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A US-based company has provoked a strike in New Zealand because it has refused to join Multi-Employer Collective Agreement for the Metals Industry. Members of ICEM affiliate Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) struck Ecolab in Hamilton, New Zealand, in March. 
 
Despite mediation efforts to resolve the dispute, 16 EPMU members continued to picket outside the plant last week. Workers voted to enter joint negotiations for the Metals Industry earlier this year, but local managers declined to abide by the decision.
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Ecolab, a chemicals company, is a manufacturer of cleaning and sanitizing products for institutional and industrial companies. The state of Minnesota-based company also makes infection-control products for health care customers. 
 
EPMU National Secretary Andrew Little stated the Metals Industry&rsquo;s bargaining platform provides a benchmark for wages and conditions, and that Ecolab workers have a right to expect a collective agreement that is not sub-standard. &ldquo;These workers have made a democratic decision to negotiate a deal which is consistent with industry standards, but their employer has a policy of refusing all industry negotiations,&rdquo; said Little. 
 
The publicly-traded, multi-national company, 29% owned by German chemicals producer Henkel, provides its Australian workers with higher pay and extra shift leave, the EPMU states. Besides achieving industry standards, Ecolab workers stand to gain an extra week&rsquo;s leave if they can bring Ecolab into the fold. The Multi-Employer Collective Agreements for Metals covers more than 100 general manufacturing companies in New Zealand.

New Zealand Chemical Workers On Strike Against US-based Ecolab

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Nuclear workers in the UK &ndash; members of three trade unions &ndash; are currently meeting to consider whether or not to conduct industrial action. If taken, job actions could affect 11,500 workers at several nuclear sites just as the British Nuclear Decommissioning Authority prepares to sell the last of the country&rsquo;s state-owned nuclear assets.
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Meetings this week by trade unions Unite, GMB, and Prospect will discuss a proposed 2% pay offer by employers, a proposal considered inferior and below inflation. Bosses did present an extra 2% bonus, but union negotiators say too many strings are attached to the bonus. 
 
A consultative ballot is expected at this week&rsquo;s meeting over the 2% pay proposal, and the unions will then move that an industrial ballot be taken if the pay offer is refused. The nuclear sites that are affected are Sellafield in Cumbria, its technical facility in Risley, and Capenhurst, a former uranium enrichment plant in Cheshire.

UK’s Nuclear Workers Consider Industrial Action

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An active exchange of solidarity occurred between Turkish and Bulgarian trade unions last year over a glass dispute in Targovishte, Bulgaria, at a company called Trakia Glass, which is a subsidiary of rapidly-growing, Turkey-based multinational Şişecam Group.
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Şişecam has production facilities in Turkey, Bulgaria, Russian, and Georgia, and employs over 17,000 workers. They produce flat glass, glassware, chemicals, and packaging. The company also has a joint venture with Belgian-based chemicals company Solvay in Bulgaria called Solvay-Sodi. 
 
Gaining full ICEM involvement, the dispute at Trakia served as a springboard for a recent day-long ICEM workshop between unions of the two countries in the chemicals and related industries, with support from the German-based Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation.
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The workshop, held 1 April in Sofia, Bulgaria, was entitled &ldquo;Cooperation between ICEM Turkish and Bulgarian Affiliates on Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue in the Chemical and Related Industries.&rdquo; Participants from Turkey included Petrol-İş, the Oil, Chemical and Rubber Workers Union, and Kristal-İş, the Cement, Glass and Soil Workers Union, while Bulgarian participants included the National Labour Federation of Chemistry and Industry (KNSB Confederation) and the National Federation of Chemical Workers Union (CL-Podkrepa). 
 
Employers from both countries were also represented at the conference, with attendance by delegates from the Turkish Glass Employers Association (Cam İşveren) and Bulgarian Chemical Industry Chamber (BI). Those delegates included Lilyana Dombalova from Bulgaria, and Ali Nafiz Konuk and Hakan Yildirimoğlu from Turkey&rsquo;s glass employers. 
 
The workshop created a platform of exchange on knowledge and experience on both labour and industrial relations, and means for social dialogue in the two countries. It also served as a forum for national unions in both countries to gain experience at international and European levels. The workshop was facilitated by ICEM Chemicals and Rubber Industries Officer Kemal &Ouml;zkan.
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Participants at the 1 April Workshop in Sophia&nbsp;
It also featured a presentation called &ldquo;European Level Social Dialogue&rdquo; by Mira Kovacheva of the Bulgarian Foundation for Advanced Social Trust (FAST). Trade union presentations were made by Krasimir Krastev, President of Bulgaria&rsquo;s Chemicals Workers&rsquo; Union; Todor Birindjiev, President of Podkrepa Chemical Workers; and Mustafa &Ouml;ztaskin, President of Petrol-İş, and Aziz &Ccedil;elik, Education and International Director of Kristal-İş. 
 
The workshop established a framework of lasting cross-national dialogue between trade unions and employer organisations. This will prove vital, considering the two strikes that occurred at Trakia Glass in Targovishte, as well as the fact that Şişecam and the Bulgarian union continue to negotiate for a new term agreement, hopefully to be accomplished in constructive social dialogue.

Social Dialogue Workshop Brings Turkish and Bulgarian Unions Together

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Some 13,000 contract workers of several Indian trade unions ended an eight-day strike Saturday, 5 April, against state-run Neyveli Lignite Corporation, a mining and electric generating company in southern Tamil Nadu state that supplies power to four neighbouring states. 
 
The contract workers, employed for as long as 12 years at the company&rsquo;s three mines and three power stations, are seeking permanent work status and payment of bonuses. Reportedly, the company had filed a petition with India&rsquo;s Supreme Court to vacate a recent Madras Hugh Court ruling calling on Neyveli to make all contract workers full-time employees.
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Contract workers were also seeking housing provisions, and medical and transport allowances. The strike, which began on 29 March, was highlighted by mass demonstrations in front of two of the power plants. At one, Thermal Power Station No. 2, all 2,000 demonstrators were arrested by police. 
 
The end of the strike indicates that contract workers obtained their demand for regularisation. A spokesperson for Neyveli Lignite, founded in 1956, which went public in 1986, said during the strike that 4,000 contract workers had been absorbed into the company, and that an 8.33% had been awarded. The company mined 22 million tonnes of lignite in 2007, and saw a 10.57% increase in power generation.

13,000 Contract Workers End Strike Against India’s Neyveli Lignite Corporation

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A pending strike by ICEM Nigerian Affiliate PENGASSAN was called off on 26 March after Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. made promises in a high-level meeting before the Nigerian Labour Minister in Abuja. The nationwide strike by the white-collar oil workers union was called a week earlier, after Mobil Oil &ndash; 100% owned by US-based ExxonMobil &ndash; took advantage of a restructuring to sack over 100 PENGASSAN union leaders. 
 
Union General Secretary Bayo Olowoshile told the ICEM at the weekend that a number of understandings were made by the two sides before the Labour Minister, including reinstatement of the unionists. Although those PENGASSAN members are not yet back on their jobs, their salaries continue to be paid.
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PENGASSAN General-Secretary Bayo Olowshile&nbsp;
The dispute in the downstream sector surfaced in early March when local managers failed to show up for an industry-wide mediation session over work practices and severance procedures. That meeting was attended by other refiners in the downstream sector. In the following days, Mobil Nigeria began discharging the unionists. 
 
The ICEM intervened on behalf of its Nigerian affiliate with a letter to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson demanding that the PENGASSAN union leaders, including the National Treasurer, a zonal Financial Secretary, and all shop stewards and bargaining committee members at Mobil Nigeria, be reinstated. 
 
In part, the 11 March letter charged the company with &ldquo;using the restructuring to deliberately target PENGASSAN members and representatives for job redundancy. Management has more than doubled the number of redundancies from the original numbers in order to eliminate the trade union and its members, which is illegal and an affront to the security and prosperity of Nigeria.
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Tillerson later visited Nigeria and President Umaru Musa Yar&rsquo;Adua on 28 March on proposed construction of a 100,000 barrel-per-day natural gas to petrol plant. A day earlier, Mobil Oil Human Resources Manager Udom Inoyo responded to the ICEM intervention. He stated the company is committed &ldquo;to working closely with PENGASSAN within normal internal channels of communication to resolve the (severance) issue.&rdquo; 
 
Olowoshile said that the union was now in a wait-and-see stance, pending deliverance on pledges made during the 28 March meeting in Abuja.

Mobil Oil Nigeria Must Now Deliver on Pledges Made to PENGASSAN

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&nbsp;The ICEM has filed a stern protest with the Iranian government over its use of harsh and unnecessary force to break up a tyre strike at Kian Tyre, near Chahardangeh just west of Tehran. The police force occurred 12 April when troops smashed factory gates and climbed walls to get at strikers. 
 
Some 100 workers were brutalised with electric batons, and hauled off in police buses to incarceration, reportedly at Ahmad Abaad Mostofi police station. For the first 36 hours of detention, workers&rsquo; families had no news on those who were arrested.
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&nbsp; 
Eventually, most of the 100 were released conditionally, but only after police interrogated them to determine the strike&rsquo;s leaders. Reports say that at least ten are still being held, as are six firefighters who refused to disperse the strikers with hot-water cannons. 
 
Workers at the factory employing 1,200 took strike action on 9 April because of non-payment of wages. They had not been paid since autumn 2007, with the exception of one month&rsquo;s pay plus a US$120 New Year&rsquo;s bonus. 
 
Kian Tyre was established in 1958 as a joint venture with the American company B.F. Goodrich. In 1979, the enterprise became part of state-owned National Iranian Industries, and in 1994 it was sold to private Iranian owners. The plant had previously gone under the name Alborz Tire Mfg. Co.

ICEM Protests Iran’s Brutal Use of Force to Break Up Tyre Strike

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Following a precedent-setting master labour agreement achieved last year between ICEM affiliate United Steelworkers (USW) and International Paper Co. covering workers at 14 US pulp and paper mills, 2,800 USW members at paper converting plants of the US-based firm ratified a similar four-year agreement late in April.
&quot;Never before have we had a single agreement covering so many converter locations,&quot; said USW President Leo Gerard. Added USW Vice President Jon Geenen, who heads the union's paper industry bargaining, &quot;Our members' ratification of this new master agreement is an indicator of the qaulity of the agreement and a sign of progress in our relationship with International Paper.&quot;
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USW President Leo Gerard
The agreement covers workers at 32 paper converting facilities in 18 US states.
Wages will increase 8% over the term, and the pension scheme will see increases throughout the contract's four years. The new agreement contains a successorship clause, a vital contractual measure that ensures that if the company sells any one facility, the new owner must, as part of the sale agreement, retain all workers, recognise the USW as bargaining representative, and honour the collective agreement.
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Also contained in the master pact is a pledge by International Paper that it will not change the medical insurance plan, unless the union agrees to it. Local issues and non-economic bargaining will continue to be handled at local branch level bargaining tables, and local unions will still retain their own contract expiration dates.
Separately, in another matter involving International paper in the US, an explosion at a company pulp and paper mill in the state of Mississippi killed one contract worker, and seriously injured four others. A total of 17 contract workers were injured in the 3 May blast of a recovery boiler at the company's Vicksburg mill. The explostion occurred when a boiler inside the pulp mill was restarted following a maintenance shutdown.
&nbsp;

USW’s Converting Workers at International Paper Ratify Master Contract

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Last week proved to be a deadly for South African mining company Gold Fields Ltd. Fourteen miners were killed, including nine on 1 May at the firm&rsquo;s South Deep Mine near Randfontein, in the northeast province of Gauteng. 
 
Those nine were killed in an inexcusable safety breach that saw a chain attached to an elevator cage snap, causing death when the cage plummeted 60 metres inside a mine shaft. Eight of the nine were contract workers, including one woman. Those eight were employed by the subcontracting firm, Murray and Roberts.
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Two days earlier, on 29 April, three miners were killed and one seriously injured, this time inside another shaft of the South Deep complex. They were killed and injured by a rock fall caused by a seismic event. Also on a same day, a driller&rsquo;s assistant employed by Gold Fields was killed at the Twin Shafts mine from a rock slide. 
 
The week&rsquo;s spate of accidents caused South Africa&rsquo;s second largest gold producer to suspend mining operations in the country, a move mandated by the Department of Energy and Minerals in order to secure a full review of safety procedures. 
 
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) General Secretary Frans Baleni said branch unions at Gold Fields will observe a full day of mourning over the tragedies. NUM Regional Chairperson Thamsanqa Joko said the company is not doing enough to protect workers. &ldquo;We feel that more should have been done to improve safety conditions,&rdquo; he said in a South African newspaper.
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&nbsp;NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni 
 

And the country&rsquo;s Minister of Minerals and Energy, Buyelwa Sonjica, who met with NUM leaders and management at South Deep following the elevator collapse, was sharp with her criticism of the company. &ldquo;I see it as gross negligence, which can only be due to lack of maintenance.&rdquo; She called it &ldquo;inexcusable&rdquo; and promised those responsible will be held accountable, even if it means prosecution. 
 
Following the near tragedy of 3,200 miners who were trapped at Harmony Gold&rsquo;s Elandsrand Mine last October, the South Africa government ordered a full safety audit of all the country&rsquo;s mines. That audit is expected to be complete by the end of May 2008.

14 Killed in Gold Fields’ South African Mines Last Week

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Civil unrest has gripped Panama now for two weeks, following the cold-blooded murder on 12 February of a leader of a construction workers&rsquo; union. Members of the National Union of Workers in the Construction and Similar Industries (SUNTRACS) were protesting in the Caribbean port city of Col&oacute;n over inadequate health, safety, and hygiene on the job, when student-leader Al Iromi Smith was shot in the back by a police officer. 
 
The killing, the third by police or agents of a yellow construction union of SUNTRACS members since last August, brought tens of thousands of protesters to the streets in several Panamanian cities between 13-16 February. Those protests continued last week, as SUNTRACS members and their allies passed circulars, with their demands printed, on major avenues in Panama City, Col&oacute;n, and other cities.
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On 16 February, Panama&rsquo;s President, Mart&iacute;n Torrijos, issued a decree calling for more enforcement and safeguards inside the country&rsquo;s booming construction market. But that decree did not go far enough in meeting building workers&rsquo; demands. In a one-year period to January 2008, 29 construction workers have died on the job, mostly from falls off high-rise buildings that are under construction. 
 
The Global Union Federation, Building and Wood Workers&rsquo; International (BWI), immediately lodged a stern protest over the assassination of Smith, which reportedly occurred as he was entering a medical centre for treatment following street clashes with police. BWI also launched a letter-writing drive to Torrijos and National Police Commander, Rolando Mirones. 
 
Some 30 or more protesters were severely injured in the clashes, with reports of 700 construction workers being detained. SUNTRACS said national police raided construction sites in the days following the 12 February death of Smith, arresting building worker activists and holding them in isolation. The government did arrest the police officer charged in the shooting, as well as another officer who witnessed the killing. 
 
At Smith&rsquo;s funeral, on 19 February, SUNTRACS leaders said the government and employers&rsquo; association still must meet wage demands and impose price freezes on living essentials, such as food, fuel, and housing. A Panamanian growth rate surpassing 10% has caused a 2007 inflation rate of 6.4%, with wages left far behind. 
 

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The union is also demanding the dismissal of Interior Minister Daniel Delgado Diamante, a former Noriega aide who is accused of suppressing protests, using strong-armed tactics, means since his appointment last year. They also seek the removal of Police Commander Mirones. SUNTRACS will meet again tomorrow, 26 February, with government leaders and the building employers&rsquo; association in attempts to resolve differences. 
 
Meanwhile, following a mass meeting of SUNTRACS members on 23 February in Panama City, the union will partner with a coalition grouping, the National Front for the Defence of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO), in calling two warning marches &ndash; Thursday, 28 February, and again on 13 March &ndash; which would serve as a precursor for a national strike if workers&rsquo; demands are not met by the government and employers.

Strife, Trade Union Deaths Caused by Unsafe Work Conditions in Panama

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With majority support, Eastern Canadian pulp and paper union officers voted to enter talks a full year early in efforts to preserve job security and find solutions to the forestry crisis in Canada. Meeting in Montr&eacute;al, Quebec, last week, 250 local union leaders of ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers (CEP) Union, from both the East and the West of Canada, drew up common strategies on bargaining agendas. 
 
CEP and the lead company chosen in the East, Canadian-based AbitibiBowater, will begin talks on 2 March, 13 months before the expiry of labour agreements in the East. CEP will be seeking a contract extension in these talks.
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CEP represents 5,500 AbitibiBowater workers in about 15 eastern Canadian pulp and paper mills. The bargaining pattern set there will then be used for contract extensions at other pulp and paper companies in the East, which employ another 20,000 paperworkers. 
 
In the West, contracts at CEP-represented mills expire on 1 April 2008. CEP President Dave Coles said key issues in both East and West negotiations will be job security, probing operational processes in order to achieve productivity gains, and contract term lengths.
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Coles said the challenges in these talks will be to find modern ways to enhance productivity, without wage and benefit cuts. &ldquo;This will not be done by making economic cuts in our collective agreements,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We think it is better to optimize productivity than to cut wages.&rdquo; 
 
Pulp and paper local unions in both parts of Canada are currently under five-year labour accords, with the ones in the East due to expire on 1 April 2009.

Canadian Paperworkers Vote to Enter Eastern Talks Early

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