Mexican sweatshop makes Nike sweatshirts for UNC

Atlixco de Puebla, Mexico, Jan. 15— This week, 800 workers producing Nike sweatshirts for export to US colleges and universities -- including the University of North Carolina -- have gone on strike against a company paying 75 cents per hour, demanding that their rights be respected. They have called on Nike to send a fully authorized representative to the scene to publicly ratify a resolution to the conflict that recognizes their newly-formed Kukdong Workers’ Coalition. On Thursday night, police and thugs from the “company union” attacked the occupation, sending over 15 workers to the hospital. The struggle continues.

On Tuesday, Jan. 9, at 8am, over 850 workers making college apparel for Nike staged a work stoppage, took over the factory, and began controlling the gates at Kukdong International, a factory in the small city of Atlixco, Mexico. Kukdong is a Korean-owned factory that makes sweatshirts for the Universities of North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, Arizona, Penn State, Georgetown, Michigan State, and Oregon, among others.

The immediate cause of the strike was the firing of 5 workers who had led rank-and-file protest about rotten food in the cafeteria, low wages ($30 for a 45-hour week), and the failure of the company to pay the Christmas bonus in accordance with Mexican labor law. Between 20-30 others had recently been forced by the company to sign voluntary resignation forms. Four were supervisors, and one was recently named “employee of the month.”

In independent interviews with members of United Students Against Sweatshops, workers also reported physical and verbal abuse; the unwillingness of the company to pay maternity benefits; failure by the company to pay extra wages for overtime hours; attempts by the company to impose forced overtime; and serious safety and health violations. The company does not regularly provide protective gear or mandate its use, and many workers report cases of throat, nose, and lung irritation as well as conjunctivitis. The company-provided food frequently leads to diarreha, and a few workers report being hospitalized due to infections caused by the food. According to all workers, the food often is raw, rancid, or has worms.

The workers at Kukdong have responded to their exploitation by forming a democratic, independent union, the Kukdong Workers’ Coalition, and demanding to be recognized to bargain new wages and conditions at the factory.

Source: Labourstart: www.labourstart.org

FBI raids union office

By Tina Lam and John Gallagher

Detroit, Michigan, Jan. 13-- FBI agents raided the Detroit offices of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters (MRCC) on Friday but would not say what they were looking for.

Union members who arrived at 3800 Woodward to do business said they were surprised. The search began Friday morning as agents sealed off the 12th floor of the building and would not let union members get off the elevators.

FBI Special Agent Dawn Clenney declined to say what the FBI was looking for, what if anything was seized or what the investigation is about.

Clerks at the US District Court in Detroit said the application for a search warrant and the affidavit for the warrant were apparently sealed.

A US Attorney’s Office spokesperson could not be reached.

The council consists of local unions whose members work on jobs across southeastern Michigan. It includes an office where members pay dues and get pension information.

Nicholas Nahat, a lawyer with the Southfield firm Novara, Tesija, Michela & Priehs, which represents the council, said he didn’t know the nature of the FBI’s investigation. Neither did a spokesman for the Michigan AFL-CIO.

In a statement, the council said it would cooperate fully with the US Department of Labor in any investigation. “We were very disappointed in the way they confiscated the records of the MRCC. Our organization would have been more than willing to turn over the records,” the statement said.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Bove backs Pizza Hut strikers

Paris, France, Jan. 14-- French anti-globalization campaigner Jose Bove gave support Sunday to workers at a Paris Pizza Hut outlet striking for better wages, adding momentum to a fight that brought him worldwide notoriety when he trashed a McDonald’s last year.

Thundering against “multinationals — creators of the new slavery of today,” Bove showed up to cheers by the workers who have been picketing the Pizza Hut near the Opera section of the capital’s center for the last week.

Seen as a hero by enemies of junk food, the agro-industry and US corporate arrogance, Bove was sentenced to three months’ jail last September for ransacking a half-built McDonald’s fast-food restaurant in the southern town of Millau. He was released on bail pending an appeal.

Bove had told the court that the attack was intended to draw attention to the iniquities of the world trading system, and called as witnesses a number of campaigners against globalization.

Several workers from another McDonald’s restaurant in Paris involved in a labor dispute with management also mingled with the Pizza Hut employees to hear Bove speak.

“You’ve got to throw off your chains and unite all the different points of conflict,” Bove exhorted them.

“You’ve got to make a choice in life and act, because if you don’t do anything, nothing will happen,” said Bove, the leader of a union of independent French farmers.

“All the struggles are the same because all the bosses are the same, and the exploitation is the same everywhere,” he said.

Bove spent an hour firing on his audience with words of encouragement and advice, ending with an invitation to all to attend an anti-globalization carnival he is organizing next month in the southern French town of Montpellier to mark an appeal against his jail sentence.

The McDonald’s workers present, visibly enthused by Bove’s words, said they would be renewing their action at the Latin Quarter outlet of the US hamburger giant. A strike there which paralyzed the outlet for two weeks had already won them partial success.

In the past two years McDonald’s has become a politically-charged symbol in France, thanks to a series of protests by groups opposed to what many French people see as a threat to their traditional high-quality food.

Bove, a veteran campaigner, was also detained by police in the northern city of Lille Tuesday after he led the occupation of the local branch of the ruling Socialist party.

According to police, a dozen demonstrators broke into the offices where they unleashed a sow and ten piglets and piled up bales of hay.

A statement from Bove’s Peasant Confederation said that protest was to demand a “fairer distribution of public aid to agriculture.” The union wants government subsidies diverted from agro-industry towards small producers.

Source: Agence France Presse