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ICEM Netherlands affiliate FNV Bondgenoten has temporarily suspended talks with the Social Economic Council over policies of the right-wing government. Those include deterioration of social benefits for the unemployed and those sick, and a proposed block on workers seeking to take early retirement. On 20 September, a mass union rally in Rotterdam entitled &ldquo;This Government Policy is a Bridge Too Far&rdquo; will occur spanning the Erasmusbridge and Willemsbridge into the center of Coolsingel. And then on 2 October at 12:00 noon, a mass strike expected to draw hundreds of thousands of citizens is set for Amsterdam at Museumplein prior to Parliament&rsquo;s debate over taxes.

Unions in Netherlands Gear Up to Protect Social System

Some 1,450 US tyre workers at General Tire's Charlotte plant yesterday (Sunday) voted overwhelmingly to approve a new labour agreement. 
 
The vote, by members of Local 850 of US tyre workers' union the USWA, ends a year-long strike at the General Tire plant and delivers the largest wage and benefit increases negotiated in the US tyre industry in decades. 
 
General Tire is a subsidiary of global tyremaker Continental, and international trade union solidarity played an important part in the resolution of the dispute. 
 
The new contract for employees at the plant provides for the first general wage increases since 1989, restores full cost-of-living adjustments in wages, and includes substantial pension improvements, 100% family health insurance coverage, and a return to work for all strikers who chose to do so. 
 
The labour agreement in Charlotte ends a contentious strike that began one year ago today, on 20 September 1998, when collective bargaining between labour and management broke down because of what the union charged were unfair labour practices by the company. 
 
USWA President George Becker hailed the agreement as &quot;a victory for tyre workers throughout the industry. By bringing wages and pensions at General Tire in line with the industry pattern, we have ensured that all companies in the industry will be competing on a level playing field, instead of using lower wages and benefits to gain a competitive advantage.&quot; 
 
In addition to the settlement in Charlotte, the USWA simultaneously negotiated tentative agreements at General Tire&rsquo;s plants in Mayfield, Kentucky and Bryan, Ohio, pending resolution of local issues. Contracts at all three plants will now expire in close proximity in 2006. 
 
&quot;The men and women of our local toughed it out,&quot; said Earl Propst, President of Local 850. &quot;Only 15 crossed the picket line during this strike. Our solidarity set a standard that has seldom been matched by workers anywhere in the South.&quot; 
 
Propst said the strikers had a high degree of support from non-union as well as union workers in the Carolinas. This support was evident at the large Labor Day demonstration held in Charlotte this month, attended by some 5,000 union workers and their families. 
 
 
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN 
 
At the global level, the USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). The strikers' case in the year-long dispute was bolstered by a worldwide trade union campaign coordinated by the ICEM. Public information activities included a major protest at last summer&rsquo;s Continental shareholders&rsquo; meeting in Germany. The international corporate campaign also included: 
 
- a solidarity drive that galvanised support among workers at the company's plants in the US and abroad 
 
- a European tour by Charlotte strikers and their families, which generated widespread media coverage 
 
- a sympathy strike by South African tyre builders 
 
- an Australian union picket of the German consulate in Sydney 
 
- a special ICEM cybercampaign on the World Wide Web 
 
- informational protests at tyre dealerships throughout the US 
 
- a nationwide US campaign targeting Ford Motor Company dealers and their customers with information about Ford&rsquo;s purchase of tyres made by inexperienced replacement workers. 
 
 
THE AGREEMENT 
 
Key provisions of the new labour agreement include: 
 
- General wage increases in three of the six years of the agreement. 
 
- Cost-of-living provisions that, added to negotiated raises, will result in total estimated increases of $2.97 an hour. 
 
- Pension improvements that during the life of the contract increase the pension multiplier from less than US$30 per month per year of service to a minimum of $41 - more when and if industry pension levels increase. 
 
- Improved incentive pay provisions. 
 
- Preservation of a host of benefit and contract protections, including health insurance coverage, bidding rights, seniority, voluntary overtime, maintenance labour jobs, light duty pay and protection against random drug tests. 
 
- Special economic benefits for employees who want to retire early. 
 
John Sellers, Vice President of the USWA&rsquo;s rubber and plastic industry conference, said, &quot;This new contract restores Continental General Tire to the industry-wide patterns our union has worked so hard to maintain for workers in the rubber and tyre industries. And the way it was won reminds every tyre company of how strong our commitment to pattern bargaining is.&quot; 
 
&quot;This is an excellent outcome and a full vindication of the campaign by the USWA and the ICEM,&quot; commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. &quot;International labour solidarity played an important part in achieving a just resolution to this dispute. When workers organise globally, they can prevail. Workers everywhere - and employers everywhere - should never forget that.&quot;

US Conti Dispute Settled

Some 1,450 American tyre workers who have been on strike for one year have reached a tentative contract agreement with General Tire, a subsidiary of global tyremaking giant Continental. 
 
This was announced today by the US tyre workers' union, the USWA. 
 
At the global level, the USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has been coordinating a major worldwide trade union campaign in support of the US strikers. 
 
The tentative agreement will be voted on by USWA Local 850 members on Sunday, 19 September. This local represents the strikers at General Tire's Charlotte plant. Monday, 20 September, would mark the first anniversary of the start of their strike. 
 
Tentative agreements with Continental General were simultaneously reached by USWA locals at two other US plants and will also be the subject of ratification votes by workers at these plants. Before these tentative agreements were reached, contracts at the other two plants were not due to expire until late in the year 2000. 
 
Details of the agreements, which if ratified will expire in 2006, will not be available until USWA members at the three plants have voted on them.

Continental Tyres: Tentative US Agreement

Ukrainian miners are blocking coal supplies to power stations as anger mounts over massive wage debts. 
 
By July, pay owed to Ukraine's miners totalled 532.5 million US dollars, the Ukrainian Miners' Independent Trade Union (MITU) says. The wage backlog is continuing to rise, and Ukraine's miners and their families have been plunged into dire poverty. 
 
711 Ukrainian miners' wives and 240 children recently held a 50-km march in protest over the conditions in which they now live. They had to walk in pairs, well separated, in order to comply with curbs on the right to demonstrate. 
 
Ukrainian electricity generators are one culprit in the wage scandal. They are now paying only about 5 percent of their coal bills in cash. The rest is settled either in complicated barter deals or not at all. 
 
At the global level, MITU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
&quot;The Ukrainian government and the international community must ensure that the miners are paid in full,&quot; ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe insisted today. &quot;The topmost principle, as always, must be that workers' wages and benefits have first call on the employer's available finances. The second principle is that Ukraine's coal suppliers must be paid immediately for the stocks that they have delivered in good faith. 
 
&quot;Recently, national and international pressure secured payment of the wages owed to Ukraine's nuclear workers,&quot; Thorpe recalled. &quot;The Ukrainian miners deserve no less. Nor are they any less important to the future of a key economy in a volatile region.&quot;

Ukraine: Power Stations Hit Over Wage Debt To Miners

The United Nations should intervene militarily without further delay to end the bloodshed in East Timor, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) said today. 
 
&quot;The UN does not require the permission of Jakarta to launch such an initiative,&quot; ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out. &quot;Neither the UN nor international law has ever recognised Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor. 
 
&quot;No trade union can accept that workers should be killed, maimed, raped or driven out of their jobs and their homes because they exercised their democratic right to self-determination,&quot; Thorpe said. &quot;We call upon our affiliated unions worldwide to press their governments to recognise the statehood of East Timor and to call for immediate UN military intervention. By preference, this should be clearly a United Nations initiative, rather than military action by any one state or alliance. The thugs who are now on the rampage do not represent working people in East Timor, in the rest of the island or in the archipelago as a whole. 
 
&quot;This August, more than three-quarters of the East Timorese democratically voted for nationhood,&quot; Thorpe recalled. &quot;To do so is the right of peoples everywhere. In the age of global capital, however, the economic, mineral and environmental sovereignty of all nation states - even the largest - is severely circumscribed. Beyond the trappings of nationhood, the world's peoples urgently need economic self-determination. Independent trade unions are an essential part of that struggle. 
 
&quot;Backed by many global corporations and many governments, the previous Suharto regime maintained severe repression throughout the Indonesian-administered territories,&quot; Thorpe said. &quot;The ICEM quietly assisted the real trade unionists of the archipelago in their fight for genuine reform, and we continue to do so. 
 
&quot;We call upon working people throughout the archipelago and throughout the world to recognise their true community of interest. And we call upon present and future governments of East Timor, of Indonesia and of every other state to acknowledge and to respect in practice the trade union rights set out in the Conventions of the UN's International Labour Organisation.&quot;

ICEM Calls for UN Troops And Union Rights In East Timor

The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) has won new collective bargaining agreements for several thousand miners in the United States and Canada. 
 
At the global level, the USWA is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
USWA miners at three mines operated by Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. have now ratified a new, five-year contract. The agreement covers wages and working conditions at the Empire and Tilden iron ore mines in Michigan and the Hibbing Taconite Mine in Minnesota. 
 
In a joint statement, USWA District 11 Director Dave Foster and company spokesman Richard Novak said, &quot;This is a very comprehensive agreement that provides for improvements in wages, pensions and other employee benefits and is patterned after agreements negotiated by US Steel and Bethlehem Steel companies.&quot; 
 
Cleveland-Cliffs is the largest supplier of iron ore products to the North American steel industry. 
 
USWA miners in Canada also have something to rejoice about. On August 29, workers at the Highland Valley copper mine in Kamloops, British Columbia, approved a new five-year agreement after a three-month shutdown. 
 
Highland Valley, co-owned by a consortium of Cominco Ltd., Rio Algom Ltd., Teck Corp., and Highmont Mining, is Canada's largest open-pit base metals mine. The new agreement, which was brokered by a British Columbia government mediator, covers 1,100 members. 
 
&quot;We were able to negotiate a decent settlement that looks nothing like the company's original offer,&quot; said USWA official Steve Hunt. &quot;The company started by calling for well over 50 concessions, most of which were designed to eliminate jobs. Instead, we were able to bargain improvements to the pension plan and wages. There is also a Job Protection Agreement that will ensure the mine stays open for the next five years as long as copper prices stay above 60 (US) cents per pound.&quot; 
 
&quot;The company's decision to shut down the mine was heartless,&quot; said USWA Western Canada Director Ken Neumann. &quot;They toyed with the lives of people in several communities - Ashcroft, Merritt, Logan Lake and Kamloops. In the end, what did they gain? Economic blackmail should not be part of the bargaining process.&quot; 
 
The USWA also reached a new agreement in mid-July at the Wabush Mines in Wabush, Labrador, covering 730 workers. The new five-year agreement improves workers' incomes and benefits. &quot;This is an agreement that provides long-term stability both for the company and for the workers,&quot; said USWA Atlantic Coordinator Cal Luedee. 
 
The USWA continues its negotiations with Inco Ltd. for a new contract covering 1,100 workers at the company's nickel mine operations in Thompson, Manitoba. The current agreement is set to expire on 15 September. 
 
The union was buoyed by the recent rise in world nickel prices, but is angry at the company's latest contract proposal which asks for concessions by the miners. 
 
&quot;We certainly are in a hell of a lot of a better bargaining position than we were during the last round of bargaining,&quot; said Bob Desjarlais, president of USWA Local 6166 in Thompson. &quot;We're in very good shape as far as the Steelworkers (USWA) are concerned.&quot; 
 
The current agreement, which included substantial increases in wages and pensions, was reached in 1996 following a two-week lockout by Inco of its employees. Inco was also hit by a strike in June 1997 when 4,670 workers walked off the job at the company's Sudbury, Ontario operation. The strike was settled after four weeks. 
 
Lawrence McBrearty, the USWA's National Director for Canada, said the union's recent good record in achieving settlements in the mining sector should send a message to non-union miners. 
 
&quot;The more members we have in the mining sector, the stronger position we are in at the bargaining table,&quot; McBrearty said. &quot;We are actively organising miners in the far north, where we now represent some of world's most northern miners.&quot;

US And Canadian Miners Win Better Deal

Some 100,000 African miners face unemployment and desperate poverty if gold prices stay at their present 20-year low. 
 
Gold slid to around $261 an ounce today after Britain sold 25 tonnes at $261.20 an ounce in an auction that was 5.2 times oversubscribed. Renewed pressure could come from further big sell-offs, notably a plan by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cut its gold reserves by up to 10 million ounces. 
 
&quot;If the price of gold stays around $260 an ounce or less, this spells the loss of up to 82,000 miners' jobs in South Africa and more than 100,000 in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole,&quot; miners' leader James Motlatsi told ICEM UPDATE from Johannesburg this afternoon. 
 
&quot;If you take the indirect effects into account,&quot; he pointed out, &quot;this means that more than a million Africans will suffer deeply as a result of these gold sales. Many more miners' jobs will also be put at risk on other continents.&quot; 
 
The world's biggest gold producer, South Africa currently has some 300,000 miners. Unemployment in South Africa as a whole is already around 30 percent. 
 
Motlatsi is President of the country's National Union of Miners (NUM) and Vice-President of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the NUM is affiliated at the global level. He also chairs the ICEM's African region. 
 
&quot;We are very disappointed that the British government went ahead with the gold sale today and that they are apparently determined to continue these sales,&quot; Motlatsi said. 
 
&quot;Through this policy, they are doing great harm to many of the world's indebted and poor countries. For one-third of the highly indebted countries, gold mining is an important currency earner. We cannot believe that the British government has thought this policy through properly, and we appeal to the British to reconsider. 
 
&quot;One major South African mining company, ERPM, already announced 5,000 job losses yesterday,&quot; Motlatsi added. &quot;Tomorrow, we will be taking those 5,000 miners to the British embassy in Pretoria, to show the British authorities what suffering they are causing.&quot; 
 
The British attitude was in marked contrast to the line taken by a number of other national reserve banks, Motlatsi stated. Last month, he said, he was on a delegation from South Africa's Chamber of Mines which lobbied the heads of reserve banks and legislators in a number of key countries. &quot;The central reserve banks of the US, Germany, France, Italy and some other countries promised us that they would not be selling off their gold reserves,&quot; Motlatsi said. &quot;This makes the British action all the more incomprehensible.&quot; 
 
The Chamber of Mines delegation also found considerable opposition amongst US legislators to the idea of selling IMF gold reserves, Motlatsi said. The US is the IMF's biggest contributor and voter. 
 
The declared rationale behind the IMF gold sell-off is that it would finance debt relief for the world's poorer nations. 
 
&quot;It's ridiculous for the IMF to suggest that selling 10 million ounces of gold would make a significant contribution to writing off third world debt,&quot; Motlatsi countered. &quot;That sale would raise about $2.6 billion, but the poor countries owe some $220 billion. And in the meantime, the IMF sale, by pushing down the gold price, would further reduce the earnings of some of the world's poorer nations. 
 
&quot;Instead,&quot; Motlatsi insisted, &quot;the IMF should assist the poorer countries by meeting their needs case by case, rather than imposing its discredited structural adjustment policies on them. And the rich countries should simply write off what the poor countries owe them. That is what South Africa did, after the end of apartheid, with the debts owed to us by Mozambique and Namibia. We are not a rich country. If we can do it, others can too.&quot; 
 
&quot;The British gold sale and the proposed sale by the IMF are irresponsible,&quot; agreed ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe in Brussels. &quot;The ICEM calls upon both of them not to dump any more gold on to the market. What is needed urgently is a world gold summit, at which any changes in the role of gold can be properly planned. In that way, governments can ensure that such changes cause minimum disruption to the earnings of some of the world's poorest countries and some of the world's least privileged workers. 
 
&quot;The British government has made much of its ethical foreign policy,&quot; Thorpe added. &quot;The ICEM will be pressing it to put its gold where its mouth is. As for the IMF, it is perfectly well aware that debt can be written off without selling gold stocks. We should all be telling the IMF what it knows already: you don't have to sell gold to do good.&quot;

ICEM Slams British Sell-Off And IMF Scheme - 100,000 African Miners At Risk

United Steelworker (USWA) members at four Michelin plants in the US and Canada ratified new two-year labour agreements last week that enhances job security protections and pledges the French-based tyre firm to make minimum US$150 million capital improvements to the plants. The ratification in Canada at the company&rsquo;s Kitchener, Ontario, plant ended an 11-week strike for 1,000 workers. The USWA fended off concessions at Michelin&rsquo;s four unionized North American plants, and won protections against contracting out maintenance and a guarantee of no layoffs or plant closings during the term of the contract. The three US plants are located in Tuscaloosa and Opelika, Alabama, and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Steelworkers in US, Canada Ratify Rubber Contracts with Michelin

IGBCE in Germany won gains for 60,000 rubber workers in wage negotiations. A one-year contract with the rubber industry will pay workers 1.7% effective 1 October. A payment of &euro;150-per-worker was also agreed to prior to that date, and rubber industry training obligations will remain intact.

IGBCE Negotiates Gains for Rubber Workers in Germany

PACE, along with ICEM, has released a testimony of European DuPont workers following a visit to the chemical firm&rsquo;s US sites last spring. The report contains first-hand experience of the European delegates including DuPont&rsquo;s inhospitable response to the tour. The report can be accessed at www.dupontcouncil.org.

PACE in US Releases Anti-Worker Testimony at DuPont

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