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The seven unions representing more than 3,000 workers at a Michelin tyre plant in the northern Spanish province of Alava have united behind a comrade stricken with Mesothelioma. The unions last week sent a petition to both the company and to the regional Institute of Work Security to trace the presence of asbestos in the 42-year history of the plant. 
 
The Michelin plant is in the city of Vitoria and manufactures 36,000 units per day of car and heavy equipment tyres. In early June, the regional health and safety authority reopened an investigation after a worker employed by Michelin for 30 years was diagnosed with the cancer caused by asbestos exposure.
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Workplace representatives of ICEM affiliates CCOO and UGT were joined by five other unions in the call to clarify the causes of the illness. Michelin denies that it currently uses or has any form of asbestos in the plant, but the company did import the product in years past to insulate the factory&rsquo;s heating pipes. 
 
The Vitoria workers, through their union representatives, sent a pledge of solidarity to the stricken worker, as well as committed to conduct voluntary tests of other workers and to assist in the investigation in any way possible.

Unions Mount Pressure on Cause of Asbestos inside Spanish Michelin Plant

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A workers&rsquo; ballot over work time restructuring at the Goodyear-Dunlop twin plants in Amiens, France, apparently passed on 27 June, but controversy remains because the majority union &ndash; CGT &ndash; boycotted the vote. 

In balloting overseen by the regional employment bureau, 72.8% of rubber workers accepted the company&rsquo;s social plan, which would reduce weekly rotation teams from five to four, as well as make other costs savings related to weekend work. Just over 54% of 2,700 workers at the southern Dunlop and northern Goodyear plants voted on the restructuring, which also is aimed at integrating work at the two factories. 

The restructuring of work time, scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2009 with last week&rsquo;s balloting, also prevents 402 staff from being sacked. It also commits Goodyear to make a &euro;52 million modernisation investment over the next three years in order to produce high-performance tyres.
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&nbsp; 
ICEM affiliate CFDT and French union CFE-CGC endorsed the re-negotiated social plan, while CGT called on its members to boycott the ballot. An initial plan put to ballot in November 2007 failed with a 65% rejection. 
 
The three unions are now expected to confer on the matter in July to determine if the social plan will be jointly signed.

Restructuring Plan Passes at Goodyear’s Amiens Plants, But French Unions Split on Ballot

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The ICEM is proud to play a role in the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union&rsquo;s second effort to stem the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Nigeria. Through the Canadian union&rsquo;s Humanity Fund, CEP is contributing half of a C$20,000 budget to train HIV/AIDS counsellors within ICEM&rsquo;s two oil and gas union affiliates, NUPENG and PENGASSAN. 
 
The project will extend ICEM&rsquo;s work in Nigeria in training peer counsellors to provide AIDS awareness, education and testing for workers and their families. The CEP&rsquo;s fund is also partner with the Canadian Labour Congress&rsquo;s Labour International Development Programme, on another Nigerian HIV/AIDS project. That project also has financial support from the federal Canadian International Development Agency.
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CEP&rsquo;s Humanity Fund is unique in that funding comes through negotiated agreements with Canadian employers. Local unions negotiate either an employer contribution of C$0.01-per-hour; C$0.02-per-hour, which includes an employee&rsquo;s matching contribution; or the CEP local branch union can vote to make the contribution. To date, some 100 CEP locals, numbering 30,000 workers, have successfully negotiated payments into the Humanity Fund with employers. 
 
In 2007, contributions to the Humanity Fund increased by 30%. 
 
At the union&rsquo;s 2004 National Convention, delegates pledged to raise C$500,000 to assist in the fight against HIV/AIDS through the Humanity Fund. The CEP currently is also funding a project in partnership with the F&eacute;d&eacute;ration des Travailleurs de Qu&eacute;bec on HIV/AIDS awareness with an oil workers&rsquo; union in Chad.
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In 2008, the fund&rsquo;s directors have approved humanitarian aid for victims of the earthquake in China, funded a programme for the Canadian Friends of Burma, and lent support to workers&rsquo; and women&rsquo;s rights programmes in the garment industries of Mexican, Central America, and Asia. The Humanity Fund also spends 15% each year on domestic projects. 
 
CEP heralds the fund as not charity, but rather solidarity in &ldquo;building partnerships with workers&rsquo;, community, and women&rsquo;s organisations in developing countries.

Canadian Affiliate’s Humanity Fund Teams with ICEM on Nigerian HIV/AIDS Awareness Efforts

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ICEM Peruvian mining affiliate, Federaci&oacute;n Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros Metal&uacute;rgicos y Sider&uacute;rgicos (FNTMMSP), began a national strike today over the National Assembly&rsquo;s inactivity on two key pieces of labour legislation. 
 
Despite President Alan Garc&iacute;a signing into law on 24 June a measure which gives new rights to contract workers, legislation remains stalled on raising the national threshold for profit-sharing plans and on improvements to pension schemes.
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The union had twice previously &ndash; in May and again on 16 June &ndash; postponed strike actions by its 28,000 members in hopes that the government would act on all three issues to avert a national mining strike. The indefinite strike began at midnight today by several of FNTMMSP&rsquo;s 70 branch unions, and is expected to spread over the next few days. 
 
&ldquo;There is a total lack of political will by the government to solve the demands of miners,&rdquo; said FNTMMSP Secretary-General Luis Castillo Carlos late last week. &ldquo;Many miners Exist on starvation wages, they do not have access to health benefits, nor do they have the right to retirement benefits for their service work.&rdquo; 
 
On 28 May, the National Assembly passed an outsourcing law that affects 85,000 contract workers in the mining sector. Garc&iacute;a had 30 days to sign it into law and did so three days before it was to expire. The law places stricter regulations on contract employers, including adherence to the nation&rsquo;s labour code. It also grants contract workers the right to grieve adverse work conditions to the primary employer, and sets up an agency to monitor such abuses. Employers with contract workers can now face first-time sanctions. 
 
The FNTMMSP had been the driving force inside Peru for the law, which was ardently opposed by business groups on the basis on restricting labour market flexibility.
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Today&rsquo;s strike is expected to hit Peru&rsquo;s copper, gold, silver, zinc, and iron ore production, as well as send prices upward on world markets for those commodities. The strike will also again close Grupo M&eacute;xico&rsquo;s Southern Copper mining and smelting operations in Peru&rsquo;s southern Moquegua province. 
 
Southern Copper was closed for ten days in mid-June as roads were blocked in a regional dispute with the central government over tax revenue sharing. That dispute saw mayors of several towns in the south embarking on hunger strikes in Lima.
&nbsp; 
And Peru&rsquo;s largest national labour centre, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), has called a strike of its member unions on 9 July over rising food and energy prices, as well as on the legislative inertia over the profit-sharing and pension issues.

Mining Strike Begins in Peru over Government Inaction on Pension, Profit-Sharing Issues

1. ICEM Women&rsquo;s Committee Holds Meeting in Geneva 
 
ICEM Women&rsquo;s Committee met on 19 June 2008, in Geneva, and appealed to the federation&rsquo;s leadership to return to the usual practice of holding the committee meetings prior to Presidium and Executive Committee meetings. Since it was the first meeting of the Congress period, the women introduced themselves at length. Some of the highlights from the introductions were the following: given that there are not many women leaders in Japanese trade unions, there is a desire to train women leaders there. In Thailand, unions have been mobilizing in recent months against the high food prices. Four men were present at the meeting. 
 
Sister Hashmeya Muhssin, President of the Iraqi General Union of Electricity Workers&rsquo; and Technicians, reported on the situation in Iraq. Iraq not only suffers from the occupation of foreign forces, but also from intervention from neighboring countries. Things are getting worse. Many armaments are entering the country. Most services are blocked &ndash; there is no electricity, no drains, and no petrol, mainly due to the lack of security. Women have been killed. 
 
The police claim that they are killed because they are not dressed properly. Women have crimes committee against them. Women sit home, unemployed, because of the dangerous security situation. The situation for women has regressed. They must shake themselves and rise up. Women in unions are trying to develop a women&rsquo;s role, often together with NGOs. Despite the difficulties, some women are active. Nevertheless, the lack of security and isolation means that not all women can be reached. The women in the dockworkers&rsquo; union and the oil workers&rsquo; unions need support. 
 
Women once played a key role in the economy. When men went off to war, the women managed the economy. At one point, 75% of the workforce was women. Women make up 65% of the population in Iraq. Bur unemployment among women is about 60%. There are many women workers, but few women are in trade unions. Unions are prohibited from existing in the public sector. 
 
Trade unions are starting out new, so people have no experience. Young people are working as volunteers. People make mistakes but they are willing to learn. Three women organized a conference, which was covered by the press, to fight against Decree 150, the Saddam-era decree prohibiting unions in the public sector. The Iraqi government implements laws that are imposed by other countries. 
 
Angeline Chitambo, President of Zimbabwe Electricity Workers&rsquo; Union and a Vice President of the ICEM, reported on the crisis in Zimbabwe. Women make up 52% of the population. Women are especially faced with food shortages. Most of the people in rural areas are women, because that is where food sources are supposed to be. But violence has been unleashed in the rural areas, and women have been tortured. Food supplies are now scarce. Farms do not produce enough. 
 
There is a shortage of transport; transport to hospitals, due to the fuel shortage, is non-existent. HIV/AIDS drugs are unavailable. Women resort to prostitution to make ends meet. There is no sanitary protection available to women in general, and only those with money have access to it. 
 
The government uses thugs, and everything functions on the basis of bribes. Women used to support the government, but now they want change. Women&rsquo;s organizations and coalitions are organizing to mobilise women to vote. Recommendations were made to ICEM for practical support. ICEM published an Action Alert on the Zimbabwe situation on 20 June, and the points contained were sent out in an ICEM Circular. 
 
A brief report was given on the situation of women in Colombia on the basis of the visit to Colombia by ICEM leadership in March 2008. A peace march was attended on 6 March. On 8 March, ICEM Colombia held a seminar to commemorate International Women&rsquo;s Day. Colombian women examined their history and reflected on how their lives were different from their mothers&rsquo; and grandmothers&rsquo; lives. An NGO of women was visited and the issue of armed conflict was discussed. Special consideration must be given to women in indigenous communities and how they are affected by the oil industry. El Cerrej&oacute;n mine provides treatment for HIV/AIDS to indigenous communities near the mine in a model project. 
 
Special thought has to be given to the issue of women, and the effect that armed conflict has on women, both as victims and perpetrators, women as guerrillas or ex-guerrillas. Terrorism means a new challenge. 
 
In connection with the discussion on the seven points from the 19 June ICEM Women&rsquo;s Conference, Baru Khumo, General Secretary of the Botswana Diamond Sorters and Valuators&rsquo; Union, reported on the ICEM Sub-Saharan Africa Region&rsquo;s Women&rsquo;s Committee meeting, held in Accra, Ghana, in early June 2008. The meeting covered the seven points adopted by the ICEM Women&rsquo;s Conference of 2007. The three axes of the meeting were Decent Work, gender justice, and HIV/AIDS. 
 
In France, the CFDT has been talking about equality for decades, but inequality persists. A new law determines that equal pay has to exist by 1 January 2010. Negotiations are required. The chemical industry had a recent agreement. There is a legal requirement to have delegations made up of women and men in negotiations to reflect women&rsquo;s real representation in the sector. This would mean 35 to 40% women in delegations. One proposal is to include clauses in Global Framework Agreements to respect equality between women and men. 
 
In Denmark, there is a slight move away from pure equal pay and toward evaluating and appreciating job categories. 
 
A brief report was provided on EMCEF, where the main challenge is to find out why women do not attend meetings. 
 
As far as the point on peace is concerned, in the Asia-Pacific Region, an environment must be created for women to work in peaceful conditions, particularly in Myanmar and Nepal. 
 
In Costa Rica, a women&rsquo;s trade union agenda was drafted with the support of FES. The six axes coincide to a great extent with ICEM&rsquo;s points. Serious problems exist at a refinery due to a crisis situation, which means that gender work has stalled. Nevertheless women are now participating in spaces that before were open only to men. 
 
In Spain, work is proceeding on implementing the equality law. Agreements exist with Michelin and Bridgestone as well as St Gobain and BASF. The law is valid for companies with more than 250 employees. A project to combat violence is soon to be launched together with the Nordic and Baltic countries. 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s seven points should form part of the Worldwide Day on Decent Work on 7 October. 
 
One further point for debate was gender and sustainable development. The paper provided by ICEM should be amended to form part of a larger study. Gender equality is part and parcel of sustainable development. 
 
Items such as women as consumers and users of energy in the home, the food crisis, biofuels, escalating oil prices, and living wage must be added. Women need to be empowered in order to achieve sustainable development. 
 
Work will continue on Decent Work, sustainable development and the seven points. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda suggested that the seven points and their implementation should be on the agenda of the ICEM Executive Committee in 2009.
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2. ICEM Sub-Sahara Africa Regional&nbsp;Women Meet 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s Sub-Sahara Africa Region Women&rsquo;s Committee met from 5 to 7 June in Accra, Ghana, to draft a women&rsquo;s charter for Africa. Women from Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria, Zambia, Cote d&rsquo;Ivoire, South Africa, Tanzania, DRC, Zimbabwe, and Guinea attended the meeting. After a brainstorming session, in which women identified all of their objectives, three focuses were identified: Decent Work, gender justice, and HIV/AIDS. These were seen to cover all of the needs that had been expressed. The objectives were matched with target groups and time frames. 
 
Decent Work covers equal pay for equal work, discrimination in recruitment, and maternity protection, as well as women in the informal economy among other things. Gender justice refers to women&rsquo;s structures, work-life balance, gender-sensitive policies, sexual harassment, and violence. Particular points that were discussed related to HIV/AIDS were the cultural values such as polygamy and female genital mutilation which present particular challenges for the spread of HIV. 
 
The solution to all of the above-mentioned issues is women&rsquo;s empowerment. If gender equality is more of a focus in the labour movement, then women&rsquo;s interests will be promoted. One other solution is integrating gender into the mainstream. Gender and cultural dynamics must be scrutinized. 
 
The women&rsquo;s structure will monitor and evaluate the achievements and weaknesses.
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3. ICEM Nepal Works on Women&rsquo;s Health and Maternity Care 
 
A session on women&rsquo;s health and maternity care was organized by ICEM Nepal on 20 to 22 May, in Kathmandu. Dr Sarita Pandey started the program with the question, &ldquo;What is women&rsquo;s health?&rdquo; The distinction was made between health and reproductive health. Adolescent health was one focus with the effects detailed of psychological and physical changes. Apshara Pandey explained the different methods of family planning with the benefits and drawbacks of each. Information was given on pregnancy and abortion as well as laws regarding abortion. The use of different types of contraceptives was explained. 
 
Pemba Lama presented maternity health and maternity care. Prenatal and postnatal care was the focus. The pros and cons of the different types of contraceptives were explained such as norplant, condoms, and copper T. Beli Maya Ghale presented the symptoms and consequences of uterus prolapse as well as the methods to control it. In addition, Janak Chaudhary presented the laws the government has passed for women. All sessions were very interactive.
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4. UN Calls for Greater Efforts to End Sexual Violence in Conflict 
 
On 19 June 2008, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon led a session calling for an end to the scourge of violence against women in conflict areas. A task force will be set up in an effort called the UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict. It will involve various issues, including peacekeeping, HIV/AIDS, and human rights to help stop rape and other sexual crimes in conflict-ridden countries. He also called for more involvement of women in conflict prevention, peace negotiations and recovery efforts. 
 
In addition, women&rsquo;s representatives from different organizations in Africa also met from 16 to 18 June in Nairobi at the FAO Africa conference, where they made a statement on the food crisis. It was felt that improved women&rsquo;s access, control and ownership of land and natural and productive resources would help eradicate hunger and poverty.
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5. United Kingdom: &nbsp;Government Hosts Conference for Trade Union Equality Representatives 
 
The UK Government organized a conference on trade union equality representatives on 24 June. Equality reps are supposed to inform people of their rights at work and, hence, achieve fairness on the job. 
 
Up to now, the government has been funding projects to promote equality reps. Equality reps can assist people facing discrimination and support them in many issues, such as flexible work for parents and those caring for the elderly, disability, age, equal pay, and harassment. They can also negotiate with the employer to assure a fair deal at work and support disabled people to keep them on the job. 
 
Equality reps can raise awareness about rights and keep people at work who otherwise would tend to stop work to care for older or disabled relatives. Child poverty can be combated by negotiating deals for single parents to keep them at work as well. 
 
Equality reps can do the following: promote equality and diversity issues, help employers engage with employees, help carry out equal pay audits, be involved in devising a full range of equality policies, help create a more equitable work-life balance to help workers combine their domestic and work responsibilities, ensure that part-time and other atypical workers receive fair treatment, help employers develop positive action schemes, and help perform access assessments for disabled persons.
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6. United States/Mexico: Women of Steel Express their Solidarity with Mexican Workers 
 
A delegation of 14 women from the United Steelworkers went to the Cananea mine in Sonora, Mexico, to express their solidarity with miners and their families. They have been on strike since 31 July 2007. Most of the women in the delegation were of Hispanic origin. They came from the Southwest of the United States and from California. Their aim was to get the employer and the government to stop the repression against the mineworkers&rsquo; union. They got to know the history of the strike, and saw first hand the conditions that miners&rsquo; families live in.
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7. Western Sahara: National Union of Sahrawi Women Appeals for Support 
 
The Sahrawi women&rsquo;s union was created in 1974 to support the fight for independence and self-determination. The women suffer from the hard desert life, a lack of the minimum needs for subsistence, isolation, the absence of men so that they have to assume family burdens, a low level of education, lack of knowledge of how to care for those suffering from war. 
 
The women try to create awareness at national level about women&rsquo;s position and their role in national independence. They try to make women realize the importance of participating. The women would like to contribute to education on the basis of equality for girls and boys at school. Preventive health care is one more area in which women develop consciousness. 
 
The organisation has close relations with women&rsquo;s organisations in Africa and the Arab world, as well as organizations that work for peace. The women appeal for moral and political support for the Sahrawi people in its fight for self-determination and independence.

ICEM Women&#039;s Bulletin: June 2008

Efforts to secure a global union-employer agreement for the chemical sector have failed, the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) announced today. 
 
Speaking in Washington, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs expressed &quot;profound concern&quot; over &quot;what may turn out to have been a two-year charade masquerading as serious dialogue between the world chemical industry and the ICEM.&quot; 
 
Detailed negotiations between the ICEM and the companies' International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) had seemed close to success. Now, however, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) - a major member organisation of the ICCA - has decided to &quot;take no position&quot; on a proposed memorandum of understanding covering health, safety and environmental issues between the ICCA and the ICEM. This seriously jeopardises the prospects of the hoped-for ICCA/ICEM agreement. 
 
The scuppering of the worldwide agreement would pose a particular threat to the chemical industry's Responsible Care programme. 
 
Responsible Care aims to portray the chemical sector as applying uniformly high occupational health and safety and environmental standards wherever the industry operates. It has been the industry's main response to critics of its social and environmental record. Responsible Care programmes have been introduced in many parts of the world, often backed by lavish advertising campaigns. 
 
However, Responsible Care long lacked public credibility. A survey published by the ICEM in December 1997 showed that chemical workers were neither particularly involved in, or even aware of, Responsible Care. 35 percent of the chemical unions surveyed did not know what Responsible Care was. Among those that did, many regarded it as little more than a public relations exercise. One union called it &quot;window dressing.&quot; 
 
In February 1999, all this looked set to change. A meeting of the world's governments, chemical employers and chemical unions decided to establish a formal dialogue between the ICEM and the ICCA - notably in a bid to inject some real content into Responsible Care. 
 
Organised by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), the meeting was hailed at the time by the companies and the unions as a major step forward in the promotion of Responsible Care. 
 
Among the ILO meeting's conclusions: 
 
- Internationally comparable systems of performance indicators should be developed and maintained to track chemical enterprises' performance on workplace health and safety and on environmental protection. Workers and their representatives should be involved in the development and use of these systems. 
 
- Workers and their representatives should be actively involved in identifying training and education needs and in designing and implementing training programmes. 
 
At the time, this and the meeting's detailed agreed principles for worker involvement seemed to offer new hope for Responsible Care and the industry's other &quot;voluntary initiatives&quot;. The thinking was that careful monitoring by chemical workers and their trade unions, from the workplace right up to the global level, could give more real substance to these programmes and so boost their credibility. 
 
It was not to be. 
 
&quot;We had supposed that the industry was discussing in good faith,&quot; Higgs said today. &quot;That was clearly not the case. Whilst I am inclined to believe that those with whom we were negotiating under the auspices of the ICEM/ICCA Joint Advisory Committee were sincere, I am forced to conclude that we were not talking to the real decision-makers and that, furthermore, those making the final decision never had any intention of reaching agreement with the ICEM.&quot; 
 
And he left no doubt as to the villains of the piece. 
 
&quot;It is appropriate that I am making this announcement in Washington,&quot; Higgs said, &quot;because it is the US chemical industry - or at least one or two powerful voices within it - which deliberately destroyed this international process. The consequences will be extremely damaging, perhaps fatal, for Responsible Care and the industry's other voluntary initiatives worldwide. 
 
&quot;Ironically,&quot; Higgs added, &quot;the US chemical companies have made this move at the precise moment when their own reputation is in tatters. The programme 'Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report', televised by PBS here in the States on 26 March, demonstrated just how badly the American chemical industry has behaved in the past, the tactics it uses to silence or neutralise its critics and the widespread public mistrust and anger directed against it. In particular, the progamme chronicles the US chemical manufacturers' very well-funded fight against the 'precautionary principle' for the regulation of toxic chemicals. Long used and accepted in, for example, the European Union, this principle says that, in case of doubt, government regulators should opt to regard a chemical as toxic, thus protecting public health and safety. Due to sustained lobbying by the US chemical companies' trade association, Americans still do not have the basic protection of the precautionary principle. 
 
&quot;When the PBS programme was made, and when we were negotiating with the ICCA, the US chemical manufacturers were grouped in a body called the Chemical Manufacturers' Association (CMA),&quot; Higgs said. &quot;Now, it is called the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Frankly, I'm not surprised that they had to change its name. 
 
&quot;What other ICCA member associations have to decide now,&quot; Higgs said, &quot;is whether they want to be identified with the blinkered attitude of their US counterparts. That is, of course, a difficult choice, but unless they isolate the American companies, the chemical industry worldwide will risk a serious loss of social and environmental credibility. Both for labour relations and for the environment, the present political climate in the USA is anything but good. The White House is clearly at the beck and call of America's most reactionary boardrooms. So on chemical safety, as on other issues, the world may just have to get on with its own agenda and, reluctantly, leave the USA to one side for the moment. 
 
&quot;That is the challenge now facing the ICCA,&quot; Higgs concluded. &quot;If you want to keep talking to us, if you want to salvage the chemical industry's global reputation, prove to us - now, without any more doublecrosses or doubletalk - that you are no longer the hostages of your most backward US member companies. It's entirely up to you.&quot;

US Chemical Firms Scupper Global Agreement

Oil workers throughout Brazil today demonstrated for tighter safety in the national oil company Petrobras, following yesterday's disastrous oil platform explosions. 
 
At the call of the oil union federation FUP, workers staged go-slows and other industrial demonstrations. In particular, they called for the right to stop work in case of danger. And they demanded an end to subcontracting in the oil industry. Today's protests and the FUP demands were fully backed by Brazilian unions in all sectors, via the national labour confederation CUT. 
 
The 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the FUP is affiliated at the global level, also pledged its full support for the Brazilian oil workers' campaign. 
 
&quot;One worker died in the explosion, one has been hospitalised in a serious condition, with little prospect of survival, and a further nine workers are missing and have already been given up for dead by the Petrobras management,&quot; the FUP said today. 
 
Brazil's Regulatory Standards NR-9 and NR-5 do in fact give workers the right to halt work on their own initiative in the case of a perceived imminent danger. However, these norms are widely disregarded in practice and relatively few workers are aware of their rights. Today, the FUP demanded full and immediate implementation of stop-work rights. 
 
Subcontracting of jobs is a rapidly growing trend throughout the world oil industry and in many other industrial sectors. Trade unions worldwide have repeatedly drawn attention to the risks involved. Subcontracted workers - who are not on the payroll of the company where they actually work and who frequently change jobs - have demonstrably higher accident rates than do regular company employees. 
 
The Petrobras P-36 rig, which suffered a series of explosions in Brazil's Campos Basin yesterday, is the world's biggest semi-submersible oil platform. 
 
P-36, which is now tilting and taking on water, contains about 1.5 million litres of petrol and oil. These could spill into the sea, causing a major environmental catastrophe within the next three days. 
 
Petrobras has a very poor safety record, FUP Coordinator Maur&iacute;cio Fran&ccedil;a Rubem told the ICEM today. &quot;Since the beginning of last year,&quot; he said, &quot;the oil workers' unions and the FUP have recorded 95 significant accidents within Petrobras units, of which 18 were fatal. Of these deaths, 16 were among oil workers employed by subcontractors.&quot; 
 
The Campos Basin holds the record for accidents, Fran&ccedil;a Rubem said. 50 of the recorded accidents occurred in this area, causing 12 deaths (of which 11 were among subcontracted workers). 
 
Petrobras is not providing adequate training for subcontracted workers, he stated. At the same time, drastically reduced manning levels mean that the regular employees are also getting less time for safety training. &quot;Compared with a total of some 62,000 workers at the beginning of the 1990s, the company today operates with about 34,000 people on its payroll, despite the increase in production and activities.&quot; 
 
In the past three years, 81 workers have been killed on Petrobras sites, he added. &quot;That's an average of two human lives lost every month.&quot; Of the 81 who died, 66 were subcontracted workers. 
 
The Petrobras management is &quot;clearly responsible&quot; for the series of disasters, Fran&ccedil;a Rubem insisted. The &quot;brutal subcontracting implemented within the company&quot;, in tandem with the &quot;criminal cutbacks in the regular workforce&quot;, has &quot;multiplied the risks already inherent in this sector.&quot;

Brazilian Oil Workers: for Safety&#039;s Sake, End Subcontracting Now

Trade unionists from across Belgium and international delegates converged on an industrial suburb of Li&egrave;ge, Belgium, this morning. They were protesting over plans by tyre giant Continental to shut down production of truck tyres there. 
 
After a meeting outside the gates of the Continental plant, hundreds of workers marched round the industrial estate. Later, a motorway was blocked by demonstrators. 
 
 

<img height="287" src="" width="380" alt="" />
CONTINENTAL'S BELGIAN CLOSURE: 
700 JOBS AT RISK 

Continental's closure plan jeopardises 700 jobs in an area that has already suffered greatly from the delocalisation strategies of the multinationals. 
Today's demo was organised by Belgian general workers' union the Centrale G&eacute;n&eacute;rale-FGTB and salaried staffs' union SETCa-FGTB, both of which are affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Union (ICEM). Co-organiser was the chemical workers' union CSC-Chimie. 
 
&quot;The workers around the world are watching,&quot; ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs told the demonstrators, &quot;and they are insisting that workers in Belgium be treated with respect and dignity.&quot; An ICEM contingent took part in the demonstration, carrying the banners of the international. 
 
The ICEM has launched a worldwide solidarity campaign in support of the Belgian Continental workers. 
 
Continental's announcement has caused widespread outrage in Belgium. Its plant there is one of the most modern in the company, and its Belgian workers had accepted a whole series of job cuts and pay reductions since 1997 in order to safeguard the Belgian operation. &quot;Today,&quot; says the Central G&eacute;n&eacute;rale, &quot;the workers note that all this simply served to generate profits for the multinational, which invested them elsewhere.&quot; 
 
The unions had called for a moratorium on the closure until the end of this year at the very earliest, so as to give time for serious negotiations on job preservation measures and compensation. The management's response was to speed up the closure plans. &quot;A provocation,&quot; say the unions. 
 
There is no doubt where the real responsibilities lie, Michel Nollet told the demonstrators this morning. He is the President of the Belgian national trade union federation FGTB. Multinational companies had undertaken closure after closure, Nollet said. This proved that governments had lost control of their economies. Noting the absence of politicians from today's demonstration, Nollet challenged governments worldwide to reassert their authority over the multinational corporations. And he called for international trade union solidarity to fight Continental's closure plan.

Outrage Over Continental Tyre&#039;s Belgian Closure Plan

Workers now have information and co-determination rights on the supervisory board of Franco-German chemicals giant Aventis. 
 
An important precedent for European worker participation is set by the agreement, which has just been finalised by the French and German chemical workers' unions, the company and the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers' Federation (EMCEF). 
 
German law provides for Mitbestimmung (worker co-determination) in big companies at two levels - the works council and the supervisory board. Within the European Union (EU) as a whole, meanwhile, worker participation so far has been at the level of European Works Councils. 
 
The supervisory board is one of the two tiers within German company boards. It determines overall corporate policy and appoints the management board, which is in charge of the day-to-day running of the company. The management board answers to the supervisory board for its conduct of the company's business. 
 
The most common type of corporate-level co-determination in Germany requires equal numbers of employee-elected and shareholder-elected representatives within the supervisory board. However, at least one of the employee representatives is a senior manager and the chairman is, in practice, an extra shareholder representative with a casting vote. Nonetheless, there is strong pressure to maintain consensus within the supervisory boards, which also play a crucial role in German unions' information about trends within the company. 
 
The German labour minister has tabled proposals to further update and strengthen the country's co-determination system. But the growing economic integration of the EU has raised some issues. Labour legislation varies greatly from one EU country to another, and the creation of a European company statute could complicate the question of co-determination rights. 
 
So an important test case was created in 1999 by the merger of German-based chemicals multinational Hoechst AG with French-based Rh&ocirc;ne-Poulenc S.A. to form Aventis S.A. 
 
Aventis is headquartered just outside Strasbourg, France. Hoechst AG continues to exist as a German-registered firm, but it is now an intermediate holding company affiliated to Aventis, which owns about 97% of the Hoechst shares. 
 
Immediately after the merger, the German and French chemical workers' unions set about ensuring worker participation within the new company. An agreement in principle was reached with the Aventis management last year. But the new arrangement, the first of its kind at the European level, ran into problems on the ground. The additional agreement just signed clears up the practical details. 
 
The package is a &quot;viable compromise,&quot; commented Hubertus Schmoldt. He is President of the German chemical workers' union IG BCE and of EMCEF, and Vice-President of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
&quot;The decisive point,&quot; Schmoldt said, &quot;is that we are making a start on the qualified representation, in practice, of workers on the boards of transnational corporations.&quot; 
 
Four of the six worker representatives - two French and two German - will be voted on to the supervisory board of Aventis S.A. by the company's shareholder assembly. The worker representatives will have the same rights as the ten representatives of capital on the board. 
 
The two other worker seats on the board are those required by French law, which assigns them to the works council (comit&eacute; d'entreprise). Under the Aventis agreement, EMCEF will nominate the candidate for one of these two seats. In return for the works council's agreement to this, it will have the right to be represented on the Aventis &quot;European Dialogue Committee&quot;. 
 
The unions see this package as a milestone on the way to co-determination within European companies. 
 
The agreement now goes to the Aventis AGM for formal approval. 
 
Aventis employs around 95,000 people in more than 120 countries. In November 2000, it announced that it intends to focus on pharmaceuticals and will divest its activities in agriculture.

Aventis Worker Participation Deal Is European First

Countries must have the right to buy AIDS medication at an affordable price. 
 
That call was issued in Copenhagen this morning by the leader of trade unions in the world's pharmaceutical industry. 
 
Fred Higgs, General Secretary of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), was speaking as a crucial court case opened in South Africa today. 
 
Developing countries' access to medication is at issue in the test case between the South African government and 39 big pharmaceutical companies. 
 
To protect their patents, the major drug corporations are asking the court to stop the implementation of a South African law aimed at providing cheaper medicines. The law would permit the country's health minister to use parallel importation of drugs, compulsory licensing and generic substitution (cut-price &quot;copy&quot; drugs) where necessary. 
 
Application of this Act has already been delayed for several years by the legal wrangles. The measure is particularly important to the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection. 
 
&quot;As part of the ICEM's programme to combat HIV/AIDS, we believe that South Africa and other countries must have the right to buy the appropriate pharmaceuticals at prices that they can afford,&quot; said Higgs this morning. He was in South Africa last week at an ICEM conference where African and Asian unions adopted a programme of action on HIV/AIDS. 
 
&quot;We hope that the South African courts will defend South Africa's rights in this regard,&quot; Higgs added. &quot;We ask ICEM-affiliated unions to express their support for the South African government's position.&quot; 
 
ICEM affiliates include pharmaceutical workers' unions worldwide. 
 
Higgs was speaking at the congress of the ICEM-affiliated Danish Women Workers' Union (KAD), which is celebrating its centenary this year. Over a thousand delegates are attending the congress.

AIDS Drug Test Case: World&#039;s Pharma Unions Back South Africa

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