Miners trapped underground at Impala Platinum in South Africa

Nine workers were trapped after a shaft collapsed at the Impala Platinum mine on Tuesday 17 May 2016. Seven were successfully rescued. Mining has been suspended, and the rescue operation is ongoing.
 
Four miners died in an underground fire at the same mine on 22 January this year.
 
The missing miners are rock drill operators, who do one of the most dangerous jobs in mining. South Africa’s mines are among the deepest and most dangerous in the world.
 
Three miners also remain trapped underground at the Lily gold mine in South Africa, after a collapse on 5 February. Mining operations were suspended, and miners were encouraged to accept a very poor voluntary severance package, leading to mass pickets at the site.
 
IndustriALL is concerned at a spate of mining accidents across the world this year. The global commodity crisis has hit mining profits, leading some producers to cut corners to reduce costs.
 
Livhuwani Mammburu, spokesperson for IndustriALL affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers’ said:
 
“Major multinational corporations like Impala Platinum which should be industry leaders in creating a safety culture are doing far too little to prevent fatal accidents. And the situation will not get better by itself.
 
We call on the department of mineral resources inspectorate to hold the mining industry fully accountable for its failures and adopt a no-nonsense approach when it comes to injuries and fatalities in the mining industry.”
 
IndustriALL mining director Glen Mpufane said:
 
“Mining remains one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, because mining companies put profit before the safety of miners. A voluntary approach won’t help: we need countries to ratify and implement ILO Convention 176 on safety and health in mining.
 
“Implementing this convention will create a strong safety culture from the ground up, and introduce serious sanctions for companies that fail to take safety seriously”.

Settlement reached for state oil workers in Ivory Coast

After a series of strike actions and four months of negotiations with Petroci and the Ministry of Labour, SYNTEPCI trade union has succeeded in reinstating two workers and securing a redundancy settlement worth around US$2 million for the remaining 48 workers.

A deal finalized on 1 May makes provisions for:

  1. The reinstatement of a pregnant worker and worker representative
  2. A redundancy package of 15 months’ gross salary for all 48 workers
  3. 12 months of health insurance for the laid off workers
  4. A social reintegration package for the 48 workers through a work-training programme.
  5. The Petroci Foundation to pay for the medical treatment for a sick child and sick wife of two of the laid of workers.

The total package for the 48 workers is worth more than 1.2 billion francs (US$2 million).

SYNTEPCI general secretary, Jeremie Wondje, said:

“We are proud and grateful to all the workers in our union for their actions and support for the 48 workers laid off by Petroci.

“I would also like to thank our national centre, the UGTCI, as well as IndustriALL Global Union for their support.

“Together we have refused to allow workers’ rights to be violated and we thank you for your individual and collective actions that have restored workers’ dignity.”

Petroci had illegally laid off the workers and went to offer damages and compensation that was far lower than required under national labour law.

IndustriALL’s energy director, Diana Junquera Curiel, said:

“We congratulate SYNTEPCI on its hard-won victory in securing a fair and just settlement for workers. Petroci has learnt that it cannot trample over workers’ rights and that the nation’s labour laws have to be respected by all.”

African women stand up for better conditions

The delegates welcome the 40 per cent quota adopted by the world women committee of IndustriALL last year and resolved that only united can they find a solution to their problems.

Addressing the participants of the meeting Issa Aremu, IndustriALL executive committee member representing affiliates of the region underlined the importance of women work and said, “women's issues are not only problems of the women, these are trade union problems and will be supported by the whole organization.”

Monika Kemperle, IndustriALL assistant general secretary, focused on the IndustriALL maternity protection campaign and health and safety.

In particular, Kemperle raised the issue of the specific health and safety needs of women workers’,  which are different from men's. Referring to the women of the region,  she stressed their need to have a better job protection during pregnancy. No pregnancy testing should be allowed by employers, and they should be prevented from discriminating against women, or making them redundant based on their pregnancy. On the other side, employers should arrange the transfer of pregnant women to lighter jobs.

According to numerous reports of the participants, they have the opposite experience with employers in their countries. Women often do not want to report their pregnancy because of the fear of losing their job or being downgraded as useless. Some reported that employers in the region try to undermine existing collective labour agreements by decreasing time for maternity leave or not providing breastfeeding women with adequate facilities.

Some unions in the region already negotiate introduction of clauses on maternity protection into their collective agreements, but more work is to be done to promote ratification of the relevant ILO Convention 183. So far there are only 31 countries, which ratified the Convention out of 187 ILO member states.

Kemperle also insisted that employers must pay more attention to stress and psychosocial health effects faced by women. Paid maternity leave should not be subject of abuse by men, and different types of families should be taken into account. Fathers need to take their part of responsibilities to allow women to get at least some relief from their double burden between work and house tasks.

Unions in the region should do more work for women on HIV/AIDS prevention and workers must take their part of responsibility for maternity by attending clinics. A lot more enlightening work regarding HIV/AIDS needs to be done to fight prejudices and stigmatization of the disease, which impedes attempts to address the problem in a proper way.

The issue of violence and sexual harassment remains very important and needs to be addressed on a systematic basis. Women in male-dominated jobs usually have a good education, but still have to fight with gender-based prejudices.

The participants resolved that in order to tackle the problems raised, special anti-harassment training should be introduced through union networks, collective and global framework agreements. Also IndustriALL should lead a permanent fight against violence against women.

At the end of the meeting the participants discussed a concrete action plan and strategy paper on how to tackle the issues raised. With the support of IndustriALL, women activists of the Sub-Saharan region will:

At the same time unions of the region will implement the 40 per cent quota, and build a communication exchange platform.

Facing the living wage challenge in Ethiopia

At an IndustriALL Global Union workshop in Addis Ababa on 11-12 April supported by the FES, affiliates from the textile and garment, chemical, electrical and mining sectors met to consider the first steps that need to be taken towards developing comprehensive and effective wage-setting mechanisms in the country.

Affiliates were keen to learn from the experiences of unions in other countries. They heard how minimum wage systems in countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh have proven to be inadequate to raising wages up to the level of a living wage.

In order to better understand which systems the unions in Ethiopia should be working towards, there was a substantial discussion on the potential advantages and disadvantages that a national minimum wage mechanism as well as industry-wide collective bargaining could bring to Ethiopia.

Affiliates see a national minimum wage as setting a benchmark for wages that cannot be undercut by employers, is enforceable by law and ensures that even workers at companies with less economic power get the same wage.  A national minimum wage would demonstrate the commitment of the government to improving workers conditions and would also contribute towards tax accountability and transparency.

Drawbacks of the system include that workers are not involved in setting the amount, there is no flexibility and the rate may not keep pace with inflation. There is a risk that employers will not be prepared to pay above the minimum, including those with better economic performance.

Jenny Holdcroft, IndustriALL policy director said:

Industry bargaining has certain advantages, primarily that workers have a say in the outcome. Collective agreements were seen as having a positive impact on quality and productivity as they are based on trust and negotiation. There is flexibility to reopen agreements and industry-specific workload, skills and other issues can be taken into account. Importantly, industry bargaining helps build union power to negotiate.

However, it will take time to achieve such agreements when there is currently no system for it, and work needs to be done to increase union power. Both systems were seen as important for creating stability in the industry and certainty for workers and investors.

Ethiopian affiliates agreed to continue these discussions and to engage with the confederation and the ILO to take further steps towards developing wage mechanisms.

Meanwhile, the unions continue to fight for their members and there have been several successes in achieving significant wage increases for members through collective bargaining with individual employers. For example, at the Ayka textile and garment factory, the union has been able to increase the basic wage from 600 to 990 birr and at the Bahirdar factory they have achieved 915 birr, but both unions acknowledge that these increases are still not enough for workers to earn a living wage.

Mining community activist murdered on South Africa’s Wild Coast

Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe, chairperson of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, was murdered outside his home on 22 March 2016, by men claiming to be police officers.
 
Rhadebe, nicknamed “Bazooka”, was a prominent opponent of the proposed Xolobeni mine, in the pristine Wild Coast region of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.
 
Two men claiming to be police officers arrived at Rhadebe’s house in a car with a blue flashing light. They claimed he was under arrest, but when he went outside to their car, he was shot eight times in front of his family.
 
Earlier the same evening, Rhadebe phoned other community activists to warn them that they were in danger, as he had seen their names on a list of activists opposing the mine.
 
The proposed titanium mine is a project by Transworld, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian corporation Mineral Commodities. The mine is being developed in partnership with a local company, the Xolobeni Empowerment Company.
 
The development has met fierce resistance from the local community. It is being built on ancestral land which the community uses for subsistence. The community formed the Amadiba Crisis Committee in 2007, and recently filed a legal objection to the mining.
 
The murder follows ten years of smouldering conflict, with community activists refusing the company access to the land, and incidents of violence and intimidation against community members. The Amadiba Crisis Committee accuses Mineral Commodities and its local partners and allies of using violence to intimidate the community into accepting the mine.
 
Mineral Commodities denies involvement and said in a statement that it “condemns violence”. However, executive director Mark Caruso had previously threatened to “rain down vengeance” on opponents of another mine being developed by the company in South Africa.
 
IndustriALL mining director Glen Mpufane said:

“The murder of “Bazooka” Rhadebe at the operations of Mineral Commodities on the Wild Coast comes as no surprise to those who have been following the ongoing conflict in the Xolobeni community.
 
“It fits the pattern of a global mining industry intent on profit and plunder at any cost. Our experience shows that shadowy paramilitary forces often target community and trade union activists, and we are outraged that this has happened at Xolobeni.
 
“IndustriALL believes that sustainable mining requires trade union and community involvement. We condemn Mineral Commodities for failing to respect the Australian code of conduct for multinational companies, and we demand accountability.”
 

Workers killed at Glencore’s Katanga mine in Congo

Katanga is 75 per cent owned by the Swiss mining giant Glencore.

The mine suffered what Glencore calls a “geotechnical failure” – a landslide – on the wall of the open pit mine on the morning of 8 March 2016.  

Seven workers who were known to be in the area were unaccounted for. Three bodies were recovered two days after the incident. The other four bodies remain missing. Glencore reports that recovery teams are still searching for them. Meanwhile, the company has given financial assistance to the victims’ families for funeral costs and a mourning period.

The Katanga mine is near the city of Kolwezi, in the copper and cobalt belt in the south of the country. It is a brownfield site that is being redeveloped. Katanga boasts on its website of having “one of the lowest unit production costs in the world” at the site.

Cobalt is a vital component of mobile phone batteries. Attempts by mining multinationals like Glencore to push unit costs as low as possible contribute to a poor health and safety culture, and may have been a factor in this accident.

Glencore is one of the largest and most diversified mining and commodity companies in the world. The company is hostile to unions, and in many of its global operations is attempting to replace experienced permanent staff with precarious workers. Despite claiming to be an industry leader in health and safety, the company has a poor record and has run hazardous operations with untrained scab labour.

Glencore prioritizes resource extraction and low unit cost over safety and good working conditions. The company has long been the target of sustained union and community campaigns. IndustriALL operates a global network of union activists fighting for justice at Glencore.

Glen Mpufane, director of mining at IndustriALL, said:

We are deeply saddened by yet more loss of life at a Glencore mine and send our sincere condolences to the families of the victims. Glencore says it is a leader in health and safety in the mining industry but this latest tragedy makes a mockery of their claims. No amount of compensation from Glencore can make up for the loss of a loved one.

IndustriALL denounces attacks in Turkey and Ivory Coast

In Turkey 37 people were killed in a suicide bomb in the capital, Ankara, on 13 March. Only last month 28 people were murdered in a car bomb targeting military personnel in the city. It follows the death in October last year of more than 100 people in a suicide bombing on a peace march organized by trade unions and civil society organizations in the city.

Now, Ivory Coast is in shock after 15 civilians and three security personnel were killed by Al Qaeda Islamist militants at the beach resort of Grand Bassam. The attackers stopped at a bar for a beer before embarking on their coldblooded rampage. Security forces killed three of the attackers.

“IndustriALL Global Union and our 50 million members strongly condemn these callous, cowardly attacks on defenseless people going about their daily lives. We offer our deepest condolences to families of the victims and stand shoulder to shoulder with our affiliates in Turkey and Ivory Coast,” said Kemal Ôzkan, assistant general secretary of IndustriALL. "These attacks will never frighten us away from our historic mission and struggle for democracy and fundamental human rights, of which trade union liberties are an essential part."

Ivory Coast: oil workers’ union in clash with Petroci

Fifty of Petroci’s 600 workers were laid off illegally in January when the company failed to follow the necessary procedures in the case of terminations for economic reasons.

The company should have consulted with the union, staff representatives and relevant authorities about the redundancies and given clear reasons to justify the lay-offs, among other measures.

Following a series of 72-hour strikes last month, the union succeeded in reinstating a pregnant worker and a staff representative who were protected under the country’s labour laws.

However, Petroci is again failing to meet legal requirements in providing proper compensation for the remaining 48 workers. The company has offered damages and compensation that are below the levels required under the labour code .

Jeremie Wondje, general secretary of SYNTEPCI, said:

“The director general of Petroci has recognized that the company did not respect the law and therefore must pay damages. However, once again Petroci is failing to comply with the law by offering levels of compensation that are unacceptable.”

“The silence from the authorities is worrying, especially because the law is very clear in what it demands from each party, but we are more worried that the director general of Petroci has refused our offer of a social plan for the retrenched workers,” he added.

“We are waiting for a meeting with the ministry of labour hoping that things will develop positively. Further strike action has been suspended but the fight continues,” said Wondje.

Jyrki Raina, general secretary of IndustriALL, said:

“Petroci is not above the law. We call on Petroci to respect national legislation and, above all, workers who have a right to be fairly compensated for losing their jobs. This is not the behaviour to be expected from a state-owned company.”

New union challenges the status quo in DR Congo

Formed only in 2011, TUMEC today has more than 10,000 members from seven provinces. Workers have been drawn in by a promise of doing things differently. Traditionally, trade unionism in the DRC has been shrouded by controversy. For a long time, it remained within the realm of the state and more or less equalled state and private sector interests.

In 1990 as a multi-party system was reinstated, the number of unions increased, producing over 600 unions. Unions emerged as a business model for the benefit of their founders, described as mutually supporting employers, without prioritizing workers’ rights, needs or interest. An open and accepted system of gifts (or bribes) to workers is all too often used to gain votes for union representation.

TUMEC has taken on the challenge to reform, break down barriers and take a new path. It has worked hard to develop a new way of doing things, along with building its own ideological perspective on work relations, representation, equality and leadership. Inspiring leadership and a clear and convincing message are resonating in the difficult conditions and lack of representation that workers have experienced in the DRC.

Through both the Swedish funded IndustriALL Union Building Project and the Dutch funded TUMEC project, TUMEC has succeeded in initiating progressive reforms and increase its attention to serving members, not the other way round.

TUMEC aims to work through a set of principles of unionism in strong contrast to the corruption potential inherent in the established system. TUMEC is working hard to design a more democratic and open system in the appointment of leadership and the management of union affairs.

The most noteworthy has been the slow but thorough construction of trade union systems were almost none existed. TUMEC has increased its focus on strengthening accountability and transparency in the management of union affairs. The union has developed clear mechanisms for combating corruption and enhancing accountability. It has found unique ways to engage with workers and members, not only at work places but also within the community itself, much appreciated by the workers.

Fernando Lopes, IndustriALL assistant general secretary, says that TUMEC’s work in the DRC is ground breaking:

“There is a lot to be learnt from TUMEC’s approach to union building. Many challenges remain, for example in terms of expansion and capacity building, but it is clear that the hard work put into breaking old traditions and instead creating a modern, active union owned by its members has been successful.”

Glencore unions build strength in Cape Town

As commodity prices continue to fall around the world, the mining crisis is intensifying.

The IndustriALL Glencore Global Network met in Cape Town on 9 – 10 February. Participants from Chile, Argentina, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Canada, USA and Australia shared their experiences from Glencore operations around the world and set a plan for union action.

“These are our jobs, our livelihood,” says Glen Mpufane, IndustriALL mining director.  “International standards exist to ensure that multinationals cooperate with unions in times of crisis to minimize the impact on workers. Unfortunately Glencore is turning a blind eye to these standards.”

“The company has a long history of aggression against unions and collective bargaining is the first victim as the sector bleeds.”

Sixteen months ago, Glencore locked out members of IndustriALL US affiliate the United Steel Workers after the union rejected the company’s first offer at the bargaining table. Since then, Glencore – which claims to be an industry leader in health and safety – has operated the hazardous Sherwin Alumina processing plant in Texas with untrained scab labour. Now the multinational is trying to cheat workers and other creditors out of tens of millions of dollars by shifting ownership from one Glencore subsidiary to another under US ‘chapter 11’ bankruptcy law.

The network expressed its solidarity with USW and called on Glencore to secure a resolution to the conflict.

In addition, the network expressed its solidarity with SUTRACOMASA, a union at Antamina in Peru belonging to IndustriALL affiliate FNTMMSP, whose leadership has faced death threats while engaging in collective bargaining.

Many of the participants reported of permanent employees being replaced by contract workers with worse salaries and conditions. An increased number of precarious workers also leads to lower union density – in many countries it is impossible to join a union on a temporary employment contract.

The network also heard reports of positive developments, such as in Argentina where IndustriALL affiliate AOMA has negotiated the same conditions for contract workers as for permanent workers.

As Andrew Vickers, chair of IndustriALL mining sector and general secretary of IndustriALL affiliate CFMEU, pointed out – the global trade union movement doesn’t walk away from a fight.

“Global network campaigns are one way of winning a fight. And this is also an opportunity for our unions to organize and grow in strength.”

The Glencore Global Network adopted a solidarity resolution for the three miners trapped underground in the Lily mine in South Africa, wishing for their safe return to the surface and calling for an end to bad management and blatant neglect for worker safety in the mining industry.

Glencore is one of the largest and most diversified mining and commodity companies in the world.