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On 7-8 October, ICEM organised a session on decent work in Dakar, Senegal, together with the national trade union center Union Démocratique des Travailleurs du Sénégal (UDTS) and the ICEM affiliate, Syndicat Unique des Travailleurs des Industries Diverses du Sénégal (SUTIDS). The meeting was sponsored by CSC Belgium, and ICEM Vice President Alfons de Potter was one of the facilitators of the meeting. 
 
“We benefit from the experience of Belgium in discussion of employment problems,” said SUTIDS General Secretary Seyni Mbaye Ndiaye. “This country is very advanced on social issues.” 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Senegal.png" width="150" height="69"/>
In Sénégal, the focus of decent work is to combat poverty and find a solution to social exclusion. The priority is to create employment for everyone backed by social protections. Such employment needs to have the support of social dialogue and the respect for global labour standards. In Sénégal, a legal decree has been passed regulating temporary work. Nevertheless, it is the duty of trade unions to monitor the legislation. The country has a national programme to promote decent work. 
 
SUTIDS has a bilateral programme with CSC Belgium to strengthen capacities. The decent work programme was preceded by two days of a regional women's workshop for countries in French-speaking West Africa, which concluded that ICEM must do more to strengthen trade union action in the informal economy. Unions from Mauritania, Togo, Bénin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sénégal, and Romania took part in the meeting. The unions also called upon ICEM to exert pressure on the production chains inside the DRC to put a stop to violence against women and rapes in Kivu. 
 
The meeting ended with a press conference.

ICEM, CSC of Belgium Conduct Decent Work Workshop in Sénégal

Dear Mr. Javier Castillo, Secretary of the Union No. 2 of Compania Minera San Esteban 
 
The ICEM World Energy Conference, meeting in Stavanger, Norway on 6-7 September 2010, unanimously resolved to express our best and most sincere wishes of hope and strength, in solidarity with the 33 miners who remain trapped underground in the San Jose mine. 
 
It is encouraging to learn that rescue efforts are progressing, albeit slowly. Many of us are ourselves miners, and we can only imagine the circumstances that must prevail for our Chilean brothers, especially knowing that much time will still pass before they return to the light of day. 
 
Please let them know, on behalf of the ICEM Energy Sector, and indeed all of the ICEM's 20 million members and affiliates in the world, that we wish them courage. We hope they will soon be reunited safely with their families. 
 
With all of our hopes for a speedy and successful rescue, 
 
In solidarity, 
 
 
Manfred Warda 
Secretary-General

Energy Conference Message of Solidarity with Chilean Coal Miners Trapped Underground

The ICEM World Energy Conference, meeting in Stavanger Norway approved the following resolution regarding the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria. 
 
While deploring the visa difficulties which have prevented a delegation of ICEM affiliated trade unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN of Nigeria attending the Conference delegates discussed the situation in Nigeria. 
 
Delegates expressed total support to the petitions by our unions to the Minister of Petroleum Resources, and urge him to address the issues and calm the situation to avoid avoidable industrial unrest in the sector. 
 
In the petition the union listed some of the extensive unfair practices carried out by the industry including casualization/contract staffing, outsourcing and the refusal to allow workers to freely associate and unionise in accordance with Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution and International Labour Organisation, ILO, Conventions 87 and 98 of 1948 and 49 respectively. 
 
The unions have identified Shell Petroleum Producing and Development Company, SPDC, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited , Nigeria Agip Oil Company, Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited as the main culprits. 
 
Increased casualization has resulted in the placement of workers as temporary employees on jobs that are routine and permanent in nature. Multi-nationals and oil service companies in the industry, are contracting out and outsourcing very large portion of their workforce to unlicensed labour contractors to provide support services to the companies notwithstanding that the jobs are continuous, routine and permanent in nature and pay the contractors service handling charges or commission. The principal companies in most cases employ these categories of workers, supervise their conduct and determine their salaries but only transfer payment to the labour contractors.” 
 
This group constitutes over 90% of the workforce of these oil companies. Another new dimension to the casualisation policy in the oil and gas industry is the resistance by some companies to unionization especially by NUPENG and PENGASSAN. 
 
ICEM and our affiliated trade unions fully support the struggle of our Nigerian brothers and sisters and stand ready to coordinate international solidarity action in their support.

Resolution in Support of ICEM Affiliates in Nigeria

Meeting in Stavanger, Norway September 6-8, 2010, delegates to the ICEM World Energy Conference were appalled to hear of the latest attacks on trade unions by the present “caretaker” government in Iraq. 
 
Delegates listened to presentations by ICEM Executive Committee member, Hashmeya Muhsin Alsadawe, President General Union of Electricity Workers and Abdulah Muhsin International Representative of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW) 
 
There is clearly an extended and concerted attack on trade union organisation. The latest attacks have seen on July 21, police storming the offices of the Iraqi Electrical Utility Workers Union in Basra on the orders of Electricity Minister Hussain al-Shahristani to shut the union down. As more police arrived, they took the membership records, the files documenting often-atrocious working conditions, the leaflets for demonstrations protesting Basra's agonizing power outages, the computers and the phones. Finally, Muhsin and her coworkers were pushed out and the doors locked. 
 
Shahristani's order prohibits all trade union activity in the plants operated by the ministry, closes union offices, and seizes control of union assets from bank accounts to furniture. The order says the ministry will determine what rights have been given to union officers, and take them all away. Anyone who protests, it says, will be arrested under Iraq's Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005. 
 
Delegates unanimously confirmed the importance of the ICEM EC resolution of May 26-27, 2010 and resolved to intensity their support and solidarity work with our affiliated trade unions in Iraq in their struggle for fundamental trade union and human rights and a peaceful, prosperous and democratic society.

Resolution on Iraq

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The Canadian Auto Workers’ (CAW) Union last week made a strong statement that it will no longer tolerate employers’ efforts to drive down wages and work terms as a continued response to the economic crisis. Under the banner “Auto Parts Workers United: Enough is Enough!” the union on 27 October held 100 lunch-hour workplace demonstrations at worksites in the province of Ontario. 
 
The Day of Action kicked off a CAW campaign for renewed militancy to resist wage cuts, resist slashing of pensions, reject two-tier wage schemes, and to protest any outsourcing of auto-parts production work. The CAW represents 21,000 auto-parts workers, and last week’s demonstrations made it clear that the 40,000 non-union workers in Canada’s auto-supply sector – workers with no one fighting for them – are welcome to participate in the CAW’s campaign. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.caw.speaker.jpg" width="241" height="160"/>
Angus MacDonald, President of CAW Local 1256, at Oakville Automodular
Accepting “downward pressure to live another day doesn’t work,” CAW President Ken Lewenza told one noon-time rally of 100 workers at Burlington Technologies, a maker of aluminum die castings for the auto industry. “All it is doing is making the race to the bottom a lot quicker.” 
 
The union is pledging to strengthen its defenses by conducting sit-down strikes and plant occupations when plants are endangered, and to create “flying squads” to follow outsourced work, as well as assisting CAW local unions that face contract concessions. In addition, CAW promises that its members will refuse to handle “hot cargo” from plants in which workers are on strike. 
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Part of the campaign will also be aimed at the provincial government in Ontario. Pressure will be exerted in order to pass fair labour legislation, including the prohibition on use of scabs during strikes and adoption of a law to level the playing field for workers seeking to unionise. “What’s so difficult about putting in a law to allow workers to join a union without reprisal?” asked Lewenza. The union’s out-reach effort to non-union plants will include unorganized workers at giant auto-parts maker Magna. 
 
Some of the plants that witnessed last week’s vocal demonstrations included operations of Lear, Cooper Standard, Ventra Plastics, AG Simpson. Guelph CPK Interiors, Brampton Benteler Automotive, Martinrea Fabco, Ingersoll Autrans, Oakville Automodular, Legatt & Platt, Tora Investments, Reiter Automotive, Woodbridge Foam, Tecumseh Engineering, Integram Seating, and TRW. 
 
The CAW says that 21,000 auto-parts jobs were lost in Canada between the fall of 2008 and the spring of 2009.

Canadian Auto Parts Workers Hold Day of Action

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Austerity cuts in the UK will hit the poorest families many times harder than the richest, as the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition government makes the poor pay for the financial downturn. 
 
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s emergency budget of June was found to cut the country’s poorest families’ average income by 21.7%, six times more than the richest. 
 
The Institute of Fiscal Studies’ analysis of the Cameron government’s regressive cuts in social spending conclude clearly that the tax and benefit changes increase the gap between rich and poor in the UK. 
The Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) last week criticized the OECD for backing the public spending cuts, and found that backing to be inconsistent with the Organisation’s stated objective of prioritizing job growth coming out of the crisis. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.austerity.lead.art.jpg" width="120" height="158"/>
TUAC points to estimates that the cuts will create one million job losses over the next five years, half in the public sector, and a further half-million jobs in the private sector through knock-on effects. 
 
Massive cuts to public spending can only create high unemployment, increase pressure on the poor, damage the economy, and risk a “double-dip” recession. 
 
Trade unions around the world are outraged by this trend, especially in Europe, of austerity cuts which make the poor pay for the economic crisis. The cuts are completely against the position of the Pittsburgh G20 a year ago, where world leaders pledged to develop action for economic recovery with placed “quality employment at the heart of the recovery.” 
 
At the same time as working people in the UK are being hit hard by Prime Minister David Cameron’s austerity cuts, figures were released last week indicating that the average boardroom executive has seen their salary rise 55% over the last year. The top chief executives in Britain earned £4.9million last year, 200 times the average wage. The third highest-paid CEO of a UK company was Mick Davis of mining giant Xstrata, earning £26.9million last year. Total earnings of the top 100 UK companies fell by 1.5% during the first half of the crisis. 
 
“These mega-pay rises blow away any claim that we are all in this together,” stated TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber.

Tory Cuts in UK to Hit Poor the Hardest

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Immediately following a 99.9% contract rejection and intent-to-strike vote on 27 October, the union representing copper miners at Chile’s Doña Ines de Collahuasi and management called for a five-day government mediation period. If unsuccessful, a strike by 1,550 permanent workers at Collahuasi in northern Chile’s Region I could begin late this week. 
 
The 535,000-tonne copper mine, the world’s third largest, is 44% owned by Xstrata and 44% by AngloAmerican, with the remaining 12% held by a consortium of Japanese companies led by Mitsui & Co. Collahuasi miners ended a three-year contract just days ago, a contract that came into place after a four-day strike in 2007. 
 
Miners are seeking a 10% wage increase, and a bonus comparable to the one awarded by BHP Billiton (57.5%) and Rio Tinto (30%) at its joint venture Escondida mine in Region II last year. That bonus was US$28,000. Collahuasi management is offering a wage increase of two-to-three percent less than the union’s demand, and a bonus of US$19,000. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMminingsector2.JPG" width="120" height="115"/>
An industry representative involved in the 2007 talks told Reuters there is no question that the company can pay what miners are demanding. A strike could prove costly for mining giants Xstrata and AngloAmerican with the price of copper at record levels. The mine posted net earnings of US$1.56 billion last year. 
 
The strength of a strike by workers represented by Chile’s national private-sector miners’ union federation will largely depend on whether or not contract workers at Collahuasi honour strike lines. They are quite likely to do so, after staging their own week-long blockade of roads in May 2010 that caused the company to declare force majeure. There are some 4,000 contract workers employed by scores of sub-contractors at Collahuasi, which is just finishing the first phase of a US$750 million expansion project. 
 
A strike could also set the template for other unions representing copper miners in Chile, most notably at state-run Codelco’s Radomiro Tomic mine in Region II. It is part of the company’s largest and most profitable operation – Codelco Norte – and the 760 miners at Radomiro Tomic already rejected an inferior offer in September. The collective agreement expires at the end of November. 
 
Radomiro Tomic contributed 23% of Codelco Norte’s first-half 2010 net earnings of US$1.28 billion. The Codelco Norte division also includes the Churquicamata and Mina Sur mines, and the three mines produced 440,000 tonnes of copper in the first half of 2010, up from 391,000 tonnes in the same period of 2009.

Xstrata, AngloAmerican Chilean Copper Mine on Verge of Strike

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In an attempt to oust a legitimate trade union at tyre multinational Continental, the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón again sided with a corporate employer to support a company-supported union that does not have workers’ support. Workers at the Llantera Potosinafactory of Continental, in San Luis Potosí, Central Mexico, are members of the National Union of Tyre Workers of Mexico (SNTGTM). 
 
The ICEM is proud that SNTGTM has applied for ICEM affiliation and a positive recommendation will likely come at the Presidium meeting in Istanbul, 26 October. 
 
The SNTGTM refused to accept the yellow union, forcing an arbitration meeting with the Labour Ministry in August. The Labour authority, in an attempt to destabilise the SNTGTM effort, called the meeting with only one day’s notice. Employees of the Continental plant voted at the meeting 640 to 1 in favour of the SNTGTM. 
 
We salute this victory of democratic trade unionism in Mexico, against a fierce anti-union effort by federal and state governments. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1006.MexToronto2.jpg" width="199" height="182"/>
Alberto Espinosa Rocha, Secretary-General SNTGTM
Collective agreements with yellow unions, known as Protection Contracts, are prevalent in San Luis Potosí and throughout Mexico. 
 
This victory enabled the San Luis Potosí plant workers to use their legitimate bargaining power with management to bring back 200 workers who were made redundant due to the global recession. As production at the plant has seen significant growth in recent months, local Continental managers sought to make workers fulfil six days’ work in five days, and to fill new posts with outsourced contract workers. 
 
The SNTGTM resisted these efforts, forcing management to follow stipulations in the collective agreement. Job positions were offered to those ex-employees who held them previously. Many of the returning workers were, and still are, SNTGTM members. The financial crisis was used by management as an opportunity to sack trade union activists. 
 
The struggle to reinstate those workers has seen 135 returned to their jobs last month, and a further 87 will return early next year. The San Luis Potosí local of SNTGTM, led by General Secretary José Alberto Espinosa Rocha, has received solidarity and support from a number of national unions across several sectors.

Mexico’s National Tyre Workers Rebuff Government’s Yellow Union

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The ICEM offers continued solidarity to glass workers of Tyneside Safety Glass, members of UK affiliate Unite the Union, as they begin today, 4 October, a second week-long industrial action against an intransigent employer. Some 72 Unite members at two glass factories of the privately-held, family-owned Tyneside Glass/Suntex Glass Industries company in North-East England have been without pay increases for two years, and are now being asked to work longer hours. 
 
The company has refused to negotiate, with the last bargaining occurring in June. Workers subsequently voted for industrial action in a strike ballot and went on the first seven-day work stoppage on 20 September. On 25 September, they met to consider further action, and buoyed by a number of union support letters, voted to issue the mandatory seven-day notice for ongoing action. 
 
That leaves the possibility for further action throughout the autumn. The ICEM rallied to the support of Tyneside glass workers during the first walk-out, and that letter can be found here. As well, other support to glass workers in Gateshead, near Newcastle, came including hearty support from the Glass Section of the United Steelworkers (USW) union in the US through its Chairman, Tim Tuttle. 
<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/1010.bill.green.unite.jpg" width="130" height="150"/>
Unite North East Regional Officer, Bill Green
Unite and the USW originated Workers Uniting, a trans-Atlantic workers’ cooperative that is a registered trade union in four countries. 
 
Tyneside Safety Glass pays just barely over the British minimum wage and used the financial crisis to deny wage increases over the past two years. Now, with salaries even closer to the minimum, the company seeks to preserve a freeze, yet also wants to change shift patterns that would see staff working another ten hours per week. 
 
As stated in the ICEM letter, this would compromise safety on the job, particularly because the company has already made workers redundant and closed a third factory at Gateshead. “The ICEM is deeply concerned that longer work hours will result in unsafe work conditions at the glass factories of Tyneside in the North-East,” said General Secretary Manfred Warda, adding that management of late has noted a pick up in orders so restoration of lost wages could be made. 
 
“We have experienced bullying and harassment by management, but no willingness to continue bargaining,” stated Unite Region Officer Bill Green, adding that Unite members gathering at the 25 September meeting were fortified by global trade union support for a relatively small labour dispute. 
 
Tyneside Safety Glass and Suntex Glass Industries is a specialty glass producer that toughens and laminates glass windshields. It buys sheet glass from nearly Pilkington factories, owned by the Japanese company Asashi, and treats the glass for use in earth-moving and heavy equipment. Caterpillar, JCB, and other heavy-industry equipment makers comprise the company’s customer list.

UK Glass Workers Begin Second Week of Industrial Actions

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A new slate of officers won election at the Congress of ICEM-affiliated Mineworkers’ Union of Namibia (MUN), held 17-19 September in Swakopmund, Namibia. The Congress met under the banner of stronger enforcement of safety and health regulations in all workplaces. 
 
Elected to the position of General Secretary was Jonas Lumbu, who replaces Joseph Hengari. Elected President was John Ndawedapo, replacing Andres Eiseb. The Congress elected Michael Heita as Vice President, Eben Zarondo as Assistant General Secretary, Eliphas Iita as National Secretary, Gerson Max as Vice National Secretary, Paul Rooi as Treasurer, and Phillip Muninguni as Vice Treasurer. 
<img src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/Namibia.png" width="200" height="92" alt=""/>
The theme of the Congress comes at a time when the Namibian mining sector is experiencing its worst fatal and serious injury accident rate in ten years. The MUN has witnessed mass retrenchments due to the financial crisis, but delegates to the Congress said a recovery is underway. The MUN has been frustrated by an American company that holds uranium mining rights because the company hinders union representation rights. 
 
Debate at the Congress also took place over a recurring issue inside Namibia’s trade unions, that of union leaders holding decision-making positions inside enterprises or on boards. This issue has spawned conflict-of-interest charges inside many unions affiliated to the National Unions of Namibian Workers (NUNW).

Mineworkers in Namibia Elect New Leaders

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