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Strike against fuel prices shuts down Nigerian
cities
Lagos, Nigeria, June 30-- Nigeria was shut down on Monday
by a general strike called by trade unions to protest at a stiff increase
in fuel prices. Banks, schools, government offices and businesses were
closed and the normally bustling streets of major cities were devoid of
traffic.
In the capital Abuja, riot police fired tear gas to disperse a rally addressed
by Adams Oshimhole, president of the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC), the
trade union movement which organized the stoppage.
In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, police fired tear gas at protesters
who lit bonfires in the main streets and shouted anti-government slogans.
There were no immediate reports of violence in Africa's most populous
country.
President Olusegun raised gasoline prices by 54 percent on 20 June, saying
Africa's largest oil producer should no longer have to spend US $2 billion
a year on subsidizing fuel that was already extremely cheap by international
standards.
However, labor leaders were unconvinced. They argued that the price increases
of more than 50 percent for gasoline, diesel and kerosene would only aggravate
poverty in this country of 120 million people, 70 percent of whom live
on less than one dollar a day.
After talks with the government failed to avert the stoppage, Oshiomhole
said there was a need to fight "the creeping dictatorship" of
Obasanjo. The president was re-elected for a second term in April in polls
widely held to have been riddled by fraud.
Oshiomhole said on Monday that the national strike had attracted strong
support. "It's gone beyond what we expected," he told IRIN.
"We have got reports from all the states showing that people responded
to our call for a total strike."
Trade union leaders ignored a court order obtained by the government on
Friday that the strike be called off.
It has the potential to shut down Nigeria's vital oil industry, which
pumps over two million barrels per day and provides 95 percent of the
country's foreign exchange earnings.
The strike has attracted the support of two powerful oil unions, the blue-collar
National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the white-collar
Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
Oil companies said on Monday that output had not been immediately affected
by the stoppage, since key staff who belonged to PENGASSAN were still
working. However, union officials said they expected the strike to start
hitting exports in the coming days.
Obasanjo summoned union leaders to a fresh meeting on Monday afternoon
to try and resolve the dispute. Previous attempts at dialogue last week
broke down after the government insisted that the price fuel increases
were irreversible.
Most opposition parties have condemned the fuel price increases and have
thrown their weight behind the workers' protest.
Source: UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
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8 million workers may lose overtime pay
June 26--More than 8 million white-collar workers could
become ineligible for overtime pay after working more than 40 hours a
week under changes proposed by the administration of President George
W. Bush, according to a study released today by the Economic Policy Institute
(EPI).
The report, Eliminating the Right to Overtime Pay, finds the Bush administration's
proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) could eliminate
overtime pay for 7.4 million more workers than the US Department of Labor's
estimate of 644,000 workers.
"The house you buy, whether your wife has to work, whether you can
send your kids to Texas A&M or they have to attend the community college--for
many of us, it's all been determined by overtime, and now they want to
change the rules in the middle of the game," says Pace International
Union Local 8-675 member David Taylor, a highly skilled oil refinery worker
in Houston. Under the Bush plan, Taylor's nonunion co-workers could lose
their legal rights to time-and-a-half pay after 40 hours of work a week.
In fact, employees who make as little as $22,100 annually could be reclassified
as professional, administrative or executive employees exempt from federal
overtime rules. Emergency medical technicians, cooks, social workers and
police officers are among the 8 million workers who could be reclassified
and lose overtime pay.
Many workers would face unpredictable work schedules and reduced pay because
of an increased demand for extra hours for which employers would not have
to compensate workers, the report finds.
"As unemployment soars and America's workers struggle in a faltering
economy, the Bush proposal would encourage employers to cut hiring and
instead rely on fewer to do more work for less money," says AFL-CIO
President John J. Sweeney. "The proposal is an unjustified scorched
earth strategy to decrease workers' paychecks and rights in the name of
'updating' rules for the modern workplace."
"The administration's proposal would create, in effect, a massive
subsidy to employers paid for by their employees," says study co-author
Ross Eisenbrey, EPI vice president and policy director.
The public comment period on the proposed regulations--which could take
effect as early as this fall--ends June 30 and workers across the nation
are telling President Bush not to take away overtime pay.
While the Bush administration is attacking overtime, anti-worker members
of Congress have proposed five bills seeking to limit or restructure who
qualifies for overtime.
H.R. 1119 in the House and S. 317 in the Senate could allow employers
to save money at their employees' expense by having employees work overtime
in exchange for a promise of time off (at some future, unspecified date
under the employer's control), instead of paying workers the time-and-a-half
overtime pay they're entitled to under current law.
Because of the efforts of working families who sent hundreds of thousands
of faxes and made thousands of calls to their representatives, House Republicans
canceled a scheduled June 5 vote on H.R. 1119 because they did not have
sufficient votes for passage. The other bills, which have not received
hearing dates, would exempt some occupations from FLSA minimum wage and
overtime protections.
Source: AFL-CIO
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