Below is a non-exhaustive overview of ICEM projects for 2009 (programmes through extra-budgetary, i.e. donor, funding). For general guiding principles on the ICEM's project work, please have a look at the ICEM Motion on Project Work, adopted at the ICEM's Executive Committee in 2008.

1. Global projects 
2. Sub-Saharan Africa projects
3. Asia/Pacific projects
4. Central and Eastern European projects
5. Latin America and Caribbean projects
6. Middle East and Northern Africa projects

1. Global Projects

ICEM Contract and Agency Labour Project (CAL)

For an executive summary of the project, click here

Visit the project’s web-site

The Global ICEM Contract and Agency Labour project enters a new cycle in 2009, continuing to provide day-to-day assistance and practical solidarity to unions facing CAL problems, as well as organising meetings, seminars, workshops, conferences and other activities on the subject, both at national and international level, bringing trade unionists from different countries, regions and continents in contact with one another. In addition to this, the project also aims to concentrate on organising CAL workers, and on exchanging best practise examples.

Solidarity Support Organisation: LO/TCO and LO Norway, ICEM Swedish (IFMetall, Unionen and Pappers) and Norwegian affiliates (Fellesforbundet)

Project coordinators: Aranya Pakapath (Thailand, Asia), Christian Rivas (Peru, Latin America), Karen Brouwer (global project consultant, Amsterdam)

ICEM HIV/AIDS Project

For an executive summary of the project, click here 

The ICEM HIV/AIDS Project entered its final year in its current format. During the year 2009, the programme will continue its work at global, regional and national level, while also looking at how the programme can be maintained, possibly through another approach or format.

An effort will be made to do more work at sub-regional level, primarily in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, where most of the project work is being done. Awareness and prevention campaigns, Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) and the need to include the issue in collective bargaining will all continue to be emphasised.

Sponsorship from Boehringer Ingelheim, a German pharmaceutical company, makes it possible to support an ICEM HIV/AIDS Programme in India until the end of 2009.

Support is furthermore being received from the Canadian ICEM affiliate CEP’s Humanity Fund for a “Recruitment and Training of HIV/AIDS Counsellors Project” in Nigeria, as well as for an ICEM HIV/AIDS project in Trinidad and Tobago.

UI Zensen from Japan and the Taiwan Petroleum Workers’ Union are jointly supporting a Peer Educators Training Programme to Prevent HIV/AIDS at Workplaces in Mongolia.

The Women's Department of the IG BCE Germany sponsors an HIV/AIDS project in Tanzania in 2009 and 2010, with special focus on awareness, counselling and VCT advocacy for women unionists.

Project coordinators: Fabian Nkomo (Project coordinator for Africa), Hans Schwass (Global consultant,), Paule France Ndessomin (Africa Project Management Assistant), Cho Charlotte N’Guessan (Sub-regional coordinator, Francophone West Africa), Tommy James Kaereho (National coordinator, Namibia) and BK Das, National Coordinator for the BI India Project.

Solidarity Support Organisation: LO/TCO and FNV Mondiaal; ICEM Swedish affiliates (IFMetall, Unionen and Pappers), FNV Bondgenoten, CEP Canada; UI Zensen; Taiwan Petroleum Workers’ Union; Boehringer Ingelheim and IGBCE women

2. Sub-Saharan Africa

ICEM Organisational Growth Project Africa (SSDP programme)

For an executive summary of the project, click here

The SSDP project continues to encourage organisational growth and development of democratic & membership-driven trade unions within the Sub-Saharan region. Through the training of skilled shop steward educators, by organising leadership meetings, adopting and implementing development plans and by advocating a strong role for women, the project’s meetings, workshops and training sessions aim to make unions in the region stronger.

Funding: LO/TCO and FNV Mondiaal, ICEM Swedish affiliates (IFMetall, Unionen and Pappers), FNV Bondgenoten

Project coordinators: Kenny Mogane (Project coordinator), Fabian Nkomo (Project coordinator), Florimond Kalenge (National coordinator, RDC), Paule France Ndessomin (Project Management Assistant)

ICEM Contract and Agency Labour Project for Sub-Saharan Africa

For an executive summary of the project, click here 

Visit the project’s web-site 

The Sub-Saharan CAL project is an essential and integrated, yet administratively separate, element of the global CAL campaign, aiming to provide technical support and practical solidarity to those Sub-Saharan African unions that are, or could become, active in the campaign.

The project aims to provide coordination and an exchange of information on a regional basis, while also directly linking the region to the global campaign, as well as providing direct training for negotiators in those countries where the campaign is proving most successful.

Solidarity Support Organisation: SASK Finland, together with Finnish ICEM affiliates (Kemianliitto, Toimihenkilöunioni, Paperiliitto and Sähköalojen ammattiliitto)

Project coordinator: Joseph Toe

Seminar on International Trade Union Issues for West-African ICEM Affiliates

Following the introduction of a large number of former WFIW affiliates into the ICEM, a substantial number of unions from the West-African region became new members, many of them francophone. Given that this is a region where the ICEM traditionally has not had a lot of activities, and considering the need to bring the “newer” affiliates in closer contact with the “older” ones, this education seminar will concentrate on common actions and priorities of the ICEM.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Capacity Building to Deal with FDI in Extractive Industries in Africa

At the FES sponsored workshop on investment in Africa, in June 2008, an action plan was developed, which calls for a wide range of actions and activities. This meeting will follow up on that, looking at how to improve the exchange of information, including on specific international organisations and institutions, and the role they can play in furthering trade union interests, as well as considering efforts to assess where opportunities exist to alter problematic development in the extractive industries through campaigns or social dialogue.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

3. Asia/Pacific

ICEM Asia MNCs & Social Dialogue Project
For an executive summary of the project, click here

This sub-regional project is facilitating a constructive dialogue between the different ICEM affiliates in a number of specific countries of the South-East Asian region, promoting agreements and joint action on key trade union issues, including in cooperation and discussion with employers.

Topics of the meetings, workshops and training sessions include OHSE, HIV/AIDS, contract & agency labour, gender, productivity & competitiveness and CSR/international standards. Another activity of the project, which is running in Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, is research and information on the target companies for social dialogue purposes.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FNV Mondiaal, FNV Bondgenoten

Project coordinator: Yoon Hyowon

ICEM Nepal Rights Project

After several project cycles, the ICEM Nepal Rights Project ended at the end of 2008. However, given the precarious situation of the country’s political system, as well of the Nepalese trade unions themselves, in part related to the election victory by the Maoist party, there is reason for continued concern. A mission to Nepal is foreseen to assess the current needs of the Nepalese unions, and look into future possibilities for cooperation.

Solidarity Support Organisation: LO/TCO, ICEM Swedish affiliates (IFMetall, Unionen and Pappers)

Asia/Pacific Maternity Protection Seminar

The objective of this seminar is the promotion of and compliance with international standards on maternity, including the ILO Convention 183 on Maternity Protection. Concentrating on the ICEM’s 7 points for action to forward the work of the ICEM women’s group, the conference will also deal with a number of other topics, such as maternity protection for contract workers, collective bargaining achievements, child care problems and health and safety issues, including in relation to working women, for example in assembly lines.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Asian Regional Workshop on Health and Safety in Mining – ILO Convention 176

This conference will, as part of the ICEM’s campaign for the adoption of the ILO convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mining, be organised to explain the convention’s main issues and advantages to a regional trade union audience. The meeting will also discuss strategies to be used to convince national governments in the region to ratify the ILO convention, as well as for those governments to look at other ways to improve the health and safety situation in the mining sector in their respective countries.

Support Organisation: ILO Sectoral

Asia Contract and Agency Labour Conference

Visit the project’s web-site

In a continuation from past practice - and linked to the global CAL project - the ICEM is continuing the effort to organise an annual series of regional meetings on contract and agency labour, bringing together trade unionists from different countries within a specific continent.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Asia/Pacific Cement/Glass Industry Networks Workshops

These network meetings, set up partly in preparation for the ICEM World Materials Conference in November 2009, are intended to make ICEM affiliates from the Asia/Pacific cement and glass sectors, aware of, and discuss, the changing relationships between employer and workers, as well as to inform them about other recent activities and developments in the region.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

4. Central and Eastern Europe (including Turkey)

ICEM-IUF South-East Europe Project on Trade Union Modernisation

For an executive summary of the project, click here

For a version in Turkish click here

Visit the project’s web-site

This joint ICEM/IUF project, which has been running for a number of years, operating through three consecutive - and distinct - project cycles, has now entered its final 2-year stage and is foreseen to end in June 2010. The primary objective is - and has always been - a modernisation of trade unions, and trade union structures, in the region, coupled to efforts to provide assistance to unions with their struggles to cope with new challenges.

Activities, of which some were organised on a sectoral basis, have been concentrating on a wide range of subjects and methods, including leadership skills training, social dialogue, general trade union education, union transformation, research, affiliation fee structures, gender issues, and outsourcing.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FNV Mondiaal, FNV Bondgenoten, FES, NGG, IGBCE, ICEM, IUF and ILO

Project coordination: Mato Lalic, Jacim Milunovic, Teuta Krilic

Organising and Social Dialogue Project in Turkey
For an executive summary of the project, click here

This project, which started in early 2009, aims to introduce more and better social dialogue with and within Turkish trade unions, develop organising methods and exchange experiences. The project has the active involvement of Dutch trade union FNV Bondgenoten and others. Activities will include national and regional conferences, and training workshops.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FNV Mondiaal/FNV Bondgenoten

Multi-GUF Trade Union Modernisation Project in Eastern Europe, Central Asia & Transcaucasus
For an executive summary of the project, click here

Following an earlier leg, which ended in February 2008, a new, and fully revised, cycle of this project on strategic management and modernisation of trade unions has started in March 2009. During this new project cycle, regional affiliates of 6 different GUFs (ICEM, IUF, UNI, IMF, BWI and ITF) will cooperate. The programme intends to, through a consistent series of “courses”, train trade union leaders, organisers, members and lawyers on a number of subjects, including modernisation issues, legal issues, organising and working with multinational companies.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FNV Mondiaal/FNV Bondgenoten

Conference on Company Restructuring in the Mining and Energy Sectors in Central and Eastern Europe

As certain sectors in the Central and Eastern European regions – specifically the mining and the energy sectors - still face large upcoming restructuring exercises, often the result of privatisation waves, the most recent ICEM Central European meeting suggested holding a conference on company restructuring for unions of both regions. The main aim of the conference is to discuss and share solutions for common problems, and look at how unions – successfully or unsuccessfully – managed to deal with key questions.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Contract and Agency Labour Seminar for Serbian ICEM affiliates

Visit the project’s web-site

Similar to the regional meetings on CAL, this seminar will bring trade unionists from ICEM affiliates in Serbia around the table to discuss their problems with contract and agency labour, and look at the different ways of how to deal with the issue.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES Belgrade

Conference on Multinational Companies in the Central European Rubber Sector

Among other things, this conference will be held to train trade unions in bargaining with non-Central European multinational companies that have recently started business in Central Europe, focussing on particular companies and aiming at capacity building.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Caspian Sea Energy Network Project

This project wants to initiate - and in some cases, continue to strengthen - an effective social dialogue with named multinationals companies in the Caspian region energy sector, based on fundamental human, social and economic rights, following-up on earlier meetings, the latest of which, in Baku, in October 2008, adopted a joint declaration on this issue.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

5. Latin America and the Caribbean

ICEM Colombia Social Dialogue Project
For an executive summary of the project, click here

Visit the project’s web-site

The ICEM Colombia project will continue its formal process of social dialogue - a process successfully set up by this project - with the joint participation of representatives from the target companies and ICEM affiliates in Colombia.

Through various meetings, training sessions and other activities, with trade unions, but also jointly with management, the project aims to assist Colombian unions with their negotiations with companies, concentrating on particular social dialogue issues, including OHSE, HIV/AIDS, contract & agency labour, productivity & competitiveness, CSR, international labour standards, global framework agreements and sustainable development.

Solidarity Support Organisation: LO/TCO, ICEM Swedish affiliates (IFMetall, Unionen and Pappers)
Project coordinator: Carlos Bustos

ICEM Brazil Social Dialogue Project

For an executive summary of the project, click here

Following a planning seminar, this project, which is loosely modelled after the successful Colombian version, started in mid-2008, organising activities to not only educate trade union members from 4 key Brazilian ICEM affiliates, but also to bring them in contact with each other, as well as with the managers of the 10 target companies, all operating in the Brazilian chemical, petrochemical, mining, materials and electricity sectors. The effort concentrates on developing an efficient and effective social dialogue that strengthens trade unions and their members’ position.

Solidarity Support Organisation: SASK, together with Finnish ICEM affiliates (Kemianliitto and Toimihenkilöunioni), LO/TCO and ICEM Swedish affiliates (IFMetall, Unionen and Pappers)

Project administrator: Elias Soares

Latin America Trade Union Consolidation Pre-project

For an executive summary (in Spanish) of the project, click here

The purpose of this pre-project is to formulate a trade union consolidation project for ICEM affiliates in the region. This project would be able to count on the active participation by a large number of affiliates in the Latin American region, as all will have been involved from the planning stages. It is anticipated that the actual project would start in the second part of 2009.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FNV Mondiaal, FNV Bondgenoten

Pre-project for the Latin American Pulp and Paper Sector

Partly the result of recent changes in the European paper sector, including in Finland, there appears to be a shift of paper production towards Latin America. This pre-project is set up to prepare a full 2-3 year project that will aim to bring together the different paper sector unions from a number of Latin American countries, in an effort towards continuous cooperation and communication.

Solidarity Support Organisation: SASK, together with Finnish ICEM affiliates

Latin America Energy Project

This project aims to improve the collective bargaining situation of unions in the energy sector in Latin American countries, both at national as well as at regional level. Focal points of the project include designing strategies and work plans. A particular objective of the programme is to encourage unions to exchange information with each other on this issue.

Solidarity Support: FITEQA-CC.OO. Spain

Latin American Multilatinas Project

The aim of this effort is for the ICEM, possibly in combination with other GUFs, to organise meetings that deal with particular “Multilatinas” (Latin American multinational companies, usually operating mainly in Latin America). The effort might concentrate on particular companies, possibly also including, where other GUFs can join, companies that would fall under the jurisdiction of these GUFs.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Latin American Regional Networks Meeting for the Chemical Industry

The main object of this project is to organise a regional conference with a view to coordinating, harmonising, reinforcing and expanding a network among the unions in the chemical industry. This will pave the way for the ICEM and its affiliates in the region to organise solidarity on the basis of organised network organisms.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

6. Middle East / North Africa

Seminar on Trade Union Unity in Iraq

This conference, a strategic meeting with the leadership of Iraqi unions, aims at strengthening the involvement in the ICEM by Iraqi trade unions.

Support Organisation: Solidarity Centre

Seminar on Reinforcing Trade Union Representation, Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue in the Petrochemical Industry in Middle East and Northern Africa

This seminar is to reinforce trade union representation, industrial relations and social dialogue in the region, leading to strengthening union activities in the industry in the region. Concrete recommendations from the seminar will be looking at boosting trade union representation and collective bargaining, as well as at suggestions toward the improvement of health and safety standards in the industry. It is seen as a step towards pursuing dialogue with managements of companies operating in the industry.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Social dialogue and Collective Bargaining Programme in the Maghreb and Egypt

This programme will train ICEM affiliates and other unions from the Maghreb region (Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya and Tunisia), as well as from Egypt on issues that relate to collective bargaining and social dialogue, concentrating mainly on how to deal in this area of work with multinational enterprises. The aim is to educate unionists on how to improve social dialogue in general, and negotiation skills in particular, as well as look at strategy developments in the region for social partners.

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES

Regional seminar on Multinational Enterprises and International Labour Instruments for North Africa and Middle East

This project intends to strengthen the position of the trade unions in North Africa and the Middle East, through increasing their awareness of, and knowledge on multinational enterprises and various international labour instruments. For this purpose, a seminar will be held for ICEM affiliates in the MENA region, which would concentrate on such issues as ILO Conventions, OECD Guidelines, the Global Compact and Global Framework Agreements

Solidarity Support Organisation: FES