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Swedish affiliate Sif held its Congress in Göteberg on 15-18 November and used a novel working method to discuss issues that replaced lengthy plenary sessions common to many congresses. The 180 delegates attending participated in 11 detailed consultative sessions that were aided by networked computers. The system, first introduced at the 2000 Congress but further refined at last week’s event, facilitated much greater delegate participation in producing consultative documents and summaries of spontaneous discussions. These were then put to a final plenary for approval. Delegates also re-elected President Mari-Ann Krantz and elected two new Vice Presidents, Peter Hellberg and Stefan Carlsson.

Sif of Sweden Holds Congress

China’s coal mines have come under global scrutiny due to weekly disasters that claim the lives of thousands of miners each year. But yet another mine disaster this past weekend has gained headlines. On 20 November, a mass fire spreading across five iron ore mines in Shahe city, Hebei province, claimed the lives of 57 miners with another three still missing. The fire in the privately-run mine was caused by an electric cable that ignited and then spread when flames engulfed wood pillars.

Chinese Iron Ore Operations Latest to Face Safety Deaths

Union leaders at DeBeers’ operations in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa met in Cape Town the week of 22 November for a globalisation school, and concluded the week with strong support for workers victimized by Debswana, the joint venture between DeBeers and Botswana’s government. At a Diamond Employees Network meeting on 27-28 November, the leaders pledged to work through individual DeBeers worksites in the three countries to urge the company to drop charges against 451 Debswana workers, members of the Botswana Mining Workers’ Union (BMWU) who participated in a strike last August.

Union Leaders from DeBeers Hold Conference

It was all in the best French business style. 
 
A big Parisian restaurant was the venue for shareholders of French-based minerals and materials multinational Imerys when they gathered for the firm's annual meeting this Tuesday. 
 
Nor did the company's financial performance in any way spoil their appetites. The board reported excellent results. 
 
But a jarring note was soon to be struck. And, as the major national newspaper Libération muses today, the sound is likely to echo right through the French business world. 
 
For the first time this Tuesday, a French company saw its shareholder meeting turned into a platform for international trade union demands. 
 
A "shudder" went through the investors' ranks, Libération reports. And indeed, the newspaper asks, were they not witnessing "an episode in the small revolution that is shaking French capitalism"? After the US and Britain, Libération says, "France has now been reached by 'socially responsible investment' or 'ethical investment' - a new form of pressure on company management." 
 
Behind all the fuss is a serious labour problem that Imerys created at its plants in the American town of Sylacauga. 
 
Imetal and English China Clays were the main companies that merged to form Imerys last year. Prior to that, Imetal and ECC operated neighbouring plants in Sylacauga, with the Imetal facility represented by America's Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers' Unions (PACE). On the effective date of the companies' merger, Imerys withdrew recognition from PACE and repudiated the labour contract (collective agreement) signed by Imetal and PACE. 
 
PACE launched a campaign to secure the Sylacauga workers' right to be represented by the union. At the world level, PACE is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). With the ICEM's help, the campaign went global. In particular, unions in France and in England, where Imerys has major production sites, pressed the company to abandon its anti-union stance in the USA. 
 
That stance was all the more surprising because Imerys has sought - and largely achieved - good relations with unions in its European plants. Unions in Europe were particularly incensed by Imerys' use of "union-busters" in Sylacauga - professional consultants who specialise in blocking union organisation. 
 
Which is why some awkward questions were asked in that Parisian restaurant on Tuesday. 
 
Investors heard from the ICEM's Jyrki Raina, who was representing 4,000 Imerys shares held by Walden Asset Management. He told the more than 200 shareholders in attendance that a "card check," in which union recognition is granted after a majority of workers sign authorisation cards, would be the best way to resolve the problems at Sylacauga. This was necessary, commented Raina, since the company had destroyed the conditions under which a free election could occur. 
 
Penny Schantz, PACE European Coordinator, asked Imerys CEO Patrick Kron why Imerys still intended to campaign against the union, if an election was held. She gave PACE's official written position to Kron which stated that any company campaigning against the union is "unacceptable." PACE maintains that workers should decide the question of union representation without company interference. 
 
Kron, cordial although somewhat shaken by the events, said the company intended to communicate with workers as part of a campaign, should an election occur, but "not against the union." He also said that the situation in Sylacauga should be handled locally and "not by filing complaints with the OECD or bringing these issues to Paris." This was a reference to a statement released by TUAC, the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. TUAC strongly supported PACE's demand. The OECD is headquartered in Paris. 
 
Shareholders entering the restaurant were given handbills which raised important questions about Imerys' behaviour in Alabama. One of the posers: "Why has the company engaged in anti-union practices in the US when it is trying to improve relations with unions in Europe?" 
 
All those efforts could soon bear fruit. Imerys directors were courteous and constructive on Tuesday, both during the shareholder assembly itself and in informal discussions with the trade unionists afterwards. The ICEM has written to thank them and to urge a rapid resolution of the Sylacauga dispute. 
 
PACE and the company's local management are due to meet in the US tomorrow. The omens are good. Imerys recently made significant changes in its US management line-up. 
 
The ICEM, meanwhile, has been involved in two multinational shareholder lobbies within the space of two days - Imerys in Paris on Tuesday and the Annual General Meeting of mining giant Rio Tinto in London yesterday. 
 
And in another sign of the times, Libération notes that many of the Imerys shareholders were already well informed about the Sylacauga dispute. They had read all about it on a special PACE/ICEM Imerys campaign website.

US Imerys Dispute: Settlement Nearer After Shareholder Lobby?

Australian affiliate CFMEU condemned the legal recourse two mining companies are taking over their criminal convictions to health and safety laws. The two, Xstrata and Centennial Coal, say they will challenge to overturn a statute in New South Wales calling for criminal prosecutions of serious health and safety violations. Both have been convicted of such offences. CFMEU says there will be no compromise on the statute. “Let these companies tell the miners face to face why they consider their health and safety not worth the protection of the law and why they consider their lives of no value,” said Tony Maher, the union’s Mining and Energy General President.

Mining Companies in Australia Seek to Overturn Convictions

The ICEM's North American Regional Coordinating Committee on 17 February pledged its support to the USWA in these talks. The ICEM will urge the company to negotiate a new contract consistent with the standards already set with other tyre makers, and will take global action to support the USWA in win a fair and just labour agreement. The ICEM NA committee also took action urging German rubber company Continental to back down from its concessionary agenda in mid-term reopening contract talks with the USWA. The ICEM is calling on Continental to also face its contractual obligations on pay and benefits over the company's plant closing of a Mayfield, Kentucky, tyre facility.

North American ICEM Region Takes Action Over Tyre Stalemates

A candlelight vigil commemorating the 9th Workers’ Memorial Day will occur at ICEM in Brussels and at thousands of other unions worldwide on 28 April. This year’s commemoration will have twin themes—Safe & Healthy Work and Employer Accountability—to draw attention to reducing workplace accident and death rates. Avaible are death and injury rates throughout the world and fact sheets and other materials in three languages. ICEM affiliates recognizing 28 April in one form or another are encouraged to report their observance to Lucien Royer at royer@tuac.org.

Vigil Marks 9th Workers’ Memorial Day

Hibernia offshore oil workers in Canada won yet another legal victory 28 April when the Supreme Court of Newfoundland held union certification with CEP legal. The ruling was another and hopefully final setback for lead company ExxonMobil at Hibernia. CEP President Brian Payne said, “ExxonMobil has now run out of excuses and reasons” for denying the 420 workers a collective agreement. Hibernia workers were the first North American offshore platform workers to unionise in October 2001, and ExxonMobil used legal appeals and delays to block a collective agreement up to now.

CEP Offshore Workers in Canada Win Case Against ExxonMobil

A fifth Japanese worker died 25 August of severe burns incurred at the 9 August accident at the Kansai Electric Power nuclear site in Mihama. Another five workers are still hospitalized following the rupture of a steam pipe. Workers killed or injured were on the job as employees of Kiuchi Keisoku, a subcontractor doing preparation work on the plant’s reactors. Public prosecutors are reviewing the accident to determine whether or not Kansai will be held accountable for Japan’s worst nuclear plant accident ever.

Worst Japanese Nuclear Accident Claims Fifth Life

The United Nations should intervene militarily without further delay to end the bloodshed in East Timor, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) said today. 
 
"The UN does not require the permission of Jakarta to launch such an initiative," ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out. "Neither the UN nor international law has ever recognised Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor. 
 
"No trade union can accept that workers should be killed, maimed, raped or driven out of their jobs and their homes because they exercised their democratic right to self-determination," Thorpe said. "We call upon our affiliated unions worldwide to press their governments to recognise the statehood of East Timor and to call for immediate UN military intervention. By preference, this should be clearly a United Nations initiative, rather than military action by any one state or alliance. The thugs who are now on the rampage do not represent working people in East Timor, in the rest of the island or in the archipelago as a whole. 
 
"This August, more than three-quarters of the East Timorese democratically voted for nationhood," Thorpe recalled. "To do so is the right of peoples everywhere. In the age of global capital, however, the economic, mineral and environmental sovereignty of all nation states - even the largest - is severely circumscribed. Beyond the trappings of nationhood, the world's peoples urgently need economic self-determination. Independent trade unions are an essential part of that struggle. 
 
"Backed by many global corporations and many governments, the previous Suharto regime maintained severe repression throughout the Indonesian-administered territories," Thorpe said. "The ICEM quietly assisted the real trade unionists of the archipelago in their fight for genuine reform, and we continue to do so. 
 
"We call upon working people throughout the archipelago and throughout the world to recognise their true community of interest. And we call upon present and future governments of East Timor, of Indonesia and of every other state to acknowledge and to respect in practice the trade union rights set out in the Conventions of the UN's International Labour Organisation."

ICEM Calls for UN Troops And Union Rights In East Timor

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