Mobilization rally: police say no to
NLC
Police in the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have refused
to grant the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) a permit to hold a mobilization
in support of the planned Nov. 16 general strike to protest the nationwide
fuel price increases. But the NLC leadership has dismissed the police
position as unconstitutional, adding that by virtue of Section 40 of
the constitution, Nigerians do not require the “permission or approval
of the police authority” to hold processions.
The NLC stated that police references to intelligence about miscreants
and hoodlums, intending harm to property and FCT residents, are “completely
unfounded, false and an attempt by the police high command to evade
their constitutional responsibility, thereby shielding the government
from the grievances of citizens.” NLC called on the police to play
their constitutional role by providing security cover for the protest
as both National Assembly reports on NLC protests and other evidence
have proved that “Nigerians have the capacity to conduct themselves
peacefully.”
The NLC holds that the only acceptable measure is the total reversal
of the hike in pump prices of petroleum affected last Sept. 23.
(Daily Champion (Lagos))
Newsom pulls cops from picketed hotels
If hotel operators want police protection on the picket lines in San
Francisco, they are going to have to foot the bill themselves, Mayor
Gavin Newsom declared Nov. 3. Newsom ordered cops to pull around-the-clock
protection from the 14 hotels involved in a five-week-old contract dispute
with 4,300 hotel workers, who have been locked out for three weeks after
striking for two.
The hotel operators had refused to let workers back on the job for a
90-day cooling-off period. The hotel workers’ union, Local 2 UNITE
HERE, had agreed to the request, but the owners rejected it, saying
that it would not help them hammer out a contract deal.
Newsom said protecting the hotels diverts cops from other beats. He
added, “Why are we all paying for protection when it’s [the
hotels’] choice to lock people out?”
Supervisor Aaron Peskin had introduced legislation calling for the hotels
to be charged for police protection. Peskin, who withdrew his legislation
after Newsom acted, said if hotels wanted to continue to have cops on
the picket line, they would be charged approximately $78 an hour to
hire an off-duty detail under San Francisco Administrative Code. (San
Francisco Examiner)
Strike ends at Chinese textile mill
A nearly seven-week strike by about 7,000 workers at a textile mill
in northern China has ended after the factory’s Hong Kong managers
agreed to improve employment conditions. Workers, most of them women,
launched the strike on Sept. 14 over demands by the formerly state-owned
plant’s new majority shareholders that they sign short-term labor
contracts reducing their wages and eliminating seniority. Workers also
wanted to elect their own union officials, rejecting leaders appointed
by the sole official All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the group
said.
Labor protests have grown widespread in China as the government moves
to sell-off or close money losing state factories. The government resolves
most disputes by agreeing to some demands while arresting protest leaders.
About 200 workers who were manning a sit-in at the factory’s gates
were rounded up. More than 20 worker organizers have been detained in
recent days over the strike at the Huarun Xianyang factory in the Shaanxi
province.
Management from Hong Kong conglomerate China Resources agreed to eliminate
a six-month probationary period and allow longer contracts, but rejected
demands for other forms of compensation.
(AP)
New protests and riots worry Beijing
At least four workers’ protests or riots have broken out in recent
weeks in China, prompting media blackouts or outright repression. On
October 22, more than 10,000 workers and pensioners in the city of Benghu
in Anhui province took to the streets protesting deteriorating health
care and the failure to index the retired workers’ pension to the
fast rising cost of living. In September, China’s consumer price
index rose 5.2 percent from a year ago, with grain prices up 31.7 percent.
Gasoline prices have risen 17 percent so far this year.
On Oct. 18, 30,000-40,000 angry protesters put the local government
of Wanzhou district, 186 miles from Chongqing city, under siege. A minor
street row, triggered by threats and the bashing of a laborer, exploded
into a major riot after it was rumored that the attacker was an official.
Rioters burnt a number of police vehicles and damaged the government
building, which the police answered with teargas and rubber bullets.
On Oct. 4, hundreds in the Sanchawan village near Yulin in Shaanxi province
protested a relocation plan that would push 15,000 peasants off their
land. They complained that the compensation was a pittance and that
the act was illegal. In response, riot police opened fire, wounding
more than 50 villagers.
Meanwhile, in Xianyang City, also in the Shaanxi province, more than
6,000 workers, mostly women, struck on Sept. 14 after the new owner
of their recently privatized employer, Tianwang Textile Factory, sought
to seriously undermine their employment conditions. The new owner, China
Resources, sought to terminate all workers and reemploy them all as
inexperienced workers, at much-reduced pay and without accrued retirement
or medical benefits. Ever since the strike broke out, the workers have
maintained a round-the-clock picket/vigil of up to 1,000 workers who
have been heard singing the “Internationale” loudly. (Green
Left Weekly)
Compromise in Atlantic City
After more than a month of heated and often bitter exchanges between
casino operators in Atlantic City and union workers, employees accepted
a contract from Harrah’s Entertainment to end the strike that had
shut down the industry there.
With Harrah’s refusing to bend on its position and starting to
hire new workers, the union backed down from its ultimatum that any
new Atlantic City contracts expire simultaneously with those in Las
Vegas, which would have given labor tremendous bargaining muscle in
the next round of contract negotiations in 2007 by providing it the
power to shut down casinos in the two top markets.
Although a win for Harrah’s as the union seemingly blinked first,
at least one analyst believes the union came out ahead even though it
lost the contentious demand that launched the strike because it obtained
concessions on all the bread-and-butter issues while flexing its muscle
and hurting Harrah’s bottom line.
On Oct. 1, more than 10,000 workers of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant
Employees Union Local 54 walked off their jobs at seven of the 12 Atlantic
City casinos and began picketing after contract talks with casino operators
broke down. (Las Vegas Business Press)
BC Wal-Mart automotive employees apply
to union
Wal-Mart employees at seven of the company’s stores across British
Columbia have applied for union representation. The United Food and
Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada Local 1518 submitted the application
before the British Columbia Labor Relations Board (BCLRB) after a majority
of the employees at each of the seven Tire & Lube Express departments
signed membership cards with the union.
“These Wal-Mart employees have expressed real interest in joining
our union,” a UFCW spokesperson said, “[The employees] were
brave enough to sign union cards despite their employer’s well-documented
hostility towards unions. We are looking forward to representing them.”
It is not known yet when the BCLRB will conduct the mandatory vote of
the Wal-Mart employees required by BC law regarding joining UFCW Canada.
UFCW Canada Local 1518 represents 26,000 workers in the retail, commercial,
industrial and health care industries in BC UFCW Local 1518 is part
of UFCW Canada, one of Canada’s largest and most respected private
sector unions with more than 230,000 members across the country, working
in every aspect of the food industry, as well as other service, commercial,
processing, manufacturing, technical and professional occupations. (UFCW
Canada)
Largest union issues call for major
changes
On Nov. 4 Andrew L. Stern, president of the Service Employees International
Union, the AFL-CIO’s largest union, called Nov. 9, for far-reaching
changes in labor designed to increase its membership, proposing a $25-million-a-year
campaign to unionize Wal-Mart and a near doubling in the amount spent
annually on organizing. The meeting comes as long-simmering differences
in the AFL-CIO have been intensified by President Bush’s re-election,
with many union leaders fearing retaliation because organized labor
spent more than $150 million to try to defeat him.
Unions are also feeling a sense of crisis, largely because the percentage
of workers in unions has plunged to 13 percent from nearly 35 percent
in the 1950’s and because corporations are cutting back health
benefits and pensions. In recent months, Stern, whose union, with 1.6
million members, is the nation’s fastest growing, has warned that
the service employees might break away from the AFL-CIO -- a federation
of 60 unions and 13 million workers -- unless the federation embraces
major changes to reverse labor’s decline. Adding to the tensions,
some labor leaders say that a close ally of Stern, John W. Wilhelm,
the longtime president of the hotel workers’ union, might challenge
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, who is up for re-election next year.
(NYTimes)
Bus workers march on company offices
in UK, US
More than 150 bus workers and their allies gathered at Paddington Station
in London in mid-October for a noisy march and rally that called for
an end to attacks on bus industry employment and service standards by
FirstGroup, a UK-based multinational bus and rail company. The workers
also delivered a letter to company offices inside the enormous bus and
rail station, demanding that FirstGroup stop its global “race to
the bottom” and cease its anti-union activities in the United States.
Later that day, hundreds of US bus workers carried the same messages
to company offices in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois and Minnesota.
FirstGroup’s US subsidiary — First Student— has been
expanding rapidly in the United States and is now the second largest
private provider of school bus transportation services in the country.
The US workers told their UK colleagues that without a union, they have
no employment contract, lack access to affordable health care, do not
receive sick leave, have no bargaining rights with their employer, and
may be fired at will and without cause. (Labornet.org)
US phone giant to cut 10,000 jobs
SBC Communications, one of the biggest US phone companies, is planning
to cut more than 10,000 jobs, or about 6 percent of its workforce, by
the end of next year. SBC has shed 7,000 jobs this year and analysts
say it may need to trim as many as 20,000 to catch up with rivals. Cutting
10,000 to 20,000 jobs will save SBC between $600 million and $1.2 billion
a year.
SBC said that most of the losses would come through attrition, when
people either retire or leave the firm, and it will guarantee job offers
made to union members in the new contracts.
Phone companies want to reduce costs as demand wanes for fixed-line
services and legislation outlaws services such as “cold-call”
selling.
Staff went on strike earlier this year as they wrangled over new contracts.
(BBC)
