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Every year, on April 28, the world commemorates workers killed, injured, or made ill as a result of their jobs. 
 
How many are there? Collecting good data on occupational injuries and deaths is very difficult. The most credible source of international statistics is the ILO. Their numbers are staggering. The ILO has estimated that globally, there are two million work-related deaths annually. That's more than 5,000 every day, and for every fatality, hundreds more injuries and illnesses occur. 
 
These numbers, as incredible as they seem, are generally believed to be gross underestimates. 
 
Fatalities are under reported by workers and employers. Often, an occupational fatality is not identified as such. Once reported, a fatality must be &quot;accepted&quot; or recognized by a country's regulatory authority or workers' compensation board to be counted among the statistics. In many jurisdictions, large numbers of workers are exempt from workers' compensation coverage. Data for injuries are even less reliable than for fatalities. 

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Worker deaths that are immediate and obvious tend to be recognized. Deaths due to illnesses that have an occupational origin are rarely recognized. Cancer is one of the biggest work-related killers, but rarely is it properly acknowledged. Relatively few occupational diseases are recorded in official statistics. 
 
Injury and illness data are notoriously subject to bias and methodological problems. Many workers' injuries, illnesses, and even fatalities, are simply never recorded. Workers' compensation assessments and insurance premiums are often based on these statistics, creating a huge financial incentive for employers to suppress or discourage the reporting of accidents. 
 
This is done in a number of ways, ranging from schemes that bring injured workers into the workplace so their injuries won't be counted as &quot;lost time,&quot; to sophisticated psychological techniques like &quot;behaviour-based&quot; safety programs. Threats of discipline or discharge following a reported accident are not uncommon. &quot;Post-incident drug-testing&quot; has been highly effective in causing workers to conceal injuries rather than risk a false-positive test result. 
 
In the days leading up to 28 April, many statistics will be quoted. Appalling as the numbers may be, the truth is probably far worse. 
 
In the end, 28 April is not about numbers, it is about people. Next week, on Tuesday, let us pause and remember those who paid for their livelihoods with their lives or their health. Then let us renew the fight for safe and healthy workplaces.

28 April: Day to Renew Fight for Safe and Healthy Worksites

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28 April is Workers&rsquo; Memorial Day, or more formally, the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers. It is the day that trade unions across the world mourn the dead, but pledge even harder to wage the fight for safe, healthy, and risk-free workplaces. 
 
The commemoration day is rooted in the Canadian labour movement, whose unions worked for several years before the country&rsquo;s Parliament in 1989 passed Bill C-223, adopting 28 April as the official &ldquo;Day of Mourning.&rdquo; While labour groups in several countries began commemorating the day soon thereafter, it became a global day of health and safety recognition and a vivid reminder of the ever-present risks and hazards inside worksites when the UN lit a Commemorative Candle in 1996 for the victims of the Kader toy factory fire in Thailand three years earlier. 
 
Some 188 mostly young women workers perished in that fire and another 500 were severely injured. Now, 20 countries officially recognize the day, with Croatia being the latest, moving in recent weeks to designate it the National Day of Occupational Safety and Health. 

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(The others: Argentina, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Luxembourg, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Venezuela.) 
 
The day also is marked by labour unions and workplace health and safety groups in over120 countries. It is more than just a memorial day to remember the estimated two million workers who die each year from workplace accidents, job-related injuries, or occupational illnesses. It is a day of renewal and action for positive change to make worksites safer and risk-free. 
 
ICEM trade union affiliates are encouraged to find an activity next week to take meaningful action. Use the day, for example, to work in your community and within your union to engage your government on ILO Convention 176, the Health and Safety in Mines Convention; or any of the other ILO Conventions which your government has not ratified, such as Convention 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention; No. 162, the Asbestos at Work Convention; No. 148, the Work Environment Convention; No. 174, the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents Convention; No. 119, the Guarding of Machinery Convention; and No. 136, the Benzene Convention. Only through direct action will change occur.

28 April, Day of Mourning: History is Recent but Roots are Growing

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The union that won a long battle to represent Firestone Rubber Plantation workers in Liberia has now won a Labor Ministry-supervised vote to represent workers at ArcelorMittal&rsquo;s mining development in Liberia. 
 
On 11 April, ICEM-affiliated Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers&rsquo; Union of Liberia (FLIWUL), greatly assisted by the United Steelworkers (USW) of the US, easily beat a yellow union in a representation election that took place in Nimba County on the Liberian-Guinea-C&ocirc;te d&rsquo;Ivoire border and at Buchanan, a port city on the Atlantic Coast. 
 
ArcelorMittal, the world&rsquo;s largest steel-maker, is undertaking a US$1.5 billion re-development of iron ore mining operations near Yekeba in Nimba County and a 250-kilometre railroad line to Buchanan. 
 
The union vote, however, encountered flagrant interference by a company official and a Liberian legislator, despite both an ICEM letter (found <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/6%20letter%20to%20Bernard%20Fontana%20-%203%20Feb09.pdf">here</a>) and a USW letter warning ArcelorMittal not to interfere in the election. But an ArcelorMittal boss and a national lawmaker showed up in Buchanan several hours after voting began and demanded a halt to balloting. 

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FLIWUL activists in Harbel
On the eve of the vote, the yellow union used a radio broadcast to discourage workers from voting. Election observers also reported that whoever was behind this group had pressed members of the Liberian Parliament to intervene with the Labor Ministry to cancel the vote. 
 
The ArcelorMittal official was Arthur Massaquio, who earlier on 11 April was the company&rsquo;s designated election observer, but left the polling area soon after balloting began. When he returned several hours later, he was with Representative Gabriel Smith. The lawmaker began questioning workers on why they felt the urgency to have a union vote, before ordering workers back to work because he was canceling the election. 
 
Despite this, and the fact that several workers did leave the Buchanan polling area without voting, FLIWUL won the fair, government-supervised election. FLIWUL got 198 votes, the yellow union 19, and the &ldquo;no union&rdquo; option on the ballot received one. In Buchanan, the FLIWUL got 59 votes and the company union 15. The ICEM had an observer present for the vote through a designated representative from the Ghana Mineworkers&rsquo; Union. 
 
FLIWUL Secretary-General David Sackoh told the ICEM following the vote that an investigation into the Buchanan interruption is underway, but that he is confident the vote will stand. 
 
ArcelorMittal is developing Nimba County&rsquo;s one billion cubic-metre iron ore reserves in a 25-year concession that will see the Liberian government receive 30% of the net profits, plus 4.5% in royalty fees. Some 2,000 Liberian workers are expected to be employed in the mining enterprise and the rail link and port hub. This northern Liberia mining area was originally operated by the Liberian American Swedish Chemicals Company (LAMCO), but production ceased in 1989 with the outbreak of civil war.

Despite Interference, FLIWUL Wins Union Rights for ArcelorMittal Workers in Liberia

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As labour in Australia approaches 28 April next week, the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers, one mining company stands beneath the rest with a dismal safety record: BHP Billiton. 
 
In Western Australia&rsquo;s rich Pilbara mining section in the country&rsquo;s northwest, BHP has had five workers die over the past nine months, four less than have died in BHP employ in the region in the last nine years. Three of those deaths in recent months have been contract workers &ndash; employed by subsidiaries of BHP&rsquo;s primary contractor in the region, Leighton Holdings &ndash; while two were direct BHP workers. 
 
It is estimated that 75% of BHP&rsquo;s total workforce of 10,000 workers in the Pilbara are employed by contractors. On safety, one union official claimed BHP Billiton is less disciplined toward its contract employers than to its own workers. 
<img height="130" src="" width="130" alt="" />&nbsp;&nbsp; <img height="134" src="" width="130" alt="" />
Whether or not that changes might depend on an external safety audit being conducted after the most recent workplace tragedy, the 19 March death of a contract worker employed by Leighton&rsquo;s John Holland subsidiary. He was killed after falling off a piece of machinery at BHP&rsquo;s Mount Whaleback iron ore mine in Newman. 
 
But since that death, there have two near tragedies, the latest on 8 April when an iron ore truck struck a worker at BHP&rsquo;s Nelson Point operations in Port Hedland. The safety audit, mandated by Australia&rsquo;s Mines Safety and Inspection Act of 1994, means that stop-work orders were placed on 12 company operations late in March, interrupting production. 
 
BHP&rsquo;s recent industrial safety record has brought condemnation from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers&rsquo; Union (AMWU). 
 
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s fine to put stop work notices on,&rdquo; stated CFMEU&rsquo;s Joe McDonald, quoted in the Kalgoorlie Miner, a regional newspaper. &ldquo;But they need to be extremely well enforced because BHP will still find ways around these notices.&rdquo; McDonald said he favours company prosecution when industrial deaths happen. 
 
The AMWU has discounted BHP&rsquo;s &ldquo;safety is a priority&rdquo; rhetoric, and has pushed hard for state regulators to conduct full and independent investigations. 
 
The AMWU publicly stated that such an inquiry is absolutely necessary following the second death in a matter of two weeks. On 24 February, a railroad track maintenance worker was killed on the job. The 56-year-old machine worker was killed when he was hit by a BHP train on the company&rsquo;s Tabba rail line near Port Hedland. 
 
Last year, two deaths occurred within nine days of one another at BHP Billiton&rsquo;s 85%-owned Yandi iron ore mine in the Pilbara. Both workers were employed by HWE Mining, another subsidiary of Leighton Holdings and a company that is BHP&rsquo;s exclusive mining contractor at Yandi. 
 
One of the workers, a 19-year-old, was crushed to death on 4 September 2008 when the small truck he was driving was crushed by a large haul vehicle. The other HWE employee died on 26 August in an industrial accident while he was changing a tyre. 
 
And less than a month earlier, on 29 July, a 52-year-old BHP worker was killed when a scissor lift toppled onto him while he was working in a locomotive repair shop at BHP&rsquo;s Port Hedland ore crushing and shipping facility. (That same day, at BHP Billiton&rsquo;s Klipspruit coal mine in Northern Province, South Africa, a miner was killed when a drill rig fell on him.) 
 
Less than a month before Workers&rsquo; Memorial Day, Australian trade union activists were not silent on BHP Billiton and its contractors&rsquo; death toll. At the Safety Institute of Australia&rsquo;s &ldquo;Safety in Action&rdquo; Conference in Melbourne on 31 March, CFMEU and AMWU members gathered in loud protest on safety issues. The reason: John Holland Chairman Janet Holmes was delivering the keynote address.

BHP’s Mining Deaths in Western Australia Face Serious Scrutiny

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In a unified response to safety shortfalls that killed a contract worker at Drummond Coal&rsquo;s La Loma mine, 8,000 members of Sintramienerg&eacute;tica and other contract staff stage a four-day strike late in March that shut production of Colombia&rsquo;s second largest coal mine. 
 
Dagoberto Clavijo Barranco, a one-month worker at La Loma who was put there through a labour agency, was killed on 23 March when the coal-hauling vehicle he was operating fell into an open-cast mine. 
 
Drummond released all miners from work duties following the tragedy, but when the strike spread over the next few days because workers&rsquo; demanded improved safety, the company, in a statement, called the strike illegal. 

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A Sintramienerg&eacute;tica leader said Drummond agreed to meet with the union to discuss safety but was &ldquo;flippant&rdquo; in stating that no amount of negotiations will improve safety conditions. The company, on 27 March, issued a further public statement after full production at La Loma resumed. This time Drummond said it regretted the accident and would continue its &ldquo;best efforts together with the competent authorities to clear up this unfortunate incident.&rdquo; 
 
Drummond has had nine mining deaths at La Loma in C&eacute;sar state over the past decade. Another three have occurred at its port facilities near Barranquilla. 
 
In the days following the end of the safety strike, Drummond terminated 600 workers because of a strike by the transport union, Sintraime. Workers of coal-transport contractors Carbograneles and Fenoco (partially owned by Drummond) began strikes on 25 March, and these strikes were still underway late last week. Transport workers are striking for full union recognition on rail lines and at port facilities, as well as over overtime procedures. 
 
The mining union Sintramienerg&eacute;tica is insisting that Drummond recall the 600, claiming it has no responsibility in the transport strike. 
 
Drummond directly or indirectly employs 9,000 workers at La Loma, and the American company will soon start up its El Descanso mine in C&eacute;sar state, a US$1.8 billion investment that will increase the company&rsquo;s coal production to 27 million tones annually.

Contract Worker Death Causes Safety Strike at Drummond in Colombia

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A two-month dispute between Michelin in Thailand and rubber workers backed by ICEM affiliate Petroleum and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Federation (PCFT) at a factory in Laem Chabang, Chonburi Province, ended favourably last week. The resolve came via tripartite dialogue and after strong intervention by the ICEM, FCE-CFDT of France, and Michelin&rsquo;s European Works Council. 
 
The dispute ended in the early morning hours of 28 April when state mediators, PCFT representatives, and Michelin&rsquo;s Laem Chabang managers reached a six-point accord that hopefully ends retaliatory punishment of 383 of the plant&rsquo;s 1,500 workers and ends a lockout that began on 25 March. 
 
Workers agreed to end mass protests at Michelin&rsquo;s plant gates effective on 28 April, and the company agreed to reinstate all workers who had been victimised by local management for refusing to withdraw their names from a petition circulated in early March. That petition called on management to engage in consultation with workers and PCFT representatives before implementing a 13% wage cut. 

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Michelin Laem Chabang PCFT union leaders, from left, Thanakorn Somsin, Rangsan Monchaisong, and Samai Koonswat 
Instead, management imposed a 35% wage cut on workers who refused to retract the petition and some nine days later imposed a lockout on them. 
 
Provincial mediators from Chonburi&rsquo;s Labour Protection and Welfare Office got both sides together, but on 20 April, local managers would not budge from the harsh, retaliatory 35% cut. The union at that mediation session proposed acceptance of the 13% cut for all until October 2009, but called on Michelin to pay a 2008 two-month bonus that the company had already announced. 
 
The ICEM again intervened on 21 April, calling the attitude of local managers &ldquo;arrogant and punitive, (warranting) immediate intervention from Michelin corporate headquarters in France.&rdquo; 

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Photo from Bangkok Post
Last week&rsquo;s negotiated settlement will see Michelin pay the two-month bonus, with all workers seeing a 13% cut. For those workers not choosing to return to work, they will receive assistance money as set forth under severance provisions of the Labour Protection Act. Michelin also agreed to drop legal and criminal complaints against workers who protested at plant gates. 
 
However, on the eve of the settlement, police arrested 18 of the locked-out workers, plus another worker from a nearby factory for a 20 April protest at the factory. As of today, it is not clear if those charges have been dropped. 
 
Laem Chabang rubber workers received strong support from staff employed at Bridgestone and Goodyear factories in Thailand, as well as from workers at other Michelin plants in the country. 
 
&ldquo;This is a hopeful sign, that workers, managers, together with government mediators can resolve differences through proper social dialogue,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;The ICEM views this dispute as a result of the paralysing global financial crisis and our wish now is that this tyre plant recovers so that renewed orders and sales will benefit workers.&rdquo;

ICEM, French Trade Union Pressure Brings End to Michelin Dispute in Thailand

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The Labour Ministry of Liberia threw out ArcelorMittal&rsquo;s claims that an 11 April representation election for potentially 2,000 miners and other workers should be declared invalid. ICEM affiliate Forestry, Logging, and Industrial Workers&rsquo; Union of Liberia (FLIWUL) won the election by a 10-to-one margin over a rival union in a Labour Ministry-supervised vote that was flawed by management and a Liberian parliamentarian who attempted to halt balloting after it began. (See a prior ICEM report <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/?date=2009-04-20#3153">here</a>.) 
 
In the company&rsquo;s protest, it claims that the Labour Ministry failed to define the correct bargaining unit and that it failed to follow procedural matters leading up to the vote. 

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In a 21 April letter, Acting Labour Minister John Josiah determined that several meetings were held prior with representatives of both unions that set forth the election timetable, ballots, and other matters. In the letter certifying FLIWUL, Josiah also said that despite a series of consultations with ArcelorMittal&rsquo;s Liberian management, &ldquo;you seem to be bent on ignoring fundamental principles both in keeping with (Liberia&rsquo;s) Labour Practices Law and Relevant ILO Conventions.&rdquo; 
 
The government then reprimanded the company for its &ldquo;desire to delay the elections&rdquo; by sending a list of its employees only two days ahead of the vote, instead of the mandated seven as prescribed by the Labour Code. &ldquo;We &hellip; understood that this was only a scheme to postpone the elections but to no avail.&rdquo; 
 
The certification letter also pointed out that after balloting began in one of the two locations, managers discouraged workers from voting by stating the vote had been cancelled when, in fact, it had not. One of ArcelorMittal&rsquo;s election observers left the Buchanan polling area shorting after voting began on 11 April, but returned later in the day with a Liberian parliamentarian to declare the vote cancelled. 

<img height="112" alt="" src="" width="149" />
FLIWUL activists in Harbel
Related to this, Acting Minister Josiah&rsquo;s letter stated: &ldquo;The Ministry of Labour would like to note that it will continue to abhor in the strongest term any or all acts of arbitrariness by one party over the other during Union/Management Representation Elections. The fact that remedies are available to every process should have given you every basis to allow the process and later seek redress rather than obstruct the exercise for hours. This we are still studying to determine the appropriate course of action. 
 
&ldquo;Meanwhile, we are pleased to state that the recent Union/Management Representation Election held was in line with normal procedure at the Ministry, and as such the results are authentic.&rdquo; 
 
ArcelorMittal stated in its objections to the election that even if the vote was certified, it would file an appeal on that decision. But on 28 April, FLIWUL leadership was contacted by management and a 22 May meeting has been set up between the two sides to discuss the next step. 
 
ArcelorMittal is currently engaged in a US$1.5 billion iron ore re-development project in Nimba County, near the Liberian-Guinea-C&oacute;te d&rsquo;Ivorie border. The project also encompasses a 250-kilometre rail link to the Atlantic Ocean port of Buchanan. Some 2,000 Liberian workers are expected to be employed.

Liberia Government Certifies FLIWUL to Represent ArcelorMittal Workers

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Meeting in Bogot&aacute;, Colombia, on 27 April, the ICEM Latin America/Caribbean Regional Committee gave strong support to non-ICEM affiliate Sintramienerg&eacute;tica in the aftermath of its safety strike against US-based Drummond Coal recently. (Details on that strike can be found <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3151-Contract-Worker-Death-Causes-Safety-Strike-at-Drummond-in-Colombia">here</a>.) 
 
The regional committee adopted a resolution calling on both Drummond and the government of Colombia to be vigilant in implementing an adequate occupational safety and health prevention programme at Drummond&rsquo;s coal operations in C&eacute;sar state. The resolution also calls on the company to immediately re-employ some 600 miners who lost their jobs due to a legal strike by rail transport workers. 

<img height="83" alt="" src="" width="180" />
It calls on Colombia and Drummond, one of the owners of the rail transport line, Fenoco, to respect ILO Conventions 87 and 98, the Freedom of Association and Right to Organise Convention, and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention. 
 
Members of a Colombian Mechanics&rsquo; and Metal Workers&rsquo; Union, Sintraime, staged a month-long strike across Fenoco&rsquo;s coal transport rail lines from 24 March to 20 April for union recognition and workplace rights. The ICEM supports the efforts of these workers to gain their collective rights. 
 
Fenoco, or the Ferrocarrilies Nacionales de Colombia, was bought by the Colombian government in 2006, but immediately commissioned and re-privatised to a handful of multinationals that mine and sell thermal coal from the rich deposits of C&eacute;sar state. Fenoco&rsquo;s biggest shareholders are Drummond and Xstatra, the latter which recently gained a 40% stake of the rail line with transfer of the Prodeco mining enterprise from its Swiss-based holding company, Glencore. 
 
Workers seeking representation with Sintraime engaged in a days-long blockade of the rail line in mid-April. A regional Supreme Court in northern Colombia ruled the strike legal, but Fenoco has now appealed that decision to the Colombia Supreme Court. 
<img height="180" alt="" src="" width="120" />
Sergio Novais
In the resolution, the ICEM regional committee, headed by Chairman Sergio Novais of Brazil, also calls on the Colombian government to provide job security and protection to Drummond&rsquo;s miners, members of Sintramienerg&eacute;tica, and the document points to a current social and economic crisis caused by speculative capital and a failed neo-liberal economic model.

ICEM’s Latin Region Supports Sintramienergética in Colombia Dispute Against Drummond

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Although not occurring at the rate of mining deaths two years ago, the number of miners killed inside South African mines continues to rise this year following tragic deaths at Harmony Gold 11 days ago. And also in late April, two miners employed by AngloGold Ashanti died at the company&rsquo;s Moab Khotsong mine, and another miner went missing deep inside the Great Noligwa mine. 
 
ICEM South African affiliate, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), now says that the official death count is over 60 so far this year. The 2007 rate exceeded 160 official deaths. 

<img height="115" src="" width="250" alt="" />
The incident at Harmony&rsquo;s Tshepong mine, located in Free State, was particularly repugnant because the company apparently was engaged in both underground blasting and drilling on the same day, a taboo according to the country&rsquo;s mine safety laws. Besides the two who were trapped and died from a rock cave-in, another miner who was rescued had his leg amputated. 
 
The Tshepong tragedy wasn&rsquo;t Harmony&rsquo;s only mine killings in April. On 14 April, a contract worker was electrocuted at the company&rsquo;s Target mine in Free State. 
 
The NUM is continuing to do day-long, stop-work actions as &ldquo;Days of Mourning&rdquo; for miners killed on the job. On 20 April, Harmony miners stopped work to mourn, and further work stoppages were done last week at the other mines. 
 
The AngloGold Ashanti deaths occurred at the Moab Khotsong mine, where a collapse of ground killed two miners. At the Great Noligwa mine near Orkney also in the Witwatersrand Basin, a miner failed to surface on 25 April following his shift. 
 
The spate of deaths and accidents comes just over two months since a safety audit was released in South Africa, showing that overall safety in mines was running at a dismal average of just 66%. The safety audit prioritised the maintenance of infrastructure as a necessity for improvement. 
<img height="128" alt="" src="" width="90" />&nbsp;&nbsp; <img height="117" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Frans Baleni &amp; Senzeni Zokwana
&ldquo;No condition should justify why a worker should lose a life,&rdquo; said NUM President Senzeni Zokwana at the time of the audit&rsquo;s release. Added NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni, &ldquo;Safety should be a constitutional right of all workers.&rdquo;

South Africa Mine Deaths Continue to Rise

<img height="39" src="" width="100" alt="" />
An ICEM mission to Argentina has gained first-hand accounts on how the global recession has affected the South American country, as well as laying the groundwork for ICEM&rsquo;s 2011 Congress in Buenos Aires. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda met the GUF&rsquo;s Argentine affiliates on 29 April in an exchange of views on the economic collapse, and also met with non-affiliated trade unions on the crisis and their plans to affiliate. 
 
A decision on the location for the Fifth World Congress will be taken at the ICEM Executive Committee meetings, 23-24 June in Geneva. Argentina trade union affiliates are enthusiastic on hosting the Congress. 
 
Warda, along with ICEM Latin America/Caribbean Contact Person Carol Bruce, met with the Rubber Workers&rsquo; Union of Argentina, SUTNA, as well with the Energy and Oil Workers&rsquo; union, FeTERA, and the private-sector Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Union, FASPyGP. The ICEM delegation also met with Uni&oacute;n Obrero Metal&uacute;rgical (UOM), which is interested in joining ICEM on behalf of nuclear workers that the union represents, as well as with trade unions affiliated with the national centre Central de Trabajores de la Argentina (CTA) on joining the ICEM. 

<img height="198" src="" width="264" alt="" />
Bruce participated in two manifestations while in Argentina. On 22 April, she marched with the CTA in which the national centre&rsquo;s secretary-general, Hugo Yasky, called for a 180-day moratorium in Argentina on job layoffs and an emergency outlay of state money to cover lost wages of workers. 
 
On 30 April, she marched with the other major labour centre, Confederaci&oacute;n General del Trabajo (CGT), in its support of the government of Cristina Kirchner in late June elections, and against neo-liberal policies that created the crisis and job losses, estimated to be some 50,000 in Argentina. 
 
The ICEM mission was supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany, which also provided a presentation on the impact of the economic crisis in Argentina.

ICEM Mission to Argentina Probes Crisis

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