Underreported, or in some cases totally unreported struggles and issues which need an airing. Some good news, some decidedly bad.

New union in Dole pineapple producer in Ecuador (Banana Link)
At Dole’s Siembra Nueva pineapple plantation in the country’s Los Rios province, workers have been organized by FENACLE, Ecuador’s rural workers union. The political environment has become congenial to organizing drives under Rafael Correa – with the union being able to give “two months of intensive education and training sessions” to plantation workers before notifying the Labor Ministry that the union had been formed, while the new union certainly marks a step forwards for Siembra Nueva, as Banana Link explains: “As is the case with most plantation workers, the employees of Siembra Nueva have been rotated every six months from one labour sub-contracting firm to another. FENACLE has unearthed 10 phantom sub-contracting company names used to avoid any legal obligations towards the workers. New legislation voted by the Constituent Assembly on 1st May however, means that the employer will be obliged to contract the workers directly.”

^{Los Rios province, Ecuador}

This national legislation is the product of years of struggle by plantation workers, often through FENACLE. On May 1, workers remembered what may become the turning point in their fight for decent conditions and pay – the 2002 strike at Alvaro Noboa’s Los Alamos plantation. After 19 workers were injured by hooded paramilitaries, as the employers sought to get Los Alamos moving again, FENACLE shifted into higher gear. Now, with a progressive government in power and, more importantly, a constituent assembly that is working to refound Ecuadorean politics and society on a more humane footing (FENACLE’s president is a member) subcontractors are being reined in. Hence, multinational corporations and local magnates will not be able to hide behind front companies.

Another U.S. company faced with eviction in Venezuela (Reuters)
As at the Argentine-owned Sidor steel works, workers at Venezuela’s Isidora gold mine are pressing Hugo Chavez to expropriate it. Isidora is currently owned by American firm Hecla Mining Co, so the move would be controversial, but workers are insisting that Hecla leave, citing poor working conditions and the unfair firing of three employees for their two week work stoppage and blockade. Hecla don’t seem too worried, although the stoppage has dented their quarterly earnings – the company announced big profits in February. Losing Isidora would be less of a problem for Hecla than a victory for workers in their fight to keep the “Bolivarian revolution” moving. Chavez was prodded into nationalizing Sidor by worker militancy, he may do the same for Isidora.

Mining and repression in the Philippines (Victims of Human Rights Violations & Farmers and Lumad Residents of New Bataan)
Residents of the Compostela Valley on the island of Mindanao are appealing to human rights activists and local authorities to intercede with the Philippine government to end military operations near their homes. As they put it, “Our lives have already been destitute at it is with landlessness and hunger reigning in our communities; with our tables almost without food and our children, without even the benefit of education. Hence, the current state of unpeace in our communities, the turning of our homes into launching pads of unjust war, make our lives even more dehumanizing.” Locals have been evicted, labeled as “rebels” and robbed by the army.

^{Map of the Philippines with Compostela highlighted}

NGO Panalipdan! writes in its own statement that “The heightening militarization in the rural areas of Compostela Valley Province and Davao Oriental, provinces which are major mining, logging and biofuel sites in the country is but part of the Investment Defense Force (IDF) which was formed by the Macapaga-Arroyo government early this year to secure the country’s vital investments” – a pretty blatant example of the corporate glove and government fist working neatly together.

Barrick Gold abetting human rights abuses in Papua New Guinea (Mining Watch)
Barrick Gold’s Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea has long been associated with “killings and rapes of local community members by…security guards…impacts on riverine ecosystems and downstream communities as a result of the dumping of toxic mine waste (tailings) directly into the river system; loss of agricultural land and food security through encroachment of the mine and its massive waste dumps; health and safety issues as the community lives on the edges of the mine and its waste dumps; lack of adequate information on human rights abuses and on mining-related sources of contamination in the community; lack of an equitable plan to relocate all of the affected indigenous communities.” NGOs and local communities have mobilized to publicize these abuses, with Papuan spokespeople visiting Canada to put the case for government action against the company involved – Barrick Gold.

^{Porgera Mine}

As Porgera resident Mark Ekepa puts it “The mine has made it impossible to live here..Either we need to be moved immediately, or Barrick needs to leave this place.” Another local, Jethro Tulin, says that “The mine has destroyed our way of life, our environment, our water, our gardens, which we need for food, and our security…We cannot stay here safely anymore, but Barrick is refusing to provide our people with a fair relocation plan.” Local people are told little about the content of tailings (which are thought to be highly toxic, yet children play amongst them), while there are few investigations of the crimes perpetrated by mine staff.

Bolivia enflamed by separatist campaigns (Bolivia Solidarity)
The situation in Bolivia is not getting the attention it deserves. Despite a resounding victory a referendum on “autonomy” for the Santa Cruz province, the result masks deep divisions and ongoing resistance against what is seen as the attempt by a racist, privilieged minority to cling to their wealth and power. It is also widely seen as a U.S. inspired ploy to weaken the (relatively) radical Morales government. New from the ground shows that the situation is complex:

• Poor areas of Santa Cruz saw protests against the referendum, including the torching of voting booths and the setting up of street committees to coordinate resistance.
• La Paz, El Alto and Cochabamba saw massive protests against separatism. All told it seems that over 1 million Bolivians may have taken to the streets on the day of the referendum.
• Around 40 percent of those in Santa Cruz province abstained, showing the shallowness of support for autonomy. The rate was far higher in rural areas.
• Within Santa Cruz city there were clashes between poor neighborhoods and the quasi-fascist “Union Juvenil Crucenista” organization, portending future violence, perhaps.
• Allegations of electoral fraud persist. Bolivia Solidarity reports that the referendum “was not supervised by any international observers.”

^{Protesters in Cochabamba}

^{A victim of supporters of the Santa Cruz referendum, Reuters}

The referendum represents a victory for the Santa Cruz oligarchy. The government in La Paz will now not be able to intervene directly to ensure workers’ rights, to resistribute land or protect the environment, severely compromising the agenda of Evo Morales. It remains to be seen what the popular response to these restrictions will be.

Transport Strike in Nicaragua rumbles on (NicaNet)
Transport workers in Nicaragua struck on May 5 against rising fuel prices, demanding that the Sandinista led government act to imperove the lot of workers cooperatives, which they duly did – with a reduction in fuel prices of $0.30 per gallon. The strike then became a partial strike which NicaNet reports, “[was] still causing losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, mainly for big economic players and exporting companies that depend on cargo transportation to get to their goods to market or out of the country” as of May 13. Upside Down World reports that the strikers numbered some 1.5 million, including bus, taxi and truck drivers – and they virtually froze the entire nation. As its correspondents Mneesha Gellman and Josh Dankoff put it, “When baseball is put on hold in Nicaragua, you know it is serious.”

Unfortunately for the government, the unions are demanding not $0.30, but a $2 per gallon reduction – and the strike has already turned violent, with the government refusing to budge from its initial offer. UDW reports that “informal reports told of several strike-breaking taxis which were stopped by strikers at blockades. Strikers dragged passengers out and then stoned the vehicle. On Wednesday, more than 100 people were arrested in the city of León over the strike, and at least 15 police officers have been injured in interactions with the strikers.” The Tico Daily Times reports that “protestors set two alleged scab trucks on fire and at least 35 people were arrested in the ensuing clashes with police on the Panamerican Highway in northern Nicaragua” as the strike entered its ninth day.

^{Protesters on the Pan-American Highway this week, Getty}

Despite the carnage, the Nicaraguan government has claimed some heartening successes this week. It’s vaccination mission has reached over a thousand more communities this year than the last while “approximately 9,000 preschools and primary schools in all 153 municipalities of the country” are now taking part in a school dinners program designed “to increase pupil’s concentration levels and decrease dropout rates.” (NicaNet update, see above link).

Death threats and Big Mining in South Bolivar department, Colombia (Latin America Solidarity Center)
Fear and loathing has been permeating South Bolivar department of Colombia after several activist organizations there received death threats from a group calling itself “the Black Eagles” and warning against “organiz[ing] against the ‘democratic security’ in [the region’s] towns” before adding that “We won’t hesitate to kill you; start getting your loved ones ready so that they can bury you.” The organizations involved all represent, or include, peasant farmers and artisanal gold miners – both social groups whose position is in turn threatened by the recent entrance of Anglo Gold Ashanti into the local economy. The multinational mining giant owns title to some 3.7m hectares of land in South Bolivar. The trouble is, as the Guardian has recently reported, local people “live on a portion of this land and survive on small-scale gold mining and subsistence farming [and] are engaged in a fierce struggle to defend their territory.”

^{Teofilo Acuna}

The Guardian piece is an excellent account of the issue by local activist Teofilo Acuna. Acuna maintains that “Since March 2006, when the community said no to the multinational interests of AngloGold Ashanti and its subsidiary Kedahada SA, there has been strong military presence in the Sur de Bolivar. Miners and their communities have been threatened, houses burned down and even food for school lunches stolen in an attempt to “persuade” us to welcome the multinationals [while] In September 2006 the Colombian Army murdered Alejandro Chacon, my friend and a local mining leader.

...Six months later we were in the Federation office, about to attend a meeting with the national government to sign agreements, when the Army stormed in. They arrested and beat me along with the secretary and the defensor del pueblo [the local ombudsman]. I was imprisoned. Thanks to local objection and international pressure I was released after 10 days, but the case is still open.”

UK cajoling Bangladesh government into supporting ruinous coal project (World Development Movement)
The World Development Movement reports that the British government has been actively lobbying the Bangladesh government to go ahead with a mining project that will “destroy the homes of more than 40,000 people and threaten the water supplies of a further 100,000.” After being asked a Parliamentary Question on the matter, government minister Gareth Thomas told the House that the UK had “lobbied to ensure that the Government of Bangladesh take the company’s interests into consideration and do not prohibit opencast mining.” Open cast mining remains one of the most environmentally damaging means of extracting minerals.

The project in question is the Phulbari coal mine, to be operated by Global Coal Management, who are based in the UK. Local communities are against the project, by and large, seeing few chances for development and many for disease and pollution. Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi press has been reporting that the military government has been putting the squeeze on local residents, “[asking] the people whether they would leave the Phulbari village for compensation” in regular visits. The military is deeply involved in corporate pillage in Bangladesh. In fact, the Independent reports that “an army officer of the National Defence College had carried out a survey on Phulbari coalmine project as part of training.”

Local businesspeople have been protesting against the mine as well, where most business is based around the land, and according to the Dinajpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry, some 6,000 hectares will be consumed by the mine. Perhaps 470,000 people, according to the Daily Star will be displaced, an astonishing number.

Some commentators have gone further, charging the government with manufacturing a natural gas “crisis” so as to ram through the expansion of coal mining in Bangladesh. Whatever the case, resistance is sure to be fierce. A similar venture by UK based company Asia Energy was defeated in the Phulbari area back in 2006, after the deaths of several protesters. The feeling seems to be that there is a strong movement aimed at promoting resource sovereignty (schemes to export most of Bangladesh’s natural gas have also been defeated recently).

As Prof Arefin Siddique of Dhaka university puts it, “You should hear the voices of people, not of the foreigners and their appointed people in Bangladesh…[the] people of Bangladesh will protect its resources at any cost.”

Assassinating hope in El Salvador? (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador)
Hector Antonio Ventura was one of 14 El Salvadorean activists who were charged in 2007 under controversial anti-terrorist legislation. Their crime was organizing a movement to resist the privatization of El Salvador’s water supplies – an aim which jibed with the policies of the right-wing ARENA government. Now, Hector could be working towards the electoral defeat of ARENA in El Salvador’s upcoming elections, in which the left-wing FMLN has a strong chance of winning. Yet he can’t because, on May 3, Hector was murdered in his home.

The suspicion amongst solidarity activists is that Ventura’s death was a politically motivated killing, like the recent murder of FMLN mayor Wilber Funes – and that it is part of a campaign to intimidate social movements in the run up to the elections. As CISPES notes, “Meanwhile, [the U.S.] Congress is set to vote this week on a huge, new funding package that would dramatically increase US support for “security” forces in Mexico and Central America. The so-called Merida Initiative (also known as Plan Mexico) includes over $60 million for anti-gang and anti-drug programs in Central America, including an additional $2 million for the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA).”

That funding will be tacked onto a bill seeking appropriations for the Iraq War. El Salvador and its ARENA government has been an enthusiastic supporter of Bush’s war, supplying troops both formally and informally (as mercenaries). This will change if the FMLN is elected. Its candidate Mauricio Funes told Upside Down World this week that “upon winning the election, if there are still Salvadoran troops in Iraq, I would order an immediate withdrawal.”

Hence, it is possible that some of the monies set aside for “anti-gang and anti-drug programs” is being used by ARENA to ensure its re-election. CISPES notes that “No funding included in the Merida Plan addresses the real causes of poverty, violence, and drug trafficking in the region; rather, the Central America portion of the initiative would increase equipment and training for policing and surveillance, as well as bolster institutions like the ILEA that many believe have worsened the human rights situation in El Salvador.”

Trade Union repression spreads to Honduras (USLEAP)
Also in Central America, the US Labor Education in the Americas Project reports that unionists in Honduras are experiencing a campaign of intimidation and, in the case of Rosa Fuentes and Virginia Sanchez, murder. Fuentes and Sanchez were shot 16 times on April 24 as they travelled via motorbike – while their driver was also killed. This marks a departure for Honduras which, compared with neighboring Guatemala or Panama, sees few assasinations of labor activists.

^{Rose Fuentes}

Rosa Fuentes was not any old activist. She was the head of Honduras’ largest labor federation – the Honduran Workers Federation (CTH) – which represents factory workers banana workers and civil servants. The CTH has called numerous strikes in the past against IMF and U.S. policies, as well as government corruption – and it retains the ability to call for a general strike that could potentially paralyze Honduran society. Hence the interest in crippling its leadership.

Trade Union activists are linking the deaths of Fuentes and Sanchez and an upsurge in the killing of Guatemalan unionists with both countries accession to CAFTA – the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Since accession in 2006, Guatemala has seen 8 unionist murders. In the two years prior to accession, the AFL-CIO reports, “no trade unionists were reported murdered.”

Although the AFL-CIO and Guatemalan unions are bringing a prosecution under the terms of CAFTA – the mechanism to obtain justice for such murders is woefully constructed. As its press release states, “Now, under CAFTA, the U.S. can only initiate lengthy dispute settlement resolutions proceedings that can at most lead to fines that are then returned to the Guatemalan government to improve labor law enforcement.”

If, that is, the U.S. even cares about workers rights. CAFTA was never formulated for such people, and the absurd dispute system reflects this.

Migrant workers fighting for their rights in South Korea (International Union of Food, Farm and Hotel Workers)
A fierce battle is raging in South Korea between the right-wing (and extremely nasty) government of president Lee Myeong-bak and the country’s many thousands of migrant workers, who are seeking to form a trade union to represent them. It’s not been an easy process. Formed in 2005, the Migrants’ Trade Union (MTU) has faced constant state harassment as it fights against workplace discrimination, low wages and policies which victimize immigrants.

^{A 2006 MTU rally in Seoul}

The government has rejected any attempt to formalize the union, despite court victories stating that notification must go ahead. Moreover, last year, the leaders of the MTU were arrested and deported, a move that Amnesty International labeled “an attempt by the Government to deprive them of their basic labour rights protected in the South Korean constitution, including the right to freedom of association” and “an assault on the human rights of migrant workers.”

Migrants and other unionists responded with a 99 day sit in and fresh elections of their leaders, but the authorities have now arrested the new leadership, threatening them with deportation too. Torner Rimbu and Abdus Sabur stand charged with the grievous crime of “[having] led demonstrations against government policy” – which is true. As Infoshop reports, “The MTU, with the cooperation of other civic groups, have held demonstrations to demand that all immigrants without visas be given legal status and the employment permit system, which allows companies to hire migrant workers only when Korean citizens cannot be found, be abolished.”

The arrests come as the government is launching a major dragnet to catch and deport migrants, charging them with driving down the wages of South Koreans. How the MTU weathers this attack may determine how successful that drive will be.

^{MTU protesters in Seoul, 2008}

For more information on the MTU see the Two Koreas blog.

Ex-Signal International Slaves Launch Hunger Strike Outside White House (New Orleans Center for Racial Justice)
Six of the 500 Indian workers who were illegally trafficked into the United States to work at Signal International’s Louisiana factory have made it to Washington DC after marching all the way. In fact, the “Journey for Justice” was launched in March to draw attention to human trafficking and bonded labor in the U.S. economy. But after being ignored by lawmakers and seeing the fickle press lose interest, workers are now trying a different strategy – a water only hunger strike in Lafayette Park, opposite the White House.

^{Illegally trafficked workers outside Signal International’s Louisiana plant in March 2008}

As the New Orleans Center for Racial Justice relates, “approximately 30 more workers will join the hunger strike in two waves on May 21 and May 28” meaning that the issue of migrant rights and the abusive roots of the U.S. economy will be in full view for months.

Workers are clear about their objectives. As Muruganantham Kandhasami says, “We escaped Signal’s labor camps and went straight to the Department of Justice, and yet we are being treated like criminals, living under the threat of deportation every day…In the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, we will risk our lives for the right to participate in an investigation that will bring the real criminals to justice: Signal and the recruiters.” In order to collaborate with such an investigation, the workers are demanding Continued Presence status, but Signal and their partner, Northrup Grumman, will no doubt be lobbying to prevent this.

Unfortunately for the corporations, the Signal workers are absolutely committed to obtaining justice.

The mysterious popularity of the Factory Ship (Asahi Shimbun)
A 79-year old novel about labor exploitation on a fishing boat in the waters of Russia’s east coast is apparently resurfacing as a cult hit in Japan. The return of Kanikosen (“Factory Ship”) written by Takiji Kobayashi seems to reflect a return in general of labor rights and exploitation as live issues in Japanese society – as recession hits and social stresses deepen. Yet it’s still hard to account for the popularity of the book, which is selling in the thousands.

^Kobayashi

Kanikosen is essentially a microcosm of capitalist society, written under a fascist government – a government that would execute Kobayashi aged only 29 because of his commitment to the labor movement. Its narrative is one of group redemption. The sailors on a fishing boat bond together in inhospitable conditions to free themselves from exploitation.

Interestingly, Asahi Shimbun links the novel’s appeal to neo-liberal reforms, noting that “In Japan these days, young people have found it increasingly difficult to land full-time jobs as companies opt to use part-time workers and temporary staff services to save on personnel costs. These “nonregular” workers are often denied the perks, job security and higher salaries of their full-time counterparts.”

Perhaps young Japanese people are rediscovering the Left just in time? As the publishers have said, “Society forgot this novel existed for many years” and as a bookshop employee wrote on a promotional review for it, “The masterpiece has come back to life in the Heisei era, a time when the gap between rich and poor has widened.”

Kobayashi will be doubly beaming from his grave. In 2005, documents came to light which corrected a myth about his life. It was thought that he had quit his job at a bank when asked so as to save the reputation of the company. However, it turns out he didn’t, and he was hounded out of the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank with his pension slashed in half for “Publishing books that attacked the bank,” and holding “leftist views.” He certainly never apologized or cared a damn for the reputation of a business.