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Fourteen workers were hospitalized and 30 treated for injuries following a 24 September hydrogen sulphide leak at Caltex Australia Ltd.&rsquo;s refinery in Sydney. Less than a week later, on 29 September, another suspected gas leak forced evacuation of hundreds of oil workers at the country&rsquo;s second largest refinery. The incidents occurred near a new, A$395 million clean fuels plant inside the Kurnell refinery, a major producer of transport fuels in Australia. Caltex, 50% owned by US-based Chevron, is behind schedule and has been burdened with unplanned maintenance and outages at the 124,000 barrel-per-day refinery.

Leak Hospitalizes 14 at Caltex Refinery in Australia

New Zealand paper workers at a Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) converting factory in Auckland have won a 5% pay hike, but CHH workers in the woods sector are still staging industrial actions to get similar pay increases. On 23 September, 200 workers at a laminated veneer plant at Marsden Point in Whangarei began a week-long strike aimed at achieving affiliate Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union&rsquo;s (EPMU) goal of 5% in 2005. The EPMU has succeeded in getting 5% hikes in 269 collective agreements since it&rsquo;s Fair Share Campaign began in February 2005, 85% of all contracts open this year. The &ldquo;5% in &lsquo;05&rdquo; Campaign prompted an industry association spokesman to remark, &ldquo;If you get the message out there, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.&rdquo;

New Zealand Affiliate Succeeding at 5% Wage Hikes

French ICEM affiliate F&eacute;d&eacute;ration Chimie Energie CFDT is calling for a tripartite commission to be established to resolve wage talks in the paper carton industry of France. The trade union rejects the inferior minimum levels put forward by the trade industry grouping Nationale des Industries Papeti&egrave;res pour les Affaires Sociales (l&rsquo;Unipas). FCE-CFDT says the heavy pressure to hold down wages will not be good for this papermaking sector since workers will become reluctant to take promotions into jobs requiring higher technical skills.

French Affiliate Seeks Wage Hikes in Paper Sector

Tomorrow, a general strike will occur throughout France, called by the nation&rsquo;s five major trade union confederations. French workers are saying no to privatisations, no to the new jobs contract proposed by the government, no to erosion of job security, and yes to public service investments and fair pay gains. Some 140 public demonstrations will be held across France, and a weekend opinion poll says 74% of French citizens support the day of actions. The strike has postponed&mdash;at least temporarily&mdash;a government campaign to promote partial privatisation of Electricit&eacute; de France (EDF). Release of analysts&rsquo; reports of EDF&rsquo;s initial public offering commissioned by the government have been ordered delayed until after 4 October strikes.

French Trade Unions Stage 4 October Actions

The Canadian government was target of a 9 September International Day of Protest against the export of asbestos products. Unions in Australia, Asia, India, Africa and Latin America joined the protest against Canada&rsquo;s government, which bans the sale of asbestos products to its own citizens yet profits by export of it. Canada is the world&rsquo;s third largest exporter of asbestos products. Demonstrators gathered in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Australia, demanding a ban, and Canadian embassies in 12 countries were delivered strongly-worded letters asking for Canada to stop its asbestos exports. In Japan, where 60% of all asbestos comes from Canada, three unions sent a high-level delegation to the Tokyo embassy of Canada formally requesting that its export promotion policy be terminated.

Global Unions Protest Canada&#039;s Asbestos Exports

French oil refinery workers at Total began partial disruptions to production late on 6 September, successfully making the global oil company modify its disciplinary actions against four workers the next day. The four were exclusively blamed for a fuel leak on 7 August at a refinery in Marseille. The refineries in which job actions occurred included Donges, Saint-Nazaire; Normandie, LeHavre; Grandpuits near Paris; Feyzin, Lyon; and the Provence refinery, Marseille.

French Total Workers Strike over Disciplinary Measures

Eighteen Russian coalminers on Sakhalin Island ended their 11-day hunger strike 142 meters underground 9 September when they won backwages totaling four million roubles for 428 miners for the month of June at the bankrupt Sakhalinugol mining firm. They also won assurances that July and August wages due them will be paid this month through sale of mining equipment. The coalmine shut in August. Separate from the strike, the trustee of the mining enterprise in the Uglegorsk region, Tatyana Dmitriyeva, was arrested in early September and charged with profiteering from sale of mining and earth-moving equipment prior to the mid-August shutdown.

Sakhalin Miners End Strike

Eight trade union leaders of ICEM Malaysian affiliate National Union of Employees in Companies Manufacturing Rubber Products (NUECMRP) are still seeking reinstatement to their jobs at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Selangor after more than a year&rsquo;s time. The eight were dismissed for various reasons after the union called attention to unfair treatment of workers from Nepal, Burma and Vietnam. The union also has protested strongly against the contract and agency labour practices of Goodyear, which utilizes a firm that deploys workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to avoid employment responsibility. Efforts at achieving justice for the eight have been blocked by the Malaysian Human Resource Minister&rsquo;s refusal to bring the dismissals before an industrial court. Goodyear has continued to exploit foreign workers at the 500-worker factory with lower pay, and denying them annual leave and medical leave per employment standards. The US-based company has also rebuffed NUECMRP&rsquo;s requests to create permanent, domestic jobs when vacancies occur at the factory.

Malaysian Affiliate Still Sees Problems with Goodyear

German and French unions are teaming up to block the hostile takeover of German-French pharmaceutical Aventis by French rival Sanofi-Synthelabo. Hubertus Schmoldt, president of German IGBCE and Patrick Pierron, general secretary of the French union FCE-CFDT, oppose the hostile takeover. They fear massive job cuts in both countries will result, and jointly expressed disdain over how the takeover was set up. &ldquo;A hostile takeover such as this is counter-production to the stock market. There are hardly any winners with such actions, but certainly plenty of losers,&rdquo; the two unions said.

French, German Unions Resist Aventis, Sanofi Chemical Merger

The framework accord reached in May between South African affiliate NUM and Harmony Gold Mining Ltd. Was broke last week when the firm refused to budge on its initial stand of sacking 5,000 workers at six mine shafts. &ldquo;Clearly, Harmony is not interested in savings jobs but wishes to wait out the situation by mothballing shafts until the price of gold improves,&rdquo; said NUM Gen. Sec. Gwede Mantashe. &ldquo;Their emphasis is more on cost-cutting and efficiency improvement, going against the framework we developed on jobs.&rdquo; The union has declared a dispute with Harmony through a formal letter to the company and the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration

NUM marches over Job Retrenchments in South Africa

Archive

Leak Hospitalizes 14 at Caltex Refinery in Australia

New Zealand Affiliate Succeeding at 5% Wage Hikes

French Affiliate Seeks Wage Hikes in Paper Sector

French Trade Unions Stage 4 October Actions

Global Unions Protest Canada's Asbestos Exports

French Total Workers Strike over Disciplinary Measures

Sakhalin Miners End Strike

Malaysian Affiliate Still Sees Problems with Goodyear

French, German Unions Resist Aventis, Sanofi Chemical Merger

NUM marches over Job Retrenchments in South Africa

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