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After a difficult year of negotiations, which included industrial actions this spring and a subsequent string of three-day lockouts by the company, 500 tyre workers at Bridgestone’s Salisbury factory near Adelaide, South Australia, accepted the Japanese company’s terms. 
 
Workers of three unions passed by the thinnest of margins – 240 to 225 – a new three-year agreement. The contract, some ten months after a prior one expired, grants workers 6% wage increases from May 2007 to May 2010, with possible bonuses interspersed.
<img height="35" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/AUSTRALIALHMU.gif" width="220"/>   
                                     <img height="90" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/AUSTRALIAAMWU.jpg" width="90"/> 
 
Production workers, numbering about 450, are represented by ICEM affiliate Liquor, Hospitality, and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU), while most maintenance workers are represented by Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), also an ICEM affiliate. Electricians at Salisbury are represented by ICEM affiliate Communications, Electrical, and Plumbing Union (CEPU). 
 
Bridgestone used the full weight of the 2005 WorkChoices law in Australia to leverage its inferior bargaining demands. Workers had engaged in four stop-work actions since March, as well as an overtime ban. The company punished workers for the unions’ actions by employing contract workers on maintenance and electrical work, and taking the offensive under WorkChoices by imposing three-day, non-paid lockouts. 
 
“Clearly, the restrictions placed upon union members by the current Australian industrial relations legislation made pursuit of improvements more difficult for members,” said LHMU lead negotiator, Jim Watson. “The company relied on the legislation and frustrated union members into accepting the agreement.” 
 
Bridgestone workers had last seen a pay raise in December 2005. The previous agreement had expired in June 2006.

Bridgestone Workers in Australia Come to Terms with Company

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The demands of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) that caused pipeline strikes near Basra during the week of 4 June were met, thus precluding further strike action that was to occur last week. 
 
On 11 June, leaders of the IFOU met with Iraq’s Minister of State for Parliament Affairs, who directly represented Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Pledges that al-Maliki made to the union in mid-May were put into effect, including establishing a committee to deal with oil workers’ grievances. Those grievances, numbering 16, include salaries, work conditions, health and safety concerns, and a demand for consultation over the future of Iraq’s oil industry. 
<img height="100" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMoil4.JPG.JPG" width="100" alt=""/>
In a statement, IFOU President Hassan Jumaa Awad Alasady said, “Finally, the workers have won in demanding their legitimate rights. That is why an enlarged meeting was held with his Excellency, Minister of State for Parliament Affairs, lasting five hours (and) resulting in the cessation of all the failings resulting from the conduct of the Iraqi Oil Minister and (his) irresponsible stance. 
 
“The activation of the committee formed by the Prime Minister to deal with the outstanding problems was affirmed. And after deliberations within our union, the two sides agreed to halt the strike and to use dialogue in dealings to resolve the outstanding issues.” 
 
Basra-area pipeline workers, part of the 26,000-member IFOU, shut down oil pipelines leading to Baghdad on 4 June, and again on 5 June, over the decision by the country’s oil minister, Hussein Shahrastani, and the general manager of the pipeline company, Adel Aziz, to void Prime Minister al-Maliki’s pledge to IFOU. 
<img height="115" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Iraq.png" width="250" alt=""/>
The strike was suspended late on 5 June when Iraqi military forces surrounded the strikers. Also, IFOU learned that a number of union and strike leaders faced arrest warrants. The ICEM was on the front lines of this dispute, together with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the US Solidarity Center, and the UK’s Trades Union Congress, in drawing attention to the plight of strikers. 
 
The ICEM is extremely grateful to its affiliates who quickly responded with messages of support to IFOU, a point that was also made by Comrade Hassan Jumaa Awad: “We extend our thanks to all, from across the world, who have campaigned and written to express solidarity with the oil workers and the IFOU.”

Iraqi Oil Workers Declare ‘Tactical Victory’ in Southern Strike

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The jobs crisis in the paper and wood sectors of Canada has taken further hard blows. Early this month, Finnish pulp and paper company UPM Kymmene announced a temporary 9-to-12 month closure of its paper and groundwood mills in Miramichi, New Brunswick, thus idling 600 workers. 
 
That came just a week after US-based Weyerhaeuser Co. officially announced, on 31 May, the permanent closure of a wood mill in the same town. The closing will cost 150 jobs. Workers at both mills are represented by ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada. 
<img height="99" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMpaper.jpg" width="100" alt=""/>
While meeting with company officials of UPM Kymmene in Miramichi on 8 June, CEP local union leaders left the meeting not very hopeful. They were told that the odds of re-starting the mill next year stand at only 20% unless investments are made. 
 
Speaking at the New Brunswick Federation of Labour’s convention in Edmunston on the day that UPM broke the news, 5 June, CEP President Dave Coles said, “These communities are a microcosm of what is going on in more than four dozen communities (across Canada).” He said that over the past three years, more than 12,000 pulp, paper, and sawmill workers have lost their jobs in Canada. 
 
What makes matters worst for mill workers, particularly at UPM, is that the Finnish company continues to cut and export raw logs off government forestlands through three leases it holds in the province of New Brunswick. CEP local leaders were told at the 5 June meeting that the company was going to do trial shipments of wood to Finland, something CEP and community leaders oppose while the paper mill is idle. 
<img height="115" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Canada.png" width="250" alt=""/>
“Employers, especially in the forestry sector, have deliberately taken the money they have earned from our publicly-owned natural resources and invested it elsewhere in the world,” stated Coles at the provincial labour convention. 
 
The recent bad news hasn’t been limited to New Brunswick. On 15 June, forestry company Tembec Inc. announced it was temporarily shutting three wood mills in Quebec and one in Ontario, affecting nearly 900 workers. 
 
That came a day after Commonwealth Plywood announced the closure of 18 mills in Quebec, six of which find workers represented by the CEP. The Commonwealth closures will mean the loss of 1,200 jobs. 
 
The CEP has pressed the federal government of Canada for intervention in the jobs crisis of the nation’s forestry sector.

Forest Sector Jobs Continue to Drop in Wake of Eastern Canada Mills Closings

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ICEM affiliate, the United Electrical, Radio, Machine Workers of America (UE), and the IUE-CWA reached tentative four-year agreements with General Electric Co. (GE) yesterday. 
 
The tentative pact, covering over 14,000 workers, will now be reviewed by the two unions’ conference boards, and then put to ratification votes of all workers by 28 June. A prior labour agreement in the US at GE plants expired at midnight, last night. 
 
The tentative accord reached yesterday includes significant improvements in wages, pensions, and benefits. It also contains agreement to accelerate joint efforts between GE and the unions to address the difficult and costly health care system in America. The unions also won a new holiday in talks, Veterans Day (also known as Armistice Day) in November. 
<img height="110" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/USA.png" width="250" alt=""/>
“I think it’s an agreement our members will recognise as a good one,” stated UE General President John Hovis. “I’m especially pleased with the provisions that affect (less senior) people at the locations we represent.” Both the UE and the IUE-CWA are recommending the tentative contract for approval to their members. 
 
Terms of this accord will now be offered to US-based unions covering another 6,000 GE workers at their locations.

US Union Reach Tentative Contract with General Electric

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Stefan Löfven was elected President of Nordic IN at a Congress held 15 June in Reykjavik, Iceland. Nordic IN is a regional trade union federation, representing 1.2 million workers of 22 affiliated national unions in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. 
 
Löfven, who is the president of Swedish ICEM affiliate, IF Metall, the metal and chemical workers’ union, succeeds Kjell Bjørndalen, who retired. Nordic-In’s biennial Congress, attended by 70 delegates, also elected Thorkild Jensen, from Denmark's CO-industri, and Mari-Ann Krantz, from Sweden's Sif, as vice presidents. Jyrki Raina continues as general secretary. 
<img height="170" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0706Lofven1.jpg" width="150" alt=""/>
New Nordic IN President Stefan Löfven
The federation’s action programme 2008-2009 adopted at the Reykjavik Congress states that Nordic unions will work together to: 
<ul>
 <li>
 <div>safeguard the Nordic model with a high unionisation rate, strong collective agreements, social security and workers' participation; </div>
 </li>
 <li>
 <div>work towards fair globalisation and to ensure the respect of trade union rights in all parts of the world; </div>
 </li>
 <li>
 <div>promote proactive trade, energy and environmental policies; </div>
 </li>
 <li>
 <div>train union officers and European Works Council members on networking and on how to handle cross-border restructuring cases in multinational companies; and to </div>
 </li>
 <li>
 <div>promote recruitment of new members and stronger union structures in the Baltic states. </div>
 </li>
</ul>
As part of the Congress, a thematic session was held that included participation by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and trade union leaders representing the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), the International Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF), the European Metal Workers’ Federation (EMF), and the European Mine, Chemical, and Energy Workers’ Federation (EMCEF). 
<img height="139" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0706JyrkiRaina.jpg" width="98" alt=""/>
Nordic IN General Secretary Jyrki Raina
That session centered on discussion on the future of the trade union movement in the global economy. “The work Nordic IN is doing is a prime example of what can be accomplished when trade unions unite and follow a common agenda,” said the ICEM’s Warda. 
 
Nordic IN, founded on 1 January 2006 with the merger of Nordic Metal and the Nordic Industry Workers’ Federation (NIF), has as a basic mission to coordinate the policies and action of Nordic trade unions, especially within European industry federations EMF, EMCEF and the European Textile, Clothing, and Leather Federation, as well as within ICEM, IMF, and ITGLWF. 
 
The Congress confirmed that Nordic unions will continue to work to bring industrial workers into one federation in Europe and in the world, in order to maximise our resources in a globalised world.

Nordic IN Holds Biennial Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland

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A month-long strike by 660 chromium miners in Albania escalated eight days ago as 30 of the striking miners began a hunger strike. Last Thursday, 26 June, five of them were hospitalised due to dehydration. Another four were brought to hospital yesterday, Sunday July 1st, with doctors describing their condition as critical. 
 
The strike at the Italian-based Darfo SRL's mine and one of two ferrochrome smelters at Bulqiza, in north-eastern Albania, where a massive protest was also organised yesterday, is backed by ICEM affiliate Trade Union Federation of Industrial Workers of Albania, as well as by the region's citizens and civil society, in particular the NGO Mjaft. 
<img height="67" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/AlbaniaFLAG.gif" width="100"/>
Also yesterday, the leader of the strikers’ committee, Mr. Dilaver Perkoxha, was arrested. According to the latest information, he remains in the Police Commissariat. A meeting on Saturday between the Minister of Economy, Mr. Genc Ruli, and representatives of the miners failed. 
 
The strike is over safety -- two miners were killed deep in a mine shaft on 11 June -- pay, life insurance, and a bettering of general working conditions. The miners and KSSH placed the demands before Darfo a full six years ago, but neither the mine and smelter management nor the Albanian government officials acted on the pay request or on the abhorrent safety conditions. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Maps/Albania.png" width="250"/>
"We are seeking more information on this dispute," said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, "but what we have learned is that in tripartite negotiations, both the government and Bulqiza mine management have been indifferent. 
 
The striking miners and the Federation of Industrial Workers deserve and will get our full support and solidarity." 
 
The ongoing health and safety deficiencies were manifested when two mineworkers, Hysni Lezni and Avni Duriçi were killed 1,000 metres underground in Darfo's chromium mine. The pay dispute is over the fact that mine and smelting workers receive sub-standard monthly salaries compared to other industrial workers in the central European country.

Albanian Chrome Miners Strike over Safety, Pay, and Work Conditions

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On June 25, 2007, 30 employees of the Russian “State Institute of Organic Synthesis Technology” (or FGUP GITOS) went on a hunger strike for an indefinite period. They were driven to this extreme measure by the inability of the Federal Agency for Industry to settle wage arrears, going back to 2003. 
 
In the past, FGUP GITOS was involved in technology research and development, including on highly toxic substances. When Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993, the R&D work at the Institute ended. 
<img height="99" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMchemical3.jpg.JPG" width="100"/>
All conversion schemes subsequently launched at the enterprise have failed. Since June 2004, the FRUP GITOS, the only industrial employer in the town of Shikhany, in the Russian Saratov Region, has been going through a bankruptcy procedure, which has been persistently obstructed by the Federal Agency for Industry. 
 
In June 2005, the Federal Agency set up one of the business units of the FGUP GITOS as a separate entity and transferred production floors, the infrastructure , the State order, and 230 employees of the FGUP GITOS to the new legal entity. In April 2006, the FGUP GITOS itself, with the remaining 200 employees, was declared bankrupt and put into receivership. Currently, all employees of the FGUP GITOS have received redundancy notices. 
 
In July 2006, in an attempt to prevent a hunger strike announced by the FGUP GITOS union, a Joint Commission was formed, with representatives from the Federal Agency for Industry, the Interregional Trade Union Association SODRUZHESTVO, affiliated to Russian Oil and Gas Workers Union (ROGWU, ICEM affiliate), the Government of the Saratov Region, the local authorities of Shikhany, and the workforce. The Commission had the task of determining the amount of wages and social benefits owed to both former and current GITOS employees and finding a way to settle the arrears. 
<img height="67" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/RussiaFlag.gif" width="100" border="1"/>
Some efforts towards financial assistance were arranged. However, most failed, and others were manifestly insufficient. 
 
In February 2007, the FGUP GITOS union announced its decision to picket the Federal Agency for Industry. After they were first told that it was ‘all their own fault’, promises were made to the workers that the enterprise would be reorganised. Those promises were never fulfilled. 
 
More workers are determined to join their 30 striking colleagues if nothing is done. The workers also intend to organise a march to Moscow and file a mass complaint with the European Human Rights Court. 
 
Alerted to the situation by ROGWU, the <a href="/index.php?id=8&doc=2309&la=EN" type="internal">ICEM sent a letter to the Russian Prime Minister</a>, stating its grave concern and urging the Federal Government to ensure an immediate resolution of the dispute and settlement of all social benefits and wage arrears which currently stand at RUB 88 million (€ 2.5 million), including wage arrears, union dues, payments to the pension fund and health benefits.

Russian Chemical Workers start Hunger Strike

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Negotiations in the gold, platinum, chrome, diamond, coal, and iron ore mining sectors of South Africa head into July with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and major mining companies being far apart on wages. 
 
Disputes have been declared in nearly all the talks, with NUM seeking two-year increases ranging from 11% at DeBeer's diamond-mining operations to higher at platinum and gold mining operators. Contracts expired on 30 June but talks are likely to continue throughout July, under the guidance of the CCMA, the governmental agency where NUM has filed for dispute resolution. Such filings are necessary before a union can legally take strike action. 
<img height="103" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/SouthafricaNUM.gif" width="100"/>
This set of negotiations comes amidst an escalating South African inflation rate, especially food and fuel costs. The talks also come when commodity prices are high, and the mining houses are reaping huge profits. 
 
Gold and platinum, two natural resources in which South Africa leads the world in production, have seen rising demand, resulting in higher pricing. Gold was selling for US$420 an ounce in early 2005. In June 2007, it was selling for nearly US$653 an ounce. And platinum, which finds South Africa supplying 75% of the world's markets, has seen price rises of 18% since the beginning of 2007. 
 
NUM is seeking wage increases for the two years in most sectors of about 15%. 
 
"When we talk of double-digit (increases) we mean business and we are not in the business of playing games with our members' mandates," said NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni. 
<img height="142" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0610NUMFransBaleni1.jpg" width="100"/>
NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni
To date in talks, the mining companies have put forward wage offers that fall far short of South African inflation. The Chamber of Mines, representing AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields, and Harmony in gold talks, have offered only 6%. DRDGold is bargaining outside the chamber, but its current offer is insufficient. 
 
The same can be said for the chamber's low offer in coal negotiations. In platinum, where AngloPlatinum, Impala Platinum, Lonmin, and Northam are the country's leading producers, the employers' wage offer of between 6-7% falls short of NUM goals. 
 
At Kumba Resources, an iron ore producer, the NUM is seeking 13.5%, while DeBeers offer to diamond miners is 7% next to NUM's demand for 11%. 
 
The NUM knows that no mining settlement has ever been reached without a fight. Now, as negotiations head into July, South Africa's largest and most militant trade union expects just that.

Disputes Declared in South Africa's Mining Negotiations

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Some 30 Central European trade unionists from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia participated in the meeting of the ICEM Regional Conference for Central Europe, which took place in Balatonszemes, Hungary, on 5-6 June 2007. The meeting was hosted by Hungarian ICEM affiliate Federation of Trade Unions of the Chemical, Energy and General Workers (VDSZ). 
 
In spite of the many stories in the mainstream media recently on the positive economic growth in the region, reports at the meeting often painted a bleak economic picture for many of the countries, with delegates reporting on complicated and often difficult situations in their countries. 
<img height="226" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0706Hungary2.jpg" width="390"/>
ICEM Regional President Juraj Blahak and ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda
Widespread austerity measures, for example in Hungary and Slovakia, and the effects of years of privatisation and liberalisation, such as what's been happening in Bosnia or Serbia, are taking their toll on trade unions, workers, and ordinary citizens. Even in those countries that are now part of the European Union, economic problems persist. They include problems with immigration of workers to richer countries in Europe, often the result of low national wages. That is the case in Romania and Poland. Another endemic problem is that of high unemployment, for example in the Balkan countries. 
 
There was also good news, however. In several, if not most, Central European countries, unions reported successes, with some winning more and better benefits for workers. Improvements also exist in the area of social dialogue with employers, often after pressure on governments. 
<img height="187" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/HungaryVDSZ1.jpg" width="250"/>
Unions in the region reported on the increased cooperation with other national or industry unions, with some constructive mergers processes now underway. Croatia was listed as one such example. Many participants also mentioned the positive role played by the ICEM/IUF South-East Europe union modernisation project. 
 
Juraj Blahak, President of Slovakian ICEM affiliate OZ Chémia SR, was re-elected as the Vice-President for the Central European region. And Elena Petrovici, from Romanian ICEM affiliate Petrom, was re-elected as the president of the Central European Women’s Committee. She was elected at the ICEM Central European Women’s Conference, which took place just prior to the regional conference.

ICEM's Central European Regional Conference Held in Balatonszemes, Hungary

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A dispute between Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. (NLNG), seven of its contractors at the Nigerian Bonny Island Terminal and ICEM blue-collar oil workers’ union NUPENG, turned violent on 18 November, causing the union to call a nation-wide strike this week if two demands are not met. 
 
The incident that sparked the strike call was a brutal attack by Nigeria’s Joint Military Task Force (JTF) on contract workers – many of them NUPENG members – on NLNG property, which blinded one worker in his right eye, and injured 28 other NLNG subcontractors. The JTF fired tear gas directly at the contract workers, attacking with batons. 
<img height="103" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/NigeriaNupeng100.gif" width="100"/>
The contract worker who was blinded is NUPENG member Ibifuro Pepple. NUPENG arranged for the victim to be fitted with an artificial eye, with surgery set for 11 December by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) at a hospital in Lagos. 
 
The contract workers protested because NLNG reneged on the signing of an agreement granting them union recognition through NUPENG. The agreement was in place after the Nigerian Ministry of Labour and Productivity certified recognition, but NLNG twice backed away from signing the accord, the second time on 18 November. Contract workers at the Bonny Island transfer terminal in Finima then began their protest. NLNG responded by calling in the JTF. 
 
NLNG is owned jointly by the Nigerian government (49%), Shell (26.5%), Total (15%), and Eni’s Agip (10.4%). 
 
NUPENG’s Central Working Committee, at a meeting on 27 November, issued a seven-day national strike notice, demanding prosecution of the JTF officers responsible for the violence and full recognition of NUPENG as representative for the contract workers of the NLNG’s suppliers. The ICEM supports those demands, and calls on the Nigerian government, as well as the multinationals involved, to give full priority to resolving this unionisation issue, and the other outstanding grievances brought by the workers and NUPENG. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Nigeria.png" width="250"/>
NUPENG leaders and government officials will meet today, 3 December, to discuss the critical situation. 
 
On November 26, NUPENG’s Eastern Zonal members at NLNG began the first sympathy strike against the energy company for its indiscriminate, 18 November, actions. Other strikes at NLNG’s five major worksites could occur as early as tomorrow, and other sympathy strikes could spread throughout Nigeria’s energy sector. 
 
Following the 27 November NUPENG Central Committee meeting, leaders of PENGASSAN – ICEM’s white-collar affiliate in Nigeria – stood with their comrades in supporting the declared strike. Senior staff workers at NLNG, represented by PENGASSAN, are firm in their belief that contract workers deserve the right to union recognition with NUPENG.

Nigeria: Police Use Violence to Break Up Unionising Subcontractors, 1 Worker Blinded

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