English

Español

Français

Aerospace

Automotive

Base metals

Chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-science

Energy

Glass, cement, ceramic and associated industries

ICT, electrical and electronics

Mechanical Engineering

Mining and DGOJP

Pulp and paper

Rubber

Shipbuilding and shipbreaking

Textile, garment, shoes, leather and textile services

Sectors

Action on textile and garment industry

Clean up shipbreaking

Ratify ILO C176

United for a just future - time to pay up!

Disinvest from Myanmar

Action Plan 2021-2025

Global Framework Agreements

Union building

Women

Youth

White-collar workers

Health & safety

Industry 4.0

Just Transition

Organizing with industriALL

What we do

Affiliates

Statutes

Elected Officials

Executive Committee

Geneva head office

South East Asia

Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and North Africa

South Asia

Regional offices

About us

Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

Publications

Resources

Press

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
At last month&rsquo;s ICEM Presidium meeting in Turkey, the body recommended that ICEM solicit donations to assist the valuable communications vehicle RadioLabour with its continuing start-up costs. RadioLabour is a unique web-based broadcasting network that airs valuable labour programmes across the global north and global south. 
 
It was launched early in 2010 and is the brainchild of Marc Belanger, former labour educator at the ILO in Turin, Italy. It can be found at <a href="http://www.radiolabour.net">here</a>.&nbsp; 
<img alt="" src="" width="101" height="134" />
Marc Belanger
&ldquo;Since RadioLabour has come on line, the ICEM has used this valuable twice-weekly labour reporting service frequently,&rdquo; said General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;We recognise the valuable connection that RadioLabour has amongst trade unionists in the developing world. In its short existence, RadioLabour has proven to be a low-cost, unencumbered, yet effective voice for global labour.&rdquo; 
 
ICEM affiliates, and individuals as well, are encouraged to keep RadioLabour working by making a bank transfer to: 
RadioLabour, c/o 115 Douro St., Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9H 1H5 
Account number: 008020168416 
The Bank of Nova Scotia, c/o 111 Hunter St., Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9H 7G5 
Swift Code/BIC: NOSCCATT 
Canadian Clearing Code: CC0002000802

ICEM Seeks Affiliate Financial Contributions to RadioLabour

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
After several months of futile bargaining with employers&rsquo; grouping Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI), members of Unite the Union in the UK will vote in the coming weeks on industrial action. The bargaining committee for Unite&rsquo;s corrugated paperboard industry, representing 2,500 workers at 50 UK factories, will meet tomorrow to discuss details in issuing the ballot. 
 
Last week, Unite announced that paperworkers in the corrugated sector voted by a nine-to-one margin to reject a 2010 pay increase of 2.1% by the CPI. That offer was put forward after weeks of delay by the employers&rsquo; organisation. Contract talks began in late July and the 2009 agreement expired on 1 September 2010. 
<img src="" width="160" height="124" alt="" />
Unite National Officer Peter Ellis
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re dealing with a group of companies that had a very good 2009 and this year, they continue to make profits,&rdquo; said Unite National Officer Peter Ellis. The three major companies comprising the corrugated paperboard talks are D.S. Smith, SmurfitKappa, and SAICA. The 2009 increase was 1%. 
 
&ldquo;At the talks in early October, we could have settled on a modest improvement to the offer, but the CPI insisted that a pay settlement at less than half of the retail price index was as far as it would go,&rdquo; said Ellis. The union had lowered its pay demands to 2.5% in order to achieve accord but with the CPI&rsquo;s lack of movement, the divide might now widen. 
 
Ellis insisted that median wage awards in other UK industries do not apply to the corrugated sector because the packaging industry for food, beverage, and other consumer uses has not suffered compared to other industries. &ldquo;We will not settle for a median offer,&rdquo; he said. 
 
By UK labour statute, unions must allow workers at least a three-week voting period for balloting on industrial actions. That must be followed by a seven-day period for employers to respond with a possible revised offer.

Paper Packaging Workers in UK to Vote on Industrial Action

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
Some 117 members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) in New Zealand began a one-day industrial action against the global plastics and packaging company Sealed Air on 8 November at the company&rsquo;s Cryovac subsidiary in Porirua. 
 
The strike came five days after workers at the plastic bag and food packaging plant rejected an inferior 2010 wage offer and then voted for the industrial action. The action includes a ban on all short-notice overtime work. 
<img src="" width="222" height="148" alt="" />
EPMU's Tim Awatere
Cryovac Sealed Air offered a 2% increase. EPMU Organiser Mark James said that falls short of a fair deal, considering Sealed Air&rsquo;s 2009 profit sheet. The world&rsquo;s 19th largest paper packaging firm by assets held, posted US$13.15 million in net profits last year, up US$8.6 million over 2008. 
 
&ldquo;Two percent would effectively be a pay cut for our members because inflation is set to rise over 4%&rdquo; in 2011,&rdquo; said James. EPMU members at Cryovac Sealed Air work 12-hour shifts, four days on, four days off, in what James calls &ldquo;very unsociable hours.&rdquo; 
<img src="" width="222" height="139" alt="" />
EPMU's Aaron Bailey
Pay negotiations were to resume on 11 November but if no improved pay offer was put forward, further strike actions could re-occur.

EPMU Members Strike Sealed Air Subsidiary in New Zealand

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
A woman and metalworker won election as General Secretary of Italy&rsquo;s largest labour federation, the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL). Susanna Camusso was elected by the federation&rsquo;s 160-member National Executive Assembly on 3 November with a 79.1% vote, succeeding Guglielmo Epifani who stepped down due to term limits. 
 
Camusso, 55, becomes the first woman to lead a major national labour centre in Italy, and the challenges in front of her are great. Considered Italy&rsquo;s most militant labour federation, the 5.7-million-member CGIL must confront the &euro;23.5 billion in public spending cuts that the Berlusconi government is proposing, and it faces social regressions that car-maker Fiat is demanding in return for investing in Italian auto factories. 
 
Following her election, she said of Silvio Berlusconi, &ldquo;The more he governs, the more trouble he creates.&rdquo; She said the sooner that Berlusconi retires from public office, &ldquo;the better it will be for the country.&rdquo; 
<img alt="" src="" width="120" height="159" />
CGIL General Secretary Susanna Camusso
Regarding Fiat, she must navigate the militancy of CGIL&rsquo;s Metalworkers (FIOM) branch &ndash; once her own constituency &ndash; with the moderation of Italy&rsquo;s other two national labour centres, the UIL and CISL, in dealing with the automaker. One test will be Fiat&rsquo;s insistence on individual factory agreements instead of a national collective agreement. 
 
Another will be the determination by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne to drive a wedge between CGIL-FIOM and the other federations in coming talks over implementing the company&rsquo;s five-year, &euro;20 billion investment plan in Italy. 
 
Camusso began her union career in 1977 as a union organiser for CGIL&rsquo;s FIOM branch in Milan. Over a 20-year career there, she built a reputation as a fierce negotiator, having bargaining numerous collective agreements in the auto and metalworking sectors. She is considered a pragmatic, results-oriented labour leader. 
<img alt="" src="" width="240" height="160" />
CISL Congress, May 2010 
In 1997, she left FIOM in Milan and became a regional leader for CGIL in the Lombardy region. In 2005, she founded the Italian women&rsquo;s rights movement &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s Get Out of Silence&rdquo; movement. On her election earlier this month, she said full women&rsquo;s rights must be a condition for democracy in Italy and the demeaning issue of prostitution must find a place on the national agenda, an obvious reference to Berlusconi&rsquo;s style. 
 
She was elected a member of the CGIL&rsquo;s 10-member national governing board in 2008, became the federation&rsquo;s deputy general secretary at the May 2010 Congress, and was Epifani&rsquo;s choice to succeed him earlier this month. 
 
Camusso will often be paired in her new duties with Emma Marcegaglia, the leader of the industrial employers&rsquo; federation Confindustria. The two women share a mutual respect for one another other, with Marcegaglia saying early this month she has &ldquo;a very positive opinion&rdquo; of Camusso.

First Woman Elected to Lead Italian National Labour Federation

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
The ICEM affiliated oil and gas workers&rsquo; trade union in Nigeria, the white-collar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is calling on the Nigerian government to enforce existing labour law and stop companies from blocking collective bargaining agreements with their employees. 
 
It is a practice far too common in Nigeria. Oil and gas companies negotiate collective agreements but refuse to implement the agreements. PENGASSAN will soon mobilise to disrupt operations at operations of the different companies if the government does not step in. 
 
Specifically, the union&rsquo;s call went to the Federal Ministries of Petroleum, Labour, and Productivity, as well as to the Ministry of the Interior, arguing that collective agreements will guarantee industrial stability in the oil and gas sectors. 
<img alt="" src="" width="140" height="210" />
PENGASSAN President Babatunde Ogun
PENGASSAN has identified two prominent oil and gas servicing companies, Baker Hughes Nigeria Ltd., and BJ Services, neither of which has a collective agreement of record. These will be the first target companies of the campaign. 
 
Speaking on the issue, PENGASSAN President Babatunde Ogun said that the union will work together with the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and will not tolerate any company without a CBA to operate in Nigeria. 
 
&ldquo;BJ Services lacks respect for Nigerian law, Nigerians, and the government, while Baker Hughes is operating without a union or a negotiated CBA,&rdquo; said Ogun. &ldquo;This turns Nigerian workers to slaves in our own country. 
 
&ldquo;No company will be allowed to work in our sector if workers do not have union representation and a negotiated CBA. Government, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), and the multinational companies operating in our sectors must stop awarding contracts to these two companies, because we will not allow them to complete them,&rdquo; said Ogun 
 
As a member union of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), PENGASSAN was directly involved in the decision to call a three-day general strike last week, demanding the government of Goodluck Jonathan implement a new minimum monthly wage of N18,000 (&euro;87 euros). 
 
Organised labour accepted an offer from President Jonathan to postpone the strike on 10 November as the Minimum Wage Bill will go to the Nigerian National Assembly in the first week of December. Nigerian trade unions warned the President that if his promise to forward the bill to Parliament and then to ensure speedy passage is not fulfilled, he will face another general strike in December.

Nigerian Oil Workers Threaten Actions in Fight for Bargaining Rights

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
In a sign that the economic crisis has waned, at least in Germany, IG Metall reported that companies employing 20% of some total 3.4 million metal and electronics workers in the country to date have moved the scheduled 2011 wage increase up from April to February. Companies and their Works Councils including Audi AG, Bosch GmbH, Siemens, and Voith, the paper machine and engineering manufacturer, have agreed to pay the scheduled 2.7% increase in February. 
 
Several more companies are expected to do the same in the coming weeks. The union said some 670,000 workers are now on schedule to get the raise in February. In collective agreements negotiated in February 2010, IG Metall agreed to a historic job preservation pact in exchange for two lump sum payments of &euro;320 each in 2010 and early 2011. 
<img alt="" src="" width="110" height="122" />
IG Metall President Berthold Huber
The 2011 percentage increase was scheduled for April 2011, but according to the agreement Works Councils were given the authority to negotiate the 2.7% sum effective two months prior to April 2011, but no later than two months after that date. The 25-month agreement last year also mandates that there will be no operational redundancies before 30 June 2012. 
 
IG Metall credits the early raises to a strong economic recovery in the country. 
 
Additionally, Siemens, in appreciation to its global workforce of 400,000 for exemplary performance throughout the crisis, announced earlier in November that it would grant a total of US$430 million in a &ldquo;one-time special bonus.&rdquo; The pay-out, to be made between December and January, will amount to about &euro;1,000 per worker, with German workers getting the bonus in January and the 2.7% increase the next month.

Many German Metal, Electronics Workers to Get 2011 Pay Hike Early

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
The Goodyear Tyre Makers&rsquo; Union in Thailand, part of ICEM affiliate Petroleum and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Federation (PCFT), conducted a strike from 5pm on 18 November until 3pm on 23 November, demanding equal treatment of workers doing the same job, and changes to the collective agreement on shift length and social benefits. 
 
The previous collective agreement expired on 11 August 2010. There have been 12 rounds of negotiation meetings between the union reps and management since mid July 2010, as well as nine rounds of meetings with government mediators, the latest 10 November. 
 
The trade union reps conducting the negotiations were repeatedly frustrated that the company officials in bargaining had no decision-making authority, rendering the talks fruitless. Although the management representatives in the talks agreed with the union on many points where improvement was needed, they were powerless to act. It was agreed that several serious violations of the collective agreement and of Thai labour law had occurred. 
<img border="0" alt="" src="" width="370" height="82" />
Workers at the Goodyear-Thailand Ltd. plant in Bangkok complained of many unfair dismissal cases. 
 
Meetings are continuing between the bargaining committees, and have been joined by the company Human Resources Director for the Asia-Pacific region, and also a mediator from the Thai Labour Ministry. 
 
Management informed workers that if they did not end the strike and return to work they would lose their social benefits. Striking workers were locked-out during the strike. Management will now not end the lock-out unless the union agree to separate the Work Rules from the collective agreement. This would give management the flexibility to sack workers. 
 
Among other demands, the union wants including into the collective agreement a limit of 7.5 hours work per day, an overtime wage for work which continues during the worker's rest time of 30 minutes at a rate of 1.5, 40 hours paid activity of union officials per year, improvements to the retirement and medical coverage. 
 
620 union members have been locked out since Monday 22 November. 
 
Since the beginning of the strike management has pressure on office and contract workers to sign individual contracts, to waive the union proposal, as well as any entitlements and social benefits which may be resulted from the ongoing bargaining.

Thai Goodyear Workers Strike over Harassment, Bargaining Frustrations

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
The ICEM is calling on its affiliates to mark World AIDS Day. 
 
First observed in 1988, World AIDS Day on 1 December has served to raise awareness about the epidemic, focus attention on issues that are key to a successful response and inspire positive action. The theme of World AIDS Day for 2009 and 2010 is &ldquo;Universal Access and Human Rights&rdquo;. 
 
This year, a global &ldquo;Lights for Rights Commemoration&rdquo; is organised in 100 cities. When lights are turned off, darkness represents how stigma, discrimination, and criminalisation forces people to die alone in fear and shame, while switching the lights on symbolises the human rights of all people, which allows one to walk in the light of information, treatment and care. 
 
HIV/AIDS is a social disease. HIV transmission mainly takes place along the fault lines caused by poverty, gender inequality and social injustice. 
<img src="" width="132" height="171" alt="" />
HIV/AIDS is a workplace issue. The workplace is crucial for successful action to combat the pandemic. 
 
HIV and AIDS funds are in recession due to the impact of the global financial crisis; HIV and AIDS are not in recession. Still for every three people put on treatment five more become infected. That is why awareness and prevention as well as advocacy for voluntary counselling and testing are crucial in the fight against the epidemic. These are also cornerstones of the ICEM HIV/AIDS project. 
 
HIV is also a human rights issue, closely related to workplace non-discrimination laws and regulations. The ICEM calls on its affiliates to negotiate and adopt HIV/AIDS workplace policies, which are rights-oriented, non-discriminatory and do not victimise people living with HIV and AIDS. 
 
An important development in 2010 was the adoption by the 99th International Labour Conference of the new ILO Recommendation 200 on HIV and AIDS and the World of Work. The ICEM is committed to support the implementation of this strong new instrument on HIV and AIDS. 
 
The ICEM calls on its affiliates to join campaigners and organisations in their country to highlight universal access and human rights.

1 December – World AIDS Day

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
Justice was delivered in Australia last week for a construction trade unionist who faced jail time for exercising his basic trade union rights. Ark Tribe, a building tradesman and member of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU), was acquitted in Adelaide Magistrates Court on 24 November on charges he defied the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). 
 
His alleged crime: he refused to be interviewed by the ABCC&rsquo;s watchdog arm over what matters occurring inside a union meeting. Tribe faced six months in jail and a heavy fine for taking a stand in defense of his universally protected labour rights. Before a packed courtroom and hundreds of union supporters outside, Tribe, 47, was acquitted by Magistrate David Whittle on a technicality. 
<img alt="" src="" width="128" height="146" />
CFMEU's Ark Tribe
The acquittal and attention the case brought in Australia should be cause for the Australian Parliament to move forward and strip the ABCC of the over-reaching powers given it in 2005 by former Prime Minister John Howard. Then, the government gave the ABCC witch-hunt authority involving industrial actions that no other work sector in Australia has. 
 
On 30 May 2008, Tribe and others were working a construction project on Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, when serious safety violations caused a stop-work action. The workers met in a union meeting off-site, drew up a list of the safety concerns, and presented them to the site boss. It took CFMEU intervention and a South Australia state government safety regulator to correct the safety deficiencies, and after a few days work was back to normal. 
 
But the ABCC&rsquo;s coercive investigatory unit began interviewing workers as to what was said and by whom in union meeting. When it came Tribe&rsquo;s turn for the compulsory interview, he refused to cooperate. That&rsquo;s all it took for a possible six months in the slammer and a steep fine. 
 
Appearing at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Congress last year, Tribe, a rigger, said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m here because like any other proud Australian, I believe that when injustice becomes law, then resistance becomes duty.&rdquo; 
<img alt="" src="" width="91" height="109" />
Noel Washington
Tribe&rsquo;s case is reminiscent of that of Noel Washington, a CFMEU Senior Vice President who faced similar charges by the ABCC for a lunch-hour meeting he held with construction workers in Victoria state in 2007. The ABCC demanded an account of comments made during the meeting and when Washington failed to show for the hearing, charges were brought. A state prosecutor dropped the case three days before his trial date late in 2008. 
 
The ICEM considers it a travesty that such an unjust statute criminalizing legitimate trade union activity is still on the books in Australia. Although there was a recent effort under the Labour Government to repeal the ABCC&rsquo;s watchdog powers, it failed. The Ark Tribe case should now be the springboard to finally rid Australia of this errant misuse of power by the ABCC.

Ark Tribe Acquitted in Australia Building Construction Trial

<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="39" />
ICEM Chilean oil worker affiliate Fenatrapech is protesting against attempts to cut 530 workers, an effort to weaken the trade union ahead of moves to privatise the state-owned ENAP (National Petroleum Company). Workers at the Bio Bio refinery in Central Chile held a 24-hour strike on 19 November to protest the management plan to cut its workforce by 15%, 530 of the total 3,380 employees. The Bio Bio refinery workers&rsquo; strike was followed by industrial action in the southern Magallanes region, where most of ENAP&rsquo;s exploration and production activity is based. For workers in the Magallanes region, there are very few employment alternatives available. 
 
The company is offering unacceptably low compensation packages to departing workers. 
 
The national government of President Sebastian Pi&ntilde;era plans to privatise much of the country&rsquo;s major industries, including the oil and gas producer ENAP. The latest job cuts are seen as a further step towards that privatisation. Earlier in the year, energy minister Ricardo Raineri said that ENAP could potentially follow the same model as Brazil's federal energy company Petrobras and sell a stake to private investors. 
<img alt="" src="" width="99" height="111" />
Fenatrapech President Jorge Matute
ENAP employees are represented by ICEM affiliate Fenatrapech, the national federation of oil workers, headed by President Jorge Matute. Matute has lead attempts to negotiate the redundancy issue with management, while ENAP have refused to come to the table, instead pressing ahead with job cuts. The first 300 cuts of the 530 total are due to take place before the end of 2010. 
 
This is just an attempt to weaken the union at the company in order to advance with the privatization process in the short term,&quot; states Matute. 
 
The union reports that workers in the industry are currently enduring very hard times, for those workers to be informed that they are losing their jobs is difficult to accept, especially as it falls in the same week as ENAP executives signed renewed and improved contracts for oil exploration and production exploiting two oil fields in Ecuador. ENAP employees took pride in the new contracts of the company, and see them as direct achievement of the staff. 
 
The Bio Bio refinery processes 116,000 barrels of oil per day, while the Magdallanes around 10,000. ENAP was hard hit by an earthquake last February. 
 
View the ICEM solidarity letter to Fenatrapech in Spanish <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/22%20Fenatrapech%20ICEM%2029%20Nov.pdf">here</a>.

Chilean Oil Workers Fighting Job Cuts, Privatisation

Archive