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The CEP of Canada has chosen Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. as lead company for paper industry bargaining in eastern Canada. CEP represents 4,200 workers at 14 Abitibi worksites from Ontario to Newfoundland. The agreement with Montreal based Abitibi will be used as a pattern for talks with other paper companies covering 21,000 CEP members. The current labour agreement in pulp and paper in the eastern half of the country expires 30 April.

Abitibi Chosen as Lead in Canadian CEP Paper Bargaining

ICEM Dutch affiliate FNV Bondgenoten and four other unions at DSM&rsquo;s chemical plant in Geleen engaged in a stop-work march and rally 12 April at the firm&rsquo;s headquarters in nearby Heerlen in the southern NL province of Limburg. Some 2,500 workers participated in this first-ever such action against DSM. Under the slogan &ldquo;Stop the Breakdown of DSM Employment in Limburg,&rdquo; the unions protested DSM&rsquo;s recent announcement that 1,000 workers at sprawling industrial chemicals operations would be made redundant this year. DSM intends to replace the 1,000 with 500 contractors. The Geleen complex once had 15,000 employees. Prior to this most recent announcement, it employed 5,000.

FNV Bondgenoten Protests DSM’s Retrenchments in the Netherlands

The National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa still has not received answers to the sudden lay-offs of 400 diamond miners employed by Antwerp-based Rex Diamond Mining at the Loxton Mine in the Northern Cape. Despite inquiries by the NUM and ICEM over the status of the miners, the firm has said only the retrenchments are of a &ldquo;short term arrangement,&rdquo; yet has provided no information that would clarify the benefits due the workers.

South Africa’s NUM Awaits Answers from Rex Diamond

The Communications, Energy, Paperworkers Union of Canada picked Suncor Energy last month as the pattern-setter for this year&rsquo;s round of oil talks. That means some 10,000 CEP members at five majors and several smaller companies will have similar terms in pay hikes, shift increases and other wage-related premiums at their bargains. General pay hikes agreed to at Suncor are 3%, 3.5% and 3% over three years. The Suncor agreement has a unique company contribution to CEP&rsquo;s Humanity Fund, the union&rsquo;s assistance fund to workers in developing nations. Union leaders have made it clear that CEP members across Canada&rsquo;s oil sector are determined to get the same terms as those achieved at Suncor.

Canadian CEP Sets Oil Pattern with Suncor

A dispute has surfaced between ICEM affiliate Associated Mineworkers of Zimbabwe and that country&rsquo;s Council of Mines. The employers&rsquo; group walked out of negotiations after refusing to award reasonable wage and salary adjustments, and then unilaterally granted inferior pay hikes amounting to half of what AMWZ considers a liveable wage. Zimbabwe&rsquo;s Ministry of Labour has intervened and ordered the matter be put before conciliation.
&nbsp;

Mining Dispute in Zimbabwe Centers on Wages

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The ICEM and Paris-based International Energy and Mines Organisation (IEMO) were both observers at a trade union conference last week on natural gas in Haugesund, Norway. The conference, 12-14 October, was organised by trade unions from five countries that are important to the gas industry, both in terms of supply and production in Europe and the Mediterranean. 
 
Unions affiliated to both ICEM and IEMO in Norway, as well as ICEM-affiliated Russian Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Union (ROGWU), the FNME-CGT of France, and one union from Algeria invited other delegations. Organisers of the conference also included delegations form Belgium, Spain, and Germany.
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Participants at the Natural Gas Conference in Norway&nbsp;
The discussions were chaired by Lars Myhre of Norway&rsquo;s Industri Energi Union, also the Chairperson of the ICEM Energy Industry Section. 
 
The conference was opened by Leif Sande, President of Industri Energi. Each of the organising trade unions made major interventions covering gas production and consumption, including forecasts for the future, safety, health, and environmental issues, social questions such as job security, social discrimination, and wages and working conditions. 
 
ICEM, represented by Energy Officer Jim Catterson, gave a presentation on ICEM activities in that sector in a joint session with IEMO&rsquo;s Alain Simon. Both organisations expressed a wish that future discussions and conferences should be open to all relevant member trade unions of the two international organisations. 
 
Following detailed discussions in an editorial board, which included representatives of each of the organising trade unions, a proposed charter of Transnational Social Standards for the Gas Sector, and a Declaration on International Trade Union Solidarity, were considered. Both were accepted as working documents that still need further work before adoption can come.
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Delegates saw the conference as an important beginning to an increased focus on this crucial sector. ROGWU was asked to coordinate follow up and future work. 
 
Outside the formal discussions, conference participants were welcomed by the mayor of Haugesund at a reception, and made a visit to the head office and control centre of Gassco, the Norwegian state-owned gas transport company. The company is responsible for gas transportation on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and through export pipelines to mainland Europe and the UK.

ICEM Participates in Natural Gas Trade Union Conference in Norway

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A bitter and pronounced lock-out by a big Canadian stevedoring company against 18 members of the ICEM North American affiliate, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), continues following failed mediation last week. The mediation session, by province of Nova Scotia labour ministry officials, was held on 15 October. 
 
Montreal-based Logistec Stevedoring locked the 18 union members off their jobs on 15 September, nine months after a previous collective agreement expired. UMWA Local 2268 was in a position to strike in June, but continued working in hopes that a new labour agreement could be negotiated.
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Three days after last month&rsquo;s lock-out, the company sought and gained an injunction from the Nova Scotia provincial Supreme Court restricting UMWA picket-line activity. Since, Logistec has been unloading thermal coal and hauling it to Nova Scotia Power&rsquo;s generating facilities using replacement workers. 
 
The lock-out is over workers&rsquo; refusal to accept concessionary contract language, as well as dockworkers&rsquo; refusal to accept an inferior company&rsquo;s pay offer. UMWA members employed by Logistec in Nova Scotia earn about 45% less than the company pays for similar port-handling work in Halifax and Saint John, Newfoundland. 
 
Logistec operates a coal-handling import facility at Sydney, Nova Scotia, a facility that is leased from the Cape Breton Development Corp. (Devco). At one time, Devco operated a large coal mine in the maritime province, but closed it some ten years ago. Hundreds of UMWA Local 2268 members lost their jobs then, with only a small workforce remaining at the port-handling facility of Sydney.

Lock-Out of 18 Mine Workers at Coal Port in Canada Continues

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The 200,000-member ICEM Swiss affiliated union UNIA held its first Congress since the October 2004 merger of five unions. The Congress, held in Lugano from 9-12 October, saw issuance of an important paper entitled &ldquo;Collective Contracts for All.&rdquo; 
 
Switzerland&rsquo;s largest union also declared itself &ldquo;The Trade Union for Hard Times&rdquo; at the Congress, and pledged to organise 5,000 workers per year until the next Congress in 2012. 
 
The 400 delegates present adopted resolutions calling for a better economic order, integration of immigrants into Swiss work life, and support for a late November federal initiative regarding flexible retirement. The &ldquo;Collective Contracts for All&rdquo; paper includes a call for a higher minimum wage in Switzerland, and states that UNIA would consider calling for a Swiss federal initiative to make that increase happen.
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The paper also calls for a short work week, a standard 13th month pay-check, or an automatic offset to such an increase, and better compatibility between the work-life environment. 
 
The Swiss general workers&rsquo; union re-elected Co-Presidents Renzo Ambrosetti and Andreas Rieger, and pared an 11-member Executive Committee to nine. With that, the union elected, following a resolution adopted on 10 October, a strict call for a 33% gender balance in all its activities. That then occurred the next day in elections to the 38-member Central Committee. 
 
In his remarks to the Congress, Rieger called for halt to an economic culture of enterprises maximizing profits to the detriment of an equitable socio-economic system. Ambrosetti, in referring to the Congress&rsquo;s centrepiece paper, said UNIA, over the next four years, will &ldquo;negotiate when possible but fight when necessary.&rdquo; 
 
Besides Ambrosetti and Rieger, the Central Committee now consists of newly-elected members Vania Alleva and Corrado Pardini; and Fabienne Blanc-K&uuml;hn, Jean-Claude Rennwald, Hansueli Scheidegger, Rita Schiavi, and Michael von Felten were re-elected. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, attending the Congress, congratulated the new team on their elections, as well as UNIA&rsquo;s commitment inside the ICEM to further workers&rsquo; interests globally in the pharmaceutical, chemicals, and cement industries. He credited UNIA&rsquo;s Roland Conus with leading those efforts. 
 
The Congress also was marked by a half-day workshop entitled &ldquo;UNIA: International Solidarity.&rdquo; It focused on the union&rsquo;s &ldquo;Fair Play &ndash; Fair Games&rdquo; pressure on the Swiss-based International Olympic Committee, the need for fair play and safe construction standards as South Africa prepares to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and ongoing cooperation projects in Central and Eastern Europe.

Swiss UNIA Holds First Ordinary Congress Since 2004 Merger

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ICEM&rsquo;s Sub-Saharan African Affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers&rsquo; of South Africa (NUMSA), held its Eighth National Congress in Vanderbijlpark near Johannesburg from 13-16 October, and elected former rubber worker Irvin Jim as General Secretary. The Congress marked the 21st year of 264,000-member NUMSA in South Africa, and over 800 delegates attended. 
 
Second Deputy President Cedric Gina was elected President, following the retirement of Mthuthozeli Tom, who has been the union&rsquo;s longest serving President. Phil Bokamba was elected First Vice President, while Christine Oliver won elected as Second Deputy President. Gina is from NUMSA&rsquo;s KwaZulu-Natal Region, and was a key figure in protests against high electric costs by Eskom this past summer.
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NUMSA President Cedric Gina&nbsp;
Irvin Jim, 40, has been NUMSA&rsquo;s Eastern Cape Regional Secretary since the year 2000. He had been active in the Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC) in Port Elizabeth, and began his employment at Firestone Tyre there at age 23 in 1991. Three months after becoming employed at Firestone, he was elected as a full-time shop steward. 
 
In 1994, he became the Eastern Cape Region&rsquo;s provincial chairman, and served in that post for six years. He has proven to be a strong and outspoken regional leader, as evidenced by recent leadership on behalf of striking NUMSA members at Shatterprufe Glass and Schnellecke SA, an auto-parts logistics provider. At the auto-glass plant, a major supplier to Volkswagen in Uithenhage, workers have been striking since September, mainly over wages and the fact that 60% of the workforce is comprised of employees supplied by labour brokers. 
 
Jim has demanded, at the bargaining table, that Shatterprufe abolish labour brokers, because workers of such agencies &ldquo;do not enjoy all benefits as stipulated in the Labour Relations Act and Basic Condition of Employment Act.&rdquo; 
 
Following his election on 15 October, Jim told a South African publication, &ldquo;We will not compromise when it comes to the overall well-being of our members, because we are tired of seeing capital reaping the sweat of our labour.&rdquo; 
 
He won election over incumbent General Secretary Silumko Nondwangu by gaining a 58% vote of delegates. Karl Cloete won election as Deputy General Secretary, and Philemon Shiburi was re-elected National Treasurer. 
 
The Congress saw an address by Jacob Zuma, the ANC president, on 14 October. Zuma said the ANC&rsquo;s election platform next year would focus on accelerated land reform. &ldquo;We will work to intensify our land reform programme to ensure that 30% of the land is on the hands of the rural poor by 1014,&rdquo; Zuma said.

Former Shop-Floor Leader at Firestone in South Africa Elected General Secretary of NUMSA

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Just as ICEM UK affiliate Unite&rsquo;s Graphical, Print, and Media Sector closed a longstanding employer wrongful death claim, another fatality occurred in this sector in Peterborough. The union mourned and promised to press for a full investigation into the 6 October fatality at a St. Ives Ltd. magazine printing plant near Cambridge. 
 
There, a father of two, 43-year-old Ian Ebbs, a maintenance engineer from Lincolnshire, died from injuries sustained when he was trapped inside a paper-folding machine. He died in a hospital following the tragic workplace occurrence.
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This death occurred within days of a UK High Court ruling that declared another company and its insurer, Zurich of Switzerland, is liable in a 2003 death inside a paper plant. A justice ruled that the family of Dean Thomas was entitled to &pound;335,000 in compensation from a 3 May 2003 tragedy at a paper plant in Gloucestershire. 
 
Thomas, 42 and also a father of two, was crushed to death when another worker at JR Crompton Ltd. lowered a hydraulic slitter rewinder in a paper machine that produces perforated tea-bag paper while the victim was inside the machine. That co-worker had not been trained by the company in proper operating procedures. 
 
A judge, in 2006, ordered JR Crompton to pay a mere &pound;200 fine, rationalising that it was &ldquo;fruitless&rdquo; to order the firm to pay more since it was bankrupt. But Unite predecessor union Amicus pushed the case forward, stating that the wrong message was being sent to companies guilty of workplace deaths, and that Zurich must be held liable. 
 
&ldquo;This case has been a grotesque dance by Zurich to reduce the amount of compensation that (an) innocent family should receive,&rdquo; stated United Regional organiser David Lewis. &ldquo;We all have a right to go to work and not be injured or killed.&rdquo; 
 
In this month&rsquo;s print-shop death at St. Ives, Unite has pledged to push the Health and Safety Executive for a full investigation, and will vigorously monitor developments.

UK’s Unite Heralds Wrongful Death Award, But Mourns as Another Occurs in Print Sector

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