GERMANY:  IG Metall secured a 5.2 per cent wage raise for some 85,000 German steel workers in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen and Lower Saxony— the highest pay raise in the steel industry since 1992 and the largest increase of any sector of the German economy.

Employers and the union reached agreement on February 19, after about 40,000 workers participated in warning strikes to move the deal forward.

The pay increase will take affect on March 1, 2008 and covers a period of 13 months. A one-off bonus payment of 200 euro will be paid for February 2008. The agreement also includes an equal pay system for blue and white collar workers and a pay raise of 70 euro a month for apprentices’ stipends.

 

GENEVA: On the two-year anniversary of the Pasta de Conchos mine tragedy on February 19, 2006, the International Metalworkers’ Federation is launching a special preview of a documentary on the Mexican Miners’ struggle. The full documentary, called An Injury to One, will be released on March, 11, 2008.

The documentary captures the struggle, sacrifice and solidarity of the Miners' and Metalworkers’ Union in Mexico (SNTMMSRM). Two years ago today a methane gas explosion occurred in the number 8 shaft of the Pasta de Conchos mine owned by Grupo México in the Northern Mexican state of Coahuila. Sixty-five miners were buried in the blast and the government immediately sent in army troops to guard the mine.

Following the tragedy, Napoleón Gómez, SNTMMSRM general secretary, spoke out against Grupo México and the Mexican government, charging them with “industrial homicide” for neglecting to correct more than 40 health and safety violations in the mine. Nine days later the Mexican government announced that it had removed Gomez as union leader and imposed Elías Morales as acting general secretary of the union. The move sparked international outcry and a global campaign was launched by the IMF in support of union autonomy in Mexico. In March 2006, the IMF launched a complaint with the International Labour Organisation citing Mexico in breach of Convention 87.

The IMF will publish a White Paper to compliment the documentary on Mexico. The White Paper examines how the Mexican government in collusion with the country’s largest mining giant, Grupo México, has broken international standards and national laws to crush the SNTMMSRM.

IMF affiliates have mobilized members to denounce the actions of the Mexican Government and Grupo México and demand justice for the SNTMMSRM. The White Paper and documentary call on the Mexican government to respect union autonomy, recover the bodies still buried in the Pasta de Conchos mine, and prosecute those responsible for the crimes committed against the union and the union’s leadership.

The documentary and White Paper, both to be released March 11, 2008, provide an inside look into the struggle and triumph of Los Mineros, the miners. An Injury to One is in English and Spanish with corresponding sub-titles. The White Paper will be published in English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and French. Please check the IMF’s publications site on the web to download a copy. See: www.imfmetal.org/publications.

Australia: Workers at the Cochlear manufacturing facility in Sydney have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a union collective agreement several times, but their employer is using the WorkChoices laws to refuse negotiations with the workers and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union.

The company has applied to the labour court (Australian Industrial Relations Commission) to terminate the current collective agreement. In considering whether to terminate the agreement, the Commission ordered a ballot to be conducted to consider the views of the workforce on whether they wanted individual contracts.

Over 95% of workers voted in favour of a union collective agreement. The workers have now voted overwhelmingly on four separate occassions to reject the company's attempts to force them onto non-union agreements. The case is still being heard before the Commission.

In August, 2007 the International Metalworkers' Federation, to which the AMWU is an affiliate, and Public Services International, which represents workers at clinics where Cochlear hearing devices are distributed, launched a global campaign in solidarity with Cochlear workers.

“The efforts of the IMF and its affiliates in taking up the campaign internationally against Cochlear has clearly had a significant impact. The CEO of Cochlear, Chris Roberts, has on a number of occasions expressed publicly his concern about the effect of the unions’ international campaign on his company’s reputation in lucrative overseas markets,” said AMWU national president Julius Roe, adding “It is now clear that Cochlear is under immense pressure to come to the bargaining table with the AMWU and finally resolve this dispute — however to date they have refused any dialogue with the AMWU.”

The IMF is urging affiliates to join the Listen Up Cochlear campaign and help Cochlear workers win a union contract. Go to: www.imfmetal.org/ListenUpCochlear for campaign details, protest tools, affiliate letters and a list of clinics that distribute Cochlear products.

Australia: Workers at the Cochlear manufacturing facility in Sydney have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a union collective agreement several times, but their employer is using the WorkChoices laws to refuse negotiations with the workers and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union.

The company has applied to the labour court (Australian Industrial Relations Commission) to terminate the current collective agreement. In considering whether to terminate the agreement, the Commission ordered a ballot to be conducted to consider the views of the workforce on whether they wanted individual contracts.

Over 95% of workers voted in favour of a union collective agreement. The workers have now voted overwhelmingly on four separate occassions to reject the company's attempts to force them onto non-union agreements. The case is still being heard before the Commission.

In August, 2007 the International Metalworkers' Federation, to which the AMWU is an affiliate, and Public Services International, which represents workers at clinics where Cochlear hearing devices are distributed, launched a global campaign in solidarity with Cochlear workers.

“The efforts of the IMF and its affiliates in taking up the campaign internationally against Cochlear has clearly had a significant impact. The CEO of Cochlear, Chris Roberts, has on a number of occasions expressed publicly his concern about the effect of the unions’ international campaign on his company’s reputation in lucrative overseas markets,” said AMWU national president Julius Roe, adding “It is now clear that Cochlear is under immense pressure to come to the bargaining table with the AMWU and finally resolve this dispute — however to date they have refused any dialogue with the AMWU.”

The IMF is urging affiliates to join the Listen Up Cochlear campaign and help Cochlear workers win a union contract. Go to: www.imfmetal.org/ListenUpCochlear for campaign details, protest tools, affiliate letters and a list of clinics that distribute Cochlear products.

Mexico: A few days away from the second anniversary of the accident at Mine 8, Pasta de Conchos, owned by Industrial Minera México (IMMSA), the Pasta de Conchos family begins a new stage in the battle to recover the bodies of the miners who died on 19 February 2006.

The Pasta de Conchos Family, which includes 615 immediate relatives of the 65 trapped miners, 63 of whom still remain in the mine, issued a press release setting out the next steps in the regional, national and international campaign. The campaign is calling for “A Lifeline For the Coal Miners and their Families.”

The families have decided to camp out for an indefinite period in front of the mine and the corporate offices of Grupo México, who they say “is responsible for the death of our relatives, and the ones who have most to gain from leaving their remains in the mine”.
 
The main demands of the families are: recovery of the bodies, accompanied by a guarantee that such an operation will be carried out under the best possible safety conditions; that IMMSA should declare itself to be a “Socially Irresponsible Company”, in the light of its negligence at Mine 8, Pasta de Conchos; and that the Mexican government and IMMSA management, including Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, are held responsible.

The campaign is targeting working families in Mexico and the rest of the world; civil society organisations; trade unions and workers organisations committed to protecting the safety and life of their members and their families; socially responsible companies that have shown some sensitivity about the outrageous negligence displayed by the company and the complicity of government at Pasta de Conchos; and international human rights organisations, and churches and religious denominations that are concerned for social justice and the common good.

The Pasta de Conchos Family invite all people to join the protests and resistance and provide “A Lifeline for the coal miners and their families”. The campaign begins with the following actions on or around the second anniversary:

• An international tour to make contacts with trade unions, human rights organisations, miners, the business world and the media;
• Strengthening of links and definition of joint action strategies with already established international networks;
• Meetings with European parliamentarians, church representatives and companies;
• Dialogue with international human rights organisations;
  Peaceful national and international solidarity protests;
  Ecumenical days of prayer;
• Celebration of Communion on 19 February outside IMMSA installations at 12:00 (midday) at Campos Eliseos 400, Colonia Polanco;
• A march on 19 February at 5 p.m. from the Monument to the Revolution to Zócalo, where a memorial event will be held in support of the inherent humanitarian right of all human beings to bury their dead, in accordance with their beliefs and customs.

Various international organisations are supporting the campaign of the Pasta de Conchos families, including the IMF. Among its most recent initiatives was offering to the Mexican government the services of a group of mining experts to conduct a study and coordinate the recovery of the bodies. The government has not yet contacted the experts to organise a plan of work. We hope it will soon take the necessary steps to obtain the assistance of these experts.

ARGENTINA:  Metalworkers at Acindar, which belongs to the Arcelor-Mittal Group (one of the world’s biggest steelmakers) went on strike to mourn the deaths of two workers who died following an explosion at the steelworks.

On Tuesday February 5, Nicolás Correa, 22 and Alfredo Dianda, 23, employed by the contractor SERSCAY SC, and six other workers were repairing one of Acindar’s furnaces when there was an explosion. They were taken to hospital in a serious condition. Both workers died on Saturday February 9.

In response to this terrible accident, members and leaders of the metalworkers union (Unión Obrera Metalúrgica – UOM) called a strike. "We began a strike of mourning, which tried to express the state of mind of our colleagues, who were very upset by the nature of the accident and also because of the youth of the victims, two men aged 22 and 23," Victorio Paulón, General Secretary of the Villa Constitución branch of the UOM told the press.

Although the causes of the accident are being investigated, Paulón said that it "is related to the shortening of the time for cooling down the furnaces" that were being repaired.

The Regional IMF Office regretted that, once again, companies do not take adequate safety measures and wrote to Acindar, demanding improvements in working conditions. It also sent its condolences to the UOM for the loss of their two colleagues.

Acindar makes long steel products and is located in the town off Villa Constitución, in the province of Santa Fe, 50 km to the south of Rosario.

This latest incident is part of a concerning trend in the industry and follows a number of other recent fatalities at ArcelorMittal plants.

GLOBAL: Do you want up-to-date information comparing the working time that metalworkers in different countries need to purchase a range of consumer items including clothing, food, rent and other basic items?

Comparing wages in a sector, a country or between countries is a difficult task and a straightforward comparison of converted currencies is often meaningless. For this reason, the IMF has long opted for a working hour approach and every two years publishes a report on the differences in standards of living between metalworkers in different countries.

The IMF Survey on Purchasing Power of Working Time is used by IMF affiliates around the world in determining collective bargaining and wages goals to improve the wages and conditions of metalworkers.

This year, the IMF is updating its Survey on the Purchasing Power of Working Time and calls on its affiliates to respond to a questionnaire by March 28, 2008, providing information on gross hourly wages and the cost of consumer items in their country.

“Affiliates from 66 countries were included in the last survey. We want to make sure that this years’ survey includes just as many countries and call on affiliates to get their information to us as soon as possible, but definitely no later than March 28,” said Anne-Marie Mureau, who is in charge of the Survey.

A copy of the questionnaire has been sent to IMF affiliates and can be downloaded from the IMF website in all IMF official languages at: www.imfmetal.org/survey08

A copy of the 2006 purchasing power survey can be found on the IMF website at: http://www.imfmetal.org/main/index.cfm?id=47&l=2&cid=15350

Questions? Please send an e-mail to [email protected]

GLOBAL: New texts on Agriculture and Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) are expected to be released this week, as negotiations on the Doha trade agreement at the World Trade Organisation reach a critical stage.

The process over the coming weeks, as proposed by WTO director-general Pascal Lamy and agreed upon by Ministers in Davos, includes the release of new texts for analysis and further talks in the Agriculture and NAMA groups separately. This will be followed by a horizontal process at senior official level that will enable discussion on the Agriculture and NAMA texts together, allowing for trade-offs. The WTO expects this process to be finalized around Easter, after which ministers will take the final positions on remaining modalities.

As the negotiations reach a critical stage and trade-offs are becoming more likely, trade unions remain alarmed by the negative effects an agreement will have on sustainable development and employment and are planning a series of lobbying meetings in Geneva at the beginning of March.

On January 17, two trade union declarations on NAMA were released, one by the NAMA 11 trade unions and one by the Latin American trade union group on NAMA (in Spanish and English). Both statements are in response to communications tabled by Canada, the European Community, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United States proposing to restrict the level of flexibilities that could be available to developing countries in the NAMA agreement.

“The communications therefore completely deny the employment needs in our countries, many of them facing unemployment levels above 10 per cent and high rates of underemployment and informal work,” states the NAMA 11 trade unions.

The unions call on governments to ensure that developing countries can apply a tariff reduction in line with their stage of development, that flexibilities for developing countries are expanded substantially and that the flexibilities can be changed over time. The unions also reaffirm that no proposals should be made in an attempt to break developing country groupings in NAMA or regional integration groupings.

Copies of both trade union statements are available on the IMF website.

GERMANY: That Nokia is no longer a socially responsible company, was one of the conclusions of a union coordinating meeting organised by the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) on January 30 in Brussels, bringing together representatives of unions from eight countries in which Nokia is present, including Hungary and Romania.

The meeting took place after the Nokia group management in Finland announced its plans to close down its site in Bochum, Germany. The plant in Bochum, which produces cell phones, was built with financial support from the government of North Rhine Westphalia.

For the workers’ representatives and their union, IG Metall, the announcement of the intention to close the plant was totally unexpected as the plant does not make losses — on the contrary. On the same day as the trade union meeting in Brussels, German newspapers reported that according to an internal company report the plant made a profit of 151 million euros in 2007, which is about 90,000 euros per worker.

In order to maintain the plant’s competitiveness, workers’ representatives have worked closely together with the local management. “Productivity, conditions of delivery, quality and the overall profitability of the plant have improved. Workers have shown flexibility in terms of working time. Nokia’s decision cannot be based on financial rationale,” stated the unions in an EMF press statement.

IG Metall made clear that if Nokia succeeds in closing this competitive and profitable plant it will be the start of a new development where no plant can be certain of its future. Instead, workers will face the risk that production will be moved to another plant where companies can make even more profit.

EMF and European Works’ Council Nokia, called Euro-Forum, decided to launch a legal investigation into whether Nokia’s announcement of its plan has violated the Directive of the European Union on European Works’ Councils, which requires information and consultation to take place. Two legal experts have been hired for this purpose.

A joint declaration was also agreed upon, stating:

• Trade unions strongly object to the announced decision to close the plant in Bochum,
• Trade Unions also do not agree with the form of which the procedure has been handled, and
• the EMF demands the management to engage in constructive talks with the trade unions and workers’ representatives.

The Euro-Forum will demand a meeting with management before the end of this month. On February 28 a meeting of the supervisory board of the German Nokia company has been called where the Board, dominated by representatives of Nokia, will probably decide on the closure of the plant in Bochum.

If Nokia does not respond to the demands and tries to push through its intention at the supervisory board meeting the participating unions agreed to discuss further actions.

GLOBAL: Occupational and Environmental Cancer Prevention – from research to policy to action at international, national and workplace levels – is the subject of a global conference taking place on Friday April 25, 2008 at the University of Stirling, Scotland.

As part of the global trade union zero occupational cancer campaign, the conference provides international, European, national and local perspectives on a major threat to public health: the toll taken by occupational and environmental cancers.

The day will examine:
• The scale of the occupational and environmental cancer problem from the perspective of scientists and international bodies such as the WHO, EASHW, EEA
• The current responses to such a problem from international and European agencies, from countries such as Finland which lead in the occupational and environmental cancer prevention fields, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and trade union bodies including BWI, IFJ, IMF, IUF and ETUI-HESA.
• Best available policies and practices to prevent these threats to public health, including presentations from leading researchers and commercial organisations on toxics use reduction, from members of bodies such as the Canadian Cancer Prevention Coalition and from trade unions and NGOs.

This conference is an opportunity for union safety specialists and representatives to make contact with top international experts on occupational cancer causes and incidence and on prevention strategies, including toxics use reduction.

There is a general non-commercial subsidised conference fee of £300 (this applies to trade union safety specialists), a further discounted rate of £100 for health and safety reps and activists and a limited number of places at a special rate of £10 without financial support.

For further information please contact Rory O’Neill at:
[email protected]