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Following 168 days of bargaining, management at the Pampilla refinery, in the Ventanilla district on the Western edge of capital Lima, continues to refuse to bargain in good faith. 
 
The refinery is a subsidiary of the Spanish multinational Repsol. With a daily capacity of 102,000 barrels, La Pampilla is responsible for over half the refining capacity of Peru. 
 
Fenupetrol, the Oil Workers&rsquo; Union in Peru, has found Repsol to behave very differently than the image that the company portrays &ndash; one of being an ethical company, with high regard for corporate social responsibility. 
 
Moises Ochoa, National Secretary of International Relations at Fenupetrol, reports that following management&rsquo;s failure to offer anything reasonable to the bargaining committee since negotiations began on 15 December 2009, the union has moved to request legal arbitration for bargaining. 

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As collective bargaining at the company enters its second stage, Fenupetrol reiterate its demands in light of recent large company profits and following five years with no increase in workers&rsquo; salaries. The Pampilla employees now earn 33% less than oil workers elsewhere in the country, for instance at Petroperu. Sales for the rest of 2010 are projected to be very high. The bargaining committee now seeks 25-30% rise in base salaries, improvements in the profit bonus and shift bonus, as well as a significant increase in the food allowance for workers. 
 
The Pampilla refinery reported revenues of US$802 million during the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 68.4% over last year. 
 
The ICEM calls on Repsol and the local Pampilla management to bargain in good faith, and come to terms with wages deficiencies incurred over the last five years.

Repsol Subsidiary in Peru Hinders Collective Negotiations with Oil Workers

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State-run electric power utility Eskom got a court intervention last week preventing South Africa&rsquo;s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from striking. The order came on the eve of a mass demonstration by NUM at the company&rsquo;s headquarters in MegaWatt Park, Johannesburg, on 26 May. 
 
The strike by NUM&rsquo;s 16,000 members at Eskom was supposed to begin that same day. The company has reneged on an agreement reached last summer that increased housing allowances would be put into effect by late in 2009. Eskom also has recanted over installing full-time safety representatives. A further demand by NUM is that shop stewards be given training and allowed to represent workers on issues before South Africa&rsquo;s Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA). 
 
Meanwhile, the utility dumped salt in the wounds of utility workers in the final round of a three-session set of 2010 wage talks. On Friday, 28 May, Eskom offered workers a paltry 3.5% wage increase, far below South Africa&rsquo;s inflation index. 
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The proposed increase was intended as part of a three-year labour agreement. &ldquo;This is a serious insult to workers who are classified as essential but treated like dirt,&rdquo; stated NUM Energy Sector Coordinator Job Matsepe. 
 
A South African labour court ruled late on 25 May that &ldquo;Eskom is an essential service and employees of an organisation classified as such are prohibited from taking part in industrial action.&rdquo; 
 
A strike was averted last year when Eskom, the NUM, and two other unions agreed to refer the housing allowance to a task team that would meet and make the increase by 1 December 2009. That did not happen. All three unions seek a R5,000 (US$654) housing allowance. &ldquo;We have discovered that referring matters to a task team is an Eskom delay tactic,&rdquo; said Num spokesman Lesibo Seshoka. 
 
At NUM&rsquo;s National Central Committee meeting early in May, leadership came out strongly against privatisation of any portion of power generating plants or other state-owned assets.

South African Court Blocks NUM from Striking Electric Utility Eskom

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A wage agreement will likely will be signed today giving 5,800 miners and metalworkers in Georgia a minimum 15% pay increase, backdated to 1 May. For those working shifts at the Zestafoni Ferroalloys plant and Georgian Manganese mines, a further 7% was won on top of the 15%. 
 
That was assured on Friday, 28 May, when one of the Georgian shareholders of the two enterprises signed off on the increase. The managing directors of the manganese processing plant and mines are expected to sign the wage portion of the contract today in Zestafoni with leaders of the ICEM affiliate, Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Trade Union of Georgia, Imereti Region branch. 
 
A further agreement covering paid holiday leave, sick leave, a joint contributory pension plan, and other workplace conditions is expected to be consummated in the very near future. The union, with valuable assistance from the national labour centre, Georgian Trade Unions Confederation (GTUC), as well through ICEM intervention, won recognition in mid-May after strikes and public activities in the previous weeks. (See earlier ICEM report <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3777-Free-Trade-Union-Recognised-for-Miners-Metalworkers-of-Georgia">here</a>.) 
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The boost to salaries is fair and just, since pay at the Zestafoni Ferroalloys plant and manganese mines in Chiatura is extremely low. Miners had earned an average monthly wage of GEL (lari) 450, or US$238, &euro;192. The average monthly salary inside the ferroalloy plant, where 2,200 of the 5,800 workers are employed, is GEL 562, or US$298, &euro;240. 
 
As often happens when such struggles for democratic trade union representation and workplace improvements become public and are successful, industrial workers in other Georgian enterprises also are seeking representation. Both GTUC and the Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Trade Union of Georgia are currently working with employees in steel and other industrial enterprises for recognition, wage improvements, and workplace rights. 
 
The ICEM congratulates the federation and its Georgian trade union affiliate on its accomplishments at Zestafoni and Chiatura, and pledges continued resources and a global presence as the unions better the working lives of all Georgian industrial workers.

Georgian Miners, Metalworkers Get Long Overdue Pay Rises

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A historic event took place early this month in the northern Iraq region of Kurdistan: the region&rsquo;s two labour federations, traditional tied to Kurdistan&rsquo;s two political parties, merged, creating a single voice for workers in northern Iraq. 
 
The new federation is called the Kurdistan United Workers&rsquo; Union, and consolidates the Kurdistan Workers&rsquo; Union and the General Workers and Crafts Syndicate Union. The merger was first reported ten days ago on the website of UK&rsquo;s Trades Union Council (TUC). Hangam Abdullah Khan and Yassin Aziz Ali are to serve as co-Presidents. 
 
&ldquo;When we were two federations, we spoke with two voices,&rdquo; stated Hangam Abdullah Khan. &ldquo;Now it is working people who will benefit from us having one voice.&rdquo; 
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Added Yassin Aziz Ali, &ldquo;With this new union, we have high hopes. We hope to have an increasing membership, women in leadership positions in the union, and more campaigning power, especially on our top priority &ndash; new progressive labour laws in the Kurdistan region and across federal Iraq, and on social security, too.&rdquo; 
 
The new trade union federation, according to the TUC site, is 95% merged and is in a one-year transitional state. Despite that, it already has a President for Women &ndash; Nazanin Tariq Ali. 
 
The ICEM congratulates the leaders of the former union federations for coming together in the best interests of not just Kurdish workers, but for setting an example throughout Iraq.

The Two Trade Union Federations in Iraqi Kurdistan Unite, Merge

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The ICEM Executive Committee, on the second day of its annual deliberations 27 May, denounced Iraq&rsquo;s government for continued failure to enact a draft labour law, as well as numerous and current prohibitions against trade union activities. 
 
The resolution noted continued adherence to a Saddam Hussein decree that bans trade unions in the public sector, which includes the oil, gas, and electric power industries, and continued imposition of Decree 8750, imposed by the occupation forces in August 2005. That draconian decree, equally restriction on trade union rights as the Saddam one, grants government the power to take over unions at will and forbids trade unions from holding any assets or collecting subscriptions from workers. 
 
The resolution also addresses the forced removals of trade union leaders from their work in the oil, gas, and related sectors, and condemns the most recent imposition by the government in restricting trade unionists from travelling outside the country. In that, the Supreme Ministerial Committee on Supervising the Implementation of the Governing Council Resolution No. 3-2005 must issue approval to those trade unionists seeking to travel or those invited outside of Iraq. 
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ICEM Executive Committee
&ldquo;The ICEM Executive Committee condemns all of these Iraqi government acts against trade unions,&rdquo; states the resolution. &ldquo;We salute the bravery of our Iraqi brothers and sisters who continue to organise, represent and protect workers despite these attacks and a background of continued and escalating violence in the society at large. 
 
&ldquo;We are appalled that seven years after the fall of Saddam Hussein&rsquo;s regime, workers in Iraq are still without legislative protection of their fundamental rights at work.&rdquo; 
 
(The complete resolution can be found in English <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/IraqExecResolution27May2010.pdf">here</a>, and in Arabic <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/1006.iraqresolution.ec.pdf">here</a>.) 
 
The resolution notes the fact that trade unions inside Iraq have mounted a campaign for a globally-recognised labour law, complete with a website (found <a href="http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/cgi-bin/campaign1.cgi">here</a>) and encourages all trade unionists everywhere to visit the site and register your support for a fair and just labour law inside Iraq. The ICEM strongly supports the campaign and the website.

ICEM Executive Condemns Repressive Union Actions by Iraq

Following the release in Nigeria early this week of four journalists and their driver, and of a trade union leader of Pengassan, ICEM&rsquo;s white-collar oil and gas workers&rsquo; affiliated union, the Geneva-based International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM) calls on the new government of President Goodluck Jonathan to bolster security, thoroughly investigate and prosecute, and root out rogue elements in law enforcement that may be perpetuating the heinous kidnap-for-ransom industry that again strickens the Niger Delta. 
 
&ldquo;Crimes of kidnapping, extortion, corruption seriously tarnish Nigeria throughout the world,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;It is up to the new President to eradicate it, to eradicate it in such a way that it is gone forever, and to make sure that those responsible are punished to the full extent of the law.&rdquo; 
 
The ICEM notes the fact that the recent spate of kidnappings, including the highly publicized abduction of trade unionists leaving the National Executive Council meeting of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) on 11 July, occurred in the states of the Niger Delta. The ICEM is deeply concerned over the safety and security of Nigerian nationals working in the oil and gas sectors of the Delta.
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&nbsp; 
More and more, the targets are Nigerians who have achieved a certain level of prosperity through their work and their technical expertise in energy production. The ICEM points to the recent abduction, and release on 18 July, of Issa Ilbrahim, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (Pengassan) branch chairman of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.&rsquo;s (NNPC)&rsquo;s Department of Petroleum Resources. 
 
He was kidnapped in Imo State at an airport along with his wife. His wife was released earlier and Ilbrahim was subsequently released on 18 July after a small ransom was paid. But those who committed this cowardly crime remain free. 
 
The ICEM also calls attention to two Pengassan members &ndash; Danjuma Bashir and Malabu Abubakar Ahmad, both NNPC staff at Nigerian Petroleum Development Co. Ltd. &ndash; who were abducted in March 2010 near Mosogar village, Delta State, while on their way to a post-graduate programme in energy and petroleum economics at Delta State University. A week later, their decomposed bodies were found in the bush riddled with bullet holes, suggesting they were killed execution style before their bodies were mutilated. Nigerian federal and state police are no closer to solving the case than when they came across the bodies of the trade unionists on 20 March. 
 
The ICEM commends the Nigerian government and police in the investigation, manhunt, and subsequent release of the four journalists and their driver, NUJ Lagos State Council Chair Wahab Obba, NUJ Area Secretary Adolphus Okonkwo, NUJ Lagos State Council Secretary Sylvester Okere, Lagos journalist Sola Oyeyipo, and driver Azeez Yekini. But it also is mindful that this particular kidnapping in the Niger Delta received wide attention, both inside and outside Nigeria. 
 
&ldquo;The prevailing fear and insecurity caused by the criminal enterprising that carry out these despicable acts is a plague upon Nigeria,&rdquo; said Warda. &ldquo;The new federal administration of President Goodluck Jonathan now has the opportunity be act with strength, with force, and without hint of impunity to eliminate this menace. For the betterment of a critical industry to Nigeria, and for Nigerian nationals who are building this industry into global respectability, we call on the President to make this commitment.&rdquo; 
 
The ICEM is a Global Union Federation, representing 367 industrial trade union affiliates in 132 countries. 
 
For further information, contact ICEM Information Officer Dick Blin, <a href="mailto:dick.blin@icem.org">dick.blin@icem.org</a>, +41 22 304 1842, or +41 79 734 8994 (mobile).

ICEM Demands Nigerian Government Crack Down on Kidnappings

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ICEM affiliated trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe discussed challenges in the chemicals and pharmaceutical industries with a view to reinforcing representation, industrial relations, and social dialogue in an 8-9 June seminar in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. The meetings, hosted by ICEM&rsquo;s Slovakian affiliate, the Chemical and Energy Workers Union (ECHOZ), were supported by the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), one of the principal project partners in the world. 
 
The meeting was chaired by Juraj Blahak, ICEM&rsquo;s Vice President for Central Europe, who underlined the importance of the meeting for unions in chemicals who face restructurings, including privatisation that has had severe impacts on employment and trade unions. 
 
Clemens Rode, representing FES in the region, stressed the role of trade unions in shaping economic and social life in Central Europe. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda gave specific attention to the togetherness of Central and Eastern European trade unions, calling exchanges of information and experience in restructurings as vitally important. Warda also made a specific presentation on precarious employment and ICEM&rsquo;s global Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) campaign. 

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Attended by around 30 trade union leaders from Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belorussia, and Tadjikistan, the meeting received an extensive report from the ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Industries&rsquo; Officer, Kemal &Ouml;zkan, on global chemical and pharmaceutical trends, with specifics on the Central and Eastern Regions and individual countries. 
 
The meeting also got a presentation from Mr. Roman Karlubik, President of the Association of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industry of the Slovak Republic, who drew the overall picture of the Slovak chemical industry and social dialogue with ECHOZ. 
 
The industry in Central and Eastern Europe suffered through the economic crisis in parallel to many economies in the region posting negative GDP growth, with some countries suffering near financial meltdown. Prior to the crisis, the region was seen as a good place to invest. For the pharmaceutical industry, generic medicines represent around half the industry in the region, with a number of number of companies including KRKA, Gedeon Richter, Polpharma, and Zentiva specifically focusing on generics. 
 
Central and Eastern European countries are projected to spend an estimated US$157.1 billion on healthcare in 2015, equal to 6.9% of total GDP. At present, only 30% of spending in the region is private, but over 85% of this is composed of out-of-pocket payments by people. 

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The Bratislava meeting agreed that in Central and Eastern Europe, chemical and pharmaceutical industries are still in the restructuring process, although levels differ from country to country. Restructuring occurs in ownership, particularly with privatisation, production, technology, and labour relations, which brings fear and challenges trade union recognition and survival. The participants agreed that there could an important exchange of experience on privatisation between Central and Eastern Europe, particularly for countries now undergoing privatisation, namely Belorussia. 
 
Another important point stressed was that the region&rsquo;s chemical industry is still under the dominance of basic chemicals, like fertilizers in Central Asia for example, which brings sustainability problems regarding jobs to workplaces. 
 
Occupational Health and Safety was specifically mentioned since current production systems create serious problems on this issue. A need for capacity building for unions in the region was underlined by the participants. 

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Participants also drew attention to the effects of the standards such as REACH and ETS, which regulates the environment where the chemical industry operates over employment. Outside of the European Union, there are also initiatives in the individual efforts of countries, such as Russia, to be able to harmonise their chemical legislations for survival of the industries. A need for a specific work about this particular area was mentioned by the participants. 
 
At the end of the meeting, it was agreed that networking, regular exchange of information and experience, capacity building on industry matters, collective bargaining, and trade union issues should be continued. 
 
&ldquo;The Bratislava meeting has clearly shown to us that Central and Eastern Europe is still the area where the ICEM needs to focus its activities in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry,&rdquo; said Kemal &Ouml;zkan. &ldquo;Coming just months before ICEM&rsquo;s World Chemical Conference in October 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey, the meeting has given us a great overview on what to do for having genuine global union activities in this industry.&rdquo; 
 
On 7 June 2010 a regional ICEM Central Europe Council meeting took place in Bratislava, Slovakia. Trade Union representatives from Hungary, Macedonia, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia took part in the meeting. The meeting was headed by Juraj Blahak, ICEM Vice-President and President of the Central European regional Council.

Challenges to Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals Focus in Central, East Europe Forum

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Two sector-wide collective agreements in Turkey in tyre and glass industries have been concluded, with preservation of gained rights and improvements to salaries and social benefits realised. 
 
The tyre negotiations, which started on 5 February and cover over 4,000 members of the union of Lastik-Iş in four plants of three multi-national companies, namely Bridgestone Brisa, Goodyear, and Pirelli located in the cities of Izmit and Adapazari. 
 
The union&rsquo;s strategy was to preserve gained rights and improve current salaries and social benefits, while employers demanding some concessions on working conditions, such as flexibility of working hours, holidays, extended temporary work, and changing wage grades, particularly the gap between newly- hired workers and existing ones. 
 
The demands of employers were on the basis of the labour code, which recognises flexible working conditions at workplaces in Turkey. 

<img src="" width="261" height="189" alt="" />
Abdullah Karacan, President of Lastik-Is during voting for the CBA, in front of Goodyear plant, Izmit 
After the three-and-a-half-month period of negotiations, with disagreements on 21 provisions of the agreement still in play, Lastik-Iş moved to begin strike action on 9 June. Following a 12-hour bargaining session just hours before the strike was to begin, the two sides reached a two-year agreement covering the 2010-2011 period. 
 
Employers rescinded their concessionary proposals. In addition, wages and social benefits were adjusted in line with the Turkish inflation rate, thus managing to secure purchasing power of workers. The agreement was voted upon by the members of Lastik-Iş in each factory and approved unanimously. 
Commenting on the new agreement, &ldquo;During tough and tensioned negotiations, our members showed a great deal of decisiveness in securing their gained rights, thus the agreement has resulted in preserving past achievements,&rdquo; said Abdullah Karacan, President of Lastik-Iş. 
 
Another important sector-wide agreement was achieved in the glass sector by the ICEM affiliate Kristal-Iş, who negotiates with the Turkish Glass Employers&rsquo; Federation on behalf of over 5,000 members at the factories of Şişecam Group&rsquo;s Paşabah&ccedil;e Cam Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. (plants at Kırklareli and Mersin); Anadolu Cam Sanayi A.Ş. (plants at Topkapı-Istanbul, Mersin, &Ccedil;ayırova-Kocaeli); Trakya Cam Sanayi A.Ş. (plants at Thrace and Mersin Fabrikası) and Cam Elyaf Sanayi A.Ş. 

<img src="" width="210" height="173" alt="" />
Bilal Cetintas, President of Kristal-Is
During negotiations, which started on 10 January as the twenty-second negotiation period for this industry, the Kristal-Iş primary aim was to keep patterns of working conditions intact, patterns existing in the plants for over 40 years. 
 
The union did put forward limitations on sub-contracting, which it defined as one of the most sensible issues in labour relations in the glass sector. The union, through the negotiations, aimed at reaching soıme principles with the employers on regulating this long-standing problem. For this Kristal-Iş proposed some tools to eliminate and minimise sub-contracting in glass factories where maintenance, cleaning, catering, and loading activities are done through sub-contractors. The union&rsquo;s first demand was to stop sub-contracting in maintenance and repair. 
 
Following a tough, ten-round set of negotiations, the two-year agreement was signed on 14 May and it preserves the gained rights and past settlements, as well as improving wages with increases. For the first year of the agreement, the hourly wage is increased 0.65 Turkish Liras (0.35euros) on average, while the second-year increase will be awarded at the level of inflation. Social benefits, such as education, marriage, death, and holiday benefits were also increased at levels higher than the current inflation rate.

Tyre, Glass Labour Agreements in Turkey Preserve Past Conventions

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Xstrata&rsquo;s abrasive reluctance to give coal miners represented by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia a standard enterprise labour agreement caused another industrial action at the Tahmoor mine in New South Wales last week. Some 240 miners downed tools for 24 hours on 24-25 June to attend a union meeting in the town of Picton over the Swiss-based company&rsquo;s failure to reach pay and entitlement terms at Tahmoor with the CFMEU. 
 
The dispute at the colliery is now in its 16th month. CFMEU members have been frustrated at being denied a functioning enterprise agreement. Xstrata is seeking broad flexibility to write and re-write workplace polices and procedures, and wants a collective agreement that is void of any independent arbitration mechanism, as well as one in which the union, or any mutual disputes procedure, is absent from health and safety issues. 

<img alt="" src="" width="251" height="189" />
Locked out Xstrata workers at Tahmoor
Xstrata also seeks to have all future bonus schemes not be a subject of bargaining. 
 
The mining house has now informed the CFMEU that it intends to terminate the existing enterprise agreement and discontinue further talks with the union. 
 
The union is seeking only to retain current terms and conditions of its enterprise agreement, and uniformity in working standards with other collieries in the region. 
 
The CFMEU maintains a website called &ldquo;Xstrata Facts,&rdquo; which can be found <a href="http://www.xstratafacts.com/">here</a>.

Strike Actions by CFMEU at Xstrata’s Tahmoor Mine in Australia Continue

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Over 60 trade union leaders from 8 South-East European countries came to Opatia, Croatia, on 24 and 25 July, for an evaluation conference that was the final act of a 12-year long regional trade union support project. 
 
The project, which organised a total of 329 national and international seminars, workshops and conferences, trained and informed leaders of around 60 affiliates of both the ICEM and the IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association) on a multitude of trade union topics. In addition, it provided practical solidarity and it encouraged unions to consider necessary organisational changes, in order to set up better and more efficient trade union structures. 
 
Participants spoke about how this project was one of the few initiatives that consistently and justly encouraged trade union cooperation and solidarity across borders in a region where that was not so evident. 

<img src="" width="241" height="181" alt="" />
Project Coordinator, Mato Lalic
Many provided examples on how they put lessons learned through the project to good practice, while others talked about how this project allowed them to engage in practical, useful and direct international work with unions in other countries, often in relation to privatisation struggles. 
 
Without exception, all that took the floor also expressed their gratitude towards the project coordination team in Zagreb, led by Mato Lalic and assisted by Teuta Krilic and Jacim Milunovic. In particular Mato, who has been involved in the project from the very beginning, was thanked for his tireless enthusiasm and never-ending persistence. 
 
Conclusions were not only drawn about the work done, past work was also coupled to future necessities. On that score, possibly the clearest conclusion was that, where a lot has already been done, there still is a lot more to do, in particular when it comes to the need for internal trade union structural change. Numerous unions stated, for example, that there is a growing urgency to redirect their trade union work towards the branch (or sectoral), regional and national levels, steering away from &ldquo;company unionism&rdquo;. Active organising and recruitment were listed as other vital priorities, including attracting women and young workers. 

<img src="" width="288" height="166" alt="" />
Peco Risteski, president of SIER, Macedonia
The evaluation conference was an end, but also a beginning, as it doubled as an opening event to discuss a new and different project for the region. Whereas the previous programme concentrated mainly on education, this new project, which will work with unions at different levels and different intensities in 9 different countries (Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia &amp; Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia) will also be focusing on other priorities. 
 
The new project is built on the conclusions that came out of an external evaluation of the previous project, which was carried out by Jochen Tholen, Professor at the University of Bremen. This evaluation can be found on the project&rsquo;s web-site here in different languages (English, German, Serbian and Bulgarian). 
<img src="" width="195" height="172" alt="" />
Jochen Tholen, Bremen University Professor,&nbsp;Paul Andela, former President of both IUF and EFFAT 
At the heart of the new project will be the effort to assist a limited number of trade unions in the region with adopting and implementing an individual organisational development plan. Once developed and adopted, the project will support unions with the implementation and monitoring of their plans. Additional work with a number of other unions, which have not been exposed to any prior project educational activities, will concentrate first at union building and education. 
The second main element of the project will be concentrating on organising international seminars and conferences, to discuss topics such as sectoral research and/or EU issues, to encourage international solidarity and to exchange information, but also to debate the best practice examples that are coming out of the &ldquo;organisational change work&rdquo;. 
 
Another novelty in this new project is that it will also work with trade unions from the metal sector, affiliates of the IMF and EMF (the International and European Metalworkers&rsquo; Federations), who will join the affiliates of the ICEM and its European counterpart EMCEF, as well as of the IUF and its European counterpart EFFAT. 
 
The new project will be supported by donors FES from Germany and FNV Mondiaal from the Netherlands, as well as by IGBCE and NGG in Germany, and FNV Bondgenoten from Holland.

Unions in South-East Europe Evaluate the Past and Look to the Future

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