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After intense bargaining going back to December, affiliate Papersindustriarbetaref&ouml;rbundet reached a labour accords 18 March with social partners. The wage hikes negotiated in pulp and paper are expected to be the benchmark for Swedish workers in all sectors, and fall within the functioning pay determination system of Swedish inflation. As negotiated by the union, pulp and paper sector workers will receive increases of 2.5% in 2004, 2.1% in 2005 and 2.1% in 2006. Achievements were also made to narrow the gender pay gap.

Swedish Pappers Union Gets Pay Accord in Pulp and Paper

Andriy Volynets, son of Ukrainian Miners&rsquo; Independent Trade Union Mikhail Volynets, was released from a hospital but doctors have not permitted him to return to work. Volynets was abducted and then brutally beaten 7 March in an act the ICEM believes to be political repression against his father, a member of the opposition coalition in the Rada, Ukraine&rsquo;s Parliament.

Ukrainian Mining Leader’s Son Recovering from Brutal Beating

The National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa has joined two other unions, including affiliate CEPPWAWU, and filed a formal application under Section 77 of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) to investigate the strong Rand and the adverse affect it has had regarding job loss. The union seeks a tripartite summit to find an intervention strategy. &ldquo;The appreciating currency has had a negative impact in the mining industry. The mining sector has shed numerous jobs and is intent on cutting further,&rdquo; said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe in a South African report.

NUM and CEPPWAWU in South Africa Protest Strong Rand

IGBCE in Germany has warned employers in the chemical industry not to deviate from their social responsibilities in bargaining that begins in April for 580,000 chemical workers. Emphasizing that only some employers are stating the industry needs to &ldquo;catch its breath&rdquo; free of any wage increases, IGBCE said in a statement it would not change directions in upcoming talks. The union maintains that only through meaningful increases can the consumer economy in Germany improve.

German IGBCE Warns Chemical Industry Ahead of Bargaining

As oil prices drop, merger mania has hit the global oil industry. 
 
One of the latest developments is the merger announced between French-based TOTAL and Belgian-based PETROFINA, aimed at forming the world's sixth-biggest oil and petrochemicals company. 
 
The social implications of this move were analysed today by some 60 representatives of French and Belgian unions in the two companies. Meeting at the Brussels headquarters of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) were oil industry reps from the French labour federations CFDT, FO and CGT and the Belgian federations FGTB/ABVV and CSC/ACV. The session was chaired by Paul Lootens, National Secretary of ICEM Belgian affiliate the Centrale g&eacute;n&eacute;rale/Algemene Centrale. 
 
The unions set themselves three objectives: 
 
Rejection of any dismissals and any downgrading of working and employment conditions for the employees of the new company. 
 
Continuance of an investment policy that facilitates the development of industrial plant in the group's various sectors of activity. 
 
Development of an industrial relations structure that facilitates consultation with and information of the group's employees. 
 
The Belgian and French unions said further international solidarity measures would be announced shortly.

French And Belgian Unions Act On Total/Petrofina Merger

An announcement by the Canadian government to sell off its remaining 19% stake in Petro-Canada was denounced by the country&rsquo;s leading energy union, Communications, Energy, Paperworkers of Canada. The Calgary-based company was established in 1975 to promote domestic supply of oil and gas and as a counter to the US-based oil giants. Petrocan is involved in Arctic gas, oil sands in western provinces, exploration and production of eastern seacoast reserves. It also operates a chain of petrol stations across Canada. &ldquo;Canadians want and need a role in our oil and gas industry, and now is not the time to sell off Canada&rsquo;s station,&rdquo; said CEP President Brian Payne. &ldquo;There are more than six million Canadians who drive up to Petro Canada regularly, believing that this company in part belongs to them. I can&rsquo;t think of a better way to alienate Petro Canada&rsquo;s loyal customers than by selling out.&rdquo;

CEP Resisting Canadian Petro-Canada Sell-Off

Organisation-building and capacity-strengthening are the priorities set by African trade unions affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Meeting at the ICEM's first African Regional Conference (Johannesburg, 7-9 December), 120 delegates from ICEM unions in 16 countries of sub-Saharan Africa identified three main challenges facing affiliates in the region: 
 
The need for greater self-sufficiency 
 
Membership decline due to retrenchments, Africa's AIDS epidemic and a lack of union organising 
 
The particular need to unite and strengthen trade unions in countries under dictatorships. 
 
The answer, the African unions emphasised, is to &quot;build democratic, powerful workers' organisations&quot;. They particularly noted the achievements made, &quot;amid obstacles&quot;, by the Southern Africa Electricity Workers' Network. This was set up to promote cooperation among electric power unions in the region, at a time when its electricity supplies are being integrated. 
 
The conference based its findings on the research component of the ICEM's &quot;Plan for Africa&quot;. As the next stage of that plan, affiliated unions in the region will each design an Organising Strategy. These strategies are, the delegates stressed, to be forwarded to the incoming ICEM African Regional Executive, which will be responsible for coordinating the work. Each union's strategic plan should incorporate the ICEM's goals of independence, self-sufficiency, internal democracy, the capacity to win real gains for members and the building of appropriate social alliances. 
 
ICEM project work in the region must be fully integrated into the Plan for Africa, the conference emphasised, and should focus on shop steward development, mainstreaming of women and outreach to the &quot;informal sector&quot; (i.e. the precarious, marginalised jobs on which most workers in developing countries are engaged). It must also improve existing ICEM sectoral networks in the region and establish new ones. 
 
Unions in the region must be at the forefront of peace initiatives to end Africa's civil wars and other conflicts. The &quot;resources wasted in war&quot; must be &quot;redirected towards programmes that can contribute to human development&quot;. Noting that &quot;in most instances, control of mineral wealth is the cause of conflict&quot;, the ICEM conference said the union contribution to peace should include monitoring &quot;the role of multinational companies in war-torn countries.&quot; 
 
In fact, the African unions pointed out, &quot;neo-liberal globalisation, with its emphasis on the free market and the decline of the nation state, has made the rich richer and the poor poorer on a global scale.&quot; To the multinational companies' line of TINA (There Is No Alternative), the response of workers worldwide should be THEMBA (There Must Be Alternatives). 
 
The African affiliates praised the ICEM's &quot;efforts to find practical alternatives to the TINA propaganda line&quot;. The next ICEM World Congress (in Durban, South Africa, next November) should, they said, adopt a &quot;powerful worker response to the negative effects of globalisation on workers of the South.&quot; 
 
Elected as ICEM Regional Chairperson was James Motlatsi, of South Africa, with Konstanteno Ngandu, from Zimbabwe, as Regional Secretary for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Organising - ICEM African Unions&#039; Big Priority

Australia's 48-hour coal strike was an overwhelming success. The nationwide action ended at midnight local time, and the 20,000 strikers are now returning to work, in line with the mandate given to by the rank-and-file to their union, the CFMEU. 
 
But the strike was just the first shot in a campaign against the &quot;disastrous&quot; price-cutting practices of Australian coal producers, CFMEU General President Tony Maher warned. 
 
The union estimates that a further 2,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of the current workforce, could be lost as a result of the recent 18 per cent price cut for coking coal offered by Australian producers Shell, MIM and North Goonyella. The reduced price is the new low benchmark for the settlement of all coal contracts under negotiation with Japanese buyers. 
 
4,000 jobs have already been lost in the Australian coal industry recently. Maher said that further job cuts would not only add to the devastation of Australian mining communities, but would also put further pressure on health and safety in coal mines. In the past 12 months, he pointed out, Australian coal miners had delivered a 20 per cent increase in productivity. &quot;However, what we've got in return is retrenchments, award stripping, decreases in allowances and reduction in basic wages. Our members have been expected to cut their own throats.&quot; 
 
He called on Australia's right-wing federal government to &quot;join all the other stakeholders in Australia's coal industry to discuss the problems and work towards solutions which will stem the loss of jobs and stop the abuse of a national asset.&quot; The federal government has so far boycotted a forum of employers and unions on this topic, although the governments of the major coal-producing states Queensland and New South Wales are taking part. The forum's next meeting is in Brisbane on 17 December. 
 
Some companies took the union to court over the strike. In New South Wales, the Supreme Court issued a return-to-work order at three mines in the Hunter Valley, owned by the Rio Tinto company Coal and Allied. But in the Federal Court in Queensland, an application by Thiess Contractors for an injunction against the union was rejected. The union complied with the Hunter Valley ruling, but will be appealing against it. The CFMEU will also mount legal challenges to other employers' court applications against the union. 
 
At the global level, the CFMEU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
&quot;This is a battle on behalf of miners everywhere, with the CFMEU at the forefront,&quot; ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe emphasised. &quot;By offering massive price cuts and reductions in volume, the Australian producers are threatening thousands of coal mining jobs on all continents. The Australian miners have delivered a clear reply to the irresponsibility of the producers and of the Australian federal government. Through the ICEM, our Australian brothers and sisters can count on the support of their colleagues worldwide.&quot;

Australian Coal Strike Success

An American union has won a hard-fought election to represent Imerys workers at the company's Sylacauga site in Alabama. Imerys is a leading materials and minerals multinational, and a global trade union campaign played an important part in the election victory. 
 
&quot;We won against all odds by showing our union had real power against this giant global corporation,&quot; said Charles Stevens, an Imerys worker and one of the leaders of the organising committee for the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE). The union secured a 205 to 181 victory on 22 June in a secret ballot election to represent 400 workers at the Imerys plant. 
 
Imerys withdrew recognition of the union in June, 1999, after the company acquired English China Clays (ECC) and combined a much larger non-union ECC plant with its unionised Georgia Marble facility just next to it. Imerys claimed the union no longer represented a majority of workers at the combined operation. PACE immediately formed an organising committee, made up initially of union members from Georgia Marble, after the withdrawal of recognition, and started contacting non-union ECC workers. 
 
The victory, according to PACE Organiser Joe Wilson, who led the drive in Sylacauga, was the culmination of a year-long campaign. &quot;Most ECC workers had little knowledge of a union, and the company used brutal scare tactics to keep the workers from talking to union supporters from Georgia Marble,&quot; said Wilson. &quot;Eventually, we broke the spiral of fear by fighting back with a combination of hard work, proven organising methods and a sophisticated 21st century global campaign that overwhelmed the company.&quot; 
 
Key to the organising drive was support received from unions representing Imerys employees in Britain, Belgium and Australia and in France, where the company is headquartered. 
 
PACE produced a video and other publicity material on Imerys' &quot;union-busting&quot; at Sylacauga. A special PACE/ICEM website highlighted the campaign and enabled workers worldwide to communicate with their colleagues in the US. 
 
The union also sent two delegations to meet European trade unionists. One of the delegations included Imerys worker Keith Fulbright from the ECC side of the Sylacauga facility. Fulbright's accounts of Imerys' behaviour prompted European trade union protests to the company. British workers represented by the ICEM-affiliated Transport and General Workers' Union wore 
stickers at some of Imerys' largest plants stating: &quot;Stop Imerys Union Busting in the US.&quot; 
 
The ICEM lobbied Imerys headquarters management directly in Paris, and ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs travelled from the international's headquarters in Brussels to a union rally in Sylacauga to show international support for the workers there. Higgs also led a march on the plant. 
 
The global campaign against Imerys peaked on 9 May at the Imerys shareholders' meeting in Paris. PACE, the ICEM and Walden Asset Management, a major social investment company, drew the shareholders' attention to Imerys' anti-union practices. 
 
&quot;I believe that PACE and the ICEM have made a little history with this campaign and our victory,&quot; commented PACE President Boyd Young today. 
 
PACE anticipates the start of bargaining soon for a first contract (collective agreement) at Sylacauga. &quot;We hope the company will finally put aside its anti-union attitude and realise that the union and company must work together to make the Sylacauga operation a success,&quot; said PACE Region 5 Vice-President Don Langham. 
 
&quot;This is a great victory for international solidarity,&quot; said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs today. &quot;Above all, it is a victory for the courage and perseverance of the Sylacauga workers and their trade union, PACE. We call upon Imerys to honour the workers' decision without delay. In Sylacauga as everywhere else, it is in the company's own best interests to work with the union and to conduct collective bargaining in good faith.&quot;

US Union Wins Imerys Recognition Vote

Application has been made to begin formal dialogue in the chemical sector of Europe. At a conference in Helsinki, Hubertus Schmoldt, president of both ICEM affiliate IGBCE and EMCEF (www.emcef.org), and Hans-Paul Frey, president of the European Chemical Employers&rsquo; Group, announced to trade unionists and employer representatives that dialogue between the social partners would begin this year. The chemical industry is Europe&rsquo;s second biggest industry, employing two million workers.

European Chemical Unions, EMCEF Seek Social Dialogue

Archive

Swedish Pappers Union Gets Pay Accord in Pulp and Paper

Ukrainian Mining Leader’s Son Recovering from Brutal Beating

NUM and CEPPWAWU in South Africa Protest Strong Rand

German IGBCE Warns Chemical Industry Ahead of Bargaining

French And Belgian Unions Act On Total/Petrofina Merger

CEP Resisting Canadian Petro-Canada Sell-Off

Organising - ICEM African Unions' Big Priority

Australian Coal Strike Success

US Union Wins Imerys Recognition Vote

European Chemical Unions, EMCEF Seek Social Dialogue

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