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Press

Fijian unions' call for the restoration of democracy and the immediate release of hostages have been fully backed by world industrial trade union leaders currently meeting in Brussels. 
 
The Executive Committee of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) noted the &quot;actions of the Fijian Trades Union Congress in condemning strongly the violence of the illegal attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Fiji by hostage-taking and the subsequent killing of innocent citizens.&quot; 
 
The ICEM pledged to &quot;mobilise a campaign of international actions&quot; in support of the FTUC's demands for the release of the hostages and a return to democracy.

World&#039;s Unions Back Fiji Freedom Call

The general strike called by Korean trade unions has received &quot;full support&quot; from world industrial trade union leaders currently meeting in Brussels. 
 
The Executive Committee of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) backed the Korean unions' &quot;justified demands for a 5-day working week and the improvement of social security to protect workers affected by structural adjustment&quot;. 
 
The ICEM also backed &quot;the year-long struggle by the Korean Electric Power Union to secure basic trade union rights and working conditions in the process of privatisation of the power industry.&quot; 
 
Noting that South Korea's current government claims to be the first democratic civilian government supported by the people, the ICEM says the government must &quot;review its anti-union labour policy and accept the justified demands from trade unions and workers.&quot;

Korean General Strike Draws World Union Support

Sri Lanka's emergency regulations have been severely condemned by world industrial trade union leaders currently meeting in Brussels. 
 
Promulgated on 3 May, the regulations suppress &quot;fundamental democratic rights and basic trade union rights,&quot; said the Executive Committee of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The ICEM particularly deplores the &quot;total suppression&quot; of Sri Lankan workers' &quot;rights to strike, to picket and to march in public procession&quot; in any sector that the country's President declares to be an &quot;essential service&quot;. The wide range of sectors already hit by the decrees includes fuel distribution, electricity supply, commodity exports and &quot;the sale, supply or distribution of any articles of food or medicine or any other article required by a member of the public,&quot; the unions point out. 
 
Calling on the Sri Lankan government to withdraw the regulations immediately, the ICEM pledged to mobilise &quot;full solidarity action&quot; by its unions worldwide and to lodge a complaint against Sri Lanka with the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). The emergency regulations breach the ILO's core standards on freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Unions Slam Sri Lankan Decrees

Globalised labour relations take a step forward this week as the world's industrial trade union leaders meet in Brussels to select target companies for global networks and agreements. 
 
The union leaders from all continents are taking part in the Presidium and Executive Committee sessions of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The Brussels meetings, from 31 May to 2 June, are the first since the ICEM World Congress in Durban, South Africa, last November. 

<img height="285" alt="" src="/wp-content/uploads/articles/exec2.jpg" width="380" /> 
 
ICEM Executive in Brussels
That Congress set the ICEM a target of global campaigning and networking within major multinationals in its sectors. It also mandated the ICEM to negotiate global agreements with companies, notably on trade union rights, health, safety and environment and equality at work. 
 
The aim is to ensure consistently high standards worldwide by securing the right of the ICEM and its member unions to monitor companies' global performance on these and other issues, and to raise any alleged breaches of the agreements with corporate headquarters management. 
 
This is the crucial difference between global agreements and companies' own self-declared and self-assessed codes of conduct. The ICEM emphasises that such agreements are also in the best interests of the companies and their stakeholders, as they give substance and credibility to corporate ethics. 
 
New ICEM President John Maitland and General Secretary Fred Higgs were elected on a platform of achieving global agreements and of creating the necessary global trade union networks within the companies concerned. 
 
Target multinationals under discussion this week are headquartered in Germany, France, Japan, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries. 
 
&quot;Dialogues are currently underway with, among others, Shell, Rio Tinto, BP Amoco and Freudenberg,&quot; Higgs said. &quot;In a number of cases, draft texts have been exchanged. Discussions are particularly far advanced with Freudenberg, the German-headquartered rubber multinational. We hope to finalise an agreement with them by the end of June.&quot; 
 
The ICEM already has a company-level global agreement with oil multinational Statoil. 
 
Talks are continuing with the chemical companies' world body, the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), over plans for the first-ever global sectoral agreement. This would concern the chemical companies' Responsible Care programme, which aims to achieve the highest standards of occupational health and safety and of environmental protection. ICEM participation in the monitoring and implementation of Responsible Care would help to ensure consistently high standards worldwide. 
 
&quot;We are already in a serious dialogue with the ICCA,&quot; Higgs said. &quot;By the time we meet them again in Tokyo this November, we will be very close to signing a global agreement on Responsible Care.&quot;

World Unions Set Targets For Global Agreements

A strike that hit most of Turkey's tyre industry from 28 April onwards has been &quot;postponed&quot; by government decree. 
 
Under a frequently abused legal pretext, the Turkish cabinet claimed that the tyre strike was a threat to national security. 
 
It then invoked Article 33 of Turkey's Law on Collective Agreements, Strikes And Lock-Outs. This allows the government to suspend any strike or lock-out for sixty days if it is deemed to endanger &quot;public health or national security&quot;. 
 
To apply this law to a tyre strike is obviously absurd. The move will certainly damage the Turkish government's reputation at a time when it is trying to prove its democratic credentials in a bid to join the European Union. 
 
Moreover, &quot;postponement&quot; of a strike under this legislation usually amounts in practice to an indefinite ban, because Article 34 of the same law empowers the labour ministry to impose arbitration at the end of the sixty days, unless the parties have either come to an agreement or voluntarily sought arbitration. 
 
Turkey's official arbitrators rarely decide in a union's favour. 
 
The decree &quot;postpones&quot; strike action at the three main multinationals affected by the dispute - Pirelli, Goodyear and Bridgestone. It was signed on 5 May by President S&uuml;leyman Demirel, Prime Minister B&uuml;lent Ecevit and the entire Turkish cabinet. 
 
The Turkish rubber workers' union Lastik-Is had been negotiating with the tyre companies since last November for a new agreement covering this year and 2001. At the global level, the union is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which organises tyre and rubber workers worldwide. 
 
The companies' final offer to Lastik-Is was a 22 percent pay increase for the first half of this year, followed by a further 6 percent in the second half, plus a small lump sum. For the year 2001, the companies proposed to make an additional payment dependent on the prevailing exchange rate between the US dollar and the Turkish lira at the time. 
 
This is a wholly inadequate offer, the union points out, in view of the steep rise in the cost of living. Turkey's inflation rate last year was 68.8 percent. The tyre workers would need a pay rise of the same order simply in order to restore their purchasing power. 
 
Altogether, some 5,000 workers are affected by the strike ban.

Turkish Tyre Strike Banned

Mining giant Rio Tinto may be about to change its hardline labour relations in Australia. 
 
The country's Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) welcomed a further assurance today by Rio Tinto chief executive Leigh Clifford that the company will respect its employees' right to bargain collectively. 
 
At this morning's Rio Tinto Annual General Meeting in Brisbane, Clifford repeated the company's commitment to industrial &quot;peace&quot; while the chairman, Robert Wilson, spoke of &quot;reconciliation&quot; with Rio Tinto's union employees. 
 
 

<img height="250" alt="" src="/wp-content/uploads/articles/rtbris2.jpg" width="380" />
 
VOTE SENSATION 
 
And a vote by Rio Tinto shareholders caused a sensation today. 
 
Two union-backed resolutions opposed by the Board garnered 20.3 percent and 17.3 percent of the investors' votes. This result is unprecedented in the history of multinational corporations and will undoubtedly boost the new technique of social campaigning via shareholder proxies. 
 
One of the resolutions concerns corporate governance. The other urges the company to comply with the basic trade union rights standards of the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). In line with Rio Tinto's dual-listing structure, the result combines the outcome of the shareholder vote at its London AGM on 10 May with today's Brisbane vote. 
 
The corporate governance resolution gained 113,858,565 votes (20.3 percent), while the resolution on ILO standards received 95,413,654 votes (17.3 percent). 
 
The resolutions were part of a global campaign backed by the CFMEU, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The ICEM, to which the CFMEU is affiliated, is a global industrial union federation representing more than 20 million workers of all continents. 
 
This was the first time that trade unions had mobilised shareholder action of this kind at the global level. It was part of an ongoing campaign by the ICEM and its affiliates to ensure that Rio Tinto respects trade union rights worldwide. 
PEACE CALL WELCOMED 
 
Tony Maher, President of the CFMEU Mining and Energy Division, welcomed today's remarks by the two Rio Tinto chiefs. Maher called on the company to demonstrate the sincerity of its commitment by sitting down with the union to resolve the issues confronting workers at its operations. 
 
&quot;I was particularly pleased to hear the Chairman, Mr Wilson, admit to shareholders that the company had made mistakes in the past in employee relations,&quot; Maher said. &quot;If Rio Tinto matches its rhetoric at this morning's AGM with action at its operations, the time is now ripe for the unions and the company to go forward together in a mutually beneficial relationship.&quot; 
 
Hundreds of Australian miners demonstrated in Brisbane just before the AGM. They travelled from mines across Queensland and New South Wales to press for full trade union rights at Rio Tinto operations. Their protest was well covered by Australian television and other media. 
 
 
GLOBAL AGREEMENT? 
 
&quot;We warmly welcome Rio Tinto's express commitment to respect trade union rights in Australia,&quot; commented ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Sinaia, Rumania, today. &quot;The ICEM hopes that the outstanding industrial disputes in the company's Australian operations can now be resolved quickly and fairly. 
 
&quot;Once that is done,&quot; Higgs said, &quot;Rio Tinto and the ICEM can get down to negotiating a global agreement. Issues that could be covered in such an agreement include trade union rights and other human rights, health, safety and the environment, and equality at work. A global agreement would be in the best interests of Rio Tinto workers everywhere, but also of the company itself and of all its stakeholders.&quot;

Australian Workers Welcome Rio Tinto Peace Call

NUM, meanwhile, welcomed South Africa&rsquo;s first woman to high office. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs, was sworn in last Thursday as deputy president. She replaces the former number two official in South Africa, Jacob Zuma, who was sacked by President Thebo Mbeki in connection with a bribery scandal. Mlambo- Ngcuka, 49, a leader in the anti-apartheid struggle, was elected from the ANC party to Parliament in 1994 in the country&rsquo;s first all-race elections, and served as head of Minerals and Energy beginning in 1999, a post from which she helped draft the Mining Charter giving more black South Africans ownership in mines. 
In welcoming her selection by Mbeki, NUM General Secretary Gwede Mantashe cautioned against the position being caught up in politics. &ldquo;We are concerned that she&rsquo;s been thrown into a lion&rsquo;s den, given the controversies surrounding the office of the deputy president at this juncture. We therefore hope that she is not compromised as a result. We trust that her experience of overcoming challenges in her past portfolio will come to the fore.&rdquo;

Mines, Energy Minister Appointed South Africa&#039;s Deputy President

A vote by two UK unions for industrial action against Imerys has moved the French materials company back to the negotiations table over a contentious pension issue. Union members of ICEM affiliates Transport &amp; General (T&amp;G) and GMB voted to take industrial action at Imerys&rsquo; English China Clay at several southwestern UK worksites. Rather than face an angry 2,500 workers ready to disrupt operations over pensions being chopped, Imerys agreed to negotiate after a meeting between T&amp;G General Secretary Tony Woodley and corporate managers of the company. 
Imerys previously had refused any dialogue over its plan to close the pension scheme to new workers and cut anywhere from 33-40% in pension benefits to existing workers. In the US, Imerys workers in Dry Branch, Georgia, represented by another ICEM affiliate, USW, ratified a three-year agreement with the company, but fellow USW union members in Sylacauga, Alabama, still seek a commitment from management that it cease union-busting.

UK Unions, Imerys Agree to Re-start Pension Talks

ICEM affiliates in South Africa today have taken their members out on strike, joining labour centre COSATU&rsquo;s call for protest against soaring job loss and unemployment levels now reaching 40%. Over 200,000 workers are expected to strike. ICEM affiliates National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) are also using the day-long strike to call attention to the lack of progress in wage talks. NUM is negotiating with the Chamber of Mines in gold sectors talks, and is also bargaining for workers in the precious mineral. NUMSA has been stalemated in pay talks in the metal, automotive and engineering sectors.

South African ICEM Affiliates Lead Mass Strike

IGBCE, ICEM&rsquo;s Germany affiliate, achieved mutually-accepted labour terms for the chemicals sector 16 June for workers in western Germany. The agreement with chemical employers&rsquo; association BAVC meets IGBCE&rsquo;s pay goals as a result of recent productivity increases and exceeds German inflation of 1.6%. A general wage increase of 2.7% was won, plus a single payout of 1.2% of a month&rsquo;s salary multiplied by 19. IGBCE bargains for 550,000 workers in chemicals.
IGBCE achieved an increase in the number of trainee or apprenticeship positions in both 2006 and 2007, and the fixed weekly work-time regulation was held at 37.5 hours. Ongoing discussions will occur on making special improvements for trade union members, and talks covering eastern German chemical workers also are in progress.

IGBCE, Chemical Employers Agree to Terms in Germany

Archive

World's Unions Back Fiji Freedom Call

Korean General Strike Draws World Union Support

Unions Slam Sri Lankan Decrees

World Unions Set Targets For Global Agreements

Turkish Tyre Strike Banned

Australian Workers Welcome Rio Tinto Peace Call

Mines, Energy Minister Appointed South Africa's Deputy President

UK Unions, Imerys Agree to Re-start Pension Talks

South African ICEM Affiliates Lead Mass Strike

IGBCE, Chemical Employers Agree to Terms in Germany

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