What if everyone went on strike?
The idea of united unions and a general strike appeared long ago. Now it's in Nigeria.
Minimum Wage - Labour Begins Nationwide Strike Thursday
Indications emerged, [Monday], that organised labour will, Thursday, commence a nationwide strike to force the Federal Government to announce its figure and ensure the completion of work on the new national minimum wage.
Vanguard gathered last night that it was a decision reached by leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC; Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, and United Labour Congress of Nigeria, ULC, after an emergency meeting in Lagos.
It was gathered that it will be formerly announced in Abuja…
Earlier in the day, leaders of United Labour Congress of Nigeria, ULC, urged Nigerians to stockpile foodstuff and other necessities, saying a nationwide strike appeared now inevitable…
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Labels: Nigeria, politics, unions
Economic instability
At a time when those in power want stability, economics is not a friend. Growth has slowed and now there's labor unrest.
Strikes in China over foreign employers selling out to local companies
Coca-Cola workers in three Chinese cities have gone on strike after the US soft drinks company announced it was selling its bottling interests in the country…
The company has announced it is selling all its bottling assets in mainland China to Hong Kong conglomerate Swire Pacific and Cofco Corporation, one of China’s state-owned food giants…
Workers at three Coca-Cola plants called co-ordinated strikes on Monday, with pictures posted online appearing to show workers outside a factory in Chongqing with a banner that read: “We worked hard for over a decade but were sold in less than a second. Compensate! Compensate! Compensate!”…
The Coca-Cola bottling plant workers feared they would lose their jobs or pay under the state-owned employer, said one striking employee.
“We are demanding the company disclose details of the refranchising and plans during the transitional period,” he said.
“We request the company give workers economic compensation before they decide to sign the contract with Cofco.”
Separately, workers at a Sony factory in the southern city of Guangzhou downed tools in protest at the sale of the Sony Electronics Huanan subsidiary, which managed the site, to a Chinese company.
Production at the smartphone camera parts facility, which employs 4,000 people, was halted for two weeks after Sony announced it had been sold to Shenzhen O-Film Tech…
Labour protests have erupted in China with economic growth slowing and factory closures often leaving workers with unpaid wages and no redundancy [unemployment] pay.
Hong Kong-based rights group China Labour Bulletin (CLB) said there were 2,774 strikes and labour protests across the country in 2015 – more than the previous four years put together – with unpaid wages the most common grievance.
Independent trade unions are banned in China, with only the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions legally recognised. But critics say it often fails to assist workers in disputes…
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Labels: China, economy, politics, unions
Death knell to the Labour Party?
British unions lost a lot of public sympathy and political power in their conflicts with Margaret Thatcher. This summer they suffered from a Scottish rebellion, and the Tories have been freed from a restrictive coalition.
So, PM Cameron now seeks to go Thatcher one better.
Trade Union Bill: Ministers deny 'attack on workers' rights'
Ministers have defended plans to tighten the rules on strike ballots after unions said they would make legal strikes "almost impossible".
Under current rules all that is needed for a strike is a simple majority of those that take part in a ballot.
But the Trade Union Bill would impose a minimum 50% turnout - and public sector strikes would need the backing of at least 40% of those eligible to vote…
David Cameron and Harriet Harman clashed over the issue at Prime Minister's Questions, with the Labour leader accusing the government of "attacking the right of working people to have a say on their pay and conditions".
But the prime minister said Labour's opposition showed it was "utterly in hoc" to the trade unions. The public, he argued, were behind Conservative efforts to ensure strikes were only called as "a last resort" and "to sort this out for working families"…
The legislation could also cut the amount of money unions have to mount campaigns - or donate to parties such as Labour - with members actively having to "opt in" to pay the so-called political levy, which is currently automatic unless members opt-out…
These are some of the most sweeping and radical union reforms since the 1980s. The unions fear it will make effective industrial action pretty much impossible - and say it's unnecessary as the level of strikes is almost at its lowest ever.
But ministers argue that in the wake of strikes on London Underground, for example, where people have been severely inconvenienced, they need to find a fresh balance and look again at the power of the trade unions…
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Labels: parties, politics, UK, unions
Does Mexico need a new revolution?
President Peña has reform on his agenda. Not everyone does. Can reform work?
Flunking the test
The CNTE, which is smaller but far more aggressive than Mexico’s main teachers’ union, the SNTE, holds sway over four of Mexico’s most unruly states, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán and Chiapas, which contain about 15% of the population. All have large concentrations of indigenous people. Using a mixture of intimidation and political skill, the union is trying to knock down one of the pillars of Mr Peña’s government: a transformation of education that is central to a series of reforms aimed at making Mexico a more competitive economy…
The reform of 2013 is aimed at boosting the quality of education in a country that Mexicanos Primero says gives children an average of 8.8 years of study, compared with 13.3 in the United States. As in much of Latin America, most schools are awful. Graduates of teacher-training colleges have been promised jobs for life, regardless of their performance. According to PISA, a global education study, less than a fifth of Mexican students performed adequately in maths in 2012, compared with more than three-quarters in South Korea…
Imperfect as it may be, pollsters say the education reform is far more popular nationwide than others promoted by Mr Peña, such as bringing competition into the monopolistic energy and telecoms businesses. That is particularly true in the industrialised states in central and northern Mexico, where PISA scores are already well above the national average… They see better education as a way to attract more investment. The moderate SNTE largely supports the reforms, and is implementing them in most states.
In the south, where reform is needed most, resistance is strongest. Teachers there say what they need is electricity, running water and toilets, not evaluations…
Despite its extremism, the union has got its way by threatening ruinous blockades if its demands are not met…
Such statements ought to be a red rag to the federal government. The education minister, Emilio Chuayffet, declares that all children should have the same opportunities and that no state is above the law. But with mid-term elections approaching in June, the interior ministry is handling the crisis, implying that political dealmaking will win out over policy…
If militant unions can so easily undermine reform by threatening havoc, so may moderate teachers, who still wield huge influence in the states. Vested interests threatened by Mr Peña’s other reforms will also be tempted to counter-attack…
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Labels: change, Mexico, policy, political culture, politics, unions
Older workers strike in China
The stereotype is that younger, hot headed workers are the ones who go on strike. That's not what is happening in China. How will that change politics? Who will represent the workers if not the Communist Party unions?
Danger zone: A huge strike in southern China shows that migrant workers are starting to demand more than just higher wages
THE Pearl river delta in the southern province of Guangdong is no stranger to strikes, most of them small and quickly resolved. But a walk-out by workers at factories owned by a Taiwanese company, Yue Yuen, the world’s largest maker of branded sports shoes, including big names such as Nike and Reebok, has been remarkable for its scale and duration. It began on April 5th and has grown to involve tens of thousands of employees. On a sprawling industrial estate, angry workers watched by riot police rage about an issue few cared much about until recently: their pensions…
The government has imposed a virtual news blackout on the unrest in the city of Dongguan, a place synonymous with the delta’s manufacturing heft…
The workers accuse Yue Yuen of failing for years to make due contributions to their pensions, which are administered by the local government… Workers fume at the heavy deployment of police, and the beating of some of the thousands of strikers who have been marching through nearby streets, most recently on April 18th.
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| April 18th demonstration |
Many employees say they are now too afraid to march again. Their protest has become a silent one: they clock in each morning, but then leave the factory and do no work, coming back to clock out when their shift is supposed to end…
[A]s they listen to repeated broadcasts of the company’s offer through loudspeakers, strikers respond with howls of derision. They also tear up copies of a letter from the government-backed trade union which is mediating in the dispute. The missive calls on workers to go back to work and acknowledge the company’s “sincerity”. “The unions aren’t like the ones in the West,” says one worker. “Here they just represent the government.”…
Workers at labour-intensive factories like Yue Yuen’s know that times are changing. Production is moving to countries with cheaper labour, such as neighbouring Vietnam. Low-skilled workers entering middle-age are getting increasingly nervous. Without decent pensions, they complain, life back in their villages will be tough…
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Labels: China, corruption, demographics, politics, unions
See the difference?
There's one line here that pretty clearly shows how unions in the Peoples Republic are different from unions in the West.
CPC official urges greater role for labor unions
A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has called on the country's labor unions to play a greater role in safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the working class.
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| ACFTU logo |
Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks in a congratulatory speech delivered at the opening session of the 16th national congress of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU)…
Founded on May 1, 1925, the ACFTU is China's only umbrella union and has 31 provincial trade union federations, 10 national industrial unions and more than 1.3 million grassroots trade union organizations affiliated to it…
Like Western labor unions, the ACFTU's role includes coordinating labor relations and seeking better working conditions for its members.
Led by the CPC, the ACFTU serves as a "bridge" between the CPC and the masses and assists the government in ensuring the continuing operation of the labor market.
In his speech, Liu called on the working class to safeguard the country's social stability and unity, maximize positive elements, dissolve negative elements and form a positive momentum of union and hard work.
"The working class should become the role model of unity and progress, and vigorously promote the glorious tradition of unity, cooperation, mutual assistance and friendship, and strengthen unity with other working people and all strata of society," he said…
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Labels: China, Communist Party, politics, regime, unions
There are labor unions in Iran?
Well, there used to be unions in Iran. Unions supported the democracy movement in the last century.
They were active supporters of the Islamic revolution. But now? Not so much.
It's worth reminding ourselves that the economy is now dominated by
bonyads, those "charitable" foundations governed by clerics and managed by technocrats. They are fat sources of wealth for those who govern and run them.
Iran’s banned trade unions: Aya-toiling
DURING a Persian new year’s party (in late March) at Iran’s flagship South Pars project in the Persian Gulf, where the world’s largest known gasfield is being tapped, a labourer called on Iran’s workers to unite. Behnam Khodadadi demanded better pay and conditions, and a proper trade union. Around 1,500 workers stopped security guards from detaining Mr Khodadadi. A week later he was fired from his job at Iran Industrial Networks Development, a contractor for the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company… [D]isaffection is growing among Iranian workers as inflation outpaces wage rises and workers are laid off. At the same time attempts to organise labour are being suppressed in the run-up to June’s presidential elections…
Iran does not recognise independent unions, so workers have to make do with Islamic Labour Councils, which must be approved by employers and the security services. Reckoning that these councils are in cahoots with the government, workers tend to keep their grievances to themselves for fear of being sacked as troublemakers. Labour leaders are often imprisoned…
Despite the long history of Iran’s labour movement and the big part its oil workers played in deposing the shah in 1979, Iran’s workers have witnessed a steady erosion of their bargaining power. After the revolution, independent workers’ councils won rights to such things as a 40-hour week and lodging allowances. They got rid of people who had worked for the shah’s intelligence service. But during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) the unions’ independence was destroyed…
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| Tehran street sweeper |
“We are at the mercy of our employers,” says Mahmud, a Tehran street sweeper on his night shift, scraping rubbish out of an open gutter with a coarse wicker brush. “We almost never get the overtime pay we are entitled to but we can’t complain because we would be fired.” A senior municipal worker admits that thousands of non-unionised street sweepers, who clean the capital by night, often go months without pay.
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Labels: cleavages, Iran, politics, unions
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
