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Press Release – West Papua Media Alerts
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 … 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
Canada’s Tar Sands, Keystone Pipeline Gets Aired at COP-17 19 December 2011
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.
Anne Panneels
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
Steelworkers in Lockout Manifest against Copper Rubber in US 19 December 2011
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
Lockout: War on Families
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
Content Sourced from scoop.co.nz
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