Heat up the coffee and stay alert, it's minutes before midnight and the sea is running hard….
January 3, 2014 Leave a Comment
Cambodia garment workers throw stones at riot police during a strike near a factory on the Stung Meanchey complex on the outskirts of Phnom Penh on Jan. 3, 2014. At least three people were killed when police opened fire to break up a protest by striking garment workers demanding a doubling of the minimum wage, police and human rights workers said. (Heng Smith/Associated Press)
June 20, 2012 Leave a Comment
The conservative Spanish government has slashed long time state subsidies of the coal mining industry, threatening entire villages with an end to their way of life. Fair enough, say the free-market cult. Let the market decide. From the other hand, however, the government river of money to the banks has been wide and deep. The “market” in the streets says this is not to be borne.
Spanish coal miners burned tyres and blocked roads on Monday during a mass strike to protest against subsidy cuts that they say threaten tens of thousands of jobs.
Tens of thousands of people marched in the northern towns of Leon and Langreo in the latest in a month of protests. The strike was also called in some 50 other mining towns.
Spain’s cash-strapped central government has slashed subsidies to the coal sector this year to 111 million euros ($142 million) from 301 million euros last year, part of wide-ranging cuts to lower its deficit.
The miners say this is unfair especially when the government has also sought billions of euros to stabilise its banking sector.
The fires, slingshots and even home-made rockets used by some of the miners, after the Guardia Civil advanced on crowds firing rubber bullets, have appeared after weeks of alarm and rising resistance to the “austerity” measures [austerity should always be understood as austerity-for-you-but-not-for us.] The two big unions, the UGCT and CCCO, called for an open-ended strike at [in Spanish] the mines, in late May. This followed weeks of sporadic work stoppages and protests in mines and mining communities throughout Austurias.
Of course, not only are the protests shaking up Spain and the government there, they will not go un-noticed in other countries where the austerity-for-you-but-not-for-me leaders are striking up the bands and shouldering their rifles.
January 15, 2012 Leave a Comment
Just as young people in Libya and Egypt, finding examples of self-determination outside their own country, have risen in revolt, so it seems that workers in China are realizing that eat-sleep-work has other options. The worker need not simply bow and say yes to working conditions, pay-rates, safety, or hours. Unions are of course banned, as many Corporatists in the US would like them to be, but spontaneous risings and minimalist, hidden, organizing have begun to be visible in recent months.
The latest to hit the news couriers is in southern China at a Taiwan owned manufacturing plant, Foxconn, for huge, and hugely popular US gadgets — the iPhone and the X Box.
CNN reported that a mass suicide had been threatened.
Microsoft is investigating a report that workers at a Chinese plant that manufactures its Xbox game systems have threatened mass suicide in a pay dispute, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the company’s Hong Kong office.
CNN has not been able to confirm details of the dispute, but Foxconn, the plant owner, and Microsoft did respond to inquiries.
Bloomberg reported, apparently the same unrest, without going to the suicide claim. Though there was some thought it was over working conditions, what appears in all reports is worker unhappiness at transfers being offerred (imposed?), and resistance to being moved. Pretty small potatoes it might seem, but indicative of how fraught conditions are, and the growing willingness to stand up and be counted, by semi-skilled workers where a generation ago everyone bowed and accepted the whip on the back.
On the U.S. side Apple has announced its very belated joining of the Fair Labor Association.
Eye on the game. It’s not over yet
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