English

Español

Français

Русский

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy 

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action Plan 2021-2025

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Campaigns

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Women

Youth

LGBTQI+

Gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI)

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL 

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean 

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Logos of IndustriALL Global Union

Press

Rio Tinto, the world's biggest mining company, has suffered a major set-back in its efforts to remove trade unions and union-negotiated agreements from its Australian workplaces. 
 
The Australian Industrial Relations Commission yesterday turned down the company's application to terminate a certified collective agreement with the Australian miners' union, the CFMEU, at its Mount Thorley mine. 
 
Rio Tinto wanted to scrap the agreement so that it could force wages and conditions down to the level of the "safety net award". It would then have been in a stronger position to oblige the workers to accept increases in working hours and loss of conditions if they wanted to get back to anything like their previous wage levels. 
 
In this case, the commission said that it was not in the public interest to allow the company to act in such a unilateral manner, and that the parties should bargain cooperatively. 
 
This is an implied criticism of legislative changes brought in recently by Australia's right-wing federal government. The amendments enable employers to terminate expired agreements unilaterally. 
 
But if justice has been served in the Mount Thorley case, the law is looking more and more of an ass over another flashpoint within Rio Tinto's troubled Australian operations. 
 
On 2 August, the Industrial Relations Commission refused to correct a legal error in its previous ruling on a dispute at Rio Tinto's Gordonstone mine. 
 
The Australian Federal Court had found that the commission erred in law in denying the illegally sacked Gordonstone miners preference of employment. But the commission has now rejected the CFMEU's appeal that it undo the damage its error created. To correct its own mistake would, the commission ruled, be "against the public interest". 
 
"This is a staggering claim," the CFMEU commented. "How can it be 'against the public interest' to right a wrong?" 
 
A valid question, because the commission's refusal means that Rio Tinto will still not have to reinstate the miners who were illegally dismissed by the mine's previous owners and were never rehired by Rio Tinto. Nonetheless, the CFMEU will be continuing to press for the sacked miners to be given first option on jobs that become available at Gordonstone from now on. 
 
But in the meantime, Gordonstone is worth just one Australian dollar. 
 
On paper, at least. 
 
As the CFMEU revealed on 28 July, Rio Tinto is now operating the $ 400 million Gordonstone mine through a "shelf company" registered as Kestrel Coal Pty Ltd. Kestrel is a $1 company with just one share, held by a certain Erin Feros in Brisbane. 
 
The shareholder is outnumbered two to one by Kestrel's directors, Brian Frederick Horwood and Colin Stuart Marshall. They are both also directors of Pacific Coal Pty Ltd, which is a Rio Tinto subsidiary. 
 
Pacific Coal is the real operator of Gordonstone. Or, as Rio Tinto would now say, of Kestrel. For good measure, the company has also renamed the mine. 
 
So what prompted these bizarre changes? 
 
"This one-dollar company is the employer of the workforce," explains CFMEU National Vice-President Reg Coates. "The whole scheme has been structured so that Rio Tinto will have no liability in the event of any problems. 
 
"Rio Tinto is pulling a fast one here," Coates says. "The Federal Government has promised to clamp down on shonky corporate business practices - now what is it going to do about Rio Tinto?"

Rio Tinto: Australian Ruling Thwarts Pay Cut Ploy

Trade unions in Thailand—led by affiliate EGAT-LU—continue to resist the government’s plan to privatise the electric and water services of the country. The ongoing stalemate will likely now be the key issue in government elections set for February 2005. Unions, now in their 119th consecutive day of protest at the headquarters of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, have embarked on a “Scattering Bees Strategy” in which they will conduct educational forums and brochure drops in all parts of Thailand leading up to those elections.

Thai Government, EGAT-LU Stalemated Over Electric Privatisation

French unions have promised more actions over the government’s plan to partially privatise the country’s electric and gas industries. Some 10,000 workers and supporters marched in Paris 29 June, the day the National Assembly passed a bill changing the statutes of the Electricité de France and Gaz de France to limited liability companies. The French Senate must still vote on the proposed liberalization and implementation decrees also must be issued. ICEM affiliates FCE-CFDT and Fédéchimie CGT FO are leading the resistance.

French Unions March in Paris Over Electric, Gas Privatisation

Rio de Janeiro, 
April 12th, 2002 
 
Statement by ICEM Latin America and the Caribbean condemning the coup in Venezuela 

1. The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union in Latin America and the Caribbean vehemently condemns the coup perpetrated in the early morning of April 12th 2002 against the constitutional government of Venezuela. 
 
 
2. We call upon all our affiliates in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially those in the oil sector, to similarly condemn the forces that carried out the coup, and to close ranks in defence of the Rule of Law and of Human and Trade Union Rights. 
 
 
3. We urge international forums, the United Nations and the Organisation of American States to conduct an immediate investigation into reports of violations of Human Rights perpetrated by the putschist forces. 
 
 
4. Finally, we call upon governments whose countries are OAS members not to recognise the “provisional government”, but to testify to its unconstitutionality and to take an unequivocal stand in defence of the Rule of Law. 
 
 
Luiz Gonzaga Ulhoa Tenório 
Regional President

Statement by ICEM Latin America and the Caribbean on the coup in Venezuela

Bargaining in Germany’s paper industry for 45,000 workers has broken down over employers’ resistance to compromise. ICEM affiliate IGBCE said it was the first time in a decade that the union and paper companies have not reached a compromise, and the union will not evade a confrontation if conciliation now fails. IGBCE Governing Board Member Werner Bischoff expressed great disappointment at the employers’ unwillingness to seek a compromise. Paper companies stubbornly held to a single payment of €150 per worker for the first eight months of a new collective agreement, and then a 2% increase with a length-of-term proposal for 20 months. IGBCE finds that proposal unacceptable. The two sides will now go to conciliation in which equal numbers of worker representatives and employers will negotiate.

German Paper Bargaining Goes to Conciliation

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
US affiliate Utility Workers of America (UWUA) is taking on National Grid USA over the company’s intent to use contractors at two of its New England subsidiaries—Massachusetts Electric Co. and Narragansett Electric of Rhode Island. UWUA Local 330’s contract prohibits outsourcing, and the union says National Grid’s plan is to contract collection, metering and service-ending operations to a company called Contract Callers Inc. 
UWUA says this will not only have a detrimental effect on permanent employees, but will provide hardships to the elderly and low-income citizens of communities the utilities service. The American union has submitted the matter to arbitration, as well as filed unfair labour practice charges with the US government on the breach.

US Affiliate Utility Workers' Protests Contracting Out

ICEM oil union affiliates in Nigeria will again oppose any domestic price increase in the cost of petrol. State-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) and the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) said earlier this month it would try to enforce price increases even over the objections of stakeholders involved in the public entities, including trade unions PENGASSAN and NUPENG.PENGASSAN said it would mount strong opposition until measures are in place to cushion effects of high fuel prices across all of Nigerian society. NUPENG has called on all Nigerian workers in the country to oppose the hike unless it comes with commensurate increases in social benefit packages for all workers in both the private and public sectors. NNPC and PPPRA assert that increases are necessary due to rising prices of imported refined products. But the unions contend Nigeria's only solution to high global prices of petroleum are major upgrades to local refining and capacity.

Nigerian Unions Will Agian resist Petrol Price Hikes

Another sad episode in the seemingly never-ending story of mining disasters in China took place in the country’s Guangdong Province, where over 120 workers most probably drowned in an illegally-operated coal mine on August 7. The mine, partly owned by local officials in Xingning, Guangdong, was reportedly seriously mismanaged, with health and safety issues being widely ignored. According to Li Yizhong, director of the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision and Administration, "the tragedy was caused by mine-owners' greed for economic profits and malignant violation of safety rules". He also said that the mine did not have a production license, and that it had ignored a government order to suspend production following a flooding incident at a nearby mine on July 14. The provincial authorities in Guangdong and the Chinese Central Government have started an inquiry into the tragedy and ordered 69 officials to make themselves available to investigators.Two mayors have already been suspended.

Flooding Kills 120 at Illegal Guangdong Province Mine

The ICEM's Asia-Pacific Union Network of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. met in Manila, Philippines, 8-9 August, and attention focused on the American rubber company's fierce resistance to unionisation drives of contract workers in Thailand and Malaysia. Goodyear plant union leaders also discussed the company's retreat from ownership of natural rubber plantations at a time when natural rubber demand coupled with shortages is increasing. Some 21 leaders from Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand took part.

Goodyear AP Meeting Studies Contract Labour Issue

ICEM affiliate Mineworkers of Namibia conducted its 9th National Congress over the weekend in Windhoek, and pledged to expose all forms of corruption in the mining and energy sectors of the country. The Congress also drafted statements on black economic empowerment in Namibia, reviewed a four-year activities report, and gave special tribute to founding members who have built and bettered membership of the union through early and tedious work. The theme of the Congress was “Building a Stronger Union Through Education, Solidarity, Networks and Economic Empowerment.”

Mineworkers in Namibia Aim to Eradicate Corruption

Archive