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Global worker No1 2022

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	The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) is demanding that labour and regulatory law in the province of Ontario be toughened in the wake of the social calamity perpetrated by Caterpillar Inc. in the recent lockout/closure of a rail electric diesel factory in the south-western provincial city of London.

	With that nearly all labour law in Canada is governed by the provinces, CAW demanded in a 29 February letter to Labour Minister Linda Jeffrey that Ontario toughen its labour statutes as remedy to lax investment regulations. Specifically, the CAW demands that more powers be granted the Ontario Labour Relations Board to stamp out bad-faith bargaining strategies.

	The CAW is campaigning for a stronger and more modernized labour code in Ontario because of Caterpillar&rsquo;s subsidiary, Electro-Motive Diesel, blackmailing workers and a community in choosing between non-liveable wages and a major plant closure. (See prior <a href="-Caterpillar-to-Close-Canadian-Train-Locomotive-Plant">ICEM report</a> here.)

	&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 100px;height: 145px" width="390" />&nbsp;

	Ken Lewenza

	In the letter, CAW President Ken Lewenza said, &ldquo;The company&rsquo;s unjustifiable behaviour &ndash; and the resulting devastation now being brought to bear on workers and the community &ndash; has touched a nerve with Canadians and triggered broad public support.&rdquo;

	The CAW is proposing powers of expedited interest arbitration in pitched labour disputes, as well as new provisions to prevent employers from evading collective agreements by using a lockout.

	Also put forward is a ban on scab replacement workers during a dispute, and restoring workers&rsquo; plant closing rights to negotiate adjustment plans. The CAW also says fairness demands the lengthening of time for giving plant closing notice, and a minimum two weeks&rsquo; pay for each year of service, with elimination of the five-year service tie-in.

	The <a href="http://www.caw.ca/en/10986.htm">CAW letter</a> also calls for an Industrial Inquiry Commission, as stipulated in Section 37, Ontario Labour Relations Act, in order to investigate Caterpillar carnage on workers in the province and the city of London.

	&ldquo;The Caterpillar debacle demonstrates all too well the ease with which an employer can stall out the negotiation process, bargain in bad faith with impunity and manufacture a dispute in an attempt to evade contractual obligations,&rdquo; Lewenza stated.

	&ldquo;Caterpillar did not misjudge or misinterpret Ontario&rsquo;s labour laws; rather, they understood them all too well, and exploited the laws&rsquo; weaknesses as a key part of their overall strategy.&rdquo;

CAW Demands Change in Ontario’s Labour Laws

USW Local 9700, one of the first unions to respond at the time of the 30 December lockout and representing Alcoa ABI workers at B&eacute;cancour, Qu&eacute;bec, voted unanimously to draw C$25-per-week from their paychecks, donating C$25,000 weekly to Local 9490.<img alt="" src="" style="width: 140px;height: 68px" width="390" />

	Locked-out members of Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos &nbsp;d&rsquo;Alma Local 9490, the United Steelworkers (USW), took their fight against Rio Tinto Alcan to Qu&eacute;bec&rsquo;s largest city, last Friday, 17 February, where Alcan CEO Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute; was part of a spurious forum on youth in employment, sponsored by the Board of Trade Metropolitan Montr&eacute;al.

	Some 200 of 780 metalworkers from Alcan&rsquo;s Alma aluminium smelter in the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region, Qu&eacute;bec, boarded buses and travelled 460 kilometres to Montr&eacute;al for a noisy protest at this business luncheon, their first manifestation away from the 488,000-tonne-per-year smelter. They were joined by another 100 steelworkers from Montr&eacute;al, and some 100 college students who joined the USW rally in mocking protest to a future&nbsp;youth theme that now sees business teaming with the Liberal provincial government of Qu&eacute;bec to raise their university tuition fees.

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 248px;height: 161px" width="390" />

	17 February Manifestation, Montr&eacute;al

	This &ldquo;Hot Issues@Lunch&rdquo; theme was billed to &ldquo;foster the success of the next generation of Qu&eacute;becers.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma found deep irony in Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute; participating, since Alcan in Alma is using a lock-out to replace C$36-an-hour permanent jobs with outsourced and presumably younger workers at C$16-an-hour.

	C&ocirc;t&eacute; was not expected to address the lockout at the hot-plate lunch, but when pressed by reporters on the sidelines, she called the dispute a &ldquo;regional issue&rdquo; and &ldquo;it will be settled in Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean&rdquo; by managers who &ldquo;have my full confidence.&rdquo;

	Earlier last week, when the lockout entered week seven and with the remote mining and manufacturing region starting to feel the economic effects of a lost wage base, one such manager told Reuters he &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t put a timeline to (talks restarting) right now because nothing is scheduled.&rdquo;

	&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 199px;height: 159px" width="390" />&nbsp;

	Dan Roy and Marc Maltais

	foto: France Paradis/Le-Lac-St-Jean

	With aluminium prices hovering now at very low, the Alma lockout serves as a convenient strategy to restrict supply to lift prices. It also fits Rio Tinto&rsquo;s strategy of divesting and devaluing Alcan by C$8.9 billion in view of its US$39 billion purchase of the Canadian company in 2007, although the modern and high-tech tooled Alma smelter, with its low-cost hydroelectric supply, will not likely be jettisoned.

	Perhaps this should have been a more apt business theme to the Board of Trade elite last week, and it certainly best explains the anger of metalworkers and students alike gathered on the other side of the barricades. In this vein &ndash; with Rio Tinto&rsquo;s share price dropping &ndash; it is worth mentioning that C&ocirc;t&eacute; herself exhibited a timely corporate mentality last week by shedding 3,671 shares of Rio Tinto to pocket US$213,500, money not likely to find its way to Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean.

	USW District Five Director Daniel Roy addressed the disparity between full-time, family-supporting jobs in the region to the sub-contract and lower-wage jobs that Rio Tinto is trying create with the. &ldquo;Accepting this would cause a dramatic downward spiral not only for the workers but for members of the community, which would see income, local business sales and tax revenues drop precipitously.&rdquo;

	USW Local 9490 President Marc Maltais added, &ldquo;By using subcontractors to do the work of union members, we are asked to concede on behalf of future generations. This is an attack on our children and grandchildren.&rdquo;

	The buses departed Montr&eacute;al late on Friday afternoon for the return trip to Alma, but first stopped at a plant-gate demonstration in Sorel, Qu&eacute;bec, where workers and members of ICEM-affiliated FIM-CSN (Conf&eacute;d&eacute;ration des Syndicats Nationaux) at a Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium metal powders plant lent their support. This stop again depicts the long-erected barriers between Canadian trade unions that Local 9490 is erasing inside this lockout.

	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" src="" style="width: 114px;height: 160px" width="390" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

	Rio Tinto Alcan CEO, Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute;

	With Canada currently undergoing an unprecedented rash of corporate hostility, it is notable to witness trade unions and other groups galvanising behind victimised union workers.

	Last week, members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 2301 at a Rio Tinto Alcan aluminium smelter in Kitimat, British Colombia, voted to take C$1-an-hour of their pay and donate it to &nbsp;Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos&nbsp; d&rsquo;Alma Local 9490. That represents C$60,000 per month.

	On 8 February, the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada contributed C$25,000 to the Alma metalworkers, and a day later the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) contributed C$10,000. USW Local 9700, one of the first unions to respond at the time of the 30 December lockout and representing Alcoa ABI workers at B&eacute;cancour, Qu&eacute;bec, voted unanimously to draw C$25-per-week from their paychecks, donating C$25,000 weekly to Local 9490.

	Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos&nbsp; d&rsquo;Alma&rsquo;s&nbsp; journey to Montr&eacute;al to confront Rio Tinto Alcan CEO Jacynth C&ocirc;t&eacute; is just the first sally outward. This week Local 9490 leaders will visit Rio Tinto&rsquo;s borax miners in California, where members of ICEM affiliate International Longshore &amp; Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 30 defended themselves courageously in a Rio Tinto-imposed lockout. And they&rsquo;ll follow that solidarity visit with to Australia to meet with unions represented Rio Tinto there.

	On March 31, a day after the ICEM North American region meets in Alma, a manifestation will occur there with scores of global trade union leaders attending. And on 1 April, a workshop will occur in Alma to verse an exact fightback strategy against Rio Tinto on the global level.&nbsp;

Locked-out Alcan Workers Take Dispute to Canadian Business Doorstep

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	&nbsp;

	Job security and job creation was the foundation behind a new two-year national labour agreement between social partners in Denmark. That came together in marathon bargaining over the weekend, 11-12 February, in framework talks for 240,000 Danish manufacturing workers and 6,000 enterprises, the latter represented by Dansk Industri.

	The trade unions, led by the eight making up Co-Industri, including 3F, Dansk Metal and HK/Pivat, in concert with the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), set an agenda of wage moderation, instead focusing on winning excellent and precedent-setting job preservation protections such as training, seniority, and reduced work hours at full pay for both old and young workers.

	This industrial social accord now establishes the parameters for other work sectors. The agreement will run from 1 March 2012 to 1 March 2014. The national industrial agreement did establish minimum wage guideposts, but exact wage increases will now be negotiated at local levels and inside company agreements.

	The framework agreement grants training at full pay with business downturns and when reductions in work time occur, and it also allows older workers to reduce their working time within five years of retirement by continuing their income levels through salaries and partial pension benefits. Workers will also have the option to tap into current pension plans as a supplement to salaries.

	A key element in the new agreement is an additional &euro;.05-per-hour worked will be added to the national Industrial Training fund.

	Employee discretion in taking training options increases from two weeks to six weeks, in some cases, and full seniority is granted to workers when they are called back from lay-offs within nine months. Previously, it was six months. As well, paid sick leave occurs after six months on a job rather than the previous nine months.

	The new pact is also kinder to lower-income earners and gives better pay-outs when such workers are laid off. Parental leave was made more flexible and added pension accrual was put in place for weekend, holiday or extra work performed.

	The recommended minimum wage increase is &euro;.18-per-hour effective 1 March, and the same amount again on 1 March 2013. A pay supplement of 1.4% each year is available for performing difficult work, and apprentices, trainees and interns will get a 2.25% pay hike in each year.

	The bargaining, which began in early January, nearly reached dispute when HK/Privat , the Commercial and Clerical Workers&rsquo; Union, sought to drop the 50% benchmark regarding number of staff needed before a collective agreement takes effect. A compromise was struck that gives employers the opportunity to sign labour agreements without the 50% threshold and HK/Privat coverage also was expanded to include administrative staff working as trainees and college students.

	The agreement was widely praised in Denmark as the necessary building block to restore some 80,000 industrial and manufacturing jobs that have been lost in the country since the onset of the financial crisis.

Enlightened Industrial Labour Pact Set in Place in Denmark for 240,000 Workers

<img alt="" src="" style="width: 120px;height: 59px" width="390" />

	&nbsp;

	The ICEM &ndash; along with the European Mine, Chemical, Energy, Federation (EMCEF) &ndash; will march in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, tomorrow, 16 November, in support of 5,200 British workers who are seriously threatened by Unilever with closure of a final salary pension scheme. The ICEM and EMCEF will join European workers of the world&rsquo;s third largest consumer goods company in protest at the company&rsquo;s Rotterdam headquarters.

	The message &ndash; Unilever, Don&rsquo;t Make Workers Pay for Your Profits &ndash; will specifically target Unilever CEO Paul Polman for his 2010-11 salary and bonus pay-out of &euro;8 million. Unilever is out to slash between 20-40% of pension earnings to UK workers represented by trade unions Unite the Union, GMB and the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers&rsquo; (USDAW).

	<img alt="" src="" style="width: 141px;height: 159px" width="390" />

	Jennie Formby

	&ldquo;Executive greed and compensation must be challenged,&rdquo; stated United National Officer Jennie Formby. Polman saw a 50% increase in his total earnings from 2010 to 2011, some 285 times that of the average Unilever worker.

	The Rotterdam manifestation comes just days two weeks after Unilever posted a strong set of financial numbers in its latest results and three weeks after UK workers from several Unilever sites descended on Davos, Switzerland, where Polman served as one of the co-chairs at the World Economic Forum.

	The three British unions have engaged in two rounds of industrial actions against Unilever at 11 plants, the latest coming with 11 days of rolling strike actions that ended on 28 January. Unilever UK management did finally agree to meet with the unions on 9 February with the assistance of UK&rsquo;s Advisory, Conciliation and Mediation Services (ACAS), but the company is still adamant on closing the final salary pension scheme effective 1 July 2012.

	Unilever instead intends to implement a pension scheme based on career average earnings. Formby said Polman&rsquo;s vision of doubling Unilever&rsquo;s revenue stream over the next ten years and creating &ldquo;sustainable living&rdquo; is disingenuous in view of cutting workers&rsquo; pensions.

	Tomorrow&rsquo;s manifestation will begin at 12h00 at Unilever&rsquo;s offices at Weena 455, Rotterdam. The ICEM also will raise concerns over the 5 February closure due to a labour dispute at Unilever&rsquo;s Basamadi, Nepal, factory. The dispute at that facility, which produces Lux and Lifebuoy soaps and Pepsodent and Close-Up toothpastes, is close to a resolve this week after intervention from the Nepalese government.

Unilever Rotterdam Protest Pits Corporate Compensation vs. Workers’ Pension Cuts

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
Although wage negotiations will continue this week at Zambia&rsquo;s largest copper mine, a strike there on 3-4 January ended early last Thursday when the Minister of Labour, Sport, Youth and Gender directly intervened to correct glaring mineworker exploitation. 
 
Some 2,000 miners, the majority represented by ICEM affiliate Mineworkers&rsquo; Union of Zambia (MUZ), took strike action against Canadian-based First Quantum Minerals Ltd. at the 231,000-tonne-per-year Kansanshi mine after negotiations slowed late in 2011. 
<img src="" width="190" height="138" alt="" />
Workers returned to jobs on 5 January after Labour Minister Fackson Shamenda, MUZ President Oswell Munyenyembe, management representatives, and an officer of the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers (NUMAW) brokered a deal late the night before. 
 
The deal is reported to displace short-term contracts with permanent and pensionable conditions of work, as well as a company pledge to review 12-hour work shifts. Miners are seeking an eight-hour day. The brokered settlement also saw First Quantum agree to award a 13th pay check beginning this year. 
 
Negotiations for a general increase in salaries will occur this week. Workers through their unions seek a 20% hike, while management has offered only 9%. The open-cast Kansanshi operation, begun in 2005, is First Quantum&rsquo;s flagship mine and began expanding last year to where it will produce 400,000 tonnes annually of copper concentrates and copper cathode by 2015. Construction of a new concentrator also is underway this year and is scheduled for commissioning in 2014.

Two-Day Strike at Zambian Kansanshi Mine Ends with Permanent Contracts

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
Thousands of trade unionists around the world are writing to Prime Minister Lucas Papademos of Greece, calling on the government to drop charges against a dozen members of the GENOP/DEI trade union of power workers, including union president Nikos Photopoulos. The group will make their first court appearance at 9am tomorrow, 10 January, charged with protesting against the harsh austerity measures imposed on the Greek people by the International Monetary Fund and European Union technocrats. 
<img src="" width="200" height="136" alt="" />
Nikos Photopoulos
During extremely difficult economic times in Greece, the austerity package sets out to once again make workers pay for a crisis they did not cause. The specific austerity measure that the GENOP/DEI activists are charged with protesting against is a new arbitrary property tax which is a flat rate for all, regardless of income or ability to pay. Those who refuse to pay or are unable to pay the regressive tax have their power supply to their homes cut off. For fighting for these families to remain connected to the power supply, and conducting a peaceful occupation of a government office,&nbsp;the trade unionists now face up to five years in prison. 
 
Support the campaign for these charges to be dropped and send a message through <a href="http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=1231">LabourStart</a> here.&nbsp; 
 
The GSEE trade union confederation is leading the calls inside Greece for president Photopoulos and his comrades to be free from all charges. 
 
View the <a href="http://strongerunions.org/2012/01/09/greek-trade-unionists-say-thanks-for-solidarity-messages/">message of thanks</a> from GENOP President Nikos Photopoulos for all the international support on the UK TUC &ldquo;Stronger Unions&rdquo; website here.&nbsp;

Greek Trade Union Leaders in Court Tomorrow, Facing Jail for Protesting Austerity

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
Workers employed by Rio Tinto Alcan, the global mining giant&rsquo;s aluminium producer, were locked off their jobs in the Canadian province of Qu&eacute;bec on 1 January in a dispute centering on the company&rsquo;s ceaseless subcontracting. Some 780 metalworkers, represented by Syndicat des M&eacute;tallos d&rsquo;Alma Local 9490, affiliated to the United Steelworkers (USW), were thrown off their jobs at contract expiration at one of the company&rsquo;s most modern plants, the Alma, Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region, Qu&eacute;bec smelter. 
 
The three bargaining units of the union voted to reject a new contact late in December after the company refused to limit subcontracting. The lockout at the end of a prior five-year contract comes before USW Local 9490 had even submitted demands regarding salary adjustments, vacations, or benefits. 
 
The three bargaining committees are seeking a floor of 750 unionised jobs at the Alma facility and a halt to subcontracting that reduces full-time, stable jobs to levels below that. In recent years, since Rio Tinto purchased Canada-based Alcan for US$39 billion in 2007, Alma management has used each worker retirement and other reductions in force as a means to reduce costs and manpower by contracting out more and more work. 
<img alt="" src="" width="105" height="160" />
USW District Five Director Daniel Roy
Last year, USW District Five Director Daniel Roy said Rio Tinto has removed some C$7.4 million in salaries and purchasing power alone from the resource-rich region. Roy and leaders of Local 9490 will hold a press conference in Alma on 13 January to highlight the negative economic impact of the lockout and Alcan&rsquo;s insistence on unlimited contracting out rights. 
 
The union states that the average C$36-an-hour unionized wage rate is reduced to about C$16 with each subcontract employee. 
 
On 3 January, Alcan succeeded in Qu&eacute;bec Superior Court in obtaining a temporary injunction limiting the number of pickets at the main plant gate to 20. Locked-out picketers must remain at least 500 feet from the entrance. A full hearing on that injunction will happen tomorrow, 10 January. 
 
Rio Tinto Alcan announced force majeure at the aluminium smelter on 3 January, stating that it would operate only 122 of 432 electrolytic production cells. Alcan said it would operate at one-third capacity with use of 200 management and other personnel. The USW has lodged a complaint with the provincial labour board that Alcan is violating Qu&eacute;bec legislation by using scab or replacement workers during a labour dispute. 
 
The Alma operation at full capacity can produce 438,000 tonnes annually and in 2010 Alma accounted for 11% of Rio Tinto&rsquo;s global aluminium production. Rio Tinto Alcan operates two smelters in the Saguenay-lac-Saint-Jean region and has a 25% stake in a third, in B&eacute;cancour where Alcoa is the majority partner.

USW Affiliate in Québec Locked Out by Rio Tinto at Aluminium Plant

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
UK mobilisation in front of a second wave of Unilever strikes to begin on 17 January occurs tomorrow when three affiliates of the ICEM and the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers&rsquo; Association (IUF) protest in front of Unilever&rsquo;s London headquarters at 100 Victoria Embankment. 
 
Unite the Union, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), and GMB will conduct the rally beginning at 12 noon on 10 January over the food and consumer products company&rsquo;s insistence on scrapping the final pension scheme for 7,000 workers. Unilever&rsquo;s proposal would gut between 20-40% of pension earnings for one-third of its UK workforce. 
<img alt="" src="" width="241" height="160" />
Unite Battle Bus
Unite will dispatch its &ldquo;battle bus&rdquo; to Unilever&rsquo;s corporate offices tomorrow. It will leave Unite&rsquo;s Holborn Street building at 10h30. The action comes four days after a joint union delegates&rsquo; conference of Unilever worksite leaders met in Liverpool and decided to unleash a second set of strike actions to begin 17 January and to run 12 days. 
 
On 9 December, some 5,000 union members staged a 24-hour work stoppage at 11 Unilever plants in the UK, the first industrial action in UK history at the Anglo-Dutch multinational. The lawful strike saw Unilever bosses retaliate with the petty act of cancelling staff Christmas parties and withdrawing a &pound;15 holiday gift voucher to strikers. 
 
Unilever&rsquo;s gutting of the pension scheme for active workers is further insult by the company, which in 2008 eliminating the pension scheme for new hires. The company and unions negotiated late last week but there was no sign that Unilever would accept a union compromise on the pension scheme. 
<img alt="" src="" width="141" height="159" />
Unite's Jennie Formby
Unite National Officer Jennie Formby said, &ldquo;Our members have dedicated their time and hard work to help Unilever build leading brands. We have shown the company that there is no need to destroy the reputation of a blue chip company because there is a solution on the table if they will talk with the union.&rdquo; 
 
Unilever&rsquo;s factories where strike actions have occurred and where workers will again strike on 17 January are located in Purfleet, Warrington, Trafford Park, Port Sunlight, Wirral, Manchester, Leeds, Glocester, Burton-on-Trent, Chester, and Crumlin. 
 
Unilever produces Dove soap, Marmite, PG Tips, Pot Noodle, Hellman&rsquo;s mayonnaise, and several other consumer products at these plants.

UK Unions Hold Key Unilever Manifestation Before Second Strike Wave 17 January

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
ICEM&rsquo;s two affiliated oil workers&rsquo; unions &ndash; the white-collar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) &ndash; joined the call of Nigeria&rsquo;s two labour federations in a nationwide strike today over the government&rsquo;s sudden 1 January removal of consumer fuel subsidies. 
 
The indefinite strike by Nigerian workers in all sectors was authorized last week by the executive boards of both the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). NUPENG&rsquo;s board approved today&rsquo;s walkout at a meeting of union leaders yesterday, while PENGASSAN&rsquo;s National Executive Council (NEC) gave strike approval on 5 January. 
 
In a statement issued after the NEC meeting in Lagos, PENGASSAN President Babatunde Ogun called government&rsquo;s fuel subsidy removal &ldquo;illegal, hasty, without consultation, and lacking of transparency.&rdquo; The union challenged the government of President Goodluck Jonathan to work on behalf of Nigerian people rather than for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. 
<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="103" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <img alt="" src="" width="98" height="103" />
Both PENGASSAN and NUPENG called on the government to rescind the New Year&rsquo;s Day elimination, roll back fuel prices to 2011 levels, and then engage the unions of Nigeria in honest dialogue. 
 
The lifting of subsidies immediately shot fuel prices up as much as 225% one week ago. It also sparked a price rise in food and transport costs across Nigeria. Many human rights groups and civil liberty organizations began protests last week. Petrol filling stations in many states were blockaded and protests spilled into many roads across the country, blocking traffic. 
 
Even though Nigeria produces about 2.4 million barrels of crude oil, the government is forced to import roughly 70% of its gasoline supply because of inadequate and run down refineries. The country of 160 million people depends on only three operable refineries for retail consumption. 
 
Jonathan acted on the recommendation of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), a body notorious for irregularities and one that has paid billions of naira to so-called &ldquo;brief-case companies&rdquo; and middle men in import subsidies. 
 
Nigeria&rsquo;s National Industrial Court ruled on 6 January that Labour&rsquo;s indefinite strike would be illegal but similarly to a mass national strike in 2003 when a previous government attempted to lift remove fuel subsidies, strikes across the country went ahead today and are expected to continue throughout the week.

Nigerian Oil Workers’ Unions Strike in Fuel Subsidy Removals

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="45" />
The ICEM CAL Mini Guide to Dealing with CAL is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi and Bahasa Indonesian. 
 
The guide gives an overview of what the ICEM and its affiliates around the world are doing to promote permanent, direct employment and at the same time to promote better conditions for CAL workers. It also suggests ways in which unions can build relations with CAL workers, for example by creating a dedicated precarious workers&rsquo; section or rep, or considering the introduction of different membership fee levels and/or an alternate method of dues collection. ICEM affiliates are encouraged to initiate a discussion on CAL within their own unions, and the Guide suggests a number of questions which may help to get these discussions started. 
 
The <a href="http://cal.icem.org/images/documents/ICEM%20Mini%20Guide%20CAL%20HQ.pdf">CAL Mini Guide in English</a> is available here. 
 
The <a href="http://cal.icem.org/images/documents/ICEM%20Mini%20Guide%20CAL%20French.pdf">CAL Mini Guide in French</a> is available here. 
 
The <a href="http://cal.icem.org/images/documents/ICEM%20Mini%20Guide%20Spanish%20HQP.pdf">CAL Mini Guide in Spanish</a> is available here. 
 
The <a href="http://cal.icem.org/images/documents/ICEM%20Mini%20Guide%20CAL%20Portuguese.pdf">CAL Mini Guide in Portuguese</a> is available here. 
 
The <a href="http://cal.icem.org/images/documents/ICEM%20Mini%20Guide%20CAL%20Hindi.pdf">CAL Mini Guide in Hindi</a> is available here. 
 
The <a href="http://cal.icem.org/images/documents/ICEM%20Mini%20Guide%20CAL%20Bahasa.pdf">CAL Mini Guide in Bahasa Indonesian</a> is available here.

ICEM Mini Guide to Dealing with CAL Available in Multiple Languages

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