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Prior to IF Metall&rsquo;s First Ordinary Congress in mid-May, ICEM&rsquo;s Swedish affiliate held a charged and enthusiastic two-day conference entitled &ldquo;Decent Working Conditions for All &ndash; Fair and Just Globalization.&rdquo; The conference, held 11-12 May in Stockholm, brought together hundreds of local Swedish trade union representatives with international union leaders. 
 
In opening the conference, IF Metall National President Stefan L&ouml;fven stressed that the 400,000-member union favours global free trade, but only if free trade ensures good and favourable work conditions for all. The conference heard from Jan Eliasson, chairman of Sweden&rsquo;s Social Democratic Party&rsquo;s Foreign Affairs Advisory Committee, and Kari Tapiola, Assistant Director-General of the ILO.
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IF Metall President Stefan L&ouml;fven 
It also featured a number of workshops on day two, including &ldquo;Trade Union Solidarity in a State of Change,&rdquo; &ldquo;Global Cooperation in Practice between Companies and Trade Unions,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Political Platform of the EU &ndash; Today and in the Future,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The State of the International Trade Union Movement &ndash; a Challenge and Need for Change.&rdquo; 
 
Participating on panels across those workshops were ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda; General Secretary Neil Kearney of the Textile, Garment, and Leather Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITGLWF); Horst Mund, Head of International Department, IG Metall, Germany; G&ouml;ran F&auml;rm, Swedish Member of the European Parliament, representing the Social Democratic Party; and Ingrid Schullstr&ouml;m, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for H&amp;M, the Swedish department store chain. 
 
Earlier, on day one, International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF) General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi delivered an address on &ldquo;Activities of the Global Union Federations,&rdquo; emphasizing that today, international trade union work is a part of everyday life on the local level. He shared a session with AB Electrolux President and CEO Hans Str&aring;berg, called &ldquo;The Role and Task of Multinational Companies in a More Global World, Their Contribution Towards a Fairer Globalization.&rdquo; 
 
During IF Metall&rsquo;s Congress proceedings, Malentacchi and the union&rsquo;s International Secretary, Mats Svensson, denounced Swedish multinational Ericsson AB&rsquo;s contract labour practices in Bangladesh. Recently in Bangladesh, a contract worker fell into an unprotected zinc and acid tank. Ericsson manufactures components for telephones in Bangladesh.
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&nbsp;IF Metall International Secretary Mats Svensson

IF Metall and IMF used a press conference to insist that Ericsson go beyond its own code of conduct by engaging in discussions toward a Global Framework Agreement with the IMF. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s clear in this case that (Ericsson&rsquo;s) unilaterally adopted rules for the environment and security of employees is not working,&rdquo; stated Svensson. 
 
He added that if decent work conditions are to become real, there must be cooperation between multinationals and employees&rsquo; global union representatives. &ldquo;An agreement signed between a multinational and an international trade union organisation is a tool for social justice,&rdquo; said Svensson. &ldquo;The company puts itself at the negotiating table, and creates a tool that ensures&rdquo; proper and decent work conditions are observed. 
 
At the Congress itself, IF Metall&rsquo;s 300 delegates ratified initiatives supporting Global Framework Agreements and for Sweden to adopt ILO Convention 94, the Labour Clauses (Public Contracts) Convention. Fifty-nine countries have ratified the 1949 Convention, which calls for social and labour clauses to be inserted into public procurement clauses, but Sweden has not.
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&nbsp;Raising of the Flag: Solidarity, Socialism, Equality 

In other Congress business, IF Metall delegates called for a change of government in Sweden&rsquo;s next elections, and criticised the centre-right coalition that currently rules the government for its sharp reductions in unemployment insurance. 
 
The Congress reaffirmed its approach on sustainable development, that an integrated approach must take hold that includes research, innovation, new technology, and lifelong learning and skills development. The Congress also called for a halt to the decommissioning of nuclear power facilities. 
 
President Stefan L&ouml;fven was re-elected President, and Veli-Pekka S&auml;ikk&auml;l&auml; won election as the new National Bargaining Secretary. The Congress featured an address by the President of Colombian ICEM affiliate Sintracarb&oacute;n. Jaime Deluquez Diaz thanked the Swedish union for providing strength and knowledge to his 4,000-member coal miners&rsquo; union in Colombia.

‘Fair and Just Globalization’ Workshops Organised by IF Metall in Sweden

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ICEM Turkish trade union affiliate Lastik-İş made good on its 8 May strike notice by calling 4,000 tyre manufacturing workers out at four factories, operated by three multinational tyre companies. The strikes began late on Saturday, 31 May. 
 
Negotiations continued until the early morning hours of that day, with the employers&rsquo; association offering last-minute wage and social payment proposals to avert strikes. Those offers were presented to rank-and-file members of Lastik-İş, but were rejected by an accumulative 80% vote.
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Lastik-İş President Abdullah Karacan 
 

The strikes then began at factories of Bridgestone Brisa Sabanci and Pirelli, and two plants operated and majority- owned by US-based Goodyear Tire &amp; Rubber Co. The four tyre plants are in the Turkish cities of Izmit and Adapazari. The union and management association has been negotiating since September 2007 on a new labour agreement. 
 
&ldquo;The decision to strike was taken by workers and I believe we shall overcome the employers&rsquo; intransigence,&rdquo; said Lastik-İş President Abdullah Karacan. &ldquo;The salary offer made by employers is far from meeting the work performed by tyre workers. Our decisiveness for gaining our demands is resolute.&rdquo; 
 
The union is seeking a 12% wage increase for the first six-month period of a two-year labour agreement, and the Turkish rate of inflation for each six-month period thereafter. The tyre companies are resisting inflation-rate payments for the three six-month periods. The two sides differ also on various social payments customary in Turkish work schemes.
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Striking Rubber Workers at Pirelli Factory&nbsp;
All agenda items within the 59-article labour contract, save for the wage and social payment items, have been agreed upon by the two sides. 
 
Goodyear operates an auto, light truck, bus, and heavy equipment tyre plant in Adapazari, employing 800 rubber workers, and a truck, bus, and agriculture tyre plant in Izmit, where 500 workers are employed. Bridgestone Brisa Sabanci, jointly owned by Japanese-based Bridgestone and Sabanci Group of Turkey, manufactures auto, truck, and heavy equipment tyres in Izmit, employing 1,500, while Italian-based Pirelli has another auto and truck tyre plant in Izmit, in which 1,200 workers are employed.

4,000 Turkish Rubber Workers Strike Bridgestone, Goodyear, and Pirelli

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The second meeting of the Brazilian National Network of Unions representing Belgian chemicals and pharmaceutical company Solvay was held from 9-11 June in S&atilde;o Paulo, Brazil. The network was created in September 2007 when Brazilian trade unions at nine worksites gathered to create coordination and solidarity. 
 
Chaired by ICEM Latin America/Caribbean Regional Vice President S&eacute;rgio Novais, the network is coordinated by Juvenil Nunes da Costa from the ABC Regional Chemical Workers&rsquo; Union of Brazil. With support from the Brazilian national labour centre CUT, the National Confederation of Chemical Workers&rsquo; of Brazil (CNQ-CUT), as well as from the ICEM, the meeting also had the full solidarity from Belgian union Centrale G&eacute;n&eacute;rale and the European Works Council (EWC) of Solvay.
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The EWC sent a solidarity message and a detailed presentation, explaining composition and activities of Solvay&rsquo;s structure. 
 
Along with the global economic situation of the company, participants gave reports from the nine Brazilian plants. Enhancing integration and solidarity of Solvay&rsquo;s workers, complying with the major ILO Conventions regarding trade union rights, combating all forms of discrimination, protecting workers&rsquo; health and safety, and maintaining the fight against outsourcing were defined as important principles for the network&rsquo;s activities. 
 
Delegates also decided to seek all opportunities for social dialogue with the company, to increase global solidarity with trade unions throughout the world, and to enter into deeper relations with the EWC. 
 
The Solvay Brazilian Network published a first edition of a newsletter following last September&rsquo;s meeting, and will do another one shortly to inform all Brazilian Solvay workers of its activities. 
 
Another network meeting has been scheduled for December 2008, again in S&atilde;o Paulo.

Brazilian Solvay Chemicals Network Organises Second Meeting

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At the triennial convention of the United Steelworkers (USW) in the US state of Nevada on 2 July, a cross-border merger of two big amalgamated unions took place. The USW and UK&rsquo;s Unite announced an alliance creating a structure to be called Workers Uniting. 
 
&ldquo;This union is crucial for challenging the growing power of global capital,&rdquo; said USW President Leo Gerard. &ldquo;Globalisation has given financiers license to exploit workers in developing countries at the expense of our members in the developed world.&rdquo;
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USW President Leo Gerard
Added Unite Joint General Secretary Derek Simpson, &ldquo;In addition to empowering the interests of our unions&rsquo; members, our mission is to advance the interests of millions of workers throughout the world who are being shamefully exploited.&rdquo; 
 
In a video broadcast to the convention, attended by 3,500 USW delegates, as well as 77 international trade unionists from 23 countries, Unite Joint General Secretary Tony Woodley stated: &ldquo;The creation of our new union is only the beginning. We&rsquo;re laying the foundations of an even larger and stronger union yet to come.&rdquo;
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Unite Joint General Secretaries Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson
The USW has some one million members in the US, Canada, and the Caribbean. It is the product of previous mergers between steelworkers, oil and chemical workers, paperworkers, rubber workers, glass workers, and the wood-workers union of Canada. 
 
Unite represents some two million workers in the UK and Ireland. It is a product of a recent merger between Amicus and the Transport and General Workers&rsquo; Union. Amicus, itself, is an amalgamated union that over the past six years has merged the Graphical, Paper, and Media Union (GPMU) with the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU), the Manufacturing, Science, and Finance (MSF) Union, as well as UNIFI, a former financial services union. 
 
The new structure, Workers Uniting, will have a joint steering committee and will be headed by an Executive Director. Staff will include research, international affairs, and communications specialists. 
 
The USW convention also saw the election of its first woman to its Executive Board. Carol Landry, a 16-year union activist from the union&rsquo;s largest Canadian sector &ndash; mining &ndash; was elected by unanimous vote of the 27-member Executive Board. She is an 8-year staff member of USW-Canada, and prior to that had been prominently active in a number of positions at her local union, which represents workers at Highland Valley Copper in the province of British Colombia.

North American Steelworkers, UK’s Unite Forge Trans-Atlantic Union Alliance

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The Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada reached agreement with Canfor Pulp Ltd. on 6 July, marking the bargaining pattern for this year&rsquo;s pulp and paper sector for the Canadian West. 
 
And then on 10 July, that pattern was achieved for 480 CEP members at Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Ltd., an enterprise north of Vancouver, British Colombia, jointly owned by Vancouver-based Canfor and Oji Paper of Japan. 
 
The four-year Canfor accord, retroactive to 1 April 2008, will now be used this summer as the pattern for some 12 other pulp, paper, and converting companies, employing 14,000 CEP union members in Western Canada.
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CEP President Dave Coles
&ldquo;Under the current economic conditions, it is a very good settlement. It will set the pattern in the Canadian West, and hopefully for the Eastern section of Canada next year as well,&rdquo; said CEP President Dave Coles. Coles said a key accomplishment was bringing the term&rsquo;s contract length down from six years to four. 
 
CEP members at a Canfor Prince George, British Colombia, pulp mill, as well as linerboard mill workers at a separate mill there will begin voting on the agreement tomorrow. Howe Sound workers will vote 30 July. The pattern is expected to be presented at Catalyst Paper&rsquo;s four locations next. 
 
The tentative agreement calls for wage increases of 2% in the first year, 2.5% each in the second and third years, and 3% in the fourth. In addition, the tentative agreement contains significant benefit increases, a C$.70-an-hour craft trades adjustment, and job security provisions, including a severance package. 
 
The CEP attempted to negotiate a contract extension with the Canadian East&rsquo;s lead company, AbitibiBowater, in early March, a year ahead of scheduled expirations there. But that company came to the table seeking major concessions, and talks were ended. Contracts for 20,000 unionised pulp and paperworkers in the East, including 5,500 at AbitibiBowater&rsquo;s 13 mills, expire 1 April 2009.

CEP Achieves Excellent Pattern Settlement in Western Canadian Paper Sector

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ICEM affiliate National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) of South Africa last week declared wage disputes with three mining houses, DeBeers, Exxaro Resources, and Kumba Resources&rsquo; Sishen Iron Ore mine. The wage dispute filings come just days after NUM announced that it would take industrial action at Gold Fields&rsquo; four mines in August. 
 
The world&rsquo;s fourth largest gold producer, Gold Fields, has let safety lapse in South Africa, accounting for 23 of the country&rsquo;s 87 mining deaths between January and June, 2008. 
 
In late June, NUM and diamond miner DeBeers agreed on salary adjustments for 2008 of 12%. But the company pulled the offer and &ldquo;put forward a different draft that spoke a different language,&rdquo; said the NUM. DeBeers offered 11% over a two-year period, an obvious slight to miners, with run-away inflation in South Africa with due to rising food and fuel prices.
<img height="120" alt="" src="" width="120" />
 
The two sides will meet on 21 July before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) in an effort to resolve the dispute. If agreement is not reached, some 6,000 miners at six DeBeers operations will then take industrial action. 
 
The dispute at Exxaro&rsquo;s three coal mines is over wage disparities between the collieries that are both inside and out of the Chamber of Mines. NUM is also seeking to establish minimum wage levels. Exxaro is majority owned by private equity company Main Street, with AngloAmerican Plc. holding 9.84%. 
 
At the Sishen Iron ore mine, where 4,000 miners are employed, the dispute is over wages promises that have not been met. 
 
But the continuing story in the South African mining industry revolves around safety. The NUM held a Safety Imdaba from 3-4 July in Boksburg. There, NUM Health and Safety Chairman Peter Bailey stated bluntly, &ldquo;We need to have the same passion about safety as we did in defeating apartheid.&rdquo;
<img height="243" src="" width="220" alt="" />
&nbsp;NUM's Peter Bailey 
 

The summit caused South African Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica to call on the nation&rsquo;s Justice Ministry to join it in investigating and then prosecuting companies negligent over safety. Despite 1,500 workers dying in the mines in the past five years, the Justice Ministry has not taken up a single prosecution case. A new Mine Health and Safety bill is under consideration in South Africa&rsquo;s Parliament. It is intended to mandate stricter enforcement measures, and impose harsher fines on those responsible for safety lapses. 
 
At Gold Fields, the company experienced 15 mining deaths between late April to early May at its South Deep and Driefontein mines. And then on 29 June at its 15,000-worker Kloof mine near Westonaria in West Rand, just hours after the company boasted that it had achieved one million fatality-free shifts, two miners were crushed and died 3,000 metres underground due to a ground shift.
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The company&rsquo;s most egregious accident occurred on 1 May. Nine miners, including two from the same family, plunged 2,880 metres to their deaths at South Deep when a lift cable snapped on a cage that was carrying them. Sonjica said then that the deaths could have been avoided if the infrastructure had been properly checked and maintained. &quot;When you don't service equipment, it will collapse,&rdquo; she told a South African newspaper. 
 
Six other miners employed by Gold Fields, including five at Driefonteion, had died because of rock falls or earth tremors in the week before.

NUM Files Strike Notice on 3 South Africa Mining Houses; Safety Strike Looms at Gold Fields

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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) of the UK has issued a cautionary warning on the number of hydrocarbon releases in the offshore oil and gas industries. Such releases are considered precursors for major accidents. 
 
The concern comes just five weeks after British trade unions and civil society commemorated the 20-year anniversary of the deadly Piper Alpha offshore disaster, in which 167 oil workers were killed. 
 
Figures released by the UK's HSE reveal that there has been no improvement in the number of hydrocarbon releases in 2007-2008. Some 517 dangerous incidents were reported in that period, 40% of which were hydrocarbon releases.
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The statistics, released by the HSE on 13 August, show that there was also an increase in the number of serious injuries in the offshore sector in 2007-2008 from the prior year. There were 44, compared to 39 in 2006-2007. Although for the first time in three years there were no fatalities in the offshore sector, there were 12 deaths in marine operations tied to offshore work. That included eight seamen who perished in April 2007 when the Norwegian anchor-handling tug supply vessel Bourbon Dolphin sunk in UK waters off the Shetland Islands. 
 
HSE Executive Judith Hackitt said the statistics are a reminder &ldquo;that we are far from being in a position where we can feel comfortable. On the failure to reduce the number of hydrocarbon releases, plus the increase in recorded dangerous incidents, she said the obvious implication is &ldquo;that basic safety systems are not being followed.&rdquo; 
 
UK&rsquo;s worst offshore disaster in the UK occurred on 6 July 1988 during Occidental Petroleum&rsquo;s Piper Alpha platform blasts. The 167 workers killed were caught in a hellish series of explosions lasting 75 minutes that many blamed on lax management control systems.

UK’s Health, Safety Executive Issues Warning on Offshore Hydrocarbon Releases

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The mining company Rio Tinto has been identified by the Australian labour movement as a major obstacle in stopping the use of AWAs, the draconian individual work agreements made to order by the ousted Howard government in order to weaken workers&rsquo; rights. 
 
And ICEM affiliate Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) is taking on the company squarely for trying to renew Australian Work Agreements (AWAs) with railroad workers at Pilbara Rail Services, a key Rio subsidiary in its lucrative western iron ore business. 
 
The CFMEU is seeking authorization from the Industrial Relations Commission to hold a secret ballot election in order to take industrial action, a move geared to rid rail workers of AWAs in favour of real collective agreements. Getting such legal sanction in West Australia is aimed at forcing Rio Tinto to the bargaining table.
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The union is similarly running campaigns to persuade BHP Billiton iron ore workers in the west to toss away AWAs, as well as Xstrata coal miners in the north. 
 
The Labour Government of Kevin Rudd, in March, passed a new law that scrapped John Howard&rsquo;s WorkChoices, but major companies are using loopholes in the new law to continue offering AWAs. 
 
Australian Council of Trade Unions President Sharan Burrow said &ldquo;there has been clear evidence that (telecommunications company) Telstra, Rio Tinto, Cochlear, and other major companies are still exploiting&rdquo; the loopholes. The ICEM stands with the CFMEU and asks that all miners in Australia refuse AWAs, and demand ironclad collective agreements with their employers.

Rio Tinto Test Awaits to Get Mining Firm to Discontinue Individual Work Agreements

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The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa has hit hard on four deaths within a week at AngloGold and AngloPlatinum, pivotal proof that the country is in need of rigid safety regulations that hopefully will become law late this year. 
 
During a week spanning 12 August to 17 August, safety performances by both AngloGold and AngloPlats sunk at the same time the Chamber of Mines lobbied against tougher criminal penalties and corporate liabilities. Those arguments came in discussions during public hearings of the proposed Mine Health and Safety Amendment Bill. A Chamber of Mines leader said such measures would undermine CEOs in their current focus on workplace safety. 
 
At AngloGold, one worker was killed underground on 12 August in a mine collapse at Mponeng, while at TauTona, another miner was killed similarly, and two others were seriously injured. This happened on 15 August. At AngloPlats, majority owned by AngloAmerican, a company that sacked an AngloPlats CEO over safety performance, a fatality occurred at the Mogalakwena mine (16 August) and the Amandabult mine (18 August).
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NUM Gen. Sec. Frans Baleni&nbsp;
AngloGold workers set up a Day of Mourning for 21 August, but it was met with a company &ldquo;no work, no pay&rdquo; rule, which infuriated the national NUM. &ldquo;It is within our African culture to mourn and workers will continue to mourn for their deceased colleagues whether or not&rdquo; the industry accepts the practice, said NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni. 
 
AngloGold shut production at one of the two mines stricken by the worker fatalities, but AngloPlats continued production at both its mines. The NUM is pushing enactment of reform legislation that would lift maximum fines from R200,000 to R1 million on mining deaths, as well as place criminal liabilities on company officials.
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Also in the NUM, a near month-long strike by 700 miners at UK-based Petra Diamonds Ltd.&rsquo;s Heman mine ended on 19 August when the nation&rsquo;s second largest diamond producer significantly rised wages. The company admitted during the strike that even though its wage offer was near the inflation rate of 12%, its wage proposal would still not lift salaries to national mining averages. 
 
In other South African mining news, Energy and Minerals Minister Buyelwa Sonjica emphatically blasted activists who are attempting to block a titanium mining venture in the country&rsquo;s remote western coastal regions. Speaking in favour of a project by the Australian company Minerals Resource Commodities and its South African subsidiary, Transworld Energy and Minerals, she said those opposing the project now should examine their own apartheid-era disinterest before they take up the mantle community activists.

NUM Protests Rash of AngloGold, AngloPlats Mine Deaths in South Africa

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On 13 August, in the northern Colombian city of Baranquilla, the right-wing paramilitary group &ldquo;Black Eagles&rdquo; issued a communiqu&eacute; calling for death to community activists and trade union leaders, most notably a union leader in ICEM mining affiliate Sintracarb&ograve;n. He is Adolfo Llanos. 
 
The ICEM strongly denounced the cowardly acts in a letter to the Colombian government and the three MNCs that control worksites in which Sintracarb&ograve;n represents coal miners, and transport and port workers. The ICEM demanded greater security for trade union leaders in the letter, and for the government to apprehend and convict those responsible.
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ICEM Gen. Sec. Manfred Warda
&ldquo;It must now be the obligation and responsibility of the government, in close cooperation with the management of Carbones del Cerej&oacute;n, to ensure the safety for all the people on this death list,&rdquo; wrote ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;We take this vile and cowardly letter seriously and we hope you do as well, particularly in view of the fact that the 22 March 2008 murder of Sintracarb&ograve;n activist Adolfo Gonz&aacute;lez Montes has gone unsolved.&rdquo; 
 
Gonz&aacute;lez Montes was a committeeman for the Barrancas mining section of Sintracarb&ograve;n. He was murdered early in the morning of 22 March prior to his work turn at his home in Riohacha. Before his murder, multiple assailants tortured him in front of his four children, and immediately following the murder, other leaders of Sintracarb&ograve;n received telephone death threats.
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Adolfo Llanos is a union leader at Puerto Bolivar, Cerrej&oacute;n&rsquo;s deep-water coal export port on the Caribbean coast. Carbones del Cerrej&oacute;n is one of the world&rsquo;s largest open pit coal mining firms, equally owned by AngloAmerican, BHP Billiton, and Xstrata. 
 
The Colombian government has maintained that the Aquilas Negras, or &ldquo;Black Eagles,&rdquo; no longer exists. But leaders of other unions have received death threats from the paramilitary group, including the food and beverage trade union Sinaltraninal late last year.

ICEM Demands Greater Security for Sintracarbòn Unionists in Recent Colombian Death Threats

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