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The ICEM was saddened to learn of the death, 22 September, of Golekanye Mogende, President of the Botswana Mine Workers&rsquo; Union (BMWU). Mogende, 56, passed away unexpectedly in his home in Kopong. 
 
In March 2008, he was elected to head the prominent union, which represents miners at several enterprises, including the joint diamond-mining venture between the government and DeBeers called Debswana, and BCL, a copper, nickel, and cobalt company formerly called Bamangwato Concession Ltd. 
 
In fact, after joining the BMWU in 1995, it was at BCL where his union career was started. As BMWU chairman of the Selebi-Phikwe branch, a post he was elected to in the year 2000, he and three other bargaining committee members were sacked by the Botswana-based company in July 2004. Their crime: possession of financial information on the company, a common practice for any trained union negotiator and one essential for effective workers&rsquo; representation at the bargaining table. 

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Two months later, his integrity still intact, he was elected Deputy National Chairman of the BMWU. In 2006, he became the full-time chairman of the Salibi-Phikwe branch and was elected the peacemaker President in a fractious BMWU national election at last spring&rsquo;s congress. 
 
He was remembered by thousands of mourners, including Botswana Federation of Trade Unions President Japhta Radibe, in a memorial on 27 September. 
 
&ldquo;We understood Comrade Mogende to be a dedicated trade union leader, with an honest and direct approach to matters between labour and management that gave mineworkers &ndash; indeed, all workers in Botswana &ndash; earnest representation and a sincere commitment to workers&rsquo; rights,&rdquo; stated ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, in a tribute letter to the BMWU . 
 
He is survived by his wife and two children.

ICEM Mourns Passing of Botswana’s Mine Union Leader

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General Secretary Manfred Warda had a productive mission to Serbia 22-23 September where he addressed planned ICEM activities for the Central European Region, as well as hearing the problems and challenges of affiliates from Serbia and Croatia. 
 
Warda also met with Serbian Labour Minister Rasim Ljajic and impressed upon him the necessity of Serbia&rsquo;s government to be more engaged in encouraging Social Dialogue between trade unions and business enterprises. 
 
Warda also received a favourable response from the minister on Serbia moving to ratify ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention. And his intervention on behalf of Serbian trade union affiliate Nezavisnost over an ugly paper-packaging factory dispute with Ljajic apparently resolved the dispute in the days that followed the meeting. 
 
The meeting with ICEM&rsquo;s Central European affiliates was facilitated by Freidrich Ebert Siftung (FES), the German labour-oriented foundation. Some 25 trade union delegates took part, and besides leaders from Nezavisnost, the Serbia affiliate, the Autonomous Union of Energy and Petroleum Unions, a former WFIW trade union, participated. From Croatia, leaders of EKN &ndash; the Power, Chemical, and Non-Metal Workers&rsquo; Union &ndash; were present. 

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The ICEM was privileged to have Nezavisnost President Milorad Panovic, Autonomous Energy, Petrochemical President Branislav Nedeljkovic, and EKN President Ivan Tomac leading the forum, as well as ICEM Central European Project Coordinator Mato Lalic. 
 
Major problems discussed included oil and gas restructuring in state-owned companies; trade union exclusion in ongoing Serbian-Russian energy cooperation; and efforts by small and mid-sized companies to reduce wages and social benefits and harassment of workers &ndash; the paper-packaging plant being a prime example. 
 
As well, problems exist within the downstream operations of Russian oil company Lukoil in Serbia. The ICEM pledged to take these concerns to the parent company in the structure of the Global Framework Agreement between ICEM, Lukoil, and the Russian Oil and Gas Workers Union (ROGWU). 
 
There was agreement among participating trade unions on the need for more unity, including withICEM affiliate EPS Trade Union of Serbia, the most representative union in the electric and coal-mining sectors of Serbia, which was not present at the conference.

ICEM Work Explained to Serbian, Croatian Affiliates in Belgrade

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The ICEM-affiliated Coal Mining Industry Workers&rsquo; Union of Ukraine (PRUPA) held its Third Congress in Kiev on 17-18 September, and celebrated passage and enactment of the &ldquo;Law on Enhancing the Prestige of Miners&rsquo; Labour.&rdquo; 
 
The law, years in the making, was passed by Ukraine&rsquo;s Verkhovna Rada without a dissenting vote on 9 September, and became law when President Victor Yuschenko signed it on 11 September. 
 
PRUPA celebrated the passage at its quintennial Congress in Kiev, with ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda addressing the delegates and giving his congratulations on work done to enact the measure. Leaders of Ukraine&rsquo;s largest mining union also re-elected Victor Turmanov as President.
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Turmanov said that while the law, which gives miners unprecedented benefits, is a major accomplishment, it is still different from a first draft. We thus have &ldquo;room for improvement,&rdquo; he said. Miners of both FRUP and ICEM affiliate, the Independent Miners&rsquo; Trade Union of Ukraine, lobbied the Rada hard for passage. 
 
On 3 September, a day after the legislative body opened its current term, the unions declared a Miners&rsquo; Day holiday and thousands flooded Kiev to lobby passage of the bill. Both Turmanov and the Independent Miners&rsquo; Union Chairman Mikhail Volynets are members of the Rada. 
 
The &ldquo;Law on Enhancing the Prestige of Miners&rsquo; Labour&rdquo; grants underground miners an immediate reduction on their state income tax from 15% to 10%; gives them a means to gain additional pay with the mining base rate pegged at 30% higher than the country&rsquo;s minimum wage; mandates that pension benefits cannot be less than 80% of the coal industry&rsquo;s average wage for miners after 15 years of service; and gives miners with three years of service free higher education stipends, as well as granting children of workers with 15 years service in mines free higher education credits.
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Passage of the measure signifies government recognition of the fact that there is significant shortage of manpower in the Ukraine&rsquo;s burgeoning coal industry. The new law is aimed at recruiting young workers into mining. The bill was passed through amendments to the 2008 Ukrainian budget. 
 
The &ldquo;Prestige of Miners&rdquo; law also grants trade union health and safety representatives the right to halt production when major breaches of safety or health concerns occur. The ICEM also is strongly encouraging its mine union affiliates and the Ukrainian government to ratify ILO Convention 176, the Safety and Health in Mines Convention.

Ukraine’s Mineworkers Re-Elect Turmanov, Herald New Rada Law on Compensation

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Meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, last month, leaders of five energy unions &ndash; comprising the ICEM&rsquo;s Caspian Sea Energy Union Network &ndash; drafted and issued the nine-point &ldquo;Declaration on Social Standards for Workers of MNCs Operating in the Caspian Region.&rdquo; 
 
ICEM-affiliated energy unions from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan took part. The meetings also had the active involvement of Germany&rsquo;s Friedrich Ebert Siftung, with Azerbaijan Country Director Rashad Huseynli participating. 
 
The declaration was the natural outgrowth of efforts by the host union, the Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Union of Azerbaijan (OGWUA), to bring trade union rights and better social benefits to workers of contracting firms in the Caspian&rsquo;s oil and gas development areas.
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&nbsp;Delegates to the ICEM's Caspian Sea Energy Union Network 

The two-day conference was led by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda and ICEM Energy Sector Chairman Lars Myhre, the Norwegian Industri Energi trade union leader who played a key role with OGWUA President Jahangir Aliyev in organising the first of the Caspian Sea contract workers through a strike against McDermott International in 2005. 
 
The declaration pledges to defend the civil, social, and economic rights of energy workers in the region. It states, using &ldquo;multilateral and bilateral discussions, our resolve (is) to defend through our consolidated activities&rdquo; the nine civil, social, and economic rights inherent in all work.
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Signing of the Declaration, at left ICEM Gen. Sec. Manfred Warda; right, seated: ROGWU's Lev Mironov
Those nine include: a &ldquo;guaranteed right of workers to organise as the key component of human rights in the sphere of work&rdquo;; decent remuneration and promotion of job opportunities for people in the countries where the MNCs operate; gender, race, and youth equality, with &ldquo;non-acceptance of all manifestations of discrimination at work.&rdquo; 
 
Also, to resist the employment practices of temporary and seasonal work; to promote uniform qualification requirements by MNCs; promote best practice health, safety, and ergonomic policies; adhere to national labour law observances; full compliance with ILO core labour standards, and the OECD Guidelines for MNCs; and to seek Global Framework Agreements with MNCs &ldquo;as a tool to guarantee uniform social and economic standards, and civil rights for workers of the Caspian Region.&rdquo; 
 
Besides the ICEM and OGWUA&rsquo;s Alyiyev signing the Declaration, it was also signed by Tlekkabyl Kabdulov, President, the Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Union of Kazakhstan; Lev Mironov, President, the Russian Oil and Gas Workers&rsquo; Union; and Mustafa Oztaskin, General Secretary of Turkey&rsquo;s Petrol-Iş.

ICEM’s Caspian Energy Network Formulates Work Rights Declarations

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On 16 September, 23 regional representatives of ICEM&rsquo;s Sub-Saharan African Region met in Douala, Cameroon, and developed an ambitious agenda around project work, organising, and health, safety, and environmental matters. The forum was headed by Regional Chairman Rayford Mbulu, General Secretary of the Mineworkers&rsquo; Union of Zambia, and served as the Executive Meeting of the region. 
 
Delegates took up the dire political situations on the continent, including the power-sharing agreement now in place in Zimbabwe between political parties headed by Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe. The committee gave a cautious nod toward the arrangement, but did call it a step in the right direction for Zimbabwe. The ICEM African union leaders called for monitoring of the power-sharing commitment by the world&rsquo;s political leaders.
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ICEM&nbsp;Sub-Saharan Africa Region Chair Rayford Mbulu&nbsp;
The Sub-Saharan African committee also expressed concern over political situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, C&ocirc;te d&rsquo;Ivoire, Somalia, and Sudan. 
 
The committee gave whole-hearted support to the inauguration of an ICEM project on Contract and Agency Labour in the region, with trade unionists from the former WFIW present promising to explore avenues of additional funding. They also discussed the possibility of development of a project around Chinese investment in Africa, as well as a separate women&rsquo;s project.
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They also took up a situation involving a uranium mining project in Malawi. An NGO, Citizens for Justice Malawi, has brought the project before the ICEM region on environmental and workers&rsquo; rights grounds. The project, by Australian Paladin Energy Ltd., is expected to begin extraction early in 2009. The regional committee will dispatch a fact-finding team consisting of ICEM Regional Coordinator Fabian Nkomo and Derrick Elbrecht, the General Treasurer of South Africa&rsquo;s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). 
 
Besides ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana of NUM, other representatives of ICEM affiliates present at the 16 September regional Executive Meeting includes comrades from Botswana, Cameroon, C&ocirc;te d&rsquo;Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

ICEM’s Sub-Saharan African Region Shapes Priorities at Cameroon Meeting

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A forum to highlight, before the ILO, the social unravelling that comes with the widespread use of Contract and Agency Labour &ndash; and all forms of precarious work &ndash; was held 3 October in Geneva. The half-day programme was intended to give notice to the ILO that it must address the issue in order to preserve its work relationships agenda. 
 
The Global Union Federations ICEM, Building and Wood Workers&rsquo; International (BWI), International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (IUF), International Metalworkers&rsquo; Federation (IMF), and Union Network International (UNI) took part, as did the Council of Global Unions, the umbrella organisation of the GUFs, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and Trade Union Advisory Council of the OECD.
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The forum had input from representatives of the Bureau of Workers&rsquo; Activities (Actrav) of the ILO. 
 
Speaker after speaker emphasized the threat to core ILO Conventions 87 and 98 by the ever-growing use of short-term contract and temporary workers by employers. With that, came a common outcry, a lowering of living and working conditions is sure to follow. 
 
In introducing the subject, ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda equated the current &ldquo;precariousness&rdquo; of the global financial situation, and the hopeful end to &ldquo;blind faith&rdquo; markets, with the necessity for the ILO to begin the process to introduce global standards on precarious work.
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&nbsp;ICEM Gen. Sec. Manfred Warda 

&ldquo;The issue of precarious work is fundamental to the very essence of the ILO,&rdquo; stated Warda. &ldquo;The erosion of employment structures robs workers of the will and capacity to join unions, and it gives families a permanent feeling of insecurity.&rdquo; 
 
Warda stressed that the ILO must begin serious discussions with its employer constituencies and governmental units to establish recommendations and standards on the issue. 
 
ICEM testimony also came from Danish trade union leader J&oslash;rgen Juul Rasmussen, the General Secretary of Dansk El-Forbund. He said the practice of employing contract or agency workers is now common in both developed and developing nations. &ldquo;Our experience, which is not always easy, is to identify the primary employer, and then use all means to enforce the law regarding health insurance, pension rights, and other social criteria on behalf of agency workers.&rdquo; 
 
The strategy of Dansk El-Forbund, an electrical workers&rsquo; union, said Rasmussen, is to be pro-active in organising agency workers and so-called subcontractors.
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Dansk El-Forbund Gen. Sec. J&oslash;rgen Juul Rasmussen&nbsp;
BWI General Secretary Anita Normark said companies engage temporary workers to cut costs, increase their flexibility, and to have less responsibility. 
 
Global trade unions and the ILO, she said, must engage governments and companies &ldquo;on what this is leading to in society. For governments, this is fast becoming an issue on how to secure the economies of their nations.&rdquo;
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IMF Gen. Sec. Marcello Malentacchi&nbsp;&nbsp;
IMF General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi called attention to an ILO complaint that his federation, together with the Korean Metal Workers&rsquo; Union, brought before the Committee on Freedom of Association over falsification of contract workers. He said at the Kiryung Electronics factory, an operation cited in the complaint, only 5% of workers in the plant are permanent workers and they are male. 
 
&ldquo;Nearly all the (others) are women earning 47% less than their male colleagues.&rdquo; 
 
He added, &ldquo;Our unions are facing an uphill battle and they need the support of the ILO. The best hope for precarious workers to improve their situation is to unionise.&rdquo; 
Other case study experiences were shared by Alke Boessinger and Claire Parfitt of UNI and Peter Rossman of IUF. Rossman used examples of Nestle globally and Unilever regionally to prove that &quot;a declining (unionised) bargaining unit means declining conditions for all ...&nbsp;and shrinking applicability of the core labour standards.&quot; 
 
The forum opened with endorsement of a process toward ILO debate on the subject by Actrav Director Dan Cunniah, who said there should be an ILO Convention on precarious work and that more can and should be done to achieve one. 
Raquel Gonzalez of the ITUC&rsquo;s Workers&rsquo; Group called the 3 October discussions important because the issue is a major obstacle to the decent work relationship. She said the ILO&rsquo;s declaration from June 2008, the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation, has several provisions which tie in with precarious employment. 
 
Gonzalez also said the growth of temporary work must be central in discussions next year during the ILO Labour Conference&rsquo;s focus on Gender Equality, &ldquo;since women are over-represented in this type of work.&rdquo; 
 
In the mid 1990s, the ILO did take up the issue of temporary and agency labour, but the discussions were dropped due to lack of consensus, within the tripartite structures, over definitions, terms, and language related to non-regular work.

Global Union Federations Bring Contract, Agency Labour Issue Squarely Before the ILO

Boehringer Ingelheim/ICEM 
 
India Project 2008-2009 
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Based on the initiation work by ICEM and its affiliates in India and following an analysis of the prevailing problems and needs during the workshop in November 2006, the following project for the period July 2008 to December 2009 was agreed. 
Objectives 
&bull; To fill the existing gap of qualified peer educators/lay counsellors in the industrial sectors covered by ICEM affiliates in India; 
&bull; To up-scale awareness campaigns, education and advocacy for VCT and ART; 
&bull; To familiarise medical and para-medical staff in medical facilities of companies, Welfare Board members and staff at company schools with HIV/AIDS to ensure awareness, confidentiality, non-discrimination and non-victimisation; 
&bull; To publish brochures, leaflets and posters in five different languages (Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi and English). 
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Activities 
&bull; Training of 500 peer educators/lay counsellors in 20 programmes of three days each; 
&bull; Orientation of 250 medical and para-medical staff in company health facilities in ten programmes of one day each; 
&bull; Orientation of welfare board and committee members; 
&bull; Orientation of 200 teachers and staff at company schools in eight programmes of one day each; 
&bull; Orientation of officials of local self-government; 
&bull; Publication of brochures, leaflets and posters in five languages; 
&bull; Observation of World AIDS Day &ndash; organising rallies, meetings and symposiums. 
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Target Groups 
The target groups are as per above activities. For the training of peer educators/lay counsellors 400 will be unionists from the coal mining sector and 100 from the diamond and cement sectors. 
 
For the other target groups they will be predominantly from the coal mining sector as few medical facilities or company schools exist outside that sector. 
 
Orientation of officials of local self-government is not envisaged in the first year of the project. 
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Expected Results 
It is expected that peer educators/lay counsellors drawn from the ranks of the union can actively promote VCT among workers, their family members and the wider community. They are non-medical staff whose main objective will be Know-your-Status-Campaigns. VCT will be carried out at company or public medical facilities. It is difficult to quantify expected results but it can be safely said that the baseline is close to zero; i.e. that very few people go for voluntary counselling and testing. 
 
It is assumed that the companies give such trained people some time off from their normal work duties.

Joint ICEM - Boehringer Ingelheim Project on HIV/AIDS in India

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A memorial event in Brisbane, Australia, and a minute of silence at all mining operations in Queensland State marked the first Miners&rsquo; Memorial Day on Friday, 19 September. The state-wide tribute to fallen miners was the brain-child of the Energy and Mining Division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Queensland. 
 
The day was chosen because it was on 19 September 1921 that the worst mining disaster in Queensland history occurred: 75 miners perished in a coal-dust explosion at Mount Mulligan in the northern reaches of the state. The day was officially recognised by the state government, with Acting Premier Paul Lucas, speaking at the memorial in Brisbane, saying that many miners had paid the ultimate price for an industry which had helped form Queensland&rsquo;s strong economy.
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&ldquo;While we enjoy the benefits of the resources boom, we should reflect on how we got here today and at what price,&rdquo; Lucas said. 
 
CFMEU Queensland put the count at 1,450 miners who have died at collieries since the early 1800s. CFMEU state Secretary Jim Valery said residents of the eastern Australian state often forget the sacrifices that have been made by miners and their families in bringing prosperity to Queensland. 
 
Besides the 1921 Mount Mulligan mine explosion, other tragic examples of coal-mining catastrophes in modern times occurred at Box Flat on 31 July 1972, when 17 miners died, and on 13 October 1954 at Collinsville, where seven miners died in a gas explosion. In addition, 36 miners lost their lives in recent history at mines in the area around Moura. On 7 August 1994, 11 died at a colliery near the east-central Queensland town; on 18 July 1986, 12 perished at the Moura No. 4 mine; and on 20 September 1975, 13 died inside the Kianga mine. 
 
Last year in Brisbane, an excellent video documentary entitled &ldquo;Make Safety Their Monument&rdquo; was produced, with funds commissioned by the Queensland Resources Council.

Queensland State CFMEU Holds Inaugural Miners’ Memorial Day on 19 September

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A month after Brazilian and Canadian miners met in the province of Manitoba to develop further bonds of solidarity, 1,300 members of the United Steelworkers (USW) in Thompson, Canada, ratified their first labour agreement with Vale, the Brazilian mining giant which bought the nickel-mining and smelting operations of Inco in northern Manitoba two years ago. 
 
The USW announced on 16 September that union members of Local 6166 ratified the new three-year labour agreement with a 65.5% vote in favour.
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The labour agreement contains a first-year three percent wage increase, effective 15 September 2008, followed by wage increases of 2.5% in 2009 and 2% in 2010. The new contract also contains cost-of-living adjustments, plus a C$5,000 ratification bonus for each worker. The union said the average increase for workers over the three-year period totals 13.7% 
 
The new collective agreement includes a process to limit the amount of sub-contract work Vale can do, and the union won improvements to pensions, insurance, medical emergency benefits, and maternity leave. Local branch president Les Ellsworth called the negotiations &ldquo;a good first step in our relationship with&rdquo; Companhia do Rio Doce, or Vale, which purchased Canadian-based Inco in 2006. 
 
&ldquo;We hope that the way these negotiations have been conducted will help set the stage for bargaining at Vale-Inco&rsquo;s Ontario operations,&rdquo; said Ellsworth, referring to contracts coming due next year for 4,000 USW miners and mill workers at Vale&rsquo;s copper and nickel facilities in Sudbury, Ontario. 
 
On 12-14 August, leaders of five Brazilian unions, including Sindicato dos Ferroviviarios do Maranhoa-MA (CNTT) and Sindimina-RJ (CNTSM), visited Thompson along with USW members from the eastern regions of Canada &ndash; also employed by Vale-Inco &ndash; in ongoing efforts to build solidarity.

Western Canadian Steelworkers Reach Accord with Mining Company Vale

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A call by ICEM affiliate Toimihenkil&ouml;unioni TU, the Salaried Workers&rsquo; Union in Finland, to bring European pressure actions against chemicals company Kemira has been delayed until later this week because of progress in redundancy talks. TU was to begin actions through the Kemira European Forum (KEF) on 17-18 September, but those actions were cancelled on 12 September. 

Kemira announced in early August a decision to pare costs totaling &euro;50 million, and to cut 1,000 jobs worldwide. Some 40% of the cost cuts were to come from Finnish operations. Kemira announced it would exit its paints and coatings business, called Tikkurila, and concentrate on water and fibre-management chemicals businesses. 

Salaried staff and research and development workers in Finland, members of TU, are to bear much of the cost-cutting and suffer redundancies.
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But following the call by the KEF Works Council for industrial action at workplaces in Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland, the attitude of management changed in mandatory social talks. &ldquo;The will to reach an agreement is now strong on both sides,&rdquo; said Tomi Juntunen, TU Chief Shop Steward at a Kemira plant in Oulu, Finland. 

Four key questions remain open in talks, however, including levels of severance pay for workers who will be made redundant and issues surrounding retirement benefits. The new dates for European protests, if progress was not made last week in negotiations, will be 24-25 September. 

Meanwhile, Kemira this month expanded its water-treatment chemicals business by buying Zibo Huaqing Water Purifying Products of Shandong Province, China. It was the second Chinese water filtration business the Finnish company has purchased since 2007. Kemira, which the Finnish government holds a 16.52% stake, also bought two water treatment companies in Brazil over the past two years, as well as similar businesses once held by chemical companies in Denmark, France, and the US.

European Actions Against Kemira Chemical Plants Delayed

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