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Negotiations to end the Canadian strike between United Steelworkers (USW) Local 9508 and the Brazilian-based mining company Vale in Goose Bay and Voiseys Bay, Labrador, failed on 19-20 July when the company put forward a far inferior bonus plan compared to what USW members in Ontario agreed to on 8 July. 
 
Vale refused to offer Local 9508 members a similar bonus plan that it gave USW members in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, and it refused to discuss other outstanding issues of a renewal collective agreement unless Labrador workers accepted an inferior bonus scheme. 
 
Some 230 members of USW Local 9508 will mark one-year on picket lines in copper and nickel mines and port and processing operations in Labrador on 1 August. 
 
USW District 6 Director Wayne Fraser called on the provincial government of Labrador/Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams to intervene. In a 21 July letter to Williams, Fraser said, &ldquo;It is indisputable that out union and its members at Voiseys Bay &ndash; like their colleagues in Ontario who recently ended their year-long strike &ndash; have shown flexibility and a willingness to compromise to achieve a fair collective agreement with Vale. 
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Wayne Fraser, USW District 6 Director
&ldquo;Mr. Premier, we trust you and your government will agree it is unacceptable that a massively profitable foreign corporation such as Vale would treat Newfoundland and Labrador workers as second-class employees. We also trust you will use every means at your disposal to ensure Vale treats the working families of Newfoundland and Labrador with the respect and dignity they deserve.&rdquo; 
 
The nickel bonus offer presented in Labrador consists of Vale-controlled criteria, such as individual work performance, safety issues, and other unilateral mechanisms. None of these conditions are contained in the Ontario agreement. As well, Vale is insisting on a lower cap on the bonus than what was accepted in Sudbury and Port Colborne. 
 
Besides the 230 members of three bargaining units of Local 9508 on strike, 50 workers employed by Ushitou Maintenance also have been on strike since 1 June 2010. These workers are also members of Local 9508, and perform electrical, pipefitting, instrumentation, and other functions for Vale at its Voiseys Bay operations. 
 
Vale continues to use scab labour to operate Goose Bay and Voiseys Bay. On Wednesday, 28 July, all unions in Labrador/Newfoundland will meet in St. Johns under the umbrella of the provincial Federation of Labour Council. Trade unions will discuss taking action on a push to adopt anti-scab and binding arbitration legislation in the province, as well as to discuss methods to get the Tory premier, Danny Williams, to use his office to re-start negotiations. 
 
In Sudbury and Port Colborne, some members of USW Locals 6500 and 6200 have returned to their rightful jobs, with most of the 3,000 staff expected to return throughout August. Members of the two locals are under a joint agreement and on 8 July, ratified a five-year labour contract that ended a 360-day strike in Ontario.

Talks Fail Between Vale, Steelworkers in Efforts to Resolve Labrador Strike

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As the mineworkers&rsquo; strike at Gammon Gold&rsquo;s El Cubo mine in Mexico&rsquo;s Guanajuato State was deferred to the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the authority abandoned all activities and took summer vacations until August. 
 
The recess forces workers to continue the strike with no possibility of settlement before labour authorities return to litigate and rule on the legality of the strike. The authority gave no instruction to Canadian-based Gammon to start negotiating with the workers. 
 
The 409 workers are represented by Section 142 of ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), or Los Mineros, at the mine in south-central Mexico. 
 
As previously reported by ICEM, the strike began 30 June, primarily because of Nova Scotia-based Gammon&rsquo;s refusal to make profit-share payments to workers, a condition that had been agreed to in bargaining with the union in return for a lengthening of miners&rsquo; work days from eight- to ten-hour shifts. 
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In the absence of a profit-sharing arrangement, union leaders took strike action, demanding a bonus of 50,000 pesos (US$3,968) per worker. A further demand was that the company improve safety standards at the mine, following five deaths at the site in recent months, accidents which were not properly investigated or even sometimes not recorded by authorities. The families of the five dead miners have not received any compensation. 
 
As was predicted by the ICEM in an earlier, 28 June, report (see <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3896-El-Cubo-Mexican-Mine-Shut-in-Attempt-to-Crush-Union">here</a>), the company has moved to restart production with scab labour. This decision was authorised by Labour Minister Javier Lozano, who pushed through a ruling via the Federal Conciliation Board for 70 &ldquo;emergency personnel.&rdquo; The obvious anti-union stance of the Mexican government is again illustrated by these rulings and lack of pressure from the authorities on Gammon to negotiate with Section 142. 
 
Gammon Gold has repeatedly claimed that it does not have the financial resources for profit-sharing payments, which are mandated by law, or to make improvements to worker safety at the mine. Los Mineros filed for a fiscal audit to be conducted by the Mexican Treasury into Gammon, in May 2010. In typical government inaction regarding Los Mineros, there has been no response to this request. 
 
In a familiar trend now used in Mexican labour conflicts, workers at El Cubo were physically attacked by the company&rsquo;s private security team on 18 June. 
 
Gammon Gold recorded US$207 million in revenue from gold and silver mining operations in 2009. The company operates exclusively in Mexico, with a large gold-silver complex in the northern state of Chihuahua, known as Ocampo. Exploration work is on-going at the neighbouring Guadalupe y Calvo gold-silver mine, and Gammon recently acquired the El Mezquite and Venus projects in the states of Zacatecas and Chihuahua, respectively. 
 
Gammon Gold&rsquo;s director in Mexico, Luis Chavez, was previously the Director of Mines in the Ministry of Finance, and then Director of Mines in Coahuila State government, a position he held when 64 miners died inside the Pasta de Conchos mine in February 2006. After protecting Grupo M&eacute;xico in the wake of the accident, Chavez moved to his current position as head of Gammon Gold. The corrupt links between the Mexican government and Gammon Gold are deep. 
 
Politicians in the country&rsquo;s Senate and House of Representatives demanded that Labour Secretary, Javier Lozano, act as mediator to the conflict.

Mexico Government No Help in Resolving Gammon Gold Mine Strike

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Elections for Germany&rsquo;s Works Councils occur every four years, with votes cast in May and June 2010. The ICEM-affiliated IGBCE received strong backing in these elections. With some results still to be analysed, around 81.2% of newly-elected council members in the union&rsquo;s industrial sectors are IGBCE members. 
 
IGBCE is present in approximately 3,450 companies in Germany. The 2010 results show a stabilisation of the turnout (74.3%) and of IGBCE&rsquo;s strong position, with very little change from the 2006 and 2002 elections. The number of council chair-people who are members of IGBCE has risen slightly, to 92%, as did the number of women who were elected &ndash; 26.2%. 
 
The IGBCE is now running a support project for newly-elected Works Councils in small companies, with less than 200 employees. The coaching lasts 14 weeks, and includes an online password protected forum, where views and guidance can be exchanged for newly elected council members. 
 
IGBCE also recently won a legal case, entitling Works Council members to have internet access in the workplace. Employers are now obliged to supply council members with a computer connected to the internet, in addition to an office. 
 
Works councils are employee representative bodies with a range of co-determination, information, and consultation rights with respective companies. 
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IGBCE Deputy Chairman Ulrich Freese
The recent results are seen as a clear indication of trust and confidence in the IGBCE. &ldquo;We have played a major role in ensuring that the financial crisis did not break through on jobs. Strong unions and strong works councils have prevented redundancies and ensured stability,&rdquo; stated IGBCE Deputy Chairman Ulrich Freese.

German Works Council Elections Cement IGBCE’s Strong Mandate

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The 14-year exchange and engagement between ICEM and the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) took a major step forward recently when a 13-member ICEM delegation, led by President Senzeni Zokwana, visiting Beijing for top level meetings with several leading ACFTU officials. 
 
The 15-16 July meetings, attended by 45 people, found discussions centering on the theme &ldquo;The Global Crisis and Job Protection.&rdquo; The meetings mark a new crest in ICEM-ACFTU relations, following participation by ACFTU representatives in ICEM Asia-Pacific activities this year. The activities include the regional committee meetings in Sydney, Australia, in April, and an electricity network meeting in Korea. 
 
In the near future, ACFTU representatives will take part in an oil and gas workers&rsquo; workshop in Vietnam in August and a pharmaceutical unions&rsquo; workshop in Indonesia in September. 
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The mid-July Beijing forum opened with presentations by Zokwana and Jiang Guangping, ACFTU&rsquo;s Director-General of the International Department, who welcomed the ICEM by stating engagement with an active industry-based Global Union Federation is crucial to the ACFTU. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda gave reports related to Contract and Agency Labour, ILO Convention 176 (the Health and Safety in Mines Convention), Sustainable Development and Just Transition efforts, Global Framework Agreements, and Social Dialogue initiatives. Chinese industry sector leaders then reported on coal, electric power, petroleum, petrochemical, chemicals, pharmaceutical, and land resource matters in China. 
 
Other ACFTU officials that lead structures within the Chinese Defense Industry, Postal and Telecommunications Workers&rsquo; Union, the Chinese Finance, Commerce, Light Industry, Textile and Tobacco Workers&rsquo; Union, and the Machinery, Metallurgical and Building Materials Workers&rsquo; Unions also gave reports. 
 
Participants shared country experiences on trade union actions, and also discussed plant-level responses and solutions regarding for job protection. Germany&rsquo;s Petra Kronen, for instance, the head of the Works Council and a supervisory board member of Bayer, explained flexible work-time arrangements taken between her union, IGBCE, and Bayer in order to avoid layoffs during the financial crisis. 
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Besides Zokwana and Warda, the ICEM delegation consisted of ICEM leaders from several affiliated unions, including: Per S&ouml;rensen of 3F Union, Denmark; Mats Svensson of IF Metall, Sweden; Michael Mersmann and Petro Kronen of IGBCE, Germany; Isidor Boix of FITEQA-CC.OO, Spain; Fran&ccedil;ois Laurent, CSC B&acirc;timent, Industrie &amp; Energie, Belgium; Yoshio Sato of ICEM-JAF, Japan; Ian Murray of Construction, Forestry, Mining, Energy Union (CFMEU), Australia; and Robert Reid of the National Distribution Union (NDU), New Zealand. Also in attendance were Kemal &Ouml;zkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries&rsquo; Officer, and Phee Jung-sun, ICEM Materials Industries&rsquo; Officer and Regional Contact Person for Asia-Pacific Region. 
 
The ACFTU officials participating included Zheng Chengfu, President of the Chinese Energy and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union; Fang Dan, Vice President of Chinese Defense Industry, Postal and Telecommunications Workers&rsquo; Union; Cai Ruixia, Vice President of Chinese Finance, Commerce, Light Industry, Textile and Tobacco Workers&rsquo; Union; Ma Hua, Director of Chinese Machinery, Metallurgical and Building Materials Workers&rsquo; Union; Zhang Jianguo, Director General of the Collective Bargaining Department of the ACFTU; Enyi Xu, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Energy &amp; Chemical Worker&rsquo;s Union; Guo Wencai, Director General of ACFTU&rsquo;s Organizing Department; Xie Liangmin, Deputy Director General of the Law Department of the ACFTU; and Chen Jieping, Deputy Director of ACFTU&rsquo;s Social Security Department. 
 
A full and detailed report on the mission, prepared by the ICEM&rsquo;s &Ouml;zkan, can be found <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/ACFTU%20Edited.pdf">here</a>.

ICEM, ACFTU Complete High Level Mission in China

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A two-year labour dispute in Queensland, Australia, broke into a continuous strike on 27 July when 233 miners of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) downed tools at open-pit coal mines operated by Theiss Contractors, a division of mining contractor Leighton Holdings. 
 
The mine in Collinsville in northern Queensland is owned by the Swiss-Anglo company Xstrata. 
 
CFMEU miners and their families are angry that the contract operator pays workers who fly-in and fly-out of the colliery far more than local residents. Despite efforts by the company to run the mine with scab labour, the 15-day strike has rendered the mine inoperable since emergency response teams are also part of the strike. 
 
On 2 August, some 18 wives and partners of striking miners blocked trains loaded with coal from leaving the Collinsville area, causing the trains to return to the mine. That scene was repeated over the weekend and today, 9 August, resulting in the arrests of four women for railway-related trespassing offenses. The trains are operated by the QR National rail line. 
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The CFMEU is seeking job security protections from Theiss in a new enterprise bargaining agreement, as well as pay packages that miners in other areas of the Bowen Basin receive. Collinsville miners have lost 24% in wages over the past several years as Theiss continues to stall bargaining. 
 
The contractor has offered a 6% increase this year, and 4% hikes in each of the next two years, but Collinsville miners are seeking increases of 9%, 6%, and 5% to bring them close to parity with other mining enterprises of Queensland. The CFMEU also is seeking super-annuation contributions lifted by 12% on a supplemental pension scheme. 
 
Xstrata Coal owns 55% of the Collinsville mine that produces and exports thermal coal, while Japan&rsquo;s Itochu Coal Resources and Sumitomo hold 35% and 10% stakes, respectively. 
 
Meanwhile, the 21-month dispute between CFMEU and Xstrata at the Tahmoor colliery in New South Wales continues. The union is seeking solution by an independent arbitrator of Australia&rsquo;s Fair Work Tribunal in order to retain union work rights at the mine, but the company is resisting. The livelihoods of some 240 miners are at stake.

Angry CFMEU Miners Strike Contract Operator at Australian Colliery

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Efforts to resolve a 2010 industry pay settlement for 4,000 UK paperworkers failed in late July, with ICEM affiliates Unite the Union and GMB now deferring further talks with the employers&rsquo; Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) until 6 October. The negotiations cover workers in the corrugated boxboard sector of the paper industry, with the major employers being SmurfitKappa, DS Smith, and SAICA, the Spanish company that bought the UK operations of Swedish SCA in 2008. 
 
Following negotiations on 22-23 July, union negotiators were willing to put the corrugated industry&rsquo;s final offer up for a ballot, but without recommending approval or rejection. This was not agreeable to the CPI and the final offer was withdrawn. 
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In Unite&rsquo;s GPM Sector newsletter, Unite National Officer Peter Ellis said the unions are seeking a one-year pay deal, but &ldquo;various options were considered ranging from a one year deal, a deferred payment deal, a two-year deal, and a mixture of all three. 
 
&ldquo;However, the level of settlement offered by the industry was below the level that unions would be prepared to recommend to their members,&rdquo; said Ellis. 
 
The recess in corrugated talks until early October is due to scheduling. The unions and CPI have a 14-member joint negotiations body charged with reaching pay terms. Meanwhile, Unite&rsquo;s 2010 pay settlements in the print, packaging, and newspaper sector, covering some 70 employers, are averaging between 2% and 2.5%.

Corrugated Paperboard Talks in UK Put on Hold Until October

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Bumper pay packages were negotiated last week between British unions, including Unite the Union, and Corus, the steel producer owned by India&rsquo;s Tata Group. In what Unite termed a &ldquo;breakthrough&rdquo; in talks that dated to last May for 12,000 UK steelworkers, labour and management agreed to a 2010 pay deal of 3.2%, backdated to 1 April. 
 
The tentative agreement, which also includes a &pound;200 lump-sum bonus, will now be voted on by Unite&rsquo;s 8,000 members, with results due in early September. Two other UK unions representing Corus workers, GMB and Community, accepted the same deal, with its bargaining leaders empowered to ratify the agreement. 
 
The 2010-2011 collective agreement covers steelworkers at some 15 Corus worksites. 
 
In June, the pay offer by Corus was between one and two percent. The culmination of hard bargaining last week pleased trade union leaders of all three organizations, particularly since workers agreed to take a pay freeze last year that was included in &pound;1 billion in savings served up to the steelmaker in order to help the company through the recession. 
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&ldquo;This new deal offered by Corus will go some way to rebuilding trust with management,&rdquo; stated Unite National Steel Officer Terry Pye. &ldquo;Whatever the outcome of the ballot with our members on the revised pay offer, we are pleased that the company has made a significant improvement to the pay offer, which we are recommending to our members.&rdquo; 
 
GMB National Secretary Keith Hazlewood said, &ldquo;After last year&rsquo;s pay freeze and a very turbulent 18 months it would be nice to think that we have seen the worst, and have the makings of a foundation to build on for a secure future for our members and local steel communities going forward.&rdquo; 
 
India&rsquo;s Tata Group bought Anglo-Dutch Corus in 2006 for US$12 billion. UK unions remain hopeful that one Corus site that was partially shuttered in February in North-east England will reopen under new ownership. Union leaders, together with national and local officials have been negotiating with Sahaviriya Steel Industries of Thailand to operate the Teesside Cast Products mill.

UK Metal Workers Realize Pay Dividends with Tata’s Corus Steel

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Oil and transport trade unions in the Suleymania area of Iraqi Kurdistan returned home from a recent meeting of the ICEM, International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) Oil &amp; Gas Trade Union Alliance in Beirut and quickly organized a wider meeting of unions from both petroleum and transport sectors at the regional level. (See the ICEM/ITF story <a href="/en/3-Energy-Oil-and-Gas/3932-'Well-to-Wheel'-Forum-in-Beirut-Focuses-on-Oil-Transport-Work-in-Iraq ">here</a>.) 
 
Salam Rachid of the Iraqi Kurdistan Workers Syndicat Union of Suleymania arranged the meeting of local union activists to report back on the results of the seminar and explain the importance of the Alliance. 
<img alt="" src="" width="240" height="160" />
ICEM, ITF, and the Solidarity Center of the US, which supports the &ldquo;Well to Wheel&rdquo; Alliance in Iraq, are delighted to see the immediate follow-up work at local level, which is considered essential to the success of the Alliance. This is especially important given the draconian measures taken recently against trade unions of electric power workers&rsquo; in Iraq, in what has become the latest attempt by the Baghdad government to destroy independent trade unionism. 
 
The ICEM views the recent crack-downs on electric power workers as an extension of failure by Iraq&rsquo;s government to enact ILO-compliant labour legislation and its excuse to impose old legislation from the Saddam era, which banned trade unions in the public sector and heavily restricts all trade union activity and work.

Rapid Iraqi Follow-up to ICEM, ITF ‘Well-to-Wheel’ Work Praised

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In the US, recruiting new union members was to become easier with passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a solid piece of labour reform legislation meant to balance the current one-sided advantages that employers have in blocking workers&rsquo; from joining a union. But despite mass support generated by US unions and their members in 2008 to elect Barack Obama and Party Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, reciprocation by prioritizing EFCA for passage never happened. 
 
Last week, on 1 August, the new President of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Bob King, turned that page by telling the annual Management Seminars of the Center for Automotive Research that American workers deserve to have their constitutional First Amendment rights of free association and free speech protected. He called on senior managers to help make that happen in good faith by signing a union election protocol. 
<img alt="" src="" width="135" height="190" />
Bob King, President of the United Auto Workers (UAW)
King said the UAW will not passively &ldquo;sit and wait&rdquo; for passage of EFCA, but instead will present to executives of auto and auto-related industries &ndash; now operating without unionization &ndash; a &ldquo;Principles and Fair Union Election&rdquo; protocol that guarantees workers will have their basic rights upheld in free and unencumbered union certification elections. The UAW will make those principles public following an upcoming executive board meeting of the union. 
 
But they are certain to include equal access to workers seeking to form a union by both the union and management, and the principles would ban derogatory, insulting, and false statements by either party. Perhaps more significantly within the US landscape of union, the UAW principles ban any threats, coercion, or pressure by either management or the union in the run-up to or after elections. 
 
King told the US auto industry&rsquo;s leading management seminar that for those companies that sign on and abide by the principles, &ldquo;we will respect the decision of their workers whether they vote to join the union or not. 
 
&ldquo;However, if companies do not agree to these principles, and instead engage in threatening behaviour towards workers who want to organise a union, or fire workers who try to organise, or close down facilities to thwart union activity, then the UAW will not tolerate the violation of workers&rsquo; First Amendment rights.&rdquo; 
<img alt="" src="" width="250" height="110" />
King added, &ldquo;So, any company that does not agree to the UAW Principles is essentially declaring war on freedom of speech and assembly, and it is our duty and mission to enforce that right.&rdquo; 
 
King, who was newly-elected to head the 400,000-member union in June, told the industry that &ldquo;the 21st century UAW&rdquo; will be less adversarial and has already proven to the three major US automakers to be a partner in flexibility, innovation, quality, teamwork, productivity, continuous cost-savings, and mutual respect. 
 
&ldquo;We respect not only the employers with whom we have relationships, but we also have enormous respect for the transnational companies who have build factories in the US,&rdquo; said King. &ldquo;We welcome you as partners and colleagues in the industry. We appreciate the fact that you are providing good jobs here. We admire many of your good policies and practices, including the focus on continuous improvement, quality, and productivity. The transplants are an important and essential part of preserving, maintaining, and growing our manufacturing base in this country.&rdquo; 
 
King, the first UAW President to speak before the US auto industry&rsquo;s managers&rsquo; forum since 1994, told executives that the choice was up to non-union employers whether or not to sign the UAW&rsquo;s Principals. But, he suggested, &ldquo;the best business practice, the best way to deliver shareholder value, is to partner with the UAW on quality, productivity, attendance, employee morale, and the overall goal of providing the best product at the best price to the customer.&rdquo;

US Auto Workers Seek Bilateral Accords with Employers over Unionisation

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Good relations between the ICEM affiliate Mexican National Miners&rsquo; and Metalworkers&rsquo; Union (SNTMMSRM), or Los Mineros, and Luxembourg-based steelmaker ArcelorMittal have made it possible for the union to post 14% overall gains in renewal negotiations recently. 
 
The contract covers 4,000 steelworkers at massive ArcelorMittal&rsquo;s L&aacute;zaro C&aacute;rdenas SA de CV complex in Michoacan state. 
 
The new agreement was signed on Wednesday, 4 August, in Vancouver, Canada, between Los Mineros General Secretary Napole&oacute;n Gomez Urrutia, Sergio Beltr&aacute;n Reyes, Javier Zu&ntilde;iga Garc&iacute;a of the union&rsquo;s executive, and Mario Garc&iacute;a Ort&iacute;z of Los Mineros in Michoacan state, with William Chisholm, CEO of ArcelorMittal Mexico, and Jose Luis Fuentes Quiroz Director of Human Resources. 
<img alt="" src="" width="229" height="172" />
from left, ArcelorMittal&rsquo;s Jose Luis Fuentes Quiroz-Pacheco and William Chisholm, Los Mineros General Secretary Napole&oacute;n G&oacute;mez, Sergio Beltr&aacute;n Reyes, the union&rsquo;s Secretary of Interior, Exterior and Acts
The agreement was signed in Canada where Napole&oacute;n Gomez continues to lead the union while in exile. 
 
There was no involvement by the Mexican Ministry of Labour in the negotiations. 
 
The new agreement increases direct wages by 8%, and benefits by 6%, to be paid retroactively from 1 May 2010. The agreement also includes a one-time payment of US$1,300 to each worker for outside social benefits, including those permanently employed and those employed through subcontractors. 
 
Los Mineros and ArcelorMittal had been negotiating for several weeks prior to a 1 August expiration of a prior agreement. It was extended by three days to allow the Los Mineros leadership to attend the 14th National Mineworkers Forum on 30 July in Cananea, marking the third anniversary of the Cananea copper strike in northern Sonora state. 
<img alt="" src="" width="230" height="145" />
Standing: Javier Zu&ntilde;iga Garc&iacute;a, Los Mineros Secretary of Labor, and Mario Garc&iacute;a Ort&iacute;z, Los Mineros Section 271 Special Delegate from Michoacan 
ArcelorMittal posted net profits in second quarter 2010 of US$1.7 billion. This compares to a net loss of US$792 million for the same period in 2009. At L&aacute;zaro C&aacute;rdenas, Los Mineros gave approval in May for merger of the company&rsquo;s four business units, a move that will give the company greater flexibility and mobility of raw materials and resources between its flat steel and slab steel production processes. 
 
Prior to the signing of the ArcelorMittal collective agreement, meetings were held in Canada between Napole&oacute;n Gomez and another General Secretary of an ICEM-affiliated Latin American mining trade union, Luis Castillo Carlos of the National Miners&rsquo; and Metalworkers&rsquo; Union (FNTMMSP). 
 
Meeting in Vancouver on 21-24 July, the two General Secretaries discussed regional issues facing mineworkers, looking towards building a strategic regional alliance. 
 
The two unions share common difficulties with Grupo M&eacute;xico, the mining corporation that is accused of corrupt ties with the Calder&oacute;n government in Mexico. Grupo M&eacute;xico&rsquo;s Southern Copper subsidiaries in Peru include mines at Toquepala and Cuajote, and smelters and refineries in the Moquegua and Tacna regions. FNTMMSP has been attempting to negotiate with Southern Peru Copper for eight months in the Tacna region, but has faced repeated refusals from management on union demands. 
 
Both unions face governments that systematically side with employers in disputes with workers. Currently, the Peruvian Minister of Labour, Manuela Garc&iacute;a Cochagne, is refusing to mediate talks to resolve the Tacna conflict. Instead, he is carrying out bilateral discussions with the company. This is in breach of the Peruvian Constitution.

Los Mineros of Mexico Achieves 14% Gains with ArcelorMittal

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