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Trico Marine Services Inc. has promised to send all its American employees a letter giving the names and addresses of relevant trade unions. 
 
A letter to that effect from Trico USA was received today by NOPEF, the Norwegian oil workers' union. NOPEF has been threatening to black Trico's Norwegian subsidiary unless the parent company in the US respects American workers' right to organise. 
 
In both America and Norway, Trico supplies shipping services to the offshore oil and gas industry. But while the company respects labour rights in Norway, it has been strongly anti-union in the US. 
 
So Trico's change of tack is seen as a first breakthrough in the NOPEF campaign to help organising efforts by the company's American workers. 
 
Today's promise is &quot;a step in the right direction,&quot; NOPEF President Leif Sande said. &quot;As long as we experience progress in what we see as negotiations, we will not start a boycott.&quot; 
 
NOPEF's lawyer will answer the letter from Trico USA this week. 
 
This afternoon, NOPEF leaders met Norway's Minister of Trade and Industry, Grete Knudsen. She had earlier held meetings with employees of Trico Norway, and will be having talks with the Norwegian Seamen's Union later this evening. Knudsen sympathises with the reasons for NOPEF's boycott notice. She is, however, concerned about the jobs in Trico Norway. She expressed the hope that the dialogue between Trico USA and NOPEF will result in a solution. 
 
NOPEF is affiliated both to the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has been lending global support to the campaign.

Trico: First Breakthrough for Norwegian/US Solidarity

A US employers' organisation is threatening to boycott Norway. 
 
At issue is the plan by Norwegian oil union NOPEF to black the shipping provider Trico Supply ASA unless Trico's parent company in the US gives an assurance that it will respect American workers' right to organise and to bargain collectively. 
 
Now, the President of Norway's trade union federation LO has received a threatening letter from Robert Alario, President of the Offshore Marine Service Association. The OMSA is an association of US companies that contract out services to the offshore oil and gas industry. 
 
Alario tells LO President Gerd Liv Valla that, if Trico fails to obtain contracts in Norway as a result of a NOPEF boycott, then &quot;we will have to inform the US offshore industry that Norway does not take into consideration US Acts, custom and culture. We will be forced to call on our members to be careful with doing business in Norway.&quot; 
 
&quot;This is a threat,&quot; commented NOPEF President Leif Sande, &quot;and we cannot accept that a US employers' association threatens the industry of another country because the employers in the US do not manage to come to terms with their own trade union movement.&quot; 
 
OMSA's ultimatum to a whole country should perhaps be taken with several pinches of sea salt, but it does shed a very crude light on employer attitudes in America's offshore marine services.&nbsp; 
 
Sande called attention to&nbsp;OMSA's website. 
 
Not a site for sore eyes. It is, the Norwegian union leader says, &quot;horrible reading&quot;. 
 
As indeed it is. And no page more so than a recent, now hidden, little piece headed Slow, but Sure? 
 
Penned by Alario himself, it gets straight to the point: &quot;For over two years, OMSA and its members have worked hard and steadily to design and develop a solid and successful strategy to prevent unions from penetrating our industry. So far, so good!&quot; 
 
So far so bad for OMSA-affiliated Trico, which has been desperately trying to convince Norwegians that it recognises US workers' right to join a union. 
 
But Alario is just getting into his stride. Onward and upward he marches, merrily shooting his member company in both feet. On the US unions' organising drives, he believes that &quot;we have been and continue to be largely successful against such an aggressive well-financed machine.&quot; This, he enthuses, &quot;can and should give us confidence that we are beating them, that we can beat them again, and that we will, finally, beat them in the end.&quot; Employers are, however, sternly warned against complacency: &quot;This fight is not over. There is much more to be done.&quot; 
 
For Alario's sense of mission reaches far beyond a few boats and choppers: &quot;The fight is for everyone - offshore drilling contractors, offshore diving and construction contractors, seismic, well servicing, contractors - everyone - not just helicopter or vessel operators. Surprisingly, other sectors of our industry and our suppliers have been relatively slow to fully appreciate and act on the threat posed by these unions to all of us, although we have seen signs, recently, that we and others have been making at least a slight dent in the general apathy that has frustrated us mightily for two years.&quot; 
 
There is much more in similar vein. If nothing else, the piece gives some deep insights into Alario's state of mind. He describes union organising drives as &quot;infiltration of companies under attack&quot; and warns other employers that American unions are &quot;working below industry radar&quot;. 
 
All of which explains why US mariners face a tough task in organising offshore services - and why NOPEF is so keen to help them. 
 
NOPEF is affiliated both to the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which is lending global support to the campaign. There have already been some successes in persuading Norwegian-based oil companies to review their relations with Trico, and the case has also been raised in the Norwegian parliament.

US Firms To Boycott Norway?

&quot;What do we want? A just wage!&quot; chanted demonstrators marching through central Bangkok on Monday evening. &quot;How much do we want? 180 baht a day! When do we want it? Now!&quot; 
 
180 baht is a little less than four US dollars. A modest pay claim by any standards, yet Monday's march was the second that Thai unions have had to hold in support of this and other key demands submitted to Labour Minister Dej Boonlong back in April. 
 
This time around, the numbers had grown. 47 private and public sector unions and people's organisations took part. Significantly, the more than one thousand union demonstrators were joined by students and representatives of the urban poor. 
 
The rally was coordinated by the labour union of workers in the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). At the global level, the EGAT Labour Union and a number of the other unions taking part are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The ICEM has declared its full support for the Thai demonstrators' demands. 
 
The current daily legal minimum wage in Thailand ranges from 133 to 165 baht, depending on the region. The unions want 180 baht nationwide. In Bangkok, a family cannot live reasonably on much less than 500 baht a day, and most industrial workers have to take several jobs or put in excessive overtime just to make ends meet. Many are actually paid less than the legal minimum. 
 
The government has been dragging its feet on the issue, pointing out that a national employer/union/government committee is responsible for setting the minimum rate. But this process tends to be very slow-moving, and it has never come up with a real living wage. 
 
The employers, meanwhile, are opposing the pay demand. They say four dollars a day would be a body blow to Thailand's global competitiveness! 
 
Another focus of the protests is a proposed new Labour Relations Act, which would further weaken collective bargaining and the right to strike. The unions want the government to withdraw this legislation, and instead to adopt a union-drafted law that protects worker rights. 
 
Further demands by Monday's marchers included immediate implementation of an unemployment insurance scheme and other social security improvements and the ending of a long lock-out at a textile plant. 
 
&quot;Workers and urban poor - our problems are the same,&quot; a representative of the Network for the Urban Poor told the rally. &quot;[Prime Minister] Thaksin says that in ten years' time, there will be no more poverty. Perhaps he means that, ten years from now, all the poor will have died!&quot; 
 
During the last elections, the now ruling Thai Rak Thai party promised that, if voted into office, it would implement an unemployment insurance scheme and increase wages. 
 
But a worker delegation that met with government officials during Monday's demo reported little progress, except that the government undertook to respond within a month to the demand for unemployment insurance. 
 
The government has broken its promises, said Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, of the Centre for Labour Information Service and Training (CLIST). 
 
&quot;Thai capitalists are able to go on golf vacations in other countries,&quot; Somyot told the demonstrators,&quot;while we assemble electronic pieces in the factories as our bosses yell insults like 'Hurry up, Buffalo, work faster!'&quot; 
 
165 baht per day &quot;is far below a just living standard,&quot; Somyot insisted, and &quot;the money that is in the unemployment fund is our money, it is the people's money.&quot; 
 
The rally closed with music from members of the Student Federation of Thailand and a vow from workers to keep the pressure up.

Thai Workers Demand Four Dollars A Day

A three-day power strike across South Africa has ended in victory for the country's electricity unions. 
 
In a statement issued this evening, the unions say they have &quot;signed the proposed collective bargaining wage agreement after the 21 000 workers accepted the current revised settlement proposal from the Eskom company.&quot; Eskom is South Africa's parastatal power utility. 
 
Launched on Tuesday, the nationwide strike &quot;will effectively end tomorrow 27/07/2001 starting with the first shift at 6H00 in the morning,&quot; the unions declare. 
 
The settlement includes: 
 
&middot; A 9 percent wage increase effective now for the lowest paid workers and a further 1 percent effective in January 2002. 
 
&middot; A 7 percent wage increase effective now for the highest paid workers and a further 0.5 percent effective in January 2002. 
 
&middot; Four months' paid maternity leave. 
 
 
Two of the unions involved in the strike, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), are affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which declared its solidarity with the South African unions' campaign. 
 
The ICEM has also expressed its support for South Africa's miners, who have given the NUM a massive mandate for strike action over a wage claim and other issues. Talks with the mining employers, particularly the gold producers, are scheduled to resume tomorrow. 
 
As for the Eskom package, the statement issued by NUMSA this evening said that it &quot;will go a long way to addressing the short and long-term needs of workers. The agreement will create certainty for workers and improve their purchasing power. This victory will boost morale and show to all workers that they have power to change their wages and working conditions.&quot; 
 
The strike began after Eskom tried to set the level of wage increases unilaterally, but the Labour Court ruled yesterday that the company did not have the right to do so. &quot;We hope the company and the government will learn a lesson on this case,&quot; the union statement emphasised. &quot;We trust and hope that the Eskom company in future wage negotiations would not adopt the same paternalistic and parochial approach to the wage talks. The unions salute all workers who took part in the strike and congratulate them on a great victory.&quot;

Power Workers Victorious in South African Strike

South Africa's national power utility Eskom has no right to fix wage increases unilaterally, the Labour Court in Johannesburg has ruled. 
 
The verdict is a signal victory for the country's electricity unions, who launched a nationwide strike on Tuesday after Eskom attempted to impose wage hikes lower than those sought by the unions. 
 

<img height="159" alt="" src="" width="161" />&nbsp; <img height="166" alt="" src="" width="170" />
Eskom wanted to unilaterally implement pay increases of between 7 and 9 percent. The unions say these rises would not be enough even to maintain the electricity workers' meagre purchasing power, and would &quot;lead to serious poverty and misery.&quot; The electricity unions are demanding 11 percent for the lowest-paid workers and 9 percent for the highest-paid. 
 
In another significant legal move, Eskom yesterday withdrew an application for a court order restraining workers involved in &quot;minimum essential service&quot; electricity provision from joining the strike. One of the unions involved, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), commented: &quot;We always insisted that the company's urgent application was irresponsible and unnecessary in the light of the unions' written undertaking that the workers in the essential services will not participate in the strike action. We are now vindicated and feel victorious that the matter has been withdrawn. The company should not play double standards but must concentrate on resolving the issue of wages rather than focusing on court interdicts.&quot; 
 
So far, though, Eskom has made little real effort to end the dispute. As the unions have repeatedly pointed out, the strike could have been avoided altogether if Eskom had sent competent senior managers to this year's bargaining round. Instead, it used junior executives who had little real authority to negotiate. 
 
Eskom has still not got the message. During an attempted conciliation session yesterday, the company's attitude remained the same. 
 
The session &quot;failed dismally,&quot; a clearly irritated NUMSA said, because &quot;the company was not taking the unions seriously. The company requested a caucus after the trade unions presented their proposals at 14H30. The junior negotiators of the company went to the caucus for 5 hours and came back to the plenary insisting that they still do not have the mandate and would not reciprocate on our demands. The meeting ended without a settlement. The biggest question that everyone should ask is, what is it that they were caucusing about for 5 hours?&quot; 
 
Conciliation bids are due to continue today, but the unions insist that, if the talks are to succeed, Eskom will have to bring in some real negotiators. &quot;We believe that the essence of any wage negotiations is on compromises in order to break the deadlock,&quot; the unions state, &quot;and such talks should be based on fairness, transparency and proper vision to deal with sensitive issues. This is critical, in order to ensure a speedy resolution to the strike action. The Eskom junior negotiators have not been properly orientated to wage negotiations because they are not prioritising the matter under dispute.&quot; 
 
The Eskom strike remained solid yesterday. The unions reported &quot;overwhelming support from the majority of the workers with a turnout of 90 percent. Protest marches were held at different cities and towns throughout the country, with thousands of workers taking part in the action. Memorandums were handed to Eskom head office and regional offices.&quot; 
 
Again, Eskom showed a remarkably poor grasp of human relations. A middle-ranking manager was delegated to receive the main petition. Seeing this as an insult, union members occupied Eskom's offices until company chairman Ruel Khoza deigned to fetch the memo in person. 
 
The nationwide protests were peaceful. The only incident occurred when police teargassed demonstrators at a power station in the province of Mpumalanga as Eskom attempted to bring in strikebreakers. &quot;The police must learn that they do not have to interfere in legal strike action,&quot; NUMSA commented. 
 
Two of the main unions involved in the power strike, NUMSA and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM). 
 
The ICEM has declared full solidarity with the South African power workers, and with the country's miners, who have given the NUM a massive mandate for strike action over a wage claim and other issues (details in ICEM UPDATE 46/2001). 
 
Some mining companies have finally met the union's demands in full, but the NUM yesterday issued strike notices to the three most recalcitrant coalmining employers - Ingwe, Eyesizwe and Anglocoal. 
 
Ingwe is owned by mining multinational Billiton, whose share price fell by 4.19 percent on the Johannesburg stock exchange following yesterday afternoon's NUM announcement. 
 
Anglo American, owner of Anglocoal, fared even worse. By the end of trading yesterday, its share price had plummeted by 8.18 percent. 
 
Talks with the mining employers, particularly the gold producers, are scheduled to resume tomorrow.

Court Victory For SA&#039;s Power Workers; Shares Drop for Mining Firms

The ICEM has condemned the brutal assault on a Ukrainian trade union leader's son, and is asking its 400 affiliated unions in 125 countries to protest in the strongest terms possible to the Ukrainian embassies in their home countries.
<img height="234" src="" width="350" alt="" />
Ukrainian police grab Miners&rsquo; Union President 
and member of Parliament Mikhail Volynets at 
demonstration in front of a mine last year.
On the afternoon of 7 March, Andriy Volynets, the 24-year-old son of Miners' Independent Trade Union President Mikhail Volynets who is a member of Ukraine's Parliament, was abducted near his home in Kiev by two black-uniformed men in a van and over a period of six hours, was bludgeoned to near death. 
 
Andriy Volynets is now in serious condition in a Kiev neurological hospital suffering from severe internal hemorrhaging and multiple concussions. The Miners' Union is an affiliate of the ICEM, and Mikhail Volynets is also president of the newly formed Confederation of Free Trade Unions (CFTU) of Ukraine. 

<img height="251" src="" width="350" alt="" /> 
 
Mikhail Volynets (right) speaks with ICFTU Gen. Sec. 
Guy Ryder at the ICEM Congress last August. 
(At center is CFTUU Intl Officer Ludmila Volynets) 
The kidnapping and beating of young Volynets appear to be an act of political intimidation aimed at dissuading Mikhail Volynets of his support inside Ukraine's Rada to a coalition opposing the re-election of President Leonid Kuchma. Ukrainian elections are scheduled for October of this year. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs has written directly to Kuchma about the incident with a copy of that letter to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. 
 
&quot;Democracy will never take hold in Ukraine if these kind of cowardly deeds continue,&quot; stated the ICEM's Higgs. &quot;We call on the Ukrainian government to thoroughly investigate this horrible crime, to apprehend and to prosecute fully the perpetrators who did this to Andriy Volynets. 
 
&quot;We also call on affiliates of the ICEM to respond in kind and to write the Ukrainian ambassadors in their home countries in protest of such a vicious act, and to encourage a full investigation and prosecution.&quot; 
 
Andriy Volynets is an employee of a bank in Kiev and not involved in the political opposition. Mikhail Volynets told the ICEM that he clearly sees the beating as political retaliation aimed at him. He said that after a hospital doctor instructed him to leave his son's bedside to go out and get medicine in the early hours of 8 March, the police came to the hospital room to question the barely conscious Andriy. 
 
The kidnapping and beating also came days after Volynets and the CFTU of Ukraine held a press conference laying out numerous acts of repression and violations of trade union rights by the government of Ukraine. 
 

&nbsp;

Son of Miners&#039; Union President, Ukrainian MP Brutally Assaulted

T he 20-million-member ICEM called on the Thailand government of Prime Minister Thaskin Sinawatra to hold a citizens referendum to determine if the electric utility EGAT, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, should be privatised or not. 
 
In a letter to the Prime Minister last week, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs said, &quot;Mr Prime Minister, we would ask you to respond positively to the call for a referendum on privatisation. We urge you to halt any further unilateral government action and engage in a transparent process involving social dialogue with the trade union and civic bodies as a matter of urgency.&quot; 
 
The ICEM has staunchly stood behind its Thai Union affiliate, EGAT-LU, to oppose privatizing the utility, contending that privatisation of a country's essential services such as electricity or water inevitably lead to price hikes for consumers. EGAT-LU, representing some 27,500 workers at the utility, has been the lead union in rallying farmers, citizens' groups and some 40 other labour unions affiliated with the nation's State Enterprise Unions' Federation against a hurried initial public offering of EGAT on the Thailand Stock Exchange. 
 
The ICEM welcomed the Thai government's announcement on 1 March that it would delay the IPO, originally scheduled to occur in May, and also commended Prime Minister Sinawatra for admitting 6 March in a radio address that he had pushed the electric privatisation too fast without adequate explanation to the general public. 
 
Some 16 consecutive days of street protests, including strikes by EGAT workers at the utility's headquarters in Bang Kruai, Nonthaburi, no doubt convinced Sinawatra that the rush to privatisation did not have public support. Higgs said that the Prime Minister should now meet leaders of EGAT-LU and other concerned stakeholders, and then put in effect to have a national referendum over the matter. 
 
Last week's ICEM letter was the third such letter the global trade federation has written to Prime Minister Sinawatra over the issue of privatising the electric industry. The ICEM had also issued a worldwide call to its affiliates in the energy and electric industries to express their views to the Thai government over privatisation. Some 25 unions responded by registering their protests against the IPO.

ICEM Calls for Referendum on Thai Electric Privatisation

Union members of two ICEM affiliates rallied today against the anti-union practices of global paper company Sappi Ltd. outside the firm's Annual General Meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

<img height="219" src="" width="350" alt="" />
PACE members from Michigan protest at Sappi AGM in Johannesburg 

Representatives of US-based Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, Energy (PACE) Workers Union joined union brothers and sisters from South African Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU) to condemn the company's aggressive attempts to weaken workers' rights in both countries. 
 
The PACE delegation and CEPPWAWU leaders then gained entry to the AGM, while CEPPWAWU members continued to rally outside the firm's headquarters in the Braamfontein financial district of Johannesburg. 
 
&quot;We have taken this action to serve notice to Sappi management that its refusal to deal fairly with workers and their unions must come to an end,&quot; declared CEPPWAWU President Pasco Dyani, himself a Sappi employee at the Adamas paper mill in Port Elizabeth. &quot;We are pleased to join with union members from America to build the international solidarity necessary to confront Sappi's attacks on working families.&quot; 
 
CEPPWAWU represents workers at Sappi's seven paper mills across South Africa. The union is in dispute with the firm over management demands to unilaterally impose so-called &quot;labour market flexibility&quot; that would severely weaken the union's ability to protect workers' rights on the shop floor. 
 
In the US, PACE Union members have been without new labour agreements for over a year at two Sappi paper mills in Somerset and Westbrook, Maine. Sappi managers at those locations have proposed to drastically cut workers' income and health care benefits. Sappi has also proposed substantial cuts in retiree health benefits. PACE members at the two mills and a third US mill in Muskegon, Michigan, have formed a bargaining alliance to reject management's demands for concessions. 
 
&quot;Sappi stakeholders should understand that management's attempts to lower the living standards of working families and diminish the rights of workers on the shop floor places the company on a collision course with labour,&quot; stated Keith Romig, Director of National and International Affairs for PACE. 
 
The labour agreement at the Muskegon mill is scheduled to expire in June. Together, the three mills account for more than 80 percent of Sappi's fine paper production in North America, and 25% of production worldwide. 
 
The ICEM assisted the two affiliates' actions in Johannesburg today. While in South Africa, PACE, CEPPWAWU and ICEM representatives will lay a foundation for more effective cooperation among unions representing Sappi workers worldwide. 
 
&quot;Every Sappi mill in South Africa, Europe and North America is organized by trade unions affiliated with the ICEM,&quot; said ICEM Paper and Chemical Sectors Officer Marc Welters. &quot;By building stronger bonds between all unions at Sappi, workers will gain the strength to deal effectively with this company's hostile approach to labour relations.&quot;

US Union, CEPPWAWU Protest at Sappi AGM

T he Turkish government ignored a recent Supreme Court ruling permitting a nationwide glass strike by once again imposing a decree outlawing a strike by ICEM Kristal-İş. 
 
Kristal-İş struck 13 of 15 glass factories on 30 January, just days after the Turkish Supreme Court overruled the government on a glass strike. The government 8 December had imposed Article 33 of the nation's Law on Collective Agreements, Strikes and Lockouts claiming such a strike was a threat to &quot;national security.&quot; Kristal-İş represents 5,000 glass workers and is the union of choice for workers at 13 of 15 factories operated by the Sisecam Group, Turkey's dominant glass producer. 
 
&quot;It's outrageous that a country like Turkey that purports to be democratic would trample its own high court to bust a union,&quot; said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &quot;The government needs to radically change its attitude toward trade unions and repeal all remaining repressive labour legislation.&quot; 
 
Kristal-İş has been fighting for its very existence against the government and the country's glass-producing industry, controlled by the Sisecam Group and its wholly-owned subsidiary Pasabahce. In court case after court case, Kristal-İş has prevailed in proving it represents an overwhelming majority of workers in the glass industry. Sisecam and the employers association has challenged the union's right of representation, despite Kristal-İş membership in the glass industry. 
 
Last year, both a labour court and a higher court, on appeal, ruled that Kristal-İş met the representation criteria. But Sisecam and Pasabahce continued its harassment of the union. After 700 workers and subcontractors took up union membership at a relatively new Pasabahce plant in the city of Eskisehir last September, the company responded by firing 350 union activists. 
 
After Kristal-İş established a &quot;tent city&quot; for the sacked workers and their families in front of the factory, security forces came in on 7 November to destroy the encampment and arrested 100 Kristal-İş leaders. They were later released. 
 
When the union later issued a legal call for strike action, the government imposed Article 33, calling a glass strike a threat to national security. Following Supreme Court nullification of that decree in late January, the government this time used different language of the labour code to forbid a glass strike, categorizing it an &quot;undefined ban.&quot; Kristal-İş had effectively shut production at 13 of the glass plants from 30 January to 14 February.

Turkey Tramples Supreme Court to Ban Glass Strike Again

S ome 5,000 union members of ICEM affiliate Kristal-İş in Turkey shut down the country's glass industry last week following a Turkish Supreme Court ruling lifting the government's decree that a strike to the glass sector is a threat to national security. 
 

<img height="191" src="" width="350" alt="" />
Kristal-İş struck 13 glass plants on 30 January, effectively curtailing 90% of Turkey's glass production. Pasabahce and its holding company, the Sisecam Group, operate the majority of the plants. The firm, together with the Glass, Cement and Clay Products Industry Employers' Association, has waged a systematic campaign to destroy Kristal-İş. 
 
&quot;The ICEM pledges to take all necessary steps to support our Turkish colleagues in this struggle,&quot; stated ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &quot;We also call on management to recognise the legitimacy of Kristal-İş and to immediately commence meaningful collective bargaining to resolve the issues.&quot; 
 
Chief among issues are pay and a Kristal-İş demand that 350 union members in Eskisehir, Turkey, be reinstated after being sacked last September by Pasabahce. The fired workers were identified as union activists who led 700 workers at a four-year-old plant in Eskisehir to become Kristal-İş members. 

The glass industry and Pasabahce have challenged the union's right to representation under the 10% rule of Turkish labour code, meaning a union must have at least 10% membership in a given sector to have collective bargaining status. But Turkish courts have ruled against the 10% challenge, with the union proving it has legitimate membership in 13 of 15 Turkish glass factories. 
 
But industry has continued to stonewall Kristal-İş, both through stalled bargaining toward a new collective agreement and in retaliatory measures such as what occurred in Eskisehir when workers sought union representation from Kristal-İş. 
 
Following union notification in November of its intent the strike, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree under Article 33 of Turkey's Law on Collective Agreements, Strikes and Lockouts to prohibit a glass strike on the grounds it would be a threat to national security. 
 
Kristal-İş took the matter to the Supreme Court and in late January the court overruled the government's decree. 
 
Kristal-İş President Mustafa Bagceci emphasized that it is Pasabahce and the glass industry &quot;who do not respect the rights of workers&quot; that are responsible for the strike. He added that Kristal-İş is ready to make &quot;a fair compromise based on mutual goodwill and respect for basic workers' rights&quot; to end the strike.

ICEM Affiliate Strikes Turkish Glass Industry

Archive

Trico: First Breakthrough for Norwegian/US Solidarity

US Firms To Boycott Norway?

Thai Workers Demand Four Dollars A Day

Power Workers Victorious in South African Strike

Court Victory For SA's Power Workers; Shares Drop for Mining Firms

Son of Miners' Union President, Ukrainian MP Brutally Assaulted

ICEM Calls for Referendum on Thai Electric Privatisation

US Union, CEPPWAWU Protest at Sappi AGM

Turkey Tramples Supreme Court to Ban Glass Strike Again

ICEM Affiliate Strikes Turkish Glass Industry

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