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The 24-hour strike planned for tomorrow by 4,000 Finnish paperworkers of UPM has the support of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM), the leading trade union federation in the global pulp, paper, and paper-converting industries. Workers in Finland will shut some six UPM pulp and paper mills from 06h00 Tuesday, 16 September, to 06h00 Wednesday, 17 September. 
 
Branch-level unions of the ICEM affiliate Paperiliitto have called the strike in protest to UPM&rsquo;s decision to close two mills, the newsprint and graphic papers mill in Kajanni, and the kraft and printing papers Tervasaari Mill in Valkeakoski, by the end of 2008.
&ldquo;Tomorrow&rsquo;s demonstration by UPM workers across Finland is necessary in order to send the company a strong message that it must do far more to protect jobs in this vital Finnish industry,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;We stand with our trade union affiliate Paperiliitto in demanding viable solutions, not continual job cuts, to fix the current economic crisis in the forestry sector.&rdquo; 
 
Some 1,600 community-sustaining jobs are at risk with the announced shutdowns of the Kajanni and Tervasaari Mills. 
 
The topic of job losses in the forestry sectors of European, Nordic, and North American nations will be a central focus at the ICEM&rsquo;s World Pulp and Paper Conference, scheduled for 8-10 December 2008 in Uruguay. 
 
The 20-million-member ICEM is a Global Union Federation consisting of 467 trade unions in 132 countries.

ICEM Supports Strike by UPM Paperworkers in Finland on 16 September

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Citing the common threat of decent work life being destroyed by rampant privatisation, six ICEM Turkish affiliates have joined with engineering associations and a&nbsp;consumer rights group in building an active coalition to block privatising. 
 
Called the Platform Against Privatisation, the coalition&rsquo;s declaration states that &ldquo;the Turkish Republic has been losing all values and accomplishments created with sweat and blood since (its) establishment.&rdquo; The mobilisation of public resources has been &ldquo;given as gifts to the capitalist class,&rdquo; the declaration says. 
 
The coalition issued a 10-point agenda, including a determination &ldquo;to continue a struggle for the rights and interests of labour and democracy, the fight to resist practices such as subcontracting, removing union coverage, low wages, (and) flexible employment,&rdquo; and to defend the &ldquo;public management of resources.&rdquo;
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The declaration specifically addresses the current privatising of Turkey&rsquo;s electric generating and distribution systems and calls energy a &ldquo;public right for human life.&rdquo; In July, auctions were held on Turkey&rsquo;s first two electric distribution networks, and the entire power grid in the Sakarya region is proposed for privatisation. 
 
Chambers of Engineers representing Chemicals, Electrical, Geology, Mechanical, Metals, and Mining are signatory to the declaration. Also, ICEM trade union affiliates including Tes-İş (Energy, Water, and Gas Workers Union), Petrol-İş (Oil, Chemical Workers', and Rubber Workers' Union), Genel Maden-İş (Coal Mine Workers' Union), the T&uuml;rkiye Maden-İş (Mine Workers), Dev Maden-Sen (Mine Workers' Union), and ESM (Energy,&nbsp;Industry, and Mining&nbsp;Public Employees) are part of Platform Against Privatisation.

Trade Unions, Engineering and Consumers’ Groups Take Stand Against Turkey’s Privatisation

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Mining unions from Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Columbia met 19-21 August in S&atilde;o Paulo, Brazil, in workshops to address enhanced union power in the face of mergers and consolidation within the mining sector. It was conducted by the ICEM, with sponsorship from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, union-related foundation in Germany. 
 
&ldquo;We made an important step by bringing so many unions together to address the continued fragmentation of power among mining unions,&rdquo; said S&eacute;rgio Novais, ICEM Vice President for the Latin America/Caribbean Region.
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&nbsp;S&eacute;rgio Novais 
 

The ICEM provided a presentation on major trends in the mining industry that addressed how Latin American countries were targets for the major mining houses, companies that have profited from the unprecedented coal and metal commodity prices. The ICEM pointed out that without mining union mergers in Latin America, and the building of regional and global networks, mineworkers will lose bargaining power and will not be able to secure a fair share of the profits. 
 
Featured during the workshop was a day-long presentation by Ecliff Tantsi and Eddie Majadibodu of South Africa&rsquo;s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). They explained how&nbsp;NUM has built its formidable power under the banner of a single union. Their presentation included background on the history of the NUM, its structures, how collective bargaining is carried out, and how the union maintains both its economic and political power. The NUM also discussed how it assists other mining unions in Sub-Sahara Africa in union building and organizing. 
 
Participants jointly signed a letter to the government of Mexico protesting the continued repression of trade union rights in an effort to destroy the Mexican mineworkers&rsquo; union. And ICEM Colombian affiliate Sintracarb&ograve;n, the major mineworkers&rsquo; union in Columbia, reported new death threats against Adolfo Llanos, a union leader at Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n&rsquo;s Puerto Bolivar, and against other community activists. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda responded with a strongly-worded letter to President &Aacute;lvaro Uribe of Columbia demanding protection against death threats from right-wing paramilitary squads. Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n, the world&rsquo;s largest open-cast coal mine and its export facility, Puerto Bolivar, is equal parts owned by mining giants AngloAmerican, BHP Billiton, and Xstrata. 
 
The workshop participants decided to: share information and work toward more unity among trade unions in the mining industry, particularly in Brazil; create Latin American regional networks among unions having common employers; explore innovative structures and legislative changes that would bring about greater unionization; and jointly develop solidarity actions and campaigns that focus on stopping subcontracting, gutting of social security benefits, and improving health and safety.
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Support for ratification of ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention, was approved, and the need for increased cooperation between the ICEM and International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) was also a subject of discussion. Only Brazil and Peru have ratified ILO Convention 176 in ICEM&rsquo;s Latin America/Caribbean Region. 
 
The mining workshops were attended by Jorge Almeida, Latin American Regional Secretary for the IMF. The ICEM and IMF are closely cooperating in efforts to build trade union power among Latin American unions.

South American Mine Unions Meet in Hopes of Consolidating Union Power

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Trade unions the world over are encouraged to apply for the remaining spots in the 2008-2009 master course offerings of the Global Labour University, to be held in Germany, India, Brazil, South Africa. 
 
Forms and information can be found&nbsp;<a href="http://www.global-labour-university.org/">here</a>. 
 
The programme offered at Germany&rsquo;s University of Kassel and Berlin School of Economics centres on global governance and macroeconomics; the programme at the Tata Institute in Mumbai, India, deals with the informal economy; the curriculum at the University of Witwaterstand, Johannesburg, South Africa, is the politics of development; while at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), S&atilde;o Paulo State, the focus is on transational companies.
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The Global Labour University is an initiative of the ILO, global trade unions, academic institutions, and foundations. ACTRAV, the ILO Bureau for Workers&rsquo; Activities, offers scholarships to trade unionists from developing nations and transitional economies. Applicants must have the endrosement from a trade union to apply.

Applications Closing Fast for Admission to 2008-2009 Global Labour University

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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) of the UK has issued a cautionary warning on the number of hydrocarbon releases in the offshore oil and gas industries. Such releases are considered precursors for major accidents. 
 
The concern comes just five weeks after British trade unions and civil society commemorated the 20-year anniversary of the deadly Piper Alpha offshore disaster, in which 167 oil workers were killed. 
 
Figures released by the UK's HSE reveal that there has been no improvement in the number of hydrocarbon releases in 2007-2008. Some 517 dangerous incidents were reported in that period, 40% of which were hydrocarbon releases.
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The statistics, released by the HSE on 13 August, show that there was also an increase in the number of serious injuries in the offshore sector in 2007-2008 from the prior year. There were 44, compared to 39 in 2006-2007. Although for the first time in three years there were no fatalities in the offshore sector, there were 12 deaths in marine operations tied to offshore work. That included eight seamen who perished in April 2007 when the Norwegian anchor-handling tug supply vessel Bourbon Dolphin sunk in UK waters off the Shetland Islands. 
 
HSE Executive Judith Hackitt said the statistics are a reminder &ldquo;that we are far from being in a position where we can feel comfortable. On the failure to reduce the number of hydrocarbon releases, plus the increase in recorded dangerous incidents, she said the obvious implication is &ldquo;that basic safety systems are not being followed.&rdquo; 
 
UK&rsquo;s worst offshore disaster in the UK occurred on 6 July 1988 during Occidental Petroleum&rsquo;s Piper Alpha platform blasts. The 167 workers killed were caught in a hellish series of explosions lasting 75 minutes that many blamed on lax management control systems.

UK’s Health, Safety Executive Issues Warning on Offshore Hydrocarbon Releases

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The mining company Rio Tinto has been identified by the Australian labour movement as a major obstacle in stopping the use of AWAs, the draconian individual work agreements made to order by the ousted Howard government in order to weaken workers&rsquo; rights. 
 
And ICEM affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) is taking on the company squarely for trying to renew Australian Work Agreements (AWAs) with railroad workers at Pilbara Rail Services, a key Rio subsidiary in its lucrative western iron ore business. 
 
The CFMEU is seeking authorization from the Industrial Relations Commission to hold a secret ballot election in order to take industrial action, a move geared to rid rail workers of AWAs in favour of real collective agreements. Getting such legal sanction in West Australia is aimed at forcing Rio Tinto to the bargaining table.
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The union is similarly running campaigns to persuade BHP Billiton iron ore workers in the west to toss away AWAs, as well as Xstrata coal miners in the north. 
 
The Labour Government of Kevin Rudd, in March, passed a new law that scrapped John Howard&rsquo;s WorkChoices, but major companies are using loopholes in the new law to continue offering AWAs. 
 
Australian Council of Trade Unions President Sharan Burrow said &ldquo;there has been clear evidence that (telecommunications company) Telstra, Rio Tinto, Cochlear, and other major companies are still exploiting&rdquo; the loopholes. The ICEM stands with the CFMEU and asks that all miners in Australia refuse AWAs, and demand ironclad collective agreements with their employers.

Rio Tinto Test Awaits to Get Mining Firm to Discontinue Individual Work Agreements

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The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa has hit hard on four deaths within a week at AngloGold and AngloPlatinum, pivotal proof that the country is in need of rigid safety regulations that hopefully will become law late this year. 
 
During a week spanning 12 August to 17 August, safety performances by both AngloGold and AngloPlats sunk at the same time the Chamber of Mines lobbied against tougher criminal penalties and corporate liabilities. Those arguments came in discussions during public hearings of the proposed Mine Health and Safety Amendment Bill. A Chamber of Mines leader said such measures would undermine CEOs in their current focus on workplace safety. 
 
At AngloGold, one worker was killed underground on 12 August in a mine collapse at Mponeng, while at TauTona, another miner was killed similarly, and two others were seriously injured. This happened on 15 August. At AngloPlats, majority owned by AngloAmerican, a company that sacked an AngloPlats CEO over safety performance, a fatality occurred at the Mogalakwena mine (16 August) and the Amandabult mine (18 August).
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NUM Gen. Sec. Frans Baleni&nbsp;
AngloGold workers set up a Day of Mourning for 21 August, but it was met with a company &ldquo;no work, no pay&rdquo; rule, which infuriated the national NUM. &ldquo;It is within our African culture to mourn and workers will continue to mourn for their deceased colleagues whether or not&rdquo; the industry accepts the practice, said NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni. 
 
AngloGold shut production at one of the two mines stricken by the worker fatalities, but AngloPlats continued production at both its mines. The NUM is pushing enactment of reform legislation that would lift maximum fines from R200,000 to R1 million on mining deaths, as well as place criminal liabilities on company officials.
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Also in the NUM, a near month-long strike by 700 miners at UK-based Petra Diamonds Ltd.&rsquo;s Heman mine ended on 19 August when the nation&rsquo;s second largest diamond producer significantly rised wages. The company admitted during the strike that even though its wage offer was near the inflation rate of 12%, its wage proposal would still not lift salaries to national mining averages. 
 
In other South African mining news, Energy and Minerals Minister Buyelwa Sonjica emphatically blasted activists who are attempting to block a titanium mining venture in the country&rsquo;s remote western coastal regions. Speaking in favour of a project by the Australian company Minerals Resource Commodities and its South African subsidiary, Transworld Energy and Minerals, she said those opposing the project now should examine their own apartheid-era disinterest before they take up the mantle community activists.

NUM Protests Rash of AngloGold, AngloPlats Mine Deaths in South Africa

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On 13 August, in the northern Colombian city of Baranquilla, the right-wing paramilitary group &ldquo;Black Eagles&rdquo; issued a communiqu&eacute; calling for death to community activists and trade union leaders, most notably a union leader in ICEM mining affiliate Sintracarb&ograve;n. He is Adolfo Llanos. 
 
The ICEM strongly denounced the cowardly acts in a letter to the Colombian government and the three MNCs that control worksites in which Sintracarb&ograve;n represents coal miners, and transport and port workers. The ICEM demanded greater security for trade union leaders in the letter, and for the government to apprehend and convict those responsible.
<img height="220" alt="" src="" width="160" />
ICEM Gen. Sec. Manfred Warda
&ldquo;It must now be the obligation and responsibility of the government, in close cooperation with the management of Carbones del Cerej&oacute;n, to ensure the safety for all the people on this death list,&rdquo; wrote ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;We take this vile and cowardly letter seriously and we hope you do as well, particularly in view of the fact that the 22 March 2008 murder of Sintracarb&ograve;n activist Adolfo Gonz&aacute;lez Montes has gone unsolved.&rdquo; 
 
Gonz&aacute;lez Montes was a committeeman for the Barrancas mining section of Sintracarb&ograve;n. He was murdered early in the morning of 22 March prior to his work turn at his home in Riohacha. Before his murder, multiple assailants tortured him in front of his four children, and immediately following the murder, other leaders of Sintracarb&ograve;n received telephone death threats.
<img height="101" alt="" src="" width="220" />
Adolfo Llanos is a union leader at Puerto Bolivar, Cerrej&oacute;n&rsquo;s deep-water coal export port on the Caribbean coast. Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n is one of the world&rsquo;s largest open pit coal mining firms, equally owned by AngloAmerican, BHP Billiton, and Xstrata. 
 
The Colombian government has maintained that the Aquilas Negras, or &ldquo;Black Eagles,&rdquo; no longer exists. But leaders of other unions have received death threats from the paramilitary group, including the food and beverage trade union Sinaltraninal late last year.

ICEM Demands Greater Security for Sintracarbòn Unionists in Recent Colombian Death Threats

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Lastik-Īş, ICEM&rsquo;s rubber and chemicals affiliate in Turkey, kept its collective agreement in the rubber sector intact. A week ago, under threat of a 22 May strike at four tyre plants by 3,500 workers, the rubber industry representing Pirelli Lastikleri, Goodyear and Brisa Bridgestone Sabanci, agreed to a two-year contract with the union that excludes all employer flexibility demands contained in a World Bank and IMF inspired labour code introduced in Turkey three years ago. 
<img height="151" alt="" src="" width="200" /> 
 
Lastik-Īş leaders outside the Izmit Turkey 
Goodyear plant
Lastik-Īş retained 50 years of gained rights, including holiday periods, wage rates of new hires, health care protections, and limitations on use of temporary workers.
The union won a 5% wage increase back to 1 January, which equals the country&rsquo;s inflation rate of the last six months of 2005, and also won wage adjustments every six months, based on the inflation rate level. Lastik-Īş negotiated increases based on the inflation rate for several social benefits, including education and child aid, sickness and disease benefits, and heating, food and other social gains.

Turkish Lastik-Īş  Preserves All Past Gains in New Tyre Agreement

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ICEM Nigerian affiliate PENGASSAN agreed to a 27% wage increase at the weekend for upstream workers of Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. The company, a subsidiary of US-based supermajor ExxonMobil, was under an extended strike deadline to tomorrow by the white-collar oil workers&rsquo; union and its 1,700 members employed by the company. 
 
PENGASSAN had targeted ExxonMobil&rsquo;s Nigerian operations because prior wage negotiations with other multinational oil companies had yielded higher pay increases. The union and company will meet again in December to discuss further increases. 
<img height="50" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Meanwhile, dialogue will continue between the two sides on the use of contract labour in offshore oil operations, as well as PENGASSAN&rsquo;s demand that ExxonMobil comply with an expatriate quota and local content policies that are in effect in Nigeria. The union seeks more full-time employment for Nigerian workers in the oil and gas sector. 
 
On 25 May, PENGASSAN&rsquo;s National Executive Board met and elected Peter Esele as president. He had been serving as acting president since the tragic death of President Uche Okoro in an airline crash last December. Esele is a skilled negotiator and employed at Core Laboratories Nigeria Ltd. as a Health and Environment officer.

ExxonMobil Negotiates Equity Wage Increases to Avert Nigerian Strike

Archive

ICEM Supports Strike by UPM Paperworkers in Finland on 16 September

Trade Unions, Engineering and Consumers’ Groups Take Stand Against Turkey’s Privatisation

South American Mine Unions Meet in Hopes of Consolidating Union Power

Applications Closing Fast for Admission to 2008-2009 Global Labour University

UK’s Health, Safety Executive Issues Warning on Offshore Hydrocarbon Releases

Rio Tinto Test Awaits to Get Mining Firm to Discontinue Individual Work Agreements

NUM Protests Rash of AngloGold, AngloPlats Mine Deaths in South Africa

ICEM Demands Greater Security for Sintracarbòn Unionists in Recent Colombian Death Threats

Turkish Lastik-Īş Preserves All Past Gains in New Tyre Agreement

ExxonMobil Negotiates Equity Wage Increases to Avert Nigerian Strike

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