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The Federation of Energy, Geology, and Mining Trade Unions of Mongolia held its Fourth Extraordinary Conference in Ulaanbaatar late in May, and elected a new President for the 15,000-member union. 
Ganbold Sukhbaatar, a mining engineer, was elected to succeed Chultem Baljinyam. Ganbold is a 15-year veteran of the mining industry, and has been active in elected positions in trade unions for the past ten years.

Mongolian Mining Union Federation Elects New President

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ICEM affiliate, the United Electrical, Radio, Machine Workers of America (UE), and the IUE-CWA reached tentative four-year agreements with General Electric Co. (GE) yesterday. 
 
The tentative pact, covering over 14,000 workers, will now be reviewed by the two unions&rsquo; conference boards, and then put to ratification votes of all workers by 28 June. A prior labour agreement in the US at GE plants expired at midnight, last night. 
 
The tentative accord reached yesterday includes significant improvements in wages, pensions, and benefits. It also contains agreement to accelerate joint efforts between GE and the unions to address the difficult and costly health care system in America. The unions also won a new holiday in talks, Veterans Day (also known as Armistice Day) in November. 
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&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s an agreement our members will recognise as a good one,&rdquo; stated UE General President John Hovis. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m especially pleased with the provisions that affect (less senior) people at the locations we represent.&rdquo; Both the UE and the IUE-CWA are recommending the tentative contract for approval to their members. 
 
Terms of this accord will now be offered to US-based unions covering another 6,000 GE workers at their locations.

US Union Reach Tentative Contract with General Electric

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The jobs crisis in the paper and wood sectors of Canada has taken further hard blows. Early this month, Finnish pulp and paper company UPM Kymmene announced a temporary 9-to-12 month closure of its paper and groundwood mills in Miramichi, New Brunswick, thus idling 600 workers. 
 
That came just a week after US-based Weyerhaeuser Co. officially announced, on 31 May, the permanent closure of a wood mill in the same town. The closing will cost 150 jobs. Workers at both mills are represented by ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada. 
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While meeting with company officials of UPM Kymmene in Miramichi on 8 June, CEP local union leaders left the meeting not very hopeful. They were told that the odds of re-starting the mill next year stand at only 20% unless investments are made. 
 
Speaking at the New Brunswick Federation of Labour&rsquo;s convention in Edmunston on the day that UPM broke the news, 5 June, CEP President Dave Coles said, &ldquo;These communities are a microcosm of what is going on in more than four dozen communities (across Canada).&rdquo; He said that over the past three years, more than 12,000 pulp, paper, and sawmill workers have lost their jobs in Canada. 
 
What makes matters worst for mill workers, particularly at UPM, is that the Finnish company continues to cut and export raw logs off government forestlands through three leases it holds in the province of New Brunswick. CEP local leaders were told at the 5 June meeting that the company was going to do trial shipments of wood to Finland, something CEP and community leaders oppose while the paper mill is idle. 
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&ldquo;Employers, especially in the forestry sector, have deliberately taken the money they have earned from our publicly-owned natural resources and invested it elsewhere in the world,&rdquo; stated Coles at the provincial labour convention. 
 
The recent bad news hasn&rsquo;t been limited to New Brunswick. On 15 June, forestry company Tembec Inc. announced it was temporarily shutting three wood mills in Quebec and one in Ontario, affecting nearly 900 workers. 
 
That came a day after Commonwealth Plywood announced the closure of 18 mills in Quebec, six of which find workers represented by the CEP. The Commonwealth closures will mean the loss of 1,200 jobs. 
 
The CEP has pressed the federal government of Canada for intervention in the jobs crisis of the nation&rsquo;s forestry sector.

Forest Sector Jobs Continue to Drop in Wake of Eastern Canada Mills Closings

The 20-million-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine &amp; General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM) has expressed deep condolences to both its Russian trade union affiliate, the Russian Independent Coal Miners&rsquo; Union (ROSUGLEPROF), and the families of the coal miners killed in the Kemerovo region of Siberia. 
 
As of mid-afternoon today, 20 March, a total of 106 miners had been confirmed dead, with another four unaccounted for, making it Russia&rsquo;s deadliest coal mine disaster in modern times. The gas explosion occurred at the Ulyanonskaya mine in Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, part of the coal-rich Kuzbass region of southern Siberia. Ninety-two miners have been rescued so far. 
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ROSUGLEPROF President Ivan Mokhnachuk
A communiqu&eacute; was dispatched this afternoon by the ICEM to the mine&rsquo;s shop steward Mikhail Shutov, whose son was one the 106 miners killed, and to mine manager Andrei Funk. The ICEM also has been in contract with ROSUGLEPROF leadership, including President Ivan Mokhnachuk since the tragic accident occurred in the early afternoon of Monday, 19 March. 
 
ROSUGLEPROF Vice President Ruben Badalov flew from the union&rsquo;s office in Moscow yesterday to Novokuznetsk. Badalov is an elected member of Russia&rsquo;s Duma, and is part of the official investigation team. 
 
In the ICEM letter from General Secretary Manfred Warda to the mine&rsquo;s shop steward and manager, the Global Union Federation for the Mining sector, stated, &ldquo;Please, tell the families of those killed in this horrible disaster that in this hour of grief, we are joined with them. The sorrow that has crushed down on them doubles our determination to fight for safe mines everywhere.&rdquo; 
 
A total of 203 miners were working 270 metres underground when a methane explosion occurred. Preliminary reports say that a roof collapsed inside the mine, either releasing or forcing high levels of methane gas through mine shafts. 
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Those levels did register on newly-installed and British-made gas detection equipment, ironically, as a British safety specialist was inspecting the equipment underground. He was accompanied by an interpreter, the mine&rsquo;s chief engineer, and some 20 other managers and technicians from the mine. All were killed in the blast. 
 
The Ulyanonskaya mine, 50% owned by the major Russian steel and metals company Evraz Group SA, employs a total of 1,068&nbsp;workers, of which 1,024 are ROSUGLEPROF union members. The mine started up in 2002 and produces about three million tonnes of coal annually. The mine&rsquo;s reserves are 230 million tonnes. 
 
The ICEM affiliates 384 industrial trade unions in 125 countries. The Global Union Federation represents a total of two million coal miners worldwide.

ICEM&#039;s Russian Affiliate, ROSUGLEPROF, Probes Tragic Coal Mine Disaster

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The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada has chosen Petro-Canada and its 135,000-per-day refinery near Edmonton, province of Alberta, as the lead enterprise for its 2007-2008 National Energy and Chemical Bargaining Programme. 
 
That decision was made by the CEP&rsquo;s Energy and Chemical Advisory Committee on 1 March after a three-month process. 
 
&ldquo;We chose to negotiate the pattern in Edmonton because we believe that the oil and gas sector and the labour market conditions in Alberta create the best conditions to deliver the kind of settlement that our members are expecting,&rdquo; stated National Energy Bargaining Coordinator Joe Gargiso. 
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CEP's Joe Gargiso
The CEP&rsquo;s National Energy and Chemical Bargaining Committee will conduct the national pattern bargaining negotiations, while CEP Local 501A of Sherwood Park, Alberta, conducts local negotiations at the refinery. 
 
&ldquo;There is no doubt that this industry can well afford a significant wage increase as well as other improvements,&rdquo; said CEP President Dave Coles. &ldquo;I want to acknowledge the role Local 501A is prepared to play in stepping out in front to set the pattern.&rdquo; 
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CEP President Dave Coles
Once the CEP comes to terms with Petro-Canada at its refinery near Edmonton, the union will hold a bargaining conference with all energy local unions to ratify the proposed agreement for pattern issues. The CEP&rsquo;s process to choose a lead company started in December when it entered into consultations with all major employers in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries. 
The union further met with Petro-Canada in February. This meeting was followed by a special meeting of all CEP Petro-Canada local unions in Toronto on 24 February.

CEP in Canada Chooses Petro-Canada Refinery in Alberta as Lead for Pattern Bargaining

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ICEM affiliate in North America, the United Steelworkers (USW), will host a two-day meeting next week for global union leaders of Goodyear rubber plants. The purpose of the meeting is to expand the steering committee of the Goodyear Network for more effective actions. 
 
This ICEM Network meeting will be held on 19-20 March, at the union hall of USW Local 2, Akron, state of Ohio. Akron is also the world headquarters for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. 
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The agenda will include a presentation on the structure of the ICEM Goodyear Global Union Network, and national reports on Goodyear&rsquo;s record of labour relations from across the world. The meeting will take up improving communications across the network, and will develop a solidarity action plan for trade unions representing Goodyear workers. 
 
Besides union leaders from USW local branches at some 16 Goodyear plants, union leaders from Goodyear enterprises in Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Peru, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa, and the UK will attend the USW-sponsored Goodyear Global Union Network.

USW to Host Goodyear Global Union Network of Workers Next Week

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On 8 March, ICEM affiliate IGBCE and BAVC, the chemical employers&rsquo; association in Germany, came to terms on a 14-month renewal contract covering 550,000 chemical workers. The contract includes adequate pay gains, but, more importantly, continues a trend of job growth inside Germany&rsquo;s chemicals sector. 
 
A salary increase of 3.6% is the base of the agreement. Workers will also receive an extra payment of 0.7% of their salary, times 13 months, before 30 June 2007 as a one-off. An additional lump sum tied to training is also included. 
 
&ldquo;The percentage increase, combined with the one-time payment, gives us an increase of 4.3%,&rdquo; said IGBCE Head of Collective Bargaining, Werner Bischoff. &ldquo;This is an acceptable and a decent compromise.&rdquo; Bischoff said protests by workers after the first round of national talks on 8 February had moved the BAVC at the bargaining table. 
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The IGBCE also won rights for 16,800 training placements to occur in 2007 and 2008, a proud achievement for the union in a four-year-old programme to retain and develop highly-skilled German chemical workers. 
 
&ldquo;It is good that we continue the efforts in the area of training at this high level,&rdquo; said Bischoff, adding that the IGBCE and chemical employers succeeded in meeting social responsibility goals. 
 
The renewal agreement, which effectively covers some 19,000 chemical employers, also calls for 2009 and 2010 levels of new training jobs to be determined inside collective bargaining. Bischoff noted that, through the 8 March agreement reached in Lahnstein, the IGBCE&rsquo;s &ldquo;Future through Training&rdquo; programme, which began in the 2003&rsquo;s round of collective bargaining, is now engendered until at least 2010.

IGBCE Secures Wage Gains, Furthers Job Opportunities in Germany’s Chemicals Sector

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At a merger Congress in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, last week, ICEM affiliate National Union of Workers in Electricity and Gas (SYNASEG), and the National Union of Workers in the Water Sector (SYNATRASE) formally came together to form FESENE, the Trade Union Federation of Energy and Water Workers. 
 
SYNASEG Gen. Sec. Fran&ccedil;ois Yao will hold the same position inside FESENE. He said the birth of the union is based on two principles, the right to association and the common fact that there is strength in unity. &ldquo;Wherever there is an economic power, there needs to be a trade union counterpart,&rdquo; said Yao at a press conference introducing the new union. 
 
The merger of the two unions occurs at a time when SYNASEG remains in dispute with CIE, the country&rsquo;s electricity operator and a subsidiary of the Bouygues Group. The ICEM affiliate suspended a strike, scheduled to start last week, after national ministers for Public Works and Energy and Mines agreed to mediate social dialogue. 
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General Secretary Fran&ccedil;ois Yao
CIE has engaged in systematic attacks on SYNASEG since 2005. Then, the union backed the government&rsquo;s reform of the national electric sector, which called for re-nationalising and not renewing Bouygues&rsquo; 15-year contract. But the government changed its policy and did award another 15-year contract to the French company. CIE retaliated over the following year by refusing to engage in social dialogue, and obstructing basic trade union rights. 
 
The current dispute centers on salary increases and the company&rsquo;s handling of a Mutual Investment Fund, established for training, placement, and other worker needs. SYNASEG members contribute to the fund, but CIE uses the money for purposes other than what it is intended for. 
 
Yao said the union will assess this week&rsquo;s mediation efforts by the two national ministers on 15 March, and take whatever action is necessary following that date.

ICEM’s Ivory Coast Affiliate, SYNASEG, Announces Merger with Water Workers’ Union

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ICEM South African affiliate, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers&rsquo; Union (CEPPWAWU), raised some legitimate concerns at the annual general meeting of pulp and paper produce Sappi on 5 March. 
 
The union asked acting CEO Eugene van As why the South African-based company faces such high staff turnover, particularly among technical workers. It also asked why Sappi does not have a viable succession plan in place for executives. 
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The latter point was a reference to the dismissal of CEO John Leslie last year, just two years after he left Rio Tinto to replace van As as Sappi&rsquo;s CEO. The world&rsquo;s number one producer of fine coated paper also lost three other executive directors last year, including Finance Director Don Wilson. 
 
CEPPWAWU demanded to know if there was any prospect of a new CEO being appointed soon, or if van As would stay on. The union also said poor morale in the South African operations of the company was the cause of high turnovers, both at lower levels of the workforce and among technical staff. &ldquo;Why are these resigning?&rdquo; asked CEPPWAWU Organiser Michael Mokoana. 
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Van As, who resigned in 2003 to take up the post of non-executive chairman after 25 years as CEO, stepped back in last year as acting CEO. In response to CEPPWAWU&rsquo;s question, he said it was not his intention to stay in the position. &ldquo;This is not where I wanted to be &hellip; not where I should be, but this is what we had to do.&rdquo; 
 
Van As admitted the company was concerned about the turnover, but said it was not abnormally high. He did admit that six months ago, a number of key people in the company&rsquo;s Johannesburg head office did depart. 
 
Sappi employs about 15,000 people in South Africa, Europe, and North America, with roughly half that number in South Africa, where the company operates pulp and paper mills, wood products operations, and manages timberlands.

CEPPWAWU Brings Concerns over Sappi’s Management to AGM in South Africa

A rank-and-file vote to merge two major British trade unions was approved on 8 March, and the UK will have its biggest union, totalling two million workers, on 1 May. In a mail ballot referendum, union members of Amicus and Transport &amp; General Workers Union (TGWU) in the UK and Ireland voted to merge their unions. 
 
Eighty-six percent of all TGWU members that voted backed the merger, while 70% of Amicus members that voted also gave approval to create the new, yet-to-be named union. The union will now comprise 30% of the UK&rsquo;s Trade Union Congress, and will be the country&rsquo;s dominant trade union in a wide swath of services and industries, ranging from transport and manufacturing &ndash; including print, paper, rubber, chemicals and oil &ndash; to food and farming, as well as banking, public services, and the voluntary sector. 
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Both unions utilised a full and transparent process which took two years to complete. In the initial stages, the trade union GMB was included in three-way discussions, but that union dropped out due to regional structure differences. 
 
&quot;The new union will be a progressive, organising, fighting-back industrial giant,&rdquo; said TGWU Gen. Sec. Tony Woodley, that is &ldquo;focused above all on winning for our members in the workplace, and taking trade unionism to the millions who need it.&quot; 
 
&quot;The new union will be the greatest campaigning force on behalf of ordinary people that has ever existed,&rdquo; stated Amicus Gen. Sec. Derek Simpson. &ldquo;It is a precursor to the creation of a single global trade union movement capable of challenging the might of multinationals who seek to play workforces and governments off against each other to reduce jobs and hard won pay and conditions.&quot; 
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Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson shaking hands
Woodley and Simpson will serve as Joint General Secretaries of the new union. A sole general secretary will be elected in a membership ballot in 2010. Both expressed a strong commitment to organising, stating that within three years, 10% of the combined union&rsquo;s budget will be aimed at recruitment. 
 
A short list of possible names for the new union has been developed, and those names will be put before the membership in a democratic vote in the near future. 
 
TGWU was formed in 1922 when 14 unions, representing factory workers, dockers, stevedores, lightermen, transport staff, and clerks, merged into one union. Amicus was a more recent merger of trade unions. In 2002, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) and Manufacturing, Science, Finance (MSF) merged to create it. In 2004, The Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU) merged into Amicus and the same year, the financial services union UNIFI did the same.

Britain’s Biggest Union Formed with Amicus, TGWU Merger

Archive

Mongolian Mining Union Federation Elects New President

US Union Reach Tentative Contract with General Electric

Forest Sector Jobs Continue to Drop in Wake of Eastern Canada Mills Closings

ICEM's Russian Affiliate, ROSUGLEPROF, Probes Tragic Coal Mine Disaster

CEP in Canada Chooses Petro-Canada Refinery in Alberta as Lead for Pattern Bargaining

USW to Host Goodyear Global Union Network of Workers Next Week

IGBCE Secures Wage Gains, Furthers Job Opportunities in Germany’s Chemicals Sector

ICEM’s Ivory Coast Affiliate, SYNASEG, Announces Merger with Water Workers’ Union

CEPPWAWU Brings Concerns over Sappi’s Management to AGM in South Africa

Britain’s Biggest Union Formed with Amicus, TGWU Merger

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