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Report: Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mining and GW Unions
International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions
Contents
- Security a Concern as Indonesian Miners Ready to Return to Jobs Indonesia
- Deaths Continue To Plague Georgia’s Tkibuli-Mindeli Coal Mine Georgia
- UAW Pickets US Hyundai Dealers over Sexual Harassment in Korea South Korea, United States
- Canada’s Tar Sands, Keystone Pipeline Gets Aired at COP-17 South Africa, Global
- COP-17 Union Panel Stresses Sustainable Industry in Climate Change Debate South Africa, Global
- Steelworkers in Lockout Manifest against Copper Rubber in US United States
- CEP Holds 9th Women’s Conference in Ottawa, Canada Canada
- ICEM Mourns Deaths of 53 Oil Workers off Russia Russian Federation
- IMF Central Committee Moves on Dissolution, Merger Congresses Indonesia, Global
Security a Concern as
Indonesian Miners Ready to Return to Jobs 19 December 2011
ICEM InBrief Indonesia
Leaders of the PT
Freeport Indonesia Workers’ Union (SP KEP SPSI) and
managers of PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) will meet today in
Timika, Papua province, in efforts to forge fine points and
back-to-work terms after a historic three-month strike
ended last week at the Grasberg mines, the world’s
largest gold and copper deposits. (See ICEM news release
Some 10,000 strikers were ready to take
up their jobs on 17 December, but security reasons
prevented an orderly return to work. PTFI, a subsidiary of
US-based giant Freeport-McMoRan, suspended air lifts
between Tamika and the Grasberg mines after a helicopter
leaving Tembagapura early on 17 December was shot at. It
was carrying 29 people, including union-represented staff
workers. The wife of one worker was injured by glass and
shrapnel, before the Russian pilots of the charter service,
five minutes into the flight, diverted the aircraft to
Timika. A union spokesman said it would be a week before
workers started returning to the world’s largest gold
mine and second largest copper mine. Today’s talks in
Timika between the emboldened union and PTFI will center on
infrastructure issues, such as bus transportation,
improvements in transport shelters, and assuring that the
company’s personnel data management system is up to date
and accurate. These issues and overall security for PTFI
staff and non-staff alike in returning to their jobs will
be addressed. Mile 28: Union Blockade Stymied
Production PTFI began operating one of five slurry lines
between Grasberg and Timika over the weekend. The others
are expected to be operational within a week. The slurry
lines were vandalized in the early stages of the strike by
indigenous people bunkering small amounts of gold and
copper concentrate for sale on black markets. In the month
preceding last week’s strike settlement, PTFI began
repairs on pipelines using helicopter lifts of men and
materials. The company will be at full production early in
the new year. That was done to avert an iron-clad blockade
between Timika and Grasberg by strikers and their families
that proved to be union’s most effective leverage
point. The strike, which started on 15 September, was
historic since it pitted a low-wage, well-organised,
determined and enlightened unionised workforce against a
leading global extraction company with a wide revenue
stream, most notably from its leading money-maker, the rich
Grasberg open-cast and underground mines of Indonesia.
*This ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site
Deaths Continue To Plague Georgia’s
Tkibuli-Mindeli Coal Mine 19 December 2011 ICEM
InBrief Georgia A member of ICEM-affiliated
Metallurgical, Mining and Chemical Workers’ Union of
Georgia who received serious burns but escaped death in a 27
August 2010 coal mine explosion died inside that same mine
in late November due to a shaft cave-in. Sergi Ashotia,
50, was working inside the Tkibuli-Mindeli Coal Mine of
Geo-Coal, owned by the Georgian Industrial Group, when he
was buried on 24 November by rock and wooden support
pilings. A similar shaft collapse at the accident-prone
mine in western Imereti region occurred on 6 November,
killing two miners – 49-year-old Bondo Mikheilidze and
61-year-old Tamaz Gioradze. Ashotia was one six miners
severely burned in the August 2010 methane gas explosion
that killed four miners. The ICEM then charged Geo-Coal,
also called Saknakhshiri, with failure to install modern
ventilation and detection equipment. Safety issues were a
main reason behind a strike by the mine’s 200 workers
last February. After a January 2011 mine explosion killed
one worker, management sacked two low level managers and
police in the city of Tkibuli arrested them for safety
negligence. Miners then engaged in an open-ended strike on
2 February in support of them and in protest to the
company’s safety inadequacies. Kutasi Meeting, October
2011: Mineworkers' Union Leaders Present That strike ended
when the company agreed to a labour contract empowering the
Metallurgical, Mining, and Chemical Workers’ Union to
assist with safety improvements. The mine then experienced
another fatality on 9 September 2011. As for November’s
fatalities, the union is involved in the investigation, but
Metallurgical, Mining and Chemical Union President Tamazi
Dolaberidze said many of the facts are being distorted by
people who were present during the cave-ins. He said the
managing director is also disturbed by this. The result
has been reinforcement of the terms ending the strike, with
a joint labour-management safety committee established for
better process control of safety and labour protection
systems. Dolaberidzi said he is confident this will
positively impact preventative measures. Geo-Coal, or
Saknakhshiri, has granted each of the miners’ families
with the equivalent if US$7,000 and paid for all funeral
expenses. The company also took out an insurance policy
last February that went into force on 1 November. The
policy insures Geo-Coal for up to five fatal accidents per
year, and it gave the families of the three miners who
perished last month each with US$25,000. The union also
assisted families of dead miners with stipends. *This
ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site UAW Pickets US Hyundai Dealers over Sexual Harassment
in Korea 19 December 2011 ICEM InBrief South Korea
United States The US-based United Autoworkers’ Union
(UAW) exhibited exemplary trade union solidarity with the
Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) recently when American
autoworkers turned out to picket and handbill Hyundai auto
dealerships in the US. Customers at some 75 Hyundai
dealerships on 30 November learned of the injustice
afforded a contract worker at a Hyundai Motor Group factory
in South Chungcheong province, who was sacked after she
filed a sexual harassment lawsuit with the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) of Korea. The UAW took on the
mid-day action at Hyundai dealerships from California to
New York to inform American car buyers of this contract
worker’s current plight. The KMWU, affiliated to the
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), is championing
the 45-year-old woman’s case especially after the Korea
Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service, in
investigating the complaint, inexplicably added to the
harassment in outrageous questioning of the woman. Hyundai
claims it is not responsible for liability, since the
14-year service worker was employed by Glovis, a symbiotic
contractor of Hyundai. Among other forms of harassment in
2010, the woman had received inappropriate text messages
and late night telephone calls from
supervisors. Following the NHRC awarding her compensation
of nine million won (US$7,725), Glovis fired her and has
since refused to pay her the penalty. The woman has been
holding a protest vigil in Seoul since June of this
year. Said UAW President Bob King, “The UAW has embraced
a global vision of social justice and will mobilize its
membership to defend labour rights here and in other parts
of the world.” *This ICEM release is also available on
the ICEM Web-site ICEM InBrief South Africa
Global On 2 December, representatives of the ICEM Canadian
affiliate Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP)
Union participated in a discussion on trade union
perspectives on the Canadian bituminous sands, or tar sands
or oil sands. Organized by the Cornell Global Labor
Institute and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) with the
CEP, the session was part of the international trade union
World of Work events held at the 17th Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (COP-17) in Durban, South Africa. Jim
Britton, CEP Western Region Vice-President, introduced the
CEP and its membership. The CEP is Canada's energy
union. Britton explained why the question of the tar sands
cannot be separated from the question of the Keystone XL
Pipeline, a new pipeline connecting the province of Alberta
with US refineries. CEP has been opposed to the Keystone
pipeline, and several previous pipeline proposals, for two
reasons: the value-added processing of Canada's bitumen
should take place in Canada; and the pipelines stand as a
symptom of the lack of a sustainable energy policy in
Canada, which is desperately needed. Sadly, these concerns
have not found traction with Canada's present Conservative
government, nor with the regulatory bodies or courts in
Canada. An intelligent energy policy could ensure a
rational continued development of the tar sands, with the
creation of high-quality permanent jobs and a reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions. Canadians, including those who
mine and process bitumen, want adequate regulation that
ensures job creation, environmental protection, respects
First Nations' rights, a growing economy and reduced risks
for business. This is an area where everyone could win.
Instead, Canada is sacrificing energy security and
sustainability for short-term and short-sighted profits. It
cannot be jobs "or" the environment, it must be both. CEP
members expect it and the CEP will fight for it.
Roland Lefort Roland Lefort, President of CEP Local
707, representing thousands of oil sands workers, explained
that his position was based on CEP policies on energy, the
environment, and Just Transition that have been developed
over many years and affirmed at successive CEP Conventions.
Together, these call on Canada to develop a plan for the
sustainable development of the oil sands. This plan would
ensure, among other things: energy security for Canadians;
carbon capture and storage for all new tar sands projects;
the promotion of energy conservation; a well-funded Just
Transition plan for energy workers and energy-dependent
regions of the country; a fulfilment of Canada's
commitments to stabilize and then cut greenhouse gas
emissions. Oil sands workers in Canada believe in the
science of climate change, the rights of aboriginal
peoples, and the protection of Canada's resources. Their
position is one of sustainable development. It disagrees
with the proposition that there are only two positions on
the issue of oil sands development – all or
nothing. The present Canadian government and industry want
to extract the oil sands without impediments or controls,
while the environmental lobby, which is getting stronger by
the day, wants to shut down the oil sands. The CEP believes
that there is a position in between, a position of balance,
a position for sustainability. To that effect, the CEP has
been working to bring together government, labour, First
Nations, and environmentalists to the table to develop the
plan on energy as stated in our policies. Lefort's strong
presentation in Durban, backed by his personal credibility
as a miner and President of Canada's largest group of
unionized oil sands workers, made a huge impact on the
audience. Another panelist was Roger Toussaint of New York
City and the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU). He stated
that the issues involved in the construction of the
Keystone XL pipeline affected everyone and his union
decided it could not be silent on the issue. Instead of
uncontrolled development, there is a potential to move
towards a lower-carbon and just economy, with the creation
of millions of good jobs in renewable energy, mass
transportation, energy-efficient buildings, and the like.
Toussaint believes that the global labour movement can lead
this change and pointed out the forward-looking policies of
the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) as an
example. Asking a question from the floor, Anthony Jacobs,
Director of National Construction Agreements for the
ICEM-affiliated and US-based International Brotherhood of
Boilermakers (IBB) stated that he understood Lefort's
position, but passionately defended his union's support for
the Keystone XL pipeline and the potential construction jobs
it represented. Lefort said that he accepted and understood
the IBB position but hoped that he understood
CEP's. Other considerations in the debate on the Keystone
XL pipeline include the US's dependency on foreign oil and
the potential mutual economic benefit to Canada and the
US. The event illustrated the value of unions' direct
participation in international events such as COP-17. The
value of an opportunity to hear directly from those
affected is impossible to overstate. *This ICEM release
is also available on the ICEM Web-site COP-17 Union Panel Stresses Sustainable Industry in
Climate Change Debate 19 December 2011 ICEM InBrief South
Africa Global On 30 November, the ICEM, International
Metalworkers’ Federation, and the International Textile,
Garment, Leathers Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF)
collaborated on an event entitled “Cutting Emissions -
Transforming Jobs.” It was a key part of World of Work
side events that were coordinated by the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) at COP-17 in Durban, or
the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change. It has become a
tradition for trade unions to hold side events under the
World of Work banner at COP meetings since COP-15 in 2009 in
Copenhagen. The three Global Union Federations, speaking
for workers in the resource, industrial, processing and
other industries, held the event to discuss a sustainable
foundation for Just Transition and to develop a common
industrial strategy for the future of industrial
workers. The panellists included: Philemon Shiburi,
National Treasurer, National Union of Metalworkers of South
Africa (NUMSA); Arvind Shrouti, Analyst, Option Positive,
India; Anne Panneels, Senior Advisor on Sustainable
Development, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC); Bob
Baugh, Executive Director, Industrial Union
Council/AFL-CIO, US; and David Macatha, the National
Treasurer of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), South
Africa. All panellists were
asked to consider the following points, from their
particular regional and sectoral perspective: /Post Kyoto
Framework:/ Could a second commitment period of the Kyoto
Protocol be a solution to avoid a gap in emission reduction
commitments and to re-build the legally-binding framework
covering all countries in the future negotiation
process? /Building a Foundation-Climate Finance:/ How
should the funding be designed/realized to achieve
sustainable jobs and a Just Transition? What are the
components of a strong financing scheme, e.g. mandatory
contributions from governments, Financial Transaction Tax
(FTT), levy on maritime transportation & aviation, or
other? /Just Transition:/ What kinds of programmes are
needed for industrial workers who are most dramatically
affected by the climate change issues? How can both today's
and tomorrow's workers benefit from the transformation to a
sustainable economy? What support will be
needed? /Developing Industrial Strategy:/ Industrial
strategies which aim towards sustainable production, the
transformation and enhancement of existing jobs, and the
creation of new, greener jobs are needed at local,
national, regional and international levels. How could
developed and developing countries be engaged to
harmonize/develop respective industrial
policies? /Union’s Role for the Future:/ How should
unions get involved to transform industry and create new,
greener jobs be designed and implemented with the full
participation? Each panellist made a thought-provoking
presentation. Philemon Shiburi emphasized the importance of
a second Kyoto commitment period to Africans. Finance and
technology transfer are essential. Existing jobs must be
protected alongside new ones as renewable energy is
developed. Arvind Shrouti identified inequalities as a
barrier to sustainability and urged strengthened industrial
democracy with worker participation in decision-making.
Anne Panneels outlined some of the European efforts to
design a long-term industrial strategy through social
dialogue, for green and decent jobs that includes a Just
Transition. Bob Baugh showed that in the USA many unions
are committed to an industrial policy that endorses the
concepts of "green job" transformation and creation through
deployment of technology and training and education. David
Macatha said that nothing can be accomplished without the
efforts of workers to demand change, decent work, and a
democratic renewal. The presentations showed that workers
globally share a vision of an industrial and social
strategy that promotes the transformation of existing jobs
to a more sustainable model, as well as the creation of
new, sustainable jobs that fulfil the ILO goals of "decent
work." The path towards a sustainable future for both
today's and tomorrow's workers is strong investment in
technological innovation, and a Just Transition. *This
ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site ICEM InBrief United
States Members of the United Steelworkers Local 207L
numbering 1,050 are livid that management of Cooper Tire
and Rubber in Findlay, Ohio, broke good-faith negotiations
and locked them out on 28 November. They showed their anger
on Saturday, 17 December, by manifesting strongly with other
state and regional trade unionists in the northern Ohio
town. To be sure, descendants of the founders of the
company that gave birth to Cooper Tire are also unhappy
with current management over the lockout. In a letter to
top executives of America’s fourth largest tyre maker on
9 December, Janet Clinger and Lingel Winters wrote that
their grandfather “Claude Hart adhered to the standards
… believ(ing) that the company had a responsibility for
the well-being of not only the shareholders, but the
workers and the community.” The lockout began Cooper’s war on rubber workers at its
flagship factory was evident at the 17 December
manifestation. USW Local 207L President Rod Nelson lamented
misguided managers who weathered the 2008-09 US
manufacturing downturn with no small help from workers’
pay-check concessions, and now return for more economic
cuts from workers when profits are good and executive
bonuses are back. “Cooper hasn’t been fair with us at
the bargaining table,” said Nelson, refuting a management
that has lost touch with the company’s founding
principles. “We don’t lock people out of their jobs, we
work through our problems.” USW Secretary-Treasurer and
ICEM Rubber Sector Chairman Stan Johnson told the rally
that the union has responded globally and immediately
received support from Serbian union Nezavisnost. That came
within days of Cooper’s 8 December announcement that it
would buy early next year a tyre factory from Trayal
Korporacija AD near Krusevac, Serbia. The USW also
received an assist from its trans-Atlantic partner Unite
the Union in bringing the lockout to the attention of
workers at Cooper’s Melksham, Wiltshire, UK. Unite has
flooded the shop floor of former Avon Tyres Ltd., which
Cooper bought in 1997, with leaflets, posters and details
of the American lockout. Stan Johnson “This
lockout is about greed and gluttony,” said Johnson at
Saturday’s rally. “It’s about a shiny new jet
(Cooper’s new purchase) and it’s about
multi-million-dollar bonuses.” It is also about
abandoning the traditions of social responsibility, judging
from the letter by descendants of founders Claude Hart and
John Schaefer. Expressing disappointment, Clinger and
Winters wrote, “Locking out employees who helped the
company during hard times and hiring scab workers to
replace them subverts the purpose of collective bargaining.
“ USW Local 207L and Cooper did return to the table on
13 December in talks supervised by US federal mediator
Kevin Moyer. But those negotiations produced no trace of
Cooper reconciliation, or rescinding of harsh contract
terms. The stakes will now get higher between the USW and
Copper as a contract expires on 17 January 2012 between USW
Local 752L in Texarkana, Texas, and the Findlay-based
company. The 1,500 workers there have voted to give their
union committee a mandate to strike if necessary. *This
ICEM release is also available on the ICEM Web-site CEP Holds 9th Women’s Conference in Ottawa, Canada
19 December 2011 ICEM InBrief Canada Like past
years, the Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union
of Canada held its bi-annual Women’s Conference in the
days around National Day of Remembrance and Action on
Violence Against Women in Canada on 6 December, the fateful
date in 1989 when 14 young women were massacred at École
Polytechnique in Montreal in an anti-feminist rage. Some
350 women attended the CEP’s 9th Women’s Conference in
Canada’s national capital, Ottawa, from 4-6 December. The
conference, entitled “Imagine,” included workshops on
cyberstalking, gun registry, and street-proofing as
deterrent for crime and violence against women. CEP
Women On the morning of the conference’s final day,
former Governor General of Canada Michaëlle Jean spoke and
told of battered women’s shelters in Quebec and the
urgent need to engage young Canadians on the degradation
that violence against women brings on societies. Following
her address, delegates marched from the Westin Hotel in
Ottawa to Parliament Hill, where a mass demonstration was
occurring for gun control in Canada and the National Day of
Remembrance of the Montreal Massacre. “The gun control
law is a monument erected in the memory of our
daughters,” said Suzanne Laplante-Edward, mother of
Anne-Marie, who was slain at École Polytechnique by a lone
gunman. The CEP’s Western Region Administrative Vice
President, Wendy Sol, also spoke at the Parliament Hill
manifestation. In an ICEM letter to delegates at the
opening of the CEP’s Women’s Conference, the federation
reminded Canadian women that the Montreal Massacre is
rightfully marked in global observance of “16 Days Against
Gender Violence,” as designated by the Global Campaign for
Human Rights. Those 16 days began on 25 November with the
UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence
Against Women, and continued across World Aids Day (1
December), the Montreal Massacre (6 December), and finally
International Human Rights Day (10 December). The ICEM
letter read: “With the CEP Women’s Conference occurring
within these globally recognized 16 days, please tell your
delegates that the ICEM is using this time frame and
indeed, the entire new year, to remind all that gender
equity will remain a major global priority.” *This ICEM
release is also available on the ICEM Web-site ICEM Mourns Deaths of 53 Oil Workers off Russia 19
December 2011 ICEM InBrief Russian Federation The
ICEM extended condolences today to its affiliate, the
Russian Oil, Gas and Construction Workers’ Union (ROGWU)
following this weekend’s sinking of the Kolskaya oil rig
in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Kolskaya, owned by a subsidiary
of the Russian state-owned company Zarubezhneft OJSC, sank
in stormy waters while being towed from off the Kamchatka
Peninsula to Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far
East. Fifty-three oil workers went down with the rig,
while 14 were rescued by the icebreaker Magadan and the tow
ship Neftegaz-55, which were bringing the rig to port. The
rig sank in icy waters 1,042 metres deep (3,400 feet) in
the Sea of Okhotsk. Only four bodies were recovered and the
rig’s four rescue boats were found, but with nobody in
them. The Kolskaya had been drilling for Gazprom
subsidiary Gazflot on the West Kamchatsky shelf since
September before this tragedy in which it was capsized in a
storm and sank in 20 minutes. The ICEM calls immediate
attention to this oil rig disaster as another example of
the perilous work that offshore oil workers must endure to
meet world energy supplies. *This ICEM release is also
available on the ICEM Web-site IMF Central Committee Moves on Dissolution, Merger
Congresses 19 December 2011 ICEM InBrief Indonesia
Global /From the International Metalworkers’
Federation / In a unanimous vote, the 300-member
Central Committee of the International Metalworkers’
Federation (IMF) moved to convene an extraordinary Congress
in June 2012 to create a new global union for industrial
workers. The action occurred on the second day of the
Central Committee’s meeting in Jakarta on 8
December. The new global union organization will unite
workers of metal, mining, chemicals, energy and textile
industries, and will bring the IMF together with the ICEM
and the International Textile, Garment, Leathers Workers’
Federation (ITGLWF). The new global union, which will
represent 50 million workers in 140 countries, will be
launched on 18-20 June 2012 in Copenhagen,
Denmark. Introducing the discussion on creation of the new
global union, IMF President Berthold Huber said: “Many of
our members are working in companies that cut across
different industrial sectors. We need to bundle up our
forces to speak with a single voice of workers in the
manufacturing industries.” Berthold Huber In a
lively debate, delegates expressed hope about building a
stronger counter-power to transnational corporations, and
more focus and resources for organizing, fighting
precarious work and defending trade union rights. Speakers
emphasized the need to further improve gender balance in
the different structures, including a 30% minimum share of
women on statutory bodies and other forums. The Central
Committee returned the proposal on presidents of IMF’s
industrial departments back to the Executive Committee in
order to find a better gender and north-south balance. ENDS
Canada’s Tar Sands, Keystone Pipeline Gets Aired at COP-17
19 December 2011
Anne Panneels
Steelworkers in Lockout Manifest against Copper
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