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The ICEM joined trade union leaders from Canada, the UK, the US, and Ukraine at the Canadian Nuclear Association&rsquo;s annual meetings in Ottawa, Canada, from 27-29 February. 
 
A strong trade union contingent at the nuclear association&rsquo;s annual seminar brought representatives from local branches of the United Steelworkers (USW) and Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) of Canada, together with national labour leaders from the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), the Power Workers&rsquo; Union (PWU) of Ontario, Unite of the UK, and the Nuclear Power and Industry Workers&rsquo; of Ukraine (Atomprofspilka).
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All are ICEM affiliates. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and other international guests attended at the invitation of the PWU. Atomprofspilka President Valeryi Matov attended, as did UWUA President D. Michael Langford from the US. Representing Unite was Bill Tynan, who heads up Trade Unions for Safe Nuclear Energy in the UK. 
 
Among speakers at this year&rsquo;s event were Canadian astronaut Dr. Marc Garneau, environmentalist Steward Brand, and Province of New Brunswick Energy Minister Jack Kier.
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&nbsp;Manfred Warda, left, with protesting CEP members at Petro-Canada in Ottawa 
 

The ICEM&rsquo;s Warda utilised the visit to Canada&rsquo;s capital city to also participate in CEP&rsquo;s 29 February National Day of Action. He helped to handbill PetroCanada retail petrol outlets in Ottawa. Members of CEP Local 175 have been locked out by the company since 17 November 2007 at a refinery in Montr&eacute;al. The union is urging Canadians not to buy petrol or other products from the Alberta, Canada-based company.

Labour Leaders Attend Canadian Nuclear Association’s Annual Event

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Late in February, a 150-page judgement by an Employment Tribunal in Aberdeen, UK, granted offshore oil and gas workers 14 days of paid holidays under the European Union&rsquo;s Working Time Regulations. 
 
The ruling puts to rest a four-year battle between UK unions and the industry group, Oil and Gas UK, in which employers were trying to count break time while working offshore toward the four-week holiday entitlement.
Amicus, the predecessor to UK&rsquo;s largest union, ICEM affiliate Unite, brought the case before the tribunal on behalf of 500 workers, who filed claims for added holiday pay entitlements. The effects of the ruling, however, will give two weeks of extra holiday pay to some 25,000 workers, mostly drillers, sub-sea workers, catering and other service staff. 
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An agreement between Amicus, GMB Union, and the Offshore Contractors Association last year gave 10,000 other offshore workers involved in the production process four weeks&rsquo; paid leave. This ruling covers other offshore workers and is significant because paid leave must be granted to workers when they are offshore, not during periods when they are onshore between work shifts. 
 
North Sea workers generally work two weeks offshore, before getting two weeks onshore leave. The ruling states that workers are entitled to the paid holidays, which on the pro rata basis out of four weeks&rsquo; work, is equivalent to 14 days of paid annual leave under the EU&rsquo;s Working Time Directive. 
 
&ldquo;Paid holidays for offshore workers are no longer a gift from employers, but a legal right,&rdquo; said Unite Regional Officer Graham Tran. He called on offshore operating companies not to appeal the ruling, which could drag the issue on for another five years. &ldquo;I call on all companies operating offshore to accept this ruling and to meet with the recognised unions to discuss how best to implement the ruling,&rdquo; said Tran.

UK Offshore Oil/Gas Workers Win Work-Time Ruling, and Two Weeks’ Holiday Pay!

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A broken social accord by employers&rsquo; groupings in Slovenia has caused the nation&rsquo;s largest trade union federation, Zveza Svobodnih Sindikatoc Slovenije (ZSSS), to call a mass strike for this Wednesday, 12 March. The strike, which could bring up to 200,000 workers and their families to the streets and eclipse Slovenia&rsquo;s largest mass strike ever, on 17 November 2007, will be joined by union members from other Slovenian national trade union centres.
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After negotiating for six months on pay, holiday bonuses, and other work-related expenses, social partners came to a deal on 25 January, thus halting plans for a mass strike scheduled for 6 February. But when it came time to sign the agreement in early February, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Employers&rsquo; Association (ZDS), backed away from the deal that would have given gains equal to Slovenia&rsquo;s spiralling inflation rate. 
 
In a letter issued on 6 February, ZSSS President Du&scaron;an Semolič said the various employers&rsquo; associations were now &ldquo;manipulating&rdquo; inside individual companies, by forcing contracts with low percentage pay adjustments to workers. The union federation then called the 12 March strike on 18 February.
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In December 2007, the country&rsquo;s gross average monthly earnings, based on inflation-adjusted terms, had risen by less than 1%, compared to the same period in 2006. The country&rsquo;s inflation rate in December 2007 had grown to 6.4%. A short 11 months earlier, when Slovenia adopted the euro as currency, its inflation rate had been 2.8%. 
 
The ZSSS-led strike has broad support among both European trade unions and global unions. Meanwhile, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has called for a demonstration on 5 April 2008 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, over the European Central Bank&rsquo;s (ECB) loud public cry for wage moderation. The protest will occur at the same time that the ECB Governing Council meets with EU Finance Ministers on economic and monetary policies in Ljubljana.

Labour Unions Mass for General Strike in Slovenia on 12 March

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After five days of talks intended to probe solutions to Canada&rsquo;s forest products crisis, negotiations ended 6 March between ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) and AbitibiBowater, the major paper producer in the Canadian East. 
 
&ldquo;CEP members came to these negotiations one year early to achieve more stability for the Canadian pulp and paper industry and to stop the bleeding of thousands of jobs,&rdquo; stated CEP President Dave Coles. &ldquo;However, instead of working with the union and their employees, the negotiations were ended by the company because CEP would not agree to major concessions concerning the pension plan and other issues.&rdquo;
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CEP President Dave Coles&nbsp; 
 

In February, delegates from the union&rsquo;s pulp and paper sector voted to enter talks early for 5,500 AbitibiBowater workers at some 13 eastern Canadian pulp and paper mills. The talks, a full 13 months before contracts for 20,000 paperworkers in eastern Canada were set to expire, were aimed at getting contract extensions and initiating productivity and efficiency practices inside Canadian mills. 
 
&ldquo;We are very disappointed in this outcome,&rdquo; added Coles. But &ldquo;we must send a clear and strong message to the industry that our position will not change one year from now when our contracts expire.&rdquo; 
 
In the Canadian West, the CEP is currently in talks with paper companies. Contracts there expire on 1 April 2008.

Early Talks Fail with AbitibiBowater in Eastern Canadian Pulp, Paper Industry

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ICEM affiliate Toimihenkil&ouml;unioni TU has taken the global forestry company Stora Enso to a Court of Law in Finland over a breach of the country&rsquo;s statutes. The salaried workers&rsquo; union of Finland is holding the Nordic-based company responsible for violating the Act of Cooperation Within Untertakings, a 1978 statute and part of the country&rsquo;s labour code. 
 
That is according to TU News, the union&rsquo;s newsletter. The suit alleges that Stora Enso began unilaterally cutting back operations at its Summa paper mill in southeast Finland before statutory consultations with stakeholders had begun. This related to Stora&rsquo;s harsh restructuring announcement in October 2007, in which the company said it would close mills in Finland and Sweden, and cut jobs elsewhere in Europe as well. 
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Toimihenkil&ouml;unioni notes that the mandatory consultation process began in early November 2007, and ran until January 2008. Yet, Stora&rsquo;s marketing team was told in October not to book any further orders from the newsprint and book papers mill, and the company cancelled all raw material orders then as well. The newsletter states that no 2008 budget for the mill was ever in planning.
Union President Antti Rinne was astonished that the Finnish government, a sizeable stockholder of Stora Enso, was not informed of the company&rsquo;s abrupt curtailments. The alleged illegal actions by Stora surfaced when Finnish Defense Minister Jyri H&auml;k&auml;mies, the statutory head of all enterprise ownership, admitted at a union forum in Helsinki on 29 January that the government had not been given advance notice. 
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A day later, Stora shut one paper machine at the 450-worker Summa mill, and then the next day &ndash; 31 January &ndash; the company switched off the mill&rsquo;s other paper machine, effectively closing the operation. 
 
&ldquo;During negotiations, it was no longer a question of a plan to close the mill,&rdquo; said the newsletter, but it became evident in talks that &ldquo;the decision itself&rdquo; had been &ldquo;implemented simultaneously with the negotiations.&rdquo; Finland&rsquo;s Act on Cooperation Within Undertakings is intended to improve work conditions and to further cooperation between employers and staff. 
 
Under Finnish law, the suit brought by Toimihenkil&ouml;unioni on behalf of its members, if successful, could mean pay-outs of up to &euro;30,000 for each worker who was sacked.

Salaried Trade Union, Toimihenkilöunioni, Places Stora in the Dock in Finnish Court

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Two days ago, on Saturday, 8 March, the world celebrated International Women&rsquo;s Day (IWD). The day was first officially recognised as a day to honour the achievements of women at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1911, but it actually had its origin in a women&rsquo;s march in New York City three years earlier. 
 
Then, in 1908, 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York demanding shorter hours, better pay, and voting rights in the US. The first national women&rsquo;s day was declared in the US on 28 February 1909. It wasn&rsquo;t until 1977 that the UN established 8 March as IWD.
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This year, events, reports, and surveys worldwide drew attention to accomplishments by women in both work and in life, as well as highlighting the necessity to continue the fight for gender equality. Perhaps nowhere is 8 March celebrated like it is in Russia, where, in 1917, it was declared a national holiday. 
 
It was in that year that Russian women gained the right to vote. Today, 8 March is a day of tribute to all women of Russia, with flowers presented to them and road police commonly ignoring minor traffic violations committed by women. Two days ago, women of Nizhny Novgorod in the Volga region played chess on a giant carpet in the city square, using men as the chess pieces. Women commanded their every move, as the men were dressed in masks and gowns. 
 
In Latvia, a poll shows that 53% of all citizens consider IWD an important holiday and they celebrate it, despite the government downgraded the day after separation from the former USSR in 1991. In Georgia, women who are beyond the ages of 90 and 100, received special gifts from their government this year.
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But in many countries, actions took a more serious note over the weekend. In Iraq on Saturday, hundreds of women gathered or a rally in front of the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad&rsquo;s central Karada neighbourhood to call for an end to violence toward women in the war-torn country. 
 
The Iraqi call also was for women to be granted the freedom to choose their husbands themselves, as well as their careers. Following the rally, a conference on women&rsquo;s rights was held in a hotel. One of the speakers was the Iraqi Minister for Women&rsquo;s Rights, Nariman Mahmoud Othman, who earlier had led a delegation of women to the offices of Mahmoud Mashhadani, head of Parliament, with a list of women&rsquo;s rights issues. 
 
Also in Iraq, an NGO report, issued two days before IWD, showed that 64% of Iraqi women surveyed say that violence against them had increased since the 2003 invasion by occupation military forces.
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Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas used IWD to give a speech at his Ramallah headquarters, calling for peace between the impoverished nation and Israel. &ldquo;Despite all the Israeli attacks, we call for peace and we are keen on peace built through international legitimacy,&rdquo; said Abbas, in calling for renewed peace talks with Israel. 
 
In the Philippines, over 1,000 women on 8 March marched to the presidential palace of Gloria Arroyo. The march was led by feminist groups, who called on Arroyo to resign over allegations that her husband and a political ally sought financial kickbacks from a Chinese company in a national internet broadband deal. 
 
Arroyo used the day prior to IWD to announce two programmes aimed at giving Filipino women technical training and to assist them in entrepreneur endeavours.
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Taiwan Vice President Annette Lu dedicated the opening of the Taiwan National Women&rsquo;s Hall in Taipei on Saturday. It will serve as a venue for women&rsquo;s groups to hold exhibitions, meetings, and to host international women&rsquo;s delegations. &ldquo;Usually people think history is the story of men, hence the word &lsquo;history&rsquo;,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But in the future, there should also be the story of &lsquo;herstory,&rsquo; and when the two words are combined, they become &lsquo;human story&rsquo;,&rdquo; she remarked. 
 
In Australia, IWD was marked by a celebratory rally in Sydney&rsquo;s Hyde Park in honour of a new domestic violence law that took effect in the state of New South Wales (NSW). The law introduces a specific change regarding domestic violence that allows the state to name and shame offenders. 
 
NSW now places a &ldquo;black mark&rdquo; next to the names of repeat offenders, so that such people are highlighted before the justice system. Previously, domestic violence offenders were tagged only with general assault charges. Meanwhile, the Kevin Rudd government has begun the process toward making Australia a partner to the optional protocol of the UN&rsquo;s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
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In Nepal, women&rsquo;s and human rights groups activists staged protests calling for an end to the statutory 35-day limitation in the Himalayan country for filing rape charges. Jagaran Nepal, an NGO working for women&rsquo;s rights, peace, and governance, also conducted events, as did the organisation Walking for Working Women, which held a march in Kathmandu that culminated in music and performance at Three Kings Monument in the city. 
 
In Pakistan, Working Women Organisation (WWO) organised a seminar on Saturday at the Lahore Press Club. Human rights activists presented their thoughts regarding women&rsquo;s role in building democracy and justice. &ldquo;Even though the situation is extremely gloomy&rdquo; in Pakistan, said a WWO letter, &ldquo;one thing which keeps our hopes alive is that workers, women&rsquo;s organisations, trade unions, lawyers, and media never stop to raise their voices against government suppression.&rdquo; 
 
Also in Pakistan, social service organisations, NGOs, and some political parties paid tribute to the contributions of women in the fields of politics, science, education, the medical profession, and arts and literature. The Pakistan People&rsquo;s Party directed all of its branch offices across the country to hold ceremonies in honour of its slain chairperson, Benazir Bhutto. 
 
In Ireland on 7-8 March, the Irish Council of Trade Unions held a Women&rsquo;s Conference in Tralee that focused on gender pay and the pension gap, support for working families, childcare, equality, and women in leadership. Some 180 delegates attended.
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A motion from the trade union SIPTU to the conference centered on pay inequality. The union stated that traditional ways of measuring the pay gap between men and women does not fully reflect the real disparities. &ldquo;Issues such as pensions and paid leave must be factored in,&rdquo; read SIPTU&rsquo;s motion. 
 
The union called for research to be commissioned in Ireland in order to provide more accurate and holistic statistics for comparing income throughout the life cycle. SIPTU also calls on trade unions to place the pensions disparity between men and women forefront in future collective negotiations. 
 
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) used IWD to release a survey on women&rsquo;s presence in leadership positions inside trade unions. The ETUC survey, the first of what will become an annual poll of member organisations on gender issues, reveals a paradox between women in trade union leadership positions and the fact that women&rsquo;s job growth is sharply curbing the decline in union membership. 
 
Eighteen European national labour centres have reported rises in female union membership, ranging from 0.2% to 2.5% over just the past year. This compares with a general drop in union membership for men. &ldquo;There is significant room for improvement and it is time to implement concrete measures&rdquo; for more women leadership roles in trade unions, states the ETUC.
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Meanwhile, the ITUC last week issued a report on the occasion of IWD, entitled The Global Gender Pay Gap. Using statistics from 63 countries, the report puts the worldwide gender pay gap on average at 16% less for women than for men. 
 
The report does show that collective bargaining by trade unions in some countries swerves to narrow the gap in salaries. But the report cautions that the actual pay gap may be higher than 16% when considering the hundreds of millions of informal workers toiling in low-wage jobs today. 
 
Another report last week was issued by the ILO. Called Global Employment Trends 2008, the report says creation of greater gender equality is dependent on access to decent work and productive employment. The report states that even though women are entering the workforce in greater number, the jobs women get are generally low-paid and vulnerable, leaving them with few social protections or basic rights. 
 
The ILO noted that the most successful region in terms of economic growth over the past 10 years &ndash; East Asia &ndash; is also the region with the highest employment-to-population ratio for women at 65.2%. East Asia is characterized as a region with low jobless rates for both men and women, and relatively small gender gaps in pay and status. 
 
IWD is observed officially as a national holiday by 14 nations. They include: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Global Events Mark International Women’s Day, 8 March

Brussels, 7 March 2008 
 
Dear Colleagues, 
 
Following a decision taken by our Congress, last November 2007, the ICEM will move its headquarters to Geneva, Switzerland. 
 
As from 1st April the new address for ICEM will be: 
54bis route des Acacias 
1227 Geneva, Switzerland 
<img height="43" alt="" src="" width="50" />
The transfer of the headquarters will implement some technical issues with the transfer of the IT server to Geneva. Indeed ICEM will be &lsquo;cut&rsquo; from any internet, e-mail or network communication from 21 March 2008 until most probably 6 April 2008 included. 
 
We apologies for the inconvenience the situation could cause you and we thank you very much in advance for your understanding. 
In case of emergency situation or issues, you can contact us by fax on +32-2/648-43-16 and we will do our best to help you. 
 
Looking forward to welcoming you in Geneva. 
 
In solidarity, 
 
Manfred Warda 
General Secretary

ICEM is moving to Geneva

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Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. has become an anti-social force blocking workplace solutions to the downstream oil section of Nigeria. And the company&rsquo;s actions last week leave no doubt as to its intentions &ndash; it seeks to operate its technical and white-collar work units in downstream production with non-union staff. 
 
The company, 100% owned by US-based ExxonMobil, refused to attend a mandated mediation meeting called by the Nigerian Labour Ministry, on 3 March 2008, to resolve differences on work practices and severance procedures with white-collar oil workers&rsquo; trade union, PENGASSAN.
<img height="50" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Through much of 2007 and into 2008, ICEM-affiliated PENGASSAN and Mobil Oil &ndash; as they did similarly with other oil refiners &ndash; engaged in negotiations over severance packages. Some intermediate agreements had occurred, but implementing practical application of job separation was elusive. 
 
That process spilled into the Labour Ministry. Senior Nigerian managers of three downstream firms operating in Nigeria did attend the meeting with Nigeria&rsquo;s Labour and Industrial Relations Director a week ago. But Mobil Oil Nigeria failed to show up. 
 
In the days following that 3 March meeting, the American company displayed its prejudice: it unilaterally sacked PENGASSAN branch leaders, including the zonal Financial Secretary and the union&rsquo;s National Treasurer. It now has severed from employment all PENGASSAN bargaining committee members who represent workers in collective negotiations. 
 
It also has fired shop stewards and others identified with the union, rising to over 100 the number of full-time workers sacked. In last year&rsquo;s talks, PENGASSAN and Mobil Oil Nigeria had agreed to staff cuts of just over 40, mostly to accommodate a new data processing system. The company did employ about 400 white-collar staff permanently, but that number has now decreased, with contract and agency workers now taking many of those jobs.
<img height="92" alt="" src="" width="100" />
&nbsp;PENGASSAN Gen. Sec. Bayo Olowoshile 

&ldquo;Mobil Oil Nigeria has betrayed our trust,&rdquo; stated PENGASSAN General Secretary Bayo Olowoshile. &ldquo;These recent actions are pre-meditated attempts to victimise and harass union officers, frustrate legal justice, and they amount to a serious breach of our existing labour agreement, national industrial law, and global labour standards.&rdquo; 
 
Olowoshile said Mobil has violated terms of the 2007-2008 labour agreement; breached Section 40 of the Nigerian Constitution, which grants rights to membership in trade unions; ignored Section 9 of the Nigerian Labour Code; and disregarded ILO Convention 135, the Worker&rsquo;s Representatives Convention. 
 
With the company failing to turn up for 3 March mediation session, the Labour Ministry is now expected to side with PENGASSAN in a National Industrial Court matter over the company&rsquo;s unilateral actions. The three downstream companies that did engage in last week&rsquo;s mediation session included Chevron, African Petroleum Plc., and Oando Plc. The labour relations of Shell Nigeria&rsquo;s downstream operations are not affected in these talks. 
 
The ICEM steadfastly stands behind PENGASSAN and its illegally sacked leaders at Mobil Oil Nigeria, and will work toward reinstatement. The Global Union Federation notes that the company, in 2004, replaced all its permanent blue-collar workers in the downstream sector with agency workers. Those full-time staff had been represented by ICEM affiliate NUPENG.

ExxonMobil Viciously Victimises Union Staff at Nigerian Downstream Operations

In this issue the ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin gives information on the procedure leading to the ILO Recommendation on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work. It also takes up the International AIDS Conference, to be held in Mexico City in August.
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The ICEM Calls on its Affiliates to Contribute to this e-bulletin 
 
ICEM affiliates are already engaged in a wide range of HIV/AIDS activities. To spread the information on new agreements, awareness, and prevention campaigns, and educational activities, affiliates and project coordinators are invited to send news and information to hiv.aids@icem.org. Any feedback on the format and contents of the e-bulletin is also welcome.
<img height="35" alt="" src="" width="25" />
ILO Recommendation on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work 
 
In March 2007, the Governing Body of the ILO decided to place on the agenda of the International Labour Conferences for 2009 and 2010 an item intended for &ldquo;the development of an autonomous Recommendation on HIV and AIDS in the world of work.&rdquo; 
 
The ILO has begun work towards the adoption of a Recommendation in 2010. Under the Constitution and Standing Orders, five reports have to be prepared within specific time limits, with each report to contain specific information. The first report, called a &ldquo;Law and Practice Report,&rdquo; provides an overview of national and international measures taken with respect to HIV/AIDS. This report was published and sent to governments in January 2008. 
 
The Law and Practice Report, which is available at <a href="http://www.ilo.org/aids">www.ilo.org/aids</a>, also contains a questionnaire to which governments, in consultation with employers&rsquo; and workers&rsquo; organisations, are to provide replies to the ILO by the end of July 2008. Consultation usually occurs through national trade union centres. 
The ICEM calls on its affiliates to get fully involved in this process and make sure that substantive replies, with comments which reflect the views of workers, are provided in time. It is only in this way that the second report, which will be prepared by the ILO on the basis of the replies received, reflects the views of workers and their unions. It is worth noting that workers&rsquo; organisations may also provide their comments directly to the ILO. 
(The item above appeared already in the May issue of the e-bulletin. Because of the importance of the campaign, it is repeated here) 

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17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, 3 &ndash; 8 August 
 
The International AIDS Conference (IAC), organised by the Geneva-based International AIDS Society, takes place every two years. The last one was organised in Toronto in August 2006. The Conference is the largest meeting on HIV/AIDS worldwide. Some 25,000 scientists, politicians and activists are expected to participate in the event. This year&rsquo;s IAC is first ever held in Latin America. 
 
Conference organisers are developing a wide variety of plenary sessions around the theme, &ldquo;Universal Action Now.&rdquo; In addition to these sessions there are satellite meetings, exhibitions, and the Global Village. 
 
It is important that union HIV/AIDS activists participate in this event so that labour&rsquo;s voice is heard. In Toronto, the labour movement was well represented, highlighting the impact of HIV and AIDS on the workplace and emphasising the role of workers&rsquo; organisations in fighting the pandemic. 
 
As in Toronto, the Conference in Mexico will be preceded by a Labour AIDS Forum organised by the Global Union AIDS Programme. The Labour Forum will prepare union representatives for their role in the IAC and will deal with topics such as the challenges at the workplace and raising resources at national level. 
<img height="35" alt="" src="" width="25" />
Botswana Mine Company Launches HIV Survey 
 
The ICEM-affiliated Botswana Mine Workers' Union (BMWU) is involved in an HIV prevalence survey launched by BLC mine to determine whether current prevention efforts are effective. 
 
The exercise will enable the company to have data on the size and distribution of the epidemic among its workforce, and also to help management assess the dynamic and growth of the epidemic since the last survey in 2003. It will also enable BCL to re-plan its interventions, including resource mobilisation for the programmes if the outcome indicates that the current prevention efforts have been ineffective. 
 
The survey of all employees is an anonymous exercise and is not a substitute to voluntary counselling and testing. 
 
(Source: Africa News, 29 May from The Reporter, Botswana) 
<img height="35" alt="" src="" width="25" />
South African Military AIDS Policy Faces Court Challenge 
 
The South African military's blanket exclusions of HIV positive members is not medically justified and ignores government policy. A lawyer for the South African Security Forces Union, which is attempting to force the military to review its HIV/AIDS policy, said the army had failed to implement its own and the government's policies. 
 
&quot;The HIV policy adopted by the cabinet in relation to the military and the Department of Defence is not consistent with the policy implemented by the SANDF (South African National Defence Forces),&quot; lawyer Gilbert Marcus told a hearing at the high court in Pretoria. &quot;The cabinet has adopted a policy that HIV status should not exclude candidates from appointments to the SANDF, although it may preclude their appointment to positions that require extreme physical fitness.&quot; 
 
President Thabo Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang are respondents, alongside the military. 
 
According to Marcus, the SANDF has admitted that some 23 percent of its members are HIV positive. &quot;It is simply impossible at this stage to have an HIV-free defence force. The question is how we accommodate this.&quot; 
 
(Source: Pretoria News, 15 May) 
<img height="35" alt="" src="" width="25" />
PEPFAR Re-authorisation 
 
Treatment clients from free clinics run by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in South Africa, Botswana, and Rwanda lobbied US legislators to ensure that access to lifesaving antiretroviral treatment remains a key component of PEPFAR. 
 
The PEPFAR legislation, which is up for re-authorisation by the US Congress, currently requires that a minimum of 55% of funds be spent on treatment, a provision that has been completely removed from the re-authorisation bill. The group also calls for a significant increase in PEPFAR's treatment goals &ndash; up only 50% in the re-authorisation despite a 330% increase in overall PEPFAR funding. 
 
PEPFAR was the result of the 2003 State of the Union pledge to bring two million HIV positive Africans and others into treatment and prevent seven million new HIV infections via a five-year, $15 billion US-funded program. It currently operates in 15 focus countries and claims to support antiretroviral treatment for 1.4 million people worldwide. 
 
(Source: Africa News, 10 May) 
<img height="35" alt="" src="" width="25" />
The World Bank&rsquo;s Commitment to Fight HIV/AIDS 
 
A World Bank report says African countries must continue to champion HIV prevention efforts to slow and reverse the rate of new infections. According to the report &ldquo;The World Bank&rsquo;s Commitment to HIV/AIDS in Africa: Our Agenda for Action, 2007-2011,&rdquo; for every infected person starting antiretroviral treatment, another four to six become newly infected, even as regional figures show falling prevalence in some countries. 
 
&ldquo;With AIDS the largest single cause of premature death in Africa, we can&rsquo;t talk about better, lasting development there without also committing to stay the course in the long-term fight against the disease,&rdquo; said Elizabeth Lule, Manager of the Bank&rsquo;s AIDS Team for Africa (ACTafrica). 
 
With this new Agenda for Action, the Bank is moving away from its initial &ldquo;emergency response.&rdquo; It would commit at least US$250 million a year over the five-year period for HIV/AIDS initiatives built on strategic objectives. It will also establish a grant incentive fund of US$5 million annually to promote capacity building, analysis, and HIV/AIDS project components in key sectors. 
 
(Source: World Bank Press Release, 14 May) 
 
Comment by the editor of the e-bulletin: 
While this long-term commitment is laudable, it is surprising that after the Global Union/World Bank consultations on HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa in Washington in December 2007, workers&rsquo; organisations or trade unions are not even mentioned among the organisations which were consulted in devising this new strategy. It is also surprising that the World Bank stresses the importance of providing people with integrated health services when its policies over years have helped to dismantle public health systems. 
 
Following the consultations last December, the ICEM is pursuing a selective approach, in the sectors it represents, to get its affiliates involved in projects financed by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. The objective is to devise effective workplace activities and capacity building for unions. 
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ILO Says Caribbean Making Progress on AIDS in Workplace 
 
The &quot;Saving Lives, Protecting jobs&quot; report (see e-bulletin no. 32, May 2008) indicates that 70 enterprises in Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago have implemented policies and HIV/AIDS education programmes to promote responsible sexual behaviour, and reduce the level of discrimination faced by people living with the disease. 
 
The report shows a 34% increase in awareness about HIV/AIDS services on the job among workers in the tourism, manufacturing, banking, and finance sectors, as well as taxi drivers. Guyana's largest employer, the Guyana Sugar Company, has been lauded for sustaining the initiatives it implemented five years ago.
It has adopted an HIV/AIDS workplace policy and offers HIV services to workers and managers. An official of the Guyana Trade Union Congress said that 78% of partnering enterprises in Guyana have allocated official working hours to HIV/AIDS education during the last six months. 
 
Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were also praised for their efforts to target members of the informal economy. The governments of both countries have adopted national policies on HIV/AIDS and recently Trinidad and Tobago took it a step further by launching a National Workplace Policy on HIV/AIDS. 
 
The ILO report, however, pointed out that despite the progress being made in some countries, the region continues to grapple with rising levels of infection, even as treatment reaches more people. The Caribbean has the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence in the world, after Sub-Saharan Africa. 
 
(Source: Caribbean Media Corporation website, Bridgetown, 21 May) 
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Commentary: Dropping the Ball 
(The following is an abbreviated version of an article which appeared in the Global Fund Observer No. 87, 17 April 2008. It was written by Wycliffe Muga, a Kenyan journalist who is the BBC World Service&rsquo;s &ldquo;Letter from Africa&rdquo; correspondent) 
 
If you stopped an ordinary man in the street here in Kenya and told him that there is a Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria which gives money to help Kenya fight the three diseases, he would probably be pleasantly surprised. For not many people here have any idea that such a fund exists. 
 
And if you then told him that at present, Kenya is only receiving about half of the money it could receive from this fund &ndash; not because the money is being diverted to private bank accounts, but because the people charged with preparing proposals and submitting them to the Fund have been unable to come up with proposals which are acceptable &ndash; the likely response would be one of outrage. 
 
In a country where far too many people die of the diseases which this money is intended to fight, anything less than a perfect proposal prepared well in advance would seem like criminal negligence. 
 
For each of Rounds 1 through 6, the Global Fund's announcing of its &ldquo;Call for Proposals&rdquo; led to a flurry of activity in most developing countries: CCMs met, task teams were put together and consultants were sought. As the deadline for proposal submission got closer, people got more and more frantic. 
It was largely because of this &ldquo;controlled chaos&rdquo; that the Fund agreed two years ago that the Call for Proposals will always be on March 1. Thus, people know months beforehand when the Call will be issued. The idea is to enable CCMs to spend those extra months planning what their forthcoming proposals will focus on and seeking technical support. 
 
So it came as a real surprise when one month AFTER this year's Call for Proposals, rather than two months BEFORE it, UNAIDS headquarters sent out an email to UNAIDS offices around the world, instructing them to take action supporting CCMs as they prepare their proposals and seek technical support. 
 
This was not some unexpected deadline which was arbitrarily imposed on the CCMs. It is a deadline that comes around every year, on a date that is known well in advance. How can it possibly be justified that this great effort is being made this late in the day? 
 
Everybody dropped the ball here &ndash; the civil society groups that pressured UNAIDS to take action, but didn't do so until well after the Call for Proposals; UNAIDS itself, for not getting moving on this until it was pushed by the civil society groups; and those many CCMs that delayed strategizing regarding their Global Fund applications until months later than they should. 
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News from the Global Union Programme and Global Unions 
 
The Global Union AIDS Programme is organising an HIV/AIDS African Regional Consultative and Planning Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 12-13 June. The ICEM will be represented by Project Management Assistant Paula Ndessomin. 
 
In its most recent HIV/AIDS Update (No. 42 of 1 May 2008), the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) (<a href="http://www.itfglobal.org">www.itfglobal.org</a>) gives a detailed analysis on travel restrictions against people living with HIV. The creation of an International Task Team is a critical opportunity to move towards the elimination of all travel restrictions against HIV-positive people.

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin

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Twenty delegates from ten nations attended meetings in early May in Lom&eacute;, Togo, intended to lay the groundwork for dissolution of the former World Federation of Industry Workers&rsquo; (WFIW&rsquo;s) Pan African Federation of Industry Workers into the ICEM&rsquo;s Sub-Saharan African Region. 
 
Resolutions were passed to that effect, and full integration of the two regional structures will occur at next week&rsquo;s ICEM regional meeting in Accra, Ghana. The meeting was attended by Italo Rodomonti, former WFIW General Secretary and ICEM Vice President, and Rayford Mbulu, ICEM&rsquo;s Sub-Saharan African Region Chairman, who also is President of the Mineworkers&rsquo; Union of Zambia.
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Togo&nbsp;
Among some of the resolutions passed includes a recommendation to establish networks within the ICEM region to counter the power of multinationals, and one asking the ICEM region to encourage synergy within countries between former WFIW trade unions and ICEM affiliates. Also, a recommendation was passed requesting observer status for the former WFIW regional unions on the ICEM&rsquo;s Presidium, Executive Committee, and Sub-Saharan African Regional Women&rsquo;s Committee. 
 
Former WFIW delegates attending the meetings came from Togo, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Senegal, Sierra Leon, Morocco, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Rodomonti from Belgium and Jan Voets from ACV Hout en Bouw, also 
of Belgium.

Structure of Former WFIW Absorbed Into ICEM’s Sub-Saharan Africa Region

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