’s affront to the modest increases in social standards.

Ukraine’s Unions Protest IMF Involvement in Legislative Affairs

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief100.jpg" width="100" height="39"/>
The ICEM’s Sub-Sahara Africa Regional Organisation (SSARO), with the support of Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), conducted a very successful workshop on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Lusaka, Zambia, on 19-20 October. Participants from 12 countries, representing unions organising in the extractive industries, shared information on the impact of FDI in the mining and energy sectors. 
 
The participants were enriched with the input of a number of presenters, mainly from Zambia who gave excellent presentations on the subject. Trade unionists agreed on the need for FDI in the region, but realised that such investment, left unchecked, can do more damage than good if trade unions do not engage both Chinese and western-based multinationals on the inherent need to respect workers’ rights, communities, the environment, and to ensure that governments – on behalf of the population – benefits from FDI. 
 
It was further realised that unions and other stakeholders must guide against FDI corrupting governments and political leaders. 

<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Zambia.png" width="250" height="115"/>
The workshop undertook to examine the shortfalls stemming from a similar ICEM workshop held in 2008 in Accra, Ghana. The failures were mainly on the issues of implementation and lack of communication, thus October’s Zambian workshop undertook to do better in those areas. This recent workshop pledged to follow through with the resolutions adopted at the Ghana workshop, and further resolved to undertake the following: 
 
Data: All participating unions and other unions must send data to the SSARO regional office in Johannesburg with the following information: companies organised, sectors involved, ownership of companies, numbers of members in that company, unorganised workers in that company, and does the union have an agreement with the company? 
 
Legislation: Is there any legislation governing multinationals in the respective African countries? Is the legislation implemented and acted upon by the companies? Are the laws being reviewed, and if yes, when and are the difficulties? Are unions involved in the review? If not, why? If yes, how often does the review take place, and how do unions influence. All affiliates of the ICEM must take part in the reviews and try to influence the direction of the review and the outcome. 
 
Pan-African Standards: There must be Pan African Standards set that will be enforced by all countries in the region. There must be a model that will be applicable to regulate the operations of FDI, specifically Chinese investments. Efforts must be made by ICEM affiliates to ensure uniformity in terms of working conditions and economic emancipation. There is also a need for ICEM affiliates to promote effective networks in terms of information sharing, joint campaigns, and solidarity. There should be social dialogue between civil society, government, communities, and other stakeholders by assuring that there is adherence to all the laws governing FDI. 
 
Organising and Building Power: Strengthening our collaboration with NGOs to forge links and cooperation to confront the challenges posed by FDI /Chinese investments. Strengthening solidarity campaigns in terms of confronting the challenges. A need to strengthen the coordination mechanism of the ICEM in the region to effectively coordinate campaigns and solidarity, and to lobby our governments to support the position of labour and communities on these campaigns. 
 
Promote Corporate Social Responsibility and Awareness: To establish buy-in by the community and promote networking among trade unions. 
 
Campaigns: Determining which campaigns to take up and when, and when doing so, to lobby governments for direct involvement of trade unions in negotiation of agreements aimed at acquisition of raw materials and mineral rights; to lobby for transparency in these agreements; to lobby and demand labour rights, human rights, community and environmental standards in these agreements. 
 
In doing such, it is important to monitor International Finance Corporation/World Bank Performance standards, the ILO core labour standards, and standards set by the employer-based International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM). As well, there must be a commitment to follow through with the resolutions adopted by SSARO, such as letter to CEOs and the lobbying of governments. 
 
As an example of such campaigns, a day of mobilisation at Chinese embassies in Africa was suggested. This would include coordinated press conferences and protests on specific practices of Chinese employers and it would encompass support to ICEM affiliates which undertake actions against mining employers. (As an example, support to the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia in its efforts to organise a Chinese mine. As well, the ICEM will develop a model labour standard to be incorporated into agreements to acquire raw materials.

Sub-Saharan Africa Region of ICEM Holds Workshop on Foreign Direct Investment

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