US: Fewer get workplace health plans
Americans who receive health insurance through their employers have
dropped to less than one half of all workers from about two thirds a
decade ago, according to a report on the nation’s health coverage
by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The study found 45 percent of
US employees have health insurance at work, down from 63 percent in
1993.
Health specialists said the decline stems from soaring insurance premiums
and the inability of workers and small employers to afford the increasingly
costly coverage. The report said there was a 75 percent increase in
premiums paid by employees for their share of health coverage over the
past decade, outpacing wages or inflation.
Shifts in the composition of the US work force and the recent economic
decline also caused coverage to fall. Manufacturing employment has dropped
steadily, and there has been a rise in the percentage of workers employed
by service companies, which are less likely to offer health coverage
to the extent that employers in traditional industries do. While half
of workers in blue-collar jobs have health insurance, only 22 percent
of low-wage workers are covered in service occupations such as waitresses,
dental assistants, security guards, or childcare workers, the bureau
said.
The study confirms a troubling trend: deterioration in the relationship
between workers and employers, who have provided health, pension, and
other benefits in the past. Dental benefits are also less common: 32
percent of workers receive them, down from 39 percent a decade ago.
(The Boston Globe)
Yale Union supporters report climate
of fear and cynicism
The longstanding labor dispute between Yale graduate students and the
administration is turning the university into a breeding ground for
cynics afraid to speak their minds for fear of retribution, students
said.
At a hearing hosted by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization
(GESO), a panel of labor experts listened as students, faculty members
and others outlined what they allege is a history of anti-union coercion
by the administration.
On Apr. 30, GESO lost a unionization vote by 694-651, and charges that
a “vicious anti-union campaign” carried out by faculty members
led to the defeat, said GESO chairwoman Anita Seth.
Yale does not view graduate students as employees, and is backing several
universities who have appealed a ruling by the National Labor Relations
Board that students at private universities can organize.
Seth said several faculty members threatened the academic futures of
union supporters and told them they will not receive favorable letters
of recommendation.
Graduate student Carlos Aramayo said students are being forced “to
choose between career and conscience.”
GESO member David Sanders, who has graduated but is continuing unionization
efforts, said the divisiveness has ruined the intellectual atmosphere
in graduate programs.
“The thing that Yale produces more than anything is a spirit of
cynicism,” he said. (New Haven Register)
3,000 activists, police clash after
funeral of WTO suicide
South Korean farm activists and the police clashed after the funeral
of Lee Kyung-hae, who fatally stabbed himself in Cancun, Mexico, on
Sept. 10 to protest the World Trade Organization’s talks aimed
at greater opening of the agricultural market.
More than 3,000 activists and farmers scuffled with police as they stopped
traffic on the Olympic Expressway near Olympic Park, where the funeral
was held. Traffic was halted and remained extremely congested through
the afternoon.
Six activists, eight police officers and a reporter were injured in
the incident, which ended when the Songpa police chief apologized to
Lee’s family. Lee’s body was taken to his hometown of Jangsu,
North Jeolla, for burial. (Joong Ang Daily)
Yet another chainsaw massacre in Colombia
On the afternoon of Sept. 2, three peasant farmers, who were also brothers,
were traveling by horse near La Loma del Chivo in the municipality of
Ponedera in the Atlantico department of Colombia’s north coast.
The men, Cesar Augusto Fonseca, Jose Rafael Fonseca Cassiani and Ramon
Fonseca Cassiani, were all also members of the SINTRAGRICOLAS section
of the Colombian agricultural workers’ trade union FENSUAGRO.
According to their trade union, and to witnesses in the area, a group
of paramilitaries ambushed the men and they were forced to dismount
their horses. Four paramilitaries subsequently took them away in a gray
jeep to an unknown location. Some time later the men were all found
in a mass grave in the La Montana ranch, also in Pondera municipality.
All had been cut up with chainsaws.
FENSUAGRO reported that both national and regional authorities have
ignored all requests to investigate the crime as they have with the
recent assassinations of the SINTRAGRICOLAS president Victor Jimenez
Fruto and his predecessor Saul Colpas.
According to SINALTRAINAL the attack is almost certainly linked to the
current struggle that the union is involved in against the Coca-Cola
company. (ANNCOL Colombia)
Protesters tell Bern to leave pensions
alone
Under the proposals put forward this spring, Swiss interior minister
Pascal Couchepin suggested that in order to “save” the state
pension scheme, the retirement age should be raised from the current
65, to 67. The rise would take place in two stages – from 2015,
it would increase to 66 and from 2025 to 67.
Moreover, the interior minister wants pension payouts to be linked to
inflation rather than based on final salaries as at present.
His proposals would bring costs down, but even with them the state would
need more money to keep funding its pension commitments.
Railway workers from the Swiss Transport trade union joined protest
against the proposed pension changes. Demonstrators gathered near the
train station just after midday and then headed towards the Federal
Parliament.
Blowing whistles and letting off firecrackers, protestors carried signs
that read “Pascal that’s enough!” and “We don’t
want to wait until we’re dead to get our pensions!” (Swissinfo)
London set tobe hit by strikes
A wave of industrial action is set to sweep London because of a series
of disputes over pay.
Members of two unions at higher education institutions went on strike
in protest at a freeze on London Weighting, the supplement paid to workers
in the capital.
Unison and the Association of University Teachers said up to 120,000
students would be hit by the walkouts, which started at University College
and Goldsmiths.
A consultative ballot showed 80 percent support for industrial action
as part of a campaign for an increase in the allowance to $6,600 a year
from the current range of between $2,500 and $4,700.
Council workers have already staged a series of strikes which have hit
services in the capital and are now likely to stage fresh walkouts.
New strikes could be coordinated with action by London postal workers,
who backed stoppages in another row over allowances.
The Communication Workers Union has yet to decide whether to call strikes.
(Scotsman)
Indonesian strikers may face dismissal
Indonesia’s Manpower and Transmigration Minister Jacob Nuwa Wea
says the ongoing labor strike at the Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) mine in
East Kalimantan province is illegal and the government will support
any moves to fire the workers.
The government says it has lost at least $2 million in royalties since
most of KPC’s 2,700 workers went on strike on Aug. 29.
The workers are striking due to a dispute over their demand for compensation
related to KPC’s impending takeover by Indonesian investment firm
PT Bumi Resources.
The trouble started after KPC’s owners Rio Tinto and BP decided
to sell KPC to Bumi Resources for $500 million, including assumed debt
of $187 million. The sale is expected to be finalized by Oct.10.
Hopes that the crippling strike would end last week were soon dashed
after the workers walked off the job again on Sept. 17, just three hours
after returning to work.
The miners had initially been demanding a 15 percent bonus payment from
KPC’s $500 million price tag, even though none of them were expected
to lose their jobs as a result of the change in ownership.
After several rounds of negotiation, KPC offered the workers a “goodwill
payment” of $6 million, even though the employees have no legal
right to a bonus as a result of the sale of the company.
Most of the workers accepted the deal and returned to work. But they
promptly resumed their strike after learning they would be penalized
for having failed to return to work by Sept. 12. They were also angered
that the “goodwill payment” was subject to income tax. (Laksamana.net)
Aid denied for ill nuclear workers
Scores of private factories that helped make the nation’s first
atomic bombs stayed polluted for decades. And thousands of people who
later worked in them were exposed to radiation and toxins without knowing
it, federal records show.
The government is refusing to compensate workers who say they have illnesses
from the latent contamination. It says only those who had jobs while
the weapons work was going on are eligible for money.
About 250 chemical plants, steel mills, machine shops and other private
factories got classified contracts in the 1940s and ‘50s to process
radioactive and toxic material for atomic bombs for the government.
Officials knew contamination at many sites remained above federal safety
limits for years after weapons work ended, declassified records on conditions
at the factories show. A few stayed polluted into the early 90s.
No health studies have been done to determine how many workers may have
been sickened by leftover radiation and toxins at contracting sites.
Most workers were not told of the contamination or its health risks.
Peter Turcic, who heads the Labor Department’s compensation program,
says officials “have known for some time” that workers who
came to contracting sites in later years were exposed to contamination.
The department has no figure on how many have been denied compensation
for illnesses.
If Congress expands eligibility, “we would adjudicate those claims,”
he says. “We have to administer the law as it was written.”
(USA Today)
