A 25-day strike at Chile’s Escondida mine, the world’s largest, privately owned copper company, has ended after workers voted in a secret ballot to return to work. The union said that 1,607 workers voted to accept the contract, while 121 voted against it. The new 40-month contract provides a 5% wage increase and a $17,000 bonus. It also contains health and education benefits for workers.

The union had sought an 8% increase, down from its original demand for a 13% pay rise and a bonus of $30,000. The company had been offering a 4% increase. During the strike, production was down 40%, costing the company about $16 million a day, management said.

La Escondida, owned by the Anglo-Australian company, BHP Billiton, produces 8% of the world’s copper supply. The miners are expected to return to work Sept. 2, though full production is unlikely until the end of next week.

German Workers Are Fully Represented on Corporate Boards

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she fully supports co-determination, German’s system of involving workers in corporate decision-making, in a speech on Aug. 30 at a labor congress in Bonn. She described co-determination as “an essential part of Germany’s market economy.”

Under co-determination, unions and employers share an equal number of seats on corporate boards and have an equal voice I m n company decisions. Business groups want to cut the share of worker seats from a half to a third, while unions want to expand co-determination’s coverage to include more companies under the system.

However, Merkel assured her conservative business supporters that reform of the co-determination system was a key policy priority, indicating that the government could act unilaterally if an independent commission on co determination, due to report to her in November, fails to present usable proposals.

Finland’s Workers Don’t Want Bosses Monitoring Their E-Mails

Only about one-fourth of Finland’s workers would support a bill allowing companies to monitor employee e-mails, according to a survey by the newspaper Aamulehti. But companies say they need legislation to help employers stop confidential business details being leaked to other companies by their own staff.

The proposal, initiated by Nokia and other technology firms, has gained the most political support from backers of the National Coalition Party. Supporters of the Left Alliance were least enthusiastic about the proposed bill. Meanwhile, the Office of the Chancellor of Justice is currently determining whether the proposal would be an infringement of human rights.

The majority of people surveyed admitted they had sent or received personal e-mails on at least one occasion while at work. In contrast, the majority of those over the age of 51 said they did not use e-mails at work at all.

Union Charges Scabbing in New Zealand Supermarket Strike

About 500 workers at Progressive Enterprises’ distribution centers have been on strike since Aug. 25 over a pay and holiday dispute. The company supplies food products to Foodtown, Countdown and Woolworths supermarkets.

The secretary of the National Distribution Union, Laila Harre, said “We have received information the company has contracted [an] outside company to handle distribution, which is, in our view, blatantly illegal.” The union has taken out a full-page ad in the New Zealand Herald and regional newspapers to state the reasons for the strike and denounce the company’s strikebreaking tactics.

The company has denied the union’s charge, saying it had not contracted out grocery supply. “What we are doing is circumventing our warehouses and delivering directly to stores,” said the company’s managing director, Marty Hammett.

New ‘No Sweat’ Textile Factory in Israel to Employ Palestinians

A Jewish-American businessman, Adam Neiman, has teamed up with a factory in Bethlehem to produce ready-made clothes and accessories for sale on the international market under his “No Sweat” label. He will produce sweatshop-free, organic and fair-trade clothing and shoes, while hiring unemployed Palestinian textile workers who are union members. The line will be launched in Tel Aviv in December.

Union representatives in the West Bank have praised Neiman’s efforts. They are hoping his project will help jumpstart the stagnant Palestinian textile business, which has suffered significantly since the outbreak of the intifada in 2000. “That an American Jewish person has come to us means very much,” said Shaher Saed, general secretary of the Pslestine General Federation of Trade Unions.

The Bethlehem factory, Arja Textile and Co., is owned by the Alarja family, a Palestinian Christian family that employs 120 unionized workers. As Neiman sees it, “This is a project that protects the environment, safeguards the rights of workers and promotes peace and prosperity in the Middle East.”

Ethiopian Armed Security Forces Shut Down Teachers’ Meeting

For the second time this year, Ethiopian authorities have disrupted a General Assembly of the Ethiopian Teachers¹ Association (ETA) and forcibly shut it down. The Assembly had been planned for Aug. 30 to Sept. 1, to be held at the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions building in Addis Ababa. The ETA had notified all relevant authorities about the plan.

The General Assembly officially opened the morning of Aug. 30, as planned, in the presence of 300 delegates and foreign and local guests except the Minister of Education, who had been invited but chose not to attend. During the lunch break, however, armed security officers surrounded the meeting hall, dispersed the audience and shut down the assembly.

This event is the latest chapter in a long history of repression against ETA activists and interference with their activities and finances. ETA officers and foreign representatives are appealing to the ILO for direct intervention with the Ethiopian authorities, urging them to abide by international law guaranteeing freedom of association.

Our weekly "LaborTalk" and "World of Labor" columns can be viewed at our Web site: www.laboreducator.org. Harry Kelber's e-mail address is: hkelber@igc.org.