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The tense situation in New Zealand&rsquo;s coal pits has eased. But the end to hostilities came only after a wave of sympathy strikes shut down coal production following the lockout of 200 miners by Australian-based contractor HWE Mining on 18 July. 
 
The New Zealand mining industry&rsquo;s collective talks, between ICEM affiliate Engineering, Paper, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and state-owned Solid Energy and its contractors, already had been tense before the three-day lockout. Talks began in April for the 800 miners at some dozen pits but when little progress was made, EPMU miners began taking industrial actions late in June.
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&nbsp; 
The situation intensified when HWE Mining locked out workers at Solid&rsquo;s Rotowaro mine near Huntly 13 days ago. EPMU members at other Solid Energy mines &ndash; particularly Huntly East, Spring Creek, Terrace, and New Vale &ndash; immediately took action and stopped production. 
 
The lockout reminded New Zealanders that Australian mining companies are only too anxious to export the agenda of Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. 
 
The sympathy strikes of other companies put enough pressure on HWE Mining to come to terms in its portion of the Mining Industry Multi-Employer Collective Agreement. Some half-dozen of the other mining contractors also settled two-year agreements. The EPMU has won yearly pay gains of 5% to 5.5% in this round of talks.
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EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little said the HWE Mining lockout was broken because of &ldquo;huge support from miners across the country.&rdquo; 
 
He added, &ldquo;Our members at Rotowaro stood strong in the face of some extreme employer militancy, and they&rsquo;ve managed to end the lockout and win the decent pay rise and improved conditions they were after. This was only achieved through the collective strength of miners.&rdquo; 
 
To date, the only contractor that has not come to terms with the EPMU is Doug Hood Mining, which operates Solid Energy&rsquo;s Stockton mine near Westport. EPMU members there took a 24-hour strike action on 27 July in protest to the contractor&rsquo;s stall tactics.

NZ Coal: Sympathy Strikes Counter Lockout, Pave Way for New Contracts

The European Works Council (EWC) of Alcan Packaging, facing imminent spin-off by new owner Rio Tinto, won a&nbsp;commitment that an Extraordinary Meeting of the Works Council&nbsp;would be held within 14 days&nbsp;after&nbsp;any announced sale of the company is made. Following frank discussions during EWC meetings on 25 July, where Alcan President and CEO Richard Evans reiterated Rio&rsquo;s intent to sell Alcan&rsquo;s packaging businesses, the commitment to hold a further Works Council meeting immediately following an announced sale is&nbsp;welcome news to packaging industry workers&rsquo; and their trade unions. 
 
The ICEM, a global union federation of 389 trade unions in 119 countries, applauded the commitment, calling it &ldquo;an important check-and-balance on corporate governance.&rdquo; The ICEM also congratulates the EWC and the trade unionists on the EWC for gaining this commitment. 
 
Evans told the EWC that Rio Tinto was hopeful of selling the collection of packaging businesses of as block, that there are serious buyers, and that a sale agreement could be completed soon. Peter Ellis, National Officer of ICEM UK affiliate Unite, welcomed the company&rsquo;s commitment.
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Rio Tinto&rsquo;s newly acquired flexible and specialty packaging businesses throughout the world are vast. The Australian company could realise &euro;5 billion from a sale. In 2003, the Canadian-based company purchased Norsk Hydro&rsquo;s packaging units, and the following year Alcan took over French-based Pechiney in a US$3.9 billion stock and cash deal. Alcan&rsquo;s packaging businesses produce products for the food, personal care, and pharmaceutical sectors.

Alcan Workers Win Commitment from Company at EWC

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The International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers' Association (IUF) scored a victory in its ongoing struggle for the rights of workers at Unilever in June, by reaching a settlement with the multinational to permanently employ members of a union Action Committee at the Rahim Yar Khan plant in Pakistan. 
 
Permanent positions were created for workers, who had previously been employed precariously. Unilever dismissed those workers after they protested against status as fixed-term contract workers. 
 
In October 2007, the IUF began a concerted campaign against the mass dismissals, supported by the National Federation of Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Workers of Pakistan, which was conducted in the country&rsquo;s courtrooms, as well as on streets. The Action Committee was then formed to fight for rights for permanent jobs. 
 
Last month&rsquo;s negotiated settlement was agreed to through mechanisms of the OECD, including applying standards of its Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which require companies to ensure that all its subsidiaries conform to global labour standards, including ILO Conventions 87 and 98. 

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The 120 new positions were created at the Rahim Yar Khan plant as of 24 June 2009. All Action Committee members were appointed to these posts. Under the terms of the agreement, these workers are to suffer no discrimination or victimization, and will be free to organize and bargain collectively. 
 
Implementation of the agreement will be continuously monitored by the IUF and Unilever. 
 
Despite this positive settlement, Unilever continues its policy to employ large numbers of CAL workers. There has been no improvement to the rights of workers at the Lipton tea factory in Khanewal, Pakistan, which was reported <a href="/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/3015-Support-Needed-for-Contract-Agency-Workers-Forming-Union-at-Unilever-Tea-Factory-in-Pakistan">here</a> by the ICEM in January 2009.&nbsp; 
 
&ldquo;I am encouraged by the news of a just settlement at the Rahim Yar Khan plant,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;This is a step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before we succeed in ending the anti-union employment strategies of Unilever.&rdquo; 
 
The Khanewal factory employs just 22 permanent workers, with another 723 hired through six labour agency companies.

Victory Noted for IUF in Unilever Contract Labour Struggle in Pakistan

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At ICEM&rsquo;s Executive Committee in late June, the body acted on a 2007 Congress resolution to develop a mandate for an ICEM policy on sustainable development. That policy was adopted, following a presentation by Sustainability Work Group Chairman Lars Myhre and ICEM&rsquo;s Health, Safety, and Sustainability Officer Brian Kohler. 
 
The working document can be found <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/EN%20ICEMsustainability090518.pdf">here</a>.&nbsp; It establishes parameters for ICEM positions and &ldquo;a good, balanced, sensible, and intelligent industrial policy&rdquo; to go forward with, in the words of Tony Maher of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia. 
 
The challenge now, according to Executive members, is to bring this balanced industrial plan to senior-level policymakers at UN climate change forums. 

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ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana gave special tribute to long-time Executive members Michel Decayeux of France and Errol McLeod of Trinidad/Tobago
The ICEM policy calls for a new focus and new dialogue between governments, employers, and unions. The policy calls for an energy future that includes cleaner use of fossil fuels (including carbon capture and storage/sequestration), nuclear, and renewable energy sources. The future of energy must consider questions about access to energy and price fairness and stability. 
 
Pulp and paper, chemicals, rubber, and materials sectors all have their particular sustainability challenges, which the ICEM acknowledges. Most importantly, the notion of sustainable jobs must be decent jobs and inherent in those jobs is the recognition and practice of principles of human rights, labour rights, and particularly respect for the rights of women and other disadvantaged groups. 
 
Also during the June Executive meetings, the body endorsed a resolution submitted by the Asia-Pacific Region of the ICEM. That resolution calls on all affiliates of the ICEM to lend support to Thai labour unions. They are battling hostile work environments imposed by multinational companies, including rubber manufacturers Goodyear and Michelin and industrial gases company Linde, to name just a few.

ICEM’s Executive Formally Adopts Sustainability Policy

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The 2009 annual meeting of ICEM&rsquo;s International Nuclear Workers&rsquo; Union Network, (INWUN) took place in Geneva 25-26. INWUN covers all nuclear workers and not just those involved in electric power generation, but also unionised workers producing medical or industrial isotopes, and workers involved in the reprocessing and enrichment of uranium and uranium mining. 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s Joe Drexler gave a presentation on the increased investment taking place in uranium mining, as well as a programme on radiological hazards in uranium that began in May in South Africa. 
 
A number of unions attended the network meeting for the first time, showing an increased interest in nuclear power from many countries as a possible contributor to reduced carbon emissions and a &ldquo;nuclear renaissance&rdquo; that is clearly linked to climate change discussions. 

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Indeed, interest was shown by a number of unions in the work ICEM has done following the appointment of Brian Kohler late last year as Safety, Health, Sustainability Officer, and in preparations for the UN&rsquo;s COP 15 Climate Change Conference, scheduled for December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 
 
A presentation on the sustainability work of ICEM was made by Lars Myhre, chair of the ICEM Energy Industries Section who has also chaired the ICEM sustainable development discussions. 
 
A detailed presentation by Roland Schneider of TUAC on their work at the OECD in Paris and the work of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the OECD led to discussions on how ICEM and INWUN can link to the work of these agencies. 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s Energy Officer, Jim Catterson, is in contact with TUAC to take this further. ICEM made a presentation on the present state of the Energy Industries and the future role foreseen for nuclear power. That was followed by an industry viewpoint from an official of the World Nuclear Association. 
 
Next year&rsquo;s INWUN meeting will be held in connection with the ICEM World Energy Conference, planned for the second half of 2010. This will maximise attendance and increase the input of unions from ICEM&rsquo;s energy sector attending the world conference. 
 
Unions present made detailed presentations of their own national situations, and these presentations will shortly be loaded to the Energy Industry section of the ICEM website. INWUN is presided over by David Shier of the Canadian Power Workers&rsquo; Union (PWU).

Nuclear Workers’ Network Holds Annual Meeting in Geneva

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As part of the cooperation and alliance between ICEM and the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) in the oil and gas industry, the two Global Union Federations (GUFs) cooperated in an ILO tripartite sector meeting called &ldquo;Promoting Social Dialogue and Good Industrial Relations from Oil and Gas Exploration and Production to Oil and Gas Distribution.&rdquo; 
 
Lars Myhre, from Norway&rsquo;s Industri-Energi (IE) Union and the ICEM Energy Industries Chairman, was elected chairperson of the Workers&rsquo; Group, while spokesperson Mick Dolman from the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was elected as Workers&rsquo; Group vice chairman. Dolman chaired one of the plenary sessions of the meeting. 
 
ICEM Energy Officer Jim Catterson was elected secretary of the Workers&rsquo;Group. Ingo Marowski of the ITF closely followed all the discussions and worker delegates from both GUFs participated in both the plenary sessions and the working party, which produced tripartite conclusions following extensive negotiations. 

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The Workers&rsquo; Group ensured that as well as a strong focus on trade union rights and the ILO Core Conventions, there was detailed discussion of health and safety issues, especially the adverse long-term health effects of diving on workers. Helicopter safety to and from offshore rigs, given a recent spate of accidents in the Brazil, Canada, and UK, also was a prominent agenda item. 
 
A special solidarity message was sent by the Workers&rsquo; Group to the Offshore Divers&rsquo; Union in Norway, an organisation that includes many IE-organised divers. The organisation is presently engaged in compensation litigation. Other issues debated at length included the situation of contract and sub-contract workers, the respective responsibilities of operators and contract companies, and the specific problems of contract workers in the Mexican oil industry. The latter was a major issue for ITF, which had nominated both a worker delegate and an advisor from their Mexican affiliates. 
 
The agreed conclusions and report of the meeting&rsquo;s deliberations, as well as the detailed background report provided at the meeting are available from the ICEM Secretariat. However, it should be noted that the conclusions and report need to be approved at the next meeting of the ILO Governing Body before becoming official documents. 
 
ICEM has begun discussions with the ILO regarding follow-up work from the meeting.

ILO’s Oil and Gas Meeting Promotes Social Dialogue

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ICEM Indonesian affiliate, Federasi Serikat Pekerja Pulp Dan Kertas (FSP2KI), conducted training on collective bargaining and labour law from 4-5 July in Karawang with 30 participants. The union represents workers across the country&rsquo;s pulp and paper sector. 
 
The training was attended by workplace leaders of Asia Pulp &amp; Paper&rsquo;s PT Indo Deli, PT Graha Cemerlang, Asia Pacific Resources International&rsquo;s (APRIL) Riau Andalan paper and power operations, and DSS Karawang. 

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The workshops had the expertise of Akhirnya Asfinawati, the leader of the legal aid service LBH Jakarta; Khamid Istakhori from the Congress States Labour Congress of Indonesia (KSBI); and Odie Hudaya from the Labour Working Group, an Indonesian workers&rsquo; training institute. FSP2KI shop-floor leaders were instructed on bargaining techniques and legal procedures as outlined under Peneltian Hukum Indonesia, the country&rsquo;s legal information guide. 
 
The union intends to provide follow-up training to the 30 participants in order to give maximum protections to trade union members. 
 
Etin Rodiana serves as General Secretary of FSP2KI and Irzan Zulpakar is the President.

Indonesian Pulp, Paper Union, FSP2KI, Conducts Training for Mill-Level Leaders

The ICEM lodged strong protest early this week demanding Turkey President Abdullah G&uuml;l veto a bill giving &ldquo;Private Labour Offices&rdquo; broad rights to place temporary workers in enterprises. On 9 July, President G&uuml;l did veto the bill, and now the ICEM demands the Turkish Parliament not bring it back. 
 
The bill was submitted by Parliament to G&uuml;l in late June after it cleared the legislative body without hearings or direct input from the country&rsquo;s labour federations. The ICEM calls attention to this anti-social fact because global unions are targeting actions in&nbsp;Turkey and Thailand on Day of Decent Work, 7 October 2009, specifically over the precarious labour issue. 
 
The legislation, as written, would have given fees to labour brokers and it would have created a slave market composed of short-term contract workers. The proposal read that any person or entity could establish a private labour hire agency with a modest investment of TL 20,000, or &euro;9,250. 
 
&ldquo;We applaud President G&uuml;l and his administration for doing the right thing to veto this,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;We now call on the global community to assist our Turkish comrades to make sure this bill does not surface again.&rdquo; 
 
The ICEM credits Turkey&rsquo;s three trade union federations for immediate and effective opposition to the legislation. The ICEM now calls on the Turkish Parliament to abandon this anti-people measure. 
 
Mustafa Kumlu, President of the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (T&uuml;rk-İş), said accurately it would render existing mechanisms between unions and government useless. Kumlu, an ICEM Executive Committee member, said &ldquo;social rights, social security, and other benefits&rdquo; would disappear under this legislation. 
 
In the 7 July letter to G&uuml;l, Warda said creating such a labour system in a society is equivalent to &ldquo;placing dynamite under the social structures.&rdquo; He called it a &ldquo;21st century employment relationship based on slavery.&rdquo; 
 
ICEM work leading up to 7 October and after will partly focus on Turkish failure &ndash; in the eyes of the ILO &ndash; to implement Labour Conventions that the country has already ratified. A focus will also ensure that transparency and fairness become full partners in all social discussions leading to possible Turkish ratification of ILO Convention 181, the Private Employment Agencies Convention. 
 
The ICEM said in the letter to the Turkish government that the proposed law is not in compliance with the EU Directive on Temporary Agency Work, a standard passed in October 2008 that the ICEM insists must be adhered to by Turkey. The ICEM also labels the legislation a misguided response to the economic crisis, and an inhumane practice to even pronounce it as a measure to reduce operating costs. 
 
For further information, contact the ICEM&rsquo;s Kemal &Ouml;zkan at <a href="mailto:Kemal.ozkan@icem.org">Kemal.ozkan@icem.org</a> of +41 79 734 9044, or Dick Blin, <a href="mailto:Dick.blin@icem.org">Dick.blin@icem.org</a>, +41 79 734 8994.

Turkey: Labour Hire Veto Applauded, More Work Demanded

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MEXICO CITY, JULY 10 &ndash; Day one of the five day delegation saw Parliamentary and trade union leaders from 13 countries, including Manfred Warda and Jyrki Raina, General Secretaries of the ICEM and IMF, join Mexican union leaders and legislators yesterday to call for an end to the persecution of the Mexican mineworkers&rsquo; union and its leader, Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez Urrutia. 
 
The international delegation with members of the special commission of the Mexican Senate established to investigate the strike at the Cananea mine, which has been ongoing for nearly two years. The meeting also included federal deputies and leaders of the National Union of Workers (UNT) and Mexican Electrical Workers&rsquo; Union (SME). 
 
Jack Layton, leader of Canada&rsquo;s New Democratic Party, raised the delegation&rsquo;s concerns in a meeting with Mexico&rsquo;s Labor Secretary. &ldquo;We made it clear that the government&rsquo;s interference in union governance, its jailing of union leaders and freezing union bank accounts, declaring strikes illegal and failing to prosecute the killers of union leaders, are serious and unacceptable violations of basic human rights,&rdquo; he stated. 
 
Layton, Australian Labor MP Graham Perrett, and a group of union leaders also met with Marcelo Ebrard, chief executive of the Federal District (Mexico City). 
 
Members of the delegation held meetings with the Embassies of Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, Poland, and the United States to inform them about the Mexican government&rsquo;s actions. The delegation&rsquo;s message, according to United Steelworkers District 7 Director Jim Robinson, was that &ldquo;when NAFTA was passed, we were told that it would raise wages for Mexican workers. Now the Mexican government and Grupo Mexico are trying to destroy the Mineworkers because they are doing just that.&rdquo; 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda emphasized the importance of the delegation, &ldquo;The ICEM and the International Metalworkers Federation here represents over 45 million workers worldwide. Ours is a unified voice of staunch solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Mexico, in their fight for the right to freely form trade unions and bargain collectively&rdquo;.&nbsp;&nbsp;
See the previous press release on the Mexican delegation <a href="/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/3299-PARLIAMENTARY-UNION-LEADERS-VISIT-MEXICO-TO-SUPPORT-MINEWORKERS-UNION">here</a>.

PARLIAMENTARY, UNION LEADERS DEMAND MEXICAN GOVERNMENT CEASE ATTACKS ON MINEWORKERS

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Uluslararası &Ccedil;alışma &Ouml;rg&uuml;t&uuml; ILO&rsquo;nun bu yılki 98. Konferansı'nın 19 Haziran g&uuml;n&uuml; yapılan oturumunda, K&uuml;resel İstihdam Paktı adlı &ouml;nemli bir belge kabul edildi. H&uuml;k&uuml;metlerin, sendikaların ve işverenlerin kabul ettiği pakt, ekonomik toparlanma ve reform konusunda bir &ccedil;er&ccedil;eve getirmektedir. 
 
Uluslararası Sendikalar Konfederasyonu (ITUC) Genel Sekreteri Guy Ryder, ILO &ccedil;er&ccedil;eve paketini ş&ouml;yle tanımladı: &ldquo;Yeni bir k&uuml;resel y&ouml;netim sistemi kurmayı ama&ccedil;layan teklifin &ouml;z&uuml;n&uuml; istihdam, iş&ccedil;i hakları, sosyal koruma &ouml;nlemleri ve s&uuml;rd&uuml;r&uuml;lebilirlik oluşturuyor.&rdquo; 
 

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ITUC Genel Sekreteri Guy Ryder 

K&uuml;resel sendikalar, ILO'nun tekrar işveren &ccedil;evrelerinin y&ouml;r&uuml;ngesine oturmasından ve uluslararası ekonomi kurumlarının başarısızlığı kanıtlanmış serbest piyasa anlayışını s&uuml;rd&uuml;rmesinden endişe duymaktadır. Bazı yorumcular, finansal krizin artık dibe vurduğunu ve toparlanmanın yakın olduğunu belirtirken, 19 Haziran'daki ILO oturumunda s&ouml;z alan temsilciler, kaybolan istihdamın etkilerinin kalıcı ve yıkıcı olacağını vurguladılar. 
 
İstihdam Paktı, krizin 50 milyon iş&ccedil;iyi işsizliğe, 200 milyon insanı yoksulluğa iteceği yolundaki şaşırtıcı ILO tahminlerine bir se&ccedil;enek olarak g&ouml;r&uuml;lmektedir. İklim değişikliğiyle m&uuml;cadele gibi, s&uuml;rd&uuml;r&uuml;lebilir istihdam yaratılması da hayatı bir &ouml;nem taşımaktadır. 
 
İstihdam Paktı'nın bir başka y&ouml;n&uuml;n&uuml; ise &uuml;&ccedil;l&uuml; diyaloga, sosyal diyaloga ve toplu pazarlığa b&uuml;y&uuml;k &ouml;nem vermesi oluşturmaktadır. &Ccedil;alışma koşullarıyla ilgili standartların y&uuml;kseltilmesi ve &uuml;cretlerin iyileştirilmesi, işsizlere y&ouml;nelik eğitim ve yetiştirme programlarıyla birlikte yaşamsal bir &ouml;nem taşımaktadır. İstihdam Paktı, kamu sekt&ouml;r&uuml;nde istihdam yaratma planlarının uygulanmasını &ouml;ng&ouml;rmektedir. 
 
K&uuml;resel İstihdam Paktı ileriye atılmış &ouml;nemli ve anlamlı bir adımdır ve hemen uygulanması gerekmektedir. ICEM 24-25 Eyl&uuml;l 2009'da ABD'nin Pennsylvania eyaletinin Pittsburgh kentinde yapılacak bir sonraki G20 toplantısından &ouml;nce somut sonu&ccedil;lar alınması talebini desteklemektedir.

ILO’nun İstihdam Paktı: Krizden Çıkış İçin Önemli Bir Açılım

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