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A small hotel in the hills above Beirut, Lebanon, was the venue for the latest seminar held by ICEM and the International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) under the Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Trade Union Alliance. The seminar brought together delegates from eight Iraqi trade unions in the oil and oil transportation sectors, affiliated to either ICEM or ITF. 
 
Popularly known as the &quot;Well to Wheel&quot; initiative, Iraq has been identified as a key country for the Alliance, which came together last week with the generous support of the US Solidarity Center. This was the first seminar held by the Solidarity Center in Lebanon, with earlier ones taking place in Amman and Aqaba in Jordan. 
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Lars Myhre, President of the ICEM&rsquo;s Energy Industries Section and a leader in Norwegian affiliate IndustriEnergi (IE) and Jim Catterson, Energy Officer, represented ICEM. Bilal Malkawi represented the ITF, while Heba El-Shazli, Regional Program Director, The Middle East and North Africa, together with Boyko Atanasov of the Qatar Office, represented the Solidarity Center. 
 
After a series of presentations updating delegates on the recent activities of the organisations in the region, as well as delegate presentations on their recent activities and discussion of the present situation in the Iraqi oil industry, participants divided into multi-union groups. The report backs to plenary sessions were able to agree a Code of Conduct for future work of the Alliance in Iraq, and a firm programme of activities to take place inside Iraq itself. 
 
The ten-point Code of Conduct commits all of the unions to recognise and respect each other and commits them to support each other in conflicts regardless of which trade union confederation of Iraq they are affiliated with. It recognises the need for regular meetings and discussion at both cross-sectoral regional and national levels, as well as maintaining the essential need for practical channels of communications between the unions in the Alliance and the Global Union Federations, ICEM and ITF, and with the Solidarity Center. 
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With only two of the 16 delegates being women, a serious discussion took place on how to improve women's participation. All agreed that the goal of the Alliance was to strengthen the trade unions and unions cannot be strong without women workers as members and activists. There was agreement that we need to have more women participation in future events and it is essential that more effort be taken by all to encourage and support women to participate in union activities both internally and externally. &quot;Strong Unions Need Women workers!&quot; was a slogan to be taken seriously. 
 
Delegates drew up a plan of activities to take place at a regional level inside Iraq at both a sectoral and cross-sectoral level. Unions decided to focus on work within regions in which transport was relatively easy and cheap, dividing the country into the south, centre, and north. Facilitators were decided on for each of the regions. Such facilitators would move along the work, carry outreach to involve other unions in the transportation sector, and maintain communication with the Secretariat. 
 
ICEM, ITF, and the Solidarity Center continue to see this work as a key way of building trade union strength in Iraq, as well as encouraging unions to work together and to create unity in Iraq.

‘Well to Wheel’ Forum in Beirut Focuses on Oil, Transport Work in Iraq

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In Singapore, a coalition of oil workers&rsquo; unions has petitioned the government for inclusion into the Retirement Age Act, which would allow 500 workers to retire at mandatory age 62 instead of the current lower age. An appeal by the group was made to Singapore&rsquo;s Manpower Ministry last week to abolish some of the 26 job categories that are exempt under the law. 
 
The coalition includes ICEM affiliate Singapore Shell Employees&rsquo; Union, the ExxonMobil Singapore Employees Union (ESEU), Singapore Refining Company Employees&rsquo; Union (SRCUE), and the United Workers of Petroleum Industry (UWPI), which represents BP, Chevron, and Singapore Refining staff. 
 
Singapore is attempting to revise provisions in its 1993 Retirement Age Act before a new employment law passes in 2012. The original retirement age in the 1993 statute was 60. In 1999, it was raised to 62. 
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But the law still excludes teachers, pilots, doctors, civil servants, police, soldiers, and other job categories. It also excludes jobs governed by a ministry in which age in occupation is a consideration regarding safety and other reasons. That includes many jobs inside refineries. 
 
Workers affected by the exemption must retire at an age negotiated between workers&rsquo; organisations and enterprises at the time the law took effect, 1993. For those in the city-nation&rsquo;s important oil sector, that age is between 55 and 60. 
 
The effort by the oil workers&rsquo; unions to win Retirement Age Act jurisdiction for refinery workers has been endorsed by the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) of Singapore. Many here feel that in a tight labour market, with higher year-to-year living costs and higher life expectancies, working longer can be beneficial both to workers and to enterprises, the latter benefitting by retention of talent and experience.

Singapore Oil Unions Lobby for Statutory Retirement Coverage

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Hundreds of trade unionists backed by their unions and led by New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) President Helen Kelly fiercely manifested outside the National Party&rsquo;s annual conference in Auckland on 18 July, protesting the ruling party&rsquo;s treachery in launching anti-worker revisions to the country&rsquo;s Employment Relations Act. 
 
Inside, Prime Minister John Key used his keynote to state that the party&rsquo;s legislative mandate will now aim to roll back workers&rsquo; rights and union rights. For starters, the Nationals intend to pass a law extending the rights-less, 90-day probationary period, now at workplaces with fewer than 20 workers, to all workplaces. 
 
The policy paper that formed Key&rsquo;s surprise keynote speech broke earlier commitments made by the prime minister to trade unions and the NZCTU that hard-line changes to the Act would not occur. Several NZ unionists at the manifestation showed their anger by skirting security to take the protest inside the Auckland casino/hotel where the National Party was meeting. 
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NZCTU President Helen Kelly
By Thursday, 23 July, trade unions had met and jointly devised an aggressive mobilization campaign against the legislation. 
 
The Kiwis call the trial 2008 probationary measure &ldquo;the 90-Day Fire-at-Will&rdquo; law. Kelly said that nearly one-quarter of all workers employed under the existing scheme for small employers have been sacked. And 47% of those firings are workers under the age of 23. 
 
Other provisions to the National Party agenda erode existing labour law. The test for justified dismissal under the Employment Relations Authority gets weakened; union access to worksites to defend workers gets restricted; workers can trade one of four annual leave weeks for money to stay on the job; observance of statutory holidays can be changed; and stricter proof of illness in order to take sick-day leave will apply if revisions to New Zealand&rsquo;s labour law takes effect. 
 
&ldquo;Unfair dismissal changes are just the tip of the iceberg,&rdquo; said Kelly, citing other draconian provisions of the proposed legislation, including cuts in entitlement, meal breaks, union education funding, and axing the Pay and Employment Equity Unit of government. &ldquo;To make matters worse, we believe government will also make it more difficult for the Employment Court to question the reason why any worker has been dismissed.&rdquo; 
 
The country&rsquo;s Labour Party had introduced legislation to repeal the 90-day probationary law. That party will now coalesce with the Green Party and the Maori Party to attempt to block the Nationals anti-worker agenda. But the biggest voice expected to halt the labour law roll backs will be the nation&rsquo;s 400,000 trade unionists who will work tediously through their unions to block these spurious changes to labour law.

New Zealand Unions Protest National Party’s Draconian Labour Proposals

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Negotiations to end the Canadian strike between United Steelworkers (USW) Local 9508 and the Brazilian-based mining company Vale in Goose Bay and Voiseys Bay, Labrador, failed on 19-20 July when the company put forward a far inferior bonus plan compared to what USW members in Ontario agreed to on 8 July. 
 
Vale refused to offer Local 9508 members a similar bonus plan that it gave USW members in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, and it refused to discuss other outstanding issues of a renewal collective agreement unless Labrador workers accepted an inferior bonus scheme. 
 
Some 230 members of USW Local 9508 will mark one-year on picket lines in copper and nickel mines and port and processing operations in Labrador on 1 August. 
 
USW District 6 Director Wayne Fraser called on the provincial government of Labrador/Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams to intervene. In a 21 July letter to Williams, Fraser said, &ldquo;It is indisputable that out union and its members at Voiseys Bay &ndash; like their colleagues in Ontario who recently ended their year-long strike &ndash; have shown flexibility and a willingness to compromise to achieve a fair collective agreement with Vale. 
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Wayne Fraser, USW District 6 Director
&ldquo;Mr. Premier, we trust you and your government will agree it is unacceptable that a massively profitable foreign corporation such as Vale would treat Newfoundland and Labrador workers as second-class employees. We also trust you will use every means at your disposal to ensure Vale treats the working families of Newfoundland and Labrador with the respect and dignity they deserve.&rdquo; 
 
The nickel bonus offer presented in Labrador consists of Vale-controlled criteria, such as individual work performance, safety issues, and other unilateral mechanisms. None of these conditions are contained in the Ontario agreement. As well, Vale is insisting on a lower cap on the bonus than what was accepted in Sudbury and Port Colborne. 
 
Besides the 230 members of three bargaining units of Local 9508 on strike, 50 workers employed by Ushitou Maintenance also have been on strike since 1 June 2010. These workers are also members of Local 9508, and perform electrical, pipefitting, instrumentation, and other functions for Vale at its Voiseys Bay operations. 
 
Vale continues to use scab labour to operate Goose Bay and Voiseys Bay. On Wednesday, 28 July, all unions in Labrador/Newfoundland will meet in St. Johns under the umbrella of the provincial Federation of Labour Council. Trade unions will discuss taking action on a push to adopt anti-scab and binding arbitration legislation in the province, as well as to discuss methods to get the Tory premier, Danny Williams, to use his office to re-start negotiations. 
 
In Sudbury and Port Colborne, some members of USW Locals 6500 and 6200 have returned to their rightful jobs, with most of the 3,000 staff expected to return throughout August. Members of the two locals are under a joint agreement and on 8 July, ratified a five-year labour contract that ended a 360-day strike in Ontario.

Talks Fail Between Vale, Steelworkers in Efforts to Resolve Labrador Strike

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As the mineworkers&rsquo; strike at Gammon Gold&rsquo;s El Cubo mine in Mexico&rsquo;s Guanajuato State was deferred to the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the authority abandoned all activities and took summer vacations until August. 
 
The recess forces workers to continue the strike with no possibility of settlement before labour authorities return to litigate and rule on the legality of the strike. The authority gave no instruction to Canadian-based Gammon to start negotiating with the workers. 
 
The 409 workers are represented by Section 142 of ICEM-affiliated National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), or Los Mineros, at the mine in south-central Mexico. 
 
As previously reported by ICEM, the strike began 30 June, primarily because of Nova Scotia-based Gammon&rsquo;s refusal to make profit-share payments to workers, a condition that had been agreed to in bargaining with the union in return for a lengthening of miners&rsquo; work days from eight- to ten-hour shifts. 
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In the absence of a profit-sharing arrangement, union leaders took strike action, demanding a bonus of 50,000 pesos (US$3,968) per worker. A further demand was that the company improve safety standards at the mine, following five deaths at the site in recent months, accidents which were not properly investigated or even sometimes not recorded by authorities. The families of the five dead miners have not received any compensation. 
 
As was predicted by the ICEM in an earlier, 28 June, report (see <a href="/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3896-El-Cubo-Mexican-Mine-Shut-in-Attempt-to-Crush-Union">here</a>), the company has moved to restart production with scab labour. This decision was authorised by Labour Minister Javier Lozano, who pushed through a ruling via the Federal Conciliation Board for 70 &ldquo;emergency personnel.&rdquo; The obvious anti-union stance of the Mexican government is again illustrated by these rulings and lack of pressure from the authorities on Gammon to negotiate with Section 142. 
 
Gammon Gold has repeatedly claimed that it does not have the financial resources for profit-sharing payments, which are mandated by law, or to make improvements to worker safety at the mine. Los Mineros filed for a fiscal audit to be conducted by the Mexican Treasury into Gammon, in May 2010. In typical government inaction regarding Los Mineros, there has been no response to this request. 
 
In a familiar trend now used in Mexican labour conflicts, workers at El Cubo were physically attacked by the company&rsquo;s private security team on 18 June. 
 
Gammon Gold recorded US$207 million in revenue from gold and silver mining operations in 2009. The company operates exclusively in Mexico, with a large gold-silver complex in the northern state of Chihuahua, known as Ocampo. Exploration work is on-going at the neighbouring Guadalupe y Calvo gold-silver mine, and Gammon recently acquired the El Mezquite and Venus projects in the states of Zacatecas and Chihuahua, respectively. 
 
Gammon Gold&rsquo;s director in Mexico, Luis Chavez, was previously the Director of Mines in the Ministry of Finance, and then Director of Mines in Coahuila State government, a position he held when 64 miners died inside the Pasta de Conchos mine in February 2006. After protecting Grupo M&eacute;xico in the wake of the accident, Chavez moved to his current position as head of Gammon Gold. The corrupt links between the Mexican government and Gammon Gold are deep. 
 
Politicians in the country&rsquo;s Senate and House of Representatives demanded that Labour Secretary, Javier Lozano, act as mediator to the conflict.

Mexico Government No Help in Resolving Gammon Gold Mine Strike

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Elections for Germany&rsquo;s Works Councils occur every four years, with votes cast in May and June 2010. The ICEM-affiliated IGBCE received strong backing in these elections. With some results still to be analysed, around 81.2% of newly-elected council members in the union&rsquo;s industrial sectors are IGBCE members. 
 
IGBCE is present in approximately 3,450 companies in Germany. The 2010 results show a stabilisation of the turnout (74.3%) and of IGBCE&rsquo;s strong position, with very little change from the 2006 and 2002 elections. The number of council chair-people who are members of IGBCE has risen slightly, to 92%, as did the number of women who were elected &ndash; 26.2%. 
 
The IGBCE is now running a support project for newly-elected Works Councils in small companies, with less than 200 employees. The coaching lasts 14 weeks, and includes an online password protected forum, where views and guidance can be exchanged for newly elected council members. 
 
IGBCE also recently won a legal case, entitling Works Council members to have internet access in the workplace. Employers are now obliged to supply council members with a computer connected to the internet, in addition to an office. 
 
Works councils are employee representative bodies with a range of co-determination, information, and consultation rights with respective companies. 
<img alt="" src="" width="150" height="112" />
IGBCE Deputy Chairman Ulrich Freese
The recent results are seen as a clear indication of trust and confidence in the IGBCE. &ldquo;We have played a major role in ensuring that the financial crisis did not break through on jobs. Strong unions and strong works councils have prevented redundancies and ensured stability,&rdquo; stated IGBCE Deputy Chairman Ulrich Freese.

German Works Council Elections Cement IGBCE’s Strong Mandate

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The 14-year exchange and engagement between ICEM and the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) took a major step forward recently when a 13-member ICEM delegation, led by President Senzeni Zokwana, visiting Beijing for top level meetings with several leading ACFTU officials. 
 
The 15-16 July meetings, attended by 45 people, found discussions centering on the theme &ldquo;The Global Crisis and Job Protection.&rdquo; The meetings mark a new crest in ICEM-ACFTU relations, following participation by ACFTU representatives in ICEM Asia-Pacific activities this year. The activities include the regional committee meetings in Sydney, Australia, in April, and an electricity network meeting in Korea. 
 
In the near future, ACFTU representatives will take part in an oil and gas workers&rsquo; workshop in Vietnam in August and a pharmaceutical unions&rsquo; workshop in Indonesia in September. 
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The mid-July Beijing forum opened with presentations by Zokwana and Jiang Guangping, ACFTU&rsquo;s Director-General of the International Department, who welcomed the ICEM by stating engagement with an active industry-based Global Union Federation is crucial to the ACFTU. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda gave reports related to Contract and Agency Labour, ILO Convention 176 (the Health and Safety in Mines Convention), Sustainable Development and Just Transition efforts, Global Framework Agreements, and Social Dialogue initiatives. Chinese industry sector leaders then reported on coal, electric power, petroleum, petrochemical, chemicals, pharmaceutical, and land resource matters in China. 
 
Other ACFTU officials that lead structures within the Chinese Defense Industry, Postal and Telecommunications Workers&rsquo; Union, the Chinese Finance, Commerce, Light Industry, Textile and Tobacco Workers&rsquo; Union, and the Machinery, Metallurgical and Building Materials Workers&rsquo; Unions also gave reports. 
 
Participants shared country experiences on trade union actions, and also discussed plant-level responses and solutions regarding for job protection. Germany&rsquo;s Petra Kronen, for instance, the head of the Works Council and a supervisory board member of Bayer, explained flexible work-time arrangements taken between her union, IGBCE, and Bayer in order to avoid layoffs during the financial crisis. 
<img alt="" src="" width="140" height="94" />
Besides Zokwana and Warda, the ICEM delegation consisted of ICEM leaders from several affiliated unions, including: Per S&ouml;rensen of 3F Union, Denmark; Mats Svensson of IF Metall, Sweden; Michael Mersmann and Petro Kronen of IGBCE, Germany; Isidor Boix of FITEQA-CC.OO, Spain; Fran&ccedil;ois Laurent, CSC B&acirc;timent, Industrie &amp; Energie, Belgium; Yoshio Sato of ICEM-JAF, Japan; Ian Murray of Construction, Forestry, Mining, Energy Union (CFMEU), Australia; and Robert Reid of the National Distribution Union (NDU), New Zealand. Also in attendance were Kemal &Ouml;zkan, ICEM Chemical and Rubber Industries&rsquo; Officer, and Phee Jung-sun, ICEM Materials Industries&rsquo; Officer and Regional Contact Person for Asia-Pacific Region. 
 
The ACFTU officials participating included Zheng Chengfu, President of the Chinese Energy and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union; Fang Dan, Vice President of Chinese Defense Industry, Postal and Telecommunications Workers&rsquo; Union; Cai Ruixia, Vice President of Chinese Finance, Commerce, Light Industry, Textile and Tobacco Workers&rsquo; Union; Ma Hua, Director of Chinese Machinery, Metallurgical and Building Materials Workers&rsquo; Union; Zhang Jianguo, Director General of the Collective Bargaining Department of the ACFTU; Enyi Xu, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Energy &amp; Chemical Worker&rsquo;s Union; Guo Wencai, Director General of ACFTU&rsquo;s Organizing Department; Xie Liangmin, Deputy Director General of the Law Department of the ACFTU; and Chen Jieping, Deputy Director of ACFTU&rsquo;s Social Security Department. 
 
A full and detailed report on the mission, prepared by the ICEM&rsquo;s &Ouml;zkan, can be found <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/ACFTU%20Edited.pdf">here</a>.

ICEM, ACFTU Complete High Level Mission in China

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Chemical workers employed by French-based Rhodia in University Park, Illinois, chose the United Steelworkers (USW) in a US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union certification election on 15-16 July. The vote for USW representation, by an overwhelming 62-11 count, came after the union enforced plant management neutrality through the ICEM&rsquo;s Global Framework Agreement (GFA) with Rhodia. 
 
When University Park workers contacted the USW in spring 2010, they were seeking a voice at work and economic parity with other unionised Rhodia workers in the US. Rhodia bought the specialty surfactants, polymers, and cosmetic preservatives plant earlier in 2009 from privately-held McIntyre Group of US. Among seven Rhodia plants in the US that are organised by the USW, three are in the Chicago, Illinois, area, so University Park workers did not have far to go to do comparisons. 
 
But their bosses had a different idea. They began traditional efforts to dissuade workers from joining the USW, including pay offers and work-time meetings in which anti-union messages were delivered. 
<img alt="" src="" width="200" height="133" />
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Rhodia CEO Jean-Pierre Clamadieu at the 25 March, 2008,&nbsp;signing
The USW responded by reaching out to corporate leadership in France through the ICEM in order to halt local management&rsquo;s violation of the GFA neutrality commitment. With ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Officer Kemal &Ouml;zkan working directly with senior leaders of Rhodia in Paris, a joint ICEM-Rhodia declaration was distributed in early July to University Park workers by both the USW and local managers. 
 
It was signed by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and Rhodia Group Vice President Pascal Jeury, with CEO Jean-Pierre Clamadieu endorsing the joint message. The declaration reminded that Rhodia&rsquo;s &ldquo;commitment to remain strictly neutral&rdquo; in workers&rsquo; unionization campaigns is intact, and cited seven points in Article 3, Paragraph 7 of the GFA (found <a href="/wp-content/migration/icem/0809RhodiaGFAEnglish.pdf">here</a>), including the point: &ldquo;Rhodia respects the right of employees to organise themselves collectively and will remain strictly neutral concerning their choices in this matter.&rdquo; 
 
&Ouml;zkan also secured a pledge from the corporate office to stop the in-plant managers&rsquo; meetings. 
<img alt="" src="" width="180" height="99" />
With the government-supervised election nearing, workers became unconstrained by management rhetoric and harassment and voted for USW by 86%. Warda said the vote reflects a promising future for labour-management harmony at University Park, and thanked corporate Rhodia for its immediacy. 
 
The USW effectively put the language of the agreement in motion, and won US government certification. &ldquo;Rhodia has committed to strict neutrality under an ICEM agreement and pledge,&rdquo; said USW Organising Director Mike Yoffee. &ldquo;While the US managers did not fully live up to this, it still had somewhat of an impact on neutralizing the company&rsquo;s campaign, and gave our organizers the opening to make an issue of whether the US managers could be trusted to live up to their commitments.&rdquo; 
 
The new bargaining unit at the 18-month-old Rhodia-owned plant numbers 83. 
 
The USW also won union bargaining rights for miners in British Colombia, Canada, last week. Some 260 workers at molybdenum mines and operations owned by US-based Thompson Creek Metals had their union finally certified by the provincial labour board. They voted 26-28 May, but details prevented the BC labour board from opening the ballot box until 22 July. The miners work at the Endako Mines and now are proud members of USW Local 1-424 based in Prince George, BC.

In America, USW Forces Neutrality to Win Labour Rights for Rhodia Workers

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At a side meeting in Geneva at the 2010 International Labour Conference of the ILO in June 2010, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, requested the ILO&rsquo;s expertise in determining the impact of precarious work on human rights. 
 
In preparing to make operational the 2008, &ldquo;Respect, Remedy, Protect&rdquo; framework, Ruggie is consulting with a wide range of actors, including through an online consultation forum. Ruggie&rsquo;s request to the ILO follows online submissions by the Global Union Federations International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association (IUF) and the International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), which both highlighted the fact that CAL and other forms of precarious work are being used to undermine the human rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. 
<img alt="" src="" width="145" height="73" />
John Ruggie
In its submission to the consultations, the IMF&rsquo;s statement said, &ldquo;It is our submission that precarious work threatens the very survival of stable employment and collective bargaining,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;As with other human rights, exercise of the fundamental enabling rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining is severely constrained by fear. That fear comes from the vulnerability that employers are imposing on workers every day, in developed and developing countries alike, with the explosion of precarious work practices.&rdquo; 
 
Ruggie&rsquo;s &ldquo;Respect, Remedy, Protect&rdquo; framework is based on three pillars: it is a state duty to protect human rights abuses by third parties, including businesses; corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and that there must be greater access by victims to effective remedies, judicial and non-judicial.

UN Human Rights Special Representative Ruggie Seeks ILO Help on Precarious Work

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An agreement has been reached at the Labour Ministry of S&atilde;o Paulo, Brazil, state between BASF and the chemical workers of Guaratinguet&aacute;. The agreement aims to regulate the use of Contract and Agency Labour (CAL) and requires the company to pay the same salary and benefits to agency workers as is paid to permanent, directly-employed workers. Failure to implement the agreement will result a fine of 500 Reales per worker/per day. 
<img alt="" src="" width="300" height="104" />
This Guaratinguet&aacute; plant is the largest BASF entity in Latin America and has about one non-regular worker for each directly employed worker.

Brazilian Social Partners Agree on CAL Regulation at BASF

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