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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

Global Fund Calls for Round 7 Proposals 
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has issued its Seventh Call for Proposals. The application form and support documentation are available in six languages at <a href="http://www.theglobalfund.org">www.theglobalfund.org</a>. Proposals have to reach the Global Fund by 4 July 2007. 
 
All proposals submitted by the closing date of 4 July 2007 will be reviewed by the Global Fund&rsquo;s Secretariat to ensure that they meet the eligibility criteria. Eligible proposals will then be forwarded to the Technical Review Panel (TRP) for consideration. The TRP will make recommendations to the Global Fund Board, which will make its decisions at its November board meeting. 
 
 
How does the Global Fund work? 
 
The Global Fund, itself a public/private partnership, is a funding mechanism. Since it was registered in January 2002 and up to December 2006, the Global Fund has approved 450 programmes in 136 countries with a total commitment of US$7 billion. 
 
The Global Fund is based in Geneva. It does not have any country representation. The proposal process and the implementation of grants are devolved to the national level. The Global Fund gives the policy framework and issues guidelines on various aspects of its operations. It raises money, spends it and proves it &ndash; the Global Fund is performance based. 
 
All proposals have to go through the Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCM). The composition of the CCMs is supposed to be representative of all stakeholders in the fight against HIV/AIDS, including civil society, the private sector and organisations of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). In reality, most CCMs are dominated by the public sector. 
 
 
How can unions get involved? 
The role of the workplace in the fight against HIV/AIDS is recognised. No workplace activities can be efficiently implemented without unions. The role of national unions and their international bodies, the Global Union Federations, is acknowledged by international organisations such as the ILO, the WHO and UNAIDS. 
 
The Global Fund is keen to build public/private partnerships and to implement co-investment projects. Without the involvement of the private sector, universal access to voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), and to anti-retroviral treatment (ART), is not possible or will be further delayed. The private sector is business and trade unions as workers&rsquo; representatives. The ICEM has worked with the Global Fund to establish this principle in public/private co-investment projects. 
 
The manpower capacities of unions are limited. They have to attend to other day-to-day business. Unions are not single-issue NGOs. They have to look for partners and build alliances with companies and NGOs. 
 
Very few CCMs include unionists. While we continue to call for union representation on CCMs, in the short term it is vital that unions work through members of the CCMs who are sympathetic to their cause. It is important that unions find cooperating partners who can develop their project ideas into proposals for the CCM. 
 
The German Organisation for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) operates the BACKUP Initiative (Building Alliances &ndash; Creating Knowledge &ndash; Updating Partners), which provides support. GTZ is represented in more than 130 countries. 
A lot of USAID offices have HIV/AIDS Coordinators and certain embassies, notably the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, the UK and the European Union may be able to give assistance. Global Unions and the WHO have agreed to use the potential of unions in up-scaling and accelerating access to VCT and ART. The ILO and its workplace programme, ILOAIDS, has focal points on HIV/AIDS in a number of offices. 
 
Grants are allocated to a Principal Recipient in a country &ndash; in the majority of cases to a ministry. For a more efficient implementation sub-recipients may be nominated, and it is here where specific workplace programmes can receive funding. 
 
 
What are your next steps? 
 
&bull; Put down your ideas about a workplace programme on one page and prepare a draft budget. 
 
&bull; Get to know the members of your country&rsquo;s CCM and lobby those potentially sympathetic to union causes for the inclusion of workplace programmes in Round 6 proposals. Country-specific information is accessible at <a href="http://www.theglobalfund.org">www.theglobalfund.org</a>. 
 
&bull; Contact GTZ, USAID, the ILO, UNAIDS and WHO offices. 
 
&bull; Build alliances with companies; remind them of their social responsibility. 
 
&bull; Cooperate with NGOs and organisations of PLWHA. 
 
&bull; Access the website <a href="http://www.aidspan.org/guides">www.aidspan.org/guides</a> on which a guide to Round 7 applications is available. 
 
 
How can the ICEM help? 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s Global Coordinator has good working relations with all the organisations mentioned. He can help you with contacts and links to materials. Send your ideas about a workplace programme and inquiries to <a href="mailto:hiv.aids@icem.org">hiv.aids@icem.org</a>. The ICEM has Global Framework Agreements with a dozen multinational companies which should be engaged in the fight against the pandemic.
 
Above all 
 
&bull; Start today if you want to do something. 
 
&bull; Remember that the private sector includes business and unions as the workers&rsquo; representatives. 
 
&bull; Remember that you have allies who can be mobilized and who can give assistance. 
 
&bull; Write to the ICEM Global HIV/AIDS Coordinator at <a href="mailto:hiv.aids@icem.org">hiv.aids@icem.org</a> for further information and help.

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - Special Issue

+ First Ever Strike in a Free Trade Zone in Turkey 
+ Strike Started on 26 September 2006 
+ 98% of 300 Strikers are Women 
+ Petrol-Is successfully organised workers in March 2005 
+ Women subjected to constant insults by managers; they were forced to apply to management if they wished to marry; they were forbidden to talk to one another on the job; and were subjected to breath tests following 2 daily breaks of 15 and 25 minutes for smoking 
+ Management began collective bargaining with Petrol-Is in April 2006 with no intention of arriving at collective agreement 
+ Management threatened to move the plant out of Turkey if workers did not reject the union 
+ Management has retained 50-60 scabs during the strike, a violation of Turkish law

Fact Sheet on Strike at Novamed GmbH (Fresenius Medical Care) in Turkey

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The quadrennial National Convention of the Mining and Energy Division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining &amp; Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia was held last week in Queensland, and delegates took up two critical issues: ending the 11-year reign of Prime Minister John Howard later this year and adoption of clean coal technologies. 
 
Coming under a unified banner entitled &ldquo;For a Clean, Safe, and Secure Future,&rdquo; CFMEU delegates from mines, power stations, oil refineries, and coal ports came together on 14-18 May during a pivotal time in Australia. The entire labour movement in Australia has been besieged by radical workplace reforms, passed in 2005 by the Howard government. 
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As well, the union has embarked on a critical climate change position, intended to preserve Australia&rsquo;s ranking as the world&rsquo;s biggest coal exporter, while working diligently to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 
 
Delegates heard from Australian Labour Party leaders on the ALP&rsquo;s agenda to unseat Howard in November with Kevin Rudd. And more importantly, they heard from Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Greg Combet on how labour unions will mobilise to get that job done. 
 
The enactment of Howard&rsquo;s WorkChoices law has opened the way for employers to scuttle collective agreements in favour of individual work contracts, also known as Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). CFMEU delegates were critical of the country&rsquo;s mining and metals employers&rsquo; association, as well as of mining houses Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. Both companies call for the preservation of individual contracts in order not to suffer decreased productivity they claim will total A$6.6 billion. 
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That claim, made in February in the face of a growing public groundswell against Howard&rsquo;s industrial reforms, is far from the truth. A good majority of coal miners in Australia are covered by collective agreements, while virtually no AWAs exist in the sector. And productivity growth of the coal sector has averaged nearly 3% for each year dating back a decade. 
 
CFMEU&rsquo;s Mining and Energy Division has adopted policies related to massive investments for clean coal technologies, increased use of renewable energy sources, and carbon emissions trading. The union also supports ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. 
 
The convention included a session on global solidarity, which featured ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, South Africa&rsquo;s National Union of Mineworkers General Secretary Frans Baleni, as well as Maritime Union of Australia National Secretary Paddy Crumlin. Tony Maher serves as General President of the CFMEU&rsquo;s Mining and Energy Division.

CFMEU’s Mining, Energy Convention Occurs at Critical Juncture in Australia

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Labour Unions in the US, including ICEM affiliates United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), the United Steelworkers (USW), and the United Auto Workers (UAW), begin bargaining this week with General Electric (GE) over a new collective agreement. 
 
Some 23,000 US workers belonging to 13 unions negotiate jointly as the Coordinating Bargaining Committee of GE Unions (CBC). They have a four-year labour agreement with US-based manufacturing and financial services company General Electric expiring on 17 June 2007. 
 
Central among issues are expected to be job security, health care, and pensions. GE, which posted US$20.7 billion in net profit last year, is expected to seek greater cost-sharing of health care expenses from workers, curtailments on early retirement eligibility for staff, and reduced benefit levels, including pensions, for newly-hired workers. The unions will resist such proposals. 
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GE, which increased its dividend to shareholders for the 31st consecutive year in 2007 and spent US$8 billion last year on a share buy-back plan, is a major world manufacturer of plastics and chemicals, airplane and rail engines, power turbines, energy and gas equipment, as well as medical equipment. GE also owns major US broadcasting and television company NBC. 
 
Besides the UE, USW, and UAW, other US-based trade unions involved in the CBC include: the IUE-CWA, Machinists Union, NABET-CWA, Teamsters, Electrical Workers (IBEW), Federation of Professional &amp; Technical Engineers, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), Sheet Metal Workers Union, the United Association of Plumbing and Pipefitters Union, and SEIU&rsquo;s Firemen &amp; Oilers Division. 
 
The UE, the coalition&rsquo;s second largest union of GE workers, will host a CBC-wide contract rally on 2 June in Erie, state of Pennsylvania, home of two of the UE&rsquo;s branch unions that represent GE workers.

US Unions Begin Bargaining at General Electric This Week

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A peaceful protest by 1,000 members of ICEM&rsquo;s two Nigerian oil workers&rsquo; affiliates &ndash; PENGASSAN and NUPENG &ndash; was met by 150 riot police last week, 17 May. The protest occurred at the national headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) in Abuja, while privatisation bidding on two NNPC refineries was going on elsewhere in the Nigerian capital city. 
 
Trade unionists blocked traffic in and out of the NNPC building for the better part of the day. 
 
The unions were not objecting to the privatisation of refineries in Port Harcourt and Kaduna, but rather to NNPC ignoring a memorandum it signed with the two unions only last week allowing them to carry out independent audits of the refineries before the sales occur. 
<img height="114" alt="" src="" width="110" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; <img height="105" alt="" src="" width="100" />
The concerns of the two unions centre on the loss of 4,000 jobs, with no plan on how to meet the pension commitments of sacked workers. &ldquo;We are saying, yes you can privatise, but let us sit down and thrash out the labour issues,&rdquo; Williams Ibiba Inko, NNPC&rsquo;s union chair and leader of the protest, told This Day newspaper. 
 
&ldquo;This process is going to kill our pension. Most of the concerned staff has passed the employment age bracket,&rdquo; said Inko, adding the memorandum calling for due process by workers&rsquo; representatives was signed by the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE). &ldquo;We believe (the process) is being hijacked by the BPE to suit its purposes.&rdquo; 
 
As part of last Thursday&rsquo;s protest, PENGASSAN and NUPENG also lodged stop-work actions at NNPC operations in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Mosimi, and Kaduna. All of the protests remained peaceful and no arrests were made. 
 
Bidding on the federal government&rsquo;s 51% stake in the Port Harcourt refinery, Nigeria&rsquo;s largest with a capacity of 210,000 barrels-per-day, was awarded to a Nigerian consortium called Bluestar Oil, for US$561 million. Bluestar is composed of the Dangote Group, Nigeria&rsquo;s biggest cement producer, Zenon Oil, Transcorp, and the Rivers State government. Sale of 51% of the Kaduna refinery, however, was not completed after the lone bidder, China National Petroleum Corp., failed to meet the reserve price. CNPC&rsquo;s bid was US$102 million. 
<img height="115" alt="" src="" width="250" />
The BPE last week conducted privatisation bids on 18 public entities, including electric power, cement, and palm oil companies, as well as liquid petroleum gas depots, and coal and other mining blocks. 
 
Meanwhile, PENGASSAN President Peter Esele is pleading with militants in the Niger Delta to stop committing violent acts in the region, since such acts hamper legitimate development. Esele spoke out after three oil pipelines of Italian company Eni were blown up during the week of 7 May in Bayelsa state. 
 
&ldquo;The effect of blowing up pipelines is grave,&rdquo; he said in an interview with This Day. &ldquo;It is very dangerous to the environment because it pollutes and it increases the costs&rdquo; for development. PENGASSAN and NUPENG call for a truce in the unstable Delta region, so that development and investment can serve as a means to reduce poverty.

Nigerian Oil Unions Protest Lack of Transparency in Refinery Sales

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Meeting in Brussels on 10-11 May, the ICEM&rsquo;s Executive Committee passed two separate resolutions, one calling on multinational companies not to interfere with new labour regulations being proposed in China, and one declaring continued support and solidarity for strikers at German-based Fresenius Medical Care&rsquo;s Novamed factory in Turkey. 
 
The ICEM Executive also tabled several resolutions that will be considered at its Fourth World Congress this November in Bangkok, Thailand, including continuation of projects on HIV/AIDS and Contract and Agency Labour. 
<img height="113" alt="" src="" width="100" />
GLOBAL UNITY, GLOBAL EQUALITY
ICEM 2007 World Congress logo
The resolution on the draft Chinese labour law condemns those companies which attempt to water down the draft labour law of China&rsquo;s government. The motion notes that even though the proposed law falls far short of common international standards regarding workers&rsquo; rights, some companies operating inside China oppose implementation of new labour regulations. 
 
The ICEM also calls on multinational companies not to oppose the movement of workers in China to form &ldquo;free, strong and independent trade unions.&rdquo; The resolution, in its entirety, can be found <a href="/index.php?id=7&amp;doc=2259&amp;la=EN">here</a>. 
 
Regarding the ongoing dispute that ICEM Turkish affiliate Petrol-Iş is waging on behalf of 84 strikers, 82 of whom are women, the ICEM resolution deplores the conduct of Novamed. The company operates in the Antalya Free Trade Zone and makes bloodline and kidney dialysis equipment. 
<img height="285" alt="" src="" width="200" />
Novamed strikers in Antalya Free Trade Zone, Turkey
Managers of the company caused the strike, in September 2006, by severely restricting workers&rsquo; rights, particularly those of women. Such inhumane practices as making women apply for permission to become pregnant, forbidding employees from talking on the job, and threatening to move the plant from Turkey unless workers reject Petrol-Iş were severely criticised by ICEM Executive members. 
 
The ICEM resolution states: &ldquo;The practice of restricting women&rsquo;s maternity rights is against ILO Conventions and EU directives and does not suit a country applying for membership in the European Union.&rdquo; Workers at Novamed GmbH organised with Petrol-Iş in March 2005, but the company has refused good-faith bargaining for an initial collective agreement. 
 
The ICEM resolution on Novamed&rsquo;s horrid labour relations can be found <a href="/index.php?id=71&amp;doc=2258&amp;la=EN">here</a>.

ICEM Executive Passes Motions on China’s Draft Labour Law, Dispute in Turkey

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Union members of ICEM affiliate Engineering Printing &amp; Manufacturing Union (EPMU) in New Zealand were back to work on 4 May, following a three-day lockout imposed by Australian-based Amcor paper and packaging company. 
 
Fifty EPMU members were locked off their jobs at a paper converting facility in Auckland on 1 May. The workers were resisting staffing cuts that would have reduced the factory to unsafe manning levels. 
 
&ldquo;These workers were prepared to stick this out as long as it took,&rdquo; stated EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little. &ldquo;They are relieved this dispute has come to a close so quickly.&rdquo; 
<img height="143" src="" width="390" alt="" />
Amcor lock-out in New-Zealand
Added Little, &ldquo;Our members tried to negotiate in good faith and were met with the most extreme and militant response an employer can make. It&rsquo;s good to see common sense has prevailed and they can now get back to doing their jobs under fair and equitable circumstances.&rdquo; 
 
The negotiated end of the lockout consisted of maintaining staffing levels without redundancies, an extra week&rsquo;s service and shift leave, the industry standard pay raise, and a day&rsquo;s pay to cover part of the lockout period. 
 
Amcor, a major global producer of flexible packaging, last week announced a European restructuring plan that could cut 900 of the company&rsquo;s 7,600-member workforce in Europe. The plan focuses on shifting work to Eastern and Southern Europe. The company triggered this restructuring in February, by announcing construction of a plastic extrusion facility in Poland.

EPMU Members Win Guarantees in Short Lockout by Amcor Packaging

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