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Global worker No1 2022

Global worker No2 2022

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ChevronTexaco Nigeria Ltd. and one of its contractors, US-based Elper Engineering, face strike actions if the companies do not live up to terms of a collective agreement put in place five years ago. ICEM affiliate NUPENG met again last week in Nigeria with the two companies to resolve the dispute over back wages and severance, but the employers rebuffed efforts to settle the issue. 
The union declared its intent to resolve the dispute through social dialogue, but warned that NUPENG members working inside the two companies would strike if ChevronTexaco and Elper continue to avoid the issue. The two firms have granted the contractual obligation to a few employees, but have denied it to most. Contract workers at ChevronTexaco&rsquo;s massive Escravos operations in Ugborodo, Delta State, and its shallow-water platform Funiwa off Bayelsa State are affected.

Dispute Festering in Nigeria Between NUPENG, ChevronTexaco

The 19 February gas explosion that killed 65 miners at Grupo Mexico&rsquo;s Industria Mineral Mexicana subsidiary proves again the immediate necessity to improve safety and training in underground mining, particularly during times of high pricing and high demand for coal. 
 
Twenty-five of those killed at the Pasta de Conchos No. 8 mine near San Juande Sabinas, northern Coahuila State, were members of Section 13 of Mexico&rsquo;s Miners &amp; Metalworkers Union (SNTMMSRM), an affiliate of the International Metalworkers Federation (IMF). 

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Many others were short-term contract workers who were given no training, insufficient oxygen supply devices, and were sent deep into shafts within a day of being hired. Mexican government and company statements on safety precautions and equipment on this mine disaster contradict with what miners actually had available to them. 
 
The United Steelworkers of the US, which signed a strategic alliance with SNTMMSRM in April 2005, pledged financial and technical support to the union in the immediate aftermath of the blast. The IMF underscored the Mexican union&rsquo;s charge that this was &ldquo;industrial homicide&rdquo; and must be investigated and denounced as such. 
&ldquo;Grupo Mexico shareholders and directors and whoever is responsible for this crime, caused by greed, repression and insensitivity should be charged and punished accordingly,&rdquo; said SNTMMSRM and the IMF.

Mexican Coal Mine Blast Termed ‘Industrial Homicide’

A general strike last week by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and a pro-labour panel of lawmakers working inside a plenary session of South Korea&rsquo;s National Assembly blocked three bills regarding non-regular workers from reaching final approval. 
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The strikes, in which 300,000 workers took part, occurred on Tuesday and Thursday, 28 February and 2 March. (1 March was an official Korean holiday.) The lawmakers, primarily from the progressive Democratic Labor Party, took over a parliamentary session on 2 March to temporarily derail passage. 
 
The bills were approved by the Assembly&rsquo;s Environment and Labor Committee on 27 February, but action in the streets and inside the plenary session prevented final approval prior to the Assembly closing its session on 2 March. The issue is certain to meet further review and more public protests when the Assembly reconvenes on 20 March in an extraordinary session. 
 
The proposed legislation would do little to improve conditions for temporary and agency workers, but instead would give employers&rsquo; the flexibility to use hundreds of thousands more non-permanent workers and laying them off prior to the end of a proposed two-year period after which they must be made permanent. 
 
The ICEM congratulated KCTU on its strike and mobilisation. In an ICEM letter to KCTU President Cho Jun Ho, General Secretary Fred Higgs said it is &ldquo;of immense importance that the main issue of your struggle is defending the basic rights of contract and agency workers. The substitution or limiting of permanent direct employment has clearly become a priority issue for countless workers and their trade unions, in every region of the world and every sector.&rdquo;

Korean Temp Worker Bills Blocked for Now

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Oil workers in southern Iraq conducted a one-day strike 21 February as grievance to the Oil Ministry&rsquo;s neglect for work conditions and the infrastructure of the company. The strike at the Oil Transport Company of Basra was brought by the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE) in Basra. 
The strike took place due to the deliberate and targeted neglect of the transport company by the ministry and government; for improvements in workers&rsquo; living conditions; and as a demand to pay money promised to workers by the Oil Ministry but never paid.

Iraqi Oil Workers Strike Oil Ministry in Basra

Ron Beaton, President 
CEP Local 972 
323 Reeves Street 
Port Hawkesbury, NS B9A 2W2 
CANADA 
 
Transmitted by Fax Number +1 902.626.5943 
or E-Mail: <a href="mailto:cep.972@ns.sympatico.ca">cep.972@ns.sympatico.ca</a> 
 
 
Dear Brother Ron Beaton, 
 
We have learned from the ICEM of your courageous struggle to maintain the hard earned working conditions and job security provisions contained in the Paper Sector Pattern Bargaining Agreement for Eastern Canada. We also have been alerted that Stora Enso has locked out members of your local branch union in efforts to undermine the pattern. 
 
On the occasion of your union&rsquo;s rally and march in Port Hawkesbury on 18 March, we extend to Local 972 members our heartfelt Support and Solidarity in resisting Stora Enso&rsquo;s pattern weakening proposals. We stand with you in this dispute against Stora Enso, and urge Local 972 members to remain strong and unified in order to defeat these concessionary proposals. 
 
Your struggle is our struggle, and your determination and resolve to gain a fair and equitable labour agreement has our admiration and support. 
 
In Solidarity, 
 
(signed) 
 
(Name, 
Position, 
Name of the Union)

Model letter to the union in support of striking Canadian Stora Enso workers

The 20-million-member ICEM today condemns King Gyanendra and his autocratic rule in Nepal for the arrests and intimidation of dozens of pro-democracy activists in the days leading up to a four-day general strike beginning tomorrow, 6 April. The ICEM also condemns the absolute monarchy&rsquo;s threat to civil servants and professionals, who have been served notice that participation in the strike could mean dismissals or job transfers to remote areas of the Himalayan country. 
 
Specifically, the ICEM calls attention to the arrest yesterday of General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT) official Ramesh Badal. He was seized in New Baneswer as he was speaking to the Professional Alliance on joining the strike. Badal heads GEFONT&rsquo;s Department of Labour Relations. 
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Ramesh Badal
&ldquo;Arrests of activists before major strikes and demonstrations have become all too common in Nepal,&rdquo; said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. &ldquo;But this makes them no less appalling. Real rights and freedoms will not exist until Nepal&rsquo;s monarch lifts his absolute rule and allows political parties to function.&rdquo; 
 
The ICEM, a Global Union Federation consisting of 389 affiliates in 122 countries, including four in Nepal, supports the 6-9 April general strike as a means of challenging Gyanendra&rsquo;s autocratic rule, now in place for 14 months. This week&rsquo;s general strike is being called by a wide ranging political coalition called the Seven Parties Alliance. The royal government has countered the strike with prohibition orders banning all assemblies inside the greater Kathmandu area.

ICEM Condemns Arrests, Repression Leading to General Strike

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Exactly one week after the Howard government&rsquo;s WorkChoices legislation in Australia went into effect, labour unions across the country have mounted campaigns to alert workers of the dangers. The unions also are preparing to oust Prime Minister John Howard from office at the time of next elections in 18 months. Several unions have established websites where workers can post and respond to employer abuses. 
The new law went into effect on 27 March and, in short, dismantles collective bargaining in favour of a system of individual contracts and exempts employers with fewer than 100 workers from unfair dismissal claims. 
In the first week alone, Australian unions have noted a rash of abuses. For instance, in South Australia, a hotel has announced a restructuring plan in which it will half its workforce, and place all staff on individual contracts with longer work hours. At another business in New South Wales, a company sacked all 29 of its employees and invited them to apply for 20 jobs based on individual contracts with salaries of A$180 per week less. 
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ICEM affiliate Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has begun a campaign entitled &ldquo;WhatChoice?&rdquo; and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, in conjunction with several states, is bringing legal action to reverse the law.

Australia’s Labour Reform Strips Workers of Protections

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South African affiliate National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has challenged Harmony Gold Mining&rsquo;s sacking of 300 contract workers without consulting the union. Harmony fired contractor DBE Mining at the Kalgold mine in the Northern Cape, and will bring in a new contractor employing other workers. 
NUM, which has filed a complaint over the matter in a South African labour court, is demanding that Harmony, &ldquo;in the current climate of a boom in gold prices,&rdquo; hire the 300 on a permanent basis. 
In a statement, NUM said, &ldquo;Harmony would like to hide behind the myth that the 300 workers are employees of a contractor while in reality they do critical work in a Harmony mine &hellip; subcontracting and outsourcing are new forms of exploitation through which big companies try to exonerate themselves from the stain of careless laying off of employees.&rdquo;

Layoffs of Contract Workers Challenged by NUM

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Trade union members of Amicus, an ICEM affiliate in the UK, staged a second four-hour strike on 30 March at International Paper Co.&rsquo;s Inverurie mill in Scotland. The union and its 231 members at the paper mill will escalate industrial actions this week with two further strikes, tomorrow and Thursday, 4 and 6 April, if the company does not revise a pay offer for 2006 and 2007. 
Management has proposed an unacceptable pay freeze for this year and a minimal one-off payment in 2007. Workers for the past two years have contributed part of their weekly earnings to help fill a gap in the company&rsquo;s pension scheme. The industrial actions have boosted Amicus support inside the printing and writing papers mills, as well as in the nearby community of Aberdeenshire.

Further Strikes at IP Paper Mill in Scotland

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The Government in Mauritania successfully mediated a three-party dispute that ends a six-month union rights battle at an oil-services contractor, in which the ICEM played a direct role. The dispute began in October 2005 when El Majabaat El Koubra Tours (MKT), a transport and logistics provider for Australian-based Woodside Petroleum, sacked 16 union activists of the Energy and Petroleum Workers&rsquo; Union (CGTM) of Mauritania. 
Woodside should now offer permanent employment to qualified MKT contract workers, and to recognise CGTM as union representative. MKT has agreed to pay severance of four months salary to union delegates, three months to long-term employees and two months to others. The ICEM had lobbied both Woodside and the Mauritanian government over the unjust treatment of contract workers. 
In a speech that covered the matter, Mauritania head of state Col. Ely Ould Mohammed Vall said, &ldquo;I appreciate the position of Woodside who has finally chosen to conform to the legitimate expectations of our people.&rdquo; Woodside has both onshore and offshore oil exploration and development contracts in the West African country.

Dispute in Mauritania’s Oil-Services Sector Ends

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