English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Action Plan 2021-2025

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

Women

Youth

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected Officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Press

In Nepal, the ICEM has been informed that GEFONT&rsquo;s offices have been searched by the police on 18 February. At around 10.30 AM, 15 to 20 policemen entered the building during a union meeting. The police officers searched the premises thoroughly, up to the rooftop, intimidating the trade unionists present and forcing them to leave the building. When they apparently didn&rsquo;t find what they were looking for, the police left, but not without locking up the GEFONT office, taking the key with them. The offices were kept closed for the whole day and the key was only returned in the evening. The ICEM fears that the invasion by the police was in search of particular high-ranking GEFONT leaders, who the ICEM fears are in danger of being arrested. The ICEM wrote to the Nepalese authorities last week, voicing its concern about the labour rights situation in the country after the sudden dismissal of the Nepalese government, and asking for the protection of trade union leaders from arbitrary arrest.

Nepal’s Government Continues Rights Abuses Under Martial Law

ICEM Japanese affiliate UI Zensen&rsquo;s Central Committee has announced it will launch a Spring Offensive this year aimed at achieving basic wage increases. Japanese workers have faced double trouble in terms of battered family finances after years of wage neglect, and heavier tax and social security burdens placed on working class citizens. UI Zensen&rsquo;s courageous leadership is calling for a unified wage hike of &yen;1,000 or 2.5% as the goal for the offensive.

Japanese Affiliate UI Zensen Aims at Wage Increase

UPM Kymmene in Canada has heightened the discord in a five-week strike at a kraft pulp mill and coated papers mill in Miramichi, New Brunswick. The Finnish company sought and won a court order in a New Brunswick court to limit the number of picketers at the mill&rsquo;s five gates. The 700 members of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Local 689 are holding strong in this threat to their livelihoods with strike pay from the national CEP, plus a supplement derived from contributions from other paper-sector members of the CEP. The strike was caused when UPM Kymmene refused to table the paper industry&rsquo;s pattern agreement for eastern Canada. No bargaining has been held since the 16 December strike began.

UPM Kymmene Intensifying Paper Strike in Canada

The Transport and General Workers&rsquo; Union of UK is polling 1,200 members at two Michelin plants for industrial action. Michelin&rsquo;s wage offer in December of either 3% or GBP 650 is inadequate, and separate polling of the two workforces will begin this week. The two sites are Stoke in the Midlands with 400 T&amp;G members and Ballymena in Northern Ireland employing 800.

Transport and General in UK Ready for Industrial Action at Michelin

German affiliate IGBCE proved instrumental in getting a tyre factory in Mexico reopened. The Continental AG plant in the western Mexican state of Jalisco was closed in 2001, idling 1,400. Working with several NGOs and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), IGBCE convinced Continental to sell the plant to a group of Mexican investors and workers as a cooperative. The tyre plant, now called Western Tire Corp./El Salto Tire Factory, will employ between 600 and 700 workers.

Continental Tyre Plant in Mexico gets New Life Thanks to IGBCE

The Communications, Energy, Paperworkers Union of Canada would welcome global trade union support in its effort to block the Canadian government from selling its 19% state in Petro-Canada. Log on to www.cep.ca, click on the &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t Sell Petro-Canada&rdquo; link on the home page, and you can draft and send a short message against divestment to the prime minister that is automatically copied to the finance minister.

CEP of Canada Seeks Petition Help on Petro-Canada

Korean elections on 15 April proved historic for progressive forces including the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and ICEM affiliate Korean Chemical &amp; Textile Workers&rsquo; Federation (KCFT). For the first time in the nation&rsquo;s 56-year history, progressive labour as represented by the DLP won seats in the National Assembly&mdash;ten, to become the country&rsquo;s third largest political party. KCTF is a member of the thriving national labour center, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which backs the DLP.

Korean Elections Bode Well for Union Movement

The crisis in Ukrainian coal mines is worsening by the day. Crippled by customers' unpaid bills and by &quot;reforms&quot; partly dictated by global financial institutions, the industry is continuing to default on wage payments to its workers. 
 
By 1 February, active coalminers were owed between 3 and 14 months' pay, the Miners' Independent Trade Union of Ukraine (MITU) reports. The total wage debt to these miners topped 700 million US dollars last month. The many Ukrainian miners invalided out because of accidents and occupational diseases are faring no better financially. They are now owed some 135 million US dollars' worth of benefits. 
 
Desperate times breed desperate measures. Strikes are spreading rapidly, now involving between 20,000 and 25,000 miners each day. About 200 miners have launched an indefinite sit-in below ground. One miner burned himself to death in a protest last December and more have threatened to do so. 
 
&quot;The miners are demanding that their wages be paid on time, that the arrears be paid and that state financing of the sector be increased during 1999,&quot; MITU President Mikhail Volynets commented yesterday. He said the country's President and government had reneged on a commitment to begin paying off the wage backlog. If the miners' &quot;legimate demands&quot; were not met, MITU would &quot;lead a general miners' strike,&quot; Volynets pledged. 
 
He pointed out that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are pressing the Ukraine to cut coal industry subsidies, close mines and reduce the workforce. 
 
&quot;All this doesn't favour the financial improvement of country in general, and in particular of the coal sector, which is a key Ukrainian industry,&quot; Volynets emphasised. &quot;Because of the tough monetary policy implemented by the government under pressure from the World Bank, many industrial enterprises in related sectors have stopped working. This has also had a negative effect on the working of the mines. 
 
&quot;In this situation, social and psychological tensions are intensifying more and more in the mining regions,&quot; Volynets warned. 
 
At the global level, the MITU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
&quot;The Ukrainian miners' claim is undeniably just,&quot; ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe commented. &quot;They are simply demanding what they are owed. They have the full support and solidarity of their brothers and sisters worldwide. 
 
&quot;We certainly call upon the Ukrainian mines and the Ukrainian government to ensure payment of the wage debt without further delay,&quot; Thorpe said. &quot;But beyond that, we demand that the institutions of global finance, notably the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, should at last show some social responsibility. At least part of the international finance that now goes into often harmful 'restructuring' in Ukraine and similar economies must instead be earmarked for the payment of the huge debts owed to those countries' workers. Global action is needed now to right this scandalous wrong.&quot;

Ukraine: Mine Strikes Spread As Pay Debt Climbs

ICEM President and Australian CFMEU National Secretary John Maitland officiated at a remembrance 4 April of the 1,600 miners who lost their lives in the mining areas of New South Wales dating back to 1801. The remembrance was the ninth such observance at the United Mineworkers&rsquo; Federation House in Cessnock. CFMEU Northern Mining &amp; Energy Division President Peter Murray said it is important to demonstrate respect and condolences to families who have lost loves ones in the mines and as a result of hazardous mine work.

Australian Mine Union Marks Death Toll in NSW

US refinery workers of BP in Whiting, Indiana, will take their case for preserving health care benefits to the AGM of the company in London this week. Members and officials from affiliate PACE will ask BP managers and shareholders 15 April why a firm based in a nation that guarantees universal health care to all citizens is taking advantage of a US system in which health insurance is unaffordable and unattainable for 45 million citizens. Although a collective agreement between BP and PACE Local 6-1 in Whiting does not expire until February 2006, the company is using a health care re-opener in mid-term to demand a 10% hike in out-of-pocket costs for current workers and retirees. BP seeks to increase what workers and retirees now pay for health care from 20% to 30%, and it seeks to eliminate health coverage altogether for retirees hired after 1 April 2004.

PACE US Workers Take Health Care Issue to BP’s AGM

Archive