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ICEM sectoral conferences on Mining and on Diamonds, Gems, Ornaments & Jewellery production are being held this week in Benoni, South Africa. The Diamonds/Gems conference is being held today with 130 global trade unionists attending. A joint session of the two sectors will be held tomorrow with the Mining Conference and its 190 registrants meeting on 24-25 November. The conference will develop a four-year ICEM work plan on Mining.

ICEM’s Mining, Diamonds and Gems Sectors to Merge

Members of ICEM affiliate BMWU took to the streets in Selebi-Phikwe, Botswana, 3 December over another mining dispute. This one is with Bamangwato Concession Ltd. (BCL), a copper, nickel and cobalt miner in eastern Botswana that sacked the entire 16-member bargaining committee of the BMWU branch last July following negotiations. 
The company sacked the union team because they possessed financial information on the firm’s mining operations. Such information is generally considered essential for unions in bargaining. 
Although most of the branch leaders have been recalled, BCL still refuses to rehire four—bargaining chairman and Deputy BMWU National Chair Golekanye Mogende, Kabelo Oitsile, Abel Bukha and Kealeboga Keakantse. BMWU timed the mass protest in which 2,000 turned out with BCL’s unveiling of a new company logo.

Copper, Nickel Dispute Now Concerning Botswana’s Miners

Australia could face major disasters in a number of industries, notably offshore oil and gas. 
 
That warning was sounded by Doug Cameron, National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU), after an explosion at the Longford gas complex this Friday killed two workers and seriously injured eight others. The plant is run by Esso, which owns it jointly with BHP. Longford is in the Australian state of Victoria. 
 
Cameron said the union had been receiving reports about serious undermanning in critical maintenance and safety areas of various industries. He blamed this on a prevailing business culture of putting profits before people. 
 
"Highly skilled and experienced maintenance workers are having their jobs contracted out so companies can save on maintenance costs," Campbell stated. "Lean production and lean maintenance inevitably lead to lean safety." 
 
He called for an immediate judicial inquiry into the Longford accident. It was, he said, essential that the inquiry assess the possible contribution made to the explosion, the loss of life and the injuries by: 
 
cost-cutting in maintenance functions 
reductions in the workforce 
contracting out of maintenance functions 
management systems and decision-making processes 
worker induction and training procedures 
quality control in the maintenance area 
companies' "self-regulation" of occupational health and safety under schemes introduced by the Victorian state government. 
The inquiry should include but not be limited to these issues, Cameron said. "The company and the State Government must act decisively and openly so there can be no suggestion of a cover-up." 
 
Meanwhile, the company and the Victorian government have promised that the accident will be fully investigated. So far, no reason has been officially given for the explosion, but some reports are blaming it on a leaky valve. 
 
Longford provides about 80 percent of Victoria's domestic and industrial gas supplies, which have been severely disrupted by the accident. Cameron said companies hit by the gas cuts in Victoria must avoid laying workers off. Instead, they should be assigned to short-term replacement jobs. The union would be seeking compensation for any of its members put out of work. 
 
 
 
EMPLOYERS BLOCK GLOBAL CONTRACT LABOUR SAFEGUARDS 
 
At the global level, the AMWU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). Together with other union internationals, the ICEM has consistently drawn attention to the safety risks posed by reliance on contract labour. Worldwide, contract workers have significantly higher accident rates than their directly employed colleagues. 
 
Within the UN's International Labour Organisation, the unions had been campaigning for minimum international standards for contract workers, notably on safety and health. However, a draft ILO Convention on contract labour was talked out by employer delegates and their Australian spokesman during a filibuster at this June's ILO conference. The unions are now pressing for more ILO research into the issue, to which they intend to return.

Australian Gas Blast: "Lean Safety" Could Cause More Disasters, Union Says

Germany needs a long-term, reliable consensus on energy policy, which must "take just as much account of economic and technical needs as of social responsibility and environmental challenges." That is the view of the country's mine, chemical and energy workers, as set out at a press conference yesterday by Hubertus Schmoldt, President of their union the IG BCE. 
<img height="191" alt="Hubertus Schmoldt: "Many jobs are at stake."" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/schmoldt.gif" width="147"/>
Hubertus Schmoldt: "Many jobs are at stake."

All concerned must avoid putting the energy consensus at risk, Schmoldt warned. German and foreign-based firms must be given a reliable basis for investment decisions. 
 
Germany is engaged in a major debate on its future energy options - not least due to the rise of the environmentalist Green party, which is now the Social Democrats' junior partner in the federal coalition government. 
 
In particular, the greening of German energy policy has placed a question mark over the future of nuclear power. 
 
An energy consensus could succeed only "if the phasing out of nuclear energy is implemented as a longer-term change," Schmoldt insisted. Decisions on nuclear must also be placed in a broader context, he said. "IG BCE supports a comprehensive energy policy whose central component is the well-tried principle of an energy mix. Native energy sources, particularly hard coal and lignite, have a full part to play in this, both now and beyond the year 2005." 
 
Plans for environmentalist energy taxes are one complicating factor in the current German discussion. Originally, exemptions had been proposed for energy-intensive industries. But the waiver plan got the thumbs-down from the EU, and German manufacturing industry could now face a uniform tax rate of 20 per cent on its energy bills. 
 
IG BCE still thinks that complete exemption for industry would be the "best solution," Schmoldt said. However, the union could view an energy tax positively provided that the rate for manufacturing industry were 15 percent or less, the tax burden remained constant in absolute terms and commitments to reduce energy use were rewarded with tax incentives. 
 
"Energy taxes must not increase industry's overall tax bill," Schmoldt said. "Moreover, there must be a binding commitment that the already announced second and third phases of the ecological taxation reforms will be introduced only within the context of a common solution at the European level. It would be damaging for Germany to go it alone, and we would resolutely resist this. Many jobs are at stake, as are the credibility and calculability of policy-making." 
 
At the global level, IG BCE is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), of which Hubertus Schmoldt is Vice-President.

Real Energy Consensus Needed, IGBCE Says

A strike by 1,000 members of USWA also in Canada continues at Michelin’s B.F. Goodrich tyre plant in Kitchener, Ontario, despite renewed bargaining that took place in mid-July in Pittsburgh. Despite Michelin net income doubling to C$528 million in the first half of 2004, Kitchener management is seeking wage and benefit cuts amounting to 15%. “This isn’t about being asked to help a company that is in financial difficulty,” stated USWA Assistant Ontario/Atlantic Director Marie Kelly. “This is about feeding a corporate giant that has always been anti-union.” The strike began 1 June. In separate bargaining also in Pittsburgh, the USWA is engaged in hard bargaining with Michelin over the master rubber contract at three US tyre plants.

USWA Strike in Canada Against Michelin Continues

Members of ICEM Colombian affiliate Sintraquim at the pharmaceutical firm Casar Laboratorios S.A. have been on strike because the firm has not paid wages and benefits since last December. Company management now says it will liquidate the factory and workers—nearly all family-supporting women—will be without earning power. Sintraquim President Pastora Rosales and union activist Doris Amanda were employed at the factory. The ICEM is reviewing the situation and action is imminent.

Pharmaceutical Strike in Colombia Over Unpaid Wages

Another pair of ICEM affiliates also is on the road to merger. In Sweden at the congress of Industrifacket, the Industrial Workers’ Trade Union, delegates voted to merge with Svenska Metall. That ICEM affiliate, which includes mineworkers, will now vote at its congress in September on the merger agreement. If passed, the merger is expected to take effect in January 2006.

Swedish Unions Industrifacket, Metall Prepare to Merge

IGBCE in Germany won gains for 60,000 rubber workers in wage negotiations. A one-year contract with the rubber industry will pay workers 1.7% effective 1 October. A payment of €150-per-worker was also agreed to prior to that date, and rubber industry training obligations will remain intact.

IGBCE Negotiates Gains for Rubber Workers in Germany

US refinery workers of BP in Whiting, Indiana, will take their case for preserving health care benefits to the AGM of the company in London this week. Members and officials from affiliate PACE will ask BP managers and shareholders 15 April why a firm based in a nation that guarantees universal health care to all citizens is taking advantage of a US system in which health insurance is unaffordable and unattainable for 45 million citizens. Although a collective agreement between BP and PACE Local 6-1 in Whiting does not expire until February 2006, the company is using a health care re-opener in mid-term to demand a 10% hike in out-of-pocket costs for current workers and retirees. BP seeks to increase what workers and retirees now pay for health care from 20% to 30%, and it seeks to eliminate health coverage altogether for retirees hired after 1 April 2004.

PACE US Workers Take Health Care Issue to BP’s AGM

Korean elections on 15 April proved historic for progressive forces including the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and ICEM affiliate Korean Chemical & Textile Workers’ Federation (KCFT). For the first time in the nation’s 56-year history, progressive labour as represented by the DLP won seats in the National Assembly—ten, to become the country’s third largest political party. KCTF is a member of the thriving national labour center, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which backs the DLP.

Korean Elections Bode Well for Union Movement

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