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The ICEM has strengthened its connections with mining unions in Albania after attending the 5th National Congress of the Union of Independent Trade Unions of Albania (BSPSH). Two ICEM affiliates, the Independent Trade Union of Mines and the Trade Union Federation of Chemical and Metal Workers are key members of the BSPSH. 
 
The BSPSH and the Confederation of Trade Unions of Albania (KSSH), a second trade union confederation, have been under attack by the government of Albania after they were forcibly and illegally removed from their offices and had computers and records destroyed or confiscated. The ICEM pledged to support efforts to have the property of the trade unions returned. 

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BSPSH Congress
Joe Drexler, ICEM Director of Industry and Corporate Affairs, represented the ICEM at the Congress and saluted the work of the BSPSH in developing democratic trade unions. He particularly noted the historical contributions of miners and their president, Kezim Kalaja, who in 1991 led a general strike that ushered in an era of political change and democracy that allowed trade unions to develop. Kalaja also became president of the BSPSH and was re-elected at the 5th Congress by acclamation in recognition of his decades of leadership. 
 
Also attending the Congress were national federations from Italy, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Serbia, and Poland. 

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Joe Drexler &amp; Kezim Kalaja, centre
Drexler visited an underground copper mine and enrichment plant, owned and operated by a Turkish-based company, in the Northeast of the Albania. President Kalaja and Gjon Zeka, the trade union&rsquo;s regional secretary, joined the tour. 
 
Albania is only one of only 23 countries which have ratified International Labor Organization Convention 176 on Health and Safety in Mines.

ICEM Strengthens Connection with Trade Unions in Albania

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The Solidarity Support Organisation of the Central Labour Organisation of Finland (SASK) is an important partner of many Global Union Federations (GUFs) in joint work in Africa, Latin America and the Asia Pacific Regions. But until now, it has not undertaken support work with a GUF in the Middle East. 
 
This may be about to change. In a first such effort, SASK organised a three-day set of workshops in Amman, Jordan. The sessions ran from 29 September to 1 October, and were aimed at sharing information and experiences with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the GUFs. 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s Jim Catterson represented the Geneva-based GUF during the discussions, which brought together representatives from SASK, the ITUC, and six GUFs. SASK has seen the main reason for its absence in the region as a lack of good project proposals being tabled before them. 

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Conference participants, outside the office of the General Union of Textile and Garment Workers in Jordan. 
After a brief formal opening session, ITUC representatives gave an up-to-date report on the trade union movement throughout the Arab World. This was followed by an overview from SASK on its global activities, methods of work and priorities regarding both work and information sharing with other Solidarity Support Organisations and the global union movement. 
 
Each GUF was then given time to describe its own activities in the region, developments in respective sectors, and GUF priorities for future work in the region. Here, Catterson emphasized that ICEM is still in a building stage in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) Region, and a major overall priority is to integrate the union work. As well, a main priority is to integrate MENA affiliates into the global work and activities of the ICEM. 
 
Clearly, privatisation of industrial enterprises, as well as gaining greater access to MNC investment has led to new challenges for the trade unions throughout the region, Catterson said. Unions also need assistance to organise workers in the new enterprises. Trade unions delegates attending from the region expressed their wish to have more information, as well as advice on how to benefit from the range of &quot;international instruments,&quot; including ILO Conventions, OECD Guidelines, the Global Compact, and Global Framework Agreements. 

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Delegates receive a briefing in the local ITLGWU-affiliated union office inside a QIZ 
Catterson described in detail the joint work the ICEM is doing with the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) in bringing together oil and gas workers&rsquo; unions with port and transport unions that are involved in energy transportation in Iraq. 
 
Further sessions included a detailed focus on the issue of Migrant Labour in the region and in Jordan in particular, which saw extensive presentations from International Textile, Garment, Leather Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITGLWF) and the ILO Better Work programme. This latter project focuses on the garment industry and after an initial program in Cambodia, has expanded to a number of other countries including Jordan. 
 
Jordan has a significant garment manufacturing industry with production geared on exports almost totally to the US. The industry is principally located in special export processing zones known as Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs). Here, working and living conditions are truly appalling, with the overwhelmingly the number of workers foreign migrant workers. The ITGLWF Jordanian affiliate described the difficulties they face in organising workers in such conditions. Often, such workers distrust trade unions from experiences in their own countries and few speak Arabic. As well, access to either workplaces or living accommodations is tightly controlled by employers who often prevented union organisers from gaining access. However, ITGLWF had, in many instances, overcome such obstacles and continue to organise migrant workers in the industry. 
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Participants were able to see an example of these successes with a visit to a factory making jeans for the US market. The factory was in one such QIZ in an area north of Amman. The union has an office, staffed by multi-lingual organisers, with the office displaying the flags of nations in which migrant workers hail from. The organizers speak such diverse languages as Chinese, Urdu, Tamal, and Arabic. 
 
Workshop participants received an initial briefing by union officials and organizers in the union office, as well as a tour of a small but well-equipped medical clinic that serves workers and their families. The clinic provides free medical treatment, dental care, and diagnostics. 
 
It was established with support of the Asia and Pacific Regional Organisation (TWARO) of ITGLWF, along with the GUF&rsquo;s Japanese affiliates. It stands as a facility that any union would be proud to have. 
 
Management at one of the textile factories, employing around 1,500 workers, mainly from the Indian sub-continent, then joined the discussions for a question and answer session. Most of the workforce was organised by the union and a reasonable relationship had been built between union and management. 
 
ICEM will be in discussions with SASK in the future with a view toward developing joint programmes and providing solidarity and assistance to affiliated unions throughout the MENA Region.

ICEM Joins SASK of Finland, Others in Union-Building Workshops in Middle East

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A strike in South Africa&rsquo;s gold fields intensified last week as 4,000 miners and their family members, backed by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), marched on 29 September to DRDGold Ltd&rsquo;s offices in Carletonville. The strike at two company mines, Blyvoor and Consolidated Crown Gold Recoveries, started on 16 and 17 September. 
 
At the same time that last week&rsquo;s manifestation was occurring, the NUM filed a petition with the Department of Minerals to revoke the mining license of DRDGold. The union labels the company with a socially irresponsible record in South Africa, one marked by the closing of mines and payment of paltry salaries. 

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That anti-social attitude was evidenced at the outset of the strike. DRDGold sought a labour court order declaring the strike illegal, and when the agency did not rule on behalf of the company, DRDGold issued an ultimatum that job cuts would occur if the strike was not called off. 
 
The NUM is seeking a living wage increase of 13% in high-inflation South Africa, while the company is offering a sub-inflation raise of only 7% for lower classified workers and 6.5% for higher category workers. Gold has been one commodity that has retained and exceeded its pricing expectations during the economic crisis, having risen over the past year from US$750 per once to US$1,000. 
 
DRDGold argues that since gold markets worldwide are fixed to the US dollar and because the dollar has lost ground to the rand, the company deserves pay awards that fall below South Africa&rsquo;s inflation rate. 
 
&ldquo;We cannot afford to have a company that pleads poverty all the time,&rdquo; said NUM Carletonvile Regional Chair Deon Boqwana. &ldquo;This is the same company that was once crowned worst employer of the year by COSATU some years back.&rdquo;

Mining Strike at DRDGold in South Africa Heats Up

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ICEM Italian affiliate FEMCA-CISL has drawn a line in the stand against any break-up of Eni, the oil and gas major that is 30% owned by the Italian government. As investors study a restructuring of the energy company, the union sounded a warning last week that splitting Eni into separate companies would bring more harm than good. 
 
FEMCA-CISL General Secretary Sergio Gigli said both workers and consumers would be negatively affected, and that skills, knowledge, and strategic synergies &ndash; long vital in the running of the company &ndash; would be destroyed. 

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Sergio Gigli
The union&rsquo;s comments came at the same time that a financial conference was being held in Milan to address restructuring the company. At that conference, American asset management company and minority shareholder, Knight Vinke, known for provoking shareholder activism to break apart enterprises, recommended that Eni&rsquo;s oil and gas units be split apart in separate upstream and downstream businesses. 
 
FEMCA-CISL called such a possible separation a loss of integration that would jeopardize the company as a national model, and as an entity that plays a valuable social role inside Italy. The union also said that any weakening of Eni would erode the company&rsquo;s ability to provide guaranteed strategic energy source supplies to Italy. 
 
Meanwhile, three Italian unions &ndash; FILCEM-CGIL, UILCEM-UIL, and FEMCA-CISL &ndash; welcomed the news last week that talks have fallen through between Eni and a UK private equity group, the Klesch Group, over sale of a refinery in Livorno, Tuscany. The discussions caused a nine-day strike by unions at the 1,000-worker refinery in early September. Eni had insisted in preliminary talks with Klesch that job guarantees be given to all workers.

Italian Union, FEMCA-CISL, Opposes Splitting of Energy Company Eni

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Belgian workers, members of two ICEM affiliates &ndash; FGTB and CSV, are bracing for more job redundancies in the glass sector, as Japanese-based Asahi Glass announced job cuts at two worksites in southern Belgium by year end. 
 
AGC Automotive, Asahi&rsquo;s auto-glass manufacturer, announced late in September that it intends to chop 203 jobs at a factory in Fleurus, Belgium, and at an administrative centre in Seneffe, Belgium. The company also said it was cutting another 68 jobs at an auto-mirror factory in Cuneo, Italy. 
 
Belgian workers in Wallonia immediately began a 24-hour strike upon hearing the announcement. The Renault procedure was invoked and the unions and management are in talks to hopefully restrict the number of job cuts. 

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This week, on 9 October, FGTB and CSC will hold a manifestation in Charleroi against Asahi&rsquo;s cuts, entitled &ldquo;We Will Not Pay Twice for the Crisis!&rdquo; 
 
Asahi&rsquo;s proposed redundancies would further deepen a manufacturing crisis that has gripped the Walloon region of Belgium. The 163 jobs targeted for redundancy at Fleurus would more than half the present workforce of 295. A short eight years ago, the Japanese company employed 1,150 workers at the auto-glass plant. In Seneffe, 40 out of 165 jobs at the company&rsquo;s European administration headquarters are proposed to be cut, with that facility closing and the remaining workers transferred to Fleurus. 
 
In Italy, the initial proposal for the Cuneo plant is to lop 68 of 209 jobs. Asahi also announced it was closing an auto-glass factory in Kitakyushi, Japan, by January 2010.

Belgian Glass Workers to Manifest as Asahi Plans More Jobs Cuts

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Today, the ICEM stepped up its support for the nearly 600 miners of US Borax, in their struggle to defend their trade union rights and working conditions, against an attack from the Rio Tinto subsidiary. 
 
US Borax, located in Boron, California, is one of the few global suppliers of borates, and has the reserves for nearly 40 years more of production. Workers at the mine are represented by ICEM affiliate International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 30. Workers, through their union, have put forth a list of demands. 

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On wages, they seek an increase that will redress their loss of earning power over the past five years in which they saw raises that fell below inflation levels. They also seek to eliminate a two-tier wage structure that was put in place five years ago. On pensions, they are defending a defined benefit plan that the company seeks to eliminate, one that was fully funded until the stock market decline. 
 
On sick leave and medical benefits, the company has systematically reduced levels and Local 30 demands a redress of this trend. 
 
The ICEM is urging trade unions and activists to let Rio Tinto know that these miners are not alone in their fight for economic and social justice in this contract period. Please write and fax a letter (using the model found <a href="/index.php?id=5&amp;la=EN&amp;doc=3428">here</a>) to Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese, and be sure to send a copy to Willie Adams, Secretary-Treasurer of the ILWU at <a href="mailto:william.adams@ilwu.org">william.adams@ilwu.org</a>.

ICEM Calls for Support to US Miners in California, Attacked by Rio Tinto

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Mining giant Vale-Inco began production at its struck Clarabelle Mill in Sudbury, Ontario, on 1 October, the first time in Inco&rsquo;s 60-year history that production has occurred during a strike or lockout. 
 
Company management is now working to restart a smelting mill, as well as the Garson Ramp and Coleman mines, using 1,200 replacement workers. 
 
The restarting of production last week occurred without incident. Some members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 2020, representing office, clerical, and technical workers who work under a separate labour agreement not affected by the strike, are being used to do the struck work inside Clarabelle. This has caused the USW to file a grievance, accusing the company of sending unqualified office workers underground. Such action not only violates a provincial Ontario labour statute, but is seen as extremely unsafe and risky. 

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Wayne Fraser
USW District Six Director Wayne Fraser said the union is very concerned about the safety of its members because they are being assigned work they are not experienced at or are confident in performing. &ldquo;This doesn&rsquo;t just risk their health; it risks the health of the people around them,&rdquo; he said. 
 
Striking steelworkers, numbering 3,500 in northern Ontario and at Port Colborne, Ontario, as well as in Voiseys Bay, Labrador, were incensed with the company&rsquo;s re-start last week. A further incident in Sudbury that provoked anger was the sacking of three employees for alleged picket-line misconduct. 

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USW Local 6500 President John Fera
USW Local 6500 President John Fera in Sudbury was furious with the dismissals, stating in a local news account, &ldquo;Welcome to the new Vale.&rdquo; The sackings have been described as Vale-Inco attempting to impose fear and intimidation, just as it re-starts operations. The fired workers will be protected by the union, will continue to receive strike pay, and their cases will be addressed at the bargaining table when Vale-Inco decides to return to talks. 
 
Fera called Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper to task for failing to make any kind of public statement over the Brazilian company&rsquo;s assault on the living standards of Canadians. &ldquo;I have not heard a word from our Prime Minister, I have not heard a word from our Industry Minister, and I&rsquo;ve not heard a word from the provincial government,&rdquo; told the Sudbury Star newspaper. 

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Miners and smelting plant workers of Sudbury and Port Colborne walked off worksites on 13 July in their fight to retain pensions, a nickel bonus, and a host of other working conditions, including restrictions on the company&rsquo;s ability to contract out work. Contract talks began 7 April but failed to produce a new collective agreement for Local 6500 in Sudbury and Local 6200 in Port Colborne by the contract&rsquo;s expiration in late May. 
 
Vale-Inco then refused to move from its concessionary posture in a six-week contract extension that expired on 12 July. On 1 August, 450 miners and smelting plant workers, members of USW Local 9508 at Voiseys Bay in eastern Canada who were under a different labour agreement, struck over similar company concessionary demands. 
 
The strikes have taken on international significance as a symbol for trade unions to block a profitable company from taking advantage of a global recession in order to undercut the wages and living conditions of workers and their families.

USW, Nickel Miners Enraged: Vale-Inco Restarts Sudbury Operations

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ICEM affiliate Oilfields Workers&rsquo; Trade Union (OWTU) of Trinidad and Tobago issued a dire warning last week to the government to stop trampling union rights and threats to full-time employment at state-owned energy concerns. 
 
At a mass meeting at OWTU headquarters in San Fernando on 1 October, President-General Ancel Roget said a week-long national strike, led by the country&rsquo;s most powerful trade union, is imminent by the end of the year if the government and its enterprises do not stop the abuse. 
 
The island-nation has been gripped of late by government enterprises, the Telecommunications Service (TSTT) and the Public Transport Service Corp. (PTSC), taking legal action to decertify trade unions in those sectors because of labour incidents this summer. 

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OWTU members last week 
Photo: Trevor Hackett/Trinidad and Tobago Express
Late last week, just prior to a mass gathering outside the industrial court to protest the union decertifications, the Trade and Industry Minister, upon exiting from a cabinet meeting, said ministers would instruct the state enterprises to drop court actions aimed at decertifying the Communication Workers&rsquo; Trade Union and the Transport and Industrial Workers&rsquo; Trade Union. 
 
That was seen as a tangible retreat by the government to growing discontent by citizens angered by suppression of trade union rights in the public sector. 
 
But despite this, OWTU is waiting for the government and administrators of state-controlled oil and gas companies Petrotrin and Trinmar (Petrotrin&rsquo;s offshore subsidiary) to back away from rhetoric that discredits its full-time workforce. The government has made claims that the energy companies are overstaffed by 2,000 workers, and that retrenchments might be inevitable. 

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OWTU President-General Ancel Roget
OWTU also takes offense to statements made by Petrotrin Chairman Malcolm Jones before a parliamentary committee meeting early last week. At a Public Accounts Committee meeting, Jones said Petrotrin&rsquo;s permanent workforce at its Point-&agrave;-Pierre refinery was not performing well enough during a gasoline optimization project, thus forcing the company to hire temporary and contract workers at the refinery. 
 
At last Thursday&rsquo;s emergency OWTU meeting, Roget called for an audit of the gasoline optimization programme, and said workers face &ldquo;a runaway government&rdquo; intent on imposing &ldquo;all kinds of penalties and hardships for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.&rdquo; 
 
The government&rsquo;s union decertification retreat in telecommunications and transport appears aimed at defusing possible mass unrest and mobilizations during the 27-29 November biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Port of Spain. 
 
But the government of Prime Minister Patrick Manning may face those protests anyway if Petrotrin and its bosses do not stand down from its demoralizing anti-worker rhetoric that has clearly irritated Trinidad and Tobago&rsquo;s paramount trade union.

OWTU Will Use Direct Action to Defend Jobs, Unions in Trinidad and Tobago

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World Day for Decent Work (WDDW) actions by the ICEM kicked off last week with two days of activities in Turkey, focusing on the dangers to civil society when full-time employment is eroded and use of contract and agency labour increases. 
 
The ICEM is highlighting actions on curbing the anti-social nemesis of temporary and agency work in Turkey and Thailand as its part in WDDW for 2009, the second year that global labour has marked an October date to herald decent work and decent living standards. 7 October has become fixed as WDDW, and trade unions worldwide are encouraged to use the weeks of early October to publicly rally for sustainable jobs. 

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In Thailand, ICEM-affiliated trade unions, together with the Confederation of State Enterprise Unions, will gather at 10h00 on 7 October in front of the UN Building on Rachadamnoen Road. From there, a march will proceed to the Government House, where a petition will be submitted to the Prime Minister&rsquo;s office calling on Thailand to ratify ILO Conventions 87 and 98, the Freedom of Association and Right to Organise and Right to Collective Bargaining Conventions. 
 
The assembly is being buoyed by the Thai Solidarity Committee, and federated trade unions representing workers chemicals and petroleum, pulp and paper, automotive, electronics, textile and garments, and food workers. Thousands are expected to march. 
 
In Istanbul, Turkey, on 1 October, a delegation of leading global union leaders first met with Turkish trade union officers to let them know that global labour stands with them in preventing re-submission of &ldquo;Private Labour Offices&rdquo; legislation in Turkey. In late June, the country&rsquo;s Parliament moved such a bill to President Abdullah G&uuml;l without hearings or input from civil society. 
 
On 9 July, President G&uuml;l vetoed the measure. The bill would have allotted fees to labour brokers in their jobs&rsquo; dispatch of temporary, and allowed any individual or business to certify as a private-hire labour agency with a minimal investment of TL 20,000 (&euro;9,250). 
Last Thursday, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, International Textile, Garment, Leather Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITGLWU) General Secretary Neil Kearney, International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF) General Secretary Jyrki Raina, and ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Officer Kemal &Ouml;zkan met with Turkish trade unions, as well as with Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (T&uuml;rk-İş) General Secretary Mustafa Kumlu to pledge continued resistance to the bill. 

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Trade Union Leaders with Turkish Minister of Labour and Social Security &Ouml;mer Din&ccedil;er
Later in the day, Kumlu, an ICEM Executive Committee member, joined global union leaders in a meeting with Turkish Minister of Labour and Social Security &Ouml;mer Din&ccedil;er. The minister confirmed that the draft bill, at present, is not on the agenda of the Parliament. 
 
Discussion also ensued on trade union rights and freedoms inside Turkey. Din&ccedil;er said his ministry is ready to cooperate with the global trade union movement to modify Turkey&rsquo;s draconian labour code to become more in line with ILO Conventions and European Union norms. The union leaders also met separately on 1 October with Salim Uslu, president of Hak-İş, the Real Trade Unions Confederation of Turkey, and with S&uuml;leyman &Ccedil;elebi, President of DİSK, the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions.&nbsp;
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2 October Press Conference in Istanbul
On 2 October, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Guy Ryder joined Warda, Kearney, Raina, and the four presidents of Turkish national labour centers at an 11h00 press conference. The conference was attended by 60 trade union leaders from inside Turkey, and press representing 18 Turkish media outlets. 
 
Again, the message zeroed in on the growing threat to the living standards of workers under the present trend of discarding regular and full-time employees in favour of temporary and agency work. In two days, on 7 October, DİSK will distribute, in all workplaces in which it has membership, an ITUC manifesto on WDDW. 
 
Meanwhile, the T&uuml;rk-İş Confederation will sponsor an international symposium on decent work on that day at Gazi University in Ankara. The Global Union Council will be present for that symposium. 
 
Also in Thailand this week, trade unions are doing vast media outreach around WDDW and are disseminating the IMF&rsquo;s precarious work brochure and poster.

ICEM’s WDDW Activities Start in Istanbul; March Set in Bangkok on 7 October

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A five-week strike at a BHP-owned manganese mine and smelter by members of the Kimberley branch of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa ended 5 October with a satisfactory one-year contract. 
 
The resolve came after global pressure was applied by ICEM mining affiliates, as well as attention given BHP&rsquo;s bargaining indifference at the recent statutory meeting of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and at ICEM&rsquo;s Sub-Sahara Africa Region Meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, on 15 September. 
 
&ldquo;We were very fortunate to have international pressure and a COSATU focus on this strike,&rdquo; said NUM Kimberley Regional Coordinator Lucas Phiri. &ldquo;The arrogance of this company from the mine level to the Johannesburg office was something I have not seen in 12 years inside the NUM.&rdquo; 

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The 920 miners and smelting-plant workers at BHP&rsquo;s Hozatel Manganese operation in the Northern Cape downed tools on 28 August. Their dispute was not just about wages &ndash; South African managers, in fact, were cancelling meetings both at the local level and with NUM national officers &ndash; but about parity between black and white miners, and for improved conditions for women in this remote mining region of the Northern Cape. 
 
With 90% of the 920 workers black, the NUM discovered that white workers at Hozatel got better medical assistance benefits, and received a transportation allowance of 2,000 rands per month, while blacks received 440 rands. Many miners live in hostels, but others travel from the village of Kuruman to the Hozatel operation. 
 
Due to outside pressure on BHP, local management finally got serious on addressing issues that caused the strike and called for talks on 5 October. Both sides agreed to an 8% pay increase effective 1 September, with a one-off 4,000 rand payment per worker for the period July-September 2009. A prior agreement expired 1 July, and the agreement reached on 5 October will last until 1 September 2010. 

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Another key issue resolved related to NUM&rsquo;s ability to recruit into membership workers in higher-level classifications. BHP originally demanded a 66% vote, but the resolve reached in early October made that the standard 50% plus one, or a simple majority. 
 
Related to the parity issues, the two sides agreed to establish a separate bilateral forum to address and even out the disproportionate medical and transportation benefits between white and black workers. A deadline of 30 December 2009 has been put on resolving that. 
 
The same deadline holds for dealing with the employment equity between women and men, as well as the company&rsquo;s draconian policy of not granting maternity leave to women who have less than three years of employment service. 
 
The agreement &ldquo;was not all that we had hoped for,&rdquo; stated Phiri, &ldquo;but we are forever thankful for the outside pressure that moved a management that had before been so stubborn to address workers concerns.&rdquo; 
 
BHP operates Hozatel under its Middelplaats Manganese subsidiary, an asset it acquired with its partial buy-up of Semancor in the 1980s. The mine and ferrochrome smelting facility had originally been part of AngloAmerican.

Union Pressure Helps End BHP Manganese Strike in South Africa for NUM

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