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Civil unrest has gripped Panama now for two weeks, following the cold-blooded murder on 12 February of a leader of a construction workers&rsquo; union. Members of the National Union of Workers in the Construction and Similar Industries (SUNTRACS) were protesting in the Caribbean port city of Col&oacute;n over inadequate health, safety, and hygiene on the job, when student-leader Al Iromi Smith was shot in the back by a police officer. 
 
The killing, the third by police or agents of a yellow construction union of SUNTRACS members since last August, brought tens of thousands of protesters to the streets in several Panamanian cities between 13-16 February. Those protests continued last week, as SUNTRACS members and their allies passed circulars, with their demands printed, on major avenues in Panama City, Col&oacute;n, and other cities.
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On 16 February, Panama&rsquo;s President, Mart&iacute;n Torrijos, issued a decree calling for more enforcement and safeguards inside the country&rsquo;s booming construction market. But that decree did not go far enough in meeting building workers&rsquo; demands. In a one-year period to January 2008, 29 construction workers have died on the job, mostly from falls off high-rise buildings that are under construction. 
 
The Global Union Federation, Building and Wood Workers&rsquo; International (BWI), immediately lodged a stern protest over the assassination of Smith, which reportedly occurred as he was entering a medical centre for treatment following street clashes with police. BWI also launched a letter-writing drive to Torrijos and National Police Commander, Rolando Mirones. 
 
Some 30 or more protesters were severely injured in the clashes, with reports of 700 construction workers being detained. SUNTRACS said national police raided construction sites in the days following the 12 February death of Smith, arresting building worker activists and holding them in isolation. The government did arrest the police officer charged in the shooting, as well as another officer who witnessed the killing. 
 
At Smith&rsquo;s funeral, on 19 February, SUNTRACS leaders said the government and employers&rsquo; association still must meet wage demands and impose price freezes on living essentials, such as food, fuel, and housing. A Panamanian growth rate surpassing 10% has caused a 2007 inflation rate of 6.4%, with wages left far behind. 
 

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The union is also demanding the dismissal of Interior Minister Daniel Delgado Diamante, a former Noriega aide who is accused of suppressing protests, using strong-armed tactics, means since his appointment last year. They also seek the removal of Police Commander Mirones. SUNTRACS will meet again tomorrow, 26 February, with government leaders and the building employers&rsquo; association in attempts to resolve differences. 
 
Meanwhile, following a mass meeting of SUNTRACS members on 23 February in Panama City, the union will partner with a coalition grouping, the National Front for the Defence of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO), in calling two warning marches &ndash; Thursday, 28 February, and again on 13 March &ndash; which would serve as a precursor for a national strike if workers&rsquo; demands are not met by the government and employers.

Strife, Trade Union Deaths Caused by Unsafe Work Conditions in Panama

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With majority support, Eastern Canadian pulp and paper union officers voted to enter talks a full year early in efforts to preserve job security and find solutions to the forestry crisis in Canada. Meeting in Montr&eacute;al, Quebec, last week, 250 local union leaders of ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers (CEP) Union, from both the East and the West of Canada, drew up common strategies on bargaining agendas. 
 
CEP and the lead company chosen in the East, Canadian-based AbitibiBowater, will begin talks on 2 March, 13 months before the expiry of labour agreements in the East. CEP will be seeking a contract extension in these talks.
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CEP represents 5,500 AbitibiBowater workers in about 15 eastern Canadian pulp and paper mills. The bargaining pattern set there will then be used for contract extensions at other pulp and paper companies in the East, which employ another 20,000 paperworkers. 
 
In the West, contracts at CEP-represented mills expire on 1 April 2008. CEP President Dave Coles said key issues in both East and West negotiations will be job security, probing operational processes in order to achieve productivity gains, and contract term lengths.
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Coles said the challenges in these talks will be to find modern ways to enhance productivity, without wage and benefit cuts. &ldquo;This will not be done by making economic cuts in our collective agreements,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We think it is better to optimize productivity than to cut wages.&rdquo; 
 
Pulp and paper local unions in both parts of Canada are currently under five-year labour accords, with the ones in the East due to expire on 1 April 2009.

Canadian Paperworkers Vote to Enter Eastern Talks Early

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American trade union leaders have vowed to continue blocking the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in the US Congress, following a two-hour meeting on 13 February in Bogot&aacute; with President &Aacute;lvaro Uribe and Attorney General Mario Iguar&aacute;n Arana. That is because the Colombian government gave them no guarantee that justice would be served over trade union murders and human rights abuses. 
 
The US union leaders, representing national labour centre AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers (USW), and Communications Workers&rsquo; of America (CWA), met on 12 February with a panel from Colombian national centres CUT, CTC, and CGT. The Colombian unionists urged the American labour leaders to oppose the free-trade agreement until Colombia takes uncompromising action to halt trade union violence, and bring those responsible to justice. 
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The American delegation was composed of AFL-CIO Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson, CWA President Larry Cohen, and USW Legal Counsel Dan Kovalik. The trade unionists told Uribe that his 2005 reconciliation act, the Justice and Peace Law, has failed. They urged him to take sharper measures to halt the judicial impunity that Colombia is granting the murderers of trade unionists.
The USW said 443 trade unionists have been assassinated since Uribe took office in 2002. Although the number of killings in 2007 was down to 38, five murders have already occurred in 2008. The USW&rsquo;s Kovalik said only 3% of these murders have been successfully prosecuted to conviction. 
 
Over a 21-period in the South American country, from 1986 to the close of 2007, 2,557 trade unionists have been assassinated. Representatives from the union Unite in the UK also participated in the Colombia trip earlier this month.

Unions Will Continue to Block US-Colombia Trade Pact Due to Trade Union Murders, Impunity

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Four French unions are awaiting a meeting by the country&rsquo;s Work Minister to unravel bad-faith bargaining practices by the Plastics Federation, an employers&rsquo; grouping. In joint social talks on 1 February, which were inconclusive, the association indicated it wanted to break from a 2004 protocol over wages. 
 
Unions CGT-FO, CFDT, CFTC, and CFE-CGC filed a stern protest with French Work Minister Xavier Bertrand, and the unions are expecting a meeting. They also have alerted workers in the plastics industry of the dispute, and the unions said they would look &ldquo;very seriously&rdquo; at all forms of action to resist the employers&rsquo; stated aim. 
 
The Plastics Federation wants to re-calculate the formula for which wages are based on, as arranged in the social agreement that came in 2004. The unions charge the federation with deliberately using this issue to place a major impediment in current labour-management talks. They say employers&rsquo; are discarding several years of constructive bargaining by seeking a wage formula recalculation.
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&ldquo;The Fedechimie CGT-FO denounces and condemns this grave lack of respect for signed agreements, a fact that will lead to reduced purchasing power for workers,&rdquo; said the union in a statement. The four unions are adamant for the Work Ministry to find a solution to the &ldquo;irresponsible attitude&rdquo; brought on by the Plastics Federation. The talks affect 155,000 French workers in various plastics industries. 
 
Similarly, in the French glass sector, social talks have also been hindered by unreasonable employer demands. Negotiations broke down in December 2007, and five French labour unions brought the impasse to ministerial level for government intervention on 18 February. The unions at the table in the French glass sector negotiations are FCE-CFDT, CGT-Verre et C&eacute;ramique, FO-Chimie, CFE-CGC-Chimie, and CFTC.

French Unions Condemn Plastics Industry for Seeking Protocol Break to 155,000 Workers

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The President of Uruguay, Tabar&eacute; V&aacute;zquez, opened the 7th Festival of S&aacute;balo with a greeting of welcome to the ICEM, which will hold its World Conference for the Pulp and Paper Industries from 8-10 December 2008 in Montevideo, Uruguay. 
 
V&aacute;zquez made the statement while congratulating ICEM affiliate, the Central Union of Paper and Pulp Workers (CUOPYC), at a 7 February social event celebrating the S&aacute;balo festival in Juan Lacaze. CUOPYC used the occasion to mark 2008 as the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed on 10 December 1948.
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Uruguay President Tabar&eacute; V&aacute;zquez (right) 
and CUOPYC President Walter Silva (centre)
&ldquo;It is a great challenge for CUOPYC, but it is also an excellent opportunity,&rdquo; President V&aacute;zquez said of the ICEM conference. &ldquo;Not just for CUOPYC, but for all in Uruguay, and the national government has committed to organize this event. We declare the organization of this meeting to be of national interest.&rdquo; 
 
V&aacute;zquez commended the union for using proceeds from the festival for improvements to the Olof Palme Childcare Centre, a 20-year-old facility built in cooperation with the ICEM-affiliated Swedish Union, Svenska Pappers. V&aacute;zquez noted that Palme, the late Swedish Prime Minister who was senselessly gunned down in 1986 on a Stockholm street, welcomed to Sweden many Uruguayans in exile and &ldquo;supported the solidarity of struggle of the Uruguayan people to recover their democracy.&rdquo;
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The Swedish-Uruguayan project is located near the FANAPEL pulp and paper mill in Juan Lacaze, west of the capital city Montevideo. CUOPYC used the S&aacute;balo celebration to mark the importance of community involvement, as enshrined in Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, &ldquo;Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.&rdquo; 
 
CUOPYC President Walter Silva brought that to the festival in his address. He noted that in 1906, the first cooperative of consumers was organised in Juan Lacaze. And in the following years, he said many community projects were undertaken, including construction of the Olaf Palme Centre in 1988. He paid kind tribute to CUOPYC Secretary-General Omar Diaz, a workers&rsquo; leader, who was unable to make the 7 February event due to a severe illness.

Uruguay’s Pulp/Paper Union, CUOPYC, Lives ‘Declaration of Human Rights’ Spirit

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Last week proved to be a deadly for South African mining company Gold Fields Ltd. Fourteen miners were killed, including nine on 1 May at the firm&rsquo;s South Deep Mine near Randfontein, in the northeast province of Gauteng. 
 
Those nine were killed in an inexcusable safety breach that saw a chain attached to an elevator cage snap, causing death when the cage plummeted 60 metres inside a mine shaft. Eight of the nine were contract workers, including one woman. Those eight were employed by the subcontracting firm, Murray and Roberts.
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Two days earlier, on 29 April, three miners were killed and one seriously injured, this time inside another shaft of the South Deep complex. They were killed and injured by a rock fall caused by a seismic event. Also on a same day, a driller&rsquo;s assistant employed by Gold Fields was killed at the Twin Shafts mine from a rock slide. 
 
The week&rsquo;s spate of accidents caused South Africa&rsquo;s second largest gold producer to suspend mining operations in the country, a move mandated by the Department of Energy and Minerals in order to secure a full review of safety procedures. 
 
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) General Secretary Frans Baleni said branch unions at Gold Fields will observe a full day of mourning over the tragedies. NUM Regional Chairperson Thamsanqa Joko said the company is not doing enough to protect workers. &ldquo;We feel that more should have been done to improve safety conditions,&rdquo; he said in a South African newspaper.
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&nbsp;NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni 
 

And the country&rsquo;s Minister of Minerals and Energy, Buyelwa Sonjica, who met with NUM leaders and management at South Deep following the elevator collapse, was sharp with her criticism of the company. &ldquo;I see it as gross negligence, which can only be due to lack of maintenance.&rdquo; She called it &ldquo;inexcusable&rdquo; and promised those responsible will be held accountable, even if it means prosecution. 
 
Following the near tragedy of 3,200 miners who were trapped at Harmony Gold&rsquo;s Elandsrand Mine last October, the South Africa government ordered a full safety audit of all the country&rsquo;s mines. That audit is expected to be complete by the end of May 2008.

14 Killed in Gold Fields’ South African Mines Last Week

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A hunger strike inside one of the bauxite mines of the world&rsquo;s largest aluminium producer &ndash; United Company RusAl &ndash; again occurred last week, following the company&rsquo;s refusal to engage in meaningful talks with the Miners&rsquo; Independent Trade Union of Russia. 
 
A ten-day strike at the mine in the Sverdlovsk Region of the North Ural Mountains ended on 4 April after RusAl&rsquo;s Sevuralboksitruda (SUBR) subsidiary pledged to begin earnest talks with the union. That dispute was reported by the ICEM on 7 April.
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On 13 April, the strike flared up again, when 75 miners resumed the hunger strike inside the Krasnaya Shapochka, or Little Red Riding Hood Mine. The ICEM affiliate, Russian Trade Union of Metal Workers in Nickel, Cobalt, and Platinoids Industries, asked the ICEM to intervene on behalf of the Miners&rsquo; Independent Trade Union. A letter was then dispatched to SUBR President and General Manager Alexander Bulygin. 
 
The 40 miners who remained inside the mine at week&rsquo;s end surfaced following a 19 April meeting of 3,500 miners on the grounds of the company&rsquo;s Kalyinskaya mine. The meeting produced a set of 16 demands that are now being passed to management.

Russian Bauxite Strike Again Flares, Then Ends at RusAl’s Krasnaya Shapochka Mine

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Strikes and protests by contract workers in Chile have shut over one-half of production at the world&rsquo;s largest copper producer, Codelco. The strikes and road blockades began on 16 April and intensified over the weekend as access to the state-run company&rsquo;s second largest mine, El Tiniente, was blocked. 
 
Contract workers, some 28,000 in number that are employed by a multitude of companies providing food, transportation, and other services to Codelco&rsquo;s five mines in northern and southern Chile, are firmly behind their union, Confederaci&oacute;n de Trabajadores del Cobre (CTC), in demands that Codelco implement the agreed upon terms that ended a 37-day strike by workers last summer.
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The strike appears to have the support of the main miners&rsquo; union, Federaci&oacute;n de Trabajadores del Cobre (FTC), which has demanded that Codelco and the government halt all mining until the total security of all miners can be assured. Codelco employs about 15,000 full-time miners. 
 
At El Tiniente, the world&rsquo;s largest underground copper mine south of the capital city of Santiago, contract workers blocked roads beginning Friday evening, 18 April, preventing miners from entering the mine for two work turns. Reportedly, mining resumed yesterday afternoon. 
 
Since 16 April, copper mining and processing has been completely closed at Codelco&rsquo;s Andina and El Salvador mines in the north of the country due to road blockades. The industrial actions are the third set of strikes by contract workers of Codelco since January 2006, when they launched a 17-day strike. This round of action comes shortly after Codelco negotiated wage increases for miners of FTC and other mining unions.
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The strikes by CTC do have the support of the main national labour centre, the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile (CUT). At a forum in Santiago late last week, CUT President Arturo Mart&iacute;nez said it is Codelco and the government&rsquo;s responsibility to negotiate directly with the contract workers. He added that private companies serving Codelco take advantage of legal loopholes to avoid negotiating with the CTC, or other workers&rsquo; representatives. 
 
Codelco has maintained throughout &ndash; including again last week &ndash; that it is not responsible for negotiating with workers of subcontracting firms.

Contract Workers Again Strike Codelco’s Copper Mines in Chile for Fulfilment of Terms

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ICEM affiliate &Ccedil;imse-İş, the proud Turkish union representing cement, ceramics, pottery, and glass workers, averted an industry-wide strike recently by agreeing to a three-year labour agreement with the Cement Employers Association (CEIS) recently. The new agreement, extending back to 1 January 2008 and lasting to 31 December 2010, covers 6,000 union members at 46 cement production facilities. 
 
It calls for a first year wage increase of 12%. The second year pay increase will be pegged to the nation&rsquo;s inflation rate, while the third year increase was set at the inflation rate plus three percent.
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According to the Turkish Institution for Statistics, the current inflation rate for consumer prices is 8.39% and wholesale prices are at 5.94%. The Turkish Central Bank is predicting a 2008 inflation rate of 7.9% for consumer prices. 
 
The negotiations were long and arduous. &Ccedil;imse-İş was on the verge of a national strike before coming together with CEIS on the new agreement. 
 
In addition, &Ccedil;imse-İş won for union members a set of bonuses amounting to 120 days of salary. Also, benefits such as the night-shift premium, overtime pay, food allowance, social assistance package, and marriage, birth, death, and natural disaster payments were increased between 50-to-75%. 
 
The ICEM extends congratulations to Turkish cement workers, and to &Ccedil;imse-İş leaders for posting these gains in the industry.

Turkish Cement Workers, Behind Trade Union Çimse-İş, Achieve New Labour Pact

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Unite the union, ICEM&rsquo;s largest British affiliate, will take 48-hour strike action next week, 27-28 April, at Ineos Group Holdings&rsquo; Grangemouth petrochemicals complex near Falkirk, Scotland. 
 
The action will come due to company intentions to close the final pension scheme to new workers, and planned imposition of other adverse work terms. The polyolefins and oil derivatives plants at Grangemouth employ 1,200 workers, the vast majority of them Unite members.
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In late March, workers balloted for strike action. That vote passed with a 98% affirmative for industrial action. 
 
Unite is hopeful negotiations will resume this week, but will only return to the bargaining table if the company signals it&rsquo;s intent to move away from shutting the pension scheme to new hires and removing the proposed and negative work terms. In talks last Friday, 18 April, Ineos refused to budge from its proposals, causing United to issue the strike notice. 
 
&ldquo;The company is profitable, and the pension scheme in its present form is well funded and affordable,&rdquo; said United National Secretary Phil McNulty, who also is an ICEM Vice President. &ldquo;The changes to the scheme Ineos are proposing are unreasonable, unnecessary, and have forced our members at Grangemouth to take industrial action for the first time,&rdquo; he added.
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Ineos is seeking to withdraw &pound;40 million from the pension fund, and Unite said other changes at the 200,000-barrels-per-day refinery could cost workers up to &pound;10,000 annually. Grangemouth manufactures petrochemicals for uses in all manners of transport fuels and other uses. 
 
Since the strike notice was issues three days ago, the company has begun shutdown procedures at the complex near Glasgow. The shutdown, 48-hour strike, and subsequent start-up are expected to crimp fuel supplies across Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland. Ineos operates the petrochemicals complex with only a week&rsquo;s supply of refined fuels as reserves. 
 
Ineos was created in 1998 through a management buyout. In December 2005, the UK-based company purchased Grangemouth from BP&rsquo;s Innovene chemicals division. The US$9 billion deal also brought the company petrochemicals plants in Lav&eacute;ra, France, as well as seven chemical manufacturing operations in Europe and nine in North America.

Unite Ready to Strike Giant Petrochemicals Complex in Scotland

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