ICEM visit
Dec 9th, 2006 by Tian
A unionist friend from Korea Yoon Hyowon came to visit. Yoon was a young labour activist of Korean Labour and Society Institute (KLSI). He is now the coordinator of Asia-Pacific programs for International Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union (ICEM).
I got to know him from a meeting of ICEM in Kuala Lumpur a few months back. This trip he had been here for a week. We met for dinner on Saturday (9 December). The next day, I brought him to visit Kg Berembang before he left on 10 December midnight.
There are more than a dozen unions are in the sector of chemical, energy and mining. Affiliates of ICEM include TNB Union, Non-Metalic Union, Chemical Union, Union for Oil and Petroleum Products, Esso Union, and so on. When I first got involved with Labour Resource Center (LRC), I used to do training for ICEM affiliates. I had also frequently accompanied Vic Thorpe, the General Secretary until 1999, to visit trade unions in the People’s Republic of China.
Yoon’s visit rekindles our ties with ICEM. We will be organizing more joint programs in the future. We hope with our efforts we could strengthen labour activism in the chemical and energy sector.