13 September, 2011ICEM and IMF renewed their global framework agreement with Umicore, the Brussels-based global materials technology group with some 14,400 employees. First signed in September 2007, the agreement has been the basis for joint union-management activities. Representatives of the company, both global union federations and the European Works Council conducted joint missions in China in 2008, in Brazil in 2009 and in South Africa in 2010 in addition to the regular monitoring activities defined in the agreement.
29 August, 2011Producing steel is a dangerous task at the best of times. When workers are faced with intense heat during ten months of the year problems become even greater. Despite this fact the safety performance at the ArcelorMittal LaPlace Steel Plant in New Orleans, USA is steadily improving, as discovered by a visiting group of experts from the ArcelorMittal Joint Global Health and Safety Committee.
23 August, 20112000 production workers and 500 white collar and maintenance workers in the factory in Busan in Korea belonging to Renault Samsung Motors decide to join IMF affiliate Korean Metal Workers' Union. The company totals 5650 employees, and has a production capacity of 300,000 vehicles per year.
23 August, 2011Obituary Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada and a strong ally of trade unions, died of cancer on August 22, at the age of 61.
13 August, 2011The National Union of Building, Engineering and General Workers (NUBEGW) has negotiated a 13 percent wage increase in the iron and steel sector with the employers association in the iron and steel sector. This increase in significantly ahead of the inflation rate in Zambia
11 August, 2011Miners have ended a two-week strike after accepting the company's offer of a US $5,600 bonus.
4 August, 20112 August 2011 members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 in Metropolis, Illinois, ratified a three-year labour agreement with Honeywell, Inc., ending the lockout started over a year ago on June 28, 2010.
1 August, 2011Indonesia's National Court in Central Jakarta finds Indonesian President, Vice President, Head of Parliament and eight Ministers guilty of not implementing the Social Security law for the protection of workers
23 August, 2011IMF-affiliated Communications Workers of America (CWA), and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), reached agreement with Verizon on August 20 on how bargaining will proceed and how it will be restructured.
19 August, 2011A ten per cent wage increase will be implemented at the Vyshnevogorsky mining and processing plant in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in November 2011. The union cancelled the public action scheduled for August 18. Earlier the workers had demanded a 30 per cent wage increase.
