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History was made in the North American offshore oil industry 30 September. Some 120 members of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) of Canada won the continent&rsquo;s first offshore oil collective agreement at Terra Nova, a platform 350 kilometers off Newfoundland that is a consortium of seven oil companies led by Petro Canada. 
The agreement came through first contract arbitration in accord with labour law in Newfoundland, which prohibits strikes or lockouts in an initial contract period. &ldquo;It has taken years of patience and solidarity to get to this point,&rdquo; said CEP President Brian Payne. &ldquo;We had hoped for a freely bargained collective agreement but this legally imposed arbitrated settlement is an important stepping stone in improving working conditions.&rdquo; 
The platform workers chose CEP representation by an 84% vote in April 2003, 19 months after workers at another North Atlantic installation called Hibernia voted for CEP, becoming the first NA offshore group to unionise. 
A contract for the 430 workers there is currently before the same arbitration process. Besides Petro Canada, companies with a stake in Terra Nova include ExxonMobil, Norske Hydro, Husky Oil, Murphy Oil, Mosbacher Operating, and Chevron.

First Collective Agreement in NA Offshore Sector

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ICEM energy workers&rsquo; affiliate in Argentina, Federation of Private Oil &amp; Gas Workers (FASPYGP), will launch a nationwide strike beginning today in order to gain pay increases achieved in the oil-producing region of Chubut, Patagonia province. 
Since a month ago, Argentine workers there achieved significant wage increases by striking oil producers such as Repsol YPF of Spain, Pan American Energy, a company 60% held by BP, and Vintage Petroleum, a US independent now merging with Occidental Petroleum. FASPYGP warned there could be fuel shortages in Argentina within 48 hours of any nationwide strike occurring.

Argentina Oil Union Threatens Strike

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Nigerian ICEM affiliates PENGASSAN and NUPENG has stopped privatisation plans of the country&rsquo;s four oil refineries and a separate petrochemical plant until job security demands are met. 
Nigeria&rsquo;s Bureau of Public Enterprises has been attempting to sell off assets of state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), owner of the facilities. Both the white-collar and blue-collar oil workers&rsquo; unions are united in seeking a total severance package including full pensions and benefits for workers before any state asset is sold. 
The unions also seek new negotiations with prospective investors of any of the plants. The NNPC is seeking to transfer workers to its other business divisions instead. 
PENGASSAN and NUPENG have mobilized union members to prevent possible buyers from entering and examining the facilities until demands are met.

Nigerian Oil Unions Halt Privatisation Plans

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Colombian trade unions, together with NGOs and indigenous people&rsquo;s groups convened the largest general strike in over a decade in the South American country on 12 October. 
The strike, called by the national trade union federation CUT, was over the proposed free trade agreement with the US, and a proposed amendment now before Colombia&rsquo;s Constitutional Court that would allow President Alvaro Uribe to stand for a second four-year term next May. 
Strikers also called for an end to consistent trade union repression by the Uribe government, and for the government to take decisive action against paramilitaries, who killed 99 trade union leaders in 2004. Thousands of Colombian judicial, transport and education workers walked off their jobs to join the strike, which forced closure of schools and government offices.

Colombia&#039;s Unions Wage Successful General Strike

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Some 1,300 members of United Steel Workers (USW) in Canada are back to work at Teck Cominco Ltd. following ratification 5 October of a new three-year collective agreement. Steelworkers had been on strike at the company&rsquo;s zinc and lead operations in Trail, British Colombia, since 19 July. 
The strike had been called in order to re-gain wage and pension ground given the company in the 1990s during economic hard times. The new contract has wage increases totaling 10% over the three years, pension gains of 12%, and a C$3,500 cash payment to each worker.

Strike Settled in Canada with Wage, Benefit Gains

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Per Capita Affiliation Fees: Effective 1 January 2004, annual per capita affiliation increases from CHF 2.1 to CHF 2.4. On 1 January in the following years: 2005, 2006, 2007; annual per capita affiliation fee increases with the rate of Belgian inflation effective in those years. 
Allocation of Regional Seats/Voting Procedures: Change Article 19 to reflect the distribution of allocated seats between countries within each Representative Region shall be by vote of the member unions within that region, voting on the basis of actual, paid up membership averaged over the three full calendar years prior to the year in which the Congress takes place, or pro rata for those organisations that have joined the International since the previous Congress. 
 
Time Period Between Congresses: That the next Congress, in 2007, revert back to the month of November. 
Minimum Affiliation Fees: Change Article 10 to remove the reference to minimum service fee payment under Category D of Affiliation fees. 
 
Central Europe Category Change: An emergency resolution that did receive the signatures of five affiliates from five separate countries, this resolution granted the move of Central Europe affiliates from Category B designation under Affiliation Fees to Category C. 
 
Nuclear Power: A general motion that the ICEM promote &ldquo;best practices&rdquo; in the nuclear energy industry to ensure the highest degree of health, safety and environmental protection, that was amended to include language adopted at the ICEM&rsquo;s Rome Energy Conference with reference to the ICEM shall turn to the Atomic Energy Agency and the ILO for unified standards within the industry. 
 
ICEM to be Part of the World Peace Movement: With an amendment, the ICEM will encourage its regions to forge alliances in campaigns for peace and social justice. The amendment calls for the ICEM&rsquo;s Executive to decide the guidelines concerning such regional alliances based on ILO Core Conventions and ICEM policies, and that the respective regions will keep the ICEM informed of developments. 
 
Labour Law in Peru: A general motion that states the ICEM supports immediate approval of the New General Labour Law of Peru and that the government adhere to specific labour standards including respecting the right to organize, engage in collective bargaining and the right to strike. It also calls on Peru to ratify ILO Convention 176 on health and safety in mining, that mining MNCs respect the environment and that the country&rsquo;s Mining Levy be distributed in its entirety to communities where the mineral deposits are extracted. 
 
ICEM&rsquo;s Rio Tinto Global Union Network: Resolution proclaiming that the Rio Tinto Network will continue working on behalf on Rio Tinto workers, and will continue the united front to protest the mining company&rsquo;s anti-union practices. 
 
World Poverty: That ICEM affiliates exert influence over their national governments to eradicate world poverty by increasing the means for development cooperation, specifically through support of a minimum levy on currency speculation. 
 
Solidarity Compact: With such mobility in the labour force at present, that the ICEM study and assess the need for introducing a system where workers transferring between one country and another have the ability to consult and join the respective trade union in the new country. 
 
Global Union Reserves: The ICEM strive to intensify global union contacts with a view to promoting cooperation between national union organisations in the manufacturing sector and that the union structure of the future be made a theme of discussion at global union conferences. Also, a special study be made to highlight successful trade union cooperative efforts and mergers, and that a draft proposal of such be drawn up for the next ICEM Executive. 
 
Global Solidarity Projects: That the ICEM initiate closer cooperation with donors and that the International prepare projects ever more carefully and that the experience of the various projects be disseminated to the appropriate partners. With such projects, priority is given to regional coordination for follow-up and trade unions be identified as partners for future coordination. 
 
Global Agreements: That the work of achieving Global Agreements be intensified and that new Trade union networks be created and existing ones reinforced. This resolution calls on greater responsibility be given the regions to monitor and follow up on Global Agreements. 
 
Young Workers: That the ICEM Presidium be directed to develop a strategy of organising and promoting involvement of young workers into ICEM activities and structures. The resolution also calls for establishment of an ICEM youth committee to thus encourage follow-up at local, regional and national levels. 
 
Education and Training Curriculum: That the ICEM Presidium and Executive consider whether or not to establish a small committee charged with carrying out project work as it relates education and training of various aspects of globalisation. 
 
Burma: A resolution from Japanese affiliates firmly putting the ICEM on record condemning the military junta for its repressive regime of forced labour and denying democratic rights, and pledges the ICEM to stand with other global union federations seeking the immediate release of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders in the National League for Democracy of Burma currently being retained. 
 
ICEM Solidarity to Goodyear Workers in Guatemala: Support to the Goodyear tyre workers in Guatemala. 
 
Post Congress Activities Working Group: Endorsement and adoption by the 3rd ICEM World Congress of the document entitled Post Congress Activities Working Group, detailing priorities of the Secretariat in the next four-year period. 
 
Resolution on Colombia (Referred from Congress to Presidium; Presidium passed resolution, 9/10/03): A broad resolution calling for ICEM and other GUFs to provide necessary resources to heighten awareness to murders of workers and union officials in Colombia; denouncing government&rsquo;s position at ILO in 2003 denying fact-finding commission; urging country&rsquo;s Ministry of Mines and Energy to change privitisation policy; to censure and urge company Union Fenosa in Electri Costa and Electri Caribe to halt union busting; and to create a glass network in preparation for a future Global Agreement.

ICEM Adopts Four-year Programme

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The 20-million-member ICEM, based in Brussels, fully supports the actions of Belgian workers tomorrow to strike to protect their pension system and the country's current social security plan. 
 
ICEM Belgian affiliate FGTB-ABVV announced earlier in the week that it would stage a 24-hour general strike on 7 October in order to send a clear message to government and business that it will not tolerate the burden of social restructuring placed on workers. 
 
 

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FGTB-ABVV&rsquo;s call: To defend a proper pension system, 
decent jobs for all and adequate social security, 
we strike before it&rsquo;s too late 
&quot;We stand firmly behind FGTB-ABVV in their call for a strike,&quot; stated ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &quot;It is unfair to place all of the burden on workers when attempting to change the social security structure.&quot; 
 
Unions and employers' associations have been negotiating with the government of Belgium for changes in the retirement system that could lead to eroding conditions for workers preventing them from retiring with full benefits. 
 
The FGTB-ABVV is fighting to preserve the current age at which workers can retire; resisting penalties placed on workers who fall victim to redundancies and restructurings; proposing more jobs programmes for young workers; and coming up with new methods to refinance social security, including placing a greater burden on the wealthy and no additions to the value added tax. 
 
Read more:
FGTB's Call for Strike (in French) 
<a href="http://www.fgtb.be/PDF/fr/Actions/2005/Greve/Greve24heures.pdf">http://www.fgtb.be/PDF/fr/Actions/ 
2005/Greve/Greve24heures.pdf</a>
Issues on This Strike from Affiliate La Centrale 
Generale FGTB (in French) 
<a href="http://www.accg.be/news/be-fr/Tract%20préavis%20FR.pdf">http://www.accg.be/news/be-fr/Tract%20pr&eacute;avis%20FR.pdf</a>

ICEM Supports Belgian Affiliate&#039;s General Strike

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A deadly past several weeks has brought more deaths from China&rsquo;s mines. 
On 11 November, 19 perished due to a gas explosion at Bayinsai Coal Tar Co. in Wuhai city, Inner Mongolia. That was preceded by two separate gas blasts on 6 November, claiming a total of 52 miners. At the one in Xingtai County, Hebei province, three gypsum mines collapsed killing 36 and seriously injuring another 30. The other happened at the Taiping Coal Mine, Shanxi province, where 16 died in a gas blast. 
On 8 November in Qitai County in the autonomous region of Xinjiang Uygur, 14 died in a workers dormitory where an employee of Beitahsan Coal Mine was handling explosives. Sixteen coal miners died on 27 October due to an explosion inside the Zhongxing Coal Mine near Aksu city in northwest Xinjiang region. 
Drilling through a water-eroded cave brought death by drowning to 28 miners on 4 October at Guang&rsquo;an Energy Group&rsquo;s Longtan Coal Mine in Sichuan province. A day earlier in Henan province, 34 miners died from a gas explosion at the Henan Hebei Coal Co., a joint venture between the state and Thai-based Banpu plc. And on the evening of 2 October, ten people died when they were overcome by gas after sneaking into a molybdenum mine in Liaoning province to work illegally. 
China&rsquo;s State Administration of Coal Mine Safety will have closed 7,000 mines due to safety concerns by the end of the year, and another Chinese agency posted on its website that in order to qualify for financial incentives available for safe mining practices, managers must accompany workers into mines on each shift.

More Deaths Hit China’s Mines

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ICEM affiliate National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) won a labour court ruling late last month against Continental Tyre. The court ruled the company must reinstate 40 workers who were retrenched at a Port Elizabeth factory in July. 
The unilateral decision by the company to curtail weekend shift operations and manpower in some areas of the plant last summer brought ICEM intervention with the German Works Council of Continental. 
In a separate decision also issued in late October, a South African Labour Department inspector determined that Continental violated the Employment Equity Act that seeks to correct racial imbalances left over from the apartheid era. The inspector found that Continental&rsquo;s policies have failed to assimilate blacks and whites into common work practices. The Port Elizabeth tyre factory employs 1,200. 
Meanwhile in Germany, IGBCE has won a year&rsquo;s reprieve for 500 Continental Tyre workers at the St&uuml;cken plant in Hannover. The plant was scheduled to close at the end of 2006, but ICEM&rsquo;s German affiliate convinced the company to keep the plant operating until December 2007.

NUMSA Wins Court Ruling in Continental Tyre Dispute

Archive

First Collective Agreement in NA Offshore Sector

Argentina Oil Union Threatens Strike

Nigerian Oil Unions Halt Privatisation Plans

Colombia's Unions Wage Successful General Strike

Strike Settled in Canada with Wage, Benefit Gains

ICEM Adopts Four-year Programme

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ICEM Supports Belgian Affiliate's General Strike

More Deaths Hit China’s Mines

NUMSA Wins Court Ruling in Continental Tyre Dispute

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