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Labour, management, and the Liberian government celebrated the signing on 28 June of the second collective agreement between ICEM-affiliated Firestone Agricultural Workers&rsquo; Union (FAWUL) and Firestone Rubber Plantation. Some 4,500 workers and their families will again benefit when the two-year contract takes effect in December 2010. 
 
The ever-evolving labour-management relationship between FAWUL and Firestone is fast becoming a showcase in modern industrial relations for the administration of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. 
<img alt="" src="" width="350" height="262" />
Labour Minister Taiworn Gongloe stated at the celebration that the social relationship &ldquo;has broken from the past,&rdquo; and thanks to enlightened leadership coming from the President, the rights of workers and the interests of the company both are now guaranteed. Added Firestone Managing Director Charles Stuart, &ldquo;What we're celebrating here is the result of management and employees working in a peaceful and respectful manner. Without you we are nothing and together, anything can happen.&rdquo; 
 
It was only a short three years ago that FAWUL was fighting the last vestiges of an illegitimate yellow union that had been propped up by Firestone management for decades. Following free and open elections, and an ambitious years-long union-building project by the US-based United Steelworkers (USW), FAWUL won union certification in 2007. (See ICEM reports <a href="/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/2511-ICEM-Calls-on-Liberia-to-Recognise-Correct-Trade-Union-at-Firestone-Rubber-Plantation ">here</a> and <a href="/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/2526-ICEM-Welcomes-Liberia's-Certification-of-Legitimate-Firestone-Union ">here</a>.) 
 
A year later, on 27 July, FAWUL won its first collective agreement, giving workers a 24% pay increase backdated 19 months, reducing a quota system on tapping natural rubber from trees, and granting new schools and free tuition for the sons and daughters of workers. 
<img alt="" src="" width="320" height="231" />
This second contract goes further: a 3.5% wage increase, the construction of more schools and school transportation, and perhaps the most important gain, a mechanized transport system to haul the rubber latex to weigh stations. For decades, workers had to haul 150-pound buckets of rubber sometimes miles on their shoulders to the stations. 
 
FAWUL Secretary-General Edwin Cisco said the months long bargaining was hard and arduous, but that a &ldquo;new day of social dialogue between management and workers has begun and the days of confrontation and agitation are over.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;This is a major success story in so many ways,&rdquo; stated ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, &ldquo;and we should never lose sight of the fact that the Steelworkers Union of America did the hard and difficult work up front to make it happen. We commend the workers, FAWUL leadership, and Firestone Rubber management, and see a long, productive, and precedent-setting relationship unfolding inside Liberia.&rdquo;

FAWUL, Firestone Rubber Plantation in Liberia Sign Second Two-Year Pact

On April 20, 2010 there was an explosion on the drilling rig &quot;Deepwater Horizon&quot;. 
 
Eleven oil workers were killed. Two days later the rig sank in an ocean of fire. Oil is flowing completely uncontrolled and is still doing so after almost two months. 
 
We do not know what caused the blow out. The ICEM-IMF-ITGLWF Sustainability conference will however declare that: 
 
1) an independent and open inquiry must be held, and trade unions should be granted full insight in the process; 
 
2) at all times the responsibility rest solely on the operator; 
 
3) blow out prevention (BOP) systems should have remote control capabilities, for instance acoustic signal actuators, in addition to traditional BOP controls; 
 
4) when working in new areas, deep water, and other special conditions, it must be demanded that more than one rig be present in the area to ensure safer evacuation in case of an emergency and to be able to start drilling a relief well in case of a blowout. Two months after the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, it is a catastrophic disaster that the drilling of a relief well had not been started; 
 
5) sufficient and effective oil booms and/or other means to collect oil spillage must be available or in place in all areas where offshore drilling takes place; 
 
6) the demands of deregulation must be reversed. More regulations are needed and the &quot;best available technology&quot; must be demanded, at least in all new and challenging areas.

Global Governance Includes Better Governance of Oil Companies

Global Unions have released a set of principles to protect the rights of workers by focusing on the impact of temporary employment agencies on employment. The principles address both the exploitation and abuse of workers provided by temporary work agencies as well as the damage to regular employment relationships caused by the misuse of these agencies. 
 
In recent decades, the use of temporary agencies to supply workers has exploded all over the world, spreading also to sectors and occupations that had previously depended on directly employed workers. Not only do temporary agency workers typically receive lower pay and fewer benefits, when the financial crisis rapidly became an employment crisis, temporary agency workers were among its first victims. Many companies simply terminated their contracts with temp agencies so that the workers did not receive the minimum compensation or social benefits that they would have received as direct employees. 
 
The expansion of temporary agency labour, together with other forms of temporary, casual and precarious employment, has been promoted by international organisations like the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD as &ldquo;labour market flexibility.&rdquo; It has contributed to a general erosion of workers' ability to exercise their rights to join trade unions and bargain collectively with their employers, thereby posing a major challenge to the labour movement. These principles seek to address that challenge. 
 
Although there are varying approaches taken by trade unions in different countries and sectors to dealing with temporary employment agencies, ranging from total bans to partial bans to strict regulation, all Global Unions have reached agreement on a number of key principles. 
 
They include: 
 
1.) the primary form of employment should be permanent, open-ended and direct; 
2.) agency workers should be covered under the same collective bargaining agreement as other workers in the user enterprise: 
temporary agency workers should receive equal treatment in all respects; 
3.) the use of temporary agencies should not increase the gender gap on wages, social protections, and conditions; 
4.) temporary work agencies must not be used to eliminate permanent and direct employment relationships; and 
5.) the use of agency workers should never be used to weaken trade unions or to undermine organising or collective bargaining rights. 
 
The Global Unions&rsquo; principles also emphasise the special dangers for migrant workers, who are often engaged by temporary agencies or other intermediaries. Abuses of migrant workers supplied by agencies are all too common. They include the denial of trade union and other human rights, human trafficking, confiscation of passports, deceptive practices with respect to wages and working conditions, and the denial of legal redress in the countries in which they work. 
 
Governments are called on to seriously address the problems of workers supplied by temporary agencies through legislation that defines the employment relationship and ensures that triangular, or indirect, employment does not result in any loss of rights or social protections. Governments are urged to pay special attention to occupational health and safety hazards faced by agency workers and to strengthen labour inspection, so that laws are properly implemented and respected. 
 
Manfred Warda, General Secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM) and chair of group which developed the principles for the Council of Global Unions (CGU), stated: &ldquo;The Global Unions agreement on Principles on Temporary Work Agencies will lead to better collective action by the international trade union movement. 
 
&ldquo;Global Unions are rightly focusing on the rights of contract and agency workers and on the impact of precarious employment, a growing practice that is one of the primary reasons for the widespread violation of rights and growing inequalities among workers in our societies. Workers dispatched by temporary work agencies all suffer from the lack of a direct employment relationship with the very employer that controls their work and determines their working conditions. 
 
&ldquo;If we want more, rather than less social justice, this issue must become a priority not only for trade unions, but for governments and employers throughout the world.&rdquo; 
 
For the full text of &ldquo;Global Union Principles on Temporary Work Agencies,&rdquo; click <a href="/en/73-Contract-and-Agency-Labour/3861-Global-Union-Principles-on-Temporary-Work-Agencies">here</a>. 
 
&ldquo;Global Unions&rdquo; is a term for Global Union Federations (GUFs), which represent national trade unions by sector and occupation, together with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD, which represent national trade union centres (multi-sectoral).For more information on Global Unions, visit its site <a href="http://www.global-unions.org">here</a>.&nbsp; 
 
For further information, contact Fons Vannieuwenhuys, ICEM, <a href="mailto:fons@icem.org">fons@icem.org</a>, +32 2 224 0341 or +32 473 18 6770 (mobile); or Jenny Holdcroft, International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), <a href="mailto:jholdcroft@imfmetal.org">jholdcroft@imfmetal.org</a>, +41 22 308 5034 or +41-79-616 0103 (mobile).

Global Unions Adopt Set Principles on Temporary Agency Work

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At the Fifth Congress of the Mining and Metallurgical Trade Union of Kyrgyzstan (MMTUK) in Bishkek on 3 June, the union&rsquo;s Central Committee reported grave safety conditions in both mining and metal operations. The committee said the number of accidents continues to grow yearly, and cautioned its report does not give the full picture since inspections were only carried out in and around 34 union-represented installations. 
 
MMTUK&rsquo;s technical labour inspection has investigated 111 accidents over the past few years, and found a total of 525 violations. The Central Committee said that between 2005 and 2009, the number of industrial accidents in which persons were injured or killed increased five-fold.
<img alt="" src="" width="230" height="106" />
It said that number most probably is much higher if inspections were to be done in workplaces without the presence of a union. The union&rsquo;s statistics also did not take into account illnesses brought on by occupational disease. 
 
MMTUK said four workers died in its operations in 2009. It also said that antiquated equipment was a partial reason for the increased accident reason, and also reported that one-third of all the accidents that the union investigated occurred in road-traffic accidents involving industrial transport. 
 
The Congress also noted that despite several trans-national companies taking up operations in Kyrgyzstan, the global financial crisis, as well as the social, political, and economic upheaval inside the Central Asian country, has caused deteriorating work conditions. 
 
In April, citizens&rsquo; unrest forced the overthrow of President Kurmanbek Bakiyey and since, civil strife has been a regular occurrence in the southern part of the country.

Mining, Metallurgical Union of Kyrgyzstan Reports Upsurge in Safety Mishaps

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The Hungarian Labour Inspectorate levied a fine recently against Hankook Tyre Magyaroszag Kft. for obstructing the duties and activities of a branch of ICEM-affiliated Federation of Chemical, Energy, and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (VDSZ). Although the fine was small in monetary amount, &euro;3,646, it was significant in the fact that Hankook, at its burgeoning tyre factory in Dunaujvaros, has proven again its unwillingness to accept a trade union. 
 
According to VDSZ President Tam&aacute;s Sz&eacute;kely, Hungary&rsquo;s labour agency fined Hankook for refusal to allow lawful entry to the plant of a VDSZ official and a member of the company&rsquo;s supervisory council. Management then refused to recognise the capacity of the union leader.
<img src="" width="166" height="221" alt="" />
&nbsp;VDSZ President Tam&aacute;s Sz&eacute;kely 
 

The violation comes on top of other breaches of Hungarian labour law, as well as European Union statutes. When the factory at Dunaujvarous started up in June 2007, low pay, excessive overtime, and a forced six-day work-week made the then 800 workers turn to the VDSZ Tyre Manufacturing Workers&rsquo; Union for representation. 
 
Management would not recognise the union and even after a labour tribunal granted certification, the company appealed the decision through the courts. The company interrogated workers on their lawful right to join VDSZ and illegally dismissed union activists. Ultimately, Hungarian jurisprudence fully recognised the union, but that did not stop Hankook from interfering with union involvement in formation of a European Works Council (EWC). 
 
VDSZ proved successful in EWC elections, but the most recent Labour Inspectorate fine proves the Korean-based company still is not ready for the European-style social model, despite the fact that the European Commission funds totaling &euro;100 million were used in start-up of the Dunaujvaros factory. A Hankook spokeswoman said the company will appeal the latest fine. 
 
Meanwhile, Hankook, the world&rsquo;s seventh largest tyre manufacturer which is 10% owned by Michelin, is preparing to increase its Hungarian workforce from the current 1,250 to 2,000 by next year. The company plans to double tyre production at Dunaujvaros to 30,000 tyres per day. The company in late May won an exclusive supply contract with Volkswagen to produce tyres for all models of vehicles. In March, it signed a development contract with BMW that the company expects will lead to a supply contract. 
 
Hankook has faced numerous labour battles in its home country, specifically with the Korean Metalworkers&rsquo; Union two years ago at its ASA aluminum wheel subsidiary in Guemsam, South Chungcheong Province.

Hankook Tyre in Hungary Fined for Impeding Union Activities

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Two ICEM Belgian affiliates and members of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (CSC/ACV) consummated a merger Congress in the city of Gent on 5 June. CSC/ACV Energy and Chemicals Union and CSC/ACV Construction Union merged to create a stronger union structure representing 284,000 Belgian workers.
<img alt="" src="" width="100" height="59" />
The union will be known in French as CSC B&acirc;timent-industrie &amp; &Eacute;nergie (CSC-BIE), while its Flemish name is ACV Bouw-industrie &amp; Energie (ACV-BIE). The merged union will cover workers in many sectors, including construction, chemicals, gas, electric, and oil, graphical and paper, pharmaceutical, wood products, leather, and even hairdressing and beauty fitness.
<img alt="" src="" width="180" height="120" />
Vice President Alfons De Potter and President Luc Van Dessel&nbsp; 

The prior president of the Construction Union, Luc Van Dessel, was elected President and Alfons De Potter, previously the President of the Energy and Chemicals Union, was elected Vice President. De Potter will continue in his role as a member of the ICEM Presidium, and two of the newly-elected National Secretaries of the merged union, Justin Daerden and Franćois Laurent, will also remain active in ICEM structures.
<img alt="" src="" width="200" height="143" />
Newly elected leadership of ACV-BIE/CSC-BIE
The merger Congress was a celebratory event, with song and dance throughout. It also contained an overview of the union&rsquo;s new statutes. CSC/ACV Confederation President Luc Cortebeeck delivered a video speech from Geneva, where he was attending the 99th Session of ILO&rsquo;s International Labour Conference. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda also attended the congress.
The new union will have 15,000 elected shop-floor delegates.

CSC Chemicals and Energy, Construction Unions Merge in Belgium

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The Taiwan Electric Power Labour Union (TPLU) has been protesting in Taipei for clarification of their pension status. Some 6,000 members of the ICEM affiliate, working at several water and electric enterprises, turned out 2 June at the Legislative Yuan to manifest and then to march. 
 
Under current law, workers at the enterprises are considered neither workers nor civil servants, meaning their pension pay-outs are miniscule, not paid out in monthly installments, their retirement earnings are not covered by a state-legislated pension insurance programme, and they are without the preferred interest rate on pension savings accounts.
<img src="" width="280" height="155" alt="" />
TPLU Members Marching on 2 June&nbsp; 
 

Under three classifications of work in Taiwan, employees are classified as civil servants, workers, or civil servants and workers. Public sector engineers and administrators, for example, have the latter classification, which grants them more in terms of pension benefits and better regulated retirement schemes. 
 
But workers at Taipei Power Company (Taipower) and water and other enterprises are considered neither workers nor civil servants, meaning they have the advantages of nether and bear the disadvantages of both. 
 
We are orphans under a system that does not recognise our rights and does not provide any safeguards, said a TPLU spokesperson close to President Guo-Kang Hu. TPLU wants lawmakers and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to amend the provisions of the &ldquo;State-Run Enterprise Administrative Act&rdquo; that better reflects a high court ruling in 1990 that sets forth details on retirement and retirement benefits. 
 
Taipower management supports the workers demands and has laid out three schemes that would correct the legal status. The ICEM also has endorsed TPLU&rsquo;s campaign to achieve fairness and a sense of balance into Taiwanese pension schemes.

Taiwanese Power Workers Protest Over Slight in Pension Laws

<img src="" width="100" height="39" alt="" />
The former ICEM Projects Coordinator in Thailand, Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, was released last night, 13 June, from a prison at a Thai army base. He had been imprisoned since 24 May, together with academic Suthachai Yimprasert from Chulalongkom University, after the two presented themselves to police after they heard arrest warrants had been issued for them. 
 
Yimprasert was released 5 June from a prison at the Adisorn military base in Saraburi, 115 kilometres north of Bangkok. Both were arrested under the government&rsquo;s Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES), a hastily put together decree stemming from May&rsquo;s political turbulence in Thailand.
<img src="" width="200" height="123" alt="" />
Somyot&nbsp;Pruksakasemsuk
The release of Brother Somyot follows a criminal court&rsquo;s decision rejecting the CRES arrest order. Even after that decision, the government held him for another seven days. 
 
The CRES charges against him were for inflaming public sentiment against the government for holding a news conference on 21 May in which he called for the resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. He also edited a newspaper that supported the viewpoints of the Red Shirts in recent political strife. 
 
The ICEM called the charges a serious breach of universal free speech rights. 
 
International human rights groups throughout the world, as well as several Global Union Federations, sent protests to the Thai government over the unfair arrests of Somyot and Suthachai. An online appeal by the Dutch-based Clean Clothes Campaign also generated pressure on the government.

Thai Labour Activist Somyot Pruksakasemsuk Finally Released

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The ICEM is demanding that PT Kayan Putera Utama Coal (KPUC), an Indonesian company, stop its attacks on the SPE-SBSI Mining Union in eastern Borneo in Indonesia. Recently, the Samarinda-based company dismissed seven trade union leaders at the Desa Separi mine near Tenggarong in the Kalimantan Timur coal fields and enlisted another organisation to attack the union. 
 
In a letter to KPUC managing director Arifin Harun in Samarinda, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said, &ldquo;If you do not cease and desist from your actions, we will take further steps to bring the weight of the ICEM and its affiliates comprising some 20 million members to bear on this situation.&rdquo; A copy of the letter was also sent to Andrew Vickers, Chairman of ICEM&rsquo;s Mining Sector and General Secretary of the Mining Division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia.
<img src="" width="200" height="92" alt="" />
The ICEM cited clear violations of ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom association and collective bargaining in the letter. The letter can be seen <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/1006%20Indonesia%20KPUC.pdf">here</a>. 
 
The ICEM intends to conduct a full investigation of the situation if it is not resolved. It will work closely with its affiliate, the Indonesia Prosperity Trade Union Central Board, the largest trade union representing miners in Indonesia. Indonesia is a major supplier of coal to China, and is now the largest exporter of thermal coal in the world. In the wake of the surge in coal mining in Indonesia, employers have become increasingly hostile to trade unions. 
 
PT Kayan Putera Utama Coal is listed as Indonesia&rsquo;s 42nd largest coal producer, with the latest figures citing it produced 322,826 tonnes of coal in 2008. 

&nbsp;

Indonesian-based Coal Mining Company Sacks 7 Union Leaders

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Scores of letters were sent to Mexico President Felipe Calder&oacute;n from ICEM affiliates last week, responding to an ICEM call for dialogue not brute force to resolve the three-year long strike by 1,200 workers of Section 65 of the Mexican National Miners&rsquo; and Metalworkers&rsquo; Union (SNTMMSRM) at the Cananea copper mine in northern Sonora State. On 6 June, Mexican federal police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse strikers at the mine and inside Section 65&rsquo;s union hall. (See ICEM report <a href="/en/5-Mining-DGOJP/3838-ICEM-Calls-on-Mexico-to-Halt-its-Violence-at-Cananea">here</a>.) 
 
By the end of last week, following a 10 June skirmish between miners and police that injured eight, a truce was declared by leaders of Section 65, as they held meetings on 10 and 11 June with Sonora Governor Guillermo Padr&eacute;s El&iacute;as in Hermosillo and the Mexican Interior Secretary, Fernando G&oacute;mez-Mont. 
 
In the latter meeting on 11 June, G&oacute;mez-Mont said he would work to arrange a meeting between the union and the Southern Copper Corp. of Grupo M&eacute;xico, owners of the mine, this week. Following the meetings, Section 65 Secretary-General Sergio Tolano Lizarr&aacute;go said the government now appears committed to bringing the two sides together for dialogue. 
 
For the union&rsquo;s part, the Strike Committee is adamant that Southern Copper halt all &ldquo;illegal hirings&rdquo; of contractors in order to re-start the 230,000-ton copper mine. The 10 June confrontation started in the early morning hours when strikers rolled huge rocks on to an access road of the Cananea mine to block contractors from entering. Federal police responded by taking control of the entrance, and then fired tear gas and pepper spray at some 150 miners, who had retreated into nearby hills.
<img alt="" src="" width="180" height="121" />
According to reports, in four days of altercations, 16 people have been injured, including four miners, 2 police, and the remainder civilians, mostly family members of strikers and others overcome with gas poisoning. 
 
Responding to the ICEM for intervention, South African affiliate National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it would organise protests at the opening World Cup match on 11 June between South Africa and Mexico. The action involved members of NUM, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), the Chemical, Energy, Pulp, Paper, Wood, and Allied Workers&rsquo; Union (CEPPAWU), and the South African Transport and Allied Workers&rsquo; Union (SATAWU). 
 
In coordination with the taking of Cananea, federal forces also forcibly took control of Grupo M&eacute;xico&rsquo;s coal mine at Pasta de Conchos in Coahuila state. There, they overcame the widows and family members of 65 dead miners still entombed in shafts following a methane gas explosion in February 2006. The women and family members had been on a long vigil, with demands that the state and company recover the bodies of their cherished ones. 
 
The Mexican government and Grupo M&eacute;xico refused that plea, and stopped others in search by cutting off electricity. Halting the search, many felt, served to hide evidence of management responsibility for the accident. The mine was sealed permanently following police actions on 6 June. Widespread criticism has been made of the company's continued failure to properly compensate families of the dead. 
 
The legal strike at Cananea began on 30 July 2007 when Section 65 of SNTMMSRM, or Los Mineros, refused to work in dangerous conditions, similar to those causing the Pasta de Conchos explosion. During the attack of 6 June, police arrested five Los Mineros members, Rodolfo Valdez Serrano, Everardo Ochoa Ballesteros, Luis Alonso Borb&oacute;n P&eacute;rez, Luis Alonso Torres, and Marcelo Lara L&oacute;pez.
<img alt="" src="" width="160" height="120" />
Sergio Tolano and Juan Guti&eacute;rrez Ballesteros, a Los Mineros National Executive Member from Section 65, also faced arrest warrants on 6 June, but both won court injunctions preventing their incarcerations. 
 
At an economic forum Friday, 11 June, in Peru, where Southern Copper also holds mining assets, President and CEO Oscar Gonzalez Rocha said the police takeover of Cananea enables the US-based subsidiary to begin an investment plan and re-start copper production early next year. He said Southern Copper will invest US$50 million in Cananea. 
 
On another level, at the ILO&rsquo;s International Labour Conference in Geneva on 10 June, the Mexican situation was brought up before the Committee on the Application of Standards. Specifically, debate arose with regard to ILO Convention 155, the Health and Safety at Work Convention. Although Mexico&rsquo;s government and employers&rsquo; representatives, together with a Grupo M&eacute;xico representative, pointed to increased numbers of inspectors at worksites, workers&rsquo; representatives from around the world criticised the disregard for working people shown by the government of President Felipe Calder&oacute;n. 
 
It was argued that work performed by employees on short-term contracts or through labour agencies accounts for 60% of the entire Mexican workforce. Those workers are given few social protections, thus leading to statistics that are askew, including occupational safety accidents. On the issue of health and safety in Mexico, it is the worker who must provide burden of proof for accidents or injuries, and since labour tribunals often take years to issue rulings, companies tend to act with impunity.

Tense Truce Takes Hold at Mexico’s Cananea Copper Mine

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