Ahoy, fellow workers & filthy bourgeoisie! Welcome to the seventeenth edition of GNN’s exclusive Labor News Roundup. Though labor-related news is neglected in both the mainstream and “alternative” news services, important labor stories are breaking all over the world every day. This roundup is but a small sampling. For more international labor news, check out Labor Notes, LibCom and LabourStart.
Open-Mouth Sabotage, Networked Resistance, and Asymmetric Warfare on the Job: Kevin Carson of Mutualist.org writes: “A recurring theme in ruling class circles over the past thirty years has been the “crisis of governability” (e.g. Samuel Huntington, et al., The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission, 1975). It increased by at least an order of magnitude with the new possibilities the Internet offered for networked resistance (Netwar) by the late 1990s. David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla ( The Zapatista “Social Netwar” in Mexico MR-994-A, 1998) surveyed the global support network for the Zapatista movement as one of the earliest examples of this phenomenon. One topic that has received far less attention than it deserves, in my opinion, is the application of this networked resistance or asymmetric warfare in the specific context of labor relations.” (P2P Foundation, 03/15/08)
Anarcho-Pooch participates in General Strike in Greece
Greece: Report on the 19th’s General Strike and demonstration: Demonstrations were organized after a call by workers unions and syndicates in Greece’s larger cities, against the new law on the pension system. In Athens, workers initiatives and anarchist/antiauthoritarian collectives shut down luxurious shops that were working on a strike day (photos of an action at repo-zine.blogspot.com). The marches start with more than 200,000 people in several blocs. Clashes begin near the parliament, where some surveillance cameras and a few bank glass windows were broken down. Street battles continue near the universities (Propylaia) and Exarcheia area where people build up a few barricades. The cops shoot plastic bullets against the protesters. Around Exarchia square, people attack the riot-police brigades. It’s worth mentioning that syndicalist leaders left the marches so as to intimidate people participating. In Thessaloniki, more than 20,000 protest in the city center. During the demonstration a collective throws garbage and paints against shops that stayed open during the strike (Photos at stasiepisfaleias.wordpress.com). Also, glass windows and cameras of banks were broken, while an ATM was set on fire. During these actions, leftists clashed with demonstrators who had their faces covered, participating or encouraging such actions. In Heraklion, Crete, around 4,000 persons participated in the city center, where since early in the morning strikers had forced shops to close down for the strike. During the march groups of anarchists/antiauthoritarians broke down several surveillance cameras outside banks and threw paint at the Nea Dimokratia (ruling party) offices. The march headed towards the Prefecture of Crete offices, where many attempted to occupy the building, while some syndicalist bureaucrat’s (friendly to PASOK, ex-ruling and currently opposition party) prevented them and clashed with anarchists who at last broke the Prefecture’s entrance. In Larissa, clashes erupted when the PAME (a frontal organization of the KKE “communist” party) attacked against anarchists/antiauthoritarians, autonomous and leftists in order to keep their blocs away from the march, though the PAME tough guys were repelled succesfuly. Photos, videos, and further action reports can be found here. (Infoshop News / Athens Indymedia / Direct Action News from Greece, 03/22/08)
Greece Gripped by Pensions Strike: “BBC News reports: “Greece’s civil servants have staged a nationwide strike against planned pension reforms, badly disrupting transport and closing public offices. Trade unions say millions of people took part in the 24-hour action, which was marked by large protests in Athens and Thessaloniki. Greece’s parliament is due to vote on a controversial reform bill on Thursday. It would eliminate most early retirement schemes, merge pension funds and cap auxiliary pensions. In central Athens, police fired tear gas in after groups of self-proclaimed anarchists threw petrol bombs and rocks. The anarchists also set fire to rubbish bins and cars, and smashed bank windows, before dispersing, police said. Some violence was also reported in the northern city of Thessaloniki as protesters set fire to banks and cash machines. Unions describe the general strike – the third of its kind in as many months – as the biggest protest so far against the pension reform plan.” (BBC News, 03/20/08)
Greece heading towards general strike: “Greek workers are set to go on general strike tomorrow (Wednesday 19th March) in protest of the government’s planned pension reforms. The government’s reforms would mean the merging of pension funds and increasing the pension age for some workers. The government, however, has not made public any details on the size of savings that will accrue from the reforms. The trade unions have also argued that the current pension system could survive if bosses were made to pay their contributions. The Greek state itself owes €10 billion (around £7.5 billion) to the pension funds. The changes will gradually be implemented as of 2009 and in the case of private sector workers will be applicable only to those who began their insured working life after 1992. Rolling strikes by bin collectors and electricians have caused rubbish to pile up and occasional blackouts to occur throughout the country for the past two weeks. Members of the municipal workers’ union that have refused to go back to work stormed the offices of the Athens city council yesterday and staged a sit-in protest, resulting in the cancellation of the council board meeting. Bin bags have been piling up in the streets. Scabbing bin collectors have been out trying to break the strike leading to occupation of landfills by striking workers and their supporters. Riot police have been sent in to help strike breakers get to work leading to protesters throwing bin bags at police lines. Bank workers have also been on strike in recent months, most recently being out on strike since Monday. There have also been occupations at Greek universities with more planned in the coming days.” (LibCom.org, 03/18/08)
Workers continue to fight for their pensions in Greece: “Walkouts by public sector workers against the pension reform bill are continuing, with a 24-hour general strike expected on Wednesday. Last Wednesday saw a three-hour general stoppage called by the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (GSEE), during which doctors, engineers, pharmacists and lawyers joined bank workers and rubbish collectors already on strike. The day ended with a march on parliament attended by hundreds of workers. Rubbish has begun to pile up on city streets as collectors continue their week-long strike. Clashes with police occurred in Athens on Wednesday as workers tried to prevent rubbish being deposited at a landfill site. Bank workers have voted to carry on their strike, and workers at the Public Power Corporation will continue their walkout through to the general strike this Wednesday, which has been called by the main unions to coincide with deliberations on the pension bill in parliament. Staggered 24-hour walkouts by electrical workers have led to intermittent blackouts in many cities. Hospital workers and engineers will stay on strike through Monday and Tuesday, and lawyers have said they will continue their strike to Friday. Unions have vowed to escalate strike action until the pension reform bill is scrapped. The bill aims to collect Greece’s 170-odd pension schemes into 13 main funds, and will see cuts to benefits, an increase in the retirement age, and loss of benefits for working mothers.” (LibCom.org, 03/17/08)
Starbucks Baristas Win California Tip Case; Starbucks may owe millions: Greg Moran writes for the Union-Tribune: “A class-action suit contends that Starbucks’ policy of sharing tips between baristas and shift supervisors violates California labor laws. But the humble tip jar is at the center of a potentially multimillion-dollar case in San Diego Superior Court involving coffee giant Starbucks and an estimated 120,000 of its baristas, the workers who grind the beans and froth the milk for lattes and cappuccinos. The class-action lawsuit filed almost four years ago centers on the practice of pooling tips among workers. The suit contends the company’s policy of sharing tips between baristas and shift supervisors violates state labor laws. Those laws say managers or supervisors can’t share in tips. In the first part of the non-jury trial in front of Superior Court Judge Patricia Yim Cowett, Starbucks argued that the shift supervisors were not managers, but performed many of the same tasks as baristas.” (StarbucksUnion.org, 03/12/08)
Jordan: Violent repression of Vietnamese workers’ strike: “The ITUC and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF) strongly protest against the assault perpetrated on 176 Vietnamese migrant workers at W&D Apparel in the Al Tajamouat Industrial Estate in Amman after they went on strike on February 10. The workers organised the strike to protest against the exploitative working and living conditions they face at the at the Taiwanese-owned factory—work for which they had paid a Vietnamese labour broker 1,600 USD in recruitment fees, the equivalent of nearly three years’ minimum wage, to be employed in Amman. The workers were promised wages of 220 USD a month in Jordan, but once they arrived, their employer confiscated their personal documents, forced them to work for up to 16 hours a day, and paid them between 80 and 150 USD per month. To force the workers to return to their jobs, the company cut off food and offered compensation only to those who were the most productive. Ten days later, while the majority of the workers were still on strike, the employer called the police. Many workers were injured during the assault. In a letter sent to the Jordanian authorities, the ITUC and the ITGLWF urged the government to ensure that W&D respects the right of the migrant workers to join or form a union of their choice and to bargain collectively with their employer and asked the government to conduct an urgent investigation into the role played by police in breaking up the strike and to ensure that any police officers found to have abused workers are punished.” (International Trade Union Confederation, 03/17/08)
Guest Workers stage violent wage protest in UAE: The AFP reports: “Around 1,500 workers in the United Arab Emirates staged a violent protest for higher wages on Tuesday, setting dozens of vehicles on fire and damaging property, police said. Their nationalities were not disclosed, but similar actions in the past year have usually involved mostly low-paid Asian workers, who form the bulk of hundreds of thousands of foreign construction and unskilled workers in the booming oil-rich Gulf country. One news report indicated at least some of the protesters were Indians. The workers went on strike and rioted in their living quarters in the industrial area of Sagaa in Sharjah, which is adjacent to Dubai, Sharjah police chief Brigadier Humaid al-Hudaidi said, quoted by the state WAM news agency.” (Google News, 03/18/08)
Mexico: 250 Corona bottle makers fired for forming an independent union: “More than 250 employees of a factory that manufactures beer bottles for Corona (amongst others) in San Luis Potosí have been fired for associating with a legally recognised independent union. The factory’s owners are also purging the factory of sympathisers of the sacked workers. Almost two years of unionising activity had resulted in workers ousting the corrupt, mainstream Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos (CROC) union from the shopfloor of the Industrial Vidriera Potosí (IVP) glass factory and replacing it with the independent Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Empresa IVP (SUTEIVP). The union’s first action was to gain a 19% payrise off the employers: Grupo Modelo, who export the weak and tasteless Corona beer internationally, as well as selling a host of beer brands in Mexico.” (LibCom.org, 03/11/08)
Thousands on strike in Colombia: “3,500 workers are on strike in protest at temporary employment contracts in the world’s most dangerous nation to be a trade unionist. Members of the Sintracerromatoso union at the nickel mine operated by Cerro Matoso, a subsidiary of the multinational company, BHP Billiton, have begun a strike after negotiations failed to produce an agreement with the company. Two weeks ago, Utramicol, an IMF affiliate, reported on the situation of the Cerro Matoso workers, who had indicated then that there had been no significant progress in negotiations because of the company’s intransigence. The union is demanding improved contracts and is especially concerned about the temporary employment contracts used by the company. The union insists that the company signs open-ended employment contracts with workers currently employed on temporary contracts. It also rejects the company’s proposal to increase the length of the contract from two to four years. Historically, the contract has always been for two years.” (LibCom.org, 03/10/08)
San Francisco ESL SFIE Teachers To Strike: “Bay Area IWW members are involved in the following struggle: On Monday, March 17, at 8:30 a.m. a strike began at San Francisco Institute of English (3301 Balboa, corner of 34th Avenue in SF’s Outer Richmond District) and will continue until our demands are met. Please join our picket line in front of the school building, as well as contribute to our strike fund (e-mail back for details). If you can’t make it to our picket line, you can also help us by phoning (415-750-1755), faxing (415-750-9939), or e-mailing (info [at] sfie.net) the school to express your solidarity and insist that management acquiesce to our demands. We, the teachers at San Francisco Institute of English (3301 Balboa Street in the Richmond District), are striking for a livable wage and the return of health care benefits. SFIE is an English as a Second Language (ESL) school with a teaching staff of 11. We have not had a cost-of-living increase in over 12 years; employee health care was taken away in 2004 with the promise of its return if enrollment returned to pre-September 11, 2001 levels (changes in Homeland Security procedures caused the number of student visas to temporarily drop – affecting the entire ESL industry). The number of students is back up to that previous level, but we have yet to get our health care back. Conditions in the private/non-profit ESL industry have been in steady decline for years, made worse because this sector has traditionally been non-union. “ (IWW.org, 03/17/08)
Immigrant NY Foodstuffs Workers Organize Industry-Wide IWW Campaign: Maria Rodriguez Gil writes for the Anarcho-Syndicalist Review: “Although the Industrial Workers of the World pioneered industrial unionism 100 years ago, it hasn’t seen a significant organizing drive in the United States for decades—until a recent drive among short-haul truckers on the West Coast and an ongoing campaign by the IWW Food and Allied Workers Union, New York Local I.U. 460/640, to organize food industry workers (the vast majority of them undocumented immigrants) in New York City. The two-year-old organizing drive has reached about 500 workers in dozens of food industry companies and has significantly improved, directly and indirectly, wages and working conditions across the industry in the New York City area. Proving wrong those who claim that you can’t build a union with undocumented workers, the IWW has succeeded where traditional unions failed, becoming the only union in the country with 90% undocumented members (more than 70 have joined Local I.U. 460/640).” (Anarcho Syndicalist Review / Wobbly City / Infoshop News, 03/16/08)
NYC: Six IWW Workers Win $360,000 in Back Pay: IWW to picket Handyfat Trading in celebration of jury award for 6 fired workers of $360,000 in back pay! 460 Solidarity writes: “Workers from Handyfat Trading founded IWW Industrial Union 460 in December 2005. They were instrumental and active in organizing all the other food service shops that have joined IU 460 since then (ten shops). In addition, these workers along with the workers from EZ Supply/Sunrise Plus achieved the first collective bargaining agreements in this segment of the food industry. In December 2006 and January 2007, all union members from both Handyfat and EZ Supply were fired. After winning orders of reinstatement and back wages at the NLRB, the workers now begin to win the court battles for their stolen backwages. The IWW will be holding a picket and press conference this Saturday at Handyfat. Saturday – March 15th, 2008 at 10am at Morgan and Thames street in Bushwick, Brooklyn. (Look for the big rat on the corner). L train to the Morgan Avenue station. The press will be invited to talk to the workers about their struggle and victory.” (Wobbly City
Egypt: Railway, agricultural workers protest and walk out: Joseph K. writes: “Recent weeks have seen a continuation of the workers’ unrest in Egypt, with over 2,000 agricultural workers going on all-out strike at the end of February and 100 railway workers protesting their pay and conditions at the start of March… 2,200 workers and employees at the Ramsis Company for Agricultural Projects and the South Valley Company for agricultural development in Toshka went on open strike Feb 27 and staged a sit-in at the companies’ management. They protested against the decision by the Construction and Development Holding Company to reduce variable wages by 20% after the Investment Minister’s decision to shut down the Trade Holding Company (THC) and make the two previous companies affiliated to the Construction and Development Holding Company… One hundred employees of the Egyptian Railway Authority from El-Wosta, Beni Suef, protested against pay and conditions March 1. The five-hour protest, which began at 10 am in El-Wosta, was intended to draw attention to a number of demands. Railway drivers are calling for the payment of withheld housing allowances and other benefits, increased pay and health insurance, which they say are received by employees based in other areas of Egypt, but not by them.” (LibCom.org, 03/13/08)
Northern Ireland: Pickets win re-instatement of migrant worker: “Following two successful pickets of Delaney’s restaurant in Belfast Dasa Kacova has won all her demands and been offered her job back. [The] young Slovakian worker was sacked on the spot from Delaney’s restaurant for asking why she had to remove her jumper at work on a cold January day. Delaney’s owners refused to meet with the worker or with her trade union representative. As a result pickets were organised by ICTU and the Belfast & District Trades Council and were supported by a wide range of trade union and political activists including members of Organise! ICTU state that they will expose and challenge the mistreatment of workers and in particular migrant workers who are among the most vulnerable in our society. “It is unacceptable in this day and age that employers can still mistreat workers in this way”. The pickets met with a very positive response from the public. Even the random sample of the public who have passed the picket have produced several first hand testimonies of Delaneys’ management’s mistreatment of workers going back for years. Two former Communication Workers’ Union members who now work at Delaney’s walked off the job to join the picket. One passing schoolgirl when told of the jumper incident remarked, “God, its just like being at school!” On Saturday 8th of March someone turns up at the picket calling us “Commie bastards” and starts pushing his way through. At first everyone thought he knew someone on the picket and was having a laugh. It turned pout to be Mr. Delaney himself. He then called the police. It turned out to be all hot air. After about an hour of negotiations he agreed to all of the workers demands to reinstate Dasa immediately, reimburse her for loss of earnings, pay her outstanding holiday entitlement and to treat all workers fairly. Understandably she did not wish to return to work under him again and agreed to a full financial settlement.” (LibCom.org, 03/10/08)
New York Sex Worker Organizations Respond to Spitzer Scandal: Sarah Jenny writes: “In the last few days, Governor Eliot Spitzer has publicly admitted to being associated with an escort agency and is considering resignation. As sex worker advocates, we are concerned about the representation and fate of “Kristen” and sex workers who are being thrust into the spotlight because of the investigation into the Governor. We also share the widespread concern for Governor Spitzer’s family. Sex worker organizations urge the press and the public to focus on the violation of sex workers rights and the need to change these laws and policies, rather than simply on the story of one individual who has purchased sexual services. (SWANK & SWOP-NYC / Infoshop News, 03/12/08)
Boston: Harvest Co-op fired worker, a union backer: Bill Bumpus writes: “Deon Furtick, 31, of Roxbury, and a father of three, had worked for four years in the deli at the Jamaica Plain store at 57 South St. He was fired for not punching out for a meal break on January 8th. Furtick had never punched out for meal breaks, and had never been told this was necessary. He did not suspect his job was in jeopardy. Harvest Manager of Operations Marc Cutler used to be Jamaica Plain store manager. There he had personally signed off on employees’ hours every week. So he would have noticed that Furtick did not punch out on his breaks. In practice, the policy of not paying for meal breaks was inconsistent. It largely depended on the department for which the employee worked. Other employees in similar situations are simply spoken to by a supervisor, or given a written warning. Deon Furtick was terminated without warning. Furtick suspects that management was retaliating because he had been talking with co-workers about organizing a union with Industrial Workers of the World, (IWW, IU 460). He is not the only one. Eight community members attended Harvest’s January 29 board of directors meeting to express concern over the termination of Deon Furtick. They asked that Furtick be reinstated with back pay, that management use progressive discipline before firing employees, and that the right to organize be respected. Since then, community members have passed out hundreds of flyers at the Co-op’s locations in Cambridge and Jamaica Plain. Dozens of phone calls have been made to management. Harvest management has refused to discuss the issue.” (The Bridge, March 2008)
Indian workers protest human trafficking and abuse at Signal plant in Pascagula, Mississippi.
Indian workers protest at US plant over treatment “like pigs”: Aasheesh Sharma & V Kaushik Kumar write: “Over a hundred Indian workers at a shipyard in a small American town on the Gulf of Mexico lodged a dramatic protest against inhuman living and working conditions on Thursday, singing “We Shall Overcome”, and tossing their hard hats in the air. The workers, hired from India in 2006 to tide over a labour shortage in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that killed over 1,800 on the Gulf coast in August 2005, said they were made to live “like pigs in a cage” in a “work camp” run by their employer, marine fabrication company Signal International, in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The workers said an earlier attempt at protest had been ruthlessly muzzled, prompting a worker to attempt suicide. The worker had been sacked and police had been called in to control the situation. The protesters said they had been lured with promises of permanent US residency into a “human trafficking ring” run by Signal International.” (Hindustan Times, 03/08/08)
Immigrant workers exploited in a Mississippi shipyard walk off the job.
In a scene reminiscent of the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike,
they carried signs reading, “I Am A Man.” Workers then tossed their
hardhats over a fence in jubilation.
Shipyard Workers Organize to Stop 21st Century Slavery: According to Workdayminnesota.org, “More than 100 workers, carrying signs reading “I Am A Man,” walked off the job at a Mississippi shipyard last week to protest conditions of slavery. Their struggle for justice comes 40 years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched with striking Memphis sanitation workers carrying the same signs.” (Workday Minnesota, 03/11/08)
Workers at Hyundai (HMC) Ulsan plant in South Korea
were on wildcat last week for higher wages.
Hyundai workers wildcat in South Korea: The following is a report from a contact in Ulsan: “On the 3rd(Mon), there was a kind of wildcat strike in HMC Ulsan plant. HMC Ulsan plant has five final assembly plants. This strike was broken at the 1st plant which has been the militant vanguard in the history of HMC workers’ struggle. In each shift(day-night), regular workers go on strike for the last hour of an 8- hour shift. On the day shift 800 workers participated in the strike-assembly, and on the night shift 1,200 workers did. The number of total regular workers in the 1st plant is about more than 3,000, and all of them are union members. Thus two thirds of regular-contract workers participated in the strike-assembly. (The number of casual workers in the 1st plant is less than 800. They did not participate the strike-assembly, even though the product-line was stopped. They were merely scattered.) The leading group of this strike were the representatives of HMC regular workers’ union. Each of them represents about 100 unionists. They stopped the product-line ignoring the legal procedure both in labor-law and the union-statutes. On the 4th(Tue), the strike was stopped after long debates among the representatives. The militant representatives could not win out over the bureaucratic representatives. But it has not yet ended. There are some possibilities that another wildcat strike will break out sooner or later. The workers’ demand can be summarized as a decent wage now that HMC has reduced production capacity in Korea. The bureaucratic solution is to ask the boss for more production capacity. The militant solution is demanding a decent wage having nothing to do with production capacity. Members of the recently-formed HMC rank-and-file opposition, uniting for the first time regular and casual workers, played key roles in the strike.” (LibCom.org, 03/09/08)
Strike Transcends Labor Dispute: According to Jewel Gopwani in The Detroit Free Press, “Support has been pouring in for striking workers at American Axle & Manufacturing from other unions and businesses that want to back a strike they say has come to represent a fight for working-class wages beyond the Detroit axle supplier and even beyond the auto industry.” (Detroit Free Press, 03/18/08)
This week’s Labor History Spotlight(s):
Labour Rebellions of the 1930s in the British Caribbean Region Colonies – Richard Hart: A brief overview of the numerous struggles which occurred in the British Caribbean during the 1930s, which led to the introduction of many trade union rights across the region, written by Jamaican trade unionist Richard Hart. (LibCom.org)
This roundup was compiled by GNN contributor and blogger Nathan Coe. Nathan is a guerrilla journalist and rebel insurgent residing in the mountains of Southwest Colorado, where he has infiltrated a facility of indoctrination, targeted for revolutionary subversion, under the guise of a senior college student working on his Major in Humanities. He can be contacted at free_world_alliance(at)yahoo.com or via his blog at ShiftShapers.gnn.tv.
For more of GNN’s exclusive roundups of under-reported news from around the world, check out The Rebel Communiqué, East Is East, and If You Knew…