Workplace Occupations Spread Worldwide in Response to Layoffs

Workers in a growing number of countries are occupying their workplaces and defying court orders and threats of police violence in the fight to preserve their jobs and their livelihood. On the Isle of Wight in Britain, workers at the Vestas Wind Turbine company occupied their plant for 18 days, following an announcement in July that their plant would close. Just days later, several dozen workers, mostly women, occupied the Thomas Cook travel agency in Dublin, Ireland, for five days until they were forcibly evicted by the police.

Meanwhile, in Milan, Italy, after the owners decided to close their scooter factory in May 2008, workers began a 15-month occupation to keep their jobs. As a result of their struggle, 41 workers will keep their jobs, guaranteed for 16 years. This trend is not happening only in Europe. In China, tens of thousands of steelworkers are refusing to allow the government to privatize the industry, waging militant actions that succeeded in maintaining public ownership and saving their jobs. In South Korea, hundreds of auto workers staged a 77=day occupation after the automaker Ssangyong announced massive job cuts.

These occupations are acts of desperation by workers who face a future without a regular paycheck with which to maintain their families. Their anger is intense against the owners who have treated them so badly. It is no easy thing for them to defy the owners, the government, the courts and the police force in the only way they can bring public attention to their plight.

ILO Turns Spotlight on Burma to End Forced Labor

The International Labor Organization (ILO) is turning its attention to a western corner of military-ruled Burma to end the scourge of forced labor, which remains rampant in most parts of the Southeast Asian nation. On Sept. 8, the ILO will be hosting a rare meeting of judges, military officers, police officers and members of the local labor department as part of its effort to raise awareness, aiming at ending a form of human rights abuse that, at times, has included victims as young as 11.

“We have to make presentations on international humanitarian law and raise issues about forced labor, child soldiers and harassment,” says Steve Marshall, the ILO’s representative in Burma (also known as Myanmar.) “This is a positive step,” he said. The weekend meeting will be the fifth of its kind that the Geneva-based labor organization has held in Burma since July 2007.

One of the demands that the ILO has asked Burma to have in place is a “credible mechanism for dealing with complaints of forced labor, with all necessary guarantees for the protection of complaints.” ILO members have threatened to haul the country before the International Court of Justice in the Hague for its record of abusive labor practices.

Four-Day Workweek Passes Favorable Test in Utah

Some 17,000 of Utah’s state employees took part in a 12-month study, testing a four-day workweek. And they reportedly loved it, as well as providing a huge savings in energy costs. Last year, Utah (in western U.S.) became the first state to mandate a four-day workweek for most state employees, closing offices on Fridays in an effort to reduce energy costs.

Salaries were not cut nor was the total amount of time employees worked. They put in 40 hours by starting earlier and working later four days a week, But on that fifth (glorious) day, they don’t have to commute, and their offices don’t need to be heated, cooled or lit.

After 12 months, Utah found that its compressed workweek resulted in a 13 percent reduction in energy use and it estimated that its employees saved as much as $6 million in gasoline costs. Altogether, the initiative will cut the state’s greenhouse emissions by more than 12,000 metric tons a year.

India’s Health Workers Strike after Five Months Without Pay

For the last five months, nearly 1,000 employees of the state health department have been waiting for their monthly salaries, but they have run out of patience. So they have decided to take to the streets to press their demands.

Blair Kalian, president of the district unit of Coordination Committee of Health Employees, said the employees were fed up with the perennial problem that “puts brakes on the smooth-running of their households, He added: “We are therefore organizing a statewide protest against this and will stage a dharma (righteous religious action) at district health offices.”

The Health Department has maintained, as on previous occasions, that salaries are delayed as they fall under centrally-sponsored schemes, and therefore the delay is part of the Center. Employees find this bureaucratic response and other excuses as unsatisfactory.

Australian Workers Call for Stronger Health and Safety Laws

Thousands of workers and families of people who have died or been injured will call on state, federal or territorial governments to approve stronger workplace health and safety protections. They publicized their demands in a series of nationwide events the past week.

The national meetings and rallies are in response to government proposals to bring in a new set of standardized national regulations for dealing with health and safety in the workplace, called “OHS Harmonization,”

Jeff Laurence, secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said: “With an estimated 7,000 Australians dying each year as a result of workplace injuries or diseases, it is essential the governments’ proposed changes to workplace health and safety do not undermine standards or put more Australian workers and their families at risk.”

Young Workers Are Having a Tough Time, Study Shows

Since 1999, more young workers have lower-paying jobs, if they can get a job; health care is a rarity and retirement security is something for their parents, not them. In fact, many—younger than 35—still live at home with their parents because they can’t afford to live on their own. These are the findings of a new report, “Young Workers: A Lost Decade,” conducted in July 2009 by the Peter D. Hart Research Associates under the sponsorship of the AFL-CIO and Working America.

Among the findings: 31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago. 37 percent have put off their education or professional development because they can’t afford the cost. A third cannot pay their bills, and seven in 10 do not have enough saved to cover two months of living expenses. And currently, one out of three young workers are living at home with their parents.

The report notes that more than half of the 1,156 respondents say that employees who belong to a union are better off than those who don’t. A similar poll was taken by the AFL-CIO in 1999. However, unions still have not given special attention to the problems of unorganized young workers.

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