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Hubertus Schmoldt, president of ICEM German affiliate IGBCE, drew attention to the challenges and opportunities facing the union movement in an end-of-the-year message. Schmoldt noted that international competition has grown stiffer with no let up in sight and said global trade union work stressing solidarity is welcome, but unions are only at the beginning of such positive developments. He described biogenetics and nanotechnology as key industries for the future but—particularly in the case of gene technology— Germany may soon lose research, development and production capacities. Schmoldt stressed the importance of education and training from early childhood to university levels as key.

Germany’s IGBCE Gives Year-End Challenges

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa is targeting Hernic Ferrochrome following a 13 December underground mine disaster that crushed and then drowned seven miners in Brits, North West Province. Managers refused to allow NUM representatives to investigate South Africa’s deadliest 2004 mine disaster caused by a flood from a dislodged valve that brought a ventilation lattice wall down. “The behaviour of this company demonstrates absolute arrogance in the face of calamity,” said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe. “We will leave no stone unturned in our commitment to ensuring that families of these workers see justice being done.” The NUM will be present 15 February when an official Department of Minerals and Energy inquiry commences. Hernic, a high-carbon ferrochrome producer that is just now ramping production up at the Brits mine, is 53.2% owned by Japan’s Mitsubishi, 25% by the South African government’s Industrial Development Corp., 11.5% by Elg Hansel of Germany, and 7.5% by mine management.

South Africa’s NUM Takes On Hernic Ferrochrome Over Safety

A new website launched today highlights anti-union practices by ceramics, materials and construction multinational Imerys. 
 
American union the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) and the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), jointly announced the start-up of the website on French-headquartered Imerys. PACE is an ICEM affiliate. 
 
"The website allows Imerys workers and their unions throughout the world to communicate, share information and learn about the 'union-busting' practices of Imerys in the US," said PACE President Boyd Young. 
 
Imerys has been conducting a hostile campaign against union members and supporters at its plants in Georgia and Alabama. In Sylacauga, Alabama, Imerys management hired a professional "union-buster', held mandatory anti-union meetings, and showed a film which implied that US unions are controlled by organised crime and that they cause plants to be closed. Imerys is also using a "secret" manual, uncovered by PACE, which instructs supervisors on how to conduct the anti-union campaign. 
 
PACE has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Imerys management harassed, threatened and spied on union supporters. Excerpts from the "secret" manual, a summary of legal charges, and an interactive message board are on the website. 
 
Fred Higgs, ICEM General Secretary, stated: "Imerys so far has refused to stop its anti-union practices, and we will assist US workers who are battling for union representation in whatever way we can." 
 
The ICEM held a press conference on January 20 in Brussels, together with the Belgian General Labour Federation (FGTB/ABVV) and ICEM Belgian affiliate the Centrale Generale/Algemene Centrale, calling upon the Frere family to intervene. The Frere family controls 23 percent of Imerys shares through one of its many holding companies. The ICEM set up meetings with French and British union affiliates, who also represent workers at Imerys plants, and have pledged support for the campaign.

Imerys Campaign: Unions Launch Global Website

The Transport and General Workers’ Union of UK is polling 1,200 members at two Michelin plants for industrial action. Michelin’s wage offer in December of either 3% or GBP 650 is inadequate, and separate polling of the two workforces will begin this week. The two sites are Stoke in the Midlands with 400 T&G members and Ballymena in Northern Ireland employing 800.

Transport and General in UK Ready for Industrial Action at Michelin

All communication was cut off to and from Nepal late last week and the ICEM was unable to ascertain the safety and whereabouts of leaders of its affiliated unions, including ICEM Vice President Binda Pandey of the Independent Chemical and Iron Workers’ Union and GEFONT. King Gyanendra of Nepal on 1 February dissolved his handpicked government and declared a state of emergency. At the weekend army forces were going after Maoist rebels. GEFONT leadership and ICEM leaders and contacts inside Nepal are not connected with the insurgency. ILO Director- General Juan Somavia reminded Nepal’s king on 4 February that emergency decrees “aimed at anti-social disruptive elements should not be applied against workers for exercising their legitimate trade union rights, including the right to organize public meetings.”

Emergency Law in Nepal Suspends All Human, Labour Rights

Some 1,450 American tyre workers who have been on strike for one year have reached a tentative contract agreement with General Tire, a subsidiary of global tyremaking giant Continental. 
 
This was announced today by the US tyre workers' union, the USWA. 
 
At the global level, the USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has been coordinating a major worldwide trade union campaign in support of the US strikers. 
 
The tentative agreement will be voted on by USWA Local 850 members on Sunday, 19 September. This local represents the strikers at General Tire's Charlotte plant. Monday, 20 September, would mark the first anniversary of the start of their strike. 
 
Tentative agreements with Continental General were simultaneously reached by USWA locals at two other US plants and will also be the subject of ratification votes by workers at these plants. Before these tentative agreements were reached, contracts at the other two plants were not due to expire until late in the year 2000. 
 
Details of the agreements, which if ratified will expire in 2006, will not be available until USWA members at the three plants have voted on them.

Continental Tyres: Tentative US Agreement

Imerys, the ceramics and construction materials multinational, has just given itself a new name and a new image. But it already risks seeing them tarnished by an international dispute over its anti-union stance in the USA. 
 
Known until recently as Imetal, the company claims to be the world leader in refractory raw materials, paper pigments, white pigments and high-purity graphite. 
 
Imerys is headquartered in France, and trade unionists there have pledged their support to American workers who are resisting the company's attempts to destroy their union. 
 
The US Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers union (PACE) is fighting deunionisation campaigns by Imerys at its plants in Georgia and Alabama. At the global level, PACE is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Last week in France, PACE and the ICEM met with Pierre Gaudin of the ICEM-affiliated chemical and energy union FCE-CFDT; Josette Mehat, National Secretary of the construction and wood workers' FNCB-CFDT; and Eliane Petit, chief shop steward at Imerys for the ICEM-affiliated mining union FGMM-CFDT. They promised active support for an international campaign on the issue, to be coordinated by the ICEM. 
 
"Imerys has changed from a company which once sought stable relations with PACE to one which appears dead-set on destroying unions in the US," said Joe Drexler, PACE Director of Special Projects. "We are informing European unions about the company's actions." 
 
Imerys withdrew union recognition of PACE at its plant in Sylacauga, Alabama, after the company acquired English China Clays (ECC) and merged its Georgia Marble plant with a much larger non-union ECC plant, which stands next to the Georgia Marble facility. The company's withdrawal of union recognition was based on former ECC non-union workers' outnumbering union members at the combined plant. 
 
PACE offered to hold a new election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) at the combined plant, provided Imerys would be neutral in the election and let workers decide without company interference. The company rejected the union's offer, and instead has launched a union-busting campaign aimed mainly at non-union ECC workers, who outnumber union workers at the Georgian Marble plant by a 2 to 1 margin. 
 
The union charges that Imerys, through its hired union-buster, is: 
 
Showing unionised workers anti-union films at mandatory meetings 
Arranging for its supervisors to meet individually with workers, in order to discourage support for the union 
Recruiting higher-paid workers to carry its anti-union message 
Using scare tactics by associating union membership with plant closings, strikes, violence, and union dues in order to keep workers from supporting the union. 
 
PACE has filed several charges with the NLRB alleging illegal activity by the company. 
 
PACE believes Imerys has laid off all but 5 of its union workers at it Jeffersonville, Georgia plant and moved production to its non-union operations as part of its campaign to destroy the union. The union contract [collective agreement] at the Jeffersonville plant expires in mid-November. 
 
PACE attributes much of the anti-union actions to Dennis Redeker, former CEO of ECC and an American, who was offered over 1.2 million US dollars for his ECC stock and was given a board seat and top-level job with Imerys. Redeker has a history of conducting union-busting campaigns in the US to prevent unionisation of ECC plants. 
 
"Our European union colleagues have been shocked by the barbarism of Imerys's actions, since these things just don't happen in Europe," said Drexler. "European trade unionists understand that being a union member should be an individual decision and should not require an act of courage." 
 
PACE has approximately 600 members at three Imerys plants in Alabama and Georgia. The union is also making other contacts with trade unionists in Britain and Canada. 
 
"Imerys has got off to a bad start with its new identity," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. "We hope that justice and common sense will prevail and that the company will abandon in the USA an attitude that it would not dare to adopt in France. The ICEM has considerable experience of mobilising global campaigns against anti-union multinationals. In the case of Imerys, we would prefer not to use that experience, but we will do so if necessary."

Imerys Faces Global Labour Action Over US Union-Busting

Nigerian Labour Congress President Adams Oshiomhole was arrested 9 October at gunpoint by the country’s secret police. The arrest came on the eve of today’s mass general strike called by the NLC that ICEM affiliates NUPENG and PENGASSAN are supporting. The strike is over the government’s 15% October petrol price hike. The NLC has become the leader of mass dissent among Nigeria’s population over government’s failed social and petroleum policies. In September, a federal court in Abuja ruled that the position of NLC president does not exist under law and the labour federation has no power to call a strike.

Nigerian Secret Police Arrest NLC President

The ICEM is central to global protests against the Colombian government’s expulsion of four international trade unionists on 31 October. ICEM, along with representatives from the Textile, Education and Journalists GUFs, as well as ICFTU and Human Rights activists, met with Colombian Ambassador to Belgium Nicolás Echavarría on 5 November in Brussels over the expulsions. Colombia has officially apologized for the trade union breaches, blaming the incident on immigration officials and “erroneous interpretation” of decrees. The four were due to attend a regional trade union coordination meeting. About the same time, union leaders from the UK, Ireland and Spain who were in Colombia at a women’s trade union meeting had their 60-day visas cancelled and were permitted inside the country for only three days.

ICEM Protests Expulsions of Trade Unionists to Colombia

Brazilian affiliate FUB-CNQ will conclude voting on a new collective agreement with state-run Petrobras tomorrow, thus preventing unions from striking operations of the oil and gas major by 40,000 workers. Workers stand ready to approve a 12.1% pay hike plus additional benefits for retired workers. Petrobras will also create a special body to study workers’ retirement plans.

Oil Union in Brazil Gains Deal with Petrobras

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