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News :: Labor |
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Labor Headlines 6-14-03 |
Current rating: 3 |
by Peter Miller
(No verified email address) |
14 Jun 2003
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Headlines broadcast during the Illinois Labor Hour, Saturday at 11 am on WEFT 90.1 FM, Champaign. Illinois Workers Gain Union Rights, US House of Representatives Votes Against European Democracy, Police Riot Leaves 2 Dead in Cambodia Sweatshop Demonstration, Colombia Again Holds Title for Trade Union Murders |
Illinois Workers Gain Union Rights
Two bills important to public employees in Illinois won approval from the state legislature on the final day of the session, May 31. The bills, which both need to be signed by the governor, make it easier for employees to organize unions. House Bill 3396 would allow public employees and public educational employees to hold "card check" union certifications. Card check is a system used in most countries around the world, and it allows workers to certify a union simply by signing a petition. Once a majority of employees sign the petition authorizing a union to represent them, the employer must recognize the union. Current rules require employees to sign a petition, but it also requires that the labor board hold an election. During the wait for an election, employers have fired union supporters, spent public funds on consultants who use legally questionable tactics to discourage people from supporting the union, and they have supported anti-union employee groups to discourage union support. House Bill 3396 will make it significantly easier for public employees to organize unions.
The second bill is Senate Bill 1360, which takes down the "Three Campus Rule," which affects organizing at the University of Illinois. In 1995, the University of Illinois annexed Springfield's Sangamon State University into the U of I system as its Springfield campus. When the legislature brought the campus itn, it also amended the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act to declare that the only union for University of Illinois professors would be one that included faculty on all three campuses, and included all part-time and full-time faculty together. The legislature's action broke the existing faculty union at the Springfield campus, and effectively halted organizing at the other two campuses. The Illinois Federation of Teachers tried unsuccessfully to challenge the legislature's action in the courts. The vote by a fully Democratic legislature will allow professors to organize on individual campuses once again, provided that Governor Blagojevich signs the bill. Democratic State Representative Naomi Jakobssen voted in favor of both bills, and Republican State Senator Rick Winkel voted against both bills.
US House of Representatives Votes Against European Democracy
The global corporate trade juggernaut took another step forward this week when the House of Representatives approved a resolution supporting a challenge in the World Trade Organization. House Resolution 252 supports the Bush administration's challenge to rules in the European Union that limit the import of genetically modified organisms. The House's action supports Bush's claim that the limit is an unfair trade barrier, and it ignores the scientific community's efforts to determine whether genetically modified foods are dangerous to consumers or the environment. Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen argues that the US challenge in the WTO will become "Exhibit Number 1 in the growing worldwide attack on the WTO's legitimacy," because it may allow the public to see how the WTO works to undermine democracy. Should the food that people eat and should the organisms introduced into one's environment be subject to democratic decisions or to judicial rulings held in secret by our corporate world government, the WTO? Public Citizen notes that polling shows that majorities of Europeans and Americans both want genetically modified foods to be segregated from non-GMO foods and labeled so that consumers have a choice, yet corporations hate the idea of labeling their GMO foods. Europeans who don't want to eat GMOs or fear GMO crops' environmental threats have democratically enacted new Europe-wide laws providing for 1) safety testing, 2) traceability of the organisms, and 3) labeling of genetically modified foods. Until all these laws are in place, some EU countries have refused to allow new GMO approvals. The Bush administration says it will file a WTO case against this temporary moratorium in July, and last week the House supported Bush's actions. US Representative Tim Johnson voted in favor of Bush's position, which passed by a vote of 339 to 80, with 16 abstentions. The WTO holds its next ministerial meeting in mid-September in Cancun, Mexico.
www.wto.org
thomas.loc.gov search for H RES 252
http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=549
Police Riot Leaves 2 Dead in Cambodia Sweatshop Demonstration
Yesterday, government defense of sweatshop factories turned violent when hundreds of police in Cambodia opened fired on about 300 protesters, leaving one protester and police officer dead. The protesters were armed with rocks. A reporter for the French news agency Agence France Presse who was on the scene said that police fired hundreds of rounds from AK-47 assault rifles and used water cannons against the crowd at around 12:30 pm. The crowd of garment workers immediately dispersed with women seen crying as they fled through the streets. Police cordoned off the area as riot police and para-military reinforcements arrived. Routine union protests have taken place outside the Terratex factory in recent weeks with between 200 and 500 workers striking daily and demanding the removal of a senior manager. In 2001, the Swedish trade union federation conducted interviews with Cambodian workers, including one from Terratex. The worker interviewed described sweatshop conditions at Terratex, where 500 of the 600 employees are female, workers fear being fired for talking to outsiders or organizing a union; pay ranges from $15 to $50 per month; managers are extremely repressive; workers were forced to work unpaid overtime; workers are fired if they are sick; and the factory is dusty and lacks emergency exits. Cambodia hosts a meeting of the ASEAN pacific alliance next week.
http://www.sac.se/inter/garment.html
Colombia Again Holds Title for Trade Union Murders
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions reports that Colombia was by far the most dangerous place for trade unionists last year. Two hundred thirteen trade unionists were killed worldwide last year, and of those, 184 were Colombian. The Brussels-based trade union federation documents abuses against unions throughout the world, and bemoaned the spread of corporate globalization for undermining workers' rights. The ICFTU's general secretary Guy Ryder said in an introduction to the survey, quote "The campaign of anti-union repression was carried out with impunity, and none of those responsible for the appalling murder toll were brought to justice." When the culprit was identified the killings seemed to be the work of either far-right paramilitary outlaws or the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), it said. The United States is now in the third phase of its war in Colombia, which began as a war against drugs, then became a war against anti-government forces, then became a war against terror. The US added $100 million in military aid to Colombia when it provided funds to pay for the invasion of Iraq; and US military forces are now guarding a US-owned oil pipeline through Colombia. The US has not spoken out against the killings of trade unionists. The ICFTU report also highlighted how corporate globalisation, in the absence of mechanisms to ensure full respect for ILO (International Labour Organisation) standards, is leading to competition based on a 'race to the bottom.'
www.icftu.org
RRESQ: More railroad accidents, remote-controlled and otherwise. See www.rresq.org |
See also:
http://www.labourstart.org
http://www.ilir.uiuc.edu/lii/
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