Europe
Greece comes to standstill as citizens focus anger on EU
Greece came to a standstill on Wednesday as millions of workers, both public and private, stayed away from work in protest at the government’s austerity programme and anger at the European Union’s role in enforcing the cuts.
An estimated 2 million people [...]
Asia
The Solidarity Center Press Release:
Increasing number of strikes, protests in Egypt, Egyptian labor policies must change
Posted by the Center for Trade Union & Workers’ Services http://www.ctuws.com/Default.aspx?item=423
Today in Egypt, thousands of workers are taking to the streets in strikes and sit-ins around wages, working conditions, [...]
Europe’s winter of discontent
Strikes threaten to cause paralysis as workers reject government attempts to cut spending and wages
By Sean O’Grady, Economics Editor
The Independent, Wednesday, 24 February 2010
A wave of industrial and social unrest is building across Europe as workers resist attempts by governments and private companies to impose austerity [...]
Clashes erupted after a group of youths attempted to storm a building [AFP]
Greek police have fired tear gas at a group of protesters at an anti-government march in Athens after they attempted to storm a university building.
The clashes occurred on Wednesday on the sidelines of a demonstration in the [...]
Turkish Diary
TEKEL RESISTANCE
24 February 2010, Wednesday
Four labour unions confederations announced their joint decision to end the resistance in case the Tekel workers decide not to continue. The confederations consider the resistance as a success.
A view from a recent demonstration in support of dismissed workers from Tekel. [...]
NYU Adds Worker Rights Rules to Abu Dhabi Contract
Workers involved in building and operating New York University’s Middle East campus in Abu Dhabi must have protections in areas such as how often they are paid and how many hours they can work in a week, the university announced Feb. 3 in [...]
It seems that “politicking” and bureaucratic manoeuvring is taking charge instead of politics, and that is a bad sign; a sign of political immaturity, a sign that the working class still has to overcome the legacy of the old political system.
by Jean-Pierre Daubois
Jean-Pierre Daubois is long time union activist and socialist who began [...]
“We call this new unionism social justice solidarity,” and contrast it with “pragmatic solidarity,” which sees alliances only in terms of what they can offer to help unions win immediate battles. “social justice solidarity begins with an important assumption — that unions are workers’ organizations engaged in class struggle (whether they like [...]
The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.”— A. Philip Randolph
An important debate has commenced within the ranks of organized labor regarding the future of the movement. From our experience we know [...]
Tens of thousands of people in Haiti are estimated dead, and millions have been affected by the January 12 earthquake. Many estimates expect deaths to go over 100,000. The toll is much worse because of the refusal of the U.S. and other imperialist governments to carry out immediate emergency relief efforts in [...]