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Detained Nigerian oilworkers' leaders Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori are to be released immediately, news reports say. 
 
Nigerian Head of State Major-General Abdusalam Abubakar reportedly announced the decision to free them and a number of other detainees within the past hour. 
 
It is not known if the two union leaders have already left prison, or whether any conditions are attached to their release. 
 
Frank Kokori, General Secretary of oil and gas workers' union NUPENG, has been detained without charge or trial since 1994, and Milton Dabibi, General Secretary of oil and gas workers' union PENGASSAN, since January 1996. 
 
Both unions are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has been leading an international trade union campaign for Dabibi's and Kokori's release. Other organisations campaigning on their behalf include Amnesty International, which has recognised both men as prisoners of conscience. 
 
&quot;On the face of it, this is excellent news,&quot; commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe this evening. &quot;We are now waiting impatiently to hear that Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori really have been released, that they are in reasonable health and that they are free to resume their work as the elected leaders of Nigeria's oil and gas workers.&quot; 
 
The ICEM will give further news and comment as soon as more details are known.

Nigerian Oilworkers&#039; Leaders Freed?

U nion leaders representing employees of Goodyear Tire &amp; Rubber Co. in 27 countries joined the negotiating team of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) here today for the opening of master contract negotiations with the company. 
 
The talks will address contracts covering 20,000 active workers and 22,000 retirees across the United States. The current three-year agreement is set to expire on April 19, 2003 at the Goodyear and Dunlop plants and on July 6, 2003 at the Kelly-Springfield facilities. 
 
The international delegation included rubber workers union officials from Brazil, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Germany. Together with the USWA, they comprise the steering committee of the Goodyear Global Union Network of the 20-million-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM), a global union federation. The network includes Goodyear unions on six continents and is chaired by USWA International Vice President Andrew V. Palm. 
 
Palm will lead the USWA Goodyear/Kelly-Springfield/Dunlop bargaining team. &ldquo;The security of our members&rsquo; jobs, wages, benefits and retirement earnings are our paramount concern,&rdquo; he stated. &ldquo;We are convinced that Goodyear can return to profitability while also ensuring these basic protections.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;We are proud and grateful that the Goodyear unions from around the world are standing by our side,&rdquo; Palm continued. &ldquo;Their presence here at the opening of our contract negotiations demonstrates our unity and resolve to work together across borders for the common benefit of Goodyear workers everywhere in the world.&rdquo; 
 
The USWA local unions involved in the contract negotiations include those from Akron/Green, Ohio; Gadsden, Ala.; Buffalo, N.Y.; St. Mary&rsquo;s, Ohio; Lincoln, Neb.; Topeka, Kan.; Freeport, Ill.; Tyler, Texas; Danville, Va.; Marysville, Ohio; Union City, Tenn.; Sun Prairie, Wis.; Huntsville, Ala.; Fayetteville, N.C. 
 
&ldquo;The trade union movement is developing the capacity to have the same global reach as the multinational corporations for which our members work,&rdquo; said Carlos Antonio da Silva of the Latin American rubber workers union federation FUTINAL from Brazil. &ldquo;What you&rsquo;re seeing here in Cincinnati is global unionism in action.&rdquo; 
 
The other union leaders who were present were Joao Batista Gon&ccedil;alves of FUTINAL from Brazil; Bill Holmes of the U.K. union AMICUS; Karl-Heinz Sch&auml;del, chairman of the Goodyear Dunlop Central Works Council of Germany and member of the Goodyear European Works Council steering committee from the German union IG Bergbau Chemie Energie; Abdullah Karacan, president of the Turkish union Lastik-Is; Kemal &Ouml;zkan of Lastik-Is; and Marc Welters and Kenneth Zinn of the ICEM. 
 
In addition to providing support to the USWA, the international union leaders had an opportunity to discuss matters affecting Goodyear workers around the world with senior company management. 
 
&ldquo;We are pleased to have this opportunity to have a dialogue with Goodyear senior management,&rdquo; said the U.K.&rsquo;s Bill Holmes, &ldquo;and hope to continue the discussion and reach an understanding with the company so that Goodyear workers the world over are treated with the same dignity and respect.&rdquo;

Global Union Network Backs Steelworkers at Goodyear

Support to miners and other workers in Russia campaigning for payment of wage arrears was today reaffirmed by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). In particular, the ICEM Executive Committee called upon all ICEM affiliates worldwide to block any attempts to export additional coal to Russia. 
 
 

<img height="294" alt="" src="" width="200" />
&nbsp;Unpaid Russian miners blocking a railway line. 
&quot;We can no longer bear to look into our children's hungry eyes,&quot; their placard says. &quot;We have nothing to lose.&quot; 
(Photo: Vyacheslav Voyakin, Vladivostok News) 

Full text of the resolution unanimously adopted by the ICEM Executive in Blankenberge, Belgium, today: 
 
We, participants of the 3rd Executive Committee meeting of the ICEM, observe with great concern the developments in Russia. 
 
Our colleagues, the Russian miners, were brought to the edge of despair by systematic delays in wage payments and severe erosion of social benefits, which pushed them to launch nationwide protest campaigns involving strikes, blocking of coal supplies and paralysing railroad traffic in several regions of Russia. 
 
 

<img height="207" alt="" src="" width="319" />
 
The coal industry in Russia is in a very difficult situation: it is planned to close 120 mines in 1998, leaving 300,000 miners unemployed. Miners appear to be hostages of the unwise economic policy of the Russian government and that is the background against which miners are not paid their salaries on time. 
 
In the course of the campaign, there were several cases when union leaders were harassed and threatened with prosecution by local authorities and employers. The Russian government threatened to undermine the effectiveness of collective actions by importing additional coal into Russia. We raise our voice against any persecution of union activists in Russia, and also appeal to ICEM affiliates to block any attempts to export additional coal to Russia. 
 
For the time being, coal miners have forced the government into extraordinary measures, which resulted in the paying out of wage debts in several regions, and we congratulate our colleagues on this victory. 
 
However, our Brothers and Sisters in other industries continue to suffer from the immoral policy of wage arrears. The ICEM, at the request of Russian affiliates, has several times expressed solidarity in support of their struggle and sent letters of protest to the Russian authorities with reference to wage arrears. The ICEM has launched a worldwide cybercampaign on the Internet supporting Russian workers and their struggle. 
 
Today, we, the representatives of workers of 115 countries united in the ICEM, declare that in future, the ICEM will use all its possibilities to support the just struggle of Russian workers for their rights. 
 
We urge the Russian authorities and employers not to bring workers and their families to the edge of rage and despair, but to solve all problems in a civilised way, on the basis of respect for human rights, justice and law.

Block Extra Coal Exports To Russia, Union International Says

The Indian and Pakistani governments should &quot;renounce nuclear weaponry,&quot; the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) urged today. The ICEM's worldwide membership includes workers in the civil nuclear industry. 
 
Full text of the resolution unanimously adopted by the ICEM Executive in Blankenberge, Belgium, today: 
 
Emphasising the position of the world's nuclear industry workers, as expressed at the last World Conference of Nuclear Industry Workers in Washington, USA, in March 1995, that this powerful technology should be directed towards the peaceful service of humanity; 
Understanding that the causes of fear and conflict in the world spring from social and economic injustice and are heightened by the impacts of globalisation; 
the ICEM Executive Committee, meeting in Blankenberge, Belgium, on 28-29 May 1998 
 
Expresses its alarm at the recent testing of nuclear devices by the governments of India and Pakistan; 
Calls upon the Indian and Pakistani governments to renounce nuclear weaponry in the pursuit of national interests and to cease any deployment of nuclear weapons as a threat to their neighbours; 
Pledges its support for the people and especially the workers of India and Pakistan in their just struggle to obtain a fair share of world production and resources to feed and to develop their nations.

Renounce Nuclear Weapons, Unions Urge India And Pakistan

J ob security prevailed as members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) ratified a three-year master agreement with Goodyear Tire and Rubber at 14 US plants. The contract, pieced together after five months of difficult bargaining aimed at keeping the US rubber company solvent, gives nearly all 20,000 unionised US Goodyear workers job security, and grants the ICEM-affiliated USWA unprecedented language regarding company decision making including a seat on Goodyear's board of directors. 
 
&quot;Given the blatant abandonment of American manufacturing by global corporations in recent years - 2.7 million jobs in the last 30 months - the job security provisions in this contract are an achievement that mark a whole new era of labour-management relations in the tyre and rubber industry,&quot; stated USWA President Leo Gerard. 
 
To relieve the company's financial burden (it had posted losses of US$1.3 billion over the past two years, US$237 million coming in the first two quarters of this year), Goodyear sought to substantially reduce North American production by closing several plants and downsizing others. This production was scheduled to shift to non-US tyre plants with capital investment aimed at non-US and non-union facilities. In addition, Goodyear was looking for USWA members and its 22,000 retirees to make major wage and benefit concessions. 
 
&quot;We made it clear that, for there to be a contract, our plants would stay open and capital expenditures would be made to keep them globally competitive,&quot; said USWA Executive Vice President John Sellers, who heads the USWA's Rubber/Plastic Industry Council. The US union secured &quot;Protected Plant&quot; status for 12 of the 14 plants, with one (Tyler, Texas) having &quot;partial-Protected Plant&quot; status meaning it must meet certain goals to obtain protected status. Such designations ensure the plants will remain open for the term of the contract and that these operations be given &quot;meaningful and significant first consideration and preference&quot; for all new products introduced in North America. 
 
Workers at the one operation without &quot;Protected Plant&quot; status, Huntsville, Alabama, will be entitled to preferential hiring at a nearby plant in Gadsden, Alabama, in the event their site is closed. Goodyear has agreed to transfer the production of one million tyres per year to unionised Gadsden from non-USWA plants if Huntsville goes down. 
 
Import of Goodyear tyres to the US is restricted in the new labour agreement, as is the right of the company to transfer production. Excessive layers of Goodyear management both at headquarters in Akron, Ohio, and at tyre plants will be made redundant, and USWA members will now be empowered to make critical decisions in the production process. The use of outside contractors will be dramatically reduced. 
 
The USWA seat on Goodyear's board is a first in the tyre and rubber industry. In addition, the union negotiated a debt-restructuring program for the firm to reduce financial obligations and refinance debt within specific time frames. And the USWA contract places limits on executive compensation both in base salaries and rewarding stock options. 
 
Although the contract contains a three-year freeze on wages, workers will receive quarterly cost-of-living adjustments between US$.15 to $.25 per hour. USWA members will now pay only modest out-of-pocket costs on their health care coverage, US$3/week for single workers and US$9/week for family, while retirees will continue to receive full company-paid health benefits for the first 15 months of the agreement. 
 
The US Goodyear plants are comprised of three former Kelly-Springfield tyre facilities, two Dunlop plants (joint venture with Japan's Sumitomo Rubber Industries), and nine original Goodyear plants. For the first time, all plants will fall under a common expiration, 22 July 2006. The USWA has a unique ratification process in its Goodyear network in which a majority of workers must approve the contract, and at least eight of the 14 plants must ratify in individual plant-site voting. Last week's ratification came by better than a two-to-one worker count, and 13 of the 14 plants approved the agreement. 
 
The USWA heads up the ICEM's Global Network of Goodyear Workers, which includes some 40,000 unionised workers at 47 plants in 24 countries. The USWA now begins contract talks with Bridgestone-Firestone, Goodrich and Groupe Michelin in the US.

US Steelworkers Conclude Goodyear Contract

Australia's 48-hour coal strike was an overwhelming success. The nationwide action ended at midnight local time, and the 20,000 strikers are now returning to work, in line with the mandate given to by the rank-and-file to their union, the CFMEU. 
 
But the strike was just the first shot in a campaign against the &quot;disastrous&quot; price-cutting practices of Australian coal producers, CFMEU General President Tony Maher warned. 
 
The union estimates that a further 2,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of the current workforce, could be lost as a result of the recent 18 per cent price cut for coking coal offered by Australian producers Shell, MIM and North Goonyella. The reduced price is the new low benchmark for the settlement of all coal contracts under negotiation with Japanese buyers. 
 
4,000 jobs have already been lost in the Australian coal industry recently. Maher said that further job cuts would not only add to the devastation of Australian mining communities, but would also put further pressure on health and safety in coal mines. In the past 12 months, he pointed out, Australian coal miners had delivered a 20 per cent increase in productivity. &quot;However, what we've got in return is retrenchments, award stripping, decreases in allowances and reduction in basic wages. Our members have been expected to cut their own throats.&quot; 
 
He called on Australia's right-wing federal government to &quot;join all the other stakeholders in Australia's coal industry to discuss the problems and work towards solutions which will stem the loss of jobs and stop the abuse of a national asset.&quot; The federal government has so far boycotted a forum of employers and unions on this topic, although the governments of the major coal-producing states Queensland and New South Wales are taking part. The forum's next meeting is in Brisbane on 17 December. 
 
Some companies took the union to court over the strike. In New South Wales, the Supreme Court issued a return-to-work order at three mines in the Hunter Valley, owned by the Rio Tinto company Coal and Allied. But in the Federal Court in Queensland, an application by Thiess Contractors for an injunction against the union was rejected. The union complied with the Hunter Valley ruling, but will be appealing against it. The CFMEU will also mount legal challenges to other employers' court applications against the union. 
 
At the global level, the CFMEU is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
&quot;This is a battle on behalf of miners everywhere, with the CFMEU at the forefront,&quot; ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe emphasised. &quot;By offering massive price cuts and reductions in volume, the Australian producers are threatening thousands of coal mining jobs on all continents. The Australian miners have delivered a clear reply to the irresponsibility of the producers and of the Australian federal government. Through the ICEM, our Australian brothers and sisters can count on the support of their colleagues worldwide.&quot;

Australian Coal Strike Success

Organisation-building and capacity-strengthening are the priorities set by African trade unions affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
Meeting at the ICEM's first African Regional Conference (Johannesburg, 7-9 December), 120 delegates from ICEM unions in 16 countries of sub-Saharan Africa identified three main challenges facing affiliates in the region: 
 
The need for greater self-sufficiency 
 
Membership decline due to retrenchments, Africa's AIDS epidemic and a lack of union organising 
 
The particular need to unite and strengthen trade unions in countries under dictatorships. 
 
The answer, the African unions emphasised, is to &quot;build democratic, powerful workers' organisations&quot;. They particularly noted the achievements made, &quot;amid obstacles&quot;, by the Southern Africa Electricity Workers' Network. This was set up to promote cooperation among electric power unions in the region, at a time when its electricity supplies are being integrated. 
 
The conference based its findings on the research component of the ICEM's &quot;Plan for Africa&quot;. As the next stage of that plan, affiliated unions in the region will each design an Organising Strategy. These strategies are, the delegates stressed, to be forwarded to the incoming ICEM African Regional Executive, which will be responsible for coordinating the work. Each union's strategic plan should incorporate the ICEM's goals of independence, self-sufficiency, internal democracy, the capacity to win real gains for members and the building of appropriate social alliances. 
 
ICEM project work in the region must be fully integrated into the Plan for Africa, the conference emphasised, and should focus on shop steward development, mainstreaming of women and outreach to the &quot;informal sector&quot; (i.e. the precarious, marginalised jobs on which most workers in developing countries are engaged). It must also improve existing ICEM sectoral networks in the region and establish new ones. 
 
Unions in the region must be at the forefront of peace initiatives to end Africa's civil wars and other conflicts. The &quot;resources wasted in war&quot; must be &quot;redirected towards programmes that can contribute to human development&quot;. Noting that &quot;in most instances, control of mineral wealth is the cause of conflict&quot;, the ICEM conference said the union contribution to peace should include monitoring &quot;the role of multinational companies in war-torn countries.&quot; 
 
In fact, the African unions pointed out, &quot;neo-liberal globalisation, with its emphasis on the free market and the decline of the nation state, has made the rich richer and the poor poorer on a global scale.&quot; To the multinational companies' line of TINA (There Is No Alternative), the response of workers worldwide should be THEMBA (There Must Be Alternatives). 
 
The African affiliates praised the ICEM's &quot;efforts to find practical alternatives to the TINA propaganda line&quot;. The next ICEM World Congress (in Durban, South Africa, next November) should, they said, adopt a &quot;powerful worker response to the negative effects of globalisation on workers of the South.&quot; 
 
Elected as ICEM Regional Chairperson was James Motlatsi, of South Africa, with Konstanteno Ngandu, from Zimbabwe, as Regional Secretary for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Organising - ICEM African Unions&#039; Big Priority

Thousands of Colombian trade unionists and other social activists have been murdered in recent years. Many others have been seriously assaulted and so, in some cases, have their families. 
 
Meeting in Cork, Ireland, today, the leaders of some 9 million energy workers worldwide called for a full and impartial investigation of the killings. They also decided that an international trade union mission should visit Colombia to seek out the true facts. 
 
Powering Up, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM), has just ended in Cork. 
 
Delegates unanimously adopted a resolution which: 
 
Demands that the Colombian government and other authorities take urgent steps to safeguard the free exercise of trade union activity in Colombia and to depenalise social protest. 
Calls for the sending of an ICEM mission to Colombia, in order both to meet representatives of the Colombian trade union movement and to discuss with the Colombian authorities the problems facing trade unions in the Colombian energy sector. 
Demands the immediate release of trade union leaders currently in detention and a full, rapid and impartial investigation of the many murders perpetrated against leaders of trade unions, native peoples and peasants and of social organisations. 
Confirms that the ICEM will continue to assist the Colombian trade union movement to conduct its activities in areas where transnational corporations, in association with the military and the paramilitaries, are impeding such activities.

Union Rights Mission To Colombia

How should trade unions tackle the new upheavals in the world's energy industries? How will energy privatisation and technological change affect social and environmental standards? 
 
These were the major issues facing energy union leaders of all continents as they met in Cork, Ireland, today for POWERING UP, the world energy conference of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
As the international's General Secretary Vic Thorpe pointed out, the conference is the biggest ever, with over 300 energy union leaders from 50 countries taking part. They represent more than 9 million ICEM-affiliated energy workers of all sectors. The ICEM is now &quot;the major social force in the energy industries,&quot; Thorpe said. It is also a &quot;ring of workers' power that reaches from raw energy resources in the ground, through generation and secondary power distribution, on to the downstream, value-adding activities of the chemical and allied industries.&quot; 
 
Economists, academics and philosophers who had sold the world the &quot;free market&quot; philosophy had, Thorpe said, not just kissed the Blarney Stone once - &quot;they must have been involved in a virtual Blarney love-fest.&quot; Privatisation and deregulation of energy industries had not resulted in lower prices to the end consumer, nor in better service, more real choice or greater security of supply. But control of energy had passed from elected governments to &quot;boards of directors whom very few of us could name, who are elected by no-one except a handful of institutional shareholders and whose primary responsibility is to the financial bottom line.&quot; 
 
The ICEM's response was to &quot;redefine the relationship of labour with the new controlling entities of our industry.&quot; Workers must not be &quot;just wage labourers in an industry that is out of their control&quot;, but &quot;primary stakeholders, with a powerful voice at the decision table where their future is being discussed.&quot; 
 
There had been notable success stories, such as the ICEM's recent global agreement with oil multinational Statoil, covering basic trade union rights and occupational and environmental safety standards worldwide. 
 
But there was also a downside to changes in the energy industry. Trade union rights were under attack in many countries where energy multinationals operated. Thorpe cited Colombia and Burma as particularly bad current examples of this. He also reminded delegates of the &quot;dreadful years in Nigeria's prisons&quot; endured by oilworkers' leaders Milton Dabibi and Frank Kokori. Detained without trial for years on end, Kokori and Dabibi were finally released this June after an international trade union campaign led by the ICEM. 
 
The two Nigerian union leaders are taking part in the Cork conference. At a later special session on energy multinationals, social control and trade union rights, Dabibi and Kokori told cheering delegates that the international campaign had saved their lives. The session on union rights included speakers from Statoil and Amnesty International, as well as energy union leaders. This crucial discussion will continue over the next two days. 
 
Today, the conference continued with sessions on new horizons for world energy giants; and on Irish energy policy and industrial relations. Both sessions included contributions from employer representatives as well as union leaders. 
 
 
 
GLOBAL NUCLEAR FORUM PROPOSED 
 
In his opening speech this morning, ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe also suggested that the ICEM could act as an &quot;honest broker&quot; in discussions on the future of the world's nuclear power industry. He proposed the establishment of a &quot;global forum on the sustainability of nuclear energy&quot; in which &quot;the industry, the community, the environmental lobbyists and involved workers can sit together to thrash out what must be done to bring this industry into line with what society expects of its industrial processes.&quot; 
 
This proposal was welcomed by guest speaker Joe Jacob, Minister of State in Ireland's Department of Public Enterprise. The forum would be a step forward, Jacob said, as would &quot;any other means of allaying the real fears that exist in this country about the use of nuclear power at Sellafield and elsewhere.&quot; Sellafield is a major nuclear plant on the British coast, just across the sea from Ireland. 
 
Ireland itself has no nuclear power, and Jacob particularly emphasised the country's investment in the development of alternative energy sources. 
 
He also said that the Irish experience of social partnership over the past decade has been that &quot;it works, and works well.&quot; The Irish government, unions, employers, farm organisations and more recently community organisations including those of the unemployed, have been engaged in a succession of programmes to develop the country's economy on the basis of consensus. Today, Jacob said, Ireland has &quot;the fastest-growing economy in the developed world.&quot; 
 
That upbeat assessment of social partnership is to a large degree shared by John McDonnell, General Secretary of the ICEM-affiliated Irish union SIPTU. He was especially critical of &quot;the British model of privatisation, which is particularly savage, anti-union and anti-worker&quot; and which &quot;has been rejected or has given way to other, more European social models of corporate restructuring, in some countries.&quot; 
 
However, McDonnell did warn that Irish social partnership could be put at risk if the government did not help to halt a new trend towards deunionisation by some employers operating in Ireland. He particularly took energy multinational Enterprise Oil to task. He accused the company of refusing to employ Irish workers in Ireland's new offshore gas fields - because those workers are unionised. 
 
Unions, McDonnell said, should &quot;lobby at national and indeed international level for the strengthening of international institutions, such as the International Labour Organisation&quot; and for &quot;a new Bretton Woods-type agreement on international capital flows, speculation etc. including a Tobin Tax on speculation.&quot; 
 
As ICEM President Hans Berger told the conference, &quot;global corporations call for a global trade union strategy.&quot; 
 
Continuing in Cork tomorrow and Wednesday is the conference that will decide that strategy.

Biggest-Ever World Energy Union Conference Opens

The Federal Court of Australia today quashed a decision of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) which denied the workers at Rio Tinto's Hunter Valley No. 1 Coal Mine in New South Wales access to arbitration to resolve a long running enterprise bargaining dispute. 
 
The Federal Court commanded that the case be reconsidered by the AIRC and determined &quot;in accordance with the law&quot;. Workers at the Hunter Valley No. 1 Mine now have access to arbitration for resolution of the dispute. John Maitland, General Secretary of the CFMEU and Vice-President of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), hailed the decision as being important for all Australian workers. Maitland is currently visiting London as part of the ICEM's international campaign on Rio Tinto, the dual-listed UK-Australian mining company. 
 
He will then be travelling to Cork, Ireland, where he will be joining some 300 energy union leaders of all continents for the ICEM's World Energy Conference (9-11 November). 
 
The CFMEU's win comes as a major blow to the Federal Government in Australia, which has enacted the anti-union Workplace Relations Act (WRC) similar to legislation passed by Conservative governments in the UK. The CFMEU, one of Australia's leading unions, has been instrumental in mounting major challenges to the Government's legislation. 
 
Maitland said the court's decision is &quot;A great win for the union and a great win for Australian workers generally. This gives hope to workers that industrial disputes can be resolved by the independent umpire and that they are not at the mercy of aggressive transnationals like Rio Tinto. 
 
&quot;It is vital that the right to arbitration, a process which has been used for over a century in industrial relations in Australia, be upheld and maintained. Without this, companies like Rio Tinto refuse to enter into fair collective agreements and use their power and resources to bludgeon embattled workers into accepting unfair individual contracts. Let's hope this decision is the beginning of the end to the 'knock them down, drag them out' approach to industrial relations which Howard's government has introduced,&quot; said Maitland. 
 
The avoidance of arbitration is the cornerstone of the Federal Government workplace reform. For Rio Tinto, a key part of the company's anti-union strategy was the removal of the right to arbitration from industrial relations law. Rio Tinto has been at the vanguard of the corporate sector in giving support to the right-wing coalition government's moves to weaken the power of trade unions. In 1997 the company allowed one of its senior executives officers, Mike Angwin, to be seconded to the Government to help draft the WRA. Earlier this year the International Labour Organisation of the UN stated that the WRA did &quot;not promote collective bargaining as required under Article 4 of the ILO Convention 98&quot; and that it was contrary to the principle of voluntary bargaining.&quot; 
 
Maitland said ICEM and its affiliated unions would continue in their international campaign on Rio Tinto. &quot;The days when a company can behave like a colonial power and use the government of the day to run its anti-worker agenda are over. Rio Tinto has a miserable record on human rights, workers' rights and environmental protection. The Court's decision, on legislation the company helped draft, is yet one more example of just how wrong Rio Tinto is in pursuing the company's financial interests at the expense of everything else.&quot;

Union Win In Australian Federal Court Is Blow To Government Plan

Archive

Nigerian Oilworkers' Leaders Freed?

Global Union Network Backs Steelworkers at Goodyear

Block Extra Coal Exports To Russia, Union International Says

Renounce Nuclear Weapons, Unions Urge India And Pakistan

US Steelworkers Conclude Goodyear Contract

Australian Coal Strike Success

Organising - ICEM African Unions' Big Priority

Union Rights Mission To Colombia

Biggest-Ever World Energy Union Conference Opens

Union Win In Australian Federal Court Is Blow To Government Plan

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