Some 220 top global union leaders from 63 countries met Dec. 10-11 in the first worldwide summit on organizing and collective bargaining. Although labor leaders have known for at least two decades how multinational corporations have dominated the world marketplace and used their power to suppress unions and worker rights in scores of countries, the global summit did not come up with any specific strategies to challenge them. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney hailed the summit as ushering in a ³new era in global solidarity in union organizing.²

Steven Acuff, AFL-CIO’s organizing director, said that delegates reached a consensus that there is a “global crisis in collective bargaining that is being driven by the United States and is victimizing workers around the world.” But neither Sweeney, Acuff or any delegate offered a strategy to gain worldwide employer acceptance of a worker’s right to join a union.

Delegates, responding to an electronic survey of 23 questions on collective bargaining, gave better than 90 percent approval that global unions should target specific multinational enterprises to organize; 96 percent of the participants said that the Council of Global Unions should make a major effort to raise awareness .on fundamental labor rights and standards. .Anita Normack, Global Union, vice president, said the path to a successful revival of the union movement is to put strategies together that work on the ground. That is a long way from happening, many delegates conceded.

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Greek Unions Stage 24-Hour National Strike over Pension Reform

Greek lawyers, doctors and school teachers joined bus drives, construction workers and health-care employees in a 24-hour general strike Dec. 14 to protest the government’s plan to overhaul the pension system. The work stoppage was organized by the General Confederation of Greek Workers, an umbrella union for about two million workers in the private sector.

Greece’s pension system, ranked as the most generous in Europe, faces a crisis as the population ages, says Nicholas Garganas, governor of the country’s central bank. State spending to plug the deficits of government-run pension funds has more than doubled since 2000.

The government’s reform plan includes reducing the 155 separate pension funds to about 20 and tightening early retirement rules for mothers with dependent children. The last attempt by a Greek government to introduce changes in the pension system in 2002 was greeted with large-scale street protests, forcing then Prime Minister Costars Simitis of the Socialist Pasok party to fire his labor minister and scrap proposals, such as raising the retirement age to 65 for all workers.

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Kuwaiti Labor Has Traditionally Fought for Right to Strike

After receiving threats from the government for participating in strikes, the Kuwait Trade Union Federation (KTUF), held a symposium entitled “Strikes Are the Laborers’ Legal Right,” at their headquarters in Maidan Hawally. “The main purpose of holding the symposium was to explain the meaning of the word ‘strike,’ its historical development and some mistakes issued or announced by the media,” said Khalid Al-Azami KTUF chairman.

Al-Azami pointed out that strikes are not new in Kuwait; workers have been holding them for over 60 years. If some people see these strikes as a foreign phenomena, they must know that Kuwaiti laborers started holding strikes and protests since the 1940s, when they first joined oil companies and were suffering from discrimination when compared with foreign laborers, Al-Azami said. The first strike in Kuwait was held in 1948 when taxi drivers were forbidden to take customers outside of the city.

The KTUF has asked Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah to withdraw the current ban on strikes. In a statement, the union said the decision to ban strikes will “adversely affect laborer-government relations and will negatively affect the production process, too.” Furthermore, the legal right to strike is an accepted principle around the world and is permitted under the Kuwait Constitution, the union said.

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London Bus Drivers Plan Series of Strikes for Better Pay

Thousands of London bus drivers are to take part in a series of work stoppages in the run up to Christmas in a dispute over wages. Their union, Unite, said that up to 3,000 of its members who are employed by the company, First, would take part in the action, which begins Dec. 14.

Workers have rejected an offer of a 4.25 percent pay raise, which the union said was lower than elsewhere in London. If the dispute is not resolved, one-day strikes will take place on several more days in December, the union warned. The bus company said it would be meeting with Unite officials in the hope of reaching an agreement that would give relief to retailers and shoppers in the final days of the holiday season.

George Williams, a Unite official, said the company was increasing money for shareholders, but workers were being “hung out to dry,” He added: “London bus workers have consistently delivered huge increases in efficiency, yet they are being forced to take action to stake a claim to their share of the company’s success.”

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3,000 ‘Guest’ Workers Strike in Jordan, Sewing Clothes for Wal-Mart

Three thousand foreign workers in Jordan, half of them young women, have been on strike since Dec. 10 to protest low wages, long hours and horrible working and living conditions. They work for contractors who produce high-scale clothing for Wal-Mart, “Gloria Vanderbilt,” and GAP. These “guest” workers come from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Workers complain they receive less than half the wages due them, earning a take-home pay of just $30.95 a week, for a minimum of 76 hours of work, for which they should have been paid at least $64.88. They work 12-1/2 to 14-1/2 daily shifts, seven days a week, with at most two days off each month.

The strikers have written to the Jordanian Ministry of Labor for assistance, but have received no response. On Dec. 15, at least 10 striking workers were beaten by the police.

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Australian Port Workers Block Shipments of Lead over Safety Issue

Ivernia, Inc., seeking to resume shipments of 3 percnt of the world’s mined lead, will be unable to export the metal from the West Australian port of Freemantle without further safety talks with a trade union. “Nothing will be moving through Freemantle until we know it is safe,” said Chris Cain, secretary of the state branch of tne Maritime Union of Australia. “Safety is safety and we are not going to compromise,” he said.

The Toronto-based company was banned from exporting through the southern port of Espersnce in March on pollution concerns, helping to drive the piece of lead to a record high. The state’s Environmental Protection Authority this week recommended Ivernia be allowed to start shipments through the port.

Ivernia’s shipment plan, which covers the potential export of about 125 containers a week, recommends that the material be sealed into “bulk bags” In Esperance, lead dust from cargoes killed birds and infected residents’ blood. Freemantle Mayor Peter Tagliaferri, who opposes the plan, said this week that Izvernia had not yet demonstrated an ability to undertake sucn a high-risk activity in a built-up environment.

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