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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

Czech Republic affiliate Union of Mining, Geology and Oil Industry (OS PHGN) held its 5th Congress recently against a backdrop of rampant restructuring and privatisation of the coal industry on the eve of the country&rsquo;s entry into the EU. Job loss in mining has been particularly steep in the Northern Bohemia region. Promises made by the ruling coalition government, led by the Social Democrats, to financially assist the unemployed have gone unfulfilled creating serious social and political tensions in mining communities. OS PHGN resolved to continue a campaign for a social plan and will consider withdrawing support for the SDP in the next elections if obligations are not met. Jan Sabel was elected president of the union and Frantisek Nekola vice president.

Czech Mining Affiliate Holds Congress

The NUM in South Africa said it would withdraw from bargaining and the current work-term agreement it has with Harmony Gold Mining Ltd. if means are not found to reduce Harmony&rsquo;s projected job cuts. Harmony announced outside of talks on 2 April that it was closing six shafts due to insufficient financial returns and the strong Rand. Some 5,000 jobs are at stake. NUM agreed to continuous seven-day-a-week operations with Harmony to ensure marginal mines stay operational, but now SA&rsquo;s largest gold producer has reneged on that pledge. NUM was in talks with Harmony when the firm made the surprise announcement about shuttering the six shafts.

NUM in South Africa Takes Issue with Harmony Gold&#039;s Job Cuts

France's electricity and gas utilities EDF-GDF will introduce a 35-hour week under an agreement signed yesterday with unions in the sector. 
At the same time, EDF-GDF committed themselves to take on an extra 20,000 young workers over the next three years. Since about 15,000 of EDF-GDF's 142,000 employees are due to retire during that period, the agreement means a net gain of around 5,000 jobs. This is viewed as a sign of confidence in EDF-GDF's future at a time when parts of their market are about to be opened up to competition. 
 
The strong emphasis on shorter hours and more jobs is due in large part to the bargaining policies of the FCE-CFDT union, which is affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Today, the FCE-CFDT stressed that the new agreement builds on previous EDF-GDF experience of reducing work times while simultaneously boosting employment. 
 
In fact, more big cuts in working hours are on the cards. The agreement also provides for voluntary moves to a 32-hour, four-day week. 
 
It is up to each work unit to decide whether they want this and, if so, how they will put it into practice. For this reason, the work time cuts will not come into effect until October. 
 
Those who opt for the 32-hour week will receive 97.1 percent of full pay (99.1 percent for the lower wage categories). 
 
FCE-CFDT is arguing strongly in favour of the 32-hour option, because &quot;the employment effects are greater. This is an opportunity for everyone to organise their work on the basis of a four-day week. A 32-hour week is also the best route to an innovative work organisation that reconciles individual aspirations with the requirements of public service, in the context of the opening up to competition.&quot; 
 
The new measures are to be financed partly from EDF-GDF's resources, partly through state schemes and partly through wage restraint. Together with the accord on shorter hours and new jobs, the FCE-CFDT yesterday signed a national pay agreement which provides for a basic rise of 0.6 per cent as from January. Bonuses for 1997 and 1998 were retroactively increased by 2.6 percent and 5.2 percent respectively.

French Power And Gas Deal Boosts Jobs Through Work Time Cuts

Despite a complete and full victory by Kristal-Is at Sisecam Group glass plants in Turkey, ICEM affiliate Maden-Is&mdash;the General Mine Workers&rsquo; Union&mdash;is still in dispute with the glassmaker. Fifty-five miners at Sisecam&rsquo;s Cam-Is Quartz Mining operations in Yalikey, Istanbul, were sacked one year ago for becoming members of Maden-Is, and 16 others have been on strike at the mine since last August. Sisecam has shown no willingness to recognize the rights of the miners to join the union.

Turkish Maden-Is Union Seeks Rights for Glass Workers

Two striking American tyre workers and their families and a leader of their union, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), are joining Slovak parliamentarians and workers from tyre multinational Continental AG's Slovak plant in Bratislava today in protesting against what they call Continental's &quot;international assault on working families.&quot; 
 
The event marks the beginning of a European solidarity tour this week which will also include meetings with union workers from Continental facilities in Scotland, France, Belgium, Turkey and the Czech Republic. 
 
The families are among 1,450 strikers at Continental's General Tire plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. They have been on strike since September of last year. The delegation includes Andy Hodges, his wife and their three children, and John Mace, Sr., his wife and their three children. Together, Hodges and Mace have 40 years of service at the company. 
 
&quot;We're victims of an international campaign by Continental to wring profits out of the hides of its workers and their families,&quot; said John Sellers, Executive Vice President of the USWA and head of the union's Rubber/Plastics Conference, which represents workers at Continental's North Carolina plant, as well as Continental workers in Mayfield, Kentucky and Bryan, Ohio. 
 
Today's events follow a series of meetings late last week in Hannover, Germany, between officials of the USWA, IG Bergbau Chemie Energie (the German mining, chemical and energy union), worker representatives from the Continental Supervisory Board, officials of Continental's German Works Council, and the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Both the USWA and IG BCE are ICEM affiliates. Continental is headquartered in Germany. 
 
The officials of the German union, Continental's Works Council and worker members of the Supervisory Board expressed their &quot;profound regret&quot; regarding Continental's firing of the striking workers in Charlotte and offered their support and solidarity for the USWA. 
 
&quot;After Continental bought General Tire in 1988, the workers agreed to 90 million US dollars [77.7 million euro] in wages and benefit give-backs - 30,000 dollars [25,900 euro] per worker - with the clear understanding that we would be properly compensated when the plant returned to profitability,&quot; said Sellers. 
 
&quot;The plant is now making record profits,&quot; Sellers continued. &quot;Instead of rewarding our loyalty, Continental double-crossed us with bad faith bargaining, unfair labour practices, and firing the entire workforce. They even wiped out these families' health care benefits less than a week before Christmas,&quot; he said. [The US does not have a generalised healthcare system. Most workers and their families are dependent on their employers for basic health coverage, which is a bargainable and withdrawable benefit.] 
 
Sellers said Continental's savaging of workers violates US laws, and added, &quot;This kind of corporate behaviour would never be tolerated in Germany.&quot; He said the Steelworkers have launched an international corporate campaign to expose Continental's brutal assault on working families. 
 
&quot;We will fight as long as it takes to combat Continental's brutality,&quot; said Sellers. &quot;We fought [tyre multinational] Bridgestone/Firestone until that company came to its senses. Apparently we'll have to do the same with Continental.&quot; 
 
Sellers said the Steelworkers have brought their message to Europe to build international solidarity among workers being abused by Continental throughout the world. In Turkey, workers have been fired for organising a union; in Scotland they are being threatened with being forced to work more hours without additional pay; in Ireland a unionised plant has been shut down and moved elsewhere - a threat being made by Continental in numerous countries. 
 
The solidarity tour is being coordinated by the ICEM, which unites some 20 million workers in the rubber, chemical, energy, mining and other industries worldwide.

Tyre Giant Continental AG Faces World Campaign

The ICEM sent a letter of condolences to the families and colleagues of mineworkers who perished in an 11 April gas explosion in western Siberia. The letter was sent through the Russian Independent Coal Employees&rsquo;&rsquo; Union (Rosugleprof). The explosion trapped and killed 44 miners some 600 meters down a mine in the village of Taizhina, Osinniki, in Russia&rsquo;s Kuzbass mining region.

Explosion in Western Siberia Kills 44 Russian Miners

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has ruled that a shareholder resolution offered by PACE Union must be submitted to shareholders of DuPont on the chemical firm&rsquo;s 2004 Proxy Statement. The resolution urges DuPont&rsquo;s board of directors to adopt, implement and enforce a company-wide human rights policy based on the ILO&rsquo;s Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

PACE of US Will Bring DuPont Resolution to AGM

ICEM Vice President and Women&rsquo;s Vice-Chair Binda Pandey was arrested 10 April in Katmandu, Nepal, for protesting with the pro-democracy masses against the country&rsquo;s absolute monarchy. Early April in Nepal spawned several mass protests that resulted in some 4,000 arrests with royal troops and security forces using tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charges to disperse protestors. Nepal became a total monarchy in October 2002 when King Gyanendra dissolved Parliament and took absolute powers. Pandey, a leader of the Nepal Independent Chemical and Iron Workers&rsquo; Union, was released following her 10 April arrest and she thanks the ICEM and all affiliates for support. She also reports that unionists from GEFONT that were detained were also released.

Nepal Arrests ICEM Women’s Leader Binda Pandey

Organised labour is regrouping to meet new challenges. Union mergers have become an important source of strength in many countries. 
 
That process took a big step further in the USA this week with the creation of PACE, the 320,000-member Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Intl. Union. PACE results from a merger between two major US unions, the paperworkers' UPIU and the oil, chemical and atomic workers' OCAW. 
 
PACE immediately gave top priority to organising (i.e. actively recruiting new members) and to international trade union solidarity. Like both its forerunners, the new union is affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
First President of PACE is Boyd Young, who until now headed the UPIU. 
 
&quot;We intend to set the pace for organising, a progressive vision and international solidarity,&quot; Young said. &quot;The members of this great new union deserve to be and are prepared to be on the cutting edge as labour advances into a new century. We must fight for our future.&quot; 
 
The Executive Vice-President of PACE is Robert Wages, up to now President of the OCAW. He will take on key responsibilities in the union's organising programme and will continue to coordinate national oil bargaining. 
 
&quot;When the merger discussions started with the UPIU, President Young and I committed to a basic premise,&quot; said Wages. &quot;We were not interested in merging for the sake of being larger; we were interested in creating a new, more powerful and progressive union prepared to do the work our membership expects.&quot; 
 
Global trade unionism was highlighted during the merger Convention in a speech by the leader of locked-out Texan oilworkers. Crown Central Petroleum has kept unionised workers shut out of its Pasadena refinery since February 1996. Oil multinational Statoil has now told Crown that its contract to refine Statoil crude for the North American market will not be renewed unless Crown establishes normal relationships with the union. This pressure from Norwegian-based Statoil follows representations by the ICEM-affiliated Norwegian oilworkers' union NOPEF. During the PACE convention, the president of the Crown workers' union local paid tribute to this effective international solidarity. 
 
PACE has members in pulp, paper, oil, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, nuclear energy, cement, automobile parts, appliance manufacturing and a wide variety of other industries. 
 
The advent of the new union was warmly welcomed by ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe, who attended the merger Convention. &quot;PACE represents a substantial consolidation of the ICEM's American membership,&quot; Thorpe commented. &quot;We now have a powerful new affiliate with a strong commitment to global solidarity. This is good news for workers everywhere.&quot;

Pace-setting Union Merger Boosts US And Global Labour

Archive

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

Czech Mining Affiliate Holds Congress

NUM in South Africa Takes Issue with Harmony Gold's Job Cuts

French Power And Gas Deal Boosts Jobs Through Work Time Cuts

Turkish Maden-Is Union Seeks Rights for Glass Workers

Tyre Giant Continental AG Faces World Campaign

Explosion in Western Siberia Kills 44 Russian Miners

PACE of US Will Bring DuPont Resolution to AGM

Nepal Arrests ICEM Women’s Leader Binda Pandey

Pace-setting Union Merger Boosts US And Global Labour

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