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ICEM Swedish affiliate IF Metall launched a new campaign &lsquo;Strong Together&rsquo;, 20 November, to highlight the strength of their local trade union reps, and to illustrate that there is power in unity. That message was made with members picking up cars at the locals in the cities of Kiruna, Ume&aring;, Eskilstuna, Trollh&auml;ttan, Gothenburg and Malm&ouml;. 
 
&ldquo;Alone you cannot lift a car, but together we can,&rdquo; said Jan Thelin, a shop steward at LKAB mine in Kiruna, and one of the members who lifted a car. &ldquo;Imagine what more members can do together!&rdquo; 
<img alt="" src="" width="141" height="146" />
The campaign will be continued until the IF Metall Congress in June 2011. See videos of the events and further information on the campaign <a href="http://www.ifmetall.se/ifmetall/home/home.nsf/LUUnique/CADBBFCAB43A8C90C12577E000299F9D?OpenDocument">here</a>.&nbsp; 
 
The first group of IF Metall members to be the focus of the action was the 14,500-strong health and safety representatives. Those representatives conducted a hazard investigation before the lift.

IF Metall Campaign &#039;Stronger Together&#039;

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ICEM Nigerian affiliate the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is demanding the immediate release of its 10 members who were aggressed and arrested at work at 10.30am last Thursday, 25 November. 
 
The employees of oil multinational Halliburton did not know who the armed men were who arrived at company offices in Lagos, after attacking the security guards at the entrance. The men were officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), investigating the bribery and corruption scandal around Halliburton and the multi-million dollar bribes paid to top government officials in exchange for the contract to build Africa's first liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny, Rivers state. 
<img src="" width="100" height="150" alt="" />
PENGASSAN President Babatunde Ogun
It is widely suspected that the bribery and corruption reached the very top levels of government and the establishment in Nigeria, including three former presidents. This is another reason why PENGASSAN are angered by the arrests of their members. 
 
PENGASSAN President, Comrade Babatunde Ogun said, &ldquo;Many Nigerian names appeared on the Halliburton investigating list in the United States and Nigeria. Names of three former heads of states, Late Gen. Sani Abacha, Gen.Abdusalami Abubakar (rtd) and President Olusegun Obasanjo as well as the ministers of Petroleum under their regimes were implicated as recipients of bribes. Why is it that it is only innocent Nigerians that the EFCC picked?&rdquo; 
 
Those arrested and brutalised by the EFCC are Jarvis Peter, Hans Kempeneers, Liliy Adiogu, Lawal Yakubu, Iseoluwa Ogundele, Efe Collins, Isa Saibu, Barnabas Iroegbulem, Chi-Ukpai, and Theodore Okonkwo. 
 
The association also condemned the barbaric nature with which the anti-corruption agency carried out its operations at Halliburton office on November 25, 2010, by beating the workers and molesting the female staff, which have been reported by Branch Chairman of the union Abel O. Agarin.

Police Brutally Arrest Innocent PENGASSAN Members

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Plastics and packaging members of New Zealand&rsquo;s Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) won&rsquo;t be taking further industrial action against Sealed Air&rsquo;s Cryovac subsidiary. A week ago, on 22 November, 117 workers at a plastic bag and food packaging factory in Porirua ratified a two-year wage settlement that will bring them 3.19% pay gains for both 2010 and 2011. 
 
EPMU members had engaged in three weeks of industrial actions in late October and November that caught the attention of the ICEM. (An InBrief report from two weeks ago can be seen <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4109-EPMU-Members-Strike-Sealed-Air-Subsidiary-in-New-Zealand ">here</a>) 
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EPMU's Tim Awatere
Sealed Air&rsquo;s original wage offer of 2% for a one-year contract drove workers to take strike actions, which included a one day walkout on 8 November and a ban on all short-notice overtime work. 
 
&ldquo;This is a good outcome for EPMU members, highlighting the financial benefits of belonging to a union collective agreement,&rdquo; said EPMU Organiser Mark James. &ldquo;Our members took a stand to get a fair share in the company&rsquo;s increasing profits so this is a result they can be proud of.&rdquo; 
 
The Sealed Air Cryovac factory, on New Zealand&rsquo;s North Island north of Wellington, produces plastic bags primarily for the meat industry, as well as packaging for other food manufacturing.

New Zealand EPMU Members Win Pay Gains with Sealed Air

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For over a decade in Singapore, it had been common practice for employers to reduce salaries of workers by 10% once they turn age 60. That practice is now coming to a screeching halt as trade unions, in a united front, have convinced employers that the practice is degrading and discriminatory. 
 
Seven unions over the past several months, including the Chemical Industries Workers&rsquo; Union (CIWU) and the Metal Industries Workers&rsquo; Union (MIWU), have now negotiated an end to the cut-at-60 practice in an important labour development on the island-nation. 
 
Over 34,000 workers will this year no longer have to witness pay cuts just because they reach age 60. The recent initiative was not instituted by law, but rather came from a strong public urging to employers by National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) General Secretary Lim Swee Say and Singapore Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong. 
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Under some of the negotiated agreements, workers age 60 or above must undergo performance-based indicators to retain their salaries, but in others they do not. The MIWU had elimination of the practice incorporated in all collective agreements. That affected 11,000 senior workers for the good. One union, the Singapore Airport Terminal Service Workers&rsquo; Union, will have the no-cut-at-60 language finalized in December, with payment of salaries that were cut back to January 2010 restored. 
 
Other unions that have succeeded in eliminated the practice include the NatSteel Employees&rsquo; Union, the Singapore Bank Employees&rsquo; Union, the DBS Bank Staff Union, and the Union of Telecoms Employees of Singapore. Elimination of the practice at scores of private-sector employers by the CIWU affects 4,500 senior chemical and petrochemical workers. 
 
The practice began in 1999 when the retirement age was raised to 62 in that year. The Retirement Age Act was then amended to give legal status to the cut-at-60 practice. 
 
NTUC Deputy Secretary General Heng Chee How said it was encouraging that a great number of companies from many different industries and sectors had reviewed with unions the regressive practice and decided to end it.

United Singapore Unions Achieving Voluntary End to Pay Cuts after Age 60

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Len McCluskey won election last week as the future General Secretary of Unite the Union. On the day his election was made official, 24 November, he told a packed news conference that mass resistance was needed to stem the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition government&rsquo;s planned public spending cuts, as well as repressive anti-trade union laws that have set into the UK. 
 
&ldquo;I am not interested in subtlety,&rdquo; he told reporters. &ldquo;I understand what is happening to ordinary working people &ndash; their jobs are being lost, their families and the future of their children are being threatened, their houses are being repossessed, and they are looking around for someone to give them help. 
 
&ldquo;The very fabric of our society is being dismantled before our very eyes and we have a duty to lead a resistance against this attack. It is slaughter by stealth.&rdquo; McCluskey expressed urgency that progressive forces in the UK build &ldquo;an alliance of resistance.&rdquo; He said the planned Trades Union Congress (TUC) manifestation for March 2011 must be &ldquo;so big it rocks the establishment and makes them step back.&rdquo; 
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Future Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey
The 61-year-old McCluskey, currently an Assistant General Secretary of Unite, won election in October and November mail balloting of union members in the UK and Ireland over three other candidates. He will succeed Unite Joint General Secretary Tony Woodley when Woodley steps down in December 2011. The 1.6-million-member union&rsquo;s other Joint General Secretary &ndash; Derek Simpson &ndash; will retire next month. 
 
McCluskey captured 101,000 votes to easily defeat Jerry Hicks (52,000 votes), Les Bayliss (46,000), and Gail Cartmail (39,000). A former Liverepool dock worker, McCluskey rose up through the ranks of the Transport &amp; General Workers&rsquo; Union (T&amp;G), first as a senior shop steward on the Liverpool wharf in 1968 and later, in 1979, as a national T&amp;G officer. 
 
In 1990, he became National Secretary for T&amp;G&rsquo;s general workers&rsquo; group, leading negotiations in several sectors, including building materials, paper and packaging, building services, and the process industries. In 2004, he was promoted to National Organiser for all the service industries, including public services, construction, and the voluntary sector. 
 
Upon the merger in 2007 of T&amp;G and Amicus, forming the UK and Ireland&rsquo;s largest trade union, Unite, McCluskey was appointed Assistant General Secretary, playing a leading role in developing the union's organising strategy, and currently he is AGS for industrial strategy.

Britain’s Unite the Union Elects Len McCluskey as Next General Secretary

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In late October, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Union made a bold statement that it would unequivocally reject concessionary contract proposals from auto parts manufacturers. It drew a line in the sand with noon-hour demonstrations at over 100 employers in the province of Ontario. (See ICEM report <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4084-Canadian-Auto-Parts-Workers-Hold-Day-of-Action ">here</a>.) 
 
Well, that line is fast proving to be a brick wall in which the no retreat mantra is being used against companies that seek worker givebacks in collective agreements. In the days and weeks after the 27 October manifestations, CAW local branches at two auto-parts suppliers have not only brought the national union&rsquo;s militancy into practice, but managed to carve out meaningful job security gains in renewal agreements. 
 
At Magna&rsquo;s Integram Seating plant in Tecumseh, Ontario, CAW Local 444 and its 725 members used a strike deadline to beat back threats to a collective agreement. A strike would have shut auto-assembly production at a nearby Chrysler minivan factory in Windsor, and that was something Integram managers needed to avoid. 
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The result was a two-year collective agreement that even though freezes wages, does grant two lump-sum bonus payments for workers. It also includes a cost-of-living adjustment in the final quarter of the second year, with a commitment to include cost-of-living increases in the subsequent labour agreement. What&rsquo;s more, improvements were made in post-retirement benefits, including age reduction from 60 to 55 for workers with 30 years service to qualify for full pension benefits. 
 
Ironically, the threat of an Integram strike and shutdown at Chrysler actually protected Local 444&rsquo;s future right to strike. Magna sought to tie the plant into the Framework of Fairness Agreement, a joint CAW-Magna 2007 arrangement that prohibits strikes at new company facilities in exchange for fair play regarding organizing efforts. Local 444 rejected imposition of that framework in this labour agreement. 
 
The other CAW success story occurred at thriving and ever-expanding Martinrea International, a Canadian-based metal-stamping chassis and frame supplier that also sells other auto parts to Chrysler, Ford, GM, and Volkswagen. At two Ontario plants of the company, Ridgetown and Dresden, CAW Local 127 since September had faced deep contractual reductions, including pay cuts from C$21-per-hour to C$14, elimination of the pension plan, cuts to health benefits, and to paid time off. 
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The 375 union members at the two plants rejected the company&rsquo;s backward proposals at a 30 October union meeting, and sent a strong message that Martinrea did not need relief and that Local 127 would set an example for the CAW&rsquo;s Auto Parts Workers&rsquo; United campaign. 
 
The result was Martinrea completely backed off the concessions and the union won first-ever job security language. Even though the three-year agreements at the two plants contain no wage increases, Local 127 won guarantees that neither plant would face shutdowns or reductions-in-force, and also guarantees that future engineered products will not be outsourced but done in the CAW-represented plants. 
 
The new labour agreements at Martinrea stand as testament that CAW workers will have a voice in production decisions. 
 
The CAW&rsquo;s auto-parts campaign &ndash; one of unyielding rank-and-file belief that contractual retreat does not guarantee job security &ndash; is taking hold in Canada and serves as an excellent example of grass-roots activism meant to resist social cuts and preserve living and work standards. Congratulations, CAW!

CAW’s Auto Parts Campaign Paying Off

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A series of protests by Ukrainian trade unions has succeeded in delaying for now consideration of bitter amendments to the country&rsquo;s labour code by the Verkhovna Rada, its Parliament. The delay, mustered by a combination of trade union and opposition party pressure, means that the ILO will now have an opportunity to assess the revisions and make recommendations under its labour standards and laws process. 
 
On 17 November, in a letter to Ukraine Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, the ICEM signaled its desire that the labour code revisions be put on hold. That letter can be found <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/140%20Prime%20Minister%20Ukraine.pdf">here</a>. 
 
Two days earlier, some 100 trade union demonstrators gathered in front of the Rada to protest the ruling party&rsquo;s rush to enact the law. At the time, a conciliation council of committee leaders and opposition leaders was meeting to take direction on the draconian measure. 
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Besides waiting on the ILO&rsquo;s recommendation, trade unions seek full parliamentary hearings on the proposed changes. The draft revisions were submitted to the ILO in July and it is hoped that an opinion will be rendered late this month or in December. 
 
The proposed revisions include lifting the standard work week from 40 hours to 48; reducing the amount of time for redundancy notice from 60 days to two weeks; and granting employers at small enterprises the option to reduce remuneration. 
 
In addition, a revision would weaken or even eliminate collective agreements by giving employers unilateral regulatory discretion over labour relations. One labour leader predicted that if this latter provision was enacted that within six months, up to 70% of Ukrainian employers would either terminate existing agreements, or avoid signing new ones. 
 
The ICEM stated that such revisions would be contrary to both international labour standards, as well as European standards.

Ukrainian Unions Succeed in Deferring Regressive Revisions to Labour Law

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Members of two ICEM affiliates in Belgium carried out a 24-hour strike at two glass factories in western Flanders on Friday, 26 November, as an immediate response to Japanese-based Asahi Glass&rsquo;s decision to radically downsize two AGC (formerly Glaverbel) plants near Zeebrugge. In an extraordinary meeting of the company&rsquo;s board a day earlier, the board failed to give reason why it would eliminate 101 of 297 jobs at AGC Zeebrugge and AGC Seapane. 
 
The strike was carried out by De Algemene Centrale ABVV, ICEM&rsquo;s Socialist affiliate in Belgium, and by Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond ACV, the Christian affiliate. The company must still negotiate with the unions over the redundancies. 
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The announcement is the second major restructuring by Asahi in Belgium in just over a year and the fourth in ten years. In October 2009, AGC Automotive caused industrial unrest in the Wallonia region of Belgium by making redundant over 200 of 475 workers employed at a factory in Fleurus and an administrative centre in Seneffe. 
 
Last week&rsquo;s announcement in Flanders comes as a blow to a pair of factories that have a reputation for innovation, advanced technical design, and high-value glass applications among Asahi&rsquo;s worldwide operations. The company also announced job sackings, numbering between 60 and 90, at glass production facilities in Kryry, Czech Republic, the AGC Klin factory near Moscow, and one in The Netherlands. 
 
In addition to the planned 101 sackings in Zeebrugge, eight temporary workers will be let go. 
 
At the ACG Zeebrugge factory, a maker of automobile mirrors and high-value glass used in the furniture industry, 72 of 176 jobs are proposed to be cut. At ACG Seapane, a maker of heat-insulated glazed architectural glass used in the construction industry that had seen its job ranks grow up through last year, 29 of 121 workers are scheduled for redundancies. 
 
ABVV Regional Secretary Luc Geerardyn said the board&rsquo;s decision last week is flawed. He said AGC failed to provide any hard evidence for the proposed sackings, nor did it provide any financial figures to justify the decision.

Belgian Glass Workers Strike Over Asahi’s Unwarranted Job Cuts

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The ICEM&rsquo;s ongoing Turkey Organising and Social Dialogue Project, supported by the Dutch trade union confederation FNV, took an important initiative toward mobilizing young unionists in starting organizing drives last month. The two-year project saw a seminar on 21-22 October in the Aegean town of Kusadasi. 
 
The workshop was organized at the education and holiday facility of one of ICEM&rsquo;s Turkish affiliates, Belediye-İş, the General and Municipal Workers&rsquo; Union. The hotel is the Grand Belish, which hosted some 7,500 union members with their families in the summer of 2010. 
 
The facility also welcomes ICEM affiliates from around the world (for information on the union&rsquo;s hotel, click <a href="http://www.grandbelish.com">here</a>).&nbsp;&ldquo;Hosting such an important event for youth organizing at our facility gives us a great honour and motivation,&rdquo; said Nihat Yurdakul, President of Belediye-İş, at the opening of the seminar. &ldquo;Thanks to international solidarity and co-operation, active involvement and increasing the union density of young people is a priority for us. 
 
&ldquo;The ICEM project is a driving force to all of us in this direction,&rdquo; he added. 
<img src="" width="277" height="146" alt="" />
Belediye-İş President Nihat Yurdakul
With a population of 75 million, Turkey has a workforce of 22 million that includes 16 million men and six million women. An important statistic is that 65% of all Turkish people are under age 30. 
 
But regarding work, four million out of 5.5 million employed in various industries work, on average, over 45 hours per week. For the rest, the average work-week is more then 60 hours. The proportion of workers employed in the informal economy is larger than that of the formal one. 
 
The youth seminar in Kusadasi was attended by 60 young militants, shop stewards, and local officers, with women comprising 40% of the participants. 
 
The seminar also hosted a large group of international participants: Paulo Lage, Sergio Novais, Juvenil Nunes, Fabio Lins, and Nilton Freitas from the ABC Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union of Brasil; Liv Christensen and Anders Lapon from Dansk El-F&ouml;rbund of Denmark; Celil &Ccedil;oban and Mail &Uuml;rker of FNV Bondgenoten in the Netherlands; Philippe Gousenbourger, Youth Officer of International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Brussels; and Dick Blin, ICEM Information, Campaigns, and Pulp &amp; Paper Officer, and Kemal &Ouml;zkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries&rsquo; Officer, from Geneva. 
<img src="" width="300" height="146" alt="" />
Guest speakers exchanged their knowledge and experiences with the participants, particularly on youth organizing. 
 
The seminar also gave support and solidarity to a 27-year-old trade union woman named M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal, an activist for the Turkish paper and packaging affiliate Sel&uuml;loz-İş. She was fired for initiating a union organising drive at a paper company in the city of Torbali. 
 
Her situation clearly demonstrates the difficulties that Turkish trade unions face in organising. (For further information, click <a href="/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4100-Turkish-Woman-Fired-for-Union-Organising-at-Izmir-Packaging-Mill ">here</a> to see how you can assist M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal.) 
<img alt="" src="" width="90" height="106" />
M&uuml;zeyyen Acunal 
As a regular exercise during the FNV Mondiaal project, Turkish trade union expert &Uuml;zeyir Ataman, Director of Education and Collective Bargaining of Lastik-İş, also presented union history and the current labour relations situation in Turkey. Later, the seminar focused on Power and Weak Points, Challenges and Opportunities, and Concrete Organising Targets Inside Turkey, with contributions and inputs by participants from different sectors and regions. 
 
Participants also created an e-mail group for continuing communication among future leaders of the unions, which will allow them the opportunity to exchange information, as well as to further solidarity. 
 
&ldquo;The Kusadasi Seminar gives us great hope and motivation for the future of our Turkish unions,&rdquo; said &Ouml;zkan, coordinator of the two-year project. &ldquo;We now feel more obliged to do more work towards organising young workers, not just in Turkey, but also throughout the world.&rdquo; 
 
The project will conclude with an Evaluation Seminar scheduled to occur late this month, 29-30 November, in the Turkish capital Ankara.

ICEM, FNV Mondiaal Turkey Project Mobilizes Young Unionists to Organise

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ICEM Australian affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Construction Union (CFMEU) won a precedent-setting case last week before the full judicial panel of Fair Work Australia. The matter involves global mining house Xstrata&rsquo;s redundancies at the Ulan coal mine near Mudgee, New South Wales, and whether or not those sackings were &ldquo;genuine redundancies,&rdquo; or if the employer had first to deliver alternative jobs at other company enterprises. 
 
On 12 November, the full bench of Fair Work Australia rejected an Xstrata appeal and ruled that the company had an obligation not just to make vacancies at other company enterprises known to the dismissed workers, but to offer positions and facilitate transfer to those worksites. 
 
In effect, the ruling establishes concise guidelines regarding &ldquo;genuine redundancies&rdquo; and ensures that employers can be held liable if they do not fully offer and then redeploy sacked workers in all reasonable circumstances. 
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In 2009, Xstrata Coal Pty. Ltd. made redundant over 100 workers at its 500-worker Ulan mine. The CFMEU claimed the company would replace many of those workers with contract employees. Last week&rsquo;s ruling covers six of ten miners whose rights, under Australia&rsquo;s new labour statute, were violated because the dismissals were not &ldquo;genuine redundancies&rdquo; since their jobs were still being performed. 
 
The other four were found not to have reasonable redeployment options due to light-work injury status or unwillingness to travel. 
 
Last week&rsquo;s full bench ruling stated: &ldquo;Where an employer decides that, rather than fill a vacancy by redeploying an employee into a suitable job in its own enterprise, it will advertise the vacancy and require the employee to compete with other applicants, it might subsequently be found that the resulting dismissal is not a case of genuine redundancy. This is because it would have been reasonable to redeploy the employee into the vacancy.&rdquo;

CFMEU Wins ‘Fair Work Australia’ Case Involving Xstrata’s Illegal Dismissals

Archive

IF Metall Campaign 'Stronger Together'

Police Brutally Arrest Innocent PENGASSAN Members

New Zealand EPMU Members Win Pay Gains with Sealed Air

United Singapore Unions Achieving Voluntary End to Pay Cuts after Age 60

Britain’s Unite the Union Elects Len McCluskey as Next General Secretary

CAW’s Auto Parts Campaign Paying Off

Ukrainian Unions Succeed in Deferring Regressive Revisions to Labour Law

Belgian Glass Workers Strike Over Asahi’s Unwarranted Job Cuts

ICEM, FNV Mondiaal Turkey Project Mobilizes Young Unionists to Organise

CFMEU Wins ‘Fair Work Australia’ Case Involving Xstrata’s Illegal Dismissals

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