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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

Norwegian oilworkers' leader Lars Myhre has strongly criticised energy multinational Statoil for its links with America's anti-union Crown Central Petroleum. 
 
Crown, which has kept 252 unionised American workers locked out for 32 months, recently signed a contract to refine Statoil's North Sea crude for the American market. 
 
Myhre is President of the Norwegian oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF and chairs the energy workers' section of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
 

<img height="181" alt="" src="/wp-content/uploads/articles/crown.jpg" width="380" />
&nbsp;CROWNING INJUSTICE: 
Crown Central Petroleum's workers have been locked out for 32 months. 
(photo: OCAW) 
Statoil is headquartered in Norway. As Myhre emphasised, Statoil has &quot;excellent labour relations in Norway and worldwide.&quot; 
 
This July, Statoil, the ICEM and NOPEF signed the oil industry's first globally applicable company-union agreement. Amongst other things, this guarantees full union rights worldwide (see ICEM News release 66/1998). However, it applies only to those employed in Statoil's own operations. 
 
Speaking in the USA yesterday, Myhre insisted that &quot;Statoil products should not be tainted by its association with Crown.&quot; 
 
The US firm's &quot;use of scab labour after locking out 252 union workers for 32 months should have disqualified Crown from having any relationship with Statoil,&quot; Myhre said. &quot;In addition, Crown's appalling environmental record and serious charges made by workers for race and sex discrimination should have stopped Statoil from signing this contract.&quot; 
 
Myhre's statement was warmly welcomed by the ICEM-affiliated US oilworkers' union OCAW, whose members are locked out at Crown. 
 
&quot;We believe that Statoil, by its contract with Crown, is making itself part of the labour dispute, and we are ready to extend our campaign and boycott against Crown to Statoil as well,&quot; said OCAW President Robert Wages. &quot;Being partnered with a corporate outlaw like Crown is very damaging to Statoil's reputation.&quot; 
 
&quot;We applaud the statements and efforts of Lars Myhre,&quot; Wages said, &quot;and we hope that Statoil will either pull out of its contract with Crown or use its influence to make Crown accountable for its actions against workers, women and people of colour.&quot; 
 
According to an OCAW statement, Crown's contract with Statoil is aimed at stopping the US refiner's &quot;continued losses due to its disastrous policy of purchasing crude oil in the futures market and guessing wrong about crude prices.&quot; 
 
&quot;Crown reported losses in the first two quarters of this year,&quot; the OCAW notes. &quot;Other so-called independent refiners, to whom Crown is often compared, reported strong profits in the same period. Crown's Class A and Class B stock prices have hovered at 30-year lows in recent weeks.&quot;

Statoil Slammed For Link To US Union-Buster

Brazilian labour confederation CUT today launched a national campaign to ban all forms of asbestos from the country. 
 
The first goal of the campaign is to make union members fully aware of the dangers of asbestos, and CUT has prepared a full range of information material. 
 
Brazil is the world's fifth-largest producer and consumer of asbestos, and did not begin regulating its use until the mid-1980s. In recent years, asbestos use per capita in Brazil has been 14 times the US rate. 
 
The Brazilian government should offer early retirement packages to the country's asbestos miners, the CUT says. It also wants the government to invest in new industries in the mining areas. 
 
The unions believe there is a good chance that Brazil will ban asbestos in the near future. The major asbestos companies Eternit and Brasilit (a Saint-Gobain company) announced on 30 November that they would conduct research into the use of alternative materials. 
 
The CUT hopes that its national campaign will speed up progress towards a ban. 
 
&quot;There is no such thing as safe asbestos,&quot; emphasises the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). &quot;Attempts to distinguish between 'more' and 'less' hazardous types of asbestos are based on discredited science, and even single exposures to very low doses of fibres can result in harm.&quot;

Brazil Unions Seek Asbestos Ban

The USWA and Goodyear have resolved a potential dispute stemming from union-friendly language contained in last September&rsquo;s precedent-setting labour agreement. Goodyear announced 5 February that production of its new Assurance ComforTred tyre would go to a non-union plant in the state of Oklahoma. Specific job-security provisions in the labour agreement, however, state new tyre lines must go to a unionized plant. Goodyear acquiesced and the new tyre will be made in a Steelworker-represented plant in Gadsden, Alabama.

USWA Tyre Accord with Goodyear Brings Union Work

Asia-Pacific labour and management representatives from BASF met in Singapore on 10 February. The network takes shape following the successful ICEM regional dialogue with BASF managers in Latin America/Caribbean. BASF&rsquo;s Eggert Voscherau called the AP network &ldquo;important and necessary&rdquo; and one that &ldquo;has to be continued.&rdquo; Recently, ICEM, German affiliate IGBCE and BASF teamed up so that BASF workers in Malaysia could have trade union recognition rights in Malaysia.

ICEM’s Regional BASF Network Meets in Singapore

Materials giant Imerys is using a self-proclaimed &quot;goon squad&quot; to oppose union recognition at one of its US plants. 
 
This is shown by a photo taken yesterday morning at the multinational's Sylacauga site in Alabama. 
 
An election is to be held at Sylacauga on 22 June to decide whether workers there should be represented by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical &amp; Energy Workers' Union (PACE). 
 
But the US management's tactics are bringing French-based Imerys into serious disrepute. 
 
The new photo features a man carrying the company's anti-union leaflets. He is wearing a teeshirt with &quot;Goon Squad&quot; printed on the back. &quot;Goon&quot; is a slang word for &quot;thug&quot;. 
 
So the teeshirt is an implied threat of physical attack. Goon squads often played a violently anti-union role in past US labour disputes. 
 
PACE reports that some of the company's other leafleters were wearing the same shirts. The union believes that they were provided by Imerys. 
 
This latest union-busting attempt at Sylacauga has been roundly condemned by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). PACE is one of the ICEM's American affiliates. 
 
The goon squad photo coincides with the ICEM's receipt of a letter from Imerys CEO Patrick Kron, in which he admits that the company is allowing its Sylacauga management to pursue an anti-union line. 
 
Dated 9 June, Kron's letter is in response to a recent protest from ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. 
 
&quot;Local management,&quot; Kron replied, &quot;has said from the beginning that a third party representation is not an advantage for the plant or our employees in Sylacauga and that a direct relationship between management and employees works well at Sylacauga. There is obviously no reason to prohibit the local management to express and explain this view to our employees and no commitment to refrain from doing so has been taken by anyone.&quot; 
 
Kron's words will shock Imerys employees in Europe, where the company has emphasised &quot;social partnership&quot; with unions. But unions in Europe, too, are now questioning the company's two-faced approach to industrial relations. Can it really cuddle up to unions on one side of the Atlantic and use goons on the other? 
 
Higgs had told Kron of three current anti-union activities by the Sylacauga local management: 
 
(a) Supervisors at Sylacauga are wearing &quot;Vote NO&quot; stickers on their hardhats and posting the same stickers around the plant. 
 
(b) The supervisors, sometimes two together, are also taking workers one at a time into offices, telling them that unionisation would mean a loss of wages and benefits, and urging them to vote against the union. 
 
(c) The company is still using the union-busting lawyer Frank Parker to train its local managers. 
 
In response, Kron wrote that the ICEM had been &quot;misinformed&quot; about points (b) and (c). He made no comment on point (a). 
 
Higgs had also urged Kron to &quot;confirm in writing to all workers in Sylacauga what you told your shareholders about the free choice of the workers.&quot; This was a reference to the commitment given by Kron, at last month's annual shareholder meeting in Paris, that the company would not campaign against the union. Both PACE and the ICEM asked questions during the Paris assembly, and discussed Sylacauga with Kron and his colleagues afterwards. 
 
In his reply to Higgs' letter, Kron made no comment on the suggestion that he should write to the Sylacauga workers. 
 
Today, Higgs again wrote to Kron. 
 
Kron had argued that Imerys is &quot;committed to respect the laws in all the countries where we operate and to conduct our industrial relations and business in an ethical manner.&quot; 
 
Higgs' reply: &quot;My experience tells me that a blind reliance on domestic legislation in many countries would certainly not deliver acceptable ethical business behaviour.&quot; 
 
Imerys employees in Europe should view the company's anti-union preference in Sylacauga with concern, Higgs stated - &quot;as I am sure they will when it is brought to their attention.&quot; 
 
And he signed off with the hope that &quot;even at this late stage, you will reflect on the inconsistency in the application of Imerys' declared corporate ethics, by ensuring your US management respect trade unions as legitimate social partners who, as in the European Union, should be welcomed rather than resisted.&quot;

Imerys: &#039;Goon Squad&#039; Photographed At US Site

More than 500 protesters joined yesterday's picket, which was organised by the Association of Trade Unions In Basic Industries. 
 
The association groups the Oil, Gas and Construction Workers' Union (ROGWU), Electrounion, the Chemical Industry Workers' Union, the Mining and Metallurgical Industries Workers' Union, the Construction and Building Materials Industry Workers' Union, the Atomic Energy Workers' Union, the coal workers' union Rosugleprof and the Timber Industry Workers' Union. 
 
 

<img height="241" alt="" src="/wp-content/uploads/articles/rus1.jpg" width="380" />
 
Most of the demonstrators were members of unions affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). Last week, the ICEM strongly criticised the tax plan and urged the Russian government to consult with the unions. 
 
That consultation moved forward yesterday when the Moscow protesters delegated representatives for negotiations with the Vice-Chair of the Russian government, Valentina Matvienko. 

<img height="243" alt="" src="/wp-content/uploads/articles/rus3.jpg" width="380" />
TAX CHANGES OPPOSED 
Russian union leaders lobbied the government over the threat of social cuts. Here, ROGWU's Lev Mironov is telling the Moscow demonstrators that the unions will pursue their demands. 
(Photos: ROGWU) 
Heading the union side at the talks was ROGWU President Lev Mironov. He chairs the Association of Trade Unions In Basic Industries and is a member of the ICEM Executive. 
The delegates told the government of their serious concern about cuts in working people's social protection if the new tax were introduced. It was agreed that the consultations will continue. 
 
After the talks, a brief meeting was held on Moscow's Gorbaty Most (Arched Bridge). Pickets expressed their support for their representatives' demands and said they were ready to continue the protest action in defence of working people's rights. 
&nbsp;

Russian Unions Picket Government Over Tax Plan

Germany needs a long-term, reliable consensus on energy policy, which must &quot;take just as much account of economic and technical needs as of social responsibility and environmental challenges.&quot; 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: &quot;Many jobs are at stake.&quot;" src="/wp-content/uploads/articles/schmoldt.gif" width="147" />
Hubertus Schmoldt: &quot;Many jobs are at stake.&quot;

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 &quot;if the phasing out of nuclear energy is implemented as a longer-term change,&quot; Schmoldt insisted. Decisions on nuclear must also be placed in a broader context, he said. &quot;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.&quot; 
 
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 &quot;best solution,&quot; 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. 
 
&quot;Energy taxes must not increase industry's overall tax bill,&quot; Schmoldt said. &quot;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.&quot; 
 
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

Settlement has been reached in a Canadian mining dispute that had cut world nickel supplies. 
 
Members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in Thompson, Manitoba, yesterday voted to accept a new agreement with Inco. The vote - 66 percent in favour - ends Inco's 12-week lockout of 1,100 employees at its Thompson nickel mine. 
 
The three-year agreement, which will run till Sept. 15, 2002, is a victory for the union in that it addresses the wage and pension issues that Inco had refused to negotiate when negotiations broke down in September. The agreement maintains the pattern of increases established among USWA members in other Inco Canadian operations. 
 
The settlement includes wage increases of over 5 per cent, and 13 per cent in pension improvements. Along with an immediate signing bonus of 1,000 Canadian dollars, wage increases over three years will bring the average wage up to C$24.48 an hour by the end of the contract, up from C$23.31. 
 
Pensions will increase so that the minimum monthly benefit for a retiree with 30 years of service will be C$2,675 by the end of the contract. 
 
A negotiated Success Sharing Plan will divide the positive results of a co-design programme aimed at improving efficiencies in the operation. That plan, along with a Savings Fund Plan and the maintaining of the Nickel Price Bonus, could mean a payout over the life of the agreement of as much as C$9,000 per employee. 
 
&quot;The support of the membership for this agreement is proof of the workers' resolve to settle this dispute on their terms,&quot; said Bob Desjarlais, President of the union's local in Thompson. &quot;We are equally determined to work with the company in a way that will maximise the potential benefit to our members during the next three years.&quot; 
 
Lawrence McBrearty, the USWA's National Director in Canada, added that maintaining the pattern of bargaining with Inco in Manitoba &quot;is an important building block in upcoming negotiations with Inco in Ontario.&quot; 
 
At McBrearty's request, the USWA campaign for a just settlement at Inco had been supported by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the USWA is affiliated.

Canadian Nickel Dispute Settled

How should trade unions tackle the new upheavals in the world's energy industries? How will energy privatisation and technological change affect social and environmental standards? 
 
These were the major issues facing energy union leaders of all continents as they met in Cork, Ireland, today for POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
As the international's General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out, the conference is the biggest ever, with over 300 energy union leaders from 50 countries taking part. They represent more than 9 million ICEM-affiliated energy workers of all sectors. The ICEM is now &quot;the major social force in the energy industries,&quot; Thorpe said. It is also a &quot;ring of workers' power that reaches from raw energy resources in the ground, through generation and secondary power distribution, on to the downstream, value-adding activities of the chemical and allied industries.&quot; 
 
Economists, academics and philosophers who had sold the world the &quot;free market&quot; philosophy had, Thorpe said, not just kissed the Blarney Stone once - &quot;they must have been involved in a virtual Blarney love-fest.&quot; Privatisation and deregulation of energy industries had not resulted in lower prices to the end consumer, nor in better service, more real choice or greater security of supply. But control of energy had passed from elected governments to &quot;boards of directors whom very few of us could name, who are elected by no-one except a handful of institutional shareholders and whose primary responsibility is to the financial bottom line.&quot; 
 
The ICEM's response was to &quot;redefine the relationship of labour with the new controlling entities of our industry.&quot; Workers must not be &quot;just wage labourers in an industry that is out of their control&quot;, but &quot;primary stakeholders, with a powerful voice at the decision table where their future is being discussed.&quot; 
 
There had been notable success stories, such as the ICEM's recent global agreement with oil multinational Statoil, covering basic trade union rights and occupational and environmental safety standards worldwide. 
 
But there was also a downside to changes in the energy industry. Trade union rights were under attack in many countries where energy multinationals operated. Thorpe cited Colombia and Burma as particularly bad current examples of this. He also reminded delegates of the &quot;dreadful years in Nigeria's prisons&quot; endured by oilworkers' leaders Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori. Detained without trial for years on end, Kokori and Dabibi were finally released this June after an international trade union campaign led by the ICEM. 
 
The two Nigerian union leaders are taking part in the Cork conference. At a later special session on energy multinationals, social control and trade union rights, Dabibi and Kokori told cheering delegates that the international campaign had saved their lives. The session on union rights included speakers from Statoil and Amnesty International, as well as energy union leaders. This crucial discussion will continue over the next two days. 
 
Today, the conference continued with sessions on new horizons for world energy giants; and on Irish energy policy and industrial relations. Both sessions included contributions from employer representatives as well as union leaders. 
 
 
 
GLOBAL NUCLEAR FORUM PROPOSED 
 
In his opening speech this morning, ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe also suggested that the ICEM could act as an &quot;honest broker&quot; in discussions on the future of the world's nuclear power industry. He proposed the establishment of a &quot;global forum on the sustainability of nuclear energy&quot; in which &quot;the industry, the community, the environmental lobbyists and involved workers can sit together to thrash out what must be done to bring this industry into line with what society expects of its industrial processes.&quot; 
 
This proposal was welcomed by guest speaker Joe Jacob, Minister of State in Ireland's Department of Public Enterprise. The forum would be a step forward, Jacob said, as would &quot;any other means of allaying the real fears that exist in this country about the use of nuclear power at Sellafield and elsewhere.&quot; Sellafield is a major nuclear plant on the British coast, just across the sea from Ireland. 
 
Ireland itself has no nuclear power, and Jacob particularly emphasised the country's investment in the development of alternative energy sources. 
 
He also said that the Irish experience of social partnership over the past decade has been that &quot;it works, and works well.&quot; The Irish government, unions, employers, farm organisations and more recently community organisations including those of the unemployed, have been engaged in a succession of programmes to develop the country's economy on the basis of consensus. Today, Jacob said, Ireland has &quot;the fastest-growing economy in the developed world.&quot; 
 
That upbeat assessment of social partnership is to a large degree shared by John McDonnell, General Secretary of the ICEM-affiliated Irish union SIPTU. He was especially critical of &quot;the British model of privatisation, which is particularly savage, anti-union and anti-worker&quot; and which &quot;has been rejected or has given way to other, more European social models of corporate restructuring, in some countries.&quot; 
 
However, McDonnell did warn that Irish social partnership could be put at risk if the government did not help to halt a new trend towards deunionisation by some employers operating in Ireland. He particularly took energy multinational Enterprise Oil to task. He accused the company of refusing to employ Irish workers in Ireland's new offshore gas fields - because those workers are unionised. 
 
Unions, McDonnell said, should &quot;lobby at national and indeed international level for the strengthening of international institutions, such as the International Labour Organisation&quot; and for &quot;a new Bretton Woods-type agreement on international capital flows, speculation etc. including a Tobin Tax on speculation.&quot; 
 
As ICEM President Hans Berger told the conference, &quot;global corporations call for a global trade union strategy.&quot; 
 
Continuing in Cork tomorrow and Wednesday is the conference that will decide that strategy.

Biggest-Ever World Energy Union Conference Opens

Archive

Czech Mining Affiliate Holds Congress

Statoil Slammed For Link To US Union-Buster

Brazil Unions Seek Asbestos Ban

USWA Tyre Accord with Goodyear Brings Union Work

ICEM’s Regional BASF Network Meets in Singapore

Imerys: 'Goon Squad' Photographed At US Site

Russian Unions Picket Government Over Tax Plan

Real Energy Consensus Needed, IGBCE Says

Canadian Nickel Dispute Settled

Biggest-Ever World Energy Union Conference Opens

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